5 Signs You’re Overthinking Investing! (Plus Money Q&A!)

Investing is supposed to be simple: right accounts, low-cost funds, decades of consistency. If yours has become anything more complicated than that, one of these five signs is probably why. 👉 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 👉 One-on-One Coaching Application Form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12UHo5Zmu1AyY_G4Gmbrcx9vThIZhxqFnaJ5dIihZL24/edit 👉 Master Money Wealth Building Strategy Call https://calendly.com/irene-mastermoney/master-money-wealth-building-strategy-call?month=2026-09 What You'll Learn in This Episode Five habits that signal you are overcomplicating your portfolio Why owning more funds often means less diversification, not more The free tool that shows how much overlap your holdings actually have Why waiting for the right entry point keeps costing people years How often to check your accounts without it working against you Plus listener questions on cross-border estate taxes, surviving a 10-month school paycheck year, and what to do with money while living at home Andrew's honest take on day trading after a layoff, and what he would do instead A new brokerage transfer scam that a credit freeze will not stop 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 Hostinger → Builds your vision step by step. Create your website today at Hostinger.com/PFP and use code PFP for 10% off now. Monarch Money → The all-in-one financial tool + Get 50% Off at http://www.monarch.com/PFP Polygenius → Free life insurance quote http://policygenius.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 Coast FIRE Calculator https://visionary-raindrop-1fc22a.netlify.app/ Compound Interest Calculator https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/aefaaad27e Episode/s Mentioned How to Save $100,000 on a Low Salary https://youtu.be/f8-BWWiDpKc How to Never Worry About Money Again with Jesse Mecham https://youtu.be/_Zrin_NvjpY The 1-3-6 Method For Building & Managing Your Emergency Fund https://youtu.be/rGdII_Z0hnw Why Index Funds Are King (Plus My Favorite Index Funds!) https://www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com/why-index-funds-are-king-plus-my-favorite-index-funds/ 15 Reasons Index Funds Are Still My All Time Favorite Investment https://www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com/15-reasons-index-funds-are-still-my-all-time-favorite-investement/ Index Funds VS. ETFs | Which One Is a Better Investment? (THE GREAT SHOWDOWN! https://www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com/index-funds-vs-etfs-which-one-is-a-better-investment-the-great-showdown/ How to Put Together a Bulletproof Investment Plan (Set it and Forget it) https://www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com/how-to-put-together-a-bulletproof-investment/ Watch Next The 5 Levels of FIRE (Coast, Lean, FI, Chubby, Fat) https://youtu.be/cpZCevuXW1U Type A vs. Type B Money Personality: Which one are you? https://youtu.be/ZoyLEwBMQdQ The 12 Worst Money Habits (Ranked!) https://youtu.be/VEgX_BT5dA0 How to Never Worry About Money Again with Jesse Mecham https://youtu.be/_Zrin_NvjpY How to Save $100,000 on a Low Salary https://youtu.be/f8-BWWiDpKc 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: Which of the five are you guilty of? 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?

  Now, if you watch this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, you've probably noticed the wood slat walls behind us. We wanted this podcast set to look professional, but also not be a project that was overly complicated. And I found these slat walls on Wayfair and it completely changed this space. And it's now basically the background that you see in every single podcast or piece of content that we record. And that's one of the things that I love about Wayfair. You can shop thousands of products across different styles and budgets, use customer photos and reviews to see how things actually look in real homes, and find something that fits your space. They also have Wayfair verified products that are hand vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection.

• 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, five signs you might be overthinking investing, 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 talking through five signs you might be overthinking investing. Plus, we're going to dive into a bunch of your questions. Now, before we get into today's episode, I just have a quick announcement. So if you're making good money and you get to the end of the month and you have no idea where all of that money went, or you feel as though your dollars should be further along than they currently are, and all your friends are getting ahead, and you don't really know where to invest your dollars, then I wanted to invite you to apply to work with me with our one-on-one coaching program.

• 3:27Andrew Giancola?

  Now, we have a coaching program where we're taking a very small group of people through a system where my goal is to get you on track to becoming millionaires and then becoming financially free. So if you're interested in joining and you make over $100,000 per year in household income, or you have $100,000 to invest, send me an email, [email protected]. Also, if you're getting value out of these episodes, make sure you are liking, subscribing, leaving five-star ratings and reviews on your favorite podcast players. Cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star rating and reviews. They truly mean the world to us. Now, let's talk about five signs that you are overthinking investing. See, one of the biggest problems that people have is when they start to invest, they think it needs to be extra complicated.

• 4:10Andrew Giancola?

  They think it's one of those areas in life where they really need to dial it in, that every single area of their investment plan needs to be absolutely perfect before they get started. But instead, many people end up overthinking investing early on. This is something that I did. So when I was a new investor, the first investment that I actually made was at 16 years old. And when I was 16, I decided to do a bunch of different research into all these different mutual funds and stocks and different things. And I ended up landing on a mutual fund that invested exclusively in South America. Now, when I did this, I had no idea why I was doing this, but a lot of smart people were telling me, oh, this is a great mutual fund. You should own this mutual fund. Looking back now, I know that mutual fund had some pretty high fees,

• 4:55Andrew Giancola?

  but in addition, it wasn't simplified enough for me to understand what I was investing in. So I overcomplicated the situation. Later on down the line, just two years later, I started to invest in other different avenues, things like individual stocks, but also penny stocks. And there was a time when I was 18 years old where I invested all of my money into one penny stock. I was reading all these different financial newsletters, and I was like, wow, this one made a really compelling case for this media company that also is involved in movies and entertainment and all these other things. And they made the case as to why this was going to go up and shoot up to the moon. And I'm 18 years old reading this, and I'm like, all right, if I put all of my money I have to my name, which at that time was probably $1,000,

• 5:38Andrew Giancola?

  and I put it all into this one investment, what is going to happen here? I put it all into this one specific penny stock. I think I owned over 1,000 shares of this thing. And guess what happened? In literally one day, that penny stock went down to zero. And a couple of weeks later, that business went completely out of business. And so this lesson taught me that I was trying to overcomplicate investing, which led me to start studying what real investors do. And I wanted to understand what people like Warren Buffett did, what people like Peter Lynch did, what people like Monish Prabha did, what people like Charlie Munger did. And a lot of my heroes out there are investors who focus on the boring.

