The Truth About Early Retirement: What You Need To Know

Summary

Money Guy Show – The Truth About Early Retirement: What You Need To Know

Hosts: Brian Preston & Bo Hanson
Date: December 24, 2025

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Overview

In this engaging episode, Brian Preston and Bo Hanson address burning questions about early retirement, asset allocation, and practical savings strategies. With their hallmark mix of expertise and lighthearted banter, they guide listeners through challenges faced by financial “mutants” (savvy savers), clarify common misconceptions, and offer actionable tips on reaching financial independence. The duo also discuss avoiding advisor pitfalls, handling large cash positions, rebalancing portfolios, and the perennial debate of Roth vs. pre-tax savings, all while maintaining a lively, holiday-infused atmosphere.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Retirement: Variables and Safe Withdrawal Rates

[01:26–04:13]

• Question: Roshan (35, $1M invested) asks how to adjust assumptions for early retirement before age 50.

• Acknowledgment: Hosts praise Roshan’s impressive savings feat at 35.

• Core Variables: Rate of return, wealth multiplier, withdrawal rate.

• Withdrawal Rate Guidance:

  • Retire at/after 55: 4% rule applies.
  • Retire between 45–55: Use 3.5% rule.
  • Retiring before 45: Go very conservative, possibly 3% or less.

• Planning Tools: Move from "rules of thumb" to Monte Carlo simulations as retirement nears.

• Personalization: Stress the need to factor in life goals, health, kids, and run detailed retirement plans.

  “Those safe withdrawal rates are sort of like back of the napkin planning... You have to do an actual retirement plan, run stress tests, and then you can have security going into retirement.”
  — Bo Hanson [04:13]

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2. The Pitfalls of 0% Financing

[07:14–12:42]

• Question: CM asks if it’s ever okay to use 0% financing (e.g., for medical bills) instead of tapping emergency savings.

• General Policy: Both hosts are wary—liken 0% financing to “playing with the rules."

• Risks: Hidden fine print, risk of missed payments, credit dings, and potential behavioral traps.

• Short-term Exception: Using for a genuine, short-term emergency (like a one-off medical bill) may be reasonable, but avoid for consumption or ongoing habits.

  “The arbitrage game you’re trying to play—is it worth it? ...Once you take into account [risks and contracts], it’s just not worth it to me.”
  — Brian Preston [11:14]

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3. Advisor Red Flags: Pushing Whole Life or Annuities

[13:11–17:27]

• Question: Jorge (51, 700k in 401k) is advised to reduce 401k contributions in favor of annuities or whole life insurance.

• Analysis: The title "financial advisor" is often misused. Always look for certifications (CFP, CPA) and fiduciary obligations.

• Red Flag: Recommending annuities or whole life before maxing tax-favored accounts is usually self-serving for the advisor.

• Advice: Ask direct questions about compensation and conflicts of interest. Seek a second opinion—trust your instincts (“spidey senses”).

  “What should you look for? You should look for the exit, right? Because that should be an immediate red flag.”
  — Bo Hanson [13:53]

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4. Roth vs. Pre-Tax: How to Count Savings Toward 25%

[20:12–24:09]

• Question: Evan wonders if Roth contributions “count more” than pre-tax toward the 25% savings target.

• Answer: Focus on 25% of gross income, regardless of tax treatment—system designed to “work out in the wash.”

• Younger Families: Employer match counts toward 25% for incomes under $100k single/$200k married.

  “Don’t waste mental calories… If you’re saving 25% of your gross income, I don’t think you have to get more complicated than that.”
  — Bo Hanson [21:25]

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5. Investing Sinking Funds for Car Purchases

[25:18–27:31]

• Question: Tony G asks if a car sinking fund should go into mutual funds rather than a high-yield savings account if he keeps cars 7+ years.

• Answer:

  • For short-term purchases (≤ 5 years): Keep cash.
  • For goals 7+ years out: Okay to invest as part of a regular investment portfolio.
  • Caution: Begin de-risking and moving to cash when car replacement is within 1–3 years.

  “If you’re getting into that 'halo period,' …don’t get cute…you don’t want to run this thing where one day [your car] wakes up and it doesn’t crank anymore.”
  — Brian Preston [27:02]

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6. Handling Large Cash Positions

[27:47–34:16]

• Question: Bags (39, $740k saved, $150k invested, balance in cash) asks how to get invested.

• Diagnosis: Possible fear, inertia, or lack of plan led to large cash buildup.

• Action Plan:

  • Define needed cash (emergency fund, short-term goals).
  • Systematically (monthly) dollar-cost-average the rest into the market.
  • Reference the “Goldilocks Rule” for how many months to stretch out investing—refer to recent show for details.

  “Let’s remove the emotion… Systematically work this into the market… it’s literally a win-win situation.”
  — Bo Hanson [31:02]

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7. Counting House Savings Toward the 25% Rate

[37:26–39:58]

• Question: Dan asks if saving for a house down payment (an appreciating asset) counts toward his 25% long-term savings rate.

• Answer: No—it’s a current use asset, not for future financial independence.

• Follow-Up: Only savings toward retirement, investments, or long-term goals count for the 25%.

  “Does this count as discipline? Yes. Deferred gratification? Yes. But saving for a house is NOT your financial independence goal.”
  — Bo Hanson [38:05]

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8. Emergency Fund and “After-Tax” Assets

[46:06–49:43]

• Question: Jarrett N’s emergency fund is depleted; should he cash out after-tax assets (potentially at 0% capital gains)?

• Advice:

  • If truly underfunded and risk is high, tap after-tax investments.
  • Use this phase to triage: is the shortfall a temporary “season” or chronic?
  • If chronic, major lifestyle changes or expense reductions may be needed.

  “If this is just the way it is, you’ve got a bigger problem lurking... None of it’s going for long-term savings, none for the cash reserves. That’s a problem.”
  — Brian Preston [48:49]

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9. Rebalancing Across Accounts

[53:32–56:53]

• Question: Brad asks how to rebalance across multiple accounts (401k, IRAs).

• Guidance:

  • For most accumulators, keep it simple: target date or three-fund solutions.
  • Factor in available choices in 401k, use other accounts to “fill the gaps.”
  • Focus on savings rate and simplicity over complexity or “fancy” strategies.

  “Don’t do what you think rich people do… Focus on the savings rate and a three- or four-fund strategy.”
  — Brian Preston [56:02]

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10. Is There Ever a Bad Time to Buy Index Funds?

[56:54–61:51]

• Question: Cato notes high PE ratios and index concentration, wonders if there’s ever a bad time to buy index funds.

• Hosts’ View: No—market timing is futile. Always be buying; long-term, markets trend upward.

• Alternative Analysis: If you avoid the market, alternatives (e.g., real estate) are complex and come with different risks.

• Historical Wisdom: Citing Nick Murray: “If you think the market’s high now, wait ‘til you see it in a decade” [57:19].

