Pod Insights The Personal Finance Podcast The Financial Priorities That Matter Most (By Life Stage) About this episode Single, married, kids, divorced, retired. Every stage of life has a completely different set of financial rules. Here is exactly what to prioritize at every stage of your financial life.
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What You'll Learn in This Episode
The top financial priorities for every life stage from single to retired
Why the DINK years are the highest-leverage financial window a couple will ever have and how most people waste them
What high earners get wrong about income versus wealth and how to close the gap
How to keep building wealth during the most financially stretched years of your life when kids are young
Why funding college before retirement is one of the most common and costly mistakes parents make
What people over 40 who feel behind need to do right now to turn it around
How to rebuild your financial life after divorce or the loss of a spouse
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Episode/s Mentioned
5 Side-Hustles That Can Turn into a Full time Income 1
5 Side-Hustles That Can Turn into a Full time Income 2
5 Side-Hustles That Can Turn into a Full time Income 3
The Money Plan for Couples: How to Build Wealth as a Team (Step-by-Step)
He Achieved Financial Independence in 2 Years! (Here's How!) With Justin David Carl
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Question for you:
Which life stage are you in right now and what is the one financial move you know you need to make but have been putting off? Drop it in the comments below.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Andrew Giancola? When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI Website Builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer, or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch.
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1:29 Andrew Giancola? or piece of content that we record. And that's one of the things that I love about Wayfair. You can shop thousands of products across different styles and budgets, use customer photos and reviews to see how things actually look in real homes, and find something that fits your space. They also have Wayfair Verified Products that are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. And with more than 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can feel a lot more confident about what you're ordering. I've used Wayfair for this studio and our home, and I absolutely recommend them for your space. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every single purchase.
2:14 Andrew Giancola? Head to wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair: Every Style, Every Home.
2:29 Andrew Giancola? On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the financial priorities that matter most by life stage.
2:43 Andrew 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 diving into the financial priorities by life stage. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money Newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Listen, I cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five star ratings and reviews. They truly mean the world to us and they truly do help us spread this message.
3:28 Andrew Giancola? We want to create a million millionaires and we believe anybody in this world can become a millionaire. And so we are so excited to help as many people as possible start to do that. Now, in this episode, we're going to be talking through the major financial priorities by life stage. You've heard us do episodes on ages where we will go through each and every single age range and talk through exactly what you need to be doing. You've heard us talk through income levels and some of the priorities that you need to make sure that you are looking into by income level. But the big reality is that every single person out there has a different financial situation that they are dealing with. You could be a single person and your priorities are going to be very different than someone who is retired or recently divorced, or someone out there who has multiple kids,
4:13 Andrew Giancola? or maybe they have young kids or older kids. So there are so many different financial situations that we're going to be diving into today. And I'm really excited for each and every single one of you to learn more about these situations. So as we progress, I want you to think through each of these situations and ask yourself, am I or have I accomplished some of these? Or do I need to take a piece from each and every one of these scenarios in order to advance my financial life further? Because we all want to make sure that we are getting better with our money, getting better with our dollars, so that we can eventually achieve that financial freedom. So really excited to dive into this episode. Without further ado, let's get into it.
4:53 Andrew Giancola? So life stage one is going to be someone who is single. Now, single could be a wide range of ages. And so this is something where I really want you to think through your financial situation. So you could be age 23 and single. Maybe you just started out from graduating from college and you are single, living on your own. You could be dating someone, but most likely if you're dating someone, your financial classification is still single. You could be 43 years old and maybe you have been single for your entire life. You like it that way. You like spending time with yourself. You like spending time on yourself. And so it doesn't really matter what age you are, but what matters is that when you are living the single lifestyle, you have different financial priorities than a lot of other people. Now, the defining characteristic of someone who is single is to understand that you have
5:36 Andrew Giancola? a really powerful financial situation here because you can make choices and you and you alone are the final decision maker. And so for a lot of folks who are single, there's a number of different things of what their financial life looks like. So first, maybe you have lower fixed costs relative to future stages, meaning that you don't have kids on hand that have to worry about. And so because of this, you may have lower overall fixed costs and much higher flexibility. Flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to someone who is single because they have the ability to move quickly. They can shift places. They live very quickly. So for example, let's say you live in a high cost of living area or you live in an apartment that maybe you overextended yourself. You're spending more than 30% of your income on that apartment.
6:20 Andrew Giancola? Well, you can make the choice, boom, very quickly to move somewhere that is less expensive and you're not going to impact the lives of other people. That flexibility is really powerful when it comes to building wealth. Number two is because you have that high flexibility and because you have a low barrier to someone pushing back on you, that means that you're going to have a higher temptation for your lifestyle to inflate because you don't have other people who are going to keep you in check. No one is holding you accountable, so it's only up to you. This is really, if you are single, personal responsibility is everything in that arena. So if you just graduated from college, I want you to focus your time and energy on thinking about your personal responsibility and some of the ways that you can make sure... Sure that you can hold yourself in check.
7:04 Andrew Giancola? Doing monthly check-ins with your budget is a big one. Being able to go out and ensure that you are on track with your money or checking your net worth is a big one as well. And so, understanding these things can really, really help you. Another big thing is things like rent, or subscriptions, or going out, or travel and convenience can eat away at most of your paycheck without you even realizing it. So you have a disadvantage here in terms of you may have more flexibility, but you have less income sources than maybe some of the other ones that we're going to talk about in the future. Because folks who are married, sure, they share one roof and so they have more money coming in because of that, but they have less flexibility because they have to make sure that they understand what the other person is doing.
7:46 Andrew Giancola? So you're going to have some high priorities when you are single and there are some things that I want you to focus on. Because this is a time in your life where you can make some really big foundational changes to your finances that can absolutely change your life forever. So the first thing is making sure you have that emergency fund, especially the starter emergency fund in place. So we have something called the 136 method. That means that you save one month of expenses, then three months of expenses, then get to six months of expenses ultimately as the minimum amount in your emergency fund. So if you don't have that starter emergency fund yet and you are single, you need to make sure that you are having that because nobody's going to be able to come and save you. You don't have additional income sources coming in. And so because of this, you want to make sure that emergency fund is in place because it's up to you to protect yourself.
8:30 Andrew Giancola? And so first, you need to figure out how much do you spend every single month? And then first, you're going to save one month is your ultimate goal. And so if you spend $5,000 every single month, you want to put $5,000 into a high-yield savings account. Then, once you finish doing that, then we're going to focus on our high-interest debt. So any debt above a 6% interest rate that you are paying. So maybe you have credit card debt. Well, that needs to go as fast as we possibly can and remove that credit card debt from the equation so that we can ensure that we can continue to build wealth. Credit card debt for someone who is single is a massive liability because it is only up to you. You don't have other incomes coming in to help you pay off that debt. And so because of this, we want to make sure we get rid of credit card debt. Or any personal loans, if you've got buy now, pay later loans, things like that,
9:15 Andrew Giancola? you want to get rid of those as well. Or if you have really high interest car payments, those all need to be attacked and need to be paid off as fast as you possibly can. The only thing I wouldn't classify as high interest debt, even if the interest rate is higher than 6%, is going to be your mortgage because you could refinance that mortgage and ensure that you can lower that interest rate over time. So everything else besides that, we want to make sure that we get that high interest debt paid off because again, it's you and only you out there. Next, you want to make sure that once you have that high interest debt paid off, then we're getting to that three month emergency fund because the three month emergency fund is going to help you protect against life. Life is going to happen to you and you want to make sure that you are protected when life happens. This is going to be a big deal for every single life situation and every single stage
10:00 Andrew Giancola? of life, but I still want to make sure that folks who are single are really focusing their time and energy and having cash on hand, having that liquidity to help protect you against life. Next, making sure that you get the employer 401k match every single time. So the 401k match is 100% free money. And so your employer may offer a 50% match based on dollars that you put into your employer sponsor plan. They may offer 75%. They may offer 100%. No matter what they offer, I want you to ensure that you are getting that employer match. Now, what is an employer match? It's very simple. Let me explain what my first employer match was when I was in the corporate world.
10:41 Andrew Giancola? So we had a 401k plan where if you put in up to 4% of your income into that 401k plan, my employer would also match that. So let's say, for example, 4% of your income is $100, just for easy math. Well, if you put in $100, your employer would also put in $100. And so you'd get that match and it's free money just for you contributing to your future and your retirement account. So that's a very big one that I think a lot of people need to make sure that they are looking at. Also, if you are single, I want you looking at the Roth IRA. The Roth IRA means money goes in, that's already been taxed, it grows tax free and you could pull the money out tax free. But this is going to help you and give you some big advantage. Is when you get to retirement age, because there are no required minimum distributions,
11:27 Andrew Giancola? you can pull that money out as you please, as you get further along the lines in retirement. And so this is one where you got to plan to protect yourself and make sure that you are prioritizing your financial freedom, because again, nobody else is going to come and help you during this timeframe. And if you have no prospects in the future to marry or anything like that, then you want to make sure that you are taking care of your retirement as if you don't get married. This is the reality of being single and some of the things that you want to be thinking through. Now, the fifth thing I will say, the fifth top priority for someone who is single, is to spend a lot of time focusing on investing aggressively in income growth. So, things like your skills, I want you to build up that skill stack as much as possible, because your income is going to be a huge portion to you being able to build wealth.
