Paying too much for housing? Watch this.

Housing Costs and High Mortgage Rates (0:00)

Brian: Worried about paying too much for housing. Watch this.

Bo: Brian, I am so excited about this because a lot of people are struggling with this right now. They’ve bought houses recently thinking, man, the costs are just too high. It’s too expensive. And we said, “Okay, are there some things that we could do? Is there some information that we could share that perhaps maybe might make this a little bit easier?”

Brian: Well, there’s even a saying out there. Look, we kind of buy into this to a degree is that we love our houses. So you hear marry the house, date the rate, meaning that a lot of people are anticipating, look, if you get the perfect house, you always have the opportunity to refinance or do something else with the rate. Sure. But that hasn’t necessarily worked out in the most recent months to years that buyers have experienced.

Bo: Yeah. For folks who purchased homes in 2022, 2023, 2024, and even recently, rates have risen. If you look right now, the average 30-year fixed rate is 6.7% as of July 3rd, 2025. And you can see this is very different than it was from 2015 to 16 to 17 all the way up to and through the pandemic. And coming out of the pandemic, rates kind of skyrocket and a lot of people are now sitting in mortgages at these elevated rates.

Brian: Yeah. Well, it even gets worse than that is that some of these have bought at higher rates thinking that they would be able to refinance down. And then in some cities, like you think about Austin and elsewhere, you’ve actually seen the value of the homes come down as well. So, it makes this dating relationship seem somewhat more toxic than probably the people were thinking they were getting into. Yeah, there was a survey done that found that one in five Americans who bought since the start of 2023 regret taking on such a high mortgage rate. So the question that becomes, okay, well, what do I do? How do I navigate this? Well, if you aren’t on the home ownership side, one of the things we want to make sure you do is when it comes to buying a home, which for most people is the most expensive purchase that you will ever make, we want to make sure that you don’t extend yourself, that you actually understand how much home could or should I afford. And it’s why we have a calculator for you. If you go to moneyguy.com/resources, we actually have a home buying calculator that you can play with. You can put your numbers in and you can try to figure out, okay, where am I and am I in the appropriate parameters to make sure that I don’t overbuy.

Steps to Combat High Housing Costs (2:29)

Brian: Well, it’s not only just the calculator. I love if we’re going to encourage people, definitely go check out moneyguy.com/resources because we want to tell you what you can actually do to kind of combat this. The first thing is measure twice, cut once. And what we mean by that is make sure you’re asking yourself the right questions. Are you going through the checklist? Are you going through and not letting the emotion drive the decision-making versus the kind of the intersection of the emotion plus the analytics of what you can actually afford or need?

Bo: And you may be asking, okay, what questions are those? What things should I be thinking through? Again, we have a resource for you. If you go out to moneyguy.com/resources, we have a home buying checklist. And this is basically the things that you ought to think about before you make this decision. Now, this isn’t just for buying your first home. These are great questions to ask yourself. Even if I’m thinking about changing homes or upgrading or moving, if you can make sure you understand the answer to these questions, you’re going to make sure that you are measuring two, three, four, five times before you make this huge financial decision.

Brian: Now, let’s also talk about the next part besides just doing the homework section is how do we get adjustments to the rate? Because if we are stuck in a situation where maybe things haven’t gone like we thought, do we have options still to consider?

Bo: Yeah. A lot of people don’t recognize that when it comes to mortgages, sometimes the terms are somewhat negotiable. We often think about going and refinancing and we’ll talk about that. But a lot of mortgage companies will allow you to do what’s called a rate modification where you can basically call and say, “Hey, I took out this mortgage at this 7.5% interest rate.” But rates have now come down. Would you be willing to let me pay some sort of fee, not do an official closing, but modify my rate, just my rate down so that it’s more close to market without having to truly refinance. And you may be surprised that a lot of credit unions and mortgage lenders are actually willing to let you do that.

Brian: So, I love rate modifications. I always tell people before you even consider a refinance, at least call your bank or your lender, your mortgage lender, to see if there’s a chance you can do a rate modification. There’s another thing that I think is built up. A lot of people will buy into houses and then maybe, you know, they only put down 3 to 5%. Or they’re worried about the percentage of what the cash flow that they’re paying on mortgages, more than they would like in life and they realize, hey, I’m stuck with this interest rate. Is there a way I can at least kind of change this or recast this situation to where maybe from a cash flow perspective, I’m in a better place?

Bo: Yeah. What a mortgage recast is is essentially I take some amount of principal and I pay it back down on the loan. So maybe it’s $10,000, $20,000, $50,000. You say, “Okay, hey, I’m going to make this large principal payment.” And what I would like for you to do, mortgage company, is rather than that monthly payment that I did have, I want you to now calculate in this infusion of principal and recalculate a new rate as though I had put that money down. And what that will allow you to do is it will give you some reprieve in the monthly cash flow. So, if you are one of those people who maybe you bought the house and it caused you to go a little bit below 25%, but you’ve been able to save or you’ve had other circumstances happen and now you can put principal on the loan, recast the mortgage payment, get it down below that 25%, it’s going to free up cash flow in your budget to make the home more affordable and allow you to fund some of your other financial goals.

Brian: And this third option is tied to kind of where I was watching, you know, getting ready for work today and even on today’s show this morning, they were talking about that the Federal Reserve is now indicating that potentially interest rates could be coming down. They might be cutting rates, which is not a direct impact, but typically does mean that long-term rates are going to be impacted on what you pay for mortgages. And here we are, we might have opportunities finally for people to consider refinancing.

Bo: And for those of you who aren’t familiar, refinancing basically just means that, hey, I got this mortgage when I bought the house. Rates have now dropped. So, I’m actually going to go take out a whole new loan. I’m going to take out a whole new loan and I’m going to pay off the old loan and this new loan is going to be at a lower rate. And there are some calculations you can do to make sure that okay, based on what I’m paying in closing costs and all the fees, I hope that my interest savings will overcome that based on the amount of time that I’m being in the home. But a lot of folks are now in the position where they’re trying to decide is now the right time to refi. There’s some assumptions you need to make around that. Okay, where is my rate currently? What is the refinance rate presently available? And do I believe that that rate is going to be, not necessarily the bottom, but am I going to be okay if I refinance at this point, even if rates were to drop another 25, 50, 75 basis points? And if you arrive at the conclusion that’s the case, and then you work through the mathematics, refinancing is starting to be something that could make sense for a lot of buyers.

