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The wealth management industry is changing fast, but many financial advisors are still using the same old playbook. Join hosts Sean Allocca and John Manganaro, along with leading industry expert guests, as they break down the trends shaping your business.
Each week, we'll cover critical topics while also having a little fun. It's all on the table, from retirement income planning and Social Security to the behavioral side of investing and what clients are hearing elsewhere. We've created The Advisor Upside Show because staying informed isn’t enough anymore. You need to stay ahead.
New episodes every Wednesday.
#FinancialAdvisor #WealthManagement #FinancialPlanning
Sean Allocca (00:00)
Independence, it's your move.
Fidelity's unbiased expertise helps you understand all your options.
Fidelity works with many types of wealth managers so you can select the business model that best fits your future.
Their consultative approach helps you choose how much control you want and how much support you need, everything on your terms.
After all, isn't that why you want independence? Explore new possibilities for independence at i.fidelity.com slash your move.
Marcia Mantell (00:27)
put money in your 401k. No, you don't know what it is. Just do it. You know, you don't have to know everything to make good decisions.
John (00:37)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Advisor Upside Show, a brand new podcast brought to you by The Daily Upside. My name is John Manganero, and I'm a senior reporter here on the team. I focus mostly on retirement coverage, but I also chip in for the Advisor Upside Newsletter, the ETF Upside Newsletter, and occasionally our flagship publication, The Daily Upside.
But
Enough about me. Sean, why don't you introduce yourself?
Sean Allocca (01:00)
Yeah, I'm super excited to be launching this with you, John. My name's Sean. As you know, I'm executive editor here at the Daily Upside. Before that, I was editor in chief of ETF.com, which obviously asset management covered a lot of the fund industry. Before that, working with a lot of the trade publications in the wealth management space, like investment news, financial planning, and some others. So I've been around this space for the last decade or so. And yeah, I'm really excited about what we're going to bring here
John (01:25)
Yeah, for sure. I've I've got a a bit of a history in the the trade publications as well. I was with Plan Advisor for almost 10 years before a stint of about four years at ThinkAdvisor. Joined the team here at the Daily Upside, about three or four months ago. The time has flown. But it's been really great to get to know you, Sean, and the rest of the team. I you know, we we got to be on the ground together at Future Proof, which was a great way to meet each other. Just really a great team and and really I've I've enjoyed the time here. And it's really kind of culminating in in the launch of this podcast.
Before we talk about our goals for what we want to do with this podcast, why don't you tell us about the history of the daily upside? We're a a fairly young organization, but I think we punch above our weight.
Sean Allocca (02:05)
That's for sure, yeah, John,
so it started in 2019. It was Patrick Truesdale. He actually lives right in my town where we live in Jersey, in North Jersey. He was an investment banker and wanted to do something a little bit differently. So like I said in 2019, right before COVID, he started a newsletter of his own, The Daily Upside. They were trying to bring the finance and markets news with a little bit more of a positive edge and to really bring, kind of cut through the noise and bring analytical.
information to their readers. That really caught on, as you alluded to, about a million subscribers on that side.
So of that a million subscribers that they had at the daily upside, there was about 50,000 financial advisors, financial professionals. So Pat brought me in about two years ago to try and engage that subset and really kind of build another newsletter that would give them the information they need to build better practice and do their jobs better. So.
That's what we did. We launched Advisor upside. We started with 5,000 of those advisors. I wanted to bring over the full 50,000, but we couldn't do that. So we started very organically with 5,000. We've since grown to 110,000. So we had great engagement from the community. It's about one in three advisors are now listening to us. And that was kind of our flagship newsletter for a while.
we launched ETF upside.
to really engage in the asset management industry. And it was right in my background as a former editor in chief at ETF.com,
And then most recently, we wanted to try and engage more of the retirement industry and some of the kind of insurance players and that space. So we brought in you, John. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're envisioning for retirement upside.
