Financial Advisors React to Their FAVORITE Finance Creators

Introduction – Friends in Finance (0:00)

Brian: Zippity doo dah. I hear we got some content creators that work in the financial space that we actually know and love today.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited to see what some of our friends have to say about personal finance.

Home Affordability Calculator (0:12)

Video Clip – Humphrey Yang: What home price can you buy with your salary? So, if you look at this table, I used a 6% 30-year mortgage rate and then I calculated the mortgage payment that you could expect and then I just backed into what your salary should be for different home prices. For example, on a $400,000 home, the monthly mortgage payment is $2,631 per month, which means that the suggested salary is $112,750 using the 28% rule of home buying for comfortable affordability. This payment column does include property taxes and insurance monthly. And I also assume that you had a 20% down payment. So, I think that this shows that home ownership in America is really tough because the median price of a home in America, as of the latest data, was $410,000. The median household income is around $84,000 per year, which means that the median household income cannot afford you a median-priced home anymore in America. And in other regions, it’s even harder. So, in San Francisco, the median priced home was $1.39 million as of 2026. And just to show you the salary suggestion to buy a high-end home, here’s a table for these homes. Now, what you can afford is not the same as what you can qualify for by the banks, and I’m going to make a video on that next. So, if you want that video, follow me for more.

Bo: Wow. I agree with a lot of what he said. We have a slightly different flavor just to touch on because we think when it comes to buying a home, we want you to follow 25/3/5. He said that all of his assumptions assumed a 20% down payment, but this is a first-time home. We would argue that you don’t have to put down 20%. You can get away with putting down 3 to 5% on the first home. We want to make sure that you can stay in that home, that you see yourself being there for at least 5 to 7 years. And we want the total housing expense, your total house payments, not exceed 25% of your gross income. I think we were really, really close, but just some subtle little nuances there on differences.

Brian: Oh, come on.

Bo: He’s about to throw me under the bus.

Brian: We love Humphrey.

Bo: No, of course I love Humphrey. But we disagree a little.

Brian: The biggest shock and awe for me though was San Francisco. Humphrey, let’s get you on over here. Move on over to Tennessee. Hey, we’ll see what we can do with your equity that you probably have in your house because goodness gracious, you know, starting out at a million and a half dollars. That’s a steep price tag.

Tax Fraud Consequences (2:18)

Video Clip: There are very substantial consequences to filing a return receiving a refund that wasn’t legitimate. Here’s how this usually plays out. When a fraudulent return is filed, for example, claiming a refund for tax withholdings that were never actually paid on a W-2, the IRS may initially release that refund as a part of normal processing. Then they match it up with their records and demand repayment of the refund plus interest and penalties. Best case scenario, you have a 20% accuracy related penalty. Also possible, you can get a 75% fraud penalty. And in almost every case, the refund is already gone. The scammer has disappeared and the IRS only looks to you for the money.

Brian: This has got to be a new thing, Bo, with identity theft. You just went through this process to get a PTIN.

Bo: Yeah. Not a PTIN, but an IP PIN.

Brian: IP PIN. There you go.

Bo: That is what you got. It’s a number that you can get that resets every single year. It’s with the IRS specifically to you as a taxpayer that before a return can be filed on your behalf, that IP PIN has to be associated with it. So, if you’re someone who’s concerned that your information has been stolen, that fraudulent returns could be filed on your behalf, you can go out to the IRS website, apply for a PIN. It’s super super quick, super super easy, and it’s just another way to keep yourself protected from fraudsters trying to take advantage of you.

Brian: Yeah. Unfortunately, there’s way too many of those out there. That’s why don’t also sleep on freezing your credit because there’s more likely that criminals are trying to use your credit more than you are as a financial mutant.

From Negative Net Worth to $1 Million (3:44)

Video Clip – Andy Hill: My wife and I went from a negative net worth to over $1 million in 10 years. And smart investing made it happen. During that time, our household income averaged around $180,000 a year. Above average, but far from rich. The real difference was how we used it. First, we paid off our high-interest debt before investing. It’s hard to grow money at 10% in the market if your credit card is charging at 25%. Right? Then, we saved and invested a big chunk of our income each month, stayed consistent, and let the market do its thing. That’s how we reached Coastfire by 40. We didn’t try to time the market or chase the next big thing. We kept it simple, low-cost index funds and ETFs instead of chasing single stocks and crypto. And here’s the part that really stuck with me after interviewing hundreds of millionaires on my podcast. They all said the same thing. Automate your investments, reinvest your dividends, ignore the noise, and stay the course. Building wealth isn’t about getting lucky. It’s about creating habits that keep you consistent when things get uncertain.

