Is it Impossible to Build Wealth in Your State? (Ranked)

Introduction – Can You Build Wealth in Your State? (0:00)

Brian: Here’s a question. Is it impossible to build wealth in your state?

Bo: Brian, I am so excited to talk about this because we know that different geographies and different states are different. No two states are the same thing. No two states have the same benefits and the same attractions. And realistically, no two states have the exact same cost of living. And depending on where you live in this country can have a big impact on what your financial life looks like.

Brian: Yeah. I mean, look, we’ve done shows on taxes. This one will focus specifically on cost of living. And we want to talk to you. You don’t always get to control where you live. So you can at least pay attention to how do you make the most of the situation. But in the meantime, let’s talk about what the high cost of living states are.

Highest and Lowest Cost of Living States (0:57)

Bo: Yeah. And this isn’t going to be a huge surprise because we know that some states are much more expensive than others. And according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, they determined that the national average for cost of living for a single adult is about $56,000 a year. So that’s the baseline on which we’re going to operate. Well, if we think about the highest cost of living states, California came in at the highest. It is 12.6% above the national average.

Brian: Yeah. By the way, if we had to do a list of the three, I would tell you none of these three because the next one was New Jersey at 8.9% higher than the average. And then Hawaii, I mean they at least have the excuse that they’re on an island. Pretty awesome. So 8.6% from the national average. So those aren’t shocks to me. When I saw the list, I was like, “Okay, here’s another list of California, New Jersey, Hawaii that were the top of cost of living.” What might surprise people is what’s on the actual low side of cost of living.

Bo: Yeah. So again, if we’re going to consider the national average is $56,500 a year for a single adult. The lowest cost of living was actually Arkansas. It came in 13.5% below the national average cost of living. The second lowest was Mississippi coming in at 12.7% below the national average. And then the third lowest cost of living was South Dakota coming in at 11.9% below the national average cost of living for a single adult.

Brian: I mean, from a popularity standpoint, South Dakota, because isn’t that the only state we don’t have a client in?

Bo: I think it might be the only state that we don’t have a client.

Brian: So obviously there’s not enough mutants taking advantage of the 12% discount they’re getting. I think there’s just not a lot of people in South Dakota. Also in our defense.

Bo: Even if you don’t live in one of these states, this doesn’t necessarily mean that cost of living is not a factor for you. We know that 47% of Americans, almost one in two said that cost of living is their single biggest obstacle to saving money because things have gotten more expensive, whether it’s gas, travel, housing, whatever that thing may be. Just the cost of keeping the lights on or living the life you want to live is a major obstacle to being able to build wealth and that’s pretty common across the entire population.

Case Study – California Carly vs Arkansas Adam (3:16)

Brian: Well, that’s why we wanted to do a contrarian take with doing a case study because look, it’s easy. We pick on California all the time because of their taxes and so forth, but here’s the reality. Historically, there’s actually some pretty good career opportunities because these high cost of living areas have opportunities sometimes you don’t have in other areas because of industry and other things that are going on in that community. So we said let’s do a contrarian take. Let’s compare California Carly to Arkansas Adam. You might be surprised at what we’re going to show in this case study.

Bo: Yeah. We want to argue that cost of living certainly can play a factor in your ability to build wealth, but it’s not necessarily the determining factor. So, if we’re going to think about California Carly, I bet you can’t guess what state that she’s going to be living and working in. And then we have Arkansas Adam. So, Carly, we know again just assuming these national averages and where these states fall, her average cost of living is going to be about $64,000 a year, but Arkansas Adam is only going to be about $49,000. Now, you just alluded to something, Brian, that the career opportunities and what is likely going to be available from a trajectory standpoint is probably going to be different in California versus Arkansas. So, okay, what if Carly moves out to California, decides to live there, but because she’s living in that type of area, she can go out and earn a salary of $100,000. And Arkansas Adam instead, he’s going to go out and earn a salary of $55,000. Well, we know that both of those two states are taxed differently. So, when we compare their after tax income, Carly would have an after tax income of about $72,000 and Arkansas Adam would have an after-tax income of just under $45,000. When you compare their after tax income to the cost of living in their states, what you can see is that even though Carly lives in a more expensive cost-of-living area because of the other opportunities there, she likely even has more margin available to her to build wealth than Arkansas Adam does.

Brian: Isn’t it amazing how we can get through? Now, look, we’re building a lot of assumptions into this, but what are the simple ingredients to wealth creation? First, you have to live on less than you make through discipline. And that discipline creates the margin that we’re seeing here for Carly. And that margin is what if you give it enough time that it actually creates the fruit of wealth. And I think that’s why you have to pay attention. We’re going to get deeper into you have to pay attention to what can you control in your personal situation to go on this wealth-building journey.

Three Strategies for Making the Most of Your Location (5:59)

Bo: Well, the very first thing that you can control or can think through is how do I leverage this situation? If I’m going to live in a high cost of living area, does that mean that the vocation I pursue, the trade that I pursue is going to have higher income opportunities? If that’s not the case, then it may be worth re-evaluating. Okay, is it justifiable? Does it make sense for me to live in the geography I’m choosing to live in if there aren’t more attractive opportunities available to help me keep up with the cost of living?

Brian: Well, I want to bring these next two together like leverage the situation. We all know because I mean it’s a household brand. Walmart is in Arkansas. But here’s the thing, even in low cost of living states. I bet because we live in Tennessee, but if you go look at the Nashville proper area compared to other parts of the state, the cost of living is completely different. So, you have to pay attention to and that’s what I loved about the leverage situation is what job opportunities, what things are there. And then here’s the second one, assess your location because in our situation because Nashville and in Williamson County and the areas surrounding Nashville have such a high cost of living, there are a number of people that do commute. Because you just have to go right outside of this bubble and all of a sudden the cost of living drops down significantly. So you need to kind of look at your scenario and say, am I one of those people? I hate commuting. I think when you look at happiness surveys, it’s not one of the greatest things you ought to be spending your time doing. But there are moments in time, I’ve done it in my life, where you assess your situation and you figure out how do you make the most to be able to control what variables you do have.

Bo: And then you have to take ownership of your circumstances. Remember, no matter where we are, what stage of life we are, if we want to impact our financial life, there are really two levers that we can pull. We can either increase our income, seek out opportunities that are going to allow us to have a bigger shovel, look for areas where there are more opportunities, build a different skill set, or we decrease our expenses. We find areas that are lower cost of living to match the vocation, to match the shovel that we have. Those are really the only two options you have. But the more deliberate you are in terms of how you pull each of those levers, the higher likelihood you’re going to have of not letting cost of living be a determining factor in your ability to build wealth.

