How Humphrey Yang Built His Wealth

Summary

Podcast Summary: Money Guy Show—How Humphrey Yang Built His Wealth

Date: October 15, 2025
Hosts: Brian Preston (A) & Bo Hanson (B)
Guest: Humphrey Yang (C)
Special Live Stream Guest Producer: (D)

---

Overview

This episode features personal finance creator Humphrey Yang, discussing how he built his wealth, overcame a scarcity money mindset, and evolved his investment approach. The hosts, Brian and Bo, guide a lively, candid conversation covering generational influences, financial habits, index vs. individual investing, overcoming risk aversion, rebalancing portfolios, and finding the right balance between saving and living a fulfilling life.

Through guest Q&A, the panel also tackles hot listener questions on everything from ETF vs. mutual funds to balancing family loans and investment priorities. The episode is peppered with memorable quotes, behind-the-scenes stories, and a healthy dose of humor, all retaining the Money Guy Show’s practical, relatable tone.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Humphrey’s Background & Family Influence

[03:30–06:18]

• Humphrey grew up in a financially prudent, risk-averse household.
• His father, a former fighter pilot from Taiwan who immigrated to the U.S. after flying for the CIA in Vietnam, emphasized cash and avoiding debt.
• “He hoarded everything that he could, and that was kind of passed down to me.” (C, 06:18)
• Resulted in Humphrey being cautious with spending and investing in early adulthood.

Early Financial Habits and Mindset Shift

[07:29–08:10]

• Humphrey explained that a scarcity mindset made him reluctant to invest; preferred saving large cash balances.
• The turning point: Exposure to financial data and working as a Merrill Lynch advisor.
• He learned “data changed” his approach and taught him the long-term power of investing vs. just saving. (C, 08:25)

Transition from Financial Advisor to DIY Investor

[09:34–11:48]

• Brief stint at Merrill Lynch showed him the industry’s focus on asset gathering and standard products over individual investment strategy.
• Realized index funds can match most advisors’ performance with less cost.
• “Really, the clients are there to have someone to talk to on a quarter to quarter basis… the investments take care of themselves.” (C, 09:39)
• Hosts emphasize that good financial planners add value through holistic planning, not just asset allocation.

Overcoming Fear & Investing Early

[13:03–14:12]

• If talking to his younger self, Humphrey says: “I would have invested way sooner and I would have not touched it at all.” (C, 13:33)
• Emotional decisions led to selling Apple and Tesla too early; acknowledges dollar-cost averaging and not tinkering leads to greater long-term returns.
• “Ignorance is bliss, sometimes, with investing.” (C, 15:38)
• “I do my net worth statement one time a year… because I like surprises.” (B, 15:56)

Investment Vehicles: ETF vs. Mutual Funds & Aggressive vs. Conservative

[17:10–22:35]

• Panel covers basics: ETFs are typically passively managed, lower fees; mutual funds often actively managed with higher expense ratios.
• “You really have to think about how your fees impact your overall returns and how they’ll eat into your returns over a long period of time.” (C, 18:14)
• Robust discussion on aligning aggressiveness with time horizon and life stage:
  • “Be more aggressive while you’re younger and want to build that wealth… more conservative as you need that cash flow.” (C, 19:09)
• Use index target retirement funds for automatic asset allocation as you age.

Balancing Saving for the Future with Enjoying the Present

[23:01–27:45]

• Addressing Bianca’s dilemma: saving 25% of $75k but feeling she’s “missing out on life.”
• Humphrey encourages her to loosen up: “If you invest 20%, you can still hit your retirement goals… but still enjoy life.” (C, 23:56)
• Brian shares: “There’s a fine line between a financial mutant and a financial miser… I don’t want you to wake up when you’re my age and go, what the heck was I doing in my 20s?” (A, 25:28)
• Money should be used for both future security and present joy.

Evolution of Humphrey’s Personal Philosophy

[28:38–30:31]

• “I still err on the side of tightwad, but I am not opposed to spending money on experiences now.” (C, 29:25)
• The passing of his father (who never enjoyed his wealth) reinforced Humphrey’s shift: “How can I change my habits so that I enjoy a little of the money, but still have some for later?” (C, 30:04)

Portfolio Construction: Index vs. Individual Stocks & Diversification

[34:40–42:13]

• Listener asks if it’s dangerous to go all-in on S&P 500 ETF (VOO) vs. using vanguard target date funds.
• Humphrey: S&P 500 is already quite diversified; target date funds use a similar approach for young investors.
• Brian and Bo highlight the importance of building in behavioral “glide paths”—don’t stay 100% equities forever just out of habit.
• Brian’s analogy: “You want a nice, smooth commercial landing—not a crash at retirement. Your life will change, and your investment should too.” (A, 40:14)

Navigating Concentrated Stock Gains & Behavioral Decisions

[42:13–48:15]

• Humphrey asks about selling highly appreciated single stocks and managing tax implications.
• Bo: “What would be more painful—riding it down, or missing more upside?” (B, 43:36)
• Strategy: Consider dollar-cost averaging out, use appreciated shares for charitable giving, and remember you can always rebuy to reset cost basis.
• “Just because you make the decision to exit a position doesn’t mean you have to take on a big tax hit.” (B, 46:21)

Listener Q&A

Rebalancing Portfolios

[54:03–57:40]

• Humphrey admits infrequent portfolio rebalancing: “I admittedly have not rebalanced it in a couple years.” (C, 54:25)
• The hosts recommend reviewing (not necessarily executing!) rebalances twice per year, but at least annually.

On Having Too Many Individual Stocks

[61:17–65:06]

• Humphrey: If you’re holding dozens of individual stocks, “you might as well just buy an ETF at that point.” (C, 61:48)
• Advises serious research for any stock purchase (suggests 30 hours!), and to keep such bets a small, fun part of a greater, automated portfolio.
• Brian: Let index funds do the heavy lifting; if you want to pick stocks, it should be akin to “vacation money” rather than “eating money.” (A, 64:49)

Family Loans, Student Debt & Financial Prioritization

[48:37–54:03]

• Listener asks about balancing low-interest student loans from parents with investing for the future.
• Bo: “I would not begin paying off low interest debt until step nine [in Financial Order of Operations].” (B, 49:07)
• Brian: Have a transparent, principled conversation with your parents; small gestures of repayment now, focus on long-term wealth building.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “All your happiness is driven by this individual holding. That’s one of the reasons I love index investing—it takes out the emotional side and lets you focus on what’s important.” (A, 15:19)
• “Sometimes you’re almost better off being ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes, with investing.” (C, 15:38)
• “If you bought Nvidia and sold after it quadrupled, you miss out on 10x. But if it tanks, you beat yourself up anyway. You’re in a no-win situation.” (A, 14:32)
• [On financial planning:] “If they’re not talking to you about insurance, Roth conversions, tax returns—if all they do is asset allocation, that’s already commoditized.” (A, 10:44)
• [After sharing his portfolio] “I had people coming up to me like, ‘How’s your Palantir position?’ I don’t really want this.” (C, 60:46)
• [On learning from his father’s frugality:] “He still wanted to fly economy, even though he didn’t have to… I looked at his life, and I said, okay, how can I change my habits so that I at least enjoy a little bit of the money?” (C, 30:04)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:30] Humphrey's childhood, family background
• [08:25] How “data” changed his investing attitude
• [09:34] Insights from working as a financial advisor
• [13:33] Advice to his younger self: Start investing early
• [17:10] ETFs vs. Mutual Funds and expense ratios explained
• [23:01] Should you save aggressively or live your life?—Bianca’s question
• [28:38] Humphrey’s evolution from tightwad to experience spender
• [34:40] Listener Q: Is all-in on S&P 500 too risky?
• [42:13] When to sell big winners & manage capital gains
• [54:03] How often to rebalance portfolios
• [61:17] Can you be too diversified with stocks?
• [48:37] Balancing paying family loans vs. investing

---

Episode Tone & Closing

The conversation is warm, honest, and often playful, with plenty of real-life anecdotes. Both hosts and guest stress the importance of financial knowledge, balancing discipline with enjoyment, and staying flexible as life (and markets) change.

Closing thoughts from Humphrey:
“I’m excited to use the Collab feature on YouTube… You’ll get to see more content. Thank you for tuning into the live stream.” ([70:36])

Brian’s closing shoutout:
“We have more that’s going to be coming your way—we’re not going to squander this great opportunity because we know what a special thing it is to have Humphrey in studio.” ([70:55])

---

For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In:

This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with lingering money fears from their upbringing, looking to make their financial plan both practical and fulfilling—or just wanting honest, battle-tested answers to pressing investing questions. The hosts and Humphrey Yang deliver a blend of real talk, strategic advice, and empathy for all stages of the wealth-building journey.

Transcript

[A]

I have become that person. I treat my morning routine like a VIP event. I'm talking coffee walks and all the good vibes. Morning walks have been a total game changer for my mind and my body.

