Saving vs. Spending: Military Couple has an Honest Conversation About Money

Introduction: Saving vs. Living Today (0:00)

Indie: I am stuck in a conflict because I agree with him. Everything he tells me, I completely agree. We need to be saving for a future and we have been and we’ve been doing well and he just wants more. And that’s completely understandable. But I’m stuck in that internal conflict of knowing what life is going to be like for us after our kids are grown and gone, but also me living for my children and wanting to give our family as much as we can today.

Meet Nathyn and Indie (0:30)

Bo: 29, military, 7-year-old, 5-year-old. Yes. What brings you guys in today?

Nathyn: I have a strong focus and a lot of stress about whether or not we’re putting enough in investing into our future. And I think Indie is on the other side where she’s trying to make sure that we’re investing enough in our now and the experiences in our children and our upbringing and our growth coming from today. Hopefully we get this idea on how we might be able to better balance those two ideas.

Bo: So you’re obviously focused on the future and saving for the future and that sort of thing, but you feel like you’re missing out on stuff today. Give us some flavor and context for why you feel that way.

Indie: So I live for my children. I do and I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for five years. I want to give them all the opportunities that I possibly can. Going on trips and having experiences that way or them doing extracurricular activities, anything like that, I want to be able to give that to them. He’s very into—what is going to—what is our life going to be like when we’re 50? And I’m like, I don’t know what next week’s going to be like. I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s where that stress kind of falls because I’m like, are we investing enough in our time together now? Like, are we doing the right thing with groceries? Are we spending the bill—the money for bills on the right things and stuff like that? And he’s like, let’s invest as much into this TSP and things like that. And I’m like, is that going to really take away from what our month-to-month is going to look like? The conflict lies there.

Brian: You use the word conflict, but it actually can become a feature that y’all yin and yang in a positive way. Sometimes there is a balance between mutant and miser. So, it’s good to have Indie here who’s trying to make sure, but it’s also our job to kind of give a plan. So, then Indie gets the realization, hey, that we can live for today, but also have some that’s automatically set up for the future. And then both of you—it’s kind of like that puzzle piece coming together and then now all pieces are working together and it doesn’t have to be this mystery that turns into conflict.

Indie: I am stuck in a conflict because I agree with him. Everything he tells me I completely agree. We need to be saving for a future and we have been and we’ve been doing well and he just wants more and that’s completely understandable. But I’m stuck in that internal conflict of knowing what life is going to be like for us after our kids are grown and gone, but also me living for my children and wanting to give our family as much as we can today.

What Are They Missing Out On? (3:12)

Brian: You said he’s asking for more when he’s thinking about for the future. Is there anything in the current? What are y’all missing out currently?

Indie: Well, we can’t go on any trips without stress, I should say. We can, but it would be stressful and not fun. Extracurriculars. Our kids activities and stuff.

Brian: Yes. Okay. What do they want to do?

Indie: Our oldest loves gymnastics. That is his—he’s a big ninja warrior gymnastics.

Nathyn: I got one of those. Let’s go. Hanging on the—hanging upside down.

Indie: Flips all the time. Yeah. And our youngest wants to do wrestling—wrestling, football, anything. And we want to be able to do those things without being like, how—what can we move to make this work?

Nathyn: Something that I do want to mention and kind of just throw in there to give a bigger context is I also have all of those feelings where I want to invest into the now. I want to give the children in the time period that they have. I mean their youth is now and it is fleeting and it is going away from them. And I recognize it’s super important to do those things now. But also the reason why the future is so important to me is because when I was younger, my nana, she lived in an RV with her boyfriend at the time and she was older. She was an old woman to the point where physical labor wasn’t a real option for her. She was very old. She lived in an RV in the Walmart parking lot where she worked as the Walmart door greeter, where her partner also worked at the Walmart. And so in my eyes, I see kind of something that I really don’t want to be in a position of where I might not have the ability to make income with my physical labor. And if I don’t specialize and get some sort of skill with mental labor or even get to a point where I’m just so old, I just don’t have that income anymore to be able to supply for the now. And I feel like it really requires you to make strategic investment choices now while you have it—while I have a lot of opportunity right now to float that time period where I might not be able to do that. So I think that’s where the struggle comes from—it’s going to be difficult in the future also.

Net Worth Assessment (5:34)

Bo: Well, I’m curious to know—you guys were so kind. You showed sort of a net worth statement. Let’s sort of level set—look at where you guys are right now from a net worth standpoint. And I want each of you to answer individually. Are you ahead of the curve, behind the curve? Like where do you say—because you’ve already said you guys are 29 years old, right? You’ve got a total net worth of about $115,000. When look at how that’s broken out, you have about $16,000 in cash, about $92,000 across investment assets. You have two automobiles, and it looks like you have two automobile loans, right? So, as 29-year-olds with almost a $100,000 income, $115,000 net worth, Indie, I’ll ask you first. Are you ahead of the curve? Are you behind the curve? Are you right on the curve? Are you where you should be? Should you be further? What’s your general feeling when you look at this financial snapshot?

