Can You Achieve FIRE with Only Stocks? (Money Q&A)

In this Money Q&A episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we will talk about can you achieve FIRE with only stocks money. Watch this episode live on Youtube We will answer these questions: What to do if I’m a contract worker? My salary is not deducted for retirement Can you discuss life insurance options and what to get? How to get a leadership job without internship experience? What’s the best way to navigate paying off student loans? Should I sell my rental to pay off my 6.5% primary mortgage? Can you FI/RE with only stocks, or do you need real estate? My girlfriend is getting $220k, age 23, debt-free, lives at home. What should she do? How to have a conversation with your partner about finances? Best points credit card for wedding + travel hacking? How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off! DELL: Get a new Dell AI PC starting at $749.99, at Dell.com/ai-pc. This episode is sponsored by Plaud https://www.plaud.ai/ — an AI wearable gadget that takes notes of meetings and calls. With Plaud, you don’t have to take notes and make summaries anymore. Links Mentioned in This Episode: The Insurance You MUST HAVE and What You Don't Need Everything you Need to Know About Your Student Loans (and How to Prepare to Start Paying Them Off!) 8 Steps to Running The Numbers on a Rental Property (THIS YEAR!) How to Create a Bulletproof Wealth Protection Plan How Much Should You Have Saved in Your Roth IRA (BY AGE!) The Ultimate Guide to Managing Money Together as a Married Couple How to Master Credit Cards (and Beat The Banks!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz 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?

  Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards. And we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together. Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business. And you could do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. 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.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

  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. 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, can you achieve financial independence with only stocks on this episode of Money Q and A?

• 2:26Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew from MasterMoney.co and today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to dive into your questions on this episode of Money Q and A. If you 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 your favorite podcast player is. And if you're getting value out of the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you want to follow along on YouTube, it's just my name, Andrew Giancola, and if you search that, you will see all of the episodes pop up on YouTube there. And you can follow along

• 3:09Andrew Giancola?

  with our outlines and some of the stuff that we are talking about on YouTube. So highly, highly recommend you check it out there too as well. Now today, we're going to be diving into can you achieve financial independence with only stocks and a bunch more of your questions like can you discuss life insurance options and what to get? How to get a leadership job without internship experience? What is the best way to navigate and pay off student loans? Should I sell my rental to pay off my 6.5% primary mortgage? That's a big one. Can you achieve financial independence with only stocks or do you need real estate? One person is getting a $220,000 inheritance and wondering what to do with it. How to have conversations with your partner about finances and the best points credit card for a wedding and travel hacking. So this is an action-packed Money Q and A. It's more

• 3:53Andrew Giancola?

  so a rapid-fire Money Q and A. So we're going to dive into each of these questions. Without further ado, let's get into it.

• 4:00Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So the first question is, I am a contract worker and I don't know what to do. My salary is not deducted for retirement. What should I do when it comes to retirement accounts? So if you are someone out there who is a contracted worker and you don't get access to traditional 401k, if you don't get access to a traditional 401k, still want to build for retirement, you have a number of different options. First is you can start with an IRA. So if you want to get something where it's a pre-tax deduction, then you can look at something like an IRA. Or a Roth IRA. Both of those are great places to start. Roth or traditional is depending on your income in tax bracket, but those are a great place where anybody can open an IRA or a Roth IRA, which depends on your income limits, those types of things. But if you are looking for option one, that is the first place I'd look.

• 4:44Andrew Giancola?

  Secondly, if you are self-employed, let's say, for example, they pay you into an LLC and you're a contract worker, you have an LLC where all of your clients pay you into that one location. Then you can look at something like a solo 401k. In fact, the solo 401k for solopreneurs or people who work by themselves is one of the most powerful accounts out there because you can contribute as the employee and the employer. So you can get a lot more money into your solo 401k. So in 2025 alone, if you are under the age of 50, the total combined limit for those under the age of 50 is $70,000 that you can get in this account and $77,500 for those between ages 50 to 59. And if you're between the ages of 60 and 63,

• 5:29Andrew Giancola?

  you can contribute up to $81,250 into the solo 401k. So this is a very powerful account because you can be the employee and the employer. And this can drastically increase the amount that you get into some of these accounts. Very, very powerful account to get started with. So if you are someone who has an LLC and you're a contractor and they're paying you into that LLC, I would highly recommend at least looking into that and doing your research on that so that you can see if that would be a good fit for you. Then I would automate all my contributions monthly, making sure those are automatically going into those accounts. And then keeping track of expenses too, because you're going to deduct the business costs to lower your taxable income if you utilize something like this. So because you're flying solo, if you are flying solo, you have more flexibility, but you're also just going to have more responsibility.

