Which Accounts Should I Draw From In Retirement? (Rapid Fire Q&A)

In this episode of The Personal Finance Podcast, Andrew answers 15 listener questions ranging from Solo Roth 401k strategies and crushing $117,000 in student loans to whether a 19-year-old should build credit and how to pass brokerage accounts to your kids without tax headaches. He covers retirement account drawdowns, traditional versus Roth decisions based on tax brackets, why high-fee mutual funds usually lose to ETFs, and whether you should sell when investments jump 15%—delivering straight answers to the money questions keeping you up at night. Today we are going to answer these questions! Solo ROTH 401K: should I max out ROTH employee side before employer pre-tax side? Or split? How long can I leave my 401k in Fidelity before needing to roll it over to a new employer’s plan? If I haven’t maxed out my Roth IRA, would it still make sense to open a brokerage account? I’ve maxed out my IRA for the past 3 years. Should I contribute more to my 457B? How can I pay off $117k of high interest student loan debt and stay motivated? Should I start a Roth IRA for my grandkids now or start them an index fund? They’re 5. I’m 19 with $20k+ invested, should I start building credit? I have 2 investments — mutual fund (high fee), ETF (low fee). Both high return, should I stop the mutual? How should I go about drawing down accounts when I begin retirement? At age 30, approx what income does it make sense to invest in traditional vs Roth 401k? Should I “lock profit” every time my ROI hits >15%? Or should I leave it? (Reinvesting will 3% fee) How do you pass on a taxable brokerage account to your son? We’re coast FI. Should I just do 401k until employer match and add to brokerage as a bridge? Why money market over HYSA for high yield earners? How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast DELL: Get a new Dell AI PC starting at $749.99, at Dell.com/ai-pc Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Acorns: Start investing automatically with Acorns and get a $5 bonus at Acorns.com/PFP Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ and Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off! Links Mentioned in This Episode: 10 Ways to Prevent Identity Theft (and What to Do if it Happens to YOU!) How to Protect Your Finances Online (And Prevent Getting Scammed!) How to Protect Your Finances Online (Right Now!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI Website Builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer, or developer needed.

• 0:42Andrew Giancola?

  And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch. Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses that require compatibility and availability. Varies 18+. On this episode of Money Q and A, which account should I draw from first in retirement?

• 1:56Andrew Giancola?

  What's up, everybody, and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be doing a rapid-fire Money Q and A. So if you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now today, we're going to be diving into 15 questions rapid fire. You guys have so many great questions that are coming in, and I want to make sure we answer as many as possible in this episode. So this is going to be an action packed episode, but we're going

• 2:41Andrew Giancola?

  to be answering these rapid fire questions. So solo Roth 401k. Should I max out the Roth employee side before employer side? Number two is how long can I leave my 401k in fidelity? Before needing to roll it over to the new employer's plan? Number three is if I haven't maxed out my Roth IRA, would it still make sense to open a brokerage account? Number four is I have maxed out my Roth IRA for the past three years. Should I contribute more to my 457B? Number five is how can I pay off $117,000 of high interest student loan debt and stay motivated? Number six is should I start a Roth IRA for my grandkids now or start them in an index fund? There are five. Number seven is I'm 19 with $20,000 plus invested. Should I start building credit? Number eight is I have two investments, mutual fund high fee, ETF low fee,

• 3:25Andrew Giancola?

  both high return. Should I stop the mutual fund investments? We have those eight questions, plus seven more coming that I am really excited to answer for you guys here. So this again is an action packed episode and one that we are going to be diving into these questions and we're going to do it rapid fire. So get ready. If that's something you're into, let's get into it.

• 3:47Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So the first question is, should I max out my Roth employee side before the employer pre-tax side? Or should I split it up into two? And they're talking about the solo Roth 401k. So with a solo 401k, you can actually play two roles, employee and employer. So on the employee side, you can actually put $23,500 in 2025 and $30,500 if you're over the age of 50. So you can choose Roth or pre-tax Roth, which makes perfect sense if you expect your future tax rate to be higher today. So when we are making decisions when it comes to Roth Or pre-tax, we want to look at our current situation. Number one, this is always a great question to ask your CPA. Your CPA can look at your specific financial situation. They can look at your tax deductions.

• 4:30Andrew Giancola?

