Q&A: The Goalposts Moved — Is That Actually a Problem?

Summary

Afford Anything Podcast – Episode Summary
Q&A: The Goalposts Moved — Is That Actually a Problem?
Host: Paula Pant | Guest Co-Host: Joe Saul-Sehy
Release date: May 26, 2026

---

Main Theme / Purpose
This episode focuses on how personal financial goals—especially around charitable giving and real estate—evolve as life changes, and how to navigate shifting "goalposts" without frustration or regret. Paula Pant and regular co-host Joe Saul-Sehy answer listener questions that tackle:

• The philosophy and logistics of maintaining charitable donations after financial independence
• Strategies for managing and optimizing complex, multi-source retirement accounts (tax and investment planning)
• How to respond as a small-scale real estate investor when local market conditions change due to oversupply and price pressure

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Charitable Giving After Financial Independence
   [Timestamps: 00:39–13:05]

• Les asks: If charitable giving is a key value but seems unsustainable after retiring or going work-optional, should he keep working part-time solely to fund those donations? How to balance this with financial independence?
• Paula affirms that making giving a cornerstone is admirable, and outlines two main models:
  • Physician on FIRE’s “Work One More Year for Charity” Approach
  • Continue part-time work in retirement just to fund giving
• Joe adds that for many retirees, monetary donations stay constant but volunteer hours often rise:

  "The money flows seem to stay the same, but the time spent helping the charity went up." (Joe, 00:16)

• Economic Efficiency vs. Social Value: For highly compensated professionals, it's often most efficient to work part-time (“bigger shovel”) and donate, rather than do general volunteering.
• Value of Skilled Volunteering: If you have critical skills (e.g. social media, tech, PR), donating your expertise can be more valuable to some nonprofits than cash.

  "Some of these tasks that are somewhat specialized can be worth much, much more than whatever equivalent amount of money that you give would be." (Joe, 07:47)

• Structuring Giving for Sustainability:
  • Donor Advised Fund: build up a lump sum and distribute 4%/yr perpetually
  • Private Foundation: requires 5% annual distribution, allows for team management and possible family involvement
• For time-bound giving goals (like 529 plans), prioritize getting those fully funded first, then focus on ongoing charitable gifts.
• Philosophical reframing:

  "Financial independence is not the cessation of income-producing activity. Financial independence is optionality. It's work optionality." (Paula, 11:50)

• Conclusion: Les is right—the goalposts move because priorities evolve, but that’s a sign of the freedom he’s created, not a problem.

Memorable Quotes:

• "If you're thinking about it in terms of affecting your financial independence, I think you’re already there." (Joe, 05:19)
• "It is a pretty badass place to be." (Joe, 06:10)

---

2. Managing Complex Retirement Accounts: Simplicity vs. Strategy
   [Timestamps: 18:05–28:42]

• Jamie asks: Can three tax-deferred sub-buckets in his Vanguard 401k (rollover, match, company base) be combined? And how to manage asset allocation, future Roth conversions, and mental overload?
• Joe explains: Provided all buckets are pre-tax, they can generally be combined post-employment, but always check with a tax pro for exceptions (e.g. after-tax contributions) before rolling over.

  "If any of this was sourced from after tax money, that's the biggest question mark, slash red flag." (Paula, 27:54)

• For asset allocation: Don’t overcomplicate it by account source; focus on achieving your overall investment strategy across all accounts. Sometimes it makes sense to concentrate certain holdings within accounts to make best use of the available options, even if an individual account looks unbalanced in isolation.

  "You’re gonna over-concentrate specific accounts so that the overall... asset location makes sense." (Paula, 22:05)

• Consider cognitive overload: Using tools (dashboards like Bolden, Projection Lab, or even custom spreadsheets) can help you see the big picture and reduce anxiety about account complexity.
• When does a pro help? Not for basic asset allocation, but for withdrawal/spending strategy as you approach retirement, especially to coordinate tax, income, and long-term care considerations.

  "The dovetailing of all these together is where a good financial planner who does this every day... you can benefit from that experience." (Joe, 26:30)

• Final tips: Diversifying further (beyond a two-fund portfolio) can help smooth the investment ride and potentially improve returns.

  "It might not even be about excess return. It might be about smoothing out the ride a little bit." (Joe, 28:37)

---

3. Real Estate: Outcompeted by Corporate Landlords – When to Sell?
   [Timestamps: 32:34–44:17]

• Tina owns rentals near UCF, but new supply and corporate landlords have crushed demand and rents. Should she sell or reposition?
• Joe’s first instinct: Audit the marketing—where, how, and with what photos/descriptions you’re listing. Make the property stand out, even in a crowded market.

