From DINKs to Single Income and 2 Kids

⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:02Speaker 00

  The action's on the court and as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21+ Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  I remember telling my boss, "It'll be good for the brand" when leads were slow. Yeah, it, it wasn't.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:00Speaker 03

  Brand new baby and not really like that old of a baby before the brand new baby. Man, that sounds, that sounds messy. How's it going? How's it going from one to two right here in like the early stages?

• 1:12Brian Preston?

  Silence. Silence. The only thing that scares me about you guys is that your income is, is kind of in flux.

• 1:20Speaker 05

  We've been at step four for a while now. And it feels like instead of step four growing, step four keeps on dwindling.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  You want to move through step four, not backwards.

• 1:27Speaker 05

  We're going backwards. Like we're like trying to stay away from step three here.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  And where'd y'all come from?

• 1:36Speaker 06

  Savannah.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Savannah, Georgia?

• 1:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Let's go.

• 1:39Speaker 05

  You're gonna like this. She's a dog.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Go, go dog. Are you serious?

• 1:43Brian Preston?

  So. We're dogs, right?

• 1:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, we are dogs.

• 1:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm married into it. So yeah, I'm a dog now.

• 1:50Speaker 06

  Her son actually knows the go.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 06

  He does it all the time.

• 1:54Brian Preston?

  So you actually graduated from Georgia? Is that okay?

• 1:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, she did. Yeah. I root for him. I root for him.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Where'd you go to school?

• 2:00Speaker 05

  So I went to University of West Florida in Pinseco.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah. We got no beef with West Florida.

• 2:04Speaker 05

  It's fine. It's fine.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  So where'd you graduate?

• 2:07Speaker 06

  15. From UGA. Yeah.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  What'd you study?

• 2:10Speaker 06

  Um, I was a psychology major, but I worked in foster care for two years with my degree and then I went back to school for nursing.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Okay. And what'd you study?

• 2:18Speaker 05

  So I studied communications, minor in business.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  What do y'all do now? What's the, what's the thing now?

• 2:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we just recently went into, she's full, full at the house, full time at the house with the kids.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Hardest job ever, right? Right is different.

• 2:31Speaker 06

  It is like no break. Yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Congratulations, by the way.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. It's, we're very blessed right now. And then I, we made the very smart decision to go commission only. I'm a mortgage consultant now.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Normally when you go to one income, that's what you want to do. You want as much variable income as you can possibly have.

• 2:46Speaker 05

  I'm the brains of the operation here with the decisions we're making, but yeah.

• 2:49Brian Preston?

  Busy right now?

• 2:50Speaker 05

  Um, not super busy, but busy enough.

• 2:52Brian Preston?

  Cause I see all the headlines on my feed is how the, the real estate market, because of interest rates, obviously, and then pricing, we're just not seeing as many closings as historically normal for this time of year. So I didn't know if that's also, or if there's enough, of course, who would be refinancing into these rates? But I was curious how busy things are.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's not, it's not as busy obviously as it was like 2020 and 2021. You have to be a lot more creative. So there's creative ways to get people into homes, but you also have to balance that with, am I getting someone into something that's not a financially responsible decision? So I have to kind of tote that line a little bit.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Just out of curiosity for our audience, creative ways to get people in a home? When you say that, like, what are some of the creative? Cause there's a lot of folks out there trying to figure out how they get into houses right now.

• 3:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different things. I mean, there are down payment assistance programs. Sometimes I'll advise on that. Most of the time, if there's a way to avoid that, I'll tell a client to avoid that. I just had a retired couple. On paper, their income doesn't allow them to qualify for a mortgage to get into a house, but I knew they were going to pay that mortgage off pretty soon after buying it. They just needed something to get into a house before it went off the market. So we were able to do a distribution, divide that, their retirement balance by 36 months. So they just start like a monthly distribution. They just have to do it for one month, one time. We closed them qualifying off of that and then they're going to sell another house they have, pay it off in cash and then they're going to kind of ride off in the sunset, no mortgage, stuff like that.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Interesting. So a lot of retirees, that's, you gotta be able to show the fascinating.

• 4:20Speaker 05

  Just creative way. If I knew they were going to be doing that and just trying to live off of that, I would say not a good idea. You know, so.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  I like that disclaimer in there. I'm not recommending.

• 4:28Speaker 05

  I want you guys to know.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  I'm actually a good counsel.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  Get this guy out of here right now, you know?

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Okay. And you said you got eight kids, some kids? How many, how many kids?

• 4:37Speaker 06

  Now two.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Two kids.

• 4:38Speaker 06

  I just had my little girl. We had her June 12th.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Oh, let's go.

• 4:42Speaker 06

  I'm fresh, two months postpartum.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  That's my anniversary. You'll always remember it now.

• 4:45Speaker 05

  Awesome.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  All right. So how old are the kids? We got one that's like a few months old and how old's the other kid?

• 4:50Speaker 06

  Two and a half.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Two and a half. Oh, man.

• 4:52Brian Preston?

  It's a good spread.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  It's what? So you got two and a half and just a few months. And how old are you guys?

• 4:57Speaker 05

  33 and we'll be, we'll both be 34 soon.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  So man, that sounds, that sounds messy.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Like in a wonderful way, right? But you guys are in the thick of it. How, how's it going? How's it going from one to two right here in like the early stages?

• 5:11Brian Preston?

  Silence. Silence.

• 5:14Speaker 06

  It was an adjustment for sure. Um, our little one, like he's just, he's pretty rough. So, you know, he is all boy and he just like, he would roll his cars on top of her if we don't stop him. He's, now he's really sweet with her.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  That's what little sisters are for though, right? Like that's what you're supposed to do.

• 5:30Speaker 06

  You have to like train him not to be rough, you know, while he's like tumbling around on the bed. He about kicks her in the face. You have to just like really watch him, but he's really good and sweet with her now. Um, but yeah, I, it's taken me a minute to adjust. I actually just stopped working my 12 hour shifts, which were really hard as a mom, by the way. Like I'm like, I used to love them and then I became a mom and I'm like, oh, then I don't get to see my kid all day. It was hard, but um, in April was when I stepped back completely from nursing. So I'm like temporarily retired from nursing.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  I mean, a lot, holy, a lot has changed here very quickly. 12 hour shifts to like sort of zero hour shifts, but also kind of like 24 hour shifts. And then adding a new baby and fact, and figuring out how to be, man, how, how are you guys doing it? Like that's a, how are you navigating that?

• 6:19Speaker 05

  It's literally one day, one week, one month at a time, especially with my income. It's a one month at a time type of thing. So that's been a little bit difficult. And but I would say it's, it's not as overwhelming as going from zero to one, but it's a lot busier on top of the changes that we've made.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Well, you guys were great. You shared a net worth statement with us. I think it's great to kind of level set of what, what you guys have been doing up to this point, up till age 34. Uh, as it sits right now, at 34 years old, you, you guys have a total net worth of like $383,000. That, let's just pause there for a moment. It feels, does that feel pretty good?

• 6:51Speaker 05

  It does. It was really good.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 6:53Brian Preston?

  Did y'all know that? Or is this like the first time y'all have done a net worth statement?

• 6:57Speaker 05

  No, we, we know it. I, I track it probably too much a little bit, you know? And I, I like try to bring it up to everyone once in a while.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  He tracks it.

