Will Their Unique Financial Structure Hold Up? | Making a Millionaire

Nathan and Crissi aren't your average financial mutants. With separate finances, a new business launch, and newborn twins, this couple has a lot to navigate. We walk through all of their financial questions and help them build a plan for a more beautiful tomorrow together - if they decide to combine their finances or not. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DRINKAG1.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:59Speaker 02

  So my dad passed. His goal was to leave a legacy for his children. He left a total of about $600,000.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Chrissy and I have kept our finances separate, not for any reason in particular. It's just how we were both brought up. We don't itemize each individual purchase like we're splitting dinner. We've just kind of arranged our life so that I pay the mortgage, Chrissy buys the groceries, I pay the electric, she pays the gas. That has almost prepared us for this situation.

• 1:23Speaker 04

  I want to make sure that we're meeting you guys where you are. We design a plan that works for the way that you guys operate. But I am seeing in terms of just a plan building where we're going to have a little bit of friction.

• 1:38Speaker 04

  Who are you? How old are you? What do you do? Run us through a quick bio.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  So I'm 36. I work as a incident management coordinator for the State Department of Transportation.

• 1:48Speaker 04

  What's that mean?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  So when there's really bad days on the interstate, we have a whole program that goes out and tries to clear it up as quickly as possible.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  You all can probably appreciate it because one of the most important parts of that is the economy, you know, getting, you know, any people. Hour delay. Yeah, it's like it costs money.

• 2:03Brian Preston?

  Is that a branch of the tree of being an engineer, though? You kind of have an engineer background?

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:08Brian Preston?

  Really orderly logistics.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  Exactly. Returning to normal operation.

• 2:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  It feels good.

• 2:12Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  I'm Chrissy. I'm 38 years old and I just recently opened my own travel agency. So I now own the agency, but I've been a travel agent for eight years as an independent contractor for somebody else. And so I'm now stepping into agency ownership just this last month.

• 2:26Brian Preston?

  And what do you specialize in? Is that like cruises? Is that like international travel, Europe?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Thank you for asking. Wow. I personally specialize in family and luxury cruising. However, the agency books everything that you would like to go will make it a luxurious experience for you.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  And what else is stepping on your own? What was the thought process there?

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Having the twins made me realize that I want to be able to leave a legacy that they can step into eventually. And I will never be able to do that working for somebody else. And I've grown in the field, kind of to the point that my own personal knowledge is now of a lot of value to anybody new in the industry. And I want to be able to train new agents and give them the expertise that I wish I had when I was starting out.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  So like you will be the one who has like agents underneath you that will do?

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. I have many agents that are joining my team to learn from an expert.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  And how long ago did this take place?

• 3:10Speaker 02

  L C was formed in December, so it's been like one month.

• 3:13Speaker 04

  This is brand new. Wow, welcome to entrepreneurship. That's awesome.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  To Chrissy's horn a little bit, that her agency already has over a hundred thousand dollars in sales.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  For just about.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Over?

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Over now?

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe made some bookings last night. I don't know.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  Well, they say that when it comes to like big life changes, like, you know, going out on your own, starting your own business, having kids, you should get as many of those things crammed into a short period of time.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Exactly, all at once.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  So that's kind of like, I guess, probably why we're here.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Why we're here, exactly, yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  I feel like it's three things. It's, you know, starting the messy middle with the twins. We've got the inheritance, you know, kind of hitting, which has tax implications. And then also Chrissy's business. So we're.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Kind of at the same time.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, all the same year, you know, and I know that depending on how we do things now could really affect how it plays out later, you know, financially. So we want to try to take advantage of all those components, you know, arrange them in the right way that. We'll get a good outcome.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  You guys were kind enough to share a net worth statement. Well, it's kind of level set with where you guys are right now. So you've already said 36, 38 years old, and as we sit here, you're officially in the two comma club, which is wild to be million dollar net worth before you get to 40. It's huge. So you have to stop for a moment.

• 4:28Brian Preston?

  Way out of schedule.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  Y'all have done something right in that aspect. Total household income right now, $210,000. So you guys have a big shovel, able to fund a lot of stuff. And it's actually a really good looking net worth statement. We've got $64,000 in cash, about $713,000 in liquid investments. You have your primary home, which is right at 327, and your mortgage, you only owe $56,000 on. Is that something that you guys have been like working towards knocking out? Why is that number so low for folks in their late 30s?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So I guess the story there is we bought it back before the houses, you know, prices were crazy, at least from my perspective. So it was 185,000 at the time.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. That's what you bought it for?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  2014, yeah. And at that point, you know, I was really, I didn't really understand money that well. I was 24 years old, maybe 25, and I was kind of like, ah, I gotta get rid of this number, you know, because I didn't like having debt. It was our only debt, fortunately. So I was putting in like, I think, $150 into my, you know, 457 and just everything I could was putting on to the mortgage.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Was this the original interest rate, 4.125 that you had in 2014?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I definitely miss, again, kind of like, because learning later, but I definitely miss some refinance opportunities where.

• 5:43Brian Preston?

  Well, you get to a point where it's too small. They don't really like to refinance once it's below 100 grand too much. So I get that completely.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  It was a goal of mine to pay off the house and, you know, help us sleep better at night. And probably what kept us, you know, from having kids earlier is being financially comfortable, I should say.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  You wanted to wait till you were financially comfortable to do the family thing?

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, eventually, you know, kind of age caught up and we were like, well, we gotta make a decision. And no, I have realized now, you're never really ready.

• 6:13Brian Preston?

  Exactly.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  Amen, brother.

• 6:15Brian Preston?

  I'm trying to get that message out there. You know, if you're gonna do kids, don't wait until you can afford. Everything because you'll you'll still feel overwhelmed.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  That's right. Yeah. So you mentioned, you said there's also an inheritance, right? Something an inheritance has come in. You guys are trying to figure out what to do. Walk us through when that happened and how you guys have thought through that.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  My dad passed. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the start of January 2024, and he passed in July and

• 6:42Brian Preston?

  Of 2025?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  2024.

• 6:44Brian Preston?

  Okay, wow, that's quick.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  It was pretty quick. Growing up, he's he is, I'm so proud of him. He was homeless at 16, you know, alone at that point, and turned himself into the director of anesthesia for Johns Hopkins. I mean, he was, he's got an incredible story. But his goal was to leave a legacy for his children, and he did that. I'm very, very proud of him. So he left a total of about 600,000. Not all of it has been distributed to me yet for me. And then also I have two siblings, so we have each the same. I think the tax implications of it that we are trying to balance is that there is part of it in an inherited IRA that from my understanding, we have to withdraw within 10 years, and it is taxed to me when I withdraw it. And we're already two years into that clock. And the complicated part is that of my three siblings, I'm the only one with actual income.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  They can kind of play, they have more options. For me, I'm trying to kind of balance, when do I take it out? When, you know, how can I, now that I own my own company, could I, you know, leave all my commissions in the company and not pay myself? And, you know, use the, that to offset the tax implications for that part of the inheritance? Because it is really important to me. One of my dad's big things was, you know, to minimize tax as much as possible. I mean, he had that, that uncovering his estate is, is we have, there's some lessons learned there, some things, maybe, maybe. Maybe he was too passionate about that. But we want to make sure that we

• 8:04Speaker 04

  We missed some tax filings.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  We had to take care of those first.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  We had to take care of those first, yeah. But I want to make sure that I, you know, do right by him. And also, you know, to, I don't want to give it all to the government, but I also want to make sure I do it legally. And I want to make sure that we're getting the most benefit out of what he left us because it was, you know, something he worked for his entire life.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Well, we talk about it all the time. You know, tax evasion is illegal. It's something that will get you arrested. But tax avoidance, highly encouraged. And we have an entire tax structure. That is a system by which, if you understand how it works, there are ways that you can minimize that. With the inheritance, you said it's kind of still settling out. Is it, is this what's already reflected on your net worth statement?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yes, it's already included.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  This inherited IRA is that $195,000. And I'm assuming the brokerage account that's in your name is the other piece of that from the inheritance?

• 8:51Speaker 02

  And then there's still like about 80,000 that's still in the trust for me. So there's more, it's like three times that. But my portion is 80 to be distributed later.

• 8:59Brian Preston?

  What conversation?

• 9:00Speaker 04

  After tax to be distributed, that 80,000 that's in the trust?

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:04Brian Preston?

