Yeah, absolutely.
No, thank you and good morning to you, Greg.
Yeah, so this Thursday is 401k day.
So each year, usually just after Labor Day, the Plan Sponsored Council of America or PC
PSCA observes 401k day to remind workers of the benefits of serving and investing through a 401k plan and of course to also provide employers with related educational resources.
All right fair enough and it's one of those things that it's something that you might even be used to especially people our age Matt a lot of jobs offer some form of 401k and of course there's that that big option of 401k matching and I'm sure we'll circle back to that but let's dive into the basics.
Yeah yeah and the other thing with PSCA is this year is a special anniversary as it's the 30th anniversary anniversary of 401k day but each year they also have a theme and
This year's theme is is never too little, never too late, which is meant to address two concerns that commonly prevent employees from taking action.
First is the belief that they can't afford to save and the fear that it's too late to accumulate enough money to make a difference.
So know that on P on the.
PSCA website employers can access materials including Infographics that help illustrate the long-term benefits of time and compounding and Also going to the point of with the theme this year.
That's that is not too late certainly
Yeah, so know that there are five steps that can build good habits and among the other resources available to employers is a series of materials, again highlighting five steps to get on track.
With the rapid increase in automatic enrollment over the past two decades, many of today's workers may have 401k accounts, but may not be aware of how they work or even how to access them.
These materials are designed to increase engagement by encouraging employees to take five quick steps to learn how to manage or how to make the most of their 401k.
And I wanted to go through those five steps, Gray, and know that the first one is, of course, accessing your retirement plan account.
And this helps ensure employees know how to log into their accounts.
With many things in today's world, Gray, you can
Excuse me access your 401k account online by logging in and creating an account and See exactly how your your 401k works and it may be most importantly your balance if you weren't aware that you were contributing
Yep, and then check your balance and this of course encourages workers to check their current balance and require retirement income projection
and possibly consolidate old accounts if appropriate.
But the checker balance is a huge one.
And with any, most at least the logins, you can run those income projections to see where you stand.
Yeah, I jumped a little bit ahead of myself
Yeah, and that's going to be check your savings rate.
Ask plan participants to consider how much they're saving, whether they're taking full advantage of any employer match and the benefit of automatic contribution increases.
So of course, that's very important to know what you're contributing and making sure that you're taking a full advantage of that match if your employer offers that.
Right.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
No doubt.
That's one thing that we always look at in our appointments graze to make sure that we're taking full advantage of that match.
All right.
On to step four.
Yeah, and review your investments.
Know that this prompts workers to understand their investment strategy, use available tools, and help ensure their investments align with their time horizon and risk tolerance.
And those are obviously can be pretty in depth, but knowing how aggressive you're being or not aggressive you're being is certainly very important.
Oh, yeah.
And reviewing that is crucial to make sure that those investments align, again, with your risk tolerance and also your time horizon.
step five is lastly, checking your beneficiaries.
It's very important to review your beneficiary designations and update them, update them if necessary, after major life events.
So beneficiaries is something that we review in every meeting.
And it's very important with your 401k too, because it tells the custodian that if you were to that forbid, pass away who you want.
to inherit that money.
And it's very important to check to make sure that those beneficiaries are still up to date and who you would want to receive that money.
Not to be too maudlin, Matt, but I imagine you run into situations fairly often where a person who does pass away may not have... Well, it's tough to know since those people are gone from this earth, but it's pretty easy to imagine people will put that off maybe more than they should.
Let's put it that way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that's why that's a big part of our reviews each and every year because life happens.
And we want to make sure that those beneficiaries are up to date.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yes, it's, you know, sometimes people will do that during tax time or other times it's, you know, maybe during a holiday or, you know, a certain time of year to make sure that, you know, these sorts of things, beneficiaries and things are up to date to how you want them.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that's where, you know, when we have, we have our meetings, we meet at least annually, but certain can be, certainly can be much more than that.
And because we want to be there when, when life happens in that exact situation, like you were just talking about, is supposed to lose a job or whatever happens.
