Pod Insights Money Guy Show Watch This If You Want To Build Wealth About this episode Want to build wealth but don't know where to start? Brian and Bo walk through the complete personal finance roadmap—from budgeting, emergency funds, employer matches, Roth IRAs, HSAs, investing, debt payoff, and retirement planning to the Financial Order of Operations (The FOO!). Whether you're just starting your financial journey or trying to optimize your money decisions, this step-by-step guide shows you what to do with every dollar so you can build long-term wealth with confidence.
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0:00 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
0:30 Brian Preston? If you want to build wealth, you've come to the right place.
0:32 Speaker 02 Brian, I am so excited because the day is going to be like a personal finance crash course. And we're covering everything you need to know about how to get your finances on the right track so that you can start building wealth.
0:45 Brian Preston? I'm Brian, he's Bo, and we're financial advisors here to guide you on your journey to financial independence. And with that, let's dive right in.
0:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, Brian, today we're going to go over the roadmap, the rules, and the resources that you need to be able to conquer this quest that you're on that we like to call your financial journey.
1:12 Brian Preston? Well, Bo, if you, anybody who watches movies, reads books, you know that there's the hero of the quest. And the quest is going to, if you're going to be successful as the hero, you need some key elements, whether it's a roadmap.
1:27 Speaker 02 Like the, like the yellow brick road?
1:30 Brian Preston? Oh, this is what we're going to go, this is going to be great. Or the rules?
1:33 Speaker 02 Like the, the Lorian must reach 88 miles per hour.
1:38 Brian Preston? Okay. Or the resources.
1:42 Speaker 02 I'm assuming those are swords from Lord of the Rings.
1:46 Brian Preston? Or lightsabers.
1:47 Speaker 02 Oh, maybe it's lightsabers or swords. Yeah, you have to have the right roadmap, the right rules, the right resources in order to be able to build wealth, in order to do things in the most efficient, most effective manner possible.
1:59 Brian Preston? Yeah, so if you're on the hero's journey, we want you to take an active role and know how to manage your money well. So you really do, you don't waste time, you don't waste your resources. You end up in the right place. No NPCs in the money verse for sure. So the first thing we ought to kick off with is the three ingredients to wealth building.
2:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, even if you're awful with money, and maybe this is your first interaction, which we want to let you know is that when it comes to building wealth, there are really three distinct ingredients that you need. And depending on where you are in your journey, you may have more or less of these ingredients based on your unique circumstances.
2:38 Brian Preston? So let's talk about these three ingredients. The first one is discipline. Look, if you can never live on less than you make, you're not going to be on the hero's journey to building wealth. So practice discipline.
2:51 Speaker 02 When you practice that discipline, it creates a little bit of margin or money that you get to put to work. That's what you're exercising the discipline for, to generate a little bit of money.
3:02 Brian Preston? And the most valuable of the three ingredients is actually the time. If you are young enough and you can harness the power of compounding growth, you don't have to work so hard. The heavy lift actually comes from your money working for you. Your army of dollar bills can be more powerful than your back, your brain, and even your hands.
3:20 Speaker 02 Now, here's a challenge for you. If this is brand new to you, and this is the first time that you're interacting with this idea, I want you to do this. If you're working and you get a paycheck, whether you're paid hourly, paid salary, whatever that is, I want you to look at what your net take home pay was, whatever hit your checking account this past pay period. And in this next pay period, I just want you to take 5% of that amount. That's it. Just take that amount that hit your checking, multiply it times .05, and I want you to put that in a high yield savings account. So if you're a median income earner right now, earning about $64,000 a year, that means that you would be saving about $225 per month. I just want you this month,
3:59 Speaker 02 put $225 into a high yield savings account. You can go to bankrate.com, you can just Google high yield savings account. Pick one of those and drop that 5% in there. If you can do that this month, and then next month, or next pay period, or next payroll cycle, you can do it again, and then you can do it a third time. I'm going to argue, if you can do that three times in a You have what it's take, what it takes to be able to build wealth.
4:24 Brian Preston? I love that, Bo. If you can just give us 5%, will change your life. And what I would really like is that respects those three ingredients to wealth is because you're, you're, you're really stretching out that discipline muscle. You're building the margin with that 5% and now we're going to give you the roadmap with the financial order of operations.
