BREAKING: The Median Net Worth In America Is…

Median Net Worth for Americans (0:00)

Brian: Have you ever wanted to know what the median net worth was for Americans? We got that and much more today.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited about this because one, I love sharing where the average or the median American is. And then what I love doing is I love acknowledging, okay, is that good? Is that where we should be? Or is that a big “needs improvement”? So, I’m excited we get to share that today.

Brian: Well, if it was good, there’d be no need for financial mutants.We’re going to quickly learn today. Let’s go ahead and just, I’d love to just share the number because I want to then build some bones or put some meat on the bones about the context of what does this number even mean? So, the median net worth for the average American is right under $193,000.

Bo: So, you might be thinking initially like, “Holy cow, that sounds pretty good. I mean, it seems like you guys say all the time that 60% of Americans couldn’t come up with $1,000 for an emergency without having to go into debt. And you’re saying the median is $193,000. That must be good news, a positive thing.”

Brian:Well, as we’ve shared when we, because this data is coming from the US Census Bureau, but we know that from the FRED, the Federal Reserve when they’ve come out and shared also, it’s kind of the sibling data on where the assets are. It’s usually in home equity which scares me because we all know you can’t eat your house really. So I want to give some context because there I think there’s three big takeaways when I see this number. The first thing is Americans are not saving enough and hear me out. Here’s what I mean by this. Now I know this is the median for all Americans, 20-somethings, 60 year olds. But if you just took this into account and said if you were a 60-some year old and you had to live off of this money, what is $192,000 provide for you using the 4% rule? It’s right around, it’s actually less than $8,000 a year. So, not great. So, you can quickly see this is not enough to actually provide for your family and your household in retirement.

Bo: And so, then the second thing that we would likely discern from this information is that okay, if the median net worth is around $192,000, it seems like a number of Americans are starting late. They’re not taking their financial life seriously. Because you would think if we have a lot of retirees, a lot of folks in their 50s, 60s, and so on, it would draw the median, it would draw the average up. And yet that’s not the case. And we know from tons of research that we’ve done that the average American does not start saving and investing and seriously consider building for their future until like age 33. So there’s almost a decade early on in the career that a lot of people don’t even start thinking about. And I think the numbers are reflected here in the median.

Brian: I remember when I was meeting with our publicist when I did the book tour and they said, “What’s y’all’s contrarian advice? What makes you different?” And the thing I remember telling her was we think anybody can be wealthy. And what drives me crazy is when I see this data and once again I’m going to make some assumptions because as we’ve already shared this is total net worth and a lot of this is home equity. Let’s just assume that this was actually usable financial assets that you could use. If you were somebody who was trying to just have a goal of $193,000 by the time you were 65, I want to give context of somebody finding out at age 25 that they needed that amount of money. That’s only saving $35 a month. That’s like, that’s coffee and that’s stopping getting coffee weekly. Maybe not going out to a restaurant. That’s the latte decision for like once a week, you know? So, and then I said, “Okay, for a 35-year-old, maybe you’re like the typical American. You don’t discover financial assets until you’re in your 30s, it’s $116 a month.” Now, we’re just talking about, hey, if you just don’t go out to eat once or twice a month, you know, you got enough to actually have what the median net worth is for Americans. And then for a 45-year-old, it’s $347 a month. And so now we’re talking about half of a car payment. And these are the type of decisions that I want you to know is that this shows that Americans are procrastinators. It’s not an income issue. It’s not an ability to build this. A lot of times I think it’s just people don’t prioritize building assets. And that leads to the next point. They just don’t have a plan.

Bo: Yeah. They don’t recognize that having a plan in place, having some sort of strategy around what they’re doing with their money can have a huge impact. And by not having a plan, they don’t recognize that, man, my dollars can be powerful. And one day, if I do this right, I start this early enough, I can actually build up an army of dollar bills that works harder than I can. It can literally do more for me than I can do for myself. But a lot of Americans just kind of bury their heads in the sand and don’t pay attention to that fact. And the longer you wait, the longer it takes for that information to really take hold, the harder the journey becomes. And I think a lot of Americans get later on in life and they just end up throwing up their hands and saying, “Oh, well, it’s too late. I can’t do anything now.”

Brian: But look, this is why I love that you guys are here is we know anybody out here tuning in to a live stream on a personal finance show, you’re not average. You’re much better than average. And that actually shows up. We have a show that’s actually getting released this Friday. Are You Richer Than Your Friends 2025 Edition? And what I love is we have taken the average American, we’ve taken the financial mutant survey show and then we’ve taken the Abound Wealth client data and we’ve kind of created our own little mashup so you guys can get inspired and motivated to know you doing things differently, taking an active role in your personal finance is actually generating tremendous fruit that will just provide for you, provide for your family, and create a tremendous legacy. This show was so much fun to do because it allowed us to compile all three of those surveys together into a singular show.

Bo: So, if you are not subscribed, make sure right now as you’re hearing my voice this moment, subscribe to the channel so that way you know when this show comes out this Friday. And if you want to get a little backstory, a little back information before the show comes out, we also have two other shows that we’ve recently released, one walking through our financial mutant survey and one walking through the client survey. The deep dive show coming out this Friday is going to be a survey comparing all three and it’s super super fun, super super exciting. So, make sure you check that out this Friday.

Brian: Look, I like the fact that gets me so excited about this and it’s once again we were deliberate, but it also, it’s funny how things just happen in this divine way. And what I mean by that is the book that inspired me, there were two books. Y’all know I’ve heard me say this a gazillion times. The Wealthy Barber and The Millionaire Next Door. And one of the things I loved about The Millionaire Next Door is it kind of dispelled all these different counter rules of what the typical millionaire looks like. And I remember being so motivated by how good that data was because it kind of nourished me when I needed motivation to stay the course. What I love, Bo, is that somehow we’ve been able to kind of take that mantle and share the data because we have such a unique opportunity with all of our financial mutants out there in the audience. We have the unique opportunity of we have millionaire clients that we can kind of reach out to every year and find out what they’ve got going on and then create incredible content through your generosity, through your involvement. I do not take that for granted and I think it’s just so cool that our community steps up so that we can hopefully pay it forward and let people be a little bit better with money.

Bo: And our goal is to continue to pay it forward, continue to help you do money better. That’s why every single Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central, we show up right here to do this, to show up for you guys. And one of our favorite things we get to do is we get to answer your questions. We get to speak into the things that you care about. So, if you have a question, you want to get our take, you want to get our read on it, make sure that you get it in the chat right now. We have the team out in the wings collecting these questions so that we can load you up with that. Creative director Rebie, I’m going to throw it over to you.