And there's so many ways to refer to them, significant events, qualifying life events, depending on what part of the process you're looking at.
Basically, if you know that your financial picture just changed significantly, it's time to get ahold of you and pioneer
financial consultants.
Do I have that right?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
the best way to do that, Matt?
Yeah, so our phone number is 715-748-3231.
What is the PSCA?
These are questions for Matt, and they'll help you set yourself up for the future.
Matt, thank you so much.
We'll get this archived, and you'll be having it hosted on your Facebook page, Pioneer Financial Consultants, so people can listen back, right?
Absolutely.
Yep.
Yes, we will.
Thank you so much, Matt.
We'll chat with you again next week.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
That's Matt Krieger, Pioneer Financial Consultants.
They've got all of your best financial interest at heart.
And boy, do they know how to help you too.
Hey, stay tuned.
I've got a word from them and then from some other sponsors and a bunch more country music too.
And you can listen back to this on our website later today.
Once I get it archived, you're listening to 98Q Country.
Pioneer Financial Consultants is located at 882 East Perkins Street, Medford, Wisconsin.
The views expressed are not necessarily the opinion of 98-Q country and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities or services mentioned herein.
Investing is subject to risks, including loss of principal invested.
performance is not a guarantee of future results.
No strategy can assure a profit nor protect against loss.
Please note that individual situations can vary.
Therefore, the information should only be relied upon when coordinated with individual professional advice.
Securities and Investment Advisory Services offered through Osaic Wealth Inc.
member FINRA, SIPC.
Osaic Wealth is separately owned and other entities and or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth.
All right, and a busy Tuesday morning continues here at 98Q country talking to just about everybody we haven't managed to hook up with yesterday with Labor Day and everything like that.
And last week, well, Tuesday morning, just about as busy as a Wednesday morning around here at 98Q.
And up next, it's coach Steve Precar with the Phillips High School football team.
Good morning, coach.
Good morning.
How are you doing, Greg?
I'm doing well, Albert, yourself.
Hey, you bet.
Yeah, it was a good football game.
Back and forth to fairly equal teams.
What hurt us is the turnover bug.
We lost five fumbles last week and threw an interception at the end of the game.
So we had six turnovers.
It's hard to win a two-score football game when you
Turn a ball over
a pretty astounding coach that you managed to keep it a two score football game with those those offensive woes like that is.
Wow I was talking with Coach Michael Simone earlier this morning in off air he was talking about how they're just really aren't that many close games in high school football there's often a small advantage that snowballs but you guys kept in it even with some some struggles here and there I bet there were some pretty bright bright spots you could give a shout out to.
Absolutely.
Our defense played very well.
I was happy with the way Derek Pishka played on the defensive line.
We had some young nose guards played quite well.
Our linebackers also played well.
We had an injury in the middle of the second quarter that forced us to play some kids who don't get all the reps in practice.
And they stepped up big for us to keep the score like it was.
strange evening, you know, we had the rain delay at halftime that forced things to just push off.
And we moved the ball really well between the numbers.
Our offense looked good.
It was just turnovers really, really hurt us.
Yeah, there's definitely going to be an emphasis on holding onto the football this week.
Wetball, some drills, it's going to be an emphasis.
I I get the I get the message and I think the kids will too because man like I said Talking with coach Simone earlier and those fundamentals when the game gets away from you or it begins to those are the things to rely on and and those sayings those the work the plan plan the work kind of things It sounds like next man up was was really alive for you guys last week with those little bits injuries and still keeping it that close That's that's pretty astounding.
I know I know it's tough to it's tough to to celebrate a loss in some way
but like I said, it sounds like there were some real good things to carry through that you hope stay the case this week in that rivalry game this Friday right here in Park Falls.
You think the team is the right kind of hungry?
I believe the team is the right kind of hunger.
We've had an interesting start to the season.
We played two really good football teams in Guilman.
Guilman is really good.
Hurley is good.
Three Lakes has a nice group of athletes.
Our kids, there's no doubt that
you get ready for the shawarma game.
It's just a game that you put everything aside and you get the best.
