3 Ways to Make Your Kid a Multi-Millionaire

Three Ways to Make Your Children Multi-Millionaires (0:00)

Brian: Three ways to make your children multi-millionaires.

Bo: And Brian, I am so excited about this because as parents, we always want to think about, okay, what can I do to set my kid up? What can I do to influence my child so that they might be successful in this life? And today, we want to share with you guys three ways that you can do that for your kid.

Brian: Well, we talk about compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world. Michael Scott said that. And if you want to see concrete proof, this is so fun when you get to play with calculators and others to see if you just open up time, the powerful element of time. What does it do? And I think about like children because there’s so much content out there where people are saying, “Hey, I’ve got my newborn, you know, I’m going to pay him to be a baby model and all these other things.” So I think it is important if we could go through what these three key elements are and I kind of gave a hint with what I just said. Let’s talk about scenario number one. Lump sum investing at the beginning.

Scenario 1: Lump Sum Investing at Birth (1:09)

Bo: Yeah, this is pretty straightforward. If you say, “Okay, I want my child to be a multi-millionaire by the time that they get to retirement.” You could make the choice that on the day that your child is born, you could make a lump sum investment. If your goal is for your child to be a millionaire by the time they get to 65, all that you would need to invest on the day they’re born is $1,544. Just a little over $1,500 to become a millionaire.

Brian: What I think is really crazy about that is that your contribution is only 0.15%. Remember, we’re decimals when we’re talking about percents, you know, you get that as two, you have to move it over. So if you have thought about what that actually looked like on paper, that’d be 0.00015 of the total value is actually coming from your contributions. The other almost 100% is specifically coming from the growth.

Bo: It’s unbelievable. And so you may be saying, “But oh man, guys, I didn’t catch it right when my child was born. I’ve got a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old.” Well, don’t fret. We have a resource for you. If you go to moneyguy.com/resources, we have a resource called Are You On Track to Become a Millionaire? We actually show this for every age from zero all the way to 65. We show what lump sum would need to be invested at that age in order for it to turn into a million dollars by the time you get to 65. So, if you have a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 5-year-old, 8-year-old, you can go see what lump sum would be required to do that. So that’s option strategy number one for making your kid a millionaire.

Scenario 2: Monthly Contributions from Birth to 18 (2:44)

Brian: Okay. What if you’re one of these people, you say, I want that. I want to spread this out a little bit. I don’t want to do a lump sum. So we even did the calculation and said, hey, what if you were trying to figure out what do we need to save on a monthly basis from the time your child was born all the way up to 18 to still kind of reach that millionaire status? What does that look like?

Bo: Yeah. So, we know that in order to become a millionaire at age 65, you would need $9,274 by the time that you get to 18. So, the question becomes, how much do I need to save starting at zero all the way till 18 to get to that $9,200 number? And the answer, $15 a month. So, we’re talking about maybe the cost of a coffee, maybe two coffees a month to get you or to get your child to millionaire status by the time they retired. I don’t think you know, Brian you said when you were in when you had your aha moment and you heard about what it would take to become a millionaire, I think it was $100 a month. That’s what he just threw it off as a comment is, “Hey, I’m so jealous of every one of you guys because if you would just start saving $100 a month, you’d be a millionaire by the time you’re retired.” And you thought in your mind, hey, I can do $100. Well, now if you’re a parent thinking through this, you’re thinking $15 a month, that’s all it would take that it does not seem like that’s an incredibly difficult hurdle to get over.

Brian: Well, and it’s also one of those things if you think about what is that meaning? It’s back to my math again that 0.33% or if you look at it in the true mathematical term 0.0033 of that million is from the contributions, rounding error. The rest of it is coming from the value of compounding growth. If you want to ask yourself what small decision are you making to build your great big beautiful tomorrow, this is a pretty big one.

Bo: And so if you want to get excited about this or if you want to share this maybe with a young person in your house, again, we have another resource you can use. You can go to moneyguy.com/resources and you can actually play with our wealth multiplier tool. We just showed you, okay, I need to have about $9,200 by the time that I get to age 18. And I know that because of the wealth multiplier, that $9,200 can turn into a million. But if you want to know, okay, if I’m 14, 15, 17 years old, what can the amount of money I have saved up turn into? Go use the wealth multiplier tool and let it be the thing that gets that young person in your life excited about building towards the future.

Scenario 3: Custodial Roth IRA with Parental Matching (5:11)

Brian: So, I like the first two because they just showed you how valuable compounding growth is and starting early. But the reality is for most people, it’s when that kid gets the first job, whether they’re babysitting, whether they’re cutting grass or doing something like that. And you guys know we’re big proponents of offering dollar-for-dollar matching or 50 cents on the dollar. You choose. You’re the employer or you’re the parental matcher because you’re trying to prime that pump. I love the next case when we’re talking about scenario three. What happens when you open up that custodial Roth IRA? Because that’s one of the things. Not only is it good that your child is out there showing some work ethic, but if you can then put it in the structure of a custodial Roth account, it could be tax-free millionaire status.

Bo: So, this is the assumption we went with. Okay, what if your child starts working, gets their first job at age 15. We’ve already established that what you need to do is by the time they get to 18, you need to have $9,274 saved up. So, if you’re going to do a dollar-for-dollar match from the time that your kid is 15 until the time that your kid turns 18, how much would they need to save and how much would you need to save? And the answer, $111 a month. So, if you can get your 15-year-old, your 16-year-old saving $111 a month and you can match that and you just do that until they hit age 18, they will be well on their way to becoming a millionaire by the time that they retire.

Brian: So just kind of to bring it together, that’s $222 a month cumulative. So like I said, you back into, remember when you do custodial Roths, you can’t exceed what they earned in earned income. Your contributions have to be less than or equal to the earned income. But I still think it’s amazing when you look at the mathematics of this. Only 1% of the million dollars is actually yours and your child’s working child’s contribution. And the other 99% is coming from the hard work of your army of dollar bills.

