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ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast
It's Big, But Is It Beautiful? Let's Talk About It... | Ep 557
01:00:18
Key changes in tax law related to the newly passed One Big Beautiful Bill significantly impact the financial independence (FI) community. Notably, the extension of tax rates and the higher standard deduction provide more planning certainty for early...
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- [00:00]
Brad Barrett
Hello and welcome to Choose a Fight. Today on the show, we have Sean Mulaney, the FI tax guy, here to talk about the new one big beautiful bill that just got passed earlier in July. This is coming out at the end of July, so we're trying to turn this around as quick as possible. Sean highlighted a handful of items that are really especially pertinent to the FI community, and I think this is going to be one you definitely want to listen to. Sean and I go through a lot of the very specific provisions, of course, but we also talk more broadly about planning and how you should think through your asset allocation and specifically what to think about with premium tax credits, which I know a lot of us are going to run into when it comes to our medical insurance plan. And this is a big, big open item for people in the community. And I think we provide a really nice overview of how to think through this, how to plan, and how other provisions in this new tax law can actually benefit you for these premium tax credits. So I think this episode has a little bit of everything and you're really going to enjoy this with that. Welcome to choose fi. Sean, it's always good to see you. Thanks for coming on. This is a timely episode. We don't normally do these kind of timely episodes. I'm excited about this, Brad.
- [01:17]
Sean Mulaney
Thanks so much for having me.
- [01:19]
Brad Barrett
Yes, you, of course, are our go to tax professional, Sean, the FI tax guy. So you've been on many, many episodes and this, you were the person, of course, that I called when this one big beautiful bill, as it's being called, was signed into law on July 4th. And there are a lot of things, changes ultimately to the tax code that came into place with this new law. And we're going to go through a bunch of them today, I think, Sean, one of the interesting things, and this I suspect, is the first of maybe a couple touch points on this, and I don't want to necessarily read too much on this, but this is a massive, massive law and. And we're always combing the details, right? People like you and I suspect we have not unearthed every last item, but you never know. I don't know that for certain, but I suspect. But what you have done today is come up with a list of items that really impact the FI community and we're going to talk through them today. Of course, one of the biggest is the premium tax credits, and especially how that applies to 2026 and. And beyond. And we're going to spend a lot of time in the second half of the episode talking about that. So, yeah, we're still in the month of July. This thing was just signed into law three plus weeks ago. Where do we start?
- [02:34]
Sean Mulaney
I think we start with the tax rates and the standard deduction. So this bill, from a tax perspective, has a history. The history dates back to the year 2017. Back then, there was a law commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It did two big things when we think about personal finance and thinking about financial independence and retirement. It cut tax brackets. So, for example, the 15% bracket went to 12%, 25% bracket went to 22%, and on and on and on. So that was a big tax cut. Another thing it did is it significantly increased the standard deduction, which is very powerful for early retirees and even later retirees. So we had these two big tax cuts. There was one fly in the ointment, though. Those were set to sunset in the year 2026. They were temporary. They were only for eight years. Now, that was an interesting way to pass a tax cut because it was not permanent. It was scheduled to sunset. But it set up political pressure because if Congress did nothing in 2025, the standard deduction would have gone way down. That's a big tax hike, especially for less affluent taxpayers. And all these brackets would have gone back up and almost everyone would have had a big tax hike. So there was this political pressure in the system. Now, some people thought, oh, these tax cuts won't get extended. I tended to think they would get extended. And in the personal finance space, you saw a lot of commentary saying, oh, you better get those Roth conversions done before 20, because these tax rates are going to go back up. So shop at bargain basement prices. And sure enough, now in the one big beautiful bill, the tax rates have been extended, the higher standard deduction has been extended, and that gives us more planning certainty. And there's certainly no rush to, oh, do your Roth conversion before New Year's Day, 2026, or anything like that. So pretty much we all win from a planning perspective because we now have more certainty on this, you know, so that's where we are on the tax brackets and on the higher standard deduction.
- [04:58]
Brad Barrett
Okay, so, yeah, let's slow down on this a little bit. Right. So there's an interesting. The word permanent is interesting when it comes to tax law. And I'm curious if you could just explain what that word means. So these were set to sunset, like you said, at the end of 2025. Right. So now I know you use the word extended, but it sounds like these are now permanent until reversed. Is that a fair way of looking at this?
- [05:26]
Sean Mulaney
That's a very fair way of looking at it. So now, the tax brackets, which are adjusted for inflation every year, and the higher standard deduction, which is also adjusted for inflation every year, those are all now, quote, unquote, permanent. They're in the Internal Revenue Code. And unless a future Congress takes an action, they're going to be what they're going to be. So that is good news. And in fact, not only did they extend the higher standard deduction, they slightly increased it for the year 2025. So a single person was going to get $15,000 this year. Now they're going to get 15,000. 7:50 married filing joint was 30,000. Now it's 31,500. And you know, that's a small tax cut this year, but that's where the inflation adjustments are going to go for in the future. So it helps even in the future. So that's good news. But, Brad, there'll be no changes to that until and unless a future Congress takes action. And we've seen that it is difficult to raise taxes politically. So that is helpful from a personal finance planning perspective. Not that that's guaranteed. Right. There's no guarantees on the Choose A five podcast or from me, but it sort of, it stacks the deck in our favor when we're doing planning. Just understanding there's no 100% guarantee on that.
- [06:46]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, no, and that makes perfect sense. And as we've talked about so many times, the standard deduction is really significant. This overhauled dramatically when this came into effect. So this was 2017 that this was overhauled. Right.
- [07:01]
Sean Mulaney
I mean, first effective in 2018.
- [07:02]
Brad Barrett
Correct. Yeah. So having, let's say for married filing joint, having a standard deduction of $31,500, the vast, vast, vast majority. I think the last time I checked, it was well over 90% of taxpayers. Sean, we could, we could check that, but it's somewhere in that vicinity are getting and using the standard deduction as opposed to prior to this, many more people were quote, unquote, itemizing deductions. Those are the two different choices. So many taxpayers, most taxpayers will say are now using the standard deduction, which is, is dramatically increased from where it was dramatically to the point of, if memory serves, it's something on the order of, I don't know, I guess the, the inflation adjusted, but it was essentially doubled or thereabouts. It was a dramatic increase.