Indie: When I look at it, I feel—there’s a part of me that feels like we’re behind or right on it. But I’m not—I have no idea.

Brian: Can I give you one piece of feedback right now for both of you? Because I mean it just—it’s amazing when I look at this and I’m like, “Holy cow, that’s already a win.” We say by the time you’re 30 years of age, the wealth multiplier we’re always talking about on our content—for a 30-year-old, it’s 23 times over. Y’all are 29. I mean, I have to go pull one—actually, I’ve got it right here, so we’ll cheat. A 29-year-old, 26 times—26.1 times. So every dollar you save can turn into $26 by the time you’re—how powerful your dollars still are at 29. We go even further and we say we want you—the aspirational goal is by the time you reach age 30 we want you to—we’d love for you to have one times your income working. And what do we see here? Your income is right around $99,000 currently. And what do we see on just your investment assets? We see close to $92,000. I mean you guys for somebody who feels like you’re really behind. I’m seeing a lot of evidence that y’all are doing incredible things and this doesn’t even take into account. You work for the—you’re with the military.

Nathyn: Mhm.

Brian: What is the thing I think everybody knows about the military? What happens after you give them 20 years of your service?

Nathyn: The pension.

Brian: When you’re in your 40s with 20 years of service, what do you think that’s worth? You don’t have to give me a full number, but do you think it’s worth six figures or seven figures?

Nathyn: Seven figures for sure. I mean, it depends on how long I’ll live. I’m a very Excel spreadsheet kind of guy. I look at the numbers. The numbers actually—they put us where it’s at.

Brian: It’s not even on how long you’ll live because I mean the way you structure it. It’s your family. What’s the pension benefit going to be? Do you already have an estimate of what that’ll be?

Nathyn: It’s a rough estimate. I’m in a weird spot right now. Like I said, I’m in the military, but I’m also—I’m a full-time college student right now. So, being—I’ve been active duty for the past eight years and I applied for the MECEP program and I was accepted for that. And so my job right now is to be a college student.

Brian: Paid to go to college?

Nathyn: Yes. Yes. I’m using my GI bill right now to pay for the college. So I’m kind of using the benefits that the military has offered me for this, but they call it a golden ticket.

Brian: Do you have to hit pause on pension years and stuff or is this count towards the pension?

Nathyn: This counts towards it. My unit is the NROTC. So, I participate in all of the things that the NROTC does to prepare the midshipman for their military career in the future. So, we’re doing—we’re doing a field exercise here in a little while. We have an obligation and we’re pretty productive in the military world, but it is not—it’s not the same for sure.

Bo: So give me an estimate of what—what do you think your pension—I know you said you’re in a weird spot but just throw—just kind of what—because your spreadsheet I know you thought of this—I know you got a number.

Nathyn: $50,000 a year for pension in today’s dollars I think it does shift throughout time.

Brian: What age?

Nathyn: It’ll be—I joined at 21 so 41—maybe 42. The age of 42. I know I see you guys scratching your head like it’s an amazing opportunity and so you as a question how do we feel about this? I am extremely proud of where we’ve gotten. I mean, if I were to go back in time and ask my younger self where I thought I’d be in the future, it would not be here by any means. I mean, there would not be a comma, I don’t think, in my savings account. I think there’s a generally accepted idea where if you are given an opportunity that nobody else gets, then you’re going to make something pretty useful out of it and do something that nobody else does. I think largely we do. We have two young, healthy, amazing children that get experiences that I never thought that I would have. But I almost feel like we should be farther with how much opportunity we are afforded.

Reconciling the Experience Gap (10:23)

Bo: I want to reconcile what you just said. You said our kids have experiences that I would have never had, but one of your concerns is your kids are not having experiences. Yeah. So, it seems like y’all are coming from two different places on that. Help us understand that.

Indie: That’s a great question. It’s kind of why we’re here. I mean yeah—I mean because we—don’t get me wrong—money is a big struggle in marriage and we have a lot of hard conversations. Things have better—we’re both finally starting to fuse with each other a little bit better and things are starting to get a little bit more easy flowing. But when we first got married, we were having tough conversations because he was very worried that we were behind, that we were struggling and I’m over here like I don’t—I don’t know where we’re struggling. I’m not understanding your mindset. And you know, he—like I said, he’s a spreadsheet guy. He’d show me the numbers and he’s like, “Look at this.” And like he said too, we’re given all these opportunities. Why are we not further along? And I feel terrible because I feel like I’m the reason why we’re not further along because I’m like, “Slow down. Let’s do this.” And then he’ll give in to me and be like, “Okay, we’ll take our kids to Disney.” And then in the middle of our Disney trip, he’s like, “This is so expensive and we’re freaking out about money.” And it makes the trip—it takes away some of the enjoyment. It makes the experience not where we want to be. So finding a way where he can look at where we’re at, like he sees it with you guys and he’s like, “Wow, okay, this is good. I’m proud of where we are.” And I’m like, but we just had a couple of conversations a few months ago and we were like, oh gosh, we’re behind. We’re not where we need to be.

Brian: I love relationships, but they’re always a work in process.

