Best Life Podcast | Altra Federal Credit Union
Best Life Podcast | Altra Federal Credit Union
Special Episode – Altra Financial Advisors
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On this episode of the Best Life Podcast, we discuss how to make your money grow through investing and achieve your future financial goals. Tony sits down with VP of Wealth Management Sue Breyer, CRPC, for Altra Financial Advisors, and Brent Wohlers, CRPC, who is also a Financial Advisor with Altra Financial Advisors. 

To learn more about Altra Financial Advisors and access educational webinars and resources, visit https://www.altra.org/invest-insure/altra-financial-advisors. 

Transcript

(Tony Beyer)

Hello and welcome to the Best Life Podcast where we here at Altra Federal Credit Union are helping you live your best life. I’m your host, Tony Beyer, thank you for tuning in and I couldn’t think of a better way to start off our first podcast of 2022 than by discussing how to make your money grow and achieve our future goals to increase our financial wellness. This episode will complement our last podcast of 2021 which featured tips from Jackie Urban, Altra’s Credit Management Supervisor, on how to save and what to keep in mind when it comes to making a spending plan. If you haven’t checked that out yet you can find the podcast on our website, at Altra dot org, or look for it in the Best Life Podcast show feed in your podcast platform. 

For this episode of the Best Life Podcast, we’re fortunate to be joined by two of our Altra Financial Advisors who help our members meet their money goals and how to set them up for future financial success. I’d like to welcome to the podcast Sue Breyer, VP of Wealth Management and who is also a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor for Altra Financial Advisors here in the La Crosse, Wisconsin…welcome to the podcast Sue. 

(Sue Breyer) 

Happy to be here Tony 

(Tony Beyer) 

…and we’re also joined by Brent Wohlers, who is also a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor for Altra Financial Advisors and helps our members here in the La Crosse Area as well…we appreciate you taking the time for the podcast Brent. 

(Brent Wohlers) 

Thanks Tony for having me. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Absolutely, we’re so pleased to have you both on the podcast. Now, I know you both are extremely busy helping our members so we don’t want to keep you long, but Sue, I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little bit about Altra Financial Advisors and what you do for our members. 

(Sue Breyer) 

Well, we offer holistic financial planning so we’re looking at a member’s entire financial picture and helping them with what they need. So, if they’re looking at saving for retirement, or if they’re already in retirement and wanting to know how to have their money invested…and how much they can spend, we can help them at whatever stage of the game they’re at. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Excellent! It sounds like you both as advisors really get to know our members and do what’s in their best interest, which is great. 

Anything you’d like to add Brent? 

(Brent Wohlers) 

Yeah, we really want to deep dive with the members and ask: “What are your goals? What are your objectives? What’s your time horizon and risk tolerance,” all of those important questions to help our members. You know, we’ll create solutions that match their goals and objectives. We also feel that education is incredibly important, so we want our members to understand not only what we’re doing, but why we’re doing it. 

(Tony Beyer) 

That sounds like a great approach, and Brent, I know our Altra Financial Advisors have a lot of different products and services…could you give us an idea of what you all offer our members? 

(Brent Wohlers) 

Sure, we have an open platform which allows us as advisors to make recommendations to our members that fit their needs and situations across the board, and a big part of what we do here is manage money. We have mutual funds, annuities, individual stocks, but again, all the products that we offer are meant to align with our members goals and objectives. It’s much more than just offering one type of fund, which you may find elsewhere…our products can provide members a full financial plan to meet their needs. 

(Tony Beyer) 

I think that’s great that Altra Financial Advisors has a lot to offer our members and don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to wealth management. Sue, we may have some listeners that might just be getting started or thinking about getting stared with a retirement plan, what is some general advice you’d give someone that’s interested in investing their money for the future? 

(Sue Breyer) 

Yeah Tony, I would say just do it. The important thing is getting it started. Roth IRAs are priceless for people that put money away, tax-free for the future, and it doesn’t take a huge amount to get started. The sooner you start, the more you’ll likely have for the future. So, the biggest thing I’d tell those just starting or thinking of getting started is to put money away now for your future. 

(Tony Beyer) 

That’s excellent advice…there’s no time like the present to invest help your money grow for the future. I know you both have been doing this for quite some time and have met with many members over the years, so I was curious Brent, what are some common mistakes you see investors or those saving for retirement make, and how can they avoid those mistakes? 

