How They Escaped $92,000 of Debt Before It Was Too Late

Can you really afford to become a one-income family? In this episode of Making a Millionaire, Tyler and Mikaela share how they went from nearly $92,000 of debt, an $84-month car loan, lifestyle inflation, and costly home renovations to building a $400,000 net worth in their early 30s. Their journey highlights budgeting, emergency funds, investing, 401(k) strategies, Roth IRA planning, 529 accounts, employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs), RSUs, family financial planning, and the Financial Order of Operations. If you're wondering how to pay off debt, save for retirement, build wealth with one income, or balance financial independence with raising a family, this episode is packed with real-world lessons and actionable insights. 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

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:27Speaker 01

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• 0:56Speaker 02

  Early 30s, $400,000 net worth.

• 0:59Speaker 03

  Friday, I ended up quitting.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  There are so many people out there that listen that have a desire to do what you've done.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  We went out to eat all the time. We never really thought about spending. We had a very expensive car payment. We were making renovations and upgrades on our house. We were going on trips.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Were you also saving money well?

• 1:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  You remember what your payment was?

• 1:15Speaker 04

  $9.75. How many months? It was 84.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Holy cow! That's literally the car scenario of night.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22Speaker 04

  Our basement flooded. Having to take out a personal loan, put stuff on credit cards. I ended up doing a home loan. Probably like $92,000 in debt.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  But you got out of it.

• 1:37Speaker 04

  I'm originally from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which is a small town just across the border from Clarksville, Tennessee. So about an hour and a half from Nashville. So I've always grew up with Nashville as like the big city. And then so I went to school at Kentucky. And then after I graduated from there, I knew that I wanted to move to Nashville. So I've been in Nashville for coming up on nine years.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Oh, nice.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  So yeah, I've been, went from Nashville to Donaldson to Mount Juliet. So slowly moving outside of town as life progressed. But yeah, and then she, we ended up meeting in high school.

• 2:10Speaker 04

  She moved to live with her grandmother senior year of high school. We actually went to senior prom together.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 2:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I, I like to.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Were y'all an item in high school? It's like a high school.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  Ish. So it was just senior year. I lived with my grandmother. I'm from Delaware originally. So senior year, I lived with her. We met, we got set up by mutual friends to go to prom together because neither of us had a date and it worked out. So we kind of started, you know, talking then around that. I moved back to Delaware after we graduated. We lost touch for several years and then I was back visiting for the holidays. We reconnected and the rest was history.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  What now? How do you reconnect? You're back visiting. How do you reconnect?

• 2:44Speaker 03

  Back visiting family. We had mutual friends that both invited us to the same get together and then we saw each other and.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Isn't that awesome?

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Re-ignited the flame.

• 2:54Brian Preston?

  Cause look, there's this new phenomenon that, that I see with all my friends when their kids go to prom now is that. It's like friend groups. It's not like romantic. It's not like it's just like, hey, I don't have a date. You don't have a date. Let's get together.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:08Brian Preston?

  Was the prom date romantic or was it just kind of a friendly thing?

• 3:11Speaker 03

  No, it was definitely romantic. We liked each other. It worked out that way because we didn't know each other before we were set up. Yeah. And then timing, like you said, didn't work out for a long-term thing then. Yeah.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Love it. Imagine like being married and then getting to show your kids one day like, oh, he was us at prom, but this wasn't us, us.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  I know. It's funny because.

• 3:32Brian Preston?

  I was still, you know, and it's, you could get the visual of the, the mathematics and everything going on in my head.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:37Brian Preston?

  How, what was the spread on time between?

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Five years. Yes. But in our living room to that point, we have our prom picture and then our wedding photo right next to each other. Yeah.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  That's so amazing.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  And I wore a white dress to prom.

• 3:49Brian Preston?

  As the old guy, let me go and tell you something I just figured out. Put museum glass on it because all my pictures are starting to fade.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 3:56Brian Preston?

  So well, because they get old, they start, because the sunlight bleaches everything out. So if you've, and I found out recently through snipes. That if you put museum glass on it, it will, which doesn't, it's something you can tell them and it takes the glare and it also keeps them from fading out.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Good to know. We'll need to do that.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  So you guys, all right.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  You get, so you get married, then what? What, what do you guys do professionally? What's the family situation? Get us from prom to today.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah, so we, Tyler graduated, like he said, from the University of Kentucky, started working, you know, obviously right after college, big boy job.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  I worked for a tobacco leaf dealer right out of school, but I kind of have an eclectic background. So I did tobacco leaf dealer for almost two years and I had six months where I worked in a bank and that really wasn't my, you know, that really wasn't my thing. And then from there, I used my agricultural purchasing background. I joined a building materials company and so in that I was in logs procurement and did that for about three years. I'm still with the same company now, but I had an interest in HR. So I transitioned to a compensation role and then expanded in that to where now I'm really a total rewards analyst, both in compensation and benefits and.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Unrelated to agriculture at all.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  It's strictly like HR, benefits, insurance.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Well, his company, he works for such a great company, they gave him the opportunity. I mean, they had this position open up and he applied and got it with no background, except for just proving himself within the company as a good employee. So it's really worked out for him.

• 5:30Brian Preston?

  Some people are just winners. I always say that when we were hunting for leadership, when I was on the school board and those stuff, I said, some people, you just put the right seed in the right ground and it just grows. So congratulations Tyler for you being maybe that ripe mustard seed that just grows no matter what the soil type.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  My mustard seed.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Okay, what about you?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Yes, so I graduated high school, started working when, actually I think it was senior year, I got my first job at Subway and so I did not go to college. I've had pretty much every job you could think of under the sun. But when I moved to Nashville, I was a nanny and started thinking long-term about, you know, career. I need to, you know, get my foot in the door somewhere. I just don't see this being my profession long-term. So, applied with a staffing agency based out of Chicago. They had an office in Nashville, got the job as a receptionist and admin and then worked my way up to recruiter and salesperson. So I was there for six and a half years before I made the decision to step away from that when we had. Baby back in September.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Oh, she had like a brand new baby.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Yes, she's eight months old now. So my leave was four months. I went back on Monday. It was just debilitating and we both work from home. So it just was really hard for me, you know, balancing the two and my boss and her boss are so understanding. They were just giving me the grace that I needed. So, but I just knew that long term, it wasn't gonna work for me any longer. So Friday, I ended up quitting.

• 6:58Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Like you went back on Monday and you stopped on Friday.

• 7:02Brian Preston?

  Wow. So this is really fresh and you're being somewhat modest based upon the notes I read because you were a good recruiter. Cause you're, cause what happened to y'all's compensation? What happened to y'all's household income when you're now making this decision?

• 7:14Speaker 03

  I started there. I think my salary was, you know, 40 something doubled the next year when I started recruiting. I think it doubled the year after that and then kind of was up and down because at that point I was strictly commission based. So I was on a draw salary. But yeah, it was, it was a very good job to me and I learned so much from it and I'm, you know, just grateful that I was so good at it.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  So you guys are in a great financial spot. You showed, you gave us a net worth statement, which is awesome. As it stands right now, and how, how old are you guys again?

• 7:42Speaker 03

  I'm 31.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  I'm 32.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Okay. So early 30s, $400,000 net worth, which is wild. You've got about $24,000 in cash, a little over $208,000 in liquid investments. You have a home worth 550. And then your debt load is only the mortgage. You have about a $381,000 mortgage. So you guys are in a fantastic situation.

• 8:04Brian Preston?

  Y'all already know that?

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:06Brian Preston?

  Cause when I see, when I see that, I'm like boom, shakalaka. That's, that's pretty good.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  I know. I mean, I, I have to attest it all to him because I, you know, I don't know a lot about finances and everything and how to go about it the right way, but him just from listening to you guys in the Ramsey show, I mean, he's, he's learned everything.

• 8:21Brian Preston?

  Yeah, we did that.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  You did. He steered us in the right direction. So.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Well, okay. So, but you guys, in the last eight months, you've made this decision to go from what I imagine was a very high income. When you're both working, what was the total household income?

• 8:36Speaker 04

  2025 W2 was around maybe 250.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  All right. And so now we've made the decision to go down to one income and we're somewhere in the 110 base plus bonus plus, plus long-term incentive. So like not maybe a little more than half, but roughly half.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  How is that adjustment gone? Or have you adjusted? You still living like you used to make deals?

• 8:58Brian Preston?