4:44 Speaker 02 That's right. If you are new to this, if this is not familiar to you, go to moneyguy.com/resources and you can download your very free copy of what we have determined are the nine steps to help you know exactly what to do with your next dollar.
5:00 Brian Preston? Look, if you're wondering where is the origin story? How does this all work? We all know that if you were, when you were in elementary school, when you were trying to learn the concepts, how do you get the right answer when you're solving math equations or math problems? If you didn't know, PIM DAS, please excuse my dear Aunt Sally, you're never going to get to the right answer because to do math well, you have to do it in the right order of operation. Well, I remember thinking about it all culminating in together and thinking, you know what? Money is the exact same way. If you don't understand that you have to do money in the right order, you'll never get ahead. So if you combine those three ingredients, three ingredients to wealth building, plus the financial order of operations, which gives you that orderly flow to maximize and build,
5:45 Brian Preston? you're going to be way ahead of your peers.
5:47 Speaker 02 So let's start with step one. When it comes to financial order of operations, the very first thing we want you to do is we want you to have your highest deductible, whether it's your auto insurance, health insurance, homeowner's insurance, whatever that is, we want you to have that amount in liquid cash. And this comes before any sort of investing, before any sort of debt repayment, because without a cash buffer, you run the risk of having to make desperate decisions when, not if, things go sideways.
6:15 Brian Preston? Bo alluded to it is that we want to keep you from making desperate decisions. And by the way, this, this step right here will put you ahead of many of your peers already. Because if you looked at the research, 59% of Americans can't even come up with a thousand bucks. Guys, make sure you respect the food and get step number one, cover your highest insurance deductible.
6:37 Speaker 02 Now, once you do that, though, things start to get very exciting because then you get into step two, employer match. And this is literally, and I mean quite literally, free money that is available to you. All you have to do is reach out and grab it.
6:50 Brian Preston? Yeah, this is one, guys, it breaks our heart when I find out that 25% of Americans, by the way, on other research reports, I've seen this number of beyond 30%. Because I think Vanguard had a study a few years ago that was over 30%. Guys, get that free money. If your employer is setting this money aside, they've already built it into your compensation. This is dollar for dollar, or 50 cents on the dollar money that is going to accelerate your wealth building journey.
7:15 Speaker 02 Now, make sure you understand how it works, what the formula is. Do I have to put in $1 to get $1? Do I have to put in $5 to get $4? If you can understand how it works, you can make sure that you are actually taking advantage of all of that. Because if your employer's matching money, you're getting either a 50% or 100% rate of return on those dollars right out of the gate. So you cannot turn away from that. You cannot avoid that step. And then, once you've done that, once you've capitalized on getting that free money, now you get to start taking care of some of the scary stuff. Now you get to go to step three and pay off your high interest debt.
7:52 Brian Preston? Well, I think a lot of people, because you hear high interest debt, we immediately think of credit cards. And we know credit cards right now have interest rates over 20%. So a lot of you are like, how is this not step one? Guys, that's how important having that highest insurance deductible is. And that's how important getting 50 cents to 100% dollar for dollar match on your free money with your employer is. But yes, step three, we gotta get the high interest debt taken care of because you'll never build wealth if you're paying 20 plus percent when you're just hoping in good investment years that you make over 10%.
8:25 Speaker 02 We know that compound interest can be our absolute best ally, or when used against, it could be our fiercest adversary. Let's assume for a moment that you have $100 of margin every single month. If you were to just take that $100 of Month and you were to invest it earning eight percent interest on average over the course of five years that hundred dollar savings would turn into over seventy three hundred dollars in sixty months. Now, let's flip it and say that you still had a hundred dollars, but instead of being able to save and invest that you are satisfying credit card debt. The average credit card balance right now in this country is a little over sixty seven hundred dollars. So if you had a sixty seven hundred dollar credit card balance and you were paying
9:08 Speaker 02 a hundred dollars a month on that credit card balance, do you realize at a twenty three percent interest rate after paying on it for five years, you would actually owe more money than you started with. You started with sixty seven hundred dollars and now you owe ten thousand dollars on those credit cards, even though you did not swipe one time. The difference in the utilization of those hundred dollars a month is over seventeen thousand dollars allowing compound interest to work against you instead of letting it work for you.
