10 Things to Do Before 2025 Ends

Summary

Money Guy Show – "10 Things to Do Before 2025 Ends"

Hosts: Brian Preston and Bo Hanson
Date: October 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this lively and informative episode, Brian and Bo break down the "10 Things to Do Before 2025 Ends" to fast-track your wealth-building and bring clarity to your finances. Drawing on their signature "Financial Order of Operations," they provide actionable steps—ranging from cash management and debt triage to maximizing tax-advantaged accounts and embracing abundance goals—to help you get ahead before the new year. With personal anecdotes, memorable analogies, and practical benchmarks, this guide is perfect for listeners seeking to boost their financial confidence and efficiency as 2025 draws to a close.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Have Your Cash in Order

[02:31]

• Cash is "so important it’s not just one step...it’s actually steps one and four" in their system.
• Make sure you have enough cash to cover your highest deductible (health, auto, home).
• Ensure your emergency fund is fully funded (3–6 months of living expenses in liquid cash).
• Be strategic: “Just because you have to have cash does not mean that it cannot still be working for you.” – Bo [03:31]
• Move idle cash into interest-bearing accounts (3.5–4% returns are attainable now).

2. Snag All the Free Money: Employer Match & ESPP

[03:58]

• Contribute enough to max out your employer 401(k) match—don’t leave free money behind.
• Vanguard data: 25% of people miss their full match (be sure you aren’t one).
• ESOPs/ESPPs also count as free money via discounts or favorable stock pricing.
• “Take advantage of this huge opportunity.” – Brian [04:51]

3. Defeat High-Interest Debt

[08:05]

• Track net worth annually to identify and target liabilities.
• Credit card debt is “no go land...high interest debt” and should be eliminated. [10:02]
• Dismiss 0% transfer games as a “fool’s errand.” [10:02]
• Benchmarks for "high interest:"
  • Auto loans: >10% in 20s, >9% in 30s, >8% in 40s. [11:25]
  • Student loans: >6% in 20s, >5% in 30s, >4% in 40s. [12:18]
• 23/8 rule: 20% down payment, 3 years max term, 8% of income for cars. “Think Corolla, not Land Cruiser.” [11:25]

4. Maximize Tax-Free Dollars: HSAs and Roth IRAs

[13:07]

• Contribute to HSA if eligible (limits for 2025: $4,300 single / $8,550 family) and let it grow (invest, don’t just spend).
• Analyze open enrollment each year; do the math to compare real out-of-pocket costs and employer incentives.
• Roth IRAs: $7,000/year limit (plus $1,000 catch-up for 50+), with income phase-outs ($236,000 for MFJ, $150,000 for single).
• If ineligible for direct Roth, consider backdoor Roth strategies but “measure twice, cut once.” – Brian [18:43]
• “These [are] your gateway into tax free millionaire.” – Brian [16:59]

5. Maximize Employer-Sponsored Retirement Accounts

[18:56]

• 2025 limits: $23,500 for 401(k)/403(b); $31,000 with catch-up (50+); unique super-catch-up for ages 60–63.
• Maxing out salary deferrals can unlock additional tax credits or move you to a lower bracket; consult a professional if needed.
• “If you’re already at 25% savings, not necessarily [must you max out],” shift to step 7 (hyper-accumulation). [21:37]

6. Step Into Hyper-Accumulation—Finish the Drill

[25:14]

• Hyper-accumulation (step 7): Start strategizing how and when you’ll use your investments.
• After-tax brokerage accounts offer flexibility and unique tax advantages (capital gains, dividends).
• “Maximum amount of flexibility...no penalties for early access.” – Brian [27:51]
• Example: In 2025, AGI under $48,350 (single) or $96,700 (married) can mean 0% capital gains tax. [28:41]

7. Set Abundance Goals & Prepay Expenses (Step 8)

[29:28]

• Once 25% savings is met, direct surplus into 529s for college, custodial Roth IRAs, or UGMAs for children’s future milestones.
• Also the phase for larger purchases: vacations, vehicles, even real estate investing.
• “This is when you get to actually potentially...increase your lifestyle.” – Brian [30:42]
• “Abundance for one person might not be the same thing...and that’s okay.” – Bo [33:01]

8. Consider Prepaying Low-Interest Mortgage (Step 9)

[33:55]

• Once truly established (age 45+, surplus assets), prepaying a low-rate mortgage can be a "de-risk" move, not an optimization.
• Brian shares, “Yes, it was in 2025 that I have now mortgage free. You guys have celebrated with me...” [35:41]
• Respect the order of operations and your stage of life: “The wealth multiplier for a 32 year old is completely different than it is for somebody who's 50 years of age.” – Brian [35:41]

9. Refresh Your Commitment to Giving and Generosity

[35:41]

• Review your charitable goals, considering donor-advised funds, appreciated security donations, and bunching deductions.
• "Is there something you can donate? Not only will you help someone out, but you’ll...lower your income taxes.” – Brian [36:34]
• Don’t neglect smaller scale generosity; declutter and donate clothing or items, too.