  “When should you break the rule [‘buy low, sell high’]? The answer: always be buying. That's how compounding works.”
  — Brian Preston [58:46]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I hope you know how far, far out ahead of the curve objectively you are from your peers.”—Bo Hanson, to Roshan [01:56]
• (On 0% Financing) “Odds are, you’ll be fine. But if something happens that wasn’t prepared for, the outcome could be incredibly negative.”—Bo Hanson [08:07]
• “Ask your advisor: ‘If I do this, how does that benefit you?’ That’s when your spidey senses should start to tingle.”—Bo Hanson [15:05]
• “If you get too ‘cute’ with your car sinking fund, you could end up with a country song—stock market gets its teeth kicked in, you lose your job, and the car breaks down.”—Brian Preston [27:17]
• “Be careful not to be house rich and retirement asset poor.”—Brian Preston [45:16]
• (On investing in high markets) “Long-term—even if you invest at the world’s worst time—as long as you keep saving, you’re rewarded.”—Bo Hanson [58:33]

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Fun & Banter Highlights

• Brian and Bo’s playful debate over “Santa wear,” Han Solo cosplay (“Han Bolo”–Bo), and Chewbacca (“Chew Brica”–Brian)
• Lighthearted aside about holiday distractions: “Did you not notice the wreath?” [34:36]
• Family gift wishlists and breakfast casseroles: “The Money Guy Cookbook coming 2026!” [53:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:26] Early Retirement Planning Variables
• [07:14] 0% Financing for Emergencies
• [13:11] Red Flags with Financial Advisors
• [20:12] Roth vs. Pre-Tax Savings Counting
• [25:18] Car Sinking Fund Investment Strategy
• [27:47] Large Cash Position: How to Invest Systematically
• [37:26] Saving for a House vs. Long-Term Savings Rate
• [46:06] Emergency Fund: When to Use After-Tax Investments
• [53:32] Asset Allocation & Rebalancing Across Accounts
• [56:54] Should You Ever NOT Buy Index Funds?

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Tone and Takeaways

Brian and Bo use practical, straightforward language with relatable analogies and a few jokes to keep things light. They encourage rigorous, thoughtful planning for financial independence, advocate for transparency and fiduciary responsibility from advisors, and urge listeners not to get hung up on market timing.

Bottom line: Stay the course. Be systematic, be disciplined, always be buying, and use your money to build a life you love.

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For more resources, calculators, or to submit your own question, visit moneyguy.com/resources.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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See Ford.com BlueCruise for more details. The TRUTH ABOUT EARLY RETIREMENT what you.

[A]

Need to know oh, oh Brian, I am so excited that we get to sit in the spot. We get to talk about things like early retirement. We get to talk about things that you care about. It's why Every Tuesday at 10am we want to load you up and answer your questions about how you can start doing money better. And today is no different. So with that creative director Raby, I'm going to throw it over to you.

[B]

Yeah, we're going to kick it off with a question from Roshan and he says, I am 35 with 1 million invested and want to retire early before 50. How should my assumptions about assumed rates of return, wealth multiplier and withdrawal rates change? I think it's a great question because we talk a lot about retiring at a more normal 65 type age. What about retiring early?

[A]

Well, first of all, Roshan, I want to start with you. 35 years old with $1 million invested.

[B]

That glossed over that one.

[A]

That is absolutely insane. I hope you know how far, far out ahead of the curve objectively you are from your peers. But the question you have to answer, okay, is $1 million enough for you? Does that put you on the curve, behind the curve or ahead of the curve? And only you can define that. And the way that you define that is by working through some of the variables that could change. And those are the ones you listed out. How should I think about my rate of return? How should I think about my wealth multiplier? How should I think about my withdrawal rate if I'm going to exit the workforce early? And Brown, we have this conversation all the time. We talk to folks that are part of the fire movement, that are part of the fine movement. We say, okay, if you're going to have a longer than normal retirement timeline, you probably ought to think about thinking through things a little bit differently.

[C]

Yeah, no Doubt Rashaun, by the way, I'm with bo. I'm with Ribi. You're crushing it, being way ahead of schedule. I do think this is a kind of. You need to understand when you have a destination as big as you want to retire early and you're decades out from this, you're not even going to be able to see it in the distance. So you really need to be thinking about savings rates. Maybe that's what the elves are supposed to be doing is helping with that. But savings rate is going to be one thing, but then as you. So you're going to be very broad. But as you bring the plane in for the landing, you're going to switch from rules of thumb like withdrawal rates and basic rates of returns to actually doing Monte Carlo simulations and other things. But that's probably a great place to start. Is like the know your number course. So you know, if you're ahead of the curve, behind the curve, or right where you're supposed to be. Also use very conservative assumptions. One of the things we do when we find out people are super part of the fine or fire movement, we'll say, look, if you're retiring above 55, you can use that traditional 4% withdrawal rate. But if you're somebody who's retiring between 4:45, it's hard to read through the wig 45 and 55, it's three and a half percent. And if you're trying to retire like a wild person before you're even age 45, you probably want to go super conservative with maybe even a 3% safe withdrawal rate.

[A]

Then again, those safe withdrawal rates are sort of like back of the napkin planning. That's what you use to figure out, okay, what's the horizon line I'm going to work towards. But when it actually becomes time to truly retire, to truly step away from the workforce and begin living off your army of dollar bills, it's exactly what Brian says. You have to do an actual retirement plan where you do an actual Monte Carlo analysis and you actually factor in, okay, what do I expect my life to look like from age 50 all the way out until expiration? If that's age 90, 95, 100, whatever that may be. It's only after you've done that work, done that stress test, run it through the different iterations, that you can have security, actually going into retirement and actually going in your next endeavor. If all you're doing is using a safe withdrawal rate factor, like a 3% or 4%, I would argue you've not Appropriately and accurately done enough homework to know if you're there yet.

[C]

Well, it also, because it doesn't take into account what happens with kids, what happens with life goals, what happens with health. There's a lot of things that get very personalized and nuanced as we get through, don't, you know, probably these wig things. I'm sure they're tested in the lab to make sure they're okay for ingestion. Right. Don't you think?

[A]

I sure hope so.

[C]

You saw it a lot. Otherwise, I have probably taken some. This gag has probably cost some years off the life because I'm sure that factory in China really focused on making sure it was, you know, good for humans consumption. Did we get. Yeah, enough. That's it. I can't. I can't do it.

[B]

Because this episode is coming out just a little before Christmas. We are having a little fun. If you're listening on audio, Brian was.

[A]

Wearing a you're gonna want to go.

[B]

Out Santa wig that entire time. And I looked over while Bo was starting to answer the question. And Bryant, he had the wig. It was almost covering his eyes. He had the beard almost up all the way over his nose. And the hat was like draping down.

[A]

Over your face forward. Did you not notice the ball bouncing.

[C]

In front of your face?

[B]

I could your face at the beginning and I started laughing, helping me.

[C]

And nobody helped me with the hat. So that was just whatever. I flung it on my head before we hit action. Oh, that's what we were left with.

[B]

That was quite funny.

[A]

That is hilarious.

[C]

So I hope that Rashan got something out of that because it was just. It was. There was a big distraction. I felt like we did a game show where you asked me a serious question while I was running a, you know, like an obstacle.

[B]

Yeah. We've discussed having, like challenges for you while you answer these questions.

[A]

I think we just saw how well that would go.

[B]

We saw how that would go.

[A]

Hot ones for Brian and Bo might not turn out real great is what I'm seeing right there.

[B]

Oh, man.

[A]

But, you know, it is so interesting. This is. This is what an amazing time of year this is. Right. Obviously we have the holidays. We have end of the year. Brian, you recently just had a birthday. December is the month in which you were born. And it is annual net worth statement month. And in this month, we could do a network statement. There's a lot of stuff to celebrate, a lot of stuff to be very, very excited about this time of year. And that's why we want to Have a little bit of fun with today's Q and A. Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

And because the Q and A, I've got another question pulled up here from cm. It says, is there ever time that you are ever a time you all recommend 0% financing that can be paid within a short time frame instead of pulling from emergency reserves, he gives the example of medical bills. What do you think?

