How to Do Financially in Crazy Times

Summary

Money Guy Show: How to Do Financially in Crazy Times

Released on November 13, 2024

Hosts: Brian Preston and Bo Hanson

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In this episode of the Money Guy Show, hosts Brian Preston and Bo Hanson delve into practical financial strategies to navigate turbulent economic periods. Through insightful discussions and listener questions, they offer expert advice on retirement account management, investment options for side hustlers, handling financial uncertainties, and optimizing health savings accounts. Below is a comprehensive summary of the episode’s key segments.

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1. Managing and Rolling Over Retirement Accounts

Timestamp: 00:07 – 03:41

Listener Question: Kadem inquires about the benefits of rolling over a 401k and 403b from previous employers into his current 401k plan. He also contemplates an IRA rollover within the same institution.

Key Discussions:

• Options for Old Retirement Accounts: Bo Hanson outlines three primary choices when changing employers:

  1. Leave the accounts as they are.
  2. Roll them over into the new 401k plan.
  3. Roll them over into an IRA.

  Bo Hanson (01:04):
  “We really have three things I can do. I can leave it where it is at the current institution, I can roll it into the new 401k, or I can roll it over into an IRA.”

• Decision Factors: The hosts emphasize evaluating the quality of investment options and administrative costs. They advise against automatic consolidation if the old plan offers superior benefits.

  Guest Speaker (01:58):
  “Do the research on how good are the investment options? What are the administrative costs within the plans?”

• Advantages of an IRA Rollover: An IRA provides greater control over investment choices, which can be beneficial if existing employer-sponsored plans lack favorable options.

  Bo Hanson (02:50):
  “If you find that your old 401k is bad, your new 401k is bad... That’s when probably an IRA rollover does kind of stand out. Because you control who you work with, what do you invest in.”

• Importance of Fee Assessment: All retirement plans have associated fees. Comparing fees across plans can lead to significant savings over time.

  Bo Hanson (03:41):
  “Look at the actual fees that you're paying. Compare the old one to the new one because if you can save money on fees, it's more money that's going to stay in your back pockets.”

Conclusion: Choose to roll over your retirement accounts based on a thorough evaluation of investment options and fees. An IRA rollover is advantageous for greater control, especially if employer plans are subpar.

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2. Investment Options for Side Hustlers Without Traditional Retirement Plans

Timestamp: 04:27 – 07:41

Listener Question: Liam, a 27-year-old PhD candidate, maximizes his Roth contributions but lacks access to a 401k or HSA. He earns $40k-$50k from side hustles and seeks alternative investment avenues beyond a brokerage account.

Key Discussions:

• Income Classification: The type of income from side hustles (W-2 vs. 1099) determines available investment options.

  Bo Hanson (05:02):
  “If side hustles are 1099 as an independent contractor, now we have a lot of really fun planning opportunities.”

• SEP IRA vs. Solo 401k: For self-employed individuals, a Solo 401k offers higher contribution limits compared to a SEP IRA, allowing for substantial retirement savings.

  Guest Speaker (05:27):
  “Solo 401ks allow you to do salary deferrals up to $23,000 and a profit-sharing portion on the side gig profits.”

• Maximizing Savings Behavior: Regardless of available plans, maintaining disciplined saving habits (e.g., saving 25% of income) is crucial for long-term financial health.

  Bo Hanson (06:30):
  “What you really want to master right now is the behavior. If I'm saving 25% of my gross income for the future, I'm likely to carry that behavior forward when my income increases.”

• Brokerage Accounts as a Temporary Solution: If limited to W-2 income without access to retirement accounts, utilizing brokerage accounts is acceptable, especially when coupled with strong saving habits.

  Bo Hanson (07:41):
  “Even if it's just falling into a brokerage account, which is totally an okay thing at this stage of your financial journey.”

Conclusion: Side hustlers classified as independent contractors should leverage retirement plans like Solo 401ks to maximize contributions. Maintaining disciplined savings behaviors is essential, and brokerage accounts serve as a viable alternative when traditional plans are inaccessible.

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3. Navigating the 'Messy Middle' of Financial Life

Timestamp: 08:30 – 20:34

Listener Question: Another Brian inquires about managing life’s chaos and organizing finances during challenging times, referred to as the "messy middle."