• 7:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. He tries to show me like once a week where we're at, you know?

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Do you really do it weekly?

• 7:07Speaker 05

  Not, no, we don't do like anything formal. Every once in a while I'll, I'll just bring up, hey, like this is where we're at right now. You know, so.

• 7:12Brian Preston?

  I'm gonna put, I'm gonna put Shelby on the spot. How often does he show you the net worth statement and y'all have discussions on it?

• 7:18Speaker 06

  Hmm, maybe once a month.

• 7:20Brian Preston?

  Okay, that's good. I was just making sure it was a few times a year.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  Every day.

• 7:26Speaker 06

  He really is into numbers and finances and so like, he loves it. Like it's his, for me, it's, a lot of it's foreign language, but I was just like working, you know, putting my money in my 401K, putting some in savings like before we met. So I didn't know much about investing or any of that.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Well, but you knew, you knew the hard part. Let's save, live on less than I make, put it to work. That's probably one of the reasons why you're sitting here, even if we don't look at the total net worth, just in terms of investments, a quarter of a million dollars in investments. We have this great tool on the website. If you go to moneyguy.com/resources, check out our wealth multiplier. If you guys didn't do anything else at all, all you did was take the 250 you save now, put that in the wealth multiplier, it's going to be a huge number by the time you retire, just based on the hard work you guys have done up to this point.

• 8:14Brian Preston?

  Well, and you know, the goals is that we talk about on the show loosely, these are just broad benchmarks. By the time you're 30, we like you to have one times income. By the time you're 40, you're hoping that you get to three times. I mean, you guys depend on if we're talking about 80 to 120. You're at 33, soon to be 34, but that's incredible. You're way ahead of the schedule. Now I do have to ask, cause you had a career transition. What was y'all's income pre-retirement though?

• 8:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, um, so I was, I was still in mortgage when we, when we met. I was processing. I had a salary. And then I was originating loans, just kind of on the side. We were probably somewhere between 120 and 150 a year, depending on the year, which we had a couple of years of that. So, um, before we got married, the, the main thing that both of us knew is, is work enough, make enough to pay our bills and don't be in debt. So I was very thankful when we got married, we weren't in debt. We weren't optimizing like where every dollar was going. We weren't optimizing like our investments. Like after we got married, I was like, I gotta start taking that more seriously. And so we met with a friend at our church, uh, who worked for Northwestern Mutual. We probably know where this is going, going, you know, we have, we have a couple of meetings and, and this guy's great, by the way.

• 9:28Speaker 05

  Like I really trust him. I, I do think he was being genuine. He wasn't forcing us into anything. After our second meeting with him and, and his manager, I walked out of there more confused than the first time. And I was like, I really need to just like do some digging and do some research. I've got an uncle who's very good with money. He's been a very good resource for me. He recommended me to Mr. Money Mustache and a couple of those other things. And I read, uh, you know, Simple Path to Wealth and all of that stuff. And then led me to content like, like your guys' channel. And I just, I consumed it as if I was getting a master's in finance for like a couple of years. And so I got, I realized I was very passionate about it. I wish I stumbled across that a little bit earlier in life and maybe in college I would have gone a different direction. But it's a, so that's kind of what has led us to over the past four years to really start focusing on

• 10:11Speaker 05

  investing and optimizing it. So.

• 10:14Brian Preston?

  Tell me about the transition though, cause y'all were making an income of it was 120 to 150. And then I know Bo hasn't pulled it up, but y'all were nice enough to also share your budget. How was the transition to go from two pretty good incomes, obviously, down to one? And now y'all, this is it. I mean, and your, and your income's not even, it's not like every month it comes in nice little cubes. It's like some months it's great, sometimes it's bad. So that, that transition is amplified even more.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And to be transparent, so I have not been very like strict on budgeting. So it's not something that I've, I've never consistently budgeted line items like, like zero dollar based budgeting. This is more so kind of a. General estimate, and I try to be conservative averaging out like the past few months of different costs that we've had, but it is kind of tough knowing what to do each month, how to allocate the dollars, how to plan, you know, I guess the best way is to know, hey, these are the loans I'm closing. This is what my commissions are going to come out to being and then kind of knowing if we have anything to set aside there, but it does feel a lot tighter. There's been months where we have to dip into savings and like last year halfway through the year, I had to stop contributing to our Roth IRAs

• 11:25Speaker 05

  and that was so painful, so painful. I was like, I have to stop doing this. The HSA, which this will come up in some of the questions we'll have for you. I want to, want to get your guys' take on what, what, what we're doing currently with, with our HSA, what you guys would recommend, but it's, it's, it's tough. It's definitely tight. You know, the savings, you know, where our savings is right now, like it looks like we've just been skinny dipping for a while. A lot of the reason that it's as low as it is, is it's a lot of things that are very recent that have happened that have caused it to go that low. But even before those, those things have happened, we didn't have enough in our savings. We've been in step four for a while now. Okay. And it feels like instead of step four growing, step four keeps on dwindling. So that's like, that's one of our.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  You want to move through step four, not backwards.

• 12:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're going backwards. It's like, we're like trying to stay away from step three here, you know?

• 12:09Brian Preston?

  How often, how often is he bringing, because I, look, I don't, I think sometimes I project what goes on in my household. I can remember in those early years, you go home and you say, that's it. We're not spending another dime for the rest of the month because we are way over on everything and I'm just scared. Does he do that or is it more balanced?

• 12:29Speaker 06

  No, he really isn't like super strict with it. I truly just try to do like groceries and gas and, but I mean, sometimes groceries, depending on like where you're shopping can be really expensive. Um, and of course, like with the kids, it's just like new expenses that maybe you didn't have before. Like just very different going from the dink life, you know, double income, no kids. Like we were definitely living the, we'll go out to eat when we want and.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Felt comfortable.

• 12:55Speaker 06

  You know, um, and you know, you have kids and it's a lot more expensive. And also I stepped back and, you know, we're on different health insurance, which it's still good under him, but being a hospital employee, I had like really good health insurance for us. And then, you know, I stepped all the way back, stepped completely out of nursing and it has been different and kind of scary, but like I trust that he knows everything that's going on. And honestly, I've just kind of handed over the finance part to him, mostly because most days I'm, don't have the brain capacity. I'm just trying to like take care of these two little humans.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  So you said, you guys said when you were dual income, no kids, it was super comfortable. We have to think about it a whole lot. You said, I've never really budgeted a ton. Do you feel the need or have you guys had the conversation or is it something like on your radar that, okay, well now that the income is variable and now that it has come down and now that we have more expenses and less income, we probably do need to budget. And, and, and look, we get a bad rap all the time because we don't, we don't budget anymore. And I think that budgeting is something you definitely can grow out of and it's not an absolute necessity for like a healthy financial household.

• 14:02Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  But there are seasons and epochs where it does make a lot of sense, just so you can kind of like reestablish habits. The habit of.

• 14:09Speaker 06

  Right.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  Hey, going out to eat, we can do it. That's fine. A lot of things got to kind of break that, right? Is that something you guys have talked about? Like, hey, what if we sat in and actually figured out a budget that we're going to try to stick to? What if we use some sort of tracking software, some sort of system? Have you all had that conversation?