John (03:44)
Yeah, yeah, it's been a a really fun run so far. We stood up a brand new newsletter. I was really attracted to the opportunity of creating something brand new. Throughout my career, I've always been working for very well-established publications. And that was a fantastic way to learn all about the retirement and wealth management industry. But the opportunity to launch something new was was really attractive and felt like an opportunity I couldn't pass up. And, you know, Pat's a really nice guy. I got to know him at conferences over
The period of about a year, and it really just felt like a cool opportunity to work with him and with the rest of the team. But there's 11,000 baby boomers plus retiring every day, and that's going to continue for the foreseeable future. So just from that fact alone, you can tell it's the right time to launch a retirement-specific publication. I'm a just a huge retirement nerd. I'm I'm willing to say that. I I love getting into the weeds about tax management, you know, things like Roth conversion, looking at
Social Security claiming, looking at just this whole deaccumulation challenge. It's very different from the accumulation side of advisors' businesses. And a lot of advisors are looking for, you know, guidance and help about how to really steward their clients through retirement. And a lot of members of the public are really thirsty for that information. So I see the retirement upside as really a a great complement to what the daily upside has to offer in general. I I really want to thread the needle between providing great.
you know, information for the B2B audience. But I I also foresee some of the more savvy DIY investors out there to really get a lot of value from reading our newsletter content. So it's definitely, you know, technical, advanced information, but, you know, to your point, Sean, written it with a a bit of pith and and really in a approachable voice. That that's what we're really trying to accomplish.
that brings us to the conception for the advisor upside show. You know, Sean, you and I both have
significant podcasting experience in the past. I really love the format.
could you tell us a little bit about, you know, our vision for this for this podcast? I I like to think about it as kind of infotainment. We we don't want it to be a normal podcast.
Sean Allocca (05:45)
we want it to be fun and be segment based and really be engaging in something where you can learn from it, but you're also going to get information that's going to help you do your jobs better, serve your clients better. And so that's kind of what we're looking to do. We want to bring in like the best experts that we can find, bring in the best
analysts and really tackle the trends and the topics that are core to wealth management and have a little fun along the way.
John (06:10)
we have great ambitions. looking to do weekly episodes, that's pretty ambitious in itself. But looking to to real as Sean said, to speak with the best of the best in the industry, including big names, but also emerging names and and folks who we think you should know and maybe you don't know them already. So that's our vision. I I'm couldn't be more excited to get this off the ground.
We really want our
listeners and readers to be engaged with us. Give us your feedback. our contact information is very easy to find, but you can contact the podcast directly by emailing podcast at the dailyupside.com. We also encourage you to subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcast
you're just listening to this, we'd encourage you to to head on over to YouTube and and get engaged there. The the comment sections will be wide open for your your feedback, input, suggestions.
So we're all ears. Let us know how we're doing, positive or negative, and and we'll roll with it. With that, Sean, why don't we move to our first guest?
Sean Allocca (07:04)
Let's do it.
John (07:06)
We're here with Marcia Mantel, who's the president of Mantel Retirement Consulting. Marcia, you and I have gotten to know each other pretty well over the last few years. I've really valued our collaboration, so we're thrilled to have you on the Advisor Upside Show.
You and I have spoke about your background before, but I'd love to share it with the listeners and maybe offer some
lessons learned.
Marcia Mantell (07:26)
absolutely. And John, it's a thrill to see you again. Sean, great to meet you and thanks for inviting me on to your new podcast. I'm very excited to be here.
Sean Allocca (07:31)
Welcome. Welcome.
Marcia Mantell (07:33)
my origin story I would say is s kind of typical of baby boomer women. We just got jobs. So I worked at Burger King, I was a secretary, I sold glass for a glass company. I counted money, cash, actual cash money at the University of Minnesota bookstore.
Landed in direct mail marketing.
at Finger Hut, a company that was very wildly popular here in the US in the nineteen eighties, and it was a direct mail catalog company. And that led me into the marketing
and then landed at Fidelity at age thirty one.
