The Most Underrated Investment Account in 2026

The Health Savings Account (or HSA) gives investors many great advantages, but the vast majority of Americans don't even have one. We'll walk you through the pros, the cons, and the steps to make sure your HSA is set for success in 2026. After showing how to make the most of this account, we answer your financial questions on everything from target date funds to home buying to college. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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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• 1:05Brian Preston?

  Financial mutant quiz. Do you know the most underrated investment account for 2026?

• 1:12Speaker 03

  Brent, I am so excited to talk about this because when it comes to investment accounts, you've got plenty of options that are pretty incredible. You've got 401ks, you've got Roth IRAs, you've got traditional IRAs, but there is a single type of account that I would argue is the most exciting, the actual sexiest of all of the investment accounts.

• 1:34Brian Preston?

  Well, I feel like we're single handedly changing the dynamics of this account. So without, you know, suspending, creating too much more suspense, we'll go ahead and share, we think health savings accounts are fascinating and very powerful for your financial future because they're not only triple tax advantage, there's potential to get a quad benefit in there if you play your cards right.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  So what is a health savings account? Well, quite simply, it's a type of tax advantage savings account offered to people that are specifically enrolled in a high deductible health plan.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  Goal of these accounts are to pay for qualified medical expenses. And so these things are absolutely incredible. Brian, you already led in with one of the most incredible things about them. The thing that makes them so exciting is that they have tax benefits that combine tax benefits from somewhere out of their favorite accounts, all into one singular account.

• 2:31Brian Preston?

  Think about this, I mean, we, I love Roth accounts because they grow in completely tax free. So for me to say this is potentially even better than Roth accounts. We better have the receipts and here's the actual receipts. Triple tax advantage. What do I mean when I say triple tax advantage with the potential for a quad? Is that all of your contributions, assuming you qualify and can make contributions, these accounts are tax deductible.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  You get a deduction on the front.

• 2:57Brian Preston?

  That's powerful. You get to actually take a tax deduction on the front end. The second thing is, the second is tax deferred, meaning whatever you invest these accounts into, as they grow, you're not having to pay income taxes on an annual basis. And then the third thing, if you use these distributions for qualified medical expenses, they are tax free. Now, here's the thing that's crazy. We've all heard, you know, Roth IRA gets tax deferred growth. They also get tax free growth if you, you know, when you pull them out for retirement. But what they don't get is contributions. The government doesn't typically give you both sides of it. They, that's too many, that's too good to be true in most cases. So they don't let you get the contribution and they don't let you to get the tax free growth,

• 3:42Brian Preston?

  but you do with health savings accounts. And here's where the quad comes from. If your employer is tax savvy enough, we did this for our employees, by the way, and they make this as part of this, you know, you get to pull it out of your paycheck to fund these health savings accounts. You also get to exempt yourself out of social security and Medicare. That's a huge benefit. It's not only for you, but also the employer, because that's 15.3%. 7.65 by the employer, 7.65 by you. This is powerful stuff.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  But they are so good that there are limitations. Unfortunately, not everyone has the. Ability to take advantage of health saves accounts and we've already said this that HSAs are an account that is only available for those with a high deductible health plan and in 2026, this is what that means. The plan has to have an annual deductible of at least $1,700 for self only coverage or $3,400 for family coverage and the out of pocket maximum, including annual deductible does not exceed 8,500 for self only or 17,000 for family. Now here's one of the things and we've seen this a few times in open enrollment this year specifically, we'll have clients reach

• 4:54Speaker 03

  out and say, guys, I'm so excited. I just got a brand new plan added in and my deductible is $1,900. So man, I'm in a high deductible plan. That means that I get to take advantage of an HSA. Well, not necessarily. You want to make sure whenever you do opt into your health insurance plan, it actually states that it is HSA eligible because just because you meet those deductible limits and just because you meet those out of pocket limits does not mean it's going to qualify. A lot of plans will have copays in there or they'll have office visit prices that are different, that will preclude you from or that will exclude you from being able to participate in the HSA. So you want to make sure that you are actually eligible and your plan says HSA eligible when you enroll in it.

• 5:38Brian Preston?

  Yeah, most of the exchanges and when you're talking to insurance brokers, I've always experienced where there's usually a search feature where you can make sure it's HSA eligible because it is kind of, it's quirky and weird that there are products that are put together that meet all the goals but are off a hundred dollars here or have this one feature that blows it all up. So you have to be, you do need to be very careful as you're making sure this is HSA eligible.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  And so not only do they limit who can participate in it, you have to be a member of a certain type of health plan. They also limit how much money that you can put into a health savings account. So if you are covered under individual coverage in 2026, you can put $4,400 in there. If you are on family coverage, you can do up to $8,750 and if you're 55 or older, you can do an additional 1,000. Thousand dollars based on if you're individual or family. Now, one thing to keep in mind, this is inclusive of all of your contributions as well as your employer contributions. If you have an employer that puts $500 or a thousand dollars into your HSA, that goes into that total. So the amount that you can contribute on top of that will be after

• 6:49Speaker 03

  you've accounted for the employer contribution.

• 6:51Brian Preston?

  Now, we did a teaser that set this up, says underrated. So that must mean, Bo, that there's a lot of people that are sleeping on this. Do we have any data to actually support that this is an underutilized tool?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Well, so we know that right now, only 10%, and this is according to Americans for Prosperity, only 10% of Americans actually use a health savings account. So it's not a huge portion of the population that are using these, but there is a statistic that is a little more saddening than this one because we have 10% of folks that use it, but 85% of those folks, 85% of the folks that are using HSA accounts are not actually investing. They're not taking advantage of the triple tax.

• 7:36Brian Preston?

  Well, if you think about it, and look, when we first started covering this, this is where I think there is a little bit of a Money Guy echo. There was only 6% of the population that was maximizing this. Now we find out it's 15%. So I feel like we are at least pushing the water slightly up the hill.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 7:53Brian Preston?

  But the reality is, is that I think most people are only taking advantage of the contribution deduction, but then using it as a clearing account, meaning that whatever health expenses they have for the year, they're immediately reimbursing themselves. So that actually pushes away or doesn't take advantage of the tax-free deferral growth as well as the tax-free pulling it out when you make the money in the future. It's just missing out on some of the key components that really get, add the sizzle and the excitement for the long term.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  So what should you do if you want to make sure you're taking advantage of this? Well, first thing, make sure that when it comes to open enrollment, you confirm that the high deductible plan is indeed your best option. Again, this is a question we've seen with a lot of clients. The HSA option will be available. Guys, guys, guys, I've, I've listened to the show. I'm such a huge fan. I'm gonna do the HSA. This is my first year. We'll be like, whoa, not so fast. You have a highly subsidized Cadillac insurance coverage. Even though we love HSAs, we also love when you have really, really great health insurance. It's highly subsidized by your employer. So you want to make sure that the high deductible plan makes the most sense for you. So if that's the case, here's how you maximize

• 9:05Speaker 03

  it. Step one, you gotta make sure you actually put money into it. A lot of times people will do the high deductible plan. Their employer will say, hey, I'm gonna put in $500 or $1,000. And we review the tax return and say, man, I only saw that $500 went in or only saw that $1,000 went in. Make sure that you're actually using this as a vehicle to put dollars into. It's why it's in step five of the financial order of operations.

• 9:29Brian Preston?

