How to Adapt When Your Income is Cut In Half | Making a Millionaire

After a divorce cut her income in half, 45-year-old public defender Rachel joined us to reconfigure her financial life. Together, we unpack the low-interest mortgage she paid down, the generous giving goals she is pursuing, funding college for her kids, and a whole lot more. We talk through how a setback can reset your Financial Order of Operations, but your path to building wealth doesn't have to stop. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DRINKAG1.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:59Brian Preston?

  Perfection doesn't exist for anybody. You can have a lot of mistakes and there's still tremendous margin for success to come out the other side. And I think that's what we're going to hopefully uncover for you today, Rachel, as we go through this, is that yes, there's a big step back with this big life change, but how do we make you fulfill those three big goals that we kind of uncovered?

• 1:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:21Brian Preston?

  But also you came out the other side feeling much better and with purpose.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  Forty-five years old.

• 1:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:31Speaker 04

  $362,000 net worth. You make about $120,000 a year.

• 1:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:38Speaker 04

  Sounds like you're in a fantastic spot and it's been just a super easy journey from just straight from where you were to where you are now, right?

• 1:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, no problems at all.

• 1:48Speaker 04

  That's the way it went.

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Yep. The good news is I don't want to be a millionaire. So you guys, this may be a quick, easy, check the box, we're done.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  Check, we're out of here. Why don't you want to be a millionaire? Was that, was being a millionaire a bad thing?

• 1:58Speaker 03

  I don't know, maybe.

• 1:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  I don't know. I guess it depends on how you use your money.

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Depends on what a million dollars means for you, right?

• 2:06Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly, yeah. For me, I don't think I need a million dollars to be happy. Well, I know I don't because I'm happy now and I don't have a million dollars. I'm a public defender, kind of lifelong public defender. I love my work. I have two great kids.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  How old are the kids again?

• 2:20Speaker 03

  They are five and six, but six and a half.

• 2:23Speaker 04

  The halves are so important at this stage.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  I do not want to insult my daughter. My ex-husband and I got a divorce last year, so about, almost exactly a year ago. So my financial situation changed markedly, you know, it basically is kind of cutting your income in half, but all your bills stay the same. So I've just been trying to reconfigure this past year and kind of figure out how to manage what I have now. And what needs to go and what needs to stay. And I have had some.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  I guess, I want to think about how to do this year a little bit differently to prioritize some things that are important to me.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  What was life pre this like huge life change?

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  And then what has changed, specifically around the financial stuff?

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Because it's, I think you use the term reconfigure and rebuild.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  Want to dive into what was it like and then what is it like now?

• 3:16Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  But what are some of these goals you have? Because you said, hey, I don't need a million dollars to be happy.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  And, and we would agree with that sentiment that we recognize money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to accomplish the things we want to accomplish. It's just the means to an end. It's not the end itself. So for some people, that's a million dollars. Some people, it's much less. Some people, it's much more.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  And so we are in alignment on that.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  No, I appreciate that. And that's why I've been drawn to your ideology, because I think that resonates with me.

• 3:44Brian Preston?

  Well, it's also, I mean, our big thing is own your time.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:47Brian Preston?

  I mean, and to own your time, do you want to retire at some point?

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:51Brian Preston?

  We have to have an army of dollars somewhere.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:54Brian Preston?

  Y'all were in steps eight and nine. Am I getting this right?

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  I think so, yeah.

• 3:58Brian Preston?

  We've come a ways back, so still this thing had a cost to it.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's just going to sound real spoiled, so I'm just going to say it. We just didn't really think about money. We just had it.

• 4:11Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  And so there was a level of just doing. What we wanted, you know, we had everything we needed and everything we wanted. I guess that's why I always question why people need more money. Because it felt like we didn't have a ton of money, but we had plenty, you know? And so it was just different.

• 4:26Speaker 04

  I think that's really interesting. I think a lot of people go through that. They're, they're in a season or stage where maybe income is good, maybe expenses are low, maybe health is good, relationships, whatever that thing is. And then something happens. In your case, it was a divorce, sometimes it's sickness, sometimes it's job loss or a move or a change. And then all of a sudden it changes. And there's like a mindset shift that happens.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  One hundred percent.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  I started with this view of what it was going to look like and then something changed.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Completely. That's exactly what it was like.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  I want to dive in, I want to dive into that. When it comes to finances, what are your goals? What do you want money to do for you?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  So I think one thing I really liked about having money is when we saw something in our community that we thought would benefit from the money that we had, we just gave that thing money.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  You mean like philanthropy?

