Pod Insights Money Guy Show How to Buy a House in 2025! About this episode "Do you have guidelines on housing cost in relation to net worth or just income?"
We'll walk you through that question and more in today's Q&A episode!
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.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever, so carve up turkey and spiral-cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 Brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.
0:28 Brian Preston? I don't know what I'm doing.
0:30 Speaker 02 Need a break. Forget it, I quit. Escape to Pluto TV.
0:34 Speaker 03 This is objectively fantastic.
0:36 Speaker 02 Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting. You stay classy, San Diego. Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.
1:06 Speaker 04 Next up, we've got one from Brian D. He says, "My wife and I are approaching the income cap for contributing to our Roth IRAs. What bucket should we invest our money into instead to prepare for starting a backdoor Roth strategy in the future?"
1:22 Speaker 05 Love it. Love it, love it, love it. All right, so this is a little bit... It's difficult to answer your specific question without knowing your account's structure. I'll tell you anecdotally what we think about for a number of our clients. Because what we don't want you doing is if you are someone who was contributing to a Roth on a monthly basis, and you say, "Man, I am now at the point to where I think my income might be over the limit, and I don't want to do the thing where I put money in my Roth, I get through to the new year, and then I'll get my W-2, and I'm like, 'Ah, crud, we were over the limit, so now I've got to go back in time, I've got to undo all those contributions I made.'" Not only do I have to pull up the money I put, I have to pull up any applicable earnings. When I pull up those earnings, they're going to be subject to ordinary income tax as well as penalty. If I'm under 59 and 1/2...
2:07 Speaker 05 Oh, it might be better to just not have to do that. So I'm not going to contribute monthly to my Roth anymore. So does that mean I just stopped saving that money? No, not at all. Most often, what we tell our folks to do is instead of dollar-cost averaging inside of your Roth IRA, there's nothing wrong with dollar-cost averaging inside of an after-tax brokerage account. So if you were saving the, oh, I don't remember the math on my head, is it $583? Is that what it takes to max out a Roth? I'm going off memory here. Yep. That $583 a month, instead of doing that inside of your Roth, now you shift it to go into your after-tax account and you can just buy a low-cost index fund. Now, the thing they have to think through is, okay, if I'm doing that, and the intent is that those dollars will ultimately flow into my Roth,
2:50 Speaker 05 am I going to be okay triggering capital gains? When I have to sell those one year from now to then fund it between January and April of next year? For most folks, if you're following the finance, Brian, can you hold the thing up? If you're following the financial order of operations and you have a fully funded emergency fund and you have a 25% savings rate, there's a good chance that you can use additional cash or additional capital to fund that. And then if you have to true up from your joint account, from your after-tax account, you can do that. I just don't want to see you, oh, I can't do Roth anymore, so I'm going to shut it down and my savings rate decrease.
3:26 Brian Preston? No, you just hit on two big things. I love backdoor Roth conversion strategies, I really do. But don't take our excitement and enthusiasm for it and you do a transaction that's going to be a headache for you. I had a dear friend of mine, who reached, this was last year, reached out and said, I did that backdoor Roth contribution you mentioned on your show. And I was like, no, you shouldn't have done it. I said, the last time you and I talked, you told me you had a big IRA rollover. He goes, oh, yeah, I still got that. And I was like, well, you didn't do a backdoor Roth contribution because you didn't have the right structure. This is why, guys, measure twice, cut once. I love doing backdoor conversion strategies, but you do have to have the right account structure to make this work. The government is very clear on this.