Key Discussions:

• Focus on Incremental Decisions: During turbulent periods, concentrate on making the best possible next decision rather than attempting to overhaul your financial situation entirely.

  Bo Hanson (14:00):
  “What you have to focus on is, what's the very best next decision I can make?”

• Embracing the Messy Middle: Acknowledges that many people experience financial struggles, often obscured by social media portrayals of success. Emphasizes the importance of staying true to a financial order of operations.

  Guest Speaker (17:41):
  “Break the illusion. Realize it's going to be hard. Embrace the messy middle where you're short on time, short on money.”

• Behavior Over Circumstances: Maintaining disciplined financial behaviors, such as consistent saving and adhering to financial plans, is crucial irrespective of external chaos.

  Bo Hanson (14:30):
  “Use the financial order of operations as your compass to stay on course.”

• Community and Shared Experiences: Recognizes that many are going through similar struggles, encouraging listeners to find solace in shared experiences rather than succumbing to the facade often presented on social media.

  Guest Speaker (19:00):
  “Everybody is struggling through what you're going through. Embrace this messy middle and realize there's a whole community of us.”

Conclusion: Navigating financial hardships requires focusing on small, positive decisions and maintaining disciplined financial behaviors. Understanding that many share similar struggles can provide comfort and motivation to stay the course.

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4. Optimizing Health Savings Account (HSA) Contributions Through IRA Rollovers

Timestamp: 20:34 – 24:30

Listener Question: Torch78 asks whether to take a one-time tax-free rollover IRA conversion to HSA contribution next year or wait until reaching age 55.

Key Discussions:

• Triple Tax Advantage of HSAs: HSAs offer tax deductions on contributions, tax-deferred growth on investments, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses.

  Bo Hanson (20:55):
  “HSAs are a triple tax advantage savings vehicle... tax deduction, tax-deferred growth, and tax-free withdrawals for medical expenses.”

• Prefer New Contributions Over Rollovers: The hosts recommend prioritizing new contributions to HSAs rather than rolling over existing IRA funds, preserving diversified investment portfolios.

  Bo Hanson (22:36):
  “I would love to see you put new money in there. So you're not just shifting the pots that it's in, you're actually adding additional dollars to the pot.”

• Eligibility and Planning Requirements: Ensures that contributions, especially rollovers, comply with eligibility criteria, such as being subject to self-employment taxes for side income.

  Guest Speaker (21:27):
  “Make sure that this is money that's going to be subject to self-employment taxes or payroll taxes for it to be eligible for these retirement plans.”

• Long-Term Financial Strategy: Incorporating HSA contributions should align with overall financial order of operations, ensuring that such moves complement broader financial goals rather than disrupt them.

  Guest Speaker (22:36):
  “Understand the components of HSAs and ensure they fit into your financial planning strategy.”

Conclusion: It is advantageous to prioritize new contributions to HSAs to capitalize on their triple tax benefits. Rollovers from IRA should be considered cautiously, ensuring they align with eligibility and long-term financial strategies.

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Final Thoughts and Resources

Timestamp: 24:00 – End

The hosts wrap up the episode by emphasizing the importance of taking an active role in personal financial management. They encourage listeners to utilize the resources available at moneyguy.com for further guidance and tools to support their financial decisions.

Brian Preston (23:09):
“Moneyguy.com resources in particular have tons of free stuff... when you're thinking through these questions, go check out the resources.”

Bo Hanson (24:25):
“Remember, you have to own your financial future or it will own you.”

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Key Takeaways:

1. Retirement Account Management: Evaluate investment options and fees before deciding to roll over retirement accounts. An IRA rollover offers greater control and flexibility.

2. Investment Strategies for Side Hustlers: Utilize retirement plans like Solo 401ks for higher contribution limits and maintain disciplined saving behaviors irrespective of available plans.

3. Handling Financial Turbulence: Focus on making incremental positive decisions, embrace shared struggles, and maintain consistency in financial behaviors during challenging times.

4. Maximizing Health Savings Accounts: Prioritize new HSA contributions to leverage their tax advantages, ensuring they complement your overall financial strategy.

For more detailed guidance and free financial tools, visit moneyguy.com.

