Should You Cancel Whole Life Insurance? Investing After 50 & More

Someone was paying $2 a month on a student loan and the balance kept climbing. Someone else got talked into cash value life insurance by a college friend. Six real situations, six ways out. 👉 Want personalized help from Andrew? Join Master Money Academy at https://www.skool.com/mastermoneyacademy/about 👉 Join Andrew’s FREE Investing for Beginners Masterclass: https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/0o8z9io?webinar_id=21 👉 Live Call Registration Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqIw5xncfn5tZbGG_U22iZ3BUmyHe9fPvBQaC1vW_x1D7bJA/viewform 👉 One-on-One Coaching Application Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12UHo5Zmu1AyY_G4Gmbrcx9vThIZhxqFnaJ5dIihZL24/edit What You'll Learn in This Episode Why income-driven payments can leave your balance flat or growing, and how to fix it The rule for deciding whether going back to school is worth the debt How to evaluate getting out of a cash value life insurance policy, including surrender charges and the 1035 exchange How a self-employed person opens a Roth IRA, and when a solo 401(k) makes more sense Paying yourself from your own business, including S corp salary versus distributions Practical ways to add friction to your spending so impulse purchases stop happening The catch-up and super catch-up amounts available if you are starting seriously in your 50s Whether greed is good, and the line between greed and ambition Banks are finding third-party AI agents inside customer accounts, and what that means for you Start Here Join the community built to help you master your money, stay accountable, and reach financial freedom. 👉 Try Master Money Academy FREE for 7 days today! https://mastermoney.co/join/ 👉 Join Andrew’s FREE Investing for Beginners Masterclass https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/0o8z9io?webinar_id=21 👉 Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! https://expert-hustler-605.ck.page/6aa7bb9a79 Partner Deals Hostinger → Build your website step by step at https://www.hostinger.com/ and use code PFP for 10% off Indeed → Get a $75 sponsored job credit at https://www.indeed.com/podcast Whatnot → Increase your income with a side hustle by shopping, selling and collecting at https://www.whatnot.com Leesa → Get up to 25% off mattresses with promo code PFP at https://www.leesa.com/ Policygenius → Compare life insurance quotes for free at https://www.policygenius.com/ Monarch Money → The all-in-one financial tool + Get 50% Off at http://www.monarch.com/PFP DeleteMe → 20% off with code PFP https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ Resource/s Car Insurance https://secure.money.com/pr/gc43ce394da5 Best HYSA https://secure.money.com/pr/r453ecf4d190 Stock Brokerage Accounts https://secure.money.com/pr/v8d06f8de92c Best IRAs https://secure.money.com/pr/oe09b73d1952 Favorite Travel Credit Cards https://milevalue.com/best-credit-cards/?aff=mastermoney The 'American Dream' Now Costs More Than $5.3 Million https://www.investopedia.com/the-2026-american-dream-cost-rises-4-percent-12154346 Tool/s Mentioned Master Money Budget Template https://mastermoneyresources.com/budget-template The Retirement Calculator https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/e6b8d4f8a2 Compound Interest Calculator https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/aefaaad27e Total Cost of Ownership Calculator https://mastermoney.co/total-cost-of-ownership-calculator/ The Financial Milestone Track https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/062e0b977b Get That Raise E-book — https://mastermoney.co/get-that-raise-ebook/ The Stairway to Wealth — https://mastermoney.co/the-stairway-to-wealth/ The Ultimate Guide to the 1-3-6 Emergency Fund Method https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wbu4UWoWBKvFcAIYn2IND-twKACWVEE1/view Watch Next The American Dream Now Costs $5.3 Million https://youtu.be/_p2aFDeMKTs What Happens if I Stop Investing for a Year? https://youtu.be/ihcTkAFwY00 18 SCARY Money Statistics in 2026! https://youtu.be/Jf8KjPwSTEA Do You Think You'll ACTUALLY Be Able to Retire? https://youtu.be/oT_mCCD9MpI 5 Ways to Go BROKE (By AGE!) https://youtu.be/1xm23NnneJM Connect with Andrew Instagram → https://bit.ly/Skool-Instagram TikTok → https://bit.ly/Skool-TikTok Facebook → https://bit.ly/Skool-Facebook Podcast → https://bit.ly/Skool-Podcast Youtube → bit.ly/Skool-Youtube Newsletter → https://bit.ly/Skool-Newsletter Website →⁠ https://mastermoney.co ⁠ X → ⁠https://x.com/mastermoneyco LinkedIn →⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-giancola-45027b340 ⁠ Question for you: Which question in this episode sounded the most like your own situation? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  On this episode of the personal finance podcast, we're going to be answering your questions on this money Q and A.

• 0:14Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be answering your questions on this episode of money Q and A. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter or you can respond to any of those issues of the newsletter. And we may answer your question on the show. And if you're getting value out of these episodes, make sure you leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. I thank you guys enough for leaving those five star ratings and reviews. They truly mean the world to me.

• 0:58Andrew Giancola?

  Also, as we dive into this episode, I want to make sure that before we go any deeper that you know that I am offering one-on-one coaching to a limited group of folks. If you are interested in that, you make over $100,000 per year or have $100,000 to invest, feel free to shoot me an email, [email protected] and we can help answer any of the questions that you may have. Now, today we have a bunch of wonderful questions to answer that you all sent in. We have someone who is asking questions about their student loans and how they are shifting some of their student loans and how they are paying them back. We have someone who has a cash value life insurance plan and talking through some of their finances.

• 1:41Andrew Giancola?