4:11 Brian Preston? If you have any IRA assets, meaning SEP IRA, simple IRA,
4:17 Brian Preston? You know, traditional IRAs, rollover IRAs when you left a previous employer, you're not going to be able to do a Roth conversion strategy and let it be a tax-free transaction. You can do it, but now you have to prorate or allocate your basis to figure out the taxes, which is a complete, it just adds a layer of complexity that when you watch financial content, that's not what you signed up for. The clean way you do this is that you clean out any IRAs that you have. So if you have like an IRA rollover and you make the determination that, hey, I have a great 401K with my employer, you can roll the IRA assets into your 401K. Well, now qualified assets in like a 401K, 457, 403B,
5:02 Brian Preston? those are in a different section of the tax code to where they don't count against the prorate. You don't have to prorate or allocate the basis. When you do the conversion strategy from the traditional IRA, you contribute to a traditional IRA and then you convert it to a Roth IRA. And since there's no income caps, they took that away around 2010. That's why anybody can do this. I mean, that's the structure. Here's the other thing I would caution Brian D. on is that obviously if you guys are getting in those higher income ratios, you know, $7,000 is all you can put in your Roth IRA. Your spouse is going to be able to put $7,000. But I bet if you're getting to those higher thresholds, that's not maxing out your 25%.
5:47 Brian Preston? And you don't get to go to step eight or seven and eight of the Financial Order of Operations unless you're investing 25% of your gross income. Don't skip out on after you get past doing your 401K and after you do your Roth contributions. Don't forget that you can do after-tax savings in like a joint brokerage account so that you can keep this savings train going. Cause I just don't like it when people, when you're starting out and maybe you're making 60, 70 grand a year and your 25% is covered up by your Roth, your contribution plus your employer's contribution into your 401K. But as you get older and you start reaching six-figure status, don't still save like you're making $60,000. Save and invest like now you're in this six-figure.
6:29 Brian Preston? Increase your investments and your savings strategies to correlate with your new income.
6:34 Speaker 05 I love it. I'm not going to steal a question, but I'm going to drop something there. I just saw it and I think it's so great because Brandellin said this. I feel like a baby mutant, right? Where do I learn about all this information? Backdoor Roth and all? Sounds like someone who's like brand new to us and our ecosystem we're talking about. As in terms of a starting point, where would you tell someone to start? If they're, if they've never interacted with this? And is there anything going on unique right now that might be especially attractive for them to start at that point?
7:06 Brian Preston? Well, I love the way, because I get a lot of criticism because we give away so much on the Money Guy Show that when people go and buy my book, who are diehard Money Guy fans, they're like, "This is exactly what these guys cover on the show." Until you get to the last two to three chapters where Brian tells you what he does with his money and all these other life insights that I give. But I do love, and this is why I wrote the book, is for my soon to be financial mutants. If you have just now discovered our content and you're trying to fast track your knowledge, I would encourage you to go check out Millionaire Mission. I mean, this was a passion project I did. Hopefully you'll see my heart when you, when you read this book. And, and I've been, I've been so pleased, you know, it came out in May of this year. And shocked when it made the New York Times Bestseller.
7:51 Brian Preston? And then shocked, it was funny, my publisher reached out a week and a half ago and says, "You're back on the bestsellers list." So you guys somehow, I don't know if it's because we've been talking about it or if it was that Amazon lightning deal that they, that they did for a while. But enough of you guys were buying the book that it popped back on the, the list again. But I appreciate you guys immensely. It was, and I think when you read this book, you will fast track your success and know what's going on out there financially.
8:18 Speaker 05 So I think Brian's book is a fantastic place to start. Or if you want even something interactive that you can do right now, we're having a special sale on the Financial Order of Operations course. Like it is at a reduced price. It's never been this inexpensive before. It's for, is it $49? Is that right? $49 right now that you can actually buy the course. And it actually walks you through the nine steps, start to finish, of what you should think about doing your next dollar. So if this is all new information and unfamiliar to you, those are two great places to start to get you up to speed and well on your way in your financial mutant journey.
8:55 Speaker 04 And if you are new to the show, we also have a where to start page on our website that can introduce you to a lot of videos.
9:01 Brian Preston? Oh, that's really good, too.
9:03 Speaker 04 Recently updated.