Transcript

[Brian Preston]

We have another question from Kadem. It says, what are the benefits of rolling over a 401k? I have retirement accounts from previous employers, a 401k and a 403b. What are the pros and cons to rolling over to the same institution where my current 401k lives?

[Bo Hanson]

Tell me the other accounts that Cade said he had.

[Brian Preston]

He has an old 401k and 403b and not he has a new 401k at his current employer. So do you just leave them be? Do you roll them over?

[Guest Speaker]

But he also threw in another piece of thing. He said that he's considering doing an IRA rollover at the same institution where now his current 401k is. Did you hear that?

[Bo Hanson]

I did not hear that.

[Guest Speaker]

But wasn't that the last part of the question?

[Brian Preston]

Well, he said, what are the pros and cons of rolling these things over to the same institution? Yes.

[Bo Hanson]

We didn't say to an ira.

[Brian Preston]

I don't know where. Nothing about IRA specifically, which. Maybe it's that. That's not what I said.

[Bo Hanson]

A lot of people are faced with a decision. We change jobs, we end up moving into a new. We end up moving into a new role, a new job, and we have this old 401k left out behind there. And we can decide, okay, what do we want to do with this 401k? Well, we really have four options, but it's not really four options because I'm going to take away the fourth one of the options. We don't cash it out, because if you cash out your 401k, you're going to end up paying ordinary income taxes and a 10% penalty on that. So then you ask the question, okay, well, what can I do? Well, I've really got three things I can do. I can leave it where it is at the current institution under the current structure, I can roll it into the new 401K, new provider and invest in there, or I can roll it over into an ira. I can just open up a rollover IRA and roll it into there. So when I have those three options that I get to choose from, how do I decide which one I should do?

[Guest Speaker]

First of all, you also need to make sure you have enough in the old 401k. They don't automatically just distrib to you and take away your choice. So do a little research on that. But always you have to do the research and do the homework on how good are the investment options? What are the administrative costs within the plans and if you figure out that your new plan is just as good, if not even better, I don't see any problem with you rolling into the new 401k because that still allows you, especially if you're higher income, to continue to do backdoor Roth contributions. But if you find that your old 401k is bad, your new 401k is bad, probably set up by the golf buddy of the owner of the company and you just like, I just do not love this is where this is going to hold the majority of my retirement assets. That's when probably an IRA rollover does kind of stand out. Because you control who do we work with, what do we get to invest it in? But you gotta do the work. You gotta figure out. And that's why we do. If you go to moneyguy.com resources, we actually have a really good resource to kind of help you go through a decision matrix on should you keep the money where it's at. Because maybe you work for a Fortune 500, you previously worked for a Fortune 500 company and it has a really low cost 401k. I don't want you rolling it over just for the sake of consolidation to your new plan. If it's a bad plan, that's right. You've got to do the research steps to know if it's good. And I don't want you immediately just automatically going into an IRA rollover at your favorite institution because you might be cutting off the corner on certain planning opportunities you have. So you've actually got to don't skip leg day, do the homework and actually go through our worksheet that we've got on moneyguy.com resources.

[Bo Hanson]

I think one thing that often gets overlooked, people think, hey, I've got this 401k plan, this 403 plan. I'm not paying any fees on that. Nobody manages that. That's not true. All retirement plans do have some fees that they are subject to. So even when you're assessing, don't just look at the investment options and don't just look at the institution. Look at the actual fees that you're paying. You can go pull the 404A disclosure, or oftentimes there's like a 408 disclosure. You can ask for those from your HR department and it'll actually walk you through what are the fees I'm paying on this retirement account that I'm participating in. And you want to compare the old one to the new one. Because if you can also save money on fees it's more money that's going to stay in your back pockets. That's another thing to assess as you go through this investigation.

[Brian Preston]

Awesome. Kate M. Thank you for being here. Thank you for asking the question and I hope that helps you think through this question. That's awesome. Okay, Liam asks I'm a 27 year old PhD candidate on step 5. I'm maxing out my Roth but have no 401k or HSA options and obviously those are a big part of a step in the financial order of operations. Do I have any other options for investing other than a brokerage? I am make about 40 to 50k in side hustles right now. What would you say to Liam?