And we know, and we talked about it yesterday, we're going to get their best.
It's rivalry week.
We play for a trophy, which is a pretty cool thing to do in high school football.
So the kids are battle tested, but they're also going to be ready to play.
Oh, it's definitely a Packers Bears vibe and it probably sits in hits deeper for the older generations.
The coaches and the kids.
Oh, they're all Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat friends, but it's still that one week you want to win.
Absolutely.
You see it any time that you play.
You're in county or even we get to rib like, you know, where it's fairly close and they see each other all the time.
They see each other in basketball, practice.
gets a little bit more intense and it's always a fun week.
Alright, well that's gonna be a lot of fun and we're gonna have it on the air of course this Friday right here on 98Q because how could we not?
My goodness, we've got our systems all worked out We just had some upgrades here to the studio But the first thing we figured out man We got to get local sports the way it should be so that we can get that shawamagin game and well forgive me the shawamagin Phillips game See that's the thing I brought up the Packers and the Bears in my mind Park full shawamagins the Packers and you guys are the Bears But that just I know you guys probably see it exactly the same way we got we got a deal
with those guys, right?
I'm sure it shows on the kid's practice schedule too.
That's exactly.
If there's a game you circle, it's the one.
Just like us circling the Vikings game at US Bank, that's what we got coming and going into Shuang.
Yeah.
Kenny Drexler.
Absolutely took the offense on his back in the second half of the football game.
He did a really good job running right of the ball.
I mean, we found a play that worked and he shouldered it.
I thought he played a really good football game, which is good.
He stepped up and put a lot of time in the offseason.
Our offensive line is working well together.
They're improving week by week, which is good.
we're seeing the bright spot popping up and then some things like hey how do we get this this guy the ball in state in space how do we how do we utilize what his skill set is um... which i'd love to tell you but i know coach simone's probably listening to talk about it next week uh... but there there's a definite bright spot in some young kids that uh... are making headway we have always tried to stay away from playing freshman on our varsity level uh...
But we've got some freshmen making impacts this year.
And it's exciting to see.
I know that as.
I know from personal experience, there are a lot of different, well, a lot of high schoolers, especially freshmen versus seniors are at some slightly different points.
My growth spurt, small though it was, didn't happen until after high school.
So I'm probably a good case study for, yeah, we wouldn't want to play that guy in high school football when I was a freshman.
But like you said, those kids still super capable of stepping up and a lot of times showing up when they have to with that next man up mentality.
And I also want to mention you read my mind.
I was just thinking the same thing.
I was like, how do I ask coach pre-core questions?
that don't tip the hand a little bit.
In 2026, how careful do you have to be with that kind of inside team info?
Is it too easy to give away an edge like that?
To be honest with you, coach Simone knows what I'm going to do.
I mean, with YouTube, huddle fan, we can watch games just about all the time, which is awesome.
Probably the best thing that came from COVID is I can sit in my couch on a Friday night and watch four football games.
So is there things that we do on a game plan week to week that are different?
Absolutely, but when it comes to the core and you do what you do, everybody knows what they're getting when they come in.
I think that the level of games and shifts, you know, definitely you hold some things tight to your vest or, you know, injuries or things like that.
But ultimately, when it comes down to, like I said, we're going to run trap, power, sleep, and counter and everybody that we play knows that that's what they're going to get.
we disguise it?
I think any football fan will agree that those are some of the best moments on the field where it's like, hey, you know what we're going to do.
We know you know what we're going to do.
And now you've got to try to stop it anyway, because when it works and everybody knows, it digs a little deeper when you know what's coming and you still can't stop it.
It sure does.
And then that's why, like Coach said, there's a lot of games that just don't stay good games or close games.
They could be close games, but in high school, I would tell our kids, hey, we start with two balloons full air, same size.
Eventually, one gets inflated and one gets deflated.
And when that happens, things just start to roll and get out of hand.
accurate?
It's exactly right.
It's like a boxing match.
We're both going to throw blows.
It's who can take the most and come out on top.
You can find probably three or four highlight videos where he takes about four or five shots and then bam, the fight is over because you've got that one thing and maybe you don't have that haymaker in the back.
