Tax Updates You Can’t Afford to Miss

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Money Guy Show

Hosts: Brian Preston & Bo Hanson
Episode: Tax Updates You Can’t Afford to Miss
Date: November 19, 2025

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Overview

In this actionable, information-packed episode, Brian and Bo break down the latest IRS tax and retirement account updates, including 2026 contribution limits, deductions, and recently passed tax legislation. The hosts clarify how these changes affect savers, investors, and families, peppering the show with practical tips, real-world stories, and audience Q&A. If you’re looking to optimize your 2026 financial strategy and stay ahead of the tax curve, this is a must-listen.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Importance of Tax Update Season

• Brian’s annual tradition: November is exciting for financial professionals because it’s when the IRS releases next year’s tax updates.
• Nerdy excitement: “I get excited because every November the government tells us what are the changes they’ve made to all of our contribution limits, our tax brackets...” – Brian Preston [01:28]

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2026 Contribution Limits: What's Changed?

401(k), 403(b), 457, and Thrift Savings Plan

• Employee deferral limit:
  • 2025: $23,500
  • 2026: $24,500 (+$1,000)
• Total contribution limit (employee + employer):
  • 2025: $70,000
  • 2026: $72,000 (+$2,000)
• Catch-up for ages 50+:
  • 2025: $7,500
  • 2026: $8,000 (+$500)
• Super catch-up (ages 60-63): $11,250 (unchanged)
• Highly compensated employees: New rules often require catch-ups to be Roth contributions; check with HR/payroll [03:04].

IRAs

• Traditional & Roth IRA:
  • 2025: $7,000
  • 2026: $7,500
• IRA catch-up (ages 50+): $1,100 for 2026 (odd $100 increment noted)
• SEP IRA: Contribution increased to $72,000
• SIMPLE IRA: Salary deferral up to $17,000, catch-up up to $4,000, super catch-up (ages 60-63) remains $5,250

HSA & Health Accounts

• HSA Individual:
  • 2025: $4,300
  • 2026: $4,400
• HSA Family:
  • 2025: $8,550
  • 2026: $8,750
• HSA catch-up (ages 55+): $1,000 per eligible spouse [07:05]
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA):
  • 2025: $3,300
  • 2026: $3,400

529 Plans & ABLE Accounts

• No changes: Both remain at $19,000

“Just because these numbers have increased does not mean you will automatically max them out… Make sure you're checking that so you don't leave that tax deferred savings on the table.” — Bo Hanson [03:38]

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Tax Bracket Adjustments & Standard Deduction Changes

• Marginal brackets shifted for inflation.
  • Example: 10% for up to $25,000 married filing jointly; 37% tops out at income above $768,000 [07:50]
• Standard deduction 2026:
  • Single/Married Filing Separately: $16,100
  • Married Filing Jointly: $32,200
  • Head of Household: $24,150

"The vast majority of Americans are likely still going to be standard deductors." — Bo Hanson [08:59]

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Major Policy & Tax Law Updates: What’s on the Horizon

Key Legislative Changes (2025–2028 & Beyond):

• Senior Deduction Increase: Up to $6,000/individual, $12,000/couple [10:38]
• SALT Deduction: Raised from $10,000 to $40,000 for state/local taxes — major for high-tax states [10:45]
• Tax on Tips & Overtime: Deduct up to $25,000 tips or $12,500 single/$25,000 joint and certain overtime [11:15]
• Car Interest Deduction: Up to $10,000, but car must be U.S.-assembled for personal use [12:10]
• Child Tax Credit: Raised to $2,200/child (inflation-adjusted annually after 2026), more refundable [13:14]
• 529 Plans: Expanded eligible expenses include professional licenses, apprenticeships, and supplies [13:14]
• Child & Dependent Care Credit Expansion: Up to 50% credit for $3,000 child expenses per child, $6,000 total [13:39]
• Front-Page Charitable Deduction: $1,000 ($2,000 married) for charitable giving even for standard deductors [14:41]
• Child IRAs/“Trump Accounts”: Caution on tax treatment—still worth claiming the match, but taxed like regular IRAs [15:20]

“Once that happens, there are some other things you can go look at like health care expenses, other miscellaneous expenses...” — Bo Hanson on itemized deductions amid SALT changes [11:15]

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Practical Tax Planning Advice

• Be proactive:
  “Tax avoidance is highly encouraged… do your homework so that we don’t have to pay any more tax than we absolutely must.” — Bo Hanson [16:23]

• Review with each change:
  “If you’re willing to do a little bit of homework, a little bit extra work to make sure you structure your financial life in a way to minimize your taxes, that’s more dollars in your army of dollar bills that can grow for the future.” — Bo Hanson [16:23]

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Memorable Quotes & Fun Moments

• On Roth catch-ups:
  “Oh no, don't let me do more Roth. OK, we'll get more Roth assets.” — Brian Preston [03:27]

• On quirky IRS adjustments:
  “For some reason they made this year's catch up contributions in 2026 will be $1,100. That's right. They added $100 to those catch up contributions.” — Brian Preston [04:35]

• On complex tax law:
  “It's almost like the CPAs sit around and make it super CPAs.” — Bo Hanson [10:01]

• On home improvement and happiness:
  “There is no point in getting all the way to the end of this life with a big stack of money and no memories...” — Bo Hanson [44:38]

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Audience Q&A Highlights

[18:06] Celebrating a $1 Million Net Worth at 38

• Advice: Take time to celebrate (e.g., trip, dinner). Reflect with your spouse on “remember whens,” set new goals rooted in your “why.”
• Building to $2 Million: “Don’t forget to dance with the one that brung you.” The same steady behaviors will often get you to the next milestone. Beware complexity for its own sake.

[24:54] Should I Decrease Retirement Investing to Pay Off My Spouse’s $4K, 8.5% Debt?

• Advice: High interest debt should be knocked out quickly, possibly using emergency fund reserves. After marriage, set goals together as a unit to avoid “my stuff vs. your stuff” mindset.

[34:13] Lump Sum or Dollar Cost Averaging ($20K in HSA)?

• Goldilocks Rule:
  • If $20K is less than 10% of your investable assets, lump sum.
  • If more significant, DCA over 6 months for volatility smoothing.
• HSAs are underused: Only 13% utilize the full triple-tax advantage.

[39:48] Remodel with Home Equity Loan vs. Move?

• Consider: Home equity loans are (currently) at higher variable rates; payback timeline should reflect whether improvement is for personal use vs. value-adding.
• Emotional value matters: “If this is the place you’re going to have your family… money is nothing more than a tool.” — Bo Hanson [44:41]

[54:32] How to Rebalance from 97% Equities at Age 37?

• Depends on:
  • Portfolio size
  • Account structure (tax-advantaged vs. taxable)
  • Tax implications
  • Time horizon and goals
  • Diversification (index funds vs. concentrated stocks)
• **Consider gradual changes via new investments if positions are in taxable accounts to avoid unnecessary tax hits.

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Notable Timestamped Quotes

• [01:28] “Now every November I get excited… the government tells us what are the changes they’ve made to all of our contribution limits, our tax brackets.” — Brian Preston
• [03:27] “Oh no, don't let me do more Roth. OK, we'll get more Roth assets.” — Brian Preston
• [08:59] "The vast majority of Americans are likely still going to be standard deductors." — Bo Hanson
• [16:23] “Tax avoidance, however, is highly encouraged. One of the best ways we can avoid taxes is understanding what has changed…” — Bo Hanson
• [44:38] “There is no point in getting all the way to the end of this life with a big stack of money and no memories…” — Bo Hanson

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Summary Table: 2026 Key Contribution Limits

| Account Type | 2025 Limit | 2026 Limit | Catch-Up (50+) | |----------------------|---------------|-----------------|----------------------| | 401(k)/403(b)/457/ TSP | $23,500 | $24,500 | $8,000 | | Total 401(k) Contrib | $70,000 | $72,000 | - | | IRA (Trad./Roth) | $7,000 | $7,500 | $1,100 | | HSA (Individual) | $4,300 | $4,400 | $1,000 (age 55+) | | HSA (Family) | $8,550 | $8,750 | $1,000 (per spouse) | | FSA | $3,300 | $3,400 | - |

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The “Why” Behind the Financial Order of Operations (FOO)

When asked what makes their methodology (the "FOO") unique, Brian and Bo highlight its roots in real-life experience and prioritization:

• Inspired by math’s order of operations (PEMDAS), helping people avoid costly errors in financial decision sequencing.
• Step 1: Cover highest insurance deductibles (prevents catastrophes).
• Always capture “free money” (employer match) ASAP.

