Pre-Tax or Roth, How to Use Your Emergency Fund, & Building Business Credit - Money Q&A

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast Money Q&A, we're going to talk about how to use your emergency fund, building business credit. Today we are going to answer these questions! Question 1: Should I contribute to pre-tax and roth as a high earner? Question 2: How do I use my emergency fund? Question 3: How to Maintain and Build Business Credit Question 4: Balance Protection Insurance on a credit card. 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: The 1-3-6 Method For Building & Managing Your Emergency Fund 7 Ways to Build Credit Fast (Increase Your Credit Score!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

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

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI website builder.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

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• 2:26Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we have another episode of Money Q and A. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join that Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney.co/newsletter, and you can respond to any of those newsletter issues that come out, and you may get your question answered on this show. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and/or following us on YouTube. And on YouTube, we are Andrew Giancola over there.

• 3:11Andrew Giancola?

  So today, we're going to be diving into a bunch of your different questions. So we're going to be going into, should I contribute to pre-tax and Roth as a high-income earner? We're going to talk through how you should actually use your emergency fund. You're saving up this money. How do you actually use the money inside of your emergency fund? Is number two. Number three is how to maintain and build business credit. We're going to dive into the steps in order to do that. And number four is, should you have balance protection insurance on a credit card? And what do I think about balance insurance protection? And then lastly, we are going to give a big update that's happening in Washington right now when it comes to data brokers. You know that I absolutely hate data brokers and how that they have your information. We're going to dive more into that here at the end of this episode

• 3:52Andrew Giancola?

  as we move forward. So if those are some things that you're into, this is Money Q and A. Let's get into it. All right. The first question is, love the podcast and the newsletter. Well, thank you so much for the kind words. I truly appreciate it. I had a question about contributing to retirement. I contribute 25% with a 3% match, and my wife and I are both 25 and we work. We expect our income to remain about the same because she will be decreasing her hours due to kids. Our marginal tax rate right now is 27%, and I always hear that you shouldn't contribute. contribute pre-tax and Roth in your 401k. I want to contribute 15% to Roth and 10% to pre-tax. Is there anything wrong with this strategy?

• 4:37Andrew Giancola?

  I think it would help me distribute the opportunity for tax-free growth while controlling my current tax rate. I know you can't give advice, but any guidance would be appreciated. So absolutely, this is a fantastic question. And anybody out there who is contributing to retirement accounts should be thinking through this question every single year. It's one of the things that you should be reviewing every year to see where you are with your marginal tax rate and where should you go going forward? Now, today, I'm going to dive into the scenario on how we should be thinking about this. So there are pros to mixing Roth and pre-tax contributions. And one is something that you mentioned, which is tax diversification. Because when you're contributing to both pre-tax and Roth accounts, this allows you to manage future tax risk.

• 5:19Andrew Giancola?

  And you'll have both taxable and tax-free options for withdrawals in retirement. So this gives you more flexibility to control your taxable income. And I love making sure that you take advantage of different tax buckets. So I love the Roth, I contribute to both, I love the pre-tax. And in addition, if I only had a certain amount of money, what I would do is try to max out the Roth first and then contribute to the pre-tax. But since you are a high-income earner, if your marginal tax rate is at that 27%, I love that you're mixing it up a little bit. And I think you have to start mixing it up above 25% because you've got to make conscious decisions of how much you're paying in tax this current year. Now, if you're above 30%, it's really important to look at,

• 6:01Andrew Giancola?

  should I be contributing more to pre-tax than possibly something in the Roth IRA? So high-income earners have to think through these considerations, which is why it's great to have a tax strategist or a CPA in your corner always, because you can bounce these questions off them all the time. But when you start to have these conversations, I like to think through this as having a diverse tax situation when it comes to retirement accounts. So what I always look at is I love the Roth so much because of that tax-free growth. The tax-free growth is going to be the majority. So I always want to take advantage of that, no matter how much money I'm making personally. That's just the way I like to look at things because I am very, very bullish on my investments. Like to put dollars into the Roth, so we get that tax-free growth, which is going to be the majority. But then I also like to reduce my taxable income at the current time right now,

