Die With Zero? Watch This First.

Can you enjoy your money today without sacrificing your future? In this episode, Brian and Bo break down Die With Zero by Bill Perkins, one of the most talked-about personal finance books in recent years. They explain the philosophy behind memory dividends, time buckets, giving while living, and retirement spending while also discussing the risks of under-saving, longevity uncertainty, healthcare costs, market volatility, and the incredible power of compound growth. If you're wondering how to balance investing, retirement planning, financial independence, and living a meaningful life today, this conversation offers a thoughtful framework for making smarter money decisions without losing sight of your future. ⁠⁠⁠⁠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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:05Brian Preston?

  The book, Die With Zero, keeps coming up? Watch this first.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Brian, I am so excited to talk about this. Even though this book has been out for a while, I still feel like it's very much out there in the zeitgeist. Like, it's out there, people are talking about it, and people are thinking, okay, should I take what's in this book? Should I be using the things that are in this book? And should I allow it to inform and change the way I think about my personal finances?

• 1:31Brian Preston?

  Yeah, it's come up multiple times on our show, Making a Millionaire. It is, and I want to go ahead, I want everybody to stay until we give the final word on this, because I think I have the perfect bead that's going to bring this all together. And I think this is one of those things where I'm going to share with you, I like the book. I like the premise of the book. I just have a few asterisks of concern. And I think once I share, open the curtain and share with you what this book is great at and what the, the, the issues with this book, you're going to start to see the full picture with other great books that I also, because you know, it's one of the things, we live in the, the same neck of the woods as like Dave Ramsey.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:13Brian Preston?

  Dave wrote a great book in the nineties called The Total Money Makeover, but it has issues. And I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to, if you stick with me on, as we go on this journey, I'm going to put this all together and wrap it up with a nice bow where you can kind of see how you need to apply all of these great books to your financial life.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  So for those of you who are unfamiliar, maybe this is the first time that you've heard of this, there's a book called Die With Zero, written by Bill Perkins, and it was actually released a number of years ago, back in 2020. And it kind of set the financial world on fire. Not that there were any like, really like new crazy concepts, but the way that he distilled the concepts and laid them out, I think caught a lot of people's attention. And it resonated with a lot of people of, oh, I like that. I like the way that sounds. I like what that says. And so we thought perhaps it'd be helpful to go through some of the key principles that he lays out in the book.

• 3:06Brian Preston?

  Well, think about every financial book is telling you lean in on discipline, you know, live on less than you make. We fall into that, that camp of things. And then you have this book come out when big bright letter says, die with zero. You're like, wait a minute, that means I can go spend more? That is appealing because instead of being brake pedal, it's definitely the gas pedal or accelerator, and that gets people excited.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  So here are some of the key principles. The number one that's in there is this idea around memory dividends. It's the fact that experiences that you have earlier in life or even in the time of life that you're having them can keep paying emotional returns, emotional dividends for years and years and years to come.

• 3:47Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And we talk about, I mean, even in my book, I've shared blossoming memories because what I love about memories is it's so much better than stuff is that even stuff that are bad memories or difficulties can blossom into key things that actually are good in the long term of the way. You remember it. That's why we love creating memories with your family, your friends. We, they definitely pay dividends.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Another principle that Bill talks about is this idea around time buckets, that there are certain experiences that are best done in certain seasons of life and not all seasons of life are equal. So the experiences that you ought to have at each of those seasons isn't exactly the same.

• 4:26Brian Preston?

  Well, if you think about time, health, and then money as all your resources, it is, it is kind of unfair in life is that when you're the most vibrant, when you're healthy, you're broke as a joke.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 4:39Brian Preston?

  And then when you're loaded, you're probably not healthy enough and you don't have the time to do everything you want to. So I actually love how, how Bill was able to really draw attention to is that there is definitely a moment in time to maximize this resource of money.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  And then he walks through that even as we age and as the life transition takes place, that retirement spending changes. Oftentimes there's a slow, a go-go period, a slower go period than a no-go period. And then as our health and energy change, the way that we spend money changes. And so that ought to impact and affect the way that we make our consumption decisions.

• 5:14Brian Preston?

  And then that leads to, and I like this one is because now that I have adult children or adult child, because my, my second one is still in the household. But there is something about giving while you're living is that, you know, a lot of people now, look, I, I think I'm going to, because my daughter is still in her twenties. I don't want to give her too much too early, but I do think there is something about if you have children who show good responsibility, good management, and you are, are very fortunate and you've done well in your life to create success, there is something about seeing the fruits of what you've created while you're still alive versus waiting until you're dead and somebody inherits it or passes it on to charities and so forth.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Now, what's interesting is Brian, the last time we talked about this book, we caught, we actually caught a lot of like negative feedback as though we didn't like the book or we disagreed with all the premises. And that's just not accurate. There are a lot of things that we really like about the book. And one of those is that often around, he kind of talks about focusing on maximizing. Happiness and it's not just about like deferred gratification, maximizing happiness in the future. He's talking about what we like to call maximizing lifetime happiness. How can I be happy both in the present today as well as happy in the future? We love that idea. We love that concept.

• 6:28Brian Preston?

  Well, because it hits on this next point is that money is nothing more than a tool. So if you can't figure out hoarding it and becoming a miser is obviously not healthy. And so there's got to be a balance between how do you use this tool of money to not only be disciplined with it, but also to, to live your best life. So you don't have regret when you get into being your 50s, 60s and 70s and look back at your 20s and 30s and go, wow, you did a great job balancing both living your life, but also saving for the future.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  And with money being a tool, what that means that there's likely not a ton of utility for leaving this earth and leaving behind as large of a pile of money as possible. We know the statistics would suggest that the second generation is going to burn through a big chunk of that wealth. And the third generation will finish off what's left. There's no point in not enjoying your resources, enjoying the money while you have it and leaving this giant legacy behind that your children and your grandchildren have no, no trouble spending.

• 7:30Brian Preston?

  And this is an echo of something we just said is why, instead of leaving the legacy behind, emphasize actually making an impact while you're alive. So you can enjoy that legacy and actually see the fruits of, and the dividends of what you've created.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  Now there, so, okay, so we, we like a lot of these ideas and I think even in there, Bill had this quote, it says, hey, if you die with $1 million left, that's $1 million of experiences you didn't have. Ah, that, that's where, that's where I start, my spidey senses go off just a little bit because while that can be true, if you die with a big pile of money, yes, certainly you could have used that. But there's other utility that having that excess, that having those resources there could provide for it. I don't know that I agree that it's as binary as that statement would suggest.

• 8:20Brian Preston?