What NOT to Do: Common Mistakes (7:12)

Bo: And but now regardless of which strategy you employ, whether you do the lump sum at birth or whether you do the parent match, there are some things that we want you to think about in terms of, okay, if I’m going to set my kid up for financial success, what are the dos and what are the don’ts? What are the things that I should avoid and what are the things that I should encourage? And the very first thing that we think you should avoid is here’s what’s not to do. Don’t just make your kid a millionaire. I think so often parents think to themselves, “Oh, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to set my kid up and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do all the work in order to get them to where they need to be.” I think if you’re doing that for your kids, you’re missing a huge opportunity. You’re just giving them a fish as opposed to teaching them how to fish.

Brian: Well, a lot of this is the behavioral and the good habits and realize this whole concept of turning like $1,500 into a million dollars by the time they reach retirement. There’s a lot of life that happens between that. And if you’re not teaching good behaviors, good discipline, the understanding and the component of deferred gratification, your child as soon as they reach majority age is probably going to head for the exits as fast as they can. When they either get engaged, they’ll want it for the engagement ring or the first house down payment, they’re going to use it. So that’s why there’s a lot of things in life, but from a thought exercise, it’s always so powerful. But that’s why you got to make sure you do the behavioral stuff and try to encourage discipline, work ethic, and other things. So that way it’s not just, hey, mom and dad, put this money in this account for me. Let’s actually turn it into a teachable concept.

Bo: I love it. The other thing that we don’t want you to do is we don’t want you to try to cheat the system. I mean, you already kind of alluded to this. We see people all the time, oh, I’ve got this brand new newborn. I’m going to pay them to be a model and I’m going to, you know, try to do custodial Roths. It’s not worth it. When it comes to our tax code, there are tax avoidance strategies that are highly encouraged that you can take advantage of, but then there are tax evasion strategies that are illegal. When it comes to setting your kids up for financial success and teaching them sound financial lessons, you don’t want to start with teaching them the lesson that hey, it’s okay to go hard in the gray. Don’t try to get over complicated or overcute with it.

Brian: Well, but don’t mishear me. If you do have a child that, you know, because I think it’s so cool. One of my friends in the community, they have a child probably starting at seventh grade just love going on construction sites with their father working. I mean, so if your child is at a young age actually is doing something that shows work ethic that’s adding value to the business, take advantage of the fact that you can fund these things and do it. We’re just saying don’t have the separation from the mathematics without putting in the behavioral side of this because that’s where I think that it turns into more of a scheme than not only the true benefit but also all the behavioral habits that can come from this and yield dividends many years in the future.

Bo: And then the last thing that we don’t want you to do is we don’t want you to prioritize your kids’ financial future over your own. This kind of flies in the face of what we as parents naturally think. We think we’d do anything for our kids. We’d sacrifice for our kids. But when it comes to your finances, you want to make sure that you are on sound financial footing, that you’ve done the things that you were supposed to be doing before you try to start building their future financial independence or saving for their future financial goals. So, make sure that you prioritize yourself and your well-being first before moving on to the kids.

What TO Do: Teaching Financial Lessons (10:49)

Brian: We’ll echo that with the first point on what to do, which is make sure you secure your own oxygen mask first. Just like they tell you on the airlines, it’s the same way with your personal finances. That’s why if you think about Millionaire Mission, the reason that the kids are step number eight typically is because we want to make sure your financial foundation is in place before we start loading them up.

Bo: And then the other thing we want you to do is when it comes to your kids, we want you to teach them age appropriate financial lessons. If you sit down a 3 or 4-year-old and you start trying to talk to them about how advantageous backdoor Roth IRA contributions are, there’s a chance you’re going to lose them. But if you can walk them through maybe give, save, spend and what we do with money and then you can walk your middle schooler through deferred gratification and saving some for the future and then you can teach your high schooler how to balance a checkbook. I’m just kidding. We don’t actually balance checkbooks anymore, but you can teach them how to operate a budget and know about debits and credits. Then there’s a really good chance you’re going to set them up for success. And it should be a process. Don’t wait until your kid is about to drive off to college and say, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you all about money. Let me go ahead and run you through it real quick.”

Brian: Well, give them the slack in the system. I love we were talking about, you know, if your kid goes to camp and you give them money for food and stuff, let’s see how they do with actually allocating that over a few days. Or, you know, if it’s going back to school time for your middle schooler and you’ve allocated that you’re going to give, you know, $250 to new clothes in the fall, actually let’s work with them on how that works versus just being the unlimited checkbook because that’s the part that and I’ll say even for the older kids I love fast food workers because if you get your high school kids working in fast food or any of those that are highly connected to the public, early jobs, they not only learn the value of work ethic but they also realize how crazy the general public is and if you can learn how to navigate that well that will be a skill that will serve you for many, many, many years and you’re just not insulated where you graduate from college or trade school or whatever and then you finally get your first real job, but yet you never had any experience on how to process this. It is a learning experience. It’s back to you said it great, Bo. You’re not just feeding your children. You’re teaching them to fish. That is the key element to everything we’re doing here is we want to make sure that you’re being supportive but not that crutch.

Bo: That’s right. You want to teach them the things that they ought to do. Not be the backstop that says, “Hey, no matter whatever happens or no matter whether you figure this out or not, mom and dad are going to be there.” It’s okay if you are there and you create a comfortable environment where they know that you’ve got their back, but ultimately you’re trying to teach them independence in small ways at first and then bigger and bigger and bigger as they get out of the house. And then another thing I think that you can teach them is that when it comes to money, it’s just a tool. It allows us to accomplish the things that we want it to accomplish for us. And so, make sure you teach your kids how to save with a purpose. Hey, the reason why we’re saving is not to be rich, not to lord it over people, not to say, “Hey, look how much we have.” But because money is just a tool that allows us to control the things in our life that we want to control. And if you start early and do a little bit of work, you can really set yourself up for the long term.