  No.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  No, we've definitely adjusted. But I'll let you speak to it.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, this Friday she went out. She was saying that she went out.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  The Friday after the Monday she came back.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  January, it was right after New Year's. January 5th, I think, was my first day back. January 10th was my last day.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Man, so you've had a few months of like, have you adjusted? Like, I want to know, like, how'd the conversation go? How's the lifestyle gone? Has the budgeting gone?

• 9:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it kind of started while she was out on maternity leave because I remember I went back to work. I work from home. She came downstairs to my office one day and was just like, I don't think I want to go back to work. Like, is there any way we can make this work? And I'm sitting there, I'm just like, looking at the spreadsheets. I'm like, there's no way that we could possibly do this. And then fortunate, I'm very fortunate that I received a promotion at the end of the year in December, which was a pretty significant compensation raise. And so with that, plus, we kind of prioritized paying off debt and cash flowing some renovations and stuff over those last year. So we cut down the expenses, increased my income, and then obviously, we're cutting back in lifestyle a lot.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Tell us more about that. What, because there are so many people out there that listen, that have a desire to do what you've done. Hey, we desire one of us to stay home and focus on that. But we both make good incomes and we're both earning and we like our lifestyle. Like, I mean, like tactically, what are some of the things you cut out? And how have you guys been on the same page about doing that?

• 10:26Speaker 03

  It's been a big lifestyle change. I mean, before, we were definitely dinks through and through. So we, I mean, we went out to eat all the time. We never really thought about spending. We had a very expensive car payment. We were making renovations and upgrades on our house. We were going on trips, so.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Were you good savers? Were you also saving money well?

• 10:45Speaker 04

  No.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  Not really, no.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 10:48Brian Preston?

  As a percentage, what do you think you were saving while both of you were working?

• 10:51Speaker 04

  Uh, probably I would say somewhere, if you include the HSA and the ESPP and the match, I mean, we're probably around 15%. I'd say maybe probably a little less.

• 11:03Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  But with my income, I mean, I could have a bonus check come in and make 20,000 that month. So it's like you could put that in the savings and be like, oh, we have a pretty decent savings now, you know? Um, but yeah, we, we really just, we very rarely go out to eat now. We got rid of the car. So we don't have the car payment, the insurance, all of that.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Oh, no. So you had, so you had a nice car with a big payment and you guys said, hey, the best decision for us is to just get rid of the car.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Well, Tyler, for a very long time was telling me, we need to get rid of this car. And it was very hard. It was a hard decision for me because it was a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

• 11:39Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I don't remember the year.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  It was, yeah, it was a 21 Grand Cherokee. We bought it in 22. It was about as new as you could get a used car. I think it had 7,000 miles on it.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  It was so nice.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  2022 used car prices were a little elevated anyways. I think there's something going on with Grand Cherokee specifically that they're kind of dropping in value. So because it was so much like new, even though it was used, the value on it dropped significantly, even after we were throwing just occasional chunks of money at it. And so we were underwater in it.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  What was your payment? You remember what your payment was?

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Uh, 975.

• 12:16Brian Preston?

  Wow.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Wow, $10,000 a month payment.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  It was ridiculous.

• 12:20Brian Preston?

  And it was getting gutted on the depreciation as well.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. But you loved the car.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  Well, this was going to be our family car. We purchased it before we even thought about kids, really. Um, we knew obviously in the next few years that we wanted to start thinking about a family, but you know, that was going to be our long-term family car. The car that we have now, which Tyler has had since college, 2013 Jeep Wrangler.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that's paid off.

• 12:45Brian Preston?

  Jeep Wrangler is y'all's family's car?

• 12:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Now, so the Grand Cherokee was, and now we have the Wrangler, which is a very rough rider.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  One automobile household.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Yes, it's paid. Get off.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  So y'all had two cars and you made the decision, hey, we wanna, we wanna stay home. It's gonna, we can't have this thousand dollar car payment.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Well, no, actually, before I even got pregnant, we knew regardless of if I was gonna stay home, because that wasn't even a conversation yet. It was just, we need to get rid of this car. We can't have a baby, actually, because we were thinking about daycare prices is why we got rid of the car. We can't afford daycare.

• 13:17Brian Preston?

  Rid of the car before, before y'all even had, uh, got pregnant?

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. We knew.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  You were pregnant.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Or it was around the same time. We were taught, we were having the conversations.

• 13:27Brian Preston?

  We were already foreshadowing that you weren't going back to work. Did you know that you weren't going back to work?

• 13:32Speaker 03

  No, I, in my wildest dreams, that would be amazing, but I never thought that it was possible. So I didn't even think that that was something that I could do. Like, the plan was to put her in daycare. We had a daycare lined up.

• 13:44Brian Preston?

  Okay, I need, I need context, because this seems somewhat extreme to, to go ahead and get rid of a car. While you're making great income, you don't plan to leave.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  There's still a thousand dollar a month car payment.

• 13:53Brian Preston?

  It is, and, and, and I don't want to keep me on track on this. Was that, how many months was that nine seventy-five a month? Was that for forty-eight months?

• 14:02Speaker 04

  Oh, no. It was, it was eighty-four.

• 14:05Brian Preston?

  Holy cow!

• 14:07Speaker 04

  It was, it was one hundred percent. My biggest financial.

• 14:12Brian Preston?

  Do you know how many high fives when y'all walked out of the dealership that that salesman probably did?

• 14:16Speaker 02

  How expensive does a car have to be for eighty-four months to still have a thousand dollar car payment?

• 14:21Speaker 04

  It was sixty-seven.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  And you, did you finance all of it?

• 14:25Speaker 04

  Uh, we, I was putting down ten percent, but I think with all the warranties and everything, that, that pretty much just, that down payment got paid.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  So you just added a bunch of stuff on to it.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. We went with all the bells and whistles.

• 14:37Brian Preston?

  Well done on getting rid of this.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Wow!

• 14:40Speaker 03

  Well, it's, like I said, it took a long time to convince me.

• 14:43Brian Preston?

  But this still doesn't, there's additional context that's missing here is because you get rid of that, okay? That, that sets us level set. Was there something else that's going on? Did y'all have like other credit card debt or some other type of debts that made y'all do more extreme activities like this?

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, we did. We did some pretty significant renovations coming up on two years ago, so summer of 24. We finished our basement, so it was a huge renovation at about 1,000 square feet.

• 15:12Brian Preston?

  Was this thinking about four babies and kids?

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, like so foreshadowing definitely needed some more space. We were sharing.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  When did you buy the house?

• 15:20Speaker 04

  2022.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Okay, so this is like relatively new into owning this home. You're like, hey, we gotta go ahead and renovate.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's an older home, just needed upgrades.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  We had a pretty significant savings. We had about 110,000 in savings. So all of that went towards renovations in our mind when we got the car. We were like, you know, we'll throw chunks at it. But then, of course, you spend all that money on renovations. We added a pretty large like pole barn accessory building on the back of our property too. So we had tons of renovations, ran into some things where our basement flooded halfway through the like we just got studs up. Basement completely flooded, so we had to stop renovations and.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Waterproof.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Waterproof, put in a sump pump. That was an additional 21,000 to do all of that. And so we end up having to take, we end up having to take out a personal loan. We weren't accounting for the material costs. We put stuff on credit cards. By the time we get done with the renovations, I ended up doing a home loan to try to consolidate some of that high interest stuff. So when we came out of that, plus the car payment in fall of 2024, we were probably looking at 92,000 in debt.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  So, okay, so.

• 16:32Brian Preston?