• 14:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a muscle that I'm trying to start working, working out again, you know, like it's been since probably college when I've been more consistent with it. And so we've just been slowly trying to get more honed in on that, you know, but this like being scheduled to be here and to talk to you guys has really helped us kind of start already preparing and getting those steps in place.

• 14:42Speaker 06

  I feel like we're both frugal to begin with, but then.

• 14:45Brian Preston?

  I can sense that.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 06

  Like I grew up, yeah, I'm like, I was pretty frugal growing up, but, um, I feel like now if we had like a set amount per month to spend on groceries or X, Y, Z, I feel like that would help me to maybe mentally kind of track what I'm doing and what I'm spending.

• 15:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  So you have obviously, you said you've been like listening to content, taking in content, digesting content. What do you think we're going to say to you? Because like obviously we've got your net worth statement. We're looking at where you are. I mean, I've got some like just immediate thoughts.

• 15:16Brian Preston?

  Or what are the three struggles also that are just like, man, I got these guys in front of me. This is what I'm hoping to get out of this.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, so a few of the things I think you guys are going to say, I mean, number one thing is like, we're, we're sitting way too low in cash. Like.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  I like how he like hit us with that.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  Gotta.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Before we could get there, he was like, let me tell you what's going on there.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  I already know. Like I made the joke with her. I was like, if they still do like the thumbnails and stuff, like it's going to be like something about a skinny dipping or having too little cash available, you know? And I was like, yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  You got that team like that now, skinny dipping on the thumbnail.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  I don't know if you, have you said that on episode four or something?

• 15:49Brian Preston?

  Well, I mean, you're definitely swimming naked out there.

• 15:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right. That's it. There it is. There it is. Yeah.

• 15:53Brian Preston?

  With your cash right now.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's not the, that was not the intention for where we currently are. But yeah, that, that obviously I, I knew budgeting was probably going to come up. I, I know we're not in a stage of life where the just cash man, we're not in a cash management stage. Like I know, I know that's the case, but it's just a muscle I'm, I'm working on. And then what's the best way in our current situation to like allocate our funds, to, to manage what's, what's currently invested? And then in, like, I'm going to have a question about, hey, if an emergency, another emergency comes up that our cash isn't available, I will ask you guys about your take on the most efficient use of like, what's the next account to tap into as well? That's a whole lot to say all at once, but.

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Well, give us some insight into cash flow right now. We know that your, your expenses are 47, 4,800 a month, right? That's kind of like your baseline expenses. So just doing some like real easy math, if, you know, you're not a dual income, you're a single income household, six months is probably the number. So six months, some 4,800, it's going to be about $29,000. Somewhere in that ballpark is where you ought to be from a cash standpoint. When you think about the monthly dollars that you have allocated going somewhere, walk us through that, whether it's going in your savings account or your 401k, your Roths, how are you guys currently saving money that's not in this budget right now?

• 17:03Speaker 05

  Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So my, my employer, which I love this, usually when you're in sales and when you're a commission only employee, you're 1099, you're not W2. They W2 us, they give us a 401k, they match 4% of, if I put 8% in, so 50% up to 8%. So at least we have 12%, no, no matter what. So that's going to my 401k. Early on I converted it and just made it all Roth. So some of it's traditional, some of the money in there is still traditional 401k, most of it's Roth. We have an HSA. They have two health insurance options that they've given us. And when I did the math, I knew we were about to have our daughter Zoe before my elections this year, but when I did the math, it wasn't, it didn't seem to be enough of a difference to just choose the other plan. And the other

• 17:46Speaker 05

  plan, it seemed like there's more hoops to jump through to pick, you know, which providers will, will do what. So we did the HSA. We've been just maxing that out as kind of, you know, I've been investing in it, but I also made it kind of a buffer.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  And we're saying maxing it out like family max, 87, 50.

• 18:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, family max. So just take it out of each, each paycheck. And so like we're getting that triple tax advantage that you guys always talk about, which has been very helpful.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  But also using it, like you're pulling some out to use in healthcare expenses or

• 18:09Speaker 05

  So we haven't been, we haven't been so far. So, and I know that's probably something we were gonna, we were gonna talk about. I've been, you know, they make you keep 2,000 in cash and the rest has been automatically being invested. That's another thing I wanted to center part of the conversation around is for one paycheck, this is going to be a little bit of a laugh, but a little bit of a, you know, we'll see, we'll see how this goes. For one paycheck, a couple of weeks ago, I finally stopped contributing to it. And I was like, I just, I just can't do that. So I started contributing, yeah, started contributing to it again. So started doing that, but you know, my, my thought is, you know, we're, we're saving money on, on the taxes. There, there's more money that's going into there than if I was taking it out of, out of the paycheck into our bank

• 18:53Speaker 05

  account. Like what are your guys' thoughts? Is it ever acceptable, especially in our situation, to continue to put it in HSA? We have plenty of health expenses already paid for that in an emergency, it can kind of be like a secondary emergency fund. Is that something that you guys would ever say is an acceptable strategy to, to utilize?

• 19:12Speaker 03

  There, well, there's a right way to do it and.

• 19:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Then there's the wronger way to do it.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  We won't tell you which one you're doing yet, yet. But, but is that, are there any other, dollars going anywhere else? Are you doing Roth IRAs? Or is this, it's really the 8% of the 401k and the HSA and that's the extra money outside of it?

• 19:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we are, we're not doing Roth IRAs right now. I was doing like $50 a paycheck into my Robin Hood that I've, I've, I've stopped. The only other thing that recently I did is I did take, that's another thing I meant to mention. I did take the half that was remaining for last year's Roth IRA contributions, both in mine and hers. And I put that in right before April. Um, and I heard, I heard someone ask on one of your guys' shows, like can that kind of, can you do that and just keep it like in a, in a cash fund, just so that you can take advantage of the maximize and the contribution limit? And then if I have to pull it out, so we do have that in both of our accounts too. It's kind of a, another buffer. I haven't invested it.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  So how much cash is in those Roths?

• 20:09Speaker 05

  So there's about 3,500 in both of ours that we can take out of that. I put it in escrow. So that's what it's in right now.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  All right. So we got, we got $7,000 of cash in the Roths. And how much cash you have in the HSA right now? Just the 2,000?

• 20:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, just, just 2,000. That's cash right now. And the rest is invested.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Weirdly, very weirdly, I actually feel a little bit better. Now, look, you are like, every single like caveat and disclaimer we give on the show, you're like, oh, I'm going to do that one. I'm going to do that.

• 20:38Brian Preston?

  You're looking, you are looking for the asterisk on everything.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  But your, your cash is not really at 4,000. It is higher because it is in accounts that you could access and you've done pretty good, like in the Roths. And this is going to sound crazy and we'll get some hate in the comments, but I really do think it's the right thing. The fact that you've not invested that is probably the correct, right and prudent decision.

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  And so I'm not going to fight you on having that cash there because you can go get it and it's sitting there. Uh, so you're actually not in as dire of a situation as I would, as I thought.

• 21:08Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  Still going to improve, but I'm, I'm, I'm trying to give them some credit here.

• 21:11Brian Preston?

  Well, no, but I am curious because so you have a $22,000 HSA and only 2,000 of it in cash.

• 21:18Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:18Brian Preston?

  What's the other 20?

• 21:20Speaker 05

  It's in Optum Bank's version of VTI. So like the total stock market, Vanguard total stock market.