  "There may be a way to either make your product stand out in a crowded market, which you could explore first." (Joe, 34:51)

• Paula’s action list:
  • Refresh listing photos (consider AI staging for empty rooms, with disclosure)
  • Update listing copy to emphasize unique selling points (location, charm, convenience)
  • Compare property objectively to new competition and clearly articulate its advantages
• Consider pricing: Lowering rent to meet the market may be necessary. Recalculate the property’s net operating income and cap rate at the new price, then compare against potential replacement properties realistically.

  "If you rerun the numbers... what would that mean for your new net operating income? What's the new cap rate? And how does that look relative to any other potential alternate property?" (Paula, 39:13)

• Don't assume selling and doing a 1031 exchange elsewhere will guarantee better returns—other areas may have similar or hidden risks.
• Emotional reality: It’s hard when a previous “money printing machine” stalls, but you must update your tactics and baseline expectations.

  "I have to up my game to get this to perform. I have to work twice as hard to get half the returns." (Paula, 41:36)

• Key takeaway: First optimize what you already have (marketing and price). Only then, if returns don’t meet your requirements, consider selling/redeploying capital.

Memorable Moment:

• Joe’s humorous aside about pillows during a conversation on digital staging:

  "I think that every time Cheryl puts those on her bed—they’re so impractical... But man, do they look great." (Joe, 38:13–38:23)

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Financial independence is not synonymous with retirement. It's synonymous with work optionality." (Paula, 06:39)
• "Some of these tasks that are somewhat specialized can be worth much, much more than whatever equivalent amount of money that you give would be." (Joe, 07:47)
• "Begin lining up what percentage is close to where I need to be... and say this fund is this piece, this fund is the other piece." (Joe, 22:41)
• "Use AI and build one dashboard so it doesn’t look like five accounts, it only looks like one." (Joe, 26:44)

---

Key Segment Timestamps

• 00:39–13:05 – Philosophical & practical approaches to sustaining giving post-FI (Les’s question)
• 18:05–28:42 – Tax buckets, investment simplicity, and advisor timing (Jamie’s question)
• 32:34–44:17 – Real estate market adaptation, marketing checklists, and how to analyze “sell or keep” (Tina’s question)

---

Conclusion
This episode offers depth and empathy to listeners facing changing dreams and markets. Paula and Joe encourage creative thinking, first principles reasoning, and leveraging new tools—reassuring listeners that evolving priorities are a sign of progress, not failure. Each segment delivers actionable frameworks for major financial crossroads.

Listeners are encouraged to share the show, subscribe, and engage with the Afford Anything community for ongoing financial and life design insights.

Transcript

[A]

Joe, when you were a financial planner, did you see people's charitable giving strategies change dramatically between when they were working and then when they were retired?

[B]

No, I can't. I can't say that I did.

[A]

Even though the income stream ceased.

[B]

Yeah. I still didn't see a real change. In fact, maybe it's interesting. The money flows seem to stay the same, but the time spent helping the charity went up.

[A]

Hmm. Okay, so donations stayed constant, but volunteer hours increased.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, interesting. All right, well, we're going to tackle a question about charitable giving in retirement. We're also going to answer.

[B]

I wonder why you asked.

[A]

We're also going to answer a question about tax optimization and asset allocation inside of retirement accounts. And we're going to talk to a landlord in Central Florida who is wondering how to deal with all of the new construction in that market because that has put downward pressure on rental prices.

[B]

All that in one episode.

[A]

Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything. Not everything. This show covers five pillars. Financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate entrepreneurship acronym Double I Fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia. Every other episode ish, we answer questions from you and I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Salsihai. What's up, Joe?

[B]

Did you know, Paula, that I used to drive Uber?

[A]

I did not know that.

[B]

I did. I got tired of it though. All the people talking behind my back.

[A]

Nah, come on.

[B]

Come on people.

[A]

And with that, we're going to go to our first question which comes from Les.

[C]

Hi Pollum. I have a philosophical question for you that does not really have a clear cut answer. As I get closer to financial independence, I feel like the goal post might be moving. Not because of spending issues necessarily, but because of my wish for charitable giving in the future. I do have a current donor advice fund as well as fund several 529 plans for family members. If I were to stop earning an income in the next five to 10 years, then those charitable contributions would necessarily have to stop as I do not think I would be able to support my current lifestyle and continue the same amount of charitable giving. This makes me think that I may want to continue some part time work in order to fund those additional charitable expenses in the future, which are a personal goal of mine. How would you go about thinking about this and trying to balance this out with some financial freedom in the future? Thank you and appreciate your time to weigh in.