  We have someone who has a self-employed Roth IRA and how they can pay themselves. Plus, during the scam of the week this week, we're going to be diving into AI agents inside of people's bank accounts and how to combat against that. Plus, we are going to be answering some questions. Is greed good? Investing for retirement in your mid 50s and adding friction to your spending? So this is an action-packed episode. I am really excited to get into this. Without further ado, let's get into it.

• 2:13Andrew Giancola?

  All right, so the first question came from Samira. So Samira said, I just found your podcast and I recently just took out a second personal loan to pay off a credit card as well as I opened a credit card for their 0% APR for the first year. I haven't even started working on my student loan. I really didn't even look at them truly closely enough until a couple of years ago, and I just paid what they suggested. I have never missed a payment though, and sometimes when they're $500 or so, I just pay them in full. Then one day, I think this was income-based, I saw that I was only paying $2 to a loan for like 36 payments. What? I can pay more than $2 to a loan and I still fully understand how it determines the number and tells me to pay as a monthly payment. Why is this so little on the loan?

• 2:57Andrew Giancola?

  If I pay more than that, I'd obviously pay it off much sooner. Maybe there was something about a 10-year repayment plan, but even so, I am still outside that right now. So now I am thinking about going back to school for my RN-BSN and then a new career to become an occupational therapist, but I'm concerned about going back to school with the amount of student loans that I have. Any help on this situation? So Samira, an income-driven payment plan is set by your income and family size, not by your balance. So a tiny payment just means that the formula said that that's what you can afford and interest may still be piling up underneath this. But before anything else, let's get a full list of every debt with this balance, its rate and its payment, so we can put together a repayment plan for you.

• 3:42Andrew Giancola?

  So first, let's talk about why this payment was $2. So for anybody who has never seen an income-driven repayment plan before, a lot of times they will just automatically evaluate what your payments could be. The problem with that is, is that if interest is accruing in any way, shape or form, you want to make sure that you are aware of what is going on here. So income-driven plans, for anybody who does not know this, they calculate the payment from discretionary income and family size. So the balance doesn't drive it and you can go to studentaid.gov to see if you have this. And a low payment plus interest equals a balance that can stay flat or even grow over time. And so one of the things I have seen when people have this situation is that all of

• 4:27Andrew Giancola?

  the sudden their balance begins to grow. And when that balance begins to grow, if you are not aware of this, this can cause a lot of stress, it can cause a lot of anxiety, because these repayment plans sometimes have these calculations that honestly, just like in Samira's case here, are just absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes it just doesn't make a ton of sense and they can even make mistakes. And so this is going to be really important. Now, here's the thing to think about here. First is check whether the interest balance went down. If it did not go down, then extra payments are allowed for these without any prepayment penalty. And so what you can do is you can increase the amount that you're automating towards this student loan so that you can get the balance paid down. And you can tell the servicer to apply the extra to the highest rate loan that is within all of your different student loans.

• 5:12Andrew Giancola?

  Now also make sure that you check the federal changes based on new laws. That is really important as well. But here's what I would say is, one, let's look at this personal loan. If we have a 0% interest rate over a certain time period, we want to make sure that we get this paid down as fast as we possibly can, because the last thing we want is a personal loan and a 0% interest loan to kick in and we have a higher interest rate than what we had before. And so what I would do is a couple of different things. One, I would make extra payments as much as I possibly can while you have 0% interest. This is money that if the interest rate kicks in, you're going to get that guaranteed rate of return. So you want to make sure that you are taking extra dollars and putting it towards this.

• 5:53Andrew Giancola?

  And if you can, what I would recommend is even making micro-payments to this personal loan and making micro-payments to this 0% interest loan. What do I mean by that? Let's say, for example, that every day you say, okay, I'm actually going to skip out on eating lunch, you know, I'm going to bring my own lunch to work. And let's just say that saves you $7 a day. Well, every single day or every week, you add up that amount of $35 and you send that as a micro-payments to your loan in addition to the normal payments that you're already making. This is going to allow you to just get ahead with some of these loans so that you can get this balance paid down. Every extra dollar that you have, if you can throw it at these loans, that's going to be really, really helpful to making sure that you get that paid down.

• 6:36Andrew Giancola?

  Now, I don't know what the total amount is on those loans, but if they are pretty high, then obviously you still want to make sure that you're prioritizing other things. But we just want to make sure that we get rid of this as fast as we possibly can. So anything above that 7% interest rate, we want to make sure that we are attacking those first and we want to go potentially with the lowest balance first, just to get that paid off, so you can move on to the next one and over and over and over again, and making sure that we are on top of some of that debt. What I would say is don't go any deeper into debt. Don't open up any other debt until you get some of this debt paid down, specifically the personal loan and the 0% interest loan. Those are going to be super important. We want to make sure that those disappear first and write down the date that the 0% chronal ends. Make sure you put this in your calendar.

• 7:21Andrew Giancola?