[A]

So I like the short term little caveat you put on there. Because a lot of times we get asked this question, like, guys, if someone offers me 0% financing, why wouldn't I take advantage of it? Why wouldn't I take advantage of it? I think about this the same way that I talk with my middle daughter. Now I've got three kids, I got a ten year old, I got an eight year old, I got a two and a half year old. And my middle one is the one that always wants to like just kind of play with the rules. She wants to test the boundaries like, dad, why do I need to put on my seatbelt? Why dad, do I have to wear my seatbelt? Why can't. And I say, sweetheart, look, here's the chance, here's the thing. Odds are if you don't put on your seatbelt, you're going to be fine. Odds are we're going to make it to our destination and you will have been okay. However, in the event that something happens that was not thought of ahead of time, that we did not prepare for, the outcome that could come from that could be incredibly negative and incredibly bad. And I think about 0% financing and as the same thing, a lot of folks get really excited, oh, I can go borrow this. Two years, same as cash, three years, same as cash, zero percent. But if you miss one payment or one thing doesn't go through, or there's one glitch or whatever that thing may be, it can be a very, very, very negative outcome. And so the question I have is, is it worth it? Is the arbitrage game you're trying to play worth it? So that's why, generally speaking, I am not a fan of zero percent financing. However, CM did say this was like for a short term thing like a medical bill, like, hey, okay, should I take advantage of this? If I can pay this over the next three months, four months, five months with zero percent, and that gives me a little bit of reprieve instead of my emergency fund, I do think that's a little bit of a different scenario.

[C]

Well, it all depends on what goes into it too. Because the problem is with a lot of These deals, I mean, you're going to have to go through the formal credit process. You're going to have to unfreeze your credit, you're going to have to apply, you're going to have to ding your credit. There's just a lot of friction that's going to occur. And then you just mentioned all the fine print issues. Look, I have no problem. It's with if you just treated it same as cash or whatever. Like if a medical provider was saying, hey, you know, we can, oh look, I do this with my daughter's private school. You know, if you think about the fact that, you know, my youngest daughter goes to a very unique school for alternative learners and it's expensive and I know every year when I sign the contract that I could either pay it in a lump sum, but they've also tried make it more digestible. I can pay it in two or three payments and it's the same thing. I just divided it by three. Well, I'm like, okay, yeah, then that's fine. I'll just.

[A]

Time value of money, time value of.

[C]

Money plus it's just easier to digest this in over two or three. It's not buy now, pay later type stuff. This is just a basic agreement I have with the school. And that's why if a medical provider was willing to say, hey, we know this is your deductible is a big bill on this if you want to pay it over the next three months. But that's not usually, it's not that loose. It's usually much more formal. There's much more fine print, there's much more built into the transaction that is scary or riskier. And it's that type of stuff. It's the unintended consequences or the unintended risk that freak me out. Plus it's the I will pull this forward into the new behavior that's in society with this. Buy now, pay later is the deferral of everything. And I just, I don't want it to interfere with your discipline muscle. That's the big thing. Is that a lot of stuff now one off like a medical bill? Because that's not something. It's not like we go down the street and we're looking for medical bills to kind of pop up. That's the stuff that happens on a Tuesday or Wednesday or you know, emergency happens. So I'm willing to give a lot more grace on that. But I am struggling with when people are trying to use 0% for consumption because I feel like it's working against the behavioral aspects of discipline. And then once you take into account the unintended and the complications of the contracts that you're signing to make this stuff happen, it's just not worth it to me. And that's why we have a policy in my house forever. My wife was opening up some credit cards at stores, but I wouldn't know about it. And so that whatever 10 to 15% discount that she was getting wasn't really getting us that much of a discount when the first month's bill wasn't getting paid and we got a penalties and all kind of other issues. So we just went to a zero store credit card policy so that we never had to deal with that again.

[A]

Did I tell you my. We have this conversation around my hack of how to prevent that because I run.

[C]

If you freeze your credit, it kind of shuts it down.

[A]

The other day my wife this a few months ago and she was at somewhere and they're like, hey, if you do the store credit card, she was buying school clothes for the kids or something, you know, very noble cause, hey, if you sign up for the store credit card, you can pay it off immediately. But da da da, you'll save whatever. And she went to do it, but because our credit was frozen, she couldn't open it up. So I got a notification, I was like, babe, did you try to. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, I did try to open that up. So that's another way to kind of keep yourself protected. And that way you can tell the store folks, fix, I can't open this credit card anyways.

[C]

Yeah, I mean that's something. I will tell you. I'm a big fan of freezing your credit because I think the crooks want to use your credit way more than a good financial mutant user.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Well cm, I hope that helps you think through your question. And thanks for asking it. Jorge B. Is up next. It says, what should we look out for when a financial advisor advises to scale back on 401k investing and instead put money into an annuity and whole life insurance?

[C]

Now I see why the financial advisors.

[B]

In quotes, it's in quotations. Yes, I should have said quote, unquote. Financial advisor.

[C]

The legal, the legal aspect of financial advisor is really, there's no legal. Anybody can really call them, hang a.

[A]

Shingle and do it.

[C]

Just hang a shingle. That's why we always talk about the certifications, the cpa, the cfp, you know, the fiduciary standard. These are the things that actually bear weight versus just Somebody saying I'm a financial advisor, I'm a financial planner without the, the heft behind them or the legal requirements behind them. I think you got yourself a life insurance agent who is decided to co brand this as a financial advisor as well. Yeah.

[A]

What should you look for? You should look for the exit, right? Because that should be an immediate red flag like oh, what's going on Now I want to be careful because we don't know all the variables, we don't know all the circumstantial evidence that could suggest this recommendation. Because there have been cases in our experience, Brian, where because of one reason or the other, we recommend a client back down their 401k savings, especially like in years leading up to or in year of retirement for some other purpose. Most often to build up liquidity and sort of cash reserves. However, this does not sound like that and I believe that Jorge said he.

[B]

Was 51, still working 700k in his 401k.

[A]

Yeah. So it seems unlikely that's probably what's going on here. So what I would encourage you to do is if you go to moneyguide.com resources we have a tool that is 8 questions to ask your financial advisor. And while you're not considering hiring this advisor, sounds like you already work with him, there are some questions on there that are worth asking, one of which is, hey, okay, if I do this, if I back down my 401k and I put money in this whole life or I put money into this annuity, how does that benefit you? What, what, what's your compensation around that decision? Is there a conflict of interest that exists here and they'll have to disclose to you, okay, yeah, I get paid this other. And then you ask, okay, well why does this make sense? Why am I choosing to do this as opposed to funding my 401k? And they ought to be able to answer that question. Well and I think if they really dive into it, they're probably going to have a pretty difficult time justifying funding whole life insurance or some sort of annuity type product in lieu of your employer sponsored retirement account. And then what you can always do is you can always get a second opinion. If you have some unbiased third party that you can call, maybe it's another financial advisor, maybe it is your accountant, maybe it's someone else who you trust with how they make financial decisions, say hey, I have an advisor making this recommendation. Does this pass the sniff test for you? And if it doesn't pass the sniff test then I think your spidey senses should perhaps start going off.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, even for. I'm not going to, because he. Those are two broad things. Annuities, whole life insurance. I know. Annuity people forever. The things that pushed the legal or the right way to use an annuity is after you've maxed out all the tax favored accounts. If you're still looking for a way to grow your investments in a tax deferred nature, tax deferred nature, annuities can be that answer. But the fact that you haven't even maxed out your 401k and this person's trying to put you into an annuity or a whole life policy, I don't know all the variables, but that just. There's already some red flags that I would need to work past to understand. And that's why, you know, look, we've given thoughts on insurance and other things, but we don't sell those products.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

But even we have conflicts of interest, by the way. Absolutely. That's one of the things. Everybody who's working in the financial field is going to have conflicts of interest. That's why we give you those eight questions to ask. So even if you're talking to somebody like us who's a fee only fiduciary advisor, you might have a question like, hey, wouldn't your fee go down if I paid off my house? And I'm like, yeah, that's why you better understand my philosophy and how I handle these type of decisions so that it's, you know, we can work through any conflicts that might be built into the structure of how we get compensated. So there's nothing that needs to be pushed away from or even concern that yes, people who do professional services are going to get paid. You just want to make sure it's transparent. And you know, price is what you pay, value is what you receive. And you want to make sure there's some type of connection between those two.