• 6:46Andrew Giancola?

  which is why you go for that pre-tax situation. So that diversification that you're thinking through is great. Now, number two is current versus future tax rates. So at a marginal tax rate of 27%, a mixed strategy can help you reduce your taxable income now with pre-tax contributions. But this also allows you for tax-free growth and withdrawals from the Roth portion of retirement. And so this is going to give you the best of both worlds. And then also you have the income stability consideration. So since you expect your income to remain relatively stable and may even decrease slightly due to your wife reducing hours because you're having kids or she wants to spend more time with your kids now, diversifying those contributions is going to help you hedge against potential future tax rates.

• 7:28Andrew Giancola?

  So it also helps you hedge against some of those tax changes that could happen down the line by diversifying into some of those considerations and having some Roth in there. So some other points to consider is balancing immediate tax savings versus long-term growth. So pre-tax contribution, like we've been talking about, will reduce your current tax bill, which can be beneficial if you believe your retirement tax rate is going to be lower. And Roth contributions don't offer immediate tax savings, but they provide tax-free growth and withdrawals. So this is advantageous if you expect your tax rate to be higher in retirement. So I like to have the flexibility withdrawals in retirement as well. And so I like to think about the future. What is it going to look like when I start to withdraw money?

• 8:12Andrew Giancola?

  Well, I like to withdraw money and not pay taxes when I'm in retirement. Really, in retirement, I don't want to worry about that stuff. And so this diversification is also going to help you overall by doing so. I think the way that you're doing this now is really sound. I think it's something that, you know, I would probably most likely follow. Any adjustment that I would make would be very miniscule. And so I think, you know, the way that you're rolling with this is absolutely fine. And there's nothing wrong here with the way that you are investing your dollars. I love that you were investing 25%. That is the biggest and most important part is getting to that portion. And that's half the battle is developing that habit. And so automating this process, making sure you're Automating your contributions, obviously in your 401k you are, but also automating them, since you're doing it in a 401k, you are. But anybody else listening, it's making sure you're

• 8:56Andrew Giancola?

  automating contributions to things like if you're going to do this with an IRA and a Roth IRA, for example, is automating that stuff so that you can ensure that you're building wealth automated. So you don't have to lift a finger, you don't have to think about it, you don't have to worry about it. Automation is the key to building wealth. I'll say that over and over again until my face turns blue, but you gotta understand that. But the way that you're doing this is great. You have a balanced approach. I really think that this is fantastic and keep up the great work in building that strong financial future. And I am so proud of you guys for doing that. And congrats to your wife to being able to reduce some of her hours so that she could spend more time with the kids. I think that's something that is an accomplishment. Congratulations to both of you for the opportunity to even be able to do that. Your hard work is what allowed you both to be able to do that. So that is absolutely amazing.

• 9:41Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The second question is, been a listener of the pod for a little under a year now and I'm a big fan. Well, thank you so much for being a listener. I truly appreciate you. I have a question for you regarding emergency funds. I know the importance of having one and I've begun to build one for myself in a high yield savings account as I'll be graduating college at the end of the year and starting my career. My question is, what does using that money look like for you? When something happens that you would want to use the money saved for in your emergency fund to pay for it, do you pay it out of your checking account and then reimburse your checking account with the money put aside in your savings account? Then start building the emergency fund back up? Just curious as to what utilizing those funds looks like practically and what your strategy is. So this is a great question and a lot of people have been asking this question as of late. I've noticed that this question's been coming through a ton. So

• 10:26Andrew Giancola?

  this is going to be a fantastic one on how to use your emergency fund. So a lot of times, people like to hoard cash in their emergency fund. They don't want to use it because they worked so hard to build it up. And if you've heard our episode talking about the 136 method, which is basically how to build your financial foundation and doing it surrounding the emergency fund. When you set this up properly, you need to be using your emergency fund and it is something that is there to be used. Don't hoard up cash in your emergency fund. You are actually supposed to use it. Now, don't use it to go buy a brand new TV during Black Friday, but you can go and use it when you have A real true life emergency. So say, for example, you have a car that breaks down. It's the example I use all the time because you have no idea when that's going to happen. And maybe you need brand new brakes and you didn't plan for it.

