How to Build a Vacation Fund That Pays You For Life + (Money Q&A)

Most people save for vacations one trip at a time and start over from zero every year. There is a version where you build the fund once and it keeps paying for your trips forever, and $100 a month is enough to start. 👉 Want personalized help from Andrew? Join Master Money Academy at https://www.skool.com/mastermoneyacademy/about 👉 Join Andrew’s FREE Investing for Beginner’s Masterclass: https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/0o8z9io?webinar_id=21 👉 Live Call Registration Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqIw5xncfn5tZbGG_U22iZ3BUmyHe9fPvBQaC1vW_x1D7bJA/viewform What You'll Learn in This Episode How to build a vacation portfolio that funds your trips for life The exact monthly number to start with, even if it's $100 Why a taxable brokerage beats a savings account for 10-plus year goals How to use travel hacking to cover trips while your portfolio compounds How to earmark funds inside one brokerage account without opening five new ones Why pulling from your 401(k) to kill your mortgage is usually the wrong move How to buy a car with cash and spot a lemon before you hand over the money The gift card scam draining balances before the card is ever opened The best account to set your kids up for their first home Start Here Join the community built to help you master your money, stay accountable, and reach financial freedom. 👉 Try Master Money Academy FREE for 7 days today! https://mastermoney.co/join/ 👉 Join Andrew’s FREE Investing for Beginners Masterclass https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/0o8z9io?webinar_id=21 👉 Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! https://expert-hustler-605.ck.page/6aa7bb9a79 Partner Deals Indeed → Get a $75 sponsored job credit http://Indeed.com/personalfinance Wayfair → Up to 60% off | MEMORIAL DAY WAREHOUSE CLEAROUT http://wayfair.com Chime → Get more rewarding fee-free banking at https://www.chime.com/PFP Monarch Money → The all-in-one financial tool + Get 50% Off at http://www.monarch.com/PFP Gelt - Get 10% off your first year by mentioning “Personal Finance Pod” on the intake form; the CTA is to book a free discovery call at joingelt.com DeleteMe → 20% off with code PFP https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ Resource/s Car Insurance https://secure.money.com/pr/gc43ce394da5 Best HYSA https://secure.money.com/pr/r453ecf4d190 Stock Brokerage Accounts https://secure.money.com/pr/v8d06f8de92c Best IRAs https://secure.money.com/pr/oe09b73d1952 Favorite Travel Credit Cards https://milevalue.com/best-credit-cards/?aff=mastermoney Tool/s Mentioned Index Fund & ETF Cheatsheet https://mastermoneyresources.com/index-fund-cheatsheet Compound Interest Calculator https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/aefaaad27e Episode/s Mentioned The System to Pay Cash For Cars (and NEVER Have a Payment Again!) https://youtu.be/kgmjjQEN3Xs He Built A BILLION DOLLAR Real Estate Portfolio (Here's How!) with Brandon Turner https://youtu.be/_960B_GIGSo How to RETIRE BY 30! (With Cody Berman) https://youtu.be/ffKv6M69SRI Watch Next Hit This Number and You Can STOP SAVING! (Even When You are Young) https://youtu.be/R2ebV44XaAY Why Franchises Might Be the Best Kept Wealth Building Secret with Alex Smereczniak https://youtu.be/3lXtpxTwrQI Why a Mini Retirement Can Change Your Life https://youtu.be/o5HIfbIwfjI Roth vs. Traditional, Dividend ETFs, and Catching Up in Your 40s (Money Q&A) https://youtu.be/jtITtSd6vjI 5 Side Hustles That Can Turn Into a Full Time Income (Part 4) https://youtu.be/DPQwY_U3lKY Connect with Andrew Instagram → https://bit.ly/Skool-Instagram TikTok → https://bit.ly/Skool-TikTok Facebook → https://bit.ly/Skool-Facebook Podcast → https://bit.ly/Skool-Podcast Youtube → bit.ly/Skool-Youtube Newsletter → https://bit.ly/Skool-Newsletter Website →⁠ https://mastermoney.co ⁠ X → ⁠https://x.com/mastermoneyco LinkedIn →⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-giancola-45027b340 ⁠ Question for you: How much do you actually spend on vacations in a year? Post the number and see how it compares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

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• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  And with more than 20 million verified five-star reviews, you can feel a lot more confident about what you're ordering. I've used Wayfair for this studio and our home, and I absolutely recommend them for your space. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every single purchase. Head to wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 1:20Andrew Giancola?

  When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch.

• 2:04Andrew Giancola?

  Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, how to build a vacation fund that pays you for life, plus money Q and A.

• 2:44Andrew Giancola?

  What's up, everybody? And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be diving into how to build a vacation fund that pays you for life, plus money Q and A. Now, if you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money Newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. I cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star ratings and reviews.

• 3:29Andrew Giancola?

  Now, today, we are going to be diving into how to build a vacation fund that pays you for life. And in this episode, we're also going to dive into a bunch of your questions in this episode of Money Q and A. But I want to kind of put on my mad scientist outfit on today because I love thinking through unique ways for you to save and invest your dollars. And we recently did this on an episode talking about paying cash for cars, and people loved it. We had so many different people sending us an email saying, "I never thought about it this way before. This is really cool. Can you do more episodes just like this?" And so I wanted to talk through ways that you can pay for specific things by building up a portfolio and then utilizing that portfolio to actually pay for your liabilities

• 4:13Andrew Giancola?

  or things that really are just going to be paid for in cash otherwise. And so I'm really, really excited to think through exactly how you can do this because this is a really, really powerful methodology that is going to allow you to pay cash for all of your vacations. But the goal here is to build a portfolio where you can draw on that portfolio for vacations for life. And this is specifically earmarked for vacations. Now, you can do this for all kinds of different things, but in this episode, we're going to be talking about how to utilize it for vacations because this is something that I am going to be doing. This is something I'm going to be building up is a vacation portfolio so I can utilize it for experiences and things that I want to do throughout life. Now, the first thing I want you to do is I want you to figure out how much you spend on vacations per year,

• 4:58Andrew Giancola?

