Money: What Each Generation Gets Right (& Wrong) with Ben Carlson

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Money: What Each Generation Gets Right (& Wrong)" with Ben Carlson

All the Hacks with Chris Hutchins delves deep into the evolving financial mindsets across generations, examining the impending wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials and beyond. Hosted by Chris Hutchins and featuring financial advisor Ben Carlson, this episode offers invaluable insights into saving, spending, investing, and navigating major financial milestones such as homeownership and retirement.

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1. The Impending Wealth Transfer

Timestamp: [00:02]

Chris Hutchins opens the discussion by highlighting the significance of the largest wealth transfer in history, emphasizing its potential impact on how different generations handle money. He sets the stage for exploring the financial strengths and pitfalls of each generation, aiming to provide listeners with strategies to maximize their financial well-being.

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2. Impact of the Wealth Transfer

Timestamp: [02:27]

Ben Carlson addresses the reality of the wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials, suggesting it may not be as impactful on individual finances as anticipated—“Probably not as much as most young people would like. For now.” He explains that many Baby Boomers are hesitant to spend their accumulated wealth, preferring to preserve their principal and rely on dividends and interest. This conservative approach, coupled with longer lifespans, delays the inheritance Millennials might receive, impacting their ability to make significant financial strides like buying a home or funding education.

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3. Generational Financial Mindsets

Timestamp: [05:51] - [14:39]

Ben Carlson explores the distinct financial philosophies of different generations:

• Baby Boomers:
  Carlson notes that Baby Boomers inherited a mentality shaped by the Great Depression, fostering a strong inclination towards saving and risk aversion. They excelled in building wealth through consistent saving and investing but struggle with spending their savings in retirement.

• Millennials (Gen Y):
  Millennials exhibit a balanced approach, influenced by the Great Recession. “Millennials have a more balanced view of this thing,” Carlson observes, as they understand both the importance of saving and the need to enjoy their earnings. They are more comfortable with moderate risk-taking compared to previous generations.

• Gen Z and Younger:
  The youngest generation displays a higher tolerance for speculation and risk, engaging in activities like day trading and cryptocurrency investments. Carlson expresses curiosity about whether this willingness to take risks will lead to greater market volatility or long-term financial success.

Notable Quote:
"Millennials have a foot in each camp. We live through the Great Recession, so we understand risk." – Ben Carlson [06:16]

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4. Homeownership and the Housing Market

Timestamp: [09:09] - [24:04]

The conversation shifts to the housing market, highlighting how high mortgage rates and soaring home prices have pushed the average age of first-time homebuyers from 31 to 38. Carlson argues that historically, current mortgage rates are average when viewed in a longer temporal context, but the rapid adjustment period from low to high rates poses challenges for Millennials attempting to enter the housing market.

Key Points:

• Saving Challenges:
  Many Millennials cite the unaffordability of saving for a down payment as a barrier to homeownership, leading to higher savings rates but delayed home purchases.

• Market Timing:
  Both Chris and Ben agree that attempting to time the housing market is futile. Instead, they recommend purchasing a home when financially feasible, without waiting for “perfect” conditions.

Notable Quote:
"If you find a house that you like, that you're willing to own for seven to 10 years at a minimum, that's a big key." – Ben Carlson [21:04]

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5. Investment Behaviors and Market Volatility

Timestamp: [39:09] - [54:25]

Carlson discusses the accelerated cycles of market booms and busts in the modern era, attributing this to the rapid dissemination of information and the rise of algorithm-driven trading. He notes that while volatility presents opportunities, it also increases the risk of panic-selling and market timing errors.

Key Insights:

• Investor Behavior:
  There's a noticeable shift towards viewing market downturns as buying opportunities, leading to quicker recoveries but also potential for increased volatility.

• Automation in Investing:
  The rise of robo-advisors and automated investment tools has democratized access to financial planning, though Carlson emphasizes the continued importance of human financial advisors for nuanced, empathetic guidance.

Notable Quote:
"Many people see this behavior and they worry about the downsides, like what happens when people go in to buy the dip and the stock market keeps going down." – Ben Carlson [43:43]

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6. Future of Financial Advice and AI Integration

Timestamp: [47:07] - [50:17]

Carlson speculates on the future landscape of financial advising, pondering the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in providing accessible financial guidance. While acknowledging that AI can enhance financial advice for those previously underserved, he maintains that wealthy individuals will likely continue to prefer personalized, human advisors due to the nuanced understanding and trust they foster.

Notable Quote:
"Some of the conversations we've been having lately is, are people going to trust these LLMs to be their financial advisor in the years ahead?" – Ben Carlson [48:32]

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7. Personal Financial Strategies and Point Systems

Timestamp: [54:25] - [66:44]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to discussing credit card points and travel hacking. Carlson shares his approach to maximizing points through strategic credit card usage, emphasizing flexibility and the importance of balancing point accumulation with practical spending needs. He critiques the devaluation of points over time and advocates for using points in ways that provide tangible benefits, such as booking travel through portals that offer enhanced value.

Key Strategies:

• Regularly Opening Credit Cards:
  Carlson suggests leveraging sign-up bonuses by opening new cards periodically, estimating an average return of “16.7%” from welcome offers [65:34].

• Automating Rewards Spending:
  Utilizing tools and extensions like Points Path to seamlessly integrate points usage into everyday transactions, ensuring points are not wasted.

• Balanced Approach:
  Carlson advises against hoarding points, instead recommending their use for significant purchases where they provide maximum value.

Notable Quote:
"If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can use it to buy flights and hotels in the portal at one and a half cents. I think doing that is probably a good way to cash out your points." – Ben Carlson [64:08]

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8. Parenting and Financial Education for Kids

Timestamp: [54:25] - [66:44]

The episode also touches on the challenges and strategies of teaching children about money in a digital, cashless society. Carlson emphasizes the importance of leading by example and incorporating practical money lessons into daily activities, such as saving earned money or making spending decisions visible through tangible means like piggy banks.

Key Points:

• Action Over Instruction:
  Carlson believes that children learn financial habits more through observation and practical involvement than through direct instruction.

• Handling Cash:
  Introducing cash to children helps them understand the value of money, making financial transactions more tangible and meaningful.

Notable Quote:
"My wife and I always say, like, what else would we be doing on the weekends anyway? We have our summers open. There's no travel sports in the summer." – Ben Carlson [57:48]

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9. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Throughout the episode, Carlson and Hutchins weave a comprehensive narrative on managing finances across different life stages and economic climates. They advocate for a balanced approach to saving and spending, the smart use of financial tools, and the importance of adaptable financial planning in an ever-changing economic landscape.

Final Takeaway:
“The whole point of financial planning is to have flexibility and adaptability in your approach. It’s not a one-time event but an ongoing process.” – Ben Carlson [34:15]

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Key Quotes for Reference:

• “Probably not as much as most young people would like. For now.” – Ben Carlson [02:39]
• “Millennials have a foot in each camp. We live through the Great Recession, so we understand risk.” – Ben Carlson [06:16]
• “If you find a house that you like, that you're willing to own for seven to 10 years at a minimum, that's a big key.” – Ben Carlson [21:04]
• “Some of the conversations we've been having lately is, are people going to trust these LLMs to be their financial advisor in the years ahead?” – Ben Carlson [48:32]
• “If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can use it to buy flights and hotels in the portal at one and a half cents. I think doing that is probably a good way to cash out your points.” – Ben Carlson [64:08]

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This episode serves as a crucial guide for listeners navigating the complexities of personal finance across generations. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses inherent in each generation's financial habits, individuals can better strategize their saving, spending, and investing to secure a prosperous future.