10. Assess If You Need a Professional Copilot

[37:16]

• Life and finances are more complicated at higher dollar amounts.
• Consider partnering with a fiduciary advisor if you feel overwhelmed or want to maximize complex decisions.
• “You don't have to go alone. You don't have to figure things out for the first time. There's actually a better way to do money.” – Brian [38:24]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Credit card use is a okay, but credit card debt, no way.” – Brian [10:02]
• “Think Corolla, not Land Cruiser.” – Brian [11:25]
• “Just because you have to have cash does not mean that it cannot still be working for you.” – Bo [03:31]
• “[Roth IRAs are] your gateway into tax free millionaire.” – Brian [16:59]
• “This is when you get to actually potentially...increase your lifestyle.” – Brian [30:42]
• “Abundance for one person might not be the same thing...and that’s okay.” – Bo [33:01]
• “You don't have to go alone. You don't have to figure things out for the first time.” – Brian [38:24]

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Segment Timestamps for Reference

• 00:59 – Setting up: Why mid/late year planning matters
• 01:32 – “You don’t have to wait for new year’s change” mindset
• 02:31 – Cash management principles & deductibles
• 03:58 – Getting the employer match & free money
• 08:05 – Tracking net worth; triaging debt
• 10:02 – Debt “hot takes”: why all credit card debt is high interest
• 13:07 – Tax-free and tax-advantaged accounts (HSA, Roth IRA)
• 18:56 – Maxing employer retirement; salary deferral numbers
• 25:14 – Step 7 hyper-accumulation explained
• 29:28 – Abundance & prepaid future expenses
• 33:55 – Low-interest mortgage prepaying; respecting order of ops
• 35:41 – Generosity & giving at year-end
• 37:16 – When to bring in a professional advisor

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Final Thoughts

Brian and Bo’s “10 Things to Do Before 2025 Ends” delivers a clear, motivational map for financial well-being, blending both practical tactics and philosophy to empower listeners to act before the calendar flips. Their approach ensures each dollar is optimized—from cash safety nets to abundance planning—while keeping the tone fun, supportive, and, above all, focused on helping everyday financial “mutants” thrive.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

You might think you've got your money in order, but is there something you're forgetting?

[C]

Brian, I am so excited about this because we know that things can get crazy. Life can get in the way, and sometimes the little financial things, they just fall through the cracks.

[B]

That's why today we're going to go over 10 things you need to do with your money before 2025 ends to set yourself up for for a stellar year ahead. Let's jump right in. Yeah.

[C]

Brent, a lot of people think that you have to wait until the new year to begin making changes. But we know there are a number of changes you can make before you get to the new year. And sometimes those small little adjustments can have huge impacts into what your financial life looks like.

[B]

Well, let me make it more exciting in the fact that not only this could have big results, I mean, think about lowering your taxes that you'll pay because we're going to be filing tax before you know it in April. This could lower your tax bill. And how about the fact that you get to accelerate how much you're actually saving for retirement? Your future self will thank you for these changes.

[C]

So a lot of people are going to be out there thinking, okay, guys, well, how do I start? Where do I think? There's. We actually have a mechanism that you can use as a tool to do that. And it is the financial order of operations. Right. Hold the thing up. What this shows is the nine steps of what you should do with your next dollar. But when it comes to year end planning, it's a nice recalibration to think through. Okay, Have I Done all the things that I need to be doing at each step along the way.

[B]

So let's get right into this. Number one, by the way, cash is so important that it's not just one step of the financial order of operations. It's actually steps one and four.

[C]

So we want you to count your quat. Your quat. We want you keep going.

[B]

We want you to count your quat.

[C]

We want you to count your cash. One of the things we want you to answer is, do you have your highest deductible covered? Have you laid out, okay, here's my health insurance deductible, here's my auto insurance deductible, here's my home deductible, whichever one is the highest, do I have that covered? And if that's true, okay, do I also have a fully funded emergency fund? Do I have three to six months of living expenses in liquid cash ready to be available to keep my life out of the ditch?

[B]

Cash is also going to be the thing you're going to use for those big upcoming expenses. What if you're replacing a car? What if you have, you know, a heat and air system or some other thing that you need to plan for? Cash is going to be the thing that keeps you from making those desperate decisions.

[C]

And then the other thing we want you to do is answer the question, where is my cash? If it's just sitting in your checking account or sitting in some low yield savings account, you are missing out on opportunity. Just because you have to have cash does not mean that it cannot still be working for you. So make sure you have that cash somewhere that is interest bearing. Right now. It is not that difficult to get something paying 3 and a half, 4% interest on that cash. Don't let it sit there. Wasting away.