[A]

Les, thank you for the question and I love that you are making Charitable giving and funding 529 plans for your family, both. I love that you're making that such a cornerstone of your priorities. So let's talk through a couple of different ways that you can continue making the charitable gifts that you are making even in retirement. There are two models that I've seen. One is a model that was practiced by a person in the fire movement named Leif Dahlin. He wrote a blog called Physician on Fire. He's a former anesthesiologist. He also had big charitable giving goals. He worked until he hit his FI number or his fire number and, and then he worked one additional year that was purely for the purpose of charitable giving. So his final year of work was purely a charitable giving year and that allowed him to reach his giving goals. That's one possible model. The alternate model is what you said in your voicemail, where you could continue to work part time in retirement purely for the sake of charitable giving. And if you think about it, Joe, you know, you mentioned earlier that youth often saw retirees. Donations would stay consistent, but volunteer hours would rise. And there is certainly social and psychological benefit to contributing volunteer hours for, for the purposes of getting to know the people who are involved in a given organization. But from a purely economic perspective, particularly if you are a highly compensated worker, it often is more efficient, monetarily efficient, to rather than put in low wage volunteer hours, put in high wage worker hours and then dedicate that money towards giving. Like from a pure economic lens, that is the most economically efficient thing to do. I mean, that said, you do lose. There are social benefits, there are non economic benefits to volunteering.

[B]

Yeah, you just have a bigger shovel this way you're saying.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. So those are the two models that I've seen. One is the one dedicated year approach and the other is the part time work approach.

[B]

Well, I agree with Les. There is no clear cut answer. I think another way to just think about this, Paula, is because, you know, he brought up how he thinks about this in terms of financial independence. And I think when you're making a decision like this, I was wondering why Les would call in with a question like this. And for me, and this might not be the case, but for me, the real reason I thought that I would call a podcast asking this question is because maybe I feel a little hemmed in by this goal. I want more flexibility, but at the same time I really want to support these very important things in my life. But I think that's the nature of financial independence. It's really cool that you have the independence to be able to do this. And so if you're thinking about it in terms of affecting your financial independence, I think you're already there, which I think then instead of feeling hemmed in, this is really a freeing thing because now instead of focusing on just you and what supports you, you have the ability and the wherewithal to be able to focus on others, which is a pretty badass place to be.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah. I will say, you know, financial independence is not synonymous with retirement. It's synonymous with work optionality. In either model, if you're working one dedicated year for the purpose of giving or if you're working part time in retirement, either way, if the purpose of that is purely for charitable giving, then that is the very definition of work optionality. It is purely optional.

[B]

Yeah. So I find this to be exciting more than hemming him in. And the other way to think about this. And you touched on this, Paula, with your answer is, and I remember interviewing a very smart gentleman named Chris Field who does a lot of work with nonprofit organizations and was saying that for many, when you talked about volunteering for many people, if he has skills that are great for the organization, it might actually make sense to go the other way and use those skills to help the organization instead of the donation. I remember Chris saying, and I don't remember the exact quote, but saying something to me like, yeah, you know, somebody wants to give a hundred bucks, that's great. But if you're somebody who knows how to do social media, that is a skill that we, you know, every nonprofit in the world wants and needs the ability to get the word out. Or if you're somebody that knows AI or you're somebody who knows how to fix computers even, you know what I mean? Like, some of these tasks that are somewhat specialized can be worth much, much more than whatever equivalent amount of money that you give would be.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. So I should amend my earlier statement When I talk about volunteer work. It depends on the type of volunteer work that you're doing. It 100% depends because there is rote work that's very plug and play. That can be low value in terms of what it would cost to hire somebody to do equivalent work. But then there's also the opposite, that there are also board seats that need to be filled.

[B]

Yeah. If you've got some skill. I mean, that is huge. That in fact, it's funny, that is my role with our local nonprofit is because I know how to talk to media, I know how to write press releases I know how to be on camera. We're getting ready for our big fundraiser, the half marathon. Guess who does the Facebook lives and the Instagram lives telling people about how the race is going to go. Guess who made all the videos of the race course for everybody? Like that's, that's in my wheelhouse. It's super easy for me to do, but not easy for anybody else on

[A]

our to do the other piece of it. Les when you're thinking about the money management angle, there are two ways in which you can build an endowment through which you can have an ongoing stream of income that you can use to distribute charitable funds every year. One is through a donor advised fund. As you know, the approach there would be to work until you hit some type of a funding goal inside of your donor advised fund. Just hypothetically, let's say that you want to put $200,000 into a donor advised fund. And then at a 4% drawdown rate, that means you can distribute $8,000 a year to charity in perpetuity. Right? That would be one approach. The other approach is that you can create a foundation. There are two types of foundations out there. There are foundations that are actively engaged in doing things, and there are foundations that exist primarily for the purpose of distribution of assets. And if you have a foundation that is formed for the purpose of distributing assets, then your role as the manager of this foundation will be exactly that. To, to nurture the endowment very much in the same way that that all of us nurture our own portfolios, manage the investment, manage the endowment and, and then make distributions every year. And the IRS requires actually 5%. And they have specific guidelines and timelines for when those need to be made. But that's another approach. And what's nice about the foundation model is that you can get other people involved as well. Whereas a donor advised fund you would largely be managing on your own. But either way, regardless of whether you choose donor advised fund or foundation, the common thread is that you are creating a base endowment and then making annual distributions from that base endowment. And in that regard, it's pretty similar to building a retirement portfolio and then living off of that. Right? What is a retirement portfolio? It's basically an endowment that you're building for yourself for the rest of your own life.