Indie: Sure. Absolutely.

Brian: And Nathyn, you are dealing with the shadows of your childhood. I mean, you saw your nana with this RV, this is something that’s ingrained in you and it makes you who you are. What I see is I see a lot of successful things here going on. So you can use the energy of the motivation of seeing your nana struggle to power—but it can’t take away from the happiness of today and in the future because if it does you have turned that motivation—that shadow from the past into something that’s stealing from the moment because we’re going to give you the variables. We’re also going to draw attention to what probably is motivating you—what’s the engine of all this? So that you can then be more self-aware of it. So that when it pops up, you have a counterweight that says, “No, that’s just that voice of insecurity because of what I come from. I can now counterbalance it with the numbers that those guys gave me and the motivation.” So that for Indie and my son and daughter, I can be here, give them the best version. So we come out of this in the after-action report and go, “That was worth it. We spent the money. Yeah, I had to grin and bear it because I paid, you know, $6 for an ice cream bar at Disney World, but man oh man, it was a cool thing in that moment and, you know, we probably won’t do this for years on end. So, this ought to be worth it.” We’re going to get you through that.

Adding Logic to Emotion (13:49)

Bo: Money can be emotional. I mean, obviously, you guys are both kind of emotional having this conversation. And so, whenever emotions enter the equation, if we can add some logic and pragmatism, it helps. So, when I look at your total investable assets at $92,000, say, man, I just feel like it should be more—if it was $100,000, would you feel better? Would it feel the same?

Nathyn: It would feel the same.

Bo: What about $120,000?

Nathyn: That’d be a little—yeah, that would be—

Bo: What about $150,000?

Nathyn: That would be a lot better.

Bo: What about $200,000? Like, and why? What’s different for you if that’s $200,000 versus $92,000?

Brian: Great point. Yeah.

Nathyn: So, first off, I’ll say the reason why I love your guys’ show is because you guys have been broadcasting that idea of—hey, there’s a lot of value in enjoying the world that you’re living in and the experiences that you’ve had. And I’ve been leaning into that a lot recently. And I think where the worry starts to come out of the shadows—just like Indie’s mentioned—where one day I’ll be great and then I don’t know maybe a little while later worry creeps where I’m like I don’t know if this is enough is because I don’t know—I mean I guess what the future holds and what that money will be worth in the future and what it equates to. I don’t care about the dollar sign. I really don’t because I fully recognize that money is just a tool. It is for life experiences. It is the thing that allows you to facilitate the things that you have in your life. So I don’t care what that dollar amount is, but I wonder how many Disney trips are we going to go to? How many zoos are we going to go to? How many extracurriculars are we going to put the kids in? And I want to facilitate that. And the more of that we have, I feel like the more we also need invested to perpetuate that in the future. And I think if I were able to hone in on what is acceptable, what is an acceptable rate of savings that will allow a sustainable thing in the future. Anything in excess of that, I can, for lack of a better way to put it, burn it. I don’t care where it goes. It can go to Disney. It can go to ice cream.

Brian: Exactly. You are—this thing is—I feel like we’re in therapy where they always say therapists never really give the answer. They let you come to the answer. I’m kind of—this is exactly what I want to build is you knowing what you need to be doing and then whatever above and beyond buys as much life as you and the kids want—as Indie and the kids want to do.

Budget Breakdown (16:13)

Bo: You guys are super kind. You shared sort of a loose budget with us. Can you just kind of walk us through this? Walk us through how you guys have approached these spending decisions and how you guys think about how you allocate your dollars.

Brian: I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with that cars. I mean that car, you know, $1,850 that was on the—do you want to explain? Yeah. What’s going on with the cars?

Indie: Sure. So on our travel from North Carolina when we moved to Texas, his truck gave out. So that was something that was automatically—he needed a vehicle to drive back and forth to college. I had a van that had 250,000 miles on it and it was going out as well. We unfortunately had to get—yeah, we had to get new cars. We got a new and then a new-to-me car. Yeah. Mine’s a 2021 Mazda CX-5 little compact SUV. We got Indie a Buick Enclave 2025. The reason we came to that decision was because my car is the family car. It is the car that we go everywhere in. And we bought it new, hopefully for it to last us for 10 plus years.

Bo: And when did you guys make these car decisions?

Nathyn: August.

Indie: July. August.

Nathyn: Both of them at the same time. Both of them were bought in August.

Bo: So these are both brand new. This car thing is sort of a brand new thing going through. Yeah. So you went from—I’m assuming—was your truck paid for?

Nathyn: Yeah. Truck was paid for, van was paid for. Yeah, it just got paid. It just got paid.

Bo: I just want to make sure I understand the psyche. There’s already this tension around how we’re spending money and are we doing the right thing? And then all of a sudden this life thing happens and we don’t just have to replace one car, we have to replace two cars. And now $1,850 that was not flying out the door for automobiles is now flying out the door for automobiles across the registration, maintenance, gas, all that kind of stuff. I can understand why if this just happened in August, which was a few months ago, this is still a pretty fresh wound. This is still something that feels kind of—ah—not great, right?

