Pay Off Debt or Keep Investing? (Money Q&A)

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to do a Money Q&A about  should you pay off debt or keep investing. Today we are going to answer these questions! Question 1: How do I handle high expense ratios in my child’s Roth IRA? Should I switch vendors, change funds, or stay the course? Question 2: How do I get smarter about small business finances—write-offs, taxes, and making better financial decisions? Question 3: Is disability insurance worth it? Who really needs it and what should I look out for in a policy? Question 4: With $150K in student loans and a strong investment strategy, should I focus on paying off debt or keep investing? Question 5: As I start a web design side business in California, should I create an LLC or a Corporation—and what should I consider long term? How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off! Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Turn your business dream into reality! Apply now at www.oneday.org/pfp Go to Acorns.com/pfp and start automating your investments and get a $5 bonus today! Delete Me: Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off! Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp Relevant Episodes: From 100K in Debt to Building Generational Wealth as a Couple with Josh and Ali (The FI Couple) How to Go from in Debt to Millionaire in 10 Years with George Kamel How to Never Go In Debt During The Holidays Again - Money Q&A How I would Invest Large Sums of Cash - Money Q&A How to Invest In Yourself and Earn More (THIS YEAR!) Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  Longtime listeners know, one of the best ways to build wealth is to increase your income. And one way to do that is by starting a side hustle. And that's one reason why I absolutely love Whatnot. Now, my son and I, we love collecting sports cards. And we've used Whatnot to buy and sell cards. It's been a really fun way to enjoy something we love together. Now, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where people sell everything from sports cards to clothing, electronics, and collectibles. And what's really cool about it is you can turn something you're passionate about into a business. And you could do it right from your phone. You don't even need a storefront or a website. So whether you're looking to make some extra money or find great deals on your next shopping trip, check out Whatnot.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Search Whatnot, that's W H A T N O T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away. 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.

• 1:27Andrew Giancola?

  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. Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, should you pay off debt or keep investing? We're going to cover it in this money Q and A.

• 2:26Andrew 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 your questions on this money Q and A. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney.co/newsletter and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 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. Now today, we're going to be diving into five of your questions here on this episode of Money Q and

• 3:11Andrew Giancola?

  A. The first one is going to be, how do I handle high expense ratios in my child's Roth IRA? Should I switch vendors, change funds, or stay the course? And question two is, how do I get smarter about small business finances, talking through write-offs and taxes, and making better financial decisions? Question three is, is disability insurance worth it? And who really needs it? And what should I look out for in a policy? And question four is, with $150,000 in student loans and a strong investment strategy, should I focus on paying off that debt? Or should I keep on investing? And the last one is, as someone starts a web design side business in California, should they create an LLC corporation? Or what should they consider

• 3:53Andrew Giancola?

  long-term? And so we have all that and more on today's episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. So without further ado, let's get into it. I have a question for the show. I started a Roth for our child, and I'm disappointed that the expense ratios for the funds are 52 basis points, or 0.52%, 0.98%, 0.96%, 0.95%, and 1.02%. Should I, number one, change vendors? Number two, keep the funds and select new ones for 2026? Number three, change funds? Within the same vendor and number four is just take the money out and go to a lower expense ratio fund manager. Thank you so much for the thoughts. Now, the first thing you need to note

• 4:37Andrew Giancola?

  when it comes to this is congratulations on even thinking through this because it's an amazing thing that you opened up a custodial Roth IRA for your kids. That is going to be a very powerful vehicle for them for a very long period of time because when you open a custodial Roth IRA for their kids, I want everybody listening just to note this is when you open one, they have to have earned income. So they could earn income from mowing lawns. They could earn income from working at the local grocery store down the street. They could earn income if they have a little side business going on online, but they have to have earned income and however much they earn, that is how much you can contribute to the Roth IRA all the way up to the yearly limit, which is $7,000 per year. So if they only earn $5,000 per year, you can put $5,000 per year into

• 5:22Andrew Giancola?

  that custodial Roth IRA. If they earn $4,000 per year, you can put up to $4,000 per year. Now, they don't have to put their money into it. You can fund it for them, but those are some of the custodial Roth IRA rules. So if anybody is considering this, make sure you're reading through those rules before you just open one for your kids. It's very hard to open one if they do not have any earned income. And so when it comes to this question, it is very important to look at expense ratios upfront because they have a very long time horizon and these accounts, if they are financially disciplined later on in life, can grow very, very large. And this is tax-free growth over time. And the last thing you want is some of these fund fees eating into what they are investing in. And so these are four great options here that I am looking at,

