10 Things to Do Before 2025 Ends

Don’t wait for New Year’s resolutions to take control of your money. We reveal 10 essential moves to make before 2025 ends - from maxing your employer match and crushing high-interest debt to unlocking tax-free growth and planning your abundance goals. Whether you’re optimizing your cash flow, reevaluating your net worth, or looking to reduce next year’s tax bill, this checklist will help you finish strong and start 2026 with confidence. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠NordVPN.com/MONEYGUY⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. [00:00:52.11]

• 0:51Brian Preston?

  You might think you've got your money in order, but is there something you're forgetting?

• 0:56Speaker 03

  Brent, I am so excited about this because we know that things can get crazy, life can get in the way, and sometimes the little financial things, they just fall through the cracks.

• 1:08Brian Preston?

  That's why today, we're going to go over 10 things you need to do with your money before 2025 ends to set yourself up for a stellar year ahead. Let's jump right in.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  Yeah Brent, a lot of people think that you have to wait until the new year to begin making changes, but we know there are a number of changes you can make before you get to the new year. And sometimes those small little adjustments can have huge impacts into what your financial life looks like.

• 1:38Brian Preston?

  Well, let me make it more exciting in the fact that not only this could have big results. I mean, think about lowering your taxes that you'll pay because we're going to be filing taxes before you know it in April. This could lower your tax bill. And how about the fact that you get to accelerate how much you're actually saving for retirement? Your future self will thank you for these changes.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  So a lot of people are going to be out there thinking, okay, guys, well, how do I start? Where do I think there's? Well, we actually have a mechanism that you can use as a tool to do that. And it is the Financial Order of Operations. Brent, hold the thing up. This shows is the nine steps of what you should do with your next dollar. But when it comes to year end planning, it's a nice recalibration to think through. Okay. Have I done all the things that I need to be doing at each step along the way?

• 2:23Brian Preston?

  So let's get right into this. Number one, by the way, cash is so important that it's not just one step of the financial order of operations. It's actually steps one and four.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  So we want you to count your quack.

• 2:37Brian Preston?

  Your quack?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  We want you.

• 2:41Brian Preston?

  Keep going. We want you to.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  We want you to count your cash. And one of the things we want you to answer is, do you have your highest deductible covered? Have you laid out? Okay. Here's my health insurance deductible. Here's my auto insurance deductible. Here's my home deductible. Whichever one is the highest. Do I have that covered? And if that's true, okay, do I also have a fully funded emergency fund? Do I have three to six months of living expenses in liquid cash? Ready to be available to keep my life out of the ditch?

• 3:08Brian Preston?

  Cash is also going to be the thing you're going to use for those big upcoming expenses. Do what if you're replacing a car? What if you have, you know, a heat and air system? Or some other thing that you need to plan for? Cash is going to be the thing that keeps you from making those desperate decisions.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  And then the other thing we want you to do is answer the question, where is my cash? If it's just sitting in your checking account or sitting in some low yield savings account, you are missing out on opportunity. Just because you have to have cash does not mean that it cannot still be working for you. So make sure you have that cash somewhere that is interest bearing. Right now, it is not that difficult to get something paying three and a half, 4% interest on that cash. Don't let it sit there wasting away.

• 3:51Brian Preston?

  Cash is exciting, but it doesn't have the sizzle of get that free money. And that leads to, guys, get to step two. Um, if you're not taking advantage of the free money that your employer has set aside for you, you are missing out.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  And unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that fall into this category. Don't be part of the 25%, the one in four people that are not getting their full match, or maybe not getting. Any match according to Vanguard. So the first question you have to ask before the end of the year is, am I contributing enough to get my full match? Did my employer say, okay, if you put in 6%, we'll put in 3%. If you put in 4%, we'll put in 4%. If you put in 10%, we'll put in, you get the idea. Make sure you understand the formula and you're doing at least enough to get all of that free money.