9:39 Brian Preston? It's all about the incremental decisions. Same hundred dollars a month, just two distinct differences. You know, you have to ask yourself, am I builder or my consumer? We want you to be on the side of building. Now, for a lot of you, as you're tackling your high interest debt, you've heard about this and you're like, which ones for me? Do I go avalanche method or do I go snowball? Snowball is what Ramsey Solutions has made popular. That's where you take the smallest debt and you go for the the feel good of paying off that small debt. And then as you get bigger and bigger, you pay it off. You don't even care what the interest rate is. You're basing it off the size of the debt. Avalanche is more for the nerdier people who are actually building, looking at the interest rates that they're paying and they said, hey, let's go attack the
10:21 Brian Preston? highest interest rate first. And then as it was you're paying off the higher interest rates, we'll keep building this up till we create the avalanche. Here's the answer on which one is better. I don't care. The reality is know thyself. If you're a nerd and you're really a disciplined nerd, the avalanche is going to be better for you because you're going to be paying off the highest interest rate first. So you're going to be avoiding or minimizing interest rate as much as possible. But some People from a behavioral standpoint, this is what you know, Dave and Ramsey Solutions, they're really leaning into. You need some small wins to get build momentum so you stay on course. So know thyself. If you need the small wins to keep you motivated and focused, do the snowball.
11:06 Brian Preston? That's A okay. But if you're nerdy enough that you understand, hey, it would be really helpful to pay off the higher interest rate first, go and attack it through the avalanche. I don't care which method, just know thyself and make something happen.
11:18 Speaker 02 Now, don't mishear us. We are not anti debt, but we are anti high interest debt. That's why we want to get it off of your balance sheet as soon as possible because then, once you get that gone, you get to move on to step four, emergency reserves. And this is where you get to build that buffer that when inevitably life's unknown unknowns come your way, if you have your emergency fund there, it will keep your life out of the ditch. But the tragedy is we know that right now, 72% of Americans, almost three out of four of Americans, do not have a fully funded emergency. So they are not ready for that medical bill, that layoff, that home repair, that car, whatever. Those things can derail their financial lives. You do not want to fall into that statistic.
12:02 Brian Preston? Look, every one of us out there, more than likely, you're going to have something you didn't count on happen to you financially, whether it's losing a job, some big repair or expense that comes across your life. You will have more peace of mind and clarity of mind if you have cash reserves and don't fall into access to cash or home equity lines or other things, or even thinking you're going to pull off of your portfolio. We legitimately need you to have cash available to pull you out of emergency situations. Use the high yield savings accounts, use the money market mutual funds. Don't skimp on this because you will get more peace of mind, you'll get more clarity, and you'll be better for it.
12:44 Speaker 02 So realistically, steps one through four about building a foundation. And once you've done that, now you get to get into step five. This is where you begin contributing to and funding your tax-free investment accounts, like your Roth IRAs and your HSAs. And this is where the wealth building Journey begins to get really, really exciting.
13:01 Brian Preston? Now, we like the tax-free savings. The first one we'll talk about is Health Savings Accounts. We love Health Savings Accounts because they have triple tax advantage. You get a deduction on the contribution. You get tax-deferred growth on anything you actually invest. And then if you pull it out for qualified medical expenses, it's completely tax-free. That's unheard of to think about you're getting all these tax benefits. But hear me when I tell you this, only 13% of you even using Health Savings Accounts are actually taking advantage of those, the second and the third of the tax advantages there, because most people are just using them as cash clearing accounts where you take the deduction, then you pull the money out to reimburse yourself for medical expenses. The better choice, if you have the amount of liquidity that it
13:45 Brian Preston? requires to pay the expenses, but also to save and invest for the future, is to put that army of dollars to work and then pay yourself back in the future with your Health Savings Account.
13:55 Speaker 02 Now, the only way you can actually put money into a Health Savings Account is if you are participating in a high deductible insurance plan. So you want to make sure that you're eligible to participate in HSA. If you're not, another great solution for you is a Roth IRA. And you don't have to have any special requirements to contribute to Roth other than your income has to be below a certain level to be able to fund that. In 2026, the annual contribution limit that you can put into a Roth is $7,500. So you put the $7,500 in, you do not get a tax deduction this year, but those dollars grow tax-deferred for the entire rest of your life until you go to pull them out. And so long as you pull them out after age 59 and a half, they are completely
14:37 Speaker 02 tax-free forever. So if you build up a million dollars in a Roth IRA, it is literally worth a million dollars to you because there is no more tax drag.
