Americans Are Saving At An All-Time High! Are You Keeping Up?

22:24Brian Preston:Alex C is up next. It says, what are your views on the lost decade? My wife and I, both 31, are on step seven slash eight. I am concerned that we may see another lost decade in the future and as a result, lose out on key growth years. Thanks. Alex is 31. 31. Here's what's wonderful about your question, Alex. I know two guys that were investing and were helping folks invest and were helping folks navigate their financial life during that lost decade. Here's what I think is, and I'm, I'm, Bo, you can, you're always so good with the data points better than me because the two numbers I'm getting confused is there's two periods of time that people always bring up and one of them is a lot closer than the other, but the great depression, there was actually like a 20-30 year period where the market was actually down.

23:22If you look at it over 25 years. So instead of it lost one decade, it was like over 25 years. It was lost two decades. And then there's what happened after the dot-com bubble, and then you've got the Great Recession. If you look at that 10-year period, and most people go and grab it, what is it, 1999?

23:41Brian Preston:I think it was 99 to 09. is the lost decade that everybody talks about. And they scare you to death. They'll be like, holy cow. Everybody's counting on this 8 % to 11 % rate of return. But man, if we hit another lost decade, you are hosed. Here's what they never tell you. Why do I have such a high inflection point when I talk about this? Always be buying, baby. Because this is the thing. If you're dollar cost averaging, which somebody who's 31 years of age, this is the reality of the situation. If you're a 60-year-old, yes, this is scary as all get out. But hopefully, even for 60-year-olds, I don't want you to be scared.

24:17If you've done this the Financial Mutant way, we got you covered through diversification and other things. But for a 31-year-old, you ought to actually hope for. I know that's so weird and contrarian, but you build so much wealth when markets get their teeth kicked in. So a 31-year-old that the market goes down in two bad downturns like we had with the dot-com bubble, as well as the Great Recession. Every month when we hit those volatile periods, you were buying in. You were buying in every month. And then what happens is when you look back, like the Great Depression, that 25 years, we figured out that if you were just dollar-cost averaging through that period, you still average close to an 11 to 12.

24:56It's like 11.7%. It was between 11 % and 12 % annualized rate of return during a 25-year period where supposedly it was lost. same exact thing happens if you were dollar cost averaging through the last decade of the dot-com and the great recession you're going to be somebody like me and Bo where you look back and go what was everybody freaking out about I built a lot of wealth during that because there was so many contrarian opportunities by just always be buying yeah I think if you look when people think

25:26Brian Preston:about the lost decade as I say I had this person that started investing in 1998 or 1999 and when When I look at where the market was from 98 or 99 to 08, 09, it was at the same place when I just look at what the S &P 500 or whatever index you want to look at was trading at. What we noticed for our clients and what we realistically lived through is that if you were someone that was investing in a diversified portfolio, meaning you didn't have all your assets in a singular asset class, it was actually not a lost decade for you. Because there were asset classes that did do really well. And there were asset classes that helped mitigate volatility.

26:02Brian Preston:And there were asset classes that helped during the drawdown. And so if you were someone who had a portfolio built that way, when you looked at your annualized return from 98 to 08 or from 2000 to 2010 or from 2003 to 2013, it wasn't zeros. It was not goose eggs across the board. Yeah, there were periods of volatility. Dot-com bubble, portfolios went down. 2008, portfolios went down. but those folks who had a well-diversified portfolio kept a level head about them. They were back to break even within a couple of years. That's what all the numbers would suggest when you look coming out of bear markets.

26:41Brian Preston:The average time that it takes to get back to where you were, depending on the type of portfolio you're in, is usually somewhere between 18 to 36 months. So if you can get back to where you were in that 18 to 36 months, you're going to recognize, man, I can do exactly what Brian said. I can keep buying, keep dollar cost averaging, keep putting my dollars to work. And there's a high likelihood that I'm not going to have a lost decade. So Alex, for you, 31, if you're worried about the next decade being the next lost decade, you should be really, really excited. If you're worried about that happening right at the time that you are 55 going into age 65, you need to make sure that your portfolio appropriately matches what your risk tolerance and risk capacity is so that even if the market and economy freaks out around you, your portfolio is not freaking out in that same way.