  They can look at your business deductions and give you a pretty clear picture as to which one you should choose. Now, if you don't have a CPA, there's a couple of questions that you can ask yourself. So number one is, do you plan on your taxes being higher in the future? If you do, then a Roth may be a really good option for you because a Roth means that money goes in and it's already been taxed. Then the money grows tax-free and you can pull the money out tax-free. So that tax-free growth is going to be a massive benefit for a lot of people. But if you're a really high earner, then what you want to do is get a tax deduction in that specific given year. Which is why if your CPA does look at this, they can tell you, okay, we needed a deduction in this given year. And so I want you to do the pre-tax over the Roth because this is going to help you within that tax situation.

• 5:12Andrew Giancola?

  Now, on the employer's side, you can contribute up to 25% of net business income. So I do this every single year as I will look at my business income and I will contribute 25% of that net business income. And this side is always pre-tax, not Roth. So if you want to do that, you need to do that in the pre-tax. You cannot do that on the Roth side. So my specific order usually goes is to max out the Roth employee side first. And then if you want that free tax-free growth, then you can add the employer pre-tax for the tax deduction. But it's not really split unless you want that tax diversification. So I always go Roth first and then I go pre-tax later on if I can. Unless I'm in a given year where I really need that tax deduction, which some years we do. And if you do need that tax deduction, then you could take a look at that. But I like the Roth for the tax-free growth.

• 5:57Andrew Giancola?

  I am really, really bullish on that tax-free growth because when you run the numbers, you do the math, you look at the compound interest. It is a really, really big number. And so I love the Roth side first. Number two is, how long can I leave my 401k in Fidelity before needing to roll it over to a new employer's plan? Now, there's no given deadline for this question. So there's no deadline out there that you have to roll it over at any given time. You can leave it in your old 401k indefinitely as long as the account balance is above $5,000. So that's the number one key is as long as that balance is above five grand. But employers may force you To move it. So it comes down to what the employer's rule specifically is. Now, some people will leave it in that plan if the plan is pretty good. If you like those investments or there's low cost options.

• 6:39Andrew Giancola?

  But if not, then they will roll it over into a rollover IRA. So this is what I did. When I left my job, I took my 401k and I rolled it over into a rollover IRA at Vanguard. Now, why did I do this? I did this for a couple of different reasons. One is I wanted the flexibility and the ability to control my investments completely. So I wanted to be able to choose my investments in this account. And so in order to do that, I need to roll it over into a rollover IRA at a location where I like the investments. I love Vanguard Investments. Most of my portfolio has Vanguard Funds in it. I truly believe in the company long term. I think Vanguard is absolutely fantastic. And so I rolled mine into a rollover IRA at Vanguard. Why?

• 7:22Andrew Giancola?

  Because I wanted to get myself into some VTSAX over there, you know, and get some total stock market index funds. So that's what I did. I rolled it over into Vanguard and I've been there for years now. But if you like the investment options where you currently are, there's nothing wrong with leaving it there short term if you want to. I just like to have the control and I like to have the flexibility. So for most people, I recommend you looking into a rollover IRA because that way you could do some other cool things with it. Now, sure, some of the caveats that will come into play is some of the 401k rules that you can utilize and access your 401k early may not come into play if you plan on retiring at some point soon. So maybe you wanted to use the rule of 55, for example. And if you wanted to go ahead and do that and start to withdraw some of that money around the age of 55, if you retire early,

• 8:06Andrew Giancola?

  then we want to make sure that we have plans in place and look at some of those rules and parameters surrounding that. But if you're someone who is young and you don't plan on doing some of that stuff anytime soon, then having a rollover IRA could be a great option. All right, the next one. If I haven't maxed out my Roth IRA, would it still make sense to open a brokerage account? So generally, maxing tax advantage accounts first, like your Roth IRA or your 401k or your HSA, are typically what we tell most people to do is I want you to take advantage of some of those tax deductions. I want you to take advantage of some of that tax-free growth. Depending on what type of account that it is. And so the Roth IRA has that tax-free growth. Boy, oh, boy, do I love that tax-free growth. If you've been listening to this podcast any given time whatsoever,

• 8:49Andrew Giancola?