Market Returns and Future Projections (8:26)

Rebie: Yeah. I’ve got a question queued up from Jonathan V and it says, “With recent high market returns, should you reduce long-term perspectives on returns? I normally project about 8% returns. Do past returns affect future projections? How do you guys think about rate of return projections?”

Bo: This is a really really good question because what Jonathan is essentially saying, hey, we’ve come through this market where returns have been really really good. I mean, even if you’ve been invested in a diversified portfolio over the last 3 to 5 years, you’ve likely, if you have a moderate to moderately aggressive portfolio, you’ve likely annualized some double-digit returns, very likely in the mid teens, which is absolutely incredible. And so given that context, if that is what has happened, should we begin to forecast, should we begin to think about lower annualized returns moving forward? And my answer to you, Jonathan, would be, well, it depends on your timeline, depends on your time frame. If you are someone who is near retirement and you are entering into that phase to where you’re going to have to start living off of these dollars, you’re going to have to start drawing down your portfolio, I think what should naturally happen inside your portfolio is it should become more conservative. You should squeeze the balloon to where you have less risk-on assets and more risk-off, risk-reduced assets. Well, as you do that, the return that you’re going to recognize would likely be lower. But if you’re someone early on in your journey, if you’re someone at the very beginning of the accumulation phase, even if over the next 5 years, the next 10 years, the markets only annualized 5% because we’ve had this long time where we’ve annualized 15%, should that affect your strategy? Should that change the way you invest? May it never be. Because we know that over a long time period, reversion to the mean is a real thing. And if we look at the S&P 500, the broad market in this country since like the 1950s or even earlier, we know that on average it’s annualized somewhere between like 9 to 11% depending on the time frame. So if you are planning on being invested and being in the market for a long time period, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, I don’t think you have to worry about, okay, are we in a really healthy, exciting bull market right now, or are we in a scary, volatile, uncertain bear market. I think you should always be buying and not have to worry about that inside of your investment strategy.

Brian: Yeah, this question was one of those questions that had so many different ways I could go that it all flashed before my eyes because I get sentimental. I think about some of those crazy exercises you and I have done, Bo, where you like to show off with your Excel skills. And we’ve used them on a show. The content team is not going to be able to pull this up, but we actually compiled all the data. I can’t remember if it went back to the 50s or even the 20s, but it was, you had done this beautiful spreadsheet where we had compiled all this data and we even did some asset allocation in there, but then we just did the straight index fund, the S&P 500. That’s why I think it might have just been to the mid-50s. But it was you showed it on an annual basis, you showed it on a three-year basis, a 5-year basis, 10-year basis, and a 15-year basis. And guys, what’s amazing is that in the short term, the one to three-year, it looks like a scatter plot. I mean, you basically could throw darts and you’re going to hit points all over the place when you look at annualized performance of even the S&P 500. But as you start going to a five-year, definitely a 10-year, you see a trend line that just, it’s almost instead of this ebb and a flow or scatter plot, it kind of turns into this wavelength that goes within a very narrow margin. That was truly amazing. And that’s why and Bo’s spot on is that if you are somebody who’s retiring in the next few years, that’s why you do need to pay attention to what type of investor are you, a short-term, are you a long-term? It makes a lot of sense. If you’re getting close to actually using these assets, you need to start diversifying and think about that. However, if you’re somebody who’s decades from retirement, that’s why it’s noise. You don’t even have to answer the question of should I do this because of the current valuation. It doesn’t matter because you’re always going to be buying and long term even the bad dollars turn out to be pretty good. And that leads to the next point I was going to make because I see a lot of people and look, we pick on Vanguard every year. Vanguard comes out with an annual study of what their predictions for the markets and I can’t believe people fall for it. I think it truthfully, it’s a pact they have with the financial media that they’re going to cover this thing because they’ll come out and they’ll say we predict because markets have been so good, stock market’s only going to make 3.5% for the next decade and everybody freaks out and they do all these stories. And again, but the thing is they say it every year because what happens is, and I’m just going to go ahead and ruin it for you. It’s like the Wizard of Oz and you realize, okay, the wizard’s not that powerful. And the fact that there is around 14, 15% intra-year volatility that just happens naturally. There’s a lot of ebb and flows. I mean, just think about April of this year, the market was down 19%. Nobody remembers how short our memories are to how much things have changed. But I see this ebb and flow and the thing is is that the reversion to the mean happens. So you get your teeth kicked in, but then always things, the V-shaped recovery because things are so efficient and how fast things recover. Typically we get back to, yes in the short term good performance will probably squeeze the returns in the coming year, two years, three years, but in the long term it all works out to that 8 to 11% band that I was just, that wavelength that I was talking about. Here let me put another little nugget in your head to think about. I keep seeing a lot of people, you know, I think like Elon Musk was just on Joe Rogan talking about that AI is gonna take a lot of jobs. If you’re nervous about that stuff, this is when I always, and I even wrote about it in the book, the law of accelerating returns, guys. Things are moving faster than they ever have. The economic pie is getting bigger and bigger until we blow this thing completely up, you know, because the robots take over the world. There’s ways to make money off of this. I mean, and it’s actually going faster and faster. I used the Epcot ride, Spaceship Earth for a slide for years. If you think about just going up inside Spaceship Earth and, you know, they’re talking about when man discovers fire and then Papyrus and they keep getting faster and we are moving at a speed right now that I am just confident we’re going to keep making money off of this thing unless something catastrophic happens. And if you want to protect yourself, you know, from maybe your labor impact being, you know, how you make your wages, get your money working for you because there’s going to be ways to make money off of this that can hopefully pay forward in the future to work with, maybe your job doesn’t exist. I mean, these are the things I think about. So, Jonathan, don’t let that keep you from saving and investing. This is actually an opportunity currently, not a detriment.

Bo: On a real practical level, Jonathan, because your question was, “Hey, I’ve been, I generally use like 8% in my projection. Should I, given the market’s performance, do something lower?” I’m going to give you a little trade secret. This is a little trick that we do as financial advisors. We always use really conservative return assumptions. So, even if you think that maybe you might make 8 to 10% on your portfolio over the long term, there’s nothing wrong with when you do your projection, use something like 7%, 7.5%. Go lower than what you think you’ll actually recognize. And what happens is when you do that and you track your annual net worth and you track your trajectory towards financial independence, what you’re going to recognize is, “Holy cow, market performed better than I thought. I’m actually further ahead than I thought I’d be. I’m actually out ahead of the curve.” That’s a much better strategy than saying, you know what, I’m going to go with 12% rates of return. And then if we do go through a period, maybe we only annualize 8%, you’re like, uh-oh, I got to work longer. I got to save more. I got to make up time because my assumptions were too aggressive. There’s nothing wrong with conservative assumptions because what that sets you up to do is underpromise but overperform when you actually look at how your wealth is building.