  What conversations have y'all had? Because you know, the thing is, is that inherited assets are unique in the fact that they have some special protections from the government. But then they also create this weird dynamic with couples is because, and look, I'll just throw it out there because I've had to deal with some uncomfortable conversations in the past. Sometimes you'll see in marriages, even though they have these special protections, the other spouse, not the one that lost the parent, will say, well, just throw it in the joint account. And we're always like, well, let's, let's kind of make sure that we, we structure this for what is in the best intent of the person who left the money. What's the legacy? But also in, in paying respect to the, the legal protections.

• 9:44Brian Preston?

  But then also we do want to honor y'all as a couple because two become one. So what, what conversations have y'all had about the inheritance?

• 9:51Speaker 03

  If you don't mind, I'll jump in here. So what's kind of funny is Chrissy and I have kept our, our finances separate. Not for any reason in particular. It's just how we were both brought up.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  What do you mean kept them separate? Because that means a lot of different stuff to different people. What's that mean to you guys? We've kept them separate?

• 10:08Speaker 03

  There is one joint account. It's got like $4,000 in it and we never use it. It's, it's basically because we have a mortgage.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Free checking that came with the mortgage.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, you gotta have something. So it's our spot where we can kind of exchange. I gotta pay you back for this. So it's. We don't, you know, itemize each individual purchase like we're splitting dinner. You know, we've just kind of arranged our life so that I pay the mortgage, Chrissy buys the groceries, I pay the electric, she pays the gas, you know, so it's, it's kind of funny because the, that has almost prepared us for this situation.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:40Brian Preston?

  But what's the, what's the incomes? What's your income? What's your income?

• 10:44Speaker 02

  They're almost equal.

• 10:46Brian Preston?

  Even with a brand new startup?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the way travel works, I do get paid when the travel happens. So right now I'm getting paid for travel. I booked like a year and a half ago because it's traveling now. So with my new startup, it should, really shouldn't be a big change, except that I'll actually be controlling of when I, you know, get that income and so, and like, you know, pay myself rather than getting paid by my previous agency. But no, it, it's about the same. So, you know, where I, mine is purely commission based. So I, you know, bring in a hundred thousand before taxes. Nathan brings in like.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  About a hundred, yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's about the same.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  It's about the same. Maybe a hundred and thirty, kind of.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  It wasn't always that way.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Not sure it doesn't totally line up here. So that's the only thing.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Nathan took the brunt of our family's finances while I was getting started in the travel industry. I was previously a behavioral therapist and we were making the same at that point, but that was 10 years ago at like $60,000 each. And Nathan helped us kind of keep all the bills paid while I established myself and my career. And now we're both really strong in our careers. So I, we kind of both grew up with parents that, that managed finances separately and it, and it's just something that made his parents' relationship really strong. My parents' relationship maybe not as strong, but it made their divorce less messy. And so I think it's just something that we've both learned.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  It's pros and cons to this strategy.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  But we both learned a lot of lessons from it. And I think something unique, hopefully not that unique about our relationship, but something really powerful about our relationship is that we both really prioritize each other over ourselves. So like as soon as, you know, we get, you know, any windfall, if I make a large booking, you know, I'm always like, I can take Nathan on a trip or I can do this for Nathan and he does the same thing for me. So it's always been something that it's like having our finances separate has allowed us to kind of spoil the other person and also protect the other person, you know, too. So with the inherent. It is all in my own name at the moment. And Nathan has his own retirement accounts, but we do kind of view it, even though they're in separate bank accounts, we plan on retiring together and living together our whole lives throughout retirement eventually,

• 12:45Speaker 02

  and supporting the children together forever. So it's in my name, but it's a mutual decision, everything that's how it's managed.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  How's the home? Because you said you pay the mortgage, but is the house in your name or is the house owned jointly?

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Well, back then, when I bought the house, we weren't married yet. So it's in my name.

• 12:59Speaker 04

  So mortgage in your name, house is in your name?

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Yes, but given the fact that we've been married for 10 years, I think there's some law that says, you know, it gets its own.

• 13:09Brian Preston?

  There still would be some protections for your original investment into the house is typically the way that that plays out. Any power struggles? Because even while you're doing the buildup of the business, you gave Nathan a lot of credit there. But were there ever months that you had to go to him and ask for money and it was just a weird dynamic?

• 13:24Speaker 02

  No, I guess I've always been pretty fiscally responsible and I really, actually, no, that's false. I take that back. I was previously fiscally very irresponsible when I had a lot of money. And then I learned that I could live on very little when I didn't have a lot of money. So there were months that we maybe didn't get to eat at Chipotle as much and we had sandwiches at home because food is from my budget, right? And, you know, we had a couple of months where, you know, travel isn't always, you know, like I have some months that pay a lot more than others. And he's always told me, I can always ask him, hey, you know, if you don't have enough for, you know, food this month, just tell me. But I've never had to do that.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Never had to do that.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  And I know that if I did.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  In 10 years.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  There's never, that's all. Yeah, I mean, I feel like almost we're digging into something that's like never been a real issue. And it's funny because I had been saving for retirement and all this and kind of like got into money a little bit earlier than Chrissy. And, you know, had been like really working on all the, on the net worth statement and stuff. And then she gets an inheritance, like totally bypasses me in terms of, you know, net worth. And I can't feel anything but joy for that. I mean, I'm happy for her and, you know, we're just here to figure out how we can both contribute and arrange things in a way that makes it work out, you know, minimize taxes and, and sets us up.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  From a curiosity standpoint, only because this is fascinating to me because it's so different than the way that.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  We don't know anybody else like us.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  So like you said that, okay, you do mortgage, you do food, but there are some times where you do have to like pay each other back. Give me some examples of things where you'd have to like exchange funds.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  I got one. So we recently with kids, you know, uh, it, the house can become a mess, right? So we have just needed some help, right? So we, we had, actually our dog sitter is very helpful. So we, she, we were like, hey, would you mind coming and helping us tidy up the house? Right? And so.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Play with the dog while you're here. Sure. But also just the house.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Pick up a little bit. That'd be great.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  That's not a bucket. Like we just never have done that. So Chrissy, because she had paid for dog sitting before, right? She paid our dog sitter. And then I was like, listen, I really wanted to do that for you. So I'm going to write you a check for that.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  So there's an example.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  But I mean, that is so rare. Probably.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Really rare. Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Once every year or two where we do something like that. And it's mostly because it's easier for one of the others to pay for it and then just pay each other back.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Do you reconcile like, all right, well, I spent this much on the household this month and I spent this. So you didn't even, you know, you don't even have like counting for like really, you just, hey, I take care of the food and I take care of the mortgage and it's just kinda.

• 15:45Brian Preston?

  What about big purchases? Cars? You'll just have separate cars and you just, whatever you make, you buy your own car and you buy your own car.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  So I pay all the insurance, right? And I bought my car. Chrissy got a car for her birthday.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  It's from, like, that was a gift you gave her for her birthday?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  It's from my mom.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  It's actually from his mom.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Yes, from my mom. So we're extremely blessed.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Most mother laws don't do that.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  No, we're extremely blessed.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Right? Like mother law.

• 16:12Brian Preston?

  When did this happen?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  We should establish that Chrissy drove.

• 16:14Brian Preston?

  Was this like a push present?

• 16:15Speaker 02

  No. Chrissy drove a paid off car that was.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Not quite safe for like six years because we didn't want to spend the money on a car. So then Nathan's mom decided.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Grandma was like.

• 16:25Brian Preston?

  But now we're getting somewhere. Cause this is what I'm trying to figure out. Are there any warts under the surface? Like you driving this car for six years, even when it was unsafe, was none of that?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Safe for six years. It was towards the end. It was unreliable. Yeah. It was unreliable towards the end.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Having children is the evidence to change that. Like, okay, we need to, we need something different here.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  No, but just, just, uh.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  It's time.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Mom, just, his mom decided it was time.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. What can I get Chrissy for her birthday?