  Well, what I have found through the wisdom of actually going through this journey of starting off, both of us start with humble beginnings, but then figuring out how the tool of money works is once I've reached this level of success. I've recognized that a lot of my success comes from a bunch of small, really good decisions, but definitely small, that culminated and grew into this pot of money. It's hard for me to say that, like, being super disciplined in my twenties, I got, I've gotten a lot out of that. And that's why, what I'm telling you is it's squishy to try to figure out which decision is what led to your success. So, yes, we've often shared, we're not going to leave this earth with our families being

• 9:03Brian Preston?

  broke and other things, but I don't necessarily think that that means I shouldn't have started saving in my early twenties, that maybe I should have lived my best twenties and gone hog wild and then really gotten disciplined in the thirties. I don't think that's the right answer either. And that's why, in a minute, I'm going to kind of bring this all together and show why I think that there's some, some issues if you go heavy into this philosophy when you're, especially a young person.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think one of the questions that we would pose to someone who's like really like subscribing hardcore to die with zero ideas, would you rather die with a million dollars left behind? Or would you rather, in your retirement, in your financial independence planning, come up a million dollars short because of unforeseen circumstances? Because there's tons of things to think about when you're doing longevity planning, and especially when you're counting on your resources to provide for you the remainder of the life. And the number one variable that none of us know is we don't know how long we'll live. People ask me, oh, I want to die with zero, I want to die with zero, I want to die with zero. Great. If you can just tell me exactly when you're going to check out, exactly when you leave this planet, I can put together a plan for you to die with zero.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Absent that variable, it's going to be very, very hard to do because of the unknown unknown.

• 10:18Brian Preston?

  Well, you also don't know how long you can work or how long you'll make great money. That's the, that's the other part that is always a big question mark on that. When I have some people in my twenties and thirties, and they're just crushing it, and they're top, you know, 10% income, top 1% income, is that something you'll be able to repeat forever?

• 10:36Brian Preston?

  We don't know. So that's, that's the part of, that you have to play that into your consideration.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  And then the, the, I don't, I don't want to say scary, I don't want to say frightening, but it is a reality is that we all go into financial, go into financial independence, go into retirement with these best laid plans. I want to do this. I want my life to look like this. I've got it all mapped out. But in reality, we don't know what's going to happen with our healthcare. We don't know what's going to happen with our long-term care. We don't know what's going to happen with our either physical or cognitive decline. And so not knowing those is really difficult to project. Okay. Well, how much do I need to leave in reserve to be able to account for those things? Again, these are variables that we just don't know. And the older we become, the longer we live, the more impactful those unknown variables can become.

• 11:21Brian Preston?

  And that can be markets are unpredictable. It also can be, you know, a lot of people, we've found this as financial advisors. They underestimate how much they're going to spend because those go-go years are legitimate. When you get out, you might find that once you actually retire, those first few years, you're going to spend a lot more than you count on because traveling is expensive, hobbies can be expensive. There's just a lot of things that I find that people underestimate how much they need versus overestimating in a lot of planning situations.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Okay. So what are, what are our thoughts? Like when we, when we step back, because again, it's, it's a fantastic book and we love the ideas that are espoused in there, but what are the thoughts that we have? On the surface, I think the first thought that immediately comes to mind is that a warning against over-saving is not the message that most people need. If you, if you look at the average American in this country, the average American is not over-saving. The average American is not on a path or trajectory to leave behind a huge pot of money. So I don't think that this is something that the average American should grab onto. The average American actually needs some motivation to probably start saving more and start building more for the unknown.

• 12:30Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And we know that the typical American doesn't start saving and investing until their 30s. But if you go and play around, if you go to moneyguy.com/resources and look at our wealth multiplier tools, you'll see there is something magical. That's why we are constantly talking about 88 times. Over that every dollar for a 20 year old can be 88 times, but a dollar for a 30 year old can only grow, you know, to really 23 times, you know, and you're like, how did all this stuff drop so fast? And that's why you don't sleep on the power of compounding growth, especially while you're young.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think about the decisions that I did not make in my twenties that I could have made. I could have gotten the nicer car, could have gone on the nicer vacation, could have bought the nicer clothes, could have bought the expensive watch. But in reality, if I go look at the cost of those things, the marginal cost from the vacation I did do versus the vacation I could have done, that marginal cost, when applied to a multiplier becomes huge. Whereas now, at this stage of life, or Brian, even at your age, the marginal difference with a wealth multiplier is just not as significant. I think a lot of young people miss that idea. Oh, well, no, I'm gonna go blow it out in my twenties, not recognizing how costly that can be to their future self.

• 13:45Brian Preston?

  Yeah, and I do like the exercise of figuring out what makes brings you happiness. I think a lot of times you'll find out it's the, the non-financial stuff. It's spending time with family, friends, spiritual stuff. That's really where happiness and fulfillment. But I want to kind of, Beau, if you'll, if you'll give me the chance to kind of bring this all together.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Do it.

• 14:04Brian Preston?

  Everybody's got a system, you know, and I kind of alluded to this in the beginning, and you have to be careful what system you're going to use for your financial decision making. And I'll give you two extreme examples. And by the way, Die with Zero fits into this category. Let's take Dave Ramsey and Total Money Makeover. You know, Dave has created a system to where if you think about the origin story for this, young Dave, in his early twenties, found out about levered debt, went just hog wild with it, and then got burned. I mean, he was like, had such a horrible experience with levered debt that he went teetotal. Debt is so bad that I'm going to avoid it.

• 14:45Brian Preston?

  So it created an extreme that has kind of pushed him on this, this level of being super uber conservative. You don't do any credit cards. You, if you need to, drive around in a clunky car that may or may not crank. There's, there's just things, and look, we love Dave's system because here, let me tell you, give you an example to, to a degree. When I have a friend or a relative who gets into credit card debt and I say, look, you have to live on less than you make, or you'll never build wealth. That goes in one ear and out the other, but I can go give them total money makeover. And Dave, because he shares and he has a way of motivating people on the extreme of not having any discipline. He can straighten them out. Now, take Bill Perkins would die with zero.

• 15:29Brian Preston?

  This is a person that yes, comes from humble beginnings, but he reached millionaire status before he was aged 30, because he, he figured out how to do high risk trading. Um, and, and then he got, he was good at it. He had, he had a vision and ability to where it wasn't his labor necessarily that created his wealth. It wasn't necessarily his discipline. It was his ability to take huge risk and then get rewarded for it at a super early age. That he kind of now has a distorted vision, just like Dave has the distorted vision of he got so burned with debt that he teetotls avoids debt. Bill had such a huge experience with using the tool of money for, you know, with taking risk, that he created money so easily that I think he, he underestimates how hard it is

• 16:14Brian Preston?

  for people in their twenties on normal career trajectories to come up with six figures to $200,000, $300,000. Because money was easy, once he figured out how to use the, the risk profile of risk. So where, where Bill is really good is if you're hanging out with a bunch of rich people and you know, and you, you look at a rich person and you say, hey, I notice, you know, like I think about, there's this funny story of. Dale Earnhardt Jr., where he's getting into racing, his sister's getting into racing, and Dale Earnhardt, you know, the intimidator, wasn't giving his kids any money because he was like, "Hey, I'm gonna, you need to go do it all on your own." And it wasn't until a wealthy friend of Dale Earnhardt went to him and said,

• 16:57Brian Preston?