  or how much you want to spend on vacations per year. You got to figure out what your target number is first. And what we want to do is, once we figure out what that number is, then we can decide, okay, well, how much extra do we normally put aside for vacations? And how can we take those dollars and put them towards investments instead? So let's say, for example, that you put $500 per month towards vacations. Well, instead of putting it in your high-yield savings account for your vacation fund, we are going to think about and consider putting this into a brokerage account. We're going to try to grow this over time so that we can grow this into a portfolio that will actually make sense for our vacations. So this is part of the whole plan. This is part of the whole idea. I just want you to understand the direction that we are going in with this

• 5:42Andrew Giancola?

  so that we can look at how we can take these vacations. Now, a good time to do this for a lot of you out there is if you are young, maybe you're in college, maybe you're in your 20s, maybe you're in your 30s and you have young kids. A good time to do this is when you don't plan on taking these massive lavish vacations over time. Whereas you know, hey, I'm going to be working right now. I'm focused on my career. Or I have young kids and a young family. I'm not going to be going to on a bunch of flights or trips. Or I am going to be in a season of life right now where I probably will not be traveling all over the place. Instead, I plan on traveling a lot, maybe in my late 30s, late 40s, somewhere around there, and I want to be able to start to take some of these vacations. This would be a good time to do this. Also, if you are in your 40s or 50s and you're thinking about taking a lot more vacations when you're retired,

• 6:28Andrew Giancola?

  just developing an earmarked vacation fund as part of your investments can be a really cool way for you to build a portfolio that is just for vacations that you don't feel guilty about spending those dollars and spending that money. Now, sure, I would not sacrifice putting money in a retirement account that you were earmarking for that. But what I would do is if you do have extra dollars that you're putting towards vacations, you can think about doing something like this. So we want to pick the monthly number. How much extra do we have available to actually put towards this? Now, I want to be real here. Not everyone has extra money to put aside towards vacations. And so if you don't, don't worry about it. As time goes on, I just want you to think about this and understand this concept. When I didn't have enough money to set aside for vacations, I used to dream about stuff like this. But those dreams turned into motivation,

• 7:11Andrew Giancola?

  and that motivation turned into reality once I was ready to get after it. So I don't want you to just turn this off because you don't have extra dollars on hand. Instead, I want you to think about, how can I do this? How can I actually make this happen? All right, next, we want to open a taxable brokerage account. Now, in the taxable brokerage account, you could do this in a number of different places. I will link my favorites down below in the show notes. Vanguard, Fidelity, SoFi, there's so many out there. Public, there's so many out there that you could do this with. I will link my favorites up down below in the show notes so that you can check that out. But you could just use a regular brokerage account, not your 401K because you can't access those funds, not your Roth IRA because you can only withdraw the money that you contributed. We want to make sure that we can also reap the benefits of this early and often. So we want to have additional flexibility.

• 7:54Andrew Giancola?

  So a taxable brokerage is what I like to use an earmark for this because I think it's something that you can really get some cool stuff going with. All right, three, I want you to do something simple with each contribution. So once you have the brokerage account open, we want to auto-invest the set amount that we started with in step one into this account. So if it's $500 per month, we want to send $500 per month automatically into this brokerage account. If you already have a taxable brokerage account open, that is A-OK. What I like to do with stuff like this is I just earmark it with a specific fund. So if you're like, hey, I don't want to open another brokerage account just to do this. No, you don't have to. What you can do is, let's say, for example, you invest in VOO as your core holding inside of a taxable brokerage account,

• 8:38Andrew Giancola?

  and you just want to invest in another S and P 500 index fund. Well, you could do something like an SPY or whatever other S and P 500 index fund you like to invest in as an earmarked differentiator. That way, you can have this ETF, and you know all the money going towards that ETF is just going to be the ETF for your vacation fund. Because in reality, if you are buying the ETFs, and if you're buying ETFs right, they're just mirroring the index. So that's all you're really looking for is one that mirrors the index, that has low cost, that doesn't have a high turnover ratio, those types of things. And so when we think about what we are going to be investing in, that is the way I look at it. And as I just earmark specific funds for specific goals, and that's basically like having savings buckets when it comes to a taxable brokerage account. It's very simple because there's seven or so S and P 500 ETFs,

• 9:23Andrew Giancola?

  for example, that are pretty comparable across the board. Now, there's some bad S and P 500 ETFs, so you want to watch out for those. But there's a ton of comparable ones. Now, if you want our index fund and ETF cheat sheet, by the way, we will also link that up down below in the show notes. So make sure that you check that out if you are looking for that. So that's the thing that we want to do is we want to make this simple with every deposit. We want it to be automatically invested with every deposit to make this easy. Now, this is where the key comes in. For the first 10 years, we want to make sure that we are really getting this money compounding. And if you can do this on top of your regular vacation saving, that's great. But we really want to try to not touch this for a little while. And so many of you out there are like, well, this is my vacation money. How am I going to take a vacation? Well, this is where the travel hacking comes in.

• 10:06Andrew Giancola?

  And I think for many of you out there, if you're in a season of life where you're not going to take a ton of vacations while you're thinking about this, you can do travel hacking that will cover the majority of your costs for any vacations that you take coming up. So how does travel hacking work? You put all of your bills that can go on a credit card on a specific card that is for travel rewards. We link, I'll link my favorites up down below as well. So we got a lot of links in the show notes today, but we will link our favorites up down below so that you can check it out. But there's a bunch of them out there from a Chase Sapphire Reserve, the MX Platinum is what I'm using right now. There's the Capital One Venture X. There's tons of different cards out there that are absolutely wonderful. The Chase Sapphire is my favorite or the Capital One Venture are my two favorites to start with as travel cards because they have flexible points. You can move them to travel partners.

• 10:49Andrew Giancola?

  But essentially what you're trying to do is you're trying to invest your dollars that would go towards vacation and you're trying to travel hack with the rest. And so, once you start to travel hack and you put every single bill on this credit card, then you pay it off in full every single month. I personally like to pay it off in full every single week. It keeps me on top of my money and it allows me to make sure that I am not just getting out of whack when it comes to my credit card. So I'm very particular about this. I want them paid off every single week so that I am just on top of everything. I cannot stand having a credit card balance. It drives me up a wall. And in fact, if I spend a lot on a credit card in a given week, like for example, we had to host a party for my daughter this last week. We put about a thousand dollars on a credit card, actually $1,500 or so on a credit card.

• 11:34Andrew Giancola?