[B]

That's a great strategy when you have this ongoing commitment to some something in your community. But with these 529 plans, Paula, he definitely has a set timeframe for those.

[A]

Right? And that's a very good point. Everything that I've talked About so far is assuming donations in perpetuity, but with the 529 plans, those are time bound. That's another part of the approach. Prioritize the 529 until that time bound designation is over, until those kids go to college and then do those in series rather than in parallel like an ab. Yeah, yeah. But Les, to the philosophical part of your question. When you asked how do we think about balancing financial independence with the desire to continue charitable giving? At a philosophical level, I would say financial independence is not the cessation of income producing activity. Financial, financial independence is optionality. It's work optionality. If you do decide to take on some part time work for the sake of continuing to give, I see that as fully aligned with being work optional. So thank you Les for the question. Cheers to you for prioritizing this so highly.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

We're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who make the show possible. When we return, we're going to hear from Jamie. Jamie is 58 years old, has a 401k worth about 1.5 million, but has some questions related to the way that his investments are split and tax treatment. Then after that, at the end of the show, we're going to hear from a landlord in Central Florida who's wondering how to deal with the changing market there. Both of those are coming up. Heads up to anyone who's a small business owner who's an entrepreneur. As you know, one of the big lessons that you learn early in that experience is that you don't have to do it all yourself. Upwork makes it easy to bring in the right freelancer when you need them so that you can stay focused on the thing that you do best. Upwork is a one stop platform to find, hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations and more. Upwork gives you fast access to specialized talent across 125 categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. On upwork, you can browse profiles, review past work and get help in scoping the role so that you can get started quickly. And with Business plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. And with AI powered shortlisting, you'll get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. And they also cut down on operational hassle by handling things like contracts and payments in one place. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com upwork.com the weather's getting hot. It is almost summer. A lot of people are planning trips. I just got back from a trip. Couple of weeks I'm heading to Idaho. I'll be going to Philly. I'll be making a couple of domestic trips. If you're planning a vacation, you want to focus on the enjoyment, not on whether or not you've got enough money for it. That means proactively looking at your budget, looking at your finances so that you can enjoy your summer knowing that your money is taken care of. You've planned ahead. Monarch is the personal finance app that tracks everything accounts, investments, savings goals and spending. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off just $50 with promo code Afford a F F O R D I was with Camp Fi in Italy. This one person looked at his Monarch and was like I just got an alert that my major spend this week was gelato. That's what Monarch does. Monarch flags when you're eating more gelato than usual or, well, specifically when you're spending money on it. But more importantly, it helps you hit savings goals. It helps you hit net worth milestones. You can visualize exactly where your money is going. Most apps only tell you what you've already spent, but Monarch helps you set goals and map out big purchases and look ahead. And you can ask Monarch's AI assistant anything about your finances. So you can ask like how much did I spend on travel last summer? Can I go on this vacation without dipping into my savings? You get great info about your money. Use code [e-mail] to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just 50 bucks. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with code afford in business, there's no room for guesswork. Every shipment matters. Every deadline counts. When you're trying to keep operations running smoothly, the last thing you need is uncertainty. That's why reliability is at the core of USPS ground advantage. From the moment your package is first scanned in, it moves through a secure nationwide network, aiding in a timely and accurate delivery. You get near real time tracking so you can keep up with your shipments. And with affordable upfront pricing, there are no hidden fees or surprise surcharges to throw off your cost sheets. It all adds up to predictable deliveries you can depend on because knowing your logistics are handled lets you focus on everything else, your customers, your team, and the future you're building. Visit USPS.com ground advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS ground advantage we Mean business. Welcome back. Our next question comes from Jamie

[D]

Hi Paula and Joe. I'm 58 years old with a Vanguard 401K worth almost 1 million and a half, the third of which is in a Roth bucket as I flipped over to doing that several years ago. The other 2/3 is traditional tax deferred, but split into what shows as different sources, an initial rollover from my previous employer which is about 40%, my employer match which is about 20% and the other 5% is under a company base. I'm not quite sure where that came from, but I'm not asking either. My question is essentially from a simplicity standpoint, if those three are all tax deferred accounts anyway, can or should I somehow combine those and are there any advantages or disadvantages of doing so? Or does that even matter? And should I just think about having tax deferred versus tax free accounts? I currently split my contributions between Vanguard's Total Stock Market index fund and the international version 80:20, and I've been meaning to push it to the efficient frontier. But when I look at my account summary and already see four sources times two funds, I wonder if I'll just be multiplying and complicating things if I further diversify and if I want to initiate Roth conversions in the future, how do I manage that across those different sources? Or should I even care about that in general? I've been pretty confident in my DIY skills to date, but wonder if it's finally time for me to engage a professional financial advisor I can discuss such questions and concerns with. So thanks for your no nonsense wisdom and insights, Jamie.