Brian: And you know, kind of just a few closing points on this is that give them some slack in the fact that they’re going to make mistakes. They are just kids. And like if they burn through the entire camp budget in day one of the camp, use it as a teachable moment. I even think about, you know, there’s nothing wrong when your child gets their first job. If they go spend their money on designer jeans or in my case, like I had a $1,000 car with $2,000 worth of subwoofers and amps in it. I mean, those things are going to happen. But just make sure you’re using these as teachable moments so they can learn the pattern recognition is, hey, I maybe went down the wrong path with this. How could I have improved it? Because it’s that type of analytical skill or that critical thinking that is going to pay dividends well beyond once they leave your house.

Account Types to Consider (16:00)

Brian: Now, we wanted to kind of leave you with a parting shot of okay, we’ve given you kind of the power of compounding growth. We’ve given you the structure of the things to avoid and the things to do. What are the accounts that you’re actually, the vehicles that will actually help you facilitate this?

Bo: Yeah, there’s a couple different options. If you don’t have a specific goal that you’re saving for, but you just want your kid to begin building some assets, you could use an UTMA or an UGMA custodial account where you can serve as the owner, but they’re the beneficiary and they can build money and then once they reach the age of majority, those become their dollars. If you specifically want them saving for college and that’s a goal you want them working towards then 529s are a great option or maybe like in today’s show you want to think about how do I set my kid up for retirement and I really want them to have that long-term focus then maybe you even use something like a custodial Roth IRA that can grow tax-free for not just the remainder of their childhood but even for their entire working career.

Brian: And then the last account we put on here was just if you have, and they keep expanding access and even expanding ages and so forth. But if you have a child that’s got, you know, developmental struggles or special needs, ABLE accounts are something you can go look into. They were set up very similar to the way 529s is that they grow tax deferred and if they’re used for the right purposes they can even be tax-free and they even have some provisions where as long as they stay below a certain size right around $100,000 it still doesn’t even blow up your access to even other government assistance. So it’s just something you ought to do a little due diligence on. But we want to, these all these accounts are very valuable and will help you on your journey to helping your children learn the habits of how to build their great big beautiful tomorrow.

Bo: We love that we get to speak to this kind of stuff. We hope that it’s encouraging to you and that it empowers you to be able to build up the next generation of financial mutants. And we also love that every Tuesday at 10 a.m. we can sit right here and answer your questions and speak to the things that you care about. So, if you have a question that you want to get our take on or you want us to weigh in on, make sure you get it in the chat right now because we have the team out in the wings collecting your questions because we believe there is a better way to do money. So, with that, creative director Rebie, I’m going to throw it over to you.

Profit Sharing vs. Employer Match (17:33)

Rebie: Yeah. The first question is from Andrew Z. It says, “Hi, BNB. I’m 32 and my work does profit sharing instead of a match. For the last three years it’s been 10%. Should I be trying to match their contribution or should I be skipping step two of the FOO altogether?

Bo: Well, you know, it’s important, Andrew, to know the difference in what we talk about in step two versus what I think is going on here with your employer sponsored account. So, when we talk about step two, Brian, will you hold the thing up for me? Oh, yeah. Step two is so valuable. That is free money. That’s get your employer match. So, if your employer says, “Hey, if you put a dollar in, we’re going to put a dollar in also.” Or, “If you put $3 in, we’re going to put in a $1.50.” Depending on how your match is structured. So, if it’s a certainty that you’re going to get that money, if I put X in, then I will get Y back, then you absolutely have to take advantage of it. It’s so important. We even put it before high-interest debt. What’s interesting about what you mentioned is that hey, my employer isn’t doing a matching contribution, they’re doing a profit sharing contribution. Well, one of the unique things about profit sharing contributions is that from year to year, they are discretionary. Your employer gets to choose, hey, are we going to fund this or are we not going to fund this? And oftentimes, it’s not structured as a match. It’s literally just profit sharing, the employer’s going to put in there. So your question around okay if I’m getting 10% profit sharing should I try to match that, that has much less to do with the profit sharing and much more to do with where you actually are in the financial order of operations.

Brian: That’s why this is a pretty kind of nuts and bolts answer is that it doesn’t count as step two because what I would hate for somebody to do, that 10%’s going to happen no matter where your involvement is, how good of an employee and how your labor and contribution goes to making the company more profitable, hence the name profit sharing. But assuming that you and everybody you’re on the team with are all working the same way, whether you fund that or not, you’re getting the 10%. So, I would skip step two if there’s no true employer match because what if you had credit card debt? What if you’ve got some type of auto debt or credit card debt? It would be ridiculous if you’re trying to match your employer all the way up to 10% while you’re still paying 20% credit card interest. It just mathematically doesn’t work. So, I love the thought, you know, because y’all have heard me tell stories that, you know, if you ever go try out for something or you’re going into the military, go pace yourself off the fastest person, even if it’s going to make you throw up and get sick. But that doesn’t mean in this situation, since the money is going to come either way, there’s no reason to go stress yourself out trying to get to 10% when you might have other stuff. Now look, by the time you get to financial order of operations, because when you go to moneyguy.com/resources, play it on out. You pay off the credit card debt. Now we want you to have the emergency reserves. What if you got laid off? What if you lost this great job? That’s where emergency reserves going to kick in. So you have that three to six months and then by all means, we get to step five. I want you to go hog wild and try to get into the Roth IRA and then get your health savings accounts and then even transition into step six where we’re even loading up those retirement accounts even more. So, that’s where you want to pace yourself is when you get into those steps five and six. But in the beginning, we got to make sure your financial foundation is actually intact and going to protect you from the things that you just don’t know are coming.

Rebie: It’s great. Yeah, good stuff. Moneyguy.com/resources if you want to download your own copy of the financial order of operations or the FOO as we lovingly call it around here. Thank you to Andrew Z for that question.

Figuring Out Retirement Burn Rate (22:49)

Rebie: Leeanda J has a question for you. It says, “My husband and I are starting the know your number course,” which is great. I love it. “Any tips on how to figure out an accurate monthly burn rate when we don’t know how it will change after leaving the messy middle?” And I think this is an interesting question, right? Like when you’re in retirement, are you going to be spending the same that you are now? How do you guys think about that?