12:12 Andrew Giancola? You can't split bills right now unless you got a roommate. You can't split housing costs unless you got a roommate. And so if you don't want to do that for the rest of your life, I want you to spend a lot of time focused on increasing your income, making sure that you're not loyal to your day job. You can move jobs if you want to, to ensure that you make more money. And looking at side income sources can also be a great way to help you increase your income over time. We have an entire series called Side Hustles that can turn into a full-time income. We can link a couple of those down below in the show notes for you to check out. But those are things that I really want each and every single one of you doing, is focusing on growing your income. Now, what type of traps do people fall into who are single? Because there are traps that you can fall into if you are not careful
12:56 Andrew Giancola? and you are not aware of some of these money traps. Well, really, a lot of people treat singlehood as the waiting room. They treat this as a time where, hey, I'm going to spend all my money, because at some point in time, I'm going to get married and then I'll be able to start investing, or then I'll be able to do some of these other things that Andrew was talking about. And so they treat it like the waiting room. Like this is a timeframe where they're just going to have fun. They're going to spend all their money. They're not going to focus on their finances or their future, because instead, they can wait on that later on down the line. And really, this is one of the best opportunities that you will have, because you can build up your financial foundation now. And then, once you get married or You find someone to bring into your life, then you can be able to absolutely accelerate your path to wealth.
13:39 Andrew Giancola? So you have some of the lowest expenses that you will ever have. Because there's only one person in the household, you can afford to rent a smaller place. You can afford to have less costs when it comes to food or have less costs when it comes to all the other bills associated with a relationship. And so because of this, you want to take advantage of this and you want to leverage this as much as possible. Again, it doesn't matter if you're single and you're young or you're single and you're older. This is a time where you can leverage this and really make a big impact on your bottom line. So if you are single, I highly encourage you to go through some of these priorities and make sure you get it done. Let's get into stage two.
14:19 Andrew Giancola? Stage two is gonna be one of the best overall opportunities that anybody is gonna have, which are DINKs. So DINKs stand for dual income, no kids. Now, I used to watch this cartoon when I was a kid and it was called Doug. It was my favorite cartoon overall. If you've never seen Doug, go back and watch the old Nickelodeon cartoon episodes. I used to watch this every single day. And back in my day, before even DVRs when I was a kid, you had to make sure that you were in front of the TV when a new cartoon was gonna air. So every single day, right before my bedtime at 7:30, I would watch Doug. And Doug had a neighbor and his neighbor's name was Mr. Dink. In reality, if you go back and look at some of those old cartoons,
15:02 Andrew Giancola? they were sending messages that were very, very interesting. But Mr. Dink was Doug's neighbor who seemed to have every new gadget. He seemed to have the nicest house on the block. He was able to do all these really cool things and him and his wife had no kids. Because they had a dual income with no kids, they had all this disposable income that allowed them to do some really, really cool things. And so people who have dual incomes but no kids are really in one of the most advantageous situations you will ever see. There are also people classified in this life stage that are called DINKwats. Dual income, no kids, with a dog. And we'll tell you just a couple of extra tips if you are someone who is a DINK. My wife and I, we were dinkwads for years before we had kids. So who is this for?
15:47 Andrew Giancola? These are people who are married or partnered, both working, no kids yet, or they don't ever plan on having kids. They have this combined income, which makes them strong financially, and their fixed costs haven't exploded because kids, most people know now, are gonna see fixed costs rise rapidly once you have kids. This is arguably the highest leverage position that you could ever be in and the best financial window for you to be able to build wealth. So when I was a dink, when I was someone who was dual income, no kids, this is where I built my financial foundation. This is where the financial foundation came from and where you can build up the foundation for the rest of your life. See, when you build up a house, the foundation is the most important thing. This is why you have to do it, obviously, first.
16:30 Andrew Giancola? But if the foundation cracks, the entire house is gonna come tumbling down. And so you wanna make sure that you are building your foundation with solid concrete. You have steel rebar in that foundation, and you are making sure that you can never tumble and you can never fall down. Dinks, if you are a young dink, I want you to make sure that you are doing this right now. So what does your financial life look like if you are a dink? Well, you have two incomes covering expenses that want mostly one income could handle. So if you can figure out a way to maybe save an income, that could be a really powerful way to do this. The surplus is real. Your ability to be able to go out and travel or your ability to be able to go out and do really cool things and have some flexibility and also spend time with someone else while doing it is a very, very powerful thing.
17:14 Andrew Giancola? Now, your surplus is real, but the problem is, for a lot of dinks out there, it rarely feels this way because you just had a wedding or a honeymoon, or you have to buy some new furniture, or we finally have money, but spending absorbs most of the margin that you have in place. And so I am gonna talk through some of the top priorities for people who have dual income with no kids and some of the traps that you could fall into and make sure that you avoid. So first, you wanna get on the same page as a couple. If you do have dual income, no kids, I want you to make sure that you were on the exact same page and thinking through what your financial strategy is going to be. So first, it is very important to make sure that you have your money dates. We just had an Recently talking about how to manage money as a couple. If you didn't hear that episode, we will link it up down below in the show notes so that you could check it out.
17:58 Andrew Giancola? But I systematically went through the exact steps you need to take as a couple to make sure you get on the same page. Also, it also walks through how to have shared goals. You need to make sure that sure both of you are going to have your financial priorities that are individual. But you also need to be prioritizing your shared goals. What do you want to do in this life? When do you want to retire? Where do you want to retire? Are you going to have kids? Are you not going to have kids? What is your housing situation going to look like? Do you want to have multiple houses? Is that what your wealthy life looks like? And you want to make sure that you understand all of these different areas. Then start directing money towards those goals. This is one of the most fun and powerful things you can do with your money. It's directing money towards your actual priorities in life. It is so amazing.
18:41 Andrew Giancola? Once your money starts being used as a tool, doing exactly what you want it to do in life. Also, making sure you have a joint system. Are you going to have joint accounts? Or are these accounts going to be separate? Well, if you are going to have joint accounts, how are you going to manage money in that situation? Or if you're going to have two separate accounts with a joint bills account? How do you set that up? So you want to make sure you're on the same page on all these different areas. Number two is because you have two incomes. Retirement accounts are now not optional. They are something you need to make sure you're getting after. So having two incomes means you should be able to afford to put some sort of money into a retirement account. And so I want you to be looking at the HSA, the Roth IRA, the 401k, and even your taxable brokerage account. If you have some extra money left over.
19:25 Andrew Giancola? This is very important to make sure that you note, because if you do not do this, you are literally wasting away some of the easiest years to take advantage of those retirement contributions. Your future self depends on you and the actions that you are taking right now. And I highly recommend that you get money into those retirement accounts. Next is I want you to have the full emergency fund. So the six month emergency fund is going to be top priority for you, especially if you have no kids. I want you to try to get there as fast as possible, because when you do have kids, that emergency fund is going to need to be used a lot more than you think it would. And so making sure that you build it up now, while it's a little bit easier and the expenses. Are a little bit lower, especially if you plan on having kids all the way up to six months.
20:06 Andrew Giancola? Now, the beautiful thing about having two incomes is that if one of you loses your job, at least you have the other income to help support. And then you have the emergency fund that comes into play. But I have friends, for example, who are couples who work at the same company. If you work at the same company, your risk has risen dramatically in terms of diversification of incomes. And so you want to make sure you have that fully funded six month emergency fund. If that is the case, because you are leveraging all of your job and career risk within one company. Next is all consumer debt should be paid off. You should not be taking on consumer debt if you are someone who is dual income, no kids, because you have those two incomes coming in. I'm not saying it's easy to be a dink. I'm saying you're going to have less bills than maybe some of these other things that we're going to be talking about here.
20:51 Andrew Giancola? And trust me, I know how that is. Also, if you plan on owning a home, I think everybody out there should, at one point in time, think about owning a property as long as the numbers make sense and you run total costs of ownership. And if that's the case, making sure you are saving aggressively for that down payment or that starter home could be a great place to start. If you already own a home, just running total cost of ownership, making sure you can actually afford that home, because it's going to cause a lot of financial stress if you start spending more than 30% of your income on your housing costs. So overall, you just want to make sure that your mortgage and all of your additional housing costs do not cost more than 30% of your income. So saving is a huge top priority for folks who are dual income, no kids. Now, what are some of the traps that people fall into when they are dinks? Or even dink wads?