  "Hey, why are you doing this? Why don't you help your kids out?" So if you've got somebody who's more, not financial mutant, but financial miser, with the way they're using the resource of money, because they're still doing vacations, super cheap, they're not using, I think Die With Zero is a great tool. But to give a 20-something, Die With Zero, and say, "Hey, you don't need to, you know, go live your best life now. There'll be time to make great money in the future and save for it." I think that that's also an extreme, that's too aggressive, because you're gonna lose out on the wealth multiplier, you go lose out on compounding growth. And that's why I tell you, I like both of these books. But there is a Goldilocks solution, and that's Millionaire Mission, and it's our Financial Order of Operations.

• 17:40Brian Preston?

  And let me tell you why I say this is better. What I have tried to pour into, and we've poured into our content, is that it's always the chicken or egg. What created success out of a system? Was it the system that created the success? Or was it the sales of the system? And that's the thing, I can tell you, my financial life, I never made great, now, look, I'm in a blessed situation now, but where I think the income that I have coming in would create success, no matter how bad or good I was with money. But that wasn't always the case. And that's what I love about my system, is that I struggled with, meaning I was, had to be disciplined, made reasonable incomes, all the way up until my early 40s. So I can honestly look you in the eye and say,

• 18:24Brian Preston?

  "The system created the success." Meaning that if you follow the Financial Order of Operations and go through our nine steps, even if you don't make world-class income, you'll be okay. You know, as long as you follow this path, it will work. And that's the thing, that I never had to fall into the debt trap that Dave did. I was always disciplined. I didn't have to realize, "Hey, I gotta go make $300,000 or $400,000 a year to have this." Success that Die With Zero is talking about, I'm here to tell you there's a better way to do money. And we are the Goldilocks system to help you navigate this. And we don't have to do that by trashing the other systems. We're just exposing to you where they fall on the risk spectrum. Now, if you're in credit card debt, go follow Dave.

• 19:05Brian Preston?

  If you've got a parent that's kind of being miserly, maybe Die With Zero. Or if you have a friend that won't go on vacations or do spring training to make memories with you and your other buddies, because they're just so tight, give them Die With Zero. But if you're trying to navigate, how do you do this in a reasonable fashion? That's the best of both worlds, to live your best life, but also know how to be disciplined? Millionaire Mission.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  I love it. So if you haven't read Millionaire Mission, you should go pick up your copy. Or if you want a free copy of the Financial Order of Operations, Brian, you have the thing, you hold it for me?

• 19:36Brian Preston?

  That's what I was looking for. It was on the bottom of the stack.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  It was on the bottom of the stack. You can go to moneyguy.com/resources. It is a nine step process to help you know exactly what you should do with your next dollar. Because we do believe that there's a better way to do money. We believe it so much that every single Tuesday at 10 a.m., we sit right here answering your questions. We want to speak to the things that you are curious about. So if you have a question, we have, we have a big team out in the wings today. Do you see all these people?

• 20:03Brian Preston?

  Yeah, we got a lot of people in the studio today.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  If I could reach the camera, I'd pan it over. There's a ton of folks over here. They are collecting your questions. So if you have a question, make sure you get it in the chat right now and we will load you up. So with that, Crave, Director Rebe, I'm going to throw it over to you.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Yes, I am excited to dive in. Are you ready for the first question?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yes, ma'am.

• 20:23Brian Preston?

  We are indeed ready.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  By the way, I missed being here last week. I just want to say that.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  I'm happy to have the gang back together.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  I heard you did wonderful though.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  I even saw some comments. Did you answer some questions? Like, were you weighing in and answering some?

• 20:36Speaker 04

  I mean, on some. I feel like I do that.

• 20:38Brian Preston?

  And by the way, nobody, you don't have to adjust your color. It's true. Beau showed up super tan. I showed up super tan. We both have had some time at the beach.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  I did not show up super tan. Never will.

• 20:47Brian Preston?

  So it's not a color distortion. It's just me and Beau have gotten way too much sun in the last few days.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  What's funny is like, this is super tan for us. And people are like, oh, really?

• 20:56Speaker 04

  They're like, okay.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Really?

• 20:57Brian Preston?

  No, I think you look pretty tan. I feel, I feel like my face is definitely redder than it should be right now.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  All right. With that, we're going to move to the question from our friend PJ Dad Life.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Hey, do you think it's?

• 21:13Brian Preston?

  We know now.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  He says, Money Guy team, Monday's couple on Making a Millionaire, wanted early flexibility, but saved heavily in retirement accounts. When should taxable investing become the priority?

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Oh, man, this is a, this is a great question and it's, it's one that we get a lot. And if you're not, if you don't know what he's talking about, one, make sure you subscribe to the channel right now. Go ahead and click the subscribe button because every other Monday, we have a brand new Making a Millionaire come out. We sit across from an individual couple and do a deep dive into their financial life. So you can get a peek behind the curtain of what it actually looks like to apply all of this stuff that you learn in the Money Guy show. And so we were sitting down with the couple that released this past week. And it was exactly that. They had a lot of retirement assets. They had a lot of wealth that they had built up there. But they were trying to figure out, okay, well, what if we do want to early retire? How do we get access to capital? We get that question all the time, Brian.

• 22:11Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And that's what, you know, when we were designing, and that's what I love about the Financial Order of Operations is you know, the first few steps are to keep you out of the financial ditch, you know, so you don't make desperate decisions. There's of course free money, there's high interest. A lot of these things are common sense, but when you get to step five and six, we love the tax incentives that the government has set up for you to start saving and investing. So we want you to take advantage of those systems with funding out your Roth IRA, doing health savings accounts, and even maxing out your employer plan. But for somebody who thinks they're going to leave the workplace early, this is step seven. Once you get beyond saving and investing 20 to 25% of your income, you have to start thinking about how am I actually going to use this money in the future?

• 22:55Brian Preston?

  And if you think you're going to leave the workforce early, you know, before 55, especially before 55, man, you better have access to some capital because those retirement accounts, you might be retirement rich, meaning you have a ton of IRA and 401k assets, but you're still financing cars. You don't have any money to do all the things you want to do. That's where step seven is going to help you out is because you actually start thinking about how you go use this money, live your best life. And you're like, wait a minute, if I'm going to get access to this money at 52, 53, that's not going to be an IRA. That's not going to be a 401k. I probably need to start doing. A portion of this into after-tax brokerage accounts, still investing the money, but now you can get creative and say, okay,

• 23:38Brian Preston?

  well, now what's the balance between how much goes into a Roth IRA? How much goes into my employer plan? Well, we definitely want to get the match, but now maybe we want to start loading up that after-tax just so we build that bridge account for early access to the money when you need it.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  We actually, we did a show, Justin, you're gonna have to help me with the name of this one. It was four ways to retire early that you may not know about. Is that right? Or it was a number of ways to retire. And in that show, we walk through Rule of 55. We walk through 72T. We walk through Roth conversion ladders. And we walk through building up a taxable account. So there are PJ, there are things you can do and strategies that you can implement. But I will tell you this, the earlier you figure it out, the earlier you start thinking about it, likely the better of a plan you're going to be able to build, and the more flexibility you're going to give yourself. So if you've not gone to listen to that show, maybe put a link in the comments below. Three, three ways? I just named four right there, so you just got an extra one. Three ways that you may not know about.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Great. That was an abrupt ending, but PJ Dad Life, thank you for your question.