(Brent Wohlers) 

Yeah, a big thing that we see is that some mix their emotions with their money, try to avoid emotional decision-making with your financial situation because our brains work in two ways: There’s an emotional side and then there is the rational side. Unfortunately, our brains often decide to invoke the emotional side first, so our emotions take over and we don’t always think rationally when we really should be, especially with our money. So, trying to separate your emotions from your money and avoiding the knee-jerk reactions like jumping in and out of the market is key. Some may feel that they have to immediately get out of the market when it goes down, that’s the emotional side taking over, try to avoid that. 

Another mistake we see is trying to time the market, which is not a good financial strategy. Time in the market is where you get your returns and staying in it for the long-term should serve you very well in the future. 

(Tony Beyer) 

That makes sense, and talking about time, is there still time Sue for procrastinators like me to make contributions for 2021 on some retirement plans even though we’re well into calendar year 2022? 

(Sue Breyer) 

Yes, you absolutely can. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Yes!!! Awesome!!! 

(Sue Breyer) 

You have up until Tax Day, which is April 18th this year to make contributions to a plan in 2021…so there’s a still a little bit of time to do that. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Awesome, good to hear, and again we’re speaking with Sue Breyer she is VP of Wealth Management for Altra Financial Advisors and is also a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, or CRPC, as they say in the biz, so I’m told…and we’re also joined by Altra Financial Advisor Brent Wohlers, who is a CRPC as well…and Brent, I was curious if there’s a cost to sit down with an Altra Financial Advisor? 

(Brent Wohlers) 

There are no fees to sit down with us and discuss your financial situation. Now, if we were to put, let’s say, money in motion, then yes, there would be fees and expenses associated with that which would be disclosed up front ahead of time before any business is done. 

(Tony Beyer) 

That’s great that there’s that transparency before anything is done on a member’s behalf. Sue, how could our listeners make an appointment to see an advisor in La Crosse…and I know we have members all over the country, so if a member is outside Wisconsin, can they still work with an Altra Financial Advisor depending on where they live? 

(Sue Breyer) 

Yeah, to make an appointment a member can schedule it with an employee at Altra, they can go to the Altra website at altra.org, or contact the Financial Advisor directly. If a member is not in Wisconsin, we are licensed in multiple states, and we do offer virtual meetings and are available over the phone as well for our members. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Excellent, and we have more information on how to contact Altra Financial Advisors…as well as how to find out more about all the education seminars and events that they put on…that can be found on our website at altra.org, and I have also put information in the show notes on this podcast well. 

Well, we’re about out of time and that’s all the questions that I have for you both, but is there anything else you would like to talk about or are there any questions I haven’t asked? 

(Brent Wohlers) 

Yeah, I just want to reiterate that we are diversified to help our members with any financial situation and have solutions to meet their goals. You know, we work with members that have smaller dollar amounts, large dollar amounts, or something in the middle, but I would say, Altra Financial Advisors, we have the experience and are diversified to help all of our members. 

(Tony Beyer) 

Great, anything to add Sue? 

(Sue Breyer) 

Yeah, what makes us different is that we partner with the credit union to make sure that our members are fully taken care of. So, if we see the ability to refinance to save them money or recognize a better savings account option to make more money, we’re going to bring that up and help them with that too. So, I think it’s that partnership makes us a little bit different than what you find elsewhere. 

♫Piano Music – Next Chapter♫ 

(Tony Beyer) 

On this episode of the Best Life Podcast we spoke with Sue Breyer, who is the VP of Wealth Management for Altra Financial Advisors, and Brent Wohlers, who is also a Financial Advisor with Altra Financial Advisors…and it should be noted that both Sue and Brent have the designation of Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor. 

Well, that’s going to do it for this episode of the Best Life Podcast presented by Altra Federal Credit Union. We appreciate you taking a moment to learn how you can live your best life. If you have a question or a topic you’d like us to cover, send me an email at: tjbeyer@altra dot org and who knows, it may even make it into a future episode. Don’t forget to follow the Best Life Podcast pretty much wherever you get your podcasts or find it on our website at altra.org. Thanks again, be well, and we’ll talk to you again soon. 

♫(Piano Intro/Outro Music)♫ 

Representatives are registered, securities sold, advisory services offered through CUNA Brokerage Services, Inc. (CBSI), member FINRA and Security Investor Protection Corporation, a registered broker/dealer and investment advisor, which is not an affiliate of the credit union. CBSI is under contract with the financial institution to make securities available to members. Not NCUA/NCUSIF/FDIC insured, May Lose Value, No Financial Institution Guarantee. Not a deposit of any financial institution. CUNA Brokerage Services, Inc., is a registered broker/dealer in all fifty states of the United States of America.