21:35 Andrew Giancola? If you are a dink wad where you have a dog as well, making sure you have some extra savings set aside for pet expenses, especially towards later on in life. Both of my dogs, before they passed away, we had so many different vet and medical expenses as they got older, because we were trying to make sure they were comfortable and happy and all those different things. And so those expenses rise as time goes on. Now, what are some of the traps that people fall into? The first one is that people see the dual income lifestyle as something where they can spend those dual income and they just live this lavish lifestyle without thinking about their future as well. The dual income advantage is that you can take a portion of each of your incomes and put Toward your financial future, but if you don't do that right now because you overextended yourself,
22:17 Andrew Giancola? then you want to make sure that we are reducing the overall expenses that we are paying. Another thing is if you both have student loans, you want to get rid of those student loans as early as possible so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labor because those could be eating into a lot of the costs and the expenses that you currently have. And so, once you get rid of some of those, it can be very, very helpful. Now, this window also closes when kids arrive. So if you don't take advantage of this window and get rid of some of that debt and make sure that you are paying down some of these expenses, then this window is going to close and it gets much, much harder if you do plan on having kids. I'm just warning you right now. Having kids is very expensive. You may have heard people say that, but you don't know or have faced the reality yet. It is very expensive, especially if you will both are working. You plan on having them in daycare or childcare.
23:01 Andrew Giancola? And so, this window will close if you do not take care of some of these financial responsibilities. Most couples will also look back at their dink years and say, where did all that money go? I've seen this happen time and time again, where if you do not build up your foundation, your financial foundation is the most important thing that you need to do during these years. And then you decide to have kids. Well, you're going to have a lot harder time later on in life because you did not build that foundation. We have countless people in Master Money Academy, for example, that said, I wish I knew this stuff earlier and had my financial foundation built up before I had kids. Because it gets so much harder, guys. I just think back to when my wife and I were first married. It was just me, her and two dogs. And even back then, I was like, man, we're spending too much.
23:45 Andrew Giancola? Now that I think back on it, we were spending a fraction, probably 33 to 35% of what we spend now. Obviously, our lifestyles have changed. We were making a lot less money back then. But at the same time, there has been just a huge, huge difference in how much we were spending and we were still really enjoying life back then. The only thing I wish I did a little more when I was a dink was her and I would travel even more than we actually did. We traveled a bunch of places, but I wish we traveled a lot more. And a part of it was just job flexibility and those types of things. But please take advantage of some of that stuff while you still can. Enjoy some of life while you still can, but also save for your financial future. If you have that foundation built up, it's a beautiful thing. And you're going to look back on those dink years as some of your favorite years before you had kids there. So I think it's a really, really powerful way to think about this stage.
24:29 Andrew Giancola? And stage two is one that if you are in this stage, you are blessed. Enjoy it. Have some fun. Let's get to stage three.
24:37 Andrew Giancola? Stage three, and just so you know, these are not in a particular order. These are just different stages of life that you could be in. For some people, they could be in these stages for the long haul. You could be in one stage forever. And so this is something I just want you to note. This is not in a particular order. But stage three are Henrys. What does a Henry stand for? High earner, but not rich yet. So all of my high earners out there who feel as though you have this really high income coming in, and you don't know what to do with it. Typically, it's somewhere around $150,000 plus. Maybe you're all the way up to $500,000. But wealth has not followed the paycheck. You could be single, you could be dual income, or married with kids. It doesn't matter what those situations are, but you are a high earner and you are not rich yet. And so for a lot of you, you're dealing with a couple of different things.
25:22 Andrew Giancola? One, you could be dealing with high taxes and that tax situation is eating into your earning potential and your earning power. Number two, you could be dealing with high lifestyle inflation, whereas maybe you have this big income coming in, but you're still living paycheck to paycheck. I have talked to people making almost a million dollars a year who still live paycheck to paycheck. Your income does not mean that you are rich or you are good at managing money. Instead, a lot of high earners are still living paycheck to paycheck because they don't know what to do with those dollars next. And so I want you to focus your time and energy on thinking about, do you have a high lifestyle? Maybe you drive the fancy car. Maybe you got the fancy house. We got to think about that and what we're going to be doing there. And then number three is high expectations. Maybe you have some high expectations for your lifestyle because you have this high income,
26:07 Andrew Giancola? or you went to school for a long time and you really feel as though you deserve to have the fancy car, or you deserve to have the nice watch, or you deserve to have the designer clothes. And so this is something where you have these high expectations for yourself, and really it has not turned into wealth because you've spent the majority of it. Now, if you often feel financially stressed despite the income that's coming in, this is a huge indicator of a Henry because a lot of them just don't know what to do with their dollars next. Now, your income could be strong, but your wealth accumulation just really has not happened or has not cut up. And you're still carrying significant lifestyle inflation if you don't have a big delta. If you don't have a lot of difference between your income and expenses, and there's not a big gap left over every single month,
26:51 Andrew Giancola? then most likely you are overspending in a few different categories. And so let's talk through some of the things and the top priorities that you need to make sure that you are looking at if you are a high earner, not rich yet. This is very, very common in the United States right now. I see so many people making over $150,000 per year who really are still living paycheck to paycheck. It is very, very common. And so this is some things that I want you to focus on. One is tax optimization. If you are a high earner, but not rich yet, if you're getting phased out of the Roth, for example, or you are completely phased out of the Roth, and your household income has continued to rise, I want you to get serious about tax optimization. So first, you can look into things like the backdoor Roth, the mega backdoor Roth. You can look at deferred compensation. You can look at tax loss harvesting
27:34 Andrew Giancola? if your portfolio is growing and is large enough. But these are some of the things that I want you to really get serious about. We just had a tax master class inside Master Money Academy, going through some of the things that A, W2 earners should be doing, B, some things that business owners should be doing, C, what high earners should be looking into. And then D, we talked about some optimal strategies when it came to real estate. And then we went into even some advanced tax strategies. So in Master Money Academy, a lot of our students had a ton of great questions when it came to what high earners should be doing and how they should be thinking about this. And so when we do those master classes, it's very, very helpful to kind of see where people land. So these are just some of the things that you should be looking into when it comes to tax strategy. If you don't have a CPA in your corner, or a fee-only advisor, or a fiduciary advisor in your corner,
28:19 Andrew Giancola? it's going to help you a lot, especially if you're a high earner. Make sure that you're making the right choices. Two is I want you to build a financial plan that matches your income. See, most Henrys, what they do is they end up just winging it. They feel as though, eh, I can just wing my personal finance side because I've been so good with my income. And I feel as though the income is just going to take care of itself as time goes on. So I'm going to wing this and just hope my bank accounts grow over time. No, we need to get a big time financial plan locked. Even if you have to hire an advisor to put that advisor in place to get your financial plan locked in so that you feel clarity, I highly recommend doing that. Maybe jump into Master Money Academy. Make sure that you can actually get a financial step-by-step financial plan put together. That's exactly what we designed this for, so that you have the steps,
29:03 Andrew Giancola? the next steps that you need to be taking when it comes to that. If you want a link to Master Money Academy, check it out down below. Seven-day free trial if you want to check it out. Also, if you do feel like you're winging it, make sure you get some clarity. Make sure you get some guidance, understand what your North Star is and why you are doing this. Number three is I want you to ruthlessly audit your lifestyle spending. So how would you ruthlessly audit your lifestyle spending? Well, first, I want you to just take 30 days and I want you to go and just track how much you're spending in certain areas. So my favorite way to do this is when I feel like my spending gets out of whack, I'll go into Monarch Money and I will start to track every single expense over the course of next month. I do this anyway, but when I really feel like it's getting out of whack, I will buckle down and make sure everything is exact.
29:46 Andrew Giancola? So the way that I do this is called the five-minute drill. So I will dive in to every single transaction and I will categorize that transaction and make sure every single dollar and every single cent is accounted for. Do this over the course of 30 days and all of a sudden you know how much you're spending every single month and you know how much you're spending every single month in that category. Takes five minutes a day. Actually, really, now that I have it all down, it takes about 90 seconds per day and you know exactly where your dollars are going. Then after those 30 days, you can assess, okay, what do I need to do to make sure that I'm reducing this overall spending if I am overall spending? What are some of the areas I can cut right now? Look at the big stuff first, then come down to the little stuff. The little stuff matters a lot less for you high-income earners, especially if you are spending large amounts of money out every single month.