Brian: Well, that’s what we find out. This is your environment. This is what you’re surrounded with. It definitely has a huge impact on opportunities. But a lot of times it’s your choices of consumption. And that’s why a too expensive car in California is going to drive just like a too expensive car will in Arkansas. And you need to plan accordingly. And that’s why I would encourage everybody. I want you to go to moneyguy.com/resources. And we have all kind of free stuff. Here’s one that we just pulled off the shelf to put in front of you. 20/3/8. Because that car that you drive that’s not going to impress anybody that you think it will will work against your wealth even more so than some of the things we covered on today’s show. So pay attention to 20/3/8, pay attention to our home buying rules as we’re working through all the rules. There’s all kinds, I screwed that one up but that’s okay. That’s okay. We have so many rules that even if you screw up the rules, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources to clarify and make sure you’re on the right path.

Bo: I love that the three ingredients of wealth creation stay the same. It is discipline. It is money. It is time. No matter what stage of your financial life you’re in, and no matter what geography you live in, I love that building wealth and making wise and sound financial decisions is available to all of us. It’s one of the reasons why we love that every single Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central, we get to sit right here and answer questions that you guys care about. We get to speak to the things that are on your mind. So, if you have a question that you want to get our take on, that you want us to weigh in on, make sure you get it in the chat right now. We have the team out in the wings collecting your questions because we really do believe that there is a better way to do money. So, with that, Creative Director Rebie, I’m going to throw it over to you.

Big Announcement – Money Guy Clips Channel Launch (10:08)

Rebie: Yes, drop those questions in the chat because today is Tumblr day and now is your moment. But before we get to the first question, I do have

Brian: You know why I didn’t get any quarks today? There’s some exciting stuff that Rebie’s I’m sitting up here about to make a big announcement. I’m just so excited for her to say what she’s about to say that I kind of blew past that we just offered up those.

Rebie: Oh, there will be more opportunity, Brian. Don’t worry for your sound effects. But we do have an exciting

Brian: I can you know I can perform on command but I am excited for Rebie to announce.

Rebie: We have the first question. Oh, we’re not we’re not talking we’re not doing announcements yet. I have a big announcement because this is something that I feel like our channel has finally kind of grown into. It’s something that you have asked for. It’s something that we have considered and are finally able to make happen.

Bo: And you’re going to talk about it after we answer some questions, right?

Brian: What are you doing?

Rebie: All right. I have a list of all the things I’m going to hit and what I’m going to do, but they’re not going to let me. But I now I do want to announce it. I’m announcing it. I’ve decided.

Brian: You do it. You do it, Rebie.

Rebie: We now have a Money Guy Clips channel. So, what this means for you watching is that the Money Guy Show channel that you know and love that you are watching or listening to right now will continue to have all new content Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Everything on this channel will be new original content. You’ve noticed that we’ve picked up clips like some of the most popular and interesting parts of our full episodes and we’ve been posting those on the weekends or at different points throughout the history of this channel. Now, those clips are going to live on Money Guy Clips, the channel on its own. So, you can kind of tailor to what you want to watch. And here’s the call to action here. We’re doing this for you. We want this to be a great experience for everybody who finds Money Guy content. We want to reach even more people with this amazing advice. So, be sure to go subscribe and watch some of our Money Guy Clips channel content to just give it a little oomph and make sure that we can keep doing this and keep serving you with better content and keep making better changes like this to hopefully make your life a little better and make the content easier to find and easier to watch.

Brian: So, here’s what’s happened in my life. Already in my friend group, we have a big text thread. Look at that. Oh, that’s what that’s what I was. This banner that’s up right now. My buddies have one of my enterprising buddies has clipped just my picture and said this guy looks like he could sell some used cars. So already some shots because I don’t choose any of this stuff. I let the content team just run raw with it. But I do if you want to go check it out, you have to go check out go to YouTube and we have Money Guy Clips. It was it Money Guy Clips? That’s right. In case the search function isn’t because it’s brand new. And then, you know, staying on that same theme. I mean, we have pulled the top off the carburetor. We’ve poured a little gas, but we need you to be that additional fuel to prime the pump so we can get this engine fired up and take the Money Guy to the next level.

Rebie: I love it. So, we’re excited about that. Go check out the channel. Go look at Brian’s fun picture.

Brian: I’m fine with it. I mean, look, if I have to sell some used cars to make this thing go down, a spoonful of sugar.

Bo: We’ve been talking about this for a while. It is not until this moment in the chat that I recognized how much it does sound like a barbershop. I never did. There was a memeification out there. Sounds like everyone’s like, “Man, I can’t wait to get my haircut at Money Guy Clips.” I never put that together until right this moment. It’s unbelievable. I literally never even saw it. Oh, man. Oh, I love it. Oh man, somebody just said Brian got you rolling. That’s hilarious. That’s Brian got you rolling.

Rebie: If you have not seen Steve-o got me rolling, you should watch some of our Financial Advisors React videos.

Brian: I thought you were like I’m really close. Go check out some Steve-o clips.

Rebie: No, do not go check out some. Honestly, you probably should not do that. No offense. You should go watch Money Guy React.

Brian: Wouldn’t that be funny if Steo came and did a studio tour? It’d be amazing. Like I’m a big fan of y’all show. Y’all helped so much. Like that’s not what we’re trying to do here. Let’s teach you about 20/3/8. Let’s have a sit down.

Live Q&A – Solo 401k for Self-Employed (14:34)

Rebie: All right, let’s go ahead and get to our first question from Kevinb8679. It says, “Hey, Money Guy team. My spouse is self-employed making $120K annually. What retirement account is best if we expect to be in a higher tax bracket later in life?”

Bo: Well, Brian, this is interesting because you know, one of the things that you said when you used to do taxes a million years ago, you were like, “Hey, one of the best things that I could do is whenever I’m sitting down with a small business owner or someone who is self-employed, owns their business, I know I can always start kind of blowing their mind in terms of tax savings.” And this exact question is one of the things you always start to talk about.