• 11:08Andrew Giancola?

  Or maybe you got a hole in a tire and you had to replace a tire. These are common things that happen to everybody all the time. And so let's say, for example, that that happens. You can go ahead and make an initial payment with your credit card on that. If you want to get the points or whatever else you want to do. But then what I want you to do is wherever your emergency fund is, and if you don't know where it should be, it should be in a high yield savings account. And the reason for this is because a high yield savings account produces higher interest than any other account would where you can hold cash, but it also keeps it safe. And so if it's in a high yield savings account, you can pay for the emergency with a credit card and/or if you just want to use a debit card, your checking or cash or whatever else you want to do. You can absolutely do that. And then what I would do is then move that cash over to replace or replenish your checking account

• 11:53Andrew Giancola?

  and/or move it over so you can pay your credit card. This is partially kind of the reason why I also like paying my credit cards weekly is because I have to do this from time to time. I have to move cash over so that I can pay certain bills with that credit card. And I like to just do it in a weekly basis because it just keeps me on top of that stuff. So I will go into my high yield savings account. I'll transfer the cash back over. And then from there, then I will utilize it and I will pay off that portion of the card that I use that cash for. So that's why, another reason why I like to funnel things through cards is because you have, you know, a couple of days that you can pay off that card. So you have time to move the cash over. It just gives you a little buffer. Whereas if you're using your checking account and only paying straight up cash for it, then you're going to have to come up with that cash immediately to move it over from the high yield savings account.

• 12:38Andrew Giancola?

  So I just like using my card, especially when it comes to emergencies, if the situation allows it, so that I can go in there and reimburse from my savings. And then what you want to do is you follow the 136 method to replenish that specific category. So if you've heard our bucket method where we talk through how to use the bucket method for your savings, you're going to have different categories in there. Maybe one's for car repair, maybe one's for home repair, maybe one is for, you know, job loss, parts of your emergency fund that are built up over time. And so then you just want to start to replenish those so that you have the proper protection when those types of things happen again. Because they are going to happen again. Really important to replenish those, but that's strategically how I do it. I run it on a credit card. I move the cash over from high yield savings account to checking.

• 13:23Andrew Giancola?

  I mean, I guess you could pay it from your high yield savings account too. But I just throw it into checking. I just move it over pretty quickly. And then boom, I go ahead and pay off that portion of the card or the rest of the bill if I need to, depending on what is going on in that situation. So that's how I do it. It's pretty simple. It's a three-step process and hopefully you're not utilizing your emergency fund four times a month. So it doesn't become this cumbersome thing. Hopefully it is less than once a month that you have to use that emergency fund. But if you are in the thick of it, I've been at times where I've had to use my emergency fund 10 times in three months. And sometimes that just happens. When it rains, it pours. And sometimes you just have to get in the thick of it there. But that is exactly how I would do it. And then if you want to, if you're like, man, I don't want to keep moving money around, you can also maintain a little cushion in your checking too, for those smaller emergencies. Maybe it's

• 14:07Andrew Giancola?

  $2,000, $3,000 or below. Then you can maintain a little checking cushion if you like that. If that makes you feel better, that's also another thing that you can do. I just like to optimize it. I'd rather get the interest on that money and then just move it over manually. It just makes a little more sense to me. So that's exactly how I do it. I follow those three steps. Any other questions, though, please reach out and congratulations on building your emergency fund in college. That is absolutely amazing. I'm so proud that you are doing that because that is going to help build your financial base for the rest of your life when you start that career and good luck starting your career as well.

• 14:40Andrew Giancola?

  All right. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now, I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals, and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five-minute drill every single morning. I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow, and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks. I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll

• 15:24Andrew Giancola?

  flag spending changes, upcoming expenses, or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial advisor. In your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code PFP. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs.

• 16:08Andrew Giancola?

  When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

• 16:53Andrew Giancola?

  to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com/podcast. Just go to Indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes

• 17:36Andrew Giancola?