• 6:20Andrew Giancola?

  They focus on the simplicity to understand how to figure out how to invest for the long term. And so the more and more I studied investors like this, the more I realized I was doing this backwards. I was trying to create these complicated systems with all these different complicated charts that were going to allow me to find the diamond in the rough. But instead, if I just follow proven strategies that have been those strategies time and time again, I am going to be able to build wealth. And this is what we teach people inside Master Money Academy, is I want you to follow proven investment strategies. So we have students that'll come through there, and we simplify investing for them. That's the goal with Master Money Academy, is to simplify investing for them. And so my goal for you today in this episode

• 7:03Andrew Giancola?

  is to learn the five signs that you are overthinking investing. And then, as we go through these, I want you to think through, does this apply to me? Is this something I am currently doing? Because if you are, if you're overcomplicating investing, let's simplify until we have a solid plan in place, and then you can start to add in complication. But when you're building up that foundation, your first $100,000, your first $200,000 invested, we want to make sure that we are simplifying as much as possible and then focusing our time and energy on the thing that matters most, which is income. And if you focus on the income, you can take those extra dollars, put them towards your investments. All of a sudden, your portfolio is going to compound. It's going to grow, and it's going to allow you to really stop overcomplicating

• 7:47Andrew Giancola?

  and have the ability to build real wealth. See, people who don't have money, or people who feel as though they are slogging, they are grinding, they are trying to get ahead, they make good money, but they feel as though they're just not getting ahead, those folks, typically that happens with investments because they're overcomplicating investments. They don't have a plan in place, or they're just spreading all their resources all over the place. They're spraying and praying. They buy a little crypto here, they buy a little index funds here, they buy some ETFs here, but they don't have a real plan to stick to. And so that's why they're just throwing investments all over the place. If that's you, I want you to understand what we're going to be talking about today. So if that's something you're into, let's get into it.

• 8:25Andrew Giancola?

  Number one, is you're constantly changing your portfolio. This is one of the most common things that I see for new investors or investors who feel as though they're getting ahead, when in reality, they are going nowhere. They are just running on a treadmill, and they really aren't moving forward. And so if you move your investments around all the time, or you feel as though you're buying and selling throughout the year, or you really don't have a strategy in place because you hear a hot stock tip on one podcast, then you read CNBC and you hear another hot stock tip, then you hear that, well, this investment's not doing very well, so you go and sell, and you don't have any plan in place whatsoever, then most likely, you're constantly changing your portfolio, and you're constantly changing your plan. What I want you to do is I want you to make sure

• 9:09Andrew Giancola?

  that you are sticking to your long-term plan. And this is why we want to develop an investment plan that is long-term, not some short-term thing where you're going to buy all these different things. But instead, you have a long-term investment plan. The same people who asked me about crypto were the same people who asked me about gold just a couple of months ago, were the same people who were asking about silver when that got hot, and they just follow the hot trend over and over again. You can't do this. If you're constantly changing your portfolio, you're making this too complicated. See, investing is pretty simple. It's pretty simple to understand. You open the correct accounts, you buy low-cost index funds and ETFs or target date retirement funds or individual stocks that you like, and then you do that for decades and decades and decades.

• 9:53Andrew Giancola?

  Yet, many people are over-complicating this, trying to find the perfect investment that's going to go to the moon. Let me tell you right now, if someone tells you that an investment is going to go to the moon, write that person off immediately. Because instead, you need to have the right principles in place, you need to have the right research plan in place, and you need to understand what you're investing in. And so, don't constantly change your portfolio. Make sure you have a solid plan that's proven throughout time, over the course of the last 100 years even. Then do that, because that is going to be much better than you switching plans left and right. The more you switch, the more you're selling, the more you're changing, then you're going to miss out on the best days in the market. And studies have shown, if you miss out on the 10 best days in the market, you can

• 10:37Andrew Giancola?

  reduce your returns by 2% to 3% just by missing out on the 10 best days in the market over the course of the next 30 years. So, I want you to ensure that you are not changing your plan over and over again. Number two is you wait for the perfect time to invest. Let me just tell you this right now. News flash, there is no perfect time to invest. I have people in my DMs right now telling me, "I'm waiting until this AI bubble pops before I get started investing." I had people two years ago telling me, "I'm waiting until the economy gets better." Well, the market has had historic returns since two years ago. Two years prior to that, I have people telling me, "Well, I'm waiting for the market to come down because it's too high."

• 11:19Andrew Giancola?

  Two years before that, they were waiting for COVID or all these different situations that were happening over and over again. No, you cannot be waiting for the perfect time to invest because there is no perfect time to invest. The best time to start investing is right now. And if you're waiting to invest, you are falling further and further and further behind. I don't care if you have $5, I don't care if you have $10, I don't care if you have $25 a month to invest. You need to start getting those dollars working. And if you have $1,000, or $2,000, or $5,000, and you're hiding it under a mattress, or you are stuffing it on the shelf because you are scared that the market is too high, news flash, my friend, building wealth means you are consistently investing over long periods of time.

• 12:05Andrew Giancola?

  You don't try to time the market, you don't wait for the market to be up, you don't wait for the market to be down, instead, you are consistently investing month in and month out. And the sooner you realize that you need to do this, the easier life is going to become. It's freeing. It's actually freeing to understand that if I just dollar-cost average, meaning invest the same amount of money from my paycheck every single month into the market over and over again, and increase that amount every single year, every time I get a raise, or every time I get a bonus, I'm increasing that amount, and I get my employer match, and I understand which accounts to invest in, all of the sudden, everything just opens up, and you can breathe. You can take the pressure off of yourself, you don't have to worry as much.

• 12:48Andrew Giancola?