[B]

Cash is exciting, but it doesn't have the sizzle of get that free money and that leads to guys, get to step two. If you're not taking advantage of the free money that your employer has set aside for you, you are missing out.

[C]

And unfortunately there are a lot of people out there that fall into this category don't. Part of the 25%, the one in four people that are not getting their full match or maybe not getting any match according to Vanguard. So the first question you have to ask before the end of the year is, am I contributing enough to get my full match? Did my employer say, okay, if you put in 6%, we'll put in 3%. If you put in 4%, we'll put in 4%. If you put in 10% we'll put in. You get the idea. Make sure you understand the formula and you're doing at least enough to get all of that free money.

[B]

Yeah. And also people often say, hey, that 25% savings goal that you guys post, that's, that's a lot. How do you get there? I'll tell you one of the big ways. If your income is less than $200,000, you get to count that free money from your employer. So get in there and take advantage of that huge opportunity.

[C]

Another thing that we talk about that often gets overlooked here is people don't realize that if you have access to an employee stock purchase plan at employer, that also counts as free money. If your employer offers you an incentive like, okay, we're going to let you buy this stock, but we're going to let you buy it at a 15% discount or we're going to have an offering period where we're going to look at the beginning price, we're going to look at the ending price, and we're going to pick the lowest price in this date range. All of those are different ways of getting free money. So if you have access to one of those plans, make sure you're not missing out.

[B]

Now look, I know a lot of you, you're like, wait a minute, I've heard you guys talk about this. I'm going to have my human capital, but I'm also got my investment capital all tied up into this one employer. Yes, we know this is a risk, but this is how powerful the free money is. There's nothing that says that, yes, take advantage of this free money, but then once this money builds up, you can create a strategic plan that will keep it to only 5 to 10% of your total net worth.

[C]

And so when you're thinking about contributing to a 401k, when you're thinking about getting that free money, obviously one question you have to answer is, okay, how much am I going to put in? And the answer is at least enough to get that free money. But the second question that you do need to answer is how am I going to make my contributions? Am I going to be doing pre tax 401k contributions or am I going to be doing Roth contributions?

[B]

Well, that's where it depends on how much income taxes you pay. And we talk often about marginal tax rates. That means what you're paying on your next dollar earned. By the way, this is a combined rate because you have to take into account the federal marginal rate, but then also your state might charge income taxes with its own marginal rate. Add those two marginal rates on what you pay at the next dollar to figure out what your combined rate is. And then we have a formula for you.

[C]

Yeah, if you add up those two rates and you are under 25%, then there's a really good chance you ought to consider contributing to Roth because you're in a low tax bracket. Tax free growth is going to be super valuable for you. But if you add up those two marginal rates and it's above 30%, you may want to consider pre tax contributions because the current year tax benefit is so valuable, you can almost think about it as a 30% imputed rate of return this year. Now, if you happen to fall in the gray zone somewhere between 25 to 30%, you need to think about other extenuating factors like your tax rate now versus what you think in the future, your current account structure, how your buckets are filled up to make the determination which type of contribution is best for you.

[B]

And a lot of you are probably going, wait a minute. I just. Okay, that makes sense. I finally. Today was the day that I understand now what a marginal tax rate is. Now I just need to know what the numbers are. That's okay, we got you covered. I want you to go to moneyguy.com resources and we have our 2025 tax guide. You can go quickly. See, here's what my income is at. And this is where my marginal tax rate is. Now you'll have to go figure out your state marginal rate, but we'll at least get you the federal information so you'll have that much of a head start.

[C]

All right, Brian, so we're using the financial order of operations to uncover some planning that we ought to be thinking through before the end of the. One of the things that we get so excited about this time of year is that it comes up to one of our favorite days, and one of our favorite days every single year is net worth day. And one of the beautiful things that your net worth statement does, if you're tracking it every single year is allows you to see, okay, what falls on my balance sheet, what are all the things that I own? And I lay that beside, what are all the things that I owe? And if you have some things on your net worth statement, like credit card debt, high interest, auto debt, consumer loans, we want you before the end of the year begin thinking, how am I going to begin getting my liabilities under control?

[B]

Yeah, I hope people will take advantage. We have two, we have a free version. If you just go to moneyguide.com resources we have a free net worth template for you. But if you're somebody who really wants to accelerate your journey and kind of have that dashboard view to see what the changes are, because a lot of times when you're in the beginning stages, you don't even know what you should be looking at. We try to give you a shortcut on that by creating our own dashboard for you with our net worth tool. By the way, this is the same tool Beau and I are using for our own personal net worth statements. You can go to learn.moneyguy.com if you want to go ahead and get that accelerated head start.

[C]

Now Brian, you talk all the time about like if you're an investor, a really good rate of return is somewhere, man. If you can get like 8 to 10% annualized on your return, that's amazing. And yet we know that there are debt providers out there, credit card companies out there that are charging 15, 20, 25% interest rates. If you have those kinds of debt on your balance sheet, it is going to be so hard for you to begin building wealth. So between now and the end of the year, we want you to see, okay, how much bad debt can you begin to extinguish? How much of that can you wipe off so that you get to start next year nice and clean?