Additional Housing Options (7:26)

Brian: Well, and I think the big takeaway for people who are just now discovering our content, please go out to moneyguy.com/resources. There is going to be something that’s completely free that likely will add a lot of value to your decision-making process. And then don’t forget, we’ve kind of covered the mathematics of rate modifications, refinance, and other things. But if you’re finding that housing is taking too much of your life, there are other options. You have the two levers. When we talk about the two levers, we’re talking about the amount of income that you have or the amount of expenses you have. You always have the ability to either try to make more money or cut your expenses, but those are going to have limits. And that leads to the next thing that you can always consider. I mean in my generation, we had roommates. Yep. There’s another way we call it house hacking. You know, if you need to get other people’s money in to help you offset your housing decisions, there’s nothing wrong with doing house hacking because it really does take advantage of some cool things in the fact that when you buy a house, the banks, that’s why you see all over the news, they’re talking about mortgage fraud and all these things because the banks give you a benefit if it’s your primary residence because you can imagine as a lender, they love it when you actually live in this primary residence because you’re much less likely to walk away from it. So that’s why when they ask you is this your primary residence, there is some economic benefit to that. Well, it’s unique that house hacking is one of those things where yes, it’s still your primary, but you are bringing in outside income to help you pay for that and you’re completely legal and it’s a cool way to take advantage of kind of things that are going on in the economy.

Bo: And then the last thing, maybe you have determined, okay, I bought way too much house. I bought it under the premise that interest rates were going to fall. Interest rates did not fall and I’m in a cash crunch. I’m sort of living out there on the risk spectrum. If you are someone who did buy the house in 2022, 2023, you’ve likely seen some price appreciation on your home. You might may have to make the difficult decision. I bought more house than I can afford, and I might have the opportunity to get out of this house without losing a significant amount of money. Of course, you’ll want to do the analysis on what your initial closing costs were, what the new closing costs are, how much the price has changed. But just because you made that decision doesn’t mean that you have to be locked into that decision. Because again, for most folks, your home, the house you buy, will be the most expensive thing that you ever spend money on. So, you want to make sure when you’re making that decision, you’re making it as wisely as you can and you’re treating it as a use asset. I’ve had so many people, Brian, and this is over the past couple weeks, but oh, you know, my retirement plan is my house. I’m going to do my retirement. And while it is true you can build wealth inside of your primary residence, and that is something that has happened historically, it’s not a given, and it’s not a guarantee. And we like to think of homes as use assets, not as investment or wealth building assets. So, if you are banking all of your future financial security on the home that you live in right now, I would reconsider that.

Brian: Yeah, it’s hard to eat the house. It’s hard to eat the house. We love that we get to sit here and answer these kind of questions for you. We love that we get to speak to the things that you guys are curious about. So, right now, if you have a question you want us to weigh in on, make sure that you get it in the chat so that we can load you up because we believe that there is a better way to do money. Okay. So, with that, creative director Rebie, I’m going to throw it over to you.

Refinancing to ARM (10:50)

Rebie: Yeah. I have a question from My Quirky Inconvenience. It says, “Why is it a gamble to refinance my 7.625% 30-year mortgage to a 5.5% 7/1 ARM? This was our starter home. So, what are the other risks associated if we don’t plan on staying here for 7 years plus?”

Brian: I mean, I feel like they’re just looking for some affirmation and confirmation here.

Bo: Well, so the question is, what are the risks? For those of you that don’t know, when it says ARM, that just means an adjustable rate mortgage, meaning I’m going to go out and take a mortgage and rather than having this fixed rate at 7.625%, I’m going to go to an adjustable rate. That means it’s going to be 5.5%. It’s going to be fixed for seven years, but then there’s likely going to be a rate adjustment and it’s going to adjust after this fixed period. Well, okay, that sounds great. Man, that’s almost a 2%, that’s over a 2% reduction in interest rate. I’m going to save a ton of interest. Where the risk lies is what happens if after that 7-year fixed period, something changes. Maybe you don’t end up moving and maybe something happens where interest rates are even higher than they are today. It is a risk. Now, a lot of people, Brian, I’d be curious to know your take on this. I have seen a lot of people be willing to take this risk. Hey, yeah, I think that rates fixed are as high as they’re going to be, so I’m willing to do an adjustable rate and likely in these seven years, I’m going to have an opportunity to refinance. Would you sign off on that or does that make you nervous?

Brian: Well, I mean, I thought that the way this person asked the question, they actually kind of laid it out in a very healthy way is that they plan on for sure moving in seven years. That takes a lot of the risk out of it. It’s more of maximizing the tool that you have. I mean, look, the predominant amount of mortgages that are 15 and 30-year mortgages is astronomical, but you have to ask yourself, does it actually intersect with how long people live in houses? And it reminds me of I used to love the game show Deal or No Deal. You know, back when Howie Mandel was doing that with the banker and there was some studies that came out during that time. And now look, I’m not smart enough to be able to give you the exact, but there was a lot of research that showed that a lot of people for comfort were taking deals that were way before they should have. And I think that’s just human nature is that we try to minimize risk as much as possible, sometimes to our own detriment. So for somebody who is out there and automatically just doing the 30-year mortgage and paying over 2% premium when they’re without a doubt going to be moving in the next four or five years. Now look, this does lead to another question. Should you have even bought the house if you’re not going to be there less than 7 to 10 years, especially with the high interest rates we are. But assuming there’s actually some period of time they’ve already been here and this would be a completely economic relief valve to hit this. It all mathematically works with the break even cost of doing the refinance and everything else. I think they answered a lot of their question by the way they structured it and the fact that they know that they’re leaving and they’re actually not taking on additional risk since this actually lines up with their lifestyle.

Bo: I love that. You just have to recognize though when you go from a fixed mortgage where you know exactly what’s going to happen. I’ve got this interest rate over this term. This is my payment. That’s what it’s going to be. There are some unknown unknowns with an adjustable rate mortgage. And the unknown is that the rate adjusts or maybe you get yourself into a situation where it’s some sort of balloon note. At the end of that term, it doesn’t actually just adjust. It’s a balloon. And you want to refinance, but what if your employment situation has changed? What if you’re not able to go out there and get financing? There are a lot of variables. It’s not a strategy that you 100% should avoid. It very well can make sense in certain circumstances to have an adjustable rate mortgage, but it doesn’t make sense for everyone. And you need to make sure that you weigh all, again, you say this all the time. Measure twice, cut once on the most because it is a, it’s very scary.

Brian: I was going to say put on your 3D glasses, but I like measure twice, cut once, too. I think you should think through if I do this, what’s the dream outcome? What’s the down to earth outcome? But if things go really really squirrely and this does not go the way that I think, maybe I don’t get to leave in the next three or four years, am I prepared for the doo-doo plan and will I be okay? I think, because I could tell my answer kind of like a little shock and awe moment there and I think what would reconcile this, I’ll bring it into a nice tee for you is that I have always bought traditional products when I was financing homes. I’m now mortgage free but back when I was dealing with the home, when I used to think about it, it is one of those things where I was thinking about housing in terms of 7 to 10 years just like we talk about on our housing checklist. So when you get into those, typically ARMs don’t work in those situations as well because you start bumping into conventional mortgages. And that’s why it’s back to that core question. If you’re not going to stay in this house for seven years, should you even be buying a house with where interest rates are, where the crazy run up in appreciation of housing has been so close after the pandemic that you just have to make sure that this is intersecting with where you are in life and not forcing the decision and having big regrets later.