[B]

And honestly Brian, I've seen the difference. It's been cool to see you really step up your health game and prioritize feeling your best.

[A]

Well, I can tell you a big part of this health is wealth change for me is that I've been stacking these behaviors that maximize health and happiness. But I also run a business so I know how stressful all this can become. I like it when things are streamlined so that's why I don't mind sharing that. For the past year I've been a card carrying member and paying subscriber of AG1 every morning and I've been so happy that I can knock out so many good things. That's the vitamins, the minerals, the probiotics. All with one great tasting drinkable scoop of supplements.

[B]

Brian, you're exactly right. I have recently started using AG1 as well and I agree it tastes great.

[A]

Yes, it's truly an enjoyable part of this VIP routine which is a big win.

[B]

I also learned that AG1 Next Gen replaces the need for multivitamins, probiotics and more. It includes five probiotic strains and over 75 vitamins and minerals in one easy serving. I was so excited to join the tribe who's discovered the benefits of AG1. If you want to join us on both of our health and wealth journeys, which you absolutely should, we have an amazing welcome offer for you.

[A]

Now I can't promise it'll make you as strong as bo, but it definitely can help you like it's helped me. So head over to drink ag1.com moneyguy to get a free welcome kit including a bottle of of Vitamin D and free AG1 travel packs when you first subscribe. That's drink ag1.com moneyguy.

[B]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail].

[A]

How Humphrey Yang Built His.

[B]

Wealth Brent I am so excited about this because we have a special guest in Student today that has literally impacted the financial lives of tens of of millions of America. Americans. I am so excited that we have Humphrey hanging out with us today.

[A]

Welcome to the studio, Humphrey.

[C]

All right, you guys are really excited for Tuesday morning at 10 in the morning in Central, 8am Pacific.

[B]

You know, every single Tuesday, we saw.

[A]

We loaded up with some caffeine. We have a special guest here with an intro like that. This has got to be like, what are these guys doing?

[C]

I know, right? Right.

[A]

But. But in all seriousness, look, we talk about a lot of our content. I know I've shared many times that Beau comes from very humble, humble beginnings. I shared all my mistakes and all the things that have made me who I am in Millionaire Mission. So there is something about where you come from, what you're raised in, who your parents are. That stuff shapes you all through your childhood. And, I mean, what I want to know is, so when baby Humphrey came to the world, what did I mean? Give us a little background. What was it like being baby Humphrey?

[C]

Yeah. Baby Humphrey was really addicted to video games. Loved video games. And, you know, I grew up in a pretty good. I would say. I would say the house was pretty nice for. For where my dad was in his career. I think he spent a lot of money on his house. Got it.

[A]

What did your parents do for a living?

[C]

My dad was a fighter pilot.

[A]

Oh, cool.

[C]

Yeah, he was a fighter pilot in Taiwan.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And then he came to America on a CIA contract.

[A]

Even cooler.

[C]

That was to fly unmarked planes in Vietnam.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

So he flew in the Vietnam war for the United States. That's how he got his citizenship. And he kind of flew an unmarked plane. He said 75% of those people that flew those planes died. So he was one of the remaining few.

[A]

No shadow on you.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then.

[C]

And then. So he. After he immigrated to the United States, he started working in commercial. So he would. He would fly, you know, these cargo planes to Tahoe and Reno from San Francisco, and then he flew, you know, commercially for airlines and stuff like that. But he mostly was a successful businessman as he would do airplane leasing.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So what that means was he would be a broker between an airline and the people that made the parts.

[A]

Sure, sure.

[C]

So an engine contract could, you know, pay him, like, a pretty good. A pretty good commission, because I think back in the day, airlines used to, like, lease engines from. From these manufacturers at, you know, for 30 years, whatever, and they would amortize them against their balance sheets. So that's. That's how he made his money. He would. He would sign these bigger deals, especially with the Asian Airlines, because he was Chinese. He worked with a couple American business guys and he would go. He would be the Chinese contact in the 70s and 80s. Okay, that's awesome. Awesome.

[A]

How about your mom?

[C]

My mom did not work.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

My mom has a middle school education. My dad found her in China when she was like 32. And then they got married in six months. Okay. So it was pretty quick.

[B]

That's awesome.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So. So he built his wealth that way. But when I was growing up, he, you know, money was always a big topic in our household. He grew up very poor. He had nothing to eat. You know, from ages like 8 to 13, he was struggling and both his parents went to jail. One went to jail, his dad went to jail, and my grandmother passed away early. Okay. So he grew up really poor with nothing in Shanghai, and then there was a Japanese occupation at that time, and that's why he fled to Taiwan. Okay, now with that in mind, that gave him a scarcity mindset around money. Right. He hoarded everything that he could, and that was kind of passed down to me, I think, like, you know, growing up, he would always say, like, you know, if you don't have to spend money, don't spend money. Okay. Like, if you absolutely need something, then you spend money, but only if it's.

[B]

An absolute, absolute necessity. No wants, no, none of that.

[C]

Wants.

[B]

But, you know, he would kind of.

[C]

Categorize someone's in a, in a, in a different bucket, like if you need like a nice desk chair because it's going to help your body, you need.

[B]

That, you need that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

And so that would sometimes make me rationalize a spend like, you know, an $800 desk chair when I didn't really need it.

[B]

Need this new video game because I've beat the old one. Right. Like, that's the kind of thought process.

[C]

But, but that was why I think. So money was always a topic for us. I think I was like 4 or 5 and I would ask my dad, are we well off? Are we doing good? And, you know, he wouldn't really give me an answer. And he didn't really give me that much money as a kid. He gave me a little bit of an allowance, like five bucks, you know? Yeah, here and there. But that's. That's all I really remember about my childhood is like, money was always that.

[A]

What shaped you, though? I mean, is that the thing that seeing parents that modeled being tight with money, did that create some weird, uncomfortable or bad dynamics with money, though? Because there is something. It's one thing to grow up where, you know, if your parents tell you you're poor, but you know there's money coming in that, that might have its own after effects too. I mean, so did that. Do you have some ripple effects from that?

[C]

I don't think we were told we were poor, but it definitely made me scared to invest because he was kind of more of a risk averse person with his money.

[A]

So there's a lot of cash.

[C]

A lot of cash. He bought his house in. Okay, right. And so he was always afraid of going into debt. He never wanted to be in debt. He saw how debt and leverage kind of ruined a lot of his friends. Sure. And so for him, it was always like, if I had the money, he would buy. If he had the money, he would buy it. And then also he kind of instilled these values in me of like, let's, let's, let's be more risk averse or like, let's save your money. Like, you know, if I had $10,000 at age 25, he'd be like, oh yeah, you should save like 60% of that and maybe you can invest 20% that.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And now I've kind of changed my mindset around that to, to flip it around almost.

[B]

What, what changed? Because obviously now you are a personal finance expert. You're literally sharing how to make sound financial decisions with tons of people. Like, what changed?

[A]

Data.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Data changed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you just learned. You learned. I mean, what was your background getting into even the financial space?

[C]

Yeah, so I studied finance in college at Loyola Marymount University. I didn't really learn that much about finances in college, but that was around 2008. So I do remember that quite well.

[B]

It's a great time to learn some stuff.

[C]

Great time to learn some, some stuff. And I wasn't really an investor until I became a financial advisor at the Merrill lynch program. So the Merrill lynch, they had a program to, to learn to become a financial advisor. Studied, you know, for the series 7 and 66 passed those. And I really learned more about money, the data behind the s and P500, the market, how you should be really investing your money to, to make it grow, to go against inflation and, you know, the printing of more currency. So. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I have a question. Just because, and this just came to me, it's not. Is the. When you're a Merrill lynch advisor, you do a lot of proprietary funds. At what point did you like, maybe I ought to be buying an index fund? Because, I mean, where does, how does that fit in? I'm just curiosity Wise because you now you have the hindsight. Yeah. I mean, looking at that, does that, I mean, is it, is that something that pops up or.

[C]

Of course. So I was not an advisor for very long.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

I'd say about a year, year and a half.

[D]

Okay.

[C]

And the reason is, is because I realized that the industry, at least the Merrill lynch program was more about prospecting and getting people to, to bring their, their assets over to you. And then once their assets were over to your firm, bank of America, Merrill lynch, and I assume Morgan Stanley would probably work this way too, or some of the other bigger firms, they kind of put you in these set products and really the investments, they take care of themselves. And really the clients are there to have somebody to talk to on a quarter to quarter basis. Right. They're really interested in, let's keep the relationship happy, let's maintain their expectations, let's keep, let's make sure that they're at least matching market returns, maybe less, a little bit of the management fee. But really it wasn't about taking huge risks, in my opinion. I think it was more about the guidance that a financial advisor could give you. So once I really learned about how an index fund, a Vanguardist, you know, s P500 index fund could just do as well as a financial advisor, I just, I didn't really believe in the, the space anymore as much. Yeah, but I'm not saying that they're not useful. Oh no, we, they're still useful.