  Make sure you set up alerts one to two months beforehand as well, so you know when those are popping up and you can take care of some of that debt in some of those loans. It's really important to just stay aware of this stuff. If you can, keep yourself motivated on a weekly or monthly basis so that you continue to pay this down. I want you to be debt-free from that personal loan and those 0% credit card loans, because if that kicks in, it can just cause other issues. And so it's really, really important to make sure you stay on top of that. Now, going back to school, the question about going back to school, a couple of numbers to run. One is, let's first think about how much it's going to cost for tuition, how much it's going to cost for months out of work, if you are going to miss work or if you're going to do it on nights or weekends, and that's completely fine too, and expected

• 8:05Andrew Giancola?

  pay for someone who is an RN or an OT in your area. And so one of the things you can look at is the Bureau of Labor Statistics has some different guides actually on OTs and some RNs for specific areas that you can look at. Also, if you look for employer tuition assistance, maybe where you currently work, they will help you pay for some of your costs of going back to school. That would be absolutely wonderful if you could take advantage of that. And so that would be something I would definitely look deeper into, especially if they pay for RN or BSN programs. That would be awesome. Next is total school debt needs to be below your first year of salary. So if you're going to go back and it's going to cost you $100,000, but you're only going

• 8:50Andrew Giancola?

  to make $70,000, then the likelihood that you need to save the difference is going to be important. You need to pay cash for the difference if you are going to go back. But if it's going to increase your income over a timeframe, that really makes a lot of sense, then it could be worth going back. But we just want to make sure that we are avoiding debt at all costs and just amounting debt early on in our life. And if you already have your credit card debt in place and you have those student loans in place, then let's make sure that we get rid of some of that debt first, pay some of that debt down before we take on any new debt. That's going to be the big key. And doing this isn't the problem. Like, let's see if we can get some grants, get some scholarships and reduce the amount of debt that we're taking on. We just don't want to keep going backwards with our finances.

• 9:31Andrew Giancola?

  And so when I begin to think about some of this stuff, I just want to make sure that I am wise in the way that I take on new debt. And so getting some of that other stuff paid off first would be probably my highest priority. Then we can go back and kind of do some other things. So going back to school, I think is a great idea if it's going to increase your income. Income is the biggest part of the equation that we want to be focused on. We just want to make sure that we understand the implications of taking on more debt. So thank you so much for the question. Wonderful question. Now let's go to the next one.

• 10:05Andrew Giancola?

  One of the best decisions I ever made was putting myself out there and starting the personal finance podcast. And looking back, I wish I had started sooner because here's the thing, whether you're starting a business, a personal brand, or trying to develop a new income stream, having a website is a game changer. And that's where HostingR comes in. HostingR makes it incredibly easy to build a website using AI. You don't need to do what I do and know how to code or spend thousands of dollars, and I spend tens of thousands of dollars, hiring a developer. You simply describe the website you want and HostingR's AI can build it in minutes. And once you're up and running, they even have AI tools that can help you with marketing, writing, and getting found on Google.

• 10:48Andrew Giancola?

  Plus, right now, they're running their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale, so it's a great time to get started. Snag HostingR services at their lowest price before the sale ends. Create your website today for just $1.99. Go to hostinger.com/PFP and use code PFP for an additional 10% off Black Friday and Cyber Monday pricing. Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards, and we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together.

• 11:33Andrew Giancola?

  Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business, and you can do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot. Search Whatnot, that's W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. All right, the next question is from Kenny. So Kenny said, "Hey, and your great podcast this week. I've finally called me out for listening, but not taken any serious action. I've been subscribing and listening for over a year now, and your energy this week hit

• 12:17Andrew Giancola?

  me like a bolt of lightning. Love all your tools available, including your budget plan, and I plan on joining Master Money Academy." Well, thank you so much, Kenny. That is absolutely awesome. Really excited that you hit home on that one. "I had a college friend that got me going early in cash value life insurance, which I now regret, but I'm unsure the best course out of it. I have a joint mutual fund managed through him as well at Maggie's Roth. I wish I would have realized this earlier, but we've just set our heads down working, saving, and parenting that I didn't really think I could be doing any better." Number one, in our current situation, would you recommend getting out of the cash value life insurance? They do a really good job of selling it, but also making sure that you know that you're

• 13:01Andrew Giancola?

  basically hooked, which yes, they do. And number two is the mutual fund. "I feel like it could be better suited in low-cost index funds. If I were to exit from any management, what would be the best course to reinvest a joint mutual fund to avoid fees and/or taxes? Thanks. I really look forward to you putting your own financial education further on the priority list." Well, Kenny, this is an awesome, awesome question. First of all, Kenny kind of told me a little bit about his situation ahead of time in this question, and basically said, you know, he has roughly $700,000 invested at age 37 with a 1.99% mortgage. So that is a wonderful starting point. Kenny is absolutely crushing it at his age and having the ability to be able to kind of make some of these decisions.

• 13:42Andrew Giancola?

  It is something that I think could be really important before this cash value policy gets any deeper. So the cash value policy with some of the details that he gave was it has $260,000 of death benefits, and is, in reality, if you have two incomes with two kids, this is going to be too little for really to help you long-term. Because in reality, you really want to have 10 to 12 times your income into, you know, something like life insurance. So for me specifically, for anybody out there who is not familiar with the way that I think about life insurance, if people depend on your income, what we want you to be doing is we want you to be getting term life insurance. This means if you have kids in the house who depend on your income, if you have a spouse

• 14:26Andrew Giancola?

  who depends on your income, if you have a business partner or aging parents who depend on your income, this would be the reason to get term life insurance, not cash value life insurance, an IUL, but term life insurance. And what term life insurance allows you to do is it allows you to get life insurance for a specific period of time. So let's say you're Kenny's age, and you're 37 years old, and you decide, okay, I'm going to get a term policy from age 37 to age 60, so that during that timeframe, if anything were to ever happen to me, my family is covered. But by the time I turn age 60, I'm going to be investing, I'm going to be saving, and I'm going to have a portfolio large enough that if anything were to happen to me after the age of 60, I will be able to have it covered with my portfolio and with the amount

• 15:11Andrew Giancola?