• 4:44Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And also people often say, hey, that 25% savings goal that you guys post, that's, that's a lot. How do you get there? I'll tell you one of the big ways, if your income is less than $200,000, you get to count that free money from your employer. So get in there and take advantage of that huge opportunity.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Another thing that we talk about that often gets overlooked here is people don't realize that if you have access to an employee stock purchase plan at your employer, that also counts as free money if your employer offers you an incentive like, okay, we're going to let you buy this stock, but we're going to let you buy it at a 15% discount, or we're going to have an offering period where we're going to look at the beginning price, we're going to look at the ending price, and we're going to pick the lowest price in this date range. All of those are different ways of getting free money. So if you have access to one of those plans, make sure you're not missing out.

• 5:34Brian Preston?

  Now, look, I know a lot of you, you're like, wait a minute, I've heard you guys talk about this. I'm going to have my human capital, but I'm also got my investment capital all tied up into this one employer. Yes, we know this is a risk, but this is how powerful the free money is. There's nothing that says that, yes, take advantage of this free money, but then, once this money builds up, you can create a strategic plan that will keep it to only 5% to 10% of your total net worth.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  And so when you're thinking about contributing to a 401k, when you're thinking about getting that free money, obviously, one question you have to answer is, okay, how much am I going to put in? And the answer is at least enough to get that free money. But the second question that you do need to answer is, how am I going to make my contributions? Am I going to be doing pre-tax 401k contributions? Or am I going to be doing Roth contributions?

• 6:20Brian Preston?

  Well, that's where it depends on how much income taxes you pay. And we talk often about marginal tax rates. That means what you're paying on your next dollar earned. By the way, this is a combined rate because you have to take into account the federal marginal rate, but then also your state might charge income taxes with its own marginal rate. Add those two marginal rates on what you pay at the next dollar to figure out what your combined rate is, and then we have a formula for you.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you add up those two rates and you are under 25%, then there's a really good chance you ought to consider contributing to Roth because you are in a low tax bracket. Tax-free growth is going to be super valuable for you. But if you add up those two marginal rates and it's above 30%, you may want to consider pre-tax contributions because the current year tax benefit is so valuable. You can almost think about it as a 30% imputed rate of return this year. Now, if you happen to fall in the gray zone, somewhere between 25% to 30%, you need to think about other extenuating factors like your tax rate now versus what you think in the future, your current account structure, how your buckets are filled up to make the determination which type of contribution is best for you.

• 7:30Brian Preston?

  And a lot of you are probably like, wait a minute, I just, okay, that makes sense. And finally, today was the day that I understand now what a marginal tax rate is. Now I just need to know what the numbers are. That's okay, we got you covered. I want you to go to moneyguy.com/resources and we have our 2025 Tax Guide. You can go quickly see, here's where my income is at, and this is where my marginal tax rate is. Now you'll have to go figure out your state marginal rate, but we'll at least get you the federal information so you'll have that much of a head start.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  All right, Brian, so we're using the financial order of operations to uncover some planning that we ought to be thinking through before the end of the year. And one of the things that we get so excited about this time of year is that it comes up to one of our favorite days. And one of our favorite days every single year is net worth day. And one of the beautiful things that your net worth statement does, if you're tracking it every single year, is it allows you to see, okay, what falls on my balance sheet? What are all the things that I own? And I lay that beside, what are all the things that I owe? And if you have some things on your net worth statement like credit card debt, high interest auto debt, consumer loans, we want you before the end of the year to begin thinking, how

• 8:42Speaker 03

  am I going to begin getting my liabilities under control?

• 8:45Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I hope people will take advantage. We have two, we have a free version. If you just go to moneyguy.com/resources, we have a free net worth template for you. But if you're somebody who really wants to accelerate your journey and kind of have that dashboard view to see what the changes are. Cause a lot of times when you're in the beginning stages, you don't even know what you should be looking at. We try to give you a shortcut on that by creating our own dashboard for you with our net worth tool. By the way, this is the same tool Bo and I are using for our own personal net worth statements. You can go to learn.moneyguy.com if you want to go ahead and get that accelerated head start.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Now, Brian, you talk all the time about like, if you're an investor, a really good rate of return is somewhere, man, if you can get like eight to 10% annualized on your return, that's amazing. And yet we know that there are debt providers out there, credit card companies out there that are charging 15, 20, 25% interest rates. If you have those kinds of debt on your balance sheet, it is going to be so hard for you to begin building wealth. So between now and the end of the year, we want you to see, okay, how much bad debt can you begin to extinguish? How much of that can you wipe off so that you get to start next year, nice and clean?