  you know I love the Roth IRA because I love the tax-free growth, which is really, really hard to beat, to be honest. But if you need some extra flexibility. So for example, if you think you may want to retire early and you think you may retire in your 40s or your 50s. A lot of people listen to this podcast. They want to retire early. That's a big reason why they listen to this podcast. And so if that's the case for you, then having that taxable brokerage account to give you that additional bucket where you can pull from if you decide to retire early is a really, really good idea. And taxable brokerage accounts give you flexibility. There's no rules or parameters around when you can pull money out of those accounts. And the only difference between some of these tax advantage accounts is that you are going to have to pay taxes on the gains. So anytime you look at a taxable brokerage account,

• 9:33Andrew Giancola?

  there's a long-term capital gains and there's short-term capital gains. Long-term capital gains is what most people listen to this show pay because most people are long-term investors who listen to this show. So any investment that you hold for longer than a year means that you pay long-term capital gains tax on that money. And so when that happens, it is a much lower rate than would be your income tax. And so it is still a tax advantage situation, even though it is an investment and you are paying taxes when you draw down on that money. So let's say, for example, you have $100,000 in your brokerage account and it has grown from 50 to $100,000. Well, that additional $50,000 of growth is what would be taxed. It wouldn't be taxed on the entire amount. Just that additional $50,000 is what would be taxed. So if you need that extra flexibility, there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

• 10:18Andrew Giancola?

  It is not an either or situation. It is all about your priorities. If you want to open that taxable brokerage account, and I highly encourage most people to have one open at least so that they can take advantage of a third tax bucket. So you got your pre-tax, you got your post-tax, and you have the taxable bucket. And all three of those are going to help you in retirement. And they all have their pros and their cons. The pros to having that taxable bucket is the additional flexibility, especially if you want to retire early. I've maxed out my Roth IRA for the past three years. Should I contribute more to my 457B? Yes, if you have the extra room to save, it is definitely in your best interest to look at a 457B. A 457B is one of the best plans available, especially if it is a governmental 457B and it is not subject to early withdrawal penalties.

• 11:02Andrew Giancola?

  So you can contribute up to $23,500 in 2025, plus catch up if it's eligible. And after maxing out your IRA, funding that 457B is usually an excellent next bet. Now, if you get a match with that 457B, always get that match first. You definitely want to make sure that you at least contribute up to that employer match. So if they match up to 6%, you want to make sure that you also do that first, even before you are maxing out that IRA. Now, I don't know if this is a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. We want to look at that too, depending on what it is. Then we want to look at that 457B, get some money in there as well because of those tax advantages. Again, everyone listening today, you want to take advantage of as many tax advantage accounts as you can because that is going to help you tremendously in the long run, save you hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars

• 11:46Andrew Giancola?

  in retirement because you are taking advantage of that. And so really, if you can get more dollars into this 457B, that is a really, really good idea. Number five is how can I pay off $117,000 of high interest student loan debt and stay motivated? So really good question. And motivation is a big thing that a lot of people try to find when they are paying off debt. What it really comes down to is discipline. So your motivation is going to be fleeting and I want you to stay motivated. I'm going to give you some tips on how to stay motivated here in a second. But motivation is fleeting. Your discipline is what is going to rule over everything else. Now, one thing I will say is because you have this high interest student loan debt, I would first figure out how much money can I throw at this high interest debt? So the way that our methodology works is we have something called the 1-3-6 method,

• 12:31Andrew Giancola?

  meaning I want you to save up at least one month of expenses in a high yield savings account. And then beyond that, I want you to start paying off high interest debt and attacking it like it is a pants on fire emergency because it is. And so if you have this high interest debt, depending on what the interest rate is, we want to make sure that we are going after this and getting rid of it as fast as we possibly can. And so at this point in time, I want you to figure out How much extra dollars each and every single month can you throw at this high interest debt? And I want you to automate it. Automation removes willpower from the equation, meaning you don't have to anymore worry about, am I going to make this extra payment or not? Instead, try to either make extra payments towards that debt so that you can get it paid down and gamify the entire situation. Okay? So first, automate your payments towards it.

• 13:15Andrew Giancola?

  And if you can make it a double payment, if you can make it even more than that, that is even better. But automate your payments towards that high interest debt. And then let's start to track the progress. How do we track the progress? One of two ways. My favorite way, though, is to track your net worth. And so what I would start to do is you can download something like Personal Capital. I'll link it up down below. Personal Capital is a free tool that allows you to track your net worth. And when you use Personal Capital in the way that it should be used, you're going to start to see every single month, my net worth is going to be improving. Why? Because I'm paying down this debt more and more and more. And so utilizing your net worth as the scoreboard to look at this every month. And you say, okay, I just made a $2,000 payment towards my debt. Guess what? My net worth improved by $2,000.