[Bo Hanson]

Oh Liam, I have a question. When you do those side hustles how are you getting paid? Like side hustles meaning like I'm working part time getting W2 income because then there's not a whole lot you can do. But if side hustles are you're getting 1099 as an independent contractor. Well now we have a lot of really fun planning opportunities because when you are a self employed individual it opens all kinds of wonderful world of finance choices.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I mean the old school answer used to be just go look at a SEP IRA and fund that to 2025% of your income funded basically by the employer. But then along comes solo 401ks which now allow you to do. Since you said you don't have a 401k at your work that means you have your full wide open on 415 funding limits meaning you can do salary deferrals up to the $23,000 and then you could do a profit sharing portion on the other side of the 23,000 to probably 20 25% of the profit of the side gig that you've got going on and it's an incredible saving opportunity so you don't have to especially if you have side income coming in. If you don't have a 401k with your employer, go create your own opportunity. If you have side hustle income now you have to make sure that this is money that's going to be subject to self employment taxes or payroll taxes for it to be eligible for these retirement plans.

[Bo Hanson]

But let's say that for some reason maybe you're doing part time work and it is a W2 and you're not getting a 1099 and all you can do is a brokerage account. That's okay, you're a PhD candidate which means likely when you finish your education, you're going to move into a vocation where you're probably going to have access to things like a 401k or a 403b or maybe even a 457 where you can double dip. So just because you're not able to build those accounts right now in your financial journey does not mean that you won't be able to build them at some point in the future. What you really want to master right now is the behavior. If I'm making 40 or $50,000 a year, am I still going to make sure that I'm saving 25% of my gross income for the future? Because if I can do that when I'm making 40 to $50,000 a year, then I'm likely going to be able to carry that same behavior forward when I'm making 140 to $150,000 a year. And I do have access to all these wonderful retirement plans. So the fact that you're saving at 27, if you've not done the wealth multiplier, go to moneyguy.com resources, play with our tool out there. It'll blow your mind. With every one of those dollars can turn into even if it's just falling into brokerage account, which is totally an okay thing at this stage of your financial journey.

[Guest Speaker]

Great point.

[Brian Preston]

Love it. Another good answer for Liam. Thank you for being here. Thank you for asking the question. We always appreciate hearing what's going on in your financial lives.

[Guest Speaker]

By the way, I feel like I have to give Bo a compliment now because I talked about twisting his tongue and stuff. And then the next, I mean, was it. Two questions later, he's out throwing out 408 and all kinds of stuff.

[Bo Hanson]

I felt like I had to flex.

[Guest Speaker]

I was like, dude, okay, maybe the stash ain't taking any brain capacity whatsoever.

[Bo Hanson]

I felt like I was challenged. I had to rise to the occasion, you know what I mean?

[Guest Speaker]

It's probably taking a dividend on a toll on his food consumption because some food's getting caught up there in the stash, but it's overall brain horsepower is full operating. It was a glitch. It was a mistake on my part.

[Bo Hanson]

Hey, I'll take that. Thanks, guy.

[Brian Preston]

That was a good update. All right, ready for the next personal finance question.

[Bo Hanson]

I now have a mustache in support of Beau. Hey, if you're growing a mustache right now, make sure you can. They tag us on social media, Matt. Is that a thing they can do on money? Go take a picture of your stash and tag Us on social media. We'd love to see it. I want you to see how strong the arm is.

[Guest Speaker]

I mean, I don't mean to keep bringing it back to this, but it is making me start to feel like. Are we going for a branding thing here? Like a KFC type branding opportunity?

[Bo Hanson]

I mean, I wasn't thinking about Colonel Sanders, but maybe.

[Guest Speaker]

You said it. I did.

[Bo Hanson]

Maybe.

[Guest Speaker]

And didn't he have that where he was twisty and then he had a little thing here? Wasn't in that. Colonel.

[Brian Preston]

He does have some distinct facial hair. Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

Oh, the Monopoly. We gotta get the monocle. We'll get into the whole.

[Brian Preston]

You can wear the monocle.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, remember, that's part of the. The. What is it? That Mandela effect.

[Bo Hanson]

That's right.

[Brian Preston]

Oh, man, let's not go down that rabbit hole, okay?

[Bo Hanson]

We've been there, done that entire week to that day.

[Guest Speaker]

I still say, Sinbad, it's not being honest with us.

[Bo Hanson]

No, he's lying. He's totally lying. I remember it.