[A]

Things and it's not an uncomfortable conversation. Literally before we recorded today, I had a prospect call with a potential client and he asked me that very question. Hey, explain to me how your conflicts of interest work. What does that look like? And I was like, that's an amazing question because frankly, we don't get asked that a ton. And I walked through exactly. I said, hey, if I tell you to not pay off your mortgage and put money in your portfolio, that's better for us, it works out better. Even with that conflict existing, I still believe if you have a 2 1/2% mortgage and you're 34 years old and you're building for the future. It doesn't make sense to prepay that mortgage. And so, so long as you're willing to have those conversations, they shouldn't be uncomfortable, they shouldn't be awkward. And the way they answer it should make sense to you. You should have a level of confidence coming out of that conversation that you feel okay moving forward. You're looking at all my fuzzies. I can see you looking at the fuzzy sitting here. There's a bunch of fuzzies flying around.

[C]

Well, it's that. But also the audience doesn't know. I'm kind of saddened a little bit. Bo showed up today. Not in this. He actually showed up in.

[A]

They told me to take it off.

[C]

See, they screwed you up because I wanted you to do a big unveiling of taking off the Santa wear, showing everybody the cosplay.

[B]

Unintentional cosplay.

[C]

Because Bo showed up today, I kid you not, looking like Han Bolo with. I mean, by the way, I went and asked a few employees because we had a birthday celebration today. And I walked around and I said, hey, I'm not going to give you any prompt on this, but I want you to look at Beau and you tell me from a cosplay perspective, who does he look like? And hundred percent, they said Han Solo.

[B]

It was pretty accurate, I have to say.

[C]

I mean, if you could actually.

[B]

Because he had on like, the vest and the boots. The boots really sold it. Yeah.

[C]

They would make. You might have a small living there.

[A]

You know what, Brian? I. I'll take that Galactic Star Cruiser.

[C]

From whatever I would have said, Bo, I need to borrow your outfit so I can go on the Galactic Star cruise.

[A]

From what I understand about Star Wars, Han Solo was a beloved character who was a lot of people's favorite. So I'll consider that to be a compliment. Brian. Thank you so much.

[C]

So I'm trying to figure out if I'm Chew Brica. Bry character.

[B]

That's what Brica said. And I was like, that's the one.

[C]

That's much better.

[B]

That's the one.

[C]

This is why I work with a bunch of creatives. Chew Brian. Oh, well.

[B]

Well, they just get Santa Bo today for the live stream.

[A]

No, I'm about. This is really hot. I'm going to take it off. I'm gonna do a magic. No, we're gonna do a. We're gonna do a magic thing. When you ask the next question, I'm gonna pop up. Grab it. They're gonna change the cameras. You are not gonna be none the wiser. I'm gonna be back.

[C]

We're gonna still get to see Han Bolo.

[B]

Okay, we'll see if the editors choose. Let's go to Evan's question next. But really, Evan does have a question. He says, when trying to reach the goal of saving 25% of income, is Roth contributions or pre tax contributions weighted at all? Saving 25% post tax seems like a much larger savings rate compared to pre tax. What would you say to Evan?

[A]

So this is a pretty common question we get all the time because people recognize the vest is on.

[B]

Now the vest is on because people.

[A]

Recognize that, okay, a dollar in Roth is not the same as a dollar in pre tax. If I have a dollar pre tax, I'm actually having a dollar plus my tax savings. So if I'm in a 22% tax bracket, I have $1 plus 22 cents of tax savings. $1.22 pre tax is equal to $1 Roth. So they are, in fact, not equivalent. And so we have a lot of financial mutants that want to really, like, get in the nitty gritty of the math on here and ask, okay, do we weight this different? Should I think about this different? My simple answer is, no, we told you so. No, it's not because I told you so.

[C]

That's what you do. Don't you know when you kids ask a parent a difficult question, it's like, no, because that's.

[A]

Because that's the way I said to do it. No, because what we want you focusing on is 25% of your gross income. If you want to know why, go to moneyguy.com resources. We have a deliverable how much should you save? That shows how powerful 25% could be. Now, if you're doing this the way that you want to do it, because a lot of people are trying to think about, okay, am I optimizing? Am I in the right place? If you're following the financial order of operations, Brian, will you hold the thing up for me? The financial order of operations is the thing that will lead you down the course of how should I do this? Okay, I'm going to do employer match. That's likely going to be pre tax, maybe Roth. I'm going to get to step five, and I'm going to be doing Roth. Doing Roth. I'm going to get to step six. I'm maxing out retirement, and I'm going to add up all of those. And so long as I'm following the financial order of operations and I'm saving 25% of my gross income. I don't think you have to get any more complicated than that. And if you're doing that well over the course of a career, what you're going to happen, what's going to happen is when you get to financial independence, when you get to retirement, you're going to likely have these three distinct tax buckets that you've been able to fill up where when that really matters is when you go to begin distributing and pulling your assets out. So I don't think you should waste a lot of mental calories in the front end thinking about the differences because where it really manifests in value is in the back end when you start to pull those assets out.

[C]

Well, look, I'm going to make you feel much better about this, Evan, and the fact that when you're younger realize we've also built in the grace of that you get to count your employer match when Your income's under 100,000 for a single individual, 200,000 for a married couple. That's going to. Because most people who are in a lower tax situation who are counting their employer match, you're going to do the Roth contribution. It's the most tax favored, it's the better one. It's only the people who are in super high income situations, probably making over $200,000 for a married couple that they're going to choose because they're going to be in the greater than 30 plus percent marginal tax rate that are going to choose the pre tax. And you're spot on. The Roth is so much more valuable. But that's also the pressure that that pre tax contributor is going to have to put more in because they don't even get to count the employer match any. So you see how this works out in the wash. That's why we can tell you focus on the behaviors you can control. We've already created the system that takes all of this into account. You're like, holy cow. This kind of, it's amazing. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. You start putting it together and you're like, oh, that's where those three pieces go. And it's like, because the system was designed to be very tax favored, but also to bring in the behaviors, we've already built this in. That's why when people write and say, why do y' all even have that hundred two hundred thousand dollar rule? We understand how the, the social safety net. We understand how tax policies we've tried to build the better mousetrap. Take advantage of it. Love that.

[B]

Love it. Evan, thank you for the question. Do you feel better now that you're back to being hambo low?

[A]

Honestly, I feel like the temperature dropped by at least 20 degrees over here.

[C]

It was. I gotta practice.

[B]

Santa Sou.

[C]

Oh. What do you think? Pretty good.

[B]

Merry Christmas to me. That was amazing.

[A]

That was for you guys. That was for you guys.

[C]

I'm not known for a Chewbacca, but I was like, you know, you are now. You are now.

[B]

All right. To Brian.

[C]

That outfit is so good, Bo. It really is. It makes me want to put a Chewbacca hat on.

[B]

Clearly it does.

[A]

Don't say that too loud. Literally our production maybe next Halloween. Chewbacca head.

[B]

Anyway. All right, let's go on to the next question now. Tony G. He says, can it make sense to put a car sinking fund into mutual funds instead of a high yield savings account or money market account if you own your cars for seven plus years?

[A]

Yes, and here's why. My opinion for sinking funds on shorter term purchases like what I'm going to call an automobile, I don't think a sinking fund should likely extend much past five years. We always say that if you're going to need some capital, need money inside of 60 months, you want that to stay in cash. And that's generally where a sinking fund would come. If you have an expenditure that's going to happen nearly a decade out in the future. I don't really think that you would consider that part of a sinking fund. I think you would consider that just part of your total investment portfolio that you're building inside of that after tax account. So I do think it'd be okay for that money to go into low cost index funds part of your portfolio. Because I don't think that a goal seven years out, absent it being like a home or a big renovation or something like that, would fall into sinking fund category.