- [07:46]
Sean Mulaney
That's right, Brad. And especially in early retirement. This is very Impactful, because what happens, especially for retirees, is their deductions tend to go down because you generally lose your home mortgage interest deduction. Not always. But most retirees, you know, early or conventional, have paid off the home or mostly paid off the home, so that deduction goes out the window. Many, particularly early retirees, control income, so that reduces state income taxes. And that's a whole other issue. We'll talk about that a little bit. And then the charitables, you know, maybe they go up, maybe they go down at 70 and a half and older, we're probably not going to itemize our charitables in most cases. So upping the standard deduction was particularly impactful for the early retiree and, and particularly beneficial to the FI community. So, you know, put blinders on and only look at this from financial independence perspective. This, particularly the increase in the standard deduction is very beneficial.
- [08:44]
Brad Barrett
Agreed. And when we talk about things like the Roth conversion ladder, like making Roth conversions, basically, if you are at FI and let's say early retired, you have no conventional income coming in. You've just hypothetically, Sean, you're at $0. If you are married, filing joint, you can convert $31,500. And assuming you have nothing else, you have no children, you have no child tax credits, et cetera, et cetera, you can convert $31,500 completely federal tax free. And that is pretty darn remarkable. So that's why, like you're saying, further, for the FI community, this has really been a significant boon, I guess, for people who. It's interesting also because a lot of people look at, oh, but I get a tax deduction for that. Like, that's something that people have said, like back in the old days, I need to have my mortgage because I need interest to get a tax deduction, which, as you would say, never let the tax tail wag the dog. Right. And I think that's something that, that I fully believe in and have always believed in. But a lot of people do that, right? Oh, I'm going to make a charitable deduction because I'm going to get a tax benefit. It's probably the wrong reason to make a charitable. Charitable deduction, let's be honest. But the thing is now with this dramatically increased standard deduction for the last seven years or thereabouts, a lot of people really are not getting any tax benefit for their mortgage interest and state taxes and things like that. So I'm curious, as we go along with this episode, if that has changed at all or if it's Similar. I know there have been some new provisions on the state and local tax deduction that might allow more people to itemize deductions, but. Yeah, it'll be interesting again for me to see how this changed, if at all.
- [10:22]
Sean Mulaney
Yeah, and we will talk about that because two of the deductions have changed. One thing I want to mention is an implication of a higher standard deduction is that traditional deductible contributions to A401 or other workplace plan become more attractive. And it's for the reason you talked about where, wait a minute, I could get to early retirement and maybe do some Roth conversions against that standard deduction. Doesn't that make deducting into a 401 look more attractive? Or what about. Maybe it's, I'm a little later in retirement, I'm not even doing Roth conversions. I'm just living off the 401k. Maybe now it's a traditional IRA. Well, if it's going against the standard deduction, why would I contribute to a Roth at work? During my working years, I should take any tax deduction, even if it's 10%. In theory. In that case, take any tax deduction and then take it out against the standard deduction. So, look, I'm not saying this totally resolves traditional versus Roth in all cases or anything like that, but in terms of moving the needle, a higher standard deduction world moves the needle towards traditional versus Roth when we're thinking about our workplace 401k contributions.
- [11:28]
Brad Barrett
Yeah. And this further bolsters the case against this money being trapped. Right. It's, this is the exact opposite. You are controlling what you can control, which is getting a tax deduction upfront. And then we think there's a real high probability you're going to be able to pull this money out and maybe tax free or at a dramatically tiny effective tax rate. Sean, as you've shown in a bunch of examples you sent to me via email. I mean, we're talking in many cases, sub 5% effective tax rate, depending on the situation, of course. And I would never pin you down on, on, on giving. We, we couldn't give a specific example, but at the very least, 31,500 is going to be taxed at $0 federally. And that's, that's pretty darn remarkable.
- [12:10]
Sean Mulaney
That is powerful. And it sort of illustrates when we up the standard deduction, we're actually cutting at the highest rate, you're essentially moving income from the highest tax bracket into the 0% standard deduction tax bracket. The way the math works you're not changing the middle brackets, you're changing the top bracket and the lowest bracket. And so that's very powerful. So even a small $1,500 increase in the standard deduction this year, that's powerful. You know, multiply $1,500 times 0.24. If that's your marginal rate, that's your federal tax savings, assuming you take the standard deduction, which most taxpayers do anyway. So I think we could move on to some of the other developments, but very good news in the FI community that there's a higher standard deduction.
- [12:53]
Brad Barrett
Yeah. So Sean agreed. I'm glad we spent a lot of time on this because it really, this is critical. And like you said, now that this is permanent, we can rely on this dramatically more heavily. So I think this is huge for us. So. Okay, we going to actually skip ahead a little bit from your outline and talk. Let's talk about those two deductions that might impact itemizing versus standard because I think this is a pertinent based on what we just talked about. And B, this is going to be really interesting to a lot of people.
- [13:21]
Sean Mulaney
So the first one is charitable contributions. So inside this one big beautiful bill is a mini revolution in terms of the tax treatment of charitable contributions. Hasn't gotten all that remarked upon over the last few years. Most charitable contributions have simply fallen off the table when it comes to tax time. You contribute to your church. Great. Well, do you itemize your deductions? In most cases, probably not. Guess what? You didn't get any charitable benefit for that. Right? Any tax benefit for that charitable contribution. Good that you made the contribution, but no tax benefit. Well, there are two big changes effective in 2026, so not this year, but effective in 2026. The first one is for those who don't itemize. They can deduct up to $1,000 per person in cash charitable contributions going forward. And you get this deduction if you don't itemize. So think about that big standard deduction we talked about. $31,500 for a married couple, $15,750 for a single. We'll now add 1,000 for a single, 2,000 for a married couple. We've now increased that deduction. Boy, isn't that helpful? And it means some of the lower hanging fruit in terms of our charitable deductions can be impactful from a tax perspective. So that's one development. A second development hurts those taking itemized deductions for charitable contributions. Starting in 2026, they are going to have a 0.5% floor of adjusted gross income on the ability to deduct a charitable contribution as an itemized deduction. So this is a little wonky, but let me walk you through an example. Say, Brad, you have $200,000 of adjusted gross income in 2026. Okay, great. And you want to make a donor advised fund contribution to your donor advised fund, $10,000 of ABC stock. All right, so you contribute the 10,000 in 2026 and you say, well, what's my itemized deduction for that? Well, it's not $10,000, it's now 10,000 less the 0.5% floor in that $200,000 of income example. It's $1,000. By my quick and dirty math. Always dangerous doing math on a podcast. But I think I got it right.