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. Like if there's something in our community that needs help, that we, that aligns with our values, we just give them money, you know? And it just wasn't really a question. Obviously, we had conversations about it, but it wasn't like a question about if we had it. And I think in this past year, when I was kind of figuring out budgets, one of the things that changed is like my ability to assist in that way. And I love my community. Um, I can tell people in Franklin are very proud of their community. I feel like that about my community, Waterloo, Iowa. And I just, I want to be useful in that way. And I feel like in the past year, I have not done that in a way that I'm happy with.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Is being able to do more from a philanthropic standpoint. You mean, okay, what I want to do is I want to revisit my budget and I want to figure out how I can cut expenses as much as possible so I can give as much as possible? Or is I want to figure out how I can build a level of wealth so that one day I can write checks freely, the way that I used to write checks freely? And neither of those are right or wrong. I just want to understand what the goal is.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Right. Well, and I don't know that they're mutually exclusive either.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Fair point.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  I mean, I think, you know, it, it would be great to do both, but I think my immediate concern is. Helping now?

• 6:21Speaker 04

  How do I help now?

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. And there are some institutions that I'm concerned will not remain if people don't step up to help now.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Well, let me ask you some questions then, because a lot of times I'll ask people, hey, what are your goals? And they'll say this one thing, which I love, and that's obviously the top priority. So I'm going to ask you about some other things, right? Do you want to retire one day?

• 6:40Speaker 03

  I sure do.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  So I call that a goal, right? Like I say, one financial goal would be working towards financial independence. Uh, for your kids, age five and six, do you have a desire or hope for one day then to go off to like higher education and college and that sort of thing?

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Is your intent that you would like to be able to assist with that?

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  Okay, so we got, all right, we're at more, we're at more goals. This is an exercise I encourage everyone to do, right? Money is nothing more than a tool that allows to achieve our goals. We have to realistically list out our goals.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  And in the pursuit of our goals, sometimes the pursuit of one goal will impact our ability to pursue another. And so we kind of list all of our goals out and then we prioritize them. As we think about how we deploy our capital, we want to deploy it in the most efficient way to satisfy all the goals. Not funding one goal today at the expense of another goal tomorrow if we can avoid that.

• 7:28Brian Preston?

  When do you want to retire?

• 7:29Speaker 03

  I had kids late in life, so I feel like I'm in a weird spot. Because you know, I'm middle aged, but I have very young kids. My goal was to retire about the same time my son goes to college.

• 7:40Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  But I don't know, so I would be like sixty, yeah. I'd be sixty.

• 7:44Brian Preston?

  Okay, so that's, that's an intersection point, because we all have these inevitable dates that will happen. So retirement at sixty, education, how mu- how much, you said they're five and six?

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:54Brian Preston?

  So we have thirteen, you know, twelve and thirteen years?

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:59Brian Preston?

  These are two things that we'll need to, to be taken into account.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Pre-divorce, what, what was life like? You said, hey, we didn't really think about money a ton. Were you diligent savers? Were you saving for the future?

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  Like maxing out retirement accounts, doing that kind of stuff?

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Doing all those things, yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  If I remember correctly, maybe even like prepaying a mortgage?

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Early on, so I would, you were kind of in like the step eight, nine phase of the financial order of operations, right? Like when we think about it, you kind of made it past all sort of the base level steps and you were there. Now this large life event has happened.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Where are you now? Like if you had to assess, where would you say that you are the financial order of operations?

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot. I would think I'm probably more at like four or five.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  Four or five.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:43Brian Preston?

  Is that where, when you went through the divorce, did you just fall back from eight to four? Or did you have to go all the way back to one?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Oh, so that's a great question. Yeah, I kind of went back to one. I kept the house, but you know, obviously I bought my ex-husband out of the house because I had saved so much for retirement. We had different levels of retirement, so I had to give him a chunk of money to even that out. So really, he got all the cash and I had the house. So yes, I was kind of starting from one. Like I needed to make sure I had enough for deductibles. I think I had like $2,000 liquid cash. I mean, it was like bare minimum.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  You know, so often when people think about the financial order of operations, they think about it as a straight line. I go from step one to step two to step three to step four, and I just kind of track up this mountain. And perhaps that even was your journey.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Initially.

• 9:32Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  But then inevitably something happens and in real life, when we see the way that food practically plays out, it looks a lot different.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Like I'm in step nine for a bit, but then I went all the way back to step one.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  And then now I'm slowly building back. And so we thought it'd be interesting. We think about, okay, well, if we look at where you are now, your food journey kind of looked like this.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Right?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Step, step nine, down to step one, but now we are beginning to build. Now we're building back. We've got deductibles covered.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Uh, we're going to talk in a moment about your match, which is a little bit different because of your vocation.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  You're rebuilding your mercy fund. So you are squarely in step four. So we're tracking back up the mountain. I just want to pause and say that's okay.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  A lot of people, they get discouraged and frustrated.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  But this is what happens in life and you were like a living testament to that happening and being okay.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  There's a path out of that.