Brian: You make the good habits as easy as possible and the bad habits that much harder. Automatic for the people.

Bo: What I love is that there are even tools out there that you can use to make those easy habits even more simple. It’s why we have the Financial Order of Operations so that when you’re doing what Andy says, when you’re saving some for the future and putting that money to work for you, we actually have a step-by-step process that can walk you through what’s the best next use of my next dollar. If you want to get your free copy, go out to moneyguy.com/resources. Check out the Financial Order of Operations.

Brian: Yours just won’t be laminated. It won’t make those cool sounds.

Bo: I mean, it can be. You can laminate them. They can be laminated.

Brian: No, only teachers have laminators.

Bo: There’s only one.

Budgeting and Knowing Where Dollars Go (5:30)

Video Clip – George Kamel: Frugal rule number four. Always be knowing where every dollar is going. I had to defy the laws of grammar to make that rhyme, but it’s worth taking the creative license here. This one is all about budgeting, and it’s a huge part of living that frugal life. By tracking your income and expenses, you’ll have a clear understanding of where your money’s going and where you can make adjustments. And this way, every single dollar has a job. So nothing gets mindlessly spent on big dumb cups or grande iced sugar-free vanilla lattes with an extra shot of espresso and a splash of coconut milk.

Bo: Is that his coffee order?

George Kamel: I’m going to do the frozen pineapple passion fruit lemonade.

Brian: Surely not. Surely not.

Bo: I bet that’s his coffee.

Brian: I mean, we probably have people we could find out.

George Kamel: And then I will do the cinnamon caramel cream nitro cold brew. And I’ll do the grande.

Brian: Oh yeah, look at that fancy drink.

Bo: I love what George said that budgeting is absolutely necessary depending on where you are in your financial journey. What we often see with financial mutants is they start with budgeting because how can you know if your dollars are going where they’re supposed to be going if you have no idea where they’re going at all. So setting up a budget, learning how to follow it, learning how to track it is a wonderful skill set to have. I would argue once you’ve got that down, it is possible to graduate away from budgeting.

Brian: To a cash management plan where you just automatically have the money going into the accounts you want where you can pay yourself first and then live without regret with the rest of your money. But don’t skip out on the budgeting in the beginning. You got to get that muscle memory going.

Dynamic Withdrawal Rates in Retirement (6:55)

Video Clip – Erin Talks Money: This is one of the biggest weaknesses of traditional retirement planning advice that we see online. The idea that you pick one number and stick to it forever. So, we need to get rid of this idea that we’re going to say, “Hey, I’ll take 4% of my portfolio and withdraw that forever.” Instead, let’s use decision-based rules. This creates a much more resilient plan. And it might sound something like this. If my portfolio is under stress, I temporarily adjust. If markets fall below a defined threshold, we’ll call that X, I adjust. If the markets recover, I reset. If my income sources change, my spending adapts.

Brian: I mean, Erin is spot on. I mean, this is the thing is that I think when you’re 20 plus years from retirement, I’m perfectly fine with people using what I call napkin financial planning techniques, which is, you know, you could do a back end to what your number is through the 4% withdrawal rule or multiplying your income by 20, 25% times your income. But as you start landing the plane, you need to stress test what you’ve got going on. And you need to make your financial and retirement plan personal to you. And it’s hard to do that with these one-off things that are very popular in the whole financial media content side of things. But that’s where our job as financial planners, we navigate a lot of this stuff. So you don’t have just one retirement and wonder what your blind spots are. We actually help people navigate this every day.

Bo: Yeah. For the hundreds of clients that we’ve worked with that we’ve helped get to and through retirement, one of the things I think that’s always wild that a lot of the blogs and articles don’t catch is that most times in retirement and in financial independence, the withdrawal rate is pretty dynamic. Very rarely is it static 4%, 4%, 4%. There are seasons and times where you might have 7.5% and then a 5.5% and then a 4% and then a 3.5% and then a 12%. And that’s okay if you stress test a plan to make sure you understand because what you want is you want a financial plan that molds to the life that you want to live. Not trying to mold your life to some stringent financial plan that doesn’t ultimately match what you want your dollars to do.

Credit Cards: Use vs. Debt (9:03)

Video Clip: You should never have to pay any interest on a credit card ever if you do this correctly. Credit cards should be used only putting expenses on the card, getting the rewards, and then paying it off in full by the time it’s due. Most people are completely oblivious to what their credit card balance is. They have no idea how much they pay in interest. All they do is they go and make the minimum balance and think they’re all hunky dory where behind the scenes it’s a dumpster fire. And if you do have to pay interest, it should just be for an emergency only where you need to spend the money, not because you want to go to Coachella and just have a great time.

