64% of Americans Are Stuck Here Financially (Are You?)

Introduction – Americans Without a Financial Plan (0:00)

Brian: Get this. Almost two-thirds of America gets stuck here with their money. Are you one of them?

Bo: Brian, I am so excited because we love showing folks how to do money better. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

Brian: So, we’re going to show you where on the wealth building journey Americans are and how to level up. With that, let’s jump right in.

Bo: Brian, would you believe it if I told you that 64% of Americans right now don’t have a financial plan? And frankly, that breaks our heart. Not because a financial plan is necessarily a must to build wealth. But building wealth can be amazingly simple. We’ve tried to simplify. And yet, most Americans are out there wandering around not knowing what to do.

Brian: Well, I mean, it’s more personal than that. I mean, think about the fact of if you start a journey and you don’t know where you’re going, you’re basically wandering around in the woods. And then here’s the fact, we have an all-terrain system that will help you navigate this. I mean, and this thing is battle tested. 50 years worth of experience went into designing this. It breaks my heart that people aren’t taking advantage of it.

Bo: Well, and I think it’s so interesting is what we’re going to walk through today is where is the average American as it relates to the financial order of operations? And there are some shocking stats in here that I think are going to blow your mind. And the question becomes, okay, why are these numbers so shocking and why do they seem so out of the ordinary? And I think it’s because a lot of Americans on their financial journey, they don’t recognize that there is a better way to do money. There is a system that if you apply the financial order of operations, you can put yourself in a great place. But Brian, a lot of folks don’t do that. A lot of folks take a different route.

Brian: Well, I love because we just gave a shocking stat with that two-thirds number. We’re going to actually be going deeper into stats for every one of the steps of the financial order of operations. But I already know our financial mutants are the our great audience. You’re going to quickly realize this doesn’t add up to 100%. And the reason is because a lot of the way Americans are practicing the use of their money is not FOO. It’s more of that FOO-ish, which we will just go ahead and tell you is straight up foolish if you’re not doing this. But still, it puts a little color to the fact of let’s give you some shocking stats, but also tell how to do money better. Understanding with the backbone and the system of the financial order of operations.

Step 1 – Highest Deductible Covered (2:29)

Bo: So, a lot of you are familiar with the financial order of operations. You know that step one is highest deductible covered. This is the very first buffer between you and life’s desperate decision. So, when we think about the average American and where they are right now, we know right now that the median American has about $8,000 across all of their transaction accounts, that’s checking accounts, savings accounts, money markets, and high yield savings. And so, you may be saying, “Okay, $8,000, that’s great. That must be a net positive, but not so fast.”

Brian: Well, I mean that seems like a decent chunk of money until you all of a sudden figure out that the average employer sponsored family deductible is between $4,500 to $5,000. The average family deductible on a marketplace plan is over $10,000. I mean, some people have a deductible covered, but some people likely don’t have their deductible. And I think you need to know the purpose or the intent of step one is to keep you from making desperate decisions that put your financial life in the ditch before they even have a chance to get out. So if you can’t even cover the one-off emergencies like a medical emergency, it’s already kind of breaking the whole purpose of step one.

Bo: And so let’s walk through why we love it, why we really like step one. The very first, it’s a start. It’s at least something to get you moving on that path towards financial independence. It’s not the very end of the journey. It’s the very beginning of the journey. But if you can just get past step one, if you can just get your highest deductible covered, you know that you are already moving in the right direction.

Brian: And look, we want this to be tailored to you because personal finance is definitely personal. Actually list out what your insurance deductibles are, what all the things that could be catastrophic or emergencies that you’ve bought insurance for. And it’s the highest of the deductibles will get you past step one.

Bo: And just because this is a risk management technique does not mean that cash is trash. You can actually still be a financial mutant even when you’re factoring in the money that you keep on the sidelines. Think about this. We know right now if you just look at your average brick and mortar bank, it’s paying about 0.46% in interest. Where if you go to look at an online high yield savings account, they are still as high as over 3.5%. So, if you’re thinking, “Okay, I know that my highest deductible is $10,000, and I’m just going to park $10,000 somewhere,” holding it at your brick and mortar will make you about $46 in interest, but if you can just put that money that you’re holding in a high yield savings account, it could make you nearly $400, almost 10 times as much just by being active with your finances. So, don’t assume just because you’re covering this risk, that money has to sit there doing nothing.