It's going to be more of those relying on fundamentals and finding that one thing that works.
But it's basically finding the advantage and then squeezing it for everything it's worth.
I think that's a fair way to look at it.
That's exactly what it is.
You know, the coaching staff spent a lot of time trying to find out what is the weakness of the other team.
And as coaches, we know what we're going to see.
Can we prepare our 16 and 17-year-olds to do it, do it appropriately?
And ultimately, when I'm coaching against somebody, we're coaching against those high school kids.
And can we make them make a mistake?
And that's the beauty of it all.
Well, that to me makes it all the more impressive, you know, because I know for a fact that I would absolutely end up overthinking things.
And is he going to do this or is it a double, double fake or am I faking myself out?
I'm afraid I would get in my own head a little bit too much.
Is that is that something you've got to avoid there on the field?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, we could drop some really cool things and and and scheme ourselves out of out of plays where ultimately it comes down to
our Jimmy's versus their Joe's and can we get them out of position and get our kids in position.
Small advantages, snowball to make the big difference and it'll show up on the scoreboard one way or the other this Friday when Phillips comes to town for the home opener for Schwarmagen.
So it would be a meaningful win any time, but is there some extra value to that one when you go in and take it away from them at home if that's what happens?
There's definitely added value.
It's one of the most
Enjoyable weeks of the year.
7 PM.
I appreciate your coverage.
Frankly, in a world where the role of radio is changing just as much as anybody's life is, it's one of the best things we can do, letting people listen.
And I can't wait to have this game on the big airwaves so everybody can listen from far and wide.
7 PM this Friday, 98 Q country coach will see you on the field and thank you again.
makes great
That's coach Steve Precor.
I'm going to archive that one even though I don't know.
Maybe I shouldn't.
Don't want to give anybody too many advantages, but we talked to both coaches today.
We'll get both of those conversations up and now I'm sitting here wondering how much are those coaches going to go back and listen to what the other one said on the air?
Have I accidentally given somebody an advantage?
I doubt it, but you never know, that information more secure than ever before.
922 AM and that does it for the list of guests we expect today, but you never know, we might have somebody surprise pop into the studio.
One thing I can guarantee, we've got a pile, and I mean a big pile, of country music to get to.
We've had a little less than we might normally on a given Tuesday morning.
So why don't we crank it up?
I got Jason Aldeen up next, then we got Lainey Wilson, Trisha Yearwood, and let's go back to the 60s for another country classic after a few songs on 98Q.
Scotty McCreary five more minutes, but we're out of time with Scotty for the moment.
He'll be back on 98 Q Gray here with you in the Aspirus Health Studio and I'm not alone for maybe the only time this week with Joel gone all week.
You get all gray all day with some inclusions here and there of people like coach Michael Simone of the Schwammigan football team.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning.
Happy Tuesday.
I got to get get the Monday out of my brain I know we weren't here yesterday and like I mentioned I didn't realize we'd see you today But a pleasant surprise to have you coach so we are two games into the season now officially or three Okay, no no three.
I'm see I told you I was I was behind the eight ball three games in And we had a little bit of another rough one to finish the week Why don't you tell us about the last game against three lakes?
Yeah,
we kind of went into the week knowing that we needed to be on our A game.
If we started the game like we did week one versus Bruce with that slow start, that it's really going to come back to haunt us.
And we just needed to come out firing right away like we did against Cornell.
And unfortunately, the slow start continued.
We missed the onside kick.
We were strong for the first couple plays, but then they gave up a big score right after that.
bad there.
We stood strong for the first couple defensive plays.
I mean, we got them for a loss on the first play, held them again on second down, third down.
They had a nice big pass over us for a touchdown.
And then it just kind of kept snowballing from there.
Offensively after watching back on the film it didn't feel all doom and gloom But pretty much every play we had one thing that just didn't go our way that prevented Maybe a five six plus yard gain from being that and we were just stuck with like one two yard gains or losses or just little things like that that just kept Slowly like pulling us away from where we wanted to be and it's definitely disheartening and disappointing when you put in a good week of work But we still know what we're capable of and we know
that we'll be ready to bounce back this next week here.