Brian: Well, yeah. Because in the past, it was easy. You just threw a SEP IRA at them because a SEP IRA is one of the unique tax planning tools that could go back in time. Meaning that if right now we’re in the year 2026, but we’re not past the tax filing deadlines or extended tax filing deadlines, if you file a tax extension that goes all the way to October for 2025. So you can imagine if you’re a self-employed person and you had really, you know, income popped because that’s the thing about being self-employed. Sometimes you just don’t know your income is going to pop until all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh my gosh.” Because you have so much money plowing back into the business that you’re shocked when those early years when it starts piling up because you realize, oh my gosh, this thing is starting to show some success. So, you could fire up a SEP IRA and put up to 25% of the earnings, usually with self-employment adjustments around 20%, some sort of profit sharing contribution and that was all funded by the employer side meaning you the owner. Then along came solo 401ks and that kind of really changed things a lot because what blew up SEP IRAs was then once people had employees you do a SIMPLE and then you go into a traditional 401k. Well if you don’t have employees there’s still an option that’s probably better. It is better than SEP IRAs and that’s the solo 401k has really changed the game because in addition to doing that profit sharing contribution that I just laid out for SEP IRAs, it also allows you to do salary deferrals just like a 401k would. And there’s even options you can get into Roth side of things. There’s some really cool planning opportunities that you can do with a solo 401k. And by the way, employees can be you and your spouse only, but once you start putting the kids on the payroll or other crazy things like that, it will blow up these things and then you have to go more traditional and that’s a whole other conversation. But if you’re self-employed, you don’t have employees, solo 401ks have a lot of benefits.

Bo: Yeah. So, just thinking through, you know, your wife having $120,000 in comp and let’s assume that that’s what she’s actually showing as her net operating income. With a SEP IRA, she could do a $30,000 contribution. You figure out, okay, if you guys are in a higher tax bracket, 30% tax bracket, you just take $30,000 contribution times your marginal tax bracket. That’d be your tax savings. If she does the solo 401k contribution, in addition to doing the $30,000 employer profit sharing, she can now add on $24,500 as a salary deferral. So the total deferral of her income could be $54,500. Take that number, multiply it by your marginal tax rate, and you can see that there are some serious and substantial tax savings available to you by opening a solo 401k. And they’re so easy to open. You can go to any of the major custodians, you know, Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, fill in the blank, open it. There’s no tax refiling, no reporting, no issues until it crosses over $250,000 of assets. Once it does that, you do have to make sure that you file an annual 5500. There are no taxes due. It’s an informational filing. But if you miss that filing, the IRS will send you a nasty and gnarly letter that will scare you to death.

Brian: Penalties are severe.

Bo: So make sure you file that every year. Make sure you track to see how big is my solo 401k or if you’re someone who’s rolling IRA assets into a solo to open up backdoor Roths. Make sure that you file your 5500 every year because you do not want to get that letter.

Rebie: That’s great. Well, Kevin B8679, you get a Money Guy Tumblr. If you’d like one since we answered your question, just email [email protected].

Rapid Fire Segment Announcement (18:54)

Rebie: All right, before I go into the second question, I do have another small announcement. We will be doing another It Does Not Depend rapid fire segment between the 30 and 40 minute mark of today’s episode. So, if you are watching live right now, please submit your questions. Just put RF for rapid fire at the front of your question and our team is going to queue up a bunch of really fun rapid-fire questions for Brian and Bo. Feel free to have fun with it. Feel free to stump them. Feel free to just ask a genuine personal finance question as we do on this show all the time and as we love to do. So go ahead and get those questions in the chat and we will come back to that after a couple more long form questions.

Brian: I heard last week that I said it depends and you didn’t ding me for doing that. So you have my permission to go over the top if I because

Rebie: I’m the honestly by the end we were having so much fun trying to get you to answer it in 20 seconds. I may have forgot like just missed it.

Brian: I don’t think my brain can go less than 30. I bet you both can work at a speed. It’s just when you listen to me, there are limits on how fast you can probably listen to me at three times, four times speed because of how slow I talk. But there are definitely limits on how fast I can process a question.

Rebie: Yeah. We’re going to try to find a happy medium and have some more fun today. So the rapid fire just label them RF so we know it’s for that segment. In the meantime, I’ve got a couple more long form questions. I guess that’s what I’m calling them.

Housing Payment – 25% Gross vs Net Income (20:15)

Rebie: Cued up. This one is from Pow3rBait. It says, “Hello. Why do you suggest 25% of your gross income for a house payment instead of 25% of net? 25% of my gross ends up being about 32% of my net, which feels like too much.” So, this is regarding our house buying rule. So, maybe you can kind of recap that and speak to his question.

Bo: I want to be clear because the way that this question is worded is a little bit different than what we say. You said why do you suggest that our housing should represent 25% of our gross? We do not say hey your housing should be 25% of your gross income. What we say is that is the upper limit guard rail that you should use to determine if the housing that you’re getting into is more expensive than it should be. Now, if you’re someone who is a little more risk-averse, a little more conservative, you want to have a little bit more margin in your life, there’s nothing wrong with you using a net number. I’m going to do 25% of my net or I’m going to do 20% of my gross or 15% of my gross. There’s nothing that suggests you have to go all the way up to that threshold in order to get into housing. It just so happens housing is really really expensive right now and it’s a very difficult thing for a lot of folks to get onto the home ownership side of the equation. And so that’s why the 25% exists there. We never tell people when someone says, “Hey, I’m thinking about buying a house.” We never start with, “Okay, what’s your gross income? Let me tell you what your mortgage payment should be.” We start with, “Okay, why do you want to buy a home? How long do you see yourself being there? What’s the home going to do for you? What problems does it solve?” And then we begin getting into the mathematics around, okay, in the area that you live that you’re looking at with the type of home you’re looking for, what are those prices? Okay, now can we make sure that fits comfortably inside your realm of affordability? 25% is not prescriptive. It is a restriction. Hey, really be careful. Don’t go over that.

Brian: Well, look, for a lot of people that live in these high cost of living areas, they’re going to need every ounce of the housing that we can give them. So that’s why giving them boundaries for how much can you do without falling in the category of potentially being house rich, life poor. But the reason I use gross is this simple. You can’t manipulate it. If anybody because everybody’s net’s going to be slightly different because where do taxes fall in that? Where does your savings rate with your employer plan at work? You know, what are your health insurance electives that you’ve chosen? How about other things? If you’re doing life insurance or dependent care and all kind of other deductions that you’ve chosen out of your cafeteria plan, if we use net now, when I give you a specific recommendation, that’s going to be completely different than everybody else. But if I go off of gross, you can’t manipulate that number. It is what it is. We all know our top-line number. So, it gives you a little extra grace and takes it all the way up to 32% if you live in a high cost of living area. I’m okay with that, especially in this unique time in history where we are where housing already is so much harder. As long as you are doing all the other it depends stuff and you’re saving for the future, you’re making sure that you’re keeping your other debt limits within thresholds and boundaries we share. It all works together. And that’s why I always say when we do personal finance stuff, it’s exactly what Bo was talking about. He basically just gave you the triage list that we have to go through to assess where somebody is in their financial life. We give rules to give boundaries and guidance, but it still has to come back to the personal side of personal finance, which is going to be so unique that that’s why I can load you up with so much free advice is because everybody when you get to the critical mass point of that, hey, these are big decisions I’m making, my simple life has gotten super complicated. We kind of help bring it all together as financial planners and that’s why I don’t worry about my job with even all the crazy technology that’s going on is because that’s going to continue to be very personalized and unique and the implementation is a whole other level that I haven’t even talked about. One thing to know strategy, it’s another thing to actually make it happen.