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• 18:18Andrew Giancola?

  Hi, the next one is, hey Andrew, I'm excited to be part of your newsletter. And I also listen to your show on iHeartRadio while commuting to work. I really enjoy all the episodes and I've learned so much since listening to your podcast. I also like the episodes when you interview someone. You've covered most of my concerns and or worries around money through your channel. The only thing I haven't heard is an episode on helping build credit. I'm well educated on how to build and maintain Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian FICO credit scores. But what I would like to learn more about is how to build and maintain business credit. Great question. Also, to learn more about different types of companies that I can use to build credit with. This will also be very helpful for people who are new to starting a business. And people that it's been a while, but I just never knew about business credit or how to obtain it.

• 19:03Andrew Giancola?

  Thank you for everything you do and I think your passion to educate others about finance is phenomenal. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for the kind words. I truly appreciate it. And I thank you so much for listening to the show and sending in your question. This is a wonderful question and something we have not covered yet. It is something that I don't think a lot about, so I have a couple of different businesses. I don't borrow against those businesses very much. And so it's not something I think a ton about at the current point in time where I operate my businesses. I like to operate businesses the good old fashioned way of paying cash for stuff as much as I possibly can. The reason for that is I don't want to get into situations where I have personal guarantees on debt. That I don't really want to take on if I don't have to. Now, I will do it with private money sometimes. I will do it if I'm signing a lease for specific locations that we have.

• 19:48Andrew Giancola?

  Like one of the businesses we have, we've signed five leases this year alone. And so for those specific scenarios, sometimes you can't get around those personal guarantees. But when it comes to debt. I usually will not take on a personal guarantee unless it's like backed by real estate or something along those lines. But if you're looking at setting up business credit, there is steps that you can take that make it, you know, a lot easier over time. So obviously incorporating your business, having an LLC, you have to do that. Or, you know, if you're going to file as an LLC, S corp, whatever you're going to do, making sure you're incorporating and having your EIN available so that you have that ready to go. Your EIN is very important. If you don't have an EIN yet, or your tax ID, just make sure you get that. It's basically like your social security number for your business. So you got to have that in order to have some sort of business credit.

• 20:31Andrew Giancola?

  Number two is to obviously have a business bank account. Everything when you have a business bank account should be running through that business bank account in your business credit card. If you have those two things, it should all be running through those different accounts. You should not be spending money in your personal, but it's actually a business transaction. If you're doing that, you're doing it backwards. You want to make it clean. You want to make it easy to read. If you ever get audited, you want it to be all in the same place. Really, really important stuff. The third thing I would do though, is I would get a Dunn's number. So if you've never heard of Dunn and Bradstreet, they issue what is called a Dunn's number, which is essential for building business credit and it helps establish a credit profile. And then this is often used by lenders and suppliers. So a Dunn's number is really important for that business credit. If you don't have one, you can go to Dunn and Bradstreet

• 21:16Andrew Giancola?

  and they will help issue you that number. Number four is your business credit cards. Now, a lot of times when you open business credit cards, you may have low limits coming up, but also you're going to have to personally guarantee those business credit cards. Now, not a problem because when you operate businesses, you should not be taking on a ton of different debt. Instead, you should be operating in cash as much as you possibly can. Now, I am very risk adverse when it comes to operating businesses. I do not want to go into debt for my business because if that business cannot make any more money, then you are facing a situation where now you're going to have to take your personal finances and put them towards some of that debt. So when you're operating this, you want to make sure that you are doing it in a way where if you're going to run that business credit card, you already have the cash in your checking account, not an invoice coming to you.

• 21:59Andrew Giancola?

  You have cash already in your checking account. It's already hit your checking account and it's in there before you spend money on that business. Very important to note, I do not want you to get in situations that could be negative. Now, there are a bunch of different companies that report to business credit bureaus. Uline is one, so like if you open a new LLC, you're 100% going to get a Uline magazine in your mail. That's one. Quill is another one. They have like paper products, that kind of stuff. Granger is another one. There's a bunch of them out there, you know, a lot of companies that you work with where you're ordering specific things for business. If it's a business to business company, a lot of times they'll report to the business credit bureaus. And these companies will usually offer net 30 terms. And so you have 30 days to pay for receiving those goods and services and all those different kinds of things.