  And it just drives me crazy that that balance is even on there. I want to pay it off. And that's probably just a psychological thing and probably something I need to work on. But in reality, that is something I love to pay them off every single week because I do not like when they get out of whack. Then you can use the points and miles for hotels. You can use them for airlines. You can even use them for rental cars, although I don't think your dollars go as far on rental cars. And this, we just had a master class inside Master Money Academy, going through exactly how to travel hack, travel hacking 101. We had a full one hour masterclass teaching people how to do this because I think it's a really, really important thing that you need to understand and you need to note when it comes to being able to build out this portfolio. Okay. So what's going to happen here is over the course of the next 10 years, you will see that this will start to grow.

• 12:19Andrew Giancola?

  You start to put these dollars in, your portfolio begins to grow and then you can decide, okay, once I am here, let's say you put $500 per month over the course of a decade. Well, if it grew at an eight percent rate of return, you are sitting at nearly $92,000 by year 10. And if you put $250 per month in there, you're sitting with about $46,000. And with a thousand dollars a month, you already have $183,000. A thousand dollars a month can actually get you a really nice vacation portfolio. But obviously this is a huge luxury. Not everybody can do this. I'm going to say this over and over again. Don't get upset, don't get mad. I know everybody can't do this. I'm just showing you different examples so you can see the power of compound interest. Now, what you want to do is you want to keep the balance growing while it pays you. So if you get to the point in time where you realize, okay, I've got a hundred thousand

• 13:04Andrew Giancola?

  dollars over the course of a decade in this account and I only spend $4,000 per year in vacations, guess what? You can start drawing on that thing at $4,000 per year and trying to preserve that capital. But let's say you need $8,000 per year where you're going to need to continue to allow that portfolio to grow because we're using the 4% rule on figuring out how much we can withdraw here. Okay. So when we think about this, the 4% rule is actually somewhat conservative. It is a somewhat conservative way to figure out how much you can spend every single year. And if you continue to contribute to your vacation fund every single year with your 200, 300, 500, a thousand dollars per month and let it grow. And then you pull and draw down in that portfolio, you're going to see that this thing is going

• 13:48Andrew Giancola?

  to pretty much grow over time and have a big, big difference for you long-term where then all of a sudden you don't have to contribute to it anymore. Once you hit your goal and you can start to draw on this portfolio. Because at a certain point in time here, you're going to reach a point where this is going to cover your entire trip and it's going to cover a yearly trip. Now, if you want to start to take bigger and bigger vacations, continuing those contributions while drawing on it can be something that you do. If you want to take smaller vacations until your kids get to like being teenagers, for example, then you can start to slowly begin to draw on it once they get older or pay cash and let it compound for a little longer. And then you could take even bigger trips later on down the line. The cool thing is there's so many different parameters around here.

• 14:32Andrew Giancola?

  Now, one thing you can also do is add guardrails. And so, guardrails are just, you know, if the market's up, you can actually spend more and you can actually pull more money out when it comes to taking your vacation. When the market's down, you just don't take as big of a vacation that year. Maybe you take a smaller vacation or go local or whatever else. But this is going to allow you to also spend more in this portfolio. So I want to give you a couple of different examples of how this can happen because I think there's some cool things that you can do here. Okay. So we're going to do a monthly contribution of $500 a month. Okay. That's $6,000 per year that you're putting in this account. So over the course of 10 years, you're going to have $92,000 in that portfolio. And it, by year 11, you can start to draw down $4,000 per year from this portfolio if you wanted to. So here's the cool thing. Okay. I want to show you how this works.

• 15:17Andrew Giancola?

  So let's say, for example, that you decide you're going to continually keep investing and you're going to continue to keep putting money into that account. Okay. So by year 11, you can start to draw down about $3,600 in year 11. By year 15, you're going to be able to draw down about $4,300 per year. Okay. By year 25, now you're drawing $6,300 per year. By year 35, you're now drawing down $9,300 per year. And by year 40, you're drawing down about $11,300 per year. Now, this is a simple example of if you're withdrawing earlier, that's what's going to happen. But let's say, for example, you wanted to wait a little longer because I just want to show you this example. Again, I'm just mad scientisting here. You don't have to do this if you don't want to.

• 16:02Andrew Giancola?

  I am doing this for fun because I think this stuff is really cool to do. But let's say, for example, you wait 15 years before you start to grab any contributions. Well, if you waited 15 years, by year 16, you can already draw $7,000 per year for vacations. Like imagine if we thought about this for a second and all of a sudden you're drawing $7,000 a year for vacations. By year 25, in that example, you could draw $10,000 for vacations and you're going to actually hit your $12,000 goal by year 31. And then by year 40, you can draw $17,000 per year for vacations. That's pretty cool, I think. And I think in reality, you know, there's a lot of different examples of how you can do this. Like if you bumped up contributions, for example, and you change the contributions

• 16:45Andrew Giancola?

  to, let's do a thousand dollars per month, just to show you what is capable here. And you waited 15 years before you started to withdraw on this, you could withdraw $13,000 per year by year 16. By year 25, let's say, you could withdraw $20,000 per year if you put a thousand dollars per month in there. Wild stuff. It really is wild stuff. And I think this is kind of the cool thing about what is happening here is that you can do some really cool stuff with this. Now, let's say you're a really high earner and you're like, I love travel. And in fact, I am really good at points and miles. We have a lot of people listening who are good at points and miles. And I want to bump this up to 2,000 bucks. I'm just going to show you maximum, let's go maximum level to see what happens here.

• 17:28Andrew Giancola?

  Well, if you do that and you bumped it up to 2,000 bucks, by year 16, you would already be able to withdraw $27,000 per year, which is absolutely wild if you waited for 15 years before you actually withdraw. What if you waited only 10 years, but you put $2,000 per year in there? You'd be able to withdraw $14,000 by year 11, every single year. And then by year 25, you'd be able to withdraw $25,000 per year for vacations. Now, again, I get it. It's a lot of money to be putting in the vacation fund every single year. I know most people cannot do that. And so, if we go down to a hundred dollars per month, let's see some cool stuff happens here. So by a hundred dollars per month, and let's say the points and miles phase just lasted

• 18:13Andrew Giancola?

  while you had, you know, before you had kids maybe, and then by the time your kids, you know, were starting to get a little older, then you started to take some vacations. Well, if you waited 18 years, you could start to withdraw $2,000 per year for vacations if you put a hundred dollars per month alone. So just a hundred dollars per month, you could still build out a vacation fund that allows you to take a $2,000 vacation per year over the course of the next two decades. And I just think that's a really cool thing. I think it's a really cool thing to show that, hey, maybe I start my vacation fund with a small amount of money. Maybe it's $50 a month, maybe it's a hundred dollars per month. And as I start to make more money, I can start to add more to this fund. And then all of the sudden, this fund is going to be, you know, growing over time and I'm going to be able to take some pretty cool trips just by building out this portfolio and drawing it down.