Brian: Yeah. Just make sure your cash is doing something. Over my career I’ve watched cash, what’s funny is in these high yield and brokerage accounts that you can do money markets I’ve seen it go as high as 6.25%. But what’s funny is the brick and mortars always are somewhere between zero and less than half a percent. So that’s going to stay very consistent. Make sure you get outside of that consistency of your brick and mortars and maximize what that cash can do for you.

Step 2 – Employer Match (5:28)

Bo: So step one is about keeping your life out of the ditch, about risk management. As we move into step two, now it starts to get really exciting. And for those of you that are familiar with the FOO, you know, step two is your employer match. It is literally getting that free money. This is where you actually can begin to start building wealth.

Brian: Free money. I mean, can we internalize what that means? I mean, that’s one of the things when we do 401k presentations, I will say not a single one of us will walk past a $20 bill laying on the street. I mean, we get so excited and then we’ll go home and tell our friends and family about it. But yet, even though we get so excited about a $20 bill, we will pass up on thousands upon thousands of dollars with the employer plan. And look, I have a stat that proves this. 34% of Americans don’t get their full employer match according to Vanguard. And look, we even have a very, very lucrative retirement plan for one of our clients that if you give them five, they give their employees 15%. And we even in those plans where we are trying to constantly just pound it into them that look this is super valuable. Do five to get 15. People just don’t do it. Don’t be one of those people that leaves and misses out on free money.

Bo: And so okay, so obviously why do we love this? First point we’ve already made. It’s free money. It’s literally money there for you to take advantage of. But one of the things we also know from our decades of working in this industry is that employer matches make millionaires. Listen to this stat. In the second quarter of 2025, over half a million people reached millionaire status in their 401k. And for most folks, your 401k is the very first account to cross into the two comma club to cross over a million dollars. So if you’re taking advantage of your employer match, if you’re getting that free money in your account, you are well on your way to being part of that statistic.

Brian: One last point, exclamation point. If you’re dollar for dollar, even 50 cents on a dollar, 50 cents on a dollar is the equivalent of 50% guaranteed rate of return. Dollar for dollar is 100% guaranteed rate of return. Guys, get in there and get that. You know, banks are ripping us off with these credit cards and we’re about to get to that with, you know, 20 plus% interest. 20 plus% interest can’t even touch 50 to 100% guaranteed rate of returns. Get that free money.

Step 3 – High Interest Debt (7:43)

Bo: All right. Now, as we move along in the financial order of operations, we get to step three, which is high interest debt. And this can literally be napalm for your financial life. And frankly, Americans have gotten far too comfortable with this. They’re far too comfortable borrowing from their future self to pay for their self today. We know right now 46% of Americans carry a high interest debt balance. 46% of Americans, one out of two, is trying to use their dollars tomorrow to pay for their life today. And if you are doing that, you will not get ahead.

Brian: Here’s the thing. We try to have a no hypocrisy policy. And that’s why we allow you to use credit cards because we think, hey, credit card use is A-OK. Okay. But credit card debt is a no way. It’s no go land. Because like I said, if you’re paying a bank 20 plus%, you’ll never get ahead. But yet, it does break my heart when I see a stat like 46%. It makes me question, what are we doing here? So guys, understand and be very honest with yourself. Know thyself. If you’re not paying off the credit card and the high interest debt, then just stay the heck away from debt because Americans have with the buy now pay later. Our culture has gotten way too comfortable with all this.

Bo: And so if you find yourself in this position or if you’re in step three of the financial order of operations, we don’t really care how you knock out that debt. Maybe you want to do the debt snowball where you pay off the smallest balance and then you move to the next smallest, move to the next smallest so that you can build momentum. That’s fine. That’s great for behavior. Or maybe you like the math and you want to do debt avalanche. You’re going to pay off the highest interest rate first and then the next highest, then the next. It doesn’t matter so long as you begin to get this off your balance sheet. Brian’s already said if you have compound interest working against you, it’s incredibly difficult to move to the other side of the equation where it starts working for you.