  Yeah, this is, I loved also that you just drew attention to the fact that you have to pay attention when you go through open enrollment if this benefits. I went through, my wife and I hit the magical age that we are at the same time. And I knew there were some big expenses. So I actually took a year off from the HSA last year, went with our more subsidized plan because I knew I had a lot of procedures coming up. So it's okay to be strategic with your open enrollments as we're in this season too.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  So then, once you get the money in the HSA, we want you to be a financial mutant. We want you to actually invest those dollars inside the Health Savings Account. Based on where you are in the financial order of operations, perhaps you invest all of those HSA dollars, or maybe if you need to have your deductibles covered inside the HSA, maybe you invest a portion of them. But the big thing is we want you to get those dollars working. And then as you incur medical expenses moving forward, we want you to pay for those medical expenses with outside dollars. Don't use the HSA dollars, use other dollars, but make sure that you save the receipts. You can either scan them into some sort of digital locker, or you can keep a spreadsheet where you notate what the expense was for, who it was paid to, when it was paid, and whose behalf it was paid on.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Because if you save those receipts, not only can HSA distributions be made tax-free for qualified medical expenses, they can also be used to reimburse Yourself for past medical expenses. So if you have this large docket of receipts that you've saved, you can then go reimburse yourself for these receipts at any point in time in the future.

• 11:02Brian Preston?

  That's where I've seen it actually work out for clients because a lot of you are probably saying, well, so when do you actually use this money? Well, because you know, I want to be careful. What happens if I die with it? You know, we got you covered on all that stuff. We've done a lot of show content on this, but in practical terms, what I've seen with clients is, you know, when you leave the workforce, you get this great opportunity where you want to consider doing Roth conversions and other things because now you can legally manipulate the tax code because you get to control which pots of money you pull your retirement distributions out of that might allow you to lower your tax rate and really kind of take advantage of some really cool planning opportunities. This is a great bucket to pull from. I had a client who, when we were trying to figure out, not only were they moving and they wanted to have a cash free purchase of a brand

• 11:45Brian Preston?

  new home as they downsize, but they also wanted to be doing it using Roth conversions. And we're like, well, what's going to pay the bills while we're going through this unique planning period, the season of life? And we found out the health savings account was a great opportunity. They could get access to money completely in a tax-free way that didn't blow up the tax planning that we were doing. It was a really cool opportunity.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Another thing where I've seen this with a lot of my retirees is maybe we're doing some sort of tax planning where we're trying to stay in the 0% capital gains rates, or perhaps we're doing Roth conversions and we want to avoid Medicare, IRMA surcharges. We want to watch how our social security is being taxed. HSAs are fantastic. We call fill-in vehicles. And if you do have a shortfall in your living expenses, these tax-free distributions in retirement can be incredibly valuable. So if you have access to an HSA and if you are participating, make sure this is something you continue to use every single year. It's why it's in step five. It's why when you do your annual net worth statement, we want you to revisit the financial order of operations to make sure,

• 12:48Speaker 03

  okay, do I have access to this account and am I fully taking advantage of it to take advantage of the possible quadruple tax advantage that HSA accounts represent?

• 13:00Brian Preston?

  Mic drop on, you can tell we get so excited about this. We just did 12 minutes, which is supposed to be a six-minute teaser. And we just got so hyped up about it that we went twice as long as we should have.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Ruby, we love, we love HSAs. We love that there are things that we can teach the audience and tell the audience about that can make their financial lives better. Can you think of anything else out there that could potentially make the lives of our audience better?

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Um, I, some of you have noticed this, but some of you haven't, and I am very excited to share.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  My line.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  I said, very excited. I'm, I'm just changing it up just enough, but I am really excited to share something with you today. So this is an amazing problem to have, but Bo and Brian, do you know how many Money Guy episodes you have done in the history of the Money Guy Show?

• 13:52Brian Preston?

  Oh my gosh, you didn't tell us. You didn't put me, I didn't know.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Spoiler, there's so many. I don't want the number either, but that's the point.

• 13:59Brian Preston?

  I mean, it's gotta be. I should have been trying.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  There's so much amazing Money Guy content, uh, resources, shows. There's so, so many, and that's an amazing problem to have, but sometimes it can be hard to find that exact episode you want from a few months ago, from a few weeks ago. So I am on a mission to make that vast amount of Money Guy content extremely findable for you, much easier to access when you need it. So I'm going to show off a little bit of a phase one of moneyguy.com, a new update. So Bo's going to help me out. If you go to moneyguy.com, if you're watching, we're going to show you on screen. If you're listening, you can go check this out for yourself later at moneyguy.com.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  Moneyguy.com, check, I'm there.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  So if you go up to the top, you'll see some new things up there in the navigation. If you would just click on shows for me, Bo, you can see a list of all of our types of shows. Go ahead and click on the Money Guy Show. That's our main full episodes that come out every Friday. And if you scroll down, there's a search bar where you can search for a topic of any Money Guy show. So go ahead and search net worth by age. That's a really popular one. Everybody seems to love that we do every year. We're going to be doing it again soon.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Search bar, net worth by age.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  And when you click enter, you'll be able to see all of the net worth by age shows that we have ever done. So you can even compare years if you want to.

• 15:21Brian Preston?

  Our thumbnail strategy has changed.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  You can see how our thumbnail strategy has changed. That's so true. But yeah, you can go find Money Guy episodes. It's that easy now, which I am so excited about. Try another one, Bo. Go up to the top again and click on Articles.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  Click on Ultimate Guides. Our Ultimate Guides, if you have not checked them out, you need to. First of all, if you just click on Ultimate Guides, you can see deep dives, very comprehensive write-ups about specific topics. But you can search these too. Why don't you click or search Saving for College, Bo, and see what pops up?

• 15:55Speaker 03

  You may wonder why I keep capitalizing it. I don't know. It's just a habit. I don't know why I'm doing that.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  It's just how he searches, I guess. We're really seeing something about Bo. But you can see, we have right at the top, an Ultimate Guide all about budgeting and saving. And then right underneath it, Ultimate Guide all about paying for college, how to do it, the Financial Mutant, the Smart Way, whether it's for you or your child. So you can go browse those and search those. And if you, again, I know if you're watching, you definitely know all about our show. But if you haven't seen the Ultimate Guides yet, I think you're gonna really, really love those too, if you're into personal finance and are wanting to learn more about your specific situation. And then last but not least, let's just try one more and show it off. If you click on Topics, Bo.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:35Brian Preston?

  Hey, can you remind me, how much does this website cost?

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, what was the annual membership for this?

• 16:39Speaker 04

  It's free.

• 16:40Brian Preston?

  It's free?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Free?

• 16:43Brian Preston?

  Wow, look at that. That's the abundant cycle in action.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  It's a free website.

• 16:47Brian Preston?

  By the way, all the people we have working on the behind the scenes is not free.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  That's not, honestly, that's what I thought you meant at first. And I was like, well, we're not, yeah, that's not free. But it's free for you. Anyway, if you go on Topics, you can search kind of more specifics ones that we've called out there, like Real Estate and Mortgages.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a hot topic right now.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  We talk about that a lot. We have all these things we throw out, like we have a checklist, we have a calculator, we have an Ultimate Guide. We've done a show on that. We've done a show on this. So right there, even without searching, right at the top are some of our most-

• 17:17Brian Preston?