• 10:25Brian Preston?

  Perfection doesn't exist for anybody.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:28Brian Preston?

  I mean, and I, I mean, there's a, this whole book is full of mistakes. And that's, and that's what I, I think is so great is that you can have a lot of mistakes and there's still tremendous margin for success to come out the other side. And I think that's what we're going to hopefully uncover. Cover for you today, Rachel, as we go through this is that, yes, there's a big step back with this big life change, but how do we make you and fulfill those three big goals that we kind of uncovered?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:56Brian Preston?

  But also you came out the other side feeling much better and with purpose.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yes, no, totally. And I'm very proud, honestly, of the work that we've all done this year. And I'm very proud of my kids, you know, it's a change and how things have gone. And I think we've done a great job. But so, yes, I do not feel shame about having gone back, but of course I want to keep moving forward.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Love that. We've already mentioned, even even with this large life event, your net worth is at like $362,000. When we look at your net worth statement, it looks pretty good. I mean, you said, okay, you've got about $22,000 in cash. You said that's about four months of living expenses. Our goal is to get to six. In investments, you have about $232,000, broken up between a 403B, a 457 and a 401A, which is just all through the same employer that you're working with. You have your primary home, which is worth about $349,000. So on the asset side of the ledger, things look fantastic.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  That's great. On the debt side, it looks like you have two debts. You have your primary mortgage, $100 and about $79,000 and 2.375.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, great.

• 11:59Brian Preston?

  Is that a 15-year mortgage?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  I wish it were. No.

• 12:03Brian Preston?

  What type of mortgage is it?

• 12:04Speaker 03

  It's a 30-year fix.

• 12:05Brian Preston?

  Oh, that's even better, though. No.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I know.

• 12:08Brian Preston?

  Typically, when I see rates that low, I always think it's a 15-year, because typically 15 years are about a half a percent cheaper than 30 years. So if you'd have a 30-year or two, did y'all prepay it? I mean, did y'all buy some points or something? That's a low rate.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  No, we got, we just got it at the exact right time.

• 12:23Brian Preston?

  Wow.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  And honestly, we talked about doing a 15-year, and that was 1.8.

• 12:27Brian Preston?

  Holy cow, you must have, I don't, I mean, we watched the market pretty closely.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  I know, it was like perfect timing.

• 12:33Brian Preston?

  I mean, when we go and try to choose the bottom of markets, I think you, y'all must have just stuck the landing perfectly.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, we really did. We lucked out.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  And so, and when, but you said y'all were prepaying, y'all were like paying the mortgage off quickly.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:48Brian Preston?

  What?

• 12:49Speaker 03

  We were trying.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  And you, and I know you guys are gonna be like, that was not a good idea, Rachel. You should have been putting more money in savings.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Well, we're not about good ideas or bad ideas. We're about optimal ideas and suboptimal ideas.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  I love that phraseology.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  Do you still have a desire to pay off that mortgage?

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Yes, and I have been doing it. I know. And so that's my question. That's my big question.

• 13:08Brian Preston?

  Now, wait a minute. I see a high-yield savings account there on cash. What are you, what are you getting paid on that right now?

• 13:12Speaker 03

  I know, I know, 3.8, I know.

• 13:14Brian Preston?

  3.8?

• 13:14Speaker 03

  I know.

• 13:15Brian Preston?

  We have a delta there of like, you know, a percent, but wait, this isn't even, because there's moments where you're probably making 5% on that cash too, right?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:23Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  I feel like I have anxiety related to debt. Like, I just want to get out of it as soon as humanly possible. And so I'm overpaying, but I understand my margins would be larger if I weren't. And I may be able to meet my goals a little better.

• 13:37Brian Preston?

  When you were trying to do charitable work, was it for the banks? Or was it for these organizations that you're doing it?

• 13:43Speaker 03

  For these organizations.

• 13:43Brian Preston?

  Okay, okay. I just want to make sure we're clarifying here, you know, because there is a spread here.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Fair question. Thank you.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  We're gonna put a pin in the mortgage for a second. Because you just said something, I want to get out of debts as quickly as possible. Your mortgage is not your only debt. You do have this other debt. There's a $60,000 loan from sister. What's that? Walk us through what that is.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, so that was part of the settlement piece in terms of, you know, you could do the qualified domestic relations order.

• 14:07Brian Preston?

  Yeah, the quadros.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  That's right, very good. We elected not to do that. I did not want to fight about a quadro.

• 14:13Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  I just kind of wanted to wrap things up. And so that was our decision that I would just do a straight cash payment to my ex-husband rather than do a quadro.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  From your retirement account?

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Yes. My sister, God bless, she's a lawyer who makes money.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  She...

• 14:30Brian Preston?