Rebie: Pow3rBait, thank you for the question. If you would like a Money Guy Tumblr, just email [email protected].

Emergency Fund vs Roth IRA Contributions (24:48)

Rebie: Next question is from Bennett B. It says, “If I’m 24 years old with very low fixed expenses, can I commit the FOO sin of contributing $625 a month to my Roth IRA while simultaneously building up my emergency fund, already getting the full employer match?”

Brian: What I think is interesting I mean because I don’t know Ben at 24 is definitely young and I’m super excited especially if you can I mean you’re at the point where we can already be thinking about Roth IRA. I absolutely love that. But you just answered your own question in a way because you have very low fixed expenses. So if you know that to get out of step four you just have to basically know you have three to six months of living expenses covered and you have very low fixed expenses. And you know let’s just say if you were because look there’s no shame in the game that when I graduated college I lived at home for three or four months because my apartment that my buddies and I were moving into didn’t open up until September, October. I graduated in June. I bought the sweetest purple leather recliner with some of those savings and I saved up some additional money that went into emergency reserves and other things. It was on sale. It was a burgundy purple type color. My other buddy he bought the leather couch it was brown and then another guy bought the subwoofer and speakers. I mean this is these are priorities that roommates you know we all assigned we did a zone coverage on what we’re going to fill this place up with. But it’s back to the point of I think you’re going to be able to cross out of step four and right into the $625 within a month. I mean so we’re really talking about are you getting cute for a month to get because I want you in the Roth as fast as possible, but I just want to make sure that you know you’re being smart on the risk side of your exposure as well.

Bo: Yeah. I wish I knew more numbers. Ben, I’d love to ask. Okay. When you say very very low fixed expenses. Is that like $2,000 a month? I’m just kind of making up a number. So three months of those fixed expenses will be a $6,000 emergency fund. But when it comes to emergency fund, we don’t just want necessarily fixed expenses. I want you to actually have the true cost of living that you’re experiencing. So, whatever that may be, if it’s three grand a month, it’s three times six, nine for 3 months. I want you to have an emergency fund so that you can keep your life out of the ditch. But you’re trying to play a little bit of a game here by doing step four and step five. So, this is the first question I would ask you. All right. How much emergency fund do you have? Like, are you a month and a half, two months in? Is it only going to take you one more month to fill that bucket up? If so, go ahead and do that and then get back to the Roth. But I will say as a honorable thing, just a little asterisk honorable mention, one of the unique things about Roths, let’s say that you’re getting close to the end of the year or you’re getting close to the end of the tax filing deadline. You’ve almost maxed out your Roth for last year, but you’re not quite there and you just need to squeak in a few more contributions to fully hit the max. One of the unique things that’s true of Roth IRAs is that if you absolutely had to, you could get to your basis penalty free, tax free. Now, you never ever ever ever do that. But if you had to, you could. So, if it comes down to, man, all right, I just want to make sure I get that last little bit in, am I going to be okay if you take the $625 and you put it in your Roth and you just let it hang out in cash? I know that sounds crazy, but you let it hang out in cash until you get your emergency fund fully funded and then you invest that. I’m not going to fight you on that because I know that once we pass that tax filing deadline, you don’t have the ability to go back and max out the Roth for that year. So, those dollars are precious, they are special, they are coveted. But I don’t want you to run afoul of the FOO. So yes, there are circumstances where you can do both, but you got to be unique in how you do it and you got to make sure you’re doing it the right way. Agree? Disagree?

Brian: No, I like that. I like that because I mean there are moments in time where especially because you’re right, we’re in this unique time between January and April where you can still fund for last year’s taxes, last year’s Roth contributions. As you get older and more successful, you’re going to be sad if you didn’t fund some of that. So, I get it. And look, you do have a break glass opportunity to get to the basis of the Roth. I always just get nervous because I don’t want people to look at their Roth account as a piggy bank.

Bo: Well, and that’s why I told him and this is the part that’s going to be so painful for a 24 year old. You make that $625 Roth contribution. I want you to have it sit in cash. And what I hope happens is you see that $600 in your Roth and it just drives you absolutely nuts and you start losing your mind so that you get your emergency fund fully funded and then you can go invest those dollars. Let sitting in cash be the thing that motivates you to fully fund the emergency fund because cash in a Roth sucks. That’s not a good thing.

Brian: No, I agree with that.

Rebie: That’s great. I’m just getting ready for the rapid fire segment, but Bennett B, thank you so much for the question. If you would like a Money Guy Tumblr, hang on, let me give Bennett his Tumblr, [email protected]. Bennett email there. If you don’t have a Tumblr, we’ll get you one.

It Doesn’t Depend – Rapid Fire Segment (30:09)

Rebie: All right, we are almost to the 30 minute mark. So, let’s go ahead and gear up for this rapid fire section. Again, this is called the It Does Not Depend Rapid Fire segment. Brian and Bo have to answer your questions in 30 seconds today. 30 seconds and they cannot use the phrase it depends. I will give you 30 seconds each to start. Okay, you can go to start. And you cannot say in the future we got to flip a coin to see who goes first because we’ll just alternate back and forth. Okay, let’s alternate back and forth. I like that idea. Someone suggested I give each of you 10 seconds for each 10 years of life, but we’re not doing that.

Brian: I like that.

Rebie: That made me laugh. All right. Are you guys ready for the rapid fire segment? All right. So, I will ask the question and then the timer will start. First question says, “Best way to teach kids about money? Want them to be responsible but not misers?”

Bo: Depends on how old they are.

Rebie: Nope. None right out the gate. Disqualified. Brian, you’re up.

Brian: Go to moneyguy.com. There’s actually some shows if you because our search feature is so good now. If you type in I’m trying to think of 15-year-old savings or because I did a show specifically with my daughter when she was 15. That show’s gold. You’re going to see how much weight I lost. And it’s but it’s good. We laid out some basics and we’ve done we sprinkled in some other things and we want to do even more content to serve you as parents.

Bo: Sorry, you smashed you used to win over time and you still smashed me on that one.

Rebie: Next question says, “Should I continue contributing to 401k if employer suspends employer match or should I work on the next step?”