  And this, my friends, is how you can build wealth on autopilot. And so, don't wait for the perfect time to invest, because guess what? Waiting is one of the most costly things that you can ever do. The longer you wait, the more money you are losing that could be getting invested. Now, does the market go up forever? No, there's going to be years where the market's going to pull back, and it's going to go down, we're going to have recessions, that is very normal. But go and pull out a stock market chart, and put on the longest time horizon that you can. You can pull out your phone right now and do this if you want to. And what direction does that market go? That market goes up. So, if you look at the last 50 years, 30 years, 100 years, 10 years, five years, the market goes in one direction. And what I want you to understand here is timing the market is a fool's errand, and

• 13:33Andrew Giancola?

  waiting for the perfect time to invest is a fool's errand. Nobody has a crystal ball, nobody knows what's going to happen next, nobody can predict the future, and you definitely can't predict the future. So, make sure that you just get started now, and you get started investing. If you're nervous, start with small amounts of money, then start to increase it over time, every single month. Maybe you start with $25, then it's 35, then it's 50, then it's 100, then it's 150, then it's 200. But you're going to see that if you have the right plan in place, it'll be absolutely amazing what you can do. Number three is you spend more time researching than actually investing. Do you know people like this, and maybe this is you, where they spend all day long digging

• 14:16Andrew Giancola?

  into charts, they dig into 10Ks, they watch YouTube videos of people digging into charts and 10Ks, they go and dive into all the different research metrics, they read every single piece of news? A lot of times, when I was in the corporate world, there was a lot of folks like this who would tell me every single piece of information about a stock, but they didn't really invest their money. They were just interested in the research, they were interested in looking deeper into some of these stocks, and they felt productive because they were doing this. But in reality, what they were doing is hurting their progress, because consistently investing every single month, instead of waiting for the perfect time like we just talked about, is the most important thing. And so, if you're spending all of your time researching, but no time actually investing your dollars, this can be a huge problem.

• 15:01Andrew Giancola?

  If you're one of those folks that's addicted to stock market news or stock market media, or you feel as though every single piece of information is imperative before you make that investment choice, you're never going to get ahead. Now, Warren Buffett, this is true, a lot of people will reference this, Warren Buffett reads six to eight hours a day, which is absolutely true, but that's his full-time job, that's what he does. He says, "For the average investor, buying low-cost index funds and calling it a day is going to be the most profitable and the best thing for someone to do." And so, when you start to look at this, and when you start to look at how much time you're spending researching, if you're spending way too much time researching, I would do something else. Number four is that you think owning more index funds, ETFs, or mutual funds means more diversification.

• 15:44Andrew Giancola?

  Owning 15, 20, 25 index funds or ETFs in one portfolio is typically overkill, meaning you are over-complicating your portfolio. For people who are building up their foundation, one to five index funds and ETFs is completely perfect to have a well-diversified portfolio. Heck, J.L. Collins, throughout his entire accumulation phase, owned one index fund, which was VTSAX, where there are some people like Warren Buffett, he puts his family's money into two index funds. And so, I think for many people who are over-complicating their portfolio, they are doing this, A, because they have too much information at their fingertips now, B, because there are so many new options out there, and you are looking at the shiny object, but C, they feel as though they're getting more diversified.

• 16:29Andrew Giancola?

  Guys, a lot of these funds are holding the same stocks inside the fund. I think a lot of people look at the wrapper instead of looking at what's inside. So, think of an index fund and ETF like this, okay? Think of a package of candy, and inside that package of candy, maybe it's Sour Patch Kids. There's orange ones, there's red ones, there's yellow ones, there's blue ones. But if you buy the generic version of Sour Patch Kids, it's going to have the same colors in there, similar flavors, those types of things, but the packaging is different. And for many index funds and ETFs, it's the same as candy. The packaging is going to be very different in terms of what they say this can do, or what they say is inside, but in reality, the stocks inside that index fund or ETF are

• 17:14Andrew Giancola?

  all the same. Why? Because they are mirroring the index, and if they don't mirror the index, then it's really not an S&P 500 index fund, or it's really not a total stock market index fund. And so, you see a lot of new wrappers now, where it'll be on the tech sector, for example. So, you could see something like a QQQM, you could see something like a VGT, and all of a sudden, you're starting to look at all these different investments and seeing what the differences are. Now, some have more holdings than others, some are going to be more concentrated than others, and so, that's where you're going to start to see some differences. But if you know how to research index funds and ETFs, you can tell pretty quickly that there is tons of overlap with these funds. So, if you own multiple broad-based index funds, like a BTI, a VOO, plus, you know,

• 17:57Andrew Giancola?

  other broad-based index funds that are covering all the same companies, you probably just have a ton of overlap. So, one way to combat this is you can Google this, you can Google "fund overlap tool", and you can go and see, well, how much overlap do my index funds and ETFs have? And the fund overlap tool typically will tell you how much overlap are between these funds, and it's pretty cool to see this. If you have really high overlap, like above 70%, then you're probably just investing in two funds that have pretty much the same objective, and they're going towards the same thing. Now, if you like that, if you like having different funds and having more diversification, more power to you, it's not going to hurt you. But in reality, as long as those funds have low cost, they are not charging you a ton

• 18:42Andrew Giancola?

  of fees, then you're completely fine. If they're similar... But if you don't want to over complicate your situation, then I would suggest getting to one to five funds. Then as you start to build more wealth, you can add more in. I think that's a lot easier to do long term. So for many of us out there, just owning too many funds is going to be one of the ways that you can over complicate your portfolio. The last one is number five. Number five is that you check your portfolio way too often. Many of you out there may be this person, or you may know someone like this. Every single hour of every day, they're checking their portfolio. They're looking how much the market went up. They're looking how much the market went down. And a lot of times they are getting stressed or they're getting anxious based on the direction that the market is moving. Now, I used to do this when I was young.

• 19:27Andrew Giancola?

  In fact, I was a full-time day trader for six months straight. And I would look at the market constantly. I would look at economic indicators constantly. If the president at that time said something, the market would dip, I would panic. Or if the president or the prime minister somewhere else said something, the market would dip and I would panic. And you would see just market shifts based on irrational things that were happening within the world. Because day to day, week to week, month to month, the market is going to be highly volatile. It's going to move up and it's going to go down. But long-term, the market goes in one direction, and that is up. And once you realize this, it changes your perspective on everything else.

• 20:10Andrew Giancola?