9:04 Brian Preston? By the way, I thought it was so interesting, just to, this probably get cut out or whatever, but it's, um, when you think about the fact that over the, in the last 90 days, we had 5 million people come through. Over the last year to date, it was 16, it was over 16 million people come through. It was 40% of those people were brand new. They were not, they were not returning users on YouTube. So that's, we have people discovering this content all the time. And I love, I get nerdy and look at that data and it warms my heart knowing that even though we've been doing this for decades now, there are people discovering this all the time.
9:47 Brian Preston? And I thank you guys for coming through the doors and hopefully we load you up and we exceed your expectations on the value that you're getting for, for watching this content.
9:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's always super exciting to have new people in here. All right, y'all ready for the next finance question?
10:01 Speaker 05 Yes, ma'am.
10:02 Speaker 04 All right.
10:03 Brian Preston? She said finance question. She's like, Brian, keep it on track.
10:06 Speaker 04 This is from Steven N. He says, is looking at expense ratios overrated? If a low expense ratio and a high expense ratio have the same return, does it really matter?
10:17 Brian Preston? Yes.
10:18 Speaker 04 Brian with the succinct answers today.
10:20 Brian Preston? Well, yeah, it is. Look, I'll, I'll start this one.
10:23 Speaker 05 Is looking at expense ratios overrated? Your answer is yes.
10:26 Brian Preston? But, but, but, but it, but it hasn't depend because I've seen financial mutants go crazy with this. I've even had clients that I've dealt with this. Overall, like you guys have heard me talk about why we love index funds. I love, instead of trying to pick the winners and losers of the economy, why not just buy the economy? We have this belief in the law of accelerating returns is that innovation and technology is just going faster and faster and faster. You don't have to try to choose the winning stock that is going to crush you. Just go buy the S and P 500 or something like that or consider, do your due diligence to, to research, just buying the generalized economy. But then part of that driving factor is not only that you're buying the broader economy
11:07 Brian Preston? is, but you're saving tons of money on internal expenses as well as the tax efficiency of these type of investments. That's why they have a lot going for. But we have clients because there are non-efficient market sectors that you look at where it's nice to actually have a manager that, and look, it breaks my heart, I love index funds, you guys know I am an index fund person, but there are different sectors or sometimes it makes sense to go into these non-efficient sectors and have a manager who can add alpha, who can add return. And sometimes I have clients who will say, hey, I don't like this manager
11:48 Brian Preston? because their fidelity or Vanguard offer a fund that is a lot cheaper. But I was like, but did you look at the performance over the last, not that past performance is always indicative of the future, but if you can see somebody who is going into an inefficient marketplace and being able to choose the winners and losers, I'm willing to sometimes pay a premium, but you have to prove it to me first. And that's why it's a balancing act to make sure. But for most people, especially starting out, I do love for the broad categories of large cap investments, even international and other things, why not just buy the market in general? Because you can save yourself costs, you can save yourself the heartache of trying to pick the winners and losers. But there is a taking it to the next level
12:32 Brian Preston? that sometimes you have to get a little more nuanced.
12:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, so to answer your question, is it overrated? I would, I would say no, but I would encourage you to remember that, you know, price is what you pay, value is what you get. Just because a fund has a high expense ratio does not mean that it's bad. And just because a fund has a low expense ratio does not mean that it's good. You have to actually do the homework. You just want to make sure that the fee that you're paying, the expense ratio that you're incurring is justified by the goal you're trying to accomplish inside of your portfolio. And all those inefficient classes that you mentioned and those efficient, you don't want to pay more than you have to to get the job done, but you don't want to pay less than you have to for a suboptimal job. So yes, you should absolutely look at
13:19 Speaker 05 the expense ratios because when it comes to investing, you can't control which way the market goes. You can't control if it goes up or down. You can Just your allocation to control your risk exposure, but really the two things that are inside your onus of your lotus of control are the fees that you pay, that's expense ratio, and the taxes that you pay. You can very much control those things. And if you control those things efficiently over a long timeline, those savings, those additional dollars working for you can stack up. So the answer is it's not overrated, but it is not the end all be all. You need to understand what you're paying for, why you're paying for it, and why it is valuable for you over the long term.