Brian: Where are you at in the Financial Order of Operations? Because you’ve got to look at your high interest debt since there’s you got to look at your emergency reserves. You got to jump right into the Roth IRA and then if there’s room, yes, definitely go back to the employer savings plan, assuming that it has decent investment options that makes it worthwhile. Otherwise, you might want to drop down right to doing an after tax account if it’s so horrible because your employer works with his golf buddy.

Rebie: Ding ding. I need a sound effect. Wow. Okay, Bo, you’re up.

Bo: We do need some sound effects. Yes. Go to next step. Go to next step with the FOO. Do three. Do four, get to tax-free. If you’re doing Roth 401k tax-free, do that. And then get to step six.

Rebie: Love it.

Bo: I’m so ashamed of myself for blowing the first one so bad. I’m ashamed.

Brian: I’m ashamed. It worked out beautifully. You sacrificed yourself. It was the first words I said. It was the very first words.

Rebie: Here’s a fun one, but 30 seconds remains. Biggest miser moments.

Bo: Biggest miser moments. I ate cereal. I ate cereal for every single meal when I was freshly graduated out of college. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, two for one, Publix steel.

Brian: I still have my friends bring up that IHOP. When we were in our early 20s, I was so frustrated that I said, “I’ll split the bill for everybody.” So, I had them give me the receipt. I screwed up the math. I don’t know if it’s because we had had adult beverages or what, but anyway, I got in an argument with the waitress. I was wrong and I felt like the biggest miser. And now if we just split the tickets like I normally do, it’d be fine. But I was so worried about I was a miser back then. I was so bothered with what everybody.

Rebie: I don’t think I’ve ever heard that story.

Bo: With my first daughter, she had outgrown her diapers, but I didn’t want to waste the diapers, so I kept using the too small diapers and she blew out for weeks on end every single day. We also used to put the kids in pack and plays.

Rebie: You guys are so far beyond.

Brian: I know, but there’s all kind of miser, but you will. You have more success. The very first time-

Rebie: Do the segment at the end where you get to say all of your things.

Bo: No, no, but I got one more. The very first time that me and Brian went on-

Brian: Oh, yeah. That is a miser moment. Oh my gosh. I know what you’re going to say.

Bo: The first time we ever went on a business trip together.

Brian: With my other business partner. This is before Bo.

Bo: With another business partner, they were so tight that they got one hotel room with two full beds or two queens, right? Two beds. We rolled a cot in and they rolled a cot in for 21, 22 year old Bo so that all three of us slept in the same hotel room and I slept on.

Brian: That is a solid. That one should be breaking the rules to go over. That’s a big miser moment. Now when we do book tours, it’s everybody gets their own room except for Brian and Bo.

Rebie: All right. Next question says, “Should I keep a down payment on a house for 3 to 4 years from now in a taxable brokerage account? Time starts now.”

Brian: A portion of it should go in the taxable brokerage account in cash equivalent. All of it can go in the taxable brokerage, but majority of it, a good portion of it is going to be cash because you’re so close to five years. You could have some short-term assets that have a little more risk than cash, but get you a little better yield.

Bo: Yeah, I think majority I would keep in cash so that it’s available if the right house shows up, but I do think that’s a long enough timeline that you could have a portion of that invested in the taxable brokerage account, but maximize the cash. Maximize the cash. Don’t let it be in fake cash because what happens is the economy goes down and all of a sudden there’s an opportunity, real estate slows down, you want to be able to move on a house really fast. You want to make sure you have your capital there and the market hasn’t gone down and you want to make sure that you’re available to capitalize when the opportunity presents itself.

Brian: You turn into the Micro Machines guy. You really do. It’s amazing how you can speed up your voice. My voice. Well, here I can’t do that.

Rebie: If I give you an inch, you guys really take a mile. You tag teamed and took all of that time.

Brian: No, we blew past 30 seconds. We’re horrible. They didn’t get-

Bo: No, she said 30 seconds.

Brian: I’m proposing we get shots from me and Bo and then we let Rebie push and pull the thing. If we did a shot caller segment, that would be insane.

Rebie: You said usually not four of these crazy things, but I like that.

Bo: Hold on. You said 30 seconds each, a minute total, right?

Rebie: Yes. But you guys were really being very liberal on how you shared that time. Next question for the rapid fire segment says, “How does one encourage a spouse to be more mutant-like?”

Bo: Begin with the end in mind. Talk about the goals that you have and reverse engineer into mutant tendencies that will lead you towards those goals.

Brian: Also, use the net worth as a tool to communicate and y’all do that annual planning session like we do with our spouses where you come up with what the goals are. That way, it seems like you’re doing this in a collaborative method versus you getting up high and saying, “Hey, you need to do this. You need to do this.” Nobody likes to feel yelled at or preached to. They want to feel more like we’re doing this together. Welcome to Money Guy Show. Watch the Money Guy Show every Saturday as a couple.

Rebie: Next question. Wait, what? Every Saturday.

Brian: Here’s the problem with 30 seconds. My family and I have certain YouTube channels we watch every Saturday as a family together. And I was saying make us part of your tradition.

Rebie: Because I was like, we don’t have content on Saturday. We have one on Friday.

Brian: This is why rapid fire is hard for us.

Rebie: Next question says, “Are annuities bad investment vehicles? If an older family member already has several, where do they go on their net worth statement?” Go, Brian first.

Brian: First, for most people, annuities are not the first investment you should do, but I want to put the word of caution. If they’ve already made the mistake and gone into annuities, don’t just assume that liquidating is the best option. You might have to figure out how you get yourself out from where you are currently versus just turning it all into cash.

Bo: Not all annuities are created equal. That’s true. Some are better than others and some are more appropriate in certain situations than they are in others. So, you have to assess them on an individualized basis for that specific individual.

Brian: There are a lot of bad annuities though.

Bo: Agreed.

Rebie: Great. Next question. When does a 401k loan make sense?

Bo: Oh gosh. Never.

Rebie: Top that time.

Brian: I mean, I always have a no I’ve never used a 401k loan, but I could see a moment where it would have to be a last resort.

Bo: Not if you have step four done, right? Like if you’re following the Financial Order of Operations, I would really I’d have to be in one heck of a pickle to use a 401k loan. The reason that the Financial Order of Operations is built the way it is is to protect you from getting in those desperate circumstances, right? Like that’s why we have an emergency fund so we don’t have to resort to cannibalizing our retirement assets.

Rebie: It’s good stuff. All right, this next one’s fun. Disneyland versus Disney World. Which one?