• 24:46Brian Preston?

  By the way, so my watch is blowing up over here is because we have a guest in the studio that's a neighbor of mine. And my wife is like, make sure everybody says hello to. So I just want you to know, you're causing trouble for being here today, Lucas. Just so you know, because my watch is blowing up because my wife is over here. I guess.

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Hey, be nice, be nice.

• 25:07Brian Preston?

  Your mother must be talking to my wife and it's, it's causing issues in a good way.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Well, shout out to the, I think you did say his name, the mysterious guest.

• 25:17Brian Preston?

  Lucas.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  Lucas.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  All right, next question is from Ben B. Good morning, I am fairly new to your content. Welcome. And I'm currently in step four of the foo.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  All right.

• 25:29Speaker 04

  The transmission began going out in my vehicle last week. Do I pause step four to save for 23.8?

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Well, you see, what's really, really interesting is if you're in step four, I would not say that you're pausing step four to save up for the 20% for the 23.8. For those of you that aren't familiar, we have a car buying rule. When it's time to buy a new car, we want you to. Pay cash if you can, but if you can't and you have to finance 20% down, don't finance for any more than three years or 36 months and your payment cannot exceed 8% of your monthly gross income. So you gotta come up with that 20% down payment. I would argue, if you're in step four already, you just want to keep doing that. You want to keep piling money away in that emergency fund, recognizing that even part of your emergency fund is likely going to be a sinking fund to cover that 20%. Now, it's going to mean

• 26:21Speaker 03

  that you're probably going to be in step four for a little bit longer than you would have been otherwise, but that's okay. That's what it's there for. That's what you want to be able to use your emergency fund for. So I don't think it's a pause. I think it's a continuation of.

• 26:33Brian Preston?

  Well, it's not a pause. It's a use. You are saving into step four, so then you can use step four, your cash reserves to put that 20% down. So it's not a pause. It's a use of your cash reserves because your car is about to leave you stranded and you need the car to get you to your J O B, which is the primary engine that's going to help you build wealth in the beginning of your humble start to the journey. So that's why I don't think you're not separated from the financial order of operations. It's just part of it. That's why I love how these things interconnect is that you have the nine steps, but then you also have some of these guidelines we give you with 238 as well as house purchasing

• 27:16Brian Preston?

  guidelines. It's because these things all intersect with each other. You just need to know how to use the money and know where the limits are. So you don't get yourself in a bad situation. Now, I do want to kind of close it out with, when you use your emergency reserves to put this down payment on the car, you should feel a little scared that you're naked not having as much cash reserves as you should to keep you financially safe. Use that fear to keep you motivated, to stay disciplined, to either, you know, there's the two levers. You can make more money or you can spend less money, but let's get the cash reserves boosted up because that is your protection from desperate decisions. Let's get that built back up as fast as possible.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  I love that people sometimes don't think this is live and what Ben saw he answers questions like, oh my gosh, this really is live.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. He was like, what? They're really answering?

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, this really is live.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  We really are?

• 28:05Brian Preston?

  Well, he said he was new to our stuff. So maybe he thinks that this is all, you know, out there in fake land.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  And we really are taking questions live. We're picking them from the chat as we speak. Thank you for the question, Ben, and good luck on step four and all the potential car buying.

• 28:23Speaker 00

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• 28:53Speaker 05

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• 29:22Speaker 04

  Okay, next question. And you know, before I get to the next question, we're going to be doing rapid fire in just a little bit. So be sure to get your rapid fire questions into the chat. Just put RF at the beginning of the question if you want to be a part of that.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  Did you, did you do rapid fire last week?

• 29:36Brian Preston?

  No, we did Waiting in the Wings or something like that. I will tell you, Bo, because Bo, I like to let everybody know how, how smart Bo is.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like this too.

• 29:46Brian Preston?

  I did that, you know, it was just me and Rebe doing the show. And if you go read the comments, we had a great show, Rebe and I crushed it. But there was one question that I just completely whiffed on, I guess, because.

• 29:56Speaker 03

  The raw fire egg question?

• 29:58Brian Preston?

  Yeah, the raw fire egg. I saw that. So I was sitting there thinking, I was like, this is why Bo and I are such a great team is because I probably, in reality, I whiff on a lot of them, but Bo just comes, he's like the janitor who comes up behind me, cleans it up, makes sure that it's all good. So it's nice to have you back in to sweep up behind me so that nothing gets swept up.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Good to have our janitor back, that's what I heard. Brian just dubbed me the janitor of the Money Guy Show. That's man.

• 30:23Brian Preston?

  You're the cleanup, or cleanup hitter. There you go. You're a, you're a baseball guy.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Been doing it for 20 years. I'm the janitor.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  It's nice to have you back. It's always, it's an honor to sit at the big desk, but I prefer when we're all here doing our thing all together, so. All right, get those rapid fire questions in and we're going to move on to Thomas's question. He says, "We recently purchased annuities that will provide a healthy paycheck in retirement. With that large sum spent, how should we think about our net worth now for continuity of tracking?"

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Oh man, this is a hard question to answer, Thomas, because annuities are fairly complicated. Because we don't know what kind of annuity you bought. Did you buy some sort of deferred fixed annuity? Meaning like, okay, I paid $100,000 into this annuity and at some point in the future, it's going to pay me a fixed return to create that paycheck. Or is this like a variable annuity where we put into annuity product and it's still investing? And so the future payouts are going to be dependent upon how the underlying assets perform. It's really, really difficult to give you guidance on exactly how to account for that in your net worth because some annuities can be kind of like pensions, guaranteed future income stream. And other annuities can be like present day assets. They fluctuate with the market, go up and down. And so you don't know what that future income stream is going to be.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  So you have to, you need to really understand what is the product that you bought? And how would you market it? Or how would you market to market based on today's value if you were going to include?

• 31:52Brian Preston?

  Well, but I don't mind speaking to, if it's a fixed, like an immediate annuity that's now going to provide like a pension to you. So you could take the risk off of you and put it on the insurance company that's doing the annuity. I think that if you did that, now I will tell you, that's a very small subsection of the marketplace. And in my opinion, my opinion, probably the most appropriate way to use annuities is because if you want to take some of the risk off of you providing in the future, because then that frees you up to, you can think about legacy. You can think about other things on how you're using the money because you've essentially. Purchased your way out. Now you no longer own those assets. Now you've created a promise

• 32:33Brian Preston?

  from the insurance company to provide this income stream. So from a net worth standpoint, that money's off your net worth statement. It's more of a footnote now that it's a promise of that you're going to be receiving this type of income flow for many years to come. No different than when your employer has a pension. If there's not like a rollover opportunity, it's only a promise of future payments, just like social security and other things. Those are, those are essentially help you offset your cash flow in retirement, but now it's off of your net worth statement. Now if these are-

• 33:04Speaker 03

  It says immediate payment for both of our entire lives guaranteed.