• 9:55Brian Preston?

  So we'll start with the easy one. That's why we gave it to me as I take the easy stuff is that credit card use is A okay, but credit card debt, no way. Cause when Bo was talking about those banks and lenders that are probably charging you 20, 25% or greater, he's talking about your credit cards. That is no go land, guys. That is high interest debt. I'll even, I'm going to say something that's my hot take. I even think 0% credit cards and that whole transfer game is a fool's errand. It's not worth the hassle factor because just the consequences of screwing that up can really side rail you very quickly. So we consider all credit card debt to be high interest.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  I love that. All credit card debt is high interest, but that must mean there are other kinds of debts that might not always be high interest. And there are in fact, and it's, it's types of debt that a lot of people have, whether it be auto loans or whether it be student loans. So if we just think about auto loans, we think that if you are in your twenties and you have an auto loan. Greater than 10%, assuming that you still fall into the 238 category and your auto loan is above 10%, we would consider that to be high interest. Anything below that, we would not get super aggressive paying off. In your 30s, we consider auto loan to be high interest if it's above 9%. And in your 40s, we consider auto loans to be high interest if it's above 8%.

• 11:17Brian Preston?

  Let me go ahead and put some troll repellent out there. Everybody needs to understand, cash is preferred for all car purchases, but we have a no hypocrite policy. When I was young, right out of college with that accounting degree, so excited to just get rip-roaring and start building wealth, I realized very quickly, I needed to have reliable transportation to get to that J O B, so I could actually start building wealth and I needed to go finance that car. So we've tried to give you these rules so that just in case you're at that starting blocks and you also are going to need to go buy a reasonable car, that's where 20% down, no longer than three years and not greater than 8% of your income, the 238 rule comes into play.

• 11:58Brian Preston?

  But of course, we'd love for you to pay cash. This is not a get out of free to go buy that fancy luxury car. And finance, this is only to get you to reliable transportation. Think Corolla, not Land Cruiser.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  All right. So that covers auto loans. What about student loans? Well, we have the same type of rule for student loans, but the numbers change a touch. If you're someone who's in your twenties and your student loans are above 6%, you may want to begin prioritizing paying those off. When you get to your 30s, if your student loans are above 5%, you may want to prioritize paying them off. And then if you're in your 40s and your student loan interest rate is above 4%, you may want to begin paying it off. That's where we would quantify those loans being high interest. And between now and the end of the year, we want you to start knocking that stuff off of your balance sheet.

• 12:45Brian Preston?

  Yeah, there's a lot of things going into these numbers and these guidelines like risk-free rates of returns. We save you all that madness just to tell you, hey, these are some good benchmarks. So you can quickly triage your financial life to make the right decision for how you're looking at your high interest debt.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  So now as we're thinking through, we're working through the financial order of operations to uncover things to do before the end of the year. Number four, we want you to maximize that tax-free money. That's right. You heard it right. The money that you will not have to pay income tax on. Brian, you say these are the favorite dollars inside of your portfolio.

• 13:20Brian Preston?

  Yeah, we get really serious about this because think about it, guys. Our government, they like taxing us and it's very few things that they create legal loopholes. We're on purpose. They've designed it as part of the process is we're going to give these benefits of tax-free growth. You have to ask yourself, why would they do that? The reason they do it is because it's good for the public. They want you to have healthcare covered. They want you to have retirement coverage. So they have incentivized through the tax system to say, hey, we're going to give you tax-free growth, but we're going to limit who can contribute. We're going to limit how much you can contribute. So you can quickly realize, hey, if they're going to create these huge benefits, but put all these restrictions, I better get in there and maximize where this free tax-free money is actually at.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  So let's talk about the first account where this is available. It's a health savings account. So one of the questions that we want you asking is, okay, was I eligible? Was I in a high deductible plan last year that makes me eligible to contribute to a health savings account? If the answer to that is yes, did I max it out for 2025? The max limits are $4,300 for single contributors and then $8,550 for family contributors. So that's the first question. Did I take care of 2025? But now, as we move into 2026, as we think about next year, open enrollment is likely coming up. So we want you answering the question, okay, what insurance plan makes the most sense for me? Should I go with the high deductible