[C]

You were spot on. But I want to tell you where the danger zone is so you can avoid it is if you're driving a car for beyond seven years, you know when you start getting nervous like, oh boy, hope it cranks, hope it cranks. I hope Betsy cranks up this morning. It's cold outside. And then you start and look, if you got kids and you got a spouse and you know, you're like, oh gosh, I hope she's not calling because they broke down and Betsy, because Betsy didn't, wasn't reliable anymore. When you're getting within a year, two years, don't get cute with keeping your stuff because what you don't want to have when it rains, it pours, meaning that bad news comes in multitude. I don't want you to get in a situation where the stock market's getting its teeth kicked in, you lose your job and the car breaks down and you sound like a country song at that point because you got really cute trying to get as much gain as possible. I want you to kind of understand and be honest with yourself is if you're getting into that halo, period of a year, two years, even up to three years, you know, like, hey, there's a chance the market's in a great place right now, probably going to replace this car in the next two years. I probably ought to come up with a strategy to start turning some of these investments into cash because I don't want to run this thing where literally one day wakes up and it doesn't crank anymore.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Yeah. Well, Tony G. Really good question. Thanks for asking it and I hope that helps. Next question is from bags. It says I am 39, have been steadily saving for many years. I have amassed 740k.

[A]

Let's really great.

[B]

However, only 150k of that is invested. The rest.

[A]

Let's go on. Let's go.

[B]

The rest is in a high yield savings account and money market account. How should I invest at this point? Okay, so he's asking the right questions now, but talk about, talk about where he's at and what he should be doing next.

[C]

I mean, we got, look, we bags, we got you hooked up. We're even going to show you a resource here in a minute that's going to help you out. But I need to know more. Context here is I'd love to know where did the money come from? Is this one of those things where, like he has an employer plan. That's where the 150,000 invested is because that was forced upon him to save and invest and then the 740. There's two things that could have happened. Either this person didn't feel comfortable saving and investing, so they just kind of in a miserly way just built up a bunch of cash in the background or they've come into a windfall. I just, I don't know how we ended up here, Bags, but either way there's, you've, we've got to address that part. How did we get here? And then on the way out, say.

[B]

He'S been steadily saving for many years.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

So I think that's at least a little bit of a cue.

[C]

So. But I think that's probably what the 150 is like an employer of a forced employer.

[B]

Okay, so you're saying that could have been fair enough.

[C]

Yeah. You know, so that's like. Because those things typically make you get invested because, you know, because they have a fiduciary on them. They have, you know, employee education meetings. So, you know, but that pushed his hand. But then, you know, the, the taxable account over here that's just got a bunch of cash in it. It sounds like that just built up over time.

[A]

Yeah. And so I think what you have to do is you have to. The first question I would ask you bags is why, why do you have this much in cash? Absent an answer like this, oh, well, I'm saving up for a house or I have, I'm buying in, starting a new business, startership, I'm starting a bid, whatever. If that money is not accounted for for a short term goal, but rather this is part of your long term financial independence building, I would argue you probably have a little bit of a problem because I want you to go to moneyguy.com resources and check out our wealth multiplier. Because the wealth multiplier for a 39 year old is going to be a little over seven times. Meaning every dollar that you save at 39 can turn over more than seven times by the time that you get to age 65.

[C]

So that money 8.16.

[A]

8.16. So that money just sitting in a high yield savings account and money market is not working as hard for you as it could be. We want that money to be working effectively and efficiently towards your financial independence. So I think there's a really good chance that a big chunk of that $600,000 you have in cash ought to be invested. So then the question becomes, well, how do I do it now? Maybe you've been waiting for a downturn and maybe you've been scared of the market. Maybe you thought there was political or economic or global unrest and that had some sort of apprehension inside of you that made you not invest that. What I would say is, let's remove the emotion from this. And if I know that I have $600,000 of excess, or let's just say 500,000, because maybe you need to have 100,000 in cash for some reason. How can I systematically work this into the market over some period of time? Maybe it's $50,000 over 10 months, maybe it's $25,000 over 20 months. I'm making up numbers Here, you mean monthly?

[C]

Those are some.

[A]

Yeah. You would invest that much every month. So that, that way if the market does go down from this point, that's great. You're buying in at lower and lower and lower, lower levels. But if the market goes up, that's also great because last month's contributions, making money and the month before and the month before, it's literally a win win situation that allows you to get your money invested and get your money to start working. Because right now you have a lot of wealth sitting on the sidelines that could be doing a lot of very heavy lifting for you.

[C]

So can the content team pull up the Goldilocks rule on dollar cost averaging?

[A]

I bet they can because our content team is second to none. But here's what I'm going to tell you, Brian. This one.

[C]

There it is. There it is.

[B]

I was going to say we just pulled it up recently.

[C]

So here's the Cliff Notes. Understanding this, bags, is that obviously your amount unvested. Now figure out how much you need in cash reserves. We want to cord that off and we want to protect it. But after you figure out what the difference is between what's emergency reserves and what needs to be considered invested, you could say, wow, that's substantially bigger than what my total invested assets currently are. Then you can take into account based upon the Goldilocks rule, is this going to be a four month corrective measure? Is this going to be a 10 month or 12 month? We are going to hook you up. So go download this. Moneyguy.com resources that's great.

[B]

Moneyguy.com resources bags. Thank you for your question. Next up we have Dan. You thinking about something?

[A]

I was. What deep in thought, is our Goldilocks rule a resource? It's not a resource. I just don't bags, I don't want to send you to wild.

[B]

No, you're so right. I just went to the next question and just went.

[A]

It's one of our money guy rules. But it's not actually you can't download. So there's nothing. However, there is a show that we recently did that walked through all of that out there. It's not a resource, it's a rule.

[B]

Not yet.

[C]

Well, you know, add this to the Bo Hansen library wing the money guy show that whole diagram that we were coming up with. Decision matrix. We also need to add the Goldilocks rule. We're building this library one brick at a time.

[A]

At this point I'm not so sure.

[B]

I do think some more things are coming for 2026.

[A]

I'm not so sure that what the resource should be is the money Guy rule book. And what it is, it's a compilation of all of ours. We actually just did a great show. I can't remember the name of the.

[B]

Show, but it was 11 money rules, something like that. It's 11 rules.

[A]

11 money rules that you should know to change your financial life. Just came out and it kind of walked through, one of which was the Goldilocks rule. We should make a deliverable the Money Guy rulebook, and we should have that out there. Bags. Thank you for the recommendation.

[C]

Well, I'm glad. Well, look, I'm glad you corrected it. I would have felt horrible if they went out there. The money got resources, and where's Goldilocks? Because all you have to do. I would go. If I was doing this, I'd go do on the search bar, type in Goldilocks and like these son of a guns. What's he talking about? And now maybe if you wrote Goldilocks, our search parameters might be so good that it shows up that 11 rules show. I wonder if it would.

[B]

I'm going to go test it. So you've actually been working on improving that. So now I want to know.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Well, I'm glad you caught that boat while I was another show looking up questions.

[A]

There's another show bags that you could go check out, too. That would help. And I think the name of that show is the truth about Dollar cost averaging that most investors miss. It's another great one. If you're thinking about how to get this money to work, how to get it working for you, that'd be another great episode to go check out. He just noticed.

[C]

He just noticed.

[A]

All the notice was decoration. Holy cow. Did you notice we have a wreath, Logan?

[B]

Oh, that was delightful.

[C]

Here's actually what happened on the right side over here. I see our YouTube button, and I'm.

[A]

Like, why is the YouTube button.

[C]

And I was like, where was that thing? And. And the thing is, I'm so bad on where Waldo is is. I couldn't remember where it was on the set. So I started looking around and that's like, oh, my gosh. They customized. I knew the trees. I knew the trees were here. I saw the trees.

[B]

Christmas trees. Yeah.

[C]

Well done. But that I had not seen.