Bo: Yeah. So, what often happens is when the kids are in the house and when they’re young, we end up spending a lot of money on them, on the activities they have and all that kind of stuff. And then they kind of grow up and they get more expensive because you buy more expensive things for them. But then they ultimately leave the house and then in theory your expenses might go down. One of the things that I ask you to think about, Leeanda, is if you were to fast forward, you know, what you’re spending now in the messy middle, when you get to retirement, do you think that your expenses are actually going to drop? So, I’m spending X dollars now and I’m going to spend X minus messy middle when I get to retirement or is it more likely that your expenses might stay the same, but you may replace that messy middle spending with other types of spending. Maybe this is the travel. Maybe this is the going to visit the kids. Maybe this is the upgrading the car, upgrading the house or whatever those things may be for you. I would think through realistically, okay, what do we think our lifestyle will look like? And now, here’s what we see a lot of times with clients. If someone is pretty accustomed to a lifestyle here, they often don’t retire and reach financial independence and just jump their lifestyle way up. It’s pretty much status quo, albeit they’re doing other different things like traveling and spending money. And so if you have a good idea of what you spend now and how comfortable your spending is now, I would think through, okay, is that a realistic number I should use in the know your number course for future expenses or should I increase it or should I decrease it based on the type of life that I want to live?

Brian: I’m going to answer this. First of all, I understand that she’s asking for in future purposes specifically when you’re using the know your number course, but I do want to tell people when you’re just trying to figure out what your monthly budget is, there’s nothing wrong with tracking that through traditional means, you know, essentially keeping up with the receipts and other things, using apps like You Need a Budget. But then to get to her question, because I love that we have this now with the lens of this is the know your number course. I like the thought of daydreaming and then modeling them. And we do this with clients all the time is that as they’re trying to figure out what does retirement look like. Why not, because you have the tool you have the know your number tool which is going to be this formulas and calculations that you can pull the different levers and see how it impacts. And I love you could, because that way just like I have the 3D glasses when you’re making big life decisions. You could do the exact same thing with your future retirement because we all know that retirement also is going to in the early years going to be those go-go years. You might actually spend more money in those first few years of retirement than you were making just because you have so much free time. You’re hot and heavy to go travel. You’ve got some big purchases you might be making. So but then we know as you get later years you might not be spending as much. There’s nothing wrong with you daydreaming a little bit. Maybe even doing a date night, coming up with the scenarios of what you think your retirement might look like and then model each one of those scenarios within the know your number tool. And you will figure out very quickly kind of the different visions for what the future could be. You could have a barebones minimal, you could have lavish, and then you could have what you think is going to happen. That’s even better than because normally in the 3D I say don’t skip the doo-doo plan, but in this one since you’re daydreaming, it could be much better than having to do, you know, an all hands on deck. Everything didn’t work out.

Bo: I love it. Another thing I love hearing is I love hearing that you and your husband are doing it together, that y’all are making this an activity. We’re actually going to dream and vision cast for your combined future. What an awesome way to make sure you stay on the same page, especially in the messy middle because I don’t know about you, Rebie, in the messy middle there’s a thousand different things that can pull us in a thousand different directions. So, if you can stay grounded on, hey, here’s the ultimate goal that we’re working towards. Here’s why we’re making the money decisions that we’re making and you do that collectively and you revisit that, it will help you stay calibrated and pointed towards those goals.

Rebie: Absolutely, Leeanda. Great question. I hope that helps you guys as you go through the know your number course. If anyone wants to join them or just see what that course is all about, go to learn.moneyguy.com and you can check out the know your number course along with our other products as well.

Setting Up an Inheritance Trust (27:39)

Rebie: All right, Ryan T has a next question for you. How can I leave a future inheritance to my daughter who is 8 years old that inhibits my ex-wife from having access to it? Thanks.

Bo: All right. So, this is spicy. I should have had a spicy warning on the beginning. This is a nuanced question because personal finance is personal and we don’t know your unique circumstance like where you live and what state laws you’re subject to. So, we can’t give you specific advice. What we can tell you is that oftentimes when it comes to estate planning, one of the things that you might say is, “Hey, I have a goal for my dollars.” And this goal is very, very specific. I want my dollars to be able to take care of this person and serve this person’s needs, whether it be their health, education, maintenance, support, or any other type of expense I want to pay for. And I want to make sure that it happens over this certain timeline. So, if I have an 8-year-old daughter, I want to make sure that this money provides for her while she’s a child until she’s 18. And then even after the age of 18, I might want her to get some access to this. And then I want her to get maybe more access to it at 25 and then more access to it at 30 or something along those lines. If that is the type of structure that you are looking for in terms of being able to control the dollars posthumously to make sure that they are used in the way that you intend. What you often see set up is some sort of trust structure where you have either a trust established that’s funded today or maybe even a testamentary trust which means it’s just establishing your will that says hey when I die I want assets to go into this trust and I want the trust to operate in this way to serve this purpose. Now that’s not specific advice telling you to go do that. You probably if you’re trying to accomplish this goal ought to meet with an estate attorney and lay out those specific goals and they will tell you in your state what’s the most likely way to be able to accomplish those goals.