  This is where I was getting at. I knew something was going on in the background.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  That's with the car payment, which is like 60,000. So you, this renovation, even though you had saved $100,000 for it. Not only did you burn through all $100,000, but then you racked up an additional $30,000 more than you had saved up.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  But you got out of it.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  So how, okay.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  We were very intentional about paying it off and being debt free, you know, before we started a family.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that 2025, she obviously had a really good year and that commission was just going to cash flowing some additional renovations to just make it more comfortable for the baby when she got here. But also paying off debt, we were underwater on the car, so we sold it, but also had to pay on it. That was, that was brutal selling, having to pay to sell a car.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  To get rid of it.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  But, um.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  That's the nightmare. That's literally the car scenario nightmare.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, lesson learned.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think we, um, during that time, we were around $2,000 in debt payments a month. So the whole reason that we were trying to get out of it was solely to just afford daycare. So that was our goal at the beginning of it and then being able to make those choices all of last year while she was pregnant, um, kind of, and then the promotion and then just learning to cut back in lifestyle was led us to this January, being able to, her being able to stay at home.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  And when we say daycare, not just any daycare, we wanted to have, you know, it was definitely going to be a more expensive daycare. Um, first kid, all the things. So, yeah, we, we knew it wasn't going to be cheap.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  So as you sit here today, I mean, you guys have done, one, that's just remarkable, right? Like, I think there's a lot of people out there, but holy cow, I wouldn't even believe that's possible.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  It's crazy that it is possible if you just are very intentional about how you spend and don't spend.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  And so as you guys sit here today, you, you said, we had this motivation to do this thing to be able to pay for daycare. And that motivation was the thing that, as you sit here today, now what are the things that you're planning forward towards, right? So you, you've gone from sort of like, like negative, I say from bad situation to now you're in a fine situation. Where do you go from here? What's the, what's the goal or what are the things moving forward that you guys want to be able to do?

• 18:52Speaker 04

  I think for me, it's maintaining our current lifestyle. I mean, this change, we're five months in and really, it's just been great. Like, I love the family dynamic that we have right now. It's what I want to focus on. If we have to cut back in other areas so that we can prioritize this sort of lifestyle that we're living, then that's, that's what we're willing to do.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  So what do you mean by that? Like, you have to cut back in others to maintain the lifestyle? What do you, what do you mean?

• 19:22Speaker 04

  I guess just, we knew going into this, we wouldn't have her commission checks and things like that. So, home renovations, there's still some things that we like to do. That's gonna be put on hold for several years. Obviously, big trips and stuff like that, we're not gonna be able to do. So, those type of lifestyle changes, but also just being able to budget monthly on the one income.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  But what you're saying is, the sacrifice to have her at home, to be able to be the family unit, is worth not going on the trips, it's worth not... I think it's amazing, a lot of people don't recognize that when it comes to making financial decisions, there's always opportunity cost. If I do this thing, that means that I can't do this thing. Or, if I don't do this thing, it means that I get to do this thing. I think it's wonderful that you guys have recognized that. So, maintain current lifestyle is one thing you wanna do. What else?

• 20:19Speaker 03

  I think, long-term, you know, we say maintain our current lifestyle, not go on the trips. Eventually, you know, when Palmer is older, we wanna be able to take her on family vacations. And, you know, we wanna make sure that we're saving for her future so that she's set up in a way, you know, if she wants to go to college, she can afford to do that without struggling to make it happen. You know, or have a reliable car when she gets to that age. You know, we'd like to eventually be able to make these updates and renovations to the house, just to make it safer and more cohesive for us as a family as, you know, hopefully we continue to grow. So, really, it's like, we know we're okay and we're in a good spot today with how we're going about this big change. It's been working for us for the last few months, and we're okay with all of the, you know, cutbacks

• 21:00Speaker 03

  that we're doing. But, how do we get to a point where we can eventually start having that money to do these other things on one income? Will that ever be an option again?

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Currently, present day, current income, what's your savings behavior look like? Walk us through kinda like where your money goes today.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  I contribute 6% to my 401K. We have a 5% match on that at my employer. I also contribute to my HSA, and also...

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Family HSA?

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  So, are you maxing that out, or how much you put in your HSA?

• 21:31Speaker 04

  I think right now, it's... Forty-five hundred is what I'm putting in annually. I previously, I would like to say putting in the work previously over the years before having a baby, like stockpiling my HSA, just having that money when it comes to the out-of-pocket maximum that you're definitely gonna hit when you have a baby. It was just so nice going through that, knowing that I'm not even thinking about the medical costs whatsoever, because I know I got it covered.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  I love that. I love that. All right, 6% to the 401K, 45 to the HSA, Roth IRAs, savings account, cash, any of that kind of stuff.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  So we, well, we're contributing 200 to our daughter's 529, 100 to her UTMAT account, and I'm also doing 2% for ESPP.

• 22:20Brian Preston?

  I had already written a note to myself for you guys, when y'all were, as Michaela was describing, I was like, "Daughter." And I look over here and I see, she already has $17,000. How, and she's a few months old?

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Eight, eight months old.

• 22:37Brian Preston?

  And then you just told me, monthly, you have $200 a month going into her, what, 529?

• 22:42Speaker 04

  529, yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  100 into the UTMAT.

• 22:44Brian Preston?

  Look, y'all have done a great job. I will be very complimentary, but, here's the big but, here's the big but. Right now, y'all have done such a good job of recalibrating your life, but you have put this child at the center of everything, which is, by the way, nothing wrong, kids are great, we love, we love our families. But I want to make sure that when she gets older, you guys are still financially independent too. And y'all have built the great foundation, and a lot of this is going to do some incredible things. But y'all are not at step eight right now. You're just, you're just not. You've had to take a recalibration, you're not even funding Roth IRAs, which you gotta get that free, tax-free growth. I mean, that kind of makes me sad a little bit that you're not getting the tax-free

• 23:28Brian Preston?

  growth. To hear that you're funding a 529 when you're not even maxing out the Roth is a full stop for me. It's just, it's a, it's a misallocation of priorities. Don't mishear me. You can still love the heck out of your daughter, but I promise you, you need to be financially independent yourself, so that down the road...

• 23:49Brian Preston?

  You're not putting your financial burdens on her.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:51Brian Preston?

  And that happens a lot. And if you're not careful, because she will be able to get scholarships. She'll be able to get student loans and other things. You're not going to be able to get a retirement loan. It just doesn't exist. So this is the time while y'all are, y'all are young, 31 and 32. Compounding growth is still way on your side. So we need to maximize and leverage that. Not just assume, because by the way, I think if we started doing, and that's part of one of the things we'll probably put on the homework list. We run some 529 analysis. Just the priming of the pump of what they've already done is going to be amazing. I have a daughter, my oldest daughter just graduated college.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 24:31Brian Preston?

  We, and I don't mind sharing, I was only for the first few years, putting $2,000 a year into her 529 after I'm in step eight. And then I think that my, my mother might've put $3,000, I think, three or $4,000 when my, my daughter was born.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  One time.

• 24:49Brian Preston?

  One time. We paid for three years of college with just the $2,000 a year that we were putting in. Cause that's what Georgia gave us a deduction back when we were Georgia boys. And then my mom's contribute, that one time contribution paid for an entire semester, you know, which is only, you only have two semesters a year. So it a little bit goes a long way when she has so many years. You've already primed the pump in a pretty powerful way. That I think y'all might be leaning heavily into something that you need to prioritize for yourself.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Right. And that's why we're here. So I mean, we need this advice, you know, we, we don't know what we don't know. And we've never met with financial advisors before. So this is exactly why we're here.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  How much did you say that's going into your ESPP right now?

• 25:33Speaker 04

  2%.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  2%. Roughly, cause I know, I imagine your comp varies a little bit, but what, if we were going to use a number, what's like a realistic number for total comp for you? 130,000, somewhere in that ballpark?

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd say 137 is, would be a target based for it. It's also based off of company and individual performance.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  So I'm just thinking through like current savings rate, when we think about like stuff that you're saving for the future, you've got about. 3% going into your HSA, you got 6% going into your 401k. So that's 9%, you have a 5% match, now we're at 14%, another 2% into the ESPP. That's 17%, right? Did I do that math right? I think I did that math.

• 26:14Brian Preston?

  Don't make me do public math. You've got a calculator right there.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  It's somewhere in that ballpark. I noticed that a lot of what you guys were talking about, I asked, what are your goals? I want to maintain lifestyle today. We want to be able to do the renovations, be able to do the travel. A lot of the stuff you said was very much like short-term to intermediate-term goals. I didn't hear like a super like long-term goal out there. Hey, we want to be able to retire or reach financial independence. Is that even on your radar? Or are you just like, ah, we're so worried about today, we're not really thinking about tomorrow?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  I'm just hoping that I'm able to just do enough now that it can compound to that point. But really, I know that I'm working for at least 30 more years, so.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Well, I'm sure it puts a lot more pressure and stress on you now, being the sole provider. It's like, I can't even think about that. But yeah, that definitely would be a long-term goal, I think, especially when we were both working. It's like, yeah, I would love to retire early or make that an option and spend more time with our kids when we get older and have more financial independence, so.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  You said kids, so I don't want to be presumptuous here, but.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  We'd like to have one more.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Okay, so the idea is, because I was, do you think that likely you'll be a one-income household forever? Or?