Rebie: Love it. Well, My Quirky Inconvenience, I thank you so much for the question and I hope that helps you think through it.

Brian: By the way, that question tied in perfectly to kind of what the setup show was. I mean, because that is kind of the quirky inconvenience for a lot of people who’ve had to buy into housing over the last two years, right?

Bo: No, I thought it went well with the topic. So, good question. My Quirky Inconvenience.

Erin Talks Money Collaboration (16:46)

Bo: Can I throw something out there? You can. One thing, if you’re not subscribed to the channel, you should. And here’s why I tell you that you should subscribe. We had a react go out yesterday and you guys loved it. We had Erin on and we were hanging out with her. We’re going to do that. Super super exciting seeing that and I just love hearing that she’s someone that you guys follow. It was a great fun time for us and we’re glad that you enjoyed it.

Brian: By the way, one of the, because the comments are overwhelmingly positive. But somebody had posted in the comments, man, I felt like you guys blew an opportunity. You just had Erin come all the way down to your studio and you just did a react. But wait, there’s more. So I think you’re going to see for all of you who are looking for content. We actually did more content with Erin. So for those of you posting those comments, just know that we have more in the pipeline.

Rebie: I think one person comments. There was one comment. The react video was lovely and everybody loves it except for, the react video, but I want to give answers when people are like, “Hey, I want more.” We’re going to give you more. There is more.

Bo: If you’re curious, if we read the comments out there on all the places where you guys leave comments, we absolutely do.

Brian: And they actually tell you, don’t read the comments. Yeah, but we read the comments.

Rebie: And make sure you’re checking out Erin’s channel, too, because you may recognize a couple of our lovely faces on Erin’s channel this week, too. So, it’s a really fun week. If you like Erin Talks Money and the Money Guy show, super fun week this week.

Leaky HSA with High Fees (18:08)

Rebie: All right. Ready for the next question? We are. Yes, ma’am. Matthew says, “Hey, Money Guy team. I have an HSA that I am using to invest for the future. Nice. But the fees are hurting returns. What should you do with a leaky HSA?”

Brian: Now, I’d be curious, and Bo, you can fill in the gaps on this, but a lot of times HSAs are a choice you get to make. Now, if your employer has linked your HSA to payroll, because we talk about triple tax advantage, there is quadruple tax advantage if it’s actually tied to the way your employer collects the money and pays the premiums because you can actually avoid Medicare and Social Security on that too. So if I can see why you might be connected to the HSA provider that your employer has told you, but for a lot of people it’s completely portable isn’t it? It’s a choice.

Bo: Yeah. A lot of people you get to choose. If your employer says, hey, if you participate in the HSA I’m going to fund and put a thousand bucks in there. We see employers that do that all the time. They may say, “Hey, you have to use this custodian and this is where I’m going to put the thousand bucks.” Or if they say, “Hey, if you want to be able to do salary deferrals, you want to be able to defer from your paycheck, your HSA contributions, you got to use this custodian, then yeah, you got to use that one.” But for most custodians, if you’ve been able to build up assets over time, and Matthew, you’re doing exactly what you said. Hey, I’m actually investing these dollars and they’re growing. One of the things you can do is you can go open up a health savings account at another low-cost provider. One that we see a lot of folks like to use is Fidelity. They have an HSA that you can go open up. And while you may still have this HSA at your employer that maybe your employer puts money into or maybe your salary deferrals get into, over a certain threshold, I’m willing to bet that you could do a transfer of assets where you move some chunk of these HSA dollars over to a different custodian, whoever that custodian may be, where you get the entire open access to the whole universe of investments, and you get to buy really, really low-cost index funds. You don’t have to pay any of the ongoing maintenance fees like you’re paying with your current one. So, if your HSA balance is large enough to justify having two separate accounts, it may be something worth investigating to see if you can get those fees down.

Rebie: That’s great. Yeah. Awesome, Matthew. Thank you for the question and I hope that helps you with your HSA.

Water Bottle Interlude (20:24)

Brian: Before you ask the next question, I always like to be transparent because I don’t want people to see my face change every time I drink a slug of water and go, “What is wrong?” I made a horrible mistake is that, you know, because we obviously like to stay hydrated around here. My water is lukewarm. Like I obviously just reloaded the fridge and when I just ran by and grabbed. So this thing every time I take a sip, I’m like, you know, sparkling water is great, but hot sparkling water is not.

Bo: I got the, what’s so funny is I got the exact same, we pulled it out of the same fridge and I got the exact same flavor. So I wonder if I just happen to get lucky that I got a refrigerated one and you got a not.

Brian: Man. Yeah. This is, this is life, by the way. Look at Bo. This is a shaker of talents. Guy got distracted on Bo. Got a little extra in there. Meanwhile, he was, this guy gets this much all up here.

Rebie: And keep it going. Keep it moving.

Bo: One of my greatest talents is knowing which one of the drinks is cold in the refrigerator.

Brian: Obviously, it is shaker of talents. It’s awesome. You guys are cold drinks for Bo.

Emergency Fund vs Retirement Savings (21:33)

Rebie: All right, we have a question from DJ. She’s like, I’m gonna ask a question. I am gonna ask a question. He says, “Just found you guys a month ago.” Perfect time. I know. That’s incredible. We’re glad you’re here. “I don’t have enough in my emergency fund.” That’s why it’s perfect time. He says, “I’m having trouble deciding to stop my HSA and lower my 401(k) amount except the match. I’m at $423K in my 401(k). Do I really stop all of those to fund my emergency fund more? I’m 40 years old.” How do you think about this?

Brian: So, he’s clearly digging into the financial order of operations and the step-by-step guide, which is amazing. I love this. What do you think? Because he did ask it in a nuanced way and the fact that he said, but obviously I want to keep getting the employer match. And that is, I mean, he is trying to follow the financial order of operations to a T because just as a reminder because there’s a lot of you guys who discovered us every month, you know, the first, and I’ll, it just showed up on the screen that there was a FOO sighting. So, I got to make sure I show the laminated version of this thing. You know, first step, number one, highest deductible covered. That’s so you don’t have to make those desperate decisions. Number two is that free employer money because there’s more than likely if your employer is giving you free money they’re giving you. That’s like a guaranteed 50% to 100% rate of return depending upon what their matching formula is. Number three, we got to avoid that high interest debt because you’re never going to get ahead if you’re paying 20 plus percent to a bank. And then here we are. We land at step four, which is the emergency reserves trying to get you to a fully funded emergency reserve so you don’t have to worry about do you lose your job or have a big thing come your way. I do think because you’ve been okay in the fact that you have a 401(k) with $423,000 as a 40-year-old. That’s pretty incredible. But I will say emergencies, it’s not if they happen, it’s when they happen. Matter of fact, we even have a chart that we show the way people think FOO works versus what actually happens in reality. And I always remind people it’s not uncommon that you’re going to have things happen to you. Whether it’s your choice that you buy, like this example shows, whether you buy a house or your car breaks down or you have the unfortunate thing of you lose a job, more than likely you’re going to go back to that step four. I do think it’s important, so important so you don’t make those desperate decisions. Yeah. Let’s load that thing up. Get the free money from your employer, but let’s make sure you’re protected.

