08.04.26 Ask An Advisor With Wes Moss

Summary

The Clark Howard Podcast

Episode: 08.04.26 – Ask An Advisor With Wes Moss

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Krista DiBias (filling in for Clark Howard) with guest Wes Moss

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Brief Overview

In this engaging "Ask an Advisor" episode, Krista DiBias and expert financial advisor Wes Moss dive into crucial retirement and personal finance topics frequently on the minds of listeners:

• The best time to claim Social Security and factors beyond just the numbers
• How much to save for college and balancing it against retirement
• Deep-dive Q&A on tax rates, "core pursuits" for happy retirement, optimizing pension income for survivors, and navigating major pre-retirement decisions, like paying off your mortgage versus keeping cash reserves.

Throughout, Wes provides strategic, practical advice grounded in both financial psychology and math, all with a warm and supportive tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Social Security: More Than Just Math

[01:25 – 11:25]

• Beyond the Math:
  Claiming Social Security isn't just a numbers game. Many online answers are polarized: Take it as early as possible (62), or wait to maximize the monthly benefit (up to age 70).
• The Key Unknown:
  "The one math variable that we can’t, we don’t know and is ultra-important…is when are we going to die?" — Wes Moss [03:34]
  Lifespan is unpredictable, and claiming strategies must factor in personal and family longevity.
• Optimization vs. Maximization:
  It’s not about maximizing but optimizing for your situation—when it makes the most sense for you and your spouse.
• Five Essential Decision Factors:
  1. Are you still working?
     — If earning significantly before Full Retirement Age, claiming early results in offsets that take years to recover.
  2. Does claiming early help protect your portfolio?
     — If relying heavily on portfolio withdrawals, starting Social Security may reduce financial risk/stress.
  3. Are you the higher-earning spouse?
     — Delaying may benefit your survivor with a higher future payment.
  4. Health and family longevity.
     — If your family tends to live long, waiting may pay off.
  5. Cash flow comfort / stress level:
     — Psychological comfort may warrant claiming earlier.
• Permission to Claim Early:
  "I don’t want people to feel guilty if they start turning on Social Security in their 60s, or even early 60s. If it works for you—that’s okay." — Wes Moss [11:15]

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2. Will Tax Rates Go Higher?

[11:25 – 14:50]

• The Debate:
  Listener Kat D. asks why Wes thinks income tax rates won't go up, especially considering national debt. Clark Howard believes the opposite.
• Populism and Hauser’s Law:
  • Politically, there’s little stomach for raising taxes significantly—backlash is swift.
  • “Hauser’s Law says…the Treasury only really collects between 18 and 20% of GDP in tax revenue, no matter what rates are.” — Wes Moss [13:30]
  • Historical tax rates as high as 92% didn’t materially increase the total government tax take as a percent of GDP.
  • Therefore, raising rates might not solve the underlying problem.

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3. Core Pursuits & The Recipe for a Happy Retirement

[14:50 – 21:41]

a. How Unique Do Core Pursuits Need to Be?

[15:07 – 18:55]

• Listener Brian: Should distinct types of fishing count as separate "core pursuits"?
• Wes’s Rule:
  “Anything that has its own descriptor prior to the word deserves its own category…Deep sea fishing is totally different than fly fishing...So, if you can make a case that they are unique, then they absolutely are.” — Wes Moss [17:48]
• Aim for Five or More:
  • Happy retirees have five or more core pursuits; the more, the merrier.

b. Introverts vs. Extroverts and Pursuits

[18:55 – 21:41]

• Listener Wendy: Can you be happy with just three pursuits as an introvert?
• Wes’s Challenge:
  “I don’t care if you’re an introvert or an extrovert. …I would still challenge you to come up with another two. I highly doubt now I could be wrong—you come back to me and say ‘Gosh Wes, I wish I’d never added those two core pursuits.’ I don’t know.” — Wes Moss [19:49]
• Not all core pursuits are social; variety and discovery are encouraged for meaningful retirement years.

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4. How Much Should You Save for College?

