Is $100k Income Enough in 2025?

Is $100,000 Salary Enough in 2025? (0:00)

Brian: Hey, we got some interesting information to share. How about how much your retirement is going to cost you by where you live?

Bo: Brian, I am so excited to talk about this because I feel like this gets a lot of press and I think that there is a lot of misinformation out there because $100,000 used to be like the crème de la crème, like the goal was to reach a six figure income. But now we’re hearing so many people say, “Oh, even if you make $100,000, you’re still living paycheck to paycheck.” So the question is, is it enough?

Brian: Well, I think anybody who’s watched our content for any period of time know this was one of my milestones. When I hit 30, I wanted to be making six figures. But there is a bigger question here. You know, in the past, six figures was something that was to be aspired to. But now we even have people asking because we’ve all heard about the Princeton study of is $75,000 enough to create happiness and survivability. Now, people are asking that exact same question on $100,000. So, what is it? Is this enough to make you rich? Is this enough to make you comfortable? We wanted to break that down.

Bankrate Study on Financial Comfort (1:05)

Bo: Well, Bankrate did a really interesting study and they pulled some respondents asking these questions. They asked them, “How much is enough? What income is needed in order for you to feel financially secure or to feel comfortable?” And what’s really really interesting is that 45% of Americans listed an income of $100,000 or less necessary to feel comfortable, which I thought, okay, well, that’s great news. Half of the folks at least say, okay, I don’t have to make over $100,000 to feel comfortable. It tells us that a huge portion of Americans would even say that $100,000 is still that number. It’s still the financial success. It’s still the financial comfort number that exists out there.

Brian: I still think it’s quite interesting though if you, and this is why I love that the next question, we don’t have to flip it yet, is what is rich, but you start seeing the indications that maybe there’s a disconnect from where reality is and what the public is perceiving based upon the amount of people that they think over $1 million, over $500,000, over $200,000, these are big numbers yet you see that we’ve got, you know, close to 20% of the people thinking that you have to have massive amounts of money just to reach the enough threshold. So somehow we’ve got to bring this back since there’s a disconnect. But before we do that, let’s talk about the next because this is enough. This is essentially that comfort. This is the update of that Princeton study of $75,000. We’re now saying $100,000 post pandemic and inflation. How about what do you need to be considered rich?

What Income Feels Rich? (2:38)

Bo: Yeah, that was the question they asked is what’s the annual income needed for you to assess yourself as being rich or to provide the mechanism by which you could attain financial freedom. And it was wild that only 12% of respondents said, “On an income less than $100,000, I am either rich or I can even achieve financial independence.” Yeah. I mean, if you, I mean, look at that. It’s 44%. So that means that if you look at this, 48% are somewhere between $100,000 to $1 million. Half the population, half the population respondents said it have to be at least six figures all the way up to seven figures to be able to reach financial independence.

Brian: Here’s the one that got me is that the real kicker. One in four Americans said they need an income of over $1 million to feel rich or attain financial freedom. I immediately when I saw that stat I thought of the Morgan Housel quote which is when most people say they want to be a millionaire what they might actually mean is I’d like to spend a million dollars and that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire. Those two do not line up. But don’t you see that in these stats? I mean because obviously we know and we’ll talk about the stratification of what people actually make. This means people just want to be able to spend a lot more. They want it. This is why you see so many lottery winners go broke is that we all have these spend like a millionaire. But the reality is that’s not the way millionaires actually live their lives.

Bo: And what’s wild is CNBC came out with some stats and they said that the income needed to be in the top 5% of income earners in this country is just over $560,000. So to be a top 5% earner, you would be over $560,000. And yet one in four Americans think that you need double that amount to be able to attain financial freedom, to be able to attain financial independence. There’s a big disconnect around people recognizing and understanding how wealth is truly built and what’s necessary to be able to build wealth.

Brian: Well, I mean, if you think about that millionaire stat that I gave, you know, to make a million dollars, that’s a percent of a percent. You’re not even in the top 1%. You’re in the percent of a percent. So that means that this hype machine or the highlight reel that social media is creating is not hitting us in a good way. It’s actually working against us because it’s making you even though you might be doing really well statistically and you could build your life around that and build success, build happiness. A lot of people are looking at the highlight reel of social media and actually skewing their own comfort because of something that’s not even tied to reality.

Know What You Need (5:12)

Bo: And so the question becomes, okay, what do we do with this? What do we take away from this? And the very first one is pretty obvious. Know what you need. I would want to ask those one in four respondents who said, “Oh, I need over a million dollars to attain financial independence.” I’d love to just sit down and ask them this question. Why? Yeah. What is it that you perceive a million dollars in income would do for you that you’re not able to do today? Because if you can define, hey, this is the life that I want to live. This is the lifestyle that I want to have. These are the things I want to do, the ways I want to travel. You may be amazed to find that it doesn’t require tons of zeros to be able to do a lot of that. And really, what you value and the things that you want to spend your money on might not be the lifestyles of the rich and famous stuff. It might be things that are very much reasonable and inside the realm of reality for most Americans.

Brian: I think a lot of people have done some mental math and they know, hey, if a million’s not enough, I want to save up to $3 million without really knowing the why on why $3 million or $2 million is their number. I would strongly encourage you spend some time thinking about what are the things that bring you value? What do you actually enjoy doing? What are things that you’re going to in the long term? So that you’re not just saving for the purpose of reaching a number, you’re saving to actually fulfill the goals of meeting your life at the intersection of happiness and needs. That’s really what we try to do with The Money Guy Show is to kind of help you build that.

Cost of Living Variations (6:40)

Brian: Now, look, I do want to be honest, there is a difference between high cost of living areas and then low cost of living areas. Because if somebody, think about the difference between somebody who lives in Athens, Georgia versus somebody who lives in San Francisco, you’re going to have completely different even though you live in the same country, there’s going to be different metrics on what is enough in your area.

Bo: And then even when you’re thinking about defining what is enough for you or what does financial independence mean for you, one of the best ways that you can keep guard rails around that is understanding how to keep lifestyle creep in check. I’m always amazed when I see folks who end up for the majority of their career, they live at a certain income level and a certain lifestyle level and then something happens. Maybe they move into executive management or they get some promotion and their career really starts to take off and it’s amazing that they lived for 10, 20, 25 years at a certain standard of living, but then all of a sudden just because their income went up, they increased everything. They got the bigger house and the more expensive car and they bought the vacation home and now all of the sudden they were well on their way to financial independence but because they allowed their lifestyle to inflate so much they’re now behind the eight ball trying to build to be able to support that lifestyle. So make sure you keep an eye on how your lifestyle is expanding when your income and when your resources increase.