[B]

Christmas Money Guy. Yes.

[C]

It's been there, I guess. You won't believe it.

[A]

It's been there the whole time.

[C]

Santa Claus face and hat got me.

[B]

So he was distracted by the beard and the hat. Yeah.

[C]

I also didn't notice. You know, they had put stuff in the lobby, some Christmas stuff in the lobby, and some other specialized stuff. This morning, they're like, hey, what do you think? And I had to go do a double take. So I just don't think I'm that observant.

[A]

It's so funny, he says that. That he's not that observant, but I happen to know this to be true because he has a skill set that I have. If he walks into his house and this is true, and he sees something out of place that's not where it's supposed to be, like, oh, hey, there's my keys, or my spouse's keys, he just archives it away. That thing is out of place. I'm gonna remember that later. So that later, if someone comes and asks, say, hey, have you, sweetheart, have you seen my keys? You know where it's at? You notice that kind of stuff all the time.

[C]

But that's a different use of the brain. I can be unobservant of everything. But if I know there's something that is valuable that my wife is going to need, I will take a mental note. When I see important things, I'm the same way.

[B]

No, I get it. I'm blind to things that I don't actually have a use for.

[C]

Today I've learned there's a value to paying attention to valuable things that are out of place. Because it is many times. Because in the house, I am known as the finder, and I'm not really a finder. If you know me, I'm disorganized. But what I am is I have learned. If I see something out of place, take a middle note and then follow it away. And then when they say, hey, I can't find this, I'll be like, here you go. I know where it is.

[B]

That's pretty good.

[C]

We are very.

[A]

I literally noticed when my stapler's been moved, I can.

[C]

It's got some.

[B]

You're different.

[C]

This is why we're a good team.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You're a little more wound a little tighter on some of that stuff than I am. There's a reason why when you look at my phone and you see how many unanswered. That one.

[B]

I don't like that one.

[C]

Sleep over that. I know you. You learn. You lose.

[A]

Honestly, I lose sleep over yours. I lose sleep thinking about your.

[C]

It's okay. If it was really important, they'd reach back out. Yeah, that.

[B]

That stresses me out. Even though I am a little more disorganized than Bo, that one. I don't go that far.

[A]

That's hilarious.

[C]

Shouldn't have said that part out loud.

[B]

That's why they can reach out to other people here. It's all good. Okay, next question. Are you ready for it? It's from Dan4244. It says I'm saving a lot each month into a high yield savings account for a down payment on a house, which is great. Do I get to count this money towards the 25% savings goal since it will go to an appreciating asset?

[C]

Nope.

[A]

Next question. Here's what.

[B]

That was amusing.

[C]

I loved it. I didn't plan for us to synchronize that.

[B]

He was trying really hard because he was like, this is going to go to an appreciating asset. And I get it.

[C]

I get it.

[B]

Does this tell them why?

[A]

Does this count as discipline? Yes. Does this count as deferred gratification? Yes. Does this count on living on less than you make? Yes. Is this a wonderful thing to do? If homeownership is a goal of yours? Yes. What is the 25% for? 25% is saving for your future financial independence. Saving for a down payment on a home is saving for a current year, current time use asset. Those are two different goals. So saving for the down payment for the home, while it may eat up some of what you would have had going to 25%, it does not count towards that. What actually happens is you have 10% going to this goal and if you had to decrease your savings rate, you only have 15% going towards that future financial independence. This is the number that 15% is what you need to get back up to 25. We do that on purpose because we want you to attack short term, intermediate term goals ferociously so that you can get to them, solve them, and then get back to the long term goal, not rest assured. Okay, I'm doing the 25. I'm doing the five. Because that 25% is not actively going towards your future financial independence self.

[C]

Yeah. I see this as somebody like Dan when he's trying to come up with a house down payment. It's not part of the emergency reserves, but it's like a bolt on strategy to your emergency reserves because what will happen is you'll have your three to six months, but then you might have this, this sinking fund for a down payment. But it is, and I'm glad you said it the way you did, is that you should be troubled that every month that you're saving. It's a very noble cause to do the down payment, but it is keeping you from hitting 25%. And that timer should be ticking in the background because you've gone to the wealth multiplier. You know what compounding interest can do for you. So that way you feel the pressure to get back on track as fast as possible. Love that.

[B]

When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up. This sip and season, and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst.

[C]

Let's be real. Even my CPA heart knows no one starts a business for the joy of calculating tax withholdings. And that's exactly why we get excited when we hear small business owners talk about tools that actually make their lives easier.

[A]

Yeah, and Gusto is one of those tools. It's an online payroll and business benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere.

[C]

Now look, Bo and I don't run payroll ourselves anymore, but we've been there and we've got friends and clients who do. And the thing we hear over and over is how much time Gusto saves them. Nobody wants the prize fees or to spend half a day figuring out payroll taxes.

[A]

That's why when Gusto says you get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price, no hidden fees and no surprises. We love that. We've had clients switch to Gusto and immediately feel like they got their Saturdays back.

[C]

And the setup people tell us it's easy. You bring your existing info and boom, you're off and running. Plus, you don't pay a dime until you run that first payroll, which we love.

[A]

So if you're a small business owner wearing all the hats, do yourself a favor. Try gusto [e-mail] moneyguy and get three free months when you run your first payroll.

[C]

That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com moneyguy one more time. Gusto.com moneyguy great stuff.

[A]

Do we.

[B]

I loved your I think you did okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I mean the the main point was no. You explained why very well.

[A]

You mentioned this and I want to this is just a brief aside. You said, why does it count as this? Because it's going towards an appreciating asset. And while it is true that your house can appreciate and while it Is true that your house can add to your long term wealth. We would encourage you not to think about it that way. We want you to think about your primary residence as a use asset, as a thing that I am using and consuming today to put a roof over my head to shelter me. I don't want you thinking about oh, this is how I'm building wealth. Because I have some like very good buddies. Like oh dude, I'm just, oh, the way I'm building wealth is my house. I buy a house, it goes up in value, I roll it all into the next one, I buy another one, I roll into the next one. And while that can work, I don't know that's the most efficient way to build towards financial independence and I would not bank my financial independence on that. Whether the house goes up or down, it provides shelter and that's what matters for you. If it just happens to go up and happens to help you build wealth, I would consider that a cherry on top.

[C]

I had a conversation, it was kind of an odd conversation because somebody I know who lives in a nice house already and with they're like Brian, I've been thinking about selling and moving because I just think this price point is probably capped out.

[A]

Meaning, man, I can't go any higher.

[C]

People, well we live in a neighborhood with a certain size lot. People aren't just aren't going to pay too much more. Whereas I was told by somebody in real estate that I could go buy this plot of land, I could put a really big house on it and it's so inefficiently priced. This could be worth 3 million, 4 million, 5. And I had to remind them that no matter how much it goes up to, it's a use asset. Yes, it's something you could sell but I'm a surprise and we live in a very high cost of living part of America. And I see it all over social media where people will show a new house going in Brentwood or Northern Franklin and these castle looking houses. And it is amazing to me that people are buying homes that essentially is a full retirement for most people. Spending more than $3 million on a house that is America's full retirement. Meaning if you had that money working for you, it can provide a very nice living perpetually versus if you just have it in the house, it's just there now it's, you know, so just be careful how you look at the house. I mean there's nothing wrong if you're at the level of success as this is your step eight and abundance goals that you say, you know, this is. We entertain, we raise money for charities, we want to host things, we want to do things. So I'm going to a $5 million home or 6 million because we have clients that are like that. And I think it's all. But. But it's secondary to having. It's after you've built the financial foundation and their financial assets, outside investable assets have to be built up. You don't want to have a balance sheet that is house rich, life poor, and retirement asset poor. You just. Just be careful that. Because there's some weird mentality because of how much real estate ran up during the pandemic and a little bit after the pandemic with all that, there's some recency bias that I think people haven't really understood how these are distortions that it might not just what happened a few years ago might not be the thing that is the way you're gonna build your wealth going forward.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah. No, that's good stuff. Dan4244, thank you for the question. We get where you're coming from, and we hope that helps you think about this house decision and your savings rate moving forward. I'm really happy to report if you go on moneyguy.com and search goldilocks Rule, all those shows pop up. I'm just gonna say let's go. Listen, I'm like, you know, part of working on all that, so I'm like, very proud.