• 18:56Andrew Giancola?

  The cool thing is you'll be able to draw on it for and preserve it long-term once you're ready to stop. Once the amount that you can pull down every single year is enough for you, you can stop. You don't have to keep contributing to that account. You can then stop and start to draw on that portfolio and it'll continue to preserve over time. And then you're done. You're done at that point in time where you don't have to worry about it anymore. Again, this is a luxury. This is something that not everybody can do, but I wanted to put on my mad scientist hat today to show you exactly some of the cool things that you can do with some of these funds so that you can see just the power of being creative with your finances. There's a power in having a creative mind when it comes to setting up some of these things. And even if you have small amounts of money, you're young and you want to travel later on down the line. It's just a cool idea to do this.

• 19:40Andrew Giancola?

  Now, if you were going to use the money within the next three to five years, I would not invest money for a vacation. All we're talking about here is long-term. If you're going 10 plus years and you want to build out this portfolio, I think it's a really cool thing. Or the other thing you could do with this is let's say you have a big dream vacation. You want to take your whole family to Ireland because that's where your family roots are. You want to take your whole family to Africa or you want to take your whole family to China. Well, if you wanted to do that and it's going to cost you $50,000, but you want to do it in the next decade or so before your aging parents, you know, pass away or something along those lines, this is exactly how you do it. You build out a portfolio, start to invest in there and you watch it grow and let compound interest help you get there. Let it help you get there. Now, again, there's risks having money in the market.

• 20:23Andrew Giancola?

  If the market tanks at any point in time, you know, you got sequence of returns risks, you got all these different things in play. So don't think the market just goes up and to the right forever. But this is one of those things that you just want to weigh out the risks, the pros, the cons. There's a lot of things here, but it is really, really cool what you can do with a vacation fund like this. All right. Perfect. Now let's jump into some of your questions.

• 20:44Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The first question is from Daniel. Daniel says, "Thank you for all you do. I make 100 to 120K a year. I'm 44. I have $135,000 in my Roth 401K, no debt other than my mortgage, and $32,000 in a high-yield savings account. I'm working 60-plus hours a week to make ends meet, and I want to invest in real estate, but I feel like I need to get rid of my mortgage first. Should I pull $80,000 from my 401K and use the rest of my savings to pay it off? Or is there a better path?" All right. Step one, Daniel, is first of all, thank you so much for the kind words, and you are doing great right now. I think, I want you to hear you clearly before anything else, that you are in a really strong position. You're 44, you have zero consumer debt,

• 21:26Andrew Giancola?

  you have $135,000 in a Roth 401K, and $32,000 in cash. A lot of people would love to trade places with you and where you are right now. The first thing I would say, though, is I want to protect you from pulling money from your 401K. Charlie Munger, who is Warren Buffett's business partner, has this quote, and this quote is a very powerful quote to understand and to think through when it comes to every single decision that you have. "Never interrupt compound interest unnecessarily." The last thing that you want to do is pull money out of your 401K to pay off something like a mortgage. A mortgage, in my opinion, is one of those debts that I am okay with you having. It's one of the only debts that I'm really okay with you having, and in terms of having this in place.

• 22:10Andrew Giancola?

  Why? It's backed by something that most people value, and they know what the value is. At least you know the range of what that value is. But in addition, usually mortgages have low enough interest rates where it isn't high-interest debt. If it becomes high-interest debt, then at some point in time, you can refinance down the line. Now, sure, rates can go up, and rates can go down, and so we want to make sure that we are cautious about this. But in reality, you can refinance at some point in time when rates drop. Okay? That's the black-and-white version of this. I want you to understand this. This 401K is going to be a big portion of how you want to think about retirement. It's going to be what helps you in retirement, and typically, for most people, we want to make sure that we are keeping those dollars invested.

• 22:52Andrew Giancola?

  Because even if it doubles every 10 years, let's say you've got a 7% rate of return, and you double this about every 10 years, you could have a really good portfolio of around $500,000 by the time you turn age 65. So I really think I wouldn't worry about that. Now, you said that you need to get rid of your mortgage before you can invest in real estate. You don't need to get rid of your mortgage before you invest in real estate. You can also invest in real estate and have a mortgage on hand. And in fact, you can utilize the cash flow from those mortgages or those homes that you are purchasing, and you can either buy more houses, or you can utilize it to pay off your mortgage if it bothers you. To me, though, it sounds like the mortgage bothers you. And if it does bother you, you can have a pay-down plan that you put into place, but you want to make sure that you're hitting those retirement goals first. You want to make sure that you are on track with your retirement number

• 23:35Andrew Giancola?

  before you just throw extra dollars at a mortgage, because you can't live off a mortgage. A mortgage doesn't produce cash flow for you. And so in reality, you've got to make sure you get your portfolio up as well, so all your assets are not in one specific thing, which is your home. And that's a big key, I think, for a lot of people out there, is understanding that if you put too much of your net worth in your home, it's going to be very difficult to retire when it's time. Sure, your net worth may even be high. You may have a million-dollar net worth, and you can consider yourself as a millionaire. But if you don't have that money invested into a cash-producing asset, things like stocks, ETFs, index funds, real estate, those are the types of things that actually help you retire, because they produce enough income to allow you to retire. So there's two separate things that we're talking about here.

• 24:19Andrew Giancola?