Brian: I mean, I spent a lot more time at Disney World because of proximity and Preston South is down there, but I loved Disneyland when I actually went to it the first time because everybody was like, you have to tell us. I absolutely loved it because it felt like a greatest hits album because everything is so compact and if you stay in the Grand Californian, you can actually be over Downtown Disney and listen to all the music and see all the shopping and it’s really awesome.

Rebie: Great. That was in 30 seconds.

Bo: I’ve never been to Disneyland. So I guess Disney World for you. Disney World for me.

Brian: I could add more, but I mean because the weather and-

Rebie: At the end we’ll do our catch-up segment. Until then, we do have a couple more. Next question says, “Windfall, invest or pay down low interest debt?”

Brian: You’re asking questions. You are banging us at this point. There’s no way to answer that without I’m going to blow up it depends. You. There’s no way to answer that question.

Rebie: Disqualified. Disqualified. Brian, you had that over Bo and you just threw it away.

Bo: Invest or pay down low-interest debt. Assuming that you have done what you’re supposed to do and you’ve built up a healthy asset base, the appropriate level of your financial life and you’re in step nine of the FOO, then you can certainly pay down that low-interest debt. Absent being in step nine and having a firm foundation and well on your way to financial independence and you’re the appropriate age, you’re not above 45, then you should invest.

Brian: Is that timer right? Because we blew past 30 seconds.

Bo: No, it was there. Well, it was combined. It was still going. Whoever starts, you get till 30.

Rebie: We may have to find that in the future. But for today, we’ve literally been going for 10 minutes.

Brian: He just realized how the timer’s been going. I already looked at the timer this whole time.

Rebie: That’s why I had to do the sound effects. Ding, ding, ding, ding. All right, last one. You can answer this in 10 seconds. Can Bo bench Brian?

Brian: Yeah. I weigh less than 350 lbs.

Bo: Yes, I can bench Brian a lot of times.

Rebie: Have we tried it?

Brian: No, we’re not doing that. You know what’s funny is I threw out shot callers, but all of a sudden that’s a bridge too far.

Rebie: Oh man. All right, that was good stuff. Thank you for submitting your rapid fire questions. Now, let’s just make sure. Was there anything else that you would like to say for the it does actually depend segment? Any miser behaviors? Any clarification on the 401k loan? Anything left to say?

Clarification on Annuities (42:24)

Bo: I do mention on the annuities. Annuities are not inherently a bad thing. They solve a problem, a very specific problem in very specific circumstances. But what’s happened is that industry has kind of morphed to where it got broadly applied to way more people than they actually made sense for. So I don’t want to say just throw out all annuities completely, especially if you have an older family member, an older relative that you’re doing this analysis for. You want to go through because some annuities it may not make sense to get rid of it, but there are things you can do like, hey, this annuity has this really interesting feature where I can activate the income rider and those dollars can sit there, but now it can start generating real income for me on a month over month, year-over-year basis. And it makes sense to do that because I’ve been in the annuity for so long. So, you don’t want to just throw them completely out with the bathwater. You want to do the analysis to determine, okay, which ones are worth keeping, worth having, and which ones are worth not having.

Brian: If we were doing a quick summary like a fixed annuity that acts like a pension, that’s probably the one with the least amount of crazy stuff going on if you were just trying to because we see people set up their own pensions like that. Variable annuities, equity index annuities, those are the ones that usually have a sales force attached to them. And they’re very profitable for the people who sell those products. You just need to be careful if it sounds too good because they always say, “Hey, we can give you the returns of the market without the risk.” Just off that statement alone, your Spidey senses ought to go, “That sounds a little too good to be true.” And historically when you go look at the data you can see yeah there’s a lot going on with that sales line that doesn’t hold up when you go back test and look at what they do historically because I think a lot of people also don’t understand when you look at these products when they say hey we’re going to give you all the great returns of the market with no risk or limited risk and then when you go find out that they cap you at very low returns meaning that those years that the market makes 20% you don’t get 20%, you’re capped at whatever low number that is. And that oversized performance is what really drives a lot of your other years. And then also the fact that if you got an emergency and you needed access to this money, a lot of annuities cap you at what is it five or 10%? Super even on how they’re structured. And you’re going to blow yourself up if you need that money and have no way to get access to it because you’re stuck within the timeline.

Bo: Another I think the second part of this question and thanks for reminding me in the chat was you know where do these find themselves on the net worth statement. Well that does depend a little bit because annuities can be qualified annuities meaning that they’re bought inside of an IRA inside of a tax deferred structure. They can be non-qualified meaning that they were bought with after tax assets and while they may have grown tax deferred when you begin receiving those payments you’re likely going to have to pay some sort of pro rata allocation of taxes. So determining what kind of annuity, where on your investments inside the net worth statement it would go.

Brian: You really want to get in my crawl is have a qualified annuity in a retirement account because I’m like why would you put an annuity in an IRA.

Bo: It’s like putting a rain jacket on and jumping in a swimming pool. It don’t make no sense.

Brian: And I don’t know if I love that analogy, but especially with swimming with Bo, but I see what you’re trying to do.

Rebie: There you go. Look at all that extra color you got to add to your answers. Well done. Well done.

Brian: The only other thing I was going to say is Disneyland’s the reason that Anaheim is so great is because the climate is incredible. All those rides are outdoors because they just don’t have the humidity that we have in Orlando. And it’s spectacular from a climate and weather standpoint.

More Live Q&A – Financial Independence Milestone (46:27)

Rebie: That’s great. Our friend Humphrey Yang did submit a rapid fire question right at the end. I’m going to give it to you for fun, so I think you can answer it fast. It says, “When your salary can be covered by your investment returns, what would you name that?”

Brian: Was that milestone four on our list or something? You know, we have a milestone for that one because that means you are really you’re not necessarily financially independent, but you are getting really close to really cool things happening.

Bo: This is literally the point where your dollars can work harder than you can with your brains, your back, and your hands. They can literally do the job that you’re doing, and oftentimes they can do it even better. They can make more while you’re sleeping. That’s a pretty exciting spot to be.

Brian: Thank you, Humphrey, for jumping in and asking us questions in the chat. Let us know when you’re coming back to this neck of the woods.

Bo: It would be cool if he came back if we did something else. That’d be awesome. We’re here for it.

Taking Your Foot Off the Gas at 33 with $1 Million (47:20)

Rebie: All right, we’re going to dive into some more personal finance questions. This next one is from-

Brian: Can I ask something in real time? You may. Because I don’t, you know, y’all keep computers and distractions away from me. How many subscribers are we up to on the Clips channel? Is it rude for me to ask that in real time?

Bo: Why don’t you look that up while we’re answering this other question? We’ll have an answer after this question.