[B]

So we'll start with the easy one. That's why we gave it to me. As I take the easy stuff is that credit card use is a okay, but credit card debt, no way. Because when Bo was talking about those banks and lenders that are probably charging you 20, 25% or greater, he's talking about your credit cards. That is no go land guys. That is high interest debt. I'll even, I'm going to say something that's my hot take. I even think 0% credit cards in that whole transfer game is a four fool's errand. That's not worth the hassle factor because just the consequences of screwing that up can really side rail you very quickly. So we consider all credit card debt to be high interest.

[C]

I love that all credit card debt is high interest. But that must mean there are other kind of debts that might not always be high interest. And there are in fact and it's in it's types of debt that a lot of people have, whether it be auto loans or whether it be student loans. So if we just think about auto loans, we think that if you are in your 20s and you have an auto loan greater than 10%, assuming that you still fall into the 23, 8 category and your auto loan is above 10%, we would consider that to be high interest. Anything below that we would not get super aggressive paying off. In your 30s we consider auto loan to be high interest if it's above 9%. And in your 40s we consider auto loans to be high interest if it's above 8%.

[B]

Let me go ahead and put some troll repellent out there. Everybody needs to understand cash is preferred for all car purchases. But I we have a no hypocrite policy. When I was young, right out of college with that accounting degree, so excited to just get rip roaring and starting building wealth, I realized very quickly I needed to have reliable transportation to get to that job so I could actually start building wealth and I didn't needed to go finance that car. So we've tried to give you these rules so that just in case you're at that starting blocks and you also are going to need to go buy a reasonable car. That's where 20% down, no longer than three years and not greater than 8% of your income. The 23, 8 rule comes into play. But of course we'd love for you to pay cash. This is not a get out of free to go buy that fancy luxury car in finance. This is only to get you to reliable transportation. Think Corolla, not Land Cruiser.

[C]

All right, so that covers auto loans. What about student loans? We have student loans, the same type of rule for student loans, but the numbers change a touch. If you're someone who's in your 20s and your student loans are above 6%, you may want to begin prioritizing paying those off when you get to your 30s. If your student loans are above 5%, you may want to prioritize paying them off. And then if you're in your 40s and your student loan interest rate is above 4%, you may want to begin paying it off. That's where we would quantify those loans being high interest. And between now and the end of the year we want you to start knocking that stuff off of your balance sheet.

[B]

Yeah, there's a lot of things going into these numbers and these guidelines like risk free rates of returns. We save you all that madness just to tell you, hey, these are some good benchmarks so you can quickly triage your financial life to make the right decision for how you're looking at your high interest debt.

[C]

So now as we're thinking through, we're working through the financial order of operations to uncover things to do before the end of the year. Number four, we want you to maximize that tax free money. That's right. You heard it right. The money that you will not have to pay income tax on. Brian, you say these are the favorite dollars inside of your portfolio.

[B]

Yeah, we get really serious about this because think about guys, our government, they like taxing us and it's very few things that they create legal loopholes. We're on purpose, they've designed it as part of the process is we're going to give these benefits of tax free growth. You have to ask yourself, why would they do that? The reason that is because it's good for the public. They want you to have health care covered, they want you to have retirement covered. So they have incentivized through the tax system to say, hey, we're going to give you tax free growth, but we're going to limit who can contribute, we're going to limit how much you can contribute so you can quickly realize, hey, if they're going to create these huge benefits, but put all these restrictions, I better get in there and maximize where this free tax free money is actually at.

[C]

So let's talk about the first account where this is available. It's a health savings account. So one of the questions that we want you asking is, okay, was I eligible? Was I in a high deductible plan last year that makes me eligible to contribute to a health savings account? If the answer to that is yes, did I max it out for 2025? The max limits are $4,300 for single contributors and then $8,550 for family contributors. So that's the first question, did I take care of 2025? But now as we move into 2026, as we think about next year, open enrollment is likely coming up. So we want you answering the question, okay, what insurance plan makes the most sense for me? Should I go with the high deductible plan that's available or might there be another plan, a subsidized plan, a Cadillac plan that makes more sense. And you may be asking the question, okay, well how do I decide? And we think that there's a math calculation you can do. What you want to do is you want to line up two columns and you want to compare the premium costs, how much each plan costs. You want to then make an estimation of what your out of pocket costs would be with each plan. With a high deductible plan, it would be hitting that deductible. With the other plan it would be your co pays and coinsurance and those sort of Things you then want to factor in any employer incentives. Is your employer willing to put money into the HSA for you? And then lastly, we want you to factor in tax savings. You add up those two columns and you figure out okay for this next year. My best guess is that this plan makes the most sense for my family and you ought to reconsider and reanalyze that every single year at open enrollment.