Brian: Well, I think it because at first when I read this is like, woo, that’s kind of spicy. But this is not too different than we have a lot of our clients or I’ve had this asked of me so much that it seems more common place where people have adult children and they’ll say, “Hey, I want to make sure that this money I’m leaving behind, I don’t like my in-law, meaning daughter-in-law, son-in-law, you know, replace whatever version it is.” But I want to make sure the grandkids in case something happens to my son or daughter, I want to protect. So that’s exactly what Ryan T, because look also when they first read this like oh it sounds like they have a really complicated relationship but you never know, drug addictions and other things there could be other extinguishing circumstances where you want to have some control or protections because ultimately the beneficiary is your 8-year-old daughter. So, I love the way you answered that is I do think that an attorney likely a trust structure is going to be able to do everything you want. I would just tell you to do the research, do the homework before you go. Just understand you’re wise. You don’t have to speak like an attorney. You just have to kind of know what the intent was, what the purpose, you can communicate that effectively with the attorney because remember they get paid by the hour typically or how complicated the project is. So, the more homework you do, you’ll get the dividend in the bill by it being a little bit smaller. The other thing I was going to say is because just with what we do for a living, I see all types and I sometimes this is why you have to be careful what estate attorney you talk to is I’ve seen estate attorneys who will be overly complex for the sake of being overly complex. It’s like they’re selling you your legal document by the pound instead of by what it does. So be careful and know the why of why you’re creating these complicated estate structures. Because one of the things that we’ve had to deal with is we have parents who create these complicated trust structures while their children were young and then the children turn out to be extremely successful, didn’t use these assets but now they have to every year get this reminder of this grossly over complicated trust structure that the parents left behind. Whereas that money would have been much better served just at 30, 35 it just went to the kids. But they created these very complicated trust assets and it just seems sometimes like were they thinking about what this is going to be like to administer after they’ve left the earth and that’s what so be kind when you design your estate documents and remember you want this to be a legacy of good, not something that’s a reminder of oh my gosh can you believe so and so structured this thing so complicated. I think it takes away so you just have to understand the why and find the right attorney that kind of will keep it as simple and as complicated as it needs to be to meet your wishes, but also be kind to your heirs in the future so they’re not creating a long-term legacy of complication.

Brian: Yeah. Another thing just to remember, and often times parents kind of forget this, is your young children will not stay young children forever. So, while you may put together a plan in place for your daughter right now while she’s 8, when she’s 22 years old, that same plan may not be the one that makes sense. So, oftentimes as you age, as your net worth changes, as your children’s age, as individuals in your life change, you want to make sure that you keep your estate documents updated. It’s not something that has to happen every single year, but it is something you just don’t want to get 30 years in the future. And that plan that you had 30 years ago is still the plan in place. And we’ve seen that happen where either state laws have changed or even circumstances were changed, but what had to happen was that 30-year-old will. So, you want to make sure that you keep that updated and refreshed as you move through time.

Rebie: Great, Ryan T. I hope that helps you think through a complicated question, but hopefully point you in the right direction. Thank you for being here and asking it today. And thanks for a little spice.

When High Deductible Plans Make Sense (35:10)

Rebie: And I’ve got one queued up here from Need a Tumblr. It says, “Oh my god, it’s not a tumbler day.” It’s not a tumbler day. “You would have saved this one for the last question also said, ‘Is it a tumbler day?'” I almost just skipped the name, but I wanted to ask the question, so here we are. Need a Tumblr says, “Hello, Money Guy team. Just read Millionaire Mission. Mind blown.” That’s really kind. First of all, thanks for the Millionaire Mission shout out. Flattery gets you everywhere. By Brian Preston and he says, “I’m especially rethinking HSAs. As someone slightly risk averse, is there anything that should keep you from moving to a high deductible plan?” Because obviously you need a high deductible plan to have an HSA and take advantage of that. So can you kind of break down some of that for him?

Brian: Well, here’s the good news, Need a Tumblr, is that and this is I kind of feel it’s not dirty, but it’s just the reality of planning with health insurance. You can change every year. So you don’t have to. It’s not like there are financial planning concepts, they change over time, but sometimes you get very nervous because if you pull this lever, you’re stuck with that decision for the rest of your life and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, the weight of this is heavy.” No. Here’s the great news with a health savings account. As long as you qualify and have access to that HSA eligible high deductible plan, you could choose it this year because maybe you don’t have any procedures coming up. You don’t think you’re doing any family planning and you’re young and healthy. Rock and roll. This thing might be your benefit. But then fast forward to next year, your open enrollment time comes around and you’re like, “Oh man, this is the year I’m going to load it up. We’re going to expand the family. I know I’ve got some procedures coming up or I’m of that age where things are just going to be expensive because of some test I have to do this year.” It’s completely legal and even encouraged. It’s more of financial mutant behavior 101. Go exploit. You can jump in, you can jump out. That’s why you don’t have to have so much fear that you’re going to screw this up. You just need to do the homework and the preparation. Measure twice, cut once to make sure you nail the decision.

Bo: Now, I’m going to say this, but I don’t like saying it, but I’m going to say it because we love HSAs. I mean, they’re so exciting. They’re like Roth IRAs, but even just a touch better because you get a tax deduction on the front end. And so, we absolutely love them. But there are circumstances where it does not make sense to opt into the high deductible plan, which means that you’re not going to be eligible for the HSA. And we see this all the time. If you have an employer and they’re offering you some Cadillac insurance or insurance where you got to pay like a $10 co-pay and you got a $20 deductible and you got a $30 out-of-pocket max and it’s all employer paid. Well, it would be crazy not to take advantage of that. And there are some employers that will make it that way. And so what you want to do is you want to do an analysis to determine, okay, if I do the high deductible plan and I’m able to save in the HSA and take advantage of that, am I going to come out better? Is there a higher probability that I’ll be better off than if I were to take another health insurance option? But some employers subsidize those Cadillac plans so well that they make it, it is an offer that you can’t refuse. It’s something that you can’t walk away from. And so in those circumstances, we’ll actually have to tell clients, hey, we’re looking at your enrollment options and as much as we want you to be able to take advantage of HSA, this is better insurance and you ought to take the better insurance because of how valuable it is. So, you want to make sure you do that assessment at open enrollment every single year.

Brian: Well, and that the whole discussion is your employer’s paying that cost as part of your compensation. And if you don’t take advantage of that, you’re kind of leaving that money on the table. And look, sometimes these are plans that they’ll have the Cadillac plan that they’re highly subsidized and then they’ll also have the high deductible plan right next to it. It’s just the spread is just not that different in what you’re paying on premiums because of how much they’re subsidizing that I just can’t in good faith tell you, yeah, you should take advantage of this just so you can go save it. But it’s worth sharing those details so once again it goes back to that homework component. Make sure you measure twice, cut once, because this is complicated stuff, but it doesn’t have to be stuff that you don’t get out of, meaning that every year you get to do a do-over and re-evaluate.