• 6:07Andrew Giancola?

  but high expense ratios can really, really destroy your rate of return because let's say, for example, you invest $10,000 in a fund and it has that 1% expense ratio versus one with, you know, 0.05 expense ratio. And over the course of 20 years, if you got an 8% rate of return, that fee could cost you over $25,000 and high fee funds are just eating into your compounding power. So it's really important to make sure that you're trying to keep the fees low specifically in your funds. Now, if you're going to pay a fee, the time to pay a fee, Is if somebody is helping you in some way, shape or form, that would be more of interest to me to pay a fee if they're helping me and guiding me and it's really actually helping me. It is worth the amount of value that they are giving me.

• 6:49Andrew Giancola?

  Outside of that, that is where, you know, when it comes to some of these funds, there are so many low cost options that I would be looking into these low cost options. So option one is to change vendors. Sure. If these are the options available within your provider, that'd be the first thing I'd be looking at doing is changing providers and going somewhere else. Vanguard and Fidelity are what we preach on this podcast all the time. And the reason why we talk about those two providers all the time is because their costs are so low. That is one of the number one things that we look up for upfront is do you have really low expense ratio funds? Fidelity is a great example. They have funds that literally have a 0% expense ratios.

• 7:30Andrew Giancola?

  So you would not be paying anything in comparison to some of these, which are half a percent all the way up to 1%. It is a massive, massive difference. So every $10,000 invested over the course of that 20 years, you'd be saving that additional $25,000 and allowing that money to compound into the future. So very important to look into this is Vanguard and Fidelity. Vanguard funds are also very low expense ratios. And so it's something I would definitely look into as well. If that's the only options you have within your provider, and I don't know who your provider is, but if those are the only options that I would consider that first. Secondly, though, is I would look for some other options out there. Maybe there are some ETFs. Maybe there are some index funds within the provider that you currently have that you could invest in with much lower expense ratios.

• 8:14Andrew Giancola?

  Now we have something called the Investing Cheat Sheet. And on that cheat sheet, it is one that I will try to make sure that we link that up in the show notes. But with that cheat sheet, we have something like my favorite index funds and ETFs. It's a big list of them. We also give you that cheat sheet in Index Fund Pro, which is our course on investing and teaching you how to invest for beginners. And so both those places will have that as well, but we'll look at that cheat sheet because those all have very low expense ratios and we're very picky on who we choose there. So if you keep the funds currently, those would be funds like, for example, for me, Specifically, if those were the funds that were available, I would not be interested in them. And I probably would not stay the course within those funds. But if you do stay the course, I would definitely look for new ones in the future that are not eating away at your total.

• 8:59Andrew Giancola?

  You could talk to your financial advisor or whoever else, if you have one. It sounds like you might currently be working with one. Now, option four you have, take the money out and move it to a low fee manager. So if you think that manager can truly, truly help you in the long run and it will reduce your stress. It will reduce your anxiety. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Just know that when you go to the low fee manager, just run the numbers on what those fees that the manager is charging will cost you in comparison to just going to a low cost index fund or ETF. So as long as you can kind of think through that, you could do a Roth IRA trustee to trustee transfer. And there are no penalties or taxes and you can transfer it over that way. I actually literally just did this. So I had an old Roth IRA at Merrill Edge, which is like Merrill Lynch, which is a part of Bank of America

• 9:43Andrew Giancola?

  that I had neglected to move over and I just moved it over to Vanguard. I actually did this last week. And it's a very easy process. So if you open your Roth IRA somewhere like Vanguard, for example, Vanguard has a process already in place that allows you to do this with like three clicks of a button. Where you don't even have to go to Merrill to do this. You actually go to Vanguard's platform. You log in to Merrill through Vanguard and then say, hey, I want to transfer these funds to my new Roth IRA here at Vanguard. And Vanguard just does it for you. It is so incredibly easy. I couldn't believe how easy it was because I hadn't done it in so long. But it was so incredibly easy. And so you could do that and move it over to Vanguard, or if you wanted to move it to a fund manager to help you through the process, you can do that too.

• 10:24Andrew Giancola?