• 27:33Brian Preston?

  We share a brain. Because that's what I was gonna ask.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  It's possible. I mean, so some background too. Tyler had a stay-at-home mom. He has a brother. I have three siblings, single mom. She always worked until she actually ended up going out on disability. So stopped working when I think I was in middle school. Um, but you know, single mom, sole provider, we just had a working mom. We had a nanny and you know, that was our life. So him experiencing the stay at home mom, you know, route was amazing for him. And you know, I feel like I obviously haven't done the working mom route, but my company would hire me back if I ever needed to. So I'm very grateful for that.

• 28:12Brian Preston?

  Planning.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  No, I would like to be able to, you know, be a stay at home mom until Palmer starts school. And then if we have another one, obviously until they start school. So those are the options. But if I needed to, I would go back to work tomorrow if we were in a bad spot and you know, that's what had to be done.

• 28:29Brian Preston?

  Here's the thing, because I'm a little older and I know a number of people and one of my dear, dear friends, um, his, his spouse is a recruiter too. And, um, and she's kind of had the best of all worlds and the fact that she makes a great living and, and, and but, and does all the, the, the home stuff, but she still works from home and does recruiting stuff too, in a very specialized way. Cause by the way, that's not something, you, you said it earlier and I think you're not giving yourself, yourself enough credit. You get paid commission. So you, there's a skill set here. This is not something that you just plug in any, any piece or any person and they can go out there and recruit people. You've actually got a very specialized skill set to make and be able

• 29:14Brian Preston?

  to do this. I could see a future and you could take as, be as patient as you want, meaning you could, you could get your, your, your current daughter into school. You could even have the second child, wait until they get into school. So maybe we're talking about tabling this, this superpower of yours for 10 years. You're still young. I mean, so.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Getting back into it.

• 29:33Brian Preston?

  Forty, forty-one years of age, there's potential. You could still work from home, use your skill set to fire back up the engine.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:42Brian Preston?

  And, um, and probably still do a lot of these things and not feel like you had to sacrifice the, the kids. I, I, so, and I don't know how we build off, plan off of that, but I just want to tell you that I think y'all have some uniqueness here that could serve you well in the future.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:57Brian Preston?

  Because of that skill set and in the relationship, because that's what I've experienced. Is that if they know you can do this, that's why they yeah, they'll take you back anytime because it's like

• 30:05Speaker 03

  They really didn't want me to leave.

• 30:07Brian Preston?

  Well, because it's a salesman, anybody who can sell. That's why when this new modern world where we're talking about AI and everything else. The skill set that will never go away is the ability to sell. So it's kind of a universal. You know, just like you have people, different blood types, but then there's one blood type that can fit with everybody.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:23Brian Preston?

  You are that sells is the skill that fits with all professions and all careers. Technical, anything you can, if you can sell, you probably are employable. So you're going to be okay.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. And that would be the ultimate dream. Like you said, is to take, you know, X amount of years, however long it takes and you know, hopefully jump right back into the swing of things and be as good as I was at it.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Well, and this is one of the reasons why there's so much life that it sounds is going to change for you guys between now and the time you turn 50, right? And so often young people, they want to have like, okay, what's the plan? What's exactly, you know, what's my financial plan going to look like for the next 25 years? And realistically, it's going to change a lot and there's a lot of variables. And so that's why I would say early on in your journey, which we really want you to focus on is your savings rate. And, and we're going to see, okay, based on the savings rate that you currently have in place, what path or what trajectory does that put you guys on? Uh, but I do want to like do some triaging on the current moment, right? Because you said there are things that you want to be able to do and you guys kind of shared a budget with us. If we look at your budget right now, you guys are spending about $6,200 a month. Does that sound? Does that sound right?

• 31:28Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Uh, is this a real budget or is this like the, hey, I'm going on making a millionaire. So I did my best to like, put what I like. Is this accurate for what you guys spend?

• 31:37Speaker 04

  No, I'm, I'm on a spreadsheet every day. So I

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Every day he updates it.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have, that's the real budget.

• 31:43Brian Preston?

  Can I ask them questions then about some of the categories? Dogs, is that like your black ops budget? Like, you know, like you hear the government spending $30,000 on toilets. You're like, they're not really spending $30,000 on toilets. That's where they hide all their black ops stuff. Is, is the, are the dogs black ops? Is that where you're hiding something else that you don't want us to know about?

• 32:02Speaker 04

  So no dogs.

• 32:05Speaker 04

  On this, I inflated every month, but we have, do have a dog that has some medical issues and stuff like that. So he has medication, it factors in food.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  We have two dogs. The one he's talking about, he has epilepsy. He just beat cancer last year. He will eat a socket any opportunity he gets and need to get his stomach pumped. So, anything you can think of, the dog is going to the vet for. Our other one is a perfect angel. He never has any issues, so.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  I know. So it is inflated. We probably, we definitely don't spend that much a month, but I do like to have it a little more, just in case I need to put some money away for the occasional thing that comes up.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Well, being at one income, one of the first things that immediately jumps out to me is, okay, $6,200, one income, baby in the house. I immediately think about emergency fund, right? Now, I see that you guys have about, was it $24,000 in cash right now? What you're calling your emergency fund is really $20,000. If I think about $6,200 a month burn rate, and I think about six months, realistically, I think your emergency fund should probably be somewhere closer to like $35,000 to $40,000, probably in that ballpark. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, right? Are you currently making moves towards that? Like, are you adding to your cash pile right now? Or is $6,200 pretty much zero-based budgeting? There's not really anything left over at this point?

• 33:31Speaker 04

  It's pretty close to zero-based budgeting after everything. So, I mean, I have, when coming into this, based off your recommendations, I'm going to be adjusting contributions and budgeting and things like that. So if I knew, I watched the show enough. I knew you were going to say to stop with the 529s and the UTMs, and then also increase the emergency fund. That's definitely the two new, two things I knew that were going to happen. So maybe some of those funds could be routed into beefing that up over the next several months.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Because what I love about you guys is, obviously you have some discipline. You could not have gone the path, albeit not the most efficient path. You went without being disciplined. And so, one of the beautiful things we like about the financial order of operations or following toward this guideline is, all right, once I have my emergency fund in place, once I've done, I can kind of check that box and then I can move on to the next thing. And then, once I get my savings rate to where it needs to be and I can do, I can check that. Well, then with any additional capital, anything I have left over, that's where I get to start doing the fun stuff. That's where I can, if we want to save for five through nines, or if we want to start building a sinking fund for the home improvements, or we want to start building the sinking fund for the vacations, you can do all that guilt free and not have to wonder, oh, am I going to be in a great place?

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Because you said, well, I know I'm going to work for 30 more years and I hope it works out.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  I think you can go into it with a lot more confidence than I hope it works out. Hey, if I know I'm doing this, I'm going to be in a great spot.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm going to make sure it works out.

• 35:02Brian Preston?

  What's the timing on that bonus? When does that come into play?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  In February, so it came in this last year.

• 35:07Brian Preston?

  Are you having to use that bonus when it pops as to catch you back up? Or are you able to, since you're living zero-based budgeting, could you apply that to long-term, long-term goals? Maybe that, because that's something we explain to people all the time who are commission-based or they have odd, you know, income structures, is that it's okay if you can't do your 20% savings, you know, throughout the year, maybe you're one that has to wait for the bonus to show up, you know? And then, obviously with y'all's income, on one income, the, the long-term incentives also will count towards your savings rate if we can put that in the, the long-term retirement goal, which I imagine it is.

• 35:48Brian Preston?

  So I'm trying to back into the math to see if there's something that's actually going to bridge, you're, you're basically living paycheck to paycheck every month, but then you get this windfall that kind of fills up the savings buckets.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  No, we, um, we definitely can going forward. Because this most recent annual bonus, we just, we literally paid off our last debt in January. So the bonus that came out in February was to beef up the emergency fund. So that was.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  So it was even leaner than 20,000.

• 36:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  But that would be the goal, right? Is to, when it comes in again next February, like you said, put that, get that, the emergency fund where it needs to be. So we might not be able to put as much towards it throughout the year, but you know, when these bonuses and things do pay out, we would ideally get it to where it needs to be at, you know, the 36 or. Whatever the recommendation is and then maybe after that, start thinking about, okay, let's start other savings accounts for, you know, a fun account or whatever it may be.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  And the bonus in February is around $15,000, somewhere in that ballpark?