And I had a great run at Fidelity, thirteen years, but then I had two amazing kids. I was not seeing them at all, I was traveling, you know, typical corporate life.
was time for me to make a change. So in the height of the upswing in the market in two thousand five, I quit. And I started my own consulting business and twenty years later
I've now gotten rid of my children.
they've gone on to build a life and I still have my little business. So all about retirement all the time.
John (08:33)
Appreciate that. I think we'll perhaps move on to the second segment of our show today. We're going to put you to the put you to the test, Marcia. I hope you're up for it. Yeah, we've we've drafted up a handful of Social Security questions that I suspect you'll know most of them. No shame if you don't.
Marcia Mantell (08:42)
Do I know anything?
John (08:50)
The real opportunity here is to educate our listeners about some critical social security topics. we're all going to win in the end here. But
I'll ask you the first question. It's a bit specific. Do you know what year the Social Security program was signed into law?
Marcia Mantell (09:05)
Well, John, I do. It was way back in nineteen thirty five under F D R
John (09:07)
Ha
That's right.
Marcia Mantell (09:12)
did you know that a woman is the architect behind social security? The law that it is? Frances Perkins. She was the first woman to ever serve at a cabinet level in a presidential cabinet.
John (09:19)
You know, I did not.
Marcia Mantell (09:24)
Yeah, so nineteen thirty five, right after the Great Depression, we're trying to
John (09:25)
Very cool.
Marcia Mantell (09:28)
help older Americans not live in poverty. But interestingly it was only covering workers, not their spouses. And workers back in nineteen thirty five, by and large, were men. Their wives were at home. They had no retirement benefits. It took until nineteen thirty nine to get those amendments to cover us ladies.
John (09:47)
people worry about the future of the program. It is a worrying financial outlook, but I think it's important for people to understand the historic nature of the program. It's been through periods of crisis before. We should be able to navigate the current issue, even though it is a very significant one.
Marcia Mantell (10:02)
I totally agree. And you know, since nineteen thirty five we've had many, many amendments to Social Security. And s you know, some of the big ones, like everyone complains the cola it's already projected to be, I don't know, three point something. It's way too early in the year to worry about colas, but whatever. that didn't happen until nineteen seventy two. So there were amendments in nineteen seventy two and then there were big amendments in nineteen eighty three, the last time Social Security was, you know, going bankrupt.
so it it's a living, breathing law and Congress just needs to sort of get their act together and and put some fixes in so that we are more confident of that we're gonna be paid one hundred percent of our benefits.
Sean Allocca (10:46)
That was a lot of great information. You're doing much, much better than I did, Marcia, because we did this in a practice before when we were setting up the lights and John quizzed me on them. And I, you know, John helped me out a little bit, but I,
John (10:53)
You did alright, Sean, you did alright.
Marcia Mantell (10:55)
Yeah.
What did you answer,
Sean Allocca (10:58)
I was.
Marcia Mantell (10:58)
Sean? What year did you think it came about? Okay.
Sean Allocca (11:06)
figure it out. So John helped me. I got them all right, but I was flying by the seat of my pants a little more. So thank you.
Marcia Mantell (11:11)
Well, congrats, anyway.
Sean Allocca (11:13)
question number two, true or false? Again, you are not permitted, so you're not allowed to work to earn work income while collecting social security, true or false?
Marcia Mantell (11:24)
That is false. You can always work. In fact, Social Security loves it when you keep working. And your bank account will love it better as well. So, yes, you can absolutely work while claiming. However, if you are younger than your full retirement age, which is 67 now for almost everyone who hasn't collected,
Social Security is meant for you to have income when you're retired. If you're still working and not at full retirement age when you are deemed retired, you're not going to necessarily get all the money that you think you're going to get. Because there's an earnings limit test that you have to pass, if you will. And it's not big. So this year, twenty twenty six, where are we? About twenty four thousand dollars. If you make more than that, you will have what we call a clawback. So
You can claim Social Security, say it's 62. That's a popular age. It's a bad age for most, but it's the popular age. You can work, make your $100,000 a year. Do you know how much you'll get? Zero. Now, you won't get zero forever.