[B]

Look guys, this is one of those don't skip doing your homework is I know that there's this tendency once you graduate high school, college, whatever your higher education is, homework is like I'm done with that. No, there's still going to be a lot of math you have to do in life and this is one of them. Because as you're growing your family, that's going to be a different year than the years that you're, you know, right fancy free out of college. And you're not worried about, you know, growing a family or big life decisions. You've got to make sure that you're taking account. This is an annual enrollment. That's why I like doing these shows is typically the most automatic, you know, the most employers have around November you to make these choices. Don't sleep on that. These are big opportunities. You can jump in, you can jump out. You need to make sure personal finance is very personal that you're not missing out on any opportunities to personalize that employer opportunity to maximize your financial life.

[C]

And remember, funding the HSA is just the first part of the equation. We want you to be not like the 85% of folks who just use it as a slush fund. We want you to be like the 15% of folks that actually put that money to work. So make sure you get that HSA funded and then you let those dollars grow. So that's the first account. Health savings accounts. There's another type of tax free account that we absolutely love and that account is a Roth ira.

[B]

Yeah. Remember how I was talking about how the government has restricted how much you can put in. These Roth IRAs are so valuable. This is going to be your gateway into tax free millionaire. Cue Matt. I just, you want to get me excited thinking about having a double comma seven figure portfolio that the government's not going to tax and I'm even going to potentially be able to pass it on to my heirs. Guys, this is the good stuff here. So good that the government restricts it. $7,000 annual contribution. Yes. If you get to be 50 and over you can do an extra thousand dollars. But they're pretty much capping you around to $7,000. There's phase outs. Once your income, you make too much money. $236,000 for married filing jointly, $150,000 for single individuals. Pay attention to these things. There's also this little known thing called, or well known thing, Roth conversion strategies or backdoor Roths. We'll talk about that. But it's one of those things, don't sleep on Roth iras. They're huge opportunities.

[C]

Now maybe you said, guys, I know I love Roth IRAs, I've been doing a Roth IRA. But man, I didn't know this, this year was going to be quite as good as it was. Or maybe my spouse went back to work this year, Maybe I got a bonus that I was expecting and all of the sudden I recognize that I'm going to make too much money this year. I was ineligible. That's okay. These things happen. But what you want to do is before you file your taxes, before you get into the next year, if you can fix it now, you're going to make your life a whole lot easier. You need to look at, you need to go contact your custodian, say, hey, I was making these contributions, I put money in my Roth, I was ineligible. I need to go undo that contribution. I wanted to distribute that contribution. It won't be taxable to you unless there are earnings attributable that have to come out as well. But you can then pull that money out, undo it and look at one of these other strategies, like potentially a backdoor Roth IRA contribution.

[B]

Yeah, we've done tons of content on that. We're trying to give you the ins and outs for year end planning. But definitely if you make too much money for the Roth, make sure your account structure is right. This is a measure twice, cut once. But definitely look into backdoor Roth contributions too.

[C]

Okay, so once we've maximized the tax free accounts, we've put the money in the HSA, we put the money in the Roth IRAs. Now we get to go back to our employer sponsored account. Now we get to go back and hit that maximum salary deferral limit either in our 401k or our 403b or our 457 or our simple IRA. Whatever room we still have to max out, we want you to say, okay, between now and the end of the year, is something in my life going to happen that's going to allow me to hit that salary deferral threshold?

[B]

I think it's important. Let's go ahead and throw the numbers out there so people know what they're dealing with. If we're, you know, if you're in a 401k, 403b, all those, the Alphabet soup that both threw out there with the numbers $23,500, that is your 2025 number. If you're 50 and greater, it jumps up over to $31,000. Because there is a catch up and there's a unique thing that just kicked in. There's what's called a super catch up. For Those that are 60 to 63, pay attention to these unique opportunities because the government once again is trying to incentivize your ability because it's good for society for you to have money in retirement. So they're trying to give you these little one ups so you can go in there and maximize your financial opportunities.

[C]

And we want you to recognize that our tax code is, it's a little nuance and there are things that can have big impacts even if you're just over by $1. So one of the things we want you to think there is, okay, if I can, if it's in my power to be able to max out these salary deferrals before the end of the year, will this open up some other tax opportunity for me? Is this going to move me into a lower tax bracket? Is this going to potentially make me eligible or available for a tax credit that I was not going to have access to otherwise? If you do not know how to do that, if you don't know how to run a tax projection, if you don't understand how the tax form works, consult with a tax professional and say, hey, can you give me some insight? If I were to max out my 401k or max out my 403b, are there things on my tax return that would change because of that? And you might be amazed to find out that there are things that could be impacted just by doing an extra 3, 5, $10,000 into these retirement well.