• 33:07Brian Preston?

  So see that, that's what, that's probably the best use of it. If you want to take that risk away. Thank God I saved it. Did you see that?

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Lesser athlete wouldn't have been able to do that.

• 33:16Brian Preston?

  I was landing on my feet. But it's, um, but it is one of those things. So if, if it was an immediate purchase for that, now you can start thinking about how you want to use the other resources, both from an investment standpoint, from a legacy standpoint. It really opens up, um, you know, but realize the, the catch with that, when he made that decision, when Thomas made that decision, the legacy of the portion that goes into annuity is gone because you, you were, you wanted to take the risk off of you. But the problem is if you died quickly, that money doesn't get passed on to your relatives and others. But that, for, for a lot of people, that's an okay thing. You see this with a lot of assisted living communities. Have you seen what a lot of these assisted living communities are now is you can buy into essentially the house. You don't get to keep it, but now

• 34:01Brian Preston?

  they, they kind of promise you that they're going to do your healthcare and all these things. As you, as you work through later life decisions, you can buy yourself out of some of those risks if, if you structure it appropriately.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  Great question, Thomas. Thank you for being here and for asking.

• 34:19Brian Preston?

  I'm gonna drink this coffee before I knock it over.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  I know. That was a good save.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  People are commenting saying that we have an obscene amount of drinks on the table today.

• 34:25Brian Preston?

  It's always though, by the way.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  I think it's the same, I think it's the same number of drinks we always have.

• 34:30Speaker 04

  But it is just a lot.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Huh?

• 34:32Speaker 04

  It is the same number of drinks you always have, but it's collectively a lot of drinks.

• 34:35Brian Preston?

  I wrote a comment last time somebody posted that and I have coffee.

• 34:41Brian Preston?

  Water. I don't know what Bo's doing over here. He's got coffee.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  He has two kinds of water.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Bourbon. I have my beer. No, I have coffee. I have sparkling water and I have still water.

• 34:53Brian Preston?

  So when you go to a restaurant, they go, sir, would you like to have flat or sparkling water? You go both?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  I say tap. Cause you know what they ask.

• 35:01Brian Preston?

  Why do we have both here then?

• 35:03Speaker 03

  If you want to know the financial, when they ask you, sir, would you like sparkling or still? Don't answer that question. It's a trick question. What that means, you're about to pay nine bucks for a bottle of water. What they're really asking, sir, do you want tap water? And the answer is yes, I would like tap water.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  It drives me nuts. Like you want to know what cooks my gizzard? It's that right there. I, when I, when I get charged for water and I don't expect to get charged for water, it, it gets me.

• 35:28Brian Preston?

  Yeah, you know, a much younger version of myself. First time I ever went to LA. I about got in a fight with a waiter out in the parking lot over, over this exact equation.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  I believe that.

• 35:39Brian Preston?

  No, he followed me out in the parking lot and we had words.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Are you serious?

• 35:43Brian Preston?

  I'm not gonna tell the rest of the story, but it was, it was, it was an intense situation. Cause I just, I, I had wrote, written a note on the receipt. Cause I felt like he ripped me off with all the bottles of water that he charged us.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  Oh, so it was like, and multiple, like not just one?

• 35:59Brian Preston?

  Yeah, because you know, and look, you can't even tell if they're serving you tap water versus, cause they all use these fancy little, you know, in most places, like, look, we go to, we go to Disney all the time, you know, and Florida has horrendous sulfur water.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 36:13Brian Preston?

  But somewhere in the last, I don't know, two years, three years, they filter everything now because now you can drink Disney water in the restaurants and it doesn't taste like eggs anymore.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Really?

• 36:24Brian Preston?

  So you can do, well, most restaurants I think are filtering their water. So it's okay to, to, to do tap water, just like Bo said. But it wasn't always that way. Cause I will tell you, Florida was the exception for me. I used to buy bottles of water at restaurants because of the sulfur taste, but somehow they, they fixed it.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. If they have like, if they have like gross water, I would, I'd get it. But if it's like fine tap water for one meal, I'm gonna be okay.

• 36:49Brian Preston?

  Florida, the state of Florida, look, I love Florida, but that is one of the things, that egg water, it's something.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  Well, that was a great exploration of the types of water.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  I got charged, this restaurant, you know, the rest, I got charged for the ice cube. I got, I got like.

• 37:03Brian Preston?

  Oh, yeah, I know, I know exactly. All you have to tell me is the ice cube.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  I got charged for it was a $3 ice cube.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  He was so mad.

• 37:11Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Brian Preston?

  At that restaurant, which is funny, and we'll get back to answering questions. That restaurant, you can order a mixed drink that will still have that big ice cube and they don't charge you a premium, but if you do like a bourbon, they hit you not only with the charge for the expensive bourbon, but they hit you for the ice cube too.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  That is crazy.

• 37:31Brian Preston?

  It's a crazy, you know, stick it to you moment.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  That's truly crazy.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  It's frustrating.

• 37:36Brian Preston?

  I know exactly what you're talking about now, because I've gotten charged for that ice cube too.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  They hit me on water, they, oh.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  Oh, it is ridiculous, but it is hilarious to hear you talk about it.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Look, I don't, I don't like when they come, hey, would you like bread for the table? Because my answer is always yes, I'd like some, but like, I don't always want to pay for bread, you know what I mean? Like, is this like, is this like a Longhorn situation or is this like a fancy restaurant

• 37:58Brian Preston?

  Can I tell you, there's a great book you might want to read called Die With Zero.

• 38:04Brian Preston?

  We might be at that point that you're, you're fitting into miser territory versus mutant territory.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Some wise words, a fine line between miser and mutant, so maybe you need to consider.

• 38:15Brian Preston?

  I mean, when we start hearing rich guys talking about how they don't want to do something, they might need a book called Die With Zero.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Look, I don't mind.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  Worth the memories made, the time spent.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  I don't mind spending money, I just like to know that I'm spending it, you know what I mean?

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I do.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  We went down, we were just down at the beach and it was awesome, my kids, we got all the good stuff and, and it was fine, but I knew what I was doing. When I, when I, when it's done, when it's done, when it's done to me instead of me doing it, I don't like that.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  And that's why, that's why we partner with Monarch, I'm just kidding, that's not happening right now.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  We do partner with Monarch though, great app. Okay.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  I have like, on my Sankey diagram, I can see like the ice cube, I see all the ice cubes on there.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  There's a specific category just for ice cubes.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  All right, next question before rapid fire is from Casey. He says, hey, money guys, my husband and I are planning to start a family in the near future.

• 39:08Brian Preston?

  Oh, congratulations.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  As parents yourselves, how can we anticipate and plan for this to affect our budget?

• 39:16Brian Preston?

  You know, look, I'll say this part because I'm like the grandpa here that, you know, I'm out of the child rearing ages and or having children ages. So now I'm in that sentimental phase. I just want you to know, well, we also had a lunch yesterday, Bo, you weren't at that lunch, but we, one of our key team members, any day now, his wife is having a baby.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 39:39Brian Preston?