"I get so mad that... nobody was prioritizing get the free money from your 401k..." — Brian Preston [48:04]

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Closing Thoughts

Brian and Bo remind listeners to stay proactive, adapt strategies to legislative changes, and revisit plans annually. The episode is not just a data dump, but a motivational call to approach money as both a math problem AND a tool for a richer life—using tax updates as an invitation to up your game.

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Useful Links

• Full contribution limit tables and calculators: moneyguy.com/resources
• Contact the Money Guy team: moneyguy.com -> Become a Client
• Livestream Q&A: Tuesdays, 10am Central, YouTube and Spotify

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This summary omits ad reads, intros, outros, and focuses strictly on content and Q&A.

Transcript

[Brian Preston]

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[Brian Preston]

Tax updates you can't afford to Ms.

[Bo Hanson]

Brent I am so excited about this because it is that time of the year where the IRS has finally let us know what we can expect next year. When it comes to how much money we can save for the future, what tax opportunities are are available to us. The numbers are in hot off the press and we get to go through them today.

[Brian Preston]

This is always, you know, being a financial nerd. I have quirky times of the year I get excited. Okay, you know we've in the past we've joked about that we love when Warren Buffett wrote letters to shareholder. When I was writing Millionaire Mission, I remember we had the book written but we couldn't. We needed all the year end updates. So now every November I get excited because it's always around November the government tells us what are the changes they've made to all of our contribution limits, our tax brackets. So with that this is stuff I'm hoping that I can turn this into your own nerdy tradition that you too can get excited about.

[Bo Hanson]

So let's talk about what changed some of the updates and let's start with maybe the exciting ones or the ones that people likely get the most excited about. And these are contribution limits as you know, for certain tax incentivized retirement plans. The government says, hey, these things are really, really good, but you can only put so much money into them and every year those numbers change just a little bit. Well, 2026 is no different. When we look at contribution limits for 401k, 403b, 457 employer sponsored plans and the thrift savings plan in 2025 for salary deferrals you could do $23,500. You now can do an extra thousand dollars in 2026 with $24,500.

[Brian Preston]

Well, and all for my self employed and those in the high comp area. If you're trying to figure out total contributions that includes your employer and you. It went from 70,000 to 72,000. For people who are in my age category 50 and greater we went from 7,500 on the catch ups to now $8,000.

[Bo Hanson]

One little honorable mention on that one. If you are someone who's qualified as a highly compensated employer and you are going to do catch UP contributions in 2026, it's likely that your plan has now made the election where they now have to be Roth contribution. So if you've not made that adjustment, if you've not had a conversation with payroll or HR about that, you want to make sure you navigate that before we get to January.

[Brian Preston]

What a quirky little thing. I mean I know why they did it is because they don't want you to take the tax deduction for it. But oh no, don't let me do more Roth. Okay, we'll get more Roth assets.

[Bo Hanson]

And then if you are someone who is between ages 60 and 63, there's an additional catch up that you can do. There's a super catch up which is $11,250. That number did not change. Now here's something that's important to know. When you make your deferral election into your 401k. Oftentimes people will say I want to defer 5%, 10%, 15%. Just because these numbers have increased does not mean that you will automatically max them out. So you want to make sure you you do the math in your plan because maybe if you were saving 10% last year, you might need to save 11% this year, whatever that number may be so that you can make sure you don't leave money on the table. We see this all the time. Brian will review someone's W2 and we'll notice the amount going into the 401k might have been the contribution limits from three years ago, four years ago because they never actually went no did it? So make sure you're checking that so you don't leave that tax deferred savings on the.

[Brian Preston]

Well, that's a great segue because a lot of you have set up account builders on your IRAs as well. Let's talk about what happened to contribution limits on that. If you think about IRAs for 2025, they were $7,000 a year. Now they're $7,500. Now here's the quirkiest. Even both of us, when we were going through show notes, we were like, why did they do this? Catch up contributions for those 50 and greater forever it feels like it's been $1,000 or you know, when you've had inflation adjustments, it's been in $500 increments. But for some reason they made this year's catch up contributions in 2026 will be $1,100. That's right. They added $100 to those catch up contributions.

[Bo Hanson]

And look, they didn't call and ask us for our opinion. But you know what's super frustrating about this? We're going to get to a sec. You're like, all right, 7500 IRA plus eleven hundred dollar catch up. All right, that's going to be $8600. Oh my gosh, 8600. That's really close to HSA Family Max. But it's not the exact same. It just is going to create some confusion. You know what, we're smart. We'll be able to keep it clear. So, but I don't know why they didn't make it a little bit easier to navigate for additional IRAs. If you're someone who's contributing to a SEP IRA, they have the same section 415 limits that 401ks have. They're going from $70,000 up to $72,000, assuming that you have enough compensation that 25% of the comp allows you to max out that SEP IRA. And then simple IRA contributions are also going up. Salary deferrals are going from 16,500 up to 17,000. Catch up contributions inside. Simple IRAs are going from 3,500 to 4,000. And then the super catch ups for those that are ages 60 to 63 are staying the same at $5,250 per year.

[Brian Preston]

Let's talk about health and education updates because these contribution limits have also been increased. If you think about health savings accounts now, we were talking once again quirky things, things that make you go, hmm, I wonder why they did that. It's always been kind of interesting and this a few years ago it separated from common sense contributions between like individual versus family. It used to be like half.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah, the individual is exactly half of the family limit.

[Brian Preston]

Easy to Remember, we, we've decided that didn't make enough sense, so we needed to make this comp more complicated. Because if you look at contribution limits for individuals, it's 4,300 in 2025, 2026 will go up to 4,400. And then for families, it's 8,550 in 2025, but in 2026, it's going to be 88,750. So he took half minus 50.

[Bo Hanson]

Yep.

[Brian Preston]

It's really weird.

[Bo Hanson]

Very, very frustrating. And then if you are someone who is above the age of 55, this is a little bit different than 401ks or 403bs. Catch up contributions for HSAs trigger at age 55. And so if you are eligible for that, you can do an additional thousand dollars into your health savings account. And oftentimes there's a little strategy where if you have two spouses that are both over 55, you can do a thousand for each if you open up a second HSA account. So a little bit way to squeeze a little bit extra tax savings in there.

[Brian Preston]

And we can go through these others, like the flexible spending accounts. Those have gone from $3,300 to $3,400. 529s, they've stayed unchanged because the gifting limits have not changed. 19,000, same thing for able contributions also stayed the same at 19,000.

[Bo Hanson]

All right, so that covers all of the contribution limits that have changed, but the venture. Some other tax changes as well that we want to make you aware of. And one of the things we know is that oftentimes the marginal tax brackets that we are subject to get indexed for inflation and they change. And so in 2026, that is no different. All of the tax brackets have shifted a touch. And so I'm going to run through these very quickly. But this is a pretty easy thing to go out there and Google or look up if you want to know what bracket you fall into. But if you make a married filing jointly below $25,000 in the 10% bracket, up to 100,000 at 12%, up to about 211,000, 22, 400,000, 24, 512,032, 768,035, and then if you make over $768,000 married filing jointly, you are in the top marginal tax bracket, 37% federally.

[Brian Preston]

Well done. I mean, what y' all don't know is in the content meeting, I was trying to turn this into a TED talk on tax rate changes. BO convinced me. No, I'm I've got a way I'm going to do this really quick. So I give you kudos for, for making that happen.