[24:25 – 29:25]

• Retirement vs. College Savings:
  • Strive for both, but prioritize your own retirement.
  • “Retirement has no loan office for most people in America. …put your own oxygen mask on first.” — Wes Moss [25:10]
• Saving Benchmarks:
  • “2 grand a year for 18 years at 8% gets you to $80,000” [25:55]—a substantial amount, even if not full tuition at elite schools.
  • Solution: Split the bill into thirds—parental savings, current income, and student responsibility (often loans).
• Elite College Tuition as a Luxury:
  • “If you complain about out-of-state or elite private university tuition, it’s like complaining about the cost of your 7 Series BMW.” — Wes Moss [28:40]
  • In-state and merit-based scholarships can produce excellent, affordable results.

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5. Listener Q&A – Optimizing Retirement Decisions

A. Pension Survivor Options
[29:25 – 32:53]

• Listener Bruce, retiring math teacher: Should he take full pension or a “pop-up” survivor option for his wife?
• Wes’s Guidance:
  “The numbers you gave sound very much like what is a typical choice…Most of the time, the in-between choice is to take at least the 50% survivor option, and in most cases at least the 75%, if not the 100.” — Wes Moss [30:45]
• Don’t risk leaving a spouse unprotected for slightly higher payments now.

B. Emergency Fund vs. Mortgage Payoff
[32:53 – 35:11]

• Listener Jay: Should he focus on building 2-3 years of “dry powder” (cash reserves), or pay down his mortgage?
• Wes’s Advice:
  “That three years’ worth of dry powder takes priority, because it gives you flexibility—and you’re probably already close enough to being mortgage free.” — Wes Moss [34:37]
• Priority: Liquidity for market downturns when newly retired.

C. Pre-Order Book Bonus with Local Bookstores
[35:11 – 36:31]

• Listener John: Wants to pre-order Wes’s new book from his local bookstore, not Amazon. Can he still get bonuses?
• Answer: Yes! Just use the “other” field when submitting for bonuses and include your bookstore name.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s not just about maximizing. It’s about optimizing it for you, you and your spouse, and what makes the plan work.” – Wes Moss [10:20]
• “If you can make a case that they are unique, then they absolutely are different and unique core pursuits and they all count.” – Wes Moss [17:48]
• “Retirement has no loan office for most people in America…put your own oxygen mask on first, before the kids.” – Wes Moss [25:10]
• “If you complain about the cost of an out-of-state or elite university, it’s like complaining about the cost of your 7 Series BMW. Like, I don’t want to hear that.” – Wes Moss [28:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:25 — Show begins, Wes joins remotely from Michigan, previewing Social Security and college savings topics
• 02:32 – 11:25 — Social Security: When to claim, the five variables beyond the math, decision framework
• 11:25 – 14:50 — Will tax rates rise? The limits of revenue, Hauser’s Law, and political realities
• 14:50 – 21:41 — Core Pursuits: Uniqueness, quantity, and introvert/extrovert debates
• 24:25 – 29:25 — Saving for college vs. retirement, savings strategies, value of affordable in-state options
• 29:25 – 32:53 — Pension survivor options and maximizing spousal protection
• 32:53 – 35:11 — Dry powder (emergency fund) vs. mortgage payoff in pre-retirement
• 35:11 – 36:31 — Book pre-order bonuses via local bookshops

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers actionable, empathetic, and often counterintuitive guidance on tough financial decisions. Wes Moss encourages listeners to consider not just the math, but the psychology of money, the realities of life expectancy, and the practicalities of real retirement living. Listeners are reminded to seek balance—between personal comfort and optimization, between planning for themselves and for loved ones, and between saving for today and tomorrow—all while keeping their own financial “oxygen mask” as the first priority.

Transcript

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[Krista DiBias]

Welcome to Ask an Advisor. I am Christa dibiaz here, not in person with Wes Moss. Hey Wes.

[Wes Moss]

Christa, I miss you in person, but it feels like we're almost, you know, we're kind of right next to each other, so it feels good. It's okay.