Rebie: This question is from FoosioTherapist. Very nice. Very nice username. It says, “Good morning, money guys. At what stage of your wealth building journey did you take your foot off the gas? I’m 33 with about $1 million in invested assets. So, doing very well. Trying to balance my wealth multiplier with enjoying my 30s. Thanks.

Bo: Here’s a question I would ask Foosi because I think this is really unique and by the way you are in such a unique rarified air. It’s an interesting place to be at to be that young with that much wealth. The question I would have is were you able to get to a million dollars? Were you Does that come through on the audience? I don’t know. Were you able to get to a million dollars because you have an insane savings rate? Meaning you’re saving 50, 60, 70% of your income and that’s how you’ve done it. Or are you one of those young people who has a very high income and because your income is so high at a very reasonable savings rate, you’ve still been able to accumulate that level of wealth. If it’s the former, if you’re someone who’s had that crazy high savings rate and it’s caused you to miss out on stuff you want to do in your 20s, miss out on living for the day, miss out on getting to enjoy the present, then I think there’s a really good conversation around taking your foot off the gas and getting to enjoy the fruits of some of that labor. But if you’re someone who’s 33 years old and you’re just a 25% saver and you’ve been stacking, stacking, stacking, stacking, I don’t know that you have to take your foot off the gas unless there is stuff that you’re missing out on that you would like to be doing and your savings is causing you not to do that.

Brian: What here’s the reality of the situation was and I put this in the book. I didn’t feel like I was financially comfortable until I was in my early 40s. And that worked out nicely because that’s the age I told my wife that we could take our foot off the accelerator if we’d make the sacrifices in our 20s and 30s. But also I had the mindset in my 20s and 30s to still bedazzle my basic life. I mean we were still traveling, still doing things. Now what you might find yourself now you’re in a much better situation at 33 is I would challenge you, you have to ask yourself because when I got into my 40s my income got to the point where I didn’t necessarily have to dial it down to zero and do Coast FIRE or anything. I was able to still save because I just looked around I was like well what makes me happy? What’s money used for me? I didn’t want a bigger house. I didn’t want fancier cars or anything like that. So if I asked myself well am I traveling enough? Am I doing enough? Making enough memories with the family. And then I just let the money continue to build up. And what’s been great is now I’m in my 50s. And if you could see some of the charitable giving that I get to bless upon people and institutions and organizations and truly start moving the needle, the why eventually shows up for you on how this money if you because I just didn’t feel the need to go spend it if I didn’t need to. It felt better to let this money grow in the background and be a bigger resource. And that’s shown up in our content and how we can buy stuff or invest in stuff that’s irrational that nobody would do because it doesn’t have to be tied to the grounding of this is a good decision or not a good decision. And that’s what the flexibility of good financial management does. So I just you have to kind of be honest with yourself and know thyself on are you living your best life. Now, I worry for misers that they’re going to ask that question and not be able to see I should be living life more because I will say we had a dear friend, a client of the firm who passed away this weekend and way too young, younger than me and it kind of caught me off guard and it was just a really tough thing to see and I’m glad that some of the sacrifices, I wouldn’t say he went against us but he definitely did some things that I thought were financially a little more aggressive. And I’m kind of glad he pushed on those things because not that we make our clients misers, but I do want to make sure everybody’s honest with themselves that you look at your life and your happiness. Are you doing those things? Because money is nothing more than a tool. And I don’t want you to be in your 20s or 30s or even 50s and 60s and have regrets. I want you to balance out what’s the analytical needs plus the mindset plus the memories that I need to be building in each stage. And that’s why I tried to cover all that mindset stuff in Millionaire Mission. I really did. I spent that’s what some of the favorite chapters everybody always puts in the comments is in those latter chapters where I really load up what I’ve done in my own life to try to balance that because there is a fine line between mutant and miser.

Rebie: It’s great. Love that. Go to moneyguy.com/millionairemission if you want to get Brian’s book. It’s still out there rocking and rolling. And special thank you to Foosiotherapist. I had all my usernames up here and I wanted to make sure I got it right. If you would like a Money Guy Tumblr, email [email protected]. We’d love to send you one. 33 with a million. That’s huge. Also, well, yeah. Go to moneyguy.com. Click on the become a client button if you’re interested. You know, just check it out. It can’t hurt to talk to somebody. We’d love to meet you.

Planning for Retirement as a Renter (53:14)

Rebie: All right. Britt M is up next. It says, “How do you factor not owning a home into plans for retirement? My mom retired and sold her house to live near me. She plans to stay a renter as it’s a high cost of living area. Just curious how to plan for that potential.”

Bo: Well, I think that there’s a common misnomer that you have to be a homeowner in order to be financially independent and that’s just not true. Now, a lot of people are homeowners and a lot of people choose that who are financially independent. But we have a lot of clients who they might live and work in one area of the country for their entire lives and they decide, hey, in this next season, this next phase, I don’t want to be tethered to any one place. I want to have flexibility that if I want to go somewhere else or if I want to travel for part of the year, if I want to spend time in different parts of the country close to different family, being a renter affords you the opportunity to do that. So I think you would factor that into the retirement plan the same way you would factor in any other cost. The one difference, the one caveat being when you have a mortgage, when you have a fixed expense, it’s very easy to project out, okay, this is what my house is going to cost or my housing is going to cost me over the next 30 years. I know what the mortgage payment is. I have a reasonable idea of what insurance and taxes are going to be. Rent is a little bit different. If it’s in a high cost of living area, and a lot of people are moving to the area, it’s causing rents to increase, there can be some escalation on that expense. And so what I would do is I would put a buffer into my expense category for what I think housing is not necessarily just going to cost me today. But what I reasonably think it’s going to cost me 5 years from now, 10 years from now, and so long as you budget and account for that, I think you’ll be okay.

Brian: I think a lot of people I always try to help them understand the why of why do things work the way they are. And if you especially live in a high cost of living area right now, there’s a kind of an arbitrage situation where you can definitely rent cheaper than you can buy. And the why on that is you think about we had such a fast run up in housing costs meaning that in addition to the cost of housing going way up, the cost of interest rates meaning interest rates went way up and that’s a double whammy because it not only means you’re paying more for the houses but it also means the cost to carry if you leverage and not pay cash, which most people don’t pay cash for real estate, has gone up significantly too. So those two things together mean that it’s hard for you to buy it. But there’s a lot of people out there that own the rental property that locked in with sub-4% mortgage rates, sub-2020 pricing on these houses. So they can offer very reasonable rents because they don’t have the carry cost of high mortgage payments and they don’t have the carry cost of high interest and all the other things. So you can go and be the beneficiary of that and rent probably in that area cheaper than you can buy. Pay attention to that. That’s why I always like to tell people you need to know how money works or understand it so you can kind of analyze is this a buy situation or is this a rent situation. That’s why I want you to understand the why so you can quickly look at it and go wow with these interest rates with these housing prices in this area probably ought to take advantage of this moment in time and just rent. But then keep my eyes out because at some point maybe the pendulum swings the other way or maybe in that community because different communities have different personalities on even what the cost of housing is. If you know where you are in the system or know where you are in the location of the real estate. You can quickly analyze and figure out what’s best for you.