• 13:59Andrew Giancola?

  Now, you may be looking at this and saying, my net worth is negative right now because I have $117,000 of high interest student loan debt I need to get rid of. But that is going to be one thing that you can do is stay motivated by looking at the scoreboard, which is your net worth. Number two, I am the type of person that needs to continuously learn and educate myself on specific things, especially when I have a specific goal. So let me give you an example. I have been spending a lot of time as of late in fitness and money have a lot of correlations. But I have been spending a lot of time as of late improving my health. A lot of time, a lot of energy. I do two workouts every single day. I work out six to seven days a week. I make sure my eating is right. I have changed a lot of things in my life. And a lot of this is because I did a lot of blood work and went through function health.

• 14:44Andrew Giancola?

  And I found some things that I did not like within my blood work. And so I wanted to make a couple of adjustments, which I am doing in order to ensure that I am a much healthier person. But in order for me to stay motivated, because I'm disciplined and I will do it every single day. But in order for me to stay motivated, meaning I'm going to push as hard as I possibly can. I try to consume content that is going to help me further that goal. So for example, maybe I'm following some fitness people on social media. Maybe I'm reading a book about longevity. So I read Peter Attia's book. That book changed my life. Maybe I am consuming more things and educating myself more on advanced strategies when it comes to health and longevity. Those are the types of things that will keep you motivated long-term and keep you consistent.

• 15:27Andrew Giancola?

  So when it comes to paying down debt, I would highly recommend, A, continue listening to podcasts just like this, continue following people on social media who keep you motivated, continue watching YouTube videos, continue doing all these different things that are going to tremendously help you stay motivated. Now, your motivation, I just want you to understand, this is fleeting. It's going to go away. It's not going to be around forever. And so you really have to rely on your systems and your discipline to get through the hard times. Four or five months down the line, you're not going to feel like doing this anymore. You're like, why do I keep throwing money at this debt? It doesn't get any better. Okay. So these are all the things that I would highly recommend is to keep yourself motivated. But number two is let's get our strategy down because this is high interest debt currently. Can we refinance this to a lower interest rate? Can we refinance this where all of a sudden can turn into low interest debt?

• 16:12Andrew Giancola?

  If you have a 9% interest rate on your student loans, or if you have a 12% interest rate on your student loans, refinancing down as interest rates are starting to go down at the current time I'm recording this, refinancing them into better loan rates is going to be a really, really good idea for most people. And so taking those steps and looking to refinance and finding ways to lower that rate can really, really help you long-term. So it's between strategy and motivation. Those are two steps I want you to do. So I want you to go look at refinance rates now if you can, number one. And then number two is I want you to find ways to motivate yourself. One, by tracking your net worth, but two, consuming content that is going to keep you in motion as you go forward. But just realizing that motivation is going to go away. It's fleeting. It's not going to be around forever. And your discipline and your systems, those two things, what your system should be automation,

• 16:56Andrew Giancola?

  are going to help you tremendously. Now, that's partially, by the way, why we created Master Money Academy, because there's a lot of people in Master Money Academy, which is so cool to see on our founding wealth builders, our beta group here. It is so cool to see they are motivating each other. They are working through their progress together. And every single week, we share wins on Fridays and everybody's sharing their wins and we're cheering each other on. It is so cool to be in there. So just another reason why we love Master Money Academy. All right, number six is should I start a Roth IRA for my grandkids now? Or start them in an index fund? They're five, great question. So with a Roth IRA, they have to have earned income in order to be open a Roth IRA. So unless they're doing some baby modeling or they have some money coming in, you have to have earned income and that's all you can contribute for them in a Roth IRA.

• 17:41Andrew Giancola?