27:31This is, I don't know if it'll stay in if we turn this into a highlight, but I think it's worth me sharing the experience here is when I came out, remember I started, I graduated college in the mid nineties and you want to know what really ticked me off being a brand new freshly minted financial mutant in the nineties was, is I come out in 95, 96, and then you look at the rates of returns of the financial markets in 96, 97, 98, and I'm putting in, what,$1 ,000,$1 ,500,$2 ,000? Because I mean, a staff accountant right out of college making$28 ,000 is just not all. Even if I'm saving at a good, healthy savings rate, I've only got a few thousand dollars to go in.

28:11And I remember being so frustrated thinking, man this is just so unfair because i'm watching clients i remember we we had this this client i'm not gonna give too many details but he two he had two million dollars fast forward because it was one of those crazy years in the late 90s came in the next year for his annual his 12 month review of his first year with the firm i was at at the time and he had three million dollars he's like boys i mean it's all right i started a business if i'd have known it was this easy to make an extra million dollars all i'd do was invest you know two million with you guys i mean that's how crazy times were back then.

28:43And I remember thinking, man, yeah, but my$2 ,000 only turned into$3 ,000, you know, because all the technology funds were crushing it back then. That's why I tell you, so no matter where you are and you get, we all get this chip on our shoulders that, man, it was only good for the people behind me or the people ahead of me, I should say. You know, they got all these opportunities. No, it's going to be okay. There's going to be the law of accelerating returns, this ever-expanding economy we live in, there's going to be opportunities that come your way to take advantage of as well. So just make sure that you're checking your head, checking your motivation, and then do the behaviors that actually set you up for success.

29:24And I think you'll be just like me in 20, 30 years in the future. You'll be like, yeah, that was all right. What was I worried about in the 90s when I was jealous of all the older people that we're getting those huge returns, it's going to be okay. You will be rewarded for your discipline. You'll be rewarded when you turn that margin or money and put it to work investments with enough time, you'll come out the other end A-OK.

29:48Brian Preston:Love that. That's great. Alex C., thank you for the question. All right. MECE31 is up next. It says, I am 40 and crossed$2 million net worth. So congratulations on that, first of all. That's amazing. The next part says, I've lost my motivation at work, and I'm thinking about a career change. What are your thoughts on making a bad financial move, but good for long-term happiness? We need some glasses here, Bo. Well, yeah, I'm going to let you talk about the glasses, because what I'm going to start with, Meck, is that we have to keep in mind money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to achieve the goals that we have.

30:33Brian Preston:And so often we get trapped in this idea of it's future goals, future goals, future goals, future goals. But our money does do a very real thing for us today. It provides for goals that we have today. In my world, it provides for being able to feed my family, being able to create memories, be able to do experiences. And we don't do those things at the cost of those future goals, but my wife and I figure out how do we prioritize those goals at the same time. And so, yeah, Yeah, you could stay in a miserable, horrible, awful job that makes you bite your fingernails on Sunday and just is not giving you a quality of life.

31:11Brian Preston:But is the cost of that worth it to build for some future goal that your mental health may not be able to get you to? So I would begin to reassess and think through, okay, if I know that I do not like this job, I do not have motivation, this is not what I need to be, and this is not what I want to be doing right now, I think that's when you begin to say, okay, based on all the work that I've done up to this point, based on the fact that I'm 40 and I've got a$2 million net worth, what options are available to me because of the hard decisions I made earlier on? And when you begin to do that, you can put on your 3D glasses.