Your calculated benefit will recalculate every year as if you hadn't claimed that early. So you will get a bigger payment when you are actually retired or earning under the earnings limit. So here, this is an example of.
One of those nuancey rules, right, where we want the program to be so simple, it's just not. And it depends on your situation. You know, I have one friend who sells Barbie furniture on eBay. Well, sh she's not gonna be making a mint on that. She could claim early and her four thousand dollar income
John (12:56)
Ha
Marcia Mantell (13:04)
won't matter. You know, that's great, but she'll still get her benefit. but if you're making a hundred grand a year, eighty grand a year, you're not gonna see anything from Social Security.
Don't claim while you're working you don't need the money.
Sean Allocca (13:15)
That's an interesting niche for financial advisors out there. Barbie, furniture, seller. Yeah, they probably have very sophisticated needs that advisors can help out on.
Marcia Mantell (13:19)
Yeah. Barbie furniture.
John (13:24)
get her contact information for my niece. She might be interested in placing an order.
Marcia Mantell (13:25)
Exactly. Yeah, right.
John (13:29)
so moving along here, third question for you, Marcia, it's another true or false. Thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, seniors are currently not paying taxes on their social security benefits, true or false?
Marcia Mantell (13:42)
man, this is one that just makes me frickin' crazy.
No, that is absolutely false. There there's no connection between what you're doing with Social Security Spending bill here.
But there's good news in that false statement. So what really happened?
Seniors, those defined as anyone who turned 65 in 2025, if you're 65 or older, you get an additional deduction
a six thousand dollar additional deduction, but only if
you are under certain income limits.
So this is not for everyone 65 and older, has absolutely nothing to do with what you're doing with Social Security, and you have to have income limits in order to get the full $6,000.
If you're an individual filer, it's $75,000 or less in income and all the income sources. We're talking about wages, we're talking about interest and dividends, capital gains, social security benefits if you're claiming pensions, IRA distributions, et cetera.
Below seventy five thousand dollars, you'll get this extra six thousand dollars personal deduction. And that's great and that's really meaningful.
Married filing jointly, folks, it's $150,000 in income or less.
Now you'll get parts of that six thousand dollars if your income is up to one hundred and seventy-five thousand for singles and two fifty for married filing jointly.
But John and Sean, this has nothing to do with Social Security. You can be seventy.
Well, I mean you 69 still haven't claimed social security, meet these income thresholds, and you got your six thousand dollar additional deduction.
Conversely, if you're collecting social security disability and you're 49, you didn't get this extra because you're not 65. So the devil's not really in the details here. It was really clear from the beginning. This is unrelated to Social Security. Unfortunately, the administration positioned it.
as a tax free social security just ain't so.
John (15:46)
important to be precise about these things because people can expect something and they end up being disappointed and it can kind of throw a wrench in your plan. So
Sean Allocca (15:54)
I mean, it also highlights the just how personal all of this is. They're declaiming the ages, the additional 6,000 breaks. you're, mean, it's really not like you say 70 and claim and that's the best because it says it on paper. It's very much not like that. I'm learning a ton about all this right now.
John (16:12)
Independence, it's your move. Fidelity's unbiased expertise helps you understand all your options. Fidelity works with many types of wealth managers, so you can select the business model that best fits your future. Their consultative approach helps you choose how much control you want and how much support you need, everything on your terms. After all, isn't that why you want independence? Explore new possibilities for independence at i.fidelity.com slash your move.
Sean Allocca (16:40)
But all right, so we'll move on to question four. What does the concept of actuarial equivalence? I got all the hard words. Actuarial equivalence mean?
Marcia Mantell (16:42)
Okay.
You did?
Sean Allocca (16:51)
in the context of social security.
Marcia Mantell (16:53)
So this is an interesting concept and a fancy way of saying what's the break-even. I know it's John must have written that question for us, huh, Sean? All right, so the concept behind Social Security is that each of us has a calculated benefit amount that we will be paid if we live a long time. It starts at your full retirement age
John (17:00)
Ha
Sean Allocca (17:00)
Yeah, he
did.