For sure, for sure.
And I think we've seen that in both cases in the first two games, and then now that third one here too.
We didn't get momentum right away in Bruce, and it just was too tough to come back.
We had it right away in Cornell, and it was definitely in our favor.
And we lost it pretty early against three lakes, and then that was.
tough to get it back.
Well, I think with what we saw with the first two games and that rally, like you mentioned, that pretty incredible writing of the ship that took place, I think that your team clearly has a counter punch ready to rock.
And that means you've got them ready to respond to a loss the right way, even even a tough one.
Hey, they've already taken a tough loss and then they dealt one out right away.
I don't know.
I feel I got this scrappy underdog vibe.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just the I'm the believer, but I see every reason to believe because I know you've got
you've got some high performance happening.
Even in a game like this, there's still some individual performances and some team moments that may not show up on the scoreboard.
In fact, I would venture to say that sometimes, you know, half the game doesn't show up on the scoreboard.
Oh, for sure.
And like you said, I think this will be a good week to be that scrappy underdog as we're taking on Phillips this week.
I think that's about as big of a rivalry as we'll get in our Northwood small towns and home opener.
So I think it'll be a perfect time to bring that counterpunch.
back
no that's that's absolutely I definitely I'm picturing Sylvester Stallone from several different movies but Phillips had a tough one too they they took a loss to Hurley 22 to 6 over the week so two teams ready to it's gonna be a good game and after it's gonna be a rainy week this week there might be a little mud on the field I'm looking forward to an old-school leather head football game this
week
I'm excited for it.
Like I said, Phillips is a big fun rivalry for us.
And I know the boys are fired up, ready to bring their A game this week.
And this is one that they want bad.
So we're going to be ready for it.
So ultimately, like if we want to put a good performance out on that field, it has to show up in practice during the week.
I mean, we can't expect to be lazy.
We can't expect to be messing around and screwing around during practice and then put a good product out there on Friday.
So if we want to win on Friday and we want it to look good, we got to be practicing that exact way all week and we got to be focused.
We got to be crisp and everything has to be looking good.
And if we're starting to fall flat, if we're starting to lose that focus, I mean, that's where.
that old saying like you're you're gonna play like you practice shines through and I think
the weeks that we maybe look really good.
We've had really good weeks of practice and the weeks where we maybe struggle a little bit, then the week wasn't, the practicing wasn't so great that week.
So we're, we're trying to really, really focus on having those clean, crisp days every day of the week this week so we can have that final product we want on Friday.
Anybody who's watched hard knocks or anything like it knows that any given football coach probably has a lot of sayings ready to rock, but any 30 year old knows where those sayings come from.
Let me tell you this, this the last 10 years of my life, I've been steadily
realizing the you know plan the work work the plan stuff like that it's tough like even if you've got a good coach or a good parent giving you those lessons and doing a good job teaching them and hey I believe everything my dad ever told me but it just it hits different when you experience that situation for yourself so you've got guys who are ready to learn how to fight through adversity right now this is this is a perfect example of the kind of lessons football and other extracurriculars can teach
for sure I think that's often overlooked but
invaluable part of these sports is the impact we can have on them as young men and then the lessons that they can learn and to become better people and better prepared for the world in front of them.
Well, I don't know.
I think I like to rotate through them pretty good.
So I like to keep them on their toes that way.
No, that's like I said, it's the stuff that you've heard your entire life slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
And even like even the fundamental stuff like that's why you keep
your feet moving like the simple things that you've been told in practice from sixth grade.
You know, it's those fundamentals that that are going to be the saviors of those tough moments.
Am I right there?
Oh, for
I'm glad I spot that correctly.
I played football all of two years in middle school, but it's it's one of those things that you just see on the field.
It's just why does this feel off?
It's well because oftentimes players overthink and they try to do too much.
And I think that's that's a human thing.
And that's part of why those football lessons translate so well off the field.