Transcript

[Chris Hutchins]

With the biggest wealth transfer in history underway, how people think about money has never mattered more. So today, we'll break down what each generation gets right and wrong about saving, spending and investing so you can learn from their wins and avoid their mistakes. You'll walk away with insights on everything from navigating homeownership and inheritance to knowing when to play it safe and when to take more risk. So whether you're navigating home buying, just starting to save, or figuring out your retirement, there is something here for every generation. And to do all this, I'm joined by Ben Carlson, a seasoned financial advisor and widely respected voice in the space, to help you rethink how your financial mindset stacks up and what changes might get you further faster. I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend or leave a comment or review. And if you want to keep upgrading your life, money and travel, click follow or subscribe now. Let's get into it right after this. If you didn't already see, there were some major changes to a very popular travel card earlier this week, including an increased fee, improved benefits, the addition of a business version of the card, and two huge new welcome bonuses of 100 to 200,000 points worth as much as $4,000. If you want to read more, I wrote up all my [e-mail] CSR or you can find a link in the show Notes this episode is brought to you by Superhuman. I've used Superhuman for years and it's hands down the best way to do email, assuming you value your time, which I absolutely assume you do. That's because Superhuman is the ultimate solution for inbox decluttering and enhanced productivity. It's also the fastest email experience out there, and I'm certain I've saved dozens, if not hundreds of hours a year using Superhuman. They have every feature you could ever want built right in split inboxes for prioritizing what matters, keyboard shortcuts and snippets for everything, AI tools to draft responses and summarize emails, automated reminders and integrated calendars. And if you're using Superhuman for your team, you get shared conversations and drafts that will help you respond faster and reduce deal cycles. Best of all, Superhuman works with your existing Gmail or Outlook, so unless you love wasting away hours of your day to email, you have to check out Superhuman and every all the hacks listener can get their first month free at allthehacks.com superhuman again, that's allthehacks.com superhuman to get back hours of your time each week.

[Ben Carlson]

Ben, for almost 30 years, I feel like we've been talking about this great wealth transfer from boomers to millennials. And I want to get your take on whether it's really a big deal. Does this even matter for our day to day finances?

Probably not as much as most young people would like. For now. We've been having a lot of conversations with clients about this recently. Cause there's a few things going on here. One of them is the fact that a lot of baby boomers are having a hard time spending the wealth that they've created, right? So we're having these conversations where people will say, listen, I just want to keep my principal and don't touch it. And I want to spend the dividends and the interest income. Everything else, I'm too nervous to touch it because they've been saving for 40 years and they did a really good job stocking money away. But now having to flip a switch and go the other way and then spend it down psychologically, really, really challenging for them. And so for a lot of people it's, oh, no, what if, you know, I have health problems, People are living longer, and I don't know what's going to happen with the economy and I don't know how the market's going to do going forward. And so that's a big part of it. The other part is that baby boomers are living longer than any generation that's come before them. Right? That's going to be every generation going forward. And so the millennials who are potentially banking on an inheritance might not get it until their 50s or 60s, right. Because their parents could live to their 80s or 90s. I think the stat is if you're a married couple retiring today at 65, there is like a 70% chance that one of you will live into your 90s. So that means again, that the younger cohort, the Gen X millennial, are not going to receive that inheritance probably when they need it the most, right? When they're trying to buy a house, when they're paying for daycare for their kids. And so a lot of the conversations we're having is, do you want to actually have that inheritance come earlier? And does it make sense to spend it now? And you can watch your family actually enjoy it when they need it. But a lot of the baby boomer mindset is, no, I pass an inheritance down and I die because that's what my parents did. And so there's all sorts of psychological minefields that we're dealing with here when it comes to this money, and you're right, it is a lot of money that's going to passed down in years ahead.

Now, when you think out of the macro sense, it's a massive wealth transfer, economically speaking, will this have an impact on people's lives who don't get an inheritance? Is it a broader impact on housing prices, the investment markets, that kind of thing? Or is it more a conceptual thing that doesn't really impact the rest of us?

I've gotten that question a lot. Hey, when baby boomers go to sell their stocks, they're going to crash the market, right? And my response to that is one, those sales are going to happen over the course of 20 to 30 years. It's not going to happen all at once. Especially those who had very equity heavy portfolios. They're not just going from 100% stocks to 60, 40 right away. They do it in pieces. They've been doing this for a while and a lot of them just hold more cash too. The other thing is that as you know, the top 10% own almost 90% of the stocks in this country. And so it's not like there's just this big group of people that's going to go to sell. Most of that money is going to be passed down. Probably a lot of them that own the most stocks are probably not going to even touch the majority of it. So yeah, I don't think that it's going to cause this massive problem for the economy or the markets. It's going to be more of a slow drip than this big tsunami that happens all at once.

Now you mentioned that mindset of boomers is like this is just what I've done. And it's really got me thinking a lot about the difference between how these generations think about money and what impact that has on advice we get. So I'm curious, like what are the fundamental differences in financial mindsets for generations from boomers to millennials? And maybe what you see coming up in Gen Z and generations in between.

One of the things that we're seeing in the wealth management space is if there is an inheritance in a pass down, it's listen, my parents had a guy that they worked with and we don't trust this person. There's a lot of older gray haired advisors who aren't really talking to the next generation. And that's something that we're trying to do a lot because you want to have everyone in at the table for the conversation. But the other thing is part of the Baby boomer mentality of not spending really has been handed down from their parents. Right. Their parents live through the Great Depression. And so a lot of them still have that mindset of I have to really have a backup plan for a backup plan. I don't want to get caught, stuck if something doesn't work out. I think it's been supercharged this decade because a lot of millennials, they felt some scars from a Great Recession, the 2008 crash, right? There was all these stories in the 2010s of millennials are shunning risk and they're not investing in stocks very much. They saw their parents live through it, and they started to live through the stock market crashes, and it was kind of scary. And 2020 has completely switched. It's really fascinating to me to watch because I was of the opinion that, okay, this really was a pandemic phenomenon, because remember at the beginning of the pandemic when everyone started going crazy in day trading and open Robinhood accounts, and people said, well, that's just because a lot of people aren't working right now and there's no professional sports on right now to gamble. And once that stuff opens back up and people are going back into the offices and they can gamble on sports again. This is fad, right? And then we got the meme stock craze. And it's okay, once this goes away, then people will get back to it. And it doesn't seem like it's going away, it's only strengthened. And there's millions of new investors now. I talked to one of the head people from Robinhood a couple weeks ago on my podcast, and he said that they have 26 million customers and 13 million of them. It's their first brokerage account they've ever opened. So these are brand new investors into the markets and they are more comfortable with risk. Because think about all the people who invested in crypto. It wasn't institutions, it was regular retail people, right? And they've lived through 75% drawdowns in the last 10 years. And so I think that the younger generation is just more comfortable with speculation because they're betting on events now with Cali and Polymarket, right? They're day trading stocks. They're investing in crypto. They're also gambling on sports. That's in, like, taxable account with their other stuff that's tax deferred. They're investing in target date funds, in index funds and ETFs. And so there's this dichotomy where they have this Stuff where they're having fun. And it for them, it's part of investing in part entertainment and part lottery ticket. Like, I've seen people hit it big and maybe I can do that too. And so I just think the acceptance of risk this decade is something that really interests me because people keep thinking that it's just going to go away. But what if this is a whole generation of people who are just more willing to take risk? And I don't know where that leads us. Like for the markets, it could be. Do we have more booms and busts because of this mentality? I don't know, but it's interesting to contemplate it.

