Financial Advisors React to Funny Money Videos

Introduction – React Episode (0:00)

Brian: And we’re back with another React episode. The content team’s been busy at work trying to find some funny content.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited to see what the content team has in store for us. Let’s dive right in.

Finance TikTok Lies (0:11)

Video Clip: Here’s how I made $100,000 in under 10 minutes. The first thing I did—

Person 1: What the **** are you doing?

Person 2: I’m lying about making money.

Person 1: Yeah. If you want to make a finance TikTok, you’re going to have to pump up your numbers.

Person 2: But these are pretty big ones.

Person 1: Pump them.

Person 2: Here’s how I made $3 trillion in under 6 seconds. First, I look at a company’s fundamentals. What was the problem that time?

Person 1: Fundamentals is too inside baseball. So is stock.

Person 2: Those are like basic finance terms.

Person 1: Try these lines I wrote.

Person 2: When Green Line go up, good. Green Line only go up. Money, money, money, money. Jay-Z Bugatti. We can’t just say this stuff.

Person 1: Who’s going to say anything? The TikTok police. Shut up. Keep reading.

Person 2: Line movements you should look out for. The triple wedge, the Ant-Man, the wet otter, and the bagel. I feel like we’re just lying to people at this point. Like—

Person 1: Chill out.

Person 2: No, this isn’t true.

Person 1: Like, we’re not selling them anything.

Person 2: Which is why you should buy my finance course, Overnight Millionaire Money Move.

Brian: This stuff writes itself.

Bo: Oh, so you mean to tell me that everything that we hear on the internet, everything we see on TikTok, everything we watch on Instagram, everything we watch inside the YouTube universe isn’t exactly accurate and in my best interest if I act upon the information given? So, we think that there are right places to get your information.

Life Stages Financial Decisions (1:32)

Video Clip: Get whatever you want on the menu. I got money. You sure we need wedding flowers? That’s a lot of money. We had our wedding, now we don’t have money. Honey, you should go buy yourself a coffee today. You earned it. I don’t know if you should be buying a $5 coffee every day. Stop buying a coffee every day. For his birthday, let’s buy him a hundred toys. For his birthday, let’s buy him one toy. Oh, it’s his birthday. How about we give him a cardboard box? Now that the kids are gone, we should buy a Corvette. Now that we’re retired, we should buy a vacation home in Florida. Now that we got grandkids, we should buy them whatever they want. We got money.

Brian: I feel like that was like the Frank Sinatra song where he talks about his life all through it. We just watched it in financial pro style.

Bo: It’s okay that our financial preferences and thoughts around how money should be used will likely change. So, we should be aware of that as we’re moving through this life.

Brian: You just shined a light to the journey we are all on where there’s going to be a battle between being your financially disciplined self and then let it rip.

Financial Jargon Nonsense (2:30)

Video Clip: How you doing? NASDAQ. Pleasure. Now tell me, are you putting your money into various diversified bubble bonds or more so a singular global volatility fund? I keep most of my viscous assets in a bifocal heritage savings trust. Definitely worth it if you’re thinking of buying a house or a large purchase. Now, if you want something with a moderate liquid expungement margin and fairly deviated dividends, go with a septic IPA. Gives your money some room to breathe and when you’re ready to yank it out, zero gradual deferments. Sick.

Brian: You see, Bo gave me no reaction. You know why? It’s because his CFA brain was actually trying to see if he could turn that into something. You were trying to actually parse it out. He was just throwing big terms into sentences.

Bo: Well, he was throwing out made-up terms. Those weren’t even like real terms. And what I think is interesting, a lot of times people find out I’m a financial adviser. They’ll always come and tell me, “Hey, let me tell you about my portfolio. Let me talk about this. Oh, what are you doing?” And I think they’re often let down to find out that what I do is pretty boring and pretty basic and pretty simple.

Brian: Well, I mean, we’ve picked on dumb doctor deals because sometimes people when they come into money or start making good money, they think that it has to be sexy. It has to have sizzle. It has to be more complicated. And then they find out we’re still talking about index funds and they’re like, “What?”

Meme: And my client is in the back of the courtroom.

Brian: I rest my case.

Money or Happiness (3:44)

Video Clip: Would you choose money or happiness?

Person: Sleep.

Brian: Didn’t see that. That was like a jump scare financially. I had no idea where that was going in our world.