• 14:47Speaker 03

  plan that's available? Or might there be another plan, a subsidized plan, a Cadillac plan that makes more sense? And you may be asking the question, okay, well, how do I decide? And we think that there's a math calculation you can do. What you want to do is you want to line up two columns and you want to compare the premium costs, how much each plan costs. You want to then make an estimation of what your out-of-pocket costs would be with each plan. With a high deductible plan, it would be hitting that deductible. With the other plan, it would be your copays and co- Insurance and those sort of things. You then want to factor in any employer incentives. Is your employer willing to put money into the HSA for you? And then lastly, we want you to factor in tax savings.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  You add up those two columns and you figure out, okay, for this next year, my best guess is that this plan makes the most sense for my family. And you ought to reconsider and reanalyze that every single year at open enrollment.

• 15:39Brian Preston?

  Look, guys, this is one of those, don't skip doing your homework is I know that there's this tendency, once you graduate high school, college, whatever your higher education is, homework is like, wow, I'm done with that. No, there's still gonna be a lot of math you have to do in life. And this is one of them because as you're growing your family, that's going to be a different year than the years that you're, you know, right fancy free out of college and you're not worried about, you know, growing a family or big life decisions. You've got to make sure that you're taking account. This is an annual enrollment. That's why I like doing these shows is typically the most automatic, you know, the most employers have around November, you to make these choices. Don't sleep on that. These are big opportunities. You can jump in, you can jump out.

• 16:18Brian Preston?

  You need to make sure personal finance is very personal, that you're not missing out on any opportunities to personalize that employer opportunity to maximize your financial life.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  And remember, funding the HSA is just the first part of the equation. We want you to be not like the 85% of folks who just use it as a slush fund. We want you to be like the 15% of folks that actually put that money to work. So make sure you get that HSA funded and then you let those dollars grow. So that's the first account, health savings accounts. There's another type of tax free account that we absolutely love and that account is a Roth IRA.

• 16:51Brian Preston?

  Yeah. Remember how I was talking about how the government has restricted how much you can put in? These Roth IRAs are so valuable. This is going to be your gateway into tax free millionaire. Can you imagine? I just, you want to get me excited. Thinking about having a double comma, seven figure portfolio that the government's not going to tax and I'm even going to potentially be able to pass it on to my heirs. Guys, this is the good stuff here. So good that the government restricts it. $7,000 annual contribution. Yes, if you get to be 50 and over, you can do an extra $1,000, but they're pretty much capping it around a $7,000. There's phase outs. Once your income, you make too much money, $236,000 for married filing jointly, $150,000 for single individuals.

• 17:34Brian Preston?

  Pay attention to these things. There's also this little known thing called, or well-known thing. Roth conversion strategies or backdoor Roths, we'll talk about that, but it's, it's one of those things, don't sleep on Roth IRAs, they're huge opportunities.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Now, maybe you're someone who you said, guys, I know I love Roth IRAs. I've been doing a Roth IRA, but man, I didn't know this, this year was going to be quite as good as it was. Or maybe my spouse went back to work this year. Maybe I got a bonus that I wasn't expecting and all of the sudden I recognized that I'm going to make too much money this year. I was ineligible. That's okay. These things happen, but what you want to do is before you file your taxes, before you get into the next year, if you can fix it now, you're going to make your life a whole lot easier. You need to look at, you need to go contact your custodian and say, hey, I was making these contributions. I put money in my Roth, I was ineligible. I need to go undo that contribution. I wanted to distribute that contribution. It won't be taxable to you unless there are earnings attributable that have to come

• 18:28Speaker 03

  out as well, but you can then pull that money out, undo it and look at one of these other strategies like potentially a backdoor Roth IRA contribution.