31:49Well, before I get into the 3D glasses, there's something I want to make sure because it was lacked motivation. I didn't know there's a difference between being bored at a job that's a perfectly good job that you're good at and can create a lot of resources and other things versus just missing out on purpose and being unhappy and chewing on your fingernails on Sunday. So I'd also compare and contrast that too to figure out where you are. Because some people, you might be in a really good situation, but you're in the grass always seems greener. So I would do some self-reflection on that. But then this is the way I look at money because Bo is exactly right.

32:27Money is no more than a tool. In the beginning, it pays for your basic stuff, your shelter, your food. These are the things when you see those studies on happiness and stuff, it's not really happiness or fulfillment. It's more of, do you not have to worry about where your next meal or how you're going to pay for your shelter, for your family and your loved ones is going to come from? That's a key component of what money as a tool can do for you. Beyond that, you're going to start realizing, hey, I need to start being in control of knowing, how do I use my time? Because in the beginning part of the journey, you're trading your time, your labor for those paychecks.

33:03But down the road, I want you to be thinking about your money, your army of dollar bills to where you own your time and do what you want when you want. But it does scare me because when you get to be 40 with$2 million, that's way ahead of the curve. So that's going to give you lots of opportunities to look at money as a tool to figure out how do you own your time, but that does now lead to the next exercise of you got to put on your 3D glasses before you make, because what I don't want you to do is to cross the threshold because you're obviously in a good paying job to be able to create$2 million at 40 years of age.

33:34There's some money being generated. There's a pretty big shovel somewhere in the background. I don't want you to walk through the threshold of saying, uh, I'm kind of bored or I'm not getting what I want. I'm going to walk through this. That might be the right decision, but it also could be a horrible decision if all of a sudden you come out and you six months later you're like what was I thinking you know I just was I'm having a you know a midlife type crisis and maybe I didn't do this right so here's the 3D glasses I want you before you go cross through that threshold to make a big life change I want you to actually put pen to paper or excel spreadsheet or however you know sheets whatever you want to use to where you're going to run three different five-year scenarios I want you to say, okay, let's do the dream plan.

34:21This is where I get to land my next job. I wake up every morning feeling like rainbow sunshine, and it's awesome. And you model out everything working out exactly like you want. Then you do the down-to-earth plan. You say, okay, I'm going to change jobs, but I'm also going to have some bad things that might happen. This is the way I think it will work. and then don't skip out on this third one because nobody likes to do the third one, and that's the doo-doo plan. There's the three Ds. Dream, down to earth, and then don't skip the doo-doo of you change this job, and then six months in the future you realize you made a huge, horrendous mistake, and now you have to figure out how do I recover from this mistake of letting my emotions or something make me do this decision.

35:07If you do this on paper or through your spreadsheet or your 3D glasses plan, It's going to be much better to experience it there versus in real time and in real life. And if you go through that exercise, I think you'll then now have the variables to determine, hey, a dashboard view of, is this the right decision to do career changes? And I think career changes, we have a whole wing of them back there in our financial planners that come from engineers, doctors, songwriters, producers. I mean, it's kind of amazing how people can have some success. And then, yes, we've seen some successful transitions, but just don't skip out.

35:48Because I think sometimes we don't realize how unique we are when you have these opportunities. I just don't want you to walk away from something without making sure you do the other side of the equation work as well.

35:59Brian Preston:Love that. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So good, so good, so good. new summer arrivals are at nordstrom rack stores now get ready to save big with up to 60 off brands like rag and bone levi's adidas and free people join the nordy club to unlock exclusive discounts shop new arrivals first and more plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free great brands great prices that's why you rack it's great mech e31 thanks for asking the question and hope that helps you think through what you're going to do next.