Indie: Yeah.

Brian: I did $1,850 times 12 months, that’s $22,200. $22,200. Your income was roughly right around $100,000. So I don’t—I can’t do public math on that. That’s around 22%. That’s almost like a house payment. So, and I know that that’s probably not all car payment because Bo even said it was maintenance and insurance and other things, but when y’all were making the decision because it’s already a tough life thing that life happens. You now have to figure out how you’re going to get quality transportation for both of you. What went into that decision making because 22% is a big deal.

Nathyn: I think what it was is probably something that a lot of people experienced. Something had to change. We needed different vehicles. Maybe that’s not even entirely correct, but something did need to change whether—my truck had been in and out of the shop and at that point it was hemorrhaging oil right when we got to our house. So, I mean, we made it. It’s been paid off for quite a while. I definitely needed something different and being in Austin, a smaller car was nice and it’s the nicest car that I’ve had and it’s a 2021 Mazda.

Bo: So, I think—what did that car cost? What did the Mazda cost when you—

Nathyn: Mazda? I think it was $21,000 total. Okay. I got $5,000 for my truck. Okay. So, 20% check. We got 20% down on it. Awesome. And then I put $10,000 down. So, a total of $15,000 down into the car. So, we owed $6,000.

Bo: You only owe $6,000 on this car. Let’s look at the net worth statement again. Net worth. Right now it says on the Mazda we owe about $12,000, right?

Nathyn: Yeah, that $12,000 seems a lot better.

Bo: Did you perhaps put $10,000 down on the car? $5,000 for trade-in plus another $5,000. Put $10,000 on a $21,000 car. Okay. So we put $10,000 down on the Mazda. So we owe about $12,000 there. So we have some really good equity. I mean we have a 6% interest rate. How long is that loan for?

Nathyn: It’s a while. I think it’s five or six years. Okay. Yeah, it’s longer, I think.

Brian: So, now how’d you choose five or six years?

Nathyn: I put the monthly payments to right around $250?

Brian: Okay.

Bo: And then what about the Enclave? Walk us through the thought process there.

Nathyn: We didn’t have a huge solid future plan in this. We kind of went to the extent of what we could afford with it or what we thought we could afford.

Brian: Walk us through because you did a good job on the Mazda. I want to hear kind of—because it helps me with the thought process. $50,000 Enclave. What did you put down?

Indie: Trade-in for the van. I think it was about—it was $2,000 for the van.

Bo: $2,000 for the van.

Indie: I think we put $17,000 or $15,000 down.

Brian: Wow. Yo, these are legit down payments.

Nathyn: We sold our house.

Indie: We sold our house.

Nathyn: So 6 months ago when we were living in New Bern, North Carolina, we had about $30,000 in debt, which was credit cards and our van. I had my truck paid off, but we also had the house. And luckily, we’ve made some good choices—the market’s gone up and we got quite a bit back into our pocket from our house. So, we had roughly $70,000 in our pocket and we put $30,000 onto our credit cards and the van. So, we paid that off and then we had a chunk of money that pretty much went into three things. Her vehicle, my vehicle, and savings.

Bo: Do you know how long the loan on the Enclave is?

Nathyn: It’s about five or six years. Probably more like six years.

The 20/3/8 Rule Discussion (21:49)

Bo: You did an awesome thing. You know, these significant down payments are great. You know, you hear us talk about all the time. We love being able to, you know, pay cash for cars if you can, but if you can’t, then we think there’s a better way to buy cars. And one of the ways is we follow 20/3/8. You put 20% down. You guys smoked doing 20% down on the cars. But what we would have preferred to see is, okay, when we structure how long we finance it, rather than going to five or six years, what’s it look like if we only finance for 36 months, 3 years? Because what that’s going to allow you to do is get you back into that place—we have that car paid off a whole lot sooner, right? Yeah. And then we don’t want your total car payments to exceed 8%. So it sounds like what you guys did is you kind of reverse engineered. Here’s what we want to be able to afford a month. Let’s go find that payment, not here’s what we can afford in the cars. Let’s go figure out how to structure that. Does that make sense? I want to give you some grace here. These are not—I would not say these are egregious automobile decisions like we’ve seen.

Brian: Well, I’m trying to back into because on the previous page on the budget, there’s a disconnect here because we had $1,800 a month. You just told me your car payment’s $250. If you’d have done 20/3/8, it would have probably been $375. So I mean there’s a little slight delta difference there, but what’s the payment on the Buick?

Nathyn: $550.

Bo: So, it looks like we have $800 in payments, $260 a month in insurance, and then another about $800 for maintenance and gas is how the automobiles breaking—how long those breaking down. The maintenance and gas seems rather large. But again, it sounds like some of this is going into a sinking fund and you guys are estimating costs or perhaps the costs are not quite this.

Nathyn: Hopefully, they’re over-inflating. Yes. And then we just get a chunk of change at the end of the year.

Cash Flow Analysis (23:25)

Bo: If we look at the total burn rate right now, you guys have about $6,000 a month it costs you to live the life that you guys want to live. Are you zero-based budgeting? Like what comes in every month from pay? Is it $6,000 coming in or you got more than that coming in?