[B]

What a great, interesting question. This is for people that are just starting out. What happens is, as you know, Paula, people change jobs. Not only do they change employers, but things happen at work. And you've got different plans at work. You've got the Roth option, the traditional option. And depending on what stage of life you're at, you might choose one, you might choose the other. And so you accumulate this tax spaghetti of all these different sources and then you start thinking when you're trying to wrap it all up and make a plan like Jamie is like, okay, how do I make this a cohesive thing? The good news is we can get you close to the efficient frontier, Jamie, and without a lot of a lot of worry. There's only one thing I want you to look at before we start talking strategy at all, because your question is about combining these and it appears that you probably can, however, if any of this, especially that rollover portion, if that was all pre tax money before and the match is obviously pre tax money, I'm not sure what the company base is, but we'll assume that that is wasn't yours, wasn't put by you, so it would qualify as pre tax money. Assuming those things, then you certainly can combine them. You can think about them as one entity and in the future you could, after you leave employment, you could roll those over. Now I would talk to a tax expert about that beforehand. I would have them go through your actual company documents to make sure. But it sure seems to me that if this was all pre tax money before and that's the only thing that we're looking for, well then certainly you can put them all together and make it, make it an easier plan. But even if they're not, even if they're not what, what I would often do, Paula, when I was a financial planner was you'd have clients that would have five or six different accounts and for whatever reason we couldn't combine them. So if anybody came along and they broke into my client's computer and they saw these different accounts, they would go this is not diversified at all. Why is this one account all in small cap and why is this account all in international and this account is all large cap value? Because I'm not really worried about the individual account.

[A]

Right. Yeah, it's overall asset location. You know, like you're gonna, you're gonna over concentrate specific accounts so that the Overall big, the 30000 foot view asset location makes sense a hundred percent.

[B]

And if I had a really bad 401k, my client had a horrible 401k. But let's say the international option was really good. I would then underweight international and everything else and have them contribute just to the one fund that didn't suck in, in their 401k or in some cases was the least sucky of all the funds.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And this would happen sometimes, especially with small employers where they, you know, just to be able to have a retirement fund for people to save into is something employers want to do. But for many reasons those are can be very expensive to administer. They'll pass the cost on to the employee by having to use what's called an annuity based plan. So the funds are all pretty high fee. So we would look at which fund can we use that does the least damage? I think you can look at it that way, Jamie. I think you can, can take these different pieces and begin lining up what percentage is close to where I need to be with large cap in general or large cap value or whatever, whatever the asset allocation is that you're looking at and say this fund is this piece, this fund is the other piece. This fund is the third thing. When you begin changing them over to Roth, that can create some changes. Only if it changes your distribution strategy. If your distribution strategy is to take money from this account first, this account second, this account third, based partially on the taxability of the account, then that might change your asset allocation sum. But if not, if it doesn't change your withdrawal strategy, I don't know how much that's truly going to change the investment type that you're in.

[A]

I think the other piece that's going on here is the cognitive overload that comes from when he logs into his accounts and he sees these bucketed as different sources. Yeah, it can create this overwhelm.

[B]

Yeah. It feels messy.

[A]

Right. And so sometimes I wonder if just running all of this through a different dashboard, whether it's one of those plug and play dashboards like Bolden or Projection Lab, or even making your own spreadsheet, which you can do fairly easily with AI right now, making your own spreadsheet and just viewing it there, if that might make things feel cleaner, especially assuming that there's consistent tax treatment. Joe, what do you think about his question as to whether or not he needs a financial advisor? I'm always curious as to what you'll say because as the former financial advisor, I realize there's a risk of, you know, asking a barber if you need a haircut. Yeah.

[B]

But last week, I mean, when we talked about this, I was.

[A]

No, yeah, yeah, last week you surprised me.

[B]

Well, in this one I think it could be an interesting discussion, but not because of the asset allocation piece. The asset allocation piece I think is fairly easy. And I think that being able to do that piece yourself makes sense. I think the fact that he's 58 and he might be beginning to look at how am I going to withdraw from these accounts and there are things coming up like irmaa which might affect his, you know, tax on his, on his Medicare. Well, a quote, tax on his Medicare.

[A]

Yeah. Part B and part D. Yeah.