[Chris Hutchins]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And what about the outlooks not just on investing, but where do major personal investments like homes and the housing market fit into these generational mindsets? And how do the macro events that are shaping these generations affect that?

I think one of the reasons that so many people are comfortable saving and investing more is some people are just shut out of the housing market. Fidelity had a study recently that said the average savings rate is now like 14%, which I was blown away by. I never would have thought it would have been that high. And we're hearing from a lot of people that, listen, I can't afford a house right now or it would take me way too long to save for down payment. So instead I'm saving and investing more or I'm traveling more. Obviously, I think the whole American dream thing with the housing is still prevalent. There's still people who are buying houses. There's not a lot of activity going on right now because mortgage rates are so high and housing prices are so high. But I think that is still something that people aspire to. It's just happening much later in life for people. I think they said the average age of first time homebuyers has gone from 31 to 38. And that happened pretty quickly. And so I think people are just having to put this stuff off until later in life when they start making more money.

Now, one of the things I think about is if you are a millennial and you remember what mortgage rates were in the last 10, 15 years, it feels like they're really high. But if you have lived decades, is this the new normal? Do we just at some point have to get used to this world we live in?

If you look historically, I think going back to like the 1970s, the current mortgage rate is about average, which is hard to believe. The problem is that the readjustment period happens so fast. We've never had a period where we went from such a low rates to high rates this quickly. And plus you had the 50% spike in housing prices. So in that sense I really do feel for the young people who mistimed it for no other reason than bad luck. Right? If you bought a house pre2021, you lucked out and you got 3% mortgage rates, you had the ability to refinance and you also are sitting on a ton of equity. And if you just happen to miss that because life events or the fact of when you graduated school or it just didn't work out for you and you were going to buy later and you just didn't do it, I really do feel for those people. If you asked people today, could you afford your own house today at current mortgage rates, I wonder how many people would say probably not or it would be a really, really big financial strain on us. Alternatively, the people who locked in those low rates and locked in lower housing prices think about how much more disposable income they have than if they're out there trying to buy today. So I think that's another piece of the risk pie. This decade is just the consumer spending. Remember travel was another one that people said, well, that's going to die down eventually. Doesn't it now seem like people assume two to three trips a year in a lot of cases? Like that's their God given right. That mentality has gone from a luxury to a need essentially for a lot of people.

I think their thing that attracted me most to the Points Miles travel hacking game is just that you could attack this huge part of discretionary spending. But I also had that same mentality despite that as a kid, it wasn't necessarily the thing. It now feels like, how could we spend the whole summer at home? I don't know how that's evolved, but I know that wasn't the case for my parents when I was growing up.

That was the same thing. We didn't expect to go on these extravagant vacations and travel to Europe or go somewhere really nice every time for spring break. But that is the mentality these days. And the hard part for people is trying to keep up with that, right? Am I saving and investing, but also spending and enjoying myself? And I think that piece is probably harder than ever. And you add in the social media element of I'm watching all my friends share the vacations they're going on and I feel left out. Why aren't we doing this? I think for people at a certain age, in your 30s and maybe early 40s, it's never been easier to really spend a lot of money and then think, like, how am I not getting ahead more than I am because of how much money I'm making.

I will say, and you've probably seen the same, because when I ran my financial planning firm, I was just surprised that there are a lot of people that are living that life and they're just not saving. When you look at what everyone else is doing, unless you have the full picture of where's money going, how much money is being saved, you might think, well, these people have a nice house, they're going on vacations, why can't I do that? But I have seen multiple people's balance sheets and it's like, oh, they have no savings. So if you're building up your savings and not able to keep up with those people, like, the tables may turn in the future and you might be in a lot better position. It's funny how no one ever posts like, here's my vacation photo. Alongside, here's my debt and income and my balance sheet.

Back to the original point we made about inheritances, I think I have a handful of friends who have parents who are relatively well off, who are assuming, well, that's my retirement nest egg, right? I'm going to spend it all because I have that coming. And that's a very risky game to play, like I said, because you might not get it until much later in life. And if you're not developing those habits and potentially if people are living longer, maybe the nest egg gets whittled down further than you thought. And so, yeah, you're right. I always wonder when I see someone driving one of these $90,000 trucks. And I have nothing against people who have trucks, but I always look at them and I say, that's got to be a 90, $95,000 truck. I wonder how much they have in their 529 plan or their IRA or these types of things. And that's the other side of it, obviously.

So if you look across generations, are there things that you would pick out if you could define the personal financial mindset that's kind of ideal? What do boomers get right? What does Gen X get right? What does Gen Y get right?

I'm generalizing here. There have been plenty of boomers who really did figure out the way to save and invest over 30 to 40 year period. And I know everyone thinks that boomers had it easy. They had these 70s to live through with inflation and high mortgage rates in the 80s and the dual crashes in the first decade of this century. If they saved and invested from their 401k plan and their IRA over time, the market has done a lot of the heavy lifting for them. And we get a lot of those people who are DIY people coming to our wealth management practice who have just saved and over time built wealth. So I think a lot of baby boomers did a really good job with that. And again, the hard part for them is then turning around and spending it and enjoying it. I think millennials have a foot in each camp. We live through the Great Recession, so we understand risk. Millennials have a more balanced view of this thing. And again, if you were able to buy a house as a millennial, I think you're probably sitting in a pretty good position. The thing that worries me about Gen Z and I think they'll snap out of it hopefully is just the financial nihilism, just the nothing matters. So I'm just going to take these crazy risks and hope something works out because the old 9 to 5 put it in the 401k, build wealth slowly. That's for a prior generation. And this isn't everyone there obviously, but I think there is a little bit of that nothing matters. So let's just put it on red or black and see what happens. And I think people do graduate from that mindset eventually. But again, I think the fact that generation has technology and a risk mindset, most of them will be okay. And I think a lot of them are starting to invest earlier and get experience. And so even if they blow themselves up trading triple levered ETFs or options, if they're doing it with less money before they start saving and putting stuff away, eventually those habits change and they realize, okay, maybe I need more of a slow and steady approach. And I think that's what we're seeing is a lot of them get it out of their system after they realize how hard it is to to do those things.

[Chris Hutchins]

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[Ben Carlson]

At the housing market historically investments are a better return typically than a house. But is there any argument to be made that people who are outside of the housing market right now because it's too expensive and are investing could end up being better in the long run?

So I've actually written about this before, I've tried to come up with what is the actual return on housing. Because if you look at like Robert Schiller's historical housing market data, essentially over the long run, it equals about the rate of inflation. Not a terrible thing. But then you have to put in the leverage there. And then you have to talk about, well, you have to live somewhere, so there's implied rent because you're not renting somewhere else. You have to have a roof over your head.

And implied inflation is like 3ish percent.

Yeah, it's like 3 to 4%, something like that. But then you also have all the ancillary costs, the property taxes and insurance and all the stuff you buy for your home. And so my stance is no one ever really knows what their actual return is. I don't know, maybe you have the spreadsheet of all the costs that you've ever done in housing, but I don't think there's anyone who has the actual return. And maybe that's okay because I don't view a house as an investment as much as it's kind of a form of consumption and it's a valuable financial asset. But yeah, you're right. If you just did an apples to apples comparison of the return, you're probably doing better off. Yeah. Investing in the stock market, even though housing has done so well this decade, if you bought a house in 2020 with a 3% mortgage and then you had 50% returns and the leverage, you probably did pretty great. But that'll slowly but surely be whittled away as returns aren't as high going forward. But yeah, the people who are just investing in the stock market are probably in a better financial position.

The stock market also did really well over the last decade.

Yeah, it's up 14% per year in the 2000s and did just as well in the 2010. So you're right.