[Brian Preston]

We do have a couple more questions queued up. Are you ready for it? Oh, yeah, Kaden has a question for you. He says we're planning an addition for 125k. Should we pay for it in cash or use a HELOC? We have about 104k in cash currently, and our gross income is 165k. We're 27 years old, save 15%, and Roths are at 60k. We prefer to keep the cash so we can invest it. What do you think?

[Bo Hanson]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Brian Preston]

There was a lot there, right?

[Bo Hanson]

Okay.

[Brian Preston]

Home renovation. But also, here's all of this other ground.

[Bo Hanson]

So. Okay, so, Kaden, the renovation is going to be 125 grand. This is not a small renovation. We have 104 in cash. Currently, our gross income is 165. We're 27 save 15, and we have Roth money saved up.

[Guest Speaker]

We don't know what their spending rate is, though.

[Bo Hanson]

But here's what I know. I know they've got 104,000 in cash. And look, I don't do a lot of really good public math, but if I got a thing that cost 125, and I know that I've got 104, and I'm going to try to pay this thing in cash. I'm gonna use all my cash.

[Guest Speaker]

What about emergency reserves?

[Bo Hanson]

I'm assuming that's what the 104 is.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, but you just told him he's gonna spend that and then some.

[Bo Hanson]

That's the point that I'm making. There's no way, in my opinion, Cade, you're not in a position where you even have the choice or the option to pay cash right now. Because what you can't do is whenever you're doing a home renovation or you're buying a second property or you're closing on a home or whatever the thing may be, you just can't spend your cash all the way down to zero. We see people do this over and over and over again. It's going to put you in a precarious situation that you do not want to be in. So when he asked the question, should I pay cash or do a heloc, I don't really think he actually has that choice. Agree, disagree.

[Guest Speaker]

I think what's going on, and I kind of can hear it because it's almost like theme music. I hear Kenny Loggins. I see you playing the part of Goose, and I've got my Maverick helmet on.

[Bo Hanson]

He does this every day.

[Guest Speaker]

This sounds like the danger zone. I mean, it really does. I hear the music accompaniment kicking in is Beau's. Exactly right. I think this is going to be. Kaden, if I had to tell you, I think it's going to be a balance of both. You're going to need to figure out what your burn rate is on emergency reserves. You got to have three to six months. That's step four, the financial order of operations. And then so that you're going to have extra. And that money can go right into that home improvement project that you've been saving for. But then you're probably, if you can't come up with the gap, maybe the home equity line, but you got it. But I want to tell you, before I give you permission to do that, you gotta begin with the end in mind is how do you pay back the renovation? Obviously, if you got to $104,000 of savings, you are able. You're in a disciplined way living on less than you make. But just make sure that you're building it into your financial order of operations plan so that you're not giving up on ROTH funding, retirement matching, and all the other great things that come from building your financial opportunities in the future, but also doing this home renovation that's needed in the current moment.

[Bo Hanson]

Now, I know that I'm normally the nice one and Brian's the mean one, but I'm gonna be the mean here for a second because Kaden did say something. Said, hey, I'm saving 15% now.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, that's not one of the things.

[Bo Hanson]

Here's what I don't know. This home renovation, this $125,000 improvement, was this a need or was this a want? Now, if it was a need, hey, our family's growing. We had to do an extra bedroom. We had to, you know, in order for us to be able to live the life that we want, to be able to live as a family or need to be able to live as a family, we had to do it. That's one thing. If the $125,000 renovation was, oh, we're just, you know, blowing out the bonus room, or we're adding a pool, putting.

[Guest Speaker]

Some heaters on the back deck.

[Bo Hanson]

We're putting heat. Yeah. Whatever the thing may be, you need to make sure that you're in the right part of your financial journey to be able to do that. Because I would argue at 27 years old, only saving, like, 15%, your goal should be to get to 25%. And so you've got 60,000 in your Roth built up. That's awesome. But 125,000 is a big nut. And if you go out to moneyguy.com resources, plug that $125,000 into the wealth multiplier. I want you to see how much this renovation is actually costing you in terms of future dollars that you're walking away from to make sure that you're making this decision at the right part of your financial journey and not accelerating it prematurely. That's my opinion. That's my cold water. You agree with that? You're not going to agree with that.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah. Thanks for being the heavy.