14:45 Brian Preston? By the way, Roth IRAs, young money millionaires. I'm telling you guys, this is your pathway. In my book, Millionaire Mission, I describe how I've missed out on $10,000 of opportunity to invest in a Roth. I still have regrets. Don't sleep on that Roth IRAs are going to be your first building block to understanding how you harness the power of compounding growth.
15:07 Speaker 02 So in step two of the Financial Order of Operations, We began participating in our employer sponsored retirement accounts and we kind of moved away from that. We get into step five, we fill up our tax free accounts. Now we get to double back to our employer sponsored plans. We get to double back to those 401ks, 403Bs, 457s, and these are fantastic wealth building tools. Most millionaires actually reach millionaire status inside of their employer sponsored retirement account.
15:34 Brian Preston? Yeah, and these accounts have big thresholds that you can contribute every year. If you think about for a person under 50 years of age, you can fund up to $24,500. And most of these plans let you choose between traditional currently deductible or Roth, where you don't get a deduction now, but it grows completely tax free. So if you're young, that's a huge benefit. So take advantage of your Roth. These things are so powerful because not only is your employer usually giving you some type of matching contribution, you can shelter large sums of money. This is going to be how you fill up that savings and investment rate of around 25%.
16:10 Speaker 02 It's unbelievable. And if you can begin maxing out your retirement plan, if you can begin putting the annual limits, whether you're under 50 or over 50, or even the super catch up phase, it's going to allow you put a lot of your army of dollar bills to work. So steps one through four were about building the financial foundation. Steps five and six were really about what to do. And now we get into step seven. And that really answers the question, okay, why? Why am I building dollars in the way that I'm building them? And am I building them in the right way for the way that I'm ultimately going to use them? And we call this step hyper accumulation.
16:47 Brian Preston? Yeah, this is the first where you take a breather and you say, hey, wait a minute. Let me hit pause on what I'm doing with my money because all the others were to keep me protected. Exactly what Bo said, protected or to maximize the tax savings. This is the first step where we say, wait a minute, I think I might retire sooner than my peers. I'm coming out of the workforce in my 50s, not late 60s. So I'm going to need to have probably a bridge account. And you're like, wait a minute, I've been doing index funds, just throwing the money at the index funds, but maybe I need to start focusing on how I invest in my retirement accounts, different than my Roth accounts. Versus my after-tax accounts, there are more tax-efficient ways with the three buckets on how you do that. This is the step where we're going to really start thinking about
17:29 Brian Preston? how will we use this money? How do we maximize the structure? And then go beyond even what we're doing with the 25% savings and investment rate.
17:38 Speaker 02 Yeah. How do I know that I'm ready for hyper accumulation? Well, you've hit that threshold where you're saving 25% of your gross income for your future self. And you may ask the question, okay, well, why do I save 25%? What should I do? Why is that the number? We know a lot of folks don't actually begin saving and investing until much later in life. And you can see, if you go look at our resource at moneyguy.com/resources, for most folks who don't start saving until they get into their early 30s or they get in their late 20s, it's really that 25% savings rate that allows them to build a pot of assets that can replace their pre-retirement income by the time they get to traditional retirement age around 60 or 65.
18:21 Speaker 02 If you're someone who caught the bug earlier in life and you started saving your early 20s, you may very well be ahead of the curve. But if you're someone who didn't start saving until later in life, until your mid 30s or even into your 40s, you may need to save 25%. But for most folks, most Americans, 25% savings is going to put you on the path to be able to do what you want, the way you want, on your terms.
18:44 Brian Preston? Well, and the math ties out to this. If you go look at somebody who waited until they were 30 years of age, typical American, then you go find out it nails, it sticks the landing right there at 25%. That's why, guys, if you're listening to this and you're under 30, hallelujah, that's an awesome thing for you. Go check out our, go to moneyguy.com/resources, see what our data and research says about you. If you're somebody who's catching this in your 40 years of age, don't panic. You're A-OK too. You just have to put a little bit more weight on your shoulders and get ready to still harness the power of compounding growth.