[A]

Well, look, we, we actually look, this is like, why did you take this thing on the left turn? I would agree that's because, you know, because I've seen you've covered Ramit and others people.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

I would tell people if all your financial advisor does is the investment side that's already been commoditized through index investing. Anyway. That's why I was just me and I had a friend who lives in Chicago. He works with one of these institutional advisory firms. It's even on the, one of the lower cost sides. And he was like. I was like, but if they're not talking to you about your property and casualty insurance, Roth conversions, you know, are they reviewing your tax return every year to see if you're leaving money on the table or making sure everything got implemented right. I was like, this is, this is what a financial planner does. It's not exactly. If you're just doing asset allocation and telling you, hey, do this fund of America or this index fund here, that's commoditized already so you're never going to insult me by saying you don't think a financial advisor earns their keep because if they do is investment stuff.

[C]

So I do think they earn their keep with all the things that you just mentioned.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And I also have a friend he makes, he's, he's on YouTube. I'm not going to name him. Okay. But he is also from an immigrant background. Okay. Okay. And he makes 50,000 bucks a month. 20 to 50,000 bucks a month. But he was all cash for a long time. And he kept, he kept asking me, should I invest? Should I invest? Should invest? This was like last year, 2024, before Trump took office. And he was like, should I invest? And I was like, yeah, you should invest.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[C]

He never did.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

And so what he did this year was he actually hired a financial advisor just so that he had more. Just so that he had more confidence to invest. Right. And so he hired, he hired this great firm out of San Francisco. And you know, he's paying like a 1% management fee, but the alternative is not investing.

[B]

Think about how much better off he is even with that 1%. I mean, obviously the value that he's receiving far exceeds the fee that he's paying. And that's the trade off that you ultimately want.

[C]

Right. And so for him, I told him like, you could just go with an index fund, but if he's too risk averse to do it, he might need that extra help. And. And he also gets the other services now too. Right. So he actually kind of likes it now.

[B]

I love that.

[C]

But that was something for him that he had to realize, you know, he wasn't able to do it himself, just the investing portion. So he trusted someone like you about wealth management. I love it.

[B]

So if you could go, if you could go back in time and so you said you had to like gather data to be able to like inform yourself. If you could go back in time and talk to like 20 year old Humphrey, like, or that just brand new starting out. Or if you could say something to folks that are just starting out, you just celebrated a birthday. Is there some information or something that you would tell them that would accelerate all those years of data gathering? It took you for it to click that you would say now, oh man. If I could just tell 20 year old Humphrey this, I would let him know, Humphrey, do this.

[C]

I would have invested way sooner and I would have not touched it at all. I love it. What happened was when I was like 24, 25 and when I was getting to this financial advisory business, that's when I started investing and there are these dips and periods of times where, you know, I had some Apple stock and I sold, I sold it, I sold a portion of it because I got a little nervous or I sold a portion of, you know, Tesla stock. It came out in 2012 and you know, it was like 10 bucks a share or less. And I, and I bought some and I sold some. I was like, oh man, if I, you know, if I just never touched it, just kept dollar cost averaging and just buying my portfolio would probably be like three times as big today. But I was just, you know, I get scared. So.

[B]

So you're saying not, don't let your emotions drive your financial decision making when it comes to being an investor, when it comes to putting money to work, go into it and try to remain as unemotional as possible and maybe even employ strategies that allow you to be unemotional. You know, maybe index funds instead of, instead of individual stocks that you feel like could have caused you to move in that direction.

[A]

Well, and that's what I was going to add is that because I think this is be an emotional freeing event for a lot of people because you're a trusted voice out there, tens of millions of Americans with anybody. Because I see people let, let yourself off the hook if you're one of these people that you bought. Maybe because the hot topic right now is Nvidia, you know, and there's a lot of people doing exactly what you said. They bought Nvidia, but then after it went up fourfold, they sold a portion of. That's the problem with all these things is that if you get it right after it doubles or triples, you're likely going to sell it because it feels like, hey, I've made all this money, I ought to sell it. And then you go kick yourself when it goes up 10, 20 fold. Well, it's the same way. And if you bought it and then it goes to complete crud, you kick yourself that way. You're in a no win situation. All of your happiness and other things are driven by this individual holding. That's one of the reasons I love index investing is because it takes out the emotional side and it lets you actually focus on your time and what's important to you versus getting so caught up in your happiness being tied to this one company or this one. One pick.

[C]

Yep. It does take a lot of discipline though. And I'm sure everyone watching right now is really into money. So that's. And that's another problem is that you're probably keeping track of the market right now as we speak because you're so interested in money. And so it's almost better to be almost ignorant sometimes. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes with investing. Right. So I love that.

[B]

That's why I do my net worth statement one time a year.

[C]

Oh really?

[B]

One time a year. Because I like surprises. I like seeing what happened.

[C]

Right.

[B]

But what you said that one of the things that transformed was being able to data gather data and let that inform your decision. Well, one of the things that we love to do every Single Tuesday at 10am Is we come right here so that we can load you guys up with data. So we tell our audience we want to be here to help them do money better. And one of the ways we do that is by answering your questions. And you guys are in for a treat right now because we have Humphrey here to answer questions with us. So if you have a question that you would like for us to weigh in on, if there's something you want to get r or maybe just Humphrey's take on, make sure you get it in the chat. Right now we have the team out in the wings collecting your questions. So with that creative director Raby, I'm going to throw it over to you.

[C]

No hard questions, please.

[A]

Nobody knows. Do we look like the Brady Bunch right now because we have three of us and then you or do they have us in like a Brady Bunch? I don't know.

[D]

I just trust the production. They say yes.

[A]

Cannot wait to see what this looks like.

[D]

Okay, I do have a question up first from John. It says, super excited to see this collab. So am I.

[A]

We are too.

[D]

It says, what are your thoughts on ETF vs mutual funds and aggressive vs conservative investing? Would love to see what all three of you have to say about this.

[B]

Okay, so first, how about a very quick vocabulary and I'll. You know, when we say etf, that just means an exchange traded fund. It's a basket of stocks, but rather than trading at one time throughout the day, it trades throughout the day similar to a stock. So it's very similar to a mutual fund, but it's more liquid and more able to be traded throughout the day. Mutual funds, same sort of thing. Basket of goods. Could be stocks, could be bonds, could be other types of holdings. But rather than having to go out and buy all 500 companies in the S&P 500, you could buy a mutual fund, one holding that represents those. You could buy an ETF of the S&P 500, one holding that holds those that's kind of the vocabulary difference between the two. So, Humphrey, what are your thoughts on mutual funds versus ETFs? And then even he tacked on aggressive versus conservative investing.

[C]

Yeah. I would also add that ETFs are typically passively managed. Right. Versus a mutual fund usually has an active fund manager that is getting paid based on that performance. So sometimes your expense ratio or your fee that you pay per year for holding that fund is a little higher. With a mutual fund. Right. Typically in the range of 0.35% to 0.5 or whatever it is. 0.65, a lot higher, sometimes even higher. Right. There's like those Cathie Wood ones, the Ark Invest ones. Those are like 0.75, 0.85% expense ratio. So you really have to think about how your fees impact your overall returns and how they'll eat into your returns over a long period of time. But an ETF is usually passively managed and usually tracks, you know, a specific sector or index. And I typically prefer those. Aggressive versus conservative investing. It depends on your risk tolerance and your time horizon. Right. So if I was 20, I'm probably aggressive. And because I have 45 years until retirement at, you know, at. Hopefully I retire earlier. But, you know, let's say it's 45 years for a normal retirement. I can probably be more aggressive. And even if I lose some money, it's okay because I have so much time to make it up. So I would probably err on the side of aggressive as you're younger and want to build that wealth and then more conservative as you kind of start to need that cash flow. Sure.

[B]

I think one of the other things that people don't realize is that oftentimes people think, okay, mutual fund, that means it's going to be aggressive. Etf, that means it's going to be aggressive. But they're actually conservative versions of those holdings. There are bond mutual funds, there are bond ETFs. But a lot of people, they say, okay, well, I don't. Okay, I heard what Humphrey said. I want to be aggressive while I'm young and I want to get more because. But I don't know how. I don't know how to do that. Like, how do I make that adjustment? And what's great is there are some solutions that actually allow you to do that.

[A]

Yeah, this is. Look, we think there's a time and a season for being buck wild aggressive, trying to get as much growth as you can.

[B]

That's the actual risk tolerance, especially on those Roth accounts.