Bo: Yeah. I’d want to know where is your emergency fund presently? Like how lean is it in terms of what you have access to? You know, we say that for most folks to have a fully funded step four emergency fund, you want somewhere between three months of living expenses to six months of living expenses. Well, if you’re like 5 months and you’re one month off, it shouldn’t take you very long to build back that emergency fund so that then you could get back to the HSA and back to the 401(k). If you are really really lean and maybe you’ve only got one month of living expenses in your emergency fund, you’re really out there on the risk spectrum, like you were far enough out that if one thing happens, if you have that medical issue or if you have that job loss or if you have that AC go out, if you have that fill-in-the-blank and you don’t have any liquidity available, the only way you’re going to be able to satisfy that is likely to go even further back in the financial order of operations and put it on the credit card and go to step three and start accumulating high-interest debt. And so we like seeing a fully funded emergency fund so that you can prepare and be prepared for those unknown unknowns. So yeah, if you have to stop the HSA to do that, if you stop the 401(k), accept the match, do that, I think that’s okay. Let that be a motivating factor to get you to go solve that, fill that bucket up really, really quickly and then get back to saving as fast as you can because even at 40 years old, every dollar is still pretty powerful. If you go to moneyguy.com/resources and check out our wealth multiplier, every dollar for a 40-year-old can still turn into $7 by the time you retire. So, if you think about the work that you’ve done thus far to have $423,000 invested, take that, multiply it by seven, that’s what you’re on track for. Even if you do have to take a temporary pause, a temporary hiatus, do it. Fill up the emergency fund and then get back to saving as quickly as you can. And let the fact that you’re not saving as much as you want to be saving be the motivator that gets you out of that as fast as possible.

Rebie: Love it.

Brian: Because that’s what I always, that’s another reason I like it when sometimes you have to go back because it’s going to give you the focus that you just won’t be comfortable because you know how valuable every dollar that you’re missing out on getting to work is, but you hopefully will fuel you to get back on track as fast as possible.

Rebie: Love that. Thanks for the question, DJ, and welcome to the Money Guy family.

Brian: That’s my, that’s me. Is that you? I don’t know what I’m over here doing, but I was like, that’s, I’m, my shoes are making way too much squeaking noise. I thought it was an animal. I thought it was like, it sounded like an animal. Sound like chewing through some lines here. Anytime. No, it’s just nervous old ticky Brian over here just moving his feet way too much.

Rebie: Probably better than it being an animal in the walls or something where Bo was going. So, we’ll take it.

Brian: Nervous old ticky Brian. I like that.

Safe Withdrawal Rate vs Market Returns (26:48)

Rebie: Next question is from A Random Guy on YouTube. It says, “If the stock market averages 7 to 8% annually, why is a safe withdrawal rate 4% and not seven?”

Brian: Oh yeah, it’s a great question. Classic great question.

Bo: Yeah, I see this all the time. You know, there’s some people out there who say, “Oh, you know, stock.” And actually, if you think about the stock market, like S&P 500, and you look at it over the last 50, 60, 70 years, it’s annualized somewhere like 10 or 11%. So, even better than the seven to 8% that you’re kind of throwing out there. And we’ll see some folks out there say, man, if the market makes 10%, you should be able to withdraw 8%, you got a 2% spread, you’re going to be okay. There’s a few problems with that. The number one problem of which, the market doesn’t deliver these nice little even chunks. If you were to plot out the S&P 500 return every year from like 1950 till now, it would be all over the place. There’d be, you know, up 20%, down 17%, up 6%, down 4%, up 13, and it would be all over the place. And there would be no rhyme or reason or order to it. But if you were to average all those years, yeah, it would come up to one of those average numbers. The problem is is that what you want in a safe withdrawal rate is you don’t want your cash flow that you’re pulling to be going all over the place with the market. You don’t want to be like, “Okay, man, this year I can live off of X dollars, but man, next year I get to live off 20% less than I lived on last year.” So that’s why when they did the Trinity study, they arrived at a sustainable long-term safe withdrawal rate of about 4%. Should be able to sustain all market environments, or at least historically has sustained all market environments since like 1950 without any of that really unfortunate sequence of return risk causing you to run out of money. So the reason why and the reason why it’s not equal to the rate of return is because the returns are not linear in how they’re delivered. But also the returns that you earn aren’t just market returns either.

Brian: Well, I always also remind people is so many of us financial mutants, you know, we live this life where we make a good income, we’re disciplined, we live on less than we make. But I will tell you, as you get to the point that you’re actually walking through the threshold that you’re no longer going to be living off your income, but you’re going to be living off of your capital, meaning your investments, it does some weird things to you mentally that a lot of people, I always tell people we want to be more conservative with the assumptions because, and this is why, because there’s also VWOO for life people, you know, who just they don’t want to diversify. They don’t want to do anything to minimize risk because they like maximizing those rates of returns because they’re good financial mutants. But this is why we use a 4% withdrawal rule also, not just the Trinity, but it’s also because it lets you see, to be conservative for not only the sequence of returns risk, but also just that transition as you’ve got to think about how you’re going to go into the fact of living off of your capital. But if the market gets its teeth kicked in in the first two years, you’re going to freak out. I just want to go ahead and prepare you. And you can imagine if you haven’t taken in account not only the planning, but also the allocation. There’s just a lot of things that go into it. Now, if you’re a person who wrote this random guy on YouTube and you’re in your 30s and you’re decades from retiring, rock and roll and keep, you know, go out there and build your best life. But I always worry about the somebody who’s watching this content who’s 50 years old and maybe they know that they need to be thinking beyond just the basics. And that’s where it’s not even the 4% safe withdrawal rate is going to keep you protected because we all know that your financial life is just like your fingerprints. It’s very personal and we all come in different shapes, different sizes, different account structures, different goals, different risk profiles. You got to get out there and get a plan that actually reflects what you look like, not just what some rule of thumb or some other way. That’s where the personal in personal finance really does get specific to you so that you can live your best life.