[Krista DiBias]

True, true. You're in Michigan this week, one of your favorite places, and I think that's awesome.

[Wes Moss]

Northern Michigan. Northern Michigan. The first question I always get is, are you in the Upper Peninsula? And no, I'm in the regular peninsula, just the upper part of that.

[Krista DiBias]

But we're moving forward because we have a lot of questions for you. So we're going to do an episode this way. I'm back in the studio solo, and you'll be back with me next week, so that'll be super fun. But I hope you keep enjoying it. In the meantime, you're going to talk about a couple of things that we get so many questions about. First of all, timing on taking Social Security. You have sort of a different angle. It's not just about the numbers, right?

[Wes Moss]

Beyond the math, when to take social and look at the variables beyond just

[Krista DiBias]

the math and then how much to save for college. This is so hard for so many parents and grandparents, right?

[Wes Moss]

I think of this as a green zone dilemma. Saving for both is great. We want to do both. But if you can't do both, how do you approach it?

[Krista DiBias]

So if you have questions for Wes, you can submit [e-mail] ask and let's go ahead and talk about Social Security.

[Wes Moss]

All right, so when to take social beyond the math. And if you start searching around the web or you go to YouTube and you start asking that question Part of the reason I wanted to do this segment or this topic is that you get really different answers on both sides. There are folks that are super adamant about the 62 camp. Take it as soon as you can get it. And then there are a lot of folks that are pretty adamant about waiting until age 70. And most of us know the math. If we, every year we wait beyond age 62 when we could start taking Social Security, the monthly amount goes up by about 7, almost 8% per year. So it's this really nice guaranteed increase once you start taking. But it's a tough decision because you are not taking it. So there's the 62 camp. Ramsey's in that camp. There's a Florida YouTuber who's a actual retiree who does a great job, usually from the cabin of his boat. Great example of two brothers. They both start taking social one at 62, one at 67, and they both end up with the same amount of money when they're in their 80s, essentially. But at the same time, we know that if you can afford it, mathematically, doesn't it make sense to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And then you turn it on at 70, you have a higher payment for the rest of your life. Those are the two camps. You can't argue with math. If you want to maximize Social Security and get the highest monthly payment, the answer is really easy. It's just wait to turn it on at age 70. Now, of course, the one math variable that we can't, we don't know and is ultra important when it comes to Social Security is when are we going to stop taking it? Meaning when are we going to die?

[Krista DiBias]

Right.

[Wes Moss]