Rebie: Britt M, thank you for the question. If you would like a MoneyGuy Tumblr, email [email protected] and we’d love to send you one just as a thank you for asking.

Brian: Well, and the reason I was thinking about this is because Bo and I do commercial real estate and there’s some properties that are intriguing at first when you find out they’re coming on the market. Super cool property. But then when you back test and you do the math on you’re like well you could never buy that because the tenants won’t be able to afford to pay the rent for what the premium is on what the cost of the real estate is now. And that’s why I think about those things. I’m always thinking about that. And what is because that’s what if you wonder why things get more expensive too is because every time a property sells it has to be reset. You know, this goes for commercial, this goes for residential, and that’s why you’re trying to find the arbitrage of finding somebody who bought that real estate with a low interest rate pre-2020 because those people are sitting pretty in a pretty good situation and can pass those savings potentially on to you now because there are a lot of there’s a lot of inefficiency in residential real estate. We had a house here in this I hate it that this firm let it go away. Because there was a single family house that was 2 miles from our office and the owners were artificially they knew their rent was low but they were more about the quality of the tenant than them trying because they were going to keep this house. This was going to be their house that their first house that they started their family, they moved away because of work, they wanted to keep this house because they thought someday they might come back to the community so they were on purpose keeping rents reasonable so they could attract really high-caliber people and you need to be on the lookout. I know that that’s a needle in the haystack, but I’m just trying to tell you how you make the most out of hard moments is because you might get lucky. Luck sometimes is better than being good. So pay attention to these things.

All Equities Portfolio at 31 and 35 (58:47)

Rebie: All right, we’re going to do another question from Chris H. It says, “Hey, Money Guy team. My wife and I, 31 and 35 have $388K in retirement, all in equities, low-cost index. Do we need to be more diversified or is it okay to be this far out on risk at our age? Our income is $185K.”

Bo: You’re doing awesome. Here’s a question I ask Chris and this is not incredibly uncommon because I would argue at $388,000 you are crushing it. You likely are not quite at the boiling point critical mass at that point. You’re close. So a lot of times we tell people hey in this stage in this phase of your wealth building you can look for really simple solutions like low-cost index funds or oftentimes like target retirement index funds because it does some of that natural allocating for you. My question for you is if now is not the right time, and I want you to go and think about this, to diversify, to spread out, to take some risk off the table, when is? Is it 35? Is it 40? Is it 45? Because so often, and this happens all the time, we’ll have people reach out to us and they’ll have big portfolios and they’ll be in their late 40s, mid-50s. Hey guys, I’ve got two million, three million, $4 million invested and I’ve been a great saver. And we look at it and it’s all equities. And we’re like, well, why did you never take any of the risk off the table? And they say, oh, well, because the strategy I had works so well and works so well, it works so well. And that’s true until it doesn’t. That’s why whenever you look at your portfolio, you have to measure not only your risk tolerance, but also your risk capacity. It’s not just about how much risk can you handle, it’s how much risk should you handle. So, I don’t necessarily have an issue with your portfolio being all equity at that size, but I would be thinking, what are your trigger points? Is it 35? Is it 40? Is it half a million invested? Is it a million invested? And so long as you can be honest and truthful with yourself about when that’s going to happen, I think it’s okay. But you probably ought to start having those thoughts.

Brian: Well, and it also comes back to the Financial Order of Operations. One of the things that I always remind people, by the way, I didn’t give that a proper shake. There we go. This thing, I want to make sure it’s still working. Is that don’t sleep on the fact that steps one and four is your deductibles covered in emergency reserves. Because if somebody who’s making your level of income. Now, we’ve already taken off what the assumptions were, but I remember they were making how much per year? $185,000. So if we take half of basically you just say if your cash reserves was like a hundred grand and you said your portfolio was $388. Yeah. So I got that part right. I mean your true risk if you had a fully funded emergency reserves even though you’re 100% equity. The risk of your financial situation might be not as risky as you think because you followed the Financial Order of Operations and you had enough cash. So if you had emergencies or bad things happen. Now look, you’re getting into the weeds of how do we maximize the investment portfolio, but I always say these things are all working together. It’s not only just what’s going on with the investment portfolio, but what is going on from a risk standpoint with your entire Financial Order of Operations. So you can make sure that you’re not skipping steps. That would be more of my concern is skipping steps and being that aggressive than just making sure, hey, is this the time I need to go buy 15% or 20% of bonds? I think there’s a bigger question to ask that ties into the Financial Order of Operations.

Bo: Love it.

Closing – Resources and Job Postings (1:02:25)

Rebie: That’s great. Hey, if you want to dig deeper into these financial topics or if you want to work for us, go to moneyguy.com. And yes, I said that right. We have a whole resource page full of free resources diving deeper into everything we talked about today. We also have some new job postings up on our join the team page. We’ve got a video editor and a content developer role in particular that we’re looking for right now. So, if that’s you, we would love to talk to you. Would love to see your application. So, be sure to go to moneyguy.com for all things money. And keep letting us know what you want. Keep tuning in on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central. We love talking personal finance with you, answering your questions, and hearing about the things that you’re thinking about. So, hopefully we can speak to it and help you build just a little more confidence each time.

Brian: And there’s a clips channel.

Rebie: And there’s a clips channel. Where’s that at? Get those pictures. Oh, right. I forgot to announce. We are at 1,458 subscribers on our brand new Money Guy Clips channel. Almost 1500. That’s great. We like it.

Brian: So, I like that. I also love the rapid fire segment. I feel like we packed a lot into this show today. Thank you all for supporting us. It means the world to us as we keep doing scary endeavors like even launching a brand new channel so that we can clean up the feed for you so you can actually know what’s long form content, what’s short form. We listen to you guys. And by the way, if you could have seen our content meeting this morning, we even poke our head into that Reddit thread every now and then just to keep an eye on what those discussions are. And you guys, you’re witty, you’re funny, you’re smart. Make sure you’re not sleeping on those job postings that we have because I know that our next team member who’s going to join the family is probably lurking around on those Reddit threads and we’d love to have you apply. So, I’m your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo, Rebie and the rest of the content crew. Money Guy out.