30:30 Andrew Giancola? The big stuff is what's going to make the big impact for you and it's going to make the big changes for you. A lot of people focus on the lattes or the random Amazon packages. And sure, those can add up when you put them all together and it does make a big difference. So I'm not discounting those. But what I am saying is that you also need to make sure you're looking at the big stuff. Your housing, your food, your transportation, or your car payments, the ones that are really eating into your, your overall account. Or your eating out or your Uber Eats, is that what's killing you? You gotta look at some of the bigger stuff and how it impacts your overall financial situation. So housing, food, transportation, daycare costs, those are the big four that I want you to look at. Number four is you need to, if you have a high income, max out every single tax advantage account. I want you to max out the Roth and I want you at least max out your 401k or your pre-tax accounts.
31:14 Andrew Giancola? If you can't do that and you're making over $200,000 per year, then you need to reevaluate some of your lifestyle expenses. Obviously, a location matters too, but you need to reevaluate some of that stuff, especially if you are in a regular location. So those two are big, big deals for a lot of people to make sure that you are looking at those. And then build a real portfolio. You want to see your portfolio boom, get bigger and bigger every single year. You should see some big chunks going in on a yearly basis and your net worth should be changing every single month. Meaning that if you have a lot of income coming in and you are actually contributing two, three, four, $5,000 plus per month into your investment accounts, you should start to see some big swings.
31:56 Andrew Giancola? And so for my high earners who are not rich yet, I want you to track your net worth on a monthly basis. In fact, I just read a stat. It said that 89% of millionaires who track their net worth on a monthly basis, claim that they became a millionaire because that net worth statement actually motivated them to keep pushing forward. They saw the big changes, they saw the big swings, and that was the big difference for them. So I want you to make sure that if you are a high earner, but you're not rich yet, that you are spending time thinking about your net worth and you are monitoring this. Get big chunks of money into these investment accounts because it is a much better tax situation for you than would be on your income. Your income is getting taxed out the wazoo if you have a high income. I don't want that for you. I don't want you to get nailed when it comes to your taxes.
32:38 Andrew Giancola? Instead, I want you moving money into these investments because you're going to get a much better tax efficiency than you would just taking that income and sticking it in your checking account. Investing is a great way to help shelter your money from taxes. And then real estate is another thing that you can look into as well. Now, what are some of the traps that people who are high earners but not rich yet, what do they fall into? Well, first, they are confusing income for wealth, meaning that their income could be a big, big differentiator for their life. It could change their life forever. But they are confusing their income as being wealthy instead of taking that income, a portion of it, and put it towards wealth building activities. Your income does not mean you're wealthy. Where you put that income is what's going to dictate if you're wealthy or not. And I want you to think about this more and more as time goes on. Let me say that again for some of you in the back.
33:23 Andrew Giancola? Your income does not mean you're wealthy. Where you put your income is going to dictate if you're wealthy or not. How you handle that income is going to dictate if you're wealthy or not. Not income coming in because you could spend all that income and you have nothing to show for it at the end of every single year. There have been so many high earners out there who got to the end of their lifetime. They're like, I have nothing to show for this. I worked so incredibly hard. I made all of this money and I have nothing to show for it. I don't want that for any one of you whatsoever. And so that's really, really important to make sure you're avoiding that. You can earn 300K per year and still have a negative net worth. I think you need to note that. And I think a lot of people don't realize how bad their financial situation can become if they do not get a hold of this. Doctors and attorneys are notorious for being folks who have really high incomes, but are terrible with money.
34:08 Andrew Giancola? And this is something that I think most of you need to just get a grip on this. You need to get a grip on your financial situation. Automate your finances if you have to. The beautiful thing about being a high earner is that you can get away with automating your finances and not even having to budget as much as you think you do. So I'm a higher, I still budget. I think you should budget, but if you really don't want to, you're like, I just do not have the time. Then at least, at the very least, automate your finances because that is a form of budgeting that can make sure that you're not really even having to do anything whatsoever. The Henry trap is also falling into the status trap, meaning that you feel as though because you have a high income, maybe your peers around you also have a high income. So you need to drive the fancy car. You need to have the house with 12 rooms that you don't even spend time in.
34:51 Andrew Giancola? You need to make sure that you present yourself in the perfect way. Listen, those are traps that you can fall into and you need to know when that is happening. I don't want you to fall into these financial traps, especially when you're a high earner because you have an opportunity that could change your life forever. So that is the third stage is Henry's high earner, not rich yet. Really, really important that you avoid at all costs, some of those traps because you have the greatest opportunity of all, a high income and put it towards future you so that you can retire on the day. That is what I recommend for each and every single one of you. Let's get into stage four.
35:26 Andrew Giancola? All right, stage fours are DIWK. Now, this is a PG rated show. I'm not going to say that out loud, but what does it stand for? Dual income, married with young kids. And so when it comes to this acronym, this is going to be one that I think for a lot of you out there, folks who have young kids are going to have different financial priorities than folks who have kids, middle school and older. And this is going to be where we want to make sure that if your kids are under the age of 10, and a lot of listeners have kids under the age of 10, you want to make sure that you are prioritizing very certain things. Why is it different? What is the big difference maker here? Well, costs are very high when you have kids under the age of 10, when it comes to overall daycare costs. A lot of people are spending money on daycare that costs more than their mortgage.
36:11 Andrew Giancola? And so because of this, we want to make sure that we are focusing on this, honing in on this, and understanding that this can be a stressful time, but it's only a season of life. So this is folks who are married with kids under the age of 10. They are probably the most financially stretched demographic in the entire country. And because they have two incomes that somehow feel like less than one used to. And so this is something that because they have so many different expenses, there's so many things going on, there's so much happening, and they are probably the most sleep deprived, they're most stressed, and they are the demographic with the, really the most, the highest cortisol spikes in the entire country. There's things like daycare, there's things like diapers, there's things like pediatrician visits, you know, kids activities, and there's general chaos that they just have to keep up with.
36:55 Andrew Giancola? If you want to go out on a date, you got to hire a babysitter for $120. If you want to do anything in life, you got to figure out who's going to watch the kids because they can't watch themselves, they are under the age of 10, and you really just got to pay a lot more for everything that you are doing. Now, daycare alone could cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 per child, depending on where you are living. And this is something where you add in a mortgage, you add in two car payments, you add in groceries for a family that continues to grow, and the cost of living of having a life, and the math really gets messy for folks who are dual income with young kids because this is, gets harder and harder. Plus, if you got things like student loans coming in, you got liabilities that you are having to deal with. With boy oh boy does it become stressful?
37:37 Andrew Giancola? No wonder folks in this generation or during this age cannot afford homes because housing has also outpaced things like income. And so we want to make sure that we are thinking through this first. Now, what are some of your top priorities? If you are dual income, married with young kids. Well, number one is you want to protect your income first. So making sure you look at term life insurance or disability insurance. Those are non-negotiables. So I want you to decide, hey, I need to make sure that I'm getting term life insurance because if anything were to happen to us, we need to protect our income first. So term life insurance at Policy Genius is the number one place that I would recommend. It is the one that I think is the most powerful. It is the easiest. And so they've been a show sponsor for a long time. So check out Policy Genius if you have not already. That's where I got my term life insurance. That's where my wife got her term life insurance.
38:22 Andrew Giancola? And so for all of us, it is very, very important to make sure you do this. Now I keep my term life insurance under my family trust. That's where it currently sits. But for you specifically, you don't have to do that. If you don't have a trust in place, just make sure you have it is the big, big thing. Also disability insurance is for folks who if you were to get injured and you were, or something were to happen to you and you were going to lose one of your incomes. This at least helps you with a percentage of that income, if not the entire income, depending on what type of insurance that you have. Helps you cover that as well. So if you need to make sure that you are protecting yourself with disability insurance, that's going to be very important. Number two is your emergency fund becomes increasingly important. The more little kids you have in your house. So I continue to increase my emergency fund each and every kid that I have.
39:07 Andrew Giancola? So I usually like to have a minimum of six months in my emergency fund. And then each child that I have, I will increase that minimum amount over that timeframe. And so that's just my swan number, my sleep well at night number. You can decide what your sleep well at night number is, but the minimum you need to have is six months. Because if you have a job loss or you have an issue that comes into play, you want to make sure you have a six month runway to take care of all the bills, take care of all the kids stuff. And make sure that your family's lifestyle is not changed dramatically from you losing a job. That emergency fund helps protect you against life and also ensures that you can continue to build wealth without having to dip into your 401k, your Roth IRA, or any other retirement accounts. That's not the thing I want for you. And so we want to make sure that we do that. Number three is don't stop retirement contributions and use kids as an excuse.