  But secondarily, I want to kind of talk about the difference in this question here. So you said, should I start with a Roth IRA for my grandkids now? Or start them in an index fund? So the Roth IRA is the account. This is what holds your money. And the index fund is the investment that you invest in inside of the Roth IRA. So they're two separate things. So really you just think about it in this way, shape or form is the account is the Roth. Then the money that you put into the Roth needs to be invested somewhere. And where it gets invested is something like an index fund, an ETF, a dividend stock, whatever you want to invest in. But the index fund is the investment. That is where you are investing your money. So there are two separate things. Now, secondarily, what I do with my kids is mine are in a taxable brokerage account and I invest money for them there. And the reason for this is you can do a UGMA or you can do a UTMA.

• 18:24Andrew Giancola?

  But what I didn't like about UGMAs or UTMA's is that when they turned age 18 or 21, depending on what state that you're in, you have to give them money. And I don't want to give them money by a certain age because when I was 18 years old, I would have blown all of that money on the dumbest things in the world. And so instead I like to control the money until I feel like they are ready to get those dollars if I give it to them at all. That's the other side of that coin. And so overall, I have this money earmarked. They are the beneficiaries if something were to ever happen to me. And so it's in my name, they are the beneficiaries. And then I invest in index funds and ETFs in that taxable brokerage account. I keep mine at Fidelity. If people always ask that question, Fidelity or Vanguard are two places I recommend for sure. And really that's one of the best places to look at that. Now also, if you want to save for college, that's another question, obviously.

• 19:08Andrew Giancola?

  Separate, put a 529 plan, this way I do that. And that is another great way to look at it. So hope that answers your question on there. But really you can't invest for kids until they actually have earned income. So once they start to have that earned income, maybe from mowing lawns, they can do other things like that, then you could start to have a custodial Roth IRA. All right, the next one is, I'm 19 with $20,000 plus invested. Should I start building credit? Absolutely, you should start building credit as early as you possibly can. So credit isn't about debt and building credit isn't one of those things that you should not do. It's all about building a strong financial profile. So you can open a beginner friendly credit card. One is like the Chime Secure Credit Builder. One of our sponsors of the show is a great option to look at. Discover has one, there's a bunch of them out there.

• 19:53Andrew Giancola?

  But a secured credit card works in a similar way as a debit card. Say for example, you think you'll spend $250 per month on that card. Well, you put $250 towards the secured credit card in your own cash and you put it up. And then you can spend that $250 like you're utilizing a debit card. And what happens here though, is that the difference between a secured card and a debit card is that you are helping your credit score. So it gets reported to credit bureaus and you are improving your credit score by utilizing that secured card. So it's secured by the cash that you put up. Okay, so that's why they call it a secured card. There are also beginner friendly credit cards. I don't recommend those for beginners. That's how a lot of people get into issues because they think, oh, this is free money. I'm just going to start swiping my car left and right. I'm going to go to Target. Oh, I can get those things, free money, swipe.

• 20:36Andrew Giancola?

  Oh, I'm going down to the local restaurant, free money, swipe. And then all of a sudden they get themselves into credit card debt. So instead, I would rather you use a secured card upfront until you can trust yourself with purchases, even if you're a responsible adult. I always recommend people do that first. And then use it for small purchases and then pay it off every month. So that's how you can start to build up your credit really quickly. And this builds your score. So later you can get rates on mortgages, auto loans and business credit. So building credit is a multimillion dollar decision. You can improve how much you're paying and the rates that you're paying on certain things by six figures, just by improving your credit score over your lifetime. Let's say for example, you get a 30 year mortgage and that mortgage rate is all of a sudden a 2% difference because your credit score is poor. Well, that is going to be something that is going to cost you hundreds of thousands

• 21:20Andrew Giancola?

  of dollars over your lifetime if you're not careful. So I would build credit now, absolutely. Another thing you could do is if you don't want to take on a credit card and you have parents who are responsible with money, you can become an authorized user on their card. Now you need to verify if your parents are responsible, even if they say they are. Double check because not every parent is, even though it seems like they are. And so you can become a verified user on their credit card and you can build credit that way as well. And that is something where they don't even have to give you a card, they can cut it up. But if you're on the credit card and your name is on there and they are paying off their credit card bills in full every month, then you can also build credit that way. So, great question. Yes, start building credit as soon as you possibly can.

• 21:59Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next one is, I have two investments, mutual fund high fee and ETF low fee. Both high return. Should I stop the mutual fund? Really good question. Fidelity did this study recently and they looked at which portfolios had the best performance overall. And the number one factor for those portfolios were fees. Fees will absolutely destroy your wealth building ability if you don't get control of fees. And so there is no reason in most scenarios to have a high fee investment, in my opinion. Now, this is just my opinion. You can do whatever you want with it. This is not advice. This is just financial education here. My opinion is there is no reason ever to have a high fee investment when you can have low fees.