  We have a Refinance Guide as they drop in interest rates.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  We've got Making a Millionaire's on here, too.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, so even Making a Millionaire's, where real estate comes up in the conversation as a part of their financial plan, is on that Real Estate and Mortgages page.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  This is awesome.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  I'm loving it. I'm super pleased with how it's going and this is really all for you because we saw it. We saw that there was like that pain point of like this content is so awesome, but sometimes it's easy for one to like, oh, what was that one called or where did I see that? And so hopefully this makes it easier. And then even as these things come up in your own life, you can use moneyguy.com as a resource. So I'm very excited. Thank you for helping me show it off, Bo.

• 17:53Brian Preston?

  That's really cool.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  And, and what's the why? Why did we do this? Because we really do believe that there is a better way to do money. We believe that how you navigate your financial life and how you gather your information, how you collect your information matters. And so if there are ways that we can make that easier for you, if there are ways that we can make that more valid for the ways that we can put it at your fingertips, we want to invest in being able to do that. I love, someone said, I saw this comment come through. It says, guys, the, the search function on the website is incredible. A couple of weeks ago, I needed to look up something on IUL, Index Universal Life. And so I just typed that into the search function and it gave me everything I needed to be able

• 18:36Speaker 03

  to do that. And that's exactly what we want you guys to be able to do. I was gonna see how good it was, but they took it away from me. So I guess I won't see how good it was.

• 18:45Brian Preston?

  Well, I think it's probably for the best because once we start yelling out, you know, suggestions.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  I was gonna start searching some of our favorites because we have some all time favorite shows that me and Brian had a lot of fun doing, but I was gonna see if it pulled up really easily.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  You have to go check it out.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  So not only do we love that we can spend time and effort getting this stuff available for you. We love that every Tuesday at 10 a.m. we can show up right here to load you up. We want to answer your questions. We want to speak to the things that you guys care about. It's while we have the team out in the wings right now, collecting your questions. So if you have a question, you want to get our take, you want us to weigh in on it, and you don't want to go search it on the website, then right now you can get your question in the chat and we will load you up. So with that, crib director Rebe?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Did you guys know we ran a poll during your HSA talk?

• 19:29Brian Preston?

  No.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  This is why financial mutants are different. How many, what percent of Americans use an HSA?

• 19:35Speaker 03

  10% use them, 85%.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  We are well over 50%. A financial mutant is using an HSA. We have 45% say, I don't utilize an HSA. And maybe that's for various reasons, but 47% said, yes, I use it as an investment vehicle. And then even 8% said they are using it as a clearing account. So I just thought that was kind of fun and interesting because financial mutants like they get it, you know, they're listening to you guys and they are benefiting from it.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Well, and here's a, here's a something we love. Whenever there's something good in the financial world, we love to see that a good thing gets better. We've talked about HSAs for a long time, but they used to be kind of hard. There were only a handful of custodians and you were kind of stuck with the custodian you were with. Now that we've even seen some, some big players get into the game, like Fidelity got into the game a number of years ago. Now that we're seeing that HSAs are more accessible, easier to open, easier to fund, easier to transfer dollars into. It's a great tool that's getting easier and easier and easier and easier. So there, we are, we are systematically removing barriers to not taking advantage of these kinds of things. But you have to be willing to do it. You have to do a little bit extra to be able to know where your dollars are going and how you're taking advantage of it.

• 20:45Brian Preston?

  I do like that it's gotten easier because, because that's, that takes down one more barrier. Because when we were dealing with all these obscure providers on HSAs, it made, it just made implementation that much more difficult. Now it kind of integrates in probably with how you're managing your monthly investments and everything else. I love that.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  My, my wife's very first HSA, we were able to like to defer money into it. But then you had to open an account here, you had to open another account at a different custodian to be able to invest it. You had to transfer every paper. It was a nightmare. It's so much easier now.

• 21:17Brian Preston?

  Well, yeah, it used to be like most of your HSA custodians were banks. And then you had to, if you wanted to do the investment side, they had to have a separate arrangement with a separate login. It's, it's streamlined.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Super clunky.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  All right. We've got some questions now. RealChristmasTree asks.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Are y'all real?

• 21:36Brian Preston?

  No, we're definitely not real. We are, we are.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  I should have known better than to start with that.

• 21:39Brian Preston?

  We're balsam, we're balsam hills.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  I really should have known.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Are you real or fake?

• 21:43Speaker 04

  We're a real Christmas tree family.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Wow. My kids, literally, we were driving around and she goes, they said daddy.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  Will we ever get a real Christmas tree?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  And you said, absolutely not.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  Cause you're the Grinch. The needles get everywhere and sap and yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  It's really not that bad.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  They're nice and they're pleasant, but not in my house.

• 22:02Brian Preston?

  I used to like going to my next door neighbors and we'd burn all the tree. We'd try to get as many neighbors to give us their trees so we could burn them on his backyard.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  Is that, that's not, is that not here?

• 22:11Brian Preston?

  If you've never seen a Christmas tree.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Is that here at this house?

• 22:13Brian Preston?

  Yeah, you remember Crazy Mike? If you're from Chicago and you know, and you can just sit on your back porch when it's 20 degrees outside, you know, cause that's the way people from Chicago are, but he used to love setting Christmas trees on fire. Cause they, man, they, they are like kindling. It makes you realize these things are huge fire hazards at the end of the season. But really spectacular to burn in your backyard.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  The other thing that I told him that it was, that's nuts to me is like, if you had get a real tree, you gotta like do the lights yourself. Like it's hard enough just getting the ornaments and all the bows on there, but having to like wrap the lights.

• 22:45Brian Preston?

  This is why Bo doesn't have a dog either. But you see, do you see?

• 22:48Speaker 04

  My kids ask me the same thing.

• 22:49Brian Preston?

  A window into Bo's brain.

• 22:51Speaker 04

  I'm lazy about a lot of stuff like that, but like I even, I grew up with a fake tree and still had to put the lights on. Like this is a normal thing to do.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  No, we got the lights on the tree.

• 23:02Brian Preston?

  My fake tree growing up, the lights were, I think were outside lights. So they were the type of lights that if you bumped into them, they'd burn you. And you know, see, I remember, and then we'd throw tinsel on top of it. I was like, there's no way, I just made fun of the fire hazard of real trees. Fake trees can be a fire hazard too, based upon the way my parents did it when I was growing up.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  You wanna hear a crazy tight what hack? I'm gonna tell you anyways. Uh, it was, the year was 2013, right? My wife and I had just gotten married and Brian was like, hey, Bo.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  You just bought, you got this, this house that you're in. I got this big, beautiful Christmas tree. Uh, but the lights are out on only like one or two strands works pre-lit. I'm gonna throw it out, but do you want it? And 2013 Bo was like, hot dog, I'll take it. So I literally took that Christmas tree. I pulled every single light off of it, went and bought my own like string. And I like zip tied and strung that whole thing that first year. Still the same Christmas tree we put up every year. Still the same one we use right now.

• 24:02Brian Preston?

  You're still using this in your new house?

• 24:04Speaker 03

  Preston original.

• 24:05Brian Preston?

  Oh my God.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Isn't that wild?

• 24:07Speaker 04

  Okay, that's a wild turn. I was not expecting that.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  Isn't that wild?

• 24:11Brian Preston?