Marcia Mantell (17:13)
Social Security's benefit is based on your own personal earnings. So you work for 40 years, Social Security will take the highest 35.
And they calculate how much in actuarial terms should you get as a benefit dollar amount, assuming you're going to live a long time. And so there's a cumulative total that can be assessed to each of us.
You don't get any more than that cumulative total. So if you start at 62, again, many people do, and it's something like a third of retirees start their benefit at 62, which makes me want to cry.
If you start at sixty two versus sixty seven, you can. You get a permanent thirty percent reduction in your monthly income. And actually over time, on a cumulative basis, say over thirty years, you get a cumulative amount that is less than if you had waited till your full retirement age. Not by a lot, but by some. And if you wait until 70, you get a permanent increase of twenty four percent. So your monthly income per month.
payments are much bigger and your overall cumulative payment is much bigger as well.
at the end of the day, it all works out to we get approximately
what we earned. I don't want to say what we're owed. We're not owed anything. We earned this benefit. So based on the income we've had and when we claim, we get the amounts we should get under an actuarially equivalent arrangement.
If you're gonna live beyond age eighty, waiting longer is better, both for claiming later is better because you're gonna get a higher benefit and a higher overall cumulative total.
Sean Allocca (18:50)
I tried to explain that to my mom actually, and tried to weigh out the payments and the waiting, and she ended up not waiting. She didn't choose that route, but
we tried to go through it just on an envelope. Maybe we should have done it. Maybe we should have talked to you first, Marsha, but
you said 62 is a common time, why do that if the actuarial equivalence is less?
Marcia Mantell (19:10)
Two big reasons today. The first and most important is because you know, Social Security's going bankrupt any day now, so I gotta get in while I can. And the second is because they want it. They've earned this benefit. They want their money. I literally am working with a couple right now. I met with them yesterday, and the very first thing he told me when he contacted me was, Marsha,
and and he uses this tone like a dad tone with me. I've been paying into the system since I was eighteen years old.
I want my money now.
this is a really deep seated personal opinion of what people want. You can show them all the math and believe me I did. He's gonna claim early. He now understands the consequences. That's for me, I think, the best thing we can do in th those listening who are the professional advisors. We just need people to understand the consequences.
That if you claim early, you're going to have a permanent reduction in your monthly income.
look, if he had ten million dollars sitting in a bucket over on you know under the bed, okay, then maybe it works out well for them.
But you can't make this decision in a vacuum. And unfortunately, that's what too many people do. And then what do I hear on the other end when somebody's seventy five and eighty? that's all I'm getting?
Sean Allocca (20:27)
lot of emotions are tied up in behavioral
Marcia Mantell (20:29)
Mm.
Sean Allocca (20:30)
kind of finance in all of this for sure.
John (20:31)
it's what I find fascinating about the retirement domain in general and,
making a career out of writing about retirement, you know, it's actually quite interesting, very, you know, emotional behavioral, there's so much that goes into it more than more than just the numbers, I find it to be very fascinating. So
Marcia, last question,
four for four so far, let's see if you can can clean it up.
Marcia Mantell (20:49)
Woo.
John (20:50)
true or false?
Married couples claiming decisions do not affect one another's future benefits. Each benefit is independent.
To revolves.
Marcia Mantell (20:59)
Well, I've mentioned I've been married forty three years to this wonderful guy, Dan Mantell. And Dan Mantell woke up a few years ago at age sixty two and and he said, Hey, it's my birthday today. I'm sixty two. I can go claim my social security benefits now And I said, Dan Mantell, you're gonna be dead. it is false.
John (21:16)
You
Marcia Mantell (21:18)
married couples and intr legally married couples, not domestic partners. So this you have to be legally married to get
these considerations because there's a survivor benefit. That's really the important thinking through decision.
married couples have to t talk to each other and they can joke also. Dan checks in every year on December second. Can I claim this year? Can I claim? No, you're not seventy. You're not claiming.