Bo: Yeah. As a brief aside, the safe withdrawal rate or any sort of safe withdrawal rate calculation is good for helping you kind of calculate back of the napkin math, back of the napkin retirement planning, or maybe even a little more formalized than back of the napkin. But what happens for a lot of our clients because we get to sit in this seat. We work with clients all over the country that are either approaching retirement, at retirement, near retirement, want to retire one day. What happens in actuality is that their withdrawal rates are never like a flat static 4%. You look at their lifetime cash flow from the time that they retire until the end of the planning period and they might have a series or a season where it’s like you know 7%, 8%, 9%, 9%, 9%. And then Social Security kicks in and it’s like okay well now it’s down to 4%, 5%. Then this other thing happens, they sell this asset. Okay well now it’s down to like 2%, 1%. It is much more dynamic than a lot of people realize. 4% is great to use for casting a future vision, giving you an idea of what the finish line looks like, but when you actually get to the finish line, it’s not really a finish. It’s the start of a whole new journey. And that journey is pretty dynamic when it comes to how you actually manage your capital over that season of life.

Rebie: That’s great. Random Guy on YouTube, great question. Thanks for being here.

Selling Assets for Car Purchase (32:25)

Rebie: Flax question is up next. “Hi, Money Guy. We are on step nine. We will buy a newer vehicle in the next 12 to 18 months. We’ve got enough in a taxable account to buy the car in cash. How do we know when to sell those assets to buy the car?”

Bo: I mean I have my immediate thought. You share my immediate thought. When it comes to like near-term expenses, 12 to 18 months, I am always a proponent of one in the hand is worth two in the bush. I would rather have the capital today because I don’t know what the market is going to do over the next 12 to 18 months. I may get greedy and say, “Okay, you know what? I’m not going to buy this car for a year. So, I’m going to leave all these dollars invested over the next year and then right before I go to the dealership, then I’ll pull it out.” Well, what happens if COVID happens between now and the time that I get to the dealership? Or what happens if fourth quarter of 2018 happens? Or what if the entire calendar year of 2022 happens? And when I need that money the most, the market just happens to be down. If I know that I’m going to have this expense and I know that it’s going to be in the next 12 to 18 months, I’m probably thinking today, man, I want to go and have that capital. I’m going to free it up. I’m going to place the trades. I’m going to have it available. And then what I can do is I can park it in like a high yield money market fund earning like 4% right now, but I don’t have to worry about risk of loss of principal. I think that’s the way that I would approach it.

Brian: Yeah. I mean this just becomes an extension of step four, your emergency reserves. Sinking funds are a lot of people when you have a known thing that you’re planning for. It’s not uncommon and we see it all the time with prospects who come in too is that your emergency reserves, there’s a portion that is definitely your 3 to 6 months, but then there’s also additional cash reserves and people always say, “Hey, that’s earmarked for my daughter’s getting married in three years or two years or hey I need to buy a new car or we’re saving up a down payment for a mountain cottage.” You know, I see this stuff all the time. So you financial mutants you naturally get it is that sometimes when you have things that are short-term goals meaning that they’re going to happen in the next three years. Don’t get cute. Exactly what Bo said. Just make them an extension of your emergency reserves. Add those sinking funds on top. Maximize them. We love high yield savings accounts and other things that give you that security of cash and liquidity, but also let’s maximize this like financial mutants are so that we’re actually making a little bit of money on that as well.

Rebie: Yeah, that’s great. Congrats on being in step nine, Flax, and I hope that helps you think through this next purchase.

Tiered 401(k) Match Explanation (35:05)

Rebie: Cooper’s question is next. It says, “Can you explain a tiered match for a company 401(k)? My new company offers 100% of a 1% match and 50% for a 1 to 6% match.” Sounds like Cooper is confused. Yeah. Can you help him out?

Brian: Sure. So, basically giving them 4%. If they put in six, oh one to six or one to seven, was it one to six, one to six. Okay. Yep. That’s right. So they’ll get 3%, no it’s going to be less than that. It’s going to be less than that.

Bo: So the way a tiered match works says hey for the first part you put in we’re going to do this and then for the second part we’re going to do something different. So in this case if you put in 1% they’ll give you 100% match. So then they will put in 1%. Well, then when you put in your next percent, so now you’re going to put in 2%. They’re only going to give you 50 cents on that dollar. So you put in 2%, your match is 1.5%. You get the one that you put in plus half. And so you’d follow that math all the way up to six. So you know, and I get real nervous because it’s public math, but if you’re going from 2% to 6%, 5%, two and a half, three and a half percent match. If you put, that is right, right? Somebody fact check us on that. If you put in 6%, you get a three and a half percent match, 100% on the first, and then the tiered part kicks in after that. So the question becomes, well, how much should I save? How much should I put in if I have a tiered matching structure, Brian?

Brian: Well, on this one, I’d still put in 6%. You put in all of it. You want to get all the free money. How much free money do you not like? Because I now look, it’s like a child. You know, you look at that first dollar, that first 1%, you’re like, I love 100%. That’s dollar for dollar. That’s some good getting right there. But then you look at it and you go, you know, 50 cents on the dollar is still 50% rate of return. There’s not many accounts out there that are paying me 50%. So, I’m getting all the 6%. I’m putting all 6% so I can get my 2 and a half%.

Rebie: There you go, Cooper. Go take advantage of that free money.

House Hacking (37:11)

Rebie: All right. Sergio has a question. He says, “Please tell us how y’all feel about house hacking. I am 35 and thinking about it.” So, how do you feel about house hacking? And can you give a little definition for the newbies?

Brian: You said what? What? I said two and a half. It’s three and a half percent. On what? Oh, on the last question with the math. It’s fine. I just hate public math. I was like, that doesn’t make sense. Two and a half on six. It should be greater than 50%. And then, dagnab it. Okay, just restart the question for Sergio. I apologize. It’s just public math once again comes back and it’s like a yippy dog that ran up and bit my ankle and now I’m sitting here trying to recover from it. Three and a half percent. All right. Wait, cleared the air. We got that out of the way. Tell me Sergio’s question. Is this going to blow it up though? Because Rebie is supposed to be the one that read it again.

Bo: Go ahead. Bo was the OG. He did it before me. Go ahead. What was Sergio’s question?

Rebie: It said, “Please tell us how y’all feel about house hacking. I am 35 and thinking about it.” How do you feel about house hacking?

Bo: I love house hacking. And Brian, what is house hacking?