Brian: Well, I mean this is the problem with the highlight reel. The highlight reel is putting the pacer that you’re trying to keep up with on the wrong objective. Because so many people are trying to buy the nicer cars, the bigger houses to keep up with this perception that’s not even tied to reality. That’s why if you will go back exactly what we were just talking about, know what is enough. Know what your why is so that you can clear your head from all the distractions of life, you will be better served because then you’ll actually put on a shelf what that highlight reel is and go, “Oh, that’s silly social media.” You know, you’ll say that’s, it is a mental exercise to know this is disconnected from reality. I’m not going to fall prey to it. And then you’ll actually spend a little bit more of your discipline and your effort to know that you could save and build because that is the biggest thing. That is the next biggest takeaway is income is not everything.

Income Isn’t Everything (8:57)

Brian: For context, and this is so important for everybody to hear, we went out and pulled from Don’t Quit Your Day Job, the actual percentage of households who make over $100,000 in the United States is only 21%. So the lion’s share, the vast majority of Americans are actually building their wealth with less. And we see it with teachers. There are groups of people that seem to be finding success even though they don’t make tons of money. But I think it’s because you have to be very purposeful with every dollar that comes into your army of dollar bills.

Bo: Even here at our firm at Abound Wealth, we have a number of clients who have large seven-figure portfolios and they live off of very healthy incomes and their personal income in any year never actually even crossed into six figures because they understood the three ingredients of wealth creation. They exercise discipline in their life to create margin and they applied that margin over a long time period to build wealth. That is possible. Yes, having a big shovel can help, but it’s not a requirement to be able to build to financial independence.

Brian: So, I know we constantly have new people coming in the doors. Somewhere between 30 to 40%, most recent time, when I looked at it recently, it was right around 30%. So, a lot of you are like, “Okay, this is great. This sounds like good mindset stuff. Where’s the actual numbers of what I need to do?” And this is what we’re going to load you up. Once again, go to moneyguy.com/resources. If you ever want to know, how much should I save? We have a great deliverable that’s going to let you cross reference what your age is, what your savings rate to have a good replacement ratio at retirement. Don’t sleep on this. Go out there and check this out. It’s a fun exercise and then you can compare and contrast where you currently are and see what you need to do better. Or maybe for all my financial mutants out there, you can figure out there’s a difference between financial misers and financial mutants and maybe you need to go the opposite direction with it.

Q&A Session Begins (10:50)

Bo: The question was how much is enough? And our answer, as is often the case, is it depends. It depends on your unique circumstance. It depends on the life that you’re looking to live. But what I love is that we get to sit in the spot and we get to load you guys up with answers to your questions, with financial information, because we believe that there is a better way to do money. It’s why we show up here every Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. Central, so that we can speak to the things you care about. So right now, if you have a question you want to get our take on, you want us to weigh in on something in your life, we have the team out in the wings collecting your questions, and we would love to load you up. So with that, Creative Director Rebie, I’m going to throw it over to you.

Making a Millionaire and Following the FOO (11:30)

Rebie: Yeah, I have a question from Russell H to kick us off. It says, “Loving the Making a Millionaire show.” Oh, thanks, Russell. It’s like looking in the mirror on being hand-wavy with the cash step. So maybe not quite getting them perfectly. And he asks, “Have you guys been surprised at how FOO-ish mutants are in real life?” Also, thanks to the team behind the scenes. What do you think?

Bo: Well, for those of you who aren’t familiar, every other Monday we have a brand new episode out called Making a Millionaire. And it’s a show where we sit down with an individual or couple and we kind of just do a deep dive into their financial life. And we’re telling the story of folks who have either attained millionaire status or they are on their way to millionaire status. So it’s a lot of fun for us to just get to do this and get to instead of just learning the broad concepts, it gives us an opportunity to apply those broad concepts to someone’s life. Now the question here is are you ever surprised at how FOO-ish the mutants are? Not really. And here’s why. Most financial mutants, most folks who interact with our content, they don’t discover us at their graduation ceremony. It’s not like the person who gives the commencement speech when all these graduates are leaving says, “Make sure you go watch The Money Guy Show.” Although they should. So, a lot of people, they don’t actually find the financial order of operations until much later in life after they’ve already gone in a certain direction or taken some certain steps. So, I’m not really surprised at all that a lot of our folks are FOO-ish because they didn’t get to start with us at the beginning.

Brian: I think, I like to think of us, and look, you know my analogies, they usually tie into what I’m doing in life. And right now, I blew through the first, the second season because I didn’t catch the first season of the quarterback show, whatever the quarterback show, QB1. So, I’m now back to season one. And Patrick Mahomes, you know, it’s, I think we’re like a good QB coach is that we’re going to show you the ideal way to throw and do things, right? But every now and then, there’s going to be things that happen in your life that you’ll do things because you were a baseball player growing up, you’re going to throw with a non-traditional angle or do things. It’s the same way with money is that people and here’s the thing that everybody needs to know, personal finance is very personal. Every one of you guys comes to us in a different way when we work with clients. That’s why people give us some free advice. Y’all do such a good job of giving us all the free information as we’re growing. How about when we actually need to spend this money in retirement? I’m like, we’d love to, but it’s just so personalized that you’d be shocked because different account structures, you know, some people have a lot of taxable assets, a lot of people have a lot of retirement assets, some people have RSUs, stock options, other, you know, small, you know, concentrated in small business ownership. We have to take you as you are. And it’s not surprising at all to find out that there’s so many different paths that we’re trying to help organize, but we can give you the ideals and there are things that we try to really when you’re FOO-ish like emergency reserves, on the way you go outside of the comfort zone where you’re going to derail your entire financial life by taking on leverage, debt, and risk before you’ve even built up assets in the background to keep you out of the ditch. Yeah, we’re going to really highlight those. But I don’t have a problem because we often talk about that most people conceptualize the FOO as a walk up the mountain if we have that visual that the content team can put up. But the reality is FOO is naturally going to already have some fluidness to it just because life comes at you in many different directions in many different ways that it’s actually might be a step forward then a step back, step forward and that’s why I don’t want you ever get discouraged. I want you to get motivated to figure out how you can be the best field general with every dollar in your army of dollar bills.

Bo: If you love Making a Millionaire and think, man, I’d love to be a part of that. I’d love to go participate in that. And you think you might want to be one of our guests, you can go to moneyguy.com/apply to submit your application to see if maybe you could be our next Making a Millionaire guest.

Rebie: Love it. Moneyguy.com/apply. Russell H, thank you for the question. And it is your lucky day because it is a tumbler day. So if you would like a tumbler since we answered your question, email [email protected] and we will get one sent out to you.

Traditional 401(k) vs Roth at Age 30 (16:16)

Rebie: All right, Shelby has a question next. “I am 30 and I have one times my income in a traditional 401(k). I don’t have any Roth savings. Did I mess up? Should I switch my 401(k) contributions to Roth since I am over the Roth IRA income limits? Thanks.”