• 6:14Andrew Giancola?

  So you want to treat your retirement like a business expense. And so it's really, really important to do that. So those are some of the options you have. You can look at an IRA, you can look at a solo 401k. Those are some of the easy ones to get started with. Can you discuss life insurance options and what to get? Yes. So this is something where we have a couple of episodes on this, but I'm going to talk through some of the options that are available and what you can do based on those options. So life insurance is actually pretty simple. There are a lot of complicated life insurance products out there. You may hear things like infinite banking. You may hear an IUL, which a lot of people on TikTok try to peddle IULs. You may hear someone say something like whole life. And all of these different policies may fit certain criteria, but for most of them, including an IUL or universal life,

• 6:58Andrew Giancola?

  those are ones that I would avoid at all costs. The fees are way too high and typically you're lining someone else's pocket by investing in those. What do I mean by that? When you invest in some of these policies, you are paying sometimes 10 times more than what you would pay for for just traditional term life insurance, which is what I have personally and which is what everyone that I talk to, who is in my circle, who asks me, what should I do about life insurance? Term life insurance is always the thing that I look for. So term life insurance is something that you can go out and get. And the way that it works is let's say, for example, that you're 30 years old. Well, if you're 30 years old and you want to have life insurance up to the age of 60, for the next 30 years, you can buy term life insurance for that term, for 30 years, and you will have coverage throughout that timeframe. Now, the idea behind this is that during that timeframe,

• 7:43Andrew Giancola?

  you're also going to be building up wealth. So you're not going to need life insurance after the age of 60 because you're going to have retirement accounts that are fully funded, that can cover your lifestyle and take care of your family at the same time. And so term insurance, because it has this caveat where it terms, when most people don't die before the age of 60, and so it terms because of that, this makes this type of insurance much cheaper. So it covers you when you need it. But then when you don't need coverage anymore, you don't have to make massive payments throughout the rest of your life to make sure somebody gets your life insurance benefit. And so this is why I love term insurance because it's so much cheaper. So for example, sometimes life is going to change and you're going to reevaluate your insurance situation.

• 8:26Andrew Giancola?

  So my wife and I were just looking at our estate plan, for example, and we wanted to make sure that whoever inherited our kids, like if my wife and I went on vacation, we got a plane Accident and we both didn't make it. Well, if we both didn't make it at the same time, who is going to take our kids? So we identified who is going to take our kids. And then from there, we tried to identify, okay, well, how are they going to take care of our kids? And deal with the financial responsibility of that? Well, we're going to have some finances, obviously in place for them. But in addition, if we get the right term life insurance policies, we can ensure that whoever takes care of our kids is covered by that term insurance. It's going to cover all the expenses. And then our money that we worked hard to build and grow over time can then go to our kids when they come of age. In addition to some other things that'll be in the trust.

• 9:10Andrew Giancola?

  And so we reevaluated how we looked at this and increased the amount of term coverage that we had. And we went with Policy Genius, which I highly recommend Policy Genius. They are who I've gotten all my term insurance from. And they just make it super, super easy when you do this. And so usually you're going to go out there and you're going to just fill out some forms. And usually people will ask me, well, how much term insurance do I need? Typically, my rule is anywhere from eight to 12 times your income. For me, I'm like right in the middle. I always get 10 times the income typically, and that usually is enough to be A okay. If you have a super high income and you're like, well, they're not going to need as much income if I didn't make it. Then that could be something where you reduce it a little bit or just figure out how much coverage is needed in order for them to get through the situation that arises.

• 9:55Andrew Giancola?

  And so overall, term coverage is a great, great place to get that started. So highly recommend Policy Genius. I would check them out, linked in the, they're also a sponsor of this podcast, but they're a sponsor of this podcast because I use them. And so really, really great place to protect your loved ones. And again, insurance is not an investment. If somebody is pitching you life insurance as an investment, run. That is not the direction that you want to be going in, in my opinion. The next question is, how do I get a leadership job without internship experience? This is a good question. I think that there is a lot of things that you need to be doing in college outside of just going to class, making sure you get good grades. In fact, your grades matter a lot less than what I'm about to tell you matters in the long run when it comes to the real world.

• 10:38Andrew Giancola?