  That is disgusting. At this point, I know what you've got going on. You could afford to get a new tree. What are you doing?

• 24:18Speaker 03

  It's still great.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  Listen, I mean, if it works.

• 24:21Brian Preston?

  By the way, that wasn't even a, I don't even think that was a balsam hill. That was probably something I bought at Costco.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  No, but it's.

• 24:26Brian Preston?

  Or Sam's Club. You know, those trees are disposable. They're like one year done, one and done.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  No, this tree, it is great. It is, it's, it's in pristine condition still.

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Oh my goodness.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  We put up our stuff. I'm normally like an after Thanksgiving, put her up her decorations, but this year we did a lot earlier. Tree's been up for like three or four weeks now. Not one ornament on it yet.

• 24:46Brian Preston?

  By the way.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Cause that just hasn't happened.

• 24:47Brian Preston?

  Real Christmas tree. We are three minutes into your question and all we did was your name.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  You know, that crossed my mind when like I marked it to ask it and yeah, my instinct was correct.

• 24:57Brian Preston?

  What can we help reel out with?

• 24:59Speaker 04

  Yes. Uh, the actual question says, should step four of the foo be increased if you change from a two to a one household income? So I think this is a great question. Step four is that emergency reserve step. So how should they think about that?

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Uh, should it be increased? The answer is it depends. Uh, because it depends on some, some factors. Should it change when you go from a two to one income household? Almost certainly. It's unclear though, if it's going to get larger or smaller, because if you go from two incomes to one income, what I don't know is okay. Well, how are your living expenses changing? And if you were at two incomes, were you a two income household where you only had a three month living expense, emergency reserve, or were you one that had six months? So I think anytime you have a major life change, income change, job change, family change, kid change, location change, any of that kind of stuff.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  I think it's always worthwhile to revisit your emergency fund to make sure that it aligns where you are.

• 26:02Brian Preston?

  When we, when we try to give indicators of, of, of levers that could change the way your emergency reserves look. Without a doubt, the number of incomes in your household has an impact because there's risk associated with it. If you have two. Two incomes in your household and they're both pretty similar. That takes out some of the risks that pushes you pushes you closer to a traditional three months of cash reserves. Obviously, if now you're just one income is driving the entire house. That's riskier because now if that one job gets laid off and you have a hard time replacing or finding a new job. You quickly see why you want to expand your emergency reserves to six months. Instead of that three months that you got used to when you had two people working.

• 26:44Brian Preston?

  So I think that in most cases, you've now increased the risk to your household. So that that increased risk probably lends itself to where you're going to want to expand your emergency reserves.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Love it.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Love that. Real Christmas tree. Thank you for the debate and the question.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  It took longer for us to hear the question.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  To talk about real estate Christmas tree than.

• 27:07Brian Preston?

  I'm in, I'm in a mood today. So y'all have to keep me from the tangents. Because there's just so much just swimming around in my brain. I almost single handedly derailed the content meeting this morning.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  You know, you did, you actively did derail it a few times.

• 27:19Brian Preston?

  I knew we were in trouble when I hadn't even made our, our cups of coffee and it was like 45 after and we were still in the content room.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  All right. Next question is from Devo 6912. It says, there are target retirement date funds. Are there funds for retirees like quote unquote, I plan to live to 2070 fund?

• 27:41Brian Preston?

  You know what's fun.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Which is a funny way of saying it.

• 27:43Brian Preston?

  Devo, here's, here's the thing. I know Vanguard toyed with this. I think, I wonder if they did away with them because I haven't seen anything in years on this, but this was a number of years ago. They tried to go the other way with it, whereas if you could, for retirees, exactly what Devo is asking, you could tell them. With, you know, how long you plan to live to, and it would actually help you with the distribution plan as well. But I have seen absolutely nothing on that in the last few years. So I'm starting to think that maybe it didn't get as much uptick or approval or acceptance from the general public that they, they walked away from it. So I know it was Vanguard had them.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  The way that a lot of target date retirement providers, whether. It's fidelity or Vanguard or Schwab or you know, pick your custodian or pick your fund company. What they'll normally do is they'll have like a 2025, 2030, 40, 45, 50, so on and so forth. But then they'll also have like this one conservative allocation, usually called something like fidelity freedom.

• 28:40Brian Preston?

  Retirement income.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Retirement income or something like that. And what I think happens in a lot of them is that they kind of consider that the terminal allocation. So, okay, I'm going to be in the 2030 and then once we pass 2030, I'm probably going to be in the income fund or whatever, whatever that case may be. Here's why I think, and you hear us talk all the time about, we really like target retirement index funds early on in your accumulation journey, because it's a really good generalist strategy. It's going to give you some very generalized allocation so that you can move roughly towards a generalized horizon. Right? But as your assets grow and as you kind of reach that critical mass, as you reach that tipping point,

• 29:22Speaker 03

  as you reach that boiling point, as you reach that point, it might make sense for you to go from some sort of generalized solution to a more specific solution, specific to your unique, unique needs and circumstances. Well, when we get to retirement, I think that most of us, when we start in our careers, all of our accumulation journeys look pretty similar. We start with nothing, we need to save something and we want to get that something working for us. So, target retirements are a great solution. But when we get to retirement, man, our retirements can look vastly different depending on where we live, what our expenses are, what our debt looks like, what our social security is, what our other sources of income is, what our account structure looks like.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  So, a generalized asset allocation for retirees may be a little harder to pin down than a generalized allocation for accumulators. And I think that's probably why they haven't done that just.

• 30:17Brian Preston?

  Well, I don't think they probably got a lot of acceptance and I think that that's partially why. Because this is why we talk about taking a relationship to the next level is we're all so unique that I think that that's probably where you probably need to go, don't want some generalized thing that on the distribution plan, because you're going to be so unique. Your tax planning, your Roth conversion strategy, your social security, your IRMA. It all, there's so many things that come into play. I will tell you, here's a hack on target retirement funds that'll blow your mind when you do the research. I haven't done this in the last 18 months, but I imagine it's still the case. If you go look at all the big providers, if you think about Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity, you know, once you get about 20, 25 years in the future, there's no difference between

• 31:01Brian Preston?

  their most aggressive ones. They just changed the years. And that blew, I remember when we were doing some research and I was like, wait a minute. So you mean that 2065 fund is the same as the 2045 fund?

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, what changes is the speed of that change.

• 31:14Brian Preston?

  Well, but they quit, there's no change between some of those. They just go to their most aggressive and they just changed the years. So tickets, ticker symbols are different, but they're the same allocations on some of those higher ends. So that's why it does make sense to go research each of your custodians. They are slightly different. So go, don't just assume one is the best for you. If you're one of those people that hear us talk about index target retirement funds, you go, but I hate bonds. Go look at all the three and see which one lines up with you the most.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Well, Devo 6912, thank you for your question.

• 31:50Speaker 00

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• 32:50Speaker 04

  Next question is from Liam C. It says, just graduated college, making 65K gross.

• 32:57Brian Preston?

  Nice.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  And parents are letting me live rent free for a year.

• 33:01Brian Preston?

  Stacking.

• 33:03Speaker 04

  It says, does it make sense to save 25% while building my emergency fund? I don't want to miss out on time in the market and I should have the emergency fund done by the time I move out. So I think he's kind of doing steps at the same time, but is that okay since he, his living

• 33:22Brian Preston?