39:51 Andrew Giancola? You need to make sure that you are still taking care of your retirement because you're going to put a burden on your kids later on down the line if you are not. And so this is not the last thing that you take care of. It is the first thing that you take care of within your budget. And so making sure you do that is very important. Number four is if you're thinking about your kids' college or your kids' future, start a 529 plan. A 529 plan can help your kids when it comes to college savings. And even if it's a very small amount of money, because you have 18 years or because you have 10 years or 12 years, however old your kids are, you have this longer time horizon for this money to compound. You can invest those dollars and it'll eat into a big chunk of where your dollars are. Now, if you're trying to think through, where do I open a 529 plan? Mine's at Fidelity. I just got a flexible 529 plan. I invested in the S and P 500 and that's just the way I have it structured.
40:36 Andrew Giancola? You can open it wherever you want. Vanguard has some great ones. Charles Schwab has great ones. Fidelity has great ones. Those are the three places that I would look for a flexible 529 plan. And it can be very, very helpful. Next, and this is a big one, is to make a daycare cost exit plan. So at some point in time, your kids are going to graduate if they're in daycare. They're going to graduate from daycare and they're going to be done and they're going to go into school. Unless you send them to private school or you send them to other schools that are going to cost money. If you don't do that, make an exit plan. Well, we have all this money that we are about to save. What are we going to do with this? And what I would highly recommend is once your kids are out of daycare, you take that extra check of cash and you start funneling it to your future. Putting it in your retirement accounts, putting it in your brokerage account.
41:19 Andrew Giancola? Start investing those dollars and start to build up that portfolio and that base even more. If you already have your base in place and you've continued to invest over time, taking a bigger chunk and putting it towards that so you can achieve financial freedom even faster, is by far one of the best things you can do with those dollars. But when does daycare end? Ask yourself that question. And then what does that margin unlock? How much margin is left after daycare ends? Run the math, do the numbers and then identify where that money is going to go. See, people who never get ahead with money, never identify when some of these windfalls do come up. They never identify where those dollars are going to go. And if you do that, like for example, the extreme couponers out there. If you're an extreme couponer and you're saving all this money on groceries and you're spending hours and hours and hours, but you don't identify the savings of where that savings is going to go,
42:04 Andrew Giancola? that's just going to get commingled in your checking account. You're going to spend it again. People never get ahead if you don't identify where money needs to go. And so I recommend that you do that. Now, the trap for a lot of folks here. Is to put the pause on financially while the kids are young. You're going to put the pause on for your retirement accounts until your kids get older. Now, you're missing out on some precious years if you do that. And you are really, really doing yourself a disservice by doing that. Instead, even if it's smaller amounts of money over that timeframe, making sure that you get dollars invested is very, very important. Do not interrupt your compound interest unnecessarily. Do not interrupt your contributions unnecessarily. The key is to just keep buying. Just keep buying more investments. I don't care if you have to reduce it down 20%.
42:50 Andrew Giancola? Just keep buying more because you do not want to pause or stop. It will make a big difference in your money. Now, if you're someone out there, you're like, I live in a high cost of living area. I know I'm going to have kids one day. Maybe one of the things you want to do is you want to try to achieve coast five before you have kids. That is a great goal because if you keep coast five before you have kids, well, worst case scenario, whatever your coast five number is, you at least know, hey, my retirement will be covered. I may have to work a little longer than I wanted to, but my retirement will be covered based on hitting coast five early. That is one that I think could be something for a lot of folks who have young kids. But progress doesn't have to be super fast at this stage. This is a stage where it gets messy. This is a stage where you can be okay without progressing, you know, super aggressively like everybody else.
43:35 Andrew Giancola? You see people on Instagram, you see people on TikTok. You're comparing yourself to them because they have these high net worths. Progress is going to slow down a little bit. It's going to be less than what you think it is. And really, I want you to tell yourself that's okay. It's okay to slow down your progress a little bit during the season, but just don't let it be permanent. Don't let it be permanent where then you just get used to this and all of a sudden that daycare money comes rolling back and you make it rain on a couple of vacations. And then all of a sudden you make it rain on a couple of other things. Now, let's make sure we're putting those dollars in the right spots and we're making sure our future selves are prioritized. Put those into wealth building activities. That's what I want you to do. Let's get to stage five.
44:15 Andrew Giancola? The next one is one income households with kids, or S I W K. So this is going to be the income supporting a household with children, but they only have one specific income. Now, this is two distinct situations that could be happening here. Either a married couple with one income, where one person stays home with the kids, while the other person goes to work and they are the breadwinner of the household, and/or someone who is a single parent going at it alone. Now, these are two situations that you want to make sure that you understand you actually have some different priorities when we're thinking about this. Now, the finances look very different in terms of how they got here, but the constraints are absolutely the same when you are looking at these two different households. Now, for the one income married household,
44:58 Andrew Giancola? the decision to have a spouse stay home was usually the right one for the family. You had a conversation about this. You thought about this and you're like, hey, I don't want somebody else raising my kids. I want to make sure that I am staying home with the kids. If it makes sense financially, we may have to cut back in some areas, but we are willing to make that sacrifice in order to do this. Now, the other situation is the single parent household. Maybe you had some sort of situation happen within your life, and so you are a single parent. And that could be for a number of different circumstances. We don't have to go into each and every single one of those, but it is going to be one where you have it a little more difficult in the first instance. Why? Because you don't have childcare just built into what you're doing. You don't have somebody else there who can always help you out while you go out and earn your income. So your stress is going to be a little higher. Your budget constraints are going to be a little bit different. But at the same time,
45:43 Andrew Giancola? you're still going to have to deal with some of the same things that we are talking about here. Now, the first thing to note is the emergency fund is critical here. You must have that six months in place because you only have one income coming in, and your entire family is depending on that income. So if that income goes away, you must have that emergency fund in place, and you must have it take care of your financial situation. Number two is the working spouse must maximize their retirement contributions. There's only one shot at this, and you are the only person who is working through these. And so make it sure you maximize those contributions. It can be powerful. But a lot of folks don't know this, that you can have something called a spousal IRA. So even though you have one working spouse, you can also...
46:24 Andrew Giancola? Also have a spouse open up a Roth IRA who is not working and they have the ability to do that even though they don't have the direct earned income because they are a stay at home parent, the IRS allows you to have a spousal IRA. And so you can actually both have retirement accounts, which is a really, really cool hack. We talked about this recently in Master Money Academy and a lot of people didn't know this existed, but a spousal IRA is a great option for those, even if you're not working, to have a retirement account in place. Term insurance, especially for the working spouse, is essential. You need to make sure that you absolutely have term insurance. You have a whole family depending on you for income. And so go to Policy Genius, make sure you get that term insurance. Disability is also going to be a big deal here. You want to make sure that you have both of those if you can, because if you lose that income,
47:07 Andrew Giancola? really, you gotta make sure that you are protected. Four is I want you to build a bare bones budget. You want to make sure that if you only have one income coming in, the budget becomes increasingly important, especially a line by line item budget. You're gonna have to spend more time managing money than if you are a two income household. And you want to make sure that each and every single one of these dollars is accounted for. You know what's going out, you know what's coming in, because if you do not do that, and if you are not on top of your money, you really can't make the adjustments and you gotta make adjustments on the fly when you only have one income. You gotta do it quickly. And so that is something I definitely want you to do. And then for single parents specifically, there are things like tax credits that you have in your favor that I want you to take advantage of. Things like the child tax
47:50 Andrew Giancola? credit, or the EITC, or the dependent care FSA, all of these are going to help you, especially if you are a single parent. You want to make sure you take advantage of as many of those tax credits as possible, and really, really focus in on your budget. It's going to be very, very important for you specifically because you don't have additional help. Now, what are the traps a lot of people fall into when they are, you know, in this situation? One is they survive the month and call that a success. I don't want you to just survive. I want you to thrive when it comes to your money. And so we need to focus our time and energy on figuring out why we are just trying to survive and why we are just trying to get by. For most of you out there, if you're overspending, that's one thing. But for most of you, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, then looking at our income equation and trying to increase our income can be very, very helpful.
48:36 Andrew Giancola? I've seen people, for example, there's a guy on TikTok that I follow and he it's a, he's married and he has kids, but his wife wanted to stay home. And so he works his day job and then at night he drives for Uber Eats and he kind of documents step by step, uh, how much he makes every single night on Uber Eats. And I watched that and I'm like, man, this guy is working so incredibly hard just to provide for his family. And I think it's very interesting. I've seen the same thing where the wife is a breadwinner and the husband stays home and she works her butt off to try to increase her income, uh, so that they can live the life that they want. And I think that is a powerful thing to think through is being a stay at home parent. I don't want you to ever feel as though you're someone who is not contributing because you
49:17 Andrew Giancola? are, you're saving the household, tens of thousands of dollars every single month, if not every single year. You are saving so much money for your household. And so you want to make sure you're working together as a team, but if you are a single income parent, it's going to be even more important to budget. So you know where the leaks are and you know where you can make adjustments on the fly, or you're just going to realize pretty quickly, you got an income problem and you need to increase your income. Now, financial progress at this stage feels a little slower, but consistent moves can really compound over this timeframe, especially if you have a long time before you actually are going to retire. Consistent moves will help you dramatically. And the goal isn't to fix everything when you feel as though you have some leaks in your budget. The goal is to fix one at a time, then move on to the next one. If you try to fix everything at once, you're going to feel like you're not making progress.