- [15:38]
Brad Barrett
Two CPAs doing math on the podcast. Sean, I think we're good.
- [15:42]
Sean Mulaney
So now we're at 9,000 instead of 10,000. And this policy, look, we could debate the merits of the policy. I think they're trying to do two things here. They're trying to have more people take standard deductions instead of itemized deductions. And for the more affluent taxpayer, it's a little nickel dime tax increase. Right? They're saying, okay, we're going to reduce this deduction a little bit. So it is interesting to me that for the non itemizers, which couldn't be many retirees, you now get more tax benefit for charitable giving. For the itemizers, particularly the higher income people, starting in 2026, you get less benefit. And I think that has two implications from a planning perspective. One, Brad, if you were thinking about a $10,000 donor advised fund contribution in either 25 or 26, Congress just moved the needle towards 25. 25 this year has no haircut. So why not do the 10,000 this year versus next year you got this haircut and the more income you make, you know, the higher that haircut is. So that is one thing. I think 2025 is going to be a big year for donor advised funds because people are going to put this together and say, wait a minute, I want 100 cents on the dollar, not some haircut. So that's one implication. Second implication is qualified charitable distributions, QCDs, those start at age 70 and a half, they become even more valuable now, right? We don't itemize or we don't have to itemize when we do a QCD that isn't subject to this haircut. So you can take, you know, at 70 and a half and older. Take that 10,000 out of your traditional IRA. You don't take it, you send it directly to the charity. It's excluded from income. You get the full tax benefit of the $10,000. No haircut. So I think those are the two big implications from a broader planning perspective. 2025 is a big year for donor advised funds. But 2026 and going forward they become less attractive and, and then QCDs remain very, very attractive and just got a little more attractive.
- [17:37]
Brad Barrett
Okay, this all is making a lot of sense. I have two questions for you. Start. The first one should be fairly straightforward. You said on the new non itemizers charitable deduction, which is starting in 2026, it's $1,000 per person. Is this only for cash charitable contributions or can non cash? I know a lot of people in our community donate a lot of things. I know I do that a lot. Donate clothes, donate furniture, things like that. But that's non cash. Is that part of this or is it just cash?
- [18:06]
Sean Mulaney
Just cash. So that is an important nuance that you teased out there, Brad. Has to be cash to get the non itemizers deduction. Any, you know, goods, stock, anything like that would need to be itemized to get the upfront benefit of that.
- [18:22]
Brad Barrett
Okay, gotcha. And then right. And stock, that's an important. When we use the word cash, a lot of people think it can only literally be actual money from your bank account or a check or whatever. But that could be securities that you donate.
- [18:37]
Sean Mulaney
Well, so to be clear, the $1,000 thing can't be appreciated. Stock, if you had stock with a loss, you could sell it, grab the cash and then contribute. Now in theory you could sell the gain, stock, get the cash and contribute. But now you've triggered a capital gain. We generally don't like to do that to donate to charity, but it's a theoretical possibility. But no, this is cash. Your credit card checking account, actual cash.
- [19:03]
Brad Barrett
Good. I'm glad you. Yeah, I missed that nuance. So yeah, sorry about that. I'm glad you you clarified that. That's very important. And then not a question as much as a point. I'd love to hear you you talk about this. So we are going to talk about the next item which is saving local tax deduction increase which might tip more people over into itemizing. But I think a lot of people don't understand the nuance of the standard deduction versus itemizing. So if we're saying we'll just go with married filing joint just, just to make it easier so for 20, 25, it's going to be 31,500 for the standard deduction. Now, let's say that you had. Like we're talking about in your example, we've donated $10,000 to our donor advised son, right? Now, if when you add up all of your itemized deductions, you go over that 31,500, then you do get two itemized deductions, and it's whatever the sum is of that. But let's say that that $10,000 charitable deduction only put me $1 over, right? So I'm using kind of a ridiculous example, but let's say I was at $31,501. I technically get to itemize deductions, but interestingly, only $1 of the cumulative amount of all of my itemized deductions actually benefits me more than the standard. So I'm not raising this, Shawn, to challenge you in any way. It's just to. Because I don't think people understand you and I. Well, I don't live in. In the tax world anymore. You do. But you and I have a deep understanding of this. And I think a lot of people don't really understand that it's only the amount that puts you over that threshold that really you've gotten any benefit from. And that's not to say don't give to charitable causes, obviously. I'm not saying that in any way, shape or form. I'm just trying to counsel for this might be worth less to you than you think. So just plan accordingly. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that because I think this is something there is some nuance to. So I'm curious if you agree with that.
- [21:03]
Sean Mulaney
Absolutely. I generally agree with what you're saying, Brad. So I think some of this comes from our history. Before 2018, the standard deduction was relatively low. So a lot of folks took itemized deductions. And go back further. Mortgage interest rates used to be higher. So you had an environment where, oh, I got to itemize, I got to itemize, I got to itemize, and I got to get all these deductions. And especially for the more affluent taxpayers who a lot of advisors are focused on, it was everybody's taking itemized deductions these days. What you find is the opposite. You find very affluent taxpayers taking the standard deduction. But I also think it's actually really good news for us in the fire world that we're moving more towards a standard deduction world because get to retirement, you have fewer standard deductions. And by the way, at 65, you get an additional standard deduction, making it even that much more difficult to itemize. So look, there are still going to be people in the FI community who take itemized deductions. That's absolutely going to be a thing. But you're right that they have limited utility and as the standard deduction increases, they have even less utility. And so it's we sort of have to move away from this mentality about being obsessed with my deductions. And then, Brad, you made an earlier point. A deduction is an expensive way to save on tax in most cases.
- [22:26]
Brad Barrett
Right.
- [22:26]
Sean Mulaney
If I give $100 to charity and I deduct it. Well, that's great. But I'm only going to get at most, depending on the circumstances, let's just call it 37 cents on the dollar. Right. You have to do your own analysis, but essentially you only get the tax benefit of that back. So if you're giving to charity to make money, that's a really horrible way to make money.
- [22:46]
Brad Barrett
Terrible.