  I've never heard it said that way. That's hilarious.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, as a public defender, you have to delineate, right? So she was very generous and loaned me $70,000 so I could make that payment to my ex-husband.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  So you've only paid $10,000 in the first year, right?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, and she was very, I mean, she would let me take as much time as I wanted. Again, just anxiety about, I don't like that being there.

• 14:54Brian Preston?

  Are you paying that monthly? Are you paying it yearly or just when you have money coming in?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  No, we have just a setup. Like through my account that she just gets a thousand dollars every month on the same day.

• 15:03Brian Preston?

  Does she prioritize you going through the financial order of operations? Or do we need to lean heavily into making sure your sister is paid back faster?

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, she's so kind. I mean, we, so again, you guys are not gonna like this. We originally had an agreement where I would pay her 700 a month and then I got, once I figured out like, okay, here's where my margins are, I felt like I would, I could pay more and so I wanted to. So we changed the agreement.

• 15:28Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  And did a new amortization schedule. So the goal, as it's set right now, I would pay her off in spring of 2031.

• 15:35Brian Preston?

  But we can treat this as low interest debt. There's not some asterisk next to it that, that there's a time certain

• 15:41Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 15:42Brian Preston?

  For just relationship purposes.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Sweet. And this is not like money that she, I'm guessing she doesn't even really think about it at all, you know? But it's more like, I think about it.

• 15:52Brian Preston?

  We're gonna get her in next month for making money.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  But I am, it is, it is an interesting thing. Again, just kind of thinking through where your goals are. Like you would agree that 3% is low interest, right? And, and you would even concede that on your high yield savings, you're making 3.8. So there's an arbitrage there. Not that we want to take advantage of the sister or anything, but there's an arbitrage. But you did say, hey, one of my goals is like philanthropy today, present day. And we haven't talked about retirement savings or that kind of stuff, but just in my mind, well, there, there was $700 and it could have stayed 700. That would have freed up $300 a month for philanthropic purposes, right?

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  I just want to understand the mindset. You said, I have one goal. And my number one goal is to be philanthropic. I'll be philanthropic today, to the extent that I can. But when faced with the opportunity to do that or get out of debt, you said, hey, I'm gonna get out of debt more quickly.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's such a good point. There is some cognitive dissonance there.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Okay, okay. So it wasn't, it was likely more subconscious and unintentional than intentional decision, right?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Yes, it was an anxiety ruled decision.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 16:53Brian Preston?

  Y'all keep using these SAT words and I'm going to, I mean, we're gonna have to go have a discussion here in a minute. Good at math, if you saw my SATs, not so good with some of the other, the SAT words.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  So now let's talk about your savings, the way that you build and the way that you. You said you're a public defender, so the way that your retirement is structured and set up is a little bit different. Can you tell us a little bit about that? It's not like you just have a 401k like some people might be familiar with.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Sure, so we have a system called Ipers, the Iowa pension system. I'm sure it has other words in it that I don't recall right now. But basically, a part of my paycheck comes out every month. I think it's approximately $300, maybe $290. And then the state pays maybe like $430 or something each month. And then that's just set aside. So when I retire, there will be like a pension amount that I will receive monthly until I die.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Is it based off of the money that you put into the system? Is there a different formula that determines what your pension amount is?

• 17:54Speaker 03

  It depends on when you retire. So the amount is markedly different. I could retire at 55 under our system, but I think I would get like $3,000 a month or something.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  So one of the things that we tried to determine is, okay, your pension is based on your highest five earning years. And then there's a multiple factor based on how long you've worked there. Like what's your age is, how many years you've put in. And so we said, okay, well, let's kind of estimate, you know, what this looks like. And you said, right now, your income is about $120,000 a year. And we said, okay, what if we just assume 3.5% wage growth? Like just, you know, fairly conservative inflation-adjusted wage increases. By the time that you get to 65, we're going to use 65 as our base level assumption here. Your projected monthly benefit at age 65, if we assume that 3.25%, I'm sorry, I said 3.5, we use 3.25, annual wage growth, about $10,254.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  That'd be pretty good.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  That sounds pretty good, right?

• 18:50Brian Preston?

  It's a future value, though.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  It is a future value. So when we think about that, $10,254 at that point will not feel the way that $10,000 feels today.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Sure, of course.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  So that would be the equivalent at age 65 of about $5,700 today. What's your burn rate? Like, do you know what you spend on a monthly basis to do the things you want to do, the way you want to do them?