37:07Brian Preston:I'm going to sanction a tangent. Oh. I know. Surprise. We've had several people ask, Ryan. She's going to sanction a tangent. I'm sanctioning a brief tangent. A tangent to happen right now. We've had several people ask. I thought that was like, we're going to put a fine on it. You're going to allow this to occur. No, we're going to allow. Not put a fine on it. Allow it. We're going to allow it. Okay. I was like, what did I say? How much money could we raise if we put fines on tangents? It would be like a cuss jar. I had a dollar for every tangent. No. We have a new set piece that people are noticing.

37:36Brian Preston:And people want to know what the plaques say. A lot of people noticed it. What it says. And I can't quite read it from here because your head's right there. So I was wondering if you could tell people what it says. Are you getting up? Oh, here we go. Why are you getting up? So I can look at the prop. He loves a prop. By the way, Caleb. Caleb said, I noticed it the other day when I came in. Because I gave this to Caleb. It came in. And Caleb goes, I'll show you where. I said, should we put it down? I was like, is it too much? And he's like, we'll see if we can fit it in. So here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.

38:11Does anybody know where that's from? I'm sure in the comments somebody is.

38:14Brian Preston:I mean, it has to be Disney, right? It's Disneyland. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, this is when anybody walks into Disneyland, you go under this plaque. Well, when you join Disney 23, this is one of the membership perks that they offer you. is that you too can get your own. You'll be happy to know I actually had someone in the comments say, I'll bet he's a D23 member. So we had a few people clocking it and mentioning Disney. I want to put it back so people can see it. There we go. Sorry. Is that a good enough tangent? That was fantastic. Thank you for, I mean, I thought it was cool. I mean, because it was like that or like a spirit shirt.

38:50And I was like, I'll never wear that shirt. But I definitely, when I saw that.

38:54Brian Preston:You're like, I got a place for that. Y 'all will have to tell me because y 'all know part of my fascination is that I've read some books, Walt Disney, Roy Disney, the duo, because I love them both. I mean, I really do because Walt was the visionary, the dreamer, and the creative, but then his brother Roy was like the accountant mindset. And I think a lot of people don't give Roy enough credit for he's the one that took his brother's dreams and tried to figure out how do we actually make this work? because Walt was kind of a wild man. He didn't care about debt. He didn't care about, you know, he would just do it because he wanted to do it.

39:31It was Roy that was kind of the builder in the background of fulfilling that. And that's what I think is just so cool, thinking of, you know, Walt having this vision that, you know, he didn't have something to do on the weekend with his girls, and then he just kind of created this whole new thing with amusement parks. And, I mean, because I go to Universal, it's just world changing in a lot of cool ways and I just, you know, sentimentally it brings a lot of really nostalgic ideas and positive things Love that.

40:02Brian Preston:Love it. Well thank you for answering the question about the plaque now everyone knows what it says Alright we've got some more questions Every time before we start the show we go rub it you know, like when you go to the top of the football game. It wouldn't do but it's not real metal Has a little Disney magic on it. That one is more of a, I think it is. I don't think you can rub or touch. Should you get up again and just see what kind of material? No, it's made out of resin. All right, let's move on to the next personal finance question. It says, it's from MBFM. It says, if I'm investing 25 % plus just with my pre-tax employer match, should I be concerned that I am not funding the other two buckets that we talk about in the three bucket strategy.

40:50Brian Preston:He's 32 in the messy middle. And he says, I don't have the extra margin to invest more right now. And admittedly, 25 % plus is a good number. But what do you think? This is a unique situation. Yeah, to be 32 years old, investing 25 plus when you factor in the employer match is awesome. And so what I'm going to assume, I didn't mention if you're married or single. One of the things I'd love to know, MBFM, is what is your annual income? I'm going to assume that because you are including your employer match, that means that if you are married, the household income is below$200 ,000. Or if you're a single individual, your household income is below$100 ,000.