• 36:58Speaker 04

  Um, it target, but it was a little more gross this year because of performance.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Now, another thing that you guys, obviously you have a young baby in the house now. And whenever our family circumstances change, there are other things we want to talk about that changes. Well, I saw on your budget, you do have a little chunk there for life insurance. So you guys, who's that life insurance for? How much is it? How long have you had that?

• 37:22Speaker 04

  It's, it's for both of us.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  For me, I think mine is around, I have 800 and a separate, a separate market insurance through my company. I have times two income basic and then times four income additional optional. So it's like term insurance? Yeah, it's, it's term insurance through that, but then I have 800. So this is the market right there. I get payroll deductions for the other one with the company. But, and then we also have one on her that is, I think, right at a million. And then I have optional spouse through the company as well for 200. So she's 1.2. I'm total probably around 1.4.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 38:08Speaker 00

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• 39:02Speaker 03

  Did I get that for Palmer? How does that work?

• 39:05Speaker 04

  No.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  No. You go.

• 39:08Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, she was asking you, not us. Go ahead.

• 39:13Brian Preston?

  This is a good exercise.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  I haven't even thought about this.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we wouldn't need it for Palmer because the life insurance is for, I guess, to make up income, so she isn't having any income right now.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  I guess, replace income.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Let's give him a microphone. That's great.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Do you want to hire him?

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on. Yeah, so generally, the reason we get life insurance is if someone depends on us and our income were to go away, weren't to be here, then that person would be in a bad spot. Well, obviously, our children, they provide tons of value to us, but none of it's economic. And so, there's no insurable need on her. Whereas for you guys, it's very, very different. If something were to happen to you, well, then he's going to have to figure out, okay, who's going to watch her and how are we going to have it? And if something happened to him, it's got to be income replacement. And I love hearing that you guys have life insurance, and it's all term insurance, it's all nice, good, low-cost, young, healthy people, term insurance, which is wonderful. And then, what about estate documents? That's kind of the second piece whenever a new baby comes on the scene.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, we keep saying, we need to do that, we need to do that.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  We need to do it, and I have brought it up several times, but it's kind of just a doom and gloom conversation that we just haven't had yet, but we need to.

• 40:28Brian Preston?

  Right now, if something happened to both of you, who's going to raise your daughter?

• 40:33Speaker 03

  It's conversations that we have. We're not 100% sure yet.

• 40:37Brian Preston?

  Okay, so now play this through. Y'all can't, you're not on the same page, right? Is that what I'm hearing? What do you think the state's gonna do?

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I know.

• 40:46Brian Preston?

  This is gonna be a mess.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  I know.

• 40:47Brian Preston?

  This is why we have these conversations with young parents is that, please, please, please, because if you can't figure it out, the state's gonna be even worse.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  I know. It's just such a hard ask of someone. I mean, the people that we have in mind, both options have children of their own and, you know, one side is here locally in Tennessee, the other side is all the way in Delaware. Obviously, it's my family, his family. We would be, I know she would be so well taken care of either way. So it's just like, which hard do you want to pick?

• 41:16Brian Preston?

  Do one of the hards. That's what I would tell you. And then, because it's so, it's not that expensive to go get estate documents, but I would rather y'all be in the driver's seat on that decision than to leave behind just a, oh, wow, this is gonna be a mess.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  I know. It's so hard to think about.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  And as a reminder, it is difficult, absolutely, in terms of like, bringing another child and having to raise another child. It's an awful event when that happens. But you guys have done the hard work of having life insurance in place, that at least from the economic standpoint, whoever that person is, it's not like they're now gonna be responsible for the financial well-being of your daughter, because you guys have already provided that. In the scenario that something happened to you guys, there is $2.6 million that's going to be chiseled, plus whatever you guys have saved up for her, that's gonna be chiseled away for her. So it's really, okay, who do I think can create the environment that I want my child to be in, provide the love and support that I want my child to be? Like, if you do the life insurance portion, you have to worry about the financial piece as much.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  But it is a conversation you guys ought to have, because just like you said, if it's hard for you to decide while you're here,

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  it's gonna be way harder for people to decide on your behalf when you're not here to speak for yourself.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And the good news for you guys, it doesn't have to be that complicated, right? It's not like you have this like, big, crazy, nasty, gnarly estate. Who's gonna take care of our kid if something happens? And who want to be in charge of the money? Like, if you can answer those two questions, that's about as complicated as it has to be at this stage for you guys.

• 42:40Brian Preston?

  And because the money will be behind it, it's Should make the conversation a little easier because I know you're probably thinking about what a burden it will be. Economically, it will not be a burden because y'all have done the right planning. Let's just go ahead and finish the drill and make sure now you have the right, you know, person to raise your children who who will love into her and do all the things that y'all would want to do.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  Definitely. Yes, I know what we're talking about on the way home.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  What other questions do you guys have for us? What are some things that we could speak to that might be helpful or valuable for you?

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have a lot of.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Let me go.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  I have a lot of just like tactical questions. They could be kind of maybe some quick hitters and stuff like that. So I know y'all came out with the how much did I save new resource? So I obviously started contributing 11%. I've been with the company for coming up on seven years. So I was 25 at the time. With that 11% including my contribution plus the match, is that something that you can contribute from? At 25, just keep contributing 11% and you know you're taken care of for the rest? Or should I always be increasing it?

• 43:51Speaker 02

  That's the way the deliverable is built, right? The deliverable is built to give you an idea of if I were to lock in today. By the way, if you want to copy the deliverable, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources and download your free copy right now. The way it's built is that if I locked in at that percentage right now, this is the outcome I would have. What we tell people again is that it's supposed to be motivational to you directionally. But just like you guys, if you would have projected at 25, hey, we make or let's say at 28, we make this much money. We're saving this. Well, like, look how different your life is right now. It would have not been accurate to use that as a placeholder for what reality looked like for you guys. But because you did that early and you got your savings rate up early and you built the assets early, it allowed you now to make this shift.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  So what we're going to do for you, not like spoiling too much of it, is rather than showing you like, oh, okay, here's like a loose save. We're going to show, hey, here's what in your specific situation, based on the way that you're saving, based on your income, this is the trajectory that you would actually be on. The answer is yes, it's supposed to tell you where you should be. But I don't want you to stop there because we don't know what life holds. That's what we want. Even if you start at 11, we still want you to work towards 25%. And that's going to give you more flexibility, more flexibility, more freedom, more options as different life circumstances happen in the future.

• 45:10Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I mean, I think your situation because remember you still have the long-term incentives because seven years, you're probably fully vested in those things. Is that, is that correct?

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Uh, this was recent. I got my first grant last year. So, and then got another grant this year. So this is the LTIs are.

• 45:27Brian Preston?

  RSUs is, I think that's all on there. So there's, we're going to be able to, to look at that. And as long as you have a long-term mindset with it, that should help. But that doesn't take the pressure completely off of, after we get your emergency reserves, we're going to want to at least get that Roth going. I mean, cause that would be some really powerful stuff for the long-term and we'll, we'll put our heads together and, and look into that. Um, but we can definitely create some type of plan.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Okay. So with that, I, obviously I'm like thinking I'm in between step four and five. So should.

• 46:01Brian Preston?

  You're squarely in four.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 46:03Brian Preston?

  You're not in four and five.

• 46:05Speaker 02

  If you want to talk about in-betweens, you're like, you got some in four, but then you're kind of like dabbling in eight.

• 46:11Brian Preston?

  You're dabbling in eight. You're all over the place. 4.1.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  You've got to like took the page and like.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  With that, okay. So that kind of answers my question is.

• 46:18Brian Preston?

  Foolish side of Foo is you're all over the place. We're going, we're going to bring it all in and, and get you to focus.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I, I guess that kind of answers my question is additional funds that we start budgeting out from y'all's recommendations. It should just be solely go into the emergency fund to beef that up? Or should I simultaneously contribute to Roth as the same time?

• 46:40Brian Preston?