• 16:50Speaker 02

  For her birthday and he's like, well, she always needs a car.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I was like, listen, if you really want to get her something that will last forever, a car.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  And it's not anything, you know, it's just a Chevy Bolt. At the time, it was

• 17:00Speaker 03

  Twenty-five, twenty-three.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Before the, the potential for it to catch on fire was known, but you know, it was

• 17:05Speaker 03

  We bought a very unsafe car, it turns out.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Turns out we bought an unsafe car, but it's been remediated. So there really isn't any like big grievances or things. I think probably the only time that was the potential for that was when I was a therapist. We both were making around sixty-five thousand a year. And he was working a state job, mostly nine to five. I was working nine to three in a clinic, four-thirty to seven-thirty in somebody's house, and then coming home and doing paperwork and emailing. That is like, you can't actually bill insurance for that time, but it all has to get done. And if it doesn't get done, then you can't be available the next day to work with the kiddo that you're supposed to be doing therapy for. So I was working a ridiculous amount. I never saw him and I was really drained. And so when I decided to make the shift into

• 17:51Speaker 02

  travel, they overlapped for a little bit. And then eventually, we decided that I would pursue travel wholeheartedly, but that meant giving up my salary as a therapist. And that was probably the only time that there was the potential, because I probably told him that I wanted to do it about two months after I really wanted to do it. But I wanted to like, make sure that I was prepared, that I knew what the financial burden on our family would be. And I guess I was just afraid of disappointing him that like, you know, hey, I'm going to take this money away from us. And it was actually a conversation that he was like, I'm so proud of you, and I know that you can do it.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  And it took me probably about six months to regain my income in my new field. And during that time, I took a job teaching preschool to, so that there would at least be some regular money coming in. It wasn't anywhere close to what I was making as a therapist, but it was like

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Something.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  All of our, we will, we will be able to eat and we will be able to have gas in the house. And even if I have nobody going to Disney World, we will be okay. It was actually a conversation where I felt like I had the biggest supporter. And he was like, actually, you know what, I don't want you as a therapist anymore. I want you to pursue this. I know you'll be great at it. And if we hadn't had that conversation, and if there hadn't have been maybe the push of like, you do need to replace your income. You can be a travel agent all you want, but you, you have to replace your income. Because, you know, it's something that I want to be able to continue living the lifestyle that we had previously. And I've not only replaced it, but now surpassed it considerably. It was a potential for grievance, but it turned into a motivation.

• 19:12Brian Preston?

  Check an account. Is that joint or is that in somebody's name?

• 19:15Speaker 03

  They're separate.

• 19:16Brian Preston?

  So there's actually two cash accounts. How are those broken out currently of that $64,000?

• 19:22Speaker 03

  I believe 15 is yours.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  15K is yours and so about 50 is mine.

• 19:26Brian Preston?

  Okay. The other question, if we could flip over to your monthly expenses. I just think it'd be an interesting exercise just to walk through each of these main categories and you'll just kinda, I don't want to spend a ton of time.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 19:37Brian Preston?

  But I do just kind of want to understand mortgage. You've already, Nathan, you've already let us know that's you. Utilities, is that also you just because the house is in your name? So it's probably structured that way?

• 19:46Speaker 03

  It's a, nope. You got water and electric is me. So it's called 350, we'll say. And you know, the gas kinda goes up and down depending on the season, so.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, gas is sometimes 400 a month by itself in the winter, but other months it's only $20.

• 20:02Brian Preston?

  Groceries?

• 20:03Speaker 02

  That's me.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  Food?

• 20:04Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  Dining out's also?

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Mostly me.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Mostly, yeah, mostly Nathan. I do special treats, but usually dining out is him.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  Insurance?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Me.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Okay. Internet phone?

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Me.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  No, we split it. I pay my own phone now.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  Oh, well, it's $25 a month.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  That's right. That's true. I was thinking internet.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  Travel?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Me.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  Okay. Subscriptions?

• 20:26Speaker 03

  It's both.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  That's both.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  Both, okay. Online shopping?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  That's both, but I, I think Nathan didn't ask me what my online shopping was. Maybe that was on purpose, but I, I definitely.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  We have our own online shopping.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have our own.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  So you buy whatever you want.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  That's, that's the part of having a separate account that's really wonderful is he doesn't necessarily know how much I spend on clothes and I don't necessarily know what he spends on technology and.

• 20:48Brian Preston?

  Keep a pin in that because I'm gonna come back with an, I do, I said two, I'm actually gonna have three questions because I want to go over one other thing that we don't actually know the answer to yet that will tie into that. So keep going though. Children?

• 20:59Speaker 02

  That's me.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:00Brian Preston?

  Okay. And then health?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  That's me. That's like their, our insurance pays for most everything, but they have a few things like their chiropractor and stuff that I pay for separately.

• 21:09Brian Preston?

  Have y'all balanced to see, because since y'all make them out the same amount of money, have y'all actually laid these side by side to see how close you guys are?

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:15Brian Preston?

  Okay. Just curi-, just out of curiosity. And then the other thing, and Bo, I'll let you jump back in after this is I don't know y'all's savings behavior because of something you just shared is that in a minute. We're going to talk about that the goal is for you. Y'all have done a great job. You have a million dollars, but I know half of that or close to half of that is is this legacy that's been paid forward. At some point, we might want to have a conversation is, hey, y'all need to load up the Roth IRAs for both of you. You know, we need to make sure we're maximizing. Somebody might have a great retirement plan, whereas or you have a solo. If you start making enough money, we're going to tell you, hey, there's some great planning opportunities with solo 401ks. I'll be curious to see if the savings behaviors also impact this desire because I'll ask a question,

• 21:59Brian Preston?

  but then also just give you this clarification. We wanted you to have your personal finances very personal. So we want you to do what works for your household. I will tell you, I have my own bias. Talk to us about savings behaviors and investment behaviors. What are y'all currently doing?

• 22:13Speaker 02

  So I will also say that I've always known, and my dad has been very verbal, that this is, this was his plan and that this was, he passed earlier than he would have liked. And he had this dream of leaving each of his children a million dollars. And he's always been very vocal about that. And anytime we would be like talking about saving for, he'd be like, why, why? I'm doing so, you know, and that's not, you know, it's not good to be reliant on that. But so, you know, my inheritance was not a mystery or a secret or a surprise, I should say. So it was part of my retirement planning. With the caveat that like, you know, his health could go at any time or things could change. So I can't rely on it. But I do know that, or he could just change his mind. I'm thankful that he didn't, but he could have, right?

• 22:53Speaker 02

  So it was part of my saving strategy and my previous, you know, before the twins came along, before I got pregnant and expenses changed. I was saving over half my paycheck almost every month, just whatever was left over from that my commission that month would go into my Robinhood just personal investments. And that's, most of it is in Royal Caribbean stock because that's just my choice. But that's what I was doing and it was simple and easy for me. And it's turned out to be very profitable because this was during COVID.

• 23:22Brian Preston?

  Put a note on there for that.

• 23:27Brian Preston?

  Let's work in the travel industry and then let's invest in the travel industry. Keep going.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Believe in what you're doing, right?

• 23:35Speaker 02

  You know, some months I have a lot in commissions, some months I don't. But I was always very diligent to never like tap into a previous month if this was a low month. And that was, you know, my strategy that worked for me. His strategy is kind of the opposite. He has, you know, accounts that are linked to his job that are prefunded before he even gets paid. I didn't have that option as an independent contractor. Now I'm able to kind of look at what options I can create for myself moving forward. But previously as a 1099, I just, whatever I had left, I would put into savings. And then I also had that sitting there come tax time so that I wasn't ever a burden on our family. And I always had the money to pay taxes on it when I needed to.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  Do you guys file jointly or file separately?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Jointly.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, jointly, but we always run the calculation.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  So you calculate each of your...

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Much to Chrissy's chagrin.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, our taxes take like a year.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  It's like, okay, we've completed it separately. Or I guess we usually start with jointly. It's like, okay, we've done our taxes jointly. Now let's erase everything.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Now let's break it down and do it individually.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  It's better for both of us to do. And like a tax return, we would just split that.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  There were like two, there was one year where we did file separately and I filed a self-employed and that made a big difference. But I think it was the one, the first year that I started when we kind of took a loss on my travel agency for the first year. But then after that, once it was profitable, it made more sense for us to file jointly.

• 24:41Speaker 04

  But when you do your tax return, you determine who has the larger tax burden? Do you, like, you said if there's a refund, we just split the refund. But if there's, being self-employed, you're likely gonna, equally self-employed likely gonna have a higher tax bill than you as an employee. You guys, you kind of calculate that and then equalize that out?

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, it just kind of works itself out as a year. I can't, I can't really explain it too much.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Because here's one of the things I'm trying to...

• 25:06Speaker 02

  But usually we do, if I did owe money, a lot of times, you know, we would start to put in Nathan's. What happens is we put in Nathan's first. We're getting this massive refund.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  That's right, because I'm withholding.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Because he withholds, right? And then, because, because the state withholds for him.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Right? Okay, and then I do withhold, but in my own personal bank account, right? After I get paid commission. So then we put in my numbers and all of a sudden our refund goes like way down. And so then we get a refund still and Nathan will just keep it to offset my taxes, basically.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  Do you make estimated tax payments based on your income?