- [22:47]
Sean Mulaney
So anyway, I think it's good news that we're moving towards a standard deduction world and away from an itemized deduction world. But it's certainly not universally true that everybody in the audience is now going to take the standard deduction. There's still going to be some people itemizing. They're going to tend to be more affluent and more in the accumulation phase than in the retirement phase. But again, there'll be some retirees too who take itemized deductions.
- [23:10]
Brad Barrett
Agreed. And now let's talk about, we've teased this a couple of times, something that might tip more people over into itemizing, especially maybe people in higher cost states in places where real estate taxes are higher percentage. So yeah, let's talk about state and local tax deduction.
- [23:26]
Sean Mulaney
Yes. And this is a politically charged issue.
- [23:30]
Brad Barrett
It was when it got enacted at first and it is now 100%.
- [23:35]
Sean Mulaney
So. And by the way, this change in law is now temporary and it will be politically charged again in four or five years. So stay tuned. There'll be a sequel on this one. So state and local taxes, this goes back to 2017. You had a large Republican majority in Congress. Most of them come from lower tax states. They're not so interested in giving a state and local tax deduction. So they put in this $10,000 per tax return cap on the ability to deduct state and local taxes. That hurt accumulators in high tax states. It hurt retirees and high property tax states. Generally speaking, well, Fast forward to 2025. There was a little bit of a different political profile where the Republican majority was much more narrow and had some blue state Republicans and they wanted to be able to tell their constituents, hey, we're fighting for you to deduct those property taxes or income taxes. And so a compromise was arrived at. And the compromise is a little convoluted. Boiled down, the $10,000 cap is now going to be $40,000 starting in 2025. For the next four years, that cap will go, will be increased for some adjustments for inflation. And then after five years, it goes back to the $10,000 cap. This will be relitigated in four or five years, but for the next four years, this is mostly going to help two groups in the audience. One is accumulators, right? Who tend to pay more in state taxes, state income taxes during your working career, state property taxes. You may get to a point now where, hey, you combine your state taxes with your mortgage interest, with your charitable contributions, and all of a sudden you can itemize in the retiree world, I actually think this won't be that impactful, but I've sort of come up with the avatar where this will be impactful. Picture a widow in New Jersey, okay? She could easily be paying $25,000 in state property taxes. Well, you know, if we do some quick math on her current standard deduction, assuming she's 65 or older, it's 17,750. Well, those 25,000 in property taxes is clearly more than that. So she'll now become an itemizer. And this will help her with her planning because the standard deduction, as high as it is, is now irrelevant. She's going to start at 25,000 and then she can get some charitable giving in there. She probably doesn't have mortgage interest deductions, but still, she's going to be doing just fine. So I would say, well, three points. One, this is going to be relitigated in the future. Two is it helps some of the accumulators in the audience. And then three, in terms of the retirees, generally speaking, it's going to help the widowed retiree in a high property tax state. Think New Jersey is an avatar for that.
- [26:28]
Brad Barrett
Okay. Or our home, New York State. Right. I can think of properties on Long island where we grew up, and yeah, easily, easily hit 15 to $20,000 in property taxes each year. And yeah, to your point about knowing where to start on planning, you pretty much know with a degree of certainty those property taxes are not going down. They're only going one way. So that if you're already over the standard deduction with just your property tax alone, regardless of the income, and I think that's the important part here, is you're talking about accumulators. So. Right. There's two major components of this, the state and local tax. It's the state tax you pay on your state income tax return plus your property tax on your home. Those are the two main components that I know of. Sean, you can of course chime in on anything else that might be included, but that's probably 90 plus percent of what people are taking for that.
- [27:18]
Sean Mulaney
That's the lion's share. I know there's some limited ability, or at least is my understanding, I've not dived into this in a long time, if ever there's some ability to deduct state sales tax, but I think you have to, you know, make some sort of election on that. Okay, I'm not to me as a party on that, but it applies, I think in more like the non income tax states.
- [27:41]
Brad Barrett
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So, yeah, and when Sean says accumulator, that of course applies to anybody working. But naturally, if you make a significant income, a dramatically higher income, just picture a $500,000 income just back of the envelope in a 5% state tax income tax state, that's 25,000. Maybe you live in a like Long island, like we're talking about here, Sean, and you have 15,000 property taxes just right there. You're at your 40,000 cap and that then becomes itemized. Then you add on charitable contributions and mortgage interest. Those are the three main legs of the stool of what most people are itemizing. Of course there's things at the margins, but in the vast majority of cases, those are the three main items. So in that case, you're over, right?
- [28:25]
Sean Mulaney
Yes, you're over. Now I will mention one thing for completeness, there's an income phase out on the increase to the cap. I believe it.
- [28:33]
Brad Barrett
Did my example screw it up?
- [28:35]
Sean Mulaney
No, your example is right on the border. So it's fine. I believe it's between 500 and 600,000 of income. It's this sort of odd issue that a very narrow slice of the American population is going to have. Think about it, right? How many people get their income right? Between five and six. Yes, that exists out there, but it's not, you know, it's just not a large segment of the population. So this is something I have not even touched yet because it's like, look, it's going to apply to such a narrow slice of the population. I've already heard it referred to as the salt tax torpedo, where essentially you get more income, you're a high bracket, and you start losing your salt cap. It's way too complicated to spend much time on, but for very high earning accumulate. I use accumulators. It's a Bogleheads term. Right. Basically, people still working. Right. You know, you say, okay, for a narrow slice of that population, you might have to worry about a phase out on this salt tax deduction increase. Oh, my goodness. But anyhow, gotcha.
- [29:35]
Brad Barrett
That makes perfect sense. Thanks for listening to Choose a VI and for all your support of our mission here.
- [29:41]
Cody Garrett
The absolute best way to support Choose.
- [29:43]
Brad Barrett
A VI is when you sign up for your next rewards credit card to use our cards page at choose a buy.com cards. I keep this page constantly updated, so it should always be the top resource for you. Thanks for being part of our community and for your support. All right, Sean, we're going to move on to there's a new senior deduction. But before we get there, I just want to say we're just discussing a handful of items that you've specifically earmarked as applicable to the FI community. There are a lot of other things in this, this law. Let's be entirely clear. I'm just looking@whitehouse.gov and we can talk a little bit about this. I suspect there's nuance rather than these are very crude things. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. I suspect it's much more nuanced than that. But there are a lot of additional tax provisions over and above what we're talking about today.