Rebie: Fantastic. Jonathan V, thank you for your question and it is your lucky day because today—Oh, it’s a tumbler day. Congratulations, Jonathan.

Brian: [Makes transformer sound]

Rebie: So, in case you didn’t know, that was a transformer sound, not a duck.

Brian: Why? Why do you have to clarify that?

Bo: I just, you know, in case I think a lot of people think it was a duck, but only because it sounds exactly like a duck. That’s the only reason why.

Brian: I mean, how many times in the wild have you watched a duck turn from a tumbler into a robot?

Bo: That’s a great point. I don’t think you have.

Rebie: When you put it that way, can you do it again? The sound?

Brian: No. No. It’s like asking, that is like asking Adele to sing after she just gave you a performance and you’re like, “Hey, I didn’t, I don’t know if I caught it.”

Bo: He just compared himself to Adele.

Brian: He did say he has the voice of Adele when it comes to transformer.

Bo: Only on Transformer sounds. I love it. Good to know. Not on anything else.

Rebie: But Jonathan V, if you would like one of these Transformer koozie/tumblers, just email [email protected]. We would love to send one to you.

Bo: Chicken dinner. Wonderful. Nice.

529 Planning for Newborn (17:58)

Rebie: All right, we’ve got another question up next from lavenderm8. It says, “I am a first-time mom. Baby girl is sleeping in my arms.” I love that. Thanks for watching us while you’re snuggling your sweet baby. It says, “Me and my husband are trying to figure out how much to start saving in her 529 account. How do we predict college tuition in 18 years? Can you help her out?”

Bo: I’m going to try not to get on the soap box on this one, but I have some thoughts. You want to go first? You want me to go first?

Brian: Well, I mean guys, there is this all-terrain vehicle here called the Financial Order of Operations. And now this is the thing because you’re holding that baby and it’s a girl. Little girl. Sweet princess. You’re thinking, “Man, I love this child so much.” You can love her so much, but don’t put her college savings before your own retirement savings. This is no different than when you get on the airplane and they say, “Put on your oxygen mask.” I even watch the flight attendants will walk around looking for children so that they can then tell the parents, “This is how important this is. Hey, just in case.” So it’s the same way. So that’s the first thing is respect the FOO. This is a step eight of the Financial Order of Operations. Now that we’ve gotten that basic level, Bo, what’s the next consideration?

Bo: Yeah, this is the one where I want you to apply a little bit of logic and rationale to this. Now, this may be a hot take and you guys may disagree with this, but I’m going to tell you the way that I feel about this. We know that college costs have run wild over the past couple decades. If you look at the cost of education from when Brian came through and got his college degree to the cost when I came through and got mine to what the cost is now, it’s increased exponentially and it’s out of this world. It’s astronomical. Do you remember the numbers? Because we did that. This is years ago. We did, it was me, you, and Daniel. Because what was funny was I think that there was a 12-year spread between each of us.

Brian: That’s right. And for me it was, now we were on a quarter system, not semesters, but it was $3,000 a quarter. You came it was like $3, 12, 20 or the number something like that. Like it just really blown up.

Bo: And so this is my thought on this. Something is going to have to happen in higher education. Some sort of correction will have to take place in terms of the way that college education increases in price or else no one will be able to afford it. Meaning if prices keep rising at the rate at which they are, eventually it’s going to get to the point where you’re like okay if my kid wants to go to school it’s going to cost $700,000 to go to college. Well, that is not going to be economically viable for the vast majority of people and so supply and demand will likely have to take hold where if there is no more demand for it, they have to decrease supply. They have to drop down prices. That’s the way that’s going to have to work. So, how do you reasonably and realistically think about projecting the college cost for your daughter? I would pick some sort of reasonable assumption around growth rate. I don’t think I would do a 13% annual tuition growth rate or a 15% annual growth tuition rate. What I would do is I think about, okay, in the state in which I live right now, what’s it cost to go to a public university? Okay, I’m going to go get the price today for tuition, room, board, fees, all that kind of stuff. And I’m going to say, hey, realistically, what would this look like if it increased at 3% per year for the next 18 years? Or what would it look like if it increased at 5% per year for the next 18 years? And then as parents, what is our goal? Do we want to fund 100% of our kids’ education? Do we want to fund 75%? We want to fund 50% of their education. And I think you pick that number and you kind of shoot for that trajectory with your brand new newborn. And then you re-evaluate and check it on the way because if you start that now, by the time your kid gets to seven to eight, you kind of do an after action. Okay, where am I today? Where are tuition prices? How does that align with what I thought was going to happen? Are we trending in the right direction? How’s my student doing? What kind of student are they going to be? And you can arrive at sort of your best guess, best case scenario of what that’s going to look like. But that’s the way to project, only assuming you are in the correct place of the Financial Order of Operations.

Brian: I was going to give some specialized things that I’ve seen work well. And look, I have a daughter who’s a senior in college. We’ve already paid for, she’s on semester system so we’ve paid for half of her senior year, we got one more payment and then box checked, done. And what’s amazing to me, let me tell you the two things that I thought was interesting. The state of Georgia offered, it was $2,000 a year when she was born, a tax deduction if you did the 529. So that’s kind of where I started off and then at some point I increased it up to $4,000 a year because the tax deduction increased. That’s all I did for my daughter. And I got to tell you guys, I wrote the last check. That account is completely cleaned out. I even had the moral dilemma. I was like, “Bo, is this okay that I’m about to clean this account completely out?” And you’re like, “That’s what it was for.” Writing that last check for, I mean, I wrote the last check of her junior year was that check. And then here’s another little tip I was going to give you was I encouraged grandparents. I was like, “Hey, instead of loading up all these gifts, why don’t you, if you just minimize, because one, you know, babies don’t care what they get for Christmas or on birthdays for a while. And you guys also qualify for these state tax benefits on your own taxes. Why don’t y’all instead of buying Christmas gifts, if you could put $1,000 into a 529 or $300, whatever the number is for your family, encourage the grandparents to do that?” My mom, I think I’m trying to get the number right. It was like in that first two years that my oldest was alive, I think my mom got like three grand into a 529. I’m happy to report that that paid my daughter’s first semester. We didn’t even touch that one contribution because it’s had time to compound for 18 years or you know 17 years, whatever. Well, now she’s 22 so it’s 20 years. It was amazing how those little tiny decisions actually had big results and my mom loved that I got to say, “Hey, you realize you guys paid for the majority of that semester.” That’s a huge legacy paying it forward. And then also, don’t get scared because I think, you know, you’re sitting there holding that baby girl and you’re panicked. I want you to know what I didn’t realize that I think gets left out a lot is how often these colleges are giving incentives to students and that’s why I would encourage something I didn’t know as a kid not having somebody who knew how the system worked. I should have been taking SAT prep courses, ACT prep courses because I didn’t realize how much those standardized tests drove scholarships. We did that for our daughter. We sent her through ACT prep and it boosted up her ACT scores to the point that the colleges started all of a sudden throwing money. I mean, and I think you guys heard I had a, she got an offer of 60% off college because she goes to a private school. They, based upon her ACT scores, they sent a letter saying, “Hey, we want your daughter and we’re going to give her 60% off tuition through this scholarship that we offer.” That made it much more affordable. And I know the state universities do that stuff, too. So do a little bit of prep. I mean that, don’t just let life happen. And I think you’ll find out that college is much more affordable. And also don’t sleep on community colleges for your first two years because joint enrollment, AP, joint enrollment while your kid’s in high school. There are hacks. College doesn’t have to be backbreaking. And also don’t sleep on the fact that I mean I think it’s close to 70% of CEOs of corporations come from state universities. You don’t have to go to Yale, Harvard, or the Ivy Leagues. You can do really well with a good education, but you have to be deliberate about what you’re going to use that education for. Begin with the end in mind. You know, and that comes into play. Now, you got a baby girl, so you don’t have to think about that yet. I don’t want to overwhelm the system, but there’s definitely a better way to do money, and we got you the whole way through.