[Bo Hanson]

There are some other changes and these are pretty big because this is on the deduction side. The standard deduction has continued to increase. So in 2026, if you are single or married filing separately, your standard deduction is $16,100. If you're married filing jointly, you're a surviving spouse, the standard deduction is all the way up to $32,200 and if you're head of household, $24,150. And so, Brian, I think that the vast majority of Americans, even with some of the changes we're going to talk about in a second, are likely still going to be standard deductors. So they are likely going to benefit from this higher deduction they get to take.

[Brian Preston]

So I think just in kind of summary, we've just covered the contribution limit increases, we've covered the tax rates. We but there's also big tax news in the fact that we had the big beautiful bill that passed that a lot of this stuff kicks in coming into 2026. So we want to make sure we brought you up to speed on what you need to be paying attention to for both this 2025 tax filing year, but also for the years to come.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah. And it's really, again, most things when it comes to tax policy are not incredibly simple and straightforward. It's almost like the CPA sit around and make it super CPAs.

[Brian Preston]

Don't blame us.

[Bo Hanson]

All right, all right. That's not them.

[Brian Preston]

But it's just, it's all those people we put up in D.C. make it.

[Bo Hanson]

A little bit more complicated than perhaps needs to be. And so there are some distinct timelines you need to be available, you need to be aware of as you think about these tax changes. So this first little tranche we're going to talk about are changes that are going to take place between 2025 and 2028. These are period certain changes that have been adjusted and the first one is pretty significant. It's the senior deduction increase.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah. This is getting you for up to $6,000 of an additional deduction per individual.

[Bo Hanson]

12,000 for couples.

[Brian Preston]

Exactly. Then, oh, here's one I think of people are going to be excited about. The, the, the local, the sales and local taxes, salt, if you're not familiar with that. These things got brought down a lot of people if you live in a high tax state, both for property taxes as well as for state income Taxes, you got capped at 10 grand. This was a big change that a lot of people did not like. Well, now it's gone from 10 to $40,000. That's going to have a big impact on anybody who's itemizing their taxes and lives in a high tax state.

[Bo Hanson]

So it's one of those things. Obviously there are some significant things. Chang relates to schedule A on your tax return, your itemized deduction. So if you are someone who maybe has been taking advantage of the standard deduction each year, make sure you double check to make sure that because of this salt change, you're not going to be an itemizer. Because once that happens, there are some other things you can go look at like health care expenses, other miscellaneous expenses that you might incur that could fall on schedule A. So make sure you're looking at that. Another change that's going to happened between 25, 2025 and 2028 is limiting tax on tips and overtime. For these years, eligible workers can deduct up to $25,000 of qualified tips or up to $12,500 for single filers, 25,000 for joint filers, and a certain amount of overtime pay. So if you are someone who either earns overtime pay or part of your compensation is comprised of tips, make sure you understand how these changes could potentially affect you.

[Brian Preston]

And then one for I can't wait to see how they tell us we're going to do this is the car interest deduction, you know, up to $10,000. But there is the caveat that the car has to be qualified U.S. assembled passenger vehicle for personal use. Man, where are they going to be handing out those stickers? This vehicle qualifies for this. Can't wait to see how that plays out, but it's always fun. I'll get my popcorn ready.

[Bo Hanson]

So those are some of the changes that are taking place from 2025 to 2028. But then there are other changes that are happening that are going to go 2025 and beyond, the first of which it's a lot of parents, a lot of folks in the messy middle. There is an increased child tax credit. With the new legislation, it permanently increased the child tax credit to $2,200 per qualifying child starting in 2025. And then that's going to be adjusted for inflation annually beginning in 2026. And the amount that is going to be refundable of that credit will also be adjusted from $1400 in 2025, up and beyond in 2026 and beyond.

[Brian Preston]

529 is more eligible expenses. I mean this is something professional licenses, technical training, apprenticeships, other fees and supplies. Once again, it seems like 529s keep getting better and better. And then of course, I don't think a lot of people you've heard about this. The news media covered it. A lot of your electric cars and the energy credits, they've been phased out and a lot of them even went away as of September 30th of this year.

[Bo Hanson]

So then we've talked about 2025 to 2028, 2025 and beyond. And there are some changes that are going to take effect in 2026 tax year. One of those is the child independent care credit expansion. So what this is is parents and gardens can receive a maximum credit of up to 50% of their claim child dependent care expenses for $3,000 per qualifying child, up to $6,000 if you have two or more children. These are expenses that you incur so that you can go out and do your job. That's been expanded in 2026 and beyond.

[Brian Preston]

This is one when I was doing taxes for those 16 years, this is one of those I kept in my back pocket. I'd pay attention if I had two working spouses or I had a spouse and the other one's upper, you know, full time student. You can actually deduct those child, you take a credit for the dependent care expenses. Don't sleep on that. A lot of people just don't know about this credit. So if you're, if you resemble what I just talked about, both spouses are working or both spouses are at least full time students and working, then you ought to look into this.

[Bo Hanson]

Another change that's happening is we, as we've already stated, the standard deduction increased in recent years. And so because, because of that, a number of folks were no longer itemizing their deductions. And one of the deductions that people often itemize is their charitable giving or their philanthropic giving. Well, one of the things that's unique that's happening in 2026 and beyond is even if you are a standard deductor, there's not going to be a front page deduction for $1,000 for single individuals, $2,000 for married filing joint joiners for those who do not itemize. So even if you take the standard deduction, but you are charitably minded, you can get a front page tax deduction even while you're doing the standard deduction.

[Brian Preston]

And then one that got a lot of press and there was a lot of Stuff a lot of misinformation out there on was the these child IRAs or Trump accounts. Look, I think for if you have a child that comes in this window of opportunity, take the free money. We were actually surprised because there was so much misinformation that came out on this is that these things are going to be taxed like IRAs though. So there's. If you're not outside of the free money, there might be a better way if you're trying to figure out what to do with your dollars for your children, but still definitely take advantage of just like we talk about free money for your employers. Take the free money from the government when you set up these accounts accounts.

[Bo Hanson]

And then there are some changes that are happening for student loans both in terms of the amount that you can borrow in the caps as well as the repayment plan. So if you're someone who's currently on a student loan repayment plan, there is a deadline of July 1, 2028, where potentially you may have to make some adjustments or changes. So make sure you understand what's going away, what's no longer going to be available to you in regards to payment plan and how you need to adjust moving forward.

[Brian Preston]

Forward. Boom. 15 minutes.

[Bo Hanson]

Look at that. Lots of tax changes. But here's the thing that's so interesting about taxes. We talk about all the time that you know, in this country, tax avoid tax evasion is illegal. It will get you arrested. It will, they will. The government will come and take your stuff. Tax avoidance, however, is highly encouraged. And so one of the best ways that we can avoid taxes is understanding what has changed, what laws have been adjusted, what limits have been moved, what so that we can take advantage of those, so that we don't have to pay any more in tax than we absolutely must. If you're willing to do a little bit of homework, a little bit extra work to make sure that you structure your financial life in a way to minimize your taxes. That's more dollars in your army of dollar bills that can grow for the future. Amen. Cpa.

[Brian Preston]

No, definitely be very proactive with your taxes so that you can take control and minimize tax payment as much as possible.

[Bo Hanson]

So Brian, we love that we get to do this. We love that we get to read through legislation, compile the changes that are going to happen that are going to affect you. But we also love that we can speak to the things that you guys care about. It's why every Single Tuesday at 10am Central, we are right here answering your questions because we believe that there's a better way to do money. So right now, we have the entire team out in the wings collecting your questions. So if you have a question you want us to weigh in on, make sure you get it in the chat right now. So with that creative director, Ruby, I'm gonna throw it over to you.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Yes, I've got some questions queued up. The first One is from Hubert171. It says fun question for the guys. Gonna kick it off with a fun question. Household just passed 1 million. Net worth at 38.

[Brian Preston]

Boom shakalaka.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

First of all, what are some fun ways they recommend celebrating this milestone? And what advice do they give as we start the journey to 2 million?