  And this is why I talk about it. A home is truly a lifestyle choice. It is a lifestyle choice that allows you to do some cool things, and it is going to help you build your net worth up, but it's not something you can draw on in retirement. I just want to make sure everybody hears me on this, because it's really, really important to note that we live in a country that believes that real estate is king. You've made it in the USA if you own a home. You've got a home, you've got a yard, you've got a family, you've got a dog in the backyard, and that's when you've made it in the USA. No, you need to run the buy-verse rent calculation, and you need to understand that more important on this list is going to be investing for retirement and making sure you're taking care of your Freedom Number. That's the key for many folks out there. So, really good question here. So Daniel, if I was in your shoes,

• 25:02Andrew Giancola?

  I would not pull from the 401K whatsoever. I would do what I did. When I first started real estate, there's a couple of options you have. One is you can partner with someone who has cash, and you could be the sweat equity partner, and you are 50/50 partners, or maybe they're 60/40 to get them to use their cash, or even 70/30 to whet your whistle in real estate. This is going to be your education. This first deal is going to be your education. And so you want to learn, okay, how do I buy a home? How do I go out there and renovate this house? How do I get tenants in this home? How do I make sure I'm doing the right things when it comes to this? This is how I started. I didn't put any money into the deal, but I got a cash partner to come in, so that I could then be able to learn how to invest in real estate. And I did my first couple of deals this way.

• 25:44Andrew Giancola?

  And I recommend anybody out there, if you can find a sweat equity or cash partner, to do it. If you go to real estate meetups, you can find people who have cash, who are just looking for hungry folks that are willing to work hard so that they can get their cash to work. That's the key that I would look for first. If you don't have that option, then saving for a down payment in a separate high-yield savings account is really, really helpful. That's what I did. I would put cash away every single month, and I would put it in a high-yield savings account, and I would just earmark this for real estate until I had enough for a down payment. And then you put that money towards your down payment. You go get a loan on the real estate, and make sure it cash flows. You've got to run the numbers. It's got a cash flow. But if you run the numbers and it cash flows, then you're in a good spot. You're in a good situation. And I think that is something where, once you get that rolling,

• 26:28Andrew Giancola?

  you have enough for the down payment, then you can buy your first property, and then you do it again, and then you do it again. In the first 10 years, it feels like you're grinding, and maybe you have a couple of properties. But if you're doing it right, and you run the numbers right, and they start to cash flow, well, then you can cash out refinance. And if you look into the BRRRR method, it's called buy, rent, rehab, refinance, repeat. That method allows you to buy real estate with one set of capital, and you are able to buy a large number of houses, as long as you don't make a mistake when you run the numbers. So master, during this timeframe, running the numbers on rental properties and running the numbers on local real estate. Don't pull the money from your 401K, and continue to save towards your first real estate deal, if that's your goal. If that's your big goal, continue to save towards that.

• 27:11Andrew Giancola?

  I am more of an index fund and ETF guy over real estate now. I just don't think there's a lot of deals like there used to be in the current market, at least at the time of recording this. But some people love real estate, and if you love it, go for it. Because I think it's something that can build a tremendous amount of wealth, and we have had plenty of guests on this show who have built tons of wealth. Brandon Turner, for example, was just on the podcast about last year, and was an episode that I absolutely loved. And so yeah, definitely check that out if you haven't already. And it's going to be one that I think can be really helpful for a lot of people.

• 27:44Andrew Giancola?

  Next question is actually from Spotify comments. So it's the last Def Star. "You talked about the system to pay cash for cars, and how strong not having payments can be for investing. But where do you recommend buying cars for cash? I'm young and plan on buying a car for cash soon." Listen, I love this question, and I love that you're young and thinking about this. So when I first started thinking about cash for cars, and for most people listening right now, if you haven't heard our episode on paying cash for cars, it is one that we just recently did. You can go back and check it out. We'll have the team link it up down below in the show notes so that you can check it out. But in that episode, we kind of dive deep into some of the pros and the cons of paying cash for cars. And then we go into, if you've got to finance a car, here's how you finance a car. So make sure you check it out if you haven't. But I'm going to dive into here, like, some of the places where you can go and find the best deals for cash for cars.

• 28:29Andrew Giancola?

  One is you can buy from private parties. There was a website back in the day, and I don't think they do it anymore. It might have been off the internet now, but it was called the Cash Car Convert. And this guy would pay cash for cars, and he was all about talking about cash for cars. I think he just ran out of topics to talk about, to be honest. But he would talk about paying cash for cars, and his favorite way to find a deal was from individual buyers, where he would go and find, you know, one-owner-owned vehicles, and try to find really well-maintained vehicles. And he would go around there, and he had all these tips and tricks for finding a cash car. So the best way is to find it from the actual owner. So you can search Face Marketplace, or places like that, or even see if you can find websites that list some of these individual owners.

• 29:14Andrew Giancola?

  And what you want to look for is a couple of different things. One, if you pull up to a car that someone has listed, and it is all messy and dirty, and you can tell that they are just not taken care of whatsoever, that is red flag number one. Now, sometimes you can find deals like that. I'm not saying you can't. But in reality, if it's well-maintained, you know they've most likely well-maintained the vehicle, or at least there's a chance they have. It's not 100% every time. You could get a lemon. You've got to make sure you're careful. Two is when you're looking at these vehicles, there's a, you know, you can go through a checklist of different things to look at, and you can find those online. But- I would also take it to the mechanic. And if you feel as though you're going to buy the car, take it to your local mechanic that you trust and say, hey, I'm going to bring in a couple of cars to you. I just want you to tell me if this is okay to buy and if everything looks okay.

• 29:59Andrew Giancola?

  Because then you're getting a second opinion from a professional and you can feel confident and you can have them produce a report for you. And then you can go to the owner and say, hey, here are some of the things that are wrong with this, either negotiate the price down and/or say, can you fix these things before we make this deal? So those are two things that you can do when you are working with some of those owners. Now, for convenience, you can also go to like these no haggle lots. So like if you look at Carfax or some of those places like that, those no haggle lots will show you the price and it's not like you're going to be going back and forth. You know what that price is and you can start to save up in that way. Another thing that you can do is credit unions have member only channels where they will have folks sell their vehicles or all sorts of different things.

• 30:41Andrew Giancola?