- [30:36]
Sean Mulaney
That's right, Brad. You know, in preparing the outline for our conversation today, I said what. What are going to be those provisions that are most impactful for the FI community? That doesn't mean there aren't other provisions that are impactful for the FI community.
- [30:50]
Brad Barrett
Right.
- [30:50]
Sean Mulaney
We can't, you know, it's one podcast episode. We can't do Soup to Nuts on everything or be. It'd be a Joe Rogan experience podcast. And I think on tax rules, we don't want that.
- [31:00]
Brad Barrett
Totally agreed. So, but like I said at the outset of the episode, as we, meaning you, you're, you're the one doing the legwork on this. As you find more things that are pertinent to the FI community, we'll have you back on. We can do a short segment. We can do another Entire episode. So by no means do I expect this to be the exhaustive final talk on this one big beautiful bill, which is still hard to say out loud. OBB Well, I don't know if we're shorting it to that, but yeah, let's go to this senior deduction.
- [31:30]
Sean Mulaney
Yes, Brad. And this has some political origins too. During the campaign, President Trump campaigned on a promise of no tax on Social Security. That promise ran into, they call it the bird rule. Right. So I don't want to bore the audience on this, but essentially eliminating the tax on Social Security would have reduced Social Security funding. And the mechanism they used to pass this particular tax law, the reconciliation process, doesn't allow for changes to Social Security funding. That's my high level understanding of it. Any DC nerds out there, you know, please don't me if I miss something on that. So they said, well, okay, what's something we could do to benefit senior citizens and that we could sort of afford under the tax law? And that's the genesis of this $6,000 per person deduction. It's being called the senior deduction. It's $6,000 per person. The only two requirements, generally speaking, are that by the end of the year you are 65 years old. So by December 31st you've gotten your 65th birthday. As long as that's true, you get it. And then you can't file married filing separate, which most retirees aren't going to do anyway. So as long as you meet those two criteria, generally speaking, you get this deduction. It means retirees are even more lightly taxed. Now it is subject to income phase outs. And this is interesting. The income phaseouts are actually pretty generous. For singles, it's phased out $0.06 on the dollar between $75,000 and $175,000. Okay, so that's singles for marrieds. My view as of now, and I think most practitioners would have this view, as of now, it phases out between 150,000 and $250,000 of income. It's interesting, over the weekend there was some discussion on X. There's a handful of practitioners who say it phases out between 150,000 do and $350,000. So this is a little nuance that needs to be worked out. I would bet on the 150 to 250 phase out. But I'll make an observation on that. If you're retired and you're making 150,000 in adjusted gross income, you're doing great. This phase out thing isn't going to hit all that many, even affluent retirees. So that's really good news. It's a very powerful deduction. I'm just going to mention two things. One, it doesn't matter if you are collecting Social Security or if you are not collecting Social Security. And one of my initial theses on this is it's an argument for delaying collecting Social Security if you can afford to do so. So that's one thing, though. It has nothing to do, am I collecting Social Security? Am I not collecting Social Security? Irrelevant. Second thing, it applies even if you're still working, you don't have to be retired or not retired to get it. So you might still be working after age 65. You could get this now. Yes, if you're making $500,000 because you're working. Well, now you don't get it. Okay. But yes, you can get it regardless of being retired, being working, or not working, or collecting Social Security or not.
- [34:40]
Brad Barrett
Very interesting. Okay, so this is a $6,000 annual deduction per individual. So if you have a married filing joint family here whose each of them are over 65, they would get their standard deduction plus an additional $12,000 of deductions in this case.
- [34:57]
Sean Mulaney
That's exactly right. And you bring up a really good point. You get this regardless of whether you take the standard deduction or you take an itemized deduction. Right. Because they wanted this to be applicable for all seniors who otherwise qualify. So the income matters. But for getting income, you can itemize your deductions and you take this, or you could take the standard deduction and you take this. And in fact, some back of the envelope math reveals that for a married couple, both 65 or older, in the year 2025, with the standard deduction, with the additional standard deduction that seniors get, and with this new senior deduction, they can exclude from income $46,700 of income. That's a real number. Okay. And I get it, 46,700 doesn't make you a Rockefeller. You're not flying first class all over the world. But that's real money you could exclude from income this year, next year. We'll talk about the future of this in a second. But, boy, that's pretty impactful.
- [35:57]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, that's not nothing. So, I mean, this is really significant for those of us in the FI community who are over 65. Sean. Right. Let's paint the hypothetical of somebody who has paid off cars, paid off house, maybe their life in 2025. You don't have. You don't have to worry about any kind of savings. You don't have to worry about any kind of income tax. Maybe your life at that point only costs about $4,000 a month and that's pretty much covered right there on almost zero dollars of federal income tax liability. That's not nothing at all.
- [36:27]
Sean Mulaney
It's tremendous. Now I will say there is a drawback. It is a temporary tax cut. So now we're back to 2017 and the tax Cuts and Jobs act. But there's political pressure built in. All right, so what's going to happen is New Year's Day 2029, the senior deduction expires, the deduction on tip income expires, the deduction on certain overtime income expires. And so you're going to have this political pressure back in the system. Well, wait a minute. If we do nothing, we're going to do tax hikes on seniors, waiters, waitresses, bartenders and certain blue collar workers. That's not a politically advantageous outcome for the politicians. So there's no guarantee here, but the political pressure will be built up to extend this senior deduction. No guarantees. It is only for four years right now. But it could just be a replay of the 2017 tax cuts and Jobs act, right? Yes, it was quote unquote temporary, but it set up its own future political pressure to get extended. So we'll see. Stay tuned. But this is tremendous news. And in fact that 46,700 figure in 2026, add that non itemizer charitable contribution 2000, that goes to 48,700 before inflation adjustments for the standard deduction and the additional standard deduction. So 2026, we could be cooking with even more gas if we're 65 or older.
- [37:57]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, that is wild, Sean, before we move on to the premium tax credits because I think that's where we're going to land the plane here. One item that I know came up in that 2017 tax cuts and Jobs act, especially for us many small business owners, was the, the 199A deduction, the qualified business income QBI. I'm pretty sure that was set to expire at the end of this year, the end of December 31, 2025. Did this new OBBB have any bearing on that or is that still set to expire as of now?