And so for someone who didn't buy the house in 2020, didn't get the 3% mortgage rate, whether it's the American dream, whether it's they just want to own a home, is there ever going to be a good time to get in?

So it's funny because I had people reaching out to me in 2021 right after the housing prices started taking off and they said, I can't do it. Housing prices are up 20%. Remember there was all these bidding wars and non contingent sales and we're not going to do an inspection and there was all these crazy lines out the door because there was this Housing boom. And I had a lot of people say, I'm going to sit this out and wait until the craziness subsides. And my stance is always, don't try to time the housing market because people who have said I'm just going to wait for mortgage rates to fall and we're still at 7% mortgage rates. And so my thing is, if you find a house that you like, that you're willing to own for seven to 10 years at a minimum, that's a big key is you don't want to trade around in houses because the cost frictions are so high and you pay most of your mortgage and interest for the first few years. You, it doesn't make sense to trade houses. I think you could probably skip the starter home these days if you can and buy a house you're willing to stay in for 10 or 15 years. But I just think if you can afford to service the debt on it and you find a house you like, don't worry about timing it and waiting for the perfect mortgage rate or the perfect time. You just do it when you can afford it. I don't like the idea of trying to time the housing market like it's buying a stock or something.

I mean, I also don't like the idea of trying to time the stock market either.

Right.

If someone were to say, hey, I'm just going to wait till mortgage rates drop. And the answer is, okay, well if they don't drop, what are you going to do? If they don't drop, then I'll bite the bullet. You could refinance if they drop. Unless your answer is, I will never buy a home unless mortgage rates drop. But you can kind of hedge by saying, if I really think they're going to drop as long as you can afford it now, I think that's the big thing. You don't want to get over your skis and make an investment that if mortgage rates don't drop, you can't continue to hold. Because it kind of reminds me of all the interest only mortgages that had these balloon payments and people were just expecting my salary will be more in the future. That's probably not great.

Well, and the hard part is when mortgage rates do drop, so let's say they go from 7 to 5, my guess is that there's going to be a ton of demand coming off the sideline and then maybe it's harder to buy because you have more competition. That's why timing it is so difficult. I'll just wait for housing prices to fall 10% and mortgage rates to drop. And threading that needle is probably impossible these days. Just do it when you can afford it.

We did so much market research talking to customers when I was working at Wealthfront, and every single person felt every single year that the market was overpriced. And they were like, I want to get in the market. It's overpriced right now. I'm going to wait a couple years. Well, it turns out that pandemic Aside, the last 10 years, you kind of didn't want to miss out.

Right. And I think a lot of people do have that mindset of I'm going to buy when it's my time to buy. I think it's more the spreadsheet warriors who try to time it and overthink things and the people who don't overthink it and just realize, hey, I just got married or I'm having kids, it's time to buy a house. The life event is more apt to make sense than the financial decision, even though you still have to run the numbers, obviously.

Yeah. And I think past 2008, skip the pandemic because that was an anomaly event in a way. We haven't had a major market correction. Right. Like anything really, really significant that didn't recover quickly.

I've looked at this in the past. The housing market does not fall all that often nationwide in certain markets, obviously. And there are markets right now in like Texas and Florida that just got so overheated that the prices are coming in and the supply is rising, but on a nationwide basis, even during recessions. I look at this, I think in something like seven out of the past nine recessions, housing prices have risen. So people think that the housing crisis in 2008 is the norm, but that is an outlier. It doesn't happen all that often. And so if you're waiting for this big fat pitch, it just might not come. And again, it's because houses don't trade like stocks. Right. You don't see the prices every day. People aren't able to panic because it's an illiquid asset.

When you've talked to people or look, historically, has everyone, for the history of time, always felt like everything's expensive right now and everything's overpriced? I haven't been in the market per se for 5, 10 decades, but it seems like my experience the last 20 years is that everyone always thinks everything's expensive unless a recession has just hit.

Yes. John Reconfaler, one of my favorite personal finance columnists at Morningstar, retired a couple months ago. His last piece was all about the stock market. And he said he'd been investing since 1987. Every year since then, people have thought the stock market was overvalued. What if this is it and I missed the boat? And he said every time they've been wrong. And think about how many people have tried to call the next crash ever since 2008. Look at the Cape ratio and look at this. And the stock market is overvalued. And what happens when Apple hits a trillion dollars? And that's the sign. And yes, I think that trying to play that game is just better left for professionals and even they can't do it.

I know you wrote this piece a while back about financial advice that doesn't work anymore. And I'm wondering if there are any other lessons that we've picked up from our parents generation that maybe for a younger generation or even for that older generation living right now, maybe those are things that they should leave by the wayside.

Well, I think one of them I wrote in there, since we're talking about the housing market, is that you need to have a 20% down payment to buy a house. For most people, that's almost impossible these days. Think about where you live in California. How long would it take people to save up that money unless they have some stock options from a company they work at or something? I think it's okay to put 5 to 10% down on your first house. I think our first house we put 5% down and it seems imprudent for some reason. But again, as long as you can afford that monthly payment and all the ancillary costs, I don't think that's a big deal. Now, I feel like a lot of the personal finance experts might have shunned me for this one. But I say especially early on, the whole idea that you need to have 12 months of savings in emergency fund, I think that's almost impossible for people just starting out. It's a goal that is something that you can work for. But again, I think if that's your only goal, you're going to probably have other financial goals that fall by the wayside. And so I think it's okay to put a toe in the water and slowly but surely build these things up over time, building up your savings rate, slowly increase it every time you get a raise or every year. Right. And start out with one month of emergency fund savings and then work up the 2, 3 and slowly but surely get there, not try to just do everything all at once. I think people in the personal finance world often look down on that stuff. And just the other one that I've completely changed my mind on, I've always been the spreadsheet warrior, for whatever reason. Part of it was, I think a lot of people get their financial habits. It's half your personality and half your upbringing, some combination thereof. And my parents did a really good job instilling in me the savings habits. My dad always talked about, don't have credit card debt. It's one of the worst decisions you can make. And I still believe that. But I think, especially since I've had kids, the idea of just spending money and enjoying some of it. Now, that has been a big mindset shift for me. That if you would have told me that in my 20s and early 30s, I would have said, you're nuts. No, you think about how much you're giving up on compounding interest over time and all these things. And I do think that's one of the areas where the younger generation has learned to enjoy themselves more. Now, older generations may look at them and say, well, they're overdoing it. They're spending way too much money. But I think that mindset shift is way different now of just things like paying for convenience and again, traveling and paying for experiences. I think that's something that a younger generation gets right, that the older generation probably didn't spend enough time thinking about.

How did you make that transition? I know there are a lot of people listening who kind of fall in the frugal, heavy saving mindset. And so it's hard to, like, actually recalibrate to say, let's spend some money. I can look back to moments where I was like, I'd love an appetizer, but like, gosh, do I really want to pay an extra $7? It's just hard for me to learn to spend, and I've had to get better. But I feel like when I hear you on your show talking, it's actually you've kind of changed your habits without a gigantic windfall.