  And so those credit union member only channels, you can ask if you do have bank at a local credit union, but just making sure you do the homework. So a couple of things that you should do is you should run the VIN through a history to see how many accidents it's been in, all those different types of things. If you can get a Carfax on it, that's good too. I mean, sometimes Carfax misses things, but you can definitely do that. And then making sure you pay that mechanic the 100 or 150 bucks. That's the third thing I would definitely do to make sure that you catch those problems. Because if they cannot catch those problems and you look through the car and realize there's a $4,000 problem with the car, well, that's going to cost you a lot more. But then also just looking at the right types of cars is a big deal. So Toyotas, like the older Toyotas are really long lasting, the old Hondas are really long lasting. Every time I talk about cars, there's all the car experts come out and start yelling

• 31:26Andrew Giancola?

  at me, but you know, it is what it is. Some of the old reliable cars out there are just, just kind of look for some of those too. I think those are great to look further into. And then honestly, make sure you know what your budget is before you dive in. But with cash, that's the beautiful thing about cash is that your budget's already set, so you don't have to worry as much about it. And so I would definitely go through those steps first and making sure that you just have a checklist of all the things you want to look at or ask the dealer or the individual a bunch of questions. So you know the background of the vehicle, then make sure you trust, but verify. So verify with the VIN number, go get the Carfax, go have the mechanic look at it. That's the steps you want to take with each one of these. If you start to see red flags, it's not worth it just to buy it, even if you just like it emotionally. If you see a red flag, just walk away and there will always be more cars.

• 32:11Andrew Giancola?

  There's so many cars for sale out there and move on. So that's one that I think is really, really important and I appreciate the question. If you have any other questions on that though, please let me know. All right. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five minute drill every single morning.

• 32:53Andrew Giancola?

  I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks. I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll flag spending changes, upcoming expenses or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year.

• 33:37Andrew Giancola?

  Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. And their licensed team helps you compare coverage, prices and terms, answers your questions and even handles the paperwork so you can get the right policy without the hassle. For me, having life insurance isn't about expecting something to happen. It's about knowing my family is protected so I can actually enjoy these moments together

• 34:21Andrew Giancola?

  instead of worrying about what comes next. And with PolicyGenius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com. If you've heard any recent episode of Health Corner, you know that I have spent the last few years trying to optimize my sleep. I've tried sleep trackers, cooling my room, changing my nighttime routine, all the different things, but nothing really matters as much as having the right mattress. And that's one of the reasons I love Leesa. A great mattress is one of those things that you use every single night and you spend

• 35:06Andrew Giancola?

  a third of your life sleeping and it can make a huge difference on how you feel the next day. Leesa has mattresses designed for different sleep positions and comfort preferences. And their sleep quiz can help you get matched in less than two minutes. Plus they're designed and they're assembled in the USA and they come with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night free sleep trial. So go to leesa.com for up to 30% off mattress plus and get an extra $50 off with promo code PFP. Exclusive for my listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code PFP for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off.

• 35:49Andrew Giancola?

  Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Leesa.com promo code PFP. One thing I've learned from running multiple businesses is there's usually a gap between how you think work is getting done and how it's actually getting done. And we've had times where we thought we knew the bottleneck, only to realize later, the real issue was somewhere completely different. That's exactly what today's sponsor, Scribe, helps solve. Scribe is a workflow AI platform trusted by 94% of the Fortune 500. And Scribe Optimize turns real workflow data into decisions your AI strategy actually needs. Automatically capturing how work happens across approved apps, surfacing inefficiency and

• 36:31Andrew Giancola?

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• 37:15Andrew Giancola?

  That's S-C-R-I-B-E dot H-O-W slash P-F-P. Next, we're going to be diving into a scam of the week this week. And again, we do this segment because we want you guys to be aware of a lot of the scams that are going on, the financial scams that are going on around you, especially in the age of AI. These scams are getting better and better and better. And the one this week I think is actually pretty interesting. And this is something that a friend who was in retail was actually telling me about that this is happening in retail a couple of different times. And so I want you guys to be aware of this. So this scam is called card draining. Now, if you've never heard of this before, this is where you can go and buy those prepaid Visa gift cards or those MasterCards, like a lot of people buy those for people's birthdays or your graduations, where you can kind of fill up some of those prepaid gift cards that are sold at those open rack scores.

• 38:00Andrew Giancola?

  Now, there's a class action lawsuit actually going on right now against Visa and Incom over their vanilla branded cards alleging the packaging is too easy to tamper with. So here's how the scam works so that you can understand what happens here. Because sometimes you can buy these cards and people can steal all the money off those cards before you can even gift it to someone. Here's how they do it. So criminals will take unactivated gift cards right off the store shelf. So they'll go and buy, you know, you could grab that stack. A lot of times, like when I go to the store, for example, with my son, my five-year-old wants to grab the whole stack of gift cards and said, can I have these? I'm like, no man, put them back. So each time he's like trying to take them with him because he thinks they're like a free toy that he can bring with him. What they do though, is they take a stack of these and they carefully go and open the

• 38:43Andrew Giancola?

  packaging and they often use something like a heat gun where they can kind of get the packaging to come off and then they make sure they reseal it so it doesn't look disturbed. But what they do is they record the card number, they record the CVV and sometimes lift and replace the scratch off security code on there so that you can't tell that they did this. Then they reseal it with package with fresh stickers and they put the card back on the rack. But the interesting thing is they put monitoring software inside of each of these cards so they can tell when you load the card and then they get all of your card information. So when that card is loaded, they have the information that's loaded and then they drain the full balance online within minutes. So they have these things that'll alert them, they drain the full balance and then boom, all of your money is gone. So then you give it to someone, someone goes and swipes the card and they say, man, they

• 39:28Andrew Giancola?

  gave me a card with no balance on there, but I don't want to tell them. I feel like that's awkward, you know, if you gift it to someone. I've had this happen to me before where I've gotten a gift card for, for example, for my birthday or something, you know, when I was younger and it had no money on it. And I was like, I'm not going to tell them. I feel, you know, bad about that. They probably with good intent either loaded it, but this could have been what happened in reality and I think that's a crazy thing. So how do you protect yourselves from this? Okay. Well, one is you inspect the packaging before buying, obviously, but look closely at it. Like, don't just buy the first one that you see, especially when it's like wrapped in that wrapping.

• 40:04Andrew Giancola?