  His emergency fund ought to be built out probably by month two.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Month one.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  I know, what are your expenses?

• 33:28Brian Preston?

  That's what I was thinking too. I mean, the savings rates could go way beyond. If you're living at home, you're probably, your savings, unless your parents are making you pay just like real cost of living rent, but it doesn't, that, that's not the.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  This says rent free.

• 33:41Brian Preston?

  It says rent free. So you need to be stacking.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would do an assessment on what are your actual living expenses? You did not say your age here, but perhaps it's a car payment, car insurance, cell phone bill, but well, I'm not going to go there.

• 33:59Brian Preston?

  You're probably still in the family home cell phone.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  There's a funny, well, that's not, we're not going to go there.

• 34:06Brian Preston?

  About to get yourself in trouble.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no, there's just a funny, there's a funny NFL football player whose mom just made him get on his own cell phone bill and he was very upset about his mom making him get off. So I would add up what the realistic living expenses you have are right now. And I would imagine it's a $65,000 a year income with no rent and relatively small footprint. I bet you could fully fund that very, very quickly. So I would knock that out in the first month, two, three months so that then you really can start building 25%. You can blow through getting your employer match and maxing out your HSA and maxing out your Roth IRA, even getting potentially into your 401k or your employer sponsored plan. I don't think funding that, that emergency fund should take a lot of time at all.

• 34:52Brian Preston?

  Liam, I, I, I'll put it, I want the why to make sense on this is because look, if you, it's a choice to live at home. I mean, eventually you're going to want to be. On your own, but use this as an opportunity to give you a leg up. I mean, I watch on my TikTok feed. There's somebody who's set up a trailer in his driveway for his kids to live on. Because it's a way for them to essentially stack, have some. And I was like, people are getting creative, but make sure it's actually creating fruit. What I don't want you to do is live at home. And then you hear us say, save 25%. And that's what you did. And then you just go blow the rest on on something else, you know? So, so make sure the why intersects so that you're actually getting something out of this unique opportunity. Cause when you're young, this could be a turbocharger.

• 35:37Brian Preston?

  I mean, I, you know, a funny thing for me, I have pleasant memories when I graduated college. And there was about, cause we, I was moving in with a few of my college roommates in Atlanta, but they were still building the, the building. It was a very old apartment complex. My dad had lived in the exact same apartment complex. Are you serious? On Peachtree in the city of Atlanta. And they were building three townhomes just in this old apartment complex. But they put these brand new three, and we coincidentally drove by as they first put the sign. And so we got the bead on these brand new townhomes that we were going to rent. And, but it was three months in the future. So I had to live at home for three months and commute like an hour to get from my parents' house.

• 36:18Brian Preston?

  I used the savings, I'll never forget to buy this burgundy, like Birken lounger. You know, the thing that I was so happy that I, that I paid cash for. We all bought, like, I remember Rob bought the leather couch that he bought secondhand, which is kind of weird in some ways. And then it was, it was just fun. You think about what's the why on why you save up this money? The sacrifice that you can pay cash and tax, you know, so you can let this money grow for you. Let's, let's actually bear some fruit.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  Good stuff.

• 36:49Brian Preston?

  Good memories, though.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Good story. Liam C, thank you for asking the question and uh, good for you for maximizing this year without any rent.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Who, who would have thought that?

• 37:00Brian Preston?

  Peachtree Park Apartments.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Who would have thought the guy that started in Peachtree Park Apartments buying a burgundy burka lounger?

• 37:07Speaker 04

  Look where he is today.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Is now the Cybertruck guy, right? Who would have thought?

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Cybertruck.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Who would have thought?

• 37:13Brian Preston?

  So, so here's the thing.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  Owner?

• 37:15Brian Preston?

  What's funny, what was, y'all have no idea, that video, if y'all knew how that video went down, it cracked, and I give the content team.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  For those who don't know, what video are you talking about, Brian?

• 37:23Brian Preston?

  So there is a video that got put, dropped last week that, did I buy a Cybertruck?

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a short, so Instagram.

• 37:29Brian Preston?

  It was only one minute. And it had to be short because if you knew the, how the recording went down, is, I'll go ahead and spill the tea on this, is that I was unfortunately involved in a car accident. It was not my fault, I was minding my own business at an intersection, and the, the person behind me, I don't know if they're distracted or what, but they got confused, and when the turn, left turn signal turned green, and we were sitting in the center lane, which was still a red light, they, they, they gunned it and piled in the back of my car, um, when the left turn signal, I think, I think they were distracted and got confused when the cars to the left of them started moving. But anyway, $11,000 of damage later.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 38:09Brian Preston?

  Um, so she, she gave it a go. I mean, it was, it was, it was something. Um, but anyway, I needed a rental car while they were repairing my car, and Tesla had the opportunity that I could rent a Cybertruck for $60 a day.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:23Brian Preston?

  I was like, you know what? I'm curious. I wanted, so for the month long that it took to repair my, my Tesla, um, I drove a Cybertruck. And the content team was like, you must let us make a video. And this dragged on for weeks, we didn't make a video, and then finally I came in, and I think it was a Tuesday, it was like, it might have been last Tuesday, because these guys turned it around so fast. And, um, and I was like, by the way, I've got notice from Tesla that my car's ready to pick up, so I think I'm taking the, the Cybertruck back tomorrow, and they're like, well, we must record a video, and I'm like, when are we gonna record a video? I was like, today's a recording day, we are slammed, like, we'll follow you. Out to the parking deck. So we, I kid you not, we really did film that video in 10 to 12 minutes.

• 39:07Brian Preston?

  And I felt so guilty. The next morning I came in and I said, guys, I felt like I rushed you. I know how excited y'all were about doing this. I rushed you. If you need to use some B roll, I'll come back and we can do voiceover work. So we can actually expand that. And they're like, it's done. They already had the clip done from that 10 to 12 minutes. It was, it was fascinating.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  It was fun.

• 39:25Brian Preston?

  It was fun.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  You were very like cheeky about it. Cause you don't reveal till the end, whether you rented it or bought it. It was great.

• 39:32Brian Preston?

  I give Josh and Ken mad props. The whole drive off at the end was all their idea too. Um, I'm not that creative with it. I mean, all I did was walk around and gave opinions and they're like, you know what? Well, to answer that question, we had to just drive off. And I was like, okay, we'll do it.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  I loved it.

• 39:48Brian Preston?

  We did it. It turned out really good and um, I appreciate it. So if you're curious, and by the way, I do feel better for driving this thing. I mean, it was, it was a fascinating experiment to drive this thing for a month.

• 40:00Brian Preston?

  It was funny is that my kids both were highly embarrassed. I think my wife was too. Everywhere I drove.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  She was just nicer about it.

• 40:06Brian Preston?

  But my daughter, like anytime I dropped her off, she was embarrassed. But I did have a little boy come up to me in the car rider line, knock on the window and he goes, I love your Cybertruck. And so that was, that was kind of a unique experience, but it is the thing, and I said, this got cut, you know, so they didn't take all 10 minutes. They only gave me one minute of my 10 minutes. I did say the fact that that Cybertruck is such a brutal design. It reminds me of the seventies architecture, you know, where it just, it's so in your face that um, people love it or hate it. It, it works if you were the only one in town with that car, but when you live in a county or town like we do, and there's three of them in your pickup line at school, it kind of loses some of that um,

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Some of that luster. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:52Brian Preston?