  And so the biggest thing that you need to do is as you start going through college and as you get to the end of college is A, you need to make sure that you are Now, one big way to network is obviously those internships. If you don't have internship experience, you're going to have to start networking at a bunch of different events. Meaning that what career path do you want to take? And what are some events surrounding that career path? Maybe there are career fairs out there. We'll definitely need to go to those, even if it has a bunch of different careers there, and start having conversations with people. But secondarily, you need to start networking at different events within the industry that you are targeting. So if you want to become an engineer, then what are some events that a bunch of engineers go to in order to learn more about their craft? Are there events out there that you can go to conferences or whatever else,

• 11:22Andrew Giancola?

  where you can start to meet people, shake hands, start chatting with people and starting conversations? This is a very important thing that you need to be doing. Because conferences, I cannot tell you, at first I was anti-conference. And I was the person that was like, ah, what's the point of that? But every time I go to a conference, I meet really valuable connections that become lifelong friends, but also lifelong contacts that we provide value to each other. And so this could be something where you can go and meet really cool people that are going to help you find a job. They're going to help you with entry level roles. They're going to help you land at different firms. If you're continuing on the engineering example, and they're going to help you do a bunch of different things. Also, are there events where people in your industry go to volunteer? If there are, go out there and see if you can help and volunteer. Join clubs, join local nonprofits.

• 12:07Andrew Giancola?

  Look for side projects for some of those engineering firms. Are there things that they hire out just contract labor? Can you work with contract labor? Now, networking is, I cannot stress how important networking is. 70% of jobs now are landed via networking. And so you need to make sure that you are networking, networking, networking. I personally know for a fact, I don't network enough. This is something I'm continuously trying to work on. I need to network more. Everybody listening to this podcast needs to network more. The more people you know, the better off you will be in the long run, especially if you actually have valuable relationships with those folks. And then tailor your resume with leadership skills, not just titles. So talk through problem solving, team coordination and all that kind of stuff. I know there's a lot of AI-generated resume stuff out there. You can tailor it towards some of the specific things that you're thinking through.

• 12:53Andrew Giancola?

  But it's really, really important. To make sure that you're kind of thinking through this networking, networking, networking. You're gonna have to meet more people. That is the only way to really get a leadership role without that internship experience. Now, entry level jobs, if you get into one the correct way, if you can't get a leadership role, is gonna help you as long as there's room for growth. It's gonna help you tremendously in the long run, too. Especially if you take a job where you can learn a ton from somebody in the industry. So let's say, for example, that you wanted to get into social media marketing. Well, if you wanted to get into social media marketing and Gary Vee was out there looking for an assistant to help him with something. Maybe it's not exactly what you want to be doing, but if you become Gary Vee's assistant, you're gonna learn social media marketing and marketing

• 13:33Andrew Giancola?

  very, very quickly because you went and were the assistant of someone who was some of the best in the game at this thing. So that is something I think you need to make sure that you understand is that it's not always just about the titles. It's also just making sure that you find an avenue where you can learn a ton and then grow from there. Number four, what is the best way to navigate paying off student loans? All right, so first thing we're gonna do is we'll have an entire episode coming out on this topic because it's changed a lot since the last time I've done an episode. Last time I did an episode on this was probably two or three years ago. So we are probably due for a new student loan episode because a lot of rules, a lot of regulations have changed from administration to administration. And so a lot of things are shifting. A lot of Americans are struggling with this.

• 14:15Andrew Giancola?

  And so it's very, very important that we talk through this. I'm gonna give you a bird's eye view of kind of some of the things I would think through, but at the same time, again, know that we will be doing a full-blown episode on this in the coming months. First, I want you to start with clarity. So I want you to log into student8.gov and understand your loan types. I want you to understand your interest rates. I want you to write this down and I want you to understand your loan servicer. You need to know what the heck you're dealing with here. If you don't know what you're dealing with, you are blind to what actions you need to be taking. Because if you have a high-interest student loan, for example, if it's above a 6% interest rate, then I think you're dealing with something that you really need to make sure that you were taking care of. If you have a lower interest rate, then you can make the minimum payments and kind of carry on going forward for a little while until you decide exactly what you want to do with those student loans.

• 14:58Andrew Giancola?