41:34Brian Preston:That means that you can include the employer match when you're counting towards your 25%. Well, if that's the case, the next question I'm going to ask you is, okay, well, what state do you live in? because I want to know your tax rate. Because one of the things that might be worth investigating is if I'm putting money into my employer-sponsored account and I'm maxing that out, is there a chance that I happen to be in a lower tax rate environment? Maybe I live in a state that has no state income tax or low state income tax. Should I potentially be doing Roth contributions into my 401k? Because even if you do Roth contributions into your 401k, you still get your employer match and your employer match still goes into the pre-tax bucket of your 401k.

42:20Brian Preston:So if that were the case, and then if it did make sense for you to do Roth contributions, in just doing that, just doing the 25 % of your 401k, you'd actually be building up two of the three buckets. You'd be building your tax-free bucket in Roth. You'd be building your pre-tax bucket with the employer contribution. And at 32, I think that that's okay because you're far enough away from needing these dollars that I think just doing that is likely going to suffice. This is why I get so proud. And I know pride, you have to be careful with it, but I am very proud of the financial order of operations is because we built this into the system.

42:58Look, we recognize for some people, especially if you're married, 110K. Yeah. Because that income is about right. Because I know anybody who's in the low six figures or right under six figures, you're going to be able to graduate from step six, which is max out retirement assets, to step seven just because you're hugely disciplined, but you're maxing out things without even loading them up all the way. Because we've actually had people raise their hand who made$80 ,000 and they didn't even get to hit the full salary deferral limit. And we still said, no, you graduated to step seven because you're doing 25 % of your gross income.

43:36And the reason why I think this is so powerful, and this ties into what Bo just gave the advice on, when you're early, once we get you, just so you can kind of know what's the engine that's driving the financial order of operations.

43:50Brian Preston:Also no state income tax. There's steps one and four is to keep your life out of the ditch. You know, obviously emergency reserves. Step two is just you're crazy if you're missing out on 50 to 100 percent guaranteed rates of return with free employer money. Obviously, credit card debt and other things. You're never going to get ahead if you're paying 20 % to a bank while you're expecting to only make 8 % to 12 % from the investments that you have. But when you get to steps five and six, these are all about tax-efficient saving and investing. We ought to take advantage. If the government's going to restrict who can save what, how much you can put in where, you should probably take advantage of these things.

44:25But there is a problem with this that we've built into the system is that I want you saving 25 % because we've done the math. We know that this is where the intersection point, if you go to moneyguy.com slash resources, how much you should save, whatever that thing is called.

44:38Brian Preston:That's actually the name of it. That's the first time you've said it exactly the right way. So how much should you save? This is going to show you, but you get to step seven. There does come a point, and this is why, and I'm not trying to sell books, but man, oh man, this is why I wrote the book. Best chapter or most improved is the step seven chapter because it covers exactly this point is that you will get to a point where you say, you know what, money is only a tool. I've done everything in the most tax efficient way. And I do agree with Bo, you should go make sure the Roth is, maybe you should be doing the Roth instead of the pre-tax.

45:11Brian Preston:110 married state with no income tax. It's about, it's just on what's the value of what that tax free could become potentially. But there will come a point that you need to, this is what step seven is trying to do for you is how am I going to use this money? Because now we talk about the three buckets and we say if you're part of the FIRE movement and you think you're going to leave the workforce at 50, 55 years of age, you're going to need some, even if you're giving up something from pre-tax or tax deductions, now you're probably going to need some after-tax bridge account money so that you can actually leave the workforce when you want to.

45:45There's also going to come a point where you're going to say, hey, through step seven and step eight, I have kids. I want to start saving in a 529. It seems cruel if I'm just saving everything into my own retirement and I'm saving well beyond, you know, I'm at 25%. When do I get to do the kids? All these things come into play. And then I also want to fast forward to when you're 42 years old, you don't want to be taking out a bunch of car debt anymore when you go buy a new car. And I've had, what's so frustrating is I've had prospects that then became clients that they're trying to go buy a car and they have seven figures in retirement assets, but they don't have enough cash to go buy a car with cash.