• 18:36Brian Preston?

  Yeah, we've done tons of content on that. We're trying to give you the ins and outs for year in planning, but definitely if you make too much money for the Roth, make sure your account structure is right. This is a measure twice, cut once, but definitely look into backdoor Roth contributions too.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Okay. So once we've maximized a tax-free account, so we've put the money in the HSAs, we've put the money in the Roth IRAs, now we get to go back to our employer-sponsored account. Now we get to go back and hit that maximum salary deferral limit, either in our 401k or our 403B or our 457 or our simple IRA, whatever, room we still have to max out, we want you to say, okay, between now and the end of the year, is something in my life going to happen that's going to allow me to hit that salary deferral threshold?

• 19:17Brian Preston?

  I think it's important, let's go ahead and throw the numbers out there. So people know what they're dealing with. If we're, you know, if you're in a 401k, 403B, all those, the alphabet soup that Bo threw out there with the numbers, $23,500, that is your 2025 number. If you're 50 and greater, it jumps up over to $31,000 because there is a catch-up and there's a unique thing that just kicked in. There's a, it's called a super catch-up for those that are 60 to 63. Pay attention to these unique opportunities because the government, once again, is trying to incentivize your ability.

• 19:50Brian Preston?

  Because it's good for society for you to have money in retirement. So they're trying to give you these little one ups. So you can go in there and maximize your financial opportunities.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  And we want you to recognize that our tax code is, it's a little nuanced. And there are things that can have big impacts, even if you're just over by $1. So one of the things we want you to think there is, okay, if I can, if it's in my power to be able to max out these salary deferrals before the end of the year, will this open up some other tax opportunity for me? Is this going to move me into a lower tax bracket? Is this going to potentially make me eligible or available for a tax credit that I was not going to have access to otherwise? If you do not know how to do that, if you don't know how to run a tax projection, if you don't understand how the tax form works, consult with a tax professional and say, hey, can you give me some insight? If I were to max out my 401K or max out my 403B,

• 20:43Speaker 03

  are there things on my tax return that would change because of that? And you might be amazed to find out that there are things that could be impacted just by doing an extra $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 into these retirement accounts.

• 20:56Brian Preston?

  Well, and think about this, if you're a person that gets a big year end bonus, guys, I've seen, I've helped employees and even, you know, in some of our employees, where we've loaded up some of those year end bonus money goes to max out these retirement accounts. If you're self-employed and you haven't researched solo 401Ks and other unique planning opportunities, because if you want to know loopholes, legal loopholes that the government incentivizes you to do, employer plans are great, so take advantage of doing a little bit of research to save yourself tons of money on taxes.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Now, as a quick aside, because we get this question all the time, a lot of people say, guys, guys, I'm, I'm, I'm saving 25%, but I'm not maxing out my 401K based on my income, based on where we are. We're doing all the stuff, we're doing the Roths, me and my spouse, and we're doing the HSAs and hitting the family max. And we're putting money into our retirement accounts, but we're not maxing them out. Does that mean that we still need to max them out? Well, if you're already at 25%, not necessarily. If you're at 25%, we then want you to move to step seven, hyper accumulation, and begin answering the question, how am I actually going to use these dollars? When I'm saving, when I'm building, when do I think I'm going to need to be pulling out? And when you answer that question, you're going to know then, okay, do I need to max out? Or should I open up an after-tax account?

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Should I start saving into that tax bucket at this stage?

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 23:10Brian Preston?

  And that's what, that leads to, we're gonna say this is number six, but this is really the introduction to step seven, the hyperaccumulation phase of the Financial Order of Operations. We called it finish the drill. You got, I love this step. It's often misunderstood as because this is the step where we really, if you think about steps one through six is to keep your life out of the financial ditch by making desperate decisions, or it's tax incentivized because of what's going on in the tax code. It is step seven that allows us to say, hey, how are we actually gonna use this money? How is my personal finances structured? And you'll quickly realize, hey, if I'm part of the FIRE movement, our fine movement to the next endeavor, I might need access to this money.