  You don't have to worry about day to day, week to week, and month to month. Instead, you can focus on the long-term and focus on your long-term plan. And that is how you build wealth. Warren Buffett said it best, "In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine. But in the long run, the stock market is a weighing machine." And that's what I want you to take away from thinking through checking your portfolio too often. If it causes you stress and anxiety to check it too often, then there's no need to do it. Now, if you just like looking at it, hey, cool. I think that's great. If you like looking at it or enjoy, you know, spending some time looking at your portfolio and watching it grow, and that keeps you motivated every day, that's awesome. But if you feel as though this is one of those things that causes you stress and anxiety, you really don't need to look at it very often at all. In fact, I don't check my portfolio very often.

• 20:55Andrew Giancola?

  The only time I check it is to make sure my automations are working properly because I've already chosen my index funds and ETFs, and I have my portfolio on set it and forget it. The only other time I would is when I'm trading options or things like that. If I'm doing the wheel strategy, or if I'm buying covered calls, or if I'm buying cash secure puts or covered calls, then you know, I'm checking it just to make sure everything is operating correctly. But outside of that, my long-term investments, my wealth building machine, I'm not checking that much at all. So these are the five signs that you are overthinking investing. I want to know down below in the comments, which ones are you doing? Are you overthinking investing in a couple of different areas? Or is this just one of those things where you feel as though you're on track and you are A-OK when it comes to investing? Would love to hear from you down in the comments, wherever you are watching or listening to

• 21:40Andrew Giancola?

  this podcast. Now, let's jump into some of your questions.

• 21:45Andrew Giancola?

  All right, so question number one is from an email listener, and they came in and asked a question. So, "Planning my estate. My daughter now lives in Tokyo and I live in Oregon, which starts levying on estates greater than $1 million. And we now find out that the government of Japan wishes to levy on an additional 55% tax on our estate. Holy moly, is there any way to avoid this?" So, there's a couple of things that are going to matter here when it comes to this. And first of all, that is a daunting thing. So let's talk through some of the steps to how to consider this and how to get some help on this too, because this is a very important thing to get some help on. This is half a million dollars we're talking about here. And so we want to make sure that we are taking the right steps when it comes to this.

• 22:27Andrew Giancola?

  So, the Japan piece is going to hinge on your daughter's residency status, not yours. So Japan taxes the heir, not the estate. And the 55% figure is on top of the marginal brackets, not the flat rate on everything. So the number one thing we need to do is we need to make sure that we understand those laws in Japan. And so I would, step one, find out what visa that she currently holds. If she is on a work visa, then Japan is going to generally exempt assets when it comes to this kind of stuff. But if she has lived in Japan over the course of the last 10 to 15 years, or she's on a spouse visa, or is a permanent resident, then the likelihood that this is going to get taxed while she's over there is pretty high.

• 23:10Andrew Giancola?

  So we want to figure out exactly what type of visa she currently holds, or what she is currently doing in Japan. And step two is to understand that you're not going to get taxed twice on the same dollar. The US and Japan have an estate and gift tax treaty, and Japan is going to give a foreign tax credit for estate or inheritance taxes paid abroad, including Oregon. So you're okay there. You're not going to get taxed twice, but we just got to make sure that we understand exactly what's happening. Now, I would look at the Oregon side separately here, because Oregon starts at $1 million with rates of 10% to 16%. And the federal exemption is now $15 million per person. So for most families, the state tax is the bigger domestic issue. So there is going to be a lot of things that you just want to consider when it comes to

• 23:55Andrew Giancola?

  that, but Oregon is going to be the bigger deal for you. The federal is going to be less of a big deal. But I would not try to fix a Japan issue with lifetime gift tax, because that's going to be one of those areas that you really want to make sure that you understand they have their own separate laws there. And so what I would do in this situation, and I was 100%, not even second guess this, hire a cross-border attorney. If your daughter's going to be staying in Japan, getting someone in your corner who's going to help you through this, I think is super important. This is a very narrow specialty. And so you need someone who understands all of these different questions, including the visa questions. But in addition, who can help you reduce your tax bill. This is going to pay for itself a ton of times over. And so this is a perfect situation. When you, and for anybody listening, when you have complicated situations like this,

• 24:41Andrew Giancola?

  especially overseas, it can be very difficult to understand both sides. And so it is much better for you to hire someone who understands this than for you to try to figure it out on your own. This is a great reason to hire someone, because they're going to save you a lot more money than what you're going to be spending. So I think for many of us out there, we need to understand that this is one of the most important things to do, is hire people to help you when you need that help. And this is a great instance on when you should do that. So this is a great question, and I, let me know what you figure out when you do hire someone, because I would love to hear more. I think for the most part, just understanding that you're not going to get taxed twice, look at the Oregon taxes first, then start to look at Japan, and then start to have that conversation with the attorney. I think that's the most important thing, because this is more complicated than it

• 25:26Andrew Giancola?

  looks even on the surface.

• 25:29Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next one is from Brenna. So Brenna says, "Hi, I'm looking for ways to make a few extra bucks, because every year my husband and I are always drowning with our bills. His job is five to six days a week and year-round. My job is five days a week and only 10 months throughout the year, because I work for a school. During the two months that I'm not working, I can't collect unemployment, because I receive an insurance of employment letter every single year. Applying for some other employment for the time that I'm not working seems to be a yearly battle. Is there anything that I can do so that we aren't fighting every year to keep a roof over our heads, to keep the power on, and to keep a vehicle? Any advice assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time." First of all, Brenna, I feel you deep down with this.

• 26:14Andrew Giancola?

  I know this is a very difficult situation to manage money when it comes to this. And you even thinking through this, and the way you're thinking through this is really, really important. Now, this is a great time of year to start thinking about it, because school just started. And so you can develop a plan over the course of the next year, so that you have something for the summertime that's going to allow you to kind of carry through. Now, the core problem with this is a couple of different things. One is you're budgeting as if you have 12 months of paychecks, when in reality, you only have 10 on your side. And so what I would do is a couple of different things. One is you can ask your district's payroll if they will change your paychecks to a 12-month option. Some districts will do this, some will not. We have teachers in Master Money Academy, for example, that we've kind of chatted about this with them.

• 26:57Andrew Giancola?