46:22That's a failure of your structure. and this is why we've created the financial order of operations with hyperaccumulation step seven, where you're thinking about the three buckets, the pre-tax, the after-tax, the tax-free buckets, so you can think about how you're actually going to use money as a tool to accomplish, empower your life, not just be stuck in where you're just loading up retirement assets and not actually knowing where you're going to go next. We got you covered, and that's why I love that the system is so in-depth and so well thought out. It's almost like we manage money for a living and said, hey, there's a lot of systems out there, but they don't have the nuance to actually tell you, you know, as you, because you're going to get beyond basics of just basic debt and other things.

47:05You're going to want to know how to actually maximize and build your money in a really good way. And I'm pretty proud that we, I think we did it. Love it.

47:14Brian Preston:That's great. That was a high five right there. No big deal. That was so sweet. well mbfm you got them to high five it's so they love answering that question so much so thank you for submitting it you know bo and i have this list of like um we try to keep it around 100 things that i can talk on my my walking on tangent time one of the tangent times that i'm gonna do and i just because it might be because i'm trying to keep them around two minutes but this one probably might be three to four minutes and we'll just let the edit crew do their thing or maybe two change of time. Is the stories of the foo because it is how it came to be.

47:52I also know the one, the step that I think you had the genius idea on that it kind of it's a pretty cool story I think eventually.

48:03Brian Preston:I love it. Good teaser. Do I not? I haven't recorded that yet. I might know that story. I don't know if I do. When I tell you, I just remember how, because it really does have a PIMDAS type thing. I don't want to give too much because it will be a fun little behind-the-scenes thing to share. Look at you cliffhanging. I don't mean to. I'm dying to tell the story. If you are out there and you're like, what are you talking about, Tangent Time? It's a brand new thing that we've started doing on our socials. If you don't follow us on Instagram, if you don't follow us on TikTok, if you don't follow us on X, make sure you are following us there because our social media team is getting this Tangent Time with Brian out there for you to enjoy.

48:45Brian Preston:So you get to just hang out and go on a walk with Brian and it's an awesome thing. So if you're not following or subscribed to those channels, make sure you do that now. And find us at Money Guy Show. If you're not subscribed to this channel, make sure you subscribe to this channel right now so that you know every time we put out brand new content. I recorded one last week. I haven't uploaded it yet because I haven't figured out is this even worthy? It's when you and I were going to make smoothies. Oh, buddy. Honestly, please record that one. Your wife gets all of the credit for diverting us out of that one.

49:19Look, I'm hoping these Tangent Times will be not only fun little Brian Bow stories, but there are some teachable moments in there. There's also why I love Disney. I mean, I try to put, there's no limits besides just what the content team says. Yeah, I wouldn't say that.

49:35Brian Preston:There's a couple checks and balances. That's the only boundary we have. We pretty much let you say it. What would it be like to hang out with Brian? go check out 10 to 10 because that's what it is. He's just hanging out with a big guy. All right. We've got another question queued up from C Hughes. It says, I'm 24, I make 80K, and I have 87K invested, which honestly that's incredible. He says, our baby spent some time in the NICU. He's healthy now, which so glad to hear that. But we're stuck with 21K in bills and$1 ,300 per month in insurance. How do we get back on track? And I understand this question.

50:17Brian Preston:It's like, this is what the insurance and the emergency fund is for, but now what? What would you say to C. Hughes and his family? What C. Hughes has fallen into is what he thinks the FOO is versus what the reality of the FOO is. Yeah. So I've got 87 invested. Baby, we racked up some medical bills, but now we've got$21 ,000 in bills and 13. How do we get back on track? I just want to empathize with you because a lot of folks, unknown, unknown things happen. And sometimes unknown, unknown things happen with the people that we love. In this case, it was your child. And I'm glad to hear that everything is better now, but there was a cost associated with that.