  Now, if you are struggling, or you have low income to pay off that student loan, you can look at something like an income-driven repayment plan. Meaning, you can get your payments reduced if your income is low. So you can look into that. When you log into studentA.gov, there's going to be some information on how to do that. If you work in public service, you can look into PSLF, which can help you get your loans forgiven after 10 years. If you are not eligible for forgiveness, you can look into one of two options. You can do the debt snowball, or the debt wrecking ball, which is the debt avalanche. Same thing. The debt snowball means you order your student loans in order of balance, not interest rate, but of balance. And so, lowest balance first, all the way to highest balance. And you pay off the lowest balance first, then you go to the next one, then you go to the next one.

• 15:42Andrew Giancola?

  The debt avalanche is the reversed order, which is the mathematically fastest way to pay it off, but psychologically, the debt snowball is proven by tons of studies to be the way that most people actually stick with it and pay their debt off. And so, with the debt avalanche, what you're doing is you're going highest interest rate to lowest interest rate and paying it off in that order. So, that is the two options that you have. For me, I'd probably do the debt snowball just for motivation. You know, you get the smallest balance, boom, that one's paid off, one after another. Now, if you only have one big giant student loan, then you're just going to have one to attack, and so that changes everything. Also, if you have a really high interest rate, consider and see if you can refinance in some way, shape, or form, but only if you have stable income and don't need forgiveness options.

• 16:24Andrew Giancola?

  Because once you refinance these, you can lose your forgiveness options down the line if you need some forgiveness options. So just making sure that you think through that. But the plan depends on your goals. In that episode, I'm going to kind of dive into all these different avenues, and how to approach each of these avenues, because it's a bigger question overall, but I wanted to give you just some quick tips before that episode comes out. All right. Question number five is should I sell my rental to pay off my 6.5% primary mortgage? Now with this, it depends on a couple of different factors. Now, number one is for the most part, I would not sell my rental to pay off my 6.5% primary mortgage. That rental, if it's an asset and if it's cash flowing, then it's probably not something I would sell. When it comes to your mortgage, if your mortgage is slightly in that high interest debt range,

• 17:10Andrew Giancola?

  it's not something that I am really quick to pay off because eventually you'll be able to probably refinance the mortgage long term. So when it comes to high interest debt, yes, your mortgage can fall into that high interest debt category. But at the same time, this is the only caveat to that because it is not one that I would just race to pay off as fast as possible. Your mortgage is the only outlier that I would say that with. The reason is because it would take you years and years and years and years and years to pay that off. You would not reap the benefits of compound interest when it comes to investing your dollars long term. But in addition, again, you could refinance your mortgage down the line, get a lower interest rate once those rates drop. And so that's the way I would kind of think about this. Now, if you don't want to be in real estate anymore and you're like, I'm going to sell this house and this rental property and I want to allocate those dollars somewhere else, there's a couple of things that you can do. Again, you still don't have to go, you know, all in on your mortgage.

• 17:55Andrew Giancola?

  What you could do is either take those dollars and invest them and/or, you know, index funds, ETFs, put them in retirement accounts, that type of stuff. But I probably would not pay off the mortgage. I would just try to refinance it when rates drop. Now, we don't know when rates are going to drop. That's the risk that you have to take. We have no idea when that's going to happen. But for me, I would kind of wait till those rates drop, refinance if I can get in the four, four range, somewhere in the, around there, four and a half maybe, and hope that, you know, this will make an impact. Honestly, you can also continue to refinance a few times if the numbers make sense. So if you get good at running the numbers on refinancing and what those closing costs are going to be, then you can refinance, you know, every percentage point or so. And just looking at the basis points and saying to yourself, okay, well, I can look and I can refinance and it will still be, I'll still be better off than what the closing costs are currently costing me.

• 18:40Andrew Giancola?

  So a couple of things to do there, but the point is run the numbers and look at it. I would not probably sell a rental to pay off a 6.5% primary mortgage if it's cash flowing. So if it's a cash flowing asset, that's probably not something I would personally do if I were in your situation.

• 18:58Andrew Giancola?

  Number six is can you achieve financial independence with only stocks? Or do you need a real estate? Well, this is a really, really good question, and there are countless examples of folks who have achieved financial independence only with stocks and not with real estate. I'm going to give you some examples and some things that you can actually use as motivation. And then I'll explain it all after. So some examples are if you read the book, The Simple Path to Wealth, that is J.L. Collins, he goes through exactly how he did it with only stocks. And he actually bought just one index fund, and that was it. Mr. Money Mustache is another great example of somebody who has done it, who lives a very frugal lifestyle, but it is a very interesting way to think about it. You can read the book like Your Money or Your Life. There's a ton of books out there that talk about this, but you can definitely achieve financial independence.