• 22:44Andrew Giancola?

  So one big thing to note is when you start to work with some of these companies, make sure you make payments on time and or early. That's going to be one of the keys overall. It's just like your personal business credit is making sure that when you have those businesses or those companies that report to these business credit bureaus, you make those payments. I'd make them early. Just make it something that you make them early and then monitor those business credit reports. So business credit bureaus like Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business and Equifax Business. And you can ensure accuracy and track your progress. So that's the three places that you can actually use to monitor this stuff. All three are great resources. And then you can look for these vendors and suppliers that usually will report to those credit bureaus. There's also gas cards and retailer accounts, companies like Exxon or Shell or Office Depot

• 23:28Andrew Giancola?

  that offer business credit accounts that report to credit bureaus as well. You don't really need those. I'm like a Chase Ink guy when I'm looking for specific business credit cards. If you want our business credit cards, by the way, you can go to the personal finance podcast.com. And we have a little tab up at the top that says credit cards. Those are my favorite credit cards, but we also have our favorite business ones in there. I personally use two of the different Chase inks right now are the ones that I'm using. So if you're looking for good credit cards, those are great. The Capital One Business Credit Cards are also great, the Spark Cards. And then the American Express Cards are fantastic for business, depending on what, honestly, a lot of times it matters on where you're banking and what the best signup bonus is. So look at some of those if you're looking to start off with business credit cards.

• 24:09Andrew Giancola?

  All of those I love. I've had the Chase inks for years now. I probably need to go look and travel hack a little more on some of these business credit cards. Because if you do have businesses that you can put a credit card on, you can get a ton of points, way more points than you could on your personal. So it's also great for travel hacking when you have those available to you. So love all those. And then the other ones that, you know, your credit card companies are the ones that are really going to be reporting to those credit bureaus. Those are the ones that are going to make the big, big difference for you. The vendors, less so, but if you want diversified credit reporting, then you can go to some of those vendors if you want to order for some of them and build it up. But I wouldn't go out of my way to do it because the banks will help you with that process. Over time, I've gotten my business credit increased slowly just from utilizing those credit cards.

• 24:51Andrew Giancola?

  So the way to think about this is treat your business credit with the same way as your personal credit. Monitor your spending, maintain low credit utilization, establish solid history of timely payments, and you will have no issues whatsoever. It's very similar to personal and you got to make sure you have cash in the account before you spend it. So really, really important stuff. Hope this helps you. And if you have any other questions, please reach out. All right. The next question is, hi Andrew, I've been listening to your show for about eight months now and even went through a lot of your back catalog. Lots of people do, so I appreciate you doing that. I've noticed that when we get new listeners, they kind of binge through the back catalog, which is great. That's the reason why we do it that way is we have a lot of our episodes actually cover most personal finance topics for anybody listening right now.

• 25:32Andrew Giancola?

  Sorry, I'm going on a rant here, but a lot of these will cover a lot of the personal finance topics. And it was actually intended originally for you to go through the back catalog. So great that you are doing that. I have a question that I'm hoping you might be able to answer on a Q and A as I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering this. Well, it's your lucky day because we're answering it right now. I had recently switched credit cards with my current bank. After switching, I noticed that along with my monthly fee, I also get charged a balance protector insurance fee as well. From looking into it, this covers my credit card for $15,000 in the event that I become unable to work, et cetera. I am wondering if I should keep this or if it's not worth my money. I have an emergency fund that I am currently working on building up to cover one month expenses.

• 26:15Andrew Giancola?

  I also already have life insurance, which I believe would cover anything above what the balance protector insurance would. I am 28 years old and I have a wife and two children, two month old and 2.5 year old. For a bit of context on my situation. Well, first of all, congratulations on the family. You are in the thick of it, just like I am, my friend, and I know how that feels. So I appreciate you sending this in. I've been enjoying your show and the insightful, quick responses you provide. Looking forward to hearing back from you on this. So, thank you so much for sending this in. Just great that you're even thinking through this. Now, I don't know which card you got. I don't love that they automatically put this on your card without telling you. Maybe they did tell you, but I don't love that this is automatically just on your card. And so that sounds something like Bank of America or somebody else like that would do. But I don't love that it's on there.