Bo: Love it.

Rebie: Very good and thorough answer. Lavender M8, congrats on your new baby and I hope that helps you think through her 529 and the future. And we’d love to send you a Money Guy Tumbler since we answered your question. Just email [email protected] and we will send one out to you.

Bo: Did you know that one of, I read this in a book, one of the best things that you can do for early childhood development is listen to a financial podcast or YouTube channel while the baby’s nearby?

Rebie: Called The Money Guy Show.

Bo: The Money Guy Show. If you do that, your baby will be turned into a financial mutant almost automatically. We have primary advisors that were listening to the Money Guy show in middle school on road trips.

Brian: On family road trips, that’s how long, you know, I will say this proof that Brian is the OG. Here’s something that humbled you. You realize it is 2025. January of 2026, I will be a 20 year broadcaster. Wild, insane. I mean that’s why, you’re like well gosh how young are y’all’s primary—No we’ve been doing it that long that you can be in middle school, discover this content, now be so well into your career. Just like a lot of you guys found me yourself in high school. You’ve let me know your clients now. Talking about these financial mutants that turn into the abundance cycle and become Abound Wealth clients is that I mean a lot of you have found us, we were your first source of motivation about money and now you’re multi-millionaires. That’s humbling. I mean, it is that we’re planting Johnny Appleseed of money all over the place. Planting those ideas of knowledge so that hopefully you guys can be a better version of yourself. I don’t know about you. I still feel like we’re just getting started. We haven’t even hit our biggest hit yet. I think we’re still at the beginning.

Rebie: So far to go. I love it. I’m stoked about it.

Brian: We’re going to be an overnight sensation coming anytime now.

Bo: That’s right. The next 10 or 15 years in the making. Overnight success.

Rebie: Oh man. All right. Ready to do another question?

Bo: You see us in the chat right now?

Brian: I did. I’ve been chatting. We’ve been chatting with Humphrey Yang.

Rebie: Humphrey hanging out. I love seeing him pop in the chat. And we did throw a link to our most recent collab video with him if anybody’s interested.

Brian: I’ll say this for Humphrey because he’s out there so he’s listening. Is that we—What’s funny as content creators, we were joking about how we all benchmark off each other and Humphrey, we told him an idea we had and he goes, “I like that so much in two weeks you’re going to see something on my channel.” He released this week. I saw it released this week and internally I sent out a Slack and then one of our video editors sent out the actual because I guess we were on a hot mic or whatever and we had the audio and we just were laughing about internally when Humphrey goes “two weeks I’ll be” I’m like “he told you.” What I’m not going to do is I’m not going to tell the concept because I don’t want you guys to compare and contrast on who wore it better or who produced better content off. I don’t feel comfortable secure enough in myself to say who did it better.

Rebie: I think they were all great. Honestly, all good advice, but Humphrey, welcome. Welcome to the room. Always a pleasure. He said, “I’m sorry.” In all caps.

Rebie: No, I think it like—No, we don’t—That wasn’t a—There’s nothing new under the sun on that aspect. Like, honestly, like we’re all people like Humphrey, Money Guy. We’re trying to get the good advice out there, right? So, of course, we’re going to agree on a lot.

Brian: I thought people liked the dynamic between the three of us on screen. It was kind of—

Bo: I’d run it back.

Brian: I think that people thought it was going to be because, you know, Humphrey’s from San Francisco. We’re two southern boys. I mean, I see in the comments like, “How is this going?” I don’t know. Worked out pretty, you know, we’re financial nerds.

Rebie: You find the funniest comments. Like, you pull like the one and I’m like, I saw like a hundred that were like the best collab ever.

Brian: Fortunately, it doesn’t make me sadder, but I definitely do tune in to the trolls. They stick with you a little bit more.

Rebie: I understand that. But anyway, our collab was really fun. That’s great because yeah, we had one come out yesterday and believe it or not, we have another one, the last video we recorded with Humphrey is coming later this month. So, be sure you’re subscribed. And then be sure to go check out our video on Humphrey’s channel. So, just so much good stuff.

Taking Your Foot Off the Gas (30:38)

Rebie: All right. Question up next from Devo6912. It says, “Mutants will always invest, but can the money guy team give context when people can take their foot off the gas when investing?” For sure. Because you use that phrase a lot like, “Okay, we’re doing all this work. So eventually you can take your foot off the gas.” So like what does that actually look like?

Brian: Well, I mean this is actually the motivation when we came up with the Know Your Number course. A lot of this was because I have realized our financial mutants and you see it in our survey shows as well. You guys are, I mean it’s amazing what y’all build. I mean to the point I worry, remember there’s a fine line between miser and financial mutant. And I worry for some of you, you’re so good at creating money and wealth that you sometimes need somebody to say hey, how about enjoying this? You know you only get one time on this rotating planet. Let’s make sure that we’re bedazzling the basic life, but also as our, you know, this is why Bo and I had to give up our tight wad cards is because I think as you start building up and you reach, you know, the boiling point and you start getting more and more assets, you realize I need to be living life a little bit better. And I remember I’ll never forget, you guys crack me up. I’ll never forget I got to see the animation on the screen in front of me, but I’ll never forget that I had a gentleman write me. He was in his 40s and he was talking about that his family didn’t like doing vacations because they were all sharing a hotel room. They were doing 12-hour road trips instead of flying. And I’m like, what are you doing? I mean, this is when you get to multiple seven figures and you’re still doing this like you’re an 18-year-old that can barely afford peanut butter and jelly. Why are you subjecting your family to this? Let’s start making some blossoming memories. So yes, without a doubt we have some context we can give people so you can take your foot off the gas.