• 23:52Brian Preston?

  So I'll need a different account structure than just traditional 401Ks. But it might also be if you're somebody who you don't make a ton of money, but you're super disciplined, yes, you have moved into step seven without even maxing out the 401K limits. But that's A-OK because it's still now in step seven, you can think about how am I going to use this money in retirement to make sure that I'm structuring this appropriately with all my benefits?

• 24:16Speaker 03

  So you're hearing over and over, the goal is to be saving 25%, getting to 25%, hitting that number. And so a lot of folks ask, okay, guys, what counts in this? Well, When we think about the 25% savings, right? We're thinking about saving for future financial independence. So we're thinking about contributions that are going towards employer sponsored plans. That's 401ks, 457s, 403Bs. We're thinking about IRAs. We're thinking about HSAs. If you're one of the 15% that's actually investing them. Maybe you're an educator contributing to a pension that counts in the calculation. Maybe you're someone under a hundred thousand dollars of single income or under $200,000 of household income. Okay, then you can include your employer match. If you're putting money in an ESOP or an employee stock purchase plan, that counts.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Or if you're saving in that third bucket, that after tax bucket, that counts as well, assuming that you're saving those dollars for future financial independence. Here's what it does not count. It does not count prepaying your mortgage. It does not count the principal payments on your mortgage. It does not count the investment in the real estate or rental property. Those are not part of your 25%. We want 25% going towards your liquid portfolio for your financially independent future.

• 25:27Brian Preston?

  Yeah, and the last one on that list is that taxable brokerage account. And it's a banger because what I love about this is that for a lot of you, as you're starting to plan and figure out how you go use this money, it has the maximum amount of flexibility. It still can be used for retirement, but here's what's so cool about the after tax accounts is that it doesn't have limits on contributions.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  But as much in there as you want.

• 25:48Brian Preston?

  You load it up. It's also still tax advantage. You think about capital gains rates, dividend tax rates. These things are still going to be taxed at a lower rate. It's not going to be ordinary marginal tax rates. It's going to have favored tax rates. That's a powerful thing. Potentially even 0% capital gains if your income's low enough. And think about that for retirement transitions. There's no penalties for early access. This is why I mentioned it early for all my fire slash fine movement people. You get to have access to this money, whereas every other retirement account's going to start talking about 55, 59 and a half, all these other random dates. And then this is a unique opportunity and I kind of, this is where I get so excited. I start throwing and spitballing it out there. But I've already said this is you start using this money in retirement.

• 26:29Brian Preston?

  Think about how cool it would be to legally manipulate the tax code to keep your income Below a certain threshold and have a 0% long-term capital gains rate.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, in 2025, if your adjusted gross income is below $48,350 for single individuals, that's 0% cap gains rate. And if you're married filing jointly and your income is below $96,700, you're in the 0% capital gains rate. That means you can go buy that stock, buy that index, buy that investment, have it grow. And when you go to sell it, so long as you don't go over these income thresholds, you pay no income tax on it at all. It's an amazing planning opportunity. So we want you to make sure when you're saving 25%, if that taxable bucket makes sense for you, you're taking advantage of it. Because once you do that, once you're saving 25%, once you're building towards your future, then you get to start focusing on some other stuff. Then you

• 27:24Speaker 03

  get to start focusing your attention on your abundance goals.

• 27:27Brian Preston?

  Yeah, this is the one, man, it's nice because a lot of people I think get this out of order. They're funding the kids before they even fund their own retirement. And I'm all about funding some kids' education because there's even some tax benefits for it in a lot of states. But it's also having my own oldest daughter is a senior in college. So we've used a 529 account to pay for those goals. It's powerful. So we actually think this is the perfect time for you to consider, hey, once you get to step eight of the Financial Order of Operations, prepaid future expenses, let's go ahead and take care of those kiddos, too.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  And it might not just be college. I mean, that's a great example, but a lot of people don't recognize, yeah, you can save for college, you can use 529s and there are state tax incentives to do that. But maybe you just want to get your kid excited about building their financially independent future. So you want to help them open a custodial Roth IRA and maybe do that parent match. Or maybe you want to start saving for their first car, their first down payment for their first house, or you might want to start saving for a wedding with them. You can use UGMA accounts. These are all amazing vehicles you can use to help your kids begin saving for the future. But you have to wait until you get to step eight of the Financial Order of Operations before you begin doing this.