50:02 Andrew Giancola? I want you to fix one thing at a time. Personal finance is all about moving the dial slowly up and boiling that frog slowly. That's what it's all about. Once you do that, it's going to feel less stressful. You're going to feel less anxiety around money and instead you're going to make way more progress and ensure that you continue on the path.
50:22 Andrew Giancola? All right. The next one is married with older kids. So if you have older kids in your life and you know, you have kids in middle school, maybe you have kids in high school or they're in college right now, then you're going to have a financial complexity that is going to be shifting over time. So you're not going to be dealing with some of the, the smaller stuff. You're not going to be dealing with the big ticket items like daycare and those types of things. You are going to be dealing with, A, college is obviously a big ticket item, but you're going to be dealing with death by a thousand different expenses because when your kids start to hit middle school age.
50:53 Andrew Giancola? You're just gonna have a lot more expenses that are gonna be popping up. So daycare is gone, but activities are gonna pop up. You know, sports, if you are in travel ball or anything like that, I know how expensive that can be. I played AAU basketball from 13 to 18. And I just remember my family traveling, you know, every single week. And we'd fly across the country. We'd be in a different hotel every single weekend playing basketball. And it was one of those things that I remember like I look back, we were a middle-class family. And I look back at my family and I say, man, that was probably a financial strain on my family to have to do that. And I think for a lot of you, your financial complexity could be shifting that way as well. Kids are getting cars, additional car insurance could be there. Maybe you're getting them cell phones and you're adding them to cellphone plans. So a lot of the recurring expenses are starting to build up and college costs are arriving.
51:36 Andrew Giancola? They're getting closer and closer and it might be a stress for you and your family to make sure that you find a way to pay for that. Or you feel obligated to pay for this. You're likely also at your career peak as your kids get older because you could be at your highest earning potential with older kids, unless you had kids really young. And so you feel as though these are your years where retirement is no longer an abstract concept. You're getting closer and closer to the time where you want to make sure you are retiring. And so for a lot of folks in this situation, your, your budget's getting lighter in some ways, meaning daycare is getting removed, but heavier in others because you have additional car insurance, you have those additional cellphone bills or other priorities. How old do kids get cell phones now? 13, 14, 12, 11, 10? I don't know, but everything starts to feel real and everything starts to feel real.
52:19 Andrew Giancola? You feel as though you're losing time with your family, you're losing time with your kids, they're getting older and older. You're like, did I take enough vacations? Did I, did I raise them right in the first 10 years? Did I ensure that I was doing the right things with them? Have I spent enough time with them? You start to ask yourself all these different questions. And so the priorities that are gonna pop up are gonna be, A, you're gonna wanna spend more time with them. But B, you wanna make sure you're giving them and setting them up in a right way. So let's talk through some of these top priorities for families who are in the married with older kids scenario. First thing is I want you to have an honest college conversation. How much are you funding and how much are they gonna be responsible for? Are you gonna fund anything at all? Because really, in reality, you do not want to sacrifice retirement contributions to save for your kids.
53:02 Andrew Giancola? College. This is the biggest mistake that I see people make is if you are sacrificing your own retirement for college contributions, you need to reevaluate how you're doing this. Okay, it is very, very important to A, when a plane is going down, you put on your own oxygen mask first, then you can help others and the same goes for your money. There are no loans for retirement. There are no ways for you to ensure that you are going to retire no matter what outside of social security and you're going to live on a very thin retirement if you just rely on that. So instead, you need to make sure you're taking care of your retirement first, then you can help take care of your kids if there's money left over. If there's not money left over, they gotta get student loans or they gotta pay for their own college. And I know that
53:46 Andrew Giancola? sounds like tough love, but it is because that's the way this has to go. And that's the way you have to handle this. Okay. Number three is you need to get completely out of consumer debt. Like if you have any consumer debt left over, buy now, pay later, if you have credit card debt, if you have student loans, even as you get older, all that stuff needs to go. It's not student loans aren't consumer debt, but it's just a debt that you need to get rid of. All that stuff needs to go. The older I get, the less likely I may I am to even like take on a car payment or anything like that. All that stuff needs to get out of your hair so that you can focus on the things that are most important to you and start to A, save for retirement, B, save for college, C, save for family memories. Because as your kids get older, you want to make sure you're prioritizing some of those memories and they're old enough to actually remember them and
54:29 Andrew Giancola? experience it and go through all that kind of stuff. Know your actual retirement number. So we have a free calculator. If you go to mastermoney.co/resources that helps you find your exact retirement number. Now in this resource, it's so cool. We just built this out and it does it automatically for you. But in the retirement number resource, you can go in there and you can look at, hey, this is how much I want to have in retirement. This is how much I currently spend now. And then you can put in your mortgage amount. You can put in your current debt payments, for example, and it will remove those out of the equation. If you plan on having those paid off, it's going to factor in healthcare. It's going to factor in the inflation rate. It's going to factor in so many cool, different things. And I really, really highly recommend you testing that out if you have not done the retirement number calculator yet because it's very detailed.
55:12 Andrew Giancola? Going to give you the exact number and it's going to tell you how much you need to save every single month to hit your goal based on where you are currently. It is so cool. I'm so proud of it. I'm really, really excited for you to try that. So just go to mastermoney.co/resources if you don't know what your retirement number is. Also, start the aging parent conversation. If you have aging parents who you have not talked to them about what their wishes are, what you want them to do going forward, or what they want to do going forward, start to have the conversation with them because you could be in this situation where you're having to deal with aging parents and kids getting older. College costs and aging parents could mean that instead of being in a situation where daycare costs are gone, and so you're spending less, you're actually even spending more because you're dealing with both sides of that coin. So start to have that conversation and start to talk about
55:56 Andrew Giancola? what you think needs to happen. Also, some of the traps that people fall into at this stage is again, funding college instead of retirement. Do not do that. I can't say it enough because there's way too many people I see that do it and you really, really cannot do that. There are loans for scholarships and college. There are no loans for retirement. That's what they fall into is if you're married and you have older kids, don't fall into that trap. Make sure you spend some time with them. Make sure you get off your phone, go out, take some vacations with them, put some money aside to take, even if they're cheap or free vacations, just spend some time with them because they're not going to be under your roof much longer and you're going to regret it if you don't. Let's jump to break and we'll get to the next one. If you've heard any recent episode of Health Corner, you know that I have spent the last
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1:01:42 Andrew Giancola? So stage seven is going to be the OFFBs. What does that stand for, Andrew? Over 40 and feeling behind. So we have a lot of listeners out there who are over the age of 40. They found our podcast past the age of 40 and they said to themselves, "Man, I wish I knew this information sooner. I get these messages all the time and these emails all the time." And they say, "I just feel like I am behind with my finances." Well, guess what, my friends? We made an entire life stage just for you because there's so many people who fall into this camp of over 40 and feeling behind that they are really not even understanding where they should start. They feel like they're so far behind. They're like, "I don't know what to do next. Is it too late?" Well, guess what, my friends? It is never too late to get your ball rolling.
1:02:24 Andrew Giancola? It is never too late to start saving for retirement because you can make a dramatic difference in your entire financial situation just by getting started today. Guess what? The best time obviously was to start 10, 15, 20 years ago, but that didn't happen. So instead, we're going to focus on the things that we can control, which is the here and then now. And so what I want you to do is you could have any family structure. Maybe you had young kids and you felt as though you just couldn't save extra money. And so that was the excuse that you told yourself over the course of the last five to 10 years. And now you're in this situation where, "Hey, I'm making a little more money. My income has increased, but I just never got started." So if you made some mistakes in your 30s or you just never had this financial education, man, we wish this stuff was taught in school, but it's not. I wish this stuff was taught in school.