[B]

And think about this. If you're a person gets a big year end bonus. Guys, I've seen, I've helped employees and even you know, in some of our employees where we've loaded up, some of those year end bonus money goes to max out these retirement accounts. If you're self employed and you haven't researched solo 401ks and other unique planning opportunities. Because if you want to know loopholes, legal loopholes that the government incentivizes you to do, employer plans are great. So take advantage of doing a little Bit of research to save yourself tons of money on taxes.

[C]

Now, as a quick aside, because we get this question all the time, a lot of people say, guys, guys, I'm, I'm saving 25%, but I'm not maxing out my 401k based on my income, based on where we are. We're doing all the stuff. We're doing the Roths, me and my spouse, and we're doing the HSAs and hitting the family max, and we're putting money into our retirement accounts, but we're not maxing them out. Does that mean that we still need to max them out? Well, if you're already at 25%, not necessarily. If you're at 25%, we then want you to move to step seven, hyper accumulation, and begin answering the question, how am I actually going to use these dollars when I'm saving, when I'm building? When do I think I'm going to need to be pulling out? And when you answer that question, you're going to know then, okay, do I need to max out or should I open up an after tax account? Should I start saving into that tax bucket at this stage?

[B]

Well, you know what drives me nuts, Bo? Spending all this time and money planning meals, prepping dinners for the week, and then they turn out just meh, ugh.

[C]

The dreaded subpar dinner that is a financial and flavor fail, Brian.

[B]

Exactly. So then every plate showed up at my door. We didn't have to stress about picking recipes or overspending at the grocery store. And the financial mutant in me loved that I wasn't buying duplicates I didn't need.

[C]

All right, but what about the big test? How did it taste?

[B]

Oh, it was so good. Like, shockingly good. My family loved it. I loved it. It felt like we just found an awesome dinner hack.

[C]

Well, you know, I also love that every plate takes the guess out of meal prep.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

New customers can enjoy this special offer of only $1.99 each. Go to everyplate.com podcast and use code moneyguy199 to get started. Apply to his discount on first box. Limited time only. Hey, Bo. Imagine we're waiting to catch a flight. You're Walking back with your pre flight coffee in hand. And since we all know I'm the nervous traveler, I'm already in line at the gate.

[C]

All right, that sounds accurate. Keep going.

[B]

Then all of a sudden you get a work call. You need to access one of our crucial systems from your phone. So what do you do? Imagine you yell across the airport to me and you say, hey, Brian, what's the. The password? And then to make it worse, what if I yelled the actual password back to you?

[C]

Okay, no, no, no, that's insane. As our chief compliance officer, I am entirely opposed to this analogy.

[B]

I completely agree with you. But my point is that public WI fi, just like in this example, is basically like shouting your password across the terminal. Express VPN is that whisper you need to keep you safe.

[C]

All right, that makes sense. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network, your online data is not secur.

[B]

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[C]

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[B]

We're gonna say this is number six, but this is really the introduction to step seven, the hyper accumulation phase of the financial order of operations. We called it finish the drill. You got. I love this step. It's often misunderstood is because this is the step where we really, if you think about steps one through six, is to keep your life out of the financial ditch by making desperate decisions or it's tax incentivized because of what's going on in the tax code. It is step seven that allows us to say, hey, how are we actually going to use this money? How is my personal finances structured? And you'll quickly realize, hey, if I'm part of the fire movement, our fine movement to the next endeavor, I might need access to this money. So I'll need a different account structure than just traditional 401ks. But it might also be if you're somebody who you don't make a ton of money, but you're super disciplined and yes, you have moved into step 7 without even maxing out the 401k limits. But that's a. Okay, because it's still now in step seven. You can think about how am I going to use this money in retirement to make sure that I'm structuring this appropriately with all my benefits.

[C]

So you're hearing over and over, the goal is to be saving 25%, getting to 25%, hitting that number. And so a lot of folks ask, okay, guys, what counts in this? Well, when we think about the 25% savings rate, we're thinking about saving for future financial independence. So we're thinking about contributions that are going towards employer sponsor plans. That's 401ks, 457s, 403bs. We're thinking about IRAs, we're thinking about HSAs. If you're one of the 15% that's actually investing them, maybe you're an educator contributing to a pension. That counts in the calculation. Maybe you're someone under $100,000 of single income or under $200,000 of household income. Okay, then you can include your employer match. If you're putting money in an ESOP or an employee stock purchase plan. That counts. Or if you're saving in that third bucket, that after tax bucket, that counts as well. Assuming that you're saving those dollars for future financial independence, here's what it does not count. It does not count prepaying your mortgage. It does not count the principal payments on your mortgage. It does not count the investment in the real estate or rental property. Those are not part of your 25%. We want 25% going towards your liquid portfolio for your financially independent future.

[B]

Yeah, and the last one on that list is that taxable brokerage account, and it's a ban. Because what I love about this is that for a lot of you, as you're starting to plan and figure out how you use this money, it has the maximum amount of flexibility. It still can be used for retirement. But here's what's so cool about the after tax accounts is that it doesn't have limits on contributions, but as much.