So a couple things, I think I did baby steps at first. So when I first got out of college and I'm trying to learn about markets, this is pre podcasting and pre YouTube. And I had to go to the library and start reading books because I was so far behind and I didn't have a lot of knowledge, I realized that my first job, like, oh, my gosh, I have textbook knowledge, but I don't really understand how the markets work and how behavioral Psychology works. And so I would go to the library and if there was a book I really wanted and it wasn't there, I would just have to wait for it. And this is my frugal mindset going, okay, I'll just wait till it's ready. And six months later, I'm still waiting in line. And at a certain point I just said to myself, why am I not just spending 999 on Amazon to buy this book? And so I gave myself permission that anytime you want to buy a book, just buy it, right? This is going to help your career, it's going to help your knowledge, like, it's going to be a good thing for you. So in categories like that, give yourself permission to spend on those certain categories, right? That's not everything. That's one or two things. And the other thing I did is I started just making it part of my savings budget, right? So I turned the dial up on my vacation fund. And so every month a certain amount goes into my high yield savings account and it's just bucketed for taking a vacation. Because my wife and I had to talk about this. And I just said, what is important to you in terms of spending? And this is when we had kids, she said, I want to go on more trips. Because the first couple years of having twins, we could not go on vacations because it was just too hard. The strollers and the double car seats and all the stuff that they need, it was impossible. So after we got through that period, my wife just said, I want to make this a priority in our finances. And so we dialed up that savings. And even if it meant money not going into our retirement accounts, it's something that we created as a monthly part of our budget. I track how much we save every year. Obviously, as a personal finance guy, I show my wife, here's our savings by year, and I plotted it out in a bar chart. And we had this outlier year in 2021. And I think it's probably partly pandemic related. We just saved way more money than we'd ever saved before. And I think part of it is we weren't quite traveling yet. And I said, what are we doing here? Why did we all of a sudden ramp this up so quickly? Because I. I like slowly but surely saving more money. And my wife said, maybe we need to just increase the spending a little more too then, and not have the savings jump that high. And so in recent years, since 2021, that's like a high watermark for me. And we made a conscious decision to, hey, we're still hitting our savings goal, but we don't need to overdo it so much. It's something that was a multi year thing for me where I had to slowly but surely ease into it. I say that you should save enough money where sometimes it's painful where you go, geez, I could be taking a vacation to Hawaii with how much money I put into my 401k or IRA this year. Right. You think that. But on the other end you're spending enough money where you go, geez, in 30 years, can you imagine how much money this would be worth? And I think you have to go back and forth between these two camps. That's like the balance you're trying to strike now.

Maybe it's a complicated model, but is there something that gives you the confidence that the amount you're saving, which might be less because you've dialed up some of your spending, is still enough?

The idea of coast fire, right. You save a lot of money and then you let it compound. I think because my wife and I started saving early, seeing the compounding over time and then doing some calculations of in 20 years, here's what this is going to be when we decide to retire or whatever it is. Saving early was a big thing that's given me confidence where I don't have to keep plowing in and delaying the gratification. And so that's part of it too. We did so well saving in our 20s and we weren't making a ton of money and we weren't saving a lot, but we did so on a regular basis and we slowly but surely increased it. And so I think having that piece where I think of the compounding benefits and you never know how the future is going to turn out. But that gives me some sort of peace of mind. Okay, we've been saving for 20 years and it's going to keep compounding even if it's at a lower rate than it has for the past 20. I think we're still in a pretty good place. So that's given me some peace of mind too.

Yeah. And I think sometimes it comes across like coast fire is not a spectrum. It's like, oh well, I have enough money that I don't have to save or I don't have enough money so I have to save everything. And there's obviously spectrum in there. You and I probably might feel like we have a good amount of savings. That doesn't mean we never put more money in savings like I'm putting money in retirement accounts and 5 29s and I'm still saving. But similarly, I've realized, well, we've been saving so much. Are we going to be okay if we just save a little less for a few years when we think that's the right time? And I will say it's tough to model that out. I'm going to do a whole episode on these like net worth modeling tools. And sometimes it's just hard to know if that's going to be enough because who knows how long it's going to be? Who knows what's going to happen with the markets and even these tools. If you dial the assumption for your rate of return up by 1 or 2%, it's like you're going to retire with millions of dollars or you're going to run out of money. So I guess at some point the thing that gives me confidence is, well, you know what if the markets don't stop returning like they have the last 10 years, your spending is a knob. You can change, right? If you go buy a house, you could sell it, but that's a harder thing. But if you spend a little more on vacations in years when the market's good and then all of a sudden we're in a really big problem, you could stop going to vacation. If you were spending it on private school, you could put your kids in public school. Like, the nice thing about flexing on kind of variable spending is that you can change it. If the underlying assumptions change, you lose your job, you get a windfall, you can dial it up. There's that flexibility.

And that's the conversation that we have with wealth management clients. The 4% rule for retirement withdrawals. I think it's a rule that maybe 1% of the population actually does in reality, because most people spend more money in their 60s than they do in their 70s and their 80s, right? Because their health slows down, they don't travel as much. But also, you're right, when things are going good, people tend to spend more. And when things are going bad, they tend to rein it in. And I think that's actually okay to have some variability there. And we tell that with clients. Like, we're going to use a baseline for a percentage of spending. It's more based on your budget. And then we're going to have conversations, okay, here's what the market actually did. Maybe you can turn the knob up a little bit, or hey, things are worse. If you're a little worried, maybe dial it back this year. Don't take that fourth Vacation or whatever is having some flexibility. That's the whole point of financial planning and why we always tell people that it's a process and not an event. It's not something that you lay out on day one and say this is exactly how it's going to go. Because I look at my own life and think through all the different changes and career paths and savings and investment vehicles that have happened and how the market has turned out, I don't think I could have possibly ever thought the market would have done this. Well, coming out of the great financial crisis, we're looking at a 15 year old bull market depending on how you define these things. We've had setbacks along the way, but I think back to the way people were talking in 2010, 11, 12 and people were still so worried about the state of the world and the market is what if it just takes so long to come back. And so I think trying to predict these things is just so difficult to do. So yeah, to your point, if you're just a little more flexible with it, that's the key.

[Chris Hutchins]

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[Ben Carlson]

How are you talking with clients and just thinking about things like Social Security? I know a lot of my peers look at their parents like that's subsidizing their cost of living depending on where they live in the country, significantly to somewhat. I feel like we've been talking for 20 years about the future of this program and do you factor that in when you think about your future or clients futures?

Okay, so I feel very strongly about this and I've written about this a lot. The fact that millennials, some of them think, well, Social Security is not going to be there for me. I think it would be crazy if it wasn't. So there's this thing where in 2034, the amount of money coming in, it's going to be Exceeded by the money that's coming out to make payments. People think, oh, it's. That means it's insolvent. All that it means is that money is going to have to come from somewhere else. And I can't imagine that any politician in their right mind would cut Social Security. Maybe I'm wrong. All it means is that if they really did, you'd receive 90 cents on the dollar instead of the whole thing.

Right.

Or 80 cents in the dollar. So I still think you can factor it in. Social Security is another psychological versus spreadsheet one that we deal with because the numbers are if you wait to get it until you're 70, it's something like an 8% per year return. It's almost like the stock market. And your amount you're going to get on a monthly basis is that much higher. So it's like 70% higher. 70 versus 62 when you take it. But we see most people still decide to take it at 62 or 65. Right. They take it earlier. And I've been having conversations with people about this and they kind of do some, you know, break even. If I just took the money and invested it or ever, it'd be fine. Or it would take me until I'm 85 to break even or whatever the number is. And most people just say, I would just prefer to take it now for peace of mind. Even though the spreadsheet answer tells me if I just wait a little longer, it's going to be much higher when I'm 70. Most people just feel more comfortable and just want to spend it. It's my money. Why wouldn't I get it earlier at 62 or 65 or something like that? I want to have to wait until I'm 70 to do it. So it's one of those where people say, I know this doesn't make sense on the spreadsheet, but I don't care. I'm going to take it now anyway. It makes me feel safer. Yeah.