Brian: So, let’s talk about why we love step number three. And this is pretty much common sense because we’ve already talked about high interest debt is working against you. It’s turning compounding interest, which is the most powerful thing working for you, completely against you. But the reason I also like this rule is because it is also allowing you to lean into leveling up your discipline, which is the first ingredient to wealth creation. So if you can lean into, hey, we’re going to live on less than we make and we’re going to be paying down debt, you will be better for it.

Bo: And there’s also a natural thing that happens in step three is it forces you to figure out okay what debt in my life is high interest debt and what debt in my life is low interest debt. And when I recognize that not all debt is created equal I can recognize okay these are the debts that I need to get out of my life but there are debts that may be okay. There are step nine low interest debts that may actually be a tool that I can use and it allows me to begin to recognize the difference in those two.

Brian: And then the last point I’ll say on this is once you can get past step three, it frees you up to use cash flow for more exciting things like actually building money and wealth through investing.

Step 4 – Emergency Reserves (10:43)

Bo: All right, Brian, as we continue to move through the financial order of operations, now we get to step four, emergency reserves. And we’ve already covered a little bit of our cash management in step one, highest deductible. But now we move into our emergency fund. And this is supposed to protect us from the unknown unknowns in life, those things that we don’t know could come our way but could come our way that we don’t want to let derail us.

Brian: Well, I think about cash reserves is so valuable that it actually gets two steps in our financial order of operations. Step one is to keep you from making desperate decisions from one-off stuff. Step four is thinking about if you had an extended prolonged thing like think about if you lose your job. If you’re out of a job, you better have you need to have more than just like $5,000 bucks or $6,000 to get you through that because we need to have a bridge to help you get back on your feet. That’s where your emergency reserves is going to cover that by being your bridge to not making those bad decisions.

Bo: So, even though that is a truth, think about this. According to CNBC, 54% of Americans can’t cover three months of living expenses. Now, we haven’t even discerned whether those Americans need a 3-month emergency fund or a six-month emergency fund. So, the statistic is probably even higher of those folks that do not have a fully funded emergency fund. The fact that 54% of Americans fall in this category mean that 54% of Americans are not prepared for life’s unknown unknowns.

Brian: Well, don’t worry because a lot of our audience is like, “Hey, I kind of resemble that. I’m at the beginning of my journey. I don’t know. Do I need three months? Do I need six months?” A lot of people gloss over this. Don’t worry. Here you go. Here’s a slide that will kind of answer a lot of these things. If you resemble this column of three months, then you’re in that column. You have a high job security. You’re dual income household. Multiple income streams. Easy to replace your job. You don’t have any dependents. You have a flexible lifestyle and you have access to other break the glass accounts. You’re three month cash reserves. Who should think about six months?

Bo: Yeah. If you have low job security, single income household, maybe one income stream, maybe your job is difficult to replace, you have children in the house depending on you, you have high fixed costs, or maybe this is the only liquidity you have, 6 months may be the appropriate emergency fund for you. So, you need to answer the question, say, okay, what do we need to have in place? Because one of the reasons that we love step four of the financial order of operations is it begins to reduce financial stress. I am not much of a tightrope walker. I’ve never done that before in my life. But if I were to walk across a tightrope, I know I’d feel so much better if I had a safety net below me. If I have no safety net at all, the outcome of a bad event could be catastrophic. However, if I have that safety net in place, it protects me from a bad thing turning into a tragic thing.

Brian: Well, you know, for years there’s this study that came out of Stanford where they were talking about what is happiness. And I think the reality is that when you’re talking about the next level of financial freedom, it’s really people having enough margin in their life that they feel like they have the basics covered no matter what’s happening to them in life. That’s where you hear that stat about $75,000 or other things. That’s the income. Well, this is kind of on that same branch of the tree is do you have enough to where you sleep peacefully at night because you can cover the basics without worrying where you’re scrimping and scraping. This is what step four is going to fulfill for you.

Bo: Yeah. It allows you to begin thinking about, okay, I’ve done the risk management part. Now I get to move to the exciting part. And that’s really what steps one through four are all about. It’s kind of establishing that baseline because then when you get into step five, this is where things start to get really, really exciting.