- [38:28]
Sean Mulaney
Great point, Brad. Qualified Business Income Deduction was permanently extended at a 20% rate and I have not dug into the details on this. I understand some of the phase outs got modified, but don't quote me on that. But yes, for the solopreneur out there, the side hustler, very good news. Small businesses, manufacturing businesses that are privately owned, very Good news. The 20% qualified business income deduction we've enjoyed the last eight years will continue and was permanently extended as well. So some very good news for a subset of the audience.
- [39:04]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, definitely for a subset. But for those of us who do benefit from that, that is. It's one of the wildest deductions I've ever seen, Sean. It's just basically take, you know, again, there's always nuance, contact your professional, yada, yada yada. But I mean, essentially you're lopping off 20% of your business income, which is really pretty wild to see in practice on that tax return. So, yeah, like you said, that is good news for the people who are benefiting from that. All right, well, let's talk about premium tax credits.
- [39:32]
Sean Mulaney
Yeah, Brad, So tax laws matter, and what they don't do also matters. So we are going into 2026. And in 2026, the so called subsidy cliff, the 400% of federal poverty level cliff, is scheduled to come back January 1, 2026. And this is a cliff on income. It says if your income is above 400% of federal poverty level, you get zero premium tax credit against your ACA medical insurance premiums. Okay, so this is a big deal and some people are very worried about this. And I will say one big beautiful bill does nothing to change that outcome. But it has an interesting wrinkle that we'll get to. But I also think we have to step back. All of this has history, and this history dates back to the year 2014, many, many, many years ago. 2014 was the first year that we had premium tax credits. And I'm going to refer to 2014 through 2020 as the first era. During the first era, we had the 400% of federal poverty level cliff applicable to premium tax credits. Right. Your income was a dollar over that 400% figure. Zero, no premium tax credits. So that's the first error. Then we go to the second error. The second error we are in now, 2021 through 2025, they got rid of that cliff. They just said, okay, your income goes above 400%, gradually slope it down. Okay, 2026 starts the third error. The third error looks a lot like the first error, but is a little better. Okay. And I think it's worth remembering that during the first era, plenty of early retirees got premium tax credits. And more importantly, plenty of Americans got to retirement early Retirement, financial independence, however you want to state their financial goals. So yes, this premium tax credit issue absolutely matters. But it doesn't mean just because we're going into this third era does not mean people can't get premium tax credits, does not mean people can't really retire. And I would argue the third era is better than the first era. Now, it's not as good as the second error, but it's better than the first era because of a one big beautiful bill change. So the big change in the one big beautiful bill here is starting in 2026, all bronze ACA plans will be high deductible health plans. So that means if you have a bronze plan, you get to make a deductible contribution to a health savings account, an hsa. So I'm going to call this bronze is gold planning. Right. If you remember three words from today's conversation and you're an early retiree, remember bronze is gold. So what you could do is for 2026 and going forward, you sign up for a bronze ACA plan that lowers your premium to start, which can help save money.
- [42:46]
Brad Barrett
Right?
- [42:46]
Sean Mulaney
So that's the first benefit. We have a lower premium off the bat, right? That's great. Lower premiums go with the bronze. Then what we do is we say, well, we're on a bronze plan and now we qualify for an HSA contribution. And so what we do is we write a check to an HSA for the year. If we're married and both of us are over 55, my quick and dirty math on that is 10,750 we can deduct from our income. So what we've done is we've created a federal and in many states, state tax deduction. So we're saving money there. We've lowered our modified adjusted gross income for that 400% of federal poverty level cliff. So now we either move our income to a place where we now qualify and or we increase the amount of the premium tax credit. Because once we get under that 400, the lower our income, generally speaking, the higher the credit. So that's good news. And oh, by the way, by throwing money in that hsa, we're creating a tax free reserve. So if we do have medical expenses during the year, those don't have to increase our taxable income. We don't have to go to our traditional IRA or sell a capital gain asset and trigger capital gains to fund that medical expense. We can just go into that HSA and pay for the medical expense out of the hsa. We now have a tax free way of paying for that medical expense. So I think what we're setting up here is this bronze is gold optimization cycle for premium tax credits starting in 2026. Look, I'm not here to say everybody should go on a bronze plan, but boy, there are some benefits to going on a bronze plan if you are an early retiree starting in 2026.
- [44:25]
Brad Barrett
Wow. Okay, that's remarkable. And yeah, of course, like you're saying, we're never giving advice here, we're just talking through it. But yeah, when I've done my analysis on the ACA plans, I almost always come up with the fact that for my own case, again, not advice for anybody else, but for my own case, that getting any of the more significant plans, the silver gold plans, I'm basically just prepaying for expenses. And I like having the optionality of. I'm pretty healthy if I took a bronze plan, ultimately, if I got really sick that year, there still are caps on what you can pay towards your deductible, out of pocket, et cetera. When I do the math for myself, it's pretty darn close to what the premiums would actually be if I just got the gold plan. So I'm in essence prepaying for an unhealthy year, which to me makes essentially zero sense. And I have been trying to find HSA plans. I live in Virginia, so I can only look up my own plans on healthcare.gov but I find fleetingly few, like shockingly few HSA plans. So it's nice to know now, starting in 2026, that all bronze plans allow me to contribute to an hsa. And as we know, an HSA is really an amazing option for people in the FI community.
- [45:42]
Sean Mulaney
Absolutely, Brad. And I think, look, falling off that cliff can be impactful. And if it would have only taken, you know, a 3 or $4,000 deduction to not fall off that cliff, get thousands of dollars of premium tax credits and oh, by the way, get a tax deduction. Why not throw it in an HSA and All right, the bronze plan. You know, the other thing about premium tax credits I see is that we sometimes forget. All we're trying to do is optimize for insurance cost. And there are two drivers of insurance cost. One is the retail rate for the plan. And that's the same for everybody, whether you're the richest guy in the store or the poorest guy in the store. That's a way by itself, to lower our insurance premium expense for the year. Right. We sign up for A bronze instead of a gold, Right? That's one lever we can pull. And then the second lever is lowering income such that we qualify for a premium tax credit. And, Brad, this actually goes back to a big Brad Barrett bugaboo, chasing dividends, right? If there's one thing Brad Barrett would tell you about going for financial independence, it's this. Don't chase, yield. Don't chase dividends. Am I right, Brad?