• 21:26Brian Preston?

  And then the brokerage account that's $19,000, what's, what's in that?

• 21:31Speaker 05

  Majority of that's also in VTI. And then I, we do have like four, 35 to 100 to 4,000, uh, that you're going to love this in Bitcoin. So yeah, yeah, you're gonna, but, but yeah, that's, uh, so that's in there. But yeah, the rest of it's VTI.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:46Brian Preston?

  What type of gains do you have in that brokerage account right now? If it's not worth 19,000, how much of that is gain and how much of it's your basis?

• 21:54Speaker 05

  I think, you know, we're probably in the 30 to 40% of that is probably, is probably gains if you average it all out.

• 22:01Brian Preston?

  Is it long-term or is it short-term? Is it?

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Like, oh, like what I'm, what we're trying to use it for?

• 22:05Brian Preston?

  No, I'm just saying, is it, have you sold it? Is it long-term capital gains or is it stuff that you bought within the last few months?

• 22:12Speaker 05

  No, yeah. So, so most of it is stuff that I bought like a year, two, three years ago.

• 22:17Brian Preston?

  So it is all long-term? Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what access point you have for cash?

• 22:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 22:22Brian Preston?

  If we needed to, because. The only thing that scares me about you guys is that your income is kind of in flux.

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:29Brian Preston?

  And meanwhile, you, part of the piece of a household is, is a piece like P E A C is the, so you can sleep at night, is not feeling like, man, where are we going to come up with cash? Now, you've built it into the systems with the cash reserves being in the Roth and the HSAs. But man, would it probably be better if you didn't have to jump through hoops?

• 22:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:51Brian Preston?

  If we needed to make sure Shelby needed access to money, it didn't have to call a custodian. But kudos to you because, I mean, I look back on my life, on the years I missed them as Roth years, and I'm like, gosh, they still haunt me. So kudos that you were last minute, like, let's get it in there.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:08Brian Preston?

  And then let's build a better system going forward. So I give you kudos on that, but I do want to make sure we're building a better system for the future.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  And obviously, look, we're here to talk about like optimizing and building and moving forward, but I think we'd probably be doing you a disservice if we didn't talk a little about risk management, just kind of like right here, because brand new baby, and not really like that old of a baby before the brand new baby. You guys have stuff in place like, like wills?

• 23:36Brian Preston?

  Life insurance.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  Healthcare directives, life insurance, those sorts of things?

• 23:39Speaker 05

  I did know this conversation was going to come up, so.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Look, she, look, did you see how nervous that laugh was? He's nodding and she's laughing nervously.

• 23:47Speaker 06

  We may or may not have had our will done the day before we flew out.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  We literally.

• 23:52Brian Preston?

  But you know what?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  It was worth it. It was worth it.

• 23:55Brian Preston?

  This is the big thing that I think a lot of people, look, as financial planners, we're the same as all other humans too, is accountability is so important. It's just like, you know, when I've done, like, worked out with trainers or done like a boot camp in the community and they make you do like a diet log.

• 24:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:12Brian Preston?

  I am so much better when I know somebody is actually going to ask me about it in the future, whereas other times, I'm eating almond joys, I'm doing everything else I want. So financial planners are the exact same way. So the fact that coming on this show got y'all to do wills?

• 24:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:26Brian Preston?

  We will take it. And I hope anybody watching this will pretend that we're looking over their shoulder at their, what their assets or whatever else they're dealing with, so that they can get their, their wills done as well.

• 24:38Speaker 05

  We were very happy to get that done finally, and we've talked about it for a couple of years now, but it was.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  Wanting to do it. This was our first time, though, like, not traveling without any kids. Like, Zeke, our son, he's just comes along with us pretty much everywhere. Like, me having her in the hospital was the first night I spent away from him. So it was really our first time being like, okay, we're both traveling without them.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  It makes those thoughts come up.

• 25:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  We need to have this. And again, for, for our other young folks out there who have not done, how hard was the process? Like, doing a will, having the conversation, figuring out who's going to watch the kids? Was it like this unbelievably crazy, hard, super arduous process that everyone should avoid as much as they can?

• 25:20Speaker 05

  No, no, it was really simple.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  It wasn't that at all, right? And how much more peace of mind did you have, do you have now, that you just got it in place?

• 25:27Speaker 05

  A lot more peace of mind.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  I try to tell young parents in the messy middle this all the time. You got these other million things going on, so the last thing you want to do is focus on legal documents, but it's unbelievable, just the relief you'll have, okay, I've got that. Like Forrest Gump said, one less thing now.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  Just one less thing.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  So kudos to you guys. What about life insurance for each of you?

• 25:46Speaker 05

  So a couple of years ago, I got a million dollar policy for, for me, and then a year later, I got a million dollar policy for, for her. So both of our kids will, will have that if something happens to both of us.

• 25:58Brian Preston?

  Are those terms?

• 25:59Speaker 05

  They're terms, they're 20 year policies. I think mine goes out in like 18, 18 and a half years, and hers is like 19, 19 and a half years from now, so.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Check mark, check mark, check mark.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  And most of this stuff, I, you know, I'm not just doing this just because I'm a fan, I'm on the show, but like, most of this stuff can be attributed to information from your guys' show and content like that, so I appreciate that.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 26:18Brian Preston?

  But we've heard some crazy stuff when we've been recording Making a Millionaire.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Buddy, have we, from things like roommates turning off their heat for two years to save money, someone buying expensive Thanksgiving pillows without their spouse knowing, and who could forget the hundred dollar horse massage?

• 26:36Brian Preston?

  Yeah, and you know what? We don't judge. Well, okay, maybe, maybe a little on the horse thing, but look, our job is not to stop you, or even your horse, from enjoying your money. It's to make sure your entire financial picture is solid, so you can enjoy it guilt free.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  And that's what we do every day at Abound Wealth. We sit down with our clients, learn what's important to them, and build a plan around their actual life, horse massages and all.

• 27:02Brian Preston?

  If you've been watching these episodes thinking, I wish I had someone who could do that for me, we'd love to have that conversation. We're fee only fiduciary advisors, and we're here to help.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  Just head over to aboundwealth.com or click the link below. We'd love to connect and see if we're a good fit for you. No judgment, mostly. So as we sit here, we've talked about like risk management and present day to day, where do we ultimately want to move towards? Like, what are the financial goals you guys have? And, and obviously, you have questions for us, but if this all works out and all moves in the right direction, what do you guys hope the future looks like?

• 27:35Speaker 05

  There's some things that I have that are like retirement wise, and then there's some things that I have just, you know, the next five to seven years that I, that we've both talked about. If it's retirement wise, like, I personally would love us to be in a situation where we're, I'm never going to actually coast, but I would like to, to reach a certain number by 40 in investment accounts to where we have more flexibility. I would love to be in a place where we have enough in our investment accounts to where if something happened, we never contributed again, there's enough that's going to grow in the background where we can, we can comfortably live off of it. That number I have in mind is about 500K invested. Now, that is not.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  Hold on, how old are you?

• 28:14Speaker 05

  Uh, 33, going to 34.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  33, go. Brian, help me with the math here. 33 going to 34. They've got $253,000 now.

• 28:23Brian Preston?

  And I'm going to do it as of 34, right? So we have six years.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:27Brian Preston?