Nathyn: It’s about $3,400 twice a month—first and the 15th—and then $550 per month for child support.

Bo: Yeah. So we have $7,350 coming in. We have about $6,000 going out. Right. Based on our budget. That should leave about $1,300 bucks somewhere.

Nathyn: It sounds about right. Yeah.

Bo: Where’s the $1,300 bucks going?

Nathyn: I don’t know. But maybe some insight on to how we’re operating. We kind of use our credit card throughout the month for whatever it is. I mean, we went out to a nice dinner last night. Arguably should or shouldn’t have. Whatever. It was a great experience.

Brian: Well, let me ask this because I want to ask—I want to ask Indie the question. Are y’all actually coming up short on activity fees or stuff or is it just because he’s complaining about things that it feels like you’re short? I want to—no. And I’m—and that’s not a cut on him. I’m not—I’m just trying to make sure—are you trying to show up with money that’s not there? I’m not trying to get on your—but I just want to know how Indie feels. Are you trying to show to things and there’s not money to pay for it or are you just meeting opposition when you say, “Hey, I want to do this.” He’s like, “No, no, we can’t do that. We need to be—”

Indie: I don’t sit down with him often enough and do finances like I should.

Brian: Do y’all do an annual net worth statement? I mean, I know we just showed you one. Do y’all do one?

Nathyn: I do. I actually do it pretty much every—

Brian: Sit down once a year at least and go over the state of how you guys are doing financially?

Nathyn: We’re changing throughout time, right? We’re getting a lot better.

Brian: Do y’all have a sit down once a year?

Nathyn: Generally, I—I pull her in and I trap her into financial conversations.

Brian: Oh, no. This doesn’t sound good. This is supposed to be romantic. This is supposed to be a fun thing, not a—let me—an accountability meeting.

Indie: It is getting better. Our conversations are much more fun.

Brian: Are they fun or is it more like an intervention?

Indie: They were more like an intervention for sure.

Brian: Come sit over here. Let me tell you what we did last month.

Indie: Yeah. Yeah. It’s one of those like you’re in a good mood and I’m like oh god. They were definitely more like an intervention for sure and that’s where that conflict—I felt trapped. I immediately got defensive and that’s where we started going at it. Now I have a better understanding and I can sit down with him because I’m not good at math anyway. So I’m like you can do it and tell me. So I know now that I can’t do that. I need to sit down with him and we need to work on it. So now they’re a little bit better. But we do have financial conversations often—more than once a year—probably a couple times a week. We’re very communicative—we talk a lot about it but the question still stands—where do we come at it with—you know whenever I bring up I want to do this I want to—it does come with worry on his part.

Brian: Is it actually not happening—is there any activity fees that haven’t happened for the kids yet?

Indie: For a long time. Yeah. We did have some extra money here recently and I was able to—right before we came here actually. We were able to put them—sign them up for a gymnastics class and an art class. So they are able to do those now. But the question is—are we going to be able to do it continuously?

Forced Scarcity Strategy (26:46)

Brian: With my own spouse? I have on purpose structured it—not because of being mean or trying to keep things away from from my wife. I mean I’ll do anything in the world. Oh no. Believe me, I’m not the boss in the house, but I just being the budgeter and the planner. Yes. Is that if there’s extra money, I will tend to auto-allocate money so that essentially there’s less money left over. So it creates—like I said—forced scarcity.

Nathyn: I’m trying to keep—what we’re doing with the cars.

Brian: I think that that’s exact—I essentially saw—I was like, oh, we are recognized. We’re putting in our budget bigger numbers so that it creates a smaller end and then you’re using that as a tool for communication that sometimes—and it’s fine as long as that tool for communication is a positive thing but if it’s creating it where it creates this scarcity that now creates some emotional reaction with Indie—I can you can see how this turns negative and that’s why I just—that’s why I asked the question—are we actually doing without or is it just because there’s a tone or a negativity to the communications that it’s working against what you’re trying to build.

Shifting the Financial Conversation (27:54)

Bo: When you guys sit down and have your financial conversation, and this comes from my experience with my wife when we first started out, I was a spreadsheet guy. Yeah. And I’d walk through the spreadsheet and I’d walk her through all the money that was spent last month and I’d say, “Hey, did you do that?” It was always these questions. Hey, did you spend this here? Hey, did you spend this here? Hey, did you spend this? And I wasn’t—I knew the answer to the question because obviously I saw the credit card statement, right? And it kind of went that way. Hey, why did you—why did you—why did you—why did you? Our entire relationship shifted where we started having conversations around—before we look at what we spent last month. I said, “Hey, this next month, what are the things that are important to you? This next six months, what are the things that are important to you? This next year, what are the things that are important to you?” Because when you as a couple can come together and list out your goals and you may say, “Hey, my goal is we want to go on one big trip a year—we want to go on one big trip a year or maybe it’s hey we want to travel every two months and we want to go to a different place—if you guys can arrive at what the actual plan is because what I’m hearing is a little bit of nebulous—well I just want to do—I want to travel I want to do more I want to do more—what I’m not hearing is a goal isn’t actually goal unless you apply some metrics to it that would be somewhat measurable right? If I were to ask you all right now if you could just choose—you know how much income you guys have—how much would you want to spend traveling a year?