[A]

How about I say it's because you have been working so hard on getting.

[B]

Our website so in more to come. But yeah, if you go to moneyguy.com and search what you're looking for, it is getting better and better and better. It's all about trying to make it super findable. Like all of the episodes, all the resources we've done so just in case anybody did want. It's not. It's not an official resource, but you can go search it on moneyguy.com they.

[C]

Could find in Goldilocks. They'd find it like, oh, that goofy Brian. He just doesn't remember what's a resource.

[B]

And watch that episode. All right, next question is from Jarrett N. It says, my emergency fund is running low and I have been having trouble refilling that bucket. Should I cash out after tax assets, I could likely do so at 0%. I am the sole earner and we have three young children. There's a lot there. What do you think about this?

[C]

I'm not taking so Their income is.

[A]

Low enough to do a capital gain of 0% or maybe they have lost positions or something like that. Here's what I, here's what I would really want to know, Jared. It sounds like things are pretty tight. Things Me, the reason I say that is you saying it's been really hard to rebuild up the emergency fund. What I want to know is how lean is your emergency fund? Because if you're a single income, single income household and you have three young children, I'm going to bet that the need for an emergency fund for you is probably going to be six months of living expenses. Well, if things are already pretty tight month to month, and when you need six months, say you only have like two months, three months, if something bad were to happen, job loss, sickness, you know, car goes out, whatever those things are, it could put you in a very bad spot very, very quickly. And you have a lot of people sounding like sole earner, meaning you have a spouse, three young children, meaning you have some dependence. There's a lot depending on your, you. I do think this is one of those unique circumstances where you have to triage and say, okay, if the you know what hit the fan, how quickly would things get bad? If your emergency fund should be six months, but you've got four and a half, maybe not that dire. If it should be six months, you've only got one month, then yeah, maybe you should take advantage of those 0% capital gains rates, potentially sell some of those taxable assets right now, the market's in a good spot and get that emergency fund beefed up and bolstered up. Agree, Disagree, Want to fight?

[C]

No, I agree. I mean, I definitely. Especially if you have after tax assets. I would, I would. Because you got to have emergency reserves. But then here's phase two of this triage moment in time for you and your family. You need to ask yourself, is this a season or is just, just the way things are? Because if it's a season, I'm going to give you grace on the fact that. Because if you're having to sell assets that were, you know, invested for the long term and you're having to go backwards in the financial order of operations to boost up the cash reserves, I'm okay in a season for you to kind of do that, to build the bridge so you can make sure you're okay, especially when markets are really good places financially go get that money and boost up the cash reserves. But if this is just the way it is, it's not a season, there's a Bigger problem lurking under the surface here is that y' all are spending everything that's coming in and you've got to figure out how do we fix that? Because that's a bigger long term problem. Because right now if you're spending every dollar that comes in, every dollar you make money, it goes right out the door. None of it lands on the net worth statement. None of it's going for long term savings, none of it's going to the cash reserves. That's a problem. How do you, I mean you're just going to keep bleeding out all your assets until before long you're just to going, you can't catch back up. So that's why you have to be honest with yourself. Is this a season or is this just the way it is? If it's just the way it is, you got a bigger problem. And that's when you have to start making big decisions like looking at your job. You have to look at the cars you drive, look at the house you live, look at where you live and figure out activities, schools, all the things just to make sure that your lifestyle reflects where you really are in your financial world.

[B]

Yep, that's great. Thank you for the question. Jarrett.

[A]

Ruby, since it is, since it is, you know, Christmas season, we're here at the end of the year. Any big Christmas wants in the, in the Ribey household. Anything big that people like, either your kids or you or John. Like what? Anything like, man, this is the big, it's the big ask this year.

[B]

Honestly, no. My kids are too little for it.

[C]

Ah.

[B]

So talk to me in a few years. How about you? There's really not like we're just kind of excited about the Christmas spirit. Oh yeah, we're in that nice fear of heart phase.

[A]

Yeah, sweet spot. No, my 10 year old is asking for a cell phone which we will not get, we are not doing. And that's not happening at least until she's 16. You can mark that down because I am very much against that for my 10 year old and I don't know why. I don't know why. I think just because she heard that other kids older than her starting to get that.

[B]

Yeah, she's just seeing other kids.

[A]

Absolutely not 100% hard pass on that. And my 8 year old wants a hoverboard. I didn't even know that.

[B]

Sounds cool.

[A]

Is that a thing?

[B]

I mean is that just one of those ones with the single wheel?

[C]

No, like half the videos are people falling off.

[A]

Yeah, I think, I think she's confused. Is a Hoverboard in a Segway. Those are different things. Right.

[C]

It's the two wheels that you kind of ride.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So there's no handle on it.

[A]

It's a seg. Right.

[C]

Like they're. I mean, I'm sure Segway makes like a fancy.

[A]

Oh, you're talking about the one that looks like a skateboard with two wheels on the end. That's what she's talking about.

[B]

I think so now it's like, it.

[A]

Looks kind of skateboard, but it's got things.

[C]

It's something that you should just stay. If you're over the age of 30.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Not get on this.

[B]

Other things with the two wheels on the side, no handles. You're gonna stand on it.

[C]

So. But don't get on that.

[B]

And yeah, there's lots of wipeout fittings.

[A]

I won't get on a skateboard, bro. Are you kidding?

[C]

You do film it it. Because I think they've gone beyond $10,000 based upon.

[B]

He has no faith in you, but.

[A]

I don't think we're going to get that either.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Yeah, there it is. That's what I was thinking.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

That looks.

[C]

No way.

[A]

My kid's eight. Is that. Is that what it.

[C]

What's the age?

[B]

Probably could do it.

[A]

What's the age? What's the age range for that? When are you supposed to get one of those? I'm not doing it for an 8 year old. What about you? Anything in the Preston household?

[C]

I don't. I told you know, because Thanksgiving, I had a lot of family down to the Preston south location. And, and, and I love that. I love that I got to cook a lot of breakfasts and I got to, you know, entertain people, make coffees. And so I want time more than I want stuff.

[A]

Look at that.

[C]

So I like. I like memories, you know, and we. We're doing that for Christmas. Matter of fact, I even showed you some text messages, you know, from when family's coming in town. And it's going to be really great if.

[A]

If we were going to dine in the Preston household and the money guy himself were making breakfast for us. What's he making now?

[C]

We do breakfast casseroles.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And then we do like eggs and.

[A]

Sausage and that kind of stuff.

[C]

Yeah. We lay our bread on the bottom of the casserole dish. You mix up the eggs with and you're making all this spicy sausage.

[B]

You're cooking it up.

[C]

I mean, we do it as a family because you do this part of it the night before okay. That part's the day before. The day of is when you're just coordinating the logistics. Primarily. You're hanging out, you're making coffee for everybody. And then you got to preheat the ovens, get the, you know, get the sweet rolls kind of rolled out and made, you know, and then. And then you put the casseroles in, and you're kind of more of a logistics partner than you are a chef because you're just making sure everything comes out of the oven at the same time.

[A]

You heard it first here. Money Guy Cookbook coming out in 2020.

[C]

That's. We'll leave that for Caleb.

[B]

Breakfast casseroles.

[C]

Caleb Cook cookbook. Caleb Hammer has a cookbook.

[A]

Does he have.