Bo: Well, there’s a lot there. There’s a lot there. One, kudos to you being 30 having one times your annual income saved up. That’s awesome. Fidelity had a study that came out and said, “Hey, by the time you hit 30, you want to have one times your annual income saved in liquid net worth.” And so, you’ve already done that. That’s amazing. But now you’ve said, “Hey, I don’t have any Roth savings.” Brian, can you hold the thing up? We know that when it comes to deciding what to do with our dollars, we have a nine-step method to help you figure out where your next dollar should go. And in step two, we want you to get your free employer match. That’s free money. We want you to do your 401(k), do your simple IRA, whatever the retirement plan you have is, we want you to get that free money. But then by the time that you get to step five, we do want you to begin building some tax-free assets, whether that be the Roth IRA or potentially a health savings account if you have either one of those available to you. So hearing that you have one times your salary in a 401(k) makes me think perhaps you skipped a step, right? Unless maybe your employer just has like a really really generous match and you’ve only been doing that and that allowed you to get to one times your salary. It seems unlikely.

Brian: But Shelby did also share she makes more money than that allows her to not make a traditional IRA contribution.

Bo: So then the question becomes, if I didn’t build it up to this point, what should I start thinking about and how should I start building forward?

Brian: Yeah, that’s what, so Shelby, you gave us enough. It’s personal finance is very personal, but you did give us enough context clues to say, hey, you make too much money now that you can’t make Roth IRA contributions. So now you’re asking, should I do it in my Roth, should I do it in 401(k) contributions? My salary deferral can be Roth contributions, too. And those have zero income limits on that. So the answer on that one is going to be it depends. But there is a step five thing that you can do and I would encourage you to do is to consider if you have the right account structure meaning you have no other IRA assets. You don’t have SEP IRAs, you don’t have simple IRAs, you don’t have a rollover IRA sitting out there. If you have the right IRA structure we would love for you to do what’s called a backdoor Roth contribution. And really the better way to name this is a Roth conversion strategy because you’re going to make a non-deductible traditional IRA contribution assuming you have the right account structure. Don’t screw it up. But if you do then you convert those contributions from the traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. And this is going to allow you to start building up some of those tax-free assets but still allow you to also push forward into step six which is still maxing out the employer retirement plan. Now, the question on that is okay, should that contribution be Roth? Should it be pre-tax? That’s going to more fall into where your effective tax rate is. And I would encourage you to go out there and look at what is your federal, your marginal tax rate. What is the next, the amount of the dollar that’s going to be taxed? It’s probably for you, it’s going to be greater than 24%. And then I have to ask you what state you live in and what’s your tax rate, your marginal tax rate in that state. And if it’s somewhere 6% to 10% because that’s where we typically fall with state income taxes, you’re going to quickly see you might be well over 30%. Well, then I’m not going to pick on you if you’re doing traditional because the tax benefit now might benefit you more than the tax-free growth because you might have, if you’re especially if you’re saving to retire early might be a Roth conversion strategy and do a tax arbitrage if you retire in your 50s or 60s which is well before you’re required to take those distributions.

Bo: So, what I’m hearing you say is it’s not really an either/or if it comes to pre-tax or Roth. There’s a really good chance depending on your account structure, you may be able to do both. You may be able to get that step five backdoor Roth and still do pre-tax to your 401(k) because of the current year tax benefit. 30 years old. Absolutely crushing it. Well done.

Graham Stephan and Jack Visit (20:33)

Brian: I hear that there might be a special guest in the chat room.

Bo: There is. Graham popped in to say hello. We, for those of you who don’t know, Graham Stephan is just a huge deal out there and we got to do some, we got to hang out with him this past couple weeks. Full disclosure. Oh, look at this. Look at we have a highlight. Look at that. Well done. Now you got that to us.

Brian: I thought it was so, Bo has met Graham a few times. It seems like every time Graham has come through and Jack too, I’m out of town. Yep. I don’t know if that’s, I should be offended that I’m always out of town or if they just are choosing dates that I’m not around, but it was an absolute pleasure. And then we even got to break bread. Here’s something. You guys know I’m a huge Disney fan. Did y’all know Graham’s dad was like a masterful Disney Imagineer? No, I went home and showed my daughter and I was like, “Holy cow, Graham’s dad is like a Disney legend.” So, if you’re a Disney like person like I am, I’m a Disney adult. I don’t mind. I don’t shy away from that. That impressed me. And then, but it was great. I mean, Jack and Graham were a blast to hang out with. And then what they don’t know, and I’ll share because they’re out of town, so now embarrassment doesn’t bother me if they hear this. We got through with our grueling recordings because they flew in. It’s even worse for them because they flew in immediately, came here. And then so it was hours of recording and then everybody just kind of parted their ways and we said, “Thank you, y’all go on.” And then Rebie and Bo and myself got in the room like, “We should have asked them to dinner. Let’s go have dinner.” And then I was like, “Oh my gosh, we did. We probably should have asked them to dinner.” Fortunately, we walked out of the building and they were on the street corner trying to figure out where they were going to go. So, we did get to break bread and it was a great experience. Really was.

Rebie: Yeah, it was super fun. And the content that we made, the videos that are coming out are going to be really fun. I’m really excited for y’all to see them. So, watch for those. Our react video with Graham comes out on Monday. So, make sure you’re subscribed to our channel so you know when that pops up. And I don’t think Graham will mind me saying our episode of Iced Coffee Hour with him is slated for Sunday. So just go subscribe there. Make sure you check that out too because that’s a really fun conversation with you guys. They did a great job and just it was fun seeing you get to have a bit more of a casual conversation. It kind of, you kind of talked about some things we don’t always get to talk about on the show. So it’ll be really fun to see both of those really wonderful videos. So thanks to Graham and Jack for coming out and recording with us. It was really fun.

Brian: No, it was fun. It was one of those things that you look back and you go, “What we get to do for a living is pretty dang cool.” Yeah, it is. This is a cool thing.

Rebie: Yeah, it was a delight. So yeah, watch out for those fun videos. And I have to go backwards a little bit. Shelby, you get a tumbler since we answered your question. I just wanted to let her know she can email [email protected] if she wants a tumbler.

Emergency Fund in Competitive Job Market (23:30)

Rebie: All right. Ready for another question? Yes, ma’am. Lonzo has a question. It says, “Do you think a 3 to 6-month emergency fund is still sufficient with what seems to be a very competitive slacking job market and all the layoffs? It at least feels like more is needed now. What do you think?”

Bo: Lonzo, it may very well be the case. But one of the things that we say is when you’re in step four, Brian, will you hold that thing up for me? When you’re in step four of the financial order of operations, you want to make sure you have a fully funded emergency fund. Well, one of the things you have to answer is what for me is a fully funded emergency fund. For some people, it might be three months of living expenses. For other people, it might be six months of living expenses, or even for people who are at or near financial independence, it may be 12 to 18 months of living expenses in readily available cash. So, if you’re someone who works in a job that potentially is a high-paying job that is very very unique and specific to where if you were to lose your job, you would not be able to find equivalent employment in a short time period. It may be necessary for you to hold larger than 6 months of living expenses depending on how many people you have depending on you, depending on what your fixed expenses are, depending on how long realistically you think it would take for you to find employment. But I would also encourage you if you are someone in one of those kinds of jobs where if something happened to your job went away and there was a chance you would not be able to get back to that job again, man, you better take savings so seriously after you built up that emergency fund. We see this all the time with like professional athletes. It’s a really good example for us to conceptualize. Hey, I’ve got this job where I get to make all this money, but I might only make all this money for this very short period of time, and if this job goes away, I’m probably not going to be able to get another job making the same income. While you’re in that position doing that, you want to make sure you are socking money away to prepare for whenever the end of that occupation does come.