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Um, not, not previously.

• 25:39Brian Preston?

  You just get to keep the money.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Until it's tax time.

• 25:41Brian Preston?

  You just get to keep the money if there's any refund.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but things are changing.

• 25:44Brian Preston?

  And is it? I mean, you see the inefficiency.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:46Brian Preston?

  And then you're just like, it's fine. Because you're not actually sending her an invoice for that.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  It's not a big deal. I mean, you know, on the percentage of our yearly, you know, situation, it's like, whatever. You know, we settle that one thing at the end of the year, every year.

• 25:58Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  And now our situation is changing because you're no longer going to be 1099. Now it's, you know, that's why this is kind of like a whole new chapter for us.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  With your new agency, you said you have a lot of agents underneath you. Are they W-2 employees or are they independent contractors? So you don't have any employees. It's just going to be you. So one of the questions you asked us is, hey, we have this inheritance coming in. We want to figure out where we are in the financial order of operations. And this is going to be a fun little exercise for us to figure out.

• 26:25Brian Preston?

  Just in case you don't remember, we have it right there, but also.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  It's going to be a fun exercise for us because, uh, you know, if I were to ask you, what does it cost to run the household for six months? Is it going to be a pretty accurate estimate for you to look at that $7,000 budget and just say 7,000 times, you know, six months would be 42,000?

• 26:46Speaker 03

  Right, so I guess what I would say is it's probably not exactly like that. At least when I play that situation in my head, we're not paying for Netflix. But if it was like, okay, we need to double down and just do what it takes to run the house, you know, there'd be a lot of cancellations going on.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Right, but I think if you were to just say, you know, look at the last six months, seven, eight probably is per month.

• 27:07Speaker 04

  If one or the other of you is carrying a larger load of the expenses, I want to calculate, okay, what's the appropriate emergency fund? Like, because we, we desperately want y'all to work through the financial order of operations together, but what I'm hearing you say is, ah, we're going to kind of do it different, which is totally okay. And so what I want to do is figure out where each one of you is in the financial order of operations and kind of go that way. Because I even imagine when it comes down to saving, that's probably the way we're going to have to tackle it, right? All right, well, you're at this point and now you can fund a Roth IRA or you can fund, okay, well, you're at this point and you're going to max out your 457 or we're going to move in this. And it's, while it's likely going to be a cohesive financial. Order of operations, once we put it together, it's probably going to be two separate foods.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Probably right.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Am I discerning that correctly?

• 27:53Brian Preston?

  Well, and it's even more complicated because I'm sitting here like Chrissy, if we find out like we heard she only had 15 grand of cash. But she'll also has this inherited brokerage account. If a portion of that's, we could always backfill that by looking at the asset allocation and the investment portfolio. And backfill the emergency reserves and then even go to step five Roth IRAs. If she ain't got enough money to fund her Roth IRA.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:17Brian Preston?

  We can backfill it with the, it's so unique, you guys, and I'm trying, I'm trying to poke holes from a behavioral standpoint. But I mean, I get it. Like I said, every couple's unique.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Personal finance is personal.

• 28:28Brian Preston?

  I see where there's some probably raw spots that could break the barrier, but so far they're holding strong with you guys. So I mean, there's no reason, that's probably one of those things where if I was your advisor, I'd be like, okay, we're going to circle this in the client file. But let y'all keep doing it. And then if ever down the road, there was a breakdown and y'all needed a facilitator of communication. I would probably come back to my notes and be like, yeah, that's where I thought the weakness was going to break down in this, but at least we can, we have a path out. But yeah, because we want y'all to have the best plan that works for y'all.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  And so I'm thinking we probably have to construct these two independent financial order of operations. And then what I want to have a good idea of is what's the goal that we're ultimately working towards? Are you guys going to retire at the same time? Is that the plan? Uh, how are we going to navigate college for the kids and that kind of stuff? Uh, is there gonna, if there is a stagger and when one of you leaves the workforce and the other one leaves the workforce. Walk us, because again, whenever we design a plan, we have to begin with the end in mind. We're going to think about what the, what the finish line we're working towards is. As you guys have had that conversation, what's that finish line look like? Or, or is it two different finish lines and two different races?

• 29:37Speaker 03

  So this is probably one area where we have the same goal of what we want to do in retirement. But we don't know how old we will be when we're there. Right? So I know for myself, based on.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  My age and years of service, I'll probably be able to retire at like 57. So that would be kind of minimum if I want to just do my typical career. But you know, Chrissy, with her new business, it's kind of like, well, depends on how things go.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  And we've talked, we have talked about like, what's our why? Cause you know, I'm, I'm the money guy person in the family, you know? I'm kind of bringing Chrissy here and

• 30:13Speaker 04

  She's like, who are these guys?

• 30:15Speaker 03

  I was like, they're going to ask us what our why is. And I was like, I'm not sure we know the answer to that. And so, yeah, that's, I think that's, I don't know if you have a different perspective on it than me, but.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  No, I think I'm pretty much in agreement. We both want to be able to set our kids up for success the way that both of our parents have. That is like, kind of continue that legacy. We talked about in the car, the two of us, it was like the first time we've had six hours to talk to each other since the kids have been born. So we had a lot of discovery in the car on the way here. But we talked about how we want, you know, a lot of inheritances kind of fall apart in one generation. And we want to not be that way. We want to be able to have our kids walk, be essentially set up for financial success by the time they're 18. And obviously continue to choose their own path and to grow as individuals. But to always have financial security from day one would be a game changer for them in today's world.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  That's kind of our why is to, you know, if it takes me longer to retire, but I'm able to have my kids set up financially. I don't know what number that means that they need to have in their name. But you know, if I can do that and work till I'm 60 or 65, fine. If I can do that and only work till 55, even better.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Now, when you say have money in their name, you're talking about like, oh, we want to like save for college. So at 18, that money's there. You're like, no, no, when they're 18, I want them to have a chunk of money that they can, they want, they can operate with moving forward.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  We want to start creating accounts for them now and contributing to them now. And so they can start building wealth now as opposed to when they're 38.

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Is that a higher priority for you than even like your own financial independence?

• 31:47Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say they're higher, but I think that it's something that's, that's pretty, pretty high up for me in, in my emotional priorities. I would say it's like, it's like. One and two for sure. Before like, you know, having us to be able to travel and to live luxuriously. If we can live frugally and be retired and then our kids have financial security, that would be more important to me.

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Say, is that true for you too? You feel the same way?

• 32:11Speaker 03

  I think maybe similar, maybe a little different in terms of, you know, I don't necessarily need my kid to have a million dollars when they're 18. But I want to make sure Chrissy and I are able to provide whatever they want, whatever they need at any time in their life. So, you know, if we think it'd be beneficial for their development to go to summer camp, you know, I don't want us to be like, well, I'm not sure if we can do that, but we don't need them to pay for it themselves.

• 32:34Brian Preston?

  There's one thing to make sure college is paid for. Cause there's a, there's a tool that facilitates that, 529s. But then there's another to say, hey, I want to make sure the kids have this amount of money that's working in the background. And in a minute, I'm going to give you the good news is your kids, the twins, fall into these new Trump accounts. So where the government's going to go ahead and prime the pump with a thousand bucks for, for each of them. I'll talk about the tax implications on that, but there might be, definitely get the free money. But these things, they're not, there's, there's potentially a better option for what y'all could be with your money. Take the government's free money.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:11Brian Preston?

  But then let's, let's talk about what you should do. But I want to make sure that I'm on the same page with what the, like, cause I'm hearing, cause your dad said, hey, I'm going to give you a million dollars. And that was kind of something that rang throughout y'all's, y'all's household. That's unusual because most, because from a behavioral standpoint, that's a scary thing to tell kids. Because it is essentially saying, now, it seems like it didn't manifest this way for, for you, Chrissy, because you, you seem like you've been very responsible. But you tell the right kid, hey, don't worry, I'm going to give you a million bucks. That will, what do I need to do? I mean, I can go live my best life right now. And we all know the, the secret to success that I've told a lot of people.

• 33:52Brian Preston?