19:15 Speaker 02 All right. Steps one through seven, we're all about building towards financial independence, paying for your future self where your dollars can work harder than you. Now, we get into step eight. And step eight is about covering those goals or doing those things that may exist before. Or you get to financial independence. We call these things prepaid future expenses. Or what you call these things.
19:36 Brian Preston? Yeah. Good time rock and roll name is abundance goals because guess what? We don't have to do the boring stuff anymore. Now we can do all the things that you think that you're going to do with your money and you're going to be able to spend more. Because look, if you're already funding things, you're automatic for the people. You've got all your, your expenses, you've got all your savings in an automated fashion.
19:55 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
20:25 Brian Preston? Now's when we can think about the kids. Cause you know, just like when you get on the airplane, they say, hey, put on your oxygen mask before you put on the kids. You've taken care of yourself. It's A-OK to fund the kids' college goals. It's A-OK to drive the nicer car. It's A-OK to go and get into rental real estate. It's OK to renovate. This is the time to really focus on what do you want to do with your money? And how do you live your best life?
20:50 Speaker 02 All right. So we've paid for our future financial self. Now we've begun funding our goals that are pre-financial independence. Now we get into step nine. We get into the very end of the financial order of operations. And this is more about de-risking and figuring out what do you want your life to ultimately look like? And remember in step three, we had satisfied all of the high interest debt that exists in our balance sheet. But now we truly want to be financially independent of all obligations. And this is where if you so choose, you can start knocking out that low interest debt.
21:22 Brian Preston? Yeah. And look, I don't mind sharing is that for most of you, even, even if you're part of the FIRE movement, I don't want you doing this until you're saving and investing at least 25% of your income, especially if you're between the ages of 30 to 45. Now for those of you who are 45 and beyond, it's exactly what Bo said, there is. Is a de-risking element that can come. And I think there's a time and a place. And that's what I found in my own life. You know, I've, I've, I've shared it with you guys. I've been very transparent. I had a, a mortgage at two and a half percent. But when this thing got down where it was like sixty, seventy thousand dollars, I, I started looking. I was like, yes, I love that interest rate. But man, would it be nice at my age beyond 50 to just have this paid for so that I don't have to worry about
22:07 Brian Preston? the monthly cash flow. I actually know I own this house and I've de-risked one more thing in my life. It's a-okay. There's a time and a place. There's the make wealth phase. There's the maintain wealth. And then there's the multiply wealth. That's why when you're in the make wealth, under 45 years of age, focus on the army of dollars. Now, if you're way ahead of the curve, I'm a-okay with you, of course, paying off debt. We don't love having debt, but I just want to make sure you do it in the right time or place. If you're in the maintain wealth, that's probably from 45 all the way up to financial independence age. That's when you're kind of in that gray zone and you have to look at your goals and see if you should pay it off. And then multiply for sure. When you've won the game, you don't need to run up the scoreboard. Let's pay off even the low interest debt because we want you to own your life.
22:51 Brian Preston? Obligations, which is what debt is, works against financial independence.
22:57 Speaker 02 All right. We've laid out for you the roadmap. Nine steps of exactly what you should do with your next dollar. Now, let's shift and talk about the rules. And fortunately for you, we've been doing this long enough that both in our own wealth building journeys and what we've seen across the thousands of clients that we get to serve at Abound Wealth, we have some pretty solid, hard and fast rules about the way you should think about navigating your financial life and making your financial decisions.
23:22 Brian Preston? The first one, let's talk about financing the DeLorean. Look, some of us, when we go and get into the workforce, we don't have the money to pay cash for vehicles. Cash is obviously the preferred way to pay for a depreciating asset like vehicles. But every now and then, you're like I was when I was in my early twenties. I needed the J O B to start my wealth building journey. So I had to go buy reliable transportation. That's why we came up with 238. For somebody who needs to have reliable transportation, that's why it's not luxury vehicles. So we want you to put down 20%. We don't want you to finance longer than three years. That's what's going to keep your wallet honest with your ego.
24:03 Brian Preston? Because you're not going to let somebody say, hey, well, if you finance this for eight years, we can get your monthly payment down. No, we're not doing anything longer than three years. And we're making sure that our payments don't exceed 8% of our gross income. This way, you can ensure also that your savings and investment rate is exceeding what your car payment is.