- [46:54]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, you're right. You are right. You nailed me.
- [46:56]
Sean Mulaney
Yeah, but, Brad, that has a practical application in the premium tax credit conversation. Low yield, that is lower dividends, that is lower uncontrolled taxable income in a taxable account helps us qualify for premium tax credits. So this is yet another reason not to chase yield, not to chase income, particularly in a taxable account, so that we can keep our taxable income lower and up our chance of qualifying for premium tax credit.
- [47:24]
Brad Barrett
I like it. I like it a lot. So, okay, a couple of little things. Less people yell at me because often this happens when I talk about dividends. So I have no issue with dividends that come from just a normal owning an index fund. I think a lot of us in the FI community don't love dividend investing. I use that with, like a capital D, capital I like as an overt strategy. I think that often becomes myopic people. It just becomes part of, I don't know, almost like a religion. Sean. I think that's. That's what I have a problem with. And also that it does cut down on flexibility. You are getting a forced taxable event when really one of the hallmarks of the fight community is trying to preserve flexibility and trying to preserve especially our tax flexibility and to pay as little tax as we can. I don't love forced taxable events. So, yeah, thank you for allowing me another soapbox to. To talk about dividends. But I did want to talk about, just real quick, that 400%. Cliff.
- [48:23]
Sean Mulaney
Yes.
- [48:23]
Brad Barrett
Now, this is interesting, and I want to hear you talk about this, obviously, but I'm actually going to relay it to the interplay of. Of some misconceptions with how especially tax brackets work. Because a lot of people, like you said, you know, you and I both happen to be CPAs. We are, we're. You are extremely knowledgeable in this. I'm relatively knowledgeable, and we understand how the tax brackets work. But a lot of people think that, oh, if I am in the next bracket, If I'm just $1 over that, all my prior dollars get taxed at that new income tax Rate like, oh, I just moved into the new bracket. And it doesn't work that way. It's a graduated income tax system. The dollars that apply to the 10% bracket are taxed at 10%. The dollars that apply to the 12% are taxed at 12%. And you don't retroactively go back. There are very few things that I see in the tax code that work that way that it's. You've reached this amount and then you're basically getting penalized for all prior dollars. This cliff, with the ACA subsidies, the premium tax credits, this is something entirely different. This is one of those instances where you precisely are punished by being $1 over.
- [49:29]
Sean Mulaney
Absolutely, Brad. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right that this is highly punitive and makes an additional dollar of income very corrosive. And there are different mitigation tactics available here. I talked about Bronze's gold planning, but think about things like living on taxable assets first in early retirement instead of, say, traditional IRA distributions, where we got basis recovery so our income's lower. That can be a big one. We talked about keeping yield low in our taxable accounts. That could be a big one. Another one that's going to be more important going forward, I think, is tactical Roth basis distributions. So think about an early retiree. So I've got the number here. The 2025, 400% of federal poverty level for a single individual is $62,600, according to my notes. Okay, well, that means for a 2026 premium tax credit, we apply the previous year's level of federal poverty. If we get to $62,601 of income, we lose our premium tax credits in 2026. But let's say we're at $58,000 of income for the year and we need $5,000 more to live on for December. Maybe we go into our Roth ira and take 5,000 of our old contributions or even old conversions, preferably five years or older. We take a $5,000 distribution from our Roth IRA to cover that last amount. Now, some people don't like draining Roth IRAs early in retirement. I would say, look, you know, this person, I just postulated, they're paying tax on the traditional IRA distribution or even on a capital gain or potentially depends on other deductions. But let's just assume they're paying tax on that and it would push them over to not get a premium tax credit. They're essentially using a Roth IRA distribution to avoid two separate taxes. Now, the premium tax credit really isn't a tax, but it behaves like a tax. So why not use our Roth IRA basis when it can avoid two taxes instead of just one tax later in retirement? So I think we need to start being more considerate and more thoughtful about thoughtfully taking out Roth basis in our 50s to optimize for premium tax credits and maybe take out old hsa, previously unreimbursed qualified medical expenses. I have a little term for that hsa. Puck me. Yeah, PUC me. It's a term that needed to be made up, so I made it up. But it's our old unreimbursed medical expenses. We could just take that for that last $5,000, in my little example, for the year, it's tax free, doesn't trip income, doesn't push that person above the 400% of federal poverty level. So there are tools in the toolbox. And I have seen this online a little bit, right? Folks are worried and sometimes worry becomes doomerism, right? You start dooming, oh, no, this is terrible. And I think now is the time to go back to, well, what are the tools in the toolbox? What are the tactics and strategies available to me? And I've just laid out a handful in one podcast episode. Bronze is gold planning. Keep ordinary income low. Don't chase dividends. Roth basis withdrawals. You know, use taxable assets to fund early retirement expenses. And there are others, too. So this is, it's an issue. It deserves attention and consideration, but it doesn't deserve panic.
- [52:58]
Brad Barrett
Yeah, I love that. So, yeah, I think ultimately that comes down to flexibility. That's what you're talking about there. And I think that, again, is why a lot of people, especially in the FI community, can benefit. I think most of us, many of us have taxable brokerage accounts. We have our traditional 401ks IRAs. We also have Roth accounts. To have a little smattering of each of these is never a bad thing. We're not implying that should change your particular path. If you already said, like, you might just have enough money to put into your traditional accounts, we're not saying that's a terrible idea by any means. Again, we talked about that earlier, Sean, right? Like, you get the tax deduction and now you have this massive standard deduction, okay, you're going to do pretty well for yourself. But for people who have the flexibility, it means look at the second order consequences, right? In this case, being above that 400% cliff means you get $0 of premium tax credits. So when it comes time to live off Your assets, If you have HSAs, if you have your taxable brokerage accounts, where we know long term capital gains are excluded at a significant, significant amount, you have your standard deduction, you have your Roth basis, you have your HSAs. I mean, these things can add up to something that you're able to massage into keeping under that premium tax credit cliff. And Sean, that's, as you said, that's real dollars. This is not something to scoff at. So I think that's critical, the flexibility. And I did want to just chime in real quick with, you're talking about Roth basis. So essentially that's the Roth contributions that you've made over the years. And the cool thing about, about Roth IRAs is you can always take out the contributions tax and penalty free at any time. So that money is not locked up. And I think this is why when people ask me when they're in this situation, hey, I have the ability to put money into a Roth. It's either a yes or no, a zero or one kind of thing. I'm either going to put money into a Roth or I'm not. I'm a little worried about it being locked up. I say to them, that's not something to worry about at all. With a Roth IRA account, that money that you put in can literally be taken out at any point. So why not do it in that scenario where, again, Sean, it's a 0 or 1. Those are my only two options in this hypothetical. You should do it in my estimation, because there's no downside to it. You can't go back and do it for a prior tax year. Once you've missed this, you've missed it, in essence. And I guess that that would be subject right, to exact dates of filing and such. And Sean, you can talk about that, but in essence, you can't go back and redo this. So if you have the option and you're worried about that money being locked up, it's not, I promise you, the actual contribution is not locked up.