  Like when I go to talk to high schools, the first thing I say, deferred gratification. Learn what it is. Because if you talk about the, the formula for wealth, when we talk about discipline, that discipline of living on less than you make, so you can generate money, that margin between living on less than you make, you give that enough time to invest and grow, that's the secret sauce. So if you tell your kid, don't worry, it's on me. I'm worried we, we lose the, the behavioral side of, of, of, of getting kids motivated to save. So I want to make sure we're on the same page. Because one thing to do education, another thing to make sure they're millionaires at a certain age. We need to kind of know the difference, but so when we create the plan, it reflects both of you.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  If we're going to design a plan, it's going to be well thought out, we kind of have to know what the end goal we're working towards is. So in your mind, Chrissy, when you say, hey, at 18, I want them to be, I know you said, hey, I want to be able to, we want them to be able to do anything they want to do. That's, it's not, that's not what we call a smart goal. It's not specific measurable, you know what I mean? There's not time, so let's talk about, we get to 18 and the kids are ready to rock and roll out of the house. How much would you like to be available for the kids at age 18?

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Well, I would like to have their college paid for. That's something that, that, you know, both of us benefited from in different ways. But, and, you know, or, or a trade or whatever they decide to do after high school. But I'd like to have their continuing education paid for. And then I'd like to have, and I know this is a weird number, but I'd like to have enough for them to be able to, if they so choose, buy their own first house, which is like, you know, what our house is going to cost.

• 35:28Brian Preston?

  Like a down payment or is that paid for?

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, like a down payment, a down payment. Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 04

  So give me, give me a number in today's dollars. Like if they were 18 today, what would you hope they had available?

• 35:38Speaker 03

  60K would be, I think that would be.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  They don't need to be millionaires at 18, but I would like to have them like.

• 35:42Brian Preston?

  60K outside of college.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Outside of college, yeah. I'd like them to be able to, to feel like they have,

• 35:50Speaker 02

  like resources and have choices and not feel forced or stuck. You know, like, like we, we did at, you know, 22, there was like no, no option except, you know, living, either living at home or, or eating ramen. And I want them to be able to feel like they have freedoms.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  All right, so.

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• 37:07Speaker 04

  Six, and by the way, do you agree with those? Are you cool with those?

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't know that we need to...

• 37:13Brian Preston?

  I guess so.

• 37:13Speaker 04

  I guess?

• 37:14Brian Preston?

  Yeah, that's not a very solid ground there.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Are you saying like we write them a check?

• 37:17Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know. I haven't, we haven't really thought this out and I'm feeling a little pressured.

• 37:21Brian Preston?

  We're not trying to stress you out, but we do, this is important stuff.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  It's only 17 years and 6 months away, so we've got plenty of time. But, you know...

• 37:29Brian Preston?

  And goals can change.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  For how, I guess my upbringing went is, my parents paid for my college, which was a huge benefit, otherwise there's no way I'd be in this financial situation we are now. And that allowed me to, it was some forced scarcity where I got a job, you know, I had a job when I was 16 and I, so I wasn't paying for the college, but I was, I was paying for all my own, anything I wanted, I had to make up my own. So, of course, you know, we got allowances here and there, just so that we had some money when we needed it, but...

• 37:58Speaker 04

  You want your kids to have that experience or not have that experience?

• 38:01Speaker 03

  I think I want...

• 38:02Speaker 02

  That was what we would like, yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Like, to have that experience and...

• 38:05Speaker 02

  And that is, that's where we are similar, where our, my schooling was paid for and my housing at school, but anything else, I've always had, we both bonded on how we had our first job at 15 and we've always, anything that we wanted, we paid for. But all of our needs were met by our parents and we want to be able to continue to provide that for our twins, you know, whatever, whatever they need, it's always been taken care of and then they can learn financial responsibility for their wants.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  So we have this goal, have college fully funded and then $60,000 for each child, you know, available at age 18. Now talk about financial independence, the next part. So when you guys think about, I know the timeline's gonna be a little hard, we got 57 for you theoretically, but when you get to financial independence and the kids are out of the house, what's that look like for you guys? Like if you were retiring today with no kids, how much would it cost you guys to do the things that you want to do and live the life that you want to live?

• 38:56Speaker 03

  I don't know. More.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  More?

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Well, so I think something we've talked about when retiring is we'd like to do a world cruise.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Okay. You know any good travel agents?

• 39:06Speaker 03

  I only use a travel agent when I travel. So that's a potentially, you know, pretty big expense right at the end of retirement. In today's dollars, it'd probably be a hundred and fifty thousand. I don't know.

• 39:15Brian Preston?

  Per person or family, couple?

• 39:16Speaker 03

  That'd be total.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Total.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, total. It's all year.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  It's all year.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  All food, you know, entertainment, everything's paid for it potentially. Who knows? At that point, you sell the house and

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  You know, after the cruise, you kind of get to start over.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  But even once we get past year one, so let's say we do that. Right now, y'all, y'all live on seven thousand dollars roughly. Is the standard of living you have now what you would like to have in retirement and financial independence? Are you on a higher standard of living?

• 39:42Speaker 02

  And that includes our mortgage and, you know, too, right now. So we could, we could definitely make that work. I think if we didn't have a mortgage at seven thousand a month would be.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  So when I, when I bought the house, I say I, but it was really, we, we looked at the house together.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  So when we bought the house, this was on, I was making fifty thousand dollars, right? And I intentionally didn't take out more than I could afford. I was like, I'm cut off, right? And we're still in that house.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  But remember, that was two twenty-five-year-olds, right? And we got two kids now. The house feels small.

• 40:14Brian Preston?

  Okay, we're about to make a, we want to do an upgrade.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  So not necessarily, but, but we have made that work.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  We have made that work.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  We have made that work and we've accommodated the situation. And there's a potential that when we pay the house off, you know, maybe that can be sold in our down payment or half of, you know, something, a new house. Cause I think that is a big dream of Chrissy and I to either build a house or find the perfect one.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  A dream for like the near term, like while the kids are in or like a dream for five?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, within the next ten years.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Five to ten years, yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  By the way, I love this. This is great. So we have these goals for the kids to be financially set up.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  We have these goals to be able to be financially independent and do the world cruise and be able to live that kind of life. We have this goal for like being a new home, being able to, if I asked you to prioritize those goals. Hey, this is the number one most important, number two most important, number three most important. How would you guys lay that out?

• 41:00Speaker 03

  You want to do it on three? We'll see if we do the same one.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  You just, you just do it.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  So house.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Okay, right. What was the other one? House, kids, cruise.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  House, kids, and I'm going to say financial independence. Cruise was a, was a mechanism of that.

• 41:13Brian Preston?

  Do we understand, you might, cause you're a better listener than me. Do we know what they have automatically saving? Like, I don't know what your savings rate is.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  I can tell you that, sure, for me, anyway. So for my 457.

• 41:25Brian Preston?

  I just like, oh, it's a shot in the gut. I try not to make a, I'm like, dang, I'm at my, I'm the worst poker player in the world, but keep going.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  So for the 457, I'm putting in about 1,300 a month. And that's up as of like December, because I paid a car off and I told myself I would put my car payment into my retirement. So when I paid it off.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Pre-tax Roth?

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Pre-tax Roth, yeah. 457B, I don't know, keep me honest.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you're putting, you're making, you're putting pre-tax contributions into the 457.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Pre-tax contributions, yes. And then there's also a cash match plan. So you put in $40, they'll give you $20, but that's the max match. So I do that, too. Post-tax, I do $1,000 a month into a Roth until July, which is when I'd hit the max. And then I also try to put in $1,000 into regular investments.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  So like, starting in January or at July after the Roth is filled up?

• 42:14Speaker 03

  After the Roth is filled up.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Okay, so we've saved 12,000.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I'm contributing all year.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  Perfect, so we're doing 1,300 a month, 457, plus another 12,000 on top of that.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  What's 1,300 times 12? You do that math, huh?

• 42:24Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I already did that, it was like 15,600. And then, so it's 27,600 for the year, pretty much.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  That's like a 27.6% savings rate. I'm just doing rough math here, but that's, that's awesome.

• 42:35Brian Preston?

  You passed the test. All right, now we have to, now we have to flip over to Chrissy.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  I wouldn't have always passed the test, I'll just say that. Past three, I think.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  So previously, Chris, well, I continue to do, I fully fund my Roth in January every year. And then I.

• 42:48Brian Preston?

  Are you doing that out of, out of savings or is that coming out now, the inherited assets?