• 28:41Brian Preston?

  Well, also, look, we kind of buried the lead. We said prepaid future expenses. It does. It makes you think of college and so forth, but always I have a nickname for step eight. And it's abundance goals because this is when you get to actually potentially consider doing things of increasing your lifestyle. This is if you want to plan and save for an upcoming vacation, large purchase. I even had a, you know, if you, if you are an aspiring real estate investor, this is something you can consider getting into, to real estate, whether it's residential or commercial. And I even like last night, this is why I love how content writes itself. I had one of my college roommates write me and go, hey, um, you know, I love these European cars. I'm thinking about getting another Porsche.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:19Brian Preston?

  But I do not like the maintenance on these things. And I was like, good for you. I just had the same situation in my life as well. And the good news is when you're buying bad, making bad decisions like a European car. These things are expensive to maintain. They're expensive to fuel. They're expensive to repair, to insure and all the other things. Why not rent your bad decisions versus own your bad decisions? It is step eight that you would probably consider leasing or doing other things like that. And that's okay, because you didn't do this at the sacrifice of your younger, better version, who should have been saving and investing for the future. And that's why when I've been at car dealerships and you see the 30 something year old out there,

• 30:04Brian Preston?

  looking at these European cars, you go, oh, I don't know that they fully funded their Roth IRA or their 401k. But when you see the 50 something year old and they, and you know, you can just tell that they carry themselves in a way that they're step eight. I think this is the part where you can do vacations, you can do lifestyle and it's A okay.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  So if you're going to make bad financial decisions, you want to do it in the most efficient way possible, but you can't do that until you get to step eight.

• 30:28Brian Preston?

  Well, no, everything is a money decision. I mean, we, you're going to quickly realize, I know this, I was a tightwad at one point in my life. But you do at some point, the way you travel, the way you save, the way you spend, you're going to realize if you've done this right, you will change how that happens. And we've tried to write a no hypocrite policy so that this thing actually grows with you. That's the beauty of financial order of operations. It actually keeps you from being a tightwad when you're. Shouldn't be when it's actually to the detriment of your relationships and your goals. We're going to get you through that.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  So what you're saying is at this stage, you get to define what abundance is for you. And abundance for one person might not be the same thing an abundance is for someone else. And that's okay. That's why the financial order of operations liberates you to use money as the tool that you ultimately want it to be. And maybe you're someone that says, okay, I've done the things and I've gone to the vacations and I have all the stuff. But now I just want to start shoring up my financial life and going into this end of this year. Maybe I want to make 2025 the year. Maybe this is the year where I want to go ahead and knock out that mortgage and I want to prepay that low interest debt and I want to pay off the house

• 31:40Speaker 03

  and get that off my balance sheet. Maybe you're someone who's getting that year in bonus and you've saved the way that you're supposed to save. And you funded the abundance goals, even all those things that you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to write the check. I'm going to knock this out.

• 31:54Brian Preston?

  Let's put some guardrails on this before we celebrate because I know where it's what's coming. I can see the tea leaves. Is that I think that this is something that I would encourage my financial mutants. Look, I'm going to let you, once you get beyond saving and investing 25%, if you want to go pay off the low interest mortgage, it's okay. It's not optimized, but it's a okay because that's a choice that you can make at step eight, but really step nine. The heart of this thing is that you are thinking about this in terms of, you know, am I 45 and over? Because the wealth multiplier for a 32 year old is completely different than it is for somebody who's 50 years of age. And I can give you an example. For a 30 year old, the wealth multiplier is 23 times over. For a 50 year old, it's three.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Very different.

• 32:40Brian Preston?