  Some of them have been able to move money to a 12-month system instead of 10. Now, if that's not an option in your district, then we can kind of do some of this ourselves. You can actually set this up in a way that helps yourself. So if they do not allow you to do that, you can do this yourself. So what I would do is take your monthly summer expenses and figure out what the difference is in the summertime, and multiply that by two, and then divide it by 10. What this is going to do is this is going to allow you to understand, okay, maybe I need to take a portion of every paycheck and put it towards my summer paycheck fund. And so what I would do is set up a savings bucket, and it's something like a high-yield savings account. You can use my favorites down below that are linked down below. And what I would do is automatically send money to that high-yield savings account

• 27:42Andrew Giancola?

  with each paycheck. Because what you can figure out here is, okay, well, over these two months, I'm going to need to save myself an additional $2,500 a month. Okay, let's just use that math. So if you need to save $5,000 for your summertime, then you can start to send money over there by dividing that number by 10, sending that money over there, 500 bucks a month. And all of a sudden, by the time summer comes around, you will have that money sitting in that account. And it's going to remove the stress, and it's going to remove the anxiety out of that situation. So this is like, if you listen to our episode that we just did with Jesse Mecham, this is kind of what we're talking about here, is making sure that you set money aside, so that money is just there when the time comes. And I would do this with all sorts of things.

• 28:27Andrew Giancola?

  I do this with Christmas, so that Christmas doesn't surprise me. I do this with car insurance. If you have every six months, you have a car insurance bill, so that doesn't surprise you. You just got to treat this summer paycheck as a bill. Now, if you're barely getting by as it is, then increasing your income or finding a way to have a side hustle year-round that you could do maybe on nights or weekends, is going to be very, very helpful to then make sure that you're funding this summer paycheck. Okay? So here's an example of this. Let's say, for example, that you said, okay, well, I can't really even do this, because I'm barely getting by as it is. We're living paycheck to paycheck currently. Then what I would do is maybe find some sort of side hustle. Maybe you deliver groceries. Maybe you have a side hustle that helps you kind of increase your income little by little

• 29:10Andrew Giancola?

  every single month, and you take that extra income and put it towards the summer paycheck fund. Then, once you get to the point in time during summertime, you can even do it a little more if you wanted to. Secondly, is if you do work for a school, and you have capabilities to do things like tutoring, teachers have a lot of really cool capabilities. And so if you have the ability to do things like tutoring, or helping people with different things that are in your field, well, you can do that on the side as well. And you can make a lot more money, you know, doing consulting, or tutoring, or those types of things, if you wanted to go that route. The other thing I would say is to line up summer work before the year ends. So There's things like summer school or extended summer programs. There's district summer camps that could pop up.

• 29:52Andrew Giancola?

  And if you start to line this stuff up before any of that stuff begins, that would be a great thing. Like, working at summer camps is another great side hustle during the summertime that happen a lot. Or if you are really good at something and you want to host your own summer camp, that's also a great side hustle that you can do. And so what I would do right now is I would run a bill audit. I would look at my bills throughout the entire year and I would say, what, how much is going out and how much is coming in? Once you understand how much is going out and how much is coming in, then you can decide how much that summer paycheck fund needs to have in it. Or you can decide how much you need to make in the summertime in order to make up the difference there. And then look at the car specifically, because if the car payment is breaking you every single year, then deciding if that payment needs to be stuck around,

• 30:35Andrew Giancola?

  deciding if you need to keep that car payment is going to be another thing. And one of the things I'll say here is as you start to think through some of this plan, an emergency fund is going to help protect you against this as well. And so if you want to keep funding this and you build up that emergency fund to, you know, six months of expenses, for example, then the summer months can't surprise you as bad. Now, obviously, you don't want to dip into the emergency fund every single summer. But at the same time, if that's what you need to do, there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. So you can treat this fund as part of your emergency fund. And this is why we talk about, you know, making sure that you save with the 136 method. We want you to save one month of expenses, then three months of expenses, then six months of expenses inside of your emergency fund. This is the exact reason why, so that you have this cash cushion

• 31:18Andrew Giancola?

  to allow you to protect against life when life happens just like this. So after this, I would set up a high-yield savings account. Even if you can't get enough money in there to fund your summer paychecks just yet, even just getting it started is going to get the ball rolling. And then start finding ways to earn a little bit of extra money, either in the evenings or on the weekends, or start lining up those summer jobs. Because if you line up a summer job, that's going to solve the problem immediately. And if there's a summer job that you can do every single year, that's going to really, really help this situation. But trying to figure it out as you get closer to year end is probably the problem. If you start planning right now, then you can do some cool stuff. Even sports leagues, like, think about this, for example, okay? There is, my kids, for example, they work, or they are in sports year round.

• 32:03Andrew Giancola?

  In the summertime, we're like doubling down on sports just to try to keep them busy. But a lot of these sports programs, like flag football, or T-ball, or baseball, or basketball, or soccer, they need more people to help them. And a lot of times, this happens on the weekends or in the evenings. And so if you can work as an administrator for them, or if you can do things like that, that's another way that you can kind of get involved with your expertise, since you already work at a school, and still have the ability to kind of make some extra money. If you can get yourself to make, you know, a few hundred dollars per month, and put those few hundred dollars per month towards your summer paycheck fund, it'll solve the problem pretty quickly. So two things, the quickest way to solve this is, one, find a way to save those summer paychecks. Two, try to line up summer jobs now.

• 32:45Andrew Giancola?

  Three, work on building up that emergency fund after you get this all smooth and leveled out, so that emergency fund can help you anytime there's emergencies that pop up just like this. I hope that's helpful, and I hope it's something that you feel as though it can work. And if you can, if you can spread out your paychecks over the course of 12 months, instead of 10 months, that's also going to help you long-term.

• 33:09Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next question is, hi, I'm a male, 31 and single, and I make a little over a thousand dollars every two weeks, and I don't have to worry about much because I still live at home. What should I do with my money? We just had an episode on how to save up your first hundred thousand dollars, even a low income. That's the first episode I would target if you haven't heard that episode yet. But the first thing I would do is build up your one months of expenses. And so if you want to, if your goal is to move out of your parents' home, at some point in time, I would build up one months of expenses, then three months, and then six months. And start putting that money in a high-yield savings account. Take at least a portion of your paycheck and start putting it over here. The rest of your paycheck, I would take at least one of your paychecks and start investing those dollars. I would start growing that money, and I would start to really get the ball rolling. So if your job offers a 401k match, I would take advantage of that.

• 33:54Andrew Giancola?