• 22:40Andrew Giancola?

  Index funds and ETFs are everywhere now. You can get low fee mutual funds even now. I mean, there are so many different things. Targeted retirement funds are fantastic and they all have low fees. High fee mutual funds will eat away at your returns over decades. And in fact, if you have a really high fee, for example, and let's say you had two equal things going on here. Let's say you had a 1% fee in a mutual fund and you had a 0.03% fee in an index fund. And they got the same exact returns over time. That mutual fund is going to have a 25% less value by the time you retire than would that index fund. My friends, if you have a multimillion dollar portfolio, that is a multimillion dollar decision. And so making sure that you don't allow that decision to hurt you is going to be really important.

• 23:24Andrew Giancola?

  But number two is mutual funds are not as tax efficient as ETFs. So mutual funds have a worse tax implication for you. It hurts you tax wise more than what an ETF. And so they are not as efficient at all. So unless there's a rare case where the mutual fund is consistently beating benchmarks after fees, it's got to be after fees and after taxes, then ETFs are always going to be the route that I would look for the longer choice. And that's the smarter way to go long term. So that's the way I would look at it. Most people don't ever run the math and it's really important to at least take a look at that.

• 23:58Andrew Giancola?

  How should I go about drawing down accounts when I begin retirement? So we're going to do an entire episode on this, just so you know. But I'm going to give you some quick tips right now. So the common order for a lot of people is first their taxable brokerage account. So they can use up the long-term capital gains first. Then people will go to tax-deferred accounts, things like your 401k, your traditional IRA. And because they have to have those RMDs, those required minimum distributions, and they start at 73, that's the second order they would go. And then third, they go to their Roth accounts because they can allow that tax-free growth to continue to happen over time. And so the exact order kind of depends on your tax bracket. That's what's really going to matter in this situation. And so it's a great question for your CPA too. Or if you have a financial advisor, or if you want to pay one at an hourly rate, you can absolutely do that too.

• 24:43Andrew Giancola?

  And they will give you some advice on what you should be doing based on your tax situation, your income, all those different things. And then you can look at that. It also depends on social security timing, which is another big thing. And then your healthcare situation is also a big consideration. As many people will use Roth conversions in their 60s before those RMDs start, just to lower some of those future taxes. So there are some caveats to each of this, but you know, a common order for a lot of people is a taxable, tax-deferred, and then Roth are the order that I have seen a lot of other people do it. But we'll do a full episode on this, breaking down all the scenarios and kind of do some advanced stuff with it as well. At age 30, approximately what income does it make sense to invest in traditional versus Roth 401k? So your age doesn't dictate which one that you invest in.

• 25:28Andrew Giancola?

  It's typically your tax bracket. So it's going to depend on where you are in your tax bracket. So if you're in a lower tax bracket now, let's say you're in the 24% tax bracket. Roth will often win because you'll pay lower taxes now for tax-free growth later. But if you're in a higher tax bracket, say you're in like a 32% plus tax bracket, then traditional usually makes more sense because you can defer taxes while your rate is high. Now at 30, many are still in lower tax brackets unless you're a really high earner. And so if that's the case, the Roth 401k often works best unless you're already that high earner. Now, if you are a really high earner, then the biggest and the best thing to do would be to go to your CPA and say to them, which one should I invest in first? Similar to the first question that we answered on the show. Which one should I invest in first and ask them that question? But your age doesn't dictate that.

• 26:13Andrew Giancola?

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• 26:58Andrew Giancola?

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• 27:41Andrew Giancola?

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• 28:25Andrew Giancola?

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• 29:37Andrew Giancola?