• 42:52Speaker 02

  Well, no, it's, I didn't get the inherited assets. So he passed in, into 24, but it wasn't distributed to me until recently. So no, I've always been just out of my commission in January. It's usually a pretty high commission. So just out of my checking, I fund my Roth. And then it's not the same every month, but just kind of whatever is left over. And it averages not as high as Nathan, usually around like $700 to $800 a month in savings that I contribute towards. Um, just, I've had like a high interest savings account.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  So not like the brokerage, just in cash savings?

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Just in cash savings, yeah.

• 43:20Brian Preston?

  So is that getting cleaned out, though? Because we heard like, your cash reserves.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  It was all deposited to, it was all put into the brokerage. Once we opened the brokerage, so it's now there. But now with the twins, I'm not really saving much anymore now that they're here. I'm pretty much paycheck to paycheck with the twins and Nathan's kind of doing our savings for us each month.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  So something I just heard right there, we kind of gave huge kudos, right? Like 20, if we're going to think about it separately, 27.6% savings rate based on his income.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  But if we think about a household and we look at total household savings, that number gets cut in half. So that's something we want to, and one of the things that we're uncovering, and again, this is me just kind of getting a feel for how we're going to go back and, you know, go back in the lab and start, you know, twiddling the knobs. You're going to have a lot of really exciting opportunities for saving in terms of like solo 401k and profits. Like there's going to be some cool stuff that we're going to be able to do with you. But what I just heard is there's not a lot of margin left over for that, right?

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Not right now. Hopefully, once the twins are off of formula, things will change. But right now, that, that is, that is where the money is going. We should have bought stock in Enfamil and stood up our own company.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  And one, one of the questions that I have is if, if we continue on this path, right? And we design this plan, and let's say that we don't even adjust the savings at all, but we have all of the retirement savings accumulating in Nathan's bucket, is that an acceptable outcome to you guys? Because what that means is when we do get out here to like financial independence and that sort of thing, it's going to be a lot in his name and not necessarily a lot in your name, right? Now, even in terms of how we're thinking about if we're going to save for the kids, for these big goals. You just said right now, like again, based solely on your, it's so tight, there's not a ton left over. But we're going to have to figure out how to allocate both towards college saving, this $60,000 for each kid goal,

• 45:10Speaker 04

  and then also like this new home thing. So what I, here's what I don't want to do. I don't want us to go back and put together a plan where like, hey, let's throw all this in the pot and figure out the best way to chunk it out. If you guys say, hey, that's not the way it's going to work with us. I want to make sure that we're meeting you guys where you are. We design a plan that works for the way that you guys operate from a personal finance standpoint. But I am seeing in terms of just a plan building where we're going to, we're going to have a little bit of friction. Does that make, give me some feedback when you hear me say that.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Well, I guess for me, it's probably really realizing that we need to reallocate some or recognizing that our savings rate is going to change over time, right? Because Chrissy is starting a new business. So essentially, we're hoping that income comes up. Sure. And, you know, she can get back to normal savings. On the other hand, maybe I should start, you know, giving Chrissy some, some money every month for, but that's just not how.

• 46:09Brian Preston?

  I have some ideas. Let me ask you this question. This is just more of a fact finding for me. You've done a great job of building up all these assets, but now life is starting to get messy. I mean, you've got kids, you've got big goals. This is, this is the rubber meets the road. You can do a lot of stuff when, when your life is simple, but just success and life creates complexity. What is wrong with y'all keeping a lot of the stuff that you already have separated, separate? But then y'all go open up a joint checking account and then your commission checks go into that joint checking account, your payroll goes into that checking account, and then y'all also set up a joint brokerage account and y'all start thinking about from this point forward, you know, how we plan life together out of these accounts.

• 46:52Brian Preston?

  And that way you still get the, the dividends of the life you've lived in the past and how well it worked, but now we've kind of restructured for this new path forward. You guys are in a much better situation than the typical couple because y'all got 10 years of experience. Would that be catastrophic or is that seem like maybe there is a new way here?

• 47:10Speaker 03

  I think there, we could definitely do that. I guess it's, to me feels risky to upend how we've been doing things because there is no friction currently, right? Whereas if then we change what we're doing like that.

• 47:25Brian Preston?

  But does that still stand after you, I mean, is there no friction? Cause we're just telling you some planning things and then I immediately saw, oh man, we just gave a gold star to Nathan. Chrissy's over here feeling like we're picking on her because she's not saving her, right? Meanwhile, she's got a new business, she's got babies at the house, you're just talking about baby formula and I'm like, man, this is, this doesn't seem like there's not friction anymore. It feels like, hey, there's, there's something here.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, maybe that's what we need to do. I don't know.

• 47:50Brian Preston?

  But I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm not really, I don't have to go home and do this six hour ride with you guys.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, no, no, it's, I don't, I'm not worried about that. I mean, I, it's clear to me that Chrissy and I's bond is, you know, not solely reliant on our financials.

• 48:05Brian Preston?

  Sure.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Thankfully, that's not the case. I'm sure we could make some adjustments in this next phase, which is basically why we're here.

• 48:14Brian Preston?

  Sure.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  To figure out what we need to do next, because until now, it's worked fine, right? You know, we've, we've each kind of, you know, created our own success and reap what we sow, essentially. But, you know, now that we have something together, like kids, I guess, we've always had our marriage, but now that we have this, I mean, it's a, it's a crazy different kind of expense, right? We just, maybe we do need to just align our goals, what am I?

• 48:37Speaker 04

  One, one more question for you, Chrissy. Again, this business is so new, when it starts really taking off, right? Because it sounds like you've done it for so long, you're obviously very good at it. Do you have like some income expectations of where you think it'll, before it's like a fledgling business, like what, what, what's the goal you're working towards? Because I think maybe that might help, even in terms of how we're planning some of this.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Currently, um, you know, so I mean, we've already hit a hundred thousand in sales in one week of being officially registered with different suppliers.

• 49:02Brian Preston?

  So that's revenue, what will?

• 49:03Speaker 02

  So that brings in about, uh, we're, right now, we're at twelve and a half thousand in commission in one week. And then, most of that currently is mine. Um, my new agents are just starting out. But that's in just one week, which is just wild.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  It's awesome.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  So really, and with just myself and currently two agents selling, and I have five more in the pipeline, but I plan to grow very quickly. So my goals, I want to be selling a hundred million dollars a year, which is what only some of the top agencies are doing right now, um, within five years. And that'll be bringing in about ten million in commission, um, and, you know, leaving me with, with one point five to two million a year left over in the company. That's the goal within five years, and I know I can do it.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  One point five, two million, net for you or after, you have to pay your agents out of that?

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Net for, net for the company.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  That is the plan, um, and I, you know, will grow over the next five years to get to that point.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  By hiring agents that are dedicated professionals.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  So we have the, I'm gonna call the, the do do plan is where you are, like, right now, nothing changes.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  You know, it doesn't improve. The, I love the idea of the dream plan being, hey, I'm making a million and a half, two million bucks a year. Is there a middle ground plan? Is there something in there like, hey, maybe it's not quite that.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  But something that lives in that middle space?

• 50:19Speaker 02

  So, kind of, I think in gen, my, my plan is to get there eventually. My targeted growth is to get there in five years. It could take 10 or it could take 15. So, you know, with building a business, that's all based on relationships. You know, you have one client that continues to travel year after year, then they refer you. So generally, most travel agents, if they are professional and they are applying themselves, their sales double each year. So, if I were to hire more agents, I could grow faster. Or if I were to hire, you know, maybe a couple agents that are really, really strong, I could even grow even faster. So, my plan on growth is five years, and that's average, based on the number of agents that I want to hire. But maybe not all of them are as successful as I am, maybe not all of them are applying.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  So it could take 10, it could take longer. So, I, the same numbers generally would be as far as the middle of the road plan, but it would just take longer. So in five years, I would be looking at 500,000 instead of a million.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  So right now, based on the intake, you have your income at like about a hundred thousand dollars a year. But realistically, you think the next year will probably be 200,000?

• 51:24Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm already on track to be just by myself at 200,000 for 2026.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  Okay, got it.

• 51:31Brian Preston?

  How are you structured? Cause, cause you said something that gave me a clue. You said, I could hold off not paying myself. So are you, how are you?

• 51:37Speaker 02

  It's an LLC and then I've been told to file as an S corp, but I haven't filed taxes.

• 51:42Brian Preston?

  So you haven't done an S corp election yet?

• 51:43Speaker 02

  Not yet, no.

• 51:44Brian Preston?