  So that, that's, go check out the video though. It was, it was quite fun to look at. And I was shocked at the, some of the comments too, you know, some of the people, you know.

• 41:01Speaker 04

  Well, some people instantly judge you for buying it and then you didn't even.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  You didn't even buy it.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Spoiler, didn't buy it.

• 41:08Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I mean, I was like, that's why I'm rewarding the live stream to give the context. Yeah, I was in a car accident, so I figured I'd turn a negative into a positive. Cause it made, it created a fun little thing to go try this vehicle out. And by the way, the four wheel steering really is cool, but a lot of people in the comments will let me know. Probably a lot of parts that could break and that made me think of my dad. Because my dad, we never had power windows in most cars. It was always manual transmission because it was easier for him to work on. It was easier. So when I always say it's just more crap to break is what my dad would say. So I mean, I, when I saw that comment, I was like, yeah, you're right.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Not wrong. Well, yeah, it's good stuff. So if you want to go see that short, if you haven't yet, it's on all of our socials, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, I believe too. Yes. Yes. So go find us at Money Guy Show.

• 41:54Brian Preston?

  Oh no, they loaded it up. I mean, I saw that thing dropped and it was everywhere.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 41:59Brian Preston?

  And I had a lot of people, you know, who I know in my personal life who came up and I saw your Cybertruck video. So I thought that was pretty funny.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  That is funny. All right, let's get another question going from Giggling Goals Galore. Go ahead and make any comments and then we'll get to the question. Um, great.

• 42:17Brian Preston?

  Oh, oh, oh, triple G.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Triple G. We, the question says, we, we're 47 and 43, have a gross income of 170K net worth.

• 42:28Brian Preston?

  Nice.

• 42:29Speaker 04

  Of 170K and a net worth of 2 million. We have retirement with work. Even though the resource shows us as a per digits accumulator of wealth, so they must be using our calculator at moneyguy.com. Things always feel tight. What are we doing wrong?

• 42:47Brian Preston?

  Well, it sounds like they're not taking their foot off the accelerator.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, for, for, it sounds like you're doing for scarcity. You didn't mention. What your savings rate is, but to have a net worth of $2 million by 47 and 43. You know, most, most folks hit millionaire status around 47, 49, kind of in that range. You guys have hit.

• 43:08Brian Preston?

  Two million.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Uh, multimillionaire status, uh, even before that age. And so obviously you must be doing something right. You've probably been saving. You've probably been exercising for scarcity. You've probably been really, uh, stretching that discipline muscle. And so one of the questions that you can ask yourself, just like you said, Brian, isn't, can you take the foot off the gas now? Can you maybe ease off a little bit?

• 43:31Brian Preston?

  What's the why for your money? I mean, this is, once again, this is another reason why if you go to learn.moneyguy.com, you know, what's your number? We want to help you figure out are you ahead of the curve, behind the curve, or right where you're supposed to be. So that way you actually have the understanding to know, I don't have to put the kids in the closet when we go on vacation to sleep in, or, you know, maybe we want to do adjoining rooms instead of piling us all on two queen beds. I mean, these are the things that when you say it always feels so tight. I mean, a lot of those things are blossoming memories when you're in the early stages of setting up budgets and still trying to bedazzle your basic life. But if you're a multimillionaire and you're still doing some of these things to the point that you're now starting to get complaints from the family.

• 44:16Brian Preston?

  I mean, this was something I even had to internalize. Well, not, cause I mean, I'm such a knucklehead that I, I mean, my oldest daughter, I want to incentivize her to go on as many vacations with us as possible. But when she was like, Dad, I'd really like to just have my own bed. I get it. I mean, I was like, you know what? I'm screwing this up. I ought to probably start making sure that she always has a bed so that I can keep her coming on these vacations. Cause if you don't, I'll just go ahead and tell you the cautionary tale. If you don't, if you're too stingy or too tight with the money, you might not get, you're, you're, you might lose out on some of the key people who bring you the happiness and the joy, uh, because they just like, who wants to go hang out with this tightwad? Who's, you know, who's so cheap with everything.

• 45:00Brian Preston?

  So just understand it's back to what's your why? You know, you can graduate. That's why we quit doing tightwad nation is Bo and I were so tight in our younger years, but as we started having success and we started realizing what it took to make even better memories with our family, we used the, the tool of money, the way it's supposed to be used, but without the sacrificing of the, you know, saving and building a foundation in those early years.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Recognizing that money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to achieve our goals. Accumulating more money and just having money for the sake of money isn't the goal. It's not, it's just, it's toolkit. It's the mechanism by which we are. So if I were you and your spouse, I'd say, okay, well, hey, what are we building towards? Here we are at 2 million. Where are we trying to go? Are the steps that we're taking right now to get from where we are today to where we want to be, are they going to get us there? Are they going to get us there sooner? Are they going to overshoot? Are we behind the curve? Are we ahead of the curve? Are we on the curve? And then you can kind of reassess and then you can give yourself a little bit of like sigh of relief.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Like holy cow, okay, we did all the hard work. Now maybe we can start enjoying the fruits of this labor.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Good stuff. Well, giggle and goals galore. Thank you for your question and we hope that helps you think through where you are in your financial journey.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  You have something you want to share?

• 46:28Speaker 03

  I just, I read the comment and people, people are like, Bo hadn't left tightwad nation yet. Go get a new tree. Buy a new tree. Get you a new tree.

• 46:37Brian Preston?

  But Bo is, it's so funny and I'm sure if we had our, if we ever did like a money guy after hours or Peach Pit after dark or whatever you want to call it, you know, where we brought the wives on for like a

• 46:48Speaker 03

  Oh buddy.

• 46:49Brian Preston?

  They could, they could probably

• 46:50Speaker 03

  It would be an hour of getting roasted is what it would be.

• 46:52Brian Preston?

  It would be funny is because I think my wife would share, I'm cheap about certain things, but not cheap about other things. And I bet you're the exact same way.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  You honestly, just hanging out with you at work, you're like that. You guys surprise me sometimes. You're like, that costs that much? And I was like, you spend this much on this other thing? Like what? Okay.

• 47:11Brian Preston?

  All I can say is if you come here and like The studio tour doesn't consist of us showing you the snack closets, but the snack closets are legit. Sometimes Bo and I look at her and he goes, why do we need? Now, I know they can hear me through that wall, so I'm gonna get blasted.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  I'll say you got a whisper this part.

• 47:27Brian Preston?

  Why do we, like, I was looking, I was like,

• 47:28Speaker 04

  The snack team.

• 47:29Brian Preston?

  How many peanut butter M&Ms can we have? Because I don't think anybody's eating peanut butter M&Ms, but we have them for days. We get to end of times, I got your peanut butter M&Ms.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  We're covered.

• 47:39Brian Preston?

  We are your hookup. We don't have ammo. We don't have water, but we will have, We got peanut butter M&Ms. Peanut butter M&Ms for you.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  That's hilarious. Oh, that's good.

• 47:48Speaker 04

  All right, good stuff. Let's go on to Jessica's question.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Why would I buy a new tree? It works fine. There's no, there's no utility.

• 47:55Brian Preston?

  Cause I probably bought that tree for 170 bucks.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  I actually am with Bo on this one.

• 47:59Brian Preston?