  Next one is, should I lock profit? Every time my ROI hits over 15%? Or should I leave it? Reinvesting has a 3% fee. So market timing rarely works. And if you ever heard of us talking about this on this podcast, I am not big on capturing profits specifically. And so selling at 15% assumes you know what's going to happen next. And nobody out there, and I don't care who you are, nobody out there has a crystal ball to know what is going to happen next. And so people who are looking at situations like this typically do not make the best investment decisions because they think, maybe they think they know what's going to happen next, but they don't. So if this is a long-term investment, I would leave it invested, depending on what it is. If you need money soon, or it's for a short-term goal,

• 30:21Andrew Giancola?

  then taking profits might make sense. But for most people, that's not something I would ever consider doing. And paying a 3% fee every time you reinvest eats into compounding. So I don't know what that 3% fee is. I would move where the investment is if it does cost you 3% every time you want to reinvest. That sounds like crypto to me. Not sure if it is, but that sounds like something like Coinbase would charge or something along those lines. Because Coinbase charges you a certain percentage every single time you invest there. But that'll lead into your compounding also. Now, for long-term wealth building, the best move is to just stay invested. Even long-term, that is the ultimate best move. I would not try to capture profits. That is not the way to invest. The way that we teach it, at least, we invest, you know, long-term. And then we go into two stages. So we go the accumulation stage where you are trying to invest as much as you possibly can

• 31:06Andrew Giancola?

  into high-growth vehicles, things like, you know, the S and P 500, or the total stock market, or a three-fund portfolio, something like that. And then you are in the preservation phase. And during the preservation phase, you are trying to make sure that you can preserve that wealth over time. So there's two stages. And within those two stages, that's going to be something that I think a lot of people can start to see the difference there. And that's going to be something that a lot of people do. So we're long-term investors here too. If you're going to invest in something, you need to plan on investing it for decades. Warren Buffett says this all the time. If you're not willing to hold a stock for 10 years, don't even consider holding it for 10 minutes. And that's kind of the same philosophy we have here is long-term investing is the way to go. Number 12 is how do high net worth individuals keep their personal information, like home address, family details, and investments from being exposed online?

• 31:51Andrew Giancola?

  That is a great question too. So there's a lot of things that you can do. So we've had full episodes on this if you haven't checked them out. But one is you can enable things like multi-factor authentication when it comes to keeping privacy there. Using a password manager is obviously a big one that we talk about a lot. But the two bigger ones that we want you to focus on are one, freezing your credit. And in Master Money Academy, we're going to have an entire course on how to do all this stuff. But freezing your credit is going to be number one. And what you do is you go to the three major credit bureaus and you say to them, hey, I'm not going to be applying for any loans right now. I'm not going to be applying for any credit cards or mortgages or auto loans, those types of things. And so they'll freeze your credit. And then when it's time for you to go and apply for a loan or a credit card,

• 32:35Andrew Giancola?

  then you go and unfreeze your credit so that you can send that application through. And then once it's done, you're approved, you're done with that whole situation. Then you freeze your credit again. This ensures that nobody can go and open a bank account in your name, or nobody can go and open a credit card in your name, or a student loan in your name, especially if they steal some of your personal information. And so if they get a piece of your personal information, I've had this happen to me before where I had a student loan opened in my name when I was working in my early twenties. And this was because there was a Fishing attempt at a workplace that I had. And so somebody got a piece of my information based on the place I was working, sent them a piece of my information. So they had that info and they were able to open a student loan in my name, whole mess. But anyways, we figured it all out. So that's why I'm so strict about privacy on this podcast is because of that.

• 33:18Andrew Giancola?

  And the second thing you could do is remove your personal information online. And so this is something we talk about a lot in this show too. The service I use is called Delete Me. So what Delete Me does is they go to different data brokers that are out there and they say to these data brokers, hey, you have this person's information on your website. You need to take that down. You cannot sell this person's information anymore. They do not want it on this website and they go get it removed for you. Why does this matter? Well, this matters for a couple of different reasons. One, if a person gets a part of your information, if they steal a part of your information or they have a phishing attempt and some scammer out there gets a piece of your information, they can go search and look up your name, your address and the rest of your information and try to figure out and piece together your entire puzzle.

• 34:01Andrew Giancola?