• 19:41Andrew Giancola?

  You don't need to be a real estate investor in order to do that. So index and fund investors are going to follow the 4% rule. So with real estate, what you do is you figure out how much cash flow you need to replace how much money you need to make every single month. With index funds and ETFs, we utilize something called the 4% rule, meaning that you build a portfolio up where you can draw down 4% of that portfolio every single year, and then you adjust for inflation thereafter. And so say, for example, you want to spend $80,000 per year. Well, what do you need to draw down 4% of to get $80,000 per year? It's going to be $2 million bucks. So you can divide $2 million by that 4%, or you can look at $2 million and you could say, hey, I need to draw down 4% every single year, and that's $80,000 per year. And so you can do the math that way, or you could just use the 25X rule, which I always talk about, which is the simple way to get there in the reverse order, meaning that if

• 20:26Andrew Giancola?

  you want to spend $100,000 bucks a year, and you multiply that by 25, that's $2.5 million need to be invested in order to draw down every single year. And so you'll need to build up 25 times your annual expenses, whatever that number is. You identify how much you want to spend on retirement. You need to build up 25 times those annual expenses and then go from there. Now, real estate isn't required, but also offers cash flow and diversification. So if you wanted to add real estate, you could, but it just is not something that is required whatsoever. You can just do it with one, you can do it with the other, and it just depends on running the numbers and making sure the math works. If you don't want to manage tenants, if you don't want to manage toilets, if you don't want to deal with replacing a bunch of roofs or any of that kind of stuff, then I would go with investing in stocks. Easier route to go, but if you do like that stuff and you enjoy having a tangible asset

• 21:11Andrew Giancola?

  that you can see and feel and go to, and you like managing the business of real estate, then that might be something where you can have a hybrid method. I go hybrid. I like to have both, but some people are not made for real estate. I can tell you that right now. It's not fun for some people to have to get calls on tenants and toilets and all that kind of stuff, replacing tenants, those types of things. So the key point is to choose the vehicle that kind of fits your personality, that you enjoy more. For most people, that's going to be stocks, bonds, real estate, you have to have more knowledge and you have to have an understanding of how to run the numbers. And so, by the way, if you want to invest in real estate, we have a rental property calculator that we offer. I think it's 19 bucks. That's how I run all my numbers. We have an entire episode on it, but if you're interested in that, you can check that out.

• 21:54Andrew Giancola?

  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 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

• 22:36Andrew Giancola?

  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 dot com promo code PFP for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Leesa.com promo code PFP. 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. Exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track,

• 23:20Andrew Giancola?

  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. 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.

• 24:05Andrew Giancola?

  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. 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.

• 24:49Andrew Giancola?

  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 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.

• 25:27Andrew Giancola?

  Listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business.

• 26:09Andrew Giancola?

  Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. All right. So the next thing I want to talk about before we jump into the next question is there was

• 26:50Andrew Giancola?

  a massive data breach that exposed 184 million plaintext passwords for Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and more. So if you haven't heard this story, we actually reported this story originally on our other podcast called The Business Show, which is like daily market and finance news. And on that show, we talked about this major cybersecurity incident that exposed more than 184 user credentials, including passwords in emails from platforms like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Instagram, Snapchat, and even financial and government services. Now, this is a really important one because so many people were impacted. 184 million user credentials means that it could be up to half the entire country was impacted by this one.

• 27:31Andrew Giancola?

  So this was discovered by a cybersecurity researcher, and he found the data sitting on an unprotected file online entirely unencrypted without password protection or anything like that and stored in a single plain text file. Now it included usernames, it included addresses, login URLs, passwords for both mainstream tech platforms and critical services such as banking and healthcare portals. So he also went in and he verified the identity of the breach and he started to call a couple of people that were on that list and they said, yeah, these are my credentials. And he went through and kind of randomly was calling a bunch of different people there and it suggests the file is reasonable and actionable. So this is a big deal. We report on these all the time because you need to know, but this is a really big deal for a number of different reasons.

• 28:13Andrew Giancola?