Brian: Lonzo, personal finance is personal. So, you have to do your own personal triage of your situation. Another mitigator that Bo didn’t mention was how many income streams or people are working in the house. I mean, if you have like rental property income and you don’t have much debt on the rental property, so it actually is offsetting some of your expenses, that’s going to help. If you have a spouse that’s working, that’s going to help minimize this. But I’ll play the other side. Bo threw out the example of a professional athlete. I have a number of my clients who work in the technology field, and the technology field is cruel when you get older, because you make a great income but then a lot of times you don’t get to leave when you want to leave. I’ve dealt with a lot of executives and clients who the technology field kind of, they part ways with you even it might be premature of when you’re ready to part ways. So if you’re feeling that pressure, Lonzo, because just by the way it’s implied with the way you wrote the question, you might be feeling that as maybe you’re in a sector that impacts where you live. I would rather have more than less. Because I’ve shared with you guys that a lot of my life story has gone into Millionaire Mission and then gone into the financial order of operations is that your gut can be very helpful in a lot of those situations is that you want to have your 3D glasses and the fact that have a plan. It doesn’t have to be that you’re trying to leave a job or make a big life decision. If you’re starting to feel, oh my goodness, if I lost my job, what does that mean? Actually put pen to paper, come up with a plan and look at this on the front end so you can adjust and react to what the plan is showing versus you having to react in the real time and having to make really hard decisions. So if you’re feeling this pressure, do an actual plan to figure out, hey, what would happen if my income went away? And you can play this scenario when I talk about the 3D. That’s the dream. That’s the down to earth. That’s the doo-doo. What happens if I lost my job and there are no jobs in where I live and I have to go move and then I’m like, “Oh my gosh, if I have to move that means we’re going to have to sell the house, we’re going to have to relocate the kids. The kids might even have to go to private school or they’re going to have to find or the houses are going to be more expensive in this area.” Do the plan so that you can not react in real time that you’ll actually be like, “Oh, I’ve been here. I’ve seen this. I know what I need to do and I’ll be prepared for it.”

Rebie: Love it. That’s great. Lonzo, thank you for being here and asking the question. Just email [email protected] if you would like to cash in on your free Money Guy tumbler.

Early Retirement Withdrawal Strategies (28:18)

Rebie: Cam has a question next. And he says he’s a UGA financial planning grad. Let’s go. I’m guessing you’re going to, he says when number four preseason by the way. Look at that. Look at that. Good update.

Bo: I think this year is going to be our year.

Brian: I’m not willing to say that.

Bo: I think every year is going to be our year. Let’s be honest.

Brian: Just stay off the, I would prefer to be more like a Tennessee number 17 preseason because I just get nervous when they put us in so high up.

Bo: I just love that he just threw so much shade on Tennessee right there. I like that. He’s kind of pleased with himself, too.

Brian: No, believe me, there’s so many Tennessee people around here with their sunflower orange or whatever that flower thing that they base it off of.

Rebie: So much animosity.

Brian: Oh, I believe, I love another color that orange is.

Rebie: All right. Well, let’s go back to Cam’s question. He says, “When folks retire early, what account do they withdraw from? Are they withdrawing their contributions from tax advantage accounts or are they withdrawing from an individual investment account?”

Brian: Bo, I’d love for you to kind of answer this, but I do think because I’ve seen some of these FIRE posts out there and it kind of makes me chuckle when there’s strategies where people are saying go yank out your contributions from your Roth as a bridge account because, you know, when you first retired, I’m always like I mean I can understand on paper why that seems so cool because it is a nice little escape hatch that you can pull tax-free, penalty-free your contributions from Roth, but we don’t actually see that typically happen in our practice because man oh man do people love their Roth accounts.

Bo: Yeah. I’ll give you sort of the general advice. When you’re building your army of dollar bills generally you start with your Roth money. That’s what most people build up first and then you have your pre-tax money and then you get into step seven hyper accumulation. You build your after tax money. So that’s how you like fill the bucket up. Well, then when you go to unfill the bucket, if you were just going to do this like as generically as possible, you’d probably pull from the after tax assets first and then you’d pull from the pre-tax. The very last ones you’d pull from would be the Roth. That’s the theory that you would operate in. But the answer to your question about which bucket do retirees, whether they’re early or traditional retirees pull from, the answer is it depends. It depends on a number of different factors based on their unique situation. So, does early retirement for you mean age 55? Well, if so, now all of a sudden, if you had an employer sponsored plan that you were participating in the year that you turn 55, those are now all on the table. And then you have your after tax assets. Yeah. You have your Roth. If you’re retiring at 60, which technically is still early retirement relative to a full retirement age of 65, now you have access to all of those. If you’re retiring at 50, okay, well, now you got to get kind of creative in how you think through which buckets to pull from. And there’s not like a clean answer like this is the way you do it. But we did do a show, oh my goodness, I forgot the name of it again. I called this out two weeks ago. The name of the show, the strategies if you’re going to retire early, three ways, three ways to retire early that you may not know about. And we actually walk through, hey, here are some different ways when you think about de-accumulation. Here are some options that you might have at your disposal if specifically you want to be part of the FIRE, financial independence retire early movement.

Brian: I think it’s, realize you’re talking to a reformed CPA, meaning that I come from a public accounting background. So when I hear questions like this, I’m like, is this person a CPA? Because there’s FIFO, first in first out. That’s where if you were trying to pull your Roth since Bo’s already shared, Roth is usually the first accounts people are filling up. Would that be your first? That would be the FIFO method. And then the more traditional of kind of what I was talking about is when you treat your Roth as a prize child or your precious, that would be the LIFO, last in first out. Meaning that since the Roth is the first one to go, that’s so, you do the after tax would probably be your last in. So that would be the first out. I think that’s better advice than the FIFO method. But the reality is, and this is what you’ll quickly realize, we work with hundreds, soon to be thousands of people on helping them out with their personal finance, is that personal finance is definitely personal. We don’t give just bolt-on one-size-fits-all. It has to be very customized to what do you look like? Your account structure is going to be different depending upon, you know, what you were able to do from a tax advantage, what the what your income was at the time. How about what sources of income you have in retirement? You’re like a, you’re that, I was about to say you’re a snowflake, but it’s more like fingerprints. You know, we’re all different. We’re all unique and we try to reach you where you are and give you the best advice. And that’s why we leave the lights on for you. And that’s why we talk about you can try to keep your financial life as simple as possible. But the reality is success creates complication and that’s why the abundance cycle does have a graduation point that we’ll be waiting for you to help out with.