• 19:09Speaker 03

  I try to spend no more than $5,000 total, so I would be totally fine there.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  So if we have $5,700 coming in, that's great. One of the- Issues though with the Iper system is that there are no cost of living adjustments on that. So, once your pension starts, it's kind of locked in at that number.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  So, we don't just want to think about year 65. We want to think about age 70, 75, so on. So, we just want to kind of model for you, as you go through time, the purchasing value of your pension goes down. As you can see, it starts at $5,700 a month in today's terms, but as we go through time, the purchasing power of those dollars becomes lower and lower and lower. Well, likely, your lifestyle will either stay the same, or when you retire, hopefully, it would actually increase a touch. So, we have these two things moving

• 20:01Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  in different directions.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  A lot of times, we have people ask us this question, "Hey, if I have this big pension, and I'm able to like, you know, get the, you know, the average five, it is, why would I save anything else? Why would I continue to build?" This is why, right?

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Right, makes sense.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  So, I think we agree. Your pension is going to solve a huge chunk of your need in financial independence, but it's probably not going to solve all the need.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  Is that a fair statement?

• 20:26Brian Preston?

  Well, and also, there's an underlying risk that's sitting out there, that if we went through, and I don't know that we will, because typically, high inflationary strikes, you know, I've lived through two now.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Oh, hi.

• 20:37Brian Preston?

  You know, because the late 70s, early 80s, and then during the pandemic period, that we had this huge run-up of inflation, you're running some risk. As long as inflation went back to normal or below average, your pension's actually going to be great.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:53Brian Preston?

  But we do run a risk, that if we have any extended periods of higher inflation, it does minimize the value of this future promise.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:01Brian Preston?

  Because that's really what, because that's what you're trading, you're taking, you're trading in some of your earning potential.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:07Brian Preston?

  So, that you can get this promise from the government. And the promise, depending upon what the purchasing power of dollars is, in a many decade in the future, it is a big question mark.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:19Brian Preston?

  So, that's one of those things, is the financial planners, we're always like, well, we have to try to figure out, what's the counterbalance? Because this is a blessing, but how do we add something so that we We don't have to put all of our eggs in one basket. And that's where we're going to talk to you about trying to, once again, using the financial order of operations. How do we build something in the background to kind of, you know, be a flex system on what's going on with the pension plan?

• 21:43Speaker 04

  And it doesn't seem like this is news to you because if you look at your savings priority again, you are currently contributing to some of the defined contribution account. You are putting money into your 457. There's money going into your 401A. So you can see that all in, if we just kind of remove the pension from the equation, you are saving and investing or have a total amount being invested on your behalf of about $3,000 a month. So if we just take the amounts that you have in your retirement accounts now, plus that level of savings, when you look at the portfolio path, we go from $232,000 today. And this is assuming a very conservative 6% rate of return. When you get to 65, just that level of contribution is going to get you to like $884,000.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Now, again, 884 in the future won't be worth the same today. If we bring it back in today's dollars, that would create annual retirement income for you of about $20,000 a year. Right? So we just, you know, take 20,000, divide by 12, it's about $1,600 or so a month. But now in retirement, we're starting to stack. So we have our pension coming in and then we have some portfolio resources we can use. All right, well, now at age 65, if we think about today's dollars, just based on what you're currently doing, you're on track to have like $7,300 a month. And the beautiful thing is your portfolio assets, those do keep up with inflation. So it will retain purchasing power. But we still have a little shortfall as we get into the later years.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  We get into the 80s and 90s, we're falling below that like critical 5,000, assuming that's like about what you spend. So we do still have a little bit of a shortfall we have to make up for.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  But in true Billy Mays fashion, but wait.

• 23:24Brian Preston?

  There's more.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  There's more, there's more. Because one of the things that a lot of people and, and, and, you know, it's, I don't want to say controversial, but some people are more certain of it and some people are less certain of it. But as of right now, social security is part of what's available to a number of Americans when they retire.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  And so I said, okay, well, if we think about how much your social security that you've paid in, plus what we estimate if you continue to work, your social security would generate at age 65, about $2,800 a month for you. Now, we like to be very conservative with social security because of some of the unknowns. So we said, hey, what if we assume that it only grows at about a percent and a half per year? It is going to lose some purchasing power in retirement, but still likely going to be there. Well, what you can see is that at age 65, you actually have a $10,000

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  living income coming in.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Oh, that's really good.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  That does decrease through time.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  It, it does seem to create that opportunity to that stage, at that stage of life, you'll likely be able, if your living expenses are $5,000, that leaves a lot of room for using those resources and those dollars for other things.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Philanthropy and giving and that sort of thing. So it seems that with what you're doing right now, you are on a pretty healthy track, assuming an age 65 retirement.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 24:41Brian Preston?

  How does that make you feel?

• 24:42Speaker 03

  I don't think a lot about retirement. I feel like I've felt some comfort just because of the situation I'm in, but it is nice to see how it stacks up. This would be a time when my kids would be in college presumably. Like I could maybe be more assistive there and then be a lot more assistive in my community.