[A]

We want you, you know, but it's that bal balance of you don't want to be so crazy that you, you know, that you risk it and it goes to zero. But you definitely want to maximize growth opportunities. And while you're young, that's a great thing. But then as you get a little gray in your hair and you get a little older, you. It's just like that. I love the title of Glide Path. I mean, that's what, you know, a lot of the mutual fund companies will talk about. Glide paths are, you know, if you think about. We talk about index target retirement funds, where you only have to think about, you know, how much you can save each month and when you need it. And then they do, the rest of it gets more and more auto allocated. It's auto. It's auto allocated. You can do the same thing yourself, even with index investing, or so I think it's. And it's the same way I look at the way I handle my own money with this. People who are trying to be debt crusaders and pay off their low interest, you know, sub 4% mortgages before you're 45 years of age, they think you're cutting risk. But I think that it's actually cutting your chances of making sure you build wealth. But there's a time or season is that be more aggressive while you're under 45, like even on debt crusading. But then when you get over 45 and hopefully have built up your assets and your army of dollars working for you, then you can pivot to taking the risk off by paying down debt aggressively. So all this stuff is interconnected with how you look at being aggressive versus conservative. And then I'd like to say on the ETF versus mutual funds, a lot of times these things, it's almost like synonyms of each other. If you're doing index investing like I'm an. I'm an index. My monthly investment that goes in weekly because I'm a nut is an index mutual fund. Because it's just easy with the custodian that I have to set up an automatic builder. I know they've gotten where you can even do this with ETFs, but it's just.

[B]

It sure is the cheapest version of the s and P500 out there.

[A]

It is very, very cheap to buy this, this index mutual fund. But then sometimes when I'm doing tax planning and I need to do some, you know, harvesting or other things when we're in those type of seasons, I will buy ETFs at the end of the year because it's just a very tax efficient way to use those tools. But you're not hurting yourself if you buy a index mutual fund or you're not hurting yourself if you buy an index etf. You just need to know what they are and they aren't. And then it's okay if you have both in a lot of cases, too. Love it.

[D]

Yeah. Good stuff. Thank you, John, for the question and for being here in the live stream today.

[C]

Shout out, John.

[D]

All right, this next one's a good one. Let's see if we can help Bianca. She says, hi, money guy team. I make around 70k, 75k gross. I invest 25%. But I feel like I'm missing out on life. I've never been on a plane anywhere. And I was thinking of taking a second job to help do this thought.

[A]

How old is, how old is Bianca?

[B]

I was going to ask that question.

[D]

You know what, Bianca, if you're out there, let us know.

[A]

Yeah, please let us know how old you are because I want to know how much we're missing out on.

[C]

I'd say by the lower caps that she's probably Gen Z.

[D]

This is not.

[A]

Look at the perspective.

[B]

I love it.

[D]

I think that's very possible. Bianca, let us know.

[B]

You know, do you, do you see a lot, Humphrey? Do you come across this a lot in your audience where people are like, man, I'm so committed to the future. I'm so focused on thinking about the future that I have to say I heard Humphrey say that if I just start investing early, then I'm going to set myself for success. So much so that they kind of loot. They live so much for the future, they lose track of the present.

[C]

Yeah. Oh, Bianca's 26.

[A]

26, 26 years of age.

[C]

Nailed it.

[D]

Nailed it.

[C]

1999. That is Gen Z. I don't do.

[B]

That kind of math.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. That's public math bold.

[B]

You did that on the floor. I do see that a lot.

[C]

And you know, my audience typically over saves, right, because they're watching the channel and, you know, I'm always like, hey, get your savings at 2025. You know, in Bianca's case, I think she might be able to lower it to 20%, 15%, and maybe enjoy life a little bit. Because what's the point of money, right, if you're always saving for the future? You're going to be 65 and maybe you missed out on some experiences. So that's what I would say to Bianca is like, if There is room to maybe invest 20%. You can still hit your retirement goals and maybe even more, but still be able to enjoy a little bit of life.

[A]

I don't know, we actually have a great deliverable that I would tell Bianca. And if the team could pull it up, if you go to moneyguy.com resources what you should save or you know, because it's funny if you're 26 years old, if you look at the cross reference here for a 25 year old who's saving 15%, I mean you pretty much have a replacement ratio close to 100% if you're doing 20. 133%, 25%, 166, without a doubt. Bianca, if you tell me because look, as soon as I hear you haven't even been on an airplane. This I resemble this so much is because, I mean, I didn't get to do a lot of fancy vacations and other things as a kid growing up. And I remember the first time I got to fly was my first job and I was going to do an audit and I went and bought a sports coat because I thought that's what you did. You dressed up to go on an airplane. Because I didn't know anything. You know, coming up from humble beginnings and it sounds like, Bianca, you're the same way this stuff. I don't want you to wake up when you're my age and go, what the heck was I doing in my 20s? Why did I screw up and save? Because I've seen so many. We were just at this and I got to hang out with. We got to see Humphrey there, the PR just press, publish or whatever. And there was a guy and you're gonna tell me the name because I never remember his name. Who was the like early influence. I never can remember names. I'm the opposite of Humphrey because he remembers everybody's names. Casey. His whole thing was once he started making big money, he realized how empty it. I know that if you're broke right now, you're like, shut up with this stuff. I hate it when rich people tell me it's horrible to have all this money. No, but I'm telling you there is a balance there from yes, cover your. Cover your basics, do the responsible discipline thing. But there is a thing where you get so just you squander what life is meant to be if all you do is hoard it in the background. That's why I say there's a fine line between financial mutant and a financial miser. Because what Casey was saying is he Got to the top of the mountain and realized, oh, my gosh, it's so empty here that I haven't built to put enough life in this that he was running and screaming from the mountaintops, go back. Go back and go do more stuff. And I think that that's the thing. I would tell you, Bianca, I don't want you to be in your 50s and go, what was I doing? Yes, I'm wealthy, I'm loaded, but I'm not my 20s anymore. I'm not going to be in my 30s. And I'm going to miss out on a lot of life. So I enjoy every age and decade you're in bedazzle your basic life, so that you have just a life of no regret.

[C]

I also think that she's doing really good.

[A]

I mean, oh, she's Crushing it.

[B]

Investing 25%.

[A]

Crushing it.

[B]

Yeah, crushing it.

[A]

That's why we can also tell her it's okay because I have so many people, and I know you do in your audience too, Humphrey, that they don't. They're hard on themselves. They need somebody to kind of coach them and say, it's okay. You know, a lot of we were picking on financial advisors earlier. Another thing I think we, as financial advisors, we do. A lot of people think we're the Susie Ormans. I'm aging myself by saying that. I know, because her shows were. No, no, no. It's just the opposite. We are constantly telling people, go do this. Go do more. Go live your best life is because sometimes you financial mutants are the hardest on yourself. And you need somebody out there giving you perspective and context saying, go enjoy your life.

[B]

Money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to accomplish the goals that we have. But I think so often we forget not all goals have to be 40 years down the road. Not all goals have to be 20 years down the road. It's okay if one of your goals, Bianca, is to fly in an airplane and go on a trip somewhere. If you use the money that you have right now to help you accomplish that. And so one of the things I tell all people to do is, hey, list what all your goals are, both the long term, intermediate term, and then short term, prioritize how important they are and then make sure your dollars align with that priority. Because if just having a big stack of money at the end of your life is your only goal, then, yeah, throw everything at that. But if you have other goals that are not that, it's okay to deploy and use your dollars to accomplish those things. We only get one spin on this thing. So you might as well make the most of it while you're here.

[A]

I do want to. This isn't part of the question, but, Humphrey, I have to ask, since we've got you sitting here.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Bo and I are knuckleheads. We. We went through this whole phase where we even did this thing called Tightwad Nation. Because, I mean, I was tight as of tight. I mean, I resembled a lot of Bianca of, you know, just the way I've lived my life. But I have. But I have. As I've gotten more success, I've eventually traded in my tight wide card because I have realized I spend more money on stuff. And I felt like I was a hypocrite, and I have a no hypocrite policy. Yeah. What's your. Because you're in that stage, you've obviously very successful, but you come from a background where even you said your childhood, you know, you were taught kind of save it, build it. Yeah. What's your journey like? I mean, have you felt an evolution with how you've looked at money?

[B]

I think he's asking, were you a tight wad?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Are you a tight wad?

[A]

Thank you for speaking.

[B]

And then what are you now?

[C]

Yeah, I think I still err on the side of tight wad. But I am not opposed to spending money on experiences now.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Because I think they bring you a lot of joy and fulfillment. Like, you know, just even running the marathon on Sunday. I. I stayed in a nice hotel that was close to the start line because I didn't want to walk a mile to the start line. Right.

[B]

I will run 26.2 and not walk a foot further.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

I. I respect that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So.

[C]

So I've become more abundant with at least the spending habits. I mean, my father passed away this year, but he passed away with. With, you know, more money than he should have, and he never enjoyed his life. At towards the end of his life, he was still eating frozen meals because that's what he was used to.