Indie: Ooh.

Bo: Not how much would he want because I’m going to ask him in a second, too. How much would you want to spend?

Indie: I would say roughly around $5,000. Traveling is expensive. I think $5,000 is roughly about a good—

Nathyn: My answer is $2,500.

Bo: $2,500. So, what—you like to camp?

Nathyn: I love camping.

Brian: You like to camp?

Indie: I haven’t been camping before.

Bo: Yeah. Do you know which one of you is right?

Nathyn: Yes. And it’s both of us.

Bo: Yeah. Neither of you are right. That’s what you have to kind of arrive at the conclusion of is okay there is a world in which we could spend $5,000 a year traveling. Is that what we both want to do collectively? There’s also an answer—we spend $2,500. Is that what we both want? And you have to list out all the other goals. Well, we also want to—not be paying on these cars for the next five to six years. Hey, we also want to be financially independent. What you have to arrange those goals. But what it sounds like is you guys have sort of these abstract, oh, I want to—hey, one of our goals—we want our kids to do gymnastics. Okay, great. We know exactly what gymnastic season is and when that starts. We can—that’s a thing. And so my wife and I—we used to live in this nebulous travel thing. And so last year we started this great exercise very beginning of the year in January right after we do our net worth meeting. I say, “Hey, what travel do you want to do this year? What do we do with the kids? What do just me and you? What do we do with friends?” and we go ahead and list all that out. And the decisions we make from a financial standpoint for the rest of the year are working towards those goals. And I think you guys can do the exact same thing, but what you’ve not done is listed all the goals in the order of priority. Because all I’ve heard from you right now is I want future and I want present. Right? But if I were to ask you, hey, do you not want future? You’d be like, no, no, I do. I do want. And I say, hey, do you want present? Oh yeah, yeah, no. So you guys want the same things, but you’re not on the same page about how much to allocate and what timeline to allocate those dollars on. And that’s what’s missing from the financial conversation.

Emergency Fund and Financial Order of Operations (31:11)

Brian: There is something outside of y’all’s two goals that needs to be kind of respected. And that’s we talk about the Financial Order of Operations. We know your burn rate is about $5,900 a month. Right at $6,000. Your emergency—you currently have about right under $16,000. I was trying to figure out—now your job. You told you got the golden ticket. What’s the likelihood you could lose your job?

Nathyn: Completely lose it and severed it’s pretty low.

Brian: Yeah. Because you’re going to work for the military and you even got this golden ticket. So now look, I will tell you something that works against you is that there’s only one income in your household. So typically that leans itself more to the 6 months, but the security leads it more towards the 3 months. So it’s very personalized when you’re trying to figure out what is my emergency reserves. If we were just trying to figure out lean for the conversation tool of how do we move forward, 3 months could be in the conversation. 3 months of $6,000 is $18,000. We’re only $2,000 off from a fully funded emergency fund. Close. Now we get to balance out future goal, present goal, and how those two come together. And it’s fun because we get to put numbers to these things, too. And that’s what I like is that y’all are on the cusp of these things could work together. They really could. I mean, I don’t—y’all are so close to doing the hard work. It’s just more of communication tools and getting on the same page and using the tool of the power if you’re the planner and you’re the one that’s running the household. Those are both important things. They just need to kind of learn to respect and mutually coexist with each other.

Career Transition and Future Planning (32:48)

Brian: This golden ticket while you’re in college. This is only a short-term thing. What happens to your career after you graduate college?

Nathyn: I will become a commissioned officer and the pay increases—

Brian: And your pay bumps—pay. So, so we need to kind of—now we even—and I hate to add complexity, but this is—y’all need to kind of when you’re doing your planning as a couple, you look at these next few years while you’re in college as one intermittent goals. And then you need to look beyond that and have a plan for what happens after that. And then y’all figure out, okay, while we’re in this season, because 3, four years will go so quick. Maybe our travel goals are a little bit less. But we also use this as a carrot that hey, when we get over here, because me and my wife, I told my wife, if we could save—I wanted to when we hit 40, it was going to be a different world. And that kind of was the motivation. Now, we didn’t—I didn’t make us live miser lifestyles. There was a balance, but it was understanding that things would change when we reached this goal certain. And that was motivation that was used as a communication tool. How you travel differently at this age than you did when you’re new. Y’all could do the same thing. So maybe you don’t do—maybe you go celebrate with a Disney trip or the $5,000-$6,000 trip upon graduation, but maybe while we’re in this lower income but awesome life because it sounds like y’all get to spend a lot of time together. You get a premium on the time. We treat that premium of time as something where we don’t have to spend as much on the vacations because we’re making so many memories.

Retirement Projections (34:13)

Brian: So I think the question that I have is—is it enough? Because I—there is an amount that I’m saving and so I don’t know—what’s that number? Do you know the number off top of your head? How much are you saving?