- [55:34]
Sean Mulaney
Absolutely, Brad. Part of the reason I like the Roth IRA is yes, you can access your annual contributions at any time, for any reason, tax and penalty free, which is just a great tool in the toolbox when we're thinking about things like optimizing premium tax credits. Another thing that you can access is Roth conversions that are five years old or older. Even for somebody in a premium tax credit issue, they might want to even consider, and I have to think this through a little more, Roth conversions that are less than 5 years old now that would trigger the 10% early withdrawal penalty on the previously taxable amount. But if it was the choice between paying the 10% penalty on a small distribution or totally blowing the 400% poverty level cliff, I'd probably just take the 10% penalty and move on with my life. And then the other thing, Brad, to just note is that the Roth IRA distribution rules are favorable to taxpayers. So what I mean by that is the first dollar that comes out is your old contributions tax and penalty free, anytime, any reason. And you have to withdraw all of those before you get to a penny of Roth conversions. And then when you get to the penny of Roth conversions, it's the oldest ones first. So the distribution rules are very favorable to taxpayers in this regard. And so it is good to have Roth IRA assets. And you know, a lot of planners just love to hold onto the Roth IRA forever in a day. Well, now that we're moving into the third era of the premium tax credit and we're seeing the later end of retirement get even more lightly taxed, tactical distributions from Roth IRAs in one's 50s and early 60s are going to become more impactful and more important from a planning perspective.
- [57:19]
Brad Barrett
Yeah. Okay, that is exceedingly helpful. Sean, one last question. So the 400% of federal poverty level, when you said it's something like for 2026, it'll be 62,000 and change for a single, married, no kids, 84,000 and change. Is that taxable income? Is that after standard deduction and items like that, or is this like top line income?
- [57:42]
Sean Mulaney
So this is top line. It's modified adjusted gross income. For most taxpayers, it's just simply their adjusted gross income. There are a few add backs. I don't have them readily available. The big one for the older set would be non taxable Social Security income. That's actually an add back for this purpose. So this is yet another argument to delay claiming Social Security in a senior deduction world. My thesis is more and more Americans are going to want to delay Social Security to age 70. That said, that's not a universal truth. And you know, rare is the case that most advisors would Recommend Taking at 62 for an affluent couple. I mean, that exists out there. But this would be another reason at 62, 63, 64 to not collect Social Security because both the taxable and the non taxable piece are income for this premium tax credit purpose.
- [58:36]
Brad Barrett
Gotcha. Okay, this all makes sense, Sean. This has been exceedingly helpful. I think we did a pretty good job of covering the essential items as we see them today that apply to the FI community. Thank you so much for your diligence and care and really coming up with this outline for what I think was a really, really useful episode. So as everyone knows, they can reach you@fitaxguy.com you also have a firm, Mulaney Financial and tax mullina financial.com I know you and Cody Garrett are putting together a book and love for you to talk about that for a minute and any other place you want people to find you.
- [59:11]
Sean Mulaney
Yeah, thanks so much Brad. Really enjoyed the conversation. Yes, Cody Garrett and I are currently working behind the scenes on a book tax planning to and through early retirement and we're going through premium tax credit. We're going through One Big Beautiful Bill, senior deduction and accumulation planning and particularly drawdown planning in early retirement and then later retirement as well. We are self publishing that book. We're hoping to get it out later this year. Late Q3, early Q4 is the initial target. That depends on a few moving pieces. But yeah, we're excited for that book. And Brad, I can send you a link for the Show Notes where folks can sign up for an email notification about when our publication date is announced.
- [59:58]
Brad Barrett
Brilliant. Love that. We'll definitely put it in the Show Notes. And you also did a YouTube video I believe on the premium tax credits and maybe maybe some other things on the One Big Beautiful Bill. But I know premium tax credits for sure.
- [60:10]
Sean Mulaney
Yeah, Brad, I did a 15 minute YouTube video which is long for me on planning for 2026 premium tax credits and this issue from the one big beautiful bill and Bronze's Gold Planning. So I talk about all that. I hope that is a helpful resource for folks out there.
- [60:27]
Brad Barrett
Nice. And we'll definitely have that in the Show Notes as well. Sean, as always, thank you for being here and thanks for being such an important part of the FI community and the Choose A5 community specifically.
- [60:36]
Sean Mulaney
Brad, thanks so much for having me. Really enjoyed the conversation.
- [60:40]
Cody Garrett
Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the choosefy community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player. Just hit subscribe, subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to choosefi.com subscribe and it's really, really easy to get on the newsletter list right there and I would greatly appreciate it. It's the best way to get in touch with me, you can actually just hit reply to any of those emails and it comes directly to my inbox.
- [61:16]
Brad Barrett
So that's the way that I keep.
- [61:17]
Cody Garrett
A pulse of the community and and how we keep this the ultimate crowdsourced personal finance show. And finally, if you're looking to join an in real life community, we have choose a vi local groups in 300 plus cities all around the world. So head to choose a vi.com local and you'll find a list of all of Those cities in 20 plus countries.
- [61:37]
Brad Barrett
All across the world.
- [61:39]
Cody Garrett
And if you're just getting started with VI or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested in two easy ways, choose a phy episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the FI community and even.
- [61:51]
Brad Barrett
Though it's a couple years old at.
- [61:53]
Cody Garrett
This point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence. What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to.
- [62:06]
Brad Barrett
Live a better life?
- [62:07]
Cody Garrett
And then choose if I created a Financial Independence 101 course that's entirely free, just head to choosefi.comfi101 and again, thanks for listening.