Brian: House hacking is, and I’ve covered this earlier, is one of the great ways that you’re maximizing the housing system legally because we all know, well, let me get technical. You’re basically using other people’s money to help you pay for your primary residence. That’s probably the easiest way to talk about house hacking. And what I mean by that is that, you know, traditionally it could be roommates. So, you buy a condo and you got two college buddies that you like hanging out. You’re like, “Hey, you know what? Instead of us all paying rent to an apartment complex, I’m gonna buy this condo, y’all pay the rent to me.” And you’re essentially their landlord. That’s house hacking. There’s also you could buy a duplex, you could buy a quadplex, and you’re just going to live in one of those parts of the house, so it’s still your primary residence. So, that’s what house hacking is, is using other people’s money to help you buy your primary residence. Now, why is this such an advantageous thing is because banks give you the benefit when you live in the house, it’s your primary residence. That means it’s less risk to the lender because they’re like, man, the last thing you’re going to pass up on is giving up on the house that you live in because that’s the shelter for you and your family. So, they give you a preferred lending rate, a lower mortgage rate. Now, where people run afoul of this is whenever that lending question is asked, is this future purchase going to be for your primary residence? We’ve done reaction videos where people constantly are saying on, going to buy a rental property and say, “Yeah, just tell them it’s your primary residence that you qualify for the lower rate.” That is fraud. And you’re starting to see because it seems so innocent. I just if I check this box or answer this question, I’ll be safe. No, false. It’s like, you know, you have to be careful these things. That’s why I love house hacking is because it’s legal. It’s legitimate. You are actually checking that box, getting the lower mortgage rate, but also getting other people’s money to help you fund this housing purchase.

Bo: Two things that add to that. When you think about house hacking, and this was Sergio, don’t overextend. Far too often people say, “Oh, you know what I can do? If I bring in roommates and I have other people, I can buy more expensive house. I can go further out on the cost spectrum because I have people offsetting.” If you do that, there’s a good chance you’re going to put yourself in way too risky of a situation because what happens if those roommates don’t show up or what if they do and they move or what if you have vacancy or what if it doesn’t go the way that you think it should go? So, if you’re thinking about house hacking, you should prepare the 3D plan. What’s the dream scenario? What’s the most likely scenario? And then what’s that doo-doo scenario? What if things go really, really bad? Can I float this house by myself? So that’s don’t overextend on the financial side. The other thing that I would encourage you to think about is be careful not to overextend on the quality of life side. While house hacking is wonderful and amazing and it can be an incredibly valuable thing financially, it does not necessarily make sense in all circumstances. If you are someone and you have other people that live with you like a spouse or like kids, you may not want to have somebody renting out a room. You may not want someone else to be taking over your garage. You may not. So, make sure that just because it could make sense financially, it also needs to line up on all the other non-financial stuff. Do I actually want to have a roommate? Do I actually want to have someone else’s dishes in the sink? Do I actually want to go through these things? Because again, financially on the brochure, it can look amazing, but in actuality, if that’s not the way that you want to be living your life, you don’t want to do it strictly and solely for the financial reasons.

Brian: I can’t help but think when you just said that is because you’re Big Spoons Hansen. From the four months that you and your wife lived with us as y’all were moving up here, y’all lived with us. And my oldest daughter let Bo know a few years ago that his nickname around the house was Big Spoons Hansen because while Bo lived with us, he was during his phase where the way he was saving money was just eating cereal. Dude, it was, so he was using every big spoon according to my daughter for that. There was never any when she’d come down to need a spoon, old Big Spoons Hansen had used them all.

Bo: You know it’s so funny because this was like you know over a decade ago that all this took place. It was the absolute best case house hacking scenario for me, horrible decision for you because no rent coming out. You didn’t get anything from using all the big spoons.

Brian: I don’t think that counts as house hacking. Oh, that’s called, that’s called freeloading.

Bo: Me and Jenna, my wife and I, we were house hacking. We had economic outpatient care over here. It was great.

Brian: I kept sitting here thinking, we didn’t pay any rent for that. Just like I didn’t realize that I was scarring my oldest child also from keeping her from those cereal spoons.

Bo: No, that’s memories. That’s childhood building is what that is. That’s right. The whole Big Spoons life lesson.

Rebie: Oh my goodness.

Unusual 403(b) Match Scenario (43:15)

Rebie: All right. Ready for the next one? Just Hanging 95 says, “My wife has a 25% match on her 403(b) with no cap.” Great. I know. “Is it irresponsible to work on maxing that out before building an emergency fund? We are 30 years old with a six-month-old.”

Bo: Gosh, I, this one, but it’s good. This is a good FOO question. This is the one. We get this one though. And every time we get this one, I just, I don’t like this question. Stop asking this question. I don’t like this question.

Rebie: They need to know.

Brian: Well, yeah. I mean, because this one’s a, so, let’s talk about the logistics for those that hurt you. Yes.

Bo: Let’s just for those of you that don’t recognize, you know, 403(b) operates same way as like a 401(k) where you can put up to $23,500 if you’re under the age of 50. And so what this is saying is, hey, if we put in $23,500 all the way up to the salary deferral max, we’re going to get a 25% match on that. So if I put that $23,500 in there, I’m going to get $5,875 as a match. $5,875 of absolutely free money. And if I’m following the financial order of operations, Brian, you hold the thing up. Step two says, “Hey, I need to absolutely go get all the free money that I can go get even before I pay off credit cards and even before I have an emergency fund.” And that is true. We do think that that is the way that is built. But man, Just Hanging buried this thing in there said I’m married. I got, was it six-month-old? I got like a brand new baby in the house. And so again, I would be thinking about okay, there’s a risk overlay. Where are the risks here? And if I literally have no liquidity and something bad were to happen, now I guess in theory, if something bad were to happen and you have credit cards and you have available credit, you could go put money on credit cards, you could rack up a bunch of credit card debt. That seems less than ideal. So I would try to think through is there some way we could do both? Is there some way we could get creative where we are able to build up an emergency fund, are able to satisfy and complete step four and at the same, not at the same time but in also doing that, am I able to take advantage of this free employer match so that I have some risk management in place for my family as well.

Brian: I immediately had a visual of a bell curve. And if you think about the financial order of operations, we have built the all-terrain vehicle that captures every sigma for I would say 99% of the population. Good. Congratulations to Rebie for finding the needle in the haystack is that this is an outlier. So because of that, I’m going to tell you the financial mutants answer on this is that you have steps one through four. You’ve now because of this question, you would have a connection between them because they are all interconnected. And the fact that you’re going to have your highest deductible, we’re already going to do that first because that’s keeping you from making those desperate decisions. But now you have such a great match that you have a 25% guaranteed rate of return up to 25% of your spouse’s income. That’s pretty spectacular. So now we have to look at steps three and four from a risk standpoint. Obviously we don’t want you having high interest debt. I didn’t hear that in your question. So I’m just going to assume we’re out of that. So now we get to step four. I would have a very honest conversation with myself, especially you have young children in the house. You’ve got this great opportunity is that you’ve got to risk assess because that’s what it’s back to the heart of what step one and step four is. Cash is so important in my financial order of operations that it actually has two steps. So, we’ve got to respect that and say, what is my actual exposure here? And figure out, okay, is that three months? Is that four months? And then I would do exactly what Bo said is because the getting is so good on this 25%, I would now figure out how I can back into still respecting step four so that I could make that all happen. They’re interconnected. Instead of this being what to do with your next dollar, you’re kind of now having to think about steps one through four as interconnected because you are the outlier that’s found the one in a hundred that you have an employer that is so generous that it kind of breaks the traditional systems.