Nathyn: Yeah. So it’s $660 per month going into TSP. There was some funds into a Roth IRA that wasn’t scheduled. It wasn’t repetitive. We had a little bit of extra money and it’s something that I kind of stowed away just in the moment while we had some extra change. So that’s not necessarily consistent. So that’s what I’m putting away right now.

Bo: Right now we got $92,000 that you guys currently have saved and invested, right? So that’s going to be a present value. We’re going to save $660 every month. This assumes no pay raises, no increases, no bumps in pay, no changes in income, no new employment, no additional savings. Just doing what you’re doing. Rate of return. You want to do 8%? We can do 8%.

Brian: I mean, we could get really crazy and we could have done 9.1% if we were doing our age based type stuff, but we’ll do—we can do 8%. And when does your pension start? 41-42?

Nathyn: At the age of 41.

Bo: So, we’re just going to say for our number of periods, let’s do 41 minus 29. That’s 12 years times 12. That’s 144 months. So, if we just look at what you’re on track to have in terms of an investment portfolio when the pension starts, $400,000. All right. So, here’s my question for you. $400,000, which you’re on track for when you get to pension age, right? Your pension is going to be $50,000 a year, correct? If I just take—if I just take $50,000 a year of a pension, and I’m just going to use a 4% withdrawal rate because it’s a real easy simple way to do math and I take $50,000 divided by 0.04, that’s $1.25 million. Okay. Okay. By the way, do you realize typically when we do a 4%—that’s a 30-year withdrawal period. Your pension’s worth more than that because you’re getting this in your 40s. The likelihood of how much this pension’s worth. This is the most conservative assumption we can use is it’s $1.2 million. It’s probably worth a lot more than that because we’re beyond 30 years on your life expectancy.

Nathyn: But in a context of what life is going to be like, and I’m assuming that’s in today’s dollars, right? Assuming today’s dollars is—I think my question is what sort of lifestyle adjustments are there going to be retire?

Bo: You either go stay in the military or you going to go do something else and you’re taking—you’re actually even taking a step even further than I even want you to go just yet—thinking about lifestyle. What I just want to draw your attention to is at 41 years old you’re going to have a pension that’s the equivalent conservatively of $1.2 million. Then across your TSP and your other investment assets, assuming no additional savings outside of what you’re doing right now, you’re have another $400,000. That’s $1.65 million theoretically of assets at 41. And what’s our guardrails in it?

Bo: Three times.

Brian: Three times. So if you took $1.6 million divided by three, $533,000. Are you going to be making $533,000 a year? You’re going to be so out ahead of the curve. You know, when we ask the—are you behind the curve, ahead of the curve, right where you need to be? You’re going to be way out ahead of the curve. This is—this hopefully is taking pressure off of let’s not feel so much pressure against the present.

Nathyn: Does that mean that I could lower the amount that I’m putting into—

Brian: I don’t want you—because here’s the—here’s we—all you know our aspirational goal is to get you to 25% savings rate. You don’t need to do 25% because your government—I guarantee the government is putting probably over 10% of your pay into this pension. Do you agree? Disagree?

Nathyn: It’s 5%. I think. Oh. Pension. Okay. Sure. They’re putting—no, that’s just what they’re putting in the TSP.

Brian: The pension they’re funding because I worked in government for a little bit. For most governments with pensions—pensions with people retiring in their 60s. We usually had funding formulas where you put in 6% and your employer puts in 8 to 11%. So for the government to fund this for you getting in your 40s, they’re putting in more than 10% of your pay. Okay. So there’s 10% right off the 25% already. You just said something to the fact of they’re also giving you a TSP matching right of 5%.

Nathyn: Mhm.

Brian: Truthfully, calculation-wise, you’re already funding 25%. Even with 10%. I do like if there’s any extra money, because your favorite savings account is going to be a Roth account, right? I would love for both of y’all to have Roth accounts, but they don’t have to be fully maxed out every year.

Bo: The key thing he said there is if there’s extra money, if there’s extra. And what you have to do is you have to have the goal conversation first to then discern if there’s extra money. Because what we just showed you is based on what you’re doing right now without changing anything, you’re on a fantastic path. At age 40, if you have a $400,000 portfolio, we know that a wealth multiplier for a 40-year-old is seven. So just that $400,000 you’ve built up is well on its way to be worth almost $3 million by the time you retire, assuming you don’t add anything to it. Don’t take anything away from it. Just let that sit there and grow.

Brian: So there’s no van by the river. There’s no RV worried about—you’re worried about—I mean because I mean seriously that—you’re not—that’s not you. That’s the shadow that’s hanging with you. But you’re not doing any of those things.

Bo: Having anxiety around oh my goodness we’re spending too much and oh my goodness we don’t have any money to do the things we should care about is not fun. No. And what you can do, you can overcome that by actually having a plan of action. Knowing what goals you’re going to fund and what you’re going to save and knowing that, hey, when saving is enough, that’s okay. And when spending is enough, that’s okay. You guys have to arrive at what makes the most sense for the family. And then once you do that, you put the plan in place. And then you can breathe easy because you have the resources and the ability to do all the things that you guys are laying out. What you have to do is make sure that you both are equally believing that hey, we’re doing the things we’re supposed to be doing both from a future standpoint as well as from a present standpoint.