And then we have to think not only about us. And this is one of the non math variables. To some extent. There's math in all of this, Krista. The question is what about your spouse and your spouse's income? So we've got the two camps. I think the way to look at it is that it's easy to think about it as maximization. I think of it as not that word because we already know what to do. We just wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And then, by the way, you've got to live a long time to make up for the money you didn't collect. That's the math on waiting and maximizing. But for the vast majority of people, it's not about just maximizing. It's about optimizing social and it is about taking Social Security when it works for you. So there's a couple ways I'd look At this is that the right claiming age will present itself to some extent if you're doing retirement planning, Meaning if you're doing a full blown retirement plan and you start putting in the variables that matter, which are, hey, when do I want to stop working? How much can my assets support me from an income perspective? And then what are my other income streams? Then to some extent the answer is, is presented to you when you're doing that retirement plan and you can say, well, if I wait till 70, what is the plan look like if I started 65 or 4 or 3, then the numbers to some extent will give you the answer if you're going through the retirement planning process. So I think that's the first thing to think about is that I think it's becomes more clear if you're doing actual planning. So number one, are you still working? And there's five of these. Are you still working? Number two, does claiming early protect or help your portfolio? Three, are you the higher earning spouse? Four, what's your health and your family longevity history, if you will, and then what's your, your stress and your cash flow comfort level? Because part, part of the, let's start there. Part of the stressor of retirement is that when you've stopped working, you no longer have wage income coming in. And there's something about wage income that we get extraordinarily used to almost as a psychological crutch because we are working from our teen years until our 60s when we stop for most people. And so you go 40 years of collecting money from your work and then without doing that we get, there's an unsettling feeling to say, okay, now I've got all this money saved and I've got social and I've got maybe a little pension, but now there's no more wage. So to some extent it's very hard for people to not be getting another paycheck beyond their portfolio income. So there's a psychological aspect of that and we need to ask ourselves, what's our comfort level not having the Social Security paycheck right out of the gate. And if you're very uncomfortable and feel as though you'd be able to sleep better at night and have less anxiety than you would lean towards taking Social Security earlier. Number I'm gonna go backwards on this list. Number four, what's your health and family longevity? If you've, if aunt Joan is 102 and your mom lived until she was 99 and dad is still running around or maybe wheeling around in his late 90s, then you've got a really good shot. And as long as your health that you don't have any major known health issues, you're able to start weighing in on that missing variable, which is longevity. How long am I going to be able to take Social Security once it turns on? So if you've got a really long family history, make that as one of the variables. I'll have folks say, gosh, neither of my parents made it past their 70s. And that is one of the main variables where they say I want to take Social Security now because realistically nobody in my family lives past 79, so I'm not going to collect for 40, 30 years. So let's take it now. Really important and harder thing to think about, but an important variable beyond the math. Are you the higher earning spouse as we go backwards on this list. So if you're delaying till 70, it's not just about your own check, it's about if you pass, what does that mean for your spouse's income? And if let's say your spouse has a much lower Social Security payment or the spouse is only collecting half of what your social is, it might make sense to wait longer so that when something, if and when something happens to you, then your spouse collects your higher payment, which is the way it works. Number two on my list, does claiming Social Security protect your portfolio? There's a lot of times when I've and this goes back to planning will reveal the answer once you stop working. And now you're relying on portfolio income and it's a number a withdrawal rate that's a little uncomfortably high, 7, 6, 7 8% and you have to do it for many years that can take such a big chunk out of your portfolio and put you at risk of running low on money or running out of money. So turning on social media, if that's able to get your withdrawal rate back to a more manageable level, even if it's a little high, higher than the 4% level. That's another reason to think about taking Social Security a little earlier if there's too much stress on your portfolio without it. And then number one, are you still working if you're earning significant income before full retirement age for a lot of folks that 66, 67. Now for most people there's an earnings test. So if you're earning 40, 50, $60,000 a year and you're claiming your Social Security, then there's a huge offset there. And for the offset starts to make it so that your Social Security check gets cut. Now the piece that most people don't understand about that is you eventually get that money back, the penalty from the earnings test, but it gets spread out over the course of your lifetime once you start again with social. So it takes forever to get that money back. So for most folks it comes down to when are you going to no longer have wage income. That's the first trigger to say, okay, maybe it's time to start taking, but maybe not. Secondly, longevity. If you have a shorter family history on longevity, again, lean towards taking it and then thinking about what it means for your spouse. So it's not just about maximizing Krista, it's very much about optimizing it for you, you and your spouse and what makes the plan work. And I don't think people should feel guilty. Yes, it's great to wait to 70 and some people are able to do that. And for high net worth folks that have a lot of savings, maybe that makes total sense. But I don't want people to feel guilty if they start turning on Social Security in their 60s or even early 60s. If it works for you.

[Krista DiBias]

Right. Okay. Well, we'll get some questions now. And again you can go to westmoss.com ask if you have a question for Wes and this one's from Kat D. In California. Wes, I'm surprised to hear you say that you thought income tax rates would not go higher in the future considering the state of our national debt and seeing that the Highest rates were 92% in 1952 and 1953 Help me understand how keeping rates where they are would be likely. Thank you for making this retiree even happier and smarter too. I love your show and the information you share. Good. And Clark has said the opposite as well, that he believes tax rates are going up. So I think the audience would love to hear your perspective on this.