[Bo Hanson]

Thanks.

[Brian Preston]

Someone's gotta do it, right, Kaden? Honestly, hopefully that gave you a lot to think about and help you think through this decision. So thanks for being here and for your question.

[Guest Speaker]

I'm always looking for opportunities.

[Brian Preston]

All right. I'm interested to hear what you guys say about this next one. It's from another Brian.

[Bo Hanson]

Why.

[Brian Preston]

One eye, two n's?

[Guest Speaker]

Are you sure that's Brian?

[Bo Hanson]

Brian.

[Brian Preston]

Brian.

[Bo Hanson]

I don't know why the second end made me put a question mark at the end.

[Guest Speaker]

It does kind of add a question mark to.

[Brian Preston]

Well, the question says, good morning. My wife and I are in the messy middle. These times are crazy. What advice do you have to organize life and get through this season?

[Bo Hanson]

What's that funny acronym people say? Hodl. Hodl.

[Guest Speaker]

What is it?

[Bo Hanson]

How do I say, hold on for dear life? That's it. Just. Just grab on. Oh, man. Let me. Let me give you some solace. So you asked, what advice do we have to organize Life and get through the season. Man, it's hard because, like, when you're in a tornado, what advice do you have? Man, you just got to figure out, how do I. Sometimes it literally is, how do I survive this thing? But you're not alone. And this is what I found, and this is the counsel I give. There's a lot of folks that are in the messy middle, and there's a lot of folks that go through the messy middle, and it's not easy. You have a thousand different things pulling you in a thousand different directions, and all of a sudden a thousand different unknown unknowns fall on your plate. You don't have any money left over, you don't have any time left over. You're exhausted, and you just have all this different stuff going on. So what you have to focus on is, what's the very best next decision I can make? And sometimes that decision might be, hey, I'm not going to shut off the Roth funding. Hey, I'm not going to pull money out of the emergency fund to do this thing that I want to do. Or, hey, I'm just going to keep my head down. Hey, I'm going to make sure I got a pay raise and I'm going to save an additional 2% into my 401k. Sometimes you just have to focus on making the very best next small marginal decision until you can get through it. Because a lot of people, they get in the messy mail like, oh, my financial life was an absolute disaster. How do I fix it all? And unfortunately, it's going to be really hard trying to fix it all. So you got to try to fix one small thing at a time. And one of the ways that we want to help you do that. Brian, can you hold the thing up? We have the financial order of operations that even as you're going through the messy middle, will help you stay true. Okay, I was doing great, and then something happened, and then I was doing great and then something else happened. If you can use that as your barometer, as your litmus test. Is that right? If you can use it as your brace to make sure that you are staying on the line that you should be staying. If you can use it as your compass. Let's do some more analogies. If you can use it as a tool to make sure that you know you're not getting too far off course, there's a very high likelihood that your future self, when you come out of the messy middle, when you get to the back end of it, you say, man, I'm So glad I did not deploy some permanent solutions to temporary problems like stopping my savings rate, racking up credit card debt, borrowing more money than I should have, making negative financial decisions I'm gonna pay for for decades that maybe I could have avoided if I would have just, like stayed the course and kept my head down to the messy middle.

[Guest Speaker]