Rebie: Like Brian said, Abound Wealth leaves the light on for you. If you are curious about that, moneyguy.com, there’s a become a client button right there. You can go click on it and check it out. Maybe even fill out a form if you think you are ready to talk about becoming a client. But also get the free stuff.

Brian: Well, yeah. I always talk about the free stuff. I thought I’d give Abound a little love. But you know that’s me. That’s the anti-sales. I’m like, “Oh gosh, we really just went hard. Maybe counterweight it.” It’s amazing.

Bo: Did you give Cam that his thing?

Rebie: No. Cam, you get a tumbler. Speaking of free stuff. Speaking of free stuff, [email protected] to get that free tumbler.

How Money Guy Rules Work Together (34:05)

Bo: Can I throw a thing out there?

Rebie: Yes.

Bo: This would be a really interesting, I don’t know if this is a, I doubt this is a poll for the audience, but I’m going to throw it out there just in case it is, but you know, we do our wealth survey, right? We ask these questions. I would be so curious next time we have a wealth survey come out or next time we can like add this in there.

Brian: Are you going to add a question when it’s too, probably too late to add a question?

Bo: Well, I said the next, I’m going to kill you. I didn’t say when it was happening. I just said next time. I’m just spitballing here. I’m getting an idea. I’d be curious to know for folks who are retired or are financially independent, are they pulling out of their Roth? You know, we have this idea that like anecdotally, we know with our clients pulling from those Roth dollars. We just don’t like to do that. But I’d be curious. Are there other folks like, “Oh, no, no, I’m totally doing this. I’m living off my Roth.”

Brian: That’s a great point because maybe this is a perception, we all have our own biases built in. I’d love to ask, I’d love to poll the chat, but I don’t know if the, I think a lot of the chat is likely accumulators. They’re probably not de-accumulators. I wonder how many retirees we could reach and ask. It’s just an interesting thing. You know, we literally have just the best crop of audience in all of the internet. We ought to ask them these kind of questions. Things that make you go hmm, maybe we will.

Rebie: Okay. Rob has a question for you guys next. Okay. How do all of the Money Guy rules work together? We say 25% savings rate, 25% on housing, 25% on taxes, 8% to my vehicle with 17% left. How is this enough for bills and lifestyle?

Brian: Bo, I want you to give color, but I think that we have to be careful here because he says rules. Some of these are just assumptions. Yep. Sure. There’s a difference between rules and assumptions because we do rules to try to give you some boundaries or things to protect yourself from.

Rebie: And real quick before you respond, I do want to give the context. He says, “I’m 25 making $75K.” So that might, great, man. By the way, that’s pretty fantastic for 25 years of age.

Brian: But like 25% on taxes, that’s not happening. That’s an assumption. Sometimes when we do our analysis, we’ll try to put in conservative assumptions so you can figure out, hey, what is going to happen, what might not happen, but that’s not actually a rule. Hopefully, your taxes are going to be a good bit lower than 25%.

Bo: Yeah, that I was going to say if you even just went and looked at your tax return based on that income, not knowing if you’re like married and have a household income or anything, but just based on that income, you’re not actually paying 25% in taxes. You know, we work in a progressive tax system where even if your marginal rate is 22 or 24, when you actually add up the total tax that you pay, it’s some number less than that. It’s going to be, you know, has to kind of like work through the brackets. What’s really interesting is like how do all the numbers work together? Oftentimes they don’t all work at the same time and that’s what’s beautiful about them. Like our expectation is not that hey when you start out you’re going to have 8% going towards an auto payment or you may for a season and that season’s no longer than 36 months. That may be a thing that’s happening or you may be at the place where you’re spending 25% on housing. But what we hope is those numbers aren’t finite and stuck. They’ll kind of move through time. A lot of people don’t get to start at a 25% savings rate right out of the gate, but we want them to grow to that. When it comes to housing, we want you to buy a home if that’s in your plan. And maybe it gets close to 25% of your gross income when you buy it. But hopefully as your career advances and as your income increases, the proportion of your income that that represents gets smaller and smaller and smaller. We have a great piece of content coming out. If you’re not subscribed, make sure you subscribe right now to the channel where we’re actually going to walk through financial planning strategies by income. Hey, if you’ve got a $40,000 income, what are the strategies you ought to be thinking about? If you’re at $80,000, if you’re $150,000, if you’re $300,000, like what are the things you ought to be thinking about? How do you build wealth at those different income strata? So, make sure you subscribe for when that episode comes out.

Brian: Yeah. And that’s why I love a good system, you know, and that’s what the financial order of operations is trying to do is reach you where you are. A lot of you guys, we’re going to assume when especially when you’re going through your first five steps here, is that your income is just not through the stratosphere yet. It might very much be an aspirational thing. You’re right out in your first big job that’s hopefully a career, not just a job. So, it’s going to be different than if you’re somebody who’s like me who’s beyond 45, you know, in those peak earning years. It’s going to be completely different. My group is going to be further down into the seven through nine on the financial order of operations. But that’s the brilliance and the awesomeness of the FOO is that it hits you. It’s an all-terrain vehicle wherever you are in the journey and you will graduate through these things as you reach more and more success. But I think it’s important to understand when you start out, we’re trying to give you boundaries so that you don’t fall into the consumption traps that the society tries to put on you, that social media tries to put on you. But then we also as we get to steps seven, eight, nine, we’re trying to unleash you to live your best life, but also not feel exactly what Bo is sharing. I don’t want you to if you’re seven figures and you have a car payment, what are we doing? If you are also seven figures and beyond steps seven, eight, nine and you look and you say hey my housing is only you know 16%, the guy said I can do 25%, let’s go buy the McMansion, now that doesn’t make sense either because it doesn’t reflect who you are, the why. We want you to understand that there’s an analytical part of the money-making decision process but there’s also a very non-quantifiable side of money, that’s behavior, that’s all the things to make sure you’re living your best life. And we try to give you a balance on that.