[Wes Moss]

Hey, Kat D. In California, this is just my opinion and obviously I don't know if I'm going to be right on this. There's two things that I really think about when it comes to tax rates and you can't deny that we have a deficit issue and a debt problem. And we're underfunded at the US treasury, which is funded, of course by our tax dollars. So it would stand to reason that the government needs more money to pay their bills. For most of economic history, the government's always needed more money. And even though it's today arguably worse than it's ever been, I think we live in a time of what I would consider populism. And maybe it's Cable news. Maybe it's podcasts, maybe it's a 24 hour news cycle or maybe it's social media. But the appetite for uncomfortability and taxes are one of the most uncomfortable things on, on the planet when it comes to money. I think there's so much unwillingness for, for Americans and then, then our representatives to materially take tax rates higher. I think that we live in a time where a little bit of uncomfortability creates this giant backlash, more so than it ever has. So that's the one reason why I just don't know if there's ever going to be the appetite to do it in a material way. That's number one. Number two would be something that is a little more economically philosophical and that's something called Hauser's Law. Houser was an economist that decades ago did a study on the amount of tax revenue collected by the US Government relative to tax rates. And you're totally right. Back in the 50s there was a top rate of 92% and we collected as a government or the US government collected about 19.5% of GDP in tax money. Then we lowered tax rates and let's say the 80s to the 2000s to the 28 range and the 39.6 range and we still collected about 18% of GDP. And in 2022 we had 37% tax rates. And what did we collect? 19.6. So Hauser's Law says, and not everybody fully agrees with this, even though these are the numbers, the US treasury only really collects between 18 and 20% of GDP when it comes to taxes, no matter what rates are. So to some extent I don't think that there's an appetite and I think that politicians who rate that would make these decisions understand that that just raising tax rates doesn't necessarily raise the tax revenue like they would like it to.

[Krista DiBias]

Okay, Brian in Virginia and Wendy in Texas I'm going to tell you about in a little bit. Both wrote in about your Core Pursuits segments that you've done and all of your research of course. And that's all in Wes's new book which is coming out very very soon.

[Wes Moss]

Right, the Retire sooner. I remember it now.

[Krista DiBias]

The Retire Sooner method.

[Wes Moss]

It's coming up very soon.

[Krista DiBias]

Brian in Virginia says Wes, according to your research, how finely should you slice core pursuits and how important is diversity of pursuits? I listened to you recently list your five core pursuits and I only heard two. Sports and music. I asked because my local fire group was discussing our core pursuits sparked by your segments. I Listed the top five that I was most passionate about. The group threw a flag on the play because they were all fishing. Despite the fact that each flavor of fishing is a totally different pursuit which requires different expertise and equipment. Fishing from a kayak on a river for smallmouth, offshore fishing for pelagics from a power boat, fly fishing, mountain streams for trout, etc. Etc. I could go even more granular since each flavor of boating is its own thing and isn't always used for fishing is a cocktail cruise, a core pursuit.

[Wes Moss]

Sounds good to me.

[Krista DiBias]

The ironic thing is I don't even really love fishing, but I love being on the water and experiencing new things. I could list non fishing and boating hobbies, but they could all be lumped into the great outdoors. So maybe I only have one core pursuit.

[Wes Moss]

Just note, I remember we did a segment and I realized that I think one of the coolest questions that you can ask someone and then you took this in a different light, Brian, is that you brought it up in a group discussion with your fire group. So what? Just what a cool thing to talk about and an important thing to talk about. And my research is super clear on this and I'm shocked. I'll give you a little insight beyond what I even wrote about in the Retire Sooner Method. What's in the book it talks about you need at least five unique. And that's the point of your question. Unique and different core pursuits. The happy retiree group has five or more on average, unhappy group four or less. But I was shocked. People listed out 8, 10, 12 different unique core pursuits, which I think is amazing. The list that people come up with can be really extensive, which I think is very cool and that gives them lots of optionality. As for the specificity of it, I think that anything that has its own descriptor prior to the word deserves its own category. So deep sea fishing or I'm up here in Michigan, we went deep lake fishing. That's totally different than fly fishing. Totally different group of people might want to do one and not do the other. Which by the way is a totally different group that would do kayak fishing. That maybe is somebody who's super comfortable in a kayak, on a boat, out in the water, maybe even more quote, outdoorsy. Sure they're all outdoors, but they're all unique and different things activities, they require their own level of planning and you may have a different social group that does all those different ones. So I think they all deserve their own category. If you think about exercise as an example, walking group may Be different than running. Group versus yoga different. People like to do one versus the other. So when you have a unique descriptor on something like fishing, which is a cool question, I think of hunting, you know, deer hunting. And I'm not a hunter, but I know that deer hunting is very different than quail hunting or bird hunting. One you sit in a tree and you gotta be super quiet. The other you're out in the field with a bunch of guys roaming around the bushes with dogs. They're different. So in my opinion on this is that if you can make a case that they are unique, then they absolutely are different and unique core pursuits and they all count towards that five number. Guess what? Ten's even better.