Rebie: Love that. Personal finance is personal. So, your insurance plan that’s going to depend on your situation and I hope that that gives you some food for thought and thanks for reading Millionaire Mission.

Brian: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So fun to hear.

Counting Employer Match at Different Income Levels (39:52)

Rebie: All right. Next question is from Ally G. She’s a bit new to the Money Guy Show, which I love. And it’s a great classic question that we all need to be aware of. It says, “Morning. Why do y’all say you can count your employer match in your savings rate if you make under a certain income? What difference does a higher income make? I’m 31 and just found y’all. Love the show. Thank you.”

Bo: Yeah, Brian, how come some people can use the employer match and some people can’t? Why do we say that?

Brian: The bigger your shovel is, the more the responsibility falls on your shoulder. And I just get nervous. Look, life comes at you fast. Like Ferris Bueller. When you’re starting out and your income’s not that high, I mean things are expensive. Housing’s gotten more expensive, everything. So, we wanted to build into our system that yes, when you’re not making a high income, can we take into account that social security is going to probably cover a chunk of your retirement? Can we take into account that your employer and that profit sharing contribution and even that match are probably going to turn into large sums of money? Because what’s the first account to cross into seven figure status? Typically, it’s that 401(k). And a lot of times that’s because your employer’s putting money in there. But now take it and flip the equation. Somebody makes great income. What happens when you have a great income is that a lot of times your living expenses will also balloon out as well. You get closer to retirement and even if you take 70%, 80% of what your income is, it’s going to be big. I mean, if you’re over, because remember our numbers are $100,000 for single individuals, $200,000 for married couples. So, if you’ve been making a life for decades at over $200,000 as a couple, and then you get to retirement and you never saved, how big of a nest egg do you think it’s going to take to replace all those living expenses? It’s going to have a lot of zeros behind it. So, we built into the system because we see teachers all the time that they may never reach millionaire status with their savings accounts, but because of pensions, because of the social security and other things, they don’t need a million dollars. They could be okay with much less than that. But we see people all the time, attorneys and professionals, you know, in specific trades that they had great incomes, but they retire with $300,000. And you’re like, well, how is that? That’s one times your income. How are you going to live off that? So, we built into the system with great income requires great responsibility. So, you don’t have that disconnect when you retire because you’re so far from the social safety net and all those other features. It’s built into what we did with the financial order of operations.

Bo: Yeah. And what we see naturally happen is at higher incomes, if you are saving less or if you’re counting the employer match which is causing you to have a lower savings rate, where that money is going is the lifestyle. So now you’re actually even exacerbating the problem. The lifestyle that you need to replace, the lifestyle that you want to be able to maintain in financial independence has actually gotten even more expensive because you weren’t saving the way that you should. So, we love the employer match. And by the way, it’s still happening even if you don’t get to count it toward your savings rate, it’s still happening. When you do your annual net worth statement, your accounts will be increasing by how much that employer is putting in. But we want to make sure that you are also doing the heavy lifting to build towards the great big beautiful tomorrow that you actually want to have.

Rebie: Did we say the income limits? I was reading the question. I want to make sure you make x amount.

Brian: Yeah. $100,000 for single individuals, $200,000 for household on whether you get to count the employer match and profit sharing and all the other contributions in your savings rate. And where that comes in is people hear our 25% savings rate and they go, “These guys, they’re clueless. Who can save 25%?” Well, you might be surprised if you find out that your employer is doing a 6% match and then they give you 5% profit sharing at the end of the year or something, you’re like, “Holy cow, no. I’m getting back to that more traditional 12 to 15% that I hear other financial pundits talk about.” That’s why I love our adaptive system is that it has enough flex in it. This thing has really been thought through. It’s almost like we’re nerdy and good with math is that we’ve tried to build in the behaviors plus the analytics so you can live your best life.

Rebie: That’s great. Ally G. Thank you for the question and welcome to the Money Guy family. We’re glad that you’re here.

UTMA Tax Strategy (44:33)

Rebie: Next question is from User. Yes, it does just say User.

Bo: How early on into YouTube did you have to be to get like very like not User like 4597342 but just User. Well done.

Rebie: I don’t know. I just see it says User and the question says would you recommend selling funds in an UTMA annually to reset the cost basis as a tax strategy?

Bo: Can you do that? Yes, sure. I mean, obviously inside of an UTMA, the way that the kiddie tax laws, by the way, you’re the CPA. Should I, are you sure I should?

Brian: Oh, no. You keep going because, you know, I’ve been disconnected from actually preparing taxes for probably over a decade at this point.

Bo: The way the kiddie tax laws work is that you can generate up to a certain level of income where you’ll pay tax at a 0% tax rate, then your kid’s tax rate, but over some threshold, and I want to say it’s like $2,600, I’m going off memory, then you’ll have to start reporting that income at the parent’s tax rate. So yes, there’s a strategy where you could recognize gains inside an UTMA below those thresholds, not have to pay tax on those and reset the basis. My question for you is the juice worth the squeeze? Like is that sort of strategy actually valuable or is that majoring in the minors? Because what I’d rather you do is instead of spending your time and effort doing that, think, man, I wonder if I could get my kid to do some sort of vocation where I could open up a custodial Roth and we could be saving more and having more going into it. I just don’t know that the impact of trying to do some sort of basis resetting for that child is going to make a ton of sense. Can it be done? Sure. Is it a viable strategy that you ought to waste a lot of mental calories on? There’s a good chance maybe not so much. Agree, disagree?