[B]

So he's got a few hurdles. And how much do I take and what's the timing on taking money out of these pre tax accounts versus my Roth portion? Like how do I mix those up? That's where A professional. Because now the asset allocation needs to dovetail with the tax strategy and your lifestyle decisions. And also, you know, the biggest threat in any retirement is long term care. How does that strategy fold in? If you're going to, on one end, self insure, then you're going to have a bucket of money that you're going to save for, you know, later in life just in case you need, need help and you need a fund to pay for that help or are you going to buy insurance or for, you know, for most people it's going to be some type of a hybrid of those two. Right. Somewhere on a sliding scale. So how do you dovetail that? And that's going to be a function of his withdrawal strategy and how much money he wants to live on versus how much he saved. That whole piece. The dovetailing of all these together is where a good financial planner who does this every day, you can benefit from that experience. The asset allocation. Use AI and build one dashboard so it doesn't look like five accounts, it only looks like one. And you then piece it together in a way that makes sense. As I mentioned earlier, all my international in this one, all my large companies in this one, you don't need a financial planner for that. Either way though, Paula, I would run what I said about combining these accounts if he's, if he wants to move them all into a rollover IRA later, I would just check with somebody who knows a little more than I do about the nature of the accounts of where this money came from.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Don't take our word for it because we haven't seen any of the statements. We don't know anything about it. Check with a tax advisor on that before you make that move because if there is any after tax money there, for whatever reason, it's going to create a fricking mess.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That was me being very polite.

[A]

Right. So essentially, if any of this was sourced from after tax money, that's the biggest question mark, slash red flag.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But Jamie, overall I, I like that you want to add more diversification to your portfolio. I think I like the direction of that question because adding even a little more diversification, right now you're in a two fund portfolio. Adding just a couple more funds could really do a lot for your returns. So I like what you're thinking. I like the direction that it's going in. And overall you've built a great tax triangle. You've got a good balance of tax deferred and Roth. You've done a great job of saving and investing. So congrats on what you've built.

[B]

Yeah, it might not even be Paul about excess return. It might be about smoothing out the ride a little bit.

[A]

Right. So thank you, Jamie, for the question. We're going to take one final break to hear from the sponsors who make this possible. When we return, we're going to hear from someone who has a few rental properties in Florida. One in particular is located in an area where there's been a lot of construction. Therefore, rents have gone down. So what should she do? That's coming up next. Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job. I need the right person with the right background who can move our business forward. If I wanted candidates who match what I'm looking for, I'd trust Indeed Sponsor Jobs. In fact, I did. I used Indeed Sponsor Jobs to make two hires. One was for an executive assistant and the other was for a customer support and operations assistant for both positions. Positions we had the job posting up for less than 48 hours. And within that time we got so many applications we got what we needed. So if you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. Give your job the best chance to be seen with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Sponsored Jobs boosts your post for quality candidates and that makes a big difference. Sponsored Jobs posted on indeed are 90% more likely to report a hire than non sponsored jobs at. More than 1.6 million companies sponsor their jobs with Indeed. So our two hires have both been working for us for several months now. They're great, wonderful, part of the team, and we found them through Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com Paula just go to Indeed.com Paula right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Paula Terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the right way with Indeed. So I want to tell you about two items that are super cozy. They're great for being at home, but also good enough that you could wear them out. One is the brushed bamboo jogger set by Cozy Earth. So I wore this on my flight to Rome. It's perfect for something like that because you want something that's comfortable. It's an overnight flight, but it also needs to be structured and presentable. The brushed bamboo jogger set, perfect for that. And then they're clogs. I wear them around my apartment if I'm going down to the lobby or if I'm just going to the mail room or somewhere like that. I mean I wear them around the building. They're great. They're cozy. They're super high quality. Cozy Earth stands behind everything they make. They have a thunder a 30 day return policy on all products. They have a lifetime warranty on the clothing. They have hassle free returns. If anything isn't right this Memorial Day, give yourself the kind of comfort that lives with you all day, not just the moment you get home. Cozy Earth's brushed bamboo jogger set and lake house clogs are designed to keep you cozy, comfortable and actually relaxed all season long. Comfort lives here. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code afford anything for up to 30% off, but only for a limited time. This exclusive offer runs from May 18th through June 1st only. So don't wait. That's code affordanythingozyearth.com for up to 30% off. And if you see a post purchase survey mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here, make every get together

[B]

chill this Memorial Day. Get up to an extra thousand dollars off select top brand appliances like LG plus get free delivery at the Home Depot. Tackle pool towels and camp laundry with a large capacity washer and host in

[A]

style with the fridge serving craft ice,

[B]

mini craft ice, cubed ice and crushed ice. Shop Appliance Savings now through June 3rd at the Home Depot offer valid May 14th through June 3rd US only. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $998 or more. See Store online for detail.