Bo: Well, here’s what we believe. We do not believe that is a binary decision between choosing money or happiness. We think that money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to achieve our long-term goals. A lot of those goals, if they are well thought out, meaningful, and purposeful to us, will bring about happiness. Money might be the mechanism to get us there, but they are not mutually exclusive. And they don’t have to be in competition with one another.

Bo: I like sleep, too.

Brian: Or maybe you just need a nap.

Accountant Dad Jokes (4:25)

Video Clip: Where do homeless accountants live? In tax shelters. How do accountants manage their money? They act their wage. Why are accounting departments the most welcoming? Because they know everyone counts.

Brian: I got one for you. What do you call a bear without teeth?

Bo: What?

Brian: A gummy bear.

Bo: But that has nothing to do with accountants.

Brian: Well, I didn’t know we had to stay on track. I thought we were just doing dad jokes.

Bo: This is you, Brian. These are your people. These are your jokes.

Brian: I don’t make the rules. I just live the life.

Bo: The CPA life, right?

Brian: The CPA life is real. You know, if you think thug life is hard, try the CPA life.

Airport Spending and Early Flights (5:06)

Brian: This is one of my biggest pet peeves when we travel with other couples is that they always are trying to take flights at the world’s worst time so they can save a hundred bucks here. And I’m like, but if you have to take a nap when you get to where you’re going or you lose the whole first day because you’re wrecked because you got no sleep. You were up at 3:00 a.m. to make your early flight. What are you doing? I love that they’re drawing attention to all the coffees, the snacks.

Bo: Now, I will say this, Brian. I’m a pretty conservative traveler. So, I do get to the airport very early. I get there early enough where even if all the computers go down except for one and there’s only one plane leaving, I’m still there in enough time to get to my gate. It’s one of the problems of being there so early is it is easy to kind of walk around and go get the snacks and then get the voodoo donut and then get the coffee and stuff. So, I kind of get this.

Brian: Don’t be that person.

Student Loan Debate (5:59)

Video Clip: Why have you kept your student loans for a decade? How much do you have left in student loans?

Person: Only $35,000.

Interviewer: And the interest rate is what?

Person: 2.5%. With the money that I’ve put in the S&P 500 versus paying it off is up like 30, 40, 50%.

Interviewer: Okay.

Person: Whereas like if I paid off the student loans instead, I would have made progress of 2.5%.

Interviewer: Don’t you think it would be beneficial to your mental health, to your anxiety to have no debt?

Person: Nah.

Brian: That’s kind of cruel that that clip got put in there because I actually can see both guys’ angles and I feel like, you know, it’s like when mom and dad are fighting and you hate to choose a side.

Bo: Yeah. Here’s what I think matters the most when it comes to financial planning is having a plan in place. Some people’s plan has them getting out of debt and moving on to that more quickly because getting out of debt is a higher priority, a bigger goal for them. Others is about optimization and maximization. So you have to decide inside of your world which strategy is the optimal. Is it the George strategy or is it the Caleb strategy? And we don’t think that one is necessarily right or wrong because it depends on your personal preferences. But there are some that are more optimal or less optimal.

Tax Season Chaos (7:13)

Video Clip: Has anyone seen my shoe box of receipts? Dad, how are you? I can write off the dog as a dependent, right? You don’t need to yell. It’s a yes or no question. Jeez Louise. Oh, that we got to get rid of. Taxes is a lot like camping. Leave no trace. That’s a keeper. Hi, TurboTax. Let me just get this straight. Uncle Sam knows how much I owe him, but I have to figure it out. And if I’m wrong, I pay more. How many senators did you need to bribe to make that happen? Hello. Do I want audit protection? Yes. Okay. And my taxes are done. Now I can enjoy February.

Person: Honey, we got a refund. Pack your bags. We’re going to Kalamazoo.

Brian: The way we do taxes in America, I can see why people think this is like a bad skit because you hear about, remember we had somebody come in from Switzerland and they were laying out how the taxes are calculated and it’s done. It is an exercise in are you compliant? Are you telling the government what they already know? It feels like with modern technology, we ought to be able to skip a few steps.

Bo: And look, our tax code is not incredibly straightforward. It is complicated and there’s a lot of nuance to it. So, the earlier you can plan for it and the wiser you can or the better you can start thinking about your tax situation, not just on April 14th, but throughout the year, the more likely you are to set yourself up for success when it comes to filing your taxes and hopefully saving some money on taxes.

Closing (8:31)

Brian: I’m your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. Guys, we love reacting to this type of content. And keep coming back for more. Money Guy team out.