• 27:00Andrew Giancola?

  So, let's talk about this for a second. So, number one is for anybody listening, if you don't know what balance protector insurance is, this is a type of insurance that usually covers your credit card balance up to a specific limit. So, in this specific situation, it's up to 15,000. And so if you're not able to work, or you have disability, or you have job loss or death, the coverage will come with a monthly fee based on your balance. Now, there are two pros to something like balance protector insurance, which is, one is peace of mind. If you're like really worried about something like this, it can provide an extra layer of financial security if you're unable to work unexpectedly, if you're carrying a large balance, which hopefully you're not. But number two is convenience, because it's automatically linked to your cards. You don't have to go through a bunch of different hoops to jump through

• 27:44Andrew Giancola?

  in order to make sure you get this paid off. Now, the considerations against keeping it. And for me, I would most likely never keep this on mine. A, because as you're starting to build up that emergency fund, that emergency fund is going to cover that for you. B, I never carry a balance on my credit cards. It never carries over to the next month, and I never get out of the realm of how much cash I have in my checking account. So, when you have cash in your checking account, that's when you run your credit card. You don't run it when you don't have the cash. And so, that is one of our core rules in spending with a credit card, is you've got to have the cash in your bank account already allocated for whatever you're purchasing before you run the card. You are treating the credit card like a debit card, even though it's a credit card. And so you've got to think of it like, do I have cash in my checking account?

• 28:25Andrew Giancola?

  Yes, okay, now I can run this and make sure that I have the cash to cover this. Another reason why I like paying my credit card off weekly, just to stay on top of that. But a real other key considerations are high cost. First benefit. So monthly fees for balance protector insurance can add up and the payout just may not be worth that long-term cost for most people. Secondly, if you have an emergency fund and you have life or disability insurance, you may already be covered for these types of events. And so it could be overlapping coverage, which it sounds like you have life insurance. So I would double check your life insurance policy to just see if you have coverage for this kind of stuff. Three is your emergency fund is just a better alternative for this. You're not having to pay a fee for something. And so your emergency fund is going to be a way better alternative, or you can get some more comprehensive life or disability insurance that provide a broader

• 29:09Andrew Giancola?

  value of coverage. So those I would be more inclined to consider is disability or life to cover this. You know, if you have term life, that's what we recommend here is only term life. I don't recommend any other life insurance whatsoever. Term life is really cheap and it gets the job done. It covers what you need to get covered. And so when we think through this, we got to make sure that it can provide a broader range of coverage. And so for your specific situation, here's what I would do if I was in your shoes. I would get rid of it and I would build up an emergency fund big enough to cover any situation or any broad situation that you have. Building up one month is great, then getting to three months, obviously, and then getting to six months is going to be really, really important. But secondly, I would also just check on that existing insurance that you have. If that helps cover it, boom, you got your

• 29:53Andrew Giancola?

  answer pretty quickly. If you want to wait and hold the coverage until you get a little more cushion in your emergency fund, more power to you. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't let it stress you out whatsoever. There's nothing wrong with it. I just wouldn't hold this coverage for a very long period of time. I think it's too expensive for what it really offers. So usually the things that I would personally do is drop the coverage, build the emergency fund, check my current coverage, and that would give you a greater indication of, you know, what you should do next. But really, the coverage just is something I think a lot of credit card companies, if they're automatically adding it on there, that means they're making some good money on that coverage. And I think that typically I'm not going to go for that. So, great question. So glad you asked it because we haven't covered that on the show yet. And so that is fantastic.

• 30:35Andrew Giancola?