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• 25:58Speaker 04

  One of the things I think is important to note, though, is all of this is predicated upon age 65.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Yes, right.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  So, one of the things that we would encourage you to think about as you move forward, because I don't think a lot about retirement, whether you think about it or not, barring something else happening, it's likely going to happen. You know what I mean? You're going to make it to age 65 probabilistically wise, right? If you were to begin making decisions around like, hey, I think I want to exit the workforce at 60. Well, now, all of a sudden, my highest five years of earnings are likely lower.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  The multiple I get on my pension is likely lower.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  I've had less time to save up and build assets, so that's lower. And I've also paid less into the social security system, so I'm likely to have a lower social security. So, every year that we move earlier has a cost associated with it.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  The longer we wait to begin thinking about that, the more difficult it is to overcome that cost.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  I think this year, my anxiety has been related to like, I just didn't know what life was going to look like. You know, I really had to reconfigure that. And your book has been very helpful, just to tell you.

• 27:01Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  I read it after I got a divorce.

• 27:03Brian Preston?

  Were you the money person in y'all's relationship, or was it your spouse?

• 27:06Speaker 03

  He really was, honestly. I'm sort of embarrassed to say that.

• 27:09Brian Preston?

  Well, no, but I'm curious. I think that's good for the public to hear, because you hear people, and so you had to not only lose this important part of your life, but you had to now go back and essentially...

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Gain a new skill set.

• 27:20Brian Preston?

  Gain a new skill set to take on that. And you've done this all in a year. This is like, it's not like you ease into this. This is like, welcome to the deep end.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I have to give credit, my friend Suzie is the one who recommended your book.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  Oh, awesome.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  I was reading Dave Ramsey.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  And telling, I called her like, look... Apparently I'm supposed to have like three jobs and never spend another dollar again. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to be reading this book. And so that was very helpful in kind of structuring how I was gonna do things differently. And there's a lot in there that resonated with me. Like it felt, I love that you put generosity first. I think that's great. I just, there was a lot in there that made sense to me. So I appreciate that. I think I was just trying to figure out this year, like what it looks like. I just really did not know. And now I feel like I know. So now I would like to like, think about it differently in terms of how to prioritize.

• 28:09Brian Preston?

  Anything that you wish that you could tell somebody if they were going through this?

• 28:12Speaker 03

  I don't know if this is like answering your question, but that like, it is worth it if you think that's the best path for you. Like you can figure it out, you know? I don't, I don't know that I fell into any traps. I think I got anxiety about losing, just not knowing, just not knowing. I just didn't like that. Yeah. I think I got very rigid for a while. Um, and probably stressed my kids out like with, you know, we're not buying anything right now. But I, we did get to the other side of that. We figured out what we could do and I think we're.

• 28:42Brian Preston?

  Any credit card debt or anything? Did you stay away from it the whole way?

• 28:45Speaker 03

  I stayed away. Yes. Oh, thank you for saying that. Yes. No, I was scared to, I didn't want to use credit cards at all.

• 28:51Brian Preston?

  And where's that come from? Has you've always just been a avoid credit card type person?

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Well, you heard, she was reading Dave before us.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. Right. Exactly. I mean, I, I was just worried that I would overspend.

• 29:01Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  I literally charge on it and then pay from my bank account. So it's really to just get points, honestly. But so, no, that has not been an issue, fortunately.

• 29:10Brian Preston?

  That's great.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  Well, one of the things we want to show you is that, cause as you sit here today, small changes, small adjustments can have pretty significant impacts. We said, all right, if you recognize, okay, what if I did want to give myself some flexibility earlier on? And I want to be true to and honor the financial order of operations and I wanted to save more, where would I go? Well, if you, once you get the emergency fund knocked out and you come through step four, well, then you end up in step five. That's Roth IRAs and HSAs and building up your tax free. We said, okay, well, what if like for Rachel, if all she did was just max out a Roth IRA? She just said, hey, I'm gonna start doing that $7,000 a year. Even just deciding to do that now at age 45, rather than your investable assets only growing to be $884,000.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  Just saving that additional $7,000 a year in the Roth now takes your portfolio by 65 to 1.1 million dollars.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  That's not really the point I want to draw your attention to. What I want to draw your attention to is that at age 65, on the path that you're on, you'd be able to generate from your portfolio about $20,000 of income a year. By saving in a Roth, you see that you actually are able to generate about $20,000 a year of income from the portfolio five years earlier.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's great.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  So if your goal is to buy back time and to create flexibility, the earlier you can begin making those decisions, the more impact

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  those decisions can have over the long term.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Can we think about your dollars right now? What I want you to take away from today is, alright, there's probably an optimal way to use my dollars and there's probably a less optimal way. And defining optimal is going to be up to you based on your goals.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  Um, we already discussed, you know, your sister, I could pay her 700, but instead I paid her 1,000, right? Well, there's $300 that could go towards a Roth IRA. There's $300 that could go towards philanthropic endeavors if that was your desire. So I want to talk about another area where we think perhaps we could free up a little bit of capital. Um, and you already know where we're going with this. You said you're prepaying your mortgage.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:09Speaker 04

  Right? Uh, and you said, I just have this, this desire uh, to be out of debt and not have that.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:17Speaker 04

  But when I asked you what your goals were, you said, I want to give and then you said that was it. And then I kind of pulled out of you. I also want to be financially independent.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  And then there's probably this tertiary goal of wanting to be debt free.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Yes, right.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  If you were thinking about priority, is it more important for you today to be debt free or financially independent?