14:02 Brian Preston? I like that. Price and value, giving those differentiations.
14:05 Speaker 05 Price is what you pay, value is what you... For example, I know a lot of people. They grew up in like the 80s and 90s and they had these members only jackets. And those member only jackets are still holding up today. Like you find one of those vintage at a thrift shop, you're like, man, this is top quality, good stuff. Now there are these other folks that have players' club jackets. You don't ever find these players' club jackets in the vintage thrift stores anymore. You might have paid a little bit more back in the 80s for that members only, but man, was it worth it because it stood the test of time.
14:34 Brian Preston? By the way, some enterprising, I'm sure some private equity company or somebody bought the members only brand and they still, you can just go buy them brand new for like 39 bucks on Amazon.
14:42 Speaker 05 You can do that also.
14:43 Brian Preston? You don't have to go to the vintage stores.
14:45 Speaker 05 Okay, this is a brief aside, so brief. Somebody just thought in here, they were talking about, I don't, I don't know if this is an age difference between us, but this one at home. The thing they said when they were a kid that was so big was the starter jackets.
14:56 Brian Preston? Oh, yeah.
14:56 Speaker 05 Do you remember the starter and you got like your college t- oh my gosh, that was the coolest thing. And I remember my very first one, it was a Florida State, I wasn't a Florida State fan, but I thought it was so cool that I had a starter jacket. Was that, did you have, was that a deal too for you?
15:12 Brian Preston? Starter jackets came when I think I was getting a little older. I remember when that craze came through. Z Cavaricchi's was another phase that my parents, you'd go to, I think it was like the treasure chest or something at the mall. And they sold Z Cavaricchi's, but my parents, back then it was like 60 bucks for a pair of pants. And my parents were like, what?
15:28 Speaker 05 No way.
15:29 Brian Preston? But no. So then of course, once again, JCPenney's outlet to the, to the rescue, you could go there and it didn't have the white Z Cavaricchi tag. On your zipper, but it would have the flare out. So you look like MC Hammer walking around. And those, that was, that was one that I had the no name Z Cavaricci's. Another one was jams growing up parachute pants. There, I'm trying to remember which brand those the parachute pants that was all back in the eighties. But I always had the no name stuff. I remember, and by the way, if y'all didn't know, I got beat up in the second grade because um.
16:02 Speaker 05 If y'all didn't know.
16:02 Brian Preston? I had, I had these blue, they were pick and pay shoes. And I was so impressed as a second grader because they said genuine leather. And I thought that that was a fancy thing because it said genuine leather on the pick and pay shoes. And Johnny Thaxton was making fun of my, my pick and pay shoes. And, and I, I got upset and then he ended up whooping me because I think Johnny, he was, he was, he was a big guy. I'm sure Johnny's a great guy now.
16:28 Speaker 05 You think Johnny's a fan of shit?
16:29 Brian Preston? Beat me up in the second grade because of my pick and pay, blue, genuine leather shoes. No, no kidding.
16:35 Speaker 04 Pine cone incident or was that some?
16:36 Speaker 05 No, that was, that was Stino.
16:39 Brian Preston? And that was, that was a little later. That was like fourth grade. Yeah, fourth grade.
16:45 Brian Preston? Or was that even, yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to go the memory bank. But yeah, I've got it. I've only been in a few fistfights in my life. I'm not a very good fighter. Like me and Graham Stephan are on the same level, I think, when it comes to fighting.
16:59 Speaker 05 All of that was for you, Megan.
17:01 Speaker 04 I love it.
17:01 Speaker 05 All of that was for you.
17:02 Speaker 04 I love it.
17:03 Brian Preston? Do you see how full circle our life works around here?
17:07 Speaker 04 Incredible. All right, y'all ready for the next question?
17:10 Speaker 05 Yes, ma'am.