  We need to get it a little closer. I mean, they're potentially, they could, you could get into the gray zone later, but right now you're kind of in a danger zone with only having $24,000 and then, and you also have another pool. You're driving around Jeep Wrangler for one child. We're going to have two children at some point. Sounds like not in the too distant future. We probably need to be boosting that cash reserves so we can also have some flexibility in the household decisions with transportation. Just being honest with you. So more is better going into step four because it gives you options and you need options with all the life changes that are going on.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  That, that makes sense.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  But the good news is even with dropping it back, there are some things that we're probably still going to recommend you continue doing, like getting the full employer match on your 401K. And then we're going to get some details on the ESPP and likely still get some piece of that as well. So it's not like you're gonna have to go full stop, but in the short term, you probably are gonna have to redirect where your resources are going.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  That makes sense. And so with the, with the LTI, because it is a newer development that I'm in, when those, it's vest over a three-year period, one-third every year. And then with that, as they're vesting, should I take those and just treat them as income and cash those out and then contribute those where they need to go? Should I leave them in the single stock? Should I view my single stock, both in ESPP and RSU, as a percentage of my investments? Or how should I be handling those, really?

• 48:11Brian Preston?

  This is our favorite part of being financial planners, is that this is where it depends. Is because the answer is exactly what Bo said. It's gonna be yes to about every one of those, but you have to, just like with the Financial Order of Operations, where we tell you what to do with your next dollar. When that three-year mark comes, we have to kind of put on the lens of, okay, what's the best use of these resources over to fund goals, to fund the planning? And we lean into that moment, and then we take into account the outside indicators also of, hey, this is my human capital, and I'm, you know, I don't want to have all my investment capital tied into the same company that I'm also, my wages are coming from.

• 48:55Brian Preston?

  So we want to make sure it doesn't get too loaded up with all employer all the time, so that your, all your eggs are in one basket. So what we do for clients is, this is when, when having a financial planner really pays off, is that we dashboard it for our clients as the money comes in, allocate it, and then we reset the process next year and do the exact same thing. So that way, you're always kind of going through triage and figuring out what's the best thing to do for this moment in time, to make sure long-term and short-term, we're getting the best results.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  So in your situation, not knowing exactly when those RSUs vested, let's assume that they vested recently and they're relatively close, one of the things we might end up recommending is on the day that they vested, you pay tax on them. That's when RSUs become taxable. So the least impactful time to liquidate those from a tax standpoint would be immediately. So RSUs vest, you meet them. So all of a sudden, you take $26,000 of RSUs and you turn it into $26,000 of cash. Well, now you have $26,000 of cash, figure out, okay, where do I deploy that? I go back to the financial order of operations, that in and of itself may satisfy the emergency fund issue. So then, okay, that's a single RSU vest, allows me to do that. Okay, once I've checked that box, okay, where do the next dollars go? And then I

• 50:12Speaker 02

  go to step five and then I go to step six. So your ESPPs are a little more nuanced because the plan's a little more nuanced, but RSUs, I would be asking myself that question at every single vest. Yep. Do I keep? Do I sell? If I sell, how do I deploy? Okay, just follow the FOO. Just follow the FOO, that's it. Simple, that's it.

• 50:34Brian Preston?

  After we get some of the basic stuff, I think you can get more nuanced with the tax strategies and other things, but in the beginning, we're trying to just keep you out of the ditch. I mean, because that's one of the things, y'all have done a great job, but there's some, you know, you have some warning lights. If you think about the dashboard of your car, you know, sometimes the light goes off and you go, oh, man, is this, do I need to go look at this code to immediately pull over? Or do I need to, can I drive around like this for a month or two? Y'all are more of the, the light's gone off, that you got a slow leak in the tire or something, but it's not catastrophic, but it's something that's going to need attention in the long term to get this, so you get to where you want to be.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then I think my last question I'll do is about HSAs. So is it okay if I'm using that as a sinking fund? I do have, probably looking at that, I probably have about $8,000 invested and then the rest is just in the cash account. Is it okay to just keep using that as a sinking fund? If I'm in step four, do I need to stop my contribution so I can continue to beef up the emergency fund? Kind of how do I handle HSA?

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this was a little bit of a unique one. People say, we see all the time that step five, we say, why don't you fund in your health savings account? Because it's a beautiful thing where you can get a tax deferral in the contributions. You can invest the money, you can grow tax deferred. And if you use it for medical expenses, it's tax free. It's a great savings vehicle. But most Americans don't do it that way. It's up to what 13% now of Americans actually use the triple tax advantage?

• 52:05Brian Preston?

  I like to think we did that too, because it was only 4%.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's all us. Okay, yeah. But so the other swath of Americans that are doing that, I would argue that's not really part of your savings. That's part of how you're budgeting right now. So if you know you're going to have healthcare expenses currently in your budget, one of the things you might budget is, okay, I'm going to put money in my HSA, but I know I'm using that as an intra-year slush fund. I know that that's paying for this year's medical expenses. I don't get to really count that in my savings rate. It's more how I'm budgeting for medical. If I am going to invest those dollars, I am going to use those dollars. Well, then it gets to count into my savings rate.

• 52:40Brian Preston?

  And that's more of a step five activity then.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  A lot of people start with exactly what you're talking, hey, it's just intra-year slush fund. And that's totally okay. If that's where you are in your financial life cycle, that's great. And what you hope is that you graduate to the point where, okay, now I can begin deploying those dollars.

• 52:56Brian Preston?

  It's also part of the family planning. And I was going to ask you, the question is, because we see a lot of people strategic wise, when they know the year that they're going to have a baby, you go with the Cadillac plan at the office. I mean, we love health savings accounts, but remember what drives the health savings accounts? You have to go choose that high deductible insurance plan, which has really high deductibles and kind of loads you up with your out of pocket. Years that you have babies, if y'all have a plan that's like a PPO or something that's much more benefit-rich, be strategic. I mean, that's why we have open enrollment. And you're not, you're not, as employers that offer both options to our employees, you're not hurting us when you go and you be strategic and you choose the Cadillac plan in the year that you're having the baby

• 53:39Brian Preston?

  and then you flip the switch back to the high deductible after the baby's here. Be proactive, you know, be an active participant. So do y'all have another insurance option at the office?

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:49Brian Preston?

  It's more benefit-rich?

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, we do, we do have that. And I mean, the open enrollment before.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  She got pregnant was, we didn't know we were having a baby before then.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Right. But definitely.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  Got pregnant in December, so open enrollment's in October.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, so definitely looking at that as an option, but yeah, we definitely have that.

• 54:12Brian Preston?

  But in just in case there's another, you know, oh, wow, okay, this happened. We have no problem with you using as a clearing account because it's, that's what it's there for.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  That's what it's there for.

• 54:24Brian Preston?

  I'm just trying to give you additional strategy things to think about is that you can be proactive even when you go through open enrollment. Use family planning as a baseline as you're going through your matrix of decisions every year when you go through open enrollment.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good idea. Do you see a lot of people doing that? I mean, I'm sure they're not like, hey, I'm doing this.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, he's the HR benefit specialist.

• 54:45Brian Preston?

  That's right.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  He handles the benefits.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  We do see that. We, I could have done it at the time in October, but I just, and we were family planning. We knew we were going to try, but you know, it lucked out that it worked out so quickly. But yeah, well, it's definitely be an option once we decide.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  More strategic.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  To have the next one.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Awesome. Was that all your questions?

• 55:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, the other one's really just ESPP should, I stopped contributing that to, as well, to focus on the food.

• 55:15Brian Preston?

  Give us, give us the layups.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Put the details on it.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  So ESPP, it is, we have two offering periods, January through June, July through December. We do have the look back feature.

• 55:25Brian Preston?

  Got a discount, okay.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  And then the 15% discount.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  Look back and 15%.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:31Brian Preston?

  Okay, that's pretty powerful.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  It's great, yeah.

• 55:33Brian Preston?

  That's free money.

• 55:34Speaker 04

  I manage our ESPP, so I'm a big advocate for it.

• 55:36Brian Preston?

  Yeah, we're going to.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Any, any, any holding period required before you can sell the shares?

• 55:42Speaker 04

  No, no mandatory holding period. It's just short and long-term gains.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  Free money.

• 55:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Immediately day one. That's, yeah, that's exciting. That's awesome.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, so just recommended percentage on that, what I should be doing.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  This company really is amazing. Can't say enough good things about them.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  How'd you come up with 2%, right now you're doing 2%. How'd you come up with that?

• 56:01Speaker 04

  I really just wanted to be contributing something to it to make sure that I'm getting that free money, but yeah, that's just that I could still budget for everything else was.

• 56:11Brian Preston?