24:26 Speaker 02 And why does this rule exist? Well, right now, we know that the median single income in this country is $45,140, according to the Federal Reserve. The average price of a new car is $49,220. So if the average price of a new car is more than the average single income, that creates an environment where people can make unwise financial decisions. We don't want you to fall into that camp. Because frankly, when it comes to making purchases for most people, an automobile is one of the most expensive things that you're going to spend money on. But it's not the most expensive. The most expensive thing that most people are going to spend money on in their lifetime is buying a home. And I think a lot of people get themselves into trouble when it comes to homeownership.
25:10 Speaker 02 And that's why we even have a rule for how to buy a home. We want you to follow the 3525 rule. And what this says is that when it comes to a down payment, you don't have to put 20% down. We're okay if you do a down payment as low as 3%. So long as you see yourself being in that home for at least five to seven years. And when you add up the total cost of your housing, the total cost does not exceed 25% of your gross income. If you can stay inside the 25% bounds and you know that you're going to be there long term, it's okay to have a smaller down payment. This is going to prevent you from being in that circumstance where all of a sudden, you are house-rich and life-poor. And you may be asking, okay, well, how do I do the math? How can I know? We actually have a great resource for you.
25:54 Speaker 02 Go to moneyguy.com/resources and check out our home buying calculator. You can put in Your specific numbers, your specific variables and figure out how much home can you actually afford to not get yourself out over your skis?
26:08 Brian Preston? Yeah, I love how that rule allows us on your first purchase to be so much more flexible. That was one of my biggest, because housing is not easy right now. So it's definitely a measure twice, cut once. I love that people, we give a little bit more flexibility. We didn't have to change for this crazy new world. We always had it because we have no hypocrisy policy. We didn't put down 20% on our first houses. I did put down 20% on all of the other homes I have purchased when I've upgraded, but on that first one, I only put down, I think I put it down around 5%. We want to pay it forward and let you know that's A-OK when you're trying to work through this. The same way, we also want you to think about education. Look, we live in a modern world now where education has all of this goodwill, but in
26:50 Brian Preston? some ways, it can be a trap. If you don't go into college or any type of higher education with your eyes fully open, you might get sold a bad set of opportunities. You'll get sold a mirage that is just not tied to reality. So we've tried to come up with, how do we take this thing that's very noble, like education, but ensure that you get the good side of it and not left holding the bag because institutions and others are not paying attention to what you should be paying for this noble thing to better yourself so you make more money, increase the size of your shovel? We came up with the first year financing rule. All
27:32 Brian Preston? this rule is so simple. Before you load up on student loan debt, I want you to ask yourself, what is the likelihood of what I will make in my first year salary? And then whatever that salary is for your chosen profession, I want you to not run up student loan debt beyond that. Now, look, out there, if you're a doctor, attorney, there are some obviously asterisks, but for the majority of us that are going to school for that four to five years, I want you to use the first year financing rule to keep yourself out of long-term debt with education.
28:06 Speaker 02 And I think what's so disheartening about student loans specifically is Did you know that right now, one in four, 24% of adults that are responsible for student loan debt, whether it be their own or their child's, do not anticipate ever fully paying off their loans? We know that 14% of all borrowers right now have a balance of greater than $50,000 in student loans. So you have this debt that you don't think you're ever going to pay off. What that ultimately means is that you have a belief you will never be able to be financially independent. We just do not subscribe to that. We think there is a better way to do money. It's why we came up with the first year financing rule. So you don't become one of these horrible statistics.
28:46 Brian Preston? The next rule we want to go over is a lot of people come to us and say, hey, Brian, the stock market's at all time highs. You know, what should I be doing? And then it's, oh, Brian, I don't know if you saw it. The stock market's down into bear market status. It's down 20%. What should I be doing? Guys, here's the answer. Here's the rule that will guide you through all this. ABB, always be buying, baby. Guys, if you were just, if you're in the wealth building journey and you're not close to retirement, you're five years and beyond from retirement. I want you, no matter what's going on in the economy, if you're automatic for the people, if you've automated your investment policy and how you're doing things, you will be so protected by doing ABB.