Sean Allocca (21:39)
Mm.
Marcia Mantell (21:42)
it's very integrated and it goes back to that nineteen thirty five and nineteen thirty nine amendments.
Back then
The way Congress wrote the law was for the this what they considered this traditional couple, where he worked outside the home and had earnings and she stayed home and ran the household and raised the kids.
She would be entitled to one half of his age sixty-five benefit at the time sixty-five was the full retirement age.
Congress recognized that women did have an important role to play in the economic structure and success of a household.
So she should be getting a benefit also, but only once he claimed. So we've always been tied together in the law, the married couples. And whether it's same sex married couples now or opposite sex, doesn't matter, just legally married people.
We have to be married and then we're connected. So what the higher earner does is really the important piece. That's the person who has the dual responsibility to make sure they're bringing in enough cash flow.
for thirty ish years in retirement. So bring in as much as you can.
But if you die first as the higher earner, have you protected the lower earner?
the married couple piece is so important to really to get right. and that's this couple I'm working with now, you know, where he's gonna claim early at sixty five,
they have almost identical records. So they're getting about I forget the number, but thirty six hundred dollars each.
So if he claims early, he's gonna reduce that. But he's laughing and telling his wife yesterday, well honey, you're gonna wait until 70 to claim.
Well, if she's willing, that will work for them. So one spouse sometimes can claim earlier without it jeopardizing cash flow or survivor benefits. And that's that dual dilemma that spouses have to talk to each other and figure out.
John (23:21)
Right.
written up a bunch of case studies before where, you know, any given couple, depending on their earnings histories, they can have, you know, seven, eight, nine potentially viable claiming strategies in terms of how they time their benefits together.
And often there can be a big difference in the overall benefit that's paid out. But you really just have to respond to your unique circumstances and really do the planning. So
Marcia Mantell (23:53)
absolutely spot on, John. It there's
John (23:55)
Yeah.
Marcia Mantell (23:55)
again, no cookie cutter, no rule of thumb. The rule of thumb is do the homework, do the math.
John (24:00)
Yeah,
five out of five, Marcia, very, impressive. The RSSA has apparently paid off.
Sean Allocca (24:01)
Well, I had a feeling
Marcia Mantell (24:03)
Yay.
Sean Allocca (24:07)
Marcia was gonna crush the last one
yeah, awesome segment. I learned a lot, I'm sure our listeners did too, so we appreciate it.
Marcia Mantell (24:12)
Thank you, Sean. Thanks guys and I wish you the very best with this new podcast. I know it's gonna be wildly successful.
Sean Allocca (24:19)
We hope so,
John (24:19)
We hope so.
John (24:20)
All right, Sean. Well, that was a lot of fun. really looking forward to
continuing this this podcast. our expectation, our hope is to be coming to you all every Tuesday with a a fresh episode. And we encourage you to follow us on whatever podcast platform you use, Spotify, Apple,
wherever you get your podcasts, we're we're aiming to be there. And and please subscribe. If you leave us a rating and a review, that will really help us grow this community. We want your honest reviews, but you know, five stars are always appreciated.
this will be published to YouTube as well. we're doing this as a video podcast. If you happen to be just listening through a podcast app, you know, please know that we're also here on video and
finally, we encourage you all to subscribe to our newsletters. we have the flagship daily upside, which is more for consumers, but still of of great interest, I think, to the
advisor community. We have advisor upside, ETF upside, and the most recently launched retirement upside. If you subscribe to all of them, you're, you know, really going to get a holistic approach to covering the wealth management industry. And and Sean, I think you'd agree, we try to bring a bit of humor, a bit of a bit of flair to our to our writing.
Sean Allocca (25:24)
Yep.
We'll also love you forever.
John (25:28)
Yeah.
Anyway, with that,
thanks to all our listeners. Bye bye.
Sean Allocca (25:31)
Thanks everybody. See you next time.