  Okay. There is nothing, are you just a single member LLC?

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Single member, yes.

• 51:48Brian Preston?

  Okay. The IRS, cause they, they probably watch our show too. I'm just assuming.

• 51:53Brian Preston?

  Cause we have a lot of really smart people, and they're smart people with the IRS too, is that they probably cringe a little bit when they hear, I'm just not gonna pay myself and I'll let that. Now, the thing is with an LLC, all the incomes go flow through to you automatically. And it's gonna be subject to not only income taxes, but it's gonna be subject to what's called self-employment tax. And self-employment tax is for Medicare and Social Security. It's about 15.3% plus your income tax. A lot of people, and this is, this is the part where it's a planning opportunity, but this is where the IRS leans in, "Oh, here we go, let's see what it says." If you pay yourself a reasonable salary, what you'd have to pay, because as a business owner, you're in this weird situation. You have two things going on. You work in the business, but then you own the business. And they have two different pay structures. You know,

• 52:35Brian Preston?

  any business you do, working in the business, is something you'd have to go hire an employee to do. There should be wages for that. Now, there's, if you own a company, there can be, you know, essentially, your investment, in the capital investment into this business, and the flow-through that comes out, just because you now made the, opened up this endeavor, that can be separate. And that, that doesn't necessarily, that's not a wage, because you didn't work in the business. That's more of an investment, so it doesn't need the, the social security and Medicare on it. And the way you do that is, you pay yourself a salary for what the work in the business is, and then you collect the money, they still pay income tax on all of this, but you, but you just avoid paying the social security and Medicare, or the self-employment tax on that. But you have to be honest with yourself, is what

• 53:20Brian Preston?

  you're worth to the company. Now, it's, in the first two or three years that you start a company, I think the IRS even gives you some grace, because they realize, "Holy cow, you're doing this, you're bootstrapping it, you probably only, you couldn't afford to pay anybody to do this job." See, but, but I always tell people, as you start getting traction, be honest, and, because I've sat in audits, and I always tell people, you want to be on really solid ground with the government, when you sit in those audits, because they do pay attention to this stuff. And that's why I always, it makes me cringe a little bit, when somebody says, "Well, just, it doesn't matter if you make 300,000, 400,000, just pay yourself 25,000, 30,000 dollars a year, the IRS will love you." And I'm like, "No." Not quite. Be careful, because I've even, I've seen the IRS go after, we've had some professional

• 54:02Brian Preston?

  clients that were even paying themselves over 100 grand, and the IRS came and go, "Uh-uh, that's not enough, for the specialization that you're actually making this money off of." So I always tell people, be careful, because everything's deductible until you get caught. And I'm here to tell you, I've, I've worked on the, worked on taxes, doing taxes for 16 years, representing clients before the IRS. You want to be on good ground with, that's- Why we say do everything is legal. You want to be legal. Tax evasion is illegal. We want to do, but we want to help you do tax planning to make sure you're maximizing the moment. But also, sitting across from the IRS with a smile on your face because you have your ducks in a row.

• 54:42Brian Preston?

  And you're not scared that they have anything that you don't know, you know, that's going to bite you in the butt on.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  All right, before we go to work, what questions do you guys have? What things have we not spoken to that you're curious about? Bring up the inherited IRA one more time in terms of what's the, that's kind of looming over me of like, how are we going to avoid? Not just getting wrecked by that one year, you know, is maybe that comes in the plan, but is there anything that? Either I can do, or the business can do, or Chrissy can do that we can help offset that?

• 55:14Speaker 04

  There's not necessarily any things that you can do to get rid of the income, but what you can do is think through, okay, if we're in this situation right now, we know we make $200,000 a year. But there's a likelihood that in the future, we're going to make substantially more than this and be in a much higher tax bracket. It's arguable that, man, right now, we're in a lower tax bracket. Rather than letting this money continue to grow tax deferred all the way until the end of this 10 year period. And then we get this big tax thing happen unless we know that we're just not going to work in that year. Perhaps we start taking some out strategically now.

• 55:46Brian Preston?

  Looking at tax rates.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  We look at our tax return this year and we estimate where our taxable income is and hey, we're in the 22% marginal tax bracket and that's acceptable to us. Maybe we're going to take out a fifth of this this year and we'll take out a fifth next year and a fifth. And you can kind of game based on where you think your income is going to go and take advantage of being, because what you don't want to do is let's say that you do hit the $100 million dollar commission, right? And you're making a couple million bucks a year and you guys in the highest marginal tax brackets. And that's in the year that this RMD is required to pay out. Well, then you're paying, you'd have been better served taking it out sooner. Not spending the money, but just redeploying those dollars elsewhere to get away from that structure. So that's likely what you guys should be thinking through realistically. What's our tax situation look like this year?

• 56:33Speaker 04

  How much wiggle room do we have? If we do take a distribution? Are there things that we're gonna miss out on? Will you lose child tax credit? Would we lose other types of deductions and the income may push us over? And you play a little bit of that tax game to figure out, maybe it does make sense to take more out sooner rather than later. Yeah. Outside of that, there's not really a whole lot you can do with inherited IRAs because the government kind of makes you take that money, right? There's no like clever way to like hide it, QCD type. There's just, that's, that's just not an option for you guys based on your age right now. So you're gonna have to take that income. It's just a matter of when you want to take that income. Mm-hmm. All right, I got a few homework items for you guys on the ride home. You ready? Yeah.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  I think it'd be helpful, you guys ought to have a conversation just defining the end goals, right? You're not gonna have to necessarily have it all figured out yet, but hey, what do we want financial independence to look like for us? Hey, when we think about buying this next home, when do we want that to happen? Is this something in the next year? What size home? Are we gonna pay off this house, sell it and use that as a 50% down payment on the next home? Or use that as a 20% down payment on the next home and figure out what that looks like? And then put timelines of these. Hey, when will be the next home by this? We know that our kids are gonna be 18, we want this goal by this. When do we want to actually be financially independent together as a couple? And then I do think it would be helpful for you guys to talk through the RMD strategy.

• 57:56Speaker 04

  Hey, we know that we got this 10-year window. We can wait 10 years, but maybe we want to accelerate that. And some of that'll be the planning we do. If we do accelerate it, here's what that could look like. Here's the tax implications of doing that, and this is where those dollars could go to fund some other goals. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Awesome. I'm excited. This is a new one for us. This is gonna be a fun one to kind of crank through. You guys have been awesome. Thanks so much for coming to hang out with us today. Thank you.

• 58:20Brian Preston?

  Thank you.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Brian, what a great conversation we had with Nathan and Chris. Very unique in the way that they were set up.

• 58:27Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I mean, on paper, they are millionaires. But there's kind of an asterisk to it because a lot of this money came from legacy money or inheritances that Chrissy received from her father.

• 58:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 58:40Brian Preston?

  And that's gonna play into some of these financial planning issues, but it's still kind of created something that we've got to kind of address from a behavioral standpoint. And then the other thing that made them unique, not really a traditional financial structure. They want to kind of keep things separate.

• 58:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was really interesting. I think we kept waiting for there to be some shoe to drop that made, oh, whoa, here's this money. But they're actually kind of doing it separately. So in terms of honoring, making personal finance personal, as we did our designing, we kind of designed, okay, here's what it looks like separately, individually, and then this is what it looks like as we bring these together. And so they were kind of sharing with us. They have some big goals, right? Some of those goals, shorter term in nature, some intermediate and some long. And obviously, they said that one of their goals is they want to be in a new house. Like, that's a thing that they want to do. They have huge goals for their kids, you know, in terms, obviously Chrissy's father cared about leaving a legacy and providing opportunity for her, and they want to pass that on to their kids. But then they also have this goal of financial independence. And so it's kind of figuring

• 59:37Speaker 04

  out, how do you squeeze the balloon to be able to do all of it?

• 59:40Brian Preston?

  So let's, we'll let them kind of drive the ship on this. Their biggest goal was the new house.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 59:46Brian Preston?

  So let's kind of, let's, let's jump into that and look at the numbers. Is this a goal they're going to be able to accomplish?

• 59:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so. One of the things that we saw is because Nathan was so aggressive in like paying down the mortgage, he has a ton of equity inside of their current home. So if they were to sell the current home, they would walk away with about $271,000 of equity. We also know that we wanted their mortgage payment to stay about the same. So we recalculated based on today's interest rates. If we know we want their mortgage payment to be about $2,000 a month, how much could they borrow? What would the mortgage amount be to generate a $2,000 a month monthly payment? And that'd be about $249,000. So if you take 270 worth of equity versus a mortgage of 249, they could realistically look to go afford a home somewhere around $520,000.