Closing (40:25)

Bo: Okay, you guys are wonderful. Thanks so much for coming out with us.

Nathyn: Thank you guys so much.

Indie: Yes, we appreciate it.

Nathyn: Awesome opportunity.

After-Action Report (40:31)

Brian: How awesome was that, man?

Bo: It was wonderful. Nathyn and Indie, what a lovely couple. And I love how one of the things that they did is even though they weren’t completely aligned when they started the conversation, you could tell that they loved each other and they wanted to be aligned and they were very open and reassuring to each other. And I think that’s a great step in the right direction even just to start the process.

Brian: Well, you can see—I mean we’ve been around a lot of healthy relationships and you can see what was being represented by each of them. When you think about Indie, she was really trying to maximize the moment. Are we doing the right activities for the kids? Are we building memories? And you got Nathyn over here who’s feeling the pressure. And he even had carried some baggage with him, worried about his nana who essentially was living in a van in a Walmart parking lot. I mean, I can see how this baggage makes him feel like he has to produce, create, and save. I love that we kind of got to build a bridge to kind of bring them together to see how these things that seem disconnected could actually be a united plan for the future.

Bo: And I think one of the things that maybe he was a little misguided in where he felt like they were. And so I love that we had the opportunity. We could actually look at the numbers because if you think about the way that they’re saving right now, we know he’s putting money into his TSP. He’s putting a little over $400 a month into his TSP. He’s getting a little over $200 of a match and they’re putting a little bit into the Roth IRA. So they have about $700 a month going into their investment portfolio right now. Now, if you look at their investments, they have $92,000. Well, if you just take $92,000 today, saving about $700 a month, by the time he gets to his first retirement, by the time he gets to military pension eligible, he’s going to have a portfolio of $414,000. So, for a couple right there at 40 years old, that’s pretty incredible to them. They’re going to be like, “Yeah, but it could be better.” But they’re not taking into account the value of that pension. I mean, because that’s the thing. If you take into account at age 41, they’re not only going to have $400,000 plus, they’re going to have a pension that’s going to generate a large portion of their income. And more than likely, that’s the beginning of act 2.0 for Nathyn as well. You think about it, he’s going to have pension income of around $50,000. Even that portfolio at a 4% withdrawal rate could generate about $12,000 a year. So, you’re talking about $62,000 of income if they needed to live off that income. But, I don’t think they’re going to live off of it. That’s just going to give them the head start as they do start this second chapter.

Homework (43:00)

Brian: So, even though they’re going to be a-okay, what’s the homework? What’s the things they need to be working on? Because I’m already excited they’re going to get to see us have this after-action report, but what do they need to be working on?

Bo: Well, the first thing is a little bit of blocking and tackling. They do not yet have a fully funded emergency fund. So, they need to figure out, is it 3 months of living expenses? Is it 6 months? Where is that? And they need to work towards funding that so they can make sure nothing throws them off-kilter on this great plan that they’re on.

Brian: I agree with that.

Bo: The other thing I thought was interesting is they were talking about how they had income of about $7,300 a month coming in. The burn rate was about $6,000. So, in my mind, there’s this $1,300 gap that was unaccounted for. I’d love for them to figure out how do we account for that? Yeah. Tighten it up a little bit so we don’t have money just slipping out the back. And maybe that’s a budgeting app. Maybe it’s some sort of tracker, something like that to help them figure out where that money is going. And then once they know where their money’s going, I want them to set a specific and distinct time to have a money date.

Brian: Here’s the thing. It doesn’t need to feel like an intervention like it’s felt like in the past, Nathyn has really made this intense. This needs to feel like a celebration or something they’re doing together. So it is fun, not something where you’re holding somebody to account.

Bo: Well, and that way where they both have a voice. Hey, here’s what I want for the future. Here’s what I want for the present. They can arrive at—okay well how do we attack both these goals and then what I want them to do is I want them to automate that fun stuff—those goals they have for the right now whether it be travel or kids activities or sports or whatever that thing is—they can do sinking funds—they can do automatic savings and they can go and check the box knowing that money is going to those things so they can be satisfied—know okay we’re saving for the future we’re building for the future but we’re also accounting for today and if they can get on the same page I think it’ll remove a lot of that anxiety.

Brian: I absolutely can’t wait for them to see this homework list and as well as just to see how this all comes together with including the projections because look I know for both Nathyn and Indie to be vulnerable and share this type of information is not the easiest thing and I’m just so happy they’re united. If we wanted to bring on other guests and people come and they see what we do but where do people go if they want to be on Making a Millionaire?

Bo: Yeah, if you’d like to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, go to moneyguy.com/apply. Or if you want to take advantage of any of our free tools and resources, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources.

Brian: Guys, there is absolutely a better way to do money and we are here day in day out trying to share that type of wealth and knowledge. I’m your host Brian joined by Mr. Bo Money Guy Team out.