[Krista DiBias]

Wendy in Texas says, I'm retired for 10 years now. I have only three core pursuits and I'm very happy. I garden daily, I foster dogs and I make quilts that I donate to our local counties foster care kids. I am absolutely fine with only three core pursuits because I'm an introvert. I get to do what I want to all day long and I don't have to go meet the world every dang day. You sound like an extrovert. Please keep the introverts and extroverts in mind when you tell people how many core pursuits they should have and how social they should be.

[Wes Moss]

So Wendy, Krista, she said quilting, which she does, she gives some of these away.

[Krista DiBias]

She gives some foster kids. That's so awesome.

[Wes Moss]

What's the other one?

[Krista DiBias]

She fosters dogs and she gardens daily in addition to the quilting, which quilting is very time consuming by the way. I don't do it, but I've seen it done. I could never have the patience.

[Wes Moss]

It's funny, I think of a good friend of mine, I asked this question who is an introvert and I pushed him to have five or more. I'm going to say the same thing here, Wendy. I don't care if you're an introvert or an extrovert. I think that that shouldn't impact the number of core pursuits you have because these are things that we are all as humans looking forward to doing and they help create this great structure and purpose to our non working years. And whether you're intro or extro, I don't know that it has to matter all that much. Not every core pursuit is social. Not all of them. I mean, woodworking, that's just you in the shop. And gardening can be you. Which very popular core pursuit of happy retirees. By the way. Core pursuits can also come and go a little bit. And there can be a season of life where one makes a lot of sense and you can spend time doing it and then it fades. Now all of these. I don't know why you couldn't do these forever, Wendy. So I think you're off to a great start. But I would still challenge you to come up with another two. And that's my assignment to you over the next six months or by the end of this year, let's say I would love to hear Wendy trying out two new core pursuits. I did this thing called the Core Pursuit Finder where I'm listing out there's 120 different core pursuits and it matches to your personality and to what you'd like to do and how you'd like to spend your time and give your time. I would challenge you to find two more. I highly doubt now I could be wrong. You come back to me in a few months or in six months from now and say, gosh West, I wish I would have never added those two core pursuits. I don't know.

[Krista DiBias]

She sounds pretty happy. We'll see.

[Wes Moss]

That's my challenge. I still think you need five. Wendy, thanks for the question.

[Krista DiBias]

All right, and we're going to come straight back and talk about how much you need to save for college.

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[Wes Moss]

welcome back to Ask an Advisor. I'm Wes Moss here with Krista Dibias on the Clark Howard Show. Krista, are we ready to talk about college savings relative to your own retirement savings?

[Krista DiBias]

Definitely.

[Wes Moss]

Isn't that a tug of war?

[Krista DiBias]

It's crazy. I mean the, the college tuition is unbelievable at so many of these private schools now. It's just out of control.