• 31:35Speaker 03

  I mean, I think financially independent.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Financially independent, great, alright.

• 31:38Brian Preston?

  Are you leaning that you would do the Roth? Once you get your emergency fund fully funded, do you think you'll do this Roth?

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Well, Megan Green asked me if I would follow your advice if you gave it to me and I told her yes. So I feel like I should say yes. I mean, I, I, like, I'm hearing you say it and I'm thinking like, maybe instead that I could do more philanthropic stuff. But I'm open to thinking about it differently.

• 32:00Brian Preston?

  Well, I think, because you've been nibbling around the edges. You can still do both, I think. Now, I, I, I am the all the above. It's just, but I do want to challenge you as a parent also. Do you think your children will have this boom shakalaka opportunity you have with? I mean, because seriously, you're put six in, the government puts in nine, you get 15 for six.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:20Brian Preston?

  Even in my lifetime, we've seen a huge transition away from that. You know, it seems like more and more of the world is pushing it more and more on your shoulders.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  But one of the places, if we were going to think about, hey, where should your money go? Not hearing you say, paying off my house is my top priority, above philanthropy, above financial independence. And yet, here you are, you're paying extra on your mortgage every single month.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  And remind me again what that mortgage rate was?

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, 2.375.

• 32:49Brian Preston?

  She wasn't saying that out loud.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  If we were in a live chat right now and asked for a poll, you know, how many people would absolutely lose their mind? If had a 2.375 mortgage.

• 32:58Brian Preston?

  Do you know how many young people would be throwing tomatoes at the screen?

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, right, right.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  So we said, okay, well, let's, let's not, obviously, she understands this academically, right? Like, I make 3.8 on my savings and I pay.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  But I was like, well, let's show her like the real math.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 33:10Speaker 04

  And so let's say that, okay, even if, even if your goal were to be debt free, I don't even think you were attacking being debt free in the most efficient manner.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  In the right way, sure.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  I think you could do it differently. So we think about your current mortgage amortization. If you were just making the minimum payments on your mortgage, you'd have it paid off by October 2047.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  And you said, that's, hey, that's not good enough. I don't want this mortgage for that long.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  I want to pay it off early. So you said, I'm going to pay, what, an extra $200 every month on your mortgage?

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, basically.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Basically, 200 bucks a month. Well, with doing that extra $200, or I'm sorry, $220, it's even more than I said, you are on track to pay it off by 2042. So five years earlier, that's going to save you $13,000 in interest, which is awesome, right?

• 33:58Brian Preston?

  Is it? That doesn't sound like a lot for that many years, years.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  I'm doing a thing here.

• 34:04Brian Preston?

  Okay, go ahead, I'm sorry.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  You see, really, really, that's where you're going?

• 34:07Brian Preston?

  All right, I'll stay quiet.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  So you can pay it off five years earlier. That is a, a thing that you could be doing.

• 34:12Brian Preston?

  Divide 13 by 5.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Okay, Brian, we get it.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  So we said, hey, what if instead of paying that $220,000 on the mortgage, what if you set out with the desire to be debt-free, but used a different vehicle than actually putting it on the mortgage? Because do you know how much interest every dollar you pay on your mortgage saves you? 2.37 cents, right? Like, that's the way that that math works.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Right, right, okay.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  If instead, we took that $220,000 and we started investing it, and we said, "Let's just put this to work," and let's say we can earn 8%, right? You're young, relatively moderately aggressive, risk tolerant, 8% rate of return. Do you realize that the intersection of your current mortgage and the dollars that you would be building in that little side account actually happened two years earlier?

• 35:04Speaker 03

  I did not realize that, no.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Than the path you are on right now?

• 35:07Speaker 03

  I did not.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  So even if your desire was to be debt-free, I would argue this is probably the optimal way to get there, because you're going to get there two years faster.

• 35:17Brian Preston?

  Well, it's not even telling you how much that amount... I mean, you can look at it, because I can cross-reference even though I'm getting older. Is that 80 grand?

• 35:24Speaker 04

  It's about $75,000.

• 35:25Brian Preston?