Step 5 – Tax-Free Accounts (14:32)

Bo: And for those of you that know the FOO, you know, step five are your tax-free accounts. Those are your Roth IRAs and your HSAs. This is where you really get to start supercharging your wealth building journey.

Brian: Yeah. Bo, I wish people just understood the power of investing and then investing with that extra oomph of tax-free because taxes are a headwind. I mean, if you think about it, for a lot of people, that can be 30 to 40% of what you have just evaporates through the tax headwind. Roth and HSAs are your counterweight to that. Don’t sleep on this. There’s a reason the government restricts how much and who can participate in these accounts. Get in there and take advantage of this.

Bo: But think about this statistic. Of those that own and contributed to Roths in 2022, in 2022 was the last year of published data the IRS has for this when the max was $6,000 into your IRA. Only 36% of contributors actually maxed out their Roth IRA. You’ve already said, Brian, it’s so good they limit who can put money into it. They limit how much they can put in. Well, even those folks that could put money into it, only 36% of folks were fully taking advantage of it.

Brian: So, if that’s Roth IRAs at 36%, imagine this, you know, because health savings accounts are triple tax advantaged. It’s not just the deduction on your contribution. It’s not just the tax deferral of the growth of the investment. It’s not the tax-free withdrawal when you use it for qualified medical expenses. This thing is supercharged on building opportunities. So, you would think people would be banging down the doors to get into these health savings accounts, but check this stat out. Only 13% of Americans invest in their health savings account.

Bo: That means that 87% of Americans are using their HSA as a slush fund. They’re putting dollars in, taking dollars out. But if you can be a financial mutant, part of that 13%, you can actually take advantage of tax-free growth. And that’s exactly why we love step five so much because it is literally tax-free growth. So many people out there have these aspirations of being a millionaire, being a millionaire, being a millionaire. Well, if you build a million dollars inside of your pre-tax 401k, that is incredible. But when you go to pull that money out, it is not actually a million dollars because there is going to be some tax associated with that. If you can build a million dollars in a Roth IRA, in a Roth 401k, in a health savings account, that is literally tax-free money. Your million dollars is really worth $1 million. So, if you have the ability to take advantage of these vehicles, don’t miss out on that. And we promise your future self will thank you.

Step 6 – Max Out Retirement (17:11)

Brian: So I start thinking about the system, Bo. You know, the first few steps are keeping us away from desperate decisions. The next is debt. Then even we get into tax-free growth. But now we go into step six, which is let’s get serious. We’re going to need to put even more weight in this saving for the future. If we want our money to work harder than we can with our brain, our back, and our hands, we better have some assets on the net worth statement. And that’s where step six with max out your retirement really kind of fills in the gaps.

Bo: Yeah. Maxing out your retirement account is a true exercise in discipline, particularly for high income earners because what often happens is as our incomes increase, we allow our lives to inflate as well. And so we put step six in there so that you can be true to yourself because we know that right now only 14% of Americans with a 401k will max it out. And you may be thinking, okay, well that yeah, that makes total sense because it must be high income earners and these must you have to make a ton of money in order to do this. Well, do you recognize that for the vast majority of Americans, if you just want to max out your Roth IRA and you just want to max out your 401k, so that’s $7,500 in 2026 to your Roth IRA and $24,500 in your 401k and you’re saving 25% of your gross income. That only equates to an income household of $128,000. These aren’t people that are making $250,000, $345,000, $5 million a year. These are households making about $130,000 a year that if you want to be saving 25% of your gross income, your Roth IRA and your 401k will allow you to do that.

Brian: Here’s what I know. I know the rest of the story is that when you look at the actual population that’s making over $150,000 and has access to a 401k, only 53% of those are actually walking the walk high income earners. It’s basically a coin flip is that even with the tools and the resources still approximately half of Americans in this great situation that they should be taking advantage of it are missing the mark.

Bo: And look don’t mishear us. We recognize that by the time you get to this step of the financial order of operations, this may be aspirational. This may not be something you can do overnight, but this is something we want you working towards. And there are a few reasons why that’s the case. The very first is as your income increases, as your lifestyle improves. This is a natural hedge against lifestyle inflation. Most of us when we start our careers, we say, “Okay, I’m going to get the employer match. If I put in 3%, then my employer puts in 3%. Great. Okay, I’m going to increase. I’m going to save 5%. Okay, I’m going to save 10%.” At some point, once you’re graduating away from just thinking about the percentage you’re saving to think, you know what? What would it take for me to fully maximize my 401k to fully do the $24,500? If I can do that, it will naturally tamp down my lifestyle.