[Wes Moss]

I think of this as a money green zone issue. I want to do both. They're both. I want to get into the green zone and save enough for college and I want plenty of money for to hit the money green zones for retirement. They're both great. The reality is though, not everybody can do both. Which one do I save for? The answer is both. But if you're already saving 15% for your own retirement, then anything above that, feel totally free to go ahead and be saving for college. I think that's to me, that's take care of yourself first because one, retirement has no loan office for most people in America. If you're going to college, you can get a, you can get student loans. Not that we want them, but we can attain them. Number two to think about is this. Your own 15 point checkpoint. First get there first oxygen mask plane. You get it first before the kids. 3. When we're thinking about saving for our kids, if we're doing it early, think of the year zero savings. This number stands out to me. Two grand a year for 18 years equals one at 8%. 80 grand. Now that's not enough to pay for even a year of a super swanky blue blood school. But it goes a really long way for most options. So again, two grand a year, 18 years, 8%, that's 80 grand. That doesn't pay for everything. But that leads me to the way I've always thought about college and paying for college. In trying to make the puzzle pieces fit with your own retirement is splitting up the cost. Split the check for college in thirds. And I think that why most people do not retire until their kids are out of college is that they're using their current income to pay for, let's call it a third and have a third as savings and then a third responsibility for the child. Even if of course, that's usually student loans. But imagine how slicing it up into those three pieces makes the whole equation a lot easier. It's easier to get the dishes done when there are three people doing it versus one. So think of it that way. My last point about thinking about college and saving for your kids college, your children's college, as much as we all want to do that, and I still a huge believer in the value of an education, is that how we approach it? The continuum is vast. People complain about like, oh my, I'm out of, my kid's out of state and it's $65,000 a year and it's a pretty good school. We're not talking Ivies here, we're talking out of state. It's not high to say that a school's 50, 60, 70 grand. And when if you live in Georgia or South Carolina or North Carolina or Florida or Louisiana or New Mexico, and there's a long list of states that are a lot like Georgia, where if you get into these Georgia, in state schools, the tuition can be virtually free if you maintain a certain grade point average. And even if you don't, the cost is de minimis. It doesn't even scratch the high elite. Private schools are out of state tuitions. Even though the higher cost in states like Pennsylvania is an example is still if you choose to be in state, you can do it for less than 20 grand a year. That's not insignificant. But it's not Duke, which is now at over 100k per year. Wow, $104,000 per year to go to Duke University of Chicago, 98 to 103. I always love this one that shows up, Harvey Mudd College. It's the most expensive university on the planet, over 100 grand per year. So think about if you are going to do that and you're going to be able to support that for your Kids, that is an ultimate, ultimate luxury. We can't complain about that. It's like if you complain about the cost of an out of school elite university tuition, it's like complaining about the cost of your 7 Series BMW. Like I don't want to hear that. You don't have to go to Harvey Mudd, you don't have to go to Duke, you can choose to be in state and it's extraordinarily more affordable. So just keep all of that in mind. But as long as you're taken care of first, because there's no loan office for retirement that I know of, then the rest can go towards the kids.

[Krista DiBias]

All right, we'll go to questions now. Bruce in New York sent this one in. Wes, I'm a soon to be retired math teacher and I love the way you always dive into the numbers. So here's an equation for you. I have several options to choose from for my pension. One of them is a pop up survivor option. Basically I can either take the entire $63,000 yearly amount and, and when I die, my pension dies with me, or I can receive $61,000 and my wife would get 31,000 when I'm gone, or I get $60,000 and she gets $45,000, et cetera. How do I know what amount to leave for her or do we keep the full amount? We have two kids who are 20 and 21 and we have about 750,000 in Roths brokerages, et cetera.

[Wes Moss]