Bo: And I would argue that if you have an appropriately funded emergency fund, if you have 3 to 6 months of living expenses in readily available cash, you can save yourself from that incident described where you have to rack up credit card debt, where you have to be charged interest. I love what he said.

Brian: Credit card use, credit card debt, no way.

Five Signs You’re Doing Better Than Average (9:54)

Video Clip – JC: Five signs you’re doing better financially than the average American. Number one, you’re paying off credit card debt or you don’t have credit card debt at all. The average credit card debt of a US household is $10,815. So, if you’re actively paying off that high interest debt, then you are killing it. Two, you have a savings goal. Maybe it’s for emergencies or for your next car, but only two in five Americans have some kind of savings goal. Number three, you’re educating yourself on personal finance, which is probably true since you’re watching this video, but 27% of Americans aren’t confident about their overall financial knowledge. Four, you’re contributing to a retirement account. Whether it’s a 401(k), a Roth IRA, or some other retirement vehicle, you are planning for the future. Fewer than one in five Gen Zers say they’ve contributed to a retirement account in 2025. Number five, if you lost your income right now, you could still cover 3 months of your living expenses. This is a clear sign that you’re out of the paycheck to paycheck cycle. And if you want to better your financial health, make sure to follow.

Bo: I love that what he did is he basically, not in any specific order, but he followed the Financial Order of Operations. He was talking about the things that we talk about. Hey, don’t have high interest debt. Hey, make sure you’re saving for the future. Make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund. I love all those things. And he’s a neighbor of ours. So, I was trying to figure out where in town he was filming.

Brian: Well, that’s what I found myself trying to figure out where he was in the community. And the other thing is I’d love to know JC’s storyboard as he was trying to figure out which DIY project can I do for this scene here.

Bo: Wisconsin.

Brian: We’ll do laundry in this scene and then let’s pour out some seed oil here just you know. So, it was just funny knowing JC, just knowing how probably what went into making that video.

Living for “Free Free” in a Trailer (11:28)

Video Clip – Caleb Hammer: Are we in a house though?

Caller: No, my house is my trailer.

Caleb: Why are you still living in a trailer?

Caller: Yeah, because that’s what I want to do.

Caleb: You want to do that?

Caller: Yes.

Caleb: Okay. But I know you like rent land and like a time share thing. Not just like strictly renting land.

Caller: I don’t think so. But that’s because we have different opinions about trailer life. Once I pay off the loan, I get to camp for free. Free.

Caleb: Not free. Free. There are utilities. Remember we went over.

Caller: I don’t pay utilities.

Caleb: There’s no utilities afterwards at all?

Caller: No.

Caleb: Free. Free. There will not be a cent.

Caller: There are $500 a year.

Caleb: Okay. It’s cheap. Not free. Free.

Caller: Dirt cheap for rent.

Caleb: Sure. It’s certainly not getting an appreciating asset. That’s for sure. You also got a lot of critters in there.

Caller: I have three cats.

Brian: I thought you meant wildlife.

Bo: I thought you meant wildlife, too. I was thinking raccoons.

Bo: Glad they clarified that. I think a lot of times when it comes to retirement planning or planning the next season, the next stage of our life, we often times oversimplify it. “Oh well, if I can just get past this singular hurdle, then everything will be easy. Then I’ll have it all figured out.” Even people who say, “Man, I can’t wait until I own my house outright, then no matter what happens, I own my house and nobody can take it from me.” Even that’s not entirely true because even when you own your house, you’ve got to pay the property taxes on it. So, there are always going to be costs associated with the things that we do. You want to make sure that you account for those costs in your financial plan. And don’t have the wrong assumption you’re going to be living for free. Free.

Caller: Free free.

Brian: Free free.

Caleb: Not free free.

Bo: When you’re not actually living for free.

Brian: Well, and I think two things I got out of that video is that $500 a year for utilities and property taxes, that is dirt cheap. He was right on that. And then we got to help Caleb understand that cats, not necessarily critters. When I hear critters, I think of raccoons or squirrels or some rodent. I don’t think of cats. Yeah. Garfield is not in the critter category.

Closing (13:24)

Bo: These were some great friends of ours out there sharing fantastic financial information. I think it’s so important. We have to be mindful of the things that we let into our mind when it comes to how we make our financial decisions.

Brian: Look, we believe there is a better way to do money. If you haven’t gone and checked out our free free stuff because we are trying to accelerate your path to success, just go to moneyguy.com/resources. We will absolutely load you up with calculators, downloads, all kinds of cool stuff. In the meantime, I’m your host Brian joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy Team out.