  that I saved and invested, and so my family will be AOK. That's the thought process with term life insurance. And what it does is it's a reduced overall monthly cost in comparison to something like a cash value life insurance, because cash value life insurance is going to cost you 10 times the amount to try to achieve the same exact thing. And so first, I would look at term life insurance, and I would try to get approved, you know, for a policy, you know, over the course of the next, you know, 15, 20 years, whatever you feel as though works. It should be very low cost. It should be, you know, a couple, mine's 30 bucks a month for a million dollar policy. Yours might be, you know, a little bit more based on you're starting at age 37. And so it just depends on where you are, but it's not going to be much. I'm telling you, it's going to be significantly less than what you're currently paying right

• 15:56Andrew Giancola?

  now for the cash value policy. Now, you have a couple of options with cash value life insurance. Typically, I tell people it's probably the best option, especially when you're younger, to consider getting out of it. Now, there are services that help you get out of these in the best possible way, but you can also just surrender the cash value, which is going to be one of those things that really stinks. And you can think of it as, you know, a tax that you are paying when it comes to getting out of one of these policies for kind of being swindled into a lot of these different things. A lot of cash value policies just don't fit most criteria. There are very, very small instances when people should have cash value policies. But a lot of people get sold them. Why? Because the commissions are so high.

• 16:38Andrew Giancola?

  And so the people that are selling them, the insurance brokers, are really trying to get you into there because they can make a lot of money on the commission. The person who makes the most money is the person who sells it to you. A couple of other options is there, if there's a low-cost annuity and you feel as though an annuity wants to be part of your strategy, you could do what is called a 1035 exchange into something like an annuity to keep up the tax basis, or you can even kind of do the reduced paid up. There's IRS documentation on this that we can link up down below in the show notes. It's IRS 1035-IRC that you can look up to see if that is something you want to do. But one of the things I like to do on these policies too is ask the insurer for an in-force

• 17:19Andrew Giancola?

  illustration, plus total premiums paid on a cost basis, plus any surrender charges. Like, you want to understand all the surrender charges that come into play with this to make sure that you think about this. And then the gain that you would have would be the cash value minus any premiums paid. So the only gain is taxable on surrender, and many 2012 policies have little to no gain on them, so you may not have much gain on there as well when it comes to tax implications. And then you're going to free up the $200 per month that can go into like your two Roth IRAs or wherever else. And then you're going to free up the $200 a month that can go into like the two Roth IRAs or whatever else. So that's really important to think through is understanding all the fees and implications of getting out of it. It would be a serious consideration by me.

• 18:04Andrew Giancola?

  Again, this is not financial advice, but it'd be a serious consideration by me to look deeper into getting out of that thing, just because usually it's going to cost you more staying than getting out. And then you just term the difference is the big thing that I would think about there. When it comes to the managed mutual fund in that part of the question, you know, first, I would understand, hey, what are the fund names? What are the expense ratios? Those types of things, I didn't have the specifics on that. And then if you are concerned about this, then I would stop the $500 per month that you're sending to that now, and then redirect into a low-cost index fund of your choice, if you feel as though that's part of your long-term strategy that you want to go into. Now, the ways that you could do this is you could transfer this to an in-kind brokerage, something like Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, or My Top 3.

• 18:47Andrew Giancola?

  And then you can do this in a way where you don't have to sell it. So if you can do, if you can transfer the fund to an in-kind brokerage and you go that route, if you sell them to a taxable, based on the long-term capital gains, if you've owned that fund for over a year, it's going to be anywhere from 0, 15% to 20%, depending on what your taxable income is. Those are some of the things to consider when you think about moving some of that stuff. So usually, it's fairly easy to actually move funds between brokerages. Many people think it's going to be complicated, but it's usually not. It's not that bad. And if you call where you're moving it to, they will walk you through the steps of, hey, here's what you do next. It's actually much simpler than it seems. So I wouldn't worry too much about that piece, but that is something for sure that I would definitely consider.

• 19:32Andrew Giancola?

  So great question there. I truly appreciate you listening. I'm so glad you're here. And if you have any other questions, please let me know.

• 19:41Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The next question is from Franklin and Franklin says, hey, Andrew, I am very new to starting on my path to independent wealth. Can you explain how I might be able to start up a Roth IRA account as I am self-employed? Also, what are your thoughts on how I can structure my business to actually be able to cut myself a paycheck? At the moment, I literally transfer money from one account to another and just pay my bills. I started really late in this process. I guess it's better than not having started at all. Thank you for all your help and have a beautiful day. So Franklin, being self-employed doesn't change the way that you can open a Roth IRA. In fact, you can open a Roth IRA as someone who is self-employed at any given point in time. So you can go to Fidelity, you can go to Vanguard, you can go to Charles Schwab and open a Roth IRA there.

• 20:25Andrew Giancola?

  I personally have my Roth IRA currently at Vanguard and one of the main reasons why is it's so easy to do a backdoor Roth IRA. So this is one of those things that if you want to open a Roth IRA, you absolutely can. Now, the 2026 limits at the time of recording this is $7,500 per year to go into a Roth IRA. If you're over the age of 50, you actually can take advantage of what is called a catch-up contribution. And you can actually put an additional $1,100 inside of your Roth IRA. But just making sure you need to have earned income and you need to make sure that you are looking at some of that as well. And then your full contribution, if your adjusted gross income is under $153,000 if you're single

• 21:09Andrew Giancola?

  and $242,000 if you're married filing jointly, needs to be under that limit to contribute to a Roth IRA. Otherwise, you need to do a backdoor Roth IRA, which means you contribute money to a traditional IRA and then move it to the Roth IRA. Okay? And your contributions for 2026 can be made all the way up until April of 2027. So you don't have to do it all this year. You can do it all the way up until April of 2027. And so this is something for sure that I would look at too, when you're starting to think about this. And so really, really important to make sure that that is happening as we begin to look at this. Okay? Now, if you are a bigger saver, you could do something like a solo 401k