  Just making sure again, that you run the numbers on their expense ratios to ensure and their fees to make sure that it works for you. And high expense ratios absolutely matter, especially in funds. All the funds are competing at a race to the bottom. There are so many low fee amazing options out there that there is no reason to be paying high expense ratios in funds. And so for you specifically, I would definitely move these over some where else. It seems like every other day, there's another financial scam. And we see them day after day, especially with the advancement of AI. And so in order to make sure that you avoid some of those financial scams, you need to have a financial protection plan. And that is why I use Delete Me.

• 11:07Andrew Giancola?

  Now Delete Me is by far my favorite service when it comes to getting your personal information removed online, because if there are some sort of scammer out there who gets a hold of some of your personal information, they can go out and buy the rest of your information from data brokers. So if there's a data breach and they get your name and your address and maybe your phone number, they can take that information and piece it together with other data brokers out there in order to go out and scam you. I had this happen to me a long time ago and they were opening up student loans in my name and they were opening up bank accounts in my name. And I don't want that to ever happen to anyone else. And so I found a service called Delete Me. And what Delete Me does is they remove your personal information from these data brokers

• 11:50Andrew Giancola?

  so that you don't have to worry about these data brokers having your information. Now, at first, I tried to do this on my own. I tried to get my information removed from data brokers and it was taking hours and hours and hours. And so then I went and had Delete Me do it for me. And they removed my personal information from thousands of data brokers immediately. And the cool thing that I love about Delete Me is they will continuously keep removing your information from these data brokers. And so they have some amazing plans out there. If you go to joindelete.me/pfp, you'll be able to get 20% off your Delete Me plan there. So make sure you go to joindelete.me/pfp. Again, it is one of my favorite services that are out there. So definitely go and check that out. You want to make sure that you are protecting your finances online.

• 12:35Andrew Giancola?

  All right, the next question. I operate a small local business and wonder if you have content on how to become financially intelligent about write-offs, taxes, et cetera. I wonder if I'm making the right financial decisions and how people smarter than me handle growing, operating a business. So this is a awesome question and honestly, this is a topic that I love to talk about. I could go on this all day long and it is one where maybe we'll have another show coming At some point in time where we're kind of talking through business and some of the struggles that we go through and how we handle some of those struggles and problems. But also how we think about business and scaling and growing into the future. But we're going to talk through, I'll give you a couple of just different pointers, specifically when it comes to taxes and write offs and some of the things that I do on a weekly basis.

• 13:17Andrew Giancola?

  To make sure that we are looking at the business as an owner and as someone who is operating the business. So the first thing I want you to do is think of the business as something that you want to make sure that you are developing systems and processes and putting those in place as if you did not have to be there all the time. A lot of times, people who are in local businesses also work in their business. And so for them, a lot of times they have to be the technician. So maybe if you own a bakery, for example, you're also baking the cakes and you're baking the pies. And you're making sure customers are taken care of and you're making sure that you're ringing up the cash register and you're closing down and you're cleaning up. That is something you definitely don't want to be doing. And especially if you want to scale in the future or make a lot more money.

• 14:01Andrew Giancola?

  You want to make sure that you are working on the business and not in the business. Now, this is a process that takes a lot of time. And coming up with these processes is something that has gotten easier over time. A, because the information that we have, but B, also because that you can utilize systems like AI to help you write standard operating procedures. And so this is something where if you don't have systems in place already, I'm going to recommend you two books. Traction and the E Myth. Both are absolutely amazing books. The E Myth is probably better for small businesses and then Traction is, as you scale, is another great system that you can put into place. And so I'm going to kind of talk through some of this with you, but I would definitely recommend those two first. And then I want you to know your numbers weekly. What is your revenue? What is your expenses?

• 14:46Andrew Giancola?

  What are your margins between your revenue and expenses? And what is your cash flow? I want you to think about that. And the reason why I want you to know this is because we want to think about our tax situation here in the future as we go through this. Now, I would recommend setting your tax money aside. You want to budget your money in your business, similarly to how you would budget your personal finances. But it's very important that you have to have a budget when it comes to your business. So I would Set your tax numbers aside, you know, 25, 30% of profit need to be set aside in order to pay your taxes. You can use a tool like QuickBooks. There's tools like Wave out there. I use QuickBooks because it's just the easiest thing for me and all my businesses are connected there for the most part. So there's a lot of also like more advanced ones that have come out lately that I haven't

• 15:29Andrew Giancola?