29:30 Brian Preston? Because what it does is it takes the emotion. It's a system. Instead of you trying to, you know, see what the wind is blowing right now and whether it's a good market, a bad market, a scary market, a frothy market. This is what's going to protect you.
29:44 Speaker 02 All right, so you said frothy.
29:45 Brian Preston? I didn't mean to say frothy. It just kind of happens.
29:48 Speaker 02 One of the things we're walking through is we're walking through the roadmap. You may have noticed that there were two separate areas for debt. There was high interest debt and low interest debt. One of them happens very early on in the financial order of operations, step three. And one of them happens very late at number, at step number nine, at the very end. So the question becomes, how do I decide what is high interest debt? The way that we went about discerning what's high interest and low interest, we thought about, okay, what is our opportunity cost of money? How hard can our dollars be working for us? And if they can work harder for us somewhere else? Then maybe we should put them somewhere else. But if they can work the hardest for us paying off debt, maybe they should pay off debt. And we know that how hard our dollars can work for us changes based on how old we are.
30:30 Speaker 02 So we said, if you're someone in your twenties and you have student loans and your student loans are below 6%, you probably shouldn't worry about prioritizing paying them off. Your money could likely work harder than that. But if they're above 6%, you may want to prioritize them. In your thirties, the student loan number drops to 5%. In your forties, it drops to 4%. When it comes to car loans, we want you to always subscribe to 238. So even if you have very high interest car loans, it still needs to sit inside the confines of 238. And if you've done 238 and you're somewhere in your twenties, even if you do have a car loan that's below 10%, but maybe it's 8%, 9%, we don't love that interest rate. We know it's inside of 36 months of being gone.
31:12 Speaker 02 So we think it's okay, follow through 238 and satisfy that. In your thirties, the number drops to 9% inside the 238 confines. In your forties, it drops to 8%. And then when it comes to credit cards, no interest rate is acceptable for carrying a debt balance month over month. Using a credit card is totally fine. We say the credit card debt is okay, but credit card use is okay, but you do not ever want to carry credit card debt. So if you have any interest rate at all on a credit card, even zero, pay it off month after month after month after month.
31:46 Brian Preston? The only caveat, but he knows what I'm gonna say, on the car loans, that is so you can get to your J O B. If you're one of these people that's got a lot of cash in your checking account or your emergency reserves, paying cash for vehicles is still the preferred method for paying for car loans. The only reason we have the high interest rate is because we want you to be able to get to your J O B so you can start your wealth building journey.
32:10 Speaker 02 All right, so we said that debt had two areas in the financial order of operations, but so too does cash. You may have noticed that highest deductible was a cash part of the financial order of operation. And then step four is a fully funded emergency reserve. Well, one of the questions that people ask is, okay, well, how do I know? Do I need three months of living expenses? Is running six months. Well, your unique circumstances will dictate if you're someone who has high job security, maybe you're a dual income household, you have multiple income streams, you have a highly easily, easy to replace job, or maybe you're single, no dependence, your lifestyle is flexible, you may be able to be able to err on the side of three months. But if it's going to be very hard for you to find new employment, or there are a lot of
32:52 Speaker 02 people depending on you, or you're a single income household, then you might want to err on the side of a six month emergency fund. It's your unique variables that will dictate this and make sure you revisit and review because this very much can change as you move through time.
33:08 Brian Preston? And then I'll cover the rule of how much did you save and invest for the future? Guys, we're all about investing 25% for retirement. Now, look, we take some flak for this. There's even been people have created content saying that is too high. Now, I want to give you some caveats on this. If you make less than $200,000 as a couple or $100,000 as an individual, you get to count your employer match on that. For some of you, that can be five to eight percent right there coming from your employer. But for a lot of you others, if you're like, why do these numbers, when we say the 25%, we are talking about your employer plans, your IRAs, your health savings accounts, your pension contributions, your employers, money coming in and so forth. I've already covered some of those. But the problem
33:51 Brian Preston? that I think a lot of people don't realize is that we have a deferral problem on when people start saving.
33:57 Speaker 02 But not defer gratification.