  This can get you a 50 to 100% rate of return. If you don't have a Roth IRA yet, I would consider opening one of those and looking into that. You could put $7,500 per year inside of a Roth IRA, and start to grow that with low-cost index funds and ETFs. Then, as you start to do this, I would pay yourself the rent that you would be paying somewhere else. Start to live a lifestyle like you are on your own. Don't spend all your money while you're living at home, because that would defeat the purpose of why you're there. And instead, start to save money, start to put it towards your emergency fund, start to put it towards your investments, and really get the ball rolling. If you are making $2,000 a month and you're living at home and you don't have expenses currently, you should be saving and investing 50 to 75% of your income.

• 34:36Andrew Giancola?

  Outside of that, it's going to be one of those things where what's the point of living at home? Like, what's the point of even doing this? It's one of those areas where saving more is going to help you dramatically. So put real energy next into your income and growing that income, because that's part of the reason it's pretty hard to live on $24,000 per year and move out of your parents' house. And so increasing your income would be the next goal. So if you're going to invest some of these dollars, I would even invest some of those dollars in increasing your income, and finding a way to increase your income so that at some point in time, you could start making good money. Because at 31 years old, that's going to be the most important component for you long-term is increasing that amount. So increase your income, start funding that emergency fund, and get started investing. Those are the three things I would do, and then making sure your savings rate is really, really high.

• 35:21Andrew Giancola?

  I would at least, at a minimum, one of your paychecks should be going to saving and investing. And that's how I would think about that, so that you can find a way to get out of their parents' house. So, great question. Let me know if you have any other questions on that.

• 35:36Andrew Giancola?

  All right, so now, we're going to get into the scam of the week, all right? So we love during these Q&A sessions to kind of get into some of the scams of the week also that we have seen happen. And the reason why we do this is because there are so many different scams that are out there now. Financial scams are happening left and right, and we want to make sure that we are protecting our finances. And so a lot of times, I talk about these because I've had my identity stolen in the past, and it's not a fun process, and I want you to avoid that at all costs. So there's a new scam called ACATS fraud. So if you don't know what ACATS is, it is the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, the system that brokerage is used to move your stocks, your index funds, your ETFs, or your cash from one firm to another. So let's say, for example, you want to move money from Vanguard to Fidelity,

• 36:22Andrew Giancola?

  ACATS helps you do that. Now, the scam works like this. A criminal is going to use your name, your social security number, your address, or date of birth, or all, whichever ones they have, to open a brokerage account in your name at another firm. Now, opening a brokerage account does not require a credit check, so the credit freeze does not stop it. So if you have your credit frozen, which we talk about all the time on this podcast, and this happens, it's not going to stop it, actually. So it's really, it's really a dangerous thing that I want you to know. Then, they submit an ACATS request from the new account, pulling your holdings out of your real account, because the names match on both ends, and they have your account number, this can go through. The whole thing can validate in one business day.

• 37:07Andrew Giancola?

  And so the window to even catch this is pretty tiny. So they never have to have your passcode or anything else. They can actually do this as long as they have your account's number. Now, scammers will often flood victims with emails and notices and notifications to kind of bury that this transfer happened. And so they're getting smarter and smarter, which is absolutely wild. And so this money can deliver on this fake account. This became a bigger issue because there are senators in Congress right now that are stating, hey, if you do a transfer, the person who's getting the, is transferring the money, needs to be notified. Right now, it is not a requirement for you to get notified if money is being transferred from one brokerage account to another. So they are saying, basically, we need additional protections.

• 37:48Andrew Giancola?

  So places like Weeble, and Robinhood, and Interactive Brokers are where this has been happening the most. And so if you have those types of accounts, I want you to make sure that you are taking some of these steps that I'm about to talk about here to protect yourself, all right? So step one is to turn on transfer lock at your brokerage. Fidelity calls it money transfer lockdown. There are other places that have a similar name. And what it does is it rejects all outgoing ACATS requests. Vanguard added one called the Output Transfer Lock in July of 2026 under your security profile that allows you to also do this. And Schwab has a manual account lockdown, but you may need to ask for security or the fraud department to be able to do this. So this is basically similar to like freezing your credit,

• 38:31Andrew Giancola?

  only it's like freezing your brokerage account from these ACATS transfers. Now, if your brokerage does not offer a lock, you can call and ask them to flag the account to block outgoing transfers with something like a phone verification, for example. And that's going to help you make sure they send alerts before they're being processed. But you can call up your brokerage and kind of say, hey, what are my options here? Because this seems to be happening more frequently. Treat your brokerage account number like a password. You want to be careful with this number, because this is the one thing that if these scammers get it, and they can go and try to find your name and your information, this is going to be a bigger problem. And always, obviously, turn on two-factor authentication. Turn on all the protections when it comes to your brokerage account. This is your wealth building machine. You do not want this getting stolen because it's hard to get it back if it does get stolen.

• 39:16Andrew Giancola?

  And check your accounts monthly. Just put it as part of your monthly routine to check your accounts. Make sure everything's there. Everything looks A-OK. That's going to be really, really important. Now, if a scammer gets a piece of your information, like if they get your account number and they do some research to figure out whose account number this is, or they get a piece of your name, then all of a sudden, they can start to look at different data brokers and find the rest of your information. Because all they have to do is Google your name in quotations, or they can Google your phone number in quotations, they can Google your address in quotations, and all the rest of your information can pop up. And so this is why I use a service called Delete Me. Because what Delete Me does is it goes to those data brokers and it removes all of the personal information from those data brokers that causes this to happen.

• 40:00Andrew Giancola?

  There's a lot of laws that need to be passed when it comes to data brokers, but data brokers can sell your personal information to all sorts of different people. So if people get a piece of your personal information, Delete Me will remove that information from those data brokers. I get alerts every month from Delete Me that tells me all the places that they have removed my information. And you can select places, like if you don't want it removed from certain websites, then you can also do that. So Delete Me is an awesome, awesome solution to help you with stuff like this, to help you protect your finances online. I think it's super important for every single person to take this seriously because again, it happened to me. It is one of the most daunting tasks to try to figure out how to fix financial fraud. So I would recommend going to joindelete.me/pfp20.

• 40:43Andrew Giancola?