1:03:08 Andrew Giancola? And now there's legislation that's passing where it's going to happen more and more. And hopefully it just, you know, gets passed in every single state. Some states are doing it now, but maybe you feel as though you're just behind. And you have some consumer debt in the picture and social media is telling you that everyone is getting further ahead than you. You still feel like, "I've just lived in the same exact lifestyle I have for the last 15 years and I haven't gotten ahead whatsoever." What are some of the top priorities for folks in this scenario? First is to stop the comparison. The number one thing that is going to absolutely kill your progress is if you keep comparing yourself to other people who have maybe made a little more progress than you. You're going to have friends who you graduated with. You're going to have family in your life who are going to be doing a lot better than you. And as time goes on, that's just the way life works. You cannot hold that deep inside of you. Instead,
1:03:52 Andrew Giancola? You need to start by focusing on the things that you can do. I want you to, number two, build a written plan. A written plan that can help you step by step know exactly what to do next. Join Master Money Academy. It is a place where we literally do this for you. We help you step by step build out your plan so that you know what you need to be doing next. If not, hire a certified financial advisor or a financial planner who can help you out with this plan. A fee only advisor, a fiduciary that can help you with this plan and help you step by step know what to do next. My ultimate goal is to make sure that you know where you're going and what you're supposed to be doing next. And if you don't know what that is, then you're never going to be able to make some progress. And so, right now, you've already wasted enough time. Right now is the time to get started and to get the ball rolling.
1:04:38 Andrew Giancola? Next is I want you to cut out every single expense that isn't building towards the goal. Any expense that just really is one of those things that you feel as though this is just a waste of money, not building towards my goal. It's not helping me with my financial priorities or my priorities to spend more time with my family or my priorities to, you know, reduce my stress and anxiety or my priorities to increase my health. If it's not falling into some of those categories, your big priorities in life, then I want you to cut it out.
1:05:05 Andrew Giancola? Cut it all out because that's going to be the easiest way for you to find some things that you don't really need to be dealing with. Look at the big three. Look at your big expenses. Are you overspending on housing, food, transportation? What are some of the things that you are overspending on? Get rid of it. Get it out of your life. You're going to feel so much less stress around money when you start to do this. Once you start to cut that stuff out, now it's time to get aggressive. And we need to make sure that we are maxing out our retirement accounts and we're maxing contributions aggressively, including catch up contributions after the age of 50. And so, if you have a 401k, your Roth IRA, an HSA, we're getting as much money as we possibly can into these accounts and we're investing as much as we possibly can. Because the only way to multiply money is to get our dollars invested and allow compound interest to get to work.
1:05:50 Andrew Giancola? And if you haven't started yet, now is the time to start so that you can get the snowball rolling. It's very, very important. And then increasing our income during this stage, if you feel as though you're behind and you feel That you have not done enough, I would highly recommend you focusing on increasing your income. Because that's what's going to help you truly, truly, truly the most. Especially if you don't have your foundation built yet, your first 100K, your first 150K, your first 200K. You want to get that foundation built up as fast as you possibly can. And your income is going to be the biggest catalyst to that. It's going to be the biggest way to get your, your dollars rolling and fall into that. Now, what are some traps that people in this scenario fall into? One is they give up because they think it's too late. I'm going to say this over and over and over again.
1:06:33 Andrew Giancola? I don't care how old you are, I don't care if you're 52, I don't care if you're 62. It is never too late. You need to make sure that you are starting now and getting the ball rolling. Cause it's never too late to make a big difference in your retirement. Number two, let me, and you know what? Let me pause for a second. Let me give you an example of this. We had somebody, a listener who reached out to me, she was 48 years old. And Deanna, if you're listening, shout out to Deanna. She started to listen to the podcast in 2021. When she started listening, she had $0 to her name. And she took extreme action from listening to the show. She first started to invest her dollars. She start, she opened up a couple of retirement accounts, started to invest her dollars.
1:07:15 Andrew Giancola? Then she started to catch the real estate bug and she realized, oh, I could start investing in real estate and really accelerate my path to wealth. And she started to buy rental property after rental property after rental property. And by the time I had a conversation with her, she had four different rental properties, cash flowing thousands of dollars every single month, just over the course of three years. And her net worth grew to a million dollars just in a few couple of years. She took her income and she started to take drastic action. And I believe anybody in this world can do this. Listen to our episode with Justin. He changes financial life in two years. Now, sure, these may be some drastic scenarios. I show you these examples to show you that you can do it. You can make a change in your financial life and it's very important that you know that you can do it. Let's jump into stage eight.
1:08:01 Andrew Giancola? Stage eight is folks who are close to retirement. Now, these are going to be the folks who are five to 10 years out from retirement. They are ones where the decisions they make today will have an impact on retirement security more so than almost anything in the world. And this is the highest stakes financial season outside of the dink window that I think most people have. Income is likely at its peak when you are close to retirement and your house may be close to paid off or completely paid off. The kid are launched or they're almost there, they're out there in the real world or they're in college. And for the first time in decades, there's actual margin in the budget for a lot of folks who are getting closer to retirement. The question shifts from how do I build wealth to how do I protect my wealth? You're going from the accumulation stage to the preservation stage. And this, my friends, is where the shift is going to happen because when you are in
1:08:46 Andrew Giancola? the accumulation stage, you are go, go, go, go, go, go. And now you're planning for the preservation stage. So there's a number of things that you can do to make sure that you are on top of this. Now, income is likely at its peak during these years. This is the timeframe where you are making the most money that you have ever made in your entire life. And if you are in a position to be able to protect your money, you want to make sure that you are taking as much of those dollars as possible and putting them towards your retirement so you can live the best possible life that you want to live. And so because of this, there are some priorities that I want you to put in place. Number one is I want you to make sure you have a financial protection plan. One of the things that I want you to understand is that financial protection becomes increasingly important the closer you get to retirement. It is super important during your earning years, but as you get closer to retirement,
1:09:30 Andrew Giancola? the last thing I want to see to happen to anybody is for them to get a huge chunk of their retirement wiped out. And as scams get better and better, this is something we need to make sure that we have in place. So the first thing I want you to do is get Delete Me. Delete Me is a service that goes and they remove your personal information from data brokers online. See, the business of data brokers is what they do is they take your information and when they have your information, they sell it to other people. Now, they don't care who they're selling it to. As long as they're making money, they'll sell it to scammers out there if they need to. So if someone gets a portion of your information, like they get your name and your email address, if they go to these data brokers, these data brokers can sell the rest of your information to And they can go open bank accounts in your name, or they can open up other accounts in your name. So Delete Me protects you against that.
1:10:15 Andrew Giancola? And so I highly recommend you get Delete Me. If you go to joindelete.me/pfp20, you can get 20% off of Delete Me. And that, my friends, is one of the best things you can do for your financial situation, especially in 2026, when these AI scams are advancing every single day. So please, go to Delete Me and make sure that you are getting your personal information removed online. If you're like, I don't know if I need this, go and Google your name, or your address, or your phone number in quotations, and see what pops up. You're going to see all these websites, these random stupid websites that have your information on there that you need to get removed. Delete Me goes and removes those for you, because there are thousands of different websites that my name was on that I had to get removed, and Delete Me did that for me. Now, there are some that I like to keep on still. Obviously, I am in the, a public figure. I'm in the public space.
1:11:00 Andrew Giancola? So there's websites I keep my name on, obviously. But for those of you out there who need your personal information removed, I want you to get that removed as fast as possible. Two, is you need to make sure you have a password system that is really secure. I know this sounds obvious. You can use one password or Google Password Manager, but you gotta get sophisticated when it comes to the way that you're doing that. Three, is freezing your credit. Making sure that you freeze your credit is going to be a huge, huge deal as you get closer to retirement. I highly recommend every single person does that. Number two is to max out everything, including catch-up contributions. This is the sprint. We're getting closer to retirement. We need to have a plan in place. And so we're going to max out our catch-up contributions if you are there. Now, if you're someone retiring early in your 40s, or maybe even your 30s, then you don't have the advantage of catch-up contributions. But if you are someone in your 50s,
1:11:45 Andrew Giancola? really, really want you to look into this. Also, as you approach or get closer to retirement, I want you to have a mortgage payoff plan. I don't want you having a mortgage when you're retired. It's just one of the rules that I like to have, is that having a mortgage, like, sure, if you got that 2.5% interest rate because you bought a house in 2020, I guess. But outside of that, if you have a normal interest rate, I want you to get rid of that mortgage as, as fast as you possibly can. Mortgage-free means you're going to be less stressed, less anxiety, and less liability in the middle of retirement. Get long-term care insurance if you feel as though you need it. It's very complicated, and a lot of times it's overpriced. So you gotta understand it. First, but if you feel as though you're going to spend time in, you know, a facility, then look into long-term care insurance if you want to have control over where you go. That's, I think, one thing that most people think through.
1:12:30 Andrew Giancola? Stress test your plan. So you're going to go from the accumulation phase to the preservation phase. I want you to stress test that plan and understand what your withdrawal rate is going to be. We're having an episode coming up, by the way, on withdrawal rates. So get ready for that. But I also want you to understand where you're going to land when it comes to building wealth and making sure that you have, you know, what's going to happen with a market crash, or if you have a health scare, or you have early retirement, what's going to happen there? Use our retirement number calculator. It has a lot of this built into it. If you go to mastermoney.co/resources, it has a ton of this built into it, so you can utilize that. Also, making sure you finalize your estate plan, having a will in place. If you will have over a million dollars in net worth or a business, have a trust in place. Healthcare directives, all that stuff needs to be in place and have conversations with your loved ones about it.