Bo: Yeah. So the question is the win and a lot of this, even that, even the language you use, “take the foot off the gas,” a lot of what we share with you guys are things that we have lived and personal experiences we’ve had and this is something Brian coined this a number of years ago that when you and your wife first started saving and investing you said “baby if we just, if we go at this hard, if we really commit to building for our financial future, in our mid-40s we will be in the position where we can quote unquote take our foot off the gas, we can kind of coast.” And so that’s kind of where the idea came from. And now what we’ve done is we’ve recognized a lot of people need some sort of method or methodology to recognize when that is. I’ve done the same thing with my wife. I’ve said, “Babe, look, if we can just put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away.” And do that for long enough, eventually you’ll reach the point to where you do something like the Know Your Number course. And if you’re not familiar, you can go to learn.moneyguy.com and you can go do our Know Your Number course. But basically, you have to understand what the finish line is. Are you far enough along in your journey that you know what is the life that I ultimately want to live? What’s the lifestyle that I want to have in financial independence? Well, once you can then define the finish line and once you know where you are today, that’s doing your annual net worth statement. Okay, if I know where I am today and I know where the finish line is and I know the behavior that I’ve been executing, am I ahead of the curve? Am I behind the curve? Or am I on the curve? And what we find for financial mutants, especially those who start saving 25% really, really early on, what they begin to recognize, holy cow, things turn out a little better than I thought. Things are moving a little bit more quickly than I thought. Man, I am further along than I thought I would be. Based on where I need to be for financial independence, and based on where I am today, maybe I don’t have to keep saving that 25%. Maybe I can back down my savings to 20% or 15% or whatever that number is for you. I can now take my foot off the gas. So the context for when to do that is when you’ve actually done the homework of knowing, okay, what direction I’m moving in? What destination am I moving towards and where am I on that trajectory? And if you find that you are ahead of the curve or maybe you’re right on the curve with what you’ve been doing, then you can make the assessment, all right, maybe now all the hard work I’ve done previously, now I can allow that to let me move in the same trajectory, move in the same direction I’m moving, but ease up just a little bit. I don’t have to go as hard as I was going. Once you’ve done that, I think that’s when you can have that relief. And then a lot of people, what they recognize is, man, I had this intent, this desire to take my foot off the pedal, but then income kept increasing or life circumstances changed or whatever. And I didn’t really have to stop saving as much or lower my savings percentage, but I was able to live more life. I was able to go on the vacation. I was able to do the home renovation. I was able to upgrade the car, whatever that thing is for you. And because you know you’ve done the stuff you’re supposed to do when you were supposed to do it, you can make those decisions completely guilt-free.

Brian: Well, it’s always a delicate balance. I mean, there’s books out there like Die with Zero and other things that will tell you, hey, don’t worry so much about your 20s, you know, maximize life. By the way, that drives me nuts. Well, no, but I understand what I understand the concept and that’s why I try to be the delicate balance between is because I want you to maximize your youthful years, but you do have to do some work. You do have to make sure you’re leaning into deferred gratification and the discipline because you’re not guaranteed that you’re going to be successful if you just don’t start doing something. And by the way, too many Americans are much too good at, hey, just deferring, not doing anything instead of saving a little bit of today for a great big beautiful tomorrow. So, we’re always trying to help you walk that delicate balance of, you know, give a little bit of today, just a small little sacrifices while you’re in your 20s and 30s. And if you do it right, you’re going to be taking a constant pulse so that you can start expanding your lifestyle so there’s no regrets on any decade. You look back on every decade and go, “Well done.” I didn’t sacrifice just enough to make sure that I was in a good place. You took an active role in the process.

Brian’s Car Lease Confession (36:51)

Brian: That’s a great segue. I was nervous when it would get released and it’s come out and fortunately the comments haven’t roasted me too much. One of my walking Tangent Time—

Bo: What’s Tangent Time and how can somebody find that?

Brian: Well, now it’s everywhere because we’re now even putting them on YouTube.

Bo: I like that it’s everywhere. Don’t you worry, it’ll find you.

Brian: So, I just walk. I mean I did one. What’s funny is now when I record them I’m like was that even worthy of uploading and I’ll sit on it for a day or two like what the heck? Let’s just send it on up to the Dropbox and let the edit team do what they’re going to do with it. But I’ve enjoyed it. I mean we keep putting more and more ideas out there. But I had a confessional video because I have never ever ever leased a car. There was a question in here earlier that I was going to frontline it, but I didn’t because I’ve always driven, we drive cars forever, the wheels fall off and I, you know, it’s just like somebody even in the comments, I read your comments. It’s not a lease, it’s a fleece, and I’m like, yeah, yeah. But here I want to tell people so I love that I got you.

Bo: This is confession for him. That’s what this is.

Bo: I mean, I was nervous about recording that video because I felt kind of because I, you know, I have a no hypocrite policy, but then I’m not a hypocrite because I was just like I said, in my video while I was looking at this new car for my wife, there was this couple that had, because they had two little kids. They had to been in their 30s. They were, I think, younger than you, Bo. And they’re out there looking at the exact same vehicle we bought for my wife. And I’m like, they do not need any, you know, buying that vehicle. They do. Get your kids out of the backseat of that car, go down the street to the Honda Toyota dealership, and let’s put them in the appropriate car because there’s no way they were loading up their 401(k), their Roth and all. But then I think about myself. I mean, look, my wife’s last car, I think it’s okay to now tell you the details because I’ve never really talked about what vehicle it was. And is this okay if I should confessionally share some of this stuff?

Bo: I’m all ears. I’m story time, Brian. I’m here for it.