17:11 Speaker 04 Uh, this is from E money. It says, do you have guidelines on housing costs in relation to net worth or just your income?
17:20 Speaker 05 Oof, it's so hard. That is so hard and let me explain why. Different net worths in different parts of the country mean different things. And the cost of housing in different parts of the country are different. You can go, go watch any of our housing content, go look at any of our housing shows and then just read through the comments. And you were going to see the H C O L folks who are like, holy cow, this is hard. This is difficult. So there aren't really rules around net worth and housing in the same way that there are rules around income and housing. Because it's so nuanced and so individualistic based on where you are and what you have going on.
18:01 Speaker 05 The reason why we like income, using that for housing, because by the way, if you want to know our rules on housing, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources. We have a house buying checklist, we have a home buying hub where you can check out the affordability and things to think through before you make this decision. The reason why we use income was we recognize that your income is that singular thing that provides you the life blood to be able to build towards financial independence. It's the thing that keeps the lights on, it's the thing that puts food on the table, it's the thing that puts a roof over your head, and it's the thing that allows you to defer your gratification into the future to ultimately build towards financial independence. It is so important. Well, if
18:42 Speaker 05 you take all of that lifeblood, you apply it solely to a house. So instead of having your housing expenses only be 25% of your gross wages, now it's 55% of your gross wages. You've put yourself in a very precarious situation that now all of the other facets of your life could come crumbling down. That's why we use income instead of net worth, but we get it because it is difficult, it is much easier to be a homeowner in one part of the, in some parts of the country than it is in other parts of the country.
19:15 Brian Preston? I'm going to take this through the life cycle. At the beginning, we give you guardrails because we don't want you, look, there's a whole industry that's trying to tell you you can afford way more than you should actually spend based upon your income and what your wages. And we're trying to actually give you the guardrails because we don't want you to be house-rich, life-poor, and then have no money going towards savings and investments. Because that's the big thing, is we talk about the wealth multiplier all the time because it's hard trying to reach all the goals of in your twenties and thirties, just putting a little bit, just a little bit of your current time and deferring that for the future. So it's hard if you load it all up and if you have 40% of your money going, of your take-home pay every month going towards housing, you're just not going to be able to get a lot done.
20:00 Brian Preston? So that's why we're trying to give you guardrails. Plus, I think from a behavioral standpoint, I want to protect you from being the poorest person on your street. There's all kind of research out there that goes beyond the money. It's more of a happen. Happiness factor is if you, you know, all that, that advice that was given in the early 2000s of buy the, it's okay if you buy the cheapest house on the nicest street. I'm like, that is horrible advice for life because if you're the poorest person on your, on your street, you're always going to feel like you're behind. And there's so much research that shows out there that really you don't have to be, there's always going to be somebody has, who has more assets and more money than you. The biggest thing you gotta do to keep yourself feeling okay is among your fear, your peer group,
20:41 Brian Preston? that you are not at the poorest threshold of that. So you always feel like you're behind and not doing stuff. The other thing I don't like about using net worth for housing is I see a lot of people and I told Bo that down the road, I want to do a new show because I was going through and writing down some of our previous shows. And one of them was how to buy a house and you always hear people talk about location, location, location. I think as you get down the road where, when now housing is such a small percentage, not only your income, but your, of your net worth, a lot of people, when they get to be my age, say 40s and beyond, they'll say, well, hey, maybe I should reward myself with the bigger house. It wouldn't be that big of a stretch for me to go buy even a bigger home. I can afford it. Look at my,
21:23 Brian Preston? look at my net worth compared. The thing I always worry about is that you're moving the goalpost. And I also think you're minimizing the, because I heard location, location, location. But what about relationship, relationship, relationship? So much back to happiness studies. They talk about your peer group. If you have really good neighbors and friends groups that you're hanging out with and creating a lot of memories and socializing with, you might be just because you can and you can afford to move the goalpost and move to that bigger, nicer house. What are you leaving behind? Cause I never hear people when they talk about real estate, talk about the whole relationship component too. Cause if you have really, we hear about the, there's all kinds of sitcoms about horrible neighbors, but what if you have great neighbors?