Brian: I was trying to see because I grabbed my quick tax reference guide because I was looking to see the asterisk because you have to be careful sometimes with custodial accounts because they’ll have little side rules that can exclude certain things. I want to, I have a little different take with User in the fact that I like the financial mutant thinking. If you can find something a flaw in the design or a loophole, I think it’s great to do it, but I do think you have to put it under the metric of is am I doing all the other stuff I should, the foundational stuff first and is this a sweetener activity I can do? So I’m not going to, I don’t want to say I don’t want to endorse it because like I said, I would need to go make sure there’s not some caveat I’m not thinking about with doing this. But, I like the mindset because the mindset is, hey, I want to maximize my financial life. And that’s kind of what led to Millionaire Mission. That’s what led to financial order of operations is we’re thinking about things like this all the time. Are there little maximizing behaviors? What small decision can I make today to build my great big beautiful tomorrow? Our goal and that’s the point of what Bo is saying is we want to make sure that it exceeds the hassle factor because every decision you make has a cost. There’s a calorie, there’s an incremental decision, you go left, you go right and we just want to make sure that it actually would lead to fruitful results for you.

Rebie: Love that. That was great User. Thank you for the question.

529 Plans: Investment vs. Guaranteed Options (48:04)

Rebie: Alana P is up next. Money guys love the show. Our family invests 20% plus. We have a 3-year-old. I’m looking at 529s, but I’m unsure between investment or guaranteed options. What if she doesn’t go to college? And I think that’s a question that comes up a lot with 529s. If you’re uncertain your kid’s going to go to college, how do you weigh those options and pros and cons? Because you guys are big fans of 529s.

Brian: I’ll give the disclaimer is that we can’t answer, we don’t know all your details. But I think I can give some general guidance that will help this person make the decision is what feels risky in the short term. A lot of times like investing and you look at the historic performance is actually not as risky when you spread out what does it look like to be a long-term investor. And when you have a 3-year-old and they’re not going to go to college for 15 years, it kind of falls in and then what feels safe in the short term actually can be very risky in the long term if you think about what happens with inflation and purchasing power and then the loss of growth that could have come from this. So I can tell you from my own experience is that I used age-based formulas and did even the aggressive-based age-based formula because here’s the other homework I would tell you to do on your due diligence when you look at this 529 even if they have an aggressive age-based system. Go look at the strata of what they do to that 529 when your child is 3 to 4 years from going to college. I think you’ll quickly see that that term aggressive is more of just a placeholder than it actually being aggressive because what it’s going to do when they do those age-based formulas, they’re still going to just like a target retirement fund. It’s going to have a glide path where it’s aggressive while you’re decades out and then it gets very conservative as you get close. I think by the time my daughter was in college, I mean, it was all in short-term holdings even though it was the aggressive portfolio. So go look at that. And I think it’ll help you in your due diligence in answering that question.

Bo: Yeah. And to answer the second part of your question, well, what if they don’t go to college? Let’s remember how 529s work. The way that they operate is you put money in, that money grows tax deferred and if you use it for qualified higher education expenses, you can pull it out completely tax-free. Well, what if that last part doesn’t happen? Well, the good news is any money that you put into a 529 plan can always come out of the 529 plan. You don’t have to pay taxes on your contributions. You don’t have to pay penalties on your contributions. The taxes and penalties are only on the earnings, not used for qualified higher education expenses or K through 12. You said you have a 3-year-old. If you’re going to have other children in the future, you can always change beneficiaries. So, you can roll 529 assets down. You could change the beneficiary to yourself if you’re thinking about doing some sort of post-secondary education or doing grad school or something like that. Or again, worst-case scenario, you can distribute those dollars to yourself. You can pull them out for non-educational expenses. You can pay the tax, you can pay the penalty, or and this is as of recent, there is a provision in the recent tax law changes where up to $35,000 of excess 529 assets can be used to make Roth IRA contributions for the beneficiary. So, you have a lot of like get out of jail free cards there. So, one of the things we counsel our clients to do is when you’re if you’re unsure about your kid going to college or you have some nervousness around that, don’t try to fund 100% of college costs through the 529. Don’t think about like tuition, room, board, fees, books, all of that stuff and trying to hit 100%. Maybe you shoot for somewhere between like a 60 to 80% funding. I’m going to try to save 75% of what I anticipate college being in the 529. And that way if they end up not using it, not needing it, I can employ any of these other four strategies on how to get those dollars out. And at the worst, at the absolute worst case, I pay taxes and penalty on the earnings. But there are ways to get around that, not have to do that.

Brian: Well, I always, I love how 529s have got, if you know, has given out trophies, most improved. It seems like every tax bill that’s come out in the last decade has some provision in it to try to make 529s better. I mean, you think about when they opened them up to where you could do K through 12 education, you know, private education. That was $10,000 a year. Now it’s $20,000 in the upcoming it will be $20,000 a year. I think about the fact that it’s always been made it easy because a lot of people think in traditional college you can use this for community college, you can use it for you know trade school. We even use it for cosmetology school for clients. I almost said patients. I don’t know why. But that’s outside the scope of what we do but it’s there’s just a lot of improvements and then even adding this Roth provision that you said. I mean, that’s kind of cool in the fact that it’s given more and more flexibility. So, don’t sleep on these benefits. Now, remember, it’s back to our whole thing. I want you, this is step number eight, after you put your own oxygen mask on, meaning you have to get your personal finance household in order first, steps one through seven, before you start loading up the kids’ college because they can take student loans. There’s no such thing as a retirement loan. It’s called living in the kids’ basement. Which is good if you choose to do it. If you choose to do it, I love extended families living. That’s one of the hardest things about moving to Tennessee is that we don’t have as much family in the area, but man, do you know how much more valuable it is when it’s a choice versus you remember all those great investments I made in you as a child? I’m here to collect that coupon of living in your basement. It’s different. It’s just different.

Cruise Recognition Story and Big Reveal Teaser (54:17)

Bo: I have a question. You mentioned before the last show, hey, I’m going on a cruise. If any of you go on this cruise, say hello. Did anybody actually say hello on the cruise?