• 21:51Andrew Giancola?

  or a solo Roth 401k because you are self-employed. And so that's going to allow you to open a solo Roth 401k, which can get you $24,500 per year into a Roth account. And so if you don't have any employees, that's something to look into. There's also SEP IRAs if you do have employees that you can definitely look into. Now let's talk about paying yourself with a paycheck. Okay? Depending on how your entity is structured, okay, whether you're an LLC, maybe you're an S corp, maybe you're C corp. That's going to tell you kind of how to pay yourself and some of the ways to pay yourself. My accountant, for example, typically will put a lot of my companies into S corps. Now with an S corp, you still have to pay yourself a specific salary every single year. And it's based on some of the activities that you do and some IRS guidelines.

• 22:36Andrew Giancola?

  There's a very specific formula that you want to get CPA to do if you are going to be in S corp. And then outside of that specific salary that you get, then you give yourself distributions when there's profits or things when you want to pay yourself. Typically, I give myself distributions on a weekly basis. I will look at those distributions and I will make, you know, small increments of distributions on a weekly basis because I like to get money out of my business accounts and utilize that money for investments or whatever else I am currently looking at doing. And so a lot of times if there's profits, I will take the profits as early as I possibly can and make sure that I'm moving it out. And so there's some calculations that I have within my business to be able to do this. If you don't have a way to do this, or if you haven't thought through this, there's a couple options that you have.

• 23:21Andrew Giancola?

  If you've never heard of Profit First, I think that is a really great accounting system. There's a book called Profit First that I highly recommend you read. That's going to give you a system that allows you to basically, A, put money in a couple of different places. One is owner pay, two is taxes, three is operating expenses, and four is their profit accounts. Meaning you keep money in that profit accounts and then at the end of each quarter or the end of each year, you give yourself a bigger payment also. And so this will allow you to kind of stay on top of this kind of stuff. Also, if you are new to business, making sure that you pay your estimated taxes and have your tax situation covered is important. Any business owner out there, if this is the way that you make your living, having a CPA is a must.

• 24:02Andrew Giancola?

  Having someone who's a tax strategist who can help you with tax strategy, not someone who files your tax return, someone who helps you with your tax strategy is very important. They will help you with this based on your business and your own personal finance situation. This is like a no question, no brainer for you probably, if they can save you more in taxes than what you pay them. So you want to make sure that you check that. Also, when it comes to the buffer with your business, the same with your emergency fund and your personal finances, I feel as though most businesses should have a few months buffer. And in fact, the golden number for me is I like to have seven months is the goal. That allows you, especially if you have employees or anything else, that allows you to cover payroll, that allows you to cover operating expenses, that allows you to cover contractors, that allows you to cover the overhead.

• 24:45Andrew Giancola?

  All of that stuff really comes into play when we are thinking about this. And then if you are like a sole proprietor doing those owner draws, once profit is solid, it can be really important. But I would definitely talk to a CPA about an S corp because an S corp can help you structure this in a way that could be tax efficient for your situation. And if that is the case, a lot of times S corps work for a number of different businesses. So definitely look into that if you have not already done so. But these are great questions and I truly appreciate sending that in Franklin. Really, really good stuff. If you have any other questions about that, let me know and thank you so much. Sounds like you're crushing it. So thank you so much for sending that in.

• 25:23Andrew Giancola?

  If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know, it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business.

• 26:06Andrew Giancola?

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• 26:50Andrew Giancola?

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• 27:29Andrew Giancola?

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• 27:58Andrew Giancola?

  All right. So now it's time to dive into the financial scam of the week. Now this one is actually a really big deal. And this is something that is very concerning in terms of what is going on when it comes to AI right now, that I think every single person listening to this episode should be thinking about. And it's a very important thing that I think is going to be something that we are going to have to deal with for a timeframe going forward. Okay? All right. So here's what's going on. Okay? Major banks are detecting third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts and sometimes taking actions that look independent of what the customer asked for. Now, if you listen to that and think about that again, that means that AI agents are getting access to bank accounts

• 28:42Andrew Giancola?

  and they are taking actions that nobody told them to take action. Meaning that this is a really big deal moving forward. Now, I think this goes without saying, but I'm going to say this upfront. Even for my people who are very comfortable with AI, do not ever give an AI agent access to your bank account. And I'm going to say this again louder for people in the back because as AI becomes more and more comfortable in our everyday life, at this current time, at that I'm recording this, I'm going to say this. Do not give AI agents access to your bank account. Now, if security improves or something changes, I will let you know. But in reality, if you give an AI agent access to your bank account, you are going to have something happen.

• 29:25Andrew Giancola?

  I just think that's going to be part of the reality of what we're dealing with right now because they are just not trained enough. We don't have enough data to be able to do this. And so right now, Axios reported on October 22nd that banks, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and others are racing to contain unauthorized AI access. Now here's what banks are seeing. Agents are logging in with customer credentials, even when the customer said yes, then attempting purchases, transfers or other actions, and in some cases contacting call centers or acting beyond the user's instructions. So JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank will now not allow outside AI agents into customer accounts because it is way too risky.

• 30:06Andrew Giancola?

  And a Chase spokeswoman said customers should not give usernames or passwords to anyone. Bank of America told customers never to share banking credentials. And most banks agree to say never share your login because this is probably one of those areas that we really need to make sure that we understand. Okay? So here's what's going on here that I think most people need to realize. If you do begin to do this, your bank could lock you out. They could make you not a customer anymore. You could lose access to that bank. And so you want to make sure that you are really thinking about this moving forward. Okay? You need to protect your finances when it comes to AI. Now, if they have an intermediary like Plaid that is working with them and you know, Plaid is an intermediary that helps you connect your accounts.