22:05 Brian Preston? And these are the fabric of your life. Your kids play with their kids. This is which Friday and Saturday, all your birthdays, you're like, hey, I know what I'm doing. Hanging out with my neighbors. Don't minimize because that's what we getting outside of the money. The relationship stuff can be more valuable to your happiness than just the nuts and bolts of what percentage is this house of your income or your net worth. You've got to take it all into account together. It's it's it really is the intersection of the analytics of your money. But but also understanding the behavior and components of us being emotional creatures.
22:37 Speaker 05 I love that.
22:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, love that mindset element.
22:39 Speaker 05 Not location, location, location is relation, relation, relation. Let's make go and make that T-shirt, Matt. That's we'll have that.
22:46 Brian Preston? I'm sure I'll sell out in no time.
22:49 Speaker 04 I thank you, Stephen, so much for your question.
22:51 Brian Preston? That is something, though, if I was still writing Millionaire Mission, though, that would have made it in there. I don't think I had that in there. But they have these realizations because like, nobody talks about housing.
22:59 Speaker 05 Did you? Did you just hear that drop for a second edition? Is that what y'all? Did y'all hear that? Was it just me who heard that?
23:05 Brian Preston? Yeah, we're still. Matt, he was kidding.
23:09 Speaker 04 Well, I know you don't have the chat in front of you, Brian, but there is a poll. And people are still wanting the Taco Bell story. So maybe we can throw that in Millionaire Mission, too.
23:17 Speaker 05 Maybe one day.
23:18 Brian Preston? One day.
23:19 Speaker 05 Maybe one day. Guess what? That day is not today.
23:23 Brian Preston? Three, two.
23:23 Speaker 04 We keep trying, y'all. All right. Ready for the next one?
23:27 Speaker 05 Yes, ma'am.
23:29 Speaker 04 This one's interesting from TWC. He says, My wife and I manage our finances jointly, but handle our retirement assets separately. My wife decided to hire an AUM advisor. Should I join her to keep our overall plan in sync or continue to DIY? What are your thoughts?
23:49 Speaker 05 So here here's my experience. I love when couples say, hey, we do our finances together. Whether you have individual accounts or separate account. I mean, we are advocates for joint accounts. We love when assets come together and a household operates as a single unit. Because I think that there's efficiencies that can be garnered there and you can have a really effective strategy. Now, when I hear you say, "Okay, we do our finances, like the way we pay our bills is joint, and the way we think about our cash flow and budgeting, that's joint. But we manage our retirement separately." What that makes me think is, okay, we have these two different things moving in two different directions at two different speeds.
24:27 Brian Preston? It almost feels like, is this a competition?
24:29 Speaker 05 Right.
24:30 Brian Preston? To see, is she gonna get to retire because she hired somebody? Or is this a challenge to say, "Hey, I did it myself. I'm gonna get to retire, and look at you. You shouldn't have hired this financial advisor." Or the goals seem misaligned.
24:41 Speaker 05 Because what happens if your stuff gets there, and you're like, "Hey, sweetheart, I'm retiring, gonna live that dream life. I hope you catch up in a few years," or vice versa. It just seems to me that it'd be much more effective. Whether you guys hire the advisor or decide to do it yourself, if the entire puzzle, the entire pizza pie, was working together towards a common goal, towards a common strategy. Because the things that you're doing in your 401K will likely impact and affect the things going on in her 401K. And the way that she has access to after-tax assets and the way that you have access to after-tax assets should not only affect your asset allocation, how you spread out your assets, but also your asset location, what shows up on your tax return.