Brian, I would share break the illusion. So many people out there currently, I think because of social media, they think everybody's doing. You're the only one in the world that's struggling because you're looking at everybody's highlight reel. I mean, when you look at Instagram, when you look at any type of social media, people aren't being real with you. They're telling you kind of their highlight reel of how great their life is. And that's why we did a show. YouGov had this survey that said how many people that made a half a million versus how many people made a million, and the percentages of what the public thought were crazy. I'm talking 21 in five. Yeah, it was like 20 plus percent on a million dollars. And meanwhile, you know, that's like a percent of a percent or something. It's like nothing. There's not many people doing that. So I want you to know, Brian, everybody is struggling through what you're going through. I want you to embrace this messy middle where you're short on time, you're short on money. Know that there are more people just like you than there are not, despite what social media is saying. And Beau is exactly right. Each decade of your life is going to have its own special sweetness, even if it's a struggle. And I want to encourage you, don't give up on still following the financial order of operations, but also don't give up on bedazzling your basic life and still making memories. Nothing that says you have to go book airfare for five to go make memories. You can do road trips, you can do all kind of crazy things. National parks. There's lots of ways to embrace the moment and still maximize it, both from the financial planning goals as well as from the memories. And I don't mind my experience here, and I put this in Millionaire Mission, and I've shared it on the show a bunch of times. Even in my trajectory through life, I didn't feel comfortable with money until I got to be 42, 43 years of age. And that's with making lots of good decisions, but also going through the messy middle of moves. You know, starting a business, changing jobs. There's all kind of things that put me in my own messy middle embrace that there's a whole community of us and probably more of your peers are struggling through this. It's just that we're not always honest with the people around us because in this new modern world, we all kind of fake it until we make it. And I'm saying throw that out, break the illusion and just realize it's going to be hard. But even this you will look back on just like a good country music song and you go say you miss these years or yeah, maybe you were short on time, maybe you're short on money, but there's going to be its own special sweetness, because I even share that in the book, is that my happiest time in childhood was actually when my dad was unemployed and money was the hardest. It was for my parents. And that's probably. There's something to be learned for you on that to make sure you're not squandering the memory part of this, even when money's tight.

[Brian Preston]

Love it. All right, Brian, thank you for being here and thank you for the question. All right, we've got one from torch 78 up next. He says, would it be best to take the one time tax free rollover IRA conversion to HSA contribution next year or wait until I reach 55?

[Bo Hanson]

He has to take the one time tax free rollover ira. Yeah, there's a, Isn't there an age limit on that though? So what Torch is asking is, hey, there's an opportunity where I can actually choose to rollover. I guess it's $7,000 or what was it, 6,500 or 7,000? I can't remember the number. It was. I can do a one time rollover from an IRA rollover into an HSA to fund the hsa. Is that something that I should potentially take advantage of? And again, in true financial advisor fashion, the answer we're going to say is it depends. It depends on what your financial situation is as well as what your financial resources are. Because when we think about funding health savings accounts and growing that it's such a valuable planning tool. That's why we put it in step five of the order of operations. Bring all the thing up. That's why we put it in step five of the financial order of operations because it is a triple tax advantage savings vehicle. Not only do you get a tax deduction when you put money into the hsa, but you can then invest those dollars and they will grow tax deferred. And then when you go to pull those monies out for qualified healthcare expenses. It's completely tax free. So rather than taking some money out of your portfolio that's already there and rolling it into the hsa, I would love to see you put new money in there. So you're not just shifting the pots that it's in, you're actually adding additional dollars to the pot. So I've seen people that have done this one time rollover, they usually do it in the year that they retire around about that age. But given all the options, I would probably choose new dollars flowing into the HSA over the rollover.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I mean you're basically going from a step six to a step five. So unless your lifestyle requires it because you've had something come your way, a hardship or something. I'm exactly with BO as I think out of like new money because of remember triple tax advantages, you get tax deduction, you get tax deferred growth and then if you use it for medical, qualified medical expenses, it's tax free. That contribution is really powerful on the front end. So check into that, make sure you understand those components to it. And thanks for the question.

[Brian Preston]

Awesome. Well, torch 78, like Brian said, thanks for the question. We love hearing your questions. So seriously, thank you for being here every Tuesday at 10am Central and thank you for subscribing to the channel. That makes a huge difference. So if you haven't done that and like what you're we're talking about today, make sure you subscribe. And even after the cameras Turn off today, moneyguy.com is always there for you. Moneyguy.com resources in particular has tons of free stuff. I know I'm always plugging it. That's because I just want to make sure you know it's available so that when you're having these conversations in your life, when you're thinking through these questions and it's not Tuesday at 10am Central, go check out the resources because there's a lot of, you know, maybe a bit more in depth or a place where things are written down for you that you can download or go and do a little bit more research. And it's all for you. So make sure you check that out.

[Guest Speaker]

I like that we got a bunch of questions today, Beau, you know, we had about ownership decisions of deferred comp. All these things really drive you to take an active role in your personal financial life and while that's important is that you have to own your financial future or it will own you. If you're just kind of letting life happen and that's something we try to make sure you know what to do with your next dollar. I'm your host, Brian Preston. Mr. Bo Hanson. Money Guy team out.

[Narrator]

The Money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston. 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 and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.