  15, 20 years ago.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  It's a beautiful tree.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Here's the, you do have, it's great that you can spend more once you get to certain milestones, but like, you can't spend on everything all the time.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  So maybe you're just doing other things with your money. It's just a tool, right?

• 48:14Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 48:15Brian Preston?

  If your wife sees this video, you're gonna be, she's gonna immediately be, I'm gonna give her a coupon code.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say, no one, no one, no one text my wife to tell her about this. We're just gonna,

• 48:24Speaker 04

  She has great taste, so she would pick out a beautiful tree.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Oh, she would.

• 48:27Brian Preston?

  What's more funny is probably your neighbors now walk in, cause I know them, it's more likely, your, your wife will not hear this, but your, I've met your friends and neighbors and they do listen to our content. They're gonna so judge you guys hard when they walk in, be like, so that's Brian's secondhand tree.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. That's hilarious.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  All right, wanna go to Jessica's question?

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Yes, ma'am.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Um, we had a couple of versions of this, since we were talking about HSAs earlier. It says, what happens to these HSAs if there's a balance and you pass away? So some questions, questions about inheritance, or like, what happens to these accounts? Is there anything special? What do you think?

• 49:01Speaker 03

  This is a great question, and this, this, Jessica's a truly a financial mutant question, because Bron, you and I asked the same question one day. We were like, man, what, okay, we're doing this strategy. What if you do this for five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years?

• 49:15Speaker 03

  But what happens?

• 49:16Brian Preston?

  We actually, now, look, maybe you can use our brand-new, updated search feature, but one of those early shows, we actually went and pulled the tax code on these questions, and it definitively said, you know, "Look, your executor, your estate can still pay these benefits out, but this is why you have to be very clear that if you are using this strategy, don't keep it a secret, because whoever's in charge of, you know, processing your assets would need to know where that spreadsheet is, know what you are trying to accomplish here, because, so it could actually extend, but it would need, now your executor or executrix would need to be very aware of this and go get the reimbursements and pass it on to the beneficiary and heirs of your estate.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  So it's super silly, but if you are someone who keeps a hard copy of your estate documents or a hard copy of your net worth statement, you keep it in a safe in your home, or there's some sort of digital place that you keep that, you may want to keep that expense tracker for your HSA with those same documents and update it annually. So every year, when you put your net worth statement in there, when you save your net worth statement, or when you update your estate documents, make sure that you have that expense tracker in there as well, so that your executor knows about it.

• 50:27Brian Preston?

  You might be a financial mutant, if.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  Well, Jessica, thank you so much for that question. It was a great follow-up to our HSA conversation. All right, next question is from Tricky Puffin. It says, "Hi, Money Guy team. For the 25% rule for home affordability, what are all the costs we should include in this number, and why? Is it based on gross? Should we include gas and electric, insurance, et cetera? Why not gross minus needs?" So maybe let's just level set. The 25% rule is you shouldn't be spending more than 25% of your gross income on housing, whether that's your mortgage or your rent, but what else is included? Can you expound on that a bit?

• 51:15Speaker 03

  Well, let's first talk about the why here, right? Why do we have the 25% rule? It's for guardrails. People ask us all the time, "Hey, housing for most folks..." Is the single most expensive thing that you will ever spend money on. It's the largest asset that most people will ever buy. And so they said, okay, hey, give us some guardrails so we can make sure that when we make this huge decision, we don't make it poorly and we stay inside the lines. And so that's why I say, hey, the total cost of your housing, the principal, the interest, the taxes, the insurance, the total cost of your housing should not exceed 25%. But if you're a financial mutant and you want to make sure that you stay on the conservative rung of that calculation,

• 51:59Speaker 03

  there's nothing wrong with including other housing costs in that. If you want to include your utilities, if you want to include maintenance, if you want to include those costs in there, we're not going to fight you on that. That's just keeping your actual percentage for housing costs lower than the 25%. What we want to tell is if you're a young person just starting out, you're like, man, things are tight, things are uncomfortable, and I'm early on, but I need a home and I need a place for my family and I need a place to establish roots. Where are the boundaries? What's the thing that if I go beyond this, it's going to get me into a bad spot? That's why we came up with the 25% and we made it the total housing cost as opposed to adding in all the other stuff.

• 52:42Speaker 03

  But if you want to add in all those stuff tricky, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just going to put you in a more conservative position, which is fine.

• 52:48Brian Preston?

  If you want to know the bare bone, so it's P I T I. It's principal, interest, taxes and insurance. If you're trying to, I know some of you live in high cost of living areas. So the last thing I need to do is add more stress to you about that. So if you're trying to figure out where the bare line is for that boundary, it is the principal, interest, taxes and insurance. I did think on the question though, the question answered itself and I wish it was, can y'all pull it up two more seconds? Cause the question was, why not gross minus needs? Why do we use gross? By the fact that you said, why not gross minus needs? Do you realize how many people say, why not net? Do you see how quickly we run into a problem where everybody wants to use a

• 53:31Brian Preston?

  different metric? Whereas like, why should your health insurance choice change this? You know, why should your, whether you're participating in your retirement change it? Cause that's where a net comes in. You're trying to use needs. You know what doesn't change through all these things? Your gross. Your gross. That's, that's the why on why we use gross on all these indicators is because it's harder to manipulate. So many of you guys will have different net numbers. Some of you all have different needs numbers, but I can tell you, if you tell me what your gross is, we can come up with some rules of thumbs and some ideas for you to, it's pretty universal across the board.

• 54:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's great. Tricky Puffin? Great question. Thank you for being here and for asking it. Let's move on to Asher's question. It says, my newborn was born on Friday. So first of all, congratulations.

• 54:21Brian Preston?

  Newborn, money guy show.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  And they are first time, first time parents, he says. So that's amazing.

• 54:26Brian Preston?

  That's awesome. You're probably right now is like, where's the instruction manual? Where's the foo for kids?

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Where is it, Brian?

• 54:33Brian Preston?

  Well, I mean, but you know what I mean. What I mean by that, and I just thought I'd get myself in trouble. I just remember when they pull, they say, hey, go pull the car around, because we're going to discharge you guys with that newborn. And I remember, you know, I barely, I barely knew how to put that car seat in the backseat. I think I, with the first kid, I definitely went to the fire station so they could check it. Cause that was some service that they offered in Georgia. Maybe they offered everywhere. But, um, so they, they put the kid in that car seat and then you're riding home and you look over at your spouse and you're like, what have we done? Because you're like, did they really just give us this kid? And I don't know. I've read a few books, but I don't really know what I'm doing. That's the way everybody feels, Asher. So I, if you had this child

• 55:15Brian Preston?

  on Friday and it's your brand new newborn, it's going to be okay. Just the fact that you're tuning in and you're curious, you're going to be a great parent.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  Oh, so sweet. All right. Well, that was just the beginning. The question says, "What are your thoughts on contribution amounts to 529 plans?" I'd like to be aggressive on contributions, but we're in the messy middle. So what advice would you have? What guardrails would you have when it comes to investing for this new baby?