[Brian Preston]

I love it. I mean, I'd plan a trip or something. You know, either a big night out or a trip. You know, it's really on what your family puts value on, Making those blossoming memories out of. But definitely celebrate. I think that sometimes I pick on my financial mutants and the fact that we're so good at being disciplined that we forget how to have a good time. So make sure that you're building that skill set of celebrating these big moments in life and these milestones so that you can keep going forward and know the why and understand, you know, that money is only a tool, and it's not something that you're supposed to idolize or put at the center of your life, but it is definitely just a tool that you can use to maximize this moment that you're building with your family and loved ones.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah, when I sit down with my wife, when we've hit these kind of milestones in the past, one of the things I do is we like to go out to a nice dinner, and I always ask her the remember whens? And hey, do you remember when we did this? Do you remember when we said we were going to do. Do you remember when we said, oh, one day we want to be. Have our net worth go over a million dollars? And it's really fun to reflect on that moment in time. Do you remember back when that was the case? And then as you're having that conversation and reminiscing, then I always say to her, hey, I want us to kind of mark down this moment right now. We are sitting in the moment that hopefully one day we will look back on and say, hey, do you remember when we had that conversation? And that's how we begin to do some of our, like, goal casting, vision casting, dream casting of what are the things we want to be able to do 10 years from now, obviously, you know, 10 years ago, we said, we want to be in this spot, and we're able to do it. What do we want to move forward in? And so what that allows you to do is not only have this, like, future mindset where you're looking towards future goals, but it also lets you kind of give yourself a pat on the back, celebrate for accomplishing really difficult things. You know, most millionaires don't hit millionaire status until they're what, like 4, 47.

[Brian Preston]

49 years old, 10 years ahead of schedule?

[Bo Hanson]

You guys have done this at 38. That is no small feat. That's something worth celebrating because that likely took a lot of hard work to get there. But I would have the question or would ask the question, okay, so now. Now what? Right? What's the goal? Why. Why did we even want to have a million dollars? What did a million dollars mean for us, and what path are we moving towards? And okay, you said, what does it take to get to Tuma? Why do we want to get to 2 million? What does 2 million do for us? What opportunities that open up? What goals does that allow us to achieve that we're not able to do now? And are the things that we think $2 million will allow us to do, are they only going to be available Once we have 2 million, or are there ways we can do that now? Meaning a lot of people say, oh, man, I want to. I want to have more money in the bank so I can travel more. Great. I love that. Are there ways that you could travel right now and maybe bedazzle your basic life and not break the bank so that way you're not just waiting for your future self to be able to enjoy this. And I give my wife all kinds of credit for this because she used to say to my time, but I don't know, you're telling me how balling we're going to be when we're 90. I don't want to be balling when I'm not. I'd kind of like to get to do some stuff now. So there is. Once you're at this point, obviously you're not the very beginning stages. You're in the middle of your journey. It is worth reflecting. Okay, are there things we've been neglecting or not been doing that maybe now we can loosen the purse strings and start doing well?

[Brian Preston]

Yeah, I mean, this is. This gets the element. There's so many things, it's going to be hard to pack it into just a few minute answer is that if you take like what 1% is on a million versus when you had a hundred thousand, you start understanding why. Maybe you start doing vacations differently, while eating out might be viewed differently. Even, you know, when you get into step eight and beyond of the financial order of operations, even the cars that you drive can change in a responsible way. It's okay to celebrate these things. And the thing I always try to remind people, it's back to the point of what's your why? What do you get value. What gives you enjoyment is because you need to understand is that reaching a certain number, whether it's a million dollars, $2 million, $5 million, those numbers are empty if you don't actually have the why or what gives these power as the tool of money. Because these are mile markers. These are not the end all goals that end your. That you get there and you find out, hey, this is much emptier than I thought. That's why you have to pack it on with all the life elements so that it nurtures relationships, it nurtures things that bring you happiness, so that you get to kind of celebrate, but also know that this is a much bigger part of your impact or how you're experiencing this journey of life, because that's really where you'll find out it's not the end. I want to reach $5 million. And I think when I get to this pinnacle moment, my life is going to be great. No, you have to make sure you're strapping on all the life elements as you're building these assets so that you, you look back, you know, when you've exceeded all these goals and you go, job well done. Yeah. Everything here from a spiritual, from a relationship, and from a happiness and fulfillment factor, seems to all be in line with each other.

[Bo Hanson]

Last little thing I'll add on here. Hubert said, hey, what would. What are some tips and strategies for going from this million to the next million? Don't forget to dance with the one that brung you. The thing that got you to a million very likely can be the same behavior, same strategy, same kind of stuff that will take you to 2 million. Far too often I feel like people hit this threshold. They, okay, well, now I've got to do the complicated thing. Now I got to go do the private equity. Now I got to do rental properties. Now I got to go complicate my financial life.

[Brian Preston]

The dumb doctor deals if. How would everybody hate it when I say that? But it's the truth.

[Bo Hanson]

If I were just say, if I just saved and invest 25% of my gross income And I did that over the last, what, 15 years or so, and that got me to a million. I bet if I continue to do that moving forward and the fact that my portfolio is so big now that that snowball is just going to get rolling faster and faster and faster, bigger and bigger and bigger without having to change a whole lot of the behavior. So the things that you've done to get here are likely going to be the same things you continue doing to take you to the next phase and next stage.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Love that. Well, congrats, Hubert. 171. Very fun milestone and thanks for letting us have a fun conversation with you about what's next for your journey and just celebrate for a bit. And also worth celebrating, it is Money Guy Tumblr day.

[Brian Preston]

Look at that.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

So, Brian and Beau, you are my Tumblr models today. So Hubert, if you would like a Money Guy tumblr, just email winneroneyguy.com and we would love to send one to you. Okay, the Wiccanator 21 is up next. The question says, hello money guys. I am recently married. I was on step seven. Now I'm in step three with my wife. We have 8.5%.

[Brian Preston]

Don't laugh.

[Bo Hanson]

What? So much shade.

[Brian Preston]

He just. Man, look at that.

[Bo Hanson]

So much shade.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Okay, this is a good question though, because this is a real scenario, right? This certainly can happen to people. So the details of that is it says 8.5%. I'm guessing that's the interest rate. And there's 4K left on the debt there. He's currently maxing out his retirement. Should I decrease my investing and put it towards debt? So this is a guy who's been following the foo and now he is with somebody else who's following the food. But they are at different points in the foo. So what would you say to that?

[Bo Hanson]

This is.

[Brian Preston]

This is. But first I'd ask the content team put up on the screen what people think the foo is versus what the reality of what foo is is. Because this is exactly right. This is what happens with life. You know, the Wikinator fell in love and now his spouse has come into the marriage with. By the way, this is just going to be a speed bump because it's $4,000. We've seen much dire worse situations than this. And if the fact, if you tell me you were at step seven, that means you had already fully funded your Roth. That means you had such a savings behavior that you were already reaching 25% of your income going into those retirement accounts to max out retirement. That's that's pretty amazing. So I got to think with you combining resources with your new spouse, that $4,000 might just be a speed bump of a month, two months, three months, that. Yeah. I would like you to prioritize because eight and a half percent, that's a pretty, that's a pretty good clip on that would qualify as high interest debt. I didn't get to see what, what type of debt it was and I didn't see what their ages were. But still I think that I would probably safely to say, let's knock it out quickly and then get back on track with the financial order of operations.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah. One of the things I would think through if you, if you were on step seven, again, not knowing kind of the income disparity and what the expenses are between you and your spouse, one of the things I'd probably go investigate is, okay, if you were on step seven, that means that you had a fully funded emergency fund. How robust is that step four, fully funded emergency fund relative to what the household needs. This is a great example of where maybe it's time for you to take some of that step four to go extinguish some of that step three so you get out of that high interest debt so that then you can not have to. While it's a speed bump, maybe it can be even, you know, like, so, you know, sometimes like a neighborhood, there's like the big speed bump that likes real aggressive and it's like, you know, just like jarring. But then sometimes in there, but there's like the little bitty speed bumps where they're just like, if you already have an emergency fund, maybe this is something you can go ahead and knock out, get that debt gone. You don't really have to shut down the retirement savings because you still have an emergency fund in place and you can continue moving with those goals. But I think one of the things that I would, I would do first is I would talk with both of you about what your financial goals are. Right. Like, hey, I was in step seven and now I got married and now I'm in step three or now she's in step three. I would, I would pose that differently. I don't think that you're in step seven and she's in step three. I think that y' all are in step three and you ought to arrive at the okay, hey, this is where we are. This is what we got going on. This is how we're going to tackle knocking this out. Because this is a common goal that we both Have. And I think if you can approach it that way, it's not going to be about like my stuff and her stuff or my stuff and his stuff. It's our stuff. And what are we ultimately trying to accomplish with the decisions that.