  If it's misaligned or stuck or it looks like it's open whatsoever, don't buy that one. Buying gift cards from behind the counter instead is number two, because if they are behind the counter, then you don't have to, you know, do the ones where it's in the aisle, like at Walmart or Target, or wherever else you shop, or you see all those different cards in the aisle there. That's another one. And make sure you're always keeping the receipts on these and the packaging. That's the two things I think that are really important. Because if you keep the receipt and you keep the packaging, and then you file disputes with, with everyone, then you can try to get the money back. But this is the one thing, this is happening more and more and more now. It's becoming easier for the scammers to detect this. So if a gift card is hanging in the open rack, assume the numbers can only be stolen. The other thing to do is just make sure you do digital cards. Digital cards also are going to have some fingerprints on there. But if you do a digital gift card, that's going to help a lot more than, than the physical one.

• 40:49Andrew Giancola?

  I know you want them to open it, I get it. But that is one other thing that you could be doing when we are looking at some of this stuff. So in reality, that is the scam of the week, which is in reality, making sure that you have a financial protection plan. Now, the number one thing I do to protect my finances is I make sure I have a service that removes my information from the internet. And that service is called Delete Me. Now, what Delete Me does is Delete Me goes to these data brokers that are out there. If you Google your name, you Google your address in quotations, or you Google even your phone number in quotations, all of a sudden, you're going to see all these different websites with your information out there. And what happens is if people get a piece of your information, these bad guys, these scammers out there, if they get a piece of your information,

• 41:33Andrew Giancola?

  and they try to open a bank account in your name, or they try to open a credit card in your name, or a student loan in your name, and they don't have the rest of your information, they can't do it. But if they Google your name or some of your information, all of a sudden, they can buy it from these data brokers. And so to protect your finances, you need to get that information removed. I just got my report from Delete Me, and they removed my information from a ton of different websites. And now I have it on none of the data broker sites that I do not want it on. And I love, they give me these reports pretty frequently, and I love to look through them and see them. And my wife has it as well, and we go through her report every single time as well. And you could see all the places where you're getting your information removed, and they continuously keep checking to make sure your information is removed. So this has saved me dozens and dozens of hours. And even on their report, they, they tell you how many hours you've saved.

• 42:18Andrew Giancola?

  And so it's one of the best ways I spend my money every single year, because I know it is really inexpensive for their plans, but they are removing that information and saving me tons and tons of hours. So if you go to joindelete.me/pfp20, you will get 20% off Delete Me just by utilizing that code. So I highly recommend it. A financial protection plan is so important in the age of AI and in 2026. So make sure you remove your personal information. I've been using Delete Me forever. Longtime listeners know Delete Me, they've been a sponsor of this show for a very long time. So thank you, guys, and make sure you protect your finances online.

• 42:54Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next question is great. So what is the best type of account that my wife and I can give our children when they're ready to buy their first home? Would it be a custodial account or just a standard high-yield savings account? The goal would be to give it to them in their late twenties. So what an amazing gift this is, and this is from an anonymous person, but what an amazing gift this is to set your kids up in their adult life. Now, there is something that I believe that a lot of people should consider when it comes to their kids, where if you are going to give your kids an inheritance, and you're going to hand them money down, one consideration to have is should you give it to them at the end of your life? Or should you give it to them even earlier when they can actually use it? Look at the millennial generation right now, and even look at the older Gen Z generation right now.

• 43:38Andrew Giancola?

  They're struggling. The cost of living is rising. Wages are not rising at the same pace as the cost of living. And if they got something that would allow them to buy a home, or if they got something that'll allow them to buy a vehicle to get them from point A to point B if they don't have the money to do so, or they're taking on big car payments, that could be really beneficial for them during this timeframe. Now, many people argue, okay, well, let's wait it out, and let's go ahead and give it to them later, because that money will compound to more. Sure, that's completely fine. But in reality, this is a great consideration, because if you do this now, or you think about this now, that's a really wonderful gift to give your children and their family, and the, give them the ability to be able to do some really cool stuff. So I love this question, and I think that this is something that many people should think through when they are starting to build out

• 44:22Andrew Giancola?

  these creative ways with your finances. And we talked about something creative at the top of the show. This is another creative thing that you can do. So first, you want to start with your time horizon. So for you specifically, if your kids are younger right now, you have 15, 20, maybe even 25 years before you actually want to give them this money, if it's their late twenties. And so you want to understand a couple of different rules. If you do a custodial account, which is like a UGMA or a UTMA, depending on what state you live in, that money goes to your children when they turn age 18 or age 21. So it becomes their money when they turn that age. And so because it doesn't have the flexibility for you to be able to say, no, no, no, don't spend it, I want you to keep it. And they go, they can go out and spend it on a brand-new car, they can go out and spend it on, you know, a lavish vacation,

• 45:05Andrew Giancola?

  they can go and spend it on a trip to Ibiza if they want to. And so you want to make sure that you have it in an account that you can control until it's time to give it to them. And so a high-yield savings account is an option, and it's an option that you can use, but you have a long time horizon. And because the time horizon is long, you can do something like invest those dollars, and it will grow even more. And if you invest those dollars, you could do something like a taxable brokerage account. This is what I do for my kids, is mine are all in a taxable brokerage account currently. And this allows your money to grow, but it also gives flexibility. So what you do is you put it in your name, and then you put your children as the beneficiary. If you have a trust, you can have the account to the trust name, and have your children as the beneficiary inside the trust.

• 45:47Andrew Giancola?

  And so when you do this, that allows you to own the account, and you can give it to them whenever you want. You don't have to worry about, you know, timeframes, or when they turn 18 or 21, or all those different things. The taxable brokerage account allows you to give it to them. And so that's a really, really cool thing that I think for many folks, they can consider this. And then when it's time for them to get the money, you got things like gift tax exclusions and all sorts of different ways that you can do this in a very unique and structured way. And that could be something that, that could be a really good rate way to do this as well. But I would just simplify it, taxable brokerage account, invest it over time. When they are a couple of years out, you can always just put this into a high-yield savings account if you're worried about the market dipping or whatever else. But you, if you have a long time horizon, 10-plus years, that's the way I would go with this, and that's the way I would consider it.

• 46:32Andrew Giancola?

  So great question, and thank you so much for sending it in.

• 46:37Andrew Giancola?