Dave Ramsey vs Money Guy Philosophy (40:15)

Brian: But I do think it’s interesting because I’ve been thinking about, you know, we’ve had some content go out where people go, “Man, y’all went hard on Dave.” And I’ve been internalizing what is the difference between Dave and then, you know, Dave’s system and the baby steps and then the financial order of operations is I think Dave without a doubt has created an awesome system, but it’s trapped for people who make less than $100,000. And that’s just the reality. And I think that’s why he totals on missing out on the 401(k) match and other things if you have any debt and all these things. And I think that sometimes we are just as guilty that we assume everybody has the potential to go beyond $100,000. And I think that that’s why the world can exist for both of us is you have to ask yourself, and I’m willing to concede the ground that Dave is probably that 75% of Americans that are never going to exceed the $100,000 who are going to be trapped in all the consumption traps of the world. And then here we are more analytical and trying to help you maximize it. It’s true. Our bubble is probably smaller, and I’m willing to concede that ground, but I think that’s why it’s important to be honest and transparent and say I think we’ve created a better mousetrap. But you have to get yourself in a position to where you ask yourself, am I going to be better than most? You know, where I’m going to be able to have an income that’s going to exceed this, then I think the Money Guys have me covered on that. But if you know you’re going to be stuck on this treadmill, you better maximize every dollar that comes into your household because your income is probably never going to exceed that $80,000 to $100,000. That’s a thing too. And I just like being transparent as I’m thinking through different systems and why does one work here and why does another one work here? And I think a lot of my financial mutants in the audience will be like there it is. That’s the key that unlocks the difference why these guys can be so respectful of each other but be completely different also is because we’re speaking to different stages of your income and success life.

Rebie: Love it. Well, great Rob. I really appreciate the question and that you are here today and we would love to send you a Money Guy tumbler. Just email [email protected].

Overfunded 529 Plan Options (42:25)

Rebie: SL Martinez says, “My family started a 529 for me at a young age and it’s grown to be over $200,000.” Wow, this is crazy. “What options are out there to efficiently draw down? I’m 30 years old and my college was paid for by the military.” Oh, isn’t that wild? So, what this is just an interesting 529 type of question. What do you think? I want to know what you’re going to say, honestly.

Bo: Well, so a lot of times we get this question, hey, I’ve overfunded a 529. What are some options where I can begin to use those? And again, SL, not knowing your unique circumstances. Some of the general advice we give is one of the things that people don’t realize is that when you have 529 assets, you can actually change the beneficiary. So if you have siblings and you saved a lot for the oldest sibling and the oldest sibling ends up not using all those dollars, you can then roll some of those funds to the next sibling and to the next sibling and so on. And so inside of your direct lineal family, you can change a beneficiary. So if you have younger siblings perhaps who might need higher education expenses, your 529 assets could go there. But I’m guessing if mom and dad saved up $200,000 for you and you have siblings, they probably saved for them also.

Brian: Well, also the lineage can also be your children. I mean, so that’s kind of exciting to think about because now at 30 years of age, there’s a chance that you’re starting to think about kids. But here’s some good news. Now, look, $200,000, that’s a big monster ball. That’s a big one. It might have, if I was your parents’ financial adviser, at some point we might have had a conversation and be like, “Hey, we sure we want all this money going to 529s, you know, because there is, we run a lot of college planning stuff and we say we want to make sure we save for these goals, but we also don’t want to overfund because how helpful would it have been if your parents are that prolific with savers is if we could have been building up some custodial accounts in the background or, you know, even some custodial Roth IRAs and other things when you first started working. There would have been some things, but let’s take you where you are right now. The good news is most improved for how to get money out of an overfunded account is probably 529s because now, this is I’m saying this more for our audience than you because I get a feeling you didn’t come out of school with any student loans since the military was involved. But a portion of 529s can now be used to pay down student loan debt. A portion of 529s can also be used to fund your Roth IRAs. I’m trying to think of, and never forget that you can always cash a 529. Don’t do all the other things first, but go through and try to figure out because I hate paying taxes. I pay a lot of taxes. I want everybody to pay the government what you legally are obligated to, but I think the government does encourage you to be mindful and minimize your taxes as much as legally allowed. But once you figure out, hey, there’s just no way that I’ve thought about my kids. I’ve thought about other things. You do get access to that money. You’re just going to pay taxes and then a slight penalty on any of the earnings on that. And that’s why some of you who are way overfunded and you get scholarships or you get offset money, a lot of you can then get access. Saying this for other people in the audience who are still in school and maybe realizing, man, we got way too much in 529, you can actually avoid the penalty. If you could show that, hey, this money was offset with scholarships or other things, you’d still have to pay the income taxes. But that’s why while you’re in the moment of paying for education you’ve got, and Bo’s seen me do this, I have a daughter who’s a senior in college right now. I’ve been really trying to land the plane to make sure that we burned through the 529s and took advantage of everything because I knew that once she walked on the campus of college, the clock was ticking to make sure I understood this beautiful tool of 529s, we’re on the clock now to make sure that we look at every year and maximize the opportunities on how we’re funding college and then but also closing out by the time they leave education to where this account is not so overfunded that we have to make decisions that cause us to pay taxes.

Bo: Man, $200,000 in a 529 left over after college. That’s a lot. That’s big. And thank you for your service. That’s pretty cool.

Brian: Yep. That’s what, by the way we have, we have cases when we’ve done Making a Millionaire we have seen people have huge incomes and then you find out that because they structured where they were going to work, they worked at a hospital that was tied in with the forgiveness on six figure loans because they structured where they worked that it forgave the loans plus they still, you would think that hey if I did this I’m probably not going to make any money until I get through that period of paying off the student loans because if they’re going to write off six figures worth of student loans, I bet they’re cutting my pay a lot. No, they pay me, too. So, guys, be creative on how you pay for college. I love hearing people going military as a way, working off the student loans with structure. That’s not even part of this question, but it’s just this is why you need to be so purposeful with education and funding.

Rebie: SL Martinez, thank you for the question and just email [email protected] and we would love to send you a tumbler as a thank you.

Saving 72% at Age 23 (48:04)

Rebie: KO is up next. It says, “I’m 23 years old, graduated and working now and saving 72% of my income.” Wow. “Living at home, I’m wondering…” Let’s hear the rest of it.

Brian: Has a lot of roommates. Might be in that fun time of life that you just, you know, if you can open a door and fit a bed in there, that’s where people are.

Bo: Who needs a bed at 23? You just slept in a closet in the early part of my life in college.

Rebie: I want to hear more about that later. Okay. The rest of the question says, “I started investing weekly three months ago in a low-cost index fund and an inflation bond and increasing my emergency fund. Any advice?” So, this sounds like an eager financial mutant in the making, just starting out. What do you think about his savings rate, his newfound investing and beyond?

Bo: Well, the first thing I heard is that, hey, I’m investing, but I’m still building my emergency fund. And that tells me just right off the bat, you’ve gone slightly afoul of the financial order of operations. Brian, will you hold the thing up? We believe that one of the things, especially early on, that you want to do is you just want to make sure you cover your risks. If you think about the financial planning pyramid, right? Like kind of goes like this. At the bottom is like risk management. And the biggest risk to a 23-year-old likely is, man, what happens if my son has my job or what if I have a big expense like a car thing or a house thing or a medical thing or whatever, you just want to make sure that you have that emergency fund fully funded. So, if you’re still like trying to build that up, I would believe that with a 72% savings rate, you could get that thing fully funded pretty quickly. So, I’d love to see you do that. Chisel that off, have it compartmentalized, and put to the side. Now, outside of that, I love that you’re putting your money to work for you. I love that you’re buying, I mean, weekly is a little aggressive. I don’t know very many people that are that, you know, I wasn’t doing it at 23. I do it now because I’m sick, but I definitely wasn’t doing it at 23. But I love the fact that you’re always buying. You’re doing dollar cost averaging. But I love part of what you’re doing is low-cost index funds. But then I heard about this inflation protected bond and the question that came to my mind was man okay what’s the strategy there? Like why for dollar cost averaging at 23 why are you buying inflation protected bonds? Why is that part of your dollar cost averaging strategy and is that the thing that you ought to be doing or might there be an easier solution for you so you don’t have to focus on like what I’m buying? You get to focus more on how much am I saving? How much am I putting away?