[C]

Actually, we're not doing cookbooks. We'll leave that for him.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

That's really funny.

[A]

Super funny.

[B]

Want to do another question?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

All right. We've got one from Brad B. 1791. And it says, do you have any tips or recommendations on how to rebalance your asset allocation across multiple accounts? 401k, traditional and Roth IRA for my spouse and I, for context, we're at 325k investable assets.

[A]

So here's what makes. For most accumulators, here's what makes rebalancing a little bit difficult. A lot of the accounts that you house, like a 401k or 403b or 457, you don't have unrestricted investment access. Rather, you have to love the one you're with. You have a stable of investment options available to you that you have to choose from. And sometimes plans are really robust and really good and have a lot of diverse options, and sometimes they don't, and they're not great. And they do make it difficult. Difficult. And so I don't know a ton about your unique and individual circumstance, Brad, but I imagine that's where some of the angst aligns. Man. Okay, I've got this 401k. I've got these accounts that I have limited options, but then I have this traditional and Roth where I have more options, and how should I think about this? And there are ways to do that. And different types of assets are taxed in different types of ways. But what I'm sort of caught by Brian here. So not knowing Brad's specifics, just knowing it has about 325,000, I would even wonder, is he at the point, in your opinion, that it makes sense to go from, like, a generic generalized asset allocation to a more specific allocation, meaning I don't think it's crazy for Brad to think about a solution like a target retirement index fund or something along those lines.

[C]

Even if it was like a three or four fund strategy, I wouldn't do things at that level. I would and do anything too, too fancy. Don't do what you think rich people do, you know, dance with the one that brought you there. And that's where index funds and that I was. I do think there's some value though. To what? When you look at different assets or different investments in each of your different pots, you kind of hit on something like you look at your 401k, you might have a bunch of high cost mutual funds in there. And then you have one kind of like an index fund. They labeled it something different but it's all the other funds are like 1 and a 1% or higher internal expenses. And then you got this one that's like 0.4%. Now you know that index funds are basically free at 0.01, 0.02 but somehow in your 401k the cheapest one is 0.4%. Then you're probably going to want to go, you know, make the most of what, what is the best investment in that fund and then the setting, if you're peeling the going out to the outer layers, what's the best location? You know, because different asset classes do better in taxable accounts versus tax deferred versus tax free and Roth. I, I would kind of look at those things if I was getting into it. But I think that that's, those are all complexities that you might not, might not be time for that into. Unless you really feel like, you know, this is a skill set that you want to kind of invest in. I would rather you focus on the savings rate is so much more valuable and a three to four fund strategy can work while you focus on getting more money into those accounts that much faster.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

Brad B1791 thank you so much for the question. All right, let's do one more from Cato. It says if there is there ever a bad time to buy index funds, P E ratios are all time highs and basic business fundamentals aren't being followed by many firms. While a few firms make up a huge percentage of the S and P.

[A]

I'm going to steal a quote from Nick Murray, Cato and this is what Nick Murray said. He says, Cato, if you think the market's overvalued right now, if you think the market's high right now, wait till you see it in a decade. And the idea is that if you are an index fund investor, even if you invest at the world's worst time, I invest at the top of 2007 or I invest right before COVID or I invest right before the dot com bubble burst or right at the end of 2021, whatever that is. If you give yourself a long enough time horizon and you allow the money to work and you're consistently saving and investing, I don't think you have to worry about what is the price today, what's my entry point today, but rather am I saving in the correct way, moving into the future? Because even if I'm overpaying now, and even if PE is high now, and even if S and P is highly concentrated now, odds are traditionally, historically the way the markets work, that five years from now, seven, eight, ten years from now, it's likely going to be higher because it is an ever expanding pizza piece where innovation has continued to happen. Business and enterprise are continuing to take place. That likely, even if you're entering into it now, you're still going to be rewarded as a long term investor. So in my opinion, I don't think there is a bad time to buy index funds because that's why we always say always be buying.

[C]

Hey look, we have a new show coming out. I don't know, I don't have the editorial calendar in front of me so I don't know the release schedule. But it's financial rules that should be broken and this ties into buy low, sell high. And we answered that. When should you break this rule? We say always is because I want to play this a different way. Cato, what if you're right? What if we're at bad PE ratios? What if yes, a lot of the money on the index funds is layered market cap wise towards a lot of the AI companies. What if you're right in the fact that that is the way things are right now? What are you gonna do? Are you just gonna start stacking cash in the background? Are you gonna go to real estate which is very non passive, it's very active management and it's gonna require leverage too. So what's the alternative? That's what I always ask people when they give me doomsday or they tell me why things are so bad. I'm always like well give me the counter, let's work this out from the reverse engineered way. And usually you come to the point of and it gets back to the same branch of the tree of where BO was. Is that in the long term, especially with an always be buying strategy, if you're buying in every month, this is all noise. And that's why when you heard uncle Warren Buffet when his Berkshire Hathaway, he's used so many different examples, he's talked about farms, he's talked about. He's basically talking about inefficiency and pricing and why you have to just not let that noise throw you off. What the purpose of what you're doing is. And for most people, especially with an index fund with you're not trying to beat the market, you're trying to be the market. Because that's actually where the success is, is where we're going. And the innovation and all the other things that Beau just said, I wouldn't get caught up in that. When people come to me with all this overvaluation and other things, I'm like, what are you doing? Every year is going to have a 14% intra year switch. But even with that knowledge, I don't try to time it and catch it. I just ride the wave of always be buying. This is why I went from investing monthly to now investing weekly is because I'm like, well heck, I'm going to at least catch the wave every week. So that's how I've countered this because I really have taken always be buying to the nth degree and it served me very well. And then and I just saw a report and I don't know anything. Just like it's what. Be careful who you get in your head because when it comes to investing, there's a lot of people who act very confident, but they don't know anything either. But I saw somebody saying that published a whole key report that market's not overvalued in all these AI stocks is because if you keep seeing the earnings from Nvidia and some of these others, you're like, holy cow, these guys keep making. I mean, is it, is it overvalued when they keep expanding and making more money? And this is where the world seems to keep pushing. We don't know. And that's why I like index funds is because we don't have to know.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

We just control what we control, which is our behavior. And yes, be aware, be worldly, be mindful of what's coming, but also know what you can control. And behaviorally, this is something that I think that you're going to be better served by just being consistent than trying to be perfect in your timing. That's great.

[B]

That's great. Thank you so much for asking these questions. Every Tuesday here at on the Money Guy show at 10am Central, we will be here to talk personal finance. And in the meantime, be sure to check out moneyguy.com and moneyguy.com resources in particular has tons of great calculators and downloads to help you continue the conversation. And like Brian pointed out, if there's a topic that you want to know about or an episode you want to look up, go ahead and search for it and you should be able to find what you're looking for. And we are continuing to just improve that process and hopefully make your financial life just that much easier. So be sure to check out moneyguy.com.

[C]

So you guys, I've tried to figure out how many different ways I can say we are so appreciative for how much you give us. I feel like, is it agape love where it's undeserved love of, you know, and I feel like that's our audience. Definitely. You load us up with more than we deserve and we hopefully we try to pay it forward. We really do. I mean, this show started with a pure heart to be an educator. I mean, I didn't even realize this was a business idea when we originally started doing episodes. I just wanted to be a schoolteacher and help people. And then this thing has taken on a life of its own and we don't take any of that for granted. And it just means the world to us that the platform keeps growing upon itself, more of you guys keep showing up and we just, we're along for the ride and we're going to keep sharing our heart, keep sharing our knowledge so you can understand that there is a better way to do money. And hopefully it's making your life better, making your family's life better. And we're hopeful and very happy to see 2026 come through the threshold any day now. I mean, we're so close. But thank you, thank you for all the support and I'm wishing you and your family a prosperous new year.

[A]

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

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