[Brian Preston]

Well, and that's a great point because just because you pay off the $4,000 debt doesn't mean you immediately go back to step seven. What happens now? You're going to be in step four, but as a unit, meaning you look at what's three to six months as a household. And then after we get through step four, now we'll look at, hey, what should we do from a Roth health savings account. As a couple, you're looking at with brand new fresh eyes because you're different. I mean, you were a single individual, now you're a married couple. I would look at it as a household to figure out how you're going to navigate getting back to step seven. But as a couple versus separate individuals, that's one of the things that always when people come to me, look, there's nothing wrong with you having the way you manage your assets. Some of you come into marriages with like, maybe had children from a previous marriage or there's complications where you might have some separate accounts. But I definitely want you setting household goals to where you're having to navigate these things together. I think too many people cord off theirs versus theirs. And, and we don't actually get the, the that you're in this together. And that's, that's the way marriage is. Two becomes one. Let's, let's kind of get that mindset. Big team, little me.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

That's good stuff. The Winkinator 21. Great question. And if you'd like a money guy Tumblr, we would love to send you one. Just email winner, moneyguy.com Reeves, you know.

[Bo Hanson]

What I love seeing the other day?

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

What'd you love?

[Bo Hanson]

I was scrolling through YouTube, as I often do, and I saw a little video of why Brian loves Disney. Did you see that one?

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I did.

[Bo Hanson]

Did you see that one? And actually walking through why he loves Disney, and then I was like, all right, this is pretty good. Let me check out this other. And then it saw why I should not play the lottery.

[Brian Preston]

And this I didn't say, I don't think I said you should not. I just want people to know the.

[Bo Hanson]

Odds that absolutely don't play the lottery.

[Brian Preston]

More than the adult population of the United States.

[Bo Hanson]

But you see the comments for like, but you're saying there's a chance you're saying. I was like, yes. If you have not checked out, have we. What are we calling it? What's the name of it?

[Brian Preston]

I mean, I think we're calling it Tangent.

[Bo Hanson]

Have you. If you've not checked out, Tangent. Time of Brian youn should go do that. YouTube shorts, Instagram, all the socials. Make sure you're doing that. Because it allows us to talk about some stuff that we often don't get to talk about on here. But if you want to take a walk with Brian, it's a great thing to.

[Brian Preston]

You were too kind. But I will say what my biggest shock this week was because I was on a flight, a fun trip. I went out to Vegas with some Georgia buddies, and on my flight, I'm getting texts from Bo. I'm not getting. Because, you know, when you're on the airplane, they don't let you get the actual charts or screenshots. But I got the actual him telling me we were the number nine podcast according to Spotify in the country, number one in business. You know, when I landed, I got to see the screenshots and I was like, holy cow. So something just went on fire. Well, we know what it was now is that we got really promoted by Spotify for that show we did on what to do with your money in your 30s. What I want to know is, because then once we had such success with this episode, like, hey, we want to reach out to our Spotify contact just so we could, you know, make sure, hey, this was great, great moment in time. Appreciate you guys, because we, you know, we have YouTube representatives, we have Spot, and we realize, you know, our Spotify, if you're out there and you're connected with Spotify, if you. We'd love to, because we. We had a great time with it. It was awesome. And I like to know that more eyeballs saw our content than probably any other time on Spotify. We like celebrating those moments. I'm worried because Matt was telling me, you know, behind the scenes, that he ended up just. They sent it to, like a support ticket. I was like, I don't want to make sure this doesn't get shut down. This was not a bad problem. This was a feature. This is a benefit. It was something to be celebrated versus.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

We just wanted to know why.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah, I mean, it was just a cool experience. So any of you guys, if you notice that we made it on the top of those lists, because if you looked or I was looking around at all the other shows that we were ahead of and right there, and I was like, this is pretty cool air that we're in right now on Spotify. So a big thank you from us.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Yeah. And thanks to everybody who watches and listens on Spotify because we have made some really fun moves. Like, we. We added video on Spotify earlier this year, so you can watch or listen and switch back and forth. So it was cool to see that y' all are liking that.

[Brian Preston]

So here's my promise.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

YouTube, keep doing Spotify.

[Brian Preston]

Spotify. If you keep putting us on the featured or promoted side, we'll. We'll keep bringing this up during The Q&As and all kind of other things. You know, we'll make this a mutually beneficial relationship.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Oh, I love that. It was pretty cool to see.

[Brian Preston]

No, it was really cool. I mean, and then. I mean, I don't know. That's. That's one of those milestones that when things like that. Cute, you know, quirky little things like that happen, you know, this is pretty cool what we get to do. I mean, I love it came from a pure position of educator's heart, you know, when this all started back in 2006. But it is amazing. Every time we're doing studio tours or we're doing other things, I'm like, this is pretty wild that we get to do this for a living.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Yep. That's awesome.

[Bo Hanson]

So good. So good, so good.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

New markdowns are on at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save even more. Up to 70% on dresses, tops, boots, and handbags to give and get. Cause I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands. I get an extra 5% off with my Nordstrom credit card Total queen treatment. Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.

[Bo Hanson]

Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. Enjoy it over ice cream or in your coffee. Rumchata. Your holiday cocktails just got sweeter. Tap or click the banner for more drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream. Natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume, 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands, Pojoaquee, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

All right, wanna do another question?

[Brian Preston]

Of course.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Let's go. We got one from DerekJG9VV. That's a complicated username, but that is.

[Brian Preston]

Sounds like it's got nuclear codes behind.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Says I have 20k in an HSA to invest. Should I invest it all at Once or dollar cost, average the money over time. So I'm wondering if he just discovered the power of the hsa, so maybe you can talk a little bit about how to handle this.

[Bo Hanson]

So we love HSAs because only 13% of Americans use it as a triple tax advantaged vehicle.

[Brian Preston]

That it is.

[Bo Hanson]

But because one of the things you can do is you can put money into an HSA and you get a tax deduction on the front end. You can then invest those dollars and they can grow tax deferred. And then in the future, you can use those grown dollars to either pay for current medical expenses, or you can even reimburse yourself for past medical expenses, which is awesome. That's one of the things that makes HSAs absolutely unbelievable.

[Brian Preston]

You get to pull that money out tax free if you use it for those qualified expenses.

[Bo Hanson]

That's exactly right. Completely tax free. And so, Darrin's question. Okay, I got 20 grand. Should I lump sum or should I DCA Brian, I'm curious to know if our content team is good enough.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah.

[Bo Hanson]

Can they pull up the Goldilocks rule?

[Brian Preston]

Do you have our Goldilocks rule?

[Bo Hanson]

Do you have the Goldilocks rule? Because sometimes we're faced with this decision, do we want to lump sum or do we want to dca? Lump sum being invested all today and DCA being, hey, I'm gonna invest a certain amount every certain period for a certain amount of time to kind of smooth out the volatility. And we actually have a metric to help you figure out which one you should do.

[Brian Preston]

I'm not seeing it on the screen. So here's what I would like to share. The thing about everybody always tries to put these two against each other. It's either going to be lump sum investing versus dollar cost averaging. We know statistically lump sum is better because markets typically go up 8 out of 10 years. So it's hard to overcome that. So, you know, off the cuff, you're like, well, without a doubt, we ought to just lump sum this. But then there are those moments where we know the entry year volatility, plus we know we hit those bear markets two times a decade, typically that those years scare the heck out of you. So we were like, okay. Instead of putting these two concepts against each other, they ought to work together. Meaning that if this is not a huge portion of your investable assets, put it into work immediately. Because that lump sum stat is very powerful. I'm hearing that they actually can pull it up now. So let's go ahead and see it, guys. So look at this. This is tying into what I'm talking about. It ties into how big is this sum of money you need to make this decision on compared to your investable total investable assets. If it's a small amount, meaning it's 10%. So for this example for Derek, if he already has over $200,000 working, then the $20,000 just put it to work immediately. However, if you're brand new to your journey, maybe Derek just started investing, you know, four or five years ago and he's only got $50,000 saved up and invested. Well, this $20,000 now, I mean this could be 30 to 40% of his of his total investable assets. That would probably recommend, you know, that volatility could really derail you as a total household. Why don't you DCA this over six months to kind of cut out some of that volatility. You see how well thought out this is. This is why we say there's a better way to do money. It doesn't have to be either or. I hate it when content creators try to say do this all the time. And we always say it depends. So much of money in personal finance is very personal to your situation. So we try to load you up with free resources so you can navigate this in the best possible way.