And you end up with some sound.
young men who have struggled through stuff like this.
But that said, I look forward to an incredibly scrappy and potentially muddy game with the weather we're going to have.
So what highlights can we point to?
What are you guys going to look at and say, hey, this is what we did well, what we have to keep doing well this week?
Say, I do want to shout out one of our defensive players that I forgot to bring up last week when you asked for good performances.
Aiden Bushman was incredible in coverage for us against Cornell.
He was locked down.
I don't think they completed a single pass on him.
And they looked his way plenty.
He came up with a really big interception this week as well.
Incredible catch.
I don't know how he pulled it off.
So I want to make sure I highlight that.
He's definitely been a strength of our defense so far, and he's been a little banged up here and there.
So hopefully he's good to go here again.
I think he'll practice today.
And then another defensive player, Cooper Heisler, who has been fighting through some stuff all season.
But every game he's out there giving 100%.
He's flying around.
He's making his presence known to the opposite quarterback every chance he gets.
the amount of like pressures and hurries he gets is incredible.
And it often results in good place for us when he's right there in the quarterback's face.
Even if he's not the one bringing it down, I think those pressures really, really do make a big difference.
So defensively, those are two guys that have really made a lot of plays that maybe don't show up on the stat sheet as well.
are going to be huge for us going forward.
Oh,
Absolutely.
You get one guy hanging out in the offensive backfield.
And for you, that means seven other guys having usually a much easier time of things.
It's just everything is disrupted.
And if you can create chaos on defense and coverage, by the way, that was something, you know, I've loosely followed it.
I'm no expert whatsoever.
But even I've begun to appreciate what coverage really takes, you know, a corner after the quarterback position in at least in professional sports might be I would I put it up there.
with the toughest position to play because your whole job is based around not knowing what's coming and having to react in time to stop it you know there's yeah you've got your assignment you've got your coverage assignment you might have your zone that you're defending but you're reacting and you can only be so proactive which makes it all the more impressive when you can when you can lock somebody down that whole game a lockdown corner I mean
Nowadays in the NFL, at least being a lockdown corner means committing a lot of fouls and trading and give and take.
But if you can pull that off in high school sports, that speaks to a level of planning and foresight that you just, you can't.
substitute, you know, it's it's it's going into the game ready and I imagine watching a lot of tapes even make that possible.
For sure.
I mean that knowing what's coming your way definitely helps like and we tell the kids like watching film is like you're taking the test on Friday.
We're giving you the answer sheet here on over the weekend on Monday to prepare and get ready for it and like everything that that team is going to do like they've shown it on that film and the more you watch it, the better prepared you're going to be for it.
So
in the moment of I can think of a couple moments in life that sports or otherwise where you know what's coming but
the moment's gone.
So if you're not reacting quickly and using that knowledge you have, that's that's an incredible combination of skills there.
That's pretty awesome to hear showing up even in the tough moments.
So a lot of a lot of bright spots on defense and in general for the team.
And that game is Thursday this week or we have Friday Friday this week.
I see I told you I'm not behind the eight ball this week.
You give me one day off and I take a mental vacation a month long.
So we've got coach Simone here with us high school football coach for the Schwamagen school district.
They're playing
Phillips this Friday and that game is going to be on the airwaves.
I think we've got that one right on 98 Q country.
I'll double check that and I'll let you know on the other side of eight o'clock.
Coach, any more shout outs or anything else you want to touch on before we wrap up this hour?
I
don't think in particular just looking forward to a great opportunity to show what we've got here on Friday.
Be there
See, I got that
Home opener, so you can be there in the stands.
You can listen on our Civic Media app, support the team, check out that schedule on our website.
You'll be more informed than I clearly am on a Tuesday morning.
If you go and check out 98QCountry.com, our sports broadcast schedule is on the right side, and you can even listen from there on Friday when we bring you the game.
Just hit that big old play button.
I have got to prep for what's coming because it shows when I don't.
Coach Simone, thank you so much for being here on a Tuesday.
day.
Thank you so much for having me.
We'll talk to you again soon.
But first we've got a message from our sponsors.
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