  A, if you have passwords that you are using like, hey, it's my dog Fido 2347, like a very easy to identify password. And you have it for multiple different websites, you need to change that plan. That needs to completely change right now because this is happening more and more and more. And you're going to have to use those really unique passwords. Like if you use Google passwords or if you use one password or whatever else, you need to make sure you're using a very unique password for each website now individually. I know it's annoying to have to keep track of, but that's why you use tools to help you keep track of it. Secondly, because they got this information, so they got this information, usernames, email addresses, login URLs and passwords from all these different platforms. So if you think about Google, like if you have a Gmail account, you could be compromised. If you have an Instagram account, you could be compromised, all these different places.

• 28:56Andrew Giancola?

  If that's the case, and they just get a piece of your information, all they have to do is find the rest of your information online in order for you to be dramatically compromised, meaning they can go to a different data broker and they could say to them, hey, do you know any more information about this person? Can I buy it off of you? And these data brokers can sell your personal information to folks on the internet who get access to stuff like this. And what happens is once they get the rest of your information, now they can open bank accounts in your name. Now they can open credit cards in your name. Now they can open student loans in your name. And this causes a massive problem. And so when that happens, I highly recommend that you utilize a service called Delete Me. So Delete Me is a service that removes your personal information online from all of these data brokers

• 29:37Andrew Giancola?

  so that you are way less likely to get compromised if something like this happens to you. 184 million different usernames is not a joke here. The likelihood of your Name being in there is much higher than some other data breaches out there. So making sure you button this up, use unique passwords, use a service like Delete Me. If you go to joindelete.me.com/pfp20, you get 20% off their plans there. I've been using Delete Me for years and they removed my personal information from thousands of different websites. If you don't use Delete Me, it's going to take you hours and hours and hours to get that information removed. So I highly recommend them. They save you time. It is not expensive at all, in my opinion. And so I would highly recommend you use Delete Me. It is one of the best services out there. Also, when this kind of stuff happens, you need to make sure that you're informed and you need to make sure,

• 30:22Andrew Giancola?

  A, do I have the right plan in place if this was going to happen again? If you don't, make some changes, make some shifts. Sometimes your protection plan online is just a gradual shift over time. And so making sure you make some of these changes and making some of the shifts can be very, very powerful. We have episodes talking about how to have a protection plan online, but I just wanted to keep bringing that up as these come up. The next one is my girlfriend is getting $220,000 upfront at age 23. She is debt-free, lives at home. What should she do? Well, first of all, this is a huge opportunity to make sure you do the right thing. When you are that young, $220,000 can go really, really far. Okay? Let's just have a fun little game of how far can these dollars go?

• 31:04Andrew Giancola?

  Let's say, for example, that she took this $220,000 and put it into an investment with a 8% rate of return. We're gonna, eh, let's go 10 because it makes all the haters mad. Google the S and P 500 historic returns. That's what you're gonna get. Let's just do a 10% rate of return, then I'll do an 8% rate of return for the haters. All right? And so what we're gonna do is she's 23. If she invested this money for 37 years. So she wanted to keep it until she's age of 60. She wanted to invest those dollars over time. 37 years and she didn't contribute another dollar to it. Okay? If she had that money invested, compounding interest is so cool. She would have $7,488,680. Almost $7.5 million. Okay?

• 31:46Andrew Giancola?

  That's at a 10% rate of return. Let's drop it to 8%. This is why that number is really important. $3.7 million at an 8% rate of return. That's the difference between those two. When you're retirement planning, always be conservative with your rate of return. Really, really important, but I do look at the historic rate of return and I'm like, "Well, let's see what the 10% is always because I want to know because that's what the S and P 500 has done for the last few decades. And so it's really important to at least look at what's the possibility of this. Now, if she started to add $400 every single month, all of a sudden, it goes to $9.1 million at a 10% rate of return and at an 8% rate of return, it goes to $4.8 million, a big difference on that 8% rate of return. It's almost a million dollar difference. It's obviously a drastic difference on 10 too, but it's going to be a big difference on how you can retire.

• 32:29Andrew Giancola?

  So this is a huge windfall for a lot of folks. Now, let's just look at, let's just say she got a good job and she's really good with her finances and decided, "Okay, I'm going to start investing $1,000 a month in the same account." Well, over 37 years, at that 8% rate of return, she'd get 6.3 million and at a 10% rate of return, she'd get $11.6 million just from investing an additional 1,000. Now, let's say, for example, she's like, "I don't want to retire yet. I like my job. I'm going to go 45 years." Well, that would, this is the crazy part. If you just increase the time horizon, $1,000 a month with a 10% rate of return over the course of 45 years is $25 million. So that's where you're on the precipice of just making a drastic difference with just a couple more years if you invest these dollars. I'm saying all this to say, first, I love doing