• 30:48Andrew Giancola?

  Where the existing platform can't really see the information of your accounts. So like Plaid is used for something like a Monarch month or like a QuickBooks. And they've been using Plaid for a very long time so that you can just automatically connect your accounts. But if you are using something like an AI agent and giving it access and it goes into your accounts, the likelihood that you lose some money or money just disappears is pretty high. Now, a big thing that banks are also doing is they're just trying to figure out, okay, well, what happens if they do lose this money? What is the rules? What is the regulations here? Cause there's not a lot around to this. And so you just wanna make sure that you're on top of this stuff because it does get a little bit shady and a little bit weird here. Okay. So just making sure that you do that is really important. And here's the thing, okay? Part of the reason why you need to have a financial protection plan is because of this.

• 31:33Andrew Giancola?

  This is why we talk about this all the time on this podcast. A, I know that there's gonna be a lot of scams coming. There's gonna be scams that are getting worse and worse, which is why I wanna, you know, make sure that you're notified of these scams every single week. And so making sure that your plan is in place is almost a must. You've gotta have a plan for your financial future and you also have to have a plan to protect it. If you don't have that plan, it is one of those areas where you could get in big trouble. And there's a lot of scammers out there. There's a lot of shady tools out there and if they get access to your name, your address, your phone number, or anything else, and they go to some of these data brokers out there, they can piece all these pieces together and use that information to steal money out of your bank account or, or open a bank account in your name, or even have the ability to

• 32:18Andrew Giancola?

  open a student loan in your name, or to go out there and try to open a credit card in your name. And that's the last thing I want to happen to anybody out there. So what I would recommend is using a service like DeleteMe. DeleteMe goes and they remove your personal information from a bunch of these different websites, these data brokers, so that you don't have your information just floating around all over the internet. If you go Google your name, go Google your address, Google your phone number in quotations, you're gonna see it pop up all over the place. Well, DeleteMe will go and they will remove it from all those different data broker websites. So it is something that is a non-issue for you. In fact, if you did this on your own, it would take you hours and hours every single week. DeleteMe does this and you can get all those hours back.

• 33:02Andrew Giancola?

  So if you go to joindelete.me/pfp20, you can get 20% off of your plan at DeleteMe. That's joindelete.me/pfp20. I have been using DeleteMe for a very, very long time and I have been just so pleased with the service that they have provided for me because they have been able to truly just save me hours and hours. I tried to do this stuff on my own and it took me so incredibly long. It's one of the best services that I use and I highly, highly recommend DeleteMe.

• 33:34Andrew Giancola?

  All right. The next question comes from Kevin. Kevin says, hi Andrew, I'm taking a proactive approach to mastering my money. I just started with a new career where I now have the ability to contribute to my future wealth. My money question is, what are some top tips to add friction towards spending money when you already are working and saving for wealth? Thanks so much for all your material. It feels empowering to find this resource. I love having money and the dream to achieve financial freedom. Best wishes, Kevin. Well, Kevin, awesome question, and I think this is a really important thing for people to understand, especially as you get going on your journey. Adding friction to your life around spending is important. There's a couple of different things that I think people can implement right away. Like you can listen to this episode and you could take action right now.

• 34:17Andrew Giancola?

  This will save you thousands of dollars over the course of your lifetime. So this is gonna be fun. All right. First of all, is adding in cooling off periods. If there's something you want to go and buy, or there's something you wanna go spend money on, making cooling off periods based on your spending personality type is really important. So let's say for example, that you see that you are spending, you know, a hundred dollars here and there, and it just feels like you sprinkle in a random a hundred dollar purchases every couple of days and you know it's adding up over time. Well, one of the things you could do is you can add a cooling off period. If you wanna go buy something, maybe wanna go buy a jacket that's a hundred dollars. Well, if you say, hey, I'm gonna wait a week before I purchase this jacket to make sure this is actually something that I really want. You put it on a list on your phone, or you make a spreadsheet, put it on that spreadsheet

• 35:02Andrew Giancola?

  and say, I'm gonna come back to this and if I really want this, or I'm still thinking about it, then I can go and make that purchase or making sure that it fits into your budget. And if that's the case, if you come back to it, you say, yeah, I really still do want this, then go ahead and buy the jacket. All power to you. If you can afford it, go and buy the jacket. But if it's something that you feel as though, no, I just wanted that in a moment, I got a little hyped up, I saw an influencer wearing it or whatever else, and that was what was causing me to want the jacket, but I really don't want this anymore. Take it off your list and move on to the next thing. What this is gonna do is give you that cooling off period, you don't have to worry about it. So for smaller purchases, like a hundred dollars, I would have maybe a week or so. You can even do 48 hours for some people. And then for the larger purchases, something like, you know, 500 to a thousand dollars

• 35:45Andrew Giancola?

  or above, you know, I'd wait, you know, a couple of weeks and/or even a month to see if that's something that you really want and that'll give you kind of some of the friction around spending. Secondly, is making sure that you understand your values and have your values list listed out. Boy, oh boy, is that important. It's really important to make sure that you're doing that because it is going to help you long-term be able to create, you know, some really valuable stuff. So when you do stuff like this and when you have your values list, I would think through, okay, what are the things that I love spending money on? And then what are some of the things that I hate spending money on? Make that list of some of the things you love spending money on, the things that you hate spending money on. And once you have that list of loves, that's where I want you to prioritize some of your