[A]

Welcome back. Our final question today comes from Tina

[E]

Hey Paul and Jo. I'm a current landlord in the Central Florida area. I live in Orlando and have a rental property that we used to live in there for six years over by the University of Central Florida and then we rented it out for the last 10 years. I've been a longtime listener probably probably when you first started the podcast because it inspired us to be landlords here. We also have a short term or I guess a medium term rental in our backyard here tiny house and then we bought Ocala 32 in 2021 a house there. So the house by UCF. It's so bizarre because we have had such great luck with renting it out with inquiries with just maintenance and tenants over the years and recently our tenants moving out at the end of the month so we've had it posted for the last like six weeks and we have had zero bites. And of course everything in Central Florida has changed. There's been so many units put up by ucf, put up downtown, put up all over the place, just sprawl happening. And we have a ton of corporate landlords that are now undercutting us in that neighborhood. So I'm just kind of wondering if maybe it is time to sell that property. As a longtime listener, I thought we would have it until literally the cows came home and, you know, we'd pass it to our kids because it's been such a fantastic asset. But at this point, I'm wondering if maybe we should do an exchange and buy two other properties in Ocala or somewhere else. So, yeah, I'd love to hear what your perspective is on that. As these little micro economies and, you know, rental markets, how do you move forward? You know, do we just kind of try to bring it down and match those corporate landlords and just say, hey, it is what it is, or do we look elsewhere and all the work that comes around with selling and buying properties. Really appreciate your insight and I look forward to your response.

[B]

Tina, thanks for the question. And this is far more Apollo question than a Joe question, except for one aspect, which I'd love to chime in on, Paula, and get your take on. Because while real estate is not my forte, marketing always has been something that I've been fairly good at. Before you go and explore more expensive options, one thing I know about marketing is, is that it changes and how you market things change over time. So while you might be being undercut, there may be a way to either make your product stand out in a crowded market, which you could explore first. There may be different places where you should be marketing and just the place where you're marketing. If it were me, Paula, the only piece of this that I would feel competent helping Tina would be to say, let's look first at, at how you're marketing this thing and how we can either A, make it stand out or B, is change the location so more people might see it.

[A]

I agree. In fact, that was also.

[B]

Thank you. Okay, my work here's done. Paula agrees. I'll see you guys next episode.

[A]

That is one of the things I was going to say, you know, because oftentimes and, and this can happen when you've owned a property property for a while. You might be using the same photos that you used five, six, seven years ago. You're using the same written listing. And for a lot of people, they think, well, sure, why wouldn't I? Nothing's changed. And sure, maybe nothing about the property itself has Changed. But tastes have changed, Especially now you're competing with corporate landlords. And they've got amenities, They've got an on site gym, they've got a pickleball court, they've got this, that, and the other. Right. You don't have that. But what you do have is X, Y and Z. You've got maybe a better location, you've got better parking, you've got historic charm. Right. You want to be like rewriting the listing to respond to the new competition that's out there. First thing I would do. I agree, Joe. Audit the way that you're marketing it. You know what, here's another thing. A lot of people are now using photos that are digitally staged. Like, you see this in a lot of listing photos. People are using AI to stage a listing photo. So, for example, wow. You know, you put a disclosure at the bottom that just says staged by AI. But if you have a listing photo that is just an empty room, like you've got a photo of an empty bedroom, you've got a photo of an empty living room. Stage it. Use AI to digitally stage it, just like you would if you were selling a home. That can go a long way in just making your photo stand out. And put the little disclaimer at the bottom of the pictures, like staged by AI. For anybody who doesn't know what staging is, staging is the act of placing things in a room that make the room look desirable to live in. So, for example, instead of an empty bedroom, it's a bedroom with a bed and a couple of bedside tables and some art on the walls and a nice rug. A bunch of those fluffy pillows that are like stacked on top of each other. They're really impractical pillows that make it look nice. Impractical. Yeah.

[B]

I think that every time Cheryl puts

[A]

those on her bed, they're so impractical.

[B]

Just so we can toss them to the side.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

But, man, do they look great.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly. And now, rather than having to physically go to your place and what a lot of stagers would do would be because moving a mattress is a big pain in the butt, they would put in a bed frame, they would put in an air mattress, and then they would put sheets and blankets on that air mattress, and then a bunch of pillows on it, take pictures, and boom. That's how you digitally stage it. You'd spend an afternoon doing that. Right. Because you, you have to set it all up and then take it all down. Now you can digitally stage a photo. So the solution might be improving the listing in those ways that might be part of it.

[B]

I concur.

[A]