Brian: My wife’s last car was an Audi Q7. And that car, here’s when I knew that we bought that thing brand new. And I’ll never forget, now part of this is my fault because I’m a 16-year-old at heart and I bought the mag wheels, the big upsized wheels on it. But I remember the first 10,000 miles we owned this car, the light comes on that it needs more oil. And I’m like, what? Why does a car need more oil? So, I take it immediately, drive it over to the service department. Oh, no, no, no. That’s normal. You know, first is synthetics. First oil change is not until 10,000 miles. It’s going to start burning through the oil and you’ll need to add, you know, a quart or whatever or half a quart. I’m like, that’s the craziest thing. Because the Hondas and Toyotas and the Acuras and the Lexus, they never burned oil. That’s a silly thing. So right from the jump start, I’m like, this thing’s burning oil. That’s what type of car burns oil in the first 10,000 miles. Well, Audi’s do, I guess. And look, I have friends that are huge Audi people in German engineering, but I’m just telling you this is my experience. And then next thing that happened was the tires need to be replaced at less than 20,000 miles. I like, who has—and this is my fault because I bought those oversized rims, specialized. So, it is what it is. Soft tires, performance tires, or whatever they are. Then the next thing is what I’m hearing. The next thing was the brakes needed to be replaced when it had less than 30,000 miles. And I was like, “This is the dang-gonest thing I’ve ever seen. You shouldn’t even be thinking about brakes for the first 30,000 miles.” So I was like, “But you know what? Audi’s not going to get me anymore. I’m going to go to my third party guy down the street who works on European cars.” And so I go in there so he can do the brakes. And he calls me up, “Mr. Preston.” “Yes.” “We’re going to need to put new brake pads on here. But we can only buy those brake pads through Audi and they cost”—and it was like an arm and a leg. I mean, it was like thousands of—I’m like, how does, there’s commercials for $99 brake pads, but somehow with this Audi, this thing is like, you can only buy them from Audi. And it’s like somehow a four figure decision. And I’m like, this is once again another, got me again. Well done. And I even remember at one of the service visits, I asked the guy in the service department at Audi. I was like, do you sleep well at night? I really did ask him that. I was like, because this is, I mean, if you look at what y’all charge for oil changes and you know, I was like, do you feel good about this? Genuine feel. I really did ask the guy that because I couldn’t, I was just like what, this is. So, fast forward this brake change, this brakes that, I was right by the way. Cars should not have brake changes less than 30,000 miles. There’s a class action lawsuit and this is where the salt just gets poured in the wound. If I had to replace the brake pads through Audi, it was 100% reimbursement. But because I went to a third party repair shop, it was like 50%. I was like, you son of a guns got me again at Audi. So, I mean, in this thing, by then the air started going out, we just, the repair and every time you do a repair on these European cars, they’re not cheap. It’s like thousands of dollars. Like, I feel like every Honda, Toyota, or Lexus or Acura, it’s like, Mr. Preston, it’s going to be $450 or, you know, it’s going to be this. But with these cars, it’s like thousands of dollars. So, you can imagine when we get to time to buy another car, I was like, are we, we go finally go look at the Lexus? Let’s go. Let’s do the Lexus. Let’s do that one. No, I kind of had my eye on this. And I was like, you know what? They got me. These cars are, they are for people who are wannabes or people who truly have enough that they just can set money on fire. And I was like, Brian, what are you? I’m not a wannabe anymore because I’m beyond step nine of the Financial Order of Operations. I am just at that stage of life that I can set money on fire, I guess. And so I’m going to rent this bad decision because instead of, you know, yes I will lease this car, make my wife happy because you can’t take it with you and money is only a tool. And that’s where I ended up and I don’t love it but she is tickled pink about this car. I mean it is literally she tells me on a weekly basis, it’s very pretty how much she likes this new car. I think she’s surprised that like when it’s like go out to dinner at night she’s like do you want to drive my car? And I’m like no we can take mine. I still, I like my car better, you know. But I love that. But it is what it is.

Rebie: I love that. But that’s the confession. I think it’s a good confession because when you first let the cat out of the bag that you were thinking about leasing, I was like, “Brian, what are you doing?” You explained the math. You explained how much money you had put in. And we all know you followed the FOO. You’ve gotten to the point where you get to spend.

Brian: Mathematically, I think I’m paying less than depreciation on these horrible cars. I mean, I did the math. I was like, “Oh my gosh, is this the racket these companies—this is why you can go buy these cars used for practically free?” It’s because nobody wants the $7,000 repair on the air suspension and all the other stuff that they have on them that these things are disposable cars, which is just crazy for the price point that they are. But I think this is what people do. I don’t get it, but I’m now part of this revolving door of my guess my wife gets a new car every 3 to four years.

Bo: So, if you want to know more about this, right? Obviously, Brian does some Tangent Time. So, if you’re not subscribed here, you want to subscribe here because we do YouTube shorts, but you can also go find us on all of our socials at The Money Guy Show. And that’s where we put it out on TikTok, out on Instagram, and you get to go on a walk with Brian, which is just honestly a fantastic—

Brian: Here’s a question I have, and I think I know the answer, but it’s just it makes me wonder. We know we live in the same neck of the woods as Dave. Dave’s a car person. I’ve personally seen—We’ve seen Dave in Maseratis. We’ve seen Dave and his—I guess he’s buying these cars and they’re just depreciating like a rock and then he’s paying the $7,000 repairs, maintenance. I mean, not that he definitely has the money to set it on fire. It’s just that I know how much it burns me to take these things in for service because that’s where you got me again. I mean, it just gets under my skin a little bit.

Bo: I do happen to know that when Dave buys one of his very nice cars, he does keep it for a long time. So, he probably just says, “All right, well, I’m going to buy this.” And I don’t think he rotates through them. He just kind of keeps it and then adds to his collection, I think, is what happens.

Brian: But the service on these things is not cheap.

Bo: That’s the thing. I know. I know. I’m with you.

Rebie: Okay. I’m with you. That’s why we say luxury cars do not fall into 20/3/8 and you should pay cash.

Brian: That’s right. Or lease them if you have money to burn. I’m kidding.

Bo: A lot of people are dying to know what the car is. Now, you said some pretty awful things about people that buy these cars. I don’t know if you should say what car it is, but there’s just tons of—

Brian: And you know what? Maybe you guys should guess. Maybe you should know. I don’t, just like I waited until we got rid of the Audi before I—I am too embarrassed to say what the car is. That’s so funny to me because it is a car I will just tell you guys I told Bo forever we would never ever ever ever ever ever.

Rebie: Bo is just doing a little internal happy dance.

Brian: This brand of vehicle because I just what I knew Consumer Reports said about them and everything else and then here we are.

Bo: And what’s wild is my wife declares herself a car person like she’s a car, you know, when the people says I’m a car person she’s a car person. You even told me, but—Oh, no. I’ll never be in one of those. Jen is going to be in one of those long before. And oh, how the turntables.

Brian: Oh, no. This is definitely accelerated her getting this car because now I just, I’m the gateway driver. I’ve opened it up.

Bo: No, no. I’m going to be like, babe, we can’t get that one. Brian’s got that one. We can’t do that one. That’s not the way it’s going to work.

Rebie: There’s some good guesses in there, but I will let him guess. It’s up to Brian when he’s ready to say what it is.

Brian: It’s not a G Wagon. I’ll tell you that.

Bo: You should have left that one out there just in case.

Brian: What’s funny is you should have left that one. But here’s the thing. I was at dinner last night with another couple and the gentleman, he’s done incredibly well for himself. He’s sold three businesses and it’s so funny. His wife had the exact same Audi as my wife and it’s having the same problems. I mean, this thing is—and he’s cussing it. I’ve seen this movie before. He tried to convince his wife and I know and I kind of know a little enough to know what he tried to convince her they were getting a Hyundai Genesis because you know he’s, it’s like that’s the person who’s good with money. This is you get a lot for a little and his wife is thinking like G Wagons and other things. It just cracked me up. I could see his pain and he can set money on fire too but it just, it cracked me up to see the plight of trying to make your wife happy while not setting money on fire.