Brian: Yeah I mean this is there’s so much to unpack here. First of all, KO, well done. I mean, to be making that a good income and then able to save 72% right out of the gates, that’s pretty fantastic. And your future self is going to have just sloppy tears of happiness in the future and give you a big bear hug for making those decisions now. So I’m going to tell you I’m all about stack it up early and often because if you went to moneyguy.com/resources and played around with our wealth multiplier tool, you can see how valuable because you are a billionaire of time and you’re actually exploiting that huge opportunity right now. Whereas a lot of your peers, they don’t realize how valuable or how rich they are of time, which is the actual most valuable resource when it comes to compounding growth and building. Now the part about how you, I lost my train of thought with the part about like what you’re investing in.

Bo: He’s doing the weekly dollar cost.

Brian: The easy answers that I see in all the forums is VTI, VTI is the total market index. VU is the S&P 500. Most young people, this is where KO is a little different. Most young people are like I don’t want any bonds. But then you find out that KO has some inflation protected bonds and you’re like, “Well, that seems out of left field.” I think for people who don’t feel comfortable making investment decisions, and we take some flak on this because yes, they might have a little bit of bonds, but KO is already out there purposefully buying bonds on his own. I like the index target retirement funds because these things let you really only answer two questions. They say, “Hey, how much can I save and when do I need it?” And then it does the rest. You know, if you’re trying to figure out, hey, how aggressive do I need to be now versus 10 years from now, 15, 20 years, it does all that for you. Has what’s called a glide path where it will start off super aggressive while you’re young and they get more and more conservative. For all the people out there who don’t like target retirement funds, I hear you on the internal expenses for a lot of them. But that’s why we use the index versions. And when I tell you to go do your research and your due diligence, go check out the low-cost providers like Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, every one of these glide paths might look a little different. If you think one is more conservative than the other, go find the one that’s more aggressive and matches what your goal is. You don’t have to be a passive person on this. But then I would challenge you, go look at the internal expense ratios, the cost for those indexed versions of, you know, with those three big providers and you’ll be like, “Holy cow, these things are cheap.” All these people in the comment section are talking about how they don’t like target retirement funds because of their costs. They’re obviously not talking about the ones that are the index versions of these things. And that’s why we’ve tried to think this through for you so you can focus on maximizing your life and living your great big beautiful tomorrow.

Bo: Now, one just little small thing I’m going to add here. KO, you said, “Hey, I’m investing in index funds and I’m buying this stuff.” I hope because you said, “I’m 23, graduated, working.” I’m hoping that you’re using the financial order of operations. Brian, will you hold that thing up? And when you’re talking about this investing that you’re doing, I hope it’s happening like inside of a Roth IRA or inside of a Roth 401(k) if your income substantiates that because at 23 with that kind of savings rate building up assets, the future looks super super bright. So, you might as well make it a tax-free bright future.

Brian: I don’t want to mess up, KO. You’re going to tell him he gets a free tumbler. He does. Yes. At [email protected]. KO. Just email us.

Building Shakes the Studio (54:15)

Brian: I don’t want people to think that I’ve lost my mind. During the middle of that question, did it feel like was it an earthquake or is somebody working on the building? I mean, because this is a big building. What are you talking about? You saw, you felt it. None of us felt anything. What? Now you’re just being mean. I saw Rebie’s face. She saw she felt and I looked. We were like, “What is that?” I think they’re working on the HVAC on the unit right above us.

Rebie: I think so. I think so. Yeah, that’s what it felt like. It was a little, it did. Whoa, that was a movement. Are they coming down to sit with us in a minute?

Brian: Oh no. Underneath this thing. I hope not. These are all the preservation questions started being asked. Hopefully that didn’t show up in the audio.

Rebie: Oh man. Probably just on our faces, facial expressions.

Bo: All right. You’re curious. They’re still up there.

Brian: You think we could have convinced him? Oh, no. There’s nothing going on. Like we don’t hear anything. There’s no way. Because Rebie was like it’s like dead giveaway. You know, it’s almost like I wish that we had somebody who might be on the front lines of knowing what’s going on with this building and who could tell the content team, “Hey, they’re working on the roof while we’re recording this.”

Bo: Be nice if someone, yeah, new people over there sitting there and that’s on you guys. You’re the one that wears the chain with all the keys on it.

Brian: Super. Super. Did you know that they were going to be here?

Bo: No, I don’t know. I just, you know, come fix the stuff. He’s a great delegator. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.

Brian: So, did you really not know they were going up there?

Bo: No, I haven’t known they’ve been up here.

Brian: Never mind. I won’t pick on the super then. Listen, as long as, hey, I know that the air conditioning is working in here and that’s what I’m talking about. Nothing fell through the ceiling. We’re good. Awesome.

Becoming a Fiduciary Financial Advisor (55:55)

Rebie: Did you give KO a tumbler? I did. Awesome. So, we’re going to move on to Freerunner 19. He’s also going to get a tumbler. His question says, “What advice do you have for aspiring financial advisors? I want to work for a fiduciary practice, but I hear they are hard to find.” So maybe you should speak to what fiduciary means and if it will be hard for Freerunner 19 to find.

Bo: Yeah. So I’ll talk a little bit about what fiduciary is and then Brian you why don’t you talk about how to like get in industry and things you ought to do, things you shouldn’t do. Not all financial advisors are created equal. We like the ones who take a fiduciary oath and fall on the fiduciary side of the equation. Which means they are required by law to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own. Meaning if a conflict of interest arises, they have to choose and do what’s best for the client, not what’s best for them. That’s not the way the entire financial industry is structured or written. Some advisors don’t have to operate under a fiduciary standard. Rather, they get to operate under a suitability standard saying, “Hey, as long as I provide advice that’s not negligent, so long as it’s suitable for the client, it doesn’t necessarily have to be what’s best for them and what’s in their best interest.” Again, I’m not throwing shade at the folks who work under suitability.

Brian: I’ll throw in a little, you know, candy bar. Candy bars are suitable. A nutritionist is going to give you optimal. You know, that’s the thing. You can consume a candy bar. Yes, it’s suitable for human consumption, but should you? Probably not. That’s the difference between these standards. When people don’t know suitability versus fiduciary, you have to put the client ahead of your own interest. Okay, continue.