I would also, you know, yes, you likely will have to lower the rent, or maybe you already have. My question to you is, if you rerun the numbers on this property with that lower rent, what does that mean as far as the returns on the property pencils out? Let's say by virtue of lowering the rent, you can match your previous vacancy rate, right? Because vacancy and price always exist in a mutual tension with one another. If you can lower the price point and by virtue of doing so equal your previous vacancy rate, what would that mean for your new net operating income? What's the new net operating income? What's the new cap rate? And how does that look relative to any other potential alternate property that you might purchase? Because if you were to 1031 this and buy, let's say, two additional homes, now you've got two sets of roofs, two sets of siding, what's going to be the cap rate on those two additional properties? I'm not convinced they would necessarily be better. They might be. I don't know. I think it's tempting to believe that 1031 ing into something, into the next thing that is further away from this competition would yield better returns. I'm not convinced that that's necessarily the case. I would first focus on pricing strategy and marketing strategy around the asset that you have. I would do that first before looking into shedding the asset that you have. Because the thing is, right now we know that you've gone six weeks with almost no interest and no leads. What we don't know is the answer to the question, at today's prices, right? And at today's rent and with today's new marketing standards, once we fixed the pricing and the marketing and the positioning and all of that, given today's set of data, would asset A be preferable to asset B? That's the problem that you're trying to solve. That's the question you're trying to answer. And I think until you first focus on pricing and marketing and positioning, you're not going to know how to answer that. But I do understand the shock, like the emotional shock that comes from owning an asset that was previously kind of a money printing machine and then reaching a point in market saturation where your money printing machine is no longer, you know, you can't just turn on the money spigot, which you used to be able to do. And that does come as a shock because you're like, oh, I have to be more efficient. Like, I have to up my game to get this to perform. I have to work twice as hard to get half the returns.

[B]

Yeah. And it might not be twice as hard, though, Paula. It might just be a simple adjustment.

[A]

Right, right. But, yeah, I doubt it. Well, when you, when you previously owned something that just, that was such a money printing machine that it just kind of ran itself and you never really had to think about it, it's easy to believe. And I've, I've certainly had that experience. And those are some good, good, good times. And, and it's easy to believe that that will continue to last forever. And then it does become a bit of a cold shower when you're like, oh, man, my money printing machine is broken. How do I fix it? Tina? The other thing that I would be careful about is don't assume, you know, with, with the alternate properties that you're looking at, don't assume that cheaper is necessarily better, because it might be that the cap rate on alternate properties are not necessarily going to be an improvement. And maybe they will be, maybe they won't. But just because they're cheaper, that doesn't necessarily mean the returns are going to be better. And again, I think at this stage, comparing alternate investments seems a little premature because before we get to the step two of making comparisons to alternate investments, I think the step one is optimizing the investment that you hold, because it's only once we've optimized your current investment that you can then see how well it's performing under an optimal set of conditions. And then you can use that as the baseline for step two comparison moving forward. So hang on to the property for now. Rethink the pricing, rethink the marketing, both the composition of the marketing and the location and strategy, like where you're marketing, where those listings are appearing, how those listings are appearing, rethink all of that, and based on that, develop a set of numbers that will form your new baseline moving forward, and then you'll know how to make comparisons. So thank you, Tina, for the question. Call us back in a couple of months and let us know what ends up happening. What do you end up pricing it as? How do you change the approach to positioning this property? Call us back and give us an update. Joe, we've done it again.

[B]

We did it. And I'm so glad that with all my real estate knowledge, I was able, Tina, to help you with that last question.

[A]

You did, you did, you, you hit on one of the most important pieces right up front, so nailed it.

[B]

Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

[A]

Joe, where can people find you if they would like to hear more of your wit and wisdom?

[B]

I've got a great Stacking Benjamin's episode that I think our community would really like coming out tomorrow. Simone Stolzoff joins us. The reason I wanted to talk to Simone was because he dives into the one thing that we can be certain about right now, with all the uncertainty in the United States, around the world, dealing with uncertainty and living in an uncertainty world and being not just okay with it, but thriving in a world of uncertainty. So he has studied all of the research on uncertainty and how our brain handles uncertainty and how to navigate uncertain conditions. So for a time like now, I think it's a. It, it is a conversation that we all need. So that's tomorrow on the Stacky Benjamin show, the greatest money show Earth, which, Paula, you know, we call it that because it can be a circus, a

[A]

total circus, but that's what makes it so entertaining.

[B]

Yes, thank you.

[A]

All right, well, that is on the Stacking Benjamin's podcast, available wherever finer podcasts are found. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed today's episode, please share this with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. Share it with your 401k administrator, your tenants in Central Florida, right?

[B]

Your friend who goes to ucf, who's looking for a cool place to stay.

[A]

Share it with volunteers at any local charities or staff members at those same

[B]

charities, or those people that are interested in helping out charities more and they're wondering where to start.

[A]

Absolutely. Share it with all of them and more because that is the single most important way that you spread the message of F I R E. Also, open up your favorite podcast playing app. Open up your least favorite podcast playing app. Open them all. Hit the follow button so you don't miss any of our amazing upcoming episodes. While you're there, you can leave us up to a five star review. We also have a newsletter. You're gonna love it. Your mom's gonna love it. Your grandma's gonna love it. Share it with all of them. The newsletter is free. It's [e-mail] newsletter. That's affordanything. Com Newsletter. Thank you so much for being part of the Afford Anything community, for being an afforder. I'm Paula Pant.

[B]

I'm Joe Zolci High and we'll meet

[A]

you in the next episode.