• 1:00:32Brian Preston?

  And that's a pretty nice upgrade because I think they're in the low 300s currently to go up to 520. That's going to obviously get them more square footage.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:00:39Brian Preston?

  Nicer house. And I love that their, their mortgage payments go stay. The exact same.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's no additional cash outflow here. So in terms of like achieving goals, that one seemed like a check. Well, then we have the second level of goals and that was the kids. And this is one that was, I don't want to say aggressive, that it's too, it's too bold of a word, but man, they have some, some big things they want to be able to do for the twins.

• 1:01:00Brian Preston?

  Let's see if we look, because our, what I recalled was want to pay for college, but then also want to give them go beyond, just like Chrissy's father had done more for them. And because he, remember he had this goal of they want to give a million dollars each kid.

• 1:01:12Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:01:13Brian Preston?

  Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to fulfill that, but he still left quite a nice legacy, but they want to go beyond college funding. They wanted to, and I think we kind of, we had to figure out how do we honor this? And we couldn't come up with a million dollars, but we said, hey, how about a house down payment? Isn't that where we settled?

• 1:01:28Speaker 04

  That's right. That's exactly right. And so I think what we said is, okay, if the idea of, if they want to build legacy for their kids, maybe one of the things that we could do is we could use the legacy coming from her father to be the thing that kind of sees that. And we know that in the next year and a half, two years, she's going to have another part of the inheritance coming. It's going to be about $80,000. And I said, okay, if we, if we just thought about isolating the 80,000 and if that money were to sort of just, we took that said, okay, this is going to be for the kids. We're going to put this as an aside in the account. And if over the next 18 years or 16 years, that $80,000 could grow at about 7% per year, it would have the ability to turn into almost a quarter of a million dollars, 244,000. So we said, okay, well,

• 1:02:11Speaker 04

  if that's what that chunk of money grows into, will it be enough to satisfy these two goals? Will it be enough to satisfy college for both kids, but also have some seed money left over for them? So we had to make some assumptions. We said, okay, what if for college, not knowing scholarships and where they're going to go and cost of college, but if we say, hey, we want to pay $20,000 for each kid each year of college, what does that look like in terms of a drawdown? So we did that over four years from age 18 to 22. You can see that that $244,000 pot of money turns into $132,000 pot of money.

• 1:02:46Brian Preston?

  I mean, I gotta tell you, it's pretty, from a legacy standpoint, kudos to, to the deceased grandfathers, because this $80,000 gift is going to come in, has the opportunity to grow to close to right under a quarter of a million dollars. Looks like it's going to potentially be enough to pay for a lot of college, if not all of it, and then leave $132,000. If you divide that by two,

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Brian Preston?

  I mean, that's a pretty good house down payment.

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  I didn't have that much for my first house down payment.

• 1:03:13Brian Preston?

  I mean, you think about that, you're doing a little over 65,000 per child. That's one heck of a legacy. Now, look, we did this in the order that they wanted. You know, they, they were kind of focusing on the house down payment. They're focusing on the kids, you know, as part of the financial order of operations. We typically don't take care of the kids before we take care of our own retirement. But this was a unique scenario because of the whole legacy thing with the deceased grandfather. What is this going to look like now when we put on our oxygen mask first? What does their financial independence or retirement look like?

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, we don't want to, we want to make sure that funding these other two goals does not prevent them from funding their goals. And so because they keep finances separate, I said, okay, what if we built a financial order of operations for each of them? Cause they kind of think about saving and building separately. And so for Nathan, what he was already doing is already putting $1,300 a month into his 457. He was maxing out his Roth IRA at $1,000 a month. And then once he hit that max, then it begins spilling over to a brokerage account. So when you look at the total savings there, between those three different account types, he's saving about $27,600 a year. And based on his income, that's a 26% savings rate. So for him, we get a big check. He's doing the very thing that he should be doing.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  It was on her side because of some job changes and life changes and that sort of thing, where we had to make a few adjustments.

• 1:04:31Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I mean, good on Ethan in the fact that he's basically, the biggest change I think here was after he finishes funding the Roth, is doing that after tax account. But Chrissy, it's a little more work here. So we had to kind of make some assumptions for what she's going to do. Now, to add a layer of complexity to this, Bo, she started a brand new venture.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:04:51Brian Preston?

  But it does sound like it's going really well. I mean, we had to actually put some governors on where Chrissy's taking this thing because she gave us projections is that she thinks in the next few years, she could be making a million dollars a year. And we, we hope she knocks it out of the park and does it. But for our planning purposes, we pulled it back. To around $200,000. So how did we then take that 200 and turn that into savings goals?

• 1:05:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, we said if she could get her income to $200,000, perhaps she's going to pay herself a salary of like 150. And so we'll kind of use 150 as our planning number to plan off of. So when it comes to her financial order of operations, we obviously want to see her max out a Roth IRA. That's $7,500 a year. Then she can open up a solo 401k, likely do the Roth there as well at $24,500 a year. And then in order to get to the 25% savings rate, we're going to need a little bit more savings. Well, one of the benefits of being a small business owner that can control your own retirement plan is we can also do profit sharing contributions in addition to salary deferral. So if she were to do an extra $18,000 profit sharing contribution,

• 1:05:57Speaker 04

  or about 9% of her pay, that would have her saving about $50,000 a year, which would be a 25% savings rate on her gross $200,000 income.

• 1:06:06Brian Preston?

  Okay, now this is cool because we've created a financial order of operations for each of them independently because they like keeping their finances separate. But if you consolidate this, because remember Nathan was a little greater than 25%, we got her pretty close to it. But as a consolidated plan, it actually works out to be as a household, they're saving over 25%.

• 1:06:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. It's a foo for you, a foo for me, and a foo for us. And when you look at the total savings they have building towards the future, it's just a touch under $78,000 a year, or just a little bit greater than 25%. So if they can save that way, and if they can build that way, the future looks pretty bright. Because where they sit right now, they have about $713,000 built up. So if they have that 713, and they're able to save $77,000 a year, by the time that they get to age 55, they will have a portfolio of almost $6.3 million. By the time they get to 60, that portfolio could be almost $10 million.

• 1:07:05Brian Preston?

  Well, and the crazy thing, now look, we had to make a lot of assumptions here. And they're probably, they're undershooting a little bit what they told us because a lot of life is still going to come in the years. But what they had told us on the cuff was assuming we take out all the kids' goals and everything else. Seven thousand dollars a month. Well, at this level, they're going to blow past that.

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:07:25Brian Preston?

  But I think that this leaves the margin for additional life to happen, too.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. We always say that when it comes to planning, we want to build our do-do plan, our down-to-earth plan, and our dream plan. And I think in Chrissy's mind, her dream plan was like a million-dollar-a-year income.

• 1:07:39Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  I think that this may even be what I would call the dream plan, even though perhaps it's more down-to-earth. I hope that's the case. But if I were them, I would think about, okay, if we can just get to this level, we're set up for our financial goals. But what if we don't quite get to this level? What does a more down-to-earth plan, if I only make a hundred thousand dollars? What's a do-do plan look like if I don't make a whole lot more than I'm making right now? I do think that's some additional work that they should work through to figure out where reality actually lies.

• 1:08:07Brian Preston?

  Look, they've got a lot going for them. I mean, an impressive net worth for their age. But I think that still, the big question mark is, is a lot of this is the legacy

• 1:08:17Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:08:18Brian Preston?

  that Chrissy's father left for them. I'm hoping that our conversation, as well as what we're laying out today, will catch traction. And we see that this financial order of operations that has this huge legacy element turns into their own story, both separate as well as joint story. It's really exciting.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that they have a lot of opportunity if they can get that lined up to build financial independence on their own, but also honor legacy that was given to them and create legacy opportunities for their kids.

• 1:08:50Brian Preston?

  So Nathan, Chrissy, thank you for coming on the show. Beau, for anybody else who wants to come on Making a Millionaire, what do they need to do?

• 1:08:56Speaker 04

  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 or calculators, you can go to moneyguy.com/resources.

• 1:09:06Brian Preston?

  Nathan, Chrissy, y'all are crushing it. Well on your way to building your great, big, beautiful tomorrow. I'm your host, Brian. Joined by Beau, Money Guy.

• 1:09:16Speaker 06

  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 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.

• 1:10:01Speaker 07

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