[C]

In there as you want loaded up.

[B]

It'S also still tax advantage. You think about capital gains rates, dividend tax rates. These things are still going to be taxed at a lower rate. It's not going to be ordinary marginal tax rates. It's going to have favorite tax rates. That's a powerful thing. Potentially even 0% capital gains if your income's low enough. And think about that for retirement transitions, there's no penalties for early access. This is why I mentioned it early for all my fire slash fine movement people. You get to have access this money whereas every other retirement account is going to start talking about 55, 59 and a half, all these other random dates. And then this is a unique opportunity and I kind of, this is where I get so excited, I start throwing and spitballing it out there. But I've already said this is you start using this money in retirement, think about how cool it would be to legally manipulate the tax code to keep your income below a certain threshold and have a 0% long term capital gains rate.

[C]

Yeah. In 2025, if your adjusted gross income is below $48,350 for single individuals, that 0% cap gains rate. And if you're married, filing jointly and your income is below 96,700, you're in the 0% capital gains rate. That means you can go buy that stock, buy that index, buy that investment, have it grow. And when you go to sell it, so long as you don't go over these income thresholds, you pay no income tax on it at all. It's an amazing planning opportunity. So we want you to make sure when you're saving 25%, if that taxable bucket makes sense for you, you're taking advantage of it. Because once you do that, Once you're saving 25%, once you're building towards your future, then you get to start focusing on some other stuff. Then you get to start focusing your attention on your abundance goals.

[B]

Yeah, this is the one, man. It's nice because a lot of people I think get this out of order, they're funding the kids before they even fund their own retirement. And I'm all about funding some kids education because there's even some tax benefits for it in a lot of states. But it's also having my own oldest daughter as a senior in college. So we've used a 529 account to pay for those goals. It's powerful. So we actually think this is the perfect time for you to consider, hey, once you get to step eight of the financial order of operations, prepaid future expenses, let's go ahead and take care of those kiddos too.

[C]

And it might not just be college. I mean that's a great example. But a lot of people don't recognize, yeah, you can save for college, you can use 529s and there are state tax incentives to do that. But maybe you just want to get your kid excited about building Their financial, their financially independent future. So you want to help them open a custodial Roth IRA and maybe do that parent match. Or maybe you want to start saving for their first car, their first down payment for their first house. Or you might want to start saving for a wedding with them. You can use UPMA or UGMA accounts. These are all amazing vehicles you can use to help your kids begin saving for the future. But you have to wait until you get to step eight of the financial order of operations before you begin doing well.

[B]

Also, look, we kind of buried the lead. We said prepaid future expenses because it does, it makes you think of college and so forth forth. But always I have a nickname for step 8 and it's abundance goals. Because this is when you get to actually potentially consider doing things of increasing your lifestyle. This is if you want to plan and save for an upcoming vacation. Large purchase. I even had a, you know, if you, if you are an aspiring real estate investor, this is something you can consider getting into real estate, whether it's residential or commercial. And I even like last night. This is why I love how content writes itself. I had one of my college roommates write me and go, hey, you know, I love these European cars. I'm thinking about getting another Porsche, okay? But I do not like the maintenance on these things. And I was like, good for you. I just had this same situation in my life as well. And the good news is when you buying bad, making bad decisions like a European car, these things are expensive to maintain, they're expensive to fuel, they're expensive to repair, to ensure and all the other things. Why not rent your bad decisions versus own your bad decisions. It is step eight that you would probably consider leasing or doing other things like that. And that's okay because you didn't do this at the sacrifice of your younger, better version who should have been saving and investing for the future. That's why when I've been at car dealerships and you see the 30 something year old out there looking at these European cars, you go, oh, I don't know that they fully funded their Roth IRA or their 401K. But when you see the 50 something year old and they, and you know, you can just tell that they carry themselves in a way that they're step eight. I think this is the part where you can do vacations, you can do lifestyle and it's a. Okay.

[C]

So if you're going to make bad financial decisions, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible, but you can't do that. Until you get to step a, everything.

[B]

Is a money decision. I mean, you're going to quickly realize, I know this, I was a tightwad at one point in my life. But you do at some point, the way you travel, the way you save, the way you spend, you realize if you've done this right, you will change how that happens. And we've tried to write a no hypocrite policy so that this thing actually grows with you. That's the beauty of financial order of operations. It actually keeps you from being a tight wad when you shouldn't be, when it's actually to the detriment of your relationships and your goals. We're going to get you through that.