Rebie: I love it.

Bo: I’m trying to think about what would I do if it were me. Oh, I would totally if I were 30 and I had a six-month-old and this were available. But it might mean that you’re only doing 15% because you have to fill up.

Brian: I was gonna say, do you have to do all 25% right now, right? Yeah. You might only be doing 15% because you’re loading up a big chunk into that emergency fund if you have to. But it’s the same thing. I gave an answer earlier is that I always want there to be like a ticking clock in the background that creates emphasis and pressure is that that’s why I think it is one of those things why they’re interconnected is because maybe your wife only gets to do 12 to 15% towards her employer plan. You’re like, “Gosh, but I’m leaving half of that match on the table.” But no, it’s because for the next four months, you’re loading up that emergency reserves and now you’re coming back and maybe you’re getting a bonus. Maybe she gets a bonus at the end of the year that you get to say, “Hey, I want to allocate 60% of that bonus to go catch up and make sure I’m getting the full match on that.” There’s all kind of ways to really squeeze the balloon and really maximize this financial mutant opportunity.

Rebie: Well, I think that was a great question. Thank you for being here and asking it.

Brian: I feel like Rebie, you know, there’s always, you know, trying to break the rules. She is. She’s trying to break the system.

Rebie: That’s me, a rule breaker.

Brian: Can you imagine the power position? Imagine if the operator at Ramsey Solutions said, “Let’s send Dave every question that tries to break his things.” Because Dave just doesn’t break his rules. He just is like, “No, this is the rule. This is it.” Yeah. So, you guys are like more.

Rebie: Honestly, you’re a little more realistic in this way.

Brian: You go. Congratulations. Sorry, that was my water bottle. We all got fidgety feet around here. Oh, yeah. Well done though, Rebie, you win a tumbler today.

Rebie: It’s not even a tumbler day.

Brian: Now, everybody’s going to be mad at me for it. Well, come on, Brian. You get a one-off Tumbler for breaking. You win a Tumbler.

Rebie: No, only you get a Tumbler. I don’t even win one.

Brian: Oh, that’s hilarious.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Investment (49:52)

Rebie: All right, Jason S has a question for you next. He says, “What percent of your clients are asking to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum today?” And I would add, I’ve seen some questions just about what do you think about Bitcoin? How much of your money should be going towards Bitcoin that you’re investing towards retirement in the future?

Brian: I’ll answer this first. No, bro. This one’s you. Bo just came back from a weekend with a bunch of business people that he holds in high esteem and he was telling me that this was a topic of conversations.

Bo: Topic of conversation. All right. What percent of your clients are asking to invest in Bitcoin or Ethereum? I, that’s an easy answer on that one. Yeah. What would you say? What would you say percentage is?

Brian: I mean, of my clients, probably less than 3% have asked that question.

Bo: Yeah, because and it’s probably age demographic of your clients and that sort of thing. I would say mine’s probably a little bit higher than that. Clients that are curious, not so much asking about investing in it, but more asking what are your thoughts on this? How do you feel about this? And this one’s really really interesting because if you know, we’ve done a lot of content on like cryptocurrencies and that sort of thing over the years. And at the time what we said was hey this is a very speculative investment. There’s a lot of unknown unknowns. But what happens with any sort of early stage investment is that it’s speculative in the beginning but then things begin to kind of morph and change where it perhaps is less speculative only because there’s more time, there’s more understanding of it. And so I think one of the things that’s really interesting is what do we think about Bitcoin or Ethereum. I’m going to speak for me personally. Is that fair? It’s not something that I am currently investing in. It’s not something because there’s some fundamental issues I have with what it is and how it specifically actually operates. Like the thing that makes it more valuable is someone coming along behind and being willing to pay more for it. So a lot of people would like compare it to some sort of commodity like gold or something like that. And in that same vein, I personally am not investing in gold either. But there are some like interesting and compelling academic arguments around what the future could potentially look like, but I’m not there just yet. I’m not there right now. But it is one of those things that I want to make sure that I’m staying informed and I’m staying educated and understand what is going on there and what’s happening in that space. So, I’m watching and I’m learning and I’m understanding. But for me personally, it’s not something that I’m allocating dollars to right now because I cannot get over the fundamental threshold of why it would be a positive return on investment for my dollars to go in there. It’s again, it’s the thing that makes it more valuable is somebody coming along behind me and being willing to pay more. It’s not something that at this point in time creates innovation, a product, sells a service, grows revenue. That’s not the way that it’s operating right now. So, I’m still in the investigation phase.

Brian: So, I dabbled in Bitcoin and Ethereum for a bit because I felt like I had so many people throwing it my way. I was like, it’s not right for me to have an opinion on this unless I’m doing something to really better myself on understanding this. And the first thing that shocked me about it, and this is why I don’t, it’s not a currency. It is more of a speculative play. I still stand by that because it does remind me of the volatility of a hard asset like gold and other things is because the fluctuation in pricing on a daily basis was, I got whipsawed by it. I was shocked that there were multiple percentage changes every day and currencies don’t move like that. If you can imagine that if you were trying to do daily transactions and the cost of, because Warren Buffett always uses a can of Coca-Cola and you know from the time I tell you I want this Coca-Cola instead of it being $1.50, it’s $2.25 or $2.50. I mean because there really are some wild swings, you know, five, six percent. I know the numbers I just used was greater than five but you catch the drift of if prices change by the minute by percentages it makes it hard to do cash type transactions. Then it goes to is it just a hard asset that you’re investing in? Yeah, you could make an argument for the, is this a systemic risk protection? Just like you see people who are so wealthy that they go and you know once they’re worth 10 million plus maybe they put a few million dollars in a trust in a Cayman bank account or some other sort of like contingency planning bank account or something just in case America fell apart. Okay, maybe there’s some value in that. But that’s not the typical American investor has $10 million plus and they should be worried about systemic risk. So it’s back to your core problem. And then I’ll tell you another thing that just, it’s sitting out there and it troubles me is that when the IRS put on tax returns, the question right along the top that are you partaking or participating in crypto type transactions? That was a red flag for me of just what is the government trying to set up? Because I think a lot of people think that this is outside of government. This is why you buy and you do crypto. And yeah, maybe it is, but it seems like the government, you always have to pay your taxes. And I’m just telling you, be careful if this is something where, because there’s a reason they’re asking those questions on the return is that there’s potentially a trap laying in wait because they know if you have your, maybe if you have a cold storage wallet, they don’t know about it. But it’s still, this stuff is still somewhat traceable. And especially if you’re dealing with Coinbase and some of these other wallets, they can see your transactions. A lot of people are always surprised like when you go through an SEC audit, a lot of you guys don’t probably realize this. The SEC already knows all the transactions that our clients do. We don’t have to, they ask us to show them what, when they ask these questions, but they already know it and they cross reference them. It’s kind of like your matching transaction with the IRS. You know, when they send you that letter, they’re going to ask you, “Hey, show proof that you have this.” A lot of this stuff is already reported. Their systems, it’s already part of it. And so that part of it, I understand people thinking that they have some protection from that, but I’m also telling you that what you perceive as insulation or protection from getting outside of government also could be the trap. That could be trouble. I know I went, because I’ve tried, I’ve really thought about this in some heavy ways. And I’m not against, well, that’s what, but it’s just one of those things I think you have to do a lot of research and understanding because the fault answer of anybody who’s doing crypto heavily is they tell you if you have any questions about it, you just don’t understand it. And anybody who ever tells me I’m just not smart enough to understand it, that the dumb factor is why I don’t get it, I’m like, “No, you don’t know how much I’m trying to figure out how this fits.” When you manage people’s retirement, the weight of knowing that whatever decisions I make for you in retirement, you know, for telling you you’re okay, you’re financially independent, that you can walk through the threshold of no longer working, it takes an emotional toll if you’re doing this right. You feel that weight of making good decisions. So I’ve tried to make sure I’m understanding all these things. So I’ll never tell a client if they tell me they want to do this, good. But it’s the same thing that I would tell them if they were telling me they’re doing any other type of investment that has some type of speculation. Let’s just not get crazy with it.