  See, your financial information is puzzle pieces. And if someone can piece together most of that puzzle, they can start stealing money from you. They can start opening accounts in your name and that is a problem. And so because of this problem, we want to remove that information from data brokers. The laws around data brokers are absolutely ridiculous. They can kind of do whatever they want and they can sell this information to anyone. And so instead, we want to get that information removed. Delete Me does that. So if you go to joindelete.me.com/pfp20, that is a great place where we will get 20% off of Delete Me there. And it is by far one of the best services that I have ever used. I have been using them for years and years now. It's a subscription that is well worth it. And the reason why it's a subscription is they continue to remove your personal information

• 34:43Andrew Giancola?

  over time. So like throughout the year, they will continue to remove your information from these data brokers if it shows up again and/or if new data brokers get your info. So joindelete.me.com/pfp20. It is a great place to do that. And so that is some of the things that I do to make sure that my personal information is safe online. Next is how do you pass on a taxable brokerage account to your son? So there's a couple of options. Number one is that you can keep it in your name and pass it at death with a step up basis. Now, he won't owe tax on your lifetime gains. So you got that step up basis there. Number two is you can add him as a joint owner or a transfer on death beneficiary to simplify the transfer. Or number three is you can also start to gift during life, but when he inherits at your cost basis, which is less tax efficient.

• 35:24Andrew Giancola?

  But what most people do is they leave their taxable accounts via a TOD designation or will trust to maximize some of those tax benefits. And so looking at the tax benefits on how to pass it down based on your situation can be helpful, but those are three scenarios that I would look into and some of the things that you can look at. I have mine with them as beneficiaries and then from there, then I will decide kind of when I'm handing it to them based on a couple of different factors. The next one, we're coast fi, should I just do 401k until employer match and add to the brokerage as a bridge? So a common coast fi approach is to do that, to get the employer match, then invest in a taxable brokerage for some additional flexibility. Now, if you are planning on retiring early, which if you're coast fi, most people are

• 36:08Andrew Giancola?

  trying to and/or they're just trying to kind of coast their way into retirement and they want to retire at a traditional retirement age. But a brokerage account can give you that penalty free access before retirement age if you do plan on retiring early. If you don't, continuing to contribute to a 401k is also a great option. You can get some of those tax benefits if you want to retire at a traditional age. Or if you don't know yet and you're trying to decide, am I going to retire early or not, you can kind of split it between the two. A lot of people who are coast fi decide they're just not going to invest their money anymore and they're going to use their money for things that they love, which is absolutely fantastic, especially if you know when you're going to retire. But if you don't know the age yet, I like for people to continue to add funds to their retirement accounts that they can to feed some of the purpose of coast fi for certain people, but I like to just continue to invest. And so that's something that I enjoy.

• 36:52Andrew Giancola?

  And so, but definitely, definitely get the employer match. That's free money, always, always, always. And then invest the rest into if you're going to retire early, a taxable. And if you're not going to retire early, then you can look at some tax advantage accounts too. So the last question is, why did you recommend having a money market account for higher earners over a high-yield savings account? So there are many different types of money market funds, and I want a lot of people to understand this, including special types of money market funds that are exempt from having to pay either federal tax, state tax, or local taxes, or both. So there are two types of money market funds, and I'm referring here for a lot of high earners. And these funds are Treasury money market funds. Now, these funds invest exclusively in US Treasuries, and as such, you have to pay no state or local taxes on the interest that you earn. So if it's a lot of money in there, that's a big difference.

• 37:37Andrew Giancola?

  And then there's municipal money market funds, and these funds invest in local municipal bonds. And so because of that, you don't have to pay any federal taxes on the interest that you earn. If the muni is from your home state, you can also end up paying no state taxes. So both of those are really good tax-advantaged money market funds that have slightly lower pre-tax yields, but higher yields when you factor in the taxes that you would otherwise have to pay. And so looking at Treasury money market funds and municipal money market funds are two that have great tax benefits for high earners that I just wanted to kind of point out. And so that's what I meant by that. So a high-yield savings account is easier for most people, but if you have a lot of money, and if you have a lot of money that you need to put away fast, the tax advantages of those two are going to actually outweigh the yields for a lot of different high-yield savings accounts.

• 38:22Andrew Giancola?

  So the yield will be lower on those, but the tax advantages will typically outweigh that. All right, that is all the questions that we have for today. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. Again, if you want to submit a question, you can do so by joining the Master Money Newsletter. You just go to mastermoney.co/newsletter, and you can join right there. We send out an issue every single week to you guys in the newsletter that is going to help you with some part of your money, and that is the entire goal, is to bring you as much value as we possibly can. We start every newsletter out with a little joke up top there, so it'd be fun for you to check that out. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, where our goal is to bring you as much value as we possibly can. Hope we did that today, and again, we'll see you on the next episode.

• 39:19Speaker 03

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