Bo: So, one of the problems is that there are many more advisors and advisory firms out there that do not operate under the fiduciary standard than those that do operate under the fiduciary standard. So, they’re not the easiest things in the world to find.

Brian: Well, I mean, I’m happy to report because when I go, it’s been a few years since I’ve talked to some of the capstone classes, but I think when I was doing those presentations years ago, it was like 5%, four or five% of advisors were fiduciary fee only. It does make me happy that I think it’s gone exceeded 10% now. So, I think that this is a movement that is slowly but surely growing because I think people kind of expect it. Hey, I want, I’d like to work with an adviser that when I make money, they’re making money and things are aligned in those aspects. So, if you want to be a financial adviser, here’s some let me tell you some don’ts first is that be careful because it’s easy to call yourself a financial advisor. And there’s lots of firms that are structured to let you get in the door as fast and as easy as possible and you’re going to start dialing for dollars. And what I mean by dialing for dollars, they’re going to immediately ask you, hey, write down a hundred people you know that could benefit, that you can set up a meeting that could benefit from what we have to offer here. I would give you a big word of caution on that. Look, when you start doing anything, and this is financial planning, I come from an accounting, public accounting background and I like how CPAs require this like apprenticeship essentially. And in financial planning, if you think about like the CFP designation, it is supposed to have an apprenticeship portion because you have to have years of service plus pass an exam to show that you have the ability to do this. And why is that runway period so important is because when you’re green, you don’t know what you just don’t know. So if you go and start burning through your relationships of all your Sunday school teachers, your relatives, your friends, your families, they all love you. So they want to see you be successful. So, that power of that consideration of love is going to overpower and have them consider working with you even though you might be so green that the advice is just not that great or the products are just not that great, but they love you. So, they’re going to do it. And here’s where the sad cruel part of this is, is that these industries are set up to have you dial for dollars, capture a certain portion because they love you, and then you wash out because it’s not sustainable after you make it through your friends and family. You know, that’s not really, the first list of 100 is easy. The second list, I mean, it’s just hard. Plus, it kills the soul calling all these people asking for stuff. I don’t know that it’s a hard thing. But you wash out. The firm keeps your friends and family and they count. It’s just built into the business model. So I would encourage you, here’s the big don’t. If you are aspirationally trying to do this, don’t start dialing for dollars on your friends and family until you’re at least an expert. I mean, you owe it to them because down the road, there’s nothing wrong with your parents or your in-laws becoming a client after you’re actually an expert on what you’re doing. Don’t burn those bridges because you might not get another shot. Now, you probably get to keep the in-laws and the parents that you can burn them once. They’re probably still going to do it because they see you at Thanksgiving. But all those like your Sunday school teachers growing up, you know a coach from you know a sports team that really took a shine to you, probably not going to get those again. If you burn them once they’re not coming back. So that’s why I always tell people don’t get out there and start selling. I know it’s sexy because they get you. They’re like hey do you want to be a rock star and you can make six figures in the first six months if you just go sell this product to this many people. You’re like oh I could totally do this. That is a road to nowhere. You need to think more like a long-term thinker is that you’re going to get good at this. You’re going to build expertise, build up your credentials, your experience. So then as you start managing money, it is coming from a place of knowledge and wisdom and it will be a win-win just like the fiduciary model is instead of out there selling everything. I would tell you probably go on websites like what is it? NAPFA. Is it still what’s, XY Planning, XY Planning Network. I’m trying to think of anybody else that I miss. I’m trying to think of all the fiduciary organizations that you can go to conferences. You can go try to be in the orbit of these people. So, you can find out what firms are in your area and start be proactive. Go out, reach out to them. And then, by the way, what we tell people, we get a lot of people aspirational. We’re always hiring, by the way. If you go look, matter of fact, we in the studio right now, we have four new employees, we’re not going to embarrass them, but we don’t put a camera over there, fortunately for them. But we always when people reach out and a lot of them, I think all of them, I’ll just say it. All of them, I’m very sure I’m on solid ground here, were Money Guy listeners just like you. When they reach out and say, “What do I need to do?” We’re like, “Hey, are you eligible to sit for the CFP?” And then for a lot of career changers, we say, “Have you passed the CFP?” So go do your research on, hey, how do I go take the curriculum to become eligible to sit for the certified financial planner exam, but what I like about that path too is that it lets you really try on all the subject matter. You get to go through it all and you don’t have to quit your day job to do that. I mean, and that’s a, you dip your toe in to figure out, is this something I really want to do or is this something that maybe I need to make sure that I love it before I jump head first into it.

Rebie: That’s great stuff. Freerunner 19, thank you for being here and I hope that helps you think through that. Email [email protected] to get your free tumbler.

Compound Interest Calculator Reminder (1:03:32)

Rebie: And you know what? I’ve really loved, I have loved seeing how much the financial mutants are enjoying our compound interest calculator. And I really mean that because that’s one of our newest free resources. And you know, we get to see like how many people go to that page and how many submissions we’ve gotten. It’s amazing to see just how popular it’s been since it’s been released. And so that warms my heart and I just wanted to thank you guys for checking it out. But also gave it a plug because people are really enjoying it. And if you have not used it or maybe even have more questions about what your money can turn into through the power of compound interest, go to moneyguy.com/resources. It’ll be right there at the top of the page along with all of our other free tools and free downloads. So go check that out.

Brian: Well, I think you just highlight the key point is this thing’s living and breathing. If you haven’t been to moneyguy.com/resources in a long time, go out there because we’re always adding hubs. We’re always adding tools. We’re always adding new things to try to really keep people motivated. I know a lot of this is because we know so many people are coming into our content every month, but even our longtime listeners and people who’ve been part of the family for a while, don’t get complacent on that. That’s why also if you haven’t signed up, that’s one of the reasons we ask for your email address is because we send out a weekly newsletter. We try not to, we don’t harass at all. Not even try not. We don’t harass. So I mean we really try to be very mindful. It’s more or less I want your email address. I know who you are. I’ve, you know, I think I’ve shared with you guys. I started creating content in 2006 with the podcast originally and I was such a knucklehead because I didn’t ask for email addresses for I mean it might have been a decade. I mean it really, I think about what a knucklehead I was is because with all the different platforms, all the people have come through. I just want to know who you are so we’re actually family at that point versus so we can stay in contact because you never know if a platform’s going to come out of favor or if your content’s maybe not going to be allowed here there and so forth. I like knowing who you are so we can actually take this thing a little deeper and reach you where you are and hopefully give you a little nudge from time to time that there’s things that you could be doing a little bit better without being annoying. That’s the goal.

Closing (1:05:45)

Brian: And that’s why I think it ties in Bo, Rebie. There’s a better way to do money and we’re always trying to help you become the best version of yourself to call yourself a financial mutant. I’m your host Brian, Mr. Bo, Rebie, rest of the content team, Money Guy out.