50:56Brian Preston:So for some reason, I don't know what your health insurance looked like or whatever that was, but you have$21 ,000 in bills outstanding. And you're trying to figure out how do I knock this out? Like, how do I do this. Well, the first piece of advice I would give you, and this is one thing I don't think a lot of people realize, is that when it comes to medical bills and when it comes to having costs that you owe, everything inside that world is negotiable. And what I mean by negotiable is you call and say, hey, I've got these medical bills and one up and look, I'm trying to put together a payment plan and I just, you know, and you tell them the story and you tell them the honest story of where you're at, what you and your spouse are going through, the stuff that you're looking at, say, hey, I would love to be able to pay this off in the next six months, whatever.

51:42Brian Preston:And they'll say, hey, we will work with you to be able to either put you on a payment plan or we will, hey, if you can pay this much by this date, it is not uncommon for folks to call and be able to make a deal with the institution that has the medical bills outstanding. So that'd be probably the first step I take. Hey, what resources, what options are available for me to be able to satisfy these bills? And then once you figure out what the number is, then you begin working through the strategy of how you actually begin to knock them out. And by the way, I'll modernize this. See, Hughes, I would even, whether it's ChatGPT or whether it's Grok or whatever your AI tool that you're using is, is I would run through asking, hey, give me some thoughts of how to structure this narrative with the insurance company or with the medical provider.

52:36It'll probably be the medical provider themselves. But work with the AI, because I've done this with, look, I had a car accident in the last two weeks. And I've, I mean, I said, hey, I haven't been in a car accident in a long time. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do or not do with the insurance companies. I modeled it out and it's amazing how powerful I think those tools have been to kind of going through and giving you checklist of other things in the background. But here's what I think is also interesting is exactly what Bo is right. When you get it down to the number of what it really is for you, I want the content team, if y 'all could put up there what everybody thinks Foo is, but what it actually is, is that, you know, everybody thinks it's just this smooth little walk up the stairs and you go from steps one all the way to step nine and then live your best life but that's just not the way the world works what will happen is exactly what happened to c hughes is that you'll be making great strides and then all of a sudden life happens and the first two things popped in my mind is that i would look at your eighty seven thousand dollars see if there's anything that's easy access meaning that maybe after tax after tax assets that don't have huge gains in them because maybe after you get that bottom line number that Bo has you negotiating down, you could just come up with the assets, pay it off and be done.

53:59But if that's not possible, because maybe that money's in retirement assets and there's penalties and there's all kind of other crazy things, it's just not liquid. Now you've got to figure out how long is it going to take you? You have to basically go back to step four, the financial order of operations. This is an emergency reserves type thing. You have to go back and from a triage standpoint say, hey, I know I have this much excess in my monthly cash flow. I think I can knock this out in the next five months. And then you just need to work with the provider and work out that timeline, work with your financial order of operations plan.

54:33But then also keep pressuring yourself is to knock it out as fast as possible so you can get right back to the financial order of operations and start building wealth.

54:41Brian Preston:Yeah, and I want to, you know, 24 years old is still super young. You have a lot of time. You know, your issue were medical bills for your child, but a lot of 24-year-olds might have student loan debt, might have auto debt, might have other things that they're coming through. The great thing about being young is you have time on your side that even if this puts you what feels like behind or sets you back a touch, that's okay. so long as you can like work through it, get back to saving, get back to where you were from a saving standpoint, all indications are that you're going to be fine. Give yourself some grace as you work through this unique thing of life happening.

55:25Brian Preston:That was great. A great answer. C. Hughes, thank you for asking the question. We hope that that helps. Like the guy said, like you've done an incredible job so far. So we just want to say that. So I have no doubt that you'll be able to work through this and you and your family will be right back on track. All right. Well, this has been extremely fun. I do have just a little teaser to give you. I know that you all have really enjoyed, along with us, our Financial Mutant Survey shows. So the first one came out, what, a couple weeks ago, I believe. So go check that out if you haven't listened to it.