  Do you see the compare and contrast on what your opportunity that your money has to kind of multiply upon itself? And that's why, and look, here's the other thing that you'll realize about this. I got to the situation to where, yes, I had a low mortgage rate. I had two and a half percent mortgage rate. But because the balance was well below a hundred thousand dollars, the actual opportunity cost of what I was forfeiting was getting to be less than a thousand dollars a year. And I was like, well, wait a minute. I am, I am sitting here struggling with this decision on something that's less than a thousand dollars. I'm like, what am I doing? Let's write the check. And that's why, yes, it was in 2025 that I have now mortgage free. You guys have celebrated with me.

• 33:21Brian Preston?

  I thank you for that, but I, but I want to say, I love that I respected the financial order of operations. I was older than 45 sadly, and I definitely have enough assets working for me that this was not a sacrifice for my future self. This was just something, hey, one more way I can de-risk my life and take advantage of this.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Now, remember, we're talking about 10 things to do before the end of the year. And number nine, this is not one that you save for the end of the year, but this is one that's worth revisiting. We want you to remember generosity. Remember, this is a great time to begin thinking. Are there causes that I have not funded? Are there causes that I want to support that I want to donate my money to? And are there efficient ways that I could be doing that? Is this the year where perhaps I should open up a charitable giving fund and I should consider donating some of those highly appreciated securities? Or maybe I've done the tax projection and it looks like I'm just going to give just enough to be right at the standard deduction threshold. Maybe I don't want to do my giving that way on an annual basis. Maybe I want to

• 34:22Speaker 03

  bunch my charitable giving so that I can take advantage of this. This is a great time to revisit that and make sure that the dollars that you have align with the goals that you have and you're doing the most efficient way possible.

• 34:34Brian Preston?

  I thought, I felt a little convicted this morning. I was, as I was getting ready for the show today, it hit me. I think I wear like six shirts for, on our show. I need to add more. But then when I look at my closet and I see I have six shirts that I have like deemed camera ready. And then I have probably 35 shirts that are just

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Not camera ready.

• 34:53Brian Preston?

  quilt of life that I've acquired over the last 30 years. I need to clean my closet up. And my wife would agree with that. So this is the perfect time as we're approaching the fourth quarter. Get in there and start figuring out, is there something you can donate? Not only will you help someone out, but you'll also give yourself a financial benefit to lower your income taxes with these contributions.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  I love it. And so the number 10, as we're thinking through, things to think through. Before the end of the year, it's worth doing an assessment and okay, have I reached a stage of life where I figured, I figured out that the gravity of the financial decisions I'm making is so great that I'm uncomfortable making them by myself. I used to be able to make decisions on a hundred thousand dollars, but now making the decision on a million dollars seems like there are bigger implications with that. Or maybe life has just gotten complicated. I heard about all these tax strategies at the end of the year and I just, I don't know what I don't know. I don't have an education that I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Or perhaps you're just someone who's gotten busy and all of a sudden, the things that should not be falling on the back burner

• 35:58Speaker 03

  of your financial life are falling on the back burner. You're being pulled in a thousand different directions. You just want to make sure you keep your eyes on the things that you want to keep your eyes on. If that sounds like you, then perhaps one of the things that you ought to do before you get to the end of the year is consider taking the relationship to the next level. Consider fulfilling the abundance cycle and asking a professional to come alongside you on your financial journey.

• 36:23Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I think a lot of you guys, you, you, you watch our content for years ago. Man, I like how these guys think about money. I've never heard financial people talk about it in these common sense, but also maximization type strategies. It doesn't have to end with just the content because as we, as Bo just shared, personal finance is very personal. And if you do this right, what is simple in the beginning become, will become harder and harder and more complicated because it's just success creates that complication. We'd love to be your co-pilot as you are the CEO, the CFO of a multiple seven-figure enterprise. You don't have to go alone. You don't have to figure things out for the first time. There's actually a better way to do money. I'm your host, Brian. Mr. Bo, Money Guy team, out.

• 37:07Speaker 03

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

• 37:40Speaker 04

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• 38:09Speaker 05

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• 38:15Speaker 06

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• 38:18Speaker 05

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• 38:21Speaker 07

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• 38:24Speaker 06

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• 38:35Speaker 05

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• 38:37Speaker 06

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