[B]

He just got. He had conditioned himself.

[C]

He got conditioned to himself, and he still wanted to fly economy, even though he didn't have to. And so I kind of looked at his life and I said, okay, how can I change my habits so that I at least enjoy a little bit of the money, but still, you know, have. Have some money for later and perhaps have some money for my future family. I love that. Yeah, love that.

[A]

But your parents got to see all your success, though.

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's my mom.

[C]

So Kicking it. So she's good. She's good. She's not a tight wad.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

She likes.

[C]

She likes to spend the money for her. She's like, budget. What's that? Yeah. So, you know, I also grew up, you know, with a mom. I was like, oh, what's a budget? And then my dad's like, no, don't spend any money. So.

[A]

So I got a really good balance.

[C]

Balance of like, okay, what's. What's right and what's not right here. Yeah. So that's awesome.

[D]

That's great. Well, Bianca, great question. Thank you so much. I will say, Bianca, you're in this live Stream. You're saving 25%. A lot of people can't like, or it takes a while for people to get those basics down. So I love that you're already there. And I think what the guys shared about potentially, like, looking at your goals differently and doing those experiences was amazing. And go grab that download moneyguy.com resources how much should you save?

[B]

My kids, they just, like, they want to go on a trip where we fly. They don't care where we go. They do experience. So I literally have thought about, what's the cheapest plane ticket that I could buy? Like, my whole family to just fly to a city, you know, like Sheboykin, Wisconsin or whatever.

[A]

It's probably Miami.

[B]

And then Miami's are cheap.

[A]

Miami flights are cheap for some reason. I don't know why they're so cheap.

[B]

Can you imagine me pitching my wife on this? Hey, sweetheart. We're gonna fly all five of us down to Miami. As soon as we get there, we're just gonna turn around, come right on back.

[A]

The hotels are not cheap in Miami.

[D]

You guys are funny.

[A]

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 me.

[B]

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

[A]

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 of I didn't need.

[B]

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

[A]

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.

[B]

Well, you know, I also love that every plate takes the guesswork out of meal prep. No more. Will this random Pinterest recipe actually work? Nope. Every plate does all the heavy lifting.

[A]

And you'll spend less than you would on groceries or eating out. Clear, easy to follow recipes ready in 30 minutes or less and new weekly options showing up at your door.

[B]

So what are you waiting? Dig into these flavor packed meals your household will love.

[A]

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 it as a 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.

[B]

All right, sounds accurate. Keep going.

[A]

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 password? And then to make it worse, what if I yelled the actual password back to you?

[B]

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

[A]

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. ExpressVPN is that whisper you need to keep you safe.

[B]

Alright, that makes sense. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network, your online data is not secure.

[A]

Express VPN is super secure. It would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. It's easy to use and works on all devices, phones, laptops, tablets and more so you can stay secure on the go.

[B]

Cybersecurity and protecting your information is super important to us. Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com moneyguy that's E X P R E S S vpn.com moneyguy to find out how you can get up to four extra months free. Expressvpn.com moneyguy all right, I've got another question for you.

[D]

It's from Derek S. It says as an early 30 something. Would you consider it dangerous to be solely invested in something like VOO instead of a target date retirement fund? Is this should. Should this Is there. Oh, sorry, the wording is funny here. Should there be more diversification than one index? There it is. What do you think?

[B]

This was interesting. I don't know where we're all going to land on this.

[A]

Oh man. Yeah, this is Derek's going to stir the pot.

[B]

Since you're our guest, we're going to let you take this one first. Young 30 all VU, all you know, all equity. Is that okay?

[C]

So I would question the target date retirement fund because if I'm not mistaken you guys have to correct me here. Usually a target date retirement fund when you are 30 is like 90% VU anyway. Right?

[B]

Nailed it.

[C]

It's 90% S&P 500. 90% market.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Voo has 500 and change stocks in it anyways. So I've always viewed that as pretty diversified. But I would like to hear your take on if you would add more bonds or fixed income into that portfolio as an early 30something. It depends on his goals too. Right? I'm not sure.

[A]

I'm willing to go first. But I mean look, Bo and I have even debated this and Bo makes some and I'm going to let him kind of have the word on it because there was. I tried to craft some rules where I was like 20 something. Yeah, just go buy the total market OR S&P 500. I think that those index funds are so strong. But bo's will get into the behavioral stuff that goes with why we say index target retirement funds is because look, we know in the beginning it's just the behavior of starting the saving and investing because there's such a battle of consumption out there for 20 somethings that people just don't even start the habit of building 10% or 15% savings rates. So the fact that we're even at this discussion of having is it okay to do just index funds versus index target retirement funds? You're so ahead of the masses on this because most people don't even have the discipline to get that far. But I'm never going to beat up because we even gave advice. I had a studio tour who came through and I found out that they, you know, because they asked the same question. Their index target retirement fund was 10% bonds and they were. Do you remember how old they were Bo? They were they in their 26, 26 years old. And I was like well look there's in the Roth accounts buy VU or buy the total market VTI or whatever you want. And then that way it's going to bring your total allocation to probably a 3 to 5% bonds which now you're not going to lose as much sleep about. So you can even balance it out. But. But I'm not going to pick on you either way. I bet a financial mutant who's asking in their 20s or even early 30s. These two questions, you're going to come out a winner. Both sides. So we're now getting into the. We're splitting hairs.

[B]

Well, I think that when it comes to the advice that we give, we want to probabilistically set you up for success. We know that a lot of success in finance is based more on behavior than is based on actual mathematics. Right. And so I'm going to do this little exercise really quick. This will seem unkind. It's not. Humphrey, at what age did you turn old? His response, oh, I'm not.

[C]

I'm not old. Yeah, I'm not old.

[B]

So, Brian, at what age did you turn old? And you're gonna say, well, no, I'm gonna say.

[A]

I'm gonna say 50 kicks. So it's like a donkey. Here's. I don't feel bad, but it's just that everybody looks at you different once you tell them you're in your 50s.

[B]

Here's the reason why I asked that question, I would imagine, which says, hey, I'm not old yet. I mean, maybe I might be old 10 years. And so we all subjectively assign, oh, I'm still young, I'm still aggressive. I can still. My risk tolerance is still my st. And so one of the problems I see with folks in their. In their 20s, their VU for life. And they get really used to 12, 13, 14% annualized returns, because that's when they came through. And then in their 30s, they keep doing the same thing, and the numbers get bigger. And the bigger the numbers get, the bigger the numbers get. And so then they carry that into their 40s. Well, oh, I'm still young in 40s. I got 25 working years. I can still be 100% equities. Well, then you get to your 50s. Gosh, I'm not retiring yet. I've still got. And you end up to where while there should likely be a glide path, it never actually happens. And so it's not uncommon. Brian and I, we used to sit down with prospects, and they'd sit down with us and they'd be 65, ready to retire. We look at their portfolio, say, you've got 97% equities and 3%. And so then we show them, hey, we do an analysis. Here's your current portfolio today, and here's what we're recommending. They're like, guys, we're. I've been annualized and 15% per year, and you're going to put me in something where I'm only going to make 7%, 8% per year, and it's a really hard adjustment to make. And then what happens? 2008 happens, and then you have fourth quarter of 2018, you have Covid, you have 2022, and there's these significant downturns. And you really do suffer from a very real sequence of return risk in those early years of retirement, early as your financial independence. And so if we can build the behavior early on, that diversification is not bad. Taking some risk off the table is not bad. Having a healthy savings rate that can maybe compensate for me not getting the absolute best return possible every single year is not bad. Because when it comes to investing, when it comes to building wealth, it's more about how much you get to keep over the long term than how much you make this month, this quarter, this year. And so if we can set that behavior, and I think the 30s is a great time to start thinking about that. I don't think that's going to be a bad thing.

[A]

I want to give some context of. I think you're in your 20s and 30s, and I'm going to make a plain analogy. We'll bring your father, fighter pilot, in here too. In your 20s and 30s, you can put up with a lot, and you just have the tolerance you can do it. I mean, that's what I've make the joke all the time is that it seemed reasonable to go on a trip and put 10 guys in one hotel room. In my 20s now, if I don't have an ensuite, I'm like, what are we doing here? It's funny how your life will change. And I think about all my people who are vu for life or some semblance of. I'm just gonna be just wild with the aggressiveness all the way up until I retire. It is the analogy. That's why I like the glide path, because you're landing an airplane of life. Can you imagine if you're on a commercial flight and they are flying you in, and then all of a sudden they tell you, okay, we're quickly approaching, you know, San Francisco Airport. And then they dive on that thing, they circle it in and skid it in, and you'd be like, oh, my God. The trauma you would have would probably make it where you'd never want to fly on an airplane again is because, yeah, they got you in, but there was a lot of drama and a lot of things that really impacted you. Whereas I'm telling you, you're as a person going to change. Your life is going to change. Success is going to change you. You're going to, you're gonna be. You want a nice smooth commercial type landing where the, the pilot is slowly pulling it down to where when you touch go, wow, what a great landing. That felt, that felt so good. And you have no drama trauma that you took with you and that for, you know, if you had a meeting the next morning, you didn't even sleep the night because it was just so traumatic how this thing blew up around you and you were. That's what people do to themselves with investing is that, that's when they tell me. And that's why people like your father say I don't want any risk is because they're doing it wrong. I mean, if you have to go to where you're just taking all these risk and then it hurts, you didn't do it right. Because a good diversified portfolio should serve you well when you're young and aggressive. And then it should serve you well when you get old and you're starting to dial down the risk.