  And we were, we were talking about how that first week is when you come home from the hospital and stuff. And if I could bring it back to the financial side, kids do have a cost. Don't, don't, don't miss here is kids do have a cost, especially when you talk about daycare. I want you to know that's the biggest thing is start thinking about how you're going to, if you're going back to work or if somebody's staying at home, that's the biggest part. But all the other components of it with the diapers, the food and that type of, it's, it's not as big as everybody would have you think. So figure out the childcare side of it if you're going back to work. But once you get that part figured out, I want you to have, be fruitful because I, as a, as a guy who's in his 50s, I wish we'd had more kids, you know, nobody tells you that part of it is, is you'll get

• 40:20Brian Preston?

  to an age and say, man, it's kind of sad. Once you're, you're off of that, that, that child rearing. It's hard in the beginning, but there is something about the, the love that you have for your children. That's just, it's, it's hard to explain it.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  I'll tell you, I'll tell you what I did, and I think this is helpful for young folks having, you know, having, if you can, meaning if you structured a life in such a way that you have a pretty decent savings rate early on, meaning like you caught the bug of financial mutinum and you're, you know, you're saving 15, 20, 25% of your gross income before you have kids, what you've already naturally done is built in some really good margin. And so the way that I would mentally, mentally prepare for the financial impact of kids is I agree, outside of like maybe losing an income if one of you stays there, having to pay for like daycare, realistically, the costs are not unbelievably burdensome. But what you might have to do, and I see a lot of parents do this, I think my wife and I may have even done this with our first kid, you may have to back down your savings rate

• 41:17Speaker 03

  a little bit. You may have been so good at saving 25% or you were at 23.2% and you were almost at 25, but that That kid comes along and now all of a sudden, oh, man, I need to go buy life insurance. I need to make sure I have disability insurance. I need to make sure I have this covered and that covered and diapers and bottles and all these things. Maybe your savings rate drops down to where you're saving 17%, 18%. That's okay. That's going to be something that you will get back on the path. It's okay if you take a step back. It doesn't have to be just a solid, straight walk up the mountain, one step at a time. I think a lot of parents are so hard on themselves, but they say, oh, I can't, I can't back down my savings. I can't do this.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  I can't live life. I can't actually enjoy the moment that I'm in. And I just don't think that's the case. And I think a lot of people say, you know what? Well, I can't do that yet. So I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait to have kids, wait to have kids, wait to have kids, wait to have kids. And you have to make that decision for yourself. I do not think that having kids and starting a family is a financial decision. I think that obviously the finances play into it, but it should be a life decision that you're making and you figure out how to make the finances work around that.

• 42:27Brian Preston?

  We just heard from the wings that Casey has shared that she'll be staying at home with the kids. So obviously take into account how that impacts and then embrace. I mean, I will tell you, some of my favorite memories, this is part of the blossoming of memories, is those struggles is if you will embrace it as part of the adventure of this, you know, it can be fruitful in the future, but just kind of go into it and know that, hey, yeah, we're going to have to, maybe we don't get to do everything that we did, but in the long term, this is going to be better, you know, because that's the thing is because Casey's probably trying to figure out is that I would go ahead. By the way, we always say when you make huge life decisions, put on your 3D glasses, go ahead and model out what the next three

• 43:11Brian Preston?

  years of your life is going to look like and put it in three different scenarios. You've got the dream of man, oh, man, things are awesome, the down to earth plan, and don't leave out the old doo doo doo dookie plan.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  With newborns, you're going to know about the doo doo plan.

• 43:25Brian Preston?

  The dookie plan for sure with newborns, you need to take that into account from a financial standpoint so that you have all scenarios covered.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  Love that.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  That got way too good of a laugh from the content team.

• 43:36Brian Preston?

  Right. That was a good one. I mean, let's face it, no matter what age you are, a good pooper, you know, that type of jokes, they never miss.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  With that, it's time for our It Does Not Depend rapid fire segment where Brian and Bo have a combined 30 seconds to answer your questions and they cannot say the word or words or phrase, "It Depends." Now, at the end of the rapid fire segment, if there's some things that need to be said, we will revisit those at the end in our Maybe It Does Depend segment. With that, let's get 30 seconds on the clock and let's dive into question number one.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  You want to go first or me go first?

• 44:15Brian Preston?

  You can go first since you're fresh from vacation.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  That's right. No rest for the weary. Here we go. Is it okay to put all or part of your emergency fund in a CD ladder?

• 44:28Speaker 03

  You can put your emergency fund in a CD ladder, but you need to have access to capital like today. Like if an emergency happens today, you don't have to wait for that ladder four months, five months, six months to mature. It's okay if you have some portion of it in CDs, but you need readily available cash today.

• 44:43Brian Preston?

  I'd want to know more information on how much are you putting in CDs? Because there's a lot of chance your high-yield savings accounts and other things are going to be very competitive and unless you locked in some CD years ago, there's just a better way to do it.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  Nicely done.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  I hold zero CDs right now. I don't mind disclosing that.

• 45:03Brian Preston?

  I don't have any CDs either.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  That was over 30 seconds, but I'll allow it. Next question.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  She sits in the big table one time.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  Gift giving. When it comes to gift giving, do you get an item, a gift card, or cash?

• 45:19Brian Preston?

  I mean, the ideal is an item first. I like cash over gift cards second. And but but I'm all about can you have a thoughtful idea? But but I will tell you probably more often than not, I give cash.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Cash will be what I'd like to receive the most. Oftentimes I find myself giving cash, giving gift cards, which is so dumb. Why would I do something that I don't want to get back? But a gift is probably the best thing, but man, it's really hard to do that, especially around the holidays.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Question number three, are there reasons to see a financial advisor if you've accumulated a million but have several years left in the accumulation phase?

• 45:56Speaker 03

  We say that there are generally three times when it makes sense to reach out to an advisor. One, the gravity of your decisions is bigger than you feel comfortable navigating alone. Two, the complexity of life has gotten to the point where you don't know what you don't know. Or three, you recognize that stuff in your financial life is falling on the back burner. You don't have enough time to put the effort to it you need to.

• 46:13Brian Preston?

  More than likely, this is the first time you've ever had a million dollars and you just don't know what you don't know. Having somebody who's done this thousands of times is probably going to be more efficient and better use to have that CFO professionally help you.

• 46:27Speaker 03

  Moneyguy.com slash become a client. Check it out. We'd love to talk with you.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  I'll allow that too.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Important.

• 46:38Brian Preston?

  I thought we were about to go micro machines there. I mean, the way you were speeding up.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  You really did nail that until you actually told them how to become a client.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Well, I feel like that part's important.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  I know. I probably would have said it if you didn't, to be honest.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  A million dollars. You know how unique it is in this world to have a million dollars?

• 46:53Speaker 04

  It's a big accomplishment.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  People are like, poo poo, no, a million dollars isn't that much money. A million dollars is still a lot of money. If you're the two comma club, that is worth celebrating. If you're not out there in our Discord celebrating milestones when you hit that stuff, you should be because it's, it's awesome and it is, it is worth celebrating.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  Back to rapid fire. Does the Money Guy three to 5% down rule for first time home buyers apply to someone who's 50?