Brian: Now, somebody approached me on the cruise ship. He came up and actually I was coming out of the men’s restroom if you want to know the true technical details. Why share that part? Well, I mean I just want to give everybody the full details is that it was outside of the bathroom though. It was by the stairwell and a gentleman goes, “I watch a lot of your content.” And I said, “Really?” And he’s standing there with his family. Big family there. I mean, I’m talking like I don’t know if they’re cousins. I don’t know if they’re brothers, sisters, but a whole bunch of adults standing around. And I said, “Oh, really? Where are y’all from?” And he had like an island accent, but he was like I think Raleigh, North Carolina. Okay. Only thing bad that he did was my wife wasn’t there. Oh, that’s right. I mean, so she didn’t get to hear it. I had to tell her.

Rebie: Yeah. Somebody got recognized.

Brian: Yeah. So, that was the only downfall to it. And then I saw him again by the elevators like two days later. That’s the thing about a cruise. You’re not exactly jumping on and off. So, you’re going to see each other a lot. That’s why I wondered when other personalities have had cruises for their fans. You know, one who I’m thinking about. Do you think he was just like hanging out by the men’s restroom or was he out by the elevators or was he just hanging out in his room? I’ve often wondered these are the things that make me go hmm.

Bo: Funny first time the person you’re thinking of first time we met him was in a men’s restroom. That was the very first time bathroom story there too.

Rebie: I actually thought of that too. I was like you have a lot of like I was just coming out of the bathroom by the way stories.

Brian: I will, I have had somebody say something to me in the bathroom before and don’t do that. I mean I like when people come and talk to us, but bathroom I’m a little weird about. It’s just wait till you’re outside. Let’s get outside the doors. Something about that threshold outside the bathroom.

Rebie: That’s hilarious. Good to know. Good to know.

Brian: Yeah, but even if a celebrity is talking to you, it’s still awkward. That shows how this rule for me is because I ran into that person you’re talking about. We had a conversation and I was like, “This is so weird. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. So weird. Don’t like this.” And then they told me I’m lucky that his wife didn’t come in there because she comes in that bathroom all the time, too. Somebody told me that.

Rebie: Oh, you mean the celebrity.

Bo: The celebrity. I was thinking the cruise.

Brian: That facility is nice. That facility is nice. The whole makeup area and everything. So I understand.

Rebie: Okay. I’m tracking with you. I thought he was talking about the cruise. I was like, “What? I don’t know. I didn’t track.”

Bo: Oh, that’s awesome. Hey, you know what? We’re happy to have you back. We missed you. We’re happy that you’re back. It doesn’t it feel better when the crew’s all together? I really mean it.

Brian: Utopia of the Seas because I haven’t been on Royal Caribbean in probably a decade. That ship, if you like shows, it’ll knock it out of the park. I mean, their ice skating show was just chef’s kiss. The Aqua 2 show or it’s this dive show but dance show and by the way the splash zone I’m so glad because most shows we try to sit as close because you it’s one of the few places if you’re going to go see a really good show you can get really close and not have to pay a fortune because it’s open seating. Don’t do that on the Aqua show because they I mean they just were dousing everybody in the first three rows. Yeah it was great. It was really good. I will say one unique fact about me, never went through the buffet line. I never got to see what the Windjammer looked like on Utopia of the Seas. We just tore up the specialty dining package.

Bo: Was this show sponsored? We were, this was not, we were, this is not sponsored by Utopia of the Seas.

Brian: No, definitely not sponsored by them yet.

Bo: I see, Rebie, I keep seeing one more question in the chat. It keeps coming up. Should we tune in next week at 10:00 a.m. to see if that one’s coming?

Brian: Did somebody go out to ask you what you bench press?

Bo: Oh, no. That one does appear. I have not seen that one today, though. No, this one’s much, this one was for you, Brian. This one’s much spicier and much more interesting than that. But you know what? Should we check in next Tuesday at 10 a.m.? Check in next Tuesday at 10 a.m. if you want to hear the answer to the question in the chat that keeps coming up over and over and over.

Rebie: Do you want to tell people in case they’re listening and can’t see the chat? What are you trying to build? Including your co-host that doesn’t see the chat, including Brian.

Bo: There just seems to be a lot of questions coming in about your home and your mortgage and…

Rebie: Oh, and we will talk about it.

Brian: Oh, I’ve got the answer for you because of course.

Rebie: Don’t give it away.

Brian: What? No, I’ll tell you later. Next Tuesday, 10 a.m.

Bo: Next Tuesday, 10 a.m. or be square.

Closing Thoughts (59:10)

Rebie: Love it. And in the meantime, while you’re waiting for that big reveal, next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central, make sure you go to moneyguy.com/resources and check out our brand new compound interest calculator along with all the other free resources that are right there on the website for you. Lots of great feedback on the compound interest calculator. So, thank you for checking it out. Thank you for the feedback and we love seeing you use it to hopefully just give you that much more confidence in your financial situation.

Brian: It is so wild to me because y’all we launched, I knew it was going to happen but we launched it while I was gone and just seeing the numbers of people thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands that are doing it. That’s so cool. That’s awesome. And then knowing how many and here’s just a testament you guys know we ask for an email address. You have to and put in the comments just so the new people know. It’s not like we load you up and we’re going to spam the heck out of you. But it is just so helpful because, you know, as content creators, we’re always at the mercy of, you know, what if you got de-platformed or what if, you know, the mood of this provider or platform changes. The email addresses are just so powerful to know how many of you are out there. And that’s why we take it with great responsibility and we don’t abuse it. But thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t take it for granted because that’s the scary part about being on a podcast that then turned into a YouTube channel and all these things is that you are a lot of times at the mercy of the people who control the levers of those platforms and I just appreciate you guys being willing to share that and that’s what you know it’s all part of the abundance cycle. We’re going to give you as much free love as we can with all the resources at moneyguy.com/resources and then but once you reach a level of success, we’re going to turn the porch light on for you and let you fulfill the abundance cycle and hopefully give us a chance of becoming your fee only financial advisors. I’m your host Brian Preston, Mr. Bo Hanson, Money Guy team out.