  Six times 12 is 72. Public math is always scary.

• 28:33Speaker 05

  I was going to, yeah.

• 28:33Brian Preston?

  And 34, so let's just do, let's just say 8%.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  8% I think is reasonable.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  The action's on the court, and as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch, and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard? But not the pipeline? That's bull spend, and marketers are calling it out in. Dashboard Confessions.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  My boss asked for results, so I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had: impressions.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Cut the bull spend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 29:41Brian Preston?

  And 253,000? I'm putting zero for payments, meaning you're not going to put anything else in.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Like, we're trying to figure out.

• 29:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  Are you already on track?

• 29:48Brian Preston?

  You're already going to be at 408,000?

• 29:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:51Brian Preston?

  Without putting another dollar.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Without saying anything, so like.

• 29:53Brian Preston?

  So assuming that we're going to be putting, and look, and if I wanted to just change the goal, seek this thing to $500,000?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Now, you got to save some for the planning.

• 30:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  What are you doing here, guys?

• 30:03Brian Preston?

  I shouldn't say that number out loud. Should I say that number out loud?

• 30:06Speaker 03

  No, let's leave it. Let's, let's not say it out loud.

• 30:09Brian Preston?

  Yeah, let's just say it's doable.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  So the goal is hit a number by 40, so that you could coast if you so chose. Not necessarily coast, but you just want to have that kind of like, that thing.

• 30:18Speaker 05

  Flexibility.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Awesome, got it. What else? What other goals do you guys have?

• 30:22Speaker 05

  So within the next seven years, if possible, and, and again, we're, we're not hard set on, on these things, so like, we're very flexible, we're frugal. If, if we stay at this income and my business never grows, like, we'll, we'll be okay. We would like to eventually get, buy new cars, not like brand new, but cars that are more long-term for, for both of us. We would like.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  What does that mean for you? Can you give us like a?

• 30:44Speaker 06

  That was a recent expense.

• 30:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, we had, we had car trouble. So like, when, when we started this year, I had, we had over 20,000 in emergency savings. So we didn't go into this year going, let's just keep it, you know, as, as, as close to the, to the ground as possible. But her car broke down, she had a Toyota Prius, and you're just like, Toyota, why are you doing this? Like, I've never had a Toyota break down on me. Broke down on us like three times, actually, on the highway.

• 31:07Speaker 06

  So scary with kids in the car.

• 31:09Speaker 05

  And then my car started having trouble. I've got a 2015 Nissan Rogue.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Those are both very reasonable cars.

• 31:14Speaker 05

  Reasonable cars.

• 31:15Speaker 06

  Paid off.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Both paid off, you know, and I've, I've never had a car payment, and so like, you know, we, we didn't want to have a car payment. I had to put three or $4,000 into my car. We had to just offload and sell hers for as cheap as we could to CarMax, and then we bought for her, fortunately, her mother-in-law was selling her 2018 Nissan Murano, and we got that for nine grand. So, so that, that worked out really well for us.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Not your.

• 31:40Speaker 06

  So my dad's wife.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, I got it, I got it.

• 31:43Speaker 06

  Sorry, yes. You said mother-in-law.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Is that her mother-in-law, your mom?

• 31:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:48Brian Preston?

  Thanks, mom.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  I do that all the time. That's hilarious. Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  My stepmom, very, very nice. She kept it really like in pristine condition. It was

• 31:57Speaker 03

  So you're able to buy that?

• 31:58Speaker 06

  New to us. We love it.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  And but no car payment?

• 32:00Speaker 05

  No car payment. And so in what's funny is right after I wrote the check for that, you guys had the video where someone asked like, should I, if my emergency funds a certain place, should I take it out of the emergency fund or should I get a loan on it? You're like, essentially, the conclusion was most likely you should get a loan on it as long as you see it. I was like, okay.

• 32:17Speaker 06

  We didn't.

• 32:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. So yeah, we just took it all out of, out of savings.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  But you've done some good, you've done some good things. Give yourself some contingencies. Buy what you've done in the Ross, buy what you've done in HSA. So again, it's not quite as dire as the net worth statement makes it look.

• 32:30Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  But you don't have any other debt. Only debt that I see on your books are a mortgage at 2.99.

• 32:38Brian Preston?

  You already go, I can go and tell you, people are gonna troll you so hard. They're gonna be so, because this is gonna be jelly.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:43Brian Preston?

  Because I mean, when I saw that, I was like, 2.99 and

• 32:46Speaker 06

  That's why we, it's like you buy your starter home and you're like, ah, we gotta stay in our starter home.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  We can't ever leave the starter home because the rates too good.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 06

  I bought in 2020.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, right before we met, the month before we met.

• 32:59Speaker 06

  A month before we met, I closed.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  So.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Is that how y'all met? You were the loan officer and that?

• 33:03Speaker 05

  I wish.

• 33:04Speaker 06

  That would be cool.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, yeah, that would have been hilarious, actually, you know, but, uh, no. So we, we actually met on an online dating app.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  And I'm very old school. I didn't want to do it. I was reluctant and she was the same way. But we had friends and family that had us go on it. I don't know what happened. I was in Pensacola, Florida. She's in Savannah, Georgia. I don't know if the distance filter was off or if she'd visited like an hour away or something, but we connected. It's like, where do you live? Savannah, Georgia. You're 500 miles away. And it just, it worked out. So, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

• 33:31Brian Preston?

  So how's the first date happen if you're, you're 500 miles away?

• 33:34Speaker 06

  He flew.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I flew. Well, funny, funny enough, you know,

• 33:38Brian Preston?

  This is awesome. Wait a minute.

• 33:39Speaker 05

  We were talking on the app. We connected. We're talking on the app and you guys, this will bring back memories of this time period. I'm sitting in the car with my roommate in line at a hospital to get tested for COVID while I'm, while I'm messaging her. And we just, we decided to FaceTime. That FaceTime went really well. And then I was like, how about I just fly to Savannah? We hang out for a little bit? And went really well.

• 33:58Speaker 06

  I had to make sure he wasn't Ted Bundy. So I like brought my whole squad with me, you know, I'm, I'm pulling up in a big old truck. My friend, he's got his gun. I'm like, hey, you know, but like, we pick him up from the airport that way where there's like five of us picking him up, you know? So I make sure he's a legit person.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 34:16Brian Preston?

  How good was your profile write-up that he was willing to fly across to meet you?

• 34:21Speaker 06

  I literally asked him when he was there. I was like, so how many other girls you'd be doing this with? How many times have you done this?

• 34:28Brian Preston?

  Now that y'all, y'all have children, you're married, obviously, it seems very, like, oh, this worked out.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:34Brian Preston?

  But there are a lot of red flags. If I was, you know, if I was like talking to my daughter and be like,

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, no way.

• 34:39Brian Preston?

  Oh, this sound, he's flying to see you?