• 36:28Andrew Giancola?

  dollars and then spend way less on the things that you hate. If you don't like spending money, you know, going out to eat and it really doesn't bring you a ton of value, but you love, love buying clothes? Well, stop going out to eat and use that money to buy clothes. This is how we make sure that we are mastering our money in a way that allows us to get every single cent of value out of our dollars. Okay? So this is one of those things that once you learn this skill over the course of your lifetime, it'll absolutely transform your finances long-term. So really good question there for sure. Secondly, is making sure you automate your investments. Treat your investments like a bill, meaning you save everything off the top. Maybe you're saving 20% of your income or 25%. Put all that into your brokerage accounts, into retirement accounts, and then whatever's

• 37:13Andrew Giancola?

  left, you can spend whatever's left over. That's what I want you to do. And when you do it that way, then all of a sudden, you don't feel guilty about spending money on your values. So that's the second thing to do is automate as much as you possibly can. And then anytime you feel as though there's a website that you are just going to make a purchase instantly, if you don't remove your card from that website, remove the card from the website. So Amazon's a big one for me. I've got way too many cards saved in Amazon, probably should be deleting them out. That's something I've seen really work with other people is removing it from there. Unsubscribe from story emails that you feel as though you make impulse purchases. That's a big one. Uh, set a weekly spending amount, that this is the amount that I'm allowed to blow no matter what.

• 37:56Andrew Giancola?

  If you feel as though you blow money a lot, uh, set a weekly spending amount where you can, you know, take a hundred dollars a week and that's your blow fund. Uh, you know, whatever else you want it to be, to be whatever number you feel as though fits your budget. And then review your subscriptions every quarter is the big thing for me. I have found hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars just by reviewing subscriptions every quarter. It'll save you thousands a year. And if you invest the difference, it'll save you tons of money over the course of your lifetime. Could be a six-figure decision for sure. And then every raise and every bonus that you get, take at least half at a minimum and put it towards financial freedom. Every time, half towards financial freedom and that will ensure that you are getting wealthy. But saving 20% of your income is most important. Bump that up to 25 as your income increases.

• 38:40Andrew Giancola?

  If you can get to 30, even better. If you can get to 50, you will achieve financial independence 17 years or less. So making sure you increase that amount is very, very important. All right. Really, really good stuff. Uh, great question, Kevin. I truly appreciate it. I wish you some luck as you move forward.

• 38:58Andrew Giancola?

  One of the biggest things I tell people is when you pay off debt, you need a plan. Because when you actually see the finish line, everything changes. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. Their debt-free simulator lets you see when you'll be debt-free based on your balances and your payments. You can even test different scenarios to see how much faster you could eliminate your debt by paying a little extra every single month. And one habit I personally use is my five-minute money drill. Every morning, I check Monarch and I check my spending, I check my accounts, I check my investments and make sure everything is on track. That's what I love about Monarch. It helps you stop guessing and start making progress towards your financial goals. Write your own money story with Monarch.

• 39:41Andrew Giancola?

  Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before. And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes from some of America's top insurers, side by side, for free. And their licensed team helps you compare coverage, prices, and terms, answers your

• 40:26Andrew Giancola?

  questions, and even handles the paperwork so you can get the right policy without the hassle. For me, having life insurance isn't about expecting something to happen, it's about knowing my family is protected so I can actually enjoy these moments together instead of worrying about what comes next. And with PolicyGenius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies, starting at just $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com.

• 41:01Andrew Giancola?

  So the next question is from Geronimo. He asked me the shortest question I've ever been asked that I'm going to read on this show. It's three words. Ready? Is greed good? This one made me think a little bit. And the question really is, is greed good? Like, is pers- yeah, here's a couple of things I want to figure out, okay? Wanting more isn't bad. Having an ambition, or building wealth, or wanting security for your family are all good things. But greed is when having more stops having a finish line. And greed is when you try to get more at the expense of everyone else, at the expense of other people. And greed is when you put nothing else in front of your life except for earning more, getting more stuff.

• 41:46Andrew Giancola?

  And that is where the problem lies. I think every single human being should have some ambition. This is what A increases happiness. The Bible talks about this all the time, is having ambition is, is one of those areas that I think is really, really important. And when you start to look historically at people who had ambitions, but also had good intentions with those ambitions, you can do a lot of good. We need more ambitious people in this world. There are a lot of people out there who are not ambitious enough. They feel as though they can go to work and then come home every single day, and that's all they have to do. But ambition is folks who want to climb the ladder, who want to push further, who want to do the best they possibly can day in and day out. You can become a schoolteacher and have ambition, meaning you want those kids to graduate with the best possible grades

• 42:30Andrew Giancola?

  because you taught them as much as you possibly could. You gave your all. That's ambition. You can have ambition when you're running your businesses and scaling your businesses. And the more you grow your wealth, the more you can give to causes you believe in, the more that you can give to your family so they don't have to suffer so much, the more that you can get your family out of the situation that they are currently in. So if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're saying to yourself, I wish I could be the first in my family. No, you can be the first in your family. And your ambition is what is going to get you there, and it's what's going to drive you there. Wanting more by earning it and creating value, that's what ambition does. It allows you to want more, but not at the cost of other people. No, you want to help other people. You want to create value for other people.

• 43:12Andrew Giancola?

  You want to allow other people in this life to be able to do more with their lives. That's what ambition does. If you're the person, though, that's like, no, I am going to be the person that every extra dollar is going to squeeze. Everybody owes me my money. Everybody owes me every extra dollar. I'm going to squeeze every dollar I can out of every person. That's where greed gets into play. So here's the thing, be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful of me. There's a time where you can risk money in certain periods of time, and it makes sense because greed is what causes people to make mistakes. Greed is what causes people to go in the wrong direction. Greed is what causes people to really get themselves into trouble.