1:13:14 Andrew Giancola? Don't just let them get surprised on who's getting what and all that kind of stuff. No. People who are good with money communicate about money. They communicate about what's going to happen with money, and you need to make sure that you're doing that. Now, spending this new margin on lifestyle upgrades instead of the finish line is the biggest trap I see people fall into. Maybe you have some new margin where like kids are finally not your liability anymore, although there's a lot of kids who rely on their parents, even in adulthood now. But if you have kids who don't rely on you anymore, and you take those extra dollars and you're behind on retirement and you don't put them towards retirement, that's a big, big, big mistake. Instead, I want you focusing on getting closer to retirement.
1:13:53 Andrew Giancola? Stage nine is folks who are retired and folks who are retired, the goal is achieved, the paycheck stops, and now the plan has to actually work in real life, which is a completely different skill set than accumulation. And so for a lot of you out there, you went from the accumulation phase and now you're in the preservation phase. And here's what your financial life looks like. Instead of having this extra income coming in, you got a fixed income, maybe it's from social security, maybe it's a pension if you have one, or it's portfolio withdrawals. You're doing the 4% rule, or maybe the 4.5% or 5%, and you've decided that's a big thing. Healthcare is also a big concern for you and you have that in place, and sequence of returns risk is very scary. This is one where the psychological shift from saving to spending is harder than anybody else ever tells you out there.
1:14:37 Andrew Giancola? It is one of the hardest things to do. Like, I want everybody to just think about this for a second. You get to the point in time where you've been working your entire life, and all of a sudden you get there, just close your eyes.
1:14:48 Andrew Giancola? And you get to this point in time where all of a sudden,
1:14:52 Andrew Giancola? you have to draw on your retirement accounts. You don't have an income anymore. My eyes are still closed. Are yours closed? Okay, good. You don't have an income anymore. And you are trying to decide.
1:15:05 Andrew Giancola? Well, I gotta start withdrawing in this portfolio. That's gotta be a scary thing to do. Okay, you can open your eyes now, but that's gotta, well, if you're driving, don't close them. But that's gotta be a scary thing to do. Getting over that psychological hump and starting to think about this right before you retire can be very, very helpful. I think working through it can be very helpful because a lot of people struggle with this. So some of your top priorities are to A, build a withdrawal strategy. I just did this with my parents. I'll probably do an episode talking about this a little bit on the portfolio I built for my parents and then the withdrawal strategy we're building. And that's gonna be something you want to stick to. Which accounts are you gonna draw from first and what order, at what rate? Then I want you to optimize social security timing. If you have not claimed it yet, or you're waiting to claim it, you can optimize when you're gonna claim it. Are you gonna claim it at, you know, 63, 67, 670? What are you gonna do?
1:15:51 Andrew Giancola? Next is to plan healthcare costs in real time as a real line item. Our retirement calculator helps you do this, but I want you to make sure that you have those healthcare costs in place. The average person spends $300,000 in retirement on healthcare as a couple. So it's a big deal. It's a really, really big deal. Now, keep enough in growth assets to fight inflation is another big thing you need to do over the course of the next 30 to 40 years. That's a big one. And then get intentional about legacy and how you want to spend your legacy. But also, one thing I want to note is that we're gonna be living longer over the course of the next 30 to 40 years. AI is gonna help with healthcare dramatically. It's gonna change the way that we live. And so if you are someone who is retired, you need to stress test your portfolio if you live an extra decade. Just in case.
1:16:33 Andrew Giancola? Because that's gonna be something to note as time goes on. And we want to make sure that we are on top of it, okay? So that's a big one, too. If you don't have an advisor who will put this withdrawal plan in place for you or someone who knows what they're doing, make sure you talk to one and just get a financial plan put together. I think that's one of the best things that you can do when it comes to just thinking through this stuff, okay? Let's get to the last stage now, stage 10.
1:16:59 Andrew Giancola? Now, stage 10 is going to be an interesting one because this is newly divorced or widowed. These are folks who used to have someone in their corner, used to have someone to spend their life with, and now they don't. And in this stage, there are going to be some things that are going to shift in your lifetime. Someone whose financial life got restructured against their will, or at least against their original plan, this could happen at any age, from age 32, you could be 62. And the defining characteristic of this is not age, it's the sudden shift from having a shared financial system to having to do it on your own. Everything is a transition at once when you're in this stage. Income may have dropped significantly, that could be one thing. You may have the house as a question mark, you may have joint accounts being separated,
1:17:41 Andrew Giancola? you may have, you know, legal fees or asset splits if you are someone who is getting a divorce, or if you're widowed, you may have life insurance proceeds, you're trying to figure out what to do with that, or you have estate processes, or you have social security survivor benefits to navigate, there's so many different things that you could be worried about here. And so this is one that has a lot of different things that you need to prioritize. I'm going to give some for both scenarios, then I'm going to give a couple of things that I want you to think through when it comes to being divorced and when it comes to being widowed. One is do a complete financial inventory immediately. Your accounts, your debts, your insurance policies, your beneficiaries, your assets, you need to know exactly where money is coming from before you make this decision. Number two is I want you to update your beneficiary designation now.
1:18:26 Andrew Giancola? Your 401K, your Roth IRA, your life insurance, your estate plan, all those different things need to happen. If you are a solo saver, I want you to rebuild the emergency fund. If you don't have one in place, or maybe you just didn't have one set up, I want you to rebuild it and make sure you have that six months on hand. And don't make any major financial decisions for the first six to 12 months. If you're grieving, or you are in an emotional state, don't make any decisions, take some time for yourself to heal. Take some time for you to try to heal. Not, I'm not saying heal in terms of, you know, move past it. I'm saying heal in terms of just getting yourself in a position where the most important thing is you right now. It's you making sure you understand what to do next.
1:19:08 Andrew Giancola? And if you feel as though you need some help, get a fee only financial planner involved, a fiduciary that's going to be looking out for your best interests and making sure that you are doing the right thing overall. They can help you step by step. Don't get someone who's going to try to sell you IELTS or sell you a bunch of life insurance because you don't have somebody who depends on your income now. It's got to be someone who can really, really help you navigate this stuff. Okay. Now, for folks who are divorced, I want you to understand every piece of the divorce decree financially, the QDRO orders, or retirement account splits, or tax filing, all that stuff. You need to understand how that works and who's going to keep the mortgage on the house. What are your liabilities coming into play? You know, what are the costs of all of this?
1:19:52 Andrew Giancola? You don't understand every single one of those. For those who are widowed specifically, don't rush those decisions. Give yourself six to 12 months to get your bearings before you do any of this stuff. And understand social security survivor benefits and know that you can roll a spouse's IRA into your own also. Okay. That's going to be another big one. The trap that a lot of people fall into in this scenario is they try to make permanent financial decisions during temporary emotional states. And I don't want you to do that. Or if you try to keep a house you can't afford because you want stability, that's another big thing. That's a big no-no that a lot of people fall into. Or giving away too much in a divorce settlement when it should be, you know, split in a certain way, don't do that either. And then don't hand off money to the first financial advisor who calls after a spouse passes. Please, you gotta do your homework.
1:20:37 Andrew Giancola? You gotta interview people and you gotta understand who is the right person for your scenario. So this is just another one that I really wanted to dive a little deeper in. Listen, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. What a fun episode, diving into a bunch of different scenarios. Really appreciate each and every single one of you being here. If you want a step-by-step financial plan, you want to feel more clarity with your money and you want to understand where you're going. Knowing that you have a path going forward, then I highly encourage you to join Master Money Academy. We have a seven day free trial linked up down below in the show notes for podcast listeners. And during that seven day free trial, go take some of the courses, go check out some of the conversations we're having in there. Go join a mastermind if you, if you got one going there and go join a coaching call with me.
1:21:21 Andrew Giancola? A Q and A session where you can listen in, you can ask some questions and see if it's right for you. See behind the curtain during that seven day free trial. If you don't like it, no harm, no foul, no hard feelings whatsoever. I truly appreciate you just listening to this podcast and cannot thank you guys enough for listening to the show. So appreciate each and every single one of you. Really excited for some of the stuff that we have going on. And again, if you want five minutes every single week where you can learn more about money, join the Master Money Newsletter. If you go to mastermoney.co/newsletter, that's the spot where we are giving you five minute tip every single week. All about money and it's a great place to be completely free. Would love for each and every single one of you to join the newsletter there. Again, thank you guys so much for being here and we will see you on the next episode.
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