  And maybe in the beginning, that's all you can do, but maybe after we get through like next year's bonus drop. We, we give you a little more slack, you know, trying to maximize that.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Oh, my wheels are already turning. I'm excited.

• 56:24Brian Preston?

  That's the stuff that gets me is, you know, you have to work with what you got right now, but then you need to create a plan so we can expand that benefit as much as possible.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Well, that's all I had.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  Man, you guys, what a wonderful, I just, you're, you're gonna be super inspiring to a lot of folks out there like, hey, I wanna be, I kinda feel like I am where they were, the $90,000 in debt, the, you said 84 months on the car loan, right? I didn't, was he, he said 84?

• 56:50Speaker 03

  Was that a fever dream?

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Ah, 84 months on the car loan. I think there's a lot of people, but recognize, hey, sometimes we gotta make hard decisions. And those hard decisions are comfortable and they're not fun, but if we can make them and we can do it and be disciplined and power through it, you get to end up in a great spot. You get to be right where you guys are.

• 57:05Brian Preston?

  We might need to bust you up a little bit before you go buy this second car.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  He keeps trying and I'm like, absolutely not.

• 57:12Brian Preston?

  Medial class on how not to get taken by the car dealerships.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  I, yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  It's hard. You walk in, everything's so shiny and pretty.

• 57:21Brian Preston?

  I'm sure they're like, what, what do you think you can afford? What's your monthly payment you're looking for?

• 57:24Speaker 04

  I know, cuz it was, we were looking at two. One of them was half the price of the one that we bought. And then, of course, the one was just so much nicer.

• 57:32Speaker 03

  Treat yourself, huh? Who cares?

• 57:35Brian Preston?

  You gave me some other indicators cuz you said, then we got into the part where we got all the warranties.

• 57:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:40Brian Preston?

  And I was like, they're like, oh man, we already got this good. Let's not get better.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  I had no idea what I was doing. I definitely have a better understanding of it now and definitely will not be ever doing that.

• 57:51Speaker 03

  Not gonna buy a brand new car ever again.

• 57:53Brian Preston?

  No, you can't, we're not against new cars.

• 57:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:57Brian Preston?

  But in this time in your life, there's nothing wrong with a really good, reliable, used car.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:02Brian Preston?

  Um, just to kinda get you through this season.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:05Brian Preston?

  And then maybe that's something, once, you know, you're in your 40s, you got all the family planning done and you get back to, you know, popping the knuckles and, and placing people and using some sales skills, you can reward yourself with a new car.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Is that what you think recruiters do? They pop their knuckles?

• 58:21Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna lean back.

• 58:23Brian Preston?

  What is it, what is that, you know, that Marvel, you know, he's like, pops his, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, when he pops his elbows. You know, it's James Cowell. Uh huh. Henry Cowell. You know, he does. So that's why I was just getting you that same skill set. You're just gearing up to go.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  I know, and she's really kind of undersold herself because she's, she's been 100% supporting herself since she was 17 years old. Um, you know, she, she comes from less than ideal circumstances. Everything that she ever has is because of her and she like outworks everybody. That's why she's an amazing recruiter. So if you give her a commission based job, she's going to make more money than anybody else. So.

• 59:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  I worked my tail off, that's for sure, to get where I was.

• 59:07Brian Preston?

  Kudos. I mean, cause also being a mom is not an easy task.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  It's so fun.

• 59:12Brian Preston?

  But I love, and I, and I see my, my family, because I remember my wife actually, back when we had our first daughter, she was, she was making a lot of money. I mean, she was probably, because I was, I was just starting a company. So without a doubt, my wife was the primary breadwinner.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:29Brian Preston?

  And then I, I, I felt what y'all were saying is, because I remember when she went on maternity leave, because she was with a great company, great benefits, went on maternity leave. And I think in the first month and a half, she was like, I'm not going back.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  I know.

• 59:42Brian Preston?

  I'm not going back. And I'm like, oh no.

• 59:44Speaker 03

  It shakes your core. It's the craziest thing.

• 59:47Brian Preston?

  I mean, because this, this child is so valuable. That's why it's, it's very noble that y'all want to take care of her and save, but you're already loving this child well enough. The money will take care of itself. But I, but I can see the, the love that y'all had where you have to make those hard decisions. But kudos for you guys for doing it. And, and, and it sounds like, you know, just y'all are in that, that awesome part. Yes, it's the messy middle, but it's also probably at night after you get her down for bed. You know, like this is pretty, this is cool. I mean, it's, it's pretty awesome in its own way, too.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  It's been a really fun season for sure. And thank you for all the kind words that you said. But, you know, going back to a point from earlier, when we just thought this was completely unobtainable. He manages all the finances. He's looking at the spreadsheet every day. And a few months into my maternity leave. I took four months off. I think maybe we were halfway through and I'm just thinking about going back to work. How am I going to do this? What is that going to be like? And I went down in the basement while Palmer was napping. That's where his office is. And I said, is there any world where we can make this happen? And he was like, babe, I have the numbers right here. There's just no way we would be in the hole, you know, like a few hundred dollars at the end of the month.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  So we couldn't afford it. And then he got the promotion and everything just lined up perfectly, but it was just kind of a decision like that. And we're just so lucky it worked out.

• 1:01:09Brian Preston?

  Well, I will tell you, that's what we don't, we don't do a lot of faith based stuff, but I will say that when I went through the same thing, I can remember just having some quiet moments and being like, how am I going to get out of this? And I call it providence all the time is because I landed, I mean, you have to know, when I started my company, business was the hardest thing in the world to get because I didn't have a podcast. I didn't have all this education platform. And I'll never forget, just out of the blue, I landed three big prospects. I was like, holy cow, where did this come from? Right when I needed it. And that's why when you tell the story of all of a sudden, this promotion shows up. I have predicted at least two children here in this office because I start seeing an advisor who starts all of a sudden,

• 1:01:53Brian Preston?

  a few more clients start going their way, way out of the ordinary. And I'm like, something weird is going on here. And it's usually family planning and other things. So there's a will, there's a way. And not to get all sentimental about it, but that stuff gives me the tingles.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Brian Preston?

  Because it is an amazing blessing when things, you know, if you, if it's what it's supposed to be, I think you can find a way in a lot of these hard decisions.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Well, I'm excited that we're going to put together a plan for you guys. I think we have all of the ingredients that we need. And what I love is we're going to put together a plan based on where you are today. And I think it's going to be pretty conservative because I think what's really going to happen for you guys is you're going to have these kids, these kids are going to get of age, you're going to go back to work. And it's going to look even better. But we want to show you that even with the decisions, the hard decisions that you've made, the life that you want to live is still attainable. And I'm super excited to be able to put it together for you.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  Excited to. Thank you so much.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Awesome. Thank you, guys. Brian, what a great conversation with Tyler and Michaela.

• 1:02:47Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I think everybody could probably tell because I'm pretty transparent. I love this couple.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:52Brian Preston?

  I mean, look, how could you, if you think about just the journey they've been on, they made horrible mistake with this car, $92,000 worth of debt that they were able to climb out of.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:03:01Brian Preston?

  And now here they are in this brand new transition or threshold where they're living off of just one income.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, they haven't always done things right, but they got on the same page and now they're doing a lot of stuff really, really right. So now it's a question of, okay, how do we optimize? How do we structure it going forward? And there's two things that they've done really, really well as a couple. Number one, they communicate, they're on the same page, they talk, they're open about their finances. And number two, they obviously have discipline. They could not have crawled out of that $92,000 hole without recognizing, okay, we, if we put our minds to this financial thing, there's nothing we can't accomplish together.

• 1:03:38Brian Preston?

  One of the biggest decisions you'll make in life, and I think that hopefully watching Making a Millionaire highlights this, is be very careful who you marry.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:03:49Brian Preston?

  Because that decision just changes so much of your direction because if you're not on the same page, if you don't have the good communication, if you don't have the discipline, what are we doing here?

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:04:00Brian Preston?

  The good news is, I got the feeling from watching how Tyler and Michaela interacted as well as also how they were receiving our, our feedback, they're actually going to lean into whatever we share with them.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they're going to be able to stick to it. So let's dive into the numbers. You know, one of the very first things we sort of unearthed is that they are a little lean in terms of their emergency fund. They have about $20,000 currently in their emergency fund. And we said, well, if their monthly burn rate is around $6,200 a month, their emergency fund should probably be closer to like $40,000, somewhere in that like $37,000 range. So, okay, how do we get there? We're at $20,000 now. We need to get to 37. What we thought there was going to be some potential for us to just sell RSUs immediately and be able to use that to fund the emergency fund. But when we dove a little deeper.