  So the next question comes from Tyler. Tyler says, I currently have about $64,500 in my IRA. Do you think I'll become a millionaire? I'm averaging around a 16% rate of return, and I'm maxing it out every single year. I'm currently 29 and a half years old. Well, first of all, Tyler, awesome job being 29 and a half and having $64,500 in your IRA. Let me give you the good news first. The good news is at $64,500, so let's pull up a compound interest calculator, and you can do, we'll do this for kicks and giggles. If you go to mastermoney.co/resources, we have one there that you can check out. And so what we're looking at here is you are 29 and a half years old. Let's just put in 30-year, we'll put till 65. So let's just do till the age of 65.

• 47:20Andrew Giancola?

  You have $64,500 in this account. And let's say you contributed $0 for the rest of the way, all right? If you contributed $0 the rest of the way, and you got a 10% rate of return, you'd have $1.8 million inside this Roth IRA. If you got a 9% rate of return, you would have 1.3. And this is contributing $0, by the way, a coast fire. And if you got an 8% rate of return, that is where you'd get down to 953. So depending on how much you contribute every month, let's say you put $500 per month in there, and you did this over the course of that timeframe at an 8% rate of return, you'd have $2 million if you put an extra $500 per month. At a 10% rate of return, you would have $3.5 million.

• 48:04Andrew Giancola?

  So you're in a good spot, my friend, and I think this is something where the likelihood of you hitting a million dollars is great. Now, you said you're averaging a 16% rate of return. We've been in a really, really hot bull market over the course of the last couple of decades, which is awesome. It's fantastic for us, and I hope it keeps going for the next 30 years. But in reality, we can't use that as a, a rate of return long-term in terms of how we want to think about this. And we want to make sure we're conservative with our numbers. And if you want to be really conservative, you can get down to 6% to 7%. If you want to be, you know, a little more aggressive, you can get to 10%. If you're planning your retirement, they'll always use something like 7% to be conservative and be safe with it, okay? But yes, I believe you will be. I think there is a good chance that you will be,

• 48:47Andrew Giancola?

  unless the market really has some bad, bad years over the course of the next couple of decades. And if you're continuously contributing to this account, I think that you would cross the million mark, you know, in the 40s, 50s, somewhere in that range, depending on how much you're putting in. So really, really good stuff here, and I'm excited for you. I'm excited that you are doing this, and you're in a really good spot. For anybody out there who's in their early twenties or in your twenties, this should motivate you, because it shows that getting that, those dollars invested, even if you're not with your first 100K in the IRA yet, you know that you got a really, really good path going forward. So I love it, and thank you so much for sending in the question.

• 49:22Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The next question is from Ben and Ben has a wonderful one. It says, hi Andrew, I just started listening to your show recently and I've loved every second of it. I'm 18 and I'm about to start college paying less than $2,000 a semester, thanks to extensive scholarships. I'm majoring in accounting or finance and have already have a Roth IRA with about two grand in it. I would love to retire at 30. What steps and actions can I take over the next few years to reach that goal? Well, Ben, I've got good news for you because first of all, I want to direct you to an episode we did with my friend Cody Berman, who wrote the book Retire by 30. And in that episode, we go through the steps and some of the things that he did in that episode. So I highly recommend that you check that out. We will link it up down below in the show notes if you have not checked it out yet, so that

• 50:04Andrew Giancola?

  you can check it out. But I would recognize two things. There's two battles here that you're going to be taking on. Number one is you're going to have to have a really aggressive savings rate. You're going to have to be saving anywhere from 50 to 70% over the court when you start your career. And if you want to retire by 30, that is just the reality. Now, people have done it over and over again. You can look at people like Mr. Money Mustache. You can look at people like Jacob Lund Fisker. You can look at all the early retirement blogs out there that talk about retiring at 30. There's a ton of them out there. So that's one is you got to consider, you know, how much you need to be saving and your savings rate definitely is going to need to be above 50% and could be even higher. And the math really matters here. When you want to retire at 30, you're likely not going to be retiring with a lot of money on hand in terms of how much you can spend

• 50:48Andrew Giancola?

  every single year. And if you're okay with that, that's fine. But if you're not okay with that, you just want to make sure that you're thinking through that, especially if you want a family and things like that. You just want to be cautious about thinking about that. But you can definitely do it. Another path to do this is with business, getting a really high income through business and/or through your career and just socking a bunch of that away over the course of the next decade. And you can get there pretty quickly if you have the discipline to live on little or less. But understand, again, your biggest wealth lever in that kind of a timeframe is not investing. It's going to be your income. It's going to be your income and then shoveling that income into investments over time. It's going to do the heavy, the heavy work early. And then if you pair that high income with a high savings rate and you decide to live on way less than you make, you can really get there pretty quickly. So those are, it's actually very

• 51:33Andrew Giancola?

  simple. It's living on less than you make, investing the difference, and making sure you understand kind of the amount that you should be saving every single month. So those are just some of the considerations that I would have when I was thinking about this. And I truly appreciate the question, but if you have any other questions on that, let me know. But check out our episode with Cody because he really maps this out. And he's got a great book on it too called Retire by 30.

• 51:56Andrew Giancola?

  Well, thank you so much, everyone for sending in your questions. If you have a question, make sure you join the Master Money Lose Letter and send it in. Or if you want to ask me questions just like this live every single week, join Master Money Academy. Master Money Academy is the community that we built that will take you step by step over the course of the next 12 months to completely transforming your finances. We do weekly coaching calls every single week. We have all of our courses in there. We have master classes in there. We have a community of people who are all working towards building wealth together. These are the people that you can talk to about this stuff with. And so I'm really, really excited to have, and I want to invite you to join Master Money Academy. We get the seven day free trial down below. It's linked up down below in the show notes if you want to check it out. And it is something where come to a live

• 52:39Andrew Giancola?

  event, come check out a bunch of our courses, come talk to me live if you want to, and we can get your questions answered. If it's not for you, no worries whatsoever. But if it is, would love to have you inside of Master Money Academy. So can't wait to see you inside of there if you have not already joined. I truly appreciate every single one of you being here. And I truly appreciate every single one of you listening to this podcast. If you're getting true value out of here, share this with a family member or friend. Would love for them to learn more about how to build wealth because that's why we create this free content. It's for you guys to give you as much value as possible. This free content is for you so that you can really, really master your finances. Thank you so much again. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you and we will see you on the next episode.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Does anyone know where the bass is?

• 53:23Speaker 03

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