Rebie: This is why you follow the FOO. Then you too can set money on fire if you want to.

Bo: Somebody just threw out DeLorean, which I think is hilarious. 88 times over. Here’s what, I don’t know if you know this. We went, I took my kids to go see that recently. Did you know it’s not super like kid appropriate?

Rebie: You know what? You told me that and then I thought that later that night. His kids are a little young.

Bo: I grew up watching the TBS version.

Brian: Well, the TBS ruined everything.

Bo: It has very different language. You say that and so like the entire time I’m like maybe not for your kids, you know, it was aggressive.

Brian: Two thoughts I’ll add on that is that don’t go watch Teen Wolf again because holy cow that one is a lot spicier than I remember too because I watched that as a kid and you know.

Rebie: I think most movies that you two remember are like not as appropriate for children.

Brian: That’s a Michael—staying on the Michael J. Fox train. That one turned out that way. The other one, this is one my wife and I, I’ll never forget because we host a lot of Christmases at our house and if you’ve watched TBS, you know, Love Actually is a great Christmas movie. And so we’ve all, I’ve always just watched it on TV. So, you know, and we were in Walmart one day, they have like this bin of DVDs. It’s like $4.99 or whatever. So we buy Love Actually and we put it on for the family Christmas movie not realizing there is like a really inappropriate story line that is completely cut out of the TV version of that. I mean, it turns that movie dirty. And I’m just like, how is this even, where in the writing department did they go? This is what we ought to put as a storyline in this? And that’s what like me and Jenna were so much like, hey, let’s go back to like the old movie. Let’s, you know, because some of the new stuff is just too much for our kid. We’re like, “Hey, let’s go back some of the good wholesome stuff, you know, that just has tons of cursing.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, it is funny.” TBS, that’s what you and I because we’re both Atlanta boys. TBS is man oh man those filters they just, they ought to put TBS version, that’s seriously they really should. Superstation. If you grew up watching this on superstation you’ll love this.

Bo: I was talking about my kids. I was like girls, you’re going to love me. Hey remember when daddy did that episode a number of years ago, Mr. Brian, and remember daddy wore the big vest and Mr. Brian wore it?

Brian: Yeah. Okay, we’re going to have to answer another question.

Rebie: I think you need to.

Brian: I do want to say one more tangent thing though. We just did two really intense tangents. Hey, if you have any pull, let’s get Dale Murphy into the Hall of Fame.

Rebie: One was financial related though, so I’ll give it to you.

Bo: Okay, I got Caleb on that one. He’s like the wheels are coming. Let’s do a question.

Brian: Are you sure?

Rebie: Let’s do a question. Question. I do have a question. I’m here for questions.

Plant Closure Job Loss (50:20)

Rebie: It’s from wonyoungkan. It says, “Hey, money guy team. Unique situation. I’m 24 and on step four of the FOO. Sadly, I will be laid off in June of 2026 due to a plant closure. I have about 4 months of emergency fund built up currently. Six was the original goal. What else should I consider?” This is unique because he does have this lead time to kind of prepare for a really unfortunate thing. So what would you have to say to him?

Bo: So I want to give you sort of the immediate first thought that came to my mind. Whenever you go through any sort of significant transition right—job change, loss of job, moving, significant life transition—cash is your friend. And this is relatively short time frame we’re talking about between now and June. So even like opportunity cost that you might be missing between January of 26 and June of 2026, not all that great. So one of the things I’d be thinking about Juan is okay how can I start stacking cash to give myself the maximum amount of flexibility so that I’m not in a situation I have to make dire and desperate decisions. So that’s the first thing. But the second thing, Brian, I’d be so curious to hear about and you talk to people all the time. If you know that a job change is coming or maybe even you just recognize that the job that you’re in or the place that you’re at is not perfect, what are things that you can begin doing now to prepare for that to hopefully make that transition a little more seamless and maybe even potentially a little more quick?

Brian: Yeah. The first two components of this I’m with you is if I’m triaging this situation, I’m immediately saying, “Okay, full stop going to cash with all my future investment.” You know, if I got monthly savings and other things set up, I’m immediately thinking in terms of let’s get cash built up because this is going to give me flexibility opportunities. And then here’s the good news. Maybe you land because I’m going to go into the second part of your question now, but if you land on your feet quicker than you thought, you then have this, your cash reserves are probably too fat at that point. You can go ahead and fully fund your Roth IRA and do other things. This thing, that’s why it’s a moment in time and it’s so short. I’d rather you have access to the cash, get you through it. And then if you come out the other side and you’re better, you can then ask yourself with the Financial Order of Operations, where should my next dollar and more than likely if you got too much cash emergency reserves because you made it out the other side, you can load up the Roth IRA, the health savings account, whatever the retirement plan at the new employment, but at least gives you options so you’re not making desperate decisions. Now, here’s what Bo’s alluding to. Whenever I’ve had big life things, it’s just kind of like I’ll bring this back in terms of when I found out my daughter was, you know, on the spectrum and we needed to go do schools in a different way. I immediately was like, “Okay, what schools in the area can do this?” And it was city of Atlanta had some stuff and I was in North Atlanta, but then it led to all these other life decisions. I was like, “No, I need to be thinking bigger than just what the short-term solution is.” And that’s what I, Juan, I would tell you, think big for a second and say do I need to move, do I need to go back to school, do I need to, you start really looking at all the variables that you have to play with and then put on your 3D glasses and actually put, now you don’t have a ton of time because you really only have 8 to nine months to kind of stick the landing on this. And the closer you get, if the plant is shutting down, the closer you get that time frame the more competition, there’s a bunch of things that happen. But you still can even with only 8 to 9 months of runway, you can still model this out with your 3D glasses on the dream plan, the down-to-earth of what you think will happen. Then don’t skip out on the doo-doo plan. Meaning that what happens if you can’t land a job for much longer than you anticipated? What are you going to do? And that will hopefully be the motivation that lets you kind of beef up the cash, really think about this with clear eyes and level set the mind so that you can actually come out the other end being the best version and best opportunities for yourself.

Bo: And I wonder if even now if you know that this is happening, I wonder like are there opportunities for you to potentially transition more quickly than June? Now, maybe you’re in some pivotal role where you have to be there until the close or there’s some sort of contractual obligation. Know the incentives packages, too. If they’re offering like severance or something, but I think I would go ahead and begin brushing up that resume and recognize if you are, I think you said this was a plant. If you are a worker and there are a lot of other workers at the same level or that look a lot like you from a skill set-wise, I would begin thinking, how can I peacock myself? How can I have a skill set, have something on my resume, have some sort of connection that’s going to make me stand out from all the other people that are also looking for a job at the same time? And the earlier you can figure out what that thing is, and the more you can kind of hone and refine that thing, the higher probability you’re going to give yourself to be able to find another job, find another transition between now and that June timeline.