I similarly believe that it would be wild if everyone contributed to this program and there's statements showing how much money you've put into this program. And then they're like, all right, it's gone. Like that seems crazy. Do they push back ages because we're living longer? I don't know. That seems somewhat reasonable.

This is one of the easier programs to fix if people ever decide to do it. Yeah. If they say, over the age of 45, your grandfather in or 50, but under that now your retirement date. Is this because you're Living longer. So Social Security to me is much easier to fix than some of the other programs.

Okay, well, we won't go down a list of programs right now, but we talked about, you thought in the wake of the great financial crisis, there's lots of volatility. What's going to happen, I feel like in the last two or three months with tariffs and whatnot, it just feels like we live in a world where we can have swings that used to be like an annual return in a week. How are you thinking about the way you invest or is anything changing other than giving lots of good fodder for conversation?

I definitely think cycles happen faster. The market prices things in way faster. And that's why we're seeing these bear markets happen quicker, but then the recoveries happen quicker. And so part of me thinks that these boom bust cycles are just going to happen more often. Like we've had three bear markets this decade already in the course of six years. Obviously sometimes it's not going to snap back so quickly. The information age and the speed of information, the amount of algorithms that are operating in the market where it's like act first, think later. The hard part is that it's giving more opportunities for people to panic. And I talked to a lot of people who, when the liberation day stuff happened and the tariffs kicked in, they sold some of their stocks. And these are people who held through a lot of other bear markets in the past. And they said, I know what the impact the tariffs are going to be. And I think the problem with that is it does give you more opportunity to mess up and make a market timing mistake. On the other side of that, I've been pounding the drum on this for a while. It's interesting to see how many people look at volatility as opportunity now. And it's not a panic situation. It's no, I'm going to dive into the fire and I'm going to buy. And you saw record amounts of retail buying in April when the stock market fell. And it's interesting to live in a world where investor behavior, I think, has actually improved for the better. Right. That's not everyone. There's still people who are speculating and taking on too much leverage and day trading and market timing and all these things. But I think a majority of people now have actually learned because it's been beat into their head for the past 10, 20, 30 years. Listen, when the stock market falls, you don't run out of the store because stocks are on sale. You run into the burning building and you buy. And more people have done that, I think, than ever before. And I think that's a great thing. But you do wonder if it makes it. So these cycles just play out differently. They did in the past.

Yeah. And people are like, well, I don't want to invest because I could just wait for the next crash because they're happening so fast. Whereas I think earlier in my investing career, sure, when 2008 happened, I didn't have money to invest, so wasn't a buying opportunity for me. But I didn't have this belief that there would be another one so soon. So I just slowly kept putting whatever I could in. And now a part of me is like, gosh, these swings are so great. Should I just be keeping every amount of savings on the sideline in cash just constantly time the short crashes, which just both feels like a good idea and also feels like a terrible idea at the same time.

Yes. I've just realized that I've seen enough professional investors over the years try to do this and just fail. And I think almost everyone is just better off putting it in on a regular basis. A weekly, a monthly, a bimonthly, whatever it is. I think that's just so much easier. And you mentioned the 2008 crash. That's when I really first started investing. And I still remember I had a colleague who was older, he was in his 50s, and it looked like the world was falling apart. And we had a hedge fund manager in September, tell us, listen, this is a Friday. He said, go to the atm, take as much cash out as you can now, because on Monday you might not be able to get any cash out of the bank. It was a scary situation. And this guy in his 50s is telling me, Listen, Ben, take all of your 401k contributions and put them in the stable value fund, because this is looking really bad in my thinking at the time. I'm reading all these Warren Buffett books about the fat pitches and, you know, being greedy and others are fearful. And I just thought to myself, the stock market is down almost 60%. I'm never in my lifetime going to be able to buy at these low prices again. Right. Even if they go lower from here. And I think that's the mindset. And I do think people have learned that because there was enough people who got out of the stock market for whatever reason, some of it was because they panicked. Some people just had to have money because they needed it for other things because they're losing their house or whatever. But I think enough people saw people panic during the Great Depression and have learned from that behavior. And it's interesting to see. And I think that's part of the reason that the market snaps back so quickly. You have all these automatic contributions going in to 401ks and IRAs, unlike we've ever seen before. People are putting money in their brokerage account on a regular basis. The barriers to entry have been taken down because it's so easy to invest in Robinhood. Think about how hard it was to invest in, like, the 1980s. You had to go to a brick and mortar building for Merrill lynch or something, write a checkout, fill out all this paperwork. It would take a few days, then the check would clear. Then you could invest. You open a Robinhood account now and link your bank account, and you can invest in five minutes.

So funny you use Merrill lynch as the example. I recently opened up a business brokerage account at Merrill lynch, and it can only be opened up by, like, Inc. Signature Paper application. Business brokerage accounts live in, like, the 1980s version of opening a brokerage account. It took eight tries and three weeks to open the account. And I was like, oh, my gosh. If that's what it was like for consumers, it was hard.

A lot of people see this behavior and they worry about the downsides, like what happens when people go in to buy the dip and the stock market keeps going down and we get an actual financial crisis situation, Then what's going to happen? That'll be interesting. But I do think the fact that so many people are more comfortable with risk these days probably does open us up to the fact of we could just have more mini booms and busts, and people might just have to get comfortable with this much faster volatility hitting the markets on a regular basis.

We talked a lot about these mindset shifts. You've written a lot about demographic changes, and how much does that change the investment landscape going forward.

We've never had a generation as large and as wealthy as the baby boomers that are going to live for as long as they do. So I think they're going to screw up a lot of historical relationships in the years ahead. I think that part of it is going to be bizarre. But then they have the offsetting millennials, right, that are just as big as they are. We're getting into middle age these days. Right? That shift is interesting. I've just been having talks with people that I think the need for financial advice in the years ahead is going to be greater than anything we've ever seen. Because, again, you have all these people who did the DIY thing and saved and invested and they did just fine on their own. And then they realize in retirement, okay, now I'm really on my own. I'm in the water with no life raft. I don't have any income coming in anymore. I'm just living on this portfolio. I have to think about taxes and withdrawal rates and what happens to my family and estate planning and God forbid something should happen to me. I'm the one who's been dealing with the finances. What happens to my spouse or my kids if something should happen to me. And so I think the need for financial advice is going to be greater than ever in the years ahead. And I also wonder how much of that burden is going to fall on financial advisors and how much AI is going to pick up the slack. A lot of the conversations we've been having lately is, are people going to trust these LLMs to be their financial advisor in the years ahead?

I was just talking with a business coach. Like, is the future of coaching? Is the future of therapy? These roles where it's a person with a lot of knowledge that can talk to you. And I always told people that when I was doing financial planning, a big component of it is about the conversation. It's not always just numbers in the advice. I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it will certainly be amazing for people who otherwise wouldn't have the assets to qualify for a human to spend time with them. They now have the ability to have conversations about their money. It's already starting, but it'll probably get so much better in a few years of like that knowledge also includes their portfolio, their savings rates, all those kinds of things. It's going to be an interesting time for advice across all aspects of our life.

Yes. My thinking is, especially if it just becomes a commodity where everyone has access to it, I think wealthy people are still going to go, well, I'm not going to do the same thing that everyone else is doing. There's certain wealthy people will be able to build their own model and have their personal AI financial advisor, but I think most wealthy people are going to go, I'm not going to trust a robot. I still need a person there with their hands in a steering wheel. And again, like you said, someone with empathy and I trust and I have faith in them. But for the people on the lower end of the spectrum who maybe didn't meet wealth management minimums, maybe have gone to robo advisors and that sort of thing in the past or Just target date funds. I do think that the advice for them is going to open up is going to be wonderful. And I think that it's just going to help that behavior even more. And like you said, if you can upload your whole financial life into there and say, what am I missing here? Because I get that question a lot from people like, hey, I started saving, I got it all automated, we're going to have a kid, like, what's the next step? What should I be doing now? And I think if you have this LLM that can do that for you, I think it's going to be very helpful to a lot of people.

