This week on Five Fact Friday, we’ll be deep diving into all of the great moments you missed at the Grammy’s, including a bonus link about Jon Batiste!
Uh oh! The House of Representatives passed the SECURE Act 2.0… which could have a negative impact on your taxes in retirement.
We’ll also talk about a new flavor of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola BYTE! Watch to find out what makes it so special!
Reading: https://cnet.co/3J5wGBS
Watching: https://n.pr/3K74uzS
Bonus – Jon Batiste: https://bit.ly/3jdSeSb
Tech: https://cnet.co/3NJl6zR
Legal: https://cnb.cx/3K6RbiI
Retirement: https://bit.ly/3LDuPWl
Full Transcription Below
If you grew up in a house like mine, you probably spent a lot of time having your dad yell at you to turn off all of the lights in the room after you left, but should you have been unplugging the appliances too? Well, I got the answer for that and many more links ’cause I’m Victor Medina and this is “Five Fact Friday.” Hey everybody, welcome back to “Five Fact Friday.” If this is your first time visiting, I’m Victor Medina. I am the founder of Medina Law group and Palante Wealth Advisors. This little video newsletter is hosted by them because we love sharing great information. This is where we share with you five awesome links and we’ve got great ones this week. But before I jump into that, I actually wanted to let you know that we’re hosting a series of upcoming seminars to talk about the new outlook in retirement. It’s actually gonna be on April 19th and 21st. They’re gonna be at Harvest Seasonal Grill in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Now, these things are already almost booked. So if you’re interested, you should reach out right now to learn more about what I wanna talk to you about legal retirement picture and how everything has changed with inflation and what’s going on in Ukraine and all that kind of stuff. Like, how should your retirement picture change? I’m gonna do that at dinner that I’m gonna be hosting on April 19th and a lunch on April 21st. So if you’re free and you can contact us in time, we would love to see you there, have an opportunity to share with you some of our thoughts, maybe you learn something in the process. So I’m gonna go through the links for this week.
And the first link is what I’m reading, and it’s actually the link that I hinted to at the beginning of this video, which is should you be unplugging your appliances in order to save energy? Well, this link actually takes you over to CNET where they did a little bit of research to figure out whether or not your appliances and other things still draw power even when they’re off. The short answer is yeah. I don’t know that I would go ahead and I would unplug everything out of there, but this is a great case, for example, for a switch that would turn things off, like a wifi switch that you might be able to use manually. So anyway, if you are interested in reading it you should click on the link and I guess find the appliances that draw the most amount of energy and figure out whether or not you are going to unplug them every single time you’re done using them.
The next link is what I am watching and there was so much news made about what happened at the Oscars. I’m not, not gonna revisit all of that, but he overshadowed the fact that we actually hosted a Grammy’s as well. And so this link is about what 10 things occurred in the Grammy’s that were overlooked, like what happened there and what was so cool. And I will tell you that one of the things in there Rick’s reference to Jon Batiste. And he is band leader who’ on some talk shows. He is a great music writer. If you haven’t listened to his music yet you should absolutely do so. He’s super, super talented and actually won a number of awards. I think he was the most celebrated person in that evening, but check out the link, read what ended up being happening at the Grammy’s, and then go find the link and go listen to some Jon Batiste. I think that you’re really gonna like it.
The next link is what’s new in tech and it’s actually not what you would think about in tech because it’s a new flavor of Coke, but the flavor is pixels. I’m not even sure what this is supposed to be about. So Coke has been doing everything possible to get you interested in drinking more Coke. They released a think a Starlight version of their Coke and it’s supposed to have had, I don’t know, some flavor that was great. Well, this one’s called bite Byte, B-Y-T-E, and they say that it tastes like pixels. And so the can on it looks like the kind of pixelated graphics from old video games and things and it’s a new flavor. Good thing, I guess, is that it’s zero sugar. So you can try as many as you like without getting fat, but I don’t know. This is gonna be another one of those that I share with you and then you tell me whether or not you’ve tried Coca-Cola of Byte, what it tasted like, and if you now know exactly what pixels taste like.
The next link is what’s new in legal and I want you to pay attention for this one. Turns out the House of Representatives has passed a law called SECURE Act 2.0, actually that’s what they’re referring to it. And what it is, is a new set of law changes to retirement accounts. For example, one of the things that they do is they require that if you are employed and your employer hosts a retirement plan, like a 401k that you’re automatically enrolled into it and you have to opt out. Right now you have to asks to join it, and so what they’re trying to do is encourage more people to save for retirement. There’s actually another law change in there that sounds like it’s a good idea, but we’ve actually looked at it here in the office and it’s not my favorite rule and it’s this. They’re allowing you in this law, it’s not past yet, it’s just at the house level, but they’re allowing you to delay beginning your required minimum distributions to age 75. Now that sounds like a good thing because it’s a longer period of time before you have to take money out of your retirement account. But for many people, that can lead to a false sense of that you’re gonna be paying less in overall taxes. We talk a lot in the of plans that we create about the value of moving money out of your IRA proactively. For example, we have a series of tax rate changes that are set to increase in the year 2026. They’re gonna go higher. They’re actually gonna go back to what they were in 2016. So we have a window of opportunity. If they pass this law and people who are in 72 figure that they can wait three more years, when they take money out at age 75, it’ll actually be at higher tax rates than if they took it out now. The lesson as always is, you should have a plan in retirement and that plan should also help you focus on your taxes. That’s what we do when we create our make it last plan, where we focus on income investments, tax, and estate planning. And if you don’t have a retirement plan, let me encourage you to reach out to us so that we can develop one for you and help get you in the right position of dealing with all of these different law changes. Anyway, as to the SECURE Act 2.0, keep a look on this channel to see the upcoming different newsletters that we’re gonna be doing, as well as advertisements for any webinars, because if this does become law, we’re probably gonna help with the education so you kinda understand a little bit about how to deal with it.
The last link for this week is what’s new in retirement is actually a link that’s gonna talk to you about different kinds of retirement trips that you can take. So it’s always one of my favorite things to check out and check into different trips for retirement, ways that you can kinda engage with that, and it’s a great little link about the different destinations, the kinds of trips that you can take and I encourage you to check that out.
All right, let’s go ahead and recap the links for this week and the first link is what I am reading. It’s actually a link to whether or not you should be unplugging your appliances. I am kind of tickled with the idea that some of you are gonna run around plugging everything out of your walls and then plugging it back in when you use it and plugging back out when you’re done. The next link is what I am watching, and it’s everything that you missed in the Grammys. Don’t forget to check out Jon Batiste. What’s new in tech is Coca-Cola Byte. Taste it and let me know what you think. What’s new in legal is the SECURE Act 2.0 that we’re gonna be keeping an eye on. And finally, what’s new in retirement, different retirement trips that you can take. Don’t forget about the upcoming seminars that we’re hosting April 19th and 21st. If you’re interested in learning how the new outlook on retirement has changed your plan and what you should be thinking about, I encourage you to reach out to us as soon as possible because spaces are limited. We’d love to talk either dinner on April 19th or lunch on April 21st, being held at Harvest Season Grill in Newtown, Pennsylvania. That’s it for this week. I’m hoping for warmer weather soon, it’s already April. Anyway, I’ll catch you soon. Bye-bye.