• 47:20Brian Preston?

  Have you ever owned a home? I mean, this is easy because I give you this, we give you this rule for your first home. Now, if you, if this is an upgrade, I want you to do in the traditional 20 because hopefully you'll have the equity from your first transaction.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  I think that you can still use 3525. However, if you're 50, one of the things I want you to think about as you're aging is you ought to be thinking about delevering. So if I'm 50, buying my first house, that sounds about for 30 year mortgage, I might want to figure out, okay, is there a way to be in a 15 or something else to get that timeline down?

• 47:51Speaker 04

  That was close. Maybe we'll come back to it. Next question, do you have many expat clients for Abound Wealth?

• 47:59Brian Preston?

  We have some, many is a word, but yeah, I mean, we have, we have expat.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  We have clients who choose in their financial independence, post-work, post-life to go live in another country, live somewhere else. Yes.

• 48:10Brian Preston?

  Well, we also have clients who are still in the active growing size that go live in Europe and other places too, for a period of time. We have to help them with the tax side of that as well.

• 48:19Speaker 04

  So yes, they can help with that. Next question. Hey guys, I have a friend, it's me, I'm the friend, who has a bit of a spending problem that really is a discipline problem. What tips do you typically give your clients who have the same struggle?

• 48:36Speaker 03

  I do think using some sort of budgeting or tracking app can help because then you can't ignore it. If you make yourself every single morning, pull up the app, look at the transactions, make sure they're coded, you will start to see, and before you go swipe it, man, I'm going to have to look at this tomorrow morning, it will likely change your behavior.

• 48:53Brian Preston?

  Automate as much of your life as possible, meaning that you actually make the good habits that much easier by doing your 401k, your Roth IRA, and then every time you get a pay raise, that 60% of that go towards your savings, only 40% lifestyle.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Love it. And if you want that tracking app, use code MONEYGUY on monarch.com because you can get a big 50% off discount.

• 49:14Brian Preston?

  There it is. Look at that.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  I wasn't even going to say it.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  I'm gonna say it.

• 49:17Brian Preston?

  We should not be scared to actually use, to share the tool that we actually use personally.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  I'm not scared.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  No, I'm just saying, if you want to take your advice, you can get it way cheaper if you use the code MONEYGUY. So why not?

• 49:30Speaker 03

  This, my wife really is, like, she loves being able to see it now. She's never had like a mechanism where she could see, and she kind of just, you know what I mean? It's helpful for her to have that.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  A good communication tool. All right. Last but not least, throw pillows or curtains? Which one to buy first? Thank you.

• 49:50Brian Preston?

  The easy answer is throw pillows because I know how much drapes cost.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  I'm ashamed at how late in my life it took me to buy blackout curtains in my bedroom. Do that tomorrow. Do that. Make that step one of the financial. I'm just kidding. It's not. But blackout curtains so you can sleep better. Game changer for me and for all of my kids. I don't know why we didn't do it for our younger kids. For my baby boy, blackout curtains, game changer.

• 50:14Brian Preston?

  Just go to bed earlier.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  No, it's for the morning. It's not.

• 50:17Brian Preston?

  Cause I like waking up when the sun comes up.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't want my son waking up when the sun comes up. I want that sucker to sleep. It was wild. As soon as, as soon as the light came in, my kids, bah! That was one of the, you know, my kids at the beach, at the beach, like six, 6 a.m. waker uppers, right? Because there was no, because there was no, because there was sunlight coming through. Not at home.

• 50:41Speaker 04

  Heard it here first. That concludes our, it does not depend rapid fire segment. Yes, what's your question?

• 50:46Brian Preston?

  So what time while you're on this beach vacation, what time we all going to bed if the kids are waking up at six every morning?

• 50:51Speaker 03

  I mean, we were probably going to bed around nine 30, nine, and with.

• 50:55Brian Preston?

  Party animals.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  This is the first time we've ever done this. And look, I'm not even ashamed to admit it. I'm at this age now. We just kind of all went to bed at the same time. Like as soon as we put the kids down, we kind of just went to bed. That's kind of the way it, that's the way that it went and it worked out great.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  There you go. Practically speaking, I do think if you have to choose one, you gotta buy curtains, right?

• 51:16Speaker 03

  Throw pillows are useless. There's no utility in them at all. Like I don't, I don't know why you would, I don't know why you would spend your money on those.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Utility, I think.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  No, there's no, other than like looking at them.

• 51:28Brian Preston?

  Okay, let me ask you this.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Curtains have a utility.

• 51:30Brian Preston?

  I know at home, hang on, I'm gonna do the math.

• 51:33Brian Preston?

  Now, I'm not talking about sleeping pillows and I'm not even talking about, we're, I'm not counting shams, you know, the pillows that are, that they sit on.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Oh, the ones that look like sleeping pillows that you're not supposed to sleep on?

• 51:43Brian Preston?

  Yeah, those, we won't even count those. How many pillows do you have on your master bed? If you don't count even the shams?

• 51:52Speaker 03

  Okay, not counting those three.

• 51:58Brian Preston?

  I have eight. My wife is, we have eight pillows.

• 52:01Speaker 03

  How many total pillows do you have?

• 52:03Speaker 04

  That's not counting the shams?

• 52:05Brian Preston?

  That's not even counting the shams.

• 52:06Speaker 04

  So you have ten.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  I've got seven total on my bed.

• 52:09Brian Preston?

  Yeah, because I, I think about now the bed looks beautiful, but we have three of these pillows that are one color. And then we have two little bit smaller pillows in front of those three. And then we have like two more and then we have one. It's like a pyramid of pillows.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  I just, here's what I don't understand.

• 52:24Brian Preston?

  It's glorious. It looks beautiful. And then we have a bench at the end of the bed and there's one on each of those too. And I didn't even count those.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  My, so you know, we, we, we did this, we did this back, right? We got this like back, back porch or whatever. Well, my wife bought these pillows and they look like Tootsie Rolls, not like called, but they're like striped. They're like these little like rolled pillows that they just sit in the chair until you need to sit down and you gotta move on the ground. And I'm like, what, what, all these pillows do is they get in the way. There's not serving any purpose other than just taking up room in the seat. We got one on every single one of our chairs outside. It.

• 52:58Brian Preston?

  That's a great way of putting it, Tootsie Roll pillows, because I knew exactly what you're talking about. And they serve zero purpose.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  And, and they, I bet they were so expensive.

• 53:06Brian Preston?

  How did they convince? That must be a heck of a marketing campaign.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  My wife bought them from this designer that she buys all her stuff from. They had an, if you had a Netflix special, I should not be buying your throw pillows, but that's who she bought them from. So they're pretty.

• 53:18Brian Preston?

  Back to marketing.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  They're pretty, but then all I do is I want to sit in that chair, but there's a pillow there. Guess I'll move it.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  You guys are funny.

• 53:26Brian Preston?