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Well, every new parent, every parent thinks this, "Man, I want to make sure that I'm saving for my kids. I want to make sure that I'm providing opportunities. I know that likely if they're going to go for some higher education, college is going to be expensive and I'd like to be a mechanism to be able to help them pay for that. So the earlier I start saving, the easier that path will be." And that's an incredibly noble cause. There's nothing wrong with that. But the question you have to answer for yourself, Asher, is, "Am I doing it in the right order?" It's the very reason we came up with, Bron, will you hold that thing up for me? It's the very reason why we came up with the Financial Order of Operations. It's a step-by-step process to tell you what you

• 56:24Speaker 03

  should do with your next dollar and when you should do those things. Because right now, if you are in the messy middle and you feel like you have a thousand different things pulling you in a thousand different directions and both money is tight as well as time is tight, putting money in the 529 may not be the best solution for you right now. The best solution may be beefing up your emergency fund, or maxing out your Roth IRA, or putting money in your HSA, or getting to a 25% savings rate. That might be a better use because while we want to love on and take care of our kids, we often have this temptation to do that at the expense of making sure we take care of

• 57:06Speaker 03

  ourselves. And I think far too many parents fall into that trap and that's getting things out of order, out of whack.

• 57:12Brian Preston?

  Well, I wrote down some quick, quick notes here. I said, "Wear and food." So that echoes what Beau just said. I thought that I was immediately also go figure out what the state tax benefits are in your community. Because some states, like in Georgia forever, it was $2,000. They've moved it up to $5,000.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Eight thousand now.

• 57:27Brian Preston?

  Eight thousand now. So it's been expanded. So go figure out what your state benefits are. And then- By the way, once you know this, and if you maybe are not in the foo step for yourself, where you can fund it, there's nothing wrong with you going and telling your parents or other loved ones that, hey, instead of giving us these expensive Christmas gifts, how about you go set up a 529 and make your grandchild the beneficiary. You could even qualify for some state tax benefits. I just figured this out. Ask your advisor, or maybe you ought to consider doing this. And then here's something, just to give you peace of mind. Because as Bo shared, a lot of us want, everybody wants to help these little kids, these bundles of joys, that even if you're not a kid person, as soon as you have your own, you're like, oh, my gosh, where did all, where did all this love come from? I've never thought I liked

• 58:12Brian Preston?

  babies until I had my own baby. And then, so it's an amazing thing that happens. But I want you to take a little pressure off of yourself. I have a daughter who's in her senior year of college. We just paid her last semester. And for her 529, the state benefit for most years that I was in the state of Georgia was $2,000. So that's pretty much what I did in that 529 to maximize that benefit. And I'm happy to report that a little goes a long way. I was shocked at how well that account, because really, these accounts grow for 20 years. And so 20 years of compounding growth is pretty magical. If you want to go play around with our wealth multiplier, or go play around with some of our portals on

• 58:53Brian Preston?

  moneyguy.com, what compound interest even for college can do for you, you're going to be amazed to see that a little goes a long way. So it takes the pressure off of you in that messy middle, because you are short on time, you're short on money. And I want you to take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. Go use some of those tools at moneyguy.com, and I think you'll see, hey, we got you covered, and you're going to be a-okay even with a little bit of money.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's good stuff. Well, congratulations, Asher. Enjoy this newborn phase. It'll go pretty quickly, actually. So just enjoy it. And hopefully Bo and Brian gave you some good food for thought as you make some plans for this little one.

• 59:31Speaker 03

  Did she say foo for thought?

• 59:33Speaker 04

  I said food for thought, but I should have said foo for thought.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  Missed opportunity.

• 59:36Speaker 04

  Some more foo for thought. We do have a new child checklist for free up at moneyguy.com/resources. It lets you just kind of check the boxes on your cash flow, your insurance, your taxes, your long-term planning. So if you are looking to-

• 59:50Brian Preston?

  What was the cost of that?

• 59:51Speaker 04

  It's a free resource, Brian.

• 59:53Brian Preston?

  I love it. Free.

• 59:55Speaker 04

  It's a free resource. It is. So just go to moneyguy.com/resources if you want to check that out and just make sure your bases are covered and just think through what you need to think through before your baby comes into the world or after. And also on moneyguy.com, thanks for letting me show off our new search features. So be sure to check out all of the great content that we have, more findable than ever before at moneyguy.com. And thanks for being with us. We'll be back every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central.

• 1:00:22Brian Preston?

  I got one more distraction.

• 1:00:24Speaker 04

  Excellent.

• 1:00:24Brian Preston?

  I wanted to get this out there earlier, but you know, because now we probably have six people listening to this, but it'll be worth it. You know, Millionaire Mission came out May of last year and we'll have more details on some things coming up in 2026 about Millionaire Mission. People ask me all the time, is the book still doing good? I'm like, yeah, people are still buying it and it's better than that. I still go on Amazon and read the reviews and there was a brand new review that was dropped on December 6th and it touched me. I mean, I got the tingles from it that so much so that the content meeting, I read the entire, and it's a pretty, pretty long review. Matter of fact, so long that Bo said, Brian, don't, don't read that on the show. But I would encourage because it really did.

• 1:01:04Speaker 04

  It was very sweet though.

• 1:01:05Brian Preston?

  Here's what that person doesn't know when she wrote that review to me is that she embodied exactly what I was trying to do when I wrote Millionaire Mission is that I remember being a 22-year-old who'd had this great education. I got an accounting degree, didn't even really know what that could do for me yet, but I didn't have nobody in my life that really knew how money worked. And I had to go figure it all out piece by piece. And I was sitting there thinking, man, wouldn't it be nice if somebody gave me what to do with my next dollar? So I didn't waste all these mental horsepower and calories and time, which is your most valuable thing. And, and she, she gave me credit for, I'm changing her life. I'm changing her generational wealth in her family. And, and that's just

• 1:01:49Brian Preston?

  not something that's guaranteed. And it just, it touched me to my heart because that's, that was the heart of what went into writing this book was, man, I know I have an audience out there that's watching and listening. To the show, but I hope that this book will get in the hands of people who've never opened our podcast, listened to our podcast, watched our YouTube channel, but this book would be enough to paint by the numbers to where you don't have to have that struggle that I had of what to do with your next dollar. So I just want to thank her personally for that review. I did read it and it means a lot to me. So I don't know if she'll see this, but it's still nonetheless will show just the value and the power of what we're doing here with the Money Guy Show.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  Love that.

• 1:02:33Brian Preston?

  I probably need to close the show now, don't I?

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Your show, you can do it.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can do it. That was lovely.

• 1:02:38Brian Preston?

  So that's that.

• 1:02:39Speaker 04

  Go for it.

• 1:02:40Brian Preston?

  I get caught up. Like I said, it gave me the tingles, but it really does. It gives me the why of what we're actually doing here is that this thing started with the purest of intent is that I always wanted to be a school teacher. And so I had the heart of an educator and really didn't realize this was the greatest marketing idea ever. So that's why I love that the why was there first before all the dividends and the fruit came from it. You guys can see what drives this engine. And that's why I just please take advantage of the free stuff. I kept making, drawing attention that if you go to moneyguy.com/resources, the website's free. Now, yes, we do have some paid tools and courses, but that's stuff that's just used to accelerate your journey because what

• 1:03:21Brian Preston?

  we really want to do is let you love on you so much, use so much of this free content that you one day realize that you, holy cow, I guess this is that complexity of success that Brian and Bo are always talking about and you'll consider taking the relationship to the next level. I'm your host, Brian, Bo, Reba and the rest of the Money Guy team. Money Guy, out.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through 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.

• 1:04:15Speaker 05

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