  And there you can get 20% off of Delete Me because in reality, you really need to make sure you're getting your personal information removed and they constantly continue to remove it as well. It is such a cheap service for what they provide, so I highly recommend Delete Me. And we've been using them for years. So again, watch out for those ACATS transfers. It is a serious thing and it is one of those things that you could lose a ton of money if you have not protected against this. I'm already going into my brokerages and making sure I have these protections in place and so glad I have Delete Me to make sure my information is removed.

• 41:19Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next question is from Barry. So Barry says, "Hey Andrew, I just wanted to start off and thank you for everything you do, and I always look forward to your podcast every single week. I have a general question, was hoping you could help. I have four kids, a wife, and when I receive my tax return, which is pretty good with the kids, lol, I was wondering where a good spot to park this money would be rather than just sitting in Fidelity SPACs. I'm looking for growth and currently SPACs has a seven-day yield of 3.3%. I am fine with growth or dividend, really. I really would overall like to just invest these dollars and would love to hear your opinion." So here's a couple of things I would do. One is if you have an emergency fund in place, then that is fantastic. Then you can start to invest those dollars. Now, what we say is to first, make sure you have one month of an emergency fund, then

• 42:04Andrew Giancola?

  build up to three months. Once you're at three months emergency fund, that's where investing really can start to heavily begin. Because in reality, before you have that three-month emergency fund, that's where, you know, life can happen. It can derail your progress, it can derail your investing progress, and then you're just going backwards. So instead, making sure you have at least three months, and then ultimately, the goal is to have six months over time here. But having three months is where your investing can really heavily begin. So if you have a three-month emergency fund, great. If not, you can leave it in SPACs at 3.3% currently at the time we're recording this. That is a very competitive rate. Then, from there, what we want to do is we want to make sure that we are investing our dollars into something that can help us based on our risk tolerance, but also based on what our investment plan is.

• 42:45Andrew Giancola?

  So for me, specifically, I have a very high risk tolerance, meaning I really like growth index funds and ETFs. So like a VLO, a ETI, a QQQM, for example, are some of the investments that I love to invest in because I love the growth. I love growth, especially when I'm in my accumulation phase. And so for me, I want to allow my money to grow as much as possible. So if you're looking for some index funds and ETFs, what I would do is research, you know, some of the ways to get that ball moving. Now, if you're getting closer to retirement, that's when you could add in dividend stocks or ETFs or index funds to your portfolio. But before retirement, you want to get maximum growth so you can build that portfolio as large as you possibly can. That's the ultimate goal if you are in the accumulation phase and if it fits your risk tolerance.

• 43:30Andrew Giancola?

  So doing some research on that front is really, really important. Then, you're going to put it in the right accounts. So looking at things like the Roth 401K, if your employer has one, the Roth IRA, the HSA, the taxable brokerage, and the 401K are all the accounts that I would look into. And for me specifically, my current order is the Roth 401K, Roth IRA, HSA, if you're eligible, but there's less people eligible to the HSA than there has been in the past, then I would go probably 401K and then taxable brokerage. But the taxable brokerage is one of my favorite accounts and I have been investing a lot more heavily into it because it is one of those things that allows for flexibility. And I love that flexibility and I love the ability to be able to build wealth with that

• 44:15Andrew Giancola?

  taxable brokerage. So a lot of cool stuff that you can do there, but that's the way I would think about this. And if you have any questions on that, please let me know.

• 44:24Andrew Giancola?

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• 45:05Andrew Giancola?

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• 45:47Andrew Giancola?

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• 46:30Andrew Giancola?

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• 47:13Andrew Giancola?

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• 47:56Andrew Giancola?

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• 48:39Andrew Giancola?

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• 49:22Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The next one's from Jordan. Hi, Andrew. I'm Jordan. I am 44 and I am very new to all this. I'm a working class man who is trying his hardest to make up for a lifetime of procrastination. My question is, as a newcomer to investing with little money to start with, what's the best approach? Where exactly do I start long-term gain or create passive income? Hope this makes sense. Absolutely makes sense, Jordan. So first thing I would say is I would love to invite you to Master Money Academy. We teach people step by step exactly how to invest. And you can have as little as $5 to your name and we can get you started and get the ball rolling. So Master Money Academy teaches people how to build wealth and invest. So I would love for anybody listening, I would love to invite you there because that's the fastest way to get yourself on track, especially if you're just getting started.

• 50:04Andrew Giancola?

  All right, at 44, you still have a really long time horizon. So you feel as though you may be behind. You still have 20-plus years to get your dollars invested, which is absolutely amazing. So I want you to know, it is never too late to get started investing and you still have plenty of time to get the ball rolling. First is you want to have your emergency fund in place. If you don't have that in place yet, building up at least a one-month emergency fund, then ultimately trying to get to three months in your emergency fund, like we just talked about with some recent questions, is going to be super important. Second is if your employer offers a 401k match, then you want to take advantage of that. Sometimes they call it an employer match, but you want to take advantage of that because it is free money and having the ability to put money into your 401k

• 50:46Andrew Giancola?

  and your employer also gives you money to put into your 401k is really, really great. Three is I would look at a Roth IRA somewhere at Vanguard or Fidelity. That is one of the best things that you can do early on is getting money into the Roth IRA. The way that it works is money goes in that's already been taxed from your paycheck. It grows tax-free and you can pull the money out tax-free after the age of 59 and a half. And so that tax-free growth over the course of 20-plus years is going to be the majority of this account and the majority of this portfolio. So I would look at that. Now, remember, the biggest mistake people make when it comes to a Roth IRA is they think it's the investment. It is just the account. You still have to invest those dollars once it's in a Roth IRA. So choosing things like low-cost index funds and ETFs are going to be the way that I would look at this.

• 51:31Andrew Giancola?