33:58 Brian Preston? That's right. We're good at enjoying the now. But if you look at the stats of when the typical American starts saving and investing for the future, it's 30 years of age. So then if you know that data, and then you look at our how much did you save resource at moneygod.com/resources, you'll see that it ties in perfectly. You'll see if a person retiring at age 60, not figuring out the wonderful world of personal finance until they're 30 years of age, they need to save and invest somewhere between 24 to 26%. So that's why, guys, if you're listening to this at 30, get it, I mean, at 20, get excited. If you're listening to this at 40, you gotta put a little bit more on your shoulders. You're going to be okay. Just don't sleep on this information.
34:43 Speaker 02 The sooner you can get your savings rate up, the more flexibility you're going to give yourself later in life. And what we ultimately want our dollars to do for us is give us flexibility later on. That's why we want you saving and investing 25%. All right, Brian, this next one, I've already alluded to this one. This one's going to take no time at all. Credit card use, totally okay. If you're someone who wants to get rewards, you want to have buyer protection, you want to have extended warranties, you just like the convenience of it. All of those things are absolutely wonderful. We are perfectly fine with you using credit cards. What we are not okay with is you carrying credit card debt. We say credit card debt.
35:21 Brian Preston? A okay. Credit card debt? No way.
35:25 Speaker 02 Yep, we almost nailed that. That is right. We do not like you carrying credit card debt. If you're someone who carries a balance month over month.
35:32 Brian Preston? That's because the way the set, here's the setup. I could have done this in about 20 or 10 seconds. Credit card use is a okay. Credit card rules, credit card debt, no way. That was horrible, but we'll let it roll anyway.
35:44 Speaker 02 Soon again, let's do it for a third time, see if we can get it in there.
35:46 Brian Preston? Credit card rules, credit card debt, a okay. Credit card, did I say debt instead of use? Credit card rules, credit card use, a okay. Credit card debt, no way.
36:01 Speaker 02 There we go.
36:01 Brian Preston? Third time's charm.
36:02 Speaker 02 That was much smoother. All right. As we're talking about rules that you should follow, what I hope you've seen is that all of these are built around this idea that there's a better way to do money. We think that the best way to do money is to follow the financial order of operations. It lets you understand and recognize, man, what should I do with my next dollar? And how do I know that my next dollar is going in the most effective and most efficient place possible? And if you can let the foo be your guide, you're going to find that the journey to building wealth, while it may not be easy, it's incredibly simple and it does not have to be more complicated than you make it.
36:39 Brian Preston? Yeah, I just wish we covered so much. I feel like I almost have Jerry Reed and Eastbound and Down blowing in my ear. And we got to get some chords across the country, but that's where a lot of you, you're, we've just, we Covered so much that a lot of you are like, well, what do I need to do? Cause I feel like y'all just threw a book at me. You threw an entire system as well as all these rules. What can I do if I want to start off? Guys, the first thing I'll do is go look at our resources. I, I, I want to invite you to go to moneyguy.com/resources. We literally have a website full of free tools, free downloads, all kinds of calculators. This thing is going to become your favorite site on your wealth building journey. Don't sleep on this opportunity.
37:24 Brian Preston? I want you to jump in, take that value from us because you'll remember who planted those seeds of your simple financial life that created so much success.
37:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, we want you to do money better. So if you're not subscribed, make sure you subscribe to the channel. We're always going to have brand new, fresh content coming your way. And make sure you go to the website, moneyguy.com. Check out all of our resources. We have a compound interest calculator. We have a tax guide, we have a net worth template. We have a home affordability checklist, a home affordability calculator. If you have a financial question, there's a good chance that we have a financial answer for you out at moneyguy.com.
38:01 Brian Preston? And when you have all this success, look, nobody ever talks about the negative of becoming wealthy, but there is a little bit of a negative. Your simple life will get complex. And don't worry, you've just, just because this is the first time you've ever gone through this, we've done this hundreds, now thousands of times. We'd love to help you on the journey, protect you from what you just don't know. And if you're interested in how do we get through this complex life, once we've created so much success, that's where you can take the relationship to the next level. Fulfill the abundance cycle. Go to our website, moneyguy.com, become a client. We'll leave the porch light on for you. This thing can work. We work with clients all across the country. I love that we get to keep paying it forward, giving you this value, helping you become successful.
38:46 Brian Preston? And then when you reach that level of success, you say, what do I do now? We'll be waiting for you. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy team, out.
38:55 Speaker 03 The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Beau Hanson. Brian and Beau 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 The Money Guy Show. 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.
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