Brian: Well, I mean, so much in the beginning is what your savings rate is. And what will amplify even your savings and investment rate is if you can take advantage of tax policies that are helping you to kind of put a wind to your back to help you push this forward. So this maximizes the tax advantaged wealth building opportunity. We want people to really get in there and take advantage of this because this, like I said, when the government restricts how much you can put in and who can put it in, you know, and who can actually contribute, you’ve got to pay attention to this stuff because there’s a reason that they are putting these restrictions and I hate for you to miss out on it.

Bo: Now, we so often talk about salary deferrals. We talk about in 2026 the $24,500 you can put in but for most people actually for all people when you have a 401k or 403b more than just a salary deferral can go in. In 2026 do you recognize with your employer sponsored retirement plan you can have a total of $72,000 a year go in there across salary deferrals whatever your employer puts in and then if you have after tax availability you can even put money into that portion of your 401k so this is a huge savings vehicle for many Americans and yet many Americans are not taking full advantage of it when they could be.

Step 7 – Hyper Accumulation (21:29)

Brian: Yeah. I mean, this is one of those when I start thinking about, you know, are people being tax favored? Are they thinking beginning with the end in mind? It leads to step seven, which is hyper accumulation. Because in the past, like I said, we’re keeping you out of trouble. Then we start doing tax favored investing. Step seven is the first step where it says, “Hey, how are we actually going to use this money?” You kind of begin with the end in mind on actually consuming and going from saver to actually consumer of these resources. And you quickly realize most people just aren’t thinking about that. They’re not even saving enough. The typical median savings rate is 5.3%. Now, how do you compare that to when we’re recommending 25%? You quickly realize, man, we have a disconnect with what the average American does versus what the typical financial mutant does that’s following the financial order of operations.

Bo: Well, I want you to think about that, right? The median American savings rate is 5.3%. We actually have a deliverable out on our website if you go to moneyguy.com/resources that shows you if you look at your age and you look at your savings rate, it shows you how much of your pre-retirement income you’d likely be able to replace at retirement. Well, you can see starting at 10% that is likely not going to be enough for you to save for the retirement you want. And the median American, who by the way is not starting this at 20 years old, only has a savings rate of 5.3%. It’s not even on our chart, a savings rate that low. Rather, we would have you aspire for saving 25%. Because what you can see is that the average American does not start saving and investing until their mid-30s. And if you’re waiting until your mid-30s because life was expensive, it took you a while to get started, you had other obligations, 25% will give you the freedom and flexibility to actually be able to build the future life that you want. So our goal is not for you to be the median American saving 5.3%. We want you to be the financial mutant that actually saves 25% of your gross income.

Brian: Once again, I love how the financial order of operations takes into account not only where you are in life, the mindset, the behavior, but also the analytics. I get it. A lot of people are going to watch our content in their 20s and they’re starting that first job and they’re going to be like, man, I can’t save 25%. You know what, you don’t have to. It’s aspirational in your 20s and the math supports that. If you look, if you go download this at moneyguy.com/resources, you can see 10% for a 20-year-old crushes it. 15% for a 25-year-old, you’re going to be A-OK. So, you can quickly see a little goes a long way in your 20s. But as Bo has already shared, the typical American waits until they’re age 36 to get serious about saving and investing. You go compare this. Look at the 35-year-old. Oh my gosh, it’s the intersection point of 25% savings rate. That’s why guys, get curious. Go download this resource for yourself to kind of go check yourself to make sure you’re in the right place.

Bo: And so a lot of people ask us, “Okay guys, well, what actually counts in this? What falls into that 25%?” And the very simple way we would say it is these are dollars that are going into your army of dollar bills for your future financial independence. So it’s not things like building for an intermediate goal like 529s. It’s not things like prepaying your mortgage or building equity in your house. It’s contributing to accounts like your employer sponsored plan, like your IRAs and your HSAs. If you’re contributing to a pension, you can count that. It’s your employer match. If your income is below certain levels, it’s employee stock ownership plans or employee stock purchase plans or if you’re saving in that after tax account for the future. Those are the amounts that count in the 25%. We want you building that 25% for your future financial independence.