• 34:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you know, the, the way I sold it was like, hey, it's Savannah, Georgia, you know, like, it'd be nice to go visit the town. There's a lot of stuff to do. And it was really helpful. And I would recommend this to anyone. I'm sure you guys would too. Like, the two main things that I've seen in family members and friends that have caused the most trouble in relationships or has helped grow it the strongest are common faith and being in a good place financially together. And I feel like when we talked, like, like faith-wise, we were both on the same page. You have a good job. You weren't waiting to get married to like, start living your life and being responsible. You're not in debt. And so it was just a really, it was a really awesome thing to, to connect with her.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Well, and I love that, obviously, you guys were on the same page. You said, obviously, the same page faith, which is huge, same page financially. And even as you guys came together, it had been real easy when the Prius went out to be like, hey, we've got this cash. Instead of us paying cash with the car, let's just go use that as a down payment and let's get some, hey, we got a family.

• 35:36Speaker 06

  Well, trust me, I kinda, I was very tempted. I didn't want to be in debt. Like, I knew I didn't. But, I mean, just with the new baby coming, it was just very tempting.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  I think one of the hardest things about the messy middle, because, and I'm sorry, what kind of car was it that you got? The family car now?

• 35:52Speaker 05

  2018 Murano, Nissan Murano.

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Great. So it's like, it's great. A lot of people will justify in the messy middle, hey, well, we got this family. So we need to go get the minivan. We need to get the big SUV. We need to get the new. I love that you guys were measured enough to say, hey, there's gonna be a time and a season to do those things. It's one of our next seven year goals. But right now, what makes sense for us is to get the car that's reasonable, that will work, that will not put us in debt. So we can still work. That's huge. And I think a lot of people in the messy middle, they get blinded by all the other stuff. And that's how you wake up at 40 something saying, holy cow, we, how do we end up here? Good for you guys.

• 36:26Brian Preston?

  Well, y'all are in the separation phase of life, whereas everybody, all these small decisions you're making, people will, when you get in your 40s, they'll be like, wait a minute, we were hanging out with them. They didn't, they weren't living life any differently. How do they have money now? You know, and it's because of these small, little incremental things that I don't think anybody actually sees. Some of us might call it the bowling point or bowling, you know, if you, if you use good English.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  So as, as we think about projecting forward and how we're gonna like, put together a plan and how we're gonna look at this, give us an idea of what your career trajectory looks like. Like when we, obviously, it's variable. Obviously, it's commission.

• 37:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  What, if we were gonna do sort of a 3D plan for you guys, kind of looking at the do-do-oh plan, the down-to-earth reasonable plan, or the dream plan if things go really well, what's it look like for you? And then for a going assumption, are we gonna assume that you stay at home indefinitely? Or will there be like a back in the workforce at some point? Or have you guys even thought that far into the future?

• 37:24Speaker 06

  One of our main things for the future that I really want to emphasize is we want to put our children in like a private school. If we stay in Savannah, we know which school we would want. We've already looked at the cost of that.

• 37:36Speaker 05

  It's the cheapest one in town, which is good. A lot of, a lot of kids at our church go to that one.

• 37:39Speaker 06

  Yeah. And then I, in my head, it seems like it would be a cool idea. When the kids go back to school, it's like part homeschool program too. So it's kind of half days. I would love to work at like a little nonprofit pregnancy resource center that's right across in the square downtown. So it would definitely be not much income I would be bringing in, but it would give me the ability to like, take and pick up the kids from school and be flexible. Whereas when you're going in for your 12s, it's just, it's not flexible.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  So from a planning perspective, there might be some income there, but it's not gonna be back at the nursing income, back at the full, great. What about your trajectory?

• 38:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. For, for me, I'm, I've only been full-time originating for a couple of years. So last year was my first full year of doing it. And I would say like, this income range, that's probably gonna be the, the, the base. That's probably like, worst case scenario, unless the sky is falling like everywhere in the US. So I would say, you know, I probably am gonna be six-figure, multi-six-figures for a lot of my, you know, late, late 30s, early 40s, if I continue to grow the way that I'm growing. So I do think it's realistic to say, hey, maybe 120 or more might end up being my income, you know, a few years from now. So.

• 38:56Brian Preston?

  If you feel comfortable with this income in this market, I, I would agree with you. Mortgage brokers, their feast or famine. And this is pretty much the famine right now. So if you're making this in the famine, I think there's probably some, some pretty good times. Cause you know, there's seasons where refinances, though, if we ever get the opportunity where interest rates go down a percent or 2%, you know, you, you would be pig in slop. I mean, it would be so good. So, I mean, I think, I see a lot of potential in that. It's just, you just have to survive

• 39:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:28Brian Preston?

  this period of time, though.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  So you think realistically right now, again, if we're gonna project, household income right now is probably around a hundred thousand, right? If I'm just gonna go right in the middle.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  And again, from a projection standpoint, maybe it stays that way for the next two, three years. But as you continue to build, it'll likely move closer to that 120. And then it will continue to move up from there as you get into your late, late 30s, early 40s. Perfect.

• 39:53Brian Preston?

  And that volunteer position, is that 20,000, 30,000, 40,000?

• 39:56Speaker 06

  Honestly, I don't know.

• 39:58Speaker 05

  Do you remember how much it was hourly? It was like 20?

• 39:59Speaker 06

  20, 22. And I was, I was making closer to 40 an hour.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  So, but you'd be doing five days, like 20 hours a week, like 20 dollars an hour, 20 hours a week.

• 40:08Brian Preston?

  Just curious. We were trying to figure out, giving us flexibility when we're doing the modeling

• 40:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:12Brian Preston?

  behind the scenes.

• 40:13Speaker 06

  I'm like, if I made enough, just pay for their school or the tuition, you know?

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Is private school, when, when the private school starts, is this like a K through 12? Or is this like starting in the?

• 40:22Speaker 06

  I think they start at four, four years old.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  Awesome. So this will be starting in a year and a half for Zeke?

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, for Zeke. Yeah. And I think the, the cost, it can be somewhere between seven or eight to like 11 or 12 a year, depending on which grade. So it probably averages out to around 10 to 11 a, a year per, per kid. And the only other thing that's like a big ticket item that we might potentially want to do in the future is by 40, we might want to move into a more long-term house that's slightly bigger. Just to have an extra, right now, we're three, three bedroom, two bath. Like I moved my, I work from home a lot. And, uh, you know, I, I moved my whole setup in our master bedroom because there's enough room in it, you know? And I'm like, sorry, honey, I'm gonna be working.

• 41:04Speaker 06

  No office anymore. Zoe got that room. Yeah.

• 41:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. But, uh, but, you know, it would be nice to do that and just, but we're, we're not gonna do it unless it makes sense to do it financially. And another conversation that's gonna come up, and we both are split on this. We're not, I'm not very like hard-set on where I'm at or she, but with our current house, I would love to rent that in the future and, and hold it because I think it's a really good asset to hold. Not trying to be a landlord, but that one house is good. She, it would be more comfortable, I think, selling it. And so that's a conversation we'll have in the future too.

• 41:33Brian Preston?

  The market value is a little over 300,000 right now?

• 41:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:36Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 41:36Speaker 06

  And my loan amount that I got was like 193.

• 41:39Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And what, what could you rent it for?

• 41:42Speaker 05

  We could rent it probably, like, we, we pay that 1,200. We can probably realistically rent it for 2,000, 2,400, just depending.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  And it's probably not anytime in like the near future.

• 41:53Speaker 05

  No, no. Yeah.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Awesome. All right. So, you know, I've got a pretty decent idea of how we can like, put together a plan, how we can move forward. Uh, what other questions do you guys have? While we're sitting here, what else can we answer for you guys before we actually go to the drawing board?