[C]

Yeah. I want to add one more and I actually have a question for you guys. Recently the stock market's been phenomenal, right? And so that's kind of what we're used to right now.

[A]

Well, 80% of the time, it's phenomenal.

[C]

And you know, I'm thinking about those downturns that you're talking about right now. And right Now I have one individual stock position that's up 5, 5, 6x. Right. And I don't want to sell it because I don't want to take these capital gains hits. What would you guys, what would you guys say to someone like me who has a lot of short term capital gains and maybe they're becoming long term soon, but I don't want to take the tax hit?

[B]

Yeah, it's a really hard thing because when it comes to stock, I learned this very early on in my very first investments class. They say when it comes to buying individual stock, you don't have to make two decisions. Really, really. Well, you got to buy at the right time and you got to sell at the right time. And oftentimes it's that second one that's really, really difficult because so whenever we have a client who comes to us and say, hey, I've got this one stock position, I've made a thousand percent or I've gone 5x on it or whatever, it's okay. What would be more painful to you right now if you're at 5x and we saw this really bad downturn all of A sudden it went to where you're only up 2x and so you lost out on that. Is that more painful or what if you sold it today and you sold it 5x and it didn't go to 10x and we'll ask that question. And so then a lot of times we'll like ask them which one of those is more painful for you? Okay, that's going to tell me where your bent is in terms of holding it or getting out of it. And once we do decide, okay, maybe it makes sense for us to begin divesting out of this position. Well, then comes the how. Well, if it's, if I think it's an all time high right now, do I just sell that chunk today or do I want to remove emotion from the equation? Say, okay, every month I'm going to sell this percent or I'm going to sell every quarter I'm going to sell this many shares. Just like I dollar cost average into position, I can dollar cost average out to try to remove it. If the stock goes up, great. I've still got holdings that are making money. If it goes down, it's okay. I took some of my chips off the table. And you can approach it that way because what we want to prevent people from doing is being emotional and making this like knee jerk reaction that again changes the way their behavior happens in the future.

[C]

Gotcha.

[A]

I would, you know, I'm going to make this personal because personal finance is very personal. Oh boy, you, you were successful. I imagine this thing, even though it's up fivefold, is probably a small percentage of your total net worth. You might get benefit because I have, I have one holding that I'm so proud of because look, I did the same thing. I bought Apple in 2008 and I talk about this in Millionaire Mission. I sold it after a double or tripled. Meanwhile, I have a childhood best friend who he bought it, he still owns.

[B]

Those shares from 2008.

[A]

Holy cow, what those shares are worth. It is literally one of those stories where you hear people say, you know, if you bought $1,000 worth of Amazon, it turns into a million bucks. Like nobody does that. There's a few people that do unique things like that and that's why I highlighted it in the book. But I'm like everybody else. I sold Apple after I made two or three fold when I bought it in 2008. Well, I got another lick that I hit in 2018. I bought a stock and now I've just decided it's part of my permanent Portfolio I'm just now it's fun for me even though this thing, I really think this thing is. Well I mean I'm at the path where this one purchase is going to be worth seven figures off of this one thing. And I'm gonna see if he'll do it. I just wanna see it. So it's kind of a fun conversation piece but it's such a small percentage of my total net worth. It just doesn't matter. So for me and I think for you you could just. If it's fun for you, it's fun keep that. But if this was. We have people come to us all the time even with like an Nvidia where this is. But they worked for Nvidia and this is like now 80% of their net worth. I don't care how good a company is, we have to divest you of this so that you don't have the Lucent stories and all these other things that I constantly give experience shares on. So for somebody like that then you have to get out of these investments to make sure it's more balanced from a risk goal perspective. But for you I think because do you know how many conversations I get to have about this stock that I bought in 2018 and now it's going to potentially be seven figures at some point. I mean that's, that's a fun little cover. That's a little sweetener of life that you get.

[B]

But you can do it depending on how you acquired it you get. There are ways to be sophisticated and how you dispose of it. You could do charitable giving with appreciated securities. You can do loss gain matching to loss harvesting to try to offset. You can sell specific lots depending on how you bought that. So just because you make the decision to exit a position doesn't mean you have to take on a big tax hit. There are ways to get around it or at least to minimize that to the best best of your ability.

[A]

And I even detailed and once I feel like I'm giving a plug for Millionaire Mission which I am my giving strategy uses a lot of appreciated holdings where I even I will dollar cost average into my same joint account kind of what I'm giving to the churches and other things because it's just, it's a really cool thing when you get to give those appreciated holdings and then push up the basis. It's fun.

[B]

Cool can say another behavioral thing I think that that I think is just wild that people do sometimes and I bet some of you financial mutants do this say I bought Apple in 2008.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And, or whatever. And say, I bought $10,000 of it, it's worth 20,000 now. I always tell, hey, if you're, if you're charitably inclined, you're someone who wants to like, give to charity, why would you not give that? Appreciated, but I bought it in 2008. I can't go back. I was like, no, no. You realize right now, today you have $20,000 of exposure. If you gift that $20,000 of Apple to the charitable giving account, then you go buy Apple today to 20,000, you still have the exact same investment exposure that you had from that stock you bought back in 2008. You just eradicate the gains. I'm amazed at how many people not only are anchored to the stock that they bought, they are anchored to the day that they bought that. And that is a fallacy because you don't want those gains. You want to get rid of those out of your portfolio. So even if you have a position you love and you're thinking, oh, I would never get rid of this, fill in the blank. No, think about getting. You can always just go rebuy it today and reset your basis.

[C]

Cool. That's a really good tip slash hack. I love that tax tip.

[A]

Anything you want to call, let's just come up with. We can just come up with all kind of little things.

[D]

No, that's great. Okay, I've got another question queued up for you. This one's a little, I don't know, I'm interested to hear what you're gonna say.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[D]

A little spicy maybe? Maybe. You see?

[C]

No, I will not.

[D]

You be the judge.

[C]

Do that.

[D]

You be the judge. It says Sing Sign speak says I have low interest student loans from my parents. I'll be 24 when I graduate. So how should I balance my investing and paying them off to preserve the relationship?

[C]

Does this person mean that the parents loaned this person?

[D]

That's how I read it. Yes. So it is true. There's like a rel. Like a mathematical component here. There's also a relational component. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[B]

I think I'll start, I'll start with this one. As you guys are gathering your thoughts, I think this Sing sign, this is what I would say. Mom, dad, I love you guys, but I went to moneyguy.com resources and I downloaded the financial order of operations Deliverable. It's free copy. It's a nine step process of what I should do with my next dollar. And because I listen to these guys Because I listen to Humphrey Yang. This says right here that I should not begin paying off low interest debt until step nine. Mom and dad. So, like, I'd love. But mom, dad, I have it. I've done my mercy. I got to max out my roth. I got to max out my hsa. I got to max out my retirement. I got to be a high percentage. I'm just not there yet. But mom and dad, as soon as I get there, you are number nine on the list. And I think that's the way I think that'll work.

[A]

I have thoughts, but I want to hear Humphrey's thoughts first.

[D]

I do too.

[C]

I guess my thought would be it depends on how fragile the relationship is. If it's something that's really important to your parents, maybe set up a little payment plan where monthly you spend a small portion of your income, not a large portion of the very small. We're talking 100 bucks a month maybe where it goes back to paying your parents off. And then maybe you can slowly amp that up over time. But I do agree with you that it should be lower on the priority list of paying off the low interest rate debt because you. There are a lot of better things you can do with that money. But depends on your parents. Like if they're hounding you every month being like, hey, where's my payment?

[B]

We need that money.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, where's my money?

[D]

Yeah, I noticed there wasn't anything about if there was an expectation set in this question. So, like, have you already committed to something? Like, have they. Have they let you know? Like, so I don't know. That's probably a conversation that just needs to happen.

[B]

Low interest is this debt? Maybe we just refinance at a higher rate with mom and dad. Mom, dad, you gave me this at 2%. What if we refinance at 5%? It's still.

