Most people have been to a retirement seminar. You know the room: folding chairs, a projector, forty slides, and a coffee that has been sitting since seven. Fiscal Fridays is our answer to that room, and on Friday, October 23, for the first time, anyone can save a seat.
Until now, the seats went to families our advisors invited. October 23 is the first Fiscal Fridays open to the public, and we want it to feel less like a class and more like the best part of late-night television.
What is Fiscal Fridays?
It is a live, monthly talk show about retirement money, hosted by David Schaeffer in our studio in Scottsdale. David has a panel next to him, Kyle Jacobs and Jason Tweet this month, a guest in the hot seat, and a small audience close enough to see the cards in his hand.
Hayes Clement, the show's executive producer, described it best in the invitation he sent out this month: "Think Johnny Carson meets Dave Ramsey: a talk show with special guests and quirky games. No house band…yet." We will hold him to that "yet."
What actually happens in the room?
The show itself runs about forty-five minutes, and it moves. A few of the pieces you will see:
- The lightning round. David reads a real family's situation off a card, and an advisor gets thirty seconds to answer, timed on David's 1878 pocket watch. Run long and you hear the buzzer. Run longer and you meet the red spray bottle.
- The guest sit-down. This month it is a secret guest, a Medicare health plan executive, and David gets him talking about how health plans really work.
- The ten-second close. One last question, and everyone on stage gets ten seconds to answer it.
- The questions that do not fit in a lightning round. After the show, the panel stays seated and takes questions from the room.
Why a show and not a seminar?
Because people remember what made them laugh, and they forget what was on slide twenty-six. A seminar tries to teach you everything. A show gives you one thing to write down and a reason to come back next month. Our show page says it plainly: "This is a show, not a seminar. By rule, and by choice."
It also feels like the people in it. On the September show, David asked how many people in the room had been born in Arizona, and one hand went up. He closed that morning with a line I think about a lot: "Look around this room. Almost nobody here is from here. We all came for the sunshine and left something or someone behind." That is who the show is for.
Why October 23?
Because it is eight days into the Annual Enrollment Period, when the plan letters have landed, the questions are real, and nobody wants to sit through forty slides to get an answer. The show starts at 10:30 AM Arizona time, doors open at 10:00 for coffee, and there are twenty seats.
If you want a taste first, watch the September show on YouTube. It is the first episode in the new format, and you will see the buzzer, the cards, and the spray bottle in action.
What is coming this week?
Every day between now and the show, we will take you behind the curtain. Next, the producer who gave our advisors a buzzer. Tuesday, whether an advisor can really answer in thirty seconds. Wednesday, how a Medicare Advantage plan gets built. Thursday, why an 1878 pocket watch runs the show. And Friday, the show itself.
Save your seat here, or call (602) 281-3898 and we will hold one for you.
Fiscal Fridays is an educational show. Educational content, not tax or legal advice. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the federal government or the federal Medicare program.