  And really, congratulations to you and your family, your growing family there. That is so great. I'm so glad that you're building that emergency fund. It's so great that you have some life insurance in place to protect them. And I think that is absolutely fantastic. So appreciate you sending in this message and let me know if you have any other questions. All right, the last thing I want to talk about is there is some progress to potential rule changes at the White House for consumer financial protection. So, the White House is holding roundtable sessions on protecting Americans from harmful data broker practices, and they've had a few roundtable sessions on doing this. Now, this is really, really important, because I've talked about this a number of different times in this show, and there was really not enough rules around data brokers and how they get your information, who they sell them to, who they give your information to,

• 31:20Andrew Giancola?

  and a lot of times, they can acquire this information from a number of different places. And so, during these sessions, I'm going to kind of read actually exactly what they're doing during these sessions, just so you're aware of what's going on, and it is actually pretty important. So, one thing they want to do is they're looking at redefining certain data brokers as consumer reporting agencies, which would make them subject to a Fair Credit Reporting Act rules restricting data sale only for purposes specified in the act. So, they can actually specify which purposes you can actually sell your data for, not just for any willy-nilly old reason. And then, secondly, is redefining credit header data, which are the basic descriptive,

• 32:02Andrew Giancola?

  personal identifiable info, which are usually less restrictive than things like financial records or credit history themselves. And as a consumer report, this would reduce the ability of companies to disclose people's sensitive contact information, and less in a specific required circumstance. So, here's what would happen if some of these actually were to change and these rules were to go and be implemented, is the proposed changes to the rules would directly impact businesses of the major credit reporting agencies, so Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, as well as a range of industries who rely on credit header data for direct marketing and identity authentication processes. But, it would also cut off a major source of sensitive data used by less regulated parts of the data broker landscape.

• 32:47Andrew Giancola?

  So, people search, private investigator, background check, service companies, all of those are companies that have your private information, and they are institutions that can sometimes sell your information to the wrong people, and it can become fraudulent. Now, I think this is just a big step for us to even be having roundtable conversations in the White House on this. They need to, obviously... Push this forward a little more because a lot of the data breaches that happen out there and a lot of the reasons why people's personal information, their financial information gets stolen is because data brokers have their information. And so if you want to get your information removed, by the way, we talk about DeleteMe all the time, but DeleteMe is a service that I use to get my personal information removed from data brokers. So if you ask data brokers to remove your personal information, they are required to remove your personal information from their lists.

• 33:32Andrew Giancola?

  And so DeleteMe is a company that you can sign up for and what they do is they go to these data broker companies and they remove your personal information from these data brokers for you. I started to do this myself. I was going through the process of getting this information removed. In some companies, you gotta send an email. With some companies, you gotta go and fill out a bunch of forms. With some of them, you have to write them a physical letter still in 2024 and 25. You still gotta write them a physical letter. And so when it comes to this, I decided, hey, this is absolutely a nightmare. I want to pull my hair out, filling in all these different forms. And so I signed up for DeleteMe. DeleteMe removed my personal information from over 8,000 data broker websites. And you can choose, if there's some that you don't want to remove from, then you can choose that as well and DeleteMe will help you through that process.

• 34:14Andrew Giancola?

  In addition, DeleteMe also continuously monitors these data brokers so that if your personal information is added to different data brokers or added again to some data broker by accident, they get it removed again. So it is one of the best services that I have used in a long time. If you go to joindelete.me/pfp20, you can get 20% off your subscription at DeleteMe. That's joindelete.me/pfp20. And you can get your personal information removed from those data brokers and it is a service that I think most people should have if you want to protect your financial information. So really important when it comes to protecting your finances online is to utilize DeleteMe. I love them and it is someone I've been using for a long time. So as we think through this, and hopefully there are going to be changes in the White House on this, we can see a big, big difference.

• 34:58Andrew Giancola?

  I would love for more regulations on these data brokers because it is really causing us issues as a consumer and it is hard when you're just trying to navigate your online life and people just get pieces of your information. So really, really great stuff there. So just wanted to update you on that. As anything else that comes up along those lines, I will keep updating you on Q and A episodes. So really appreciate you guys joining me here today. And thank you so much for being here and thank you for investing in yourself because that's what you do. Every time you listen to this podcast is you are investing in yourself. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you and we will see you on the next episode.