• 1:04:47Brian Preston?

  Uh oh.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  The long-term incentive program for Tyler was relatively new. The, a lot of those RSUs aren't vested yet, so that's not a solution we can use now. So we said, okay, that's great. Let's look at what we have going on. We said, okay, well, what if we redirect the dollars that are going into the 529, the dollars that are going into the HSA, the dollars that are going into the UTMAT, and we started pointing those towards the emergency fund. Well, if we did that, that would free up about $700 a month. So, starting today, we have $20,000 in there. We're going to do 700 a month, and we know that in August, those RSUs are going to vest. And once they vest, we're estimating that the net amount is going to be about $4,400. We want to dump that right into the emergency fund as well. Then, again, through the end

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  of the year, September, October, November, keep having that $700 a month go. And then in February, he's going to get a bonus. Well, he's going to be about $7,000 short of his emergency fund at that point, but that bonus is going to be about $7,000. So, once that bonus hits, we should apply those dollars, and I believe they can have a fully funded six-month emergency fund by the time they get to February of next year.

• 1:05:54Brian Preston?

  Yeah, that bonus is going to kind of close in the last gap, and hopefully if there's anything left over, they can use it for even more savings goals. But I think what's interesting to me is now that we got the emergency fund handled, let's talk about savings and investment rate. And this was, I got to tell you, first of all, Tyler should go to work.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:06:11Brian Preston?

  And whoever his boss or HR person, whoever's in charge of benefits, should go give him a big bear hug.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  You know who's in charge of benefits? Tyler. He's the guy in charge of benefits.

• 1:06:20Brian Preston?

  He works in the benefits department, but I'm sure that somebody above Tyler is coming up with this structure because it is generous, and that's going to help out a lot with this family that's gone from two great incomes down to one.

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  So, when we thought about, okay, well, how do we look at taking advantages? Obviously, there's a 401K piece, and there's an employer match, but he mentioned that his employer also has an employee stock purchase plan, that he's taking advantage of a little bit, but we believe that that should be like a step two. That's like a free money type thing. And rather than just doing the 2% that he's doing, we think it might make sense for him to shoot for something like 5%.

• 1:06:57Brian Preston?

  For sure.

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  Right, get a little bit higher. And so, one of the questions becomes, okay, well, they're doing zero-based budgeting. How do they begin to close that gap? Well, we've already said they're going to fully fund this. Emergency fund, they're going to have money that's redirected from the HSA, from the ESPP, from the HSA, from the UMA and from the 529. Well, once that's funded, that's going to free up additional capital that can go to the ESPP. So we said, all right, let's think about putting 6% into the 401k. That's going to be about $6,600 a year. When he does that, he's going to get a 5% match. That's another $5,500. And then we said, let's do a 5% ESPP contribution. And he gets to buy the company's stock at a 15% discount.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  And there's no mandatory withholding period. There's no requirement to continue to hold those shares. So that'll be about $6,300. And we know that he's going to have RSUs vesting. And the RSUs are about 10% of his pay, but there's going to be some tax withholding. So we're estimating about 7% net amount coming to him. So if we have 6,600 401k, 5,500 employer match, 6,300 into the ESPP and another 7,700 from RSUs, there's about $26,000 that they're going to have available to begin plowing into their army of dollar bills every year.

• 1:08:15Brian Preston?

  I do want to pause and kind of, you know, talk about what we've realigned here. Because seeing it on paper or on the screen, what's been changed? Really, all that Tyler and Michael are having to come up with is the 11%. The 6% for the 401k, 5% for the ESPP plan. But also, we've changed their mindset. Because they were, if you think about 529, custodial count, you know, for their child. They were thinking only about how do we make sure our child has the money? And here we are, we've now changed the mindset where they're also going to fund the spousal Roth IRA. A lot of changes have happened here, but I think when we actually project this out for the future, it's going to create something that's pretty extraordinary.

• 1:09:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the notes that we just wanted to make sure, because again, we want them to follow the financial order of operations. So as they participate in the ESPP, we're going to argue they should sell those shares immediately. And as the RSUs vest, we're going to argue they should sell those immediately. And what they will likely do is the proceeds from those transactions. I want them to use those dollars to fund their Roth IRAs, to do Roth for Tyler and then a spousal Roth for Michaela. And that's going to allow them to start building those tax-free dollars moving forward.

• 1:09:25Brian Preston?

  Well, and it's also important because that, look, there is, down the road, there might be even more complexity we could add to it for tax optimization.

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:09:33Brian Preston?

  But there is a risk right now. Tyler already is going to have his human capital, meaning his time and his wages. We have to be careful that we don't have too much of our investment capital tied into the employer as well. So that's why we are going to recommend while they have all these funding shortfalls for emergency reserves and other things, we're going to liquidate this stuff immediately.

• 1:09:51Speaker 02

  Sure. So, right now, uh, number one goal is we want to get them a fully funded emergency fund. Uh, we've laid out a path where they can do that by February of next year. And then it's off to the races to continue building wealth. And we've laid out where they could be saving about $26,000 a year. Well, if you think about where they are today, about $200,000 of investments currently. And if they can save a little under 24% of their, of Tyler's gross income for the future, $26,000 a year. And we just assumed, based on their age, that they could earn, on average, an 8.8% annualized rate of return. By the time that they get to 60, even just doing that, they're going to have a portfolio of almost a little over $5.5 million.

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  By full retirement age, 65, it's over $8.7 million. And remember, their goal for like, living expenses of where they want to be was probably somewhere around $7,000 a month. Well, obviously, if their portfolio grows at that pace over that long, they're going to be more than be able to replace that lifestyle with a portfolio that size.

• 1:10:58Brian Preston?

  This is what, you know, a lot of people watching this, you're also probably recognize yourself in the messy middle where you're short on time, you're short on money. But this is why it's really valuable to pay attention to, first, your employer benefits. But also how just a little bit of your money, and when you're even in this period where everything is stretched, can do a lot of work for you in the future. Because this is amazing, is they're putting in 11%, but because of the generous employer, it's close to 24. But what I love, their Their burn rate right now is around sixty three hundred to seven thousand dollars a month, but we're going to give them a retirement at sixty. So that's even an early retirement to where they're going to be able to have in purchasing dollars today, eight thousand dollars a month. That's that's truly incredible.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  And what I think is awesome, too, is they also want to be able to enjoy the here and now and enjoy the present. And we've put together some fairly aggressive saving goals for them, but it's saving out of their base level cash flow that's coming in. So one of the things that that means is when those bonuses happen, not this current year, but in the future years, those bonuses are going to be available to be spent how they would like. So if they want to use that for maybe doing some of the home renovations or some of the family fun experiences, they're going to have additional capital, additional cash flow to even be able to fund the here and now.

• 1:12:15Brian Preston?

  Well, it's also because remember their family car right now is a Jeep Wrangler. So there might be in addition to vacations and other things, it could be shoring up, you know, what the the family mobile is. And then also, I don't want it to be, you know, left unsaid. Michaela had tremendous earning potential. She was obviously a great recruiter. And that's a skill set. So after they get through with having babies and getting the kids off to school, there's still another lever they're going to be able to pull in the future. But I just love that we've created a plan of success, but give them full flexibility to live life on their terms.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, we like to think about this as what we call the minimally viable plan. Odds are, things are going to look even better than this because we more opportunity, more ability to save, more ability to grow. But even if all they do is implement this plan today, this plan we've laid out today could still lead them without anything else changing to a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.

• 1:13:10Brian Preston?

  Tyler, Michaela, thank you for coming on the show. This was, this was, I mean, like I said, we don't hide or hold our emotions. Y'all are one of our favorites. It was just so fun. We all left the room going, man, that couple, they really, you could tell they enjoyed each other. You could tell that they really were on the same page. And that's just, that's fun. That's fun to be around that energy. And it's fun to see that we can actually kind of get our hands in the dough and see how we help them shape the future of their Great, big, beautiful tomorrow. Bo, if others want to apply to come on Making a Millionaire, what do they need to do?

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you'd like to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com/apply. Or if you want to check out any of our tools or free resources, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources.

• 1:13:52Brian Preston?

  Guys, this was a blast. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy team, out.

• 1:13:57Speaker 06

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

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