• 43:54Andrew Giancola?

  Because if you have too much greed, you can risk more money than you have, and then all of a sudden you become bankrupt. Every single person that's ever been bankrupt, a lot of times, part of it is associated with greed. Not every time, but a lot of it is associated with greed. If you make the wrong moves because of money, oh, boy, oh, boy, that is the wrong thing to do. If you make decisions because of money only, then probably your greed is kicking in. Like, if you move your family across the country because you're going to make $10,000 more per year, and that's just because your greed wants to make that extra $10,000 per year, but you have to uproot your entire family, that's a problem. And so you want to make sure that you understand the difference between greed and ambition, and how it can absolutely change, you know, your life going forward. Money is a tool for freedom. Money is a tool for time.

• 44:38Andrew Giancola?

  Money is a tool to create value for other people. And money is an intentional tool that you can use to change lives. But if you don't do this in the right way, you can get caught up in greed. And so greed, is it evil? Sure. And the definition that I'm creating, it's, it's something that I wouldn't want. But there can be good greed in, in the form of ambition. And that, what that's going to do is that's going to allow you to want to build wealth for good, to want to build wealth for your family, your friends, and everybody else around you so that you can help them out. So is greed good? No. Is ambition what I'd be going for? Absolutely.

• 45:10Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the last question comes from Catherine. So Catherine is in her mid-50s and wants to know how to invest for retirement with the 10 to 12 years that she has left. So Catherine, 10 to 12 years is plenty of time to make a real difference in your retirement portfolio. And in Master Money Academy, we've had a couple of members who have come through who have, you know, 10 to 12 years left. And we can do some really cool stuff as we've talked to them about some of the cool things they can do. I have seen people, um, you know, really make some massive transformations in the last decade before retirement. So first of all, you've got a lot of opportunity here still. You've got a lot of time left that you can really make a big, big difference. So a couple of things that I want you to think through is first, max the 50-plus limits.

• 45:52Andrew Giancola?

  So in 2026, you could actually have catch-up contributions on a lot of the different accounts. If you can afford it, you could put $24,500 per year into a 401k. Plus, you can also put an additional $8,000 per year in a catch-up contribution. This means you can put $32,500 into your 401k. Now, getting as much as possible in there is the key. You don't have to do all of this if you can't afford it, obviously. But if you do have extra money on hand, you can absolutely look into that. Plus, after the age of 60, between age 60 to 63, they have something called the Super Catch-Up Contribution, which allows you to put $11,250 into these exact plans. Plus, you have your IRAs, which is your Roth IRA or traditional IRA. You get $7,500 into there with a $1,100 catch-up contribution.

• 46:37Andrew Giancola?

  And the HSA also allows you to do a $1,000 catch-up contribution between those. So let's say, for example, that you put $2,000 per month into all of these different accounts. Well, for 12 years, if you did that, and you got a 5% rate of return, that's going to grow to $393,000. At a 7% rate of return, it's going to go, grow to $449,000. And at a 10% rate of return, even more. So it's really important that when you think about this, you note that it's going to make a big dent in your retirement. And just think about this, half a million dollars is an extra $20,000 per year that you can spend in retirement starting. And you might even be able to spend a little bit more than that, 25, 27, in that range, uh, depending on your financial situation. So what I would say is there's a lot of opportunity here for you to look at this.

• 47:23Andrew Giancola?

  A couple of things to think about for retirement are things like targeted retirement funds. They are great at creating a fund that allows you to build. It's based on kind of when you're retiring and how you're thinking about this. That is one way to look at this. You can also do some simple options out there where your retirement will be 30-plus years. And so you want to make sure that you are planning for something like that. And then also having some cash on hand for the first couple of years, just to protect your, your wealth can be very, very helpful as well. And then factoring in things like social security. So having a conversation with something like a, you know, an hourly advisor or a financial advisor who can help you with your social security plan can be helpful because you could take a little bit later and have the ability to be able to get a little bit more every single month. And then also making sure that you pay off high interest debt before retirement. This is super important in planning for healthcare.

• 48:08Andrew Giancola?

  Healthcare is the big one. But if you're going to retire at 65 or older, then Medicare will kick in during that timeframe as well. So this is just the starting point of what I would think about in my 50s. And building out that portfolio would be something where you still have plenty of time. 10 to 12 years, you could do some really great things. Plus your social security and everything else that you may have on hand. If you have any pensions or anything else, any other income sources. And that's going to allow you to get to retirement and be at retirement age where you can, you know, enjoy life and, and enjoy your retirement. So thank you so much for the question. If you have any other questions on that, please let me know. And congrats on getting, getting your investments going and getting closer and closer to retirement. You're at the home stretch, and so we just want to make sure that we are mastering it. So thank you so much to everyone else for also listening to this episode. Again, if you have a question, feel free to send it in to us.

• 48:53Andrew Giancola?

  And cannot thank you guys enough for listening to this podcast episode. Our goal is to bring you as much value as we possibly can, and I hope we did that today. If you want me to help you with your finances, you can join Master Money Academy. That is where we have all of our courses. We have live coaching calls with me every single week. And we have a community of people who are all looking to build wealth. If you want to join Master Money Academy, we'll link that up down below in the show notes. And if you want one-on-one coaching with me, shoot me an email. We will see if you are a good fit. Again, thank you so much for being here, and we will see you on the next episode.

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