Yeah, I mean I've used it to walk through financial decisions and personal decisions now, even when it doesn't have all the data. But when you give it data, it's wild. We didn't talk at all about investment advice. At least my traditional strategy has always been low cost, passive diversified index funds for the portfolio construction. Do you think that kind of advice changes or is that still where you think most people probably should be investing?

It's funny, when I first started blogging this is back in 2013, there was still an active versus passive debate. There was a lot of writing on it. And I almost think that debate is just dead now because I think the numbers have gotten so bad that if you look at the historical 10, 15, 20 years, it's 95% of professional money managers lose out to an index fund. And part of that maybe is just the environment because we've had these really big tech stocks that have carried the day and it's really hard to beat if you have seven to 10 stocks that are carrying the weight for the almost the entire stock market performance. But you'd hear for years just wait until it's an active stock pickers market again. And that never really seems to happen. And so I think that's another big leap forward for people is just they have realized that I was a sucker at the poker table. I'm not going to sit at this table anymore. I'm going to go to this other table that's much easier and it's much cheaper and it's more tax efficient and they still may pick stocks in their Robin Hood account and have this side pocket or sidecar right where I'm going to take 10 or 15% of my portfolio and I'm going to go nuts and I'm going to trade crypto and I'm going to buy and sell individual stocks. But the other stuff is on autopilot. I Do think for the vast majority of people that is still the best way to do it. And I think the individual investor has just never had it better than they have it today. As low as costs are, $0 commissions and automation and all these things. I was having a conversation recently with someone about health and wealth and how the personal finance analogy has always been health and wealth are similar because you know what you're supposed to do. But it's hard to actually follow through with that advice. But with health, you have to choose your meal every day right. And you have to actually force yourself to eat right. And you have to force yourself to go to the gym with your finances. You can automate a lot of good decisions ahead of time and really take yourself out of the equation. The fact that if you're willing to do the heavy lifting up front and create those decisions and make all that automation part of it, it's never been easier to take your bad self out of the equation.

And when you talk about automation, the things that come to mind for me are automated recurring deposits, robo advisors. Are there other types of automation you're thinking of?

So now tax loss harvesting, I think is one in the last 10 years that I think didn't really exist for a lot of individuals before. I think the biggest ones for most people are just the contributions, the rebalancing, the asset allocation and just setting it and forgetting it. There's other stuff on the margins, I guess, but if as long as you have those ones, you're doing better than the majority of the investing population.

It's amazing how much I find people that really like to think about money actually don't think about their portfolio that much. I might spend a lot of time in spreadsheets. I know you do too. Like we've got our charts and models, but I'm usually not thinking like, do I need to tweak my allocation to something? I'm thinking more, am I contributing enough? Should I be spending a different amount? Where is that spending going? How are the returns going? How is my 529 looking? And all that kind of stuff.

So I'm in the investment committee for our wealth management firm and we don't make allocation decisions for our clients based on we think rates are going to go higher or inflation is going to go lower. We're basing it off of risk and reward, right? Are rates high enough where you're being compensated for the risk you're taking or rates too low and you're not being compensated, so don't take any risk. There's most of the decisions that we have with clients is not based on the market itself and the market changes, although sometimes it is, but it's more on life events and do you have something going on in your life that would necessitate a change? Has your risk profile changed because you're retiring or because you're receiving inheritance or because your kids are going to college or you have a wedding coming up? And it tends to be those life events that make it for an allocation change or a change to your saving habits or spending habits than the market itself.

I wanted to try this new thing and you brought this up. So this idea of advice swapping on topics that have nothing to do with the core topic at hand. So the question I had for you is you're further along than me in the parenting journey. When I read what you write and hear what you talk about, I feel as a kindred spirit to your attitude towards money and life, enjoying things in the moment. Any advice for me being five to ten years behind you in the parenting life game?

Yeah. Our oldest is 11. Now we have twins that are 8. Good luck with travel sports. That's one of them. This is something I was not totally unprepared for. I grew up playing on school teams and rec leagues, and I never realized how professionalized sports are from a very young age. Now we have two girls who are in travel soccer, and I can't believe how their sponsors involved. And there's all these jerseys that you have to buy, and it's traveling and it's every weekend and it's not cheap. So travel sports is certainly one of them. The interesting thing is people always say, like, how do you teach your kids about money? I think at an early age especially, I've tried to bring up conversations. Most of it is really just the actions that you have and not really what you're telling your kids. They don't want to hear from you yet. Obviously they're going to maybe want to hear from you when they're older, but I think it's just really setting the right examples is what I've realized for a lot of different things for them.

I try to bring my kids. I mean, they're, they're three and four, right? Like, I'm trying to bring them along the journey of like, hey, we're gonna go drop these cans off at recycling, and then we make a little bit of money and then we can use that money to go buy a book. You know, like little, little drops of like how the world works around money. But I'm certainly not trying to teach them as much as show them.

And we've still been trying to teach them with cash. And it's interesting, they get a lot of cash gifts for birthdays and holidays and such. And because we're really moving towards this cashless society where it's everything. You buy it online or you tap a credit card, or you pay with your phone. And so money to them isn't going to mean as much as it did to us. And so I think having cash be part of the deal where they're saving, and all my kids have piggy banks and still work with cash, and we try to help them save that money. It's harder to have those conversations because money in a lot of ways is just out of sight, out of mind now. And it's so much easier to spend than it was. And I think that's a really difficult part of it is just teaching them, because when you had a lot of cash back in the day and you spent, you could literally see it getting smaller and you really felt it, and it's hard to feel those spending decisions anymore.

Yeah, I've had times where we bought something, was there ice cream? And my wife will be like, how much was that? And I'm like, I don't know. It's on the screen. You tap your phone, you hit the tip button, and then you walk away. And it's like, it's so simple that there have been moments where I was like, I couldn't tell you whether it was 12 or $15. Maybe that's good that I'm not thinking about the pennies in the sense. But also, it's not even in front of you. Like, it would be if I had to count out the cash and get the change and all that. And on the travel sports thing, it's funny because I think I've gotten emails from so many people on different ones. The first time I got an email, someone said, hey, you've never taken your daughter's ice skating. Don't do it. Because my daughter is now a competitive ice skater. We travel all around the country. Do not let her touch the ice. And then I was like, okay, so no ice skating. And then the next one's like, travel soccer. Okay, don't let him touch a soccer ball. Turns out that every sport seems to have been created in a competitive way more than I remember as a kid.

This is the life we live now. And yeah, I complain about, but it's also very fun. My wife and I always say, like, what else would we be doing on the weekends anyway? We have our summer's open. There's no travel sports in the summer. They do some camps and stuff. But honestly, it's very fun and that's how you get new friends with the parents. And I know people complain about it and it's fun to joke about it, but it is really fun.

Okay, what was yours?