[A]

I will give the old man answer here because I'm the only one on this panel that has a 22 year old daughter. Can I tell you, one of the funnest things about being a parent is if you see your children model really good behavior, like critical thinking skills. So if your parents had the ability to where they gave, you know, were able to essentially fund college with a low interest loan, this is ripe, fertile ground to have a conversation. That's the first thing I do, is if you have a good relationship is have a great conversation with your parents about exactly what Beau set up is that, hey, you know, I'm starting out. I want to do my Roth ira. I want to do this. But also I feel this obligation because you guys have paid it forward to me to have this education. I would love to figure out the balance. If you just have that conversation, do you know the tingle factor your parents will have? Like, yes, this is what I'm talking about. It's connecting everything I've done. And then I would say to your parents, I want to do something. Even though I know that this is a step nine of the financial order of operations, I believe it is so important for me to model. I don't know if it's $50 a month, $100 a month. I want you guys, for you to see it as me honoring this gift that y' all have done and the investments you made. But I'm also. I want you to know why it's so low in these beginning stages. Is this more of a. A trophy or a token contribution to thank you for the gift? But then I'm still going to fund my Roth, my 401k, and all these other things. And I guarantee, because I know I've shared another plug for the book. I don't mean to plug it, but it's just I put all these stories in the book because I was on the other side of this is that I remember when I got into my adult life, I realized very quickly how hard it was to be an adult. And I got myself in some credit card debt, and I had to call my dad, and it was only like $300, but it crushed me to have to call my parents to ask. And I remember when it was time, when I called them back to say, hey, I'm ready to pay you back, they're like, no, no, no, don't worry about it. You know, And I'm like, no, no, no. This is a principled moment. And I think if you can have those conversations with your parents because they made an investment in you and have a principled conver, Use this as a tool. Man, the tingles I get just thinking about that as a parent. You will. You will make their year because they'll start to see, man, it took, you know, the graph of what I was trying to imprint and share with the next generation. Because we know the stats every time we do the wealth studies, and it comes from millionaire next door, Ramsey and them and all theirs. And we've done 25,000 even in our own interviews. Of all the financial mutants, 70 to 80% of millionaires are first generation. So that stat only exists if we know the stats that between 70% disappears in generation 2. 90% by generation 3. So if your parents, if they had the abilities to pay it forward, and now you're actually breaking the trend that creates those stats that we all cite, they're going to be very excited about that.

[C]

Good answer.

[D]

That was great. No, honestly, that was a good variety of thoughts. All right, I've got another question queued up for you from Makula. It says, how often does Humphrey rebalance his portfolio? Any differences between what the money guys recommend?

[B]

I'll take this question.

[D]

How does Humphrey rebalance his portfolio?

[C]

Honestly, not enough for someone who makes content on YouTube a lot about personal finance. I admittedly have not rebalanced it in a couple years. So I should rebalance it this year, probably at the end of this year. Ideally, I would be doing it once a year, but I'd love to hear your take.

[B]

Yeah. So we. I'll tell you the way that I think about this. One of the things I do is because I'm a contributor accumulator, I like to think about as I'm making contributions, I'm kind of naturally rebalancing in terms of the asset class. I mean, most of it's on autopilot, but every now and then I might just kind of do like a manual override. Hey, I need more small cap or I need more international. Whatever. Whatever that thing may be for our clients. What we generally target is we want to look at rebalancing generally twice a year.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And there's no. There's no science of that, but what we do is we review it. It doesn't mean that we actually place rebalances, but we want to review the allocation with the eye to rebalancing. And a lot of times it might be okay. Hey, our large cap target is 47%, and you're at 48.2. Yeah, we're not going to rebalance that. We're going to. We're going to allow that to be in an acceptable, acceptable range. But we've at least investigated, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then when the market gives us opportunities, we want to make sure that we take advantage of those opportunities. So a lot of people don't recognize that in 2025, this has been a fantastic investment year. It's been a great year for investors. In April, we were down like 19% off the high. So if you were someone who was recently buying or you've recently allocated some dollars, there was a good chance that you had a huge opportunity right there in April of this year to do some loss harvesting, to do some rebalancing. To allocate your dollars in a different way where you could take advantage of that. Now, that's not timing the market. That's being tactical in how you think about your rebalancing. So we look for, in a just a normal, boring year, looking at it twice a year. But in years, we do see those big intra declines. We want to be kind of like dialed in. Is now a good time for us to get back to target or make some tweaks that we maybe have not made?

[A]

I'm willing to be confessional and tell you that I do a better job, and I know all of our advisors here do a better job with rebalancing than I do for myself is because it's part of our direct process, what we do for clients. For myself, I will say because I have a no hypocrisy policy, I like to be transparent with you guys. It's once a year because I do my annual net worth statement once a year. I do charitable giving, you know, off of appreciated holdings that I have and so forth. So those things naturally create. When I do the net worth statement and then also when I'm doing my. Just truing up my annual giving, those are perfect rebalancing opportunities for me to kind of think about it. And those create those. So I am doing it, but I'm not doing it as much as if I was a client of the firm. I'm just being confessional about that. But I think that's. But it's once a year would be my answer.

[B]

Love that.

[C]

Well, you guys have inspired me for sure. I should probably be balancing.

[D]

There was a lot of alignment on that one. Honestly.

[A]

We create a process. I mean, that's everything in my life is try to create a system or a process. That's probably how we came up with financial order of operations is because I just love thinking about money in a methodical way. So it really makes the good habits that much easier and the bad habits that much harder. Because human nature is as we let our emotions and all these other things come into play. So if we can create a system that takes all that out, even if you're not doing it as well as you could, it's still getting done.

[B]

Now, brief aside, only because I think from an investment perspective, this is an interesting thought process to go down. So when you, when you rebalance, you're really making two decisions. I'm making the decision to sell something and to buy something else. Well, we believe as investors, oftentimes momentum is a real thing that Happens in the markets. There are markets that momentum will carry an asset class on. So I'll use the large cap example again. It is not uncommon for us to look at a rebalance. Okay, this is supposed to be 47%. It's at 48%. If I were to sell that 1%, is there something else in the portfolio that's compelling right now for me to buy, or if there's nothing compelling for me to buy, I might be okay, allowing my portfolio to drift a touch. Now, this is where there's a little bit more of an art there than a science. But I don't want people to get so dogmatic and rebalancing. They think, okay, I've got to place trades today because a lot of times, a lot of custodians depending on the fund, there might be charges, there might be. It might not be an inexpensive thing to rebalance. And so I don't want to see you like, I'm selling $7 of this. I'm going to go buy four or three and $1 of this. That math doesn't. Math, but I don't. I want to make sure that when you make a financial decision, when you make a decision in your portfolio, there's a reason you're not. You're making it. You're not just making it for the motion of it.

[A]

Well, I get upset because I'm not going to name names, but asset location is important because when we do asset allocation, you know, obviously in your retirement accounts, you'll put your fixed income because they're taxed a certain way. And then in your Roth accounts, you'll put growth assets. So we'll do asset location within different account structures. And there is a custodian that does, because we work with clients who might work with a custodian or an employer that gives them like a advisors for free, and they take that as an executive benefit. And we have these custodians that we're like, no, no, in this retirement account, we want this allocation. And they're like, no, no, our fiduciary responsibility won't allow us. We have to. And we're like, oh, my God, you knuckleheads. You know, so this is why sometimes as financial planners that, you know, it's. You have to be careful with being too dogmatic. Where it needs to be more practical of what's the total plan? What's the why? How does it fit into the personal finance situation? Because a lot of these people, it makes me break my system. That I just said is because they'll create a system that's a system for the sake of being a system without really thinking about the whole picture.

[C]

I agree with both of you. I think you got to really think for yourself too and not just follow a rule because someone on the Internet told you to.

[B]

That's coming from three guys on the Internet right now.

[D]

You know it's true.

[C]

So yeah. So you know, make sure it fits you. And, and you know, personal finance is personal as you guys said earlier.

[B]

So, so tune in next week when we we're going to live rebalance Humphrey's portfolio.

[D]

Well, I like you kind of threw in there that you at least look at it. You don't always have to do the thing.

[C]

I think that's a great day.

[A]

Do you share your numbers? Because I mean we take some flack is that I don't share my income. I don't share my net worth completely. I'm not so transparent.

[C]

I stopped sharing. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because it's. Some people do share it all and I'm like not have relatives.

[C]

I had, I had people coming up. I had people coming up to me like, oh, how's your Palantir position doing? I'm like, I don't really want this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

All right. I've got another one queued up from Mr. Quest. It says can you be too diversified with individual stocks? I'll hear a new stock and invest in it but feel like my money's spread too thin. Would it be better to focus on a few strong stocks instead of many?

[B]

I've got very strong feelings.

[A]

We're going to let Humphrey.

[D]

I knew you guys would.

[A]

I want to know Humphrey's content. I know we're going to differ a little bit.