Brian: So I think this is probably bringing it in for a landing on step seven is why do we love this step? I think it demonstrates mastery of discipline. Obviously, if you’ve gotten to 25% of your gross income, you have done something really well on flexing the ability to live on less than you make. That’s something to be celebrated.

Bo: Another thing that happens in step seven for you is if you’re doing this well, it allows you to begin to account for life surprises. We all in our minds have this vision of everything going up and to the right, nice linear fashion. But in reality, life is not often linear. While we may start out with a 15% savings rate, life might happen. It might drop to five and then it might go to 10 and then it might go to fill in the blank. If you can get to 25% in seasons when you have abundance, it’s going to give you flexibility in those seasons where maybe things aren’t quite so comfortable. So, the sooner you can figure that out, the sooner you can implement that, the more flexibility you’re going to give your future self.

Steps 8 & 9 – Abundance Goals and Low Interest Debt (26:17)

Brian: And then I love that we get to bring in the last two steps of the financial order of operations. And this is step eight and step nine. Now, step eight, prepaid future expenses or as I like to say for fun, so you remember it, abundance goals. This is when you get to do the crazy stuff that you’ve always dreamed of doing. And then we got step nine where you’re paying off that low interest debt. There’s a lot of value when you get to celebrating these higher-end steps of the financial order of operations.

Bo: These are the steps where personal finance truly becomes personal. So there’s not like actual stats about the median American here because this is about you and your journey and what you want money to do for you. You’ve likely moved through the stages where you were in the make wealth phase and then you got to the maintain wealth phase and now you’re thinking about the multiply wealth phase. And we’ve already said that in step seven you sort of develop this mastery around your finances. And when you develop mastery, it gives you a level of peace and comfort. And yet, we know this to be true that right now, 71% of Americans, seven out of 10 folks say that money is a significant source of stress. We don’t believe that that has to be the case. We don’t believe that that has to be true in your financial situation.

Brian: Well, I mean, besides the birds and the bees, I feel like money is the other thing that families avoid talking about. I mean, you think about basics of life that you need to know and nobody likes to talk about money. It’s taboo in all kind of other areas. And that’s what we’re here to kind of open the curtain and try to help you be better with making good decisions so you don’t have to have regrets so that you don’t look back and go, “Hey, I made a great income, but I never really implemented or I didn’t know what I didn’t know. What were my blind spots?” I love that we get to create educational content, Bo, to help people kind of try to figure out how to navigate this and navigate it well where not only are you maximizing the analytics, but you’re also when you get to be in your 50s and beyond like I am, where you say, “Job well done in your 20s, job well done in your 30s and 40s where you’re maximizing the memories. That’s what we’re here for.”

Bo: That’s exactly why we designed the financial order of operations to take the guesswork out of it so that you can have confidence amidst your chaos. So don’t let yourself fall into the statistic of money being a source of stress. Rather let money just be a tool that allows you to live the life of your dreams.

Closing – Taking the Next Step (28:56)

Brian: Now look, I think if you take the whole journey, it starts feeling very complex. But the reality is I think in each station of life that you’re in, it’s pretty simple. And that’s why we try to load you up if you go to moneyguy.com/resources and we give you all this free content that we’re out here broadcasting on a daily basis for you. Go take advantage of that. But there will come a point, the culmination point as you start catching traction, you start becoming the CEO of a seven-figure enterprise when you look at your net worth that you ought to start getting serious about the fact that man, those small decisions I made when I was much younger really did create dramatic huge results for me. But I’m now recognizing these same small decisions when I’m now the CEO of this huge organization of assets that I’ve accumulated over these decades. Those small decisions can have huge impacts in a negative. We’re going to leave the porch light on for you. That’s why I’d love for you to consider taking the relationship to the next level. We can love on you at the beginning stage because we have the hearts of educators to help you get there. But once you reach that level of status, I want you to remember who planted the seeds of your success. Give us an opportunity by considering working with us and taking the relationship to the next level. I’m your host Brian joined by Bo, the rest of the content team at The Money Guy Show. Money Guy out.