55:58Brian Preston:we are recording and getting ready to release the second show that is going to look, dive even deeper into more data from the survey. So what you guys are doing with your money, what our clients are doing with their money, what the average American is doing with their money. And I'm very excited for you to see it. It is so interesting. So be sure to subscribe to the channel, subscribe to our email list over at moneyguy.com if you haven't, so that you will be sure to be notified when that comes out because I just think you're really going to enjoy it. It's fascinating and I'm excited. So I just had to tell you about it.

56:33Well, you know, the thing that makes me so happy is that y 'all know what a big impact The Millionaire Next Door had on me in the mid nineties. I mean, cause I came out with an accounting degree, but didn't know how money worked yet. And it was that book. Um, and then The Wealthy Barber that kind of changed my life. And then what's really been exciting for me. And I, and I want to give mad respect to Sarah, you know dr stanley's daughter who came back out with the next millionaires next door um great book we even did the collab with her but i am very happy that in the the seat of somebody sharing annual data on what are the mindsets what are the behaviors what are real americans that are outside of all the the the consumption society we live in the the contrarian trends that we see with our clients and now we see with our financial mutants you guys out there in the listening audience.

57:24Guys, I think we're doing revolutionary work that nobody else in the marketplace is doing. And I love that it gets refreshed every year. And you guys, y 'all have shown up in force because I was worried. We did the first survey show of the audience last year. And the number of you who responded, I was like, that's outstanding. And then when Reby said, I don't know if everybody will show back up. Y 'all showed up and then some. I mean, it was amazing to have 25 ,000 people kind of jump in. These are getting into sums of numbers that you can actually really start seeing some, so you have a large enough population to see some trends.

58:02It's, thank you. I mean, I don't take it for granted because this thing is already well beyond what I ever anticipated, but I love, and I think y 'all can see the heart of this is, you know, the whole thing started back in 2006 when I felt guilty that people who just came into their first five to$10 ,000 were going to probably go get sold something that was inappropriate because this is back in the decade of B shares and all these other horrible investments. Things have gotten a lot better. Index funds were not the predominant thing back when this thing first came on the scene. And I love that that heart of an educator mentality has just grown and grown.

58:39And then it's turned into, look, I'm unashamed to say now. I didn't know it. It wasn't set up on purpose. It's turned out to be the greatest business idea in history. Now, that's why I'm Mr. Magoo of being a marketing genius is because it just happened, I think, because of the purity of the message and what we were trying to do is that people who were using our systems and our processes all of a sudden started creating success in their financial life. And they're like, hey, I'll never forget that first call in 2008. I'm not going to embarrass her because she's still a client of the firm. But she calls and goes, hey, I have a layover in Atlanta Airport.

59:11Can we meet? And I was like, what? You want to meet? And I was like, oh, my gosh. And then it happened. we had a few more. By the way, I think the majority of these people, all from the 2008, 9, 10, they're all still clients of the firm. Now I've seen a lot of them, they're all retiring, and it's kind of fun to see this. But y 'all woke me up to the realization that this thing can generate, financial mutants become abound wealth clients. That's why we talk about that we'll leave the porch light on for you, and that's why we call it the abundance cycle, is because if you just do what we say, and you don't have to buy any of our products or tools or anything, but if you just do what we say, you're going to reach a level of success that complexity is naturally going to find you.

59:53And that's where we'll be waiting for you. And I just, you'll have no idea how excited I get that all this works in the way it does. And I'll close it out at that. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Bo Reby and the rest of the content team. Money Guy team, out.

1:00:08Brian Preston:The Money Guy show is hosted by Brian Presson and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through The Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice.

1:00:37Brian Preston:All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. There are two types of business owners. those who are busy and those who want to be busy. Toast is designed for both, with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth. That's how you turn busy into business. Toast, built for busy. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

1:01:14Brian Preston:Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.