  Yeah, that's a decent amount of money just sitting in a bank account, too. I mean, an investment account.

• 35:30Speaker 04

  And so, you're also going to be at this position in the year 2040, where you're going to have a $75,000 mortgage at 2.375%. And you're going to have $75,000 sitting in an investment account, and you're going to have some decisions to make. And you may decide, "Okay, this is great. I want to be able to help my kids. I want to be able to do philanthropy. I want to be able to pay off the mortgage." Or, there is a scenario where you say, "Hey, I just want to let this money keep growing all the way out to retirement." By the time that you paid off your mortgage on its original schedule, by 2047, just that little $220 a month, extra that you're paying in principal, could turn into almost $160,000.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a big difference.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  And we thought, "Okay, she's not going to believe us, right? We have to, like, double down on this even more." We said, "Okay, well, what if you kept on your current trajectory, paying off that mortgage? Say, "Guys, I'm so disciplined. As soon as I pay off my mortgage, I'm going to start investing the whole amount. I'm going to start investing that whole amount." Well, even if you did that, by the time you got to the same 2047 year, you would have 89, almost $90,000. You're talking about, like, $70,000 less value from implementing what I'm going to call a suboptimal strategy.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  So if there were other goals that you had like financial independence or even like philanthropy, I would argue that those goals could likely be better satisfied by rethinking how you're deploying your dollars.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  That's super helpful. It's nice to see those numbers that way. That makes sense.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Because see, I don't think she's, I don't think, we're not going to convince her to do the Roth. I mean, we might, but if we tell her, hey, we just freed up $300 from your sister and $200 from more, that's an extra $500 a month. There's a lot of meaningful change and meaningful impact you can have with a number of organizations.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Yep, that's true. That's a big deal.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Or at $250 a month towards that goal and $250 a month towards financial independence goal. It's not, doesn't have to be all.

• 37:29Brian Preston?

  That's where my heart was. I was like, why can't we do both?

• 37:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree with you.

• 37:34Brian Preston?

  250 to each. That way you end up, like I said, you get to model some good behavior for your kids, but then you get to also model being generous. That's the win for me is to do both.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  All right. You ready for your homework?

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Homework item number one, have a conversation with your sister.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Hey sis, I just want to understand, you know, we had this original agreement. I adjusted it. Give me some feedback. Where are you? How does this? And she might say, you know, getting 3% on my cash is pretty good. I could just kind of think of that as my emergency fund is pay me 3%, my high yields pay me 3.8, not that far off. She may be okay with that interest rate. It may be something that she's comfortable with. Number two, I'd really think about my mortgage strategy. I'd really think about, do I really want to be paying that $220 extra a month? Or do I want to do something else with it? Whether that be open up a taxable account and invest it, whether it be give it, you know, give it to causes that I believe in. I would revisit that. And then number three, and I just said, I would decide if where your dollars are going actually align with what your goals are.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  If my goal is X, am I deploying my dollars in such a way that it satisfies X? Or do I have the goal, but where my dollars are going is in conflict or an opposition to that? And I would try to realign those. And so this is an easy exercise. I sit down and I list out all my goals and then I'll look at my budget for the last month, two months. Three months, six months, and I say, where did my dollars go?

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  And did the dollars that I spent over here align with the things that I have on this side? If there's misalignment, I would consider, how do I realign this?

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Okay, I think that's great. I'm gonna do it.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  I love it. She says she's gonna do it. You've been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with us.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was really fun. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

• 39:15Brian Preston?

  By the way, Rachel, you, you, because you'd let us know, one of the charities you were super excited about was your local library there.

• 39:21Speaker 04

  That's where she got Millionaire Mission from.

• 39:23Brian Preston?

  We are sending you home with some extra copies, so you can give them even more copies to put into the library.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  They will love that. Thank you.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Are we gonna sign them? You think we'll sign those copies?

• 39:33Brian Preston?

  Do libraries want to sign copies?

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Maybe. I don't know. We'll find out.

• 39:38Brian Preston?

  You know what? If your, if your goal is to get people to keep them, so then you can rack up library LAPs, maybe it's an alternative revenue source. Thank you, Rachel, for coming on. Bo, if somebody else wanted to come on Making a Millionaire, where do they need to go?

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, if you want to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com slash apply. Or if you want to check out any of our free calculators or resources, go to moneyguy.com slash resources.

• 40:01Brian Preston?

  Guys, as you could tell from hearing Rachel's story, sometimes life just happens. And it takes you back, not from step eight where she started, but all the way back to step one. Small incremental decisions can still have huge results. We love sharing this type of content. It's our hearts of educators. You too can make big changes in your life. I'm your host, Brian, Mr. Bo, and for Rachel, Money Guy team, out.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  Making a Millionaire is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners at 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.

• 41:14Speaker 06

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