25:25 Speaker 05 I mean, we've seen this before where we'll review a client's tax return, and they might have three or four different advisors, and they're considering hiring us to consolidate all it. And we'll look at their tax return, but, "Man, why is this structured so inefficient?" Like, you're paying $30,000 more in taxes because of your investment income than you ought to be. Why is this happening? He goes, "Oh, well, I have a couple different advisors." I'm like, "Well, man, you have a couple different people doing a couple different things." You know, Meghan, you're a music person. I use this example all the time. If you have an orchestra, right? And you have all the different instruments, all playing, a different sheet of music at a different tempo, what do you end up with?
26:03 Speaker 04 Chaos.
26:04 Speaker 05 Chaos, just a whole bunch of noise, but if you can get all of those different instruments, all playing on the same sheet of music towards the same goal of the same song, well, then you end up with something beautiful and your financial life is no different. So when I think about this, having two different strategies for a combined retirement, it seems like a very ineffective way to accomplish that overall goal.
26:27 Brian Preston? Yeah, I wrote three quick things. I said, you know, goals are usually pretty common, meaning that it's not, you know, this is something, this is what makes a relationship is y'all usually will have a united goals. So it's kind of unique to have those splintered into separate, separate components. The other thing is account structure. You hit on that is that I have seen where maybe one spouse has a really big 401k that is just asking, because as you get older, you're going to need more conservative holdings. It would be nice if you could put in a tax location, tax efficient way, load up the bonds in those pre-tax assets and then, you know, do what the other asset accounts do what they do best. Whereas you're really kind of artificially limiting all the planning opportunities by separating.
27:11 Brian Preston? And then I also think that having a good planner where you're united and y'all have the same, and you're talking about this together because those goals are common. It really isn't a relationship amplifier. I mean, one of the great, we're, I'm not trained in psychology whatsoever, but I've been managing money for, for these three decades and I've worked with a lot of couples. And I love being kind of the uniter of seeing differences beforehand. And then you come out of the other side of a good financial planning meeting and you can see they're united. You can see they're going to carry this over probably into a, a nice meal afterwards. They go out to talk about some of the things that were covered. And it really can be a relationship amplifier, whereas I'm worried if you're separating everything, especially as you get into the mature side of big financial decisions,
27:56 Brian Preston? you might be creating something that's taking away from the relationship because it's almost creating a, a, a, a divide or a, or a competition. And that's one of the things I've, you've heard me talk about with money and relationships, you've got to take the power out of the money. More than likely, one person in the relationship is going to make a lot more money than the other, and you get some strange power dynamics for the spouses if one is controlling this and the other one feels in this, they have to come ask for permission or ask for something from the other spouse. It just, it creates power dynamics that I don't think are healthy in the long term. So if you can minimize that as much as possible, and good planning can do that in a lot of ways.
28:39 Speaker 04 Love it. Thank you so much, TVWC, for your question, and thanks for being here. And thank you to everybody for tuning in today. We love doing these Tuesday live streams and answering your questions. You can find any of the resources that we talked about today at moneyguy.com/resources. And if you are one of those people that's new to the show, definitely check out that Where to Start page or that Foo Course with that $50 discount.
29:04 Speaker 05 Well, it's 49. Let's not, let's not upcharge them. It's 49.
29:07 Brian Preston? Yeah, and it's not a $50 discount. It's like a $200 discount.
29:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, through the end of the year. So definitely go check that out.
29:14 Brian Preston? Yeah. Guys, we love doing this. I just echoed, exactly parroted what Megan said, but it is a blast. We love, we don't take it for granted that we get to create this content. And based upon the flavor of that last question, I want everybody to remember that money is just a tool. It's not a goal. So make sure you are keeping the big life stuff out there united, where it's, it's actually intersecting with your savings rates, your goals, your relationships. All this stuff works together. So make sure you go beyond the money and live your best life. I'm your host, Brian Preston. Mr. Bo Hanson, Money Guy team, out.
29:50 Speaker 04 The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston. 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 and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice.
30:48 Speaker 06 Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos. Los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.
Previous How to Make Your First $1,000,000 (And Then the Next Four) Next Falling Behind? The RIGHT Way to Catch Up This Year Page updated November 5, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated