What is the Point Of Investing in Non-Retirement Accounts Long Term - Money Q&A

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast Money Q&A, we're going to talk about what is the point of investing in non retirement accounts long term? Today we are going to answer these questions! Question 1: What is the Point Of Investing in Non-Retirement Accounts Long Term? Question 2: Why do funds that track the same index have different results day-to-day? Question 3: How Should I manage my RSU’s? Question 4: What percentage of your portfolio should be in international funds? How Andrew Can Help You: 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. 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/ Monarch Money: Get an extended 30 day free trial at monarchmoney.com/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Right now, my listeners can get a free 2-week trial at 1password.com/PERSONALFINANCE to help secure their growing business. The Rundown by Public.com—your daily financial news podcast. Listen now: The Rundown Podcast Go to joindeleteme.com/pfp20 for 20% off! Links Mentioned in This Episode: Pre-Tax or Roth, How to Use Your Emergency Fund, & Building Business Credit - Money Q&A Should I Use My Emergency Fund to Pay Off High Interest Debt? - Money Q&A The 1-3-6 Method For Building & Managing Your Emergency Fund How to Get a Guaranteed 5% Return on Your Emergency Fund - Money Q&A 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?

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• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

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• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

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• 2:24Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody? Welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be diving into your questions on this money Q and A. If you guys have any questions, make sure you hit us up on the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney.co/newsletter. And in joining that newsletter, you can respond to any of the issues that come out every single week and ask your question. And you may get your question answered directly on the show like these questions today. Don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the

• 3:05Andrew Giancola?

  show, consider leaving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now today, we're going to be diving into four of your questions. The first one is going to be talking through what is the point of investing in non-retirement accounts long-term? And why would we even consider doing that? The second one is, why do funds that track the same index have different results day to day? We're going to dive deeper into that. How should I manage my RSUs? That's going to be one that we're going to go into. And then lastly, we're going to talk about what percentage of your portfolio should be in international funds. And we're going to talk through why we may or may not want to invest in international funds. And then lastly, we're going to talk a little bit in health corner as well to

• 3:48Andrew Giancola?

  finish out this episode. We've gotten a lot of requests to bring health corner back. So your boy is going to bring that health corner back and see what we can do there and talk through that a little bit more as well. So really excited for this episode. So without further ado, let's get into it. Question one is, hey Andrew, longtime and appreciative listener. I heard your last episode on savings buckets, and it reminded me a lot of a question I have. I feel motivated to save for retirement, and I feel motivated to save for long, medium, and short-term goals like a future car, home renovation, vacations, etc. But I have a hard time understanding what the point of non-retirement long-term investing is. What's the difference between the long-term savings I have in my savings account versus money I would invest or retirement investments in

• 4:31Andrew Giancola?

  that investment savings you talk about. It's not very motivating to me to invest because it sounds like I'm never allowed to spend it. What are good reasons and times to spend your money you have saved up in non-retirement accounts? Now, this is a fantastic question and really, what this comes down to is the original purpose of non-retirement long-term investing. There could be a couple of different reasons why you do this. Number one is you want flexibility and accessibility. The reason why we would invest in a non-retirement account savings, which I love to do in a taxable brokerage account, is one, to have flexibility and accessibility when you reach retirement age. So let's say, for example, you start to really accelerate your path to financial independence. You start working at a job and the job is something that you just

• 5:15Andrew Giancola?

  absolutely hate and now you're going to be retiring early. You've decided, hey, in five years, I gotta get out of this job. I can't take this anymore. I want to stop working. Well, a non-retirement account is going to give you additional flexibility that you may not have in a traditional retirement account because if you have to start doing Roth conversion ladders, things like that, it can get more complicated. Whereas if you had taxable brokerage account, you can retire at any which time you actually want to. So that is one big reason is to have that flexibility and the accessibility. It is very important in life to have access to liquidity. This is why we have the emergency fund episodes and we talk so much about it and how it's your financial foundation, is access to liquidity is very important and it gives you that flexibility,

• 5:56Andrew Giancola?

  it gives you that accessibility. Secondly, is you can have an extensively large emergency fund if you wanted to, but have the portion after six months invested. So if you wanted to have the portion past six months invested, you can grow that money over time and not have to worry as much about it because six months is the bare minimum. But if you want to grow that money long-term, you can absolutely do that and maybe you can have a much larger emergency fund, which is what I do, but you can have a much larger emergency fund going long-term. Third, it allows you to have a diversified tax bucket strategy. So if you're maxing out your 401k, if you're maxing out your Roth, now you have access to being able to add more funds. Into investment accounts that are going to allow you to grow it over time.

• 6:39Andrew Giancola?

  So these are just some of the reasons why I would even consider doing this. And in addition, if you have a long-term savings goal, maybe you're like, hey, I like renting right now. I'm not going to buy a house for the next 15 years, but you want to grow that money. There's a much higher chance that you're going to grow that money invested because you have such a long time horizon than you would by just keeping that in a high-yield savings account. So really, long-term investments could be another reason why you do that. So savings accounts, let's talk about this for a second. Your high-yield savings account is going to be ideal for the emergency fund and the money that you really need to protect. And short-term savings goals, you know, up to five years. You can even go up to 10 years if you really wanted to, but really up to five years. Non-retirement investments are suitable for stuff above five years.

• 7:21Andrew Giancola?

  And what can happen here is you can do stuff with higher returns and you can also look at it as a wealth building tool. So for example, when I buy businesses, here's a great example. I will actually build up my funds in a taxable brokerage account. And I would not recommend this for a lot of people, but I actually will build it up in a taxable brokerage account. And typically, my goal is to get that taxable brokerage account larger than the actual size of the amount that I need to pull for the business. Specifically, I can have my funds grow. Now, when I pull the money out, I have to pay capital gains taxes, but my capital gains tax rate is significantly lower than in my income tax rate would be. But then I have the flexibility and the liquidity to be able to do that very, very quickly if a good deal comes up. And so most of my money that I actually build up for buying businesses,

• 8:06Andrew Giancola?

  either a small portion will go into a high-yield savings account to protect that, just in case anything happened in the market. But the rest of it does stay in a taxable brokerage account so that I can grow it over time. Because I have no idea when those deals are going to pop up. And so a lot of times I like to keep it in a taxable brokerage account because I could be waiting for a decade. If it does get cut in half, to me, I'm going to hold it in that taxable brokerage account for a longer period of time. Now, what are some reasons to spend non-retirement investments? There's a bunch of reasons. A, if you're on pace in your retirement accounts and you just have extra funds that you want to invest in the side, you could spend this for a number of different reasons. One is major life milestones. Maybe you want to purchase a second home. Maybe you want to invest in a business like I'm talking about here.

• 8:50Andrew Giancola?

  Maybe you want to fund a sabbatical or you want to have an early semi-retirement. That is all fantastic options for why you would spend on non-retirement accounts long term. Secondly, is if you have big expenses, so maybe you have non-retirement investments specifically for long-term goals such as home renovations. Maybe your child's wedding is a great one to do this with. For example, I just had my daughter, I am probably going to set up a small account for her and my sons. I think nowadays, most people split weddings back in when I got married. I think it was more so the wife's family would pay for weddings. Now I think more and more people are splitting weddings. But I'm going to start a taxable brokerage account for that. These funds are perfect to spend during these moments. So that's another reason why you would do this.

• 9:34Andrew Giancola?

  Lastly, though, is just wealth accumulation. If you don't know what to do with extra cash, you have the very, very, very good problem of having extra cash coming in and you just don't know what to do with it. A taxable brokerage account after you've maxed out those retirements is a great spot to have it. I mean, it's a great place to put it. It's going to grow over time. It's going to outpace inflation, especially if you're investing in low-cost index funds like we talk about here. You could put it in target date retirement funds. You could put it in ETFs. You could put it in dividend stocks if you want to, but it's going to grow. Our goal is to allow our money to work way harder than we ever could. And so we want that snowball to begin to grow over time. And the more growth we get in these retirement accounts, the better off we will be. So my statement in the bucket method episode, if I said, you know, don't spend this money, that is not what I meant whatsoever.

• 10:19Andrew Giancola?

  I want you to take your dollars and I want you to spend them. But if you're using it and saving it for retirement, or you're using it and saving it for a goal that is coming up. You know, I wouldn't spend your goal money on something else. But what I would do is just continue to allocate dollars towards those tax brokerage accounts in case there are big lifelong plans that you have. Now, reasons to keep it invested would be if you are looking to retire early and you want that additional flexibility. Or you want lifestyle flexibility. You want the ability to have a couple of years invested in there just in case something happens at your job. You lose your job and you just want to have that three years invested just to be safe. That is a fantastic reason. To keep it there. So having it continuously invested is a extra security blanket.

• 11:00Andrew Giancola?

  But if you want to spend it on, you know, lifestyle design things, there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever. As long as you're hitting your other retirement goals. That is the reason for that and how I think about that overall. So just let me know if you have any other questions. I hope that helps and congratulations on investing. It sounds like you are making some great progress and thank you so much for being a long time listener. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you and I appreciate you sending in your question.

• 11:25Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The next question is I've invested in several S and P 500 index funds. VOO FX, AIX, FN, ILX. Why is it that they do not necessarily move in the same direction each day? If I pull up a chart of them, they show all tracking the S and P 500 exactly. But on a day to day basis, there is a lot of variability. Sometimes one is up and another is down. Is there any reason to choose one over the other? And then my second part of my question is what exactly is the difference between an ETF and an index fund? I think it may be part of the issue I'm experiencing in Q1. Third question is how do I know whether or not to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA? And when and how to do that? My husband has several that were rollovers from previous 401ks and are about 10 years out from retirement.

• 12:11Andrew Giancola?

  All right, these are three great questions. And what we're going to do is first I will talk through the short term differences of the S and P 500 index funds. You mentioned VOO FX, AIX and FN, ILX. Well, I'll tell you two things really quick right now is that one of those VOO is an ETF. It's going to move differently than an index fund, only because they're two different types of funds, even though they are tracking the S and P 500 the same. So let's dig into why. So even though VOO, which is the ETF, all track the S and P 500, there are daily discrepancies that can happen with some of these index funds. So first is ETFs trade throughout the day. They trade intra-day. So you can trade ETFs just like a stock. So their movements are a little bit different than something like an index fund would have.

• 12:55Andrew Giancola?

  Now mutual funds are how index funds are actually priced. So index funds are basically index mutual funds is what they actually are. And funds like this FX, AIX and FN, ILX are priced. priced only once at the end of every single trading day. So ETFs are intraday trading, meaning that they are priced a bunch of different ways throughout the day. Whereas index funds are only priced once at the end of each day. So this can lead to temporary differences in performance. Secondly is expense ratios. So expense ratios for index funds and ETFs, the reason why we invest in them is because they are minimal. And now while they are minimal, there are slight differences in expense ratios and this can impact long-term returns. FNILX, for example, has zero fees, which can offer a slight advantage over time.

• 13:39Andrew Giancola?

  And then there's also a difference in dividend distribution and management. So if you're looking at total return, the dividend distribution schedules and how fund managers handle underlying assets can also create slight variations with these. So that's another thing to make sure that you note, especially in the short term. This is why I don't love looking at this stuff in the short term. You want to look at it over five years, seven years, 10 years, that type of thing. Because the short term, there's just a lot of different little mini variables that are actually making this impact. Now choosing between them, the way you choose between them, obviously expense ratios, the lower is better usually. How they trade is going to matter to some people. And then minimum investment requirements is going to matter a lot of people. So some people who are just getting started out, you want to look at your minimum investment requirements.

• 14:21Andrew Giancola?

  Now, we do have a program called Index Fund Pro, if you've never heard of it. Index Fund Pro is our course that teaches you how to invest in index funds. And it is literally the step-by-step guide on how to do this. It covers all of this stuff. So if you're interested in it, check it out. If you go to mastermody.co/courses, we have it in there. And you can check that out there if you want a full encompassing lesson on index funds and ETFs and how this works. Because it's really important to note how all these works. Now, the difference between index funds and ETFs is we've done some videos on this too, but there are a bunch of differences on this. So ETFs are exchange traded funds and they trade like individual stocks. So they're bought and sold throughout the trading day, allowing for real-time pricing. They're flexible, so you can kind of liquidate an ETF pretty quickly.

• 15:04Andrew Giancola?

  Where it's a little bit of a slower process when it comes to an index fund to liquidate, when it comes through that. And then ETFs also have a slight tax advantage typically, which is why I really like holding ETFs. They give you some great advantages there. And then index funds, index funds are priced at the end of the day. So they're calculated at the end of the trading day. But they offer simpler automatic contributions a lot of times. So they usually have ease of investment. So if you're working on an automation system and you can't automate into ETFs, double check if you can automate index funds. A lot of times you can. And then index funds also usually have a larger initial investment than ETFs. So typically for most people, ETFs are a great option. The thing about ETFs is not a lot of 401ks or any of those kinds of plans offer them. So index funds are great for that.

• 15:48Andrew Giancola?

  Now let's talk about your question on converting a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. So the reasons why you would convert is Roth IRAs grow tax-free and allow for tax-free withdrawals in retirement. Everybody who listens to this podcast for a long time has heard me talk about that. Roth IRAs are fantastic for that tax-free growth. Also, if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement or believe taxes will increase, converting now at your current tax rate can be beneficial. Now there are considerations that you want to think through if you are going to do that. Number one is you need to pay income tax on the converted amount as if it were regular income. So you need to ensure that you have cash available to cover that without tapping into the converted funds. But the second thing I want to note is you have 10 years until retirement.

• 16:32Andrew Giancola?

  So converting now gives you the time to reap that tax-free growth benefit. Now, if you think you're going to go into a higher tax bracket, one thing you could do is you could also convert portions over several years. And this can prevent you from pushing into a higher tax bracket all at once. And then how you convert is you can contact your IRA custodian and request a Roth conversion. And you could do a full conversion or a partial conversion. Another way to do it is Vanguard just has like really simple steps. If you have them both in Vanguard, but you have to have both in there to make it really easy. And so that's another reason why you would convert as well. So listen, I hope this helps. I think that understanding the difference between index funds and ETFs and how they move is probably the major reason why you're going to see a big difference day to day. So just look into that as you start to see some of the differences there.

• 17:16Andrew Giancola?

  But VOO, FX, AIX, and FNILX are all three fantastic funds. You can't go wrong with any of those. Those are great funds, low cost. They track the S and P 500 and they're from reputable companies. So all of those are absolutely great. You can't go wrong with any of those in my personal opinion. So thank you so much for the question. Congratulations on getting closer and closer to retirement. This next decade is going to be fun and maybe you'll get there sooner. So thank you so much for listening. Truly, truly appreciate it. And if you have any other questions, please reach out.

• 17:47Andrew Giancola?

  All right. Question number three is, I'm 25 years old and working at a technology company where I make $180,000 of the year. Wow, congratulations. Of that, $55,000 is in equity. RSU's that vest every quarter. The stock is doing great and the company has a ton of hype and equity is a large part of our compensation model. So as my compensation grows, a larger percentage will be in equity. Originally, I was planning to never sell a share and see what happened, but the stock went on a strike price of $9 and now at $43 and I realized that I had a super unbalanced portfolio with half of my investments in a single stock. So I sold about a fourth of my shares and used that money to top off my emergency fund to six months and pay down my car a little more. So the question

• 18:32Andrew Giancola?

  for you is, do you have any tips or thoughts for those of us whose compensation is large part equity and whether there are any good rules of thumb around whether to sell or reinvest into index funds? Or whether it is risky to keep it just in my company? I'm pretty medium risk tolerance if that's relevant. So this is a fantastic question and one that I can tell you I have a lot of thoughts on. And this is something where managing your equity is of the utmost importance because this is part of your comp plan because you could be getting compensated in equity and all of a sudden the stock tanks or something happens and then all of a sudden your equity is absolutely gone. There's a famous talk that J.L. Collins gave. So if you don't know who J.L. Collins is, he is the guy who wrote The Simple Path to Wealth, one of the best personal finance books ever written

• 19:16Andrew Giancola?

  by far because it gives the simplicity of really how wealth is built. Wealth is built in a very simple way, slowly, over time. And what J.L. Collins was doing is he was giving a talk to Google employees. He was literally at Google, giving a talk to Google employees and one of the employees asked him the question, "What would you do if you were an employee and you had equity that was given to you as compensation?" And he said, "I would sell all of my equity and put it into VTI." Now, VTI is the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. He said, "You shouldn't be holding any of your Google shares because it's too risky." Wow, I think you can't go wrong doing that. I don't think you can really go wrong investing those dollars into index funds. If you truly believe in the company long Long term, I don't want you to move all of it and just have full on regret.

• 20:00Andrew Giancola?

  So I think we have to think proactively about managing the equity overall and thinking about your strategy. So I'm just going to kind of talk through my opinion, what I would do in your situation. And then if you need to talk to your CPA or somebody else, you can absolutely do that. But I'm just thinking through some of the ways that I would actually take action on this. So first I would say, hey, diversification is key. If I have 50% of my net worth in one stock, that is not a situation I want to be in whatsoever. Now that is just me personally. I am not interested in having 50% of my net worth in a stock. I'd rather have the majority of my net worth in things that I know are more diversified. So an S and P 500 index fund, something like that would be way more diversified because I want to avoid overexposure at all costs. Okay.

• 20:42Andrew Giancola?

  Now, the general rule of thumb is do not keep more than 10% of your portfolio in one single stock. That is my general rule of thumb that I always talk through. For example, when I first started investing, I was buying a lot of Apple and it's the best investment I've still ever made in my entire life. I just keep buying it and holding it for long term. It's really the only single stock I still own. But when I was originally doing that, I started to really see a big weight shift in how much stock I had in Apple. So I had to start buying more S and P 500 index funds to really change that because I did not want Apple to be more than 10% of my portfolio because it was growing so quickly. Now, this may sound stupid, it may sound idiotic, but also you want to make sure that if you have too much of your net worth into one stock, anything could happen. Just think of Enron or anybody else.

• 21:25Andrew Giancola?

  One single corporation can make a bunch of different mistakes, a series of mistakes, and you will have no control that your net worth just dropped 50%. I want to avoid that at all costs. The risk is just too high for me. I can build wealth over time. I am happy building wealth a little slower so that I can diversify my portfolio and remove that risk. Now, if you're single, you're not worried about having that risk there and you just want to grow as fast as you possibly can, more power to you, my friend, but make sure you understand the math and the numbers behind the company that you're investing in. If you don't understand the numbers, if you don't know what the balance sheet looks like, if you don't know what the P and Ls look like, if you don't understand any of that stuff, I think you got to really think through that first before you go through this. Now, here's how I would assess my portfolio is quarterly.

• 22:06Andrew Giancola?

  So you're going to get these comp plans sent out and since your RSUs vest quarterly, I think it's wise to review your overall portfolio on a similar schedule. So I would determine if the new shares pushed you back into the unbalanced state, or if it's time to sell and reinvest some of those other shares. So I would be probably continuously reinvesting some of that money back into index funds. That's just the way I would operationally do it because you're getting $50,000 per year added into RSUs and so you've got to make sure that you're careful there. But I would automate this plan. So if this aligns with your strategy, you can also set up a systematic way to approach and sell a portion of your vested shares at regular intervals, quarterly or biannually, however you want to do it, and then reinvest into whatever investments that you choose based on your asset allocation.

• 22:51Andrew Giancola?

  So whatever your asset allocation is, that's the way I would think through this. And then to reduce the risk, you know, if you do not want to hold 50/50, it all comes down to what your risk tolerance is. You said you have a medium risk tolerance, so being 50/50 is a very risky portfolio, especially in one stock. And so if you want to reduce that asset allocation, then a gradual sell-off may be the way to go, but you've just got to be mindful of the tax implications of selling your RSUs because if you hold them for over a year, you may qualify for long-term capital gains rates, which are typically lower than short-term capital gains rates, obviously. We've talked about that a number of times here on this show as well. And then I would reinvest those dollars thoughtfully. This is still part of your compensation. So what you did to get your money to a six-month emergency fund, I would absolutely have recommended doing that. That is a great move because this is part of your income.

• 23:36Andrew Giancola?

  And so you've got to get to that six-month emergency fund no matter what and build that financial base. So that is a great move that you did that. You paid down debt. That is also a great move. If you have any other high-interest debt, I would get rid of that first before I held RSUs in a single company stock. And then after that, then you can start to invest some of those dollars and make sure you're just following those automation steps going forward. But that is a great comp plan. The fact that it's growing over time is absolutely fantastic. It's great to see that those shares are really doing well. And, you know, over time, just remember that anything can change at any point in time. So just making sure that you are adjusting accordingly and making those adjustments.

• 24:16Andrew Giancola?

  When those RSUs are invested is really important. I think it's important to think of this in quarters only because that'll keep you on top of it and understanding where the weight of your portfolio is. So first, I would decide, what weight do you want to have within your company? The personal thing for me, I would probably only hold 10%. But if you are a little more bullish than I am on an individual stock, then you can go forward and if you want to hold 25%, more power to you. But it just depends on your risk tolerance when it comes to holding those individual stocks. And for me, it's no more than 10%. Now, knowing in the back of your mind that likely you could be missing out on some returns. So it depends on you weighing out that risk assessment. But for me personally, that's the way I would kind of think through it. And then stay flexible. If you're continuously reviewing your company's financial statements,

• 25:02Andrew Giancola?

  if you're continuously looking at the stock and making sure you're on top of it, always listen to your earnings calls, those types of things. That's really important. That'll be very helpful in terms of understanding where your company is so that you can make a move if you need to also. So you gotta be, if you're going to hold that much of your stock, anything above a 10%, you really gotta be on top of everything going on. It's a big part of your net worth and it's going to be a big part of your net worth going forward. And you could probably have a huge, huge chunk of money as time goes on. So really, really excited for you. That is an amazing compensation plan and really cool that you are making all the right moves here. I think the way that you were thinking through your comp is the right way. And the way that you actually were allocating some of those dollars is fantastic. So congratulations on making that income. I think you could build a ton of wealth on that income.

• 25:47Andrew Giancola?

  And if you allocate and earmark a lot of those dollars for investing, you could become very, very wealthy, very, very quickly. So that is absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for sending in the question. And we actually are going to be bringing somebody on to talk about RSU management in the near future, who is an RSU expert. So really excited about that episode too, because a lot of you have that question. And we're going to be talking through more of that as time goes on. Now, let's jump into the next question.

• 26:14Andrew Giancola?

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• 27:44Andrew Giancola?

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• 28:29Andrew Giancola?

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• 30:18Andrew Giancola?

  Love the podcast and thank you for all the great work you do for all of us. Well, thank you so much for the kind words. I have a question about international investments. I know you tend to sway towards not investing much in non-US stocks as historically, the US large caps have a much better performance and most have larger presences internationally. But the place I have my 401k recommends allocating 31% to non-US developed market, while recommending 50% large cap US. 31% sounds like a lot and I've been thinking about reducing, but I'm worried I'll miss the black swans of the future if something changes and it would be good to have at least some sort of international markets invested. However, I see the companies that have larger holdings in this fund and it's unclear if it's worth it.

• 31:00Andrew Giancola?

  Plus, the expense ratio is over 0.50% on the international fund, while the large cap is 0.01. How would you go settling the fear of the unknown and going against the 401k's guidance? FYI, I don't pay for an advisor. This is just their recommendation. Okay, so this is a fantastic question and honestly, here's the number one thing I'll tell you right now is they're asking you to allocate 31% towards international funds and that also has a 50 basis point expense ratio. That is a very high expense ratio and it is not something I would be interested in investing in because that expense ratio is so high personally. So my personal maximum that I will go is 0.30% typically.

• 31:44Andrew Giancola?

  Now, your 401k is recommending this because A, there's a lot of portfolios out there that'll have, you know, like a classic Boglehead portfolio is going to have 50, 30, 20, which would be 50% US-based stocks, 30% international stocks and 20% bonds. That is a very diversified portfolio. So there's nothing wrong with their recommendation there. What I don't like is that expense ratio and I don't know if there's another one available. If there's not, that's pretty high and I would probably change my allocation based on that expense ratio. But if there was, then maybe I would consider a little more. Now, I don't hold a ton of international funds for the exact reason why you stated, is they have not performed very well over the course of the last couple of decades. And because of that, I do not want to get duped into having to invest in those international funds.

• 32:28Andrew Giancola?

  Win, if you look at the top 10 companies in the S and P 500, and I'm kind of repeating, you already know this, I'm repeating what you said, but if you, for the rest of the listeners, if you look at the top 10 companies in the S and P 500, all of those do major international business. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, these are massive companies that do massive business overseas and have a massive impact on the entire world. And so because of this, I feel that I have international exposure already. This is why, and I'm bringing his book up again, J L Collins, in The Simple Path to Wealth, talks about how he just invests in VTSAX because it's every stock in the stock market, and they also invest in international stocks. And so that is another option, if you want to get over that hump, is if you have a total stock market index fund in there, you can also look at that. But making sure that you keep that expense ratio lower is

• 33:13Andrew Giancola?

  going to be really, really important. But there's nothing wrong with having international exposure. In fact, my friend Rob Berger, if you've ever seen his show on YouTube, Rob Berger always has international exposure, he always has bond exposure as well, even though it performs less, to have that diversified portfolio. So it really comes down to risk tolerance. And it sounds like your risk tolerance may be slightly lower, you want to have more diversification. So maybe having some of that international exposure is going to be great for you personally. And I think that's something where at least having some is going to be huge. Now, looking for black swans, I'm not in the game of trying to find black swans. And the reason for that is it's very hard to predict them. And I think for most people, they can't do it. And so as long as you are focused on getting a steady rate of return, 7 to 10% over the course of decades,

• 33:58Andrew Giancola?

  and you're investing more and more every single year, and you're trying to increase your contributions every year, and outpacing inflation with your contributions, I think that is what matters most. And worrying about some of those other little extra things matters a little bit less. Now, fixing that expense ratio is going to be important because that is a huge impact, especially if it ends up being 30% of that portfolio. We got to make sure that we are just looking at that expense ratio and what the impact is. So just run the quick numbers on the international fund. The returns could be lower, and you have a higher expense ratio. So that equation is a recipe I don't love. And so for me personally, that's kind of the way that I would think about this. And thank you so much for the kind words. Thank you for listening to the podcast. And really, it is amazing that you're even thinking through this. People will just buy funds and not even think twice about it.

• 34:40Andrew Giancola?

  So it is really fantastic that you are actually thinking through this process. Last thing I'll say is getting over that fear of the unknown. It comes with a financial education. Really start to just kind of study this stuff and read through maybe some of the articles out there where you can kind of form your own opinion. Listen to Rob Berger, listen to the reasons why he says he holds international funds. Listen to Christine Benz is another great resource when it comes to index funds. She's from Morningstar. And just kind of look at a couple of different opinions and see where you land. For me, I've landed on the spot where I don't hold much international funds anymore. I used to and I just don't, I don't buy more of them. And it's because the returns have been so low long-term. So that's just me personally. Now, other people would disagree with me, but that is the way that I think through it is higher expense ratios,

• 35:25Andrew Giancola?

  lower returns. I'm not interested in that recipe. I would rather invest more into these large, big companies that are powerhouses internationally. And so that's the way I think about that as I go forward. So thank you again so much for the question. Amazing, amazing stuff. And please reach out if you have any other questions.

• 35:44Andrew Giancola?

  All right, lastly, we're going to get into Health Corner. Now, Health Corner is a segment that we used to always have. And it used to be sponsored by the plunge. My cold plunge is still something that I have. I haven't done it in a couple, like a month now, but it still is a fantastic little piece of equipment that I love to use. And as I start to do more heavy duty stuff here, I'll probably be using it again. Now, Health Corner, if you've never heard it, is a segment where I kind of talk about some of the health things that I am currently doing. And so today I figure what I'll do is go through some of my workout routine. Now that I have a little infant baby, we have our daughter at the time recording this is 21 days old. And so you've got to stay on top of your health and fitness when stuff like this happens. Health and fitness is a huge part of my daily lifestyle. It is a huge part of what I do.

• 36:27Andrew Giancola?

  And so I'm going to just talk through how I've shifted my workouts because working out is the main portion and the catalyst of what I do. And then eating well is the second portion. But I'm going to talk through how I've shifted my workouts since she's been born so that I can still work out and make sure I'm getting everything else done because my time has shrunk. And because of that, I still want to make sure I'm getting my workouts in. So what I used to do is since my sons are a little older now, and by a little older, I mean they're three and six, but they are a little more self-sufficient than they used to be. I used to be able to get longer workouts back in. And for me, a longer workout is doing a lot of lifting. I do a lot of lifting every single week and longer sessions. And then it's doing some sort of cardio sessions,

• 37:09Andrew Giancola?

  which typically for me falls into a couple of different categories. It could be pickleball, which is the majority of it. It could be a stationary bike. It could be swims and it could also be, you know, light jogging. So here's kind of how I shifted this because pickleball does not happen anymore because pickleball takes me a couple of hours. I have to drive there. And so for this first couple of months, I won't be playing, then I'll start playing again. So here's kind of how I shifted this is I changed my lifting routine to be six days a week. So I'm actually increasing the frequency of the lifting routine, but decreasing the volume. What do I mean by that? What I mean is I'm going from four days a week to six days a week lifting, but the amount of time that I spend lifting is only about 30 minutes. And before it was about an hour for four days a week. And so

• 37:52Andrew Giancola?

  by doing this, I can squeeze in smaller windows every single day. And then what I can do is just increase that frequency. So now what I do is I do a push pull. So I do push Monday, pull Tuesday, push Wednesday, pull Thursday, push Friday, pull Saturday. If you don't know what push pull is, pushing movements are chest, triceps, shoulders, and then pulling movements are back, biceps. And then I also do hamstrings on pull day and I do quads on push day. And so this increases the frequency. I only do one exercise per body part on those days. And so I'm hitting each body part three times per week. And so I've enjoyed this. I think it's really helped me with my time crunch and it's helped me actually fit the workouts in every single week. So if you're finding that you're just on a major time

• 38:34Andrew Giancola?

  crunch, shrink the timeframe of your workouts, but increase the volume in the days that you do them and it may help. Now also, what really helps me is I have a home gym. If you've heard the old episodes, I have a home gym that I built out into, we have a three car garage and in one of the bays I built out a home gym. And so I have a squat rack in there with a bunch of plates. I have a full rack of dumbbells and I have a cable machine. And so I can do pretty much anything in that home gym, including a bunch of different bars for deadlifts and all those different types of things. So for me, That matter a lot. And so I spent a lot of money on that home gym. I think I spent seven or eight grand on the whole thing originally when I did it in 2020. And the reason why I did that is I really value those dollars. Now that is some of the best dollars I've ever spent. It makes me happy every single day because I can get in there and get out. And I can do it at times that I have small windows and small pockets of

• 39:19Andrew Giancola?

  time. Now, sometimes I'll get the boys in there, my two sons, and I'll even get them in there to, you know, just practice their lifting movements. And so it's been really fun and enjoyable because they can see me working out and I think it's going to help establish a lifelong habit of health for them too. So really, really cool stuff and something that I think is really, really valuable for me. And if you've ever been on the fence about a home gym, do it, man. Make it rain on that home gym equipment. It's really awesome. If you're looking for like home gym influencers out there, one is Coop from Garage Gym Reviews. He's fantastic and he'll try to sell you on some expensive stuff. So you don't have to go crazy on it. But just note that, you know, getting quality equipment is good. You don't have to get the highest end stuff. It'll last for a very, very, very long time. It's all steel and all that kind of stuff. So anyways, that

• 40:04Andrew Giancola?

  is my workout split currently. Now, when it comes to cardio, I'm trying to get some jogs in in between. I'll ride the stationary bike here and there. And that's all I can really do on the cardio front right now and getting that zone two cardio in. But once I get back picking up on pickleball, I'll do that, you know, three, four times a week, probably, and be back at it again. So really, really good stuff. If you guys enjoy Health Corner, please reach back out to me. We had a lot of you reach out and ask me to continue it. So I brought it back. And then if you have any other questions, though, please let me know. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for investing in yourself because that's exactly what you're doing when you listen to this podcast. I am so excited you're here and I hope you have a great rest of your week. We will see you on the next episode.

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