  tried yet, but QuickBooks has sort of gotten a little clunky in some areas, but now that they've gone fully online, I think it's been much, much better. Now to master the write-off game, how do you even think through write-offs? One, you hire people in your corner who are smarter than you when it comes to this. So I have, and I talk about this all the time, I have a CPA who is laser focused on making sure I maximize my tax situation. And he is someone who is also a tax strategist and helps me through all of my business when it comes to ensuring that I am paying the least amount of taxes for what I am doing. Now, this is something where I am very black and white when it comes to this. I only do tax things by the book. I know there's a lot of business owners

• 16:11Andrew Giancola?

  out there who will kind of try to find lines and stuff like that. I don't play that game whatsoever. If I need to pay my taxes, I will pay my taxes. Get to Caesar what is Caesar's and beyond that, then what I'm going to do is try to figure out legal ways that I can reduce my tax liability. And so here's just some quick and easy ones that you can think about, but first you need to hire a CPA if you don't already have one. If you're doing your business taxes, that is not something I'd be interested in doing in the future. It is worth the money, I promise you, especially if they can give you tax strategy. That's the key, though. They have to have some tax strategy background to help you with your write-offs. So some simple ones, things like business use of your car. You can track your mileage. I use an app called Mile IQ. I think even like QuickBooks has one now that

• 16:54Andrew Giancola?

  comes free when you use them. There's a bunch of different things out there that you can utilize. Home office expenses. If you work and do the books at your house, or if you work and look at these numbers at your house, you have some home office expenses. You can use a portion of your rent or a portion of your mortgage. You can also write off a portion of your utilities. Those are all different things that you can definitely do. Equipment and software used in the business. Make sure you're writing that off. Any equipment that you buy, any software. That you buy, if you have to go out and buy a new laptop, even if it's only a portion of it being used for your business, you write off that portion. And so those are going to be really important stuff. You got to make sure that you're writing off meals. So meals are 50% deductible if it is with a client or a work related. And so if you're going out, let's say, for example, you're married and you go out with your spouse and you guys are talking business at dinner.

• 17:39Andrew Giancola?

  Well, that meal is a business meal and you can write that off in the future. Now, remember, again, everybody listening right now, I am not a CPA. So you need to talk through with this with your CPA, but I'm telling you some of the stuff that we do that are helpful when it comes to some of your write offs. Continuing education. So if you're in, let's keep using the bakery example. If you are a baker and you go and you start taking classes on how to bake the best Italian wedding cakes, well, then guess what? You get to write that off, even if it's something that you're really just interested in, or maybe you are really interested in baking cupcakes and you go to cupcake classes and it's fun for you. It doesn't matter if it's fun for you. It's also a write off because it's part of your business. Marketing and advertising is always a big one. Website costs, social media tools.

• 18:21Andrew Giancola?

  You can write off the portion of your phone, the percentage of your phone usage that is for business. All of that stuff can come down and be something that you definitely want to make sure that you are writing off. And then contract labor, freelancers, VAs, those types of things. So here's a good rule. If it's ordinary and necessary for business, it's probably deductible. So again, I am not a believer in toting the fine line with the IRS. I am very black and white when it comes to this. I do everything by the book and that's just because I really, really value not getting audited. And that's a really important thing, I think, most people need to value. But three is to make sure that you get that bookkeeper or that tax pro. And so there's a couple of things that you can do. My accountant also does my bookkeeping.

• 19:04Andrew Giancola?

  So he does my taxes and my bookkeeping for the most part. In my other bigger business, we had to hire a bookkeeper in-house because there was just so many different transactions going on. I mean, usually any given month, we can have anywhere from three to 7,000 transactions in a month. And so that we had to have somebody kind of come in and be the dedicated bookkeeper. And then my other accountant just does the tax returns on that. But you got to make sure that you have a bookkeeper or Some sort of tax pro and A they'll help you avoid overpaying in taxes. B they'll legally maximize your deductions that you didn't even know existed. That's the cool thing about them and C you can focus on growth and not the spreadsheets. And that's the big thing for you is to make sure that you're focusing on working in the business

• 19:47Andrew Giancola?

  and on the business and not on some of these other things. Now, I want you to think like a CFO when you're in your business, even if it's just a small business. What ROI am I getting on each expense? That's number one. Can I increase revenue without increasing overhead? Number two, what am I doing now that doesn't move the needle? That's three and then why or do I need to raise prices to tighten margins? And that's four. So thinking like that all the time, asking yourself those tough questions is going to be really, really important to think like a CEO. And then learn from the best. So traction and the E myth is the first place I would start. But there are a ton of great books out there that I think a lot of people can get a lot of value out of. I'm going to give you a couple here so that you can kind of go through and utilize some of these books.