[C]

So what you're saying is at this stage you get to define what abundance is for you. And abundance for one person might not be the same thing in abundance is for someone else. And that's okay. That's why the financial order of operations liberates you to use money as the tool that you ultimately want it to be. And maybe you're someone who says, okay, I've done the things and I've gone to the vacations and I have all the stuff, but now I just want to start shoring up my financial life and going into this end of this year, maybe I want to make 20, 25 the year. Maybe this is the year where I want to go ahead and knock out that mortgage and I want to prepay that low interest debt and I want to pay off the house and get that off my balance sheet. Maybe you're someone who's getting that year end bonus and you save the way that you're supposed to save and you funded the abundance goals, even all those things that, you know what, I'm going to do it, I'm going to write the check, I'm going to knock this off.

[B]

Let's put some guardrails on this before we celebrate because I know where what's coming, I can see the tea leaves, is that I think that this is something that I would encourage my financial mutants. Look, I'm going to let you, once you get beyond saving and investing 25%, if you want to go pay off the low interest mortgage, it's okay. It's not optimized, but it's a okay, because that's a choice that you can make at step eight. But really step nine, the heart of this thing is that you are thinking about this in terms of, you know, am I 45 and over? Because the, the, the, the wealth multiplier for a 32 year old is completely different than it is for somebody who's 50 years of age. I can give you an example. For a 30 year old, the wealth multiplier is 23 times over. For a 50 year old it's three very different. Do you see the compare and contrast on what your opportunity that your money has to kind of multiply upon itself. And that's why. And look, here's the other thing that you'll realize about this. I got to the situation to where yes, I had a low mortgage rate, I had 2 1/2% mortgage rate. But because the balance was well below $100,000, the actual opportunity cost of what I was forfeiting was getting to be less than $1,000 a year. And I was like, wait a minute, I am sitting here struggling with decision on something that's less than $1,000. I'm like, what am I doing? Let's write the check. And that's why, yes, it was in 2025 that I have now mortgage free. You guys have celebrated with me. I thank you for that. But, but I, I want to say I love that I respected the financial order of operations. I was older than 45, sadly, and I definitely have enough assets working for me that this was not a sacrifice for my future self. This was just something, hey, one more way I can de risk my life and take advantage of this.

[C]

Now remember, we're talking about 10 things to do before the end of the year. And number nine, this is not one that you save for the end of the year, but this is one that's worth revisiting. We want you to remember generosity. Remember, this is a great time to begin thinking. Are there causes that I have not funded? Are there causes that I want to support that I want to donate my money to? And are there efficient ways that I could be doing that? Is this the year where perhaps I should open up a charitable giving fund and I should consider donating some of those highly appreciated securities? Or maybe I've done the tax projection and it looks like I'm just going to give just enough to be right at the standard deduction threshold. Maybe I don't want to do my giving that way on an annual basis. Maybe I want to bunch my charitable giving so that I can take advantage of. This is a great time to revisit that and make sure that the dollars that you have align with the goals that you have and you're doing the most efficient way.

[B]

Well, I thought I felt a little convicted this morning as I was Getting ready for the show today, it hit me. I think I wear like six shirts on our show. I need to add more. But then when I look at my closet and I see I have six shirts that I have, like, deemed camera ready, and then I have probably 35 shirts that are just not camera ready. Quilt of life that I've acquired over the last 30 years, I need to clean my closet up. And my wife would agree with that. So this is the perfect time. As we're approaching the fourth quarter, get in there and start figuring out, is there something you can donate? Not only will you help someone out, but you'll also give yourself a financial benefit to lower your income taxes with these contributions.

[C]

I love it. And so the number 10, as we're thinking through things to think through before the end of the year, it's worth doing an assessment saying, okay, have I reached a stage of life where I figured, I figured out that the gravity of the financial decisions I'm making is so great that I'm uncomfortable making them by myself. I used to be able to make decisions on $100,000, but now making the decision on a million dollars seems like there are bigger implications with that. Or maybe life has just gotten complicated. I heard about all these tax strategies at the end of the year, and I just. I don't know what I don't know. I don't have an education that I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Or perhaps you're just someone who's gotten busy and all of a sudden the things that should not be falling on the back burner of your financial life are falling on the back burner. You're being pulled in a thousand different directions. Do you just want to make sure you keep your eyes on the things that you want to keep your eyes on? If that sounds like you, then perhaps one of the things that you ought to do before you get to the end of the year is consider taking the relationship to the next level. Consider fulfilling the abundant cycle and asking a professional to come alongside you on your financial.

[B]

I think a lot of you guys, you watch our content for years ago. Man, I like how these guys think about money. I've never heard financial people talk about it in these common sense but also maximization type strategies. It doesn't have to end with just the content because as we as BO just shared, personal finance is very personal. And if you do this right, what is simple in the beginning become harder and harder and more complicated because it's just success creates that complication. We'd love to be your copilot as you are the CEO, the CFO of a multiple seven figure enterprise. You don't have to go alone. You don't have to figure things out for the first time. There's actually a better way to do money. I'm your host, Brian Mr. Bo Moneyguy.

[C]

Team out the Money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission. In accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations, Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.