[Bo Hanson]

Love that.

[Brian Preston]

So I was leaving that because I felt guilty that I took all the answer. Moneyguide.com resources is a great place if you want to go see that resource plus many others that we have.

[Bo Hanson]

I didn't think you took all the.

[Brian Preston]

Well, I did. I felt after they pulled it up I was like we ought to leave some meat on the bone for Bo.

[Bo Hanson]

That's why I did I. I did the triple tax advantage. I was like, I'll do triple tax advantage. It was a little trying to think about what dynamic duo we would be.

[Brian Preston]

This is when. You know, I played basketball in high school and this is when I realized I was more benchwarmer basketball players because it is the really high caliber players were really good with those quick passes, you know, so you could do alley oops and you know, and do the trick plays. I just didn't have the coordination. That's one of the. So that makes sense that I bundled that mess that up.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I think you all did great. It was a good answer. Derek, we're glad that you're here and we would love to send you a money guy Tumblr since we answered your question today. Just email winner moneyguy.com round of applause.

[Bo Hanson]

For our content team pulling that Up. So, man, if. If you're impressed with the fact they did that, go subscribe right now to the channel so they know that you're so impressed by them.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

For sure. All right.

[Brian Preston]

Hey, if we were trying to get Spotify to reach out to us, I didn't give an email address. Should we give an email address?

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

No.

[Brian Preston]

Okay, never mind.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Just message us.

[Brian Preston]

By the way, you can tell if you ever want to know a clue that Brian's out here in the wilderness all alone. It's when stuff like that happens. Like, dag, I'm at Brian. You weren't supposed to see that on air. Sorry.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I don't know if you even, like, rounded out. Our contact was on, like, maternity leave. That's what happened. I don't think we actually said that. So I will round out the story. So we're just kind of like, oh, I don't know.

[Brian Preston]

No, Spotify's been great. Don't mishear us. We just want to celebrate with somebody, but we also don't want to get into somebody's maternity leave while they're doing that.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

It was just kind of a, you know.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah. That big of a deal. We were just the ninth largest podcast in the country. Number one in business.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Number one in business. That's right. All right, Chris W. Has a question next. It says, instead of moving, what do you think of using home. A home equity loan to remodel and add space? As long as the combined loan and mortgage payment is below the 25% housing threshold. I have a 3.2%, 3.25% mortgage.

[Brian Preston]

Oh, man. I feel like I know somebody who might resemble this.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah. What's interesting, Chris, is you. You've asked a few different questions bundled into one. First, I want to. I want to clarify a few things.

[Brian Preston]

Right.

[Bo Hanson]

Your mortgage is 3.25%.

[Brian Preston]

If I like that.

[Bo Hanson]

If you were to move, you're likely going to have a higher mortgage rate than that. But as a reminder.

[Brian Preston]

Likely when?

[Bo Hanson]

Well, I don't want to be presumptuous here. When you take out a home equity line or a home equity loan, you don't get the same rate that's on your fixed mortgage. Oftentimes that's a secondary line of credit that's subject to some different rate, and it's not going to be the fixed rate that your current mortgage is on. It's going to likely be some sort of adjustable rate that, again, is going to be higher than that. So I just want to clarify, because I don't want you to think that, oh, I'm going to give them a range.

[Brian Preston]

It's typically tied to prom.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah, I think right now home equity loans are somewhere between like six and a half to seven and a half percent. Somewhere in that ballpark right now in home equity lines. But this is not an uncommon thing. I know a lot of folks, especially here in middle Tennessee, they're like, okay, I wanted to go look for. There's some stuff I don't love about my current home. So I start looking around and you begin doing the calculus and you're like, man, if I'm going to go move into a new home, not only have home prices got a lot more expensive, not only are interest rates a lot higher, but, man, it's going to change a community in which I live. What if I love my neighbors? What if I'm close to the gym? What if I'm close to the school? What if I have a close thing to you? Like, Jim was the very first one out there.

[Brian Preston]

Not the kids school, but where I'm working out at, I literally work out.

[Bo Hanson]

In one of my neighbor's garage.

[Brian Preston]

Not church, not church, not the kids school, where the gym is.

[Bo Hanson]

That's the reason why I'm staying right where I am. You may recognize there are things that make it very, very sticky. And so when you do, when you do the math, you start to say, man, it might actually be more affordable, more cost effective for me to turn the house I'm currently in into the house that we need or that we want rather than moving and going somewhere else. So that's the thought process. This is what I want to weigh in on from a financial perspective. He's like, hey, should I take out a home equity line to do this? Right? And so oftentimes when it comes to home improvements, there are a number of different ways that you can pay for. And in my opinion, I think that the type of home improvement and what it's going to do for you in the home should dictate how you ultimately pay for it. Agree? Disagree.

[Brian Preston]

So look, and you seem to be tapped. Bo did a big improvement on his house. I don't know if he's trying to keep that secret. That's why I say when he resemble. Because he had the exact same situation. You had a mortgage rate that was, was below 4%, below 3%, below 3%. I couldn't, I didn't want to be presumptuous. But you, you had gotten to the point where, because houses are expensive around here that you had looked at this exact situation. Now, I think this, the reason I'm adding this context is because, and look, I'm not trying to throw shit. Bo put a swimming pool in his house. Now those are use assets that, you know, historically. No, no, I have a. I mean historically, they buyers don't always want a swimming pool.

[Bo Hanson]

Sure.

[Brian Preston]

Now that's post pandemic things are a little different. But, but during pre pandemic, swimming pools weren't always. You usually use the metric of like 10, maybe 15, 20% upon how nice the swimming pool was to add to the value of your house. So I agree with Beau that some improvements that you're doing just for yourself, I think you ought to probably put yourself closer to how do I pay this off? Have the payoff period. Like, think about your car, like three to five years. But for things like, you know, if you're improving the kitchen, the master bedroom, bathroom, those things, you might be able to expand that out. Thinking about your home equity line for seven years, 10 years, I think you just have to have the context of what this actually adds value versus what is a use function that just makes it better for you to live in. And that way you keep the debt monster at bay. Because you just don't want your eyes to get so excited. Because here's the thing with construction, everything. I used to joke when I built my most recent house that it was all $2,000 here. Now I think it's 7 to 15,000 here and there. Every single grade because of inflation has gotten pushed up even higher. You just don't want to get eaten alive by what the improvements you can do. You just need to have a why tied to it and then have a backbone to how that that grounds it so you don't get too much debt built up.

[Bo Hanson]

Yep. I love it. Agreed.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Good stuff. Chris W. Thank you for the question.

[Bo Hanson]

And again, I'm just gonna throw this out there because I think a lot of people feel like shame and guilt when they invest. I'm gonna say invest. Bad language. When they spend money on their current home. But if you like, if this is the place that you're gonna like, have your family and where you're gonna spend, you're gonna do this. I tell people, hey, it's okay. Money is nothing more than a tool that allows you to accomplish your goals. And one of the goals you may have is, hey, I want this house. You know, my kids are only going to be in this house for 18 years and I want to be able to do this and create these memories and have these experiences. And so long as that decision is not inhibiting me from other goals, like financial independence or being able to save for the future, whatever that may be. That's okay. I see a lot of financial mutants that just really rail against that. There is no point in getting all the way to the end of this life with a big stack of money and no memories and not actually using it to accomplish the goals that you have. So it's something I think that financial mutants need to hear so they don't turn into financial.

[Brian Preston]

Hopefully. I mean, we had. We had a lot of. Y' all probably catch on. Bo and I actually really do like each other, so we talk a lot. And this is one of those things. I was like, put this swimming pool in your backyard. It's not like you're gonna die broke. I was like, this is gonna be one of those things. When you look on the life meter, it's. It's gonna be a rounding error on. Yes, it's a big sum of money to put this nice pool and outdoor living space in the back, but, man, oh, man, you have three, you know, tricycle motors that now are soon to be, you know, bicycle and car motors. You ought to go ahead and. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're getting bigger. They're these. You're only gonna get them in the house for this. This certain period of time. And as you're gonna get the old and sentimental like me, you're gonna be like, what could I do? And I know your wife, too. And I know y'. All. Y' all use this for hospitality. You entertain.

[Bo Hanson]

It's changed the way that we use our home.

[Brian Preston]

It's a good use of your resources, even though. Yeah. You. That money could have grown at 8%.

[Bo Hanson]

Sure.

[Brian Preston]

Who cares if it doesn't blow up everything else? That's the whole thing about money as a tool only. And I think sometimes that's why I love our content, is because we give you the mathematics, but we also try to give you the quality of life stuff so that you can get to be my age and go, all right, I navigated that. Okay. And still didn't turn myself into Ebenezer Scrooge.

[Bo Hanson]

That's right.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Yeah. That was great stuff.

[Brian Preston]

Misers vs mutants are completely different.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Different. Chris W. That was a great question. Clearly, you got us into a good discussion. If you would like a money guy Tumblr, we would love to send you one. Just email winneroneyguy.com.

[Bo Hanson]

I was just laughing because tricycle motor makes sense, because they are the mechanism that.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah. When they're little. Your kids are getting older. You only have one tricycle motor in the house.

[Bo Hanson]

There's only car motor.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

There is a thing that is a car motor. That's why it was so cool.

[Brian Preston]

They push the accelerator.

[Bo Hanson]

That's hilarious.

[Brian Preston]

Or the brake. The brake pushers.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

The phrase tricycle motor always just makes me giggle. Anyway, so I just. That whole thing, I liked it. I enjoyed it. Thanks for keeping things fun, Brian.

[Brian Preston]

I do what I can.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Speaking of, the next username I have is called Laugh House to go. I don't know. Okay, but that's his username.

[Brian Preston]

It makes me think of like the jumpy houses. That's what I put on the backyard.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Like maybe he's a jumpy house guy. I don't know. Okay. It says what was the biggest breakthrough when you were designing the foo that you feel sets it apart from alternative models?

[Brian Preston]

Oh, this is fun. I've actually, you know what's funny is this is one of those tangents. I actually recorded one of these. I don't think it's gone out yet. There's two. I want to give Bo credit because on there's multiple things. First of all, we were already doing what was called the 30 Minute Financial Plan. This is going to mess up my tangent time. But that's okay. We were already doing the 30 minute financial plan. And then I remember I had seen something on LinkedIn where everybody was screwing up all these math problems because they didn't know, please excuse my dear aunt Sally with Pemdas and how math has an order of operations. And I was like, bo, we, you know, when we do that 30 minute plan, we are doing our own version of Pemdas with finance because it blow. I get so mad that there were systems already out there, but nobody was prioritizing. Get the free money from your 401k. I was like, how in the world when your employer is giving you 50% guaranteed or 100% guaranteed, is that not on the front end of your system? And then the other thing that we were thinking, because look, if you tell somebody right out of the gates, and this is where Bo's genius came in, that they need to be saving, they need to have three to six months before they even start investing or doing anything. I think a lot of people are going to get dis. Discouraged by that. And there are other systems that say, well, $1,000. And I'm like, well, but a thousand dollars, that just doesn't feel like that's necessarily the right amount too. And so Beau and I were talking about and he was like, I think we keep them from making the. The bad mistakes where the big things that can derail your life. And that's where insurance deductibles came in. And so we came up with, in step one, is highest deductible covered. Because that is. That's the catastrophic stuff that creates bankruptcy and never let you get started. And that probably should be the first. That is the first thing I'm definitively. Now that we've had enough time to swim in these waters, I know that is what people need to do. And then I love that it transitions right into that free money, because I don't care. Even if you have credit card debt, you ought to get that free money, because that's going to be probably that lifeline for the excesses you screwed up in your 20s if you're at least doing the employer match. And then the rest of this started just falling into place. And I'll say the other thing that nobody was giving love to was Roth money. I mean, Roth look, and I get it, a lot of these systems that everybody was using, all designed in the 90s. Roth assets didn't even show up until like 98 to the early 2000s, you know, when they started showing up on 401ks and things that. That. So there needed to be a new mousetrap built. And I love that we got to definitively show you what to do with your next dollar. And. And it kind of fell in. That's why it was an absolute pleasure kind of writing down. And that's why the best, most improved was also because we already had this. We kind of had designed the system, but then sitting down and actually trying to build a book around it made it even better. You guys are the beneficiary. Because a lot of mental horsepower went into shoring up all the system.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah, I think for me, the biggest breakthrough was, you know, Brian started podcasting in 2006. So this is like two decades ago. And we were managing money and financial advisors, and we sort of intuitively were making really good financial decisions with our own finances. And what ended up happening is the system was a product of the behaviors we had been implementing for decades at that point. I mean, started podcasting in 06. But the Foo in its current form wasn't, like, ideated until, you know, whatever year that we launched the foo. Right.

[Brian Preston]

We have those dates, though, because we went and looked it up when we were locking down everything.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Don't quiz me now.

[Brian Preston]

Yeah, I'm not going to say it out loud.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I could go find it.

[Bo Hanson]

So what it was is it was the culmination of experience saying, hey, these are the things that we've seen work and these are the things that are kind of common sense or these are the things that really work in a very effective and efficient manner because we've actually lived it and we've made it through that. And so let us tell you how we were able to do that, how we've seen our clients do that, how we've counseled our clients. And so it wasn't a system that was built and then tried to be implemented. It was a system that was being implemented and then we just tried to like consolidate it down in a way. Oh, I get this. I can see it. I can crystallize this. Now that I have the food, I don't have to go live it for 20 years to figure it out. I can take these guys experience and I can apply it today, starting on day one. That was the unlock for me. It's holy cow, man. How cool would it have been if in 2006 we could have started with the foo. How, how nice would that have been?

[Brian Preston]

Well, and I'll talk about manifesting where you want to be on just. It happens in a beautiful way, is that, y' all know the, the, the books that influenced me in the beginning was like Millionaire, Millionaire next Door. I loved when I got to see the data for what millionaires are actually doing with their money and how that's so disconnected from the consumption society that we're constantly being whispered in our ears. And then here we are now we, we actually get to, we do surveys on our millionaire clients, we do surveys on our financial mutants in the audience. And it just, I feel kind of, it's really come full circle for me in the way that not only do we have the financial order of operations, but we also get to share the data and do research every year. And you guys get to be part of that data collection as well. So you're content creators in your own right. It gives me tingles and makes me feel really cool. Cool to be that we're doing something really bigger than all of us.

[Bo Hanson]

Love that.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

That's awesome. Laugh House to go. If you would like a money guy Tumblr email winner, you should get a Tumblr man.

[Brian Preston]

That would give. I feel like when I just go do a lap around the building right now because it just, it makes you feel good.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

You're like, yeah, yeah, that's great, that's great.

[Bo Hanson]

What would you do if you came to downtown Franklin, you saw Bo and Brian just running laps, running around the building, just getting.

[Brian Preston]

Well, I mean, like, even we got out of our content meeting this morning, and Will was, you know, because, look, as we're right in downtown Franklin. And Will goes, it is so cool we're in downtown. I was like, yeah, we're in downtown Franklin. It is. Especially on Thursday and Friday when all the tourists show up. I mean, it's.

[Bo Hanson]

It's just.

[Brian Preston]

It's fun being.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I don't think they'll see you running, walking, maybe. You never know. Definitely, you could be seen walking on the streets.

[Brian Preston]

By the way, Charles. Everybody knows Charles. You probably see him. He's probably in the audience right now. But Charles is like, brian, these walking videos, you got to be careful about your safety. People go know where you are. So you'll be able to tell from the background, I'm in downtown Franklin. You know, probably you already go see me in downtown Franklin anyway.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Yeah, it's true.

[Brian Preston]

Big shocker if you see me out and about walking around downtown Franklin.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

All right, got another question for you from RJT135. I'm 37 and almost entirely invested about 97% in equities. How should I approach rebalancing my portfolio over time? Just change what I buy or reinvest what I already have invested. So it sounds like he's been doing it a certain way, maybe found us, maybe sees that there's a better way. What should he do now?

[Bo Hanson]

Well, the answer is, it depends, rjt, because we don't exactly know your unique situation. Right. You're 37 years old. You're 97% equity heavy. Well, if you have a $2 million portfolio and you're 97% equity heavy, that's different than if you have a $60,000 portfolio, 97% equity heavy. So if it's a smaller portfolio earlier on in the wealth building phase, it's not incredibly difficult to save into your allocation. Meaning, okay, I've got my 401 contributions. I have 100% going here. Maybe now I want to do, you know, 60% here, 20% here, 20% here, and I can diversify through my dollar cost averaging through my savings. I can grow into that. If, however, you've got a 2 million, $3 million portfolio, depending on your income, depending on your savings rate, it might be difficult for you to do meaningful adjustments on your savings to impact your overall allocation. So it might make sense to look, do a rebalance and look at your total allocation. How much should I have in risk on how much should I have in risk off? How do I want to navigate the risk off? In the risk. On what type of risk on do I want? And to answer those questions, you have to do an even deeper dive. Okay, when do I want to use these dollars? What kind of accounts do I have? What's my saving strategy look like? What's my risk tolerance? Is there another party involved in this? Like a spouse who has a different risk tolerance and a different risk capacity than I do? Once you begin to answer all those questions and kind of formulate those ideas, then you can decide, okay, what's the appropriate and accurate way to begin implementing the rebalance?

[Brian Preston]

I mean, you pretty much, I was just going to put a little kind of structure in there is because I had tax implications is going to drive a big part of this. Because a lot of people show up. We have prospects, show up all the time. And we, we're all different. We all have different fingerprints. You have different account structures because people will show up. Somebody might have $2 million. It's all in retirement accounts. So you can make adjustments on that without triggering taxes very easily because the taxes are either tax free if they're in Roth accounts or tax deferred. And those, you know, you deal with the taxes later when you take the distributions. But if it's an after tax account, we don't want to trigger a bunch of taxes. So we have to kind of work with what you bring to us. Then I think about goal dynamics. You know, if somebody's retiring within the next five years, the urgency of that I need, even with the taxes, I might need to go ahead and make changes because the need is going to be, you know, I don't want to get caught in a market volatility moment and have to sell at the world's worst time. So I'll ratchet up when we need to do the change. But if you're 20 years, you're 37 years old, so you might be 20 years. So I don't feel the urgency to go trigger a bunch of taxes because it might be more that we change how your future investments are getting invested, plus how we structure the account so we go where you're going to without creating a big Apple cart turnover moment. From a tax standpoint, there's also the accounts. You know, I mentioned account structure. There's goal dynamics. There's also intersection with time, all those things. This is the magical moment, people. You know, what's funny is we've had people ask us, like when Roth conversions, how long does it take you to figure out somebody's Roth conversion? We always say something like 20 minutes and 15 years of experience, you know, and people are like, what do you mean by that? And I'm like, well I can look at your situation and I can, I can clean this up in 15, 20 minutes. But there's all kind of things that went into the wisdom of knowledge. It's kind of the same thing on even the asset allocation. This is why when we create content, I can give you tons of free advice on all the things you need to be thinking about, but it's relatively everything. On wealth building is somewhat simple, but it gets complex when you stack them on top of each other and you start creating more and more success. All of a sudden all these simple things become very complicated when taken into as a complex system at that point. And that's why we always say this is the abundance cycle is when your life gets so complicated that you go, man, I've only done this once and now I've got this seven figure portfolio. I don't want to screw it up. I just don't know what I don't know. That's where our multiple decades of experience and doing this over and over again for other successful people is going to bear fruit for you and create a win win situation with the abundance cycle. So consider working with us.

[Bo Hanson]

Love that.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

That's great. If you want to consider working with abound wealth, just go to moneyguy.com and click on Become a client and you can start that conversation.

[Bo Hanson]

Can I say one other thing?

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Of course.

[Bo Hanson]

I don't know why this came to me. Just worth noting, RJT, 97% in equities is different. If it's 97s and P500 mutual fund versus I got 97% and that's across Nvidia and Palantir and Apple and.

[Brian Preston]

Right, that's a good point.

[Bo Hanson]

Also, the type of exposure you have will dictate the strategy that you should employ. Sorry, that part was no complex question.

[Brian Preston]

When you do a live show, sometimes you know, like, well, I'm sure in the comments if you would not pick that up, people are like, yeah, we should have said that.

[Bo Hanson]

Yeah.

[Brian Preston]

But this is the thing about it, because it's truly a live show, we don't, we don't see these questions.

[Bo Hanson]

We're seeing that a lot. We're seeing a lot of folks reach out right now, like hey, I, I bought this stock this many years ago or I work for this company and it is, it's gotten big what do I do? And we try to design some like well thought out strategy of how to do that. That is where it gets more nuanced.

[Brian Preston]

Well, I mean I don't, I don't mind sharing. You know, I have, I did. I, I've hit a few home runs on some equities. I don't, I typically, I practice what I preach with you guys. I do index funds. But I have had a few stocks that you know, like I don't want to give the specific brands but I had one that was a technology stock that got really on the down and out. But I was like this stock is going to be fine. This is a moment in time. I bought that in my taxable account. Well it boom. So I've given that to charity. I mean that has been over my charitable giving for the last two years is the huge run up on that stock. But then I have another one. You're like, I'm surprised you've never gotten rid of any of that stock. And I'm like it's in my Roth account and that one is much easier because I didn't watch it tax. So the account structure and then the, the, the type. All this stuff even comes into play for us when we're looking at our own investments.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

No, it's a complex question. You gave a good answer and it is kind of part of what y' all do every day with the bound. So I love the answer. Thank you. RJT135. If you would like a MoneyGuy Tumblr just email winner@moneyguy. And we've talked a lot about Tangent time with Brian and we know that you're here for our livestream Tuesday, every Tuesday at 10am Central. And that's why be sure to subscribe on YouTube so you can see that content and continue to get notified.

[Brian Preston]

And Spotify also.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Woo.

[Brian Preston]

We love some Spotify now number nine in the country.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

I was about to say more platforms. So yeah, follow us on Spotify and also follow on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever your preferred platform is, we will be there and tangent time will be there.

[Brian Preston]

So be sure and platforms can keep lobbying us. I mean if you want to push us out there to more people will, you know we are definitely willing to be influenced.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Amazing. Amazing.

[Brian Preston]

I'm not supposed to say that.

[Bo Hanson]

No, you're doing great. You're doing great.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

Sure.

[Brian Preston]

Oh this is when you guys thank you so much. I get so excited having just fun. And by the way, thank you all for putting up. I didn't take. I've had. I got a little stuffiness going on. I don't know. It was change of season. I didn't take my Zyrtec d on purpose because I wanted to keep this mind the machine working full. So if you saw me being a little snuffier, stuffier than the normal that was, I did it for you guys because I'm all about the. The art, the craft and what we get to do for you.

[Content Team / Host Moderator]

We didn't get a sneeze like last week.

[Brian Preston]

Oh, no. But everybody's gonna be like, oh, every time Brian sneezes. He hadn't done it in like 15 years, so it's ought to be, you know, shows that he's getting sick. No, I'm just change the seasons. It'll be fine. I'll be all right. Glad we're doing this today. But guys, we have a blast creating this type of content. I'll get it back on track. I'm your host, Brian Bo Reby and the rest of the content team. Moneyguy Team out.

[Bo Hanson]

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