• 42:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So this one's not as much analytical, but just, you know, I want to get better at how I bring her into the, you know, our, our financial plans and everything. You know, it's always hard for me to know, how do I best communicate and structure? And I was gonna ask you, how do you, have you guys done that with your spouses? And what, what does work, what hasn't? Cause I would love to do a better job at like, conducting that and making, and getting us on the same page. She's so supportive. I can do whatever. And she's like, that's cool. But I want her to be, get excited about things too, and, and to have more of a say than she might feel like she has.

• 42:37Brian Preston?

  I'm gonna let Beau tell you, but I want to at least kind of set it up. You know how when you're, you're trying to make sure your kids? Get like vegetables. So you start making smoothies where you put like spinach in with the fruit and they don't even taste the spinach. Shelby's naturally good. You know, some people are just like you're mad that you find out somebody can juggle or they can hit a baseball 300 yards and you're like, how do they do that? You can't hit.

• 43:00Speaker 03

  I'm about to say, if you get a baseball 300 yards, you are.

• 43:04Brian Preston?

  Yeah, 300 feet. Shelby's naturally pretty good at it, but it's still one of those things where you have to make it fun. Because if it's something she, even though she's good at it, but you're trying to make it where it's enticing. So Bo does a great job and I've copied it. Say what, tell, tell what you do every year.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Once a year, my wife is not into the financial thing at all. So once a year, we do sort of our little annual net worth date. And there's really sort of three things we do on it. One is I do the contingency plan. Hey.

• 43:32Brian Preston?

  It's offsite too.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. We go, we go somewhere, we'll go have brunch. That's our favorite meal of the day. And I'll say, hey, if I die, what do you do? And she has to tell me like, you know, this is in the safe and I call Brian and I do this and do this and do this. Right? So he kind of knows that. And then I go through the net worth statement. Hey, here's everything we have. Here's where it's at. Here's where it's located, all this stuff. And then I say, okay, great. Now we've got that boring stuff. Hey, what do we want our money to do for us? What do we want to do? What trips we want to do with the kids? What experiences we want to do? What sports we're going to play this year? All these things. And we just kind of list out all the stuff that has a financial impact. And so, okay, great. We can do all of these things, but this is the opportunity cost. Or this is, hey, okay, if we want to do this thing, that means we can't do this thing. So that's what we do now. Back in the early days, we would use the, it's, it's now defunct, Mint is not a thing

• 44:15Speaker 03

  anymore, but there are tons of apps like Monarch Money now where you can put all your stuff in there and you can track it. And we just have, we would have check-ins. Hey, on the 15th, let's say we're going, oh, man, hey, well, remember we went out with that other couple last week and we kind of blew through our eating out budget? This weekend, why don't, hey, let's do like a little thing, this thing at home. Let's do, oh, so and so has a birthday party. We can't do that. Well, and I made sure she had in her phone. So she didn't have to depend on me to like pull up the spreadsheet and walk her through it and do the V lookup and like, because she's going to fall asleep before that's over. But giving her like real time access to something that's a really good UX. And then just having like very casual, not like a, and I did this very poorly. How many years have y'all been married?

• 44:55Speaker 06

  Going on five.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  Very early on in my marriage, I used to tell my wife all the bad decisions she was making financially. How, I can't believe you did this. And I can't believe you did this. And I can't believe you. Once I learned that that was not helpful or constructive for anyone, it made it much better. It's like, hey, I noticed that we spent this much on hair care this month. Is that something we want to prioritize? And where would we like to not, you know what I mean? And it was just a much better conversation to have instead of me telling her, hey, this is what we ought to do. Because, because she told me that we need throw pillows. And so we bought throw pillows and now we have throw pillows. And it's great. And it was something we had to like mutually agree upon that that made sense.

• 45:33Brian Preston?

  Yeah. I, I think you make it fun. You make an agenda. Because it needs to be well thought out. And then you, what I like is when you make an agenda, now you have something concrete you can review next year. So when you set the goals for what we're going to do this year, the beginning of next year's agenda is, hey, did we do the things we said we were going to do? Why or why not? And it just creates a kind of little fun, little kind of dashboard of an annual tradition we're doing. It's fun. You can use, we have a net worth tool that we actually use the same one that's on our site. It's really good because it lets you can see how much debt you paid off. It lets you see, you know, how much the assets went up, the investment assets, what's the mix of them. It's just fun things like that. And I think it's, it's become a fun little tradition. Yes,

• 46:15Brian Preston?

  you get to do the other things, but it's, it's back to my point, you're putting spinach with the, into the smoothie and getting all the vitamins and everything comes from that.

• 46:24Speaker 06

  I just made chocolate muffins with spinach in them before we left for my toddler.

• 46:29Brian Preston?

  Yeah, sorry. But he didn't want them. So we should have brought them.

• 46:32Speaker 06

  He still didn't want them. He still knew there was something in there. So.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  These kids, they got a six cent.

• 46:36Brian Preston?

  Yeah, they just know.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  The other thing too, is I try with my wife, I try not to major the minors. I give her the big picture ideas. It's not like, hey, what'd you get at Target? What'd you get at Target? What'd you get at Target? It's, hey, this categorical thing, you know, so it's not an everyday conversation. It's a once a month conversation. It's not why we don't build fatigue around it. She doesn't feel like I'm constantly looking over her shoulder and she's not having to give me receipts and that kind of stuff. I think the more you can do that, it just allows you to be on the better page. Because I know in the early days of our kids, she couldn't think about anything. She would like, she was just like, it was kind of survival mode and wiping butts. And she said, all, all I do is I feed these kids and then I clean up when they poop. And that's all I do all day long. And, and so you have to like, I just had to recognize that, oh, having financial

• 47:18Speaker 03

  conversations might not be top of her mind. So how can I make this as palatable and digestible for her as possible?

• 47:24Brian Preston?

  Yeah. The last thing, because I know we're closing out here. I'll tell you the old man type thing for emergency. Y'all are, you're dead in the weeds. I mean, you're what we call underwater right now. I would say, once y'all are done with having the babies, once the kids get a little bit older, start doing some trips, weekend trips, do something for you guys as a couple too. You know, the date nights, other things. That way it just keeps it fresh and doesn't make it all about the kids. Because that is a tendency for all couples to kind of, the kids require so much attention. They kind of get the attention. And I always just kind of nudge people. But I think, I don't, I don't sense that being an issue for you guys. It's just you're, you're underwater right now. So me telling you, hey, go do that. You're like, yeah, you can come change

• 48:07Brian Preston?

  these diapers and do all this stuff. But, but I think down the road, you'll see those moments.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:12Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  Well, I think you guys are a great spot. I'm excited to get to work. I'm excited to see what we can put together.

• 48:17Brian Preston?

  Yeah. Y'all have been a blast. And I'm glad to hear we're going to put some clothes on y'all so you can get out of the water and.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Brian, what a great conversation we got to have with Tyler and Shelby.

• 48:28Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I, I kind of feel like they're the beginning of a good country song. Because you know, you hear about I drove all night to so I could date somebody. Meanwhile, Tyler was so enthralled with dating Shelby that he literally flew to meet her for the first time. I mean, that right there shows some commitment to get this thing rolling.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Well, what I love is I think they are kind of like the stereotypical picture of folks in the messy middle. And yet, they're navigating it so well, but not, not because it's easy, not because the problems aren't difficult to solve, but I think they're committed to solving them. And as we were sitting down, I think one of the things that we first uncovered is where they really have the biggest glaring issue, the thing they really need to focus on is getting their emergency fund built up.