Bo: That’s what I was going to say. You know, when I invest my money, I’m not buying individual stocks. I don’t think that is the highest probability outcome for me having long-term financial success. That doesn’t mean that I would tell someone, hey, don’t go own any individual stocks. If there is a company that you’re interested in or a reason why you might want to purchase an individual stock of a company, I’m not going to fight you on that. And that’s the position that I’ve taken with a lot of my clients who have questions around cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin specifically. If it’s something that you do want to speculate in, there is nothing wrong with speculating assuming you’re at the point in the financial order of operations where that makes sense. Where I begin to get very uncomfortable is when someone takes the position that this is the only way to build wealth and I am so deeply convicted by that I’m going to go all in on that. That’s where I’m like, or cash reserves. People treating Bitcoin as a cash reserves equivalency, that scares me. The volatility would not substantiate that it would be an equivalent cash reserve. That’s not the way that emergency reserves and liquidity exist. So if it is something that you are interested in, you just need to figure out is it part of my financial plan? Am I at the stage where that makes sense? We’re not going to fault you on that. We just think that when it comes to building wealth and building towards financial independence, presently there are other higher probability ways with a more proven track record to be able to get to that place.

Brian: It’s all under that umbrella. Make wealth, maintain wealth, and then multiply wealth. This is definitely something that if you’re at that stage, I’m just not going to let you put 80% of your assets in something because the maintain wealth, it scares me because there’s just too much volatility. But that doesn’t mean there’s not individuals that are out there so convinced about this. I just know that I’ve worked with too many people that have been at that maintain wealth phase and then just took too much risk so that you don’t want to go back to being poor. I can just tell you, you do not want to go back to being poor because you’re not always guaranteed that you’ll be able to get back to where you were.

Rebie: Yep. That was a very deep conversation about Bitcoin.

Bikers and Beards Motorcycle Challenge (59:46)

Rebie: What? Rebie, when we’re at lunch, we’re going to be like, Rebie, you were just popping us around a little bit today. Give me some feedback later. I’ll take it. I’m going to go rogue one more time and say a lot of people want to know if you bought everybody ice cream with your $1,000 you won by lifting the motorcycle on the Bikers and Beards channel.

Brian: Our accidental play. I was thinking, I was thinking after you know because I played the part of Jimmy Hart and that I was running around and I was doing, you don’t, you didn’t want that. No, nobody’s old enough to get that. I get that. I was trying to walk around, get everything, get the hype machine going. I don’t know if everybody heard the cheers afterwards and I could distinctly hear my voice in those cheers even louder because so I was wondering where my Jimmy Hart, you know, 10% commission cut was there. There wasn’t.

Bo: For those of you who don’t know, really cool YouTube channel. Is it Bikers and Beards or Bikes and Beards? I want to make sure I get Bikers and Beards. Bikers and Beards. Really cool YouTube channel. They were set out on the square here in downtown Franklin. If you’ve been to our office, you know, our office is right here on the square. And a bunch of our folks went out there and he was doing a thousand dollar giveaway. Hey, if you can lift up this motorcycle, it’s $20. This one, it’s $100, or this one, it’s $1,000. And so they had people crowded around just kind of like seeing how that went. And sure enough, we were able to go down there and lift all three of them. So, we end up getting a thousand bucks. And it was awesome.

Brian: He used the word we. I both went out there and beast moded that thing up.

Bo: It was a team effort and it was super awesome. And no, I have not decided what to do with my thousand. Maybe I’ll go buy some Bitcoin. How much Bitcoin is $1,000 in cash? Bring it full circle. Cash.

Brian: You see, wouldn’t have much, a lot more 10 years ago. Oh man.

Bo: All right. Someone even recognized Mouth of the South. Man, I love that. Such a good reference.

Brian: I do resemble Mouth of the South. It’s literally, that was Jimmy Hart. My folks, this is why I think younger people will be like, “How is Brian even, why do they even have Brian on the show?” Be like trust me, there’s enough of the audience out there that resembles me that they get it.

Bo: Oh, yeah. Oh, man.

Closing (1:01:54)

Rebie: All right. You guys are cool. Remember, if you want to keep talking and keep thinking and keep applying about the things that we’ve talked about on the show today, just go to moneyguy.com/resources. All of the calculators and downloads that we’ve mentioned are there free for you to use. So, definitely go check that out. Moneyguy.com/resources. We’ll be back here Tuesday 10:00 a.m. Central live answering your questions.

Brian: Well, and by the way, if we even gave a shout out to that clip of Bo, it was a little after the 22 minute mark for any of those that go find it in our newsletter. So, if you’re not, if you think that, hey, I don’t want to sign up for this newsletter because it’s just going to be boring stuff. No, we even put in there so you can see what a unit Bo is out there lifting up motorcycles in our newsletter. So, this thing is fun. It’s just, it’s very on brand for all of you financial mutants where you get the best of the nerdiness, you get the analytics, but you also get enough of life sprinkled in there so that you can know, yeah, these are my folks. Guys, we absolutely love creating this type of content. I’m your host, Brian, joined by the unit, Mr. Bo, as well as Rebie and the rest of the content team. Money Guy team out.