Okay, so I listened to your podcast with Tim Ferriss. You went into some, like, your very deep Jedi point stuff, and the gold bar one killed me. I can't believe you're going to Costco and buying gold bars and you're buying a million dollars worth of gift cards on Amazon. And so I listened to Patrick o' Shaughnessy and invest like the best. And he has like the world's greatest venture capital investor on there or a really good stock picker. And he'll be like, his whole thing is like, this is who you're up against and that's you for me, with when it comes to points. So I wanted to give you my point strategy and I wanted you to critique me a little bit because I'm what I would consider a dabbler. I like to use the point system to my advantage. I think that I'm being compensated in some way, but I don't go nearly as deep as you. Right. I'm very surface level. And so I'd say every 24 months or so, I will get a new card because I want to get the bonus for it. I know we're going to be spending money on a vacation or my wife wants new furniture and we're going to be spending enough to hit the limit. And so I'll just do it all in one fell swoop and we'll get the 100,000 point bonus or 60,000 point bonus. But I think that the inflation has been so high where you don't get as much bang for the buck that I used to save all my points. And I was interesting listening to Tim Ferriss talk about how he's got like 15 million points or whatever. I was wondering how much has been inflated away by the value that he could have gotten if he would have just spent them along the way. Because my strategy now is every month I get them, I take it out and I just get it in cash. I don't wait, I don't save it for anything else besides my airline miles for my main credit cards. I just take the cash every month because I feel like the points aren't worth what they used to be. And I mean, if you had to. Back of the envelope. What would the inflation rate be on points for the last 10 years? It's pretty high, right?

I would say it's been pretty high. I remember one specific moment, which was my wife and I did our honeymoon to the Seychelles in business class, and I seem to remember somewhere around 120,000 points round trip. And now that trip would be like 200,000 points or something, like, right, I'm going to get the numbers wrong. I could probably go back and look at them. But I would say there are a lot of things that in the last 10 years cost twice as much to do, which is a meaningful change. Now, how much has travel cost? Is that flight twice as much now? I haven't done that math. Maybe I should. I think we're in an interesting place today in 2025, because I can't remember what branch of government investigated a couple airlines and said, hey, you guys are devaluing your points. We're going to do an investigation. So I think that probably for the next one to three years, you probably won't see point devaluation for US Airlines just because there's an investigation into these airlines for this practice. And if they were going to do it, this would not be the ideal time to do it in the middle of this whole thing. Now, International Airlines, different story. I think that the difference in value, let's put it at three tiers, there's the. I am only going to redeem my points at these incredible values, but it means that I either have to travel in a way that maybe isn't how I want or wait a really long time. And I'm like, I like doing that. Not everyone does. I wouldn't encourage anyone to do that. I think the taking your points and using them for travel, if you have a Chase Sapphire reserve, you can use it to buy flights and hotels in the portal at one and a half cents. I think doing that is probably a good way to cash out your points. That's better than taking the statement credit at $0.01 or something like that. My thing that I think I told Tim was, you've got these points anytime you're traveling. I would go. See, there's so many tools that do this now. Award tool points. Yeah. Is there a way I can get more than one and a half cents booking the trip that I want? No, let's use the one and a half cents. That's the like. I just want to get the easy solution that gives me good return. And if you're getting one and a half or more cents on a card that's earning 3x points on travel and dining, you know you're getting four and a half percent back. That's pretty competitive with cash back. That said, I think there's a good argument the other way which is like out of sight, out of mind. Get cash back.

It's like the simple strategy. That's where I've landed. It's like the indexing of points essentially.

And so I would say if you don't want to play the sign up bonus, welcome bonus game. Coinbase just announced this card that's like okay, if you hold some bitcoin at Coinbase and they didn't say how much, I don't think it's just another 4% card.

Right.

That smartly card was 4% before it got retired. The U.S. bank altitude reserve was effectively like a 4 and a half percent on travel and mobile wallet, which is a lot of our purchases now.

Yeah.

If you can afford to move $100,000 into a brokerage or bank account at bank of America, you can get 3 1/2% back on travel and dining and 2.6 to 5% back on everything. And if you use those points to book Travel, you add 25% boost. So now you're looking at, I think it's like 3.2 on everything. 4, 4 on travel and dining. It's a pretty compelling alternative to points if you're not willing to dabble in this other thing.

Right.

If you are. Right. Like then I'm typically having points be worth three to six cents and it blows everything out of the water. And so if my points are going to be worth three times more, if points are worth 5 cents, I'm getting 3x, that's 15% back. That's way, way better. And I think I've worked that muscle to a point that it doesn't feel like a lot of stress because I know, hey, we're going to have something booked, it's going to all work out. I'm comfortable saying we were going to go to Europe in summer. We don't know which weeks and I just know something will pop up and we'll make it work.

I'm going to wait for my AI assistant to do this all for me. I think. One more question for you. After listening to the Tim Ferriss podcast. How much of this is a game to you versus how much you care about the monetary benefits? Because a lot of it I feel like for me, like following the markets, I don't really buy and sell individual stocks that much. I just love following the markets because I think it's so interesting. Is that the points game for you as well?

Yeah, I get a lot of dopamine out of it. Like, it's fun and like, I've created a content place to talk about that thing. And so I think the only two things I'll say that put a stronger push in both directions. So one, points are always on sale. And so if you have cash back, you can still go to those same tools and be like, hey, is there some world where I want a flight that's three grand, but I can book it for the points equivalent of $500? And like, you could just go buy Those points for $700 even if you bought them for $1,000, it's such a good deal. So you could play the cashback game and get the arbitrage that you get from points, being able to have outsized value even without having them, because you just go buy them. The other side is what you said. Every 24 months, you open up a card. The average return of a top 20 signup bonus, meaning, like, pick the 20 best welcome offers right now is about 16.7%. So you are better off always working on your welcome bonus than doing anything else. Cash back or points. Even if you use those points in the worst way, I think that you would probably have no negative, if not a positive impact on your credit score of you and your partner or your wife or your husband, whoever's listening, opening up a card every quarter instead of every two years. And so people find that overhead really stressful. And I laugh because they're like, oh, it's so stressful to open up a card every quarter. And I'm like, okay. But if you actually look at the difference between getting 16 back and for like, it's pretty meaningful.

And that's what I do. And I just keep one or two automatic payments on those cards to keep them open because like you said, it's part of your credit.

That would be. My advice is like, whenever you see a bonus, why not go for it? Otherwise, for your personality, it's like you could almost just shift all to a high cash back card. And maybe there's categories where you're like, well, I've got a 5x flights card, a 3x travel card. Great, get the points, great deal. But I would hang on to them. And if you're booking a family trip, use one of these easy tools and be like, is there an amazing way to get a great deal here? Or maybe you're like, we don't really care where we go. We like, we want to go on a fun spring break. Great. Go to this point. Yeah. Daydream explorer. Where in the world can we go for an incredible experience? That's my advice.

I wasn't aware of those websites here, so I will be bookmarking those now, too.

Yeah, they make it so easy. That's the joy of the points game for someone who doesn't want to go down the rabbit hole is it's never been easier to have something like Google Flights. In fact, go download the points path extension and it'll just layer on points deals to Google Flights.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Like I'm searching for a flight and it's arrow. Use your points.

See, bring it all full circle. It's never been better to be an individual investor or a points person.

Yeah. It's never been better to be alive.

That's right.

All right, this has been great. I really appreciate you joining. Until the next time.

All right, thanks, Chris.

[Chris Hutchins]

Such a great episode. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please consider clicking that follow, follow or subscribe button if you haven't already. It really helps us out and there's no better way to support us than doing that. Or sharing the show with a friend, colleague or family member or even a.

[Ben Carlson]

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[Chris Hutchins]

Also, links to everything in this and all other episodes are at allthehacks.com where you can also find all the deals we find as well as links to the top credit card bonuses. Finally, if you have any feedback, want to get in touch or share a question you have for a future mailbag episode, you can email [e-mail] that's it for this week. I'll see you next week.