• 33:13Andrew Giancola?

  the numbers and just running the math on some of that stuff because I'm a nerd about that. But I'm saying all this to say, this is a huge opportunity and this is why it's a huge opportunity. Now, here's what I would do in your shoes. A, you're going to do your own research. None of this is advice. I'm just telling you what I would do in your shoes. If I had $0 and I was starting from the beginning, A, I would follow the 1-3-6 method, which you can go to all the way up to six and I would make sure I have an emergency fund in place for life. Life matters to have protection there. And so I'd make sure I have six months of expenses there. Now, she doesn't have that many expenses, so you could set aside 15,000 to 20,000 bucks in a high-yield savings account because you don't pay rent currently. So that's one. Two, the Roth IRA is a very powerful place to put dollars when you're young, especially if you don't make a lot of money. Now, maybe you do make a lot of money, but if you don't make a lot of money,

• 33:56Andrew Giancola?

  it's a very powerful place to watch your dollars grow completely tax-free because your time horizon is so long, the majority of your growth is going to be tax-free dollars. In fact, if you look at the numbers I was just Just running, let's see if I still have it here. If you're looking at the numbers I was just running, if you got to that $25 million balance over the course of 45 years, you would have contributed 540,000 and $24 million would be completely tax-free if that was in a Roth IRA, for example. Now, you can't get $220,000 in a Roth IRA all at once, but in that example, over time, you'd have a massive amount of money, is what I'm saying, invested into something like a Roth IRA, and a massive amount of it could be completely tax-free. So, just thinking through that over time, obviously, you can't get that much in a Roth IRA. For that scenario, you'd have to do some other things, which we talked about in past episodes,

• 34:41Andrew Giancola?

  but that's just an example. If you put them, let's say your Roth IRA grew to $1 million. Typically, over the course of 30 years, we've used this example a number of times. About 880,000 of that is going to be completely tax-free. So, it's really cool what you could do with a Roth IRA. Also, I would look at opening, if you have a 401K at your work, you could do that. Or if you run a business or something else, you can look at a traditional IRA. If you don't, you could open a traditional brokerage account and start investing the rest of the money there and growing that money over time. And then, you could also make sure that you have a written out investment plan. So, if I were you, since you're so young, you can even talk to like a certified financial planner, but get a written plan, a fee-only planner, where you get a written plan where they're not taking a percentage of your assets under management, and they put a plan together for you

• 35:24Andrew Giancola?

  that's going to help you grow this money based on your risk tolerance and all those different things. And then, don't rush into any big purchases, you know, doing things like buying a house at this age, when you don't really know what you're going to be doing with your life yet, or going out there and, you know, spending this money on stuff that will not matter in the long run, is a very expensive mistake when it comes to compound interest. You are so young and these dollars are so valuable that it is incredibly powerful. So, if you haven't checked this out yet, so if you go to mastermoney.co/resources, we have something called the Wealth Builders Matrix. And in the Wealth Builders Matrix, it's a resource that shows you, here is how much your dollars are worth based on how old you are and how long your time horizon is. And it is a really cool resource to show every single dollar that you invest over time, how much it's going to be worth.

• 36:07Andrew Giancola?

  And I love utilizing that resource, a lot of people like it too. So, that's how I would think about this money, is I would make sure that you are really careful how you use this. If I were in your shoes, I probably wouldn't spend any of it, and I would keep all of it for future me, because it is so incredibly powerful, what you could do with these dollars. So, that's how I would think about it, but just let me know if you have any other questions on that. How do you have a conversation with your partner about finances? So this is a really good question and you are in luck because the episode before this one came out, we did an entire episode on this on like the ultimate guide on how to do this. So if you go to mastermoney.co/resources, you can get the resource on us talking through that. But at the same time, what I want you to do is I'm going to give you a quick bird's eye view

• 36:49Andrew Giancola?

  of some of the stuff we chatted about in that episode so that you can, you know, get a starting point. First is we're not going to open up with this conversation when we start to chat about this with, we need a budget, we need to make sure that we are tightening up, we need to cut back on our expenses. We need, we need, we need. Instead, here's how I want the conversation to go. What do you want our life to look like in the next five years? Start to dream about what you want life to look like. And here's why. Money is a tool and money is a tool to get what you want out of life. For some people who put their money in retirement accounts, you know what they're saying with those dollars? They're saying, I want to be able to have financial freedom. That's what they're saying with their dollars. You vote with your dollars with which what you want to do in life. If you say, I want to put this into a designer handbag,