• 49:09Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I mean, they're, they're pretty tight. I mean, and we're, we're being generous when we even looked at this as we were like, man, they don't, they just don't have a lot of cash. So we're even going to take into account what they have in their health savings account and try to hopefully bridge this gap while they are building this up in the background.

• 49:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, with a single variable income, our view is they really ought to be closer to six months of living expenses in true cash. But right now, they're closer to one month. So there's some immediate triage we need to do. And then we think there's some adjustments we can make. Now, they did note that they have about $7,000 in cash in a Roth IRA. And as, as counterintuitive as this seems, we want them to leave that $7,000 in the Roth. And we do think because they have some HSA balances, they have some unreimbursed medical expenses, immediately, we think that they should take the $4,000 they have in cash, reimburse $6,000 of those medical expenses to get them to $10,000. And then when you include the $7,000 of Roth assets they have, that would put

• 50:10Speaker 03

  them at a starting position right now of $17,000 for emergency.

• 50:14Brian Preston?

  But they're still on shaky ground. And this is going to pain Tyler because in a lot of ways, it's got to be all hands on deck for the emergency reserve. So if we got to create a plan that not only takes money out of the HSA, but also freezes tax-free growth opportunities in the Roth, what's the plan going for?

• 50:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, if they can get committed to it, it'll only be for a short season. Because what we want them to do is we want them to, since they're technically in step four of the financial order of operations, we want them to truly focus on step four. So when it comes to saving for retirement and building those dollars up, we want them to only put in enough to get the employer match. Everything else we want diverted towards this emergency fund. And for them, that's going to be a little over $1,500 a month. But the great news is, is if their goal is to get to a $30,000 emergency fund, and we just figured out how they get to $17,000 today, if they can commit that $1,500 every month, in nine months' time, they will have a full $30,000 if you include the

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Roth. But remember, we want those Roth dollars working. So we want them to save to that point, plus a little bit more so that they can start investing those Roth dollars. So if they do that in terms of true cash outside their Roth, we think they could get there inside of 14 months.

• 51:30Brian Preston?

  Now, look, I know Tyler, and they're going to watch this, and they're going to be a little bit disappointed because they have to take this step back to the emergency reserve. But we're here to tell them, this is why you have to have sometimes a long-term view. They're going to be A-OK. So focus on what's important now, because once they get back on the horse of saving and investing in the Roth accounts, the retirement accounts, this thing's going to take off nicely.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  If you remember, as we were having the conversation with him, he said, oh, I've got this goal. I want to have half a million dollars by 40. And me and you kind of looked at each other, wait, wait, okay. Based on where you are.

• 52:02Brian Preston?

  The barrel with what they already had.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Based on what we know, you're already on track just getting the employer match to hit half a million dollars without any problem at all. But we know that the situation's going to look a little bit different. We did the back of the napkin math. We said, what happens if we actually do some actual planning based on what we believe your financial life could actually look like? And so this is what we said. What if they are saving 12% during the period that they're building the emergency fund, just doing enough to get the employer match? But then after that, what if they're able, able to actually grow their savings rate to the 25%? They recommend. So you get done with step four and then you work towards 25%.

• 52:48Speaker 03

  What's amazing is if they can do that and begin building in that direction, by the time they get to 55, they'll have a portfolio of almost $3.7 million. By 60, it's all, it's a little over 5.9 million and by full retirement age, age 65, their portfolio be worth over 9.3 million dollars.

• 53:08Brian Preston?

  Well, and I think it's important because when you see a number like 9.3, you're like, holy cow, that's a ton of money. But if you bring it back into today's dollars, at 65, that's a little under $145,000 a year. Now here's why this is important. We kept Tyler's income when we were doing the projection and the savings rate. For the next two years, we said, he's going to probably be making around a hundred thousand.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Right around where he is right now.

• 53:31Brian Preston?

  And then for the rest of his 30s, we boosted it up to 120 because I was impressed with Tyler. I think actually we're probably undershooting this even with the 120.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 53:40Brian Preston?

  We get in the right market environment, we get where interest rates are going down. He's going to make a lot more money, but we wanted to stay conservative. And then we had beyond 40, we took him to 150. So if you take those things into consideration, know that they're going to have a retirement that's pretty close to his peak beyond 40s.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 53:57Brian Preston?

  They're going to be a okay.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  And I still think that these are conservative estimates. I do think there's a really good chance he could make more money, the portfolio could perform better than we're projecting. But I think that they are in the driver's seat, but what they have to do is have to do the short-term work first. They've got to get that emergency fund built up. They got to commit to making sure they get their financial foundation in place first.

• 54:20Brian Preston?

  Now, I know there were two other issues that were outside these main focus. Shelby had mentioned that she, the private school for the kids. They had also mentioned a house upgrade. What are your thoughts on those?

• 54:30Speaker 03

  Well, when it comes to private school, it seemed very reasonable that Shelby at some point could go back to work in the future and maybe it's not the 12-hour shifts, but maybe it's something. Or maybe she doesn't have to go back to work. Maybe Tyler's income increases more quickly than we thought and they'll be able to cover the cost of private school then. I don't think that that's something that they have to focus on figuring out exactly how that's going to work right now. They got to keep the major thing, the major thing right now, and then we'll see how those variables play out as we move forward.

• 55:01Brian Preston?

  And then on that house, I mean, look, this is probably a decision they don't need to even worry about until they get to 40 and he starts getting into those higher earning years. Now, we can accelerate this if he does start having outsized performance on his pay, but it's also hard to walk away from a 2.99% mortgage rate. And I guess when they get to that point that they do upgrade, they'll have to decide, do they want to be landlord?

• 55:23Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 55:23Brian Preston?

  Take the tax-free gain. These are all good options for them to consider, but let's focus on what's important right now.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  I just love so much. Again, this is a messy middle couple that without changing a whole lot, without having to do anything unbelievably miraculous, they have a very bright future ahead. They just have to make sure they do the right things now and don't lose the plot through the process.

• 55:45Brian Preston?

  And I'm so glad that when she showed up with her six friends, because they were like, what weirdo would fly 500 miles to go on a first date?

• 55:53Speaker 03

  It all worked out.

• 55:53Brian Preston?

  It all worked out. So that's what this crazy little thing called love. So thanks so much, guys, for coming on the show. Bo, for others who want to come on Making a Millionaire, how can they apply?

• 56:03Speaker 03

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

• 56:13Brian Preston?

  Tyler, Shelby, thanks so much for coming on. Guys, thank you for joining us. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo Money Guy Team, out.

• 56:22Speaker 07

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

• 57:06Speaker 07

  Hey, Bo's here. On your next track, listen for the decisions. Distortion on the bass, the vocal right up front, every choice deliberate. With Bo's, you'll hear it all. Your music deserves Bo's. When you shop pickup at Kroger, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries selected just for you. Our associates are committed to getting every detail right, carefully handpicking your items, checking for quality and freshness and packing your order with care. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. And right now, enjoy $20 off your first online order of $75 or more. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.