Bruce, you're a math teacher and this is one of those equations where you just, you don't have all the variables and you're never gonna get em and you don't want em. We don't wanna know when we die. That's what this is about, that's the missing piece. It's not only, it's not just when you die, it's when, how long your spouse lives too. Those are the two missing variables. The numbers that I just wrote down sound very much like what is a typical choice when it comes to your pension amount. The highest amount, that's 63k is the life, only zero for the spouse. But you get more money because you are not protecting two lives. The next one you said was 60 and 30, approximately, that's the 50% survivor option. And then the third one was the 75. You take a lower amount around 60, but she would get 45. So in each case your amount from the life only goes down. But then it continues for your spouse if something happens to you and we don't know the right number. Mathematically, this kind of goes back to maximization versus optimization. What's optimal here? Maximization is take the life only and live until you're a hundred. But we don't know that that can happen. Vast, vast, vast majority of the time. Bruce, in real life, working with a family, if they've taken the life only option, let's say this is before I met them because I usually would not tell people to do that. The room gets really quiet. Hey, that $50,000 a year, what is the survivor benefit on that? If you pass away, Jim, at 72,0, the room gets real quiet and the wife usually looks over and says, why did we do that? Why did you do that, Jim? I've seen that. Most of the time though, the in between choice is to take at least the 50% survivor option and in most cases at least the 75%. If not the hundred, there's probably another option you have. It's maybe it's 40, 58,000 a year and that would last for your life and your spousal wife. Here's the problem, 63 grand. You guys are living along. That thing's great. You're getting 63 grand a year, then you, you die. That means your wife, Bruce, would need about a million and a quarter to make up for that annual income. That's probably too big of a lift for your spouse. So the way I'm looking at this is that you should heavily consider taking one of the options that continue on a significant payment for your spouse.

[Krista DiBias]

Okay, Jay in Alabama says Wes, what is the best side dish for my crock pot entree? I'm 47, single and without children. My retirement 401k is around 620,000, with about 95% of that in pre tax. The current contributions are 13% pre tax, 3% Roth 401k. I'm currently consumer debt free and my first goal is to remain that way. My question is, is it more important to have two to three years of dry powder or a paid down mortgage going into retirement? Assuming that both aren't feasible, which is the best side dish? You have to explain the crock pot

[Wes Moss]

again really quick, Jay in Alabama, he is using, I think of a retirement account 401k or an IRA as a crock pot because everything stays in the crock pot and only a little bit leaks out until you're ready to pull it out. And then when you pull it out, that's income, it's food or income, it's your dinner or it's income if you actually take it out. But once the money is in the crock pot, everything stays in the crock pot and you don't have to worry about capital gains, dividends or transactions as long as the money's staying inside the account. That's what Jay's talking about. I love that you're remembering and using that analogy. I would say this though, to your question. It's another green zone dilemma. Both are great. I want no mortgage. I want my mortgage paid off, but I also want dry powder. The question is which one? Jay has a more immediate timeline and the answer is the dry powder. If you're in flow of getting rid of the mortgage within nine years, you're already in the mortgage green zone because you're, you're eyeing the payoff relatively soon. But if we go into a bear market that six months after you stop working and retire then and you don't have any dry powder now, you're digging into your stocks while they're down. So that's a more immediate need to have that as a buffer because we never know when a market correction will come and you just don't want to have to deal with that. And no dry powder in the early stages of retirement. So if I were to choose which one to make sure what takes priority in my book, it's that three years worth of dry powder because it sounds like you're probably already close enough to being mortgage free.

[Krista DiBias]

Okay. John in Washington says I want to pre order Wes book but I would like to do it through my favorite local bookseller here in the Seattle area. Is there a way for me to pre order the retire sooner method from a local vendor and still get the bonus materials that are offered through the pre order on Amazon? And we put this in because we have had several people ask questions about this, the bonus offer that you have.

[Wes Moss]

Wes Totally. John, There are things that are called bookstores. They're beyond they used to. There used to be a lot of them before Amazon came along. And it's a miracle to me that there's so many still in business. But they're wonderful to go to and a lot of cities will still have plenty of local bookstores that are still alive and well. So I'd love for you to support them and you can go in and pre order the book. All you need to do is go to retiresoonermethod.com and the form where you get those four different bonuses. The live webinar the day of the launch, the video I do explaining the book, the signed book plate, the color workbook, which I think is super valuable and super helpful. All you need to do is in the where you bought it section, just put other we should probably add local bookstore and just put the name of the bookstore in the section that allows you to put in your instead of your receipt. Put in the name of your local bookstore and you're good to go.

[Krista DiBias]

Okay. Well, that does it for us on this episode of Ask an Advisor. Clark will be back tomorrow with a brand new episode and Wes and I will be back next week answering your questions and talking about how you can keep more money in your own pocket and save more so you have a secure retirement.