• 37:31Andrew Giancola?

  you are sacrificing more hours that you have to work in order to buy that handbag. If you say, I want to go out and buy this brand new car, you're saying, I am willing to sacrifice more time, more energy and more of my work in order to buy this depreciating asset, which is a car. If you say, I want to take my dollars and invest in real estate, you're saying, I want to accelerate my path to financial freedom, invest in real estate. If you're saying, I want to spend more money on a vacation, you're saying, I value the time spent with family and friends and I want to spend more time and more money and energy on that. Do you see how your spending decisions are going to dictate what you're really voting for? You're voting in life with your dollars. And so where your dollars flow and where your dollars go

• 38:14Andrew Giancola?

  means that you are voting for a very specific thing. And so at the same time, as you start to think about this, you say to your partner, where do we want to be in five years from now? Because this is going to allow you both to dream together. This is going to allow you both to have a conversation. Maybe it's, I want to buy a house. I want to have roots down and I want to go out and buy a house and I want to be able to buy a nicer house than the one that we're in right now. Or maybe it's like, hey, I want to have. A little more time to spend with the kids and I want to have the flexibility to be able to reduce my workload. So I could spend more time with the kids or maybe you want to go on more vacations or you want to make sure that you're getting more in retirement accounts. You want to be debt free, whatever that is, where do you want to be in five years? Think about that first, what does your dream life look like? Okay, that's where you're starting.

• 38:56Andrew Giancola?

  Then you want to start to talk through your income, your debts, your spending habits. In the episode we just had before this one, we talked through all the questions to ask with your partner. I highly encourage if you're just starting off with this to use a money date, meaning you know, a 30 minute date every month to kind of talk through money and finances. But always start it with dreaming about stuff, always start it with the end goal in mind. Because this is going to help you get on the same page. There's no pointing fingers, there's no saying you did this or you did that. This is coming from a place that you both are on the same team and the same page. I truly believe that money talks should be about dreams and not spreadsheets. And so making sure that it's a team effort is the most important thing. So congrats on even thinking about that. That's awesome. Let me know if you have any other questions, though.

• 39:36Andrew Giancola?

  What is the best points credit card for wedding plus travel hacking? Oh, this is a good one. So if you guys don't know already, if you go to the personal finance podcast.com. We have a little icon at the top that says best credit cards. That is my credit card icon that will help you with all my favorite credit cards. It's affiliate link, yes, but it is all my favorite credit cards are out there. But we're going to talk through some of these that I think are pretty good. So my daily driver, which is in my wallet right now, is the Chase Sapphire Preferred. I've had it for a long time and it is one that has given me tremendous amount of benefits. I have a lot of Chase business cards and so having the preferred helps me kind of combine all those points into one. So that I can utilize those for trips and Chase's travel portal is absolutely fantastic. So that is a great one to look at. Another really, really good one is the Amex Gold.

• 40:22Andrew Giancola?

  So the Amex Gold card gets you 4X on restaurants and has some great transfer partners as well. Having the flexibility is really powerful. And so Amex has some great transfer partners, Chase has the best transfer partners in my opinion. Capital One is pretty good too, because they're flexible points. So you can look at the venture, something like that. We have all those on our site and you can kind of read through the differences and compare them. But those are some of the ones that I would start with. The Chase Sapphire is a great starting point, the Amex Gold is a great starting point, the Capital One. Venture is another great starting point. And then obviously never carry a balance, always pay it off in full. We actually have an episode that we did recently about all of our credit card rules. And that's a really good place to go there as well, but I would stack bonuses during major life events and you can travel for free on your honeymoon if you do that. So really, really good stuff there if you are looking for some of the big opportunities.

• 41:08Andrew Giancola?

  And then looking at which one has the best signup bonus currently can also help you a lot in terms of how far you can stretch those points and those dollars. So we'll have an updated travel hacking episode. Chris Hutchins from All the Hacks is going to come back on here too. We're going to chat about some more optimized credit card stuff. He goes deep in the weeds. So get ready for that one. It's gonna be a fun one. So without further ado, that is the last question that we have for today. 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, Androgen Cola on YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And share this episode with a family member, friend, coworker, whoever you think would get value out of this episode. Cannot thank you guys enough for being here. I truly appreciate

• 41:52Andrew Giancola?

  each and every single one of you and we will see you on the next episode.

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