[C]

I think if it's held within a Roth account. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm loving the few strong stocks instead of many. But you know, I think I have more of a aggressive approach to things. I don't know how many individual socks this person has but I do think that, you know, if you're going to be diversified with like 60 individual stocks, you might as well just buy an ETF at that point.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

I love that so much.

[C]

That's my, that's my take. I personally like to have a few strong stocks in my Roth IRA in addition to an index fund. And I like the aggressive approach that I take and the fact that oh maybe I can have like a lot of tax free gains but that's personally what I do. Would I say that that's what everyone should do. Probably not. I think, you know, again, at the beginning of this live stream, I said, you know, it's probably better to just set it and forget it and not look at it. Probably been. Would have been way better off. Right.

[D]

So what do you think of how he said, I'll hear a new stock and then invest it? I know Brian and Bo are going to say something about it, so I'm curious what you think about.

[A]

Jim Craver is your friend on that one.

[C]

Yeah. I think that you should probably be doing at least 30 hours of research before you buy a new stock. Just don't, you know, if. If your mom says to buy. Buy a new stock, just go for it.

[B]

I'm curious to know what he hears about. Oh, I heard that this one made 20% last year. I need to buy that. Right? That's. I don't know. That's the way that I base my investment decision making.

[A]

Okay, I'm just gonna say I don't love individual stocks now because, look, here's the reality of the situation is when you start having some success and then you start having a growing family, time is just something I don't have a lot of anymore. And it's. So to hear Humphrey say, you got to invest 30 hours to buy a stock, I would end up with just a portfolio of cash because I don't have 30 hours to go find the next stock to do it. So I have to create things, the behaviors that will force it. And that's what, like I said, I just hung out with a buddy of mine who was moved back to Chicago, and we were talking. He's like, man, I am so much better off since you got me buying index funds. He goes. Because he was. We'd sit on his back porch and he'd be. Because when people find out you do finance, they think that the first thing, what stock are you? I don't know. I'm buying an S and P. I'm buying the index fund for myself. And so he would tell me. I remember we used to have so many conversations about Fitbit and all these other things. And. And finally I was like, what are you doing? I mean, you're successful. You have, you know, you're doing all these things. Just buy the index fund. When we were on this trip recently, he was like, you know, I'm so much better off. He goes, when I look at how my index funds are performing, and I don't have to put any effort into it whatsoever, it just. I feel like I got Time back, I got emotional value back. I mean, there's just a lot of things. So I look, I think it's like most things on your maturity with something. This makes me sound like an old man on a porch too. Is that when you find a new concept, like if you're come from humble beginnings and you just now understand about investing, you're going to be just so fascinated with the process that I get it because it's a new hobby, it's a new thing, but I'm just saying the practicality of it because, you know, you look at the Spiva research and everything else, the index funds outperform the active managers and you're more than likely not going to do better than the active managers yourself. So if you're thinking about this as actual eating money, this is going to be your retirement money, then I like index funds, ETFs, mutual funds. You choose, you know, your delivery method. If this is fun because you truly do get so much value of it, treat it like a hobby, but don't let that be. Let that be the vacation money versus the eating money and automate the behavior.

[B]

You know, I have, I have a good buddy. He's been in the industry. He's a very successful financial advisor. He's been in this for a long time now. But when he first became a financial advisor, he was, you know, early on trying to figure out how this all worked. And his dad let him take over a portfolio for him, right? Because, you know, dad want to support him, whatever. And one of the very early things he did is he was able to like sell SMAs, like these separate account managers who are selling individuals.

[A]

Gosh, he's talking about me. Keep going.

[B]

I was doing so good.

[A]

Keep going.

[B]

I've had this separate account measure to buy all these individual stocks and stuff, right? Well, what ended up happening inside of this advisor's father's portfolio is he'd be like, son, why, why do I own $7 worth of this? And why do I have $9 worth of this? And why do I. And why is my mailbox just full? Or today it'd be, why is my inbox just full of all these prospectuses? It was not adding a ton of value. And frankly, managing a large stock portfolio is pretty difficult. I mean, if you're someone who like, does like direct indexing, it's a difficult thing to manage that well and to make sure that you're not getting off on tracking and that sort of thing. And so, so it's hard. So before you do it, Understand why you're doing it and make sure that it's worth it. Because this same advisor I'm talking about, he was also an accountant. And so he did a ton of tax returns. He said one of the most annoying things in the world is when he'd have one of his like stock picking clients that's a trader that would have 500, 600, 800 transactions throughout the course of the year. And every single one of those had to show up on his tax return. Right. And you're talking about buying, selling, buying, selling months. And it was just an absolute nightmare. So a lot of times make sure when you implement these types of strategies, is the juice actually worth the squeeze that it's going to take.

[C]

I saw a really funny post on the Internet yesterday on like social media. And the title of the post was, do you think my accountant will be mad at me? And the screenshot was 5,523 trades profit and loss, $80.

[B]

Yes. Your accountant will.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Hey, Brian, will the accountant be mad at him?

[A]

Well, fortunately everybody, everything's automated now, so you can upload that stuff a lot easier. So you save yourself tons of money. But I want to give some context because I think a lot of you, I want to save you. The journey I was on because mine was a pureness of thought on this, is that when I started working the second firm I worked at super high net worth individuals, a lot of Fortune 500 founders, a lot of professional athletes, celebrities and others, we were managing the, running the money for them. And when I found out I could get access to these separate account management accounts that such wealthy people were using and my dad's, I mean, it was barely over $100,000, but that was the minimum to get access to these managers. I was like, I'm going to do my father a solid because we don't come from money. I'm going to get him into this stuff because this is what rich people get. So if it's good enough for the rich people, it's probably going to be better. And then because I was new to this whole process too, even though I'm managing money, working as an associate advisor at this large firm that's doing all these celebrities and Fortune 500 people. So I quickly realized, oh my gosh, this thing, it's more about the sizzle than the practicality of it. It just wasn't as good as what the brochure knows. It's fun to market this stuff because rich people stroking that ego, telling them we're going to give you something that the general public doesn't get. We're going to lock you up for seven to 10 years while we do it. You don't say that part out loud, but this is what you get when you do these type of. Of structures. And I thought I was doing my data solid, but then I quickly saw the warts on this thing. And that's why, even with our wealth management business, you know, we run billions of dollars here. I don't do a lot of the private deals because I saw that, and like I said, it's back to the no hypocrisy policy. I try to treat your money like if it was my money. And I learned something very valuable by seeing those. Doing what rich people do is sometimes more about the brochure and the sizzle than it is about actually the result that you're getting at the end of the day.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

So I didn't want y' all to think that I was out there doing. I mean, this is. My heart really is trying to. But I learned something by putting my own father in that stuff, and I was like, gosh, what am I doing?

[D]

No, I think the three of you gave a good picture of, like, the places where some version of this strategy might be really good. But you have to know yourself. Like, personal finance is personal, like you're saying. And there's reasons that we talk about some of the more automated things, because that is going to set a lot more people up for success than some of the really specialized, complicated things. So I loved that. Mr. Quest, thank you for the question, and thank you to everyone who joined us for this special live stream with Humphrey.

[A]

Wait, is that it? We're already out of time.

[D]

We're out of time.

[A]

Oh, my gosh, Humphrey, you're the secret sauce. I feel like the time just moved. It was a blink in the eye.

[B]

What are you saying? On the normal show, I know, like, I could make it here, like, doing.

[A]

Shows with you, but, I mean, that was. I'm like, now I see the timer up there. I'm like, how did an hour pass?

[C]

I'll send you an invoice. Okay.

[A]

That was the good news, though.

[D]

I agree. This was lovely. And even though we're turning off the cameras right now, we're going to record even more awesome content altogether. So be sure to subscribe to Humphrey Yang's channel and the Money Guy show channel, because there will be videos featuring all three of these wonderful gentlemen coming out soon.

[A]

Yeah. Hopefully you're on our platform right now. I mean, is it live? Stream anything you want to share with the audience. Anything you've got something that you want them to know about or.

[C]

No. I mean, I've learned a lot from you guys and I appreciate you guys having me on. And I'm excited to use the Collab feature on YouTube, which is brand new. So basically it means we can post together. So I'll have a video on my channel, these guys will have a video on your channel, and you'll get to see more content. Thank you for tuning into the live stream. Is there anything else we need to say?

[A]

Well, I don't mind sharing because I know when we had Aaron come on, people in the comments, they beat us up. Like, why didn't you guys do more than just that with Aaron? We have more stuff we're going to be doing too, so there's more to come. I just got attacked by the microphone. We have more that's going to be coming your way. So we're not going to be squandering this great opportunity because we know what a special thing it is to have Humphrey in studio today. And so more to come. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm your host, Brian. God, this thing keeps coming at me. Joined by Mr. Bo Hanson and of course, Humphrey Yang.

[C]

Thanks, guys.

[A]

Money Guy team out.

[B]

The Money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hansen. 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.