• 20:30Andrew Giancola?

  These are life changing books for me that I think will help you. So for building and scaling businesses, traction, the E myth were great. Scaling up is also really good if you're trying to scale your business and who is how to hire people. That's another great one. And then there's a book that was recommended by Alex Hermosy. That was called Predictable Revenue that I absolutely loved. So those are some of the ones on building and scaling a business. If you want some leadership books, like if you have any people in your business that you need some leadership on. Unreasonable Hospitality is a great one to help your employees understand how to be hospitable. The Culture Code is another good one and the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you're trying to build out that team is also a big one. And then Extreme Ownership by Jaco Willink is another great one.

• 21:14Andrew Giancola?

  And then some of the other things that I would kind of think through is if you want to go through personal growth, like the compounding effect is great. A Complaint Free World is also a good one that helps, you know, with mindset, those types of things. And so I think all of these are really, really great stuff that can help you when it comes to kind of building your business and kind of thinking through that process. I'll try to put together a business book list. We have all of our business books and we put them out kind of on a weekly basis. It's finance and business books. On the Master Money Newsletter. So if you're not on that, we have something called the High Performance Book Club. And every single week I kind of send you what I'm reading. I have a amazing list that I've been going through lately. And so I want to share that with you guys on what I've been reading lately because I have been on fire when it comes to some of these books.

• 21:55Andrew Giancola?

  And so making sure you go to that High Performance Book Club is going to be a really, really good spot also. So anyways, good luck with your business. If you have any other business questions, you know, feel free to send them in everyone. I love talking about that and we will jump to the next question. All right. My relationship with money has changed a lot over the years. Early on, I thought building wealth was about making more money. Now I know it's really about having clarity. When you know exactly where your money is going and whether you're on track, you make better decisions. That's one of the reasons I love Monarch. It's the personal finance app that tracks everything from your accounts and investments to your savings, goals and spending. So you can see your entire financial picture in one place. One habit that's made a huge difference for me is my five minute drill every single morning.

• 22:40Andrew Giancola?

  I open Monarch, check my spending, investments, cash flow and net worth, and I'm done in just a few minutes. It gives me confidence that nothing is slipping through the cracks. I also love the AI weekly recap because it'll flag spending changes, upcoming expenses, or shifts in my net worth before they become a problem. Instead of reacting after the fact, I can make adjustments early. It really feels like having a financial advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code PFP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code PFP. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know, it's not just me anymore.

• 23:24Andrew Giancola?

  It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow, I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only Pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes.

• 24:08Andrew Giancola?

  Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is the job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. It's kind of amazing how much can change in just a single year. Every summer, the kids are a little bigger, a little more independent, and life looks a little different than it did the year before.

• 24:50Andrew Giancola?

  And it reminds me that while we can't predict the future, we can prepare for it. That's one of the reasons I like PolicyGenius. See, PolicyGenius isn't an insurance company. They're an online marketplace that lets you compare life insurance quotes from some of America's top insurers side by side for free. And their licensed team helps you compare coverage, prices, and terms, answers your questions, and even handles the paperwork so you can get the right policy without the hassle. For me, having life insurance isn't about expecting something to happen, it's about knowing my family is protected so I can actually enjoy these moments together instead of worrying about what comes next. And with PolicyGenius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies, starting at just

• 25:34Andrew Giancola?

  $276 a year for $1 million of coverage. Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you can save. That's policygenius.com.

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• 26:01Andrew Giancola?

  The next question is, would you recommend getting disability insurance? Is there anything that you would look out for when selecting a plan? I would love to get your thoughts on disability insurance because I've never really heard anyone talk about it, but I was encouraged to get it. So let's start with what it is. So disability insurance is basically income protection. So what you're trying to do is if you get hurt or sick and can't work, disability insurance is going to replace part of your income. So you can still cover your bills so that you can feed your family and stay afloat financially. So think of disability insurance as the same or a similar thing as life insurance. It's not that similar, but just think of it as life insurance. But instead of losing your life, you just get hurt. So if you are someone who goes to work every day and you have to work on your feet and

• 26:44Andrew Giancola?

  you break your leg and you can't go into work, disability insurance will be something that would help you through that process. If your ability to earn a living is your greatest asset, which it is for most people, disability insurance protects that asset. And that's how I want you to think about it is you want to make sure that you have it in place if you want to protect that asset. Now, if you have a nest egg that's built up over time and you think you could cover, some of your expenses for a longer period of time, then maybe you don't need it. But for some people, you may need it. So you probably will need it if you rely on your paycheck to pay bills. Okay, that's number one. If you're self-employed or a small business owner without access to sick leave or benefits, that's two. If you're in your peak earning years between your twenties and your fifties is typically when that is.

• 27:27Andrew Giancola?

  If you have dependents who rely on your income, that's a big, big one. Then you're probably going to need disability insurance. And you don't have massive savings or investments to cover long-term loss of income. So let's say, for example, you have a three-year emergency fund. Well, then maybe you won't need it. But if you're someone who is living paycheck to paycheck, you may want to look into this a little bit more because disability insurance can help you if something happens. Now, you're more likely to become disabled than die young, obviously, for most people. And so that's why many people need disability insurance. Even more than life insurance, yet few actually have it. If you're thinking through like the, the obvious answers, that's something for sure that could happen. Now, you might not need it if you're financially independent. If you're close to retirement with plenty saved.

• 28:09Andrew Giancola?

  If your partner earns enough to fully support the household, that's a big one for a lot of you married couples out there. If your partner earns enough to help you just get by and support the household, then you will not need it. Or if you already have a strong, long-term disability policy through work, then it should be completely fine. Sometimes work will cover your disability policy for you. And so check into that for sure and check with your HR department to see if they actually have something there. Now, if you're, what to look for in a policy, there's a couple of things I'm going to give you on tips and guidance on this. So first thing you want to look for is OWN, Own Occupation Coverage. So you're protected even if you can't do your specific job. That is one big piece that you want to make sure that you have. But I want you to pay attention to one thing and it's called the elimination period.

• 28:54Andrew Giancola?

  Now, how long you have to wait before the benefits start? Because is it 60 days, is it 90 days? You need to know what that number is so that at least at a very minimum, you can have an emergency fund saved up. That would be your first goal is to have that emergency fund saved up for that timeframe. So if it takes 60 days before you get your first check or 90 days, you know, that's two to three months. And so if you are living paycheck to paycheck, that elimination period is going to be very important to you to make sure that you know how long you have to wait before those benefits can start. Also, check the benefit period. How long you'd receive payments, is it two years? Is it five years or is it until retirement? Obviously, each one of those is going to change how much the policy costs. But if it's two years, you know, at least that gives you a two-year window to figure things out.

• 29:40Andrew Giancola?

  If it's five years, that gives you a really nice timeline to figure things out. Or if you're just completely disabled for the rest of your life, that is the until retirement benefit that would help you. And you also want to make sure it covers two things, illness and injury. Okay, so if you're someone out there who just gets injury coverage, maybe you're a blue collar worker and you're thinking to yourself, well, what if I just, you know, break my leg and I can't go in for a couple of months? That's why I want to get it. But you also need to make sure that you have illness coverage because God forbid you have some sort of illness. That pops up or cancer or something along those lines. You need to make sure you have coverage for both. That's a very important piece to have when it comes to disability. So here's the question I want you to ask yourself to kind of end this and I'll wrap this up. If you couldn't work for six to 12 months, how would you pay the bills?

• 30:21Andrew Giancola?

  If the answer is I'd be in trouble, then disability insurance is worth seriously considering. And it's not about fear, it's just about protecting your income and your family. It's also about protecting your future self. So we'll do a second podcast, kind of breaking this down even further. But that's some of the big things that I would be looking for, the big, big points that would really matter to me if I'm shopping around for disability insurance. Cause I think it's a very important thing for a lot of people to look into. And with all insurances, the last thing I would say is, you know, a lot of people say they wish they got the insurance. Insurance just protects your income. It protects your money and it protects your financial situation against the things that could happen in life. All right, the next one is, hey Andrew, I hope this message finds you well. I listen to the podcast religiously and thank you for everything that you do. I recently graduated from graduate school and I love saving.

• 31:06Andrew Giancola?

  However, I wasn't sure where to start. Thanks to your podcast, I've opened a Roth IRA, HSA and ETF. And I am reaching out to seek some guidance on the best approach to managing my finances, specifically in regard to paying off my student debt versus continuing to invest and save for my future financial goals. First of all, amazing work thus far is even opening those up. But it's congratulations on doing that. Here is my breakdown of my current financial situation. Student loan debt, I owe a total of $150,000 in student loans with interest rates ranging from 2% to 8.5%. This is my only debt. Saving and investments, I am saving 1,600 per month towards purchasing my first rental property, which I plan to do in the next couple of months.

• 31:48Andrew Giancola?

  And I'm contributing $1,180 monthly to my Roth IRA and I have a 403B where I save 4% of my paycheck. Additionally, I contribute $100 per month to my HSA until I max out my Roth IRA. And once I max out my Roth IRA, my plan is to focus maxing out my HSA. I also invest $60 per month into an ETF, VOO. Given this situation, I am uncertain whether I should focus on aggressively paying down my student loans or continue with. My current investment and savings strategy. My primary concern is balancing the potential long-term growth from investing, especially with the Roth IRA and rental properties against the interest I'm paying in student loans. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on what I should do. Should I keep prioritizing my investment strategy?

• 32:32Andrew Giancola?

  Reallocate some of my savings to aggressively pay down my student debt, particularly the higher interest loans? Thank you so much for your time in reviewing my situation. So this is something that is a situation a lot of people have to deal with. And first of all, congratulations on graduating. Congratulations on opening up these accounts and you are crushing it when it comes to your investment accounts. And that is absolutely amazing what you are doing there. You are going to be building a ton of wealth over time just by what you are doing there. So here's where we're going to think about our student loan debt. Okay. If you're a long time listener, you probably know what I'm going to say here. But anything above that 6% interest rate, we consider high interest debt. Okay. And because of that, we want to look at these loans and say to ourselves, we have two options here.

• 33:15Andrew Giancola?

  We can either start aggressively paying these down and trying to get these low. And I don't know what percentage of your loans that is. If you recently graduated, it could be, you know, a big percentage could have gone towards that, or it could be a smaller percentage. And we're going to look at those, you know, seven and 8% rate loans. And we're going to say to ourselves, how do we get these paid down fast? Now, we could A, refinance them and move them into a lower interest debt vehicle, which if they're very, very large, let's say, for example, it's 100 grand. If it's 100 of 150, that would be something I'd probably be more interested in because aggressively paying down 100 grand really, really quickly is tough. If you're young and you are really this disciplined when it comes to your finances thus far, you may be okay in managing this situation where you can kind of move it over

• 33:59Andrew Giancola?

  to a lower interest vehicle and just begin paying it off, you know, over time. And if you're disciplined in investing your money, your investments are going to grow really, really rapidly based on what you're doing here. And also I love that you're saving for that rental property because that just gives you additional options that you may not have had in the future. Also, if you want us to do more real estate content, shoot me an email and I'll absolutely do that. But I want you to rank out those loans. So anything above a 6%, we're going to put on one side of the coin and then anything above. Below 6%, we will just continue making those payments every single month. And then I want you to keep doing what's working. You're saving up for that rental property. It sounds like you want to really get into the real estate game. You're also maxing out your Roth IRA and you are maxing out and moving money towards your ASHA contributions.

• 34:43Andrew Giancola?

  Now, the first place I would probably look or consider is maybe the rental property savings into paying down the 8% interest debt. And then, once you get that 8% interest debt down, and if you don't refinance, then I would kind of move slowly back into the rental property investing game there and saving that cash. Because it's cash that is sitting there, the rate of return on that is not going to be a ton. And it will take you a few years to get enough money to kind of put down on a rental property, unless you're going to do some sort of house hack or something else along those lines. And so, that's probably the money I would utilize towards this short term until you get that paid down. Now, if it's not a lot in the high interest debt, you could also consider pausing some of the $60 per month, the ETF contributions, and putting that towards your high interest debt and then revisiting your budget. So, one thing I would also do is look at my budget and say to myself,

• 35:28Andrew Giancola?

  can I find an extra $200 to $400 per month that I could put towards this debt? And make sure that I can carve that out and pay this down. But you honestly are in an unbelievable situation right now. All I would say is I would make these minor tweaks. I would look at, one, seeing if I could refinance any of the high interest, if there's a ton of it, and seeing if I can get a low interest rate on that. Two, if you can't do that, I would start to reallocate some of the rental property funds towards that high interest debt. That'd be the first place I would look if it's a large amount. If it's a smaller amount, then I would just look at some of that ETF funds too, that $60 per month and starting to move that over. And then, four is I would look through some of my situation and say to myself, can I find $200 to $400 extra every single month to put towards this debt?

• 36:12Andrew Giancola?

  But that 8% interest debt, it cannot linger at that 8%. You want to make sure that you're getting that paid down. And then, eventually, we can move up and get back to our rental property savings or whatever our other goals are. So, that's how I would approach it. But if you have any other questions on that, let me know. And again, absolutely amazing job. You are crushing it. And I love, I love, love, love to see people doing this kind of stuff because it is absolutely amazing.

• 36:38Andrew Giancola?

  Hey Andrew, I'm looking to start a side business creating websites marketed to small businesses as I attempt to not only build multiple streams of income, but also detach my time from my money generation, as has been discussed on your podcast. I'm looking at starting my business through a platform called SiteSwan that gives me software to create websites and find leads while being completely white labeled. My question for you is that as I am just starting out, should I establish an LLC or a corporation for this? Thinking ahead and wanting to eventually buy a business in real estate, what should I consider when comparing these options? For context regarding state laws, I live in California and would be establishing myself there. Thank you as always for your awesome content. I'm really enjoying the business show. In addition to the Personal Finance Podcast's latest episode, thank you so much for the

• 37:22Andrew Giancola?

  love there too. And I really appreciate this question because this is a great question. I think a lot of people need to think through. So when starting out, I always go with an LLC because you can shift this LLC around and it's flexible and you can move it around as time goes on. Now LLCs are very simple to set up. They're very simple to manage. And especially when you are just getting started, this is the easiest route to take. It's just going with that LLC. They offer that limited liability protection. And so that's one thing that I really love about LLCs, meaning your personal assets are shielded if the business ever gets sued, but they're also flexible for taxes. And by default, it's a pass through taxation. So you're going to report your profits and losses on your personal return, which is often more favorable when you're small. So those are the three reasons why I would start with the LLC.

• 38:06Andrew Giancola?

  Now, as time goes on, and here's the two other considerations. This is an S corp. So I have two companies that are in an S corp. And when your business earns at least 50,000 or more net in profit annually, you might consider electing to an S corp because there are some tax considerations that you want to think through. It's going to help you save on self-employment taxes. The thing about an S corp is you have to pay yourself a reasonable salary and excess profits can be distributed as dividends, which may reduce your overall tax burden. And so typically what I will do is you're forced to pay yourself a reasonable salary. But in addition, it helps you with your tax burden overall. And a lot of times I'll pay myself in distributions as well. So I'll make my salary as low as I possibly can do at least. And then I'll pay myself in distributions because there's some tax benefits there.

• 38:50Andrew Giancola?

  Now C corps are the other option and those are way more complex and they're generally not needed unless you plan to raise venture capital or keep profits in the business long term, but C corps are not always, always needed. Now thinking ahead, again, I would just start off with the LLC. That's the easiest way to do this. But if you're buying businesses, you could also do something like a holding company for anyone out there who's looking to buy businesses. And for real estate, separate LLC. So you mentioned that you want to invest in real estate. You do not want your, you know, website building business to be under the same LLC as your real estate. They need to be two separate things. And a lot of people I know do separate LLCs for each property also, and it just helps with the liability there and really, really important.

• 39:30Andrew Giancola?

  Now California has some specific considerations also. They charge a minimum, and I didn't know this until recently, but they charge a minimum of $800 annual franchise tax for LLCs and corporations, even if you make no money. That is, you know, it doesn't really promote business about, I'll just put it that way. Now, some people will start a sole proprietorship and wait until they have traction to form an LLC, but keep in mind, there's no liability protection there. And if you're working with clients, you want to make sure you have some of that liability protection. But given your long-term goals, I think an LLC makes the most sense in this scenario. Again, I'm not an attorney, but you could talk to an attorney if you need to, but I think a simple LLC makes the most sense. It's what I always, always, always start with, with any company that I start is an LLC. Then I'll start to shift it if I need to, once revenue comes in and I'm starting to see how much money I'm making.

• 40:15Andrew Giancola?

  So that's where I would start and then go from there. Now places to open them, you can do it anywhere from LegalZoom to there's a million places to open them online cheap, or you can go to an attorney and have them open it up for you. You're just going to pay a little bit more. But you will get your questions answered if you have some questions. So feel free to let me know if you have any other questions on that. And I'll be able to help you any way, shape or form that I can. Listen, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the personal finance podcast. If you guys have any questions, please join that master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and we may answer your question here on the show. Listen, again, thank you so much for being here and we will see you on the next episode.

• 41:07Speaker 03

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