Rebie: Fantastic. wonyoungkan, thank you for asking the question. We’re sorry that this is on the horizon for you and we hope that helps you think through what your next steps are. In the meantime, we’d love to send you a Money Guy Tumbler. Just email [email protected].

Fear of Spending Money (55:45)

Rebie: All right, next question is from LanceX22. It says, “How can I overcome the fear of spending money outside of bills? For example, vacations that are less than 4K.” We are in the messy middle. We make $115K but only invest 15 to 18% and started late at 34. We’re 39 now with $200K invested. Taking my family on small trips gives me anxiety, but my kids and wife are only young once. How can I get over anxiety if I feel behind?

Bo: You’ve got to project it out to determine if you are behind because one of the things you said is a lot, man we didn’t start until late and we’re not saving 25 we’re only saving 15. Well, what is your plan Lance? Are you planning for like a normal retirement at age 65? Is something in your life going to change? You know, potentially your kid’s young right now and one of you stays home with the kids and the other works and eventually when the kids go off to school, you’ll be a two income house. Like, are there variables that are going to change between now and the time that you get to financial independence? And if the answer to that is yes, have you now projected, okay, what trajectory are we on based on the decisions that we’re making? Because if you are behind and if you have been saving less than you would like to be saving and you’ve accumulated less than you should have accumulated, I think it’s okay for you to feel a little bit of anxiety around the spending. I mean the messy middle is messy because it’s not easy and it’s not super comfortable. And it’s okay to feel that tension so long as you recognize, hey, just because I feel this tension, just because I want to be saving and just because I have some anxiety around spending, doesn’t mean that I have to spend money to do the things that are necessary to create memories with my family. I mean, you’d have to go spend a ton on a weekend vacation to go have an incredibly memorable vacation with your family. And you should assess that. Okay, where are we from a spending standpoint? Where are we from a savings standpoint? What trajectory are we on? Is there any margin in the system? And if there’s no margin in the system, that’s where you have to get really, really creative. That’s where you have to start really bedazzling your basic life. But with young kids in the house, bedazzling is not a super difficult thing to do. At least that’s been my experience.

Brian: Yeah. What causes anxiety is really the uncertainty of, you know, overthinking things from the past, overthinking things that could come. And yours sounds like you’re worried about the future. I always, there’s a way that you can kind of check the box on this is actually do the work, you know, because it doesn’t have to be an uncertain thing that you just keep coming back over and over again, getting yourself worked up and stressed about. Actually put pen to paper, do an Excel spreadsheet, use our tool to Know Your Number to figure out if you’re ahead of the curve, behind the curve, or right where you’re supposed to be. Because then it will answer the question. And then once you know the answer of how far behind are you, you can then look at that $4,000 number and go, “No, it’s just right.” Or maybe we only have $2,500 for our annual vacation budget. And that means more road trips. There is amazing, I think about some of my childhood road trip vacations that were just so foundational to memories, good memories I have. I talked about them in Millionaire Mission even going on time share tours. And for my kids, I mean, I think that they would love, I mean, one of my things, like we were watching America’s Funniest Home Videos last night, and Emory was just losing her mind over those drive-thru zoos or whatever where the camels stick their heads in while you’re trying to feed. And I’ve done those, you know, you probably don’t have those in your hometown, but you can go drive down the street. And there’s all kind of fun little memories that you can do that don’t have to be expensive. But the part that what I don’t like is money issues causing anxiety. There’s a solution on that on you taking an active role in this. Because that’s what if you go talk to anybody about anxiety, one of the things they’re going to tell you to do is write down what it is. So, if you can take the uncertainty out of it, I think you’ll free yourself to not be overthinking or over worried about it because you’ll kind of know where you are and you’ll have instead of just going off the, you know, thumb and finger in the air and how’s the wind blowing right now, you actually will know where the numbers are and you’ll actually know how to navigate it.

Bo: A quick little messy middle hack. I don’t know what state you live in, but state parks are an incredible thing. You know, a couple years ago, we took our kids to Disney and spent a fortune. You know what their favorite part of the Disney trip was? I told you this, the pool. The pool at the resort. And I’m like, “Oh my goodness, we have, we could, there’s a much easier way to get you in a pool than to take you to Disney to do it.” But then, you know, a couple years later, my wife found this like local state park that was only like an hour or two drive away. And the nightly rate, it was like this little lodge and it was super super cheap. It was not expensive. And we literally just drove out to this, just us, no schedule, no agenda, and just walked around on the trails and explored and picked up sticks and threw pine cones. And they loved it. They thought that was amazing. And it was not expensive. So, make sure you’re looking at the resources around you, like local state parks, local splash pads, local whatever that thing may be for you, and lean into those things because they do not cost a lot of money. And those are the things I found that little kids, assuming your kids are little, absolutely love.

Brian: Yeah, I can think about we went, this is earlier in our marriage. We went and visited one of my wife’s relatives who was living in Prescott, Arizona at the time. And I remember we went and did this lava tube that went like a mile into the ground and it was fascinating. Now, we had all the head gear and stuff that we had to go buy at Walmart to do, flashlights and stuff, but there was like, I was like, if this was in Tennessee, we’d be collecting, you know, $50 a head to go in this thing. In Arizona, I guess these things are normalized that you just pull up and just go down into it. So, and it costs absolutely nothing other than the batteries, the extra batteries and other things that we bought for the flashlights, but there’s all kind of cool stuff out there. Get out there and explore. It doesn’t have to be expensive to make blossoming memories.

Rebie: Very good stuff, Lance. Thank you for asking the question. Good luck as you parse through all of this and hopefully make some really wonderful memories with your family. We’d love to send you a Money Guy Tumbler. Just email [email protected] and we will work on getting that sent out to you.

Closing (1:02:20)

Rebie: Thank you as always for joining us every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central where we talk about personal finance and answer some of your questions from the chat. We’ll be back next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central. And remember to subscribe because Friday, the combined survey show comes out. That’s our shorthand for a really cool show where we’re going to use more of the Financial Mutant Survey data and compare it to average Americans, Abound clients and just really lay out all of our findings. I think you’re really going to enjoy it. So, be sure to subscribe, guys. It’s been a blast. We’ll try to get a few more questions answered on the next live stream. I’m sorry for all the tangent time bled into Q&A show today, but we’ll do better.

Brian: I’m your host Brian, Mr. Bo, Rebie and the rest of the money crew. Money Guy team out.