  And if you throw it down, but do you know much of that pillow?

• 53:28Speaker 03

  I know. Then it's just, I don't get it dirty. What am I supposed to do? I must just put it in my lap? I don't, now this pillow is causing me problems.

• 53:36Brian Preston?

  I think you're just not supposed to sit on any chairs outside.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  That, that might be it. That might be it.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  See at my house, if something's gonna go outside, I'm assuming it's getting dirty.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  That makes a lot of sense.

• 53:47Brian Preston?

  You also have two boys.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 53:49Brian Preston?

  You probably just assume everything's.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  This is just what this is all gonna be. It's fine. Okay. Did you have anything else to say about that first time home buyer question? Or do you feel like you got it all in?

• 54:00Speaker 03

  For a 50 year old, you know, I would really want them to think about maybe a 15 year mortgage, maybe figure out how to do some sort of extra principal. I just, the idea of having a mortgage from age 50 to age 80.

• 54:11Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 04

  You gotta consider that. Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  If you're gonna like leave the workforce around 60, 65, something like that. I just, I'd wanna know, is there a way to potentially de-risk that a little bit?

• 54:22Brian Preston?

  Yeah, but it's also, you don't, you have to be careful. That's such a hard spot that I actually, that's where it's hard to give rule of thumb math on. It's because you actually need to get into the numbers is because I have had clients who've come in, because I don't know if I would tell you in certain high cost of living areas, that you ought to go, if you have a 401k or you have savings of a million dollars, going and paying for all of that house with that. So you're debt free, as you, you know, is a scary thing too. That's why it's really, you have to do the math on it to kind of assess the risk, to figure out how do you navigate this? And what's the interest rates? And what is your situation look like?

• 54:59Speaker 04

  Our guidelines are very widely applicable, but it is true. Once you get to retirement, it just gets too personal, like too nuanced. Like you do have to consider new things. Yeah.

• 55:06Brian Preston?

  I mean, because you're not truly financially independent until you have zero obligations behind you. And so, but for some people, the reality is, is that you will have a mortgage in retirement, but I'd wanna really measure twice, cut once before I'm willing to say, yeah, this is the best course of action for you.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Totally. All right. Let's do one more question before we close it out. This one's from Kyle.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  Did we only have one? Did we answer every rapid fire so well that there was only one we had to double back to?

• 55:35Speaker 04

  I keep track of what I think you didn't say enough on.

• 55:37Brian Preston?

  Well, I mean, some of them were questions like, it was almost like boxers are briefs. I mean, because they were like, you do throw pillows or curtains? I mean, these are, these are not exactly thought provoking, crazy, crazy answers. They need follow up.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  All right. Next question's from Kyle. It says, thoughts on paying off a 5.625% mortgage by 35? Assuming all retirement accounts are fully funded and hitting milestones. I want to hit coast by or fine to have more time with family. We are 30 and 28.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  This one, this pains me a little bit, right? So what are our thoughts? Our thoughts are if you're saving 25% of your gross income for the future, if you were doing that, you get to choose what you do with the money above and beyond that. So if you're saving 25%, you're funding all your retirement accounts and doing that sort of stuff, and you decide that one of your financial goals, because money's nothing more than a tool that allows us to accomplish our goals, is to be debt-free by 35, then it's your prerogative you can do that. Now, what I'd want to do is I'd want to walk through some mathematics with you and say, man, Kyle, not having a mortgage at 35 is super cool. You know what's only slightly cooler? Having the ability to just write a check to pay off that mortgage.

• 56:57Speaker 03

  Because at your age, at 30 and 28, 5.625 on a primary residence home loan, it's just not that crazy. And I'm going to argue that your dollars could work a lot harder for you elsewhere and could even potentially have you be debt-free sooner if you were to implement a different strategy. But, once you save 25%, you get to pick and choose.

• 57:19Brian Preston?

  Kyle, when you can make this decision, you are at step eight, because you've done it all. You've loaded up the retirement accounts, you even your question, you kind of set up. I'm assuming if you've thought about how you're actually going to use this money, when you retire, you're talking about coast fire, it's going to probably require a savings rate that's higher than 25%, but I'm going to give you credit if you've done the math and you know that, hey, with what we've saved up and what our current savings rate, we're going to be A-OK and we still have extra resources that we want to be debt-free, then that's step eight. And you can, I give you permission, as long as you've done the math on that your coast fire situation really is that frothy that you can go ahead and prepay a mortgage at 30 years of age, then I think it's okay. You've earned that right.

• 58:04Brian Preston?

  Once you get to step eight, just make sure you've measured twice, cut once on those big decisions, because that's what step seven is, is when you're thinking about how you actually go use this money. Now, I realize Bo is the extreme, because forever, he didn't want me paying off my mortgage.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  Well, just because I'm good with math.

• 58:19Brian Preston?

  I mean, because, yeah, because my interest rate was so low. Now, it wasn't a Five point six, six two five, which is probably about where mortgage rates are right now. I had a two and a half percent mortgage rate, which did pain me too, but I'd gotten down to where it was like 60 grand. I mean, I think we were talking about a few hundred bucks a year. It just didn't make sense anymore to keep it, but it's one of those things where I understand the desire to be debt free. Just make sure you've done the math on the front end, that the opportunity cost is not, it feels good emotionally, but it hurts you from a financial standpoint.

• 58:56Speaker 04

  Love it. Never forget, we've talked about a lot of things on the show, whether it was our rules for buying a house, guidance on buying a car, how to become a client, when to become a client. All of that lives on moneyguy.com anytime you need it, even though we turn the cameras off. You can go to moneyguy.com slash resources to take advantage of all of our free calculators and downloads and learn more about all of the things that we talked about on the show. So be sure to check out moneyguy.com and thanks for joining us today.

• 59:25Brian Preston?

  Guys, I just like having the team back together. I mean, it was really fun. I mean, it's one of those, whenever I, I, I hope when I go on, cause I go on vacation more than anybody, I, I reserve that right as the older guy. I hope that when I'm not here, y'all like, man, it was just, you know, it was a shame that Brian went here today.

• 59:44Brian Preston?

  When I, when I, when you guys, I like us all being together, cause it just, the lift is easier. It's more fun. We just have a blast doing this and I hope that that comes through is that we really do love creating content for you guys. So you can live your best life financially and also your feedback. You know, you guys let us know when content hits and when it changes your life and that is the fuel. You know, we, we did a collab with Aaron Talks Money and it was on able accounts. And Aaron was able to reach out to us in the last few days and share with us some feedback she's gotten from some specific audience members. Guys, that stuff means the world to us. So we appreciate y'all going on this journey with us. We really do believe there's a better way to do money and that's why I love that we got to share

• 1:00:27Brian Preston?

  the good of Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. We also get to share the good of Die With Zero by Bill Perkins. But man, oh man, do we think that we've created something that can help you and your financial journey with both the Financial Order of Operations and Millionaire Mission. I'm your host, Brian. Joining me with Mr. Bo, Rebe and the rest of the content team, Money Guy out.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Beau Hanson. Brian and Beau are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through The Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.