  You can look at target date retirement funds as well. If those sound confusing, we have episodes on all these, so you can check that out. The next thing is to make sure you're automating your money. So once your money comes into your paycheck and hits your checking account, automating it to these investment accounts and automating it to your emergency fund is going to be super, super important. And then any high-interest debt that you have, if you have any high-interest debt above a 7% interest rate, like a credit card or a personal loan, you want to make sure you get that paid off prior to a lot of this investing as well, because that is going to have compound interest just working against you. Like, for example, a credit card usually has around 20% interest, whereas the market's going to return about 10% rate of return historically to investors. And so that delta means that it is much better for you to pay off the credit card

• 52:14Andrew Giancola?

  than it is to invest those dollars. And then the next thing I would say is to focus on your income. Increasing your income is going to allow you to really accelerate your path to building wealth, allow you to put more dollars towards your investments, allow you to really think about a way to do this. And so if you can get certifications or things in your job, I think it's really, really important to try to increase that income. But that's the way I would think about this. Really great question, and let me know if you have any other questions.

• 52:39Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next question is from Kim. Kim says, "Hi, Andrew. I was just laid off from Uber." I'm so sorry. "Part two of their AI layoffs, and I really thought my job was secure since I was the hardest-to-reach for driver support. Well, here I am, 47 years old, and I'm looking for similar work, but definitely want more control of my life now. My fiance suggested we learn about day trading. I am down to learn anything new, especially if we can make some supplemental income, or even better, make it as a source of actual income. My question is, with so much going on internationally and now with these new laws passing making crypto more regulated, will this help the crypto market become less attractive since the government's hands are now taking crypto more serious?" First, I want to kind of address the day trading thing,

• 53:23Andrew Giancola?

  because this is a lot more important than the crypto one that you're asking here, okay? Day trading is not a job or a side income. Day trading is, the large majority of retail day traders lose money. And in fact, you look at the statistics, it is worse for people because you're going to be burning through your savings as you're learning, then you can really, most people can afford to lose. And so I would really caution you against going into day trading, especially doing it as part of your full-time gig. Instead, I would, A, go and try to find a different job within your career path that you can go out and do. 47 is still really young. You can do a lot of great stuff at the age of 47. And I feel as though people, as they approach the age of 50, feel as though they're starting to get too old to start a new career.

• 54:08Andrew Giancola?

  It is absolutely not true. You have plenty of time at the age of 47 to do something new. And so I would, A, file for unemployment immediately so that you can start to, or negotiate a severance if you can with Uber. Uber should be giving you a severance if they haven't yet. I would try to negotiate one. And I would try to think through my health insurance as well. What am I going to do? Am I going to do a hookover plan or whatever else? Those are the two big things to figure out right now. Then I'd build a bare-bones budget, making sure you understand, you know, how much is going in, how much is coming out, so that you can develop a plan moving forward. And then I would turn the job search into my full-time job. I would not day trade. I would not do any of this other stuff. Your customer support background is going to allow you to do a lot of great things. There's a lot of places who need customer support.

• 54:53Andrew Giancola?

  And so that is going to be one of those things that is going to help you long-term. And if you want more control, you know, look at some of the skills that you can have. Maybe you can get some certifications and spend some time getting some certifications that allow you to get different jobs if you want to make a career shift. But those are the four things that I would do first, okay? So focusing on finding the next job, that's the most important thing. Your income is so important, and so finding your next job, number one. Consider what I'm saying here, and I would not try to day trade. Two, on the crypto regulation question. So the more regulation around crypto makes it more attractive to institutions, not less. So it does not become less attractive to institutions because when there's more regulation around it, banks and brokerages and pension funds can now trust it a little bit more to be able to invest in it a little bit more.

• 55:35Andrew Giancola?

  This is why we saw a lot more institutions investing into it over the course of the last couple of years, was because there was more regulation around it. There was more rules around it. And for this reason, regulation actually reduces risk for these institutions. It reduces fraud. It reduces all the other things that are happening in crypto that were happening left and right. If you notice, crypto scams, at least around Bitcoin, the main stuff, has reduced a little bit. Now, it's not to say stuff couldn't pop up at any point in time because it absolutely could. And the crypto market seems to attract those types of folks. But it is one of those things that I think short-term is positive. Obviously, they want deregulation. They don't want any of these rules or parameters around that. That was the goal with crypto. And so for some people, that's going to be the way they think about it.

• 56:17Andrew Giancola?

  But you want institutional investment because that's what's going to really get it to the million-dollar mark, like in Bitcoin, like what people keep, have been saying for years and years, that it's going to go to $1 million. If you want that to happen, institutions need to be involved. So if you want institutions to invest, you've got to make sure that you have it attractive to them. And so that's where I would think about that. And for anybody looking at crypto, like any altcoins or anything like that, just don't. Just, this is not financial advice, but there's a lot better places to put your money than into altcoins or anything else outside of most crypto. And in fact, like even Bitcoin and stuff like that, it's so volatile. There's no intrinsic value. You really need to think through before you're even investing in something like that.

• 56:59Andrew Giancola?

  So what I would say is for you specifically, is to focus your time and energy finding a job. Find a proven investment plan that's going to allow you to retire when you want to retire and start to execute, execute, execute. That's the entire goal. So awesome question. I am so sorry that you have to go through this layoff round. I'm so sorry that you have to deal with this, especially at 47. But you have so much time left. I promise you, you will land on your feet and you will be doing some pretty cool stuff if you lock in and do some of these stuff step by step. Thank you so much for that question. I truly appreciate it. And thank you all for listening to this podcast episode. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you. If you want to ask a question, feel free to shoot me an email and you may get your question answered on the show. Also, if you're getting value out of this episode, make sure you follow and leave a five-star rating and review.

• 57:43Andrew Giancola?

  It truly does help us spread this message. Cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star rating and reviews. And if you want to learn how to invest, even if you only have $5, $10, $25, or if you have thousands and thousands of dollars and you want to learn how to invest, Master Money Academy is the place to do this. I teach you how to invest, how to build a DIY portfolio. My goal is financial education for you inside Master Money Academy. But in addition, if you get stuck, you get to ask me questions on the weekly coaching calls and you get to talk directly to me. I get to know pretty much everybody inside Master Money Academy. It's super fun. So if you want to talk to me, if you want to have conversations with me about your money or your finances or investing, Master Money Academy is the place to do that. And we have the community piece. We have courses. We have lessons. There's so much going on in Master Money Academy.

• 58:27Andrew Giancola?

  In addition to, we've been doing weekly masterclasses lately that have been absolutely awesome. We have a couple of masterclasses coming up in the next two weeks, all about dividend ETFs and dividend stocks. So that's going to be a really fun thing as well. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you, and we will see you on the next episode.