Can a $100K Family Ever Get Ahead?

17:02Brian Preston:Yeah. I mean, and you can also, you can see your army of dollar bills, even though y 'all feel like you're not doing what you're supposed to all the way because you're still stuck in this cash stage. and we'll talk more about that. But to see your army of dollars grow close to 30 % last year, I mean, it's pretty wild to go from 100 ,000 to 130 ,000. A lot of good stuff is building in the background, even though life didn't exactly go the way you wanted it to. Before we moved on, did you say what the new car is? Because I know you got rid of the Civic. How did the car buying transaction go? Did you stay within 23.8?

17:38I mean, I want to know more. That's just water, you know. That's water. Do we need to put a little something in there? Because car buying experience is never easy either. Car buying was not a great experience. I feel bad I'm talking. You want to tell the more fun stories? No. Please don't. It was great. It was wonderful. What a great time. Most expensive hotel stay we had. Yeah. Okay, so. Y 'all are awesome. We know about 23-8. We love 23-8. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. We went foolish, didn't we? We went foolish. I can already tell. I can already see there's going to be an asterisk on this answer. There's an asterisk.

18:14And again, I hate breaking the rules, and I feel like we're just bending as many of them as we possibly can at this point. But we did a lot of the math just to make sure that what we were doing wasn't a completely terrible decision, although this one's not going to get a pass. We got a Honda CR-V. Again, we have two small kids. Driving a Civic was already difficult enough with just me in it, let alone having the two girls in it. Because you're 6 '4". Okay, I'm slightly tall. Big guy, little car. We make everybody look so good. So our kid's seat in the back is already just. So we got a little bit bigger car.

18:49It is new. It was a new CR-V. And it's not the, you know, it's an EX.

18:53Brian Preston:It's not, we're not, nothing crazy. Overall, it was, oh, good, it's on there. What it's worth today. It was about 32 ,000 and some change. And we put 50 % down on it. Wow. Okay. just from the, you know, some of the cash we got back from the insurance. And we're paying, it's at 3.49%. So we're paying about 320 bucks a month now. So not 23.8. I'm not going to do that public math, but it's 50 something something. How about that? 50 something. Look, you know what? 23.8 is a guardrail for like, hey, to get into a car, this is what you could do. I have no problem with you putting 50 % down, right? Now, I would like for your emergency fund to be fully funded, kind of hearing you did that.

19:39Brian Preston:Maybe that was a trade-off that I wouldn't have chosen. But what did you say the car payment is? 320. 320. And so 3.49%, not a crazy rate on an automobile right now. And how long did you finance it for? What was the term? 60 months. It's okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. We're not going to get a pass. You were doing so good. I have the math. You were doing so good. If the payment was, you can still keep it as a 60-month loan. They let you prepay them. If you just increased your payment to$4.98, it would be paid off within the three years. That's cool. I like that. So I'll do the public math for you.

20:22Thank you. So there might be some potential to throw a little bit extra. But that's still, I think you're going to leave some margin there for still doing life. But just make sure that you always stay ahead of the depreciation on the curve, You put down 50%. That's going to keep you well ahead. But it just keeps, gets you out of the car games that much sooner. Because what happens when all of a sudden Hannah's car needs to be replaced? We don't want to have two car payments. What kind of car are you driving right now? It's an 2018 Toyota Highlander.

20:50Brian Preston:Oh, it's practically brand new. So that's great. That's great. It's in great shape. It's also paid off. But y 'all are a perfect case study because that's the same thing. I've had that happen twice with my wife's car is that it's the car accidents. It's the engine blows up. There's things that happen that you just don't count on that you're like, oh, crud, now I've got to make a decision, even though I was kind of hoping this would last another three or four years. It's not that bad. It's not great. It's not that bad. Over this past year, you've had some stuff happen. You had February happen, which was super intense.

21:27Brian Preston:We also kind of went through some goals that you guys had about here are the things we want to do, here are the things we want to accomplish. What's changed? Or how have, you know, one of the homework items we gave is, hey, rethink your goals. Retalk about what's that look like? Do we want to buy a house? Where's that? How does that fit in? As you guys sit here today, having lived through the life that you lived through, where are you in terms of your goals forward? Because it's always great to kind of revisit those. Are the goals we had last year the same goals we have this year? We still want to move in that direction.

21:53Brian Preston:Where are you guys at there? Start with the house? Yeah, go ahead. So start with rent too? Whatever you want. So our rent last year was$1 ,000, which at the time I was itching to get out of the house. And everyone in the comments was like, wow, the biggest line there is the utility bill. It gets hot. It's a poorly insulated house, but it's at a very affordable rate for us. But now instead of$1 ,000, it's$12.50. So it went up 25%. We are still not itching to get out though, because when you guys helped us walk through everything, putting things into perspective, we're good where we are. We would much rather do the$1 ,250 than take on a mortgage.

22:33That's a lot more than that. But saving for a house, have that saving account. It's still a goal.

22:39Brian Preston:It's still a goal, but not something that has happened immediately. It's not number one priority. It's not immediate. Love that. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+.

23:10It can grow. It's a dream. I mean, it's definitely something we want. We haven't our ideas, and we like Zillow as much as anybody else. Shameless plug if that's another problem. But, yeah, right now it's not. even at 1250 with a 25 % increase, even if it were to go up, maybe our landlord watched the video. I don't really know, but they're great. It's a family friend. And we, you know, like I said, we're blessed to have it even at 1250. I'm sure they could rent it higher than that. So, and I will say it helps on gas too. We don't think about that a lot. We're very close to everything. It's right down the street from where our kids go to school.

23:43So that is a huge blessing.

23:44Brian Preston:I think so often there, and we talked about this last time, but it's worth repeating. Renting gets such a bad rap. People are like, oh, I'm just throwing money away. throwing money away, throwing money away. That's not the case anymore in terms of how expensive housing has gotten. We still love homeownership and we still think it's a wonderful goal when it makes sense. And for the circumstance you guys are in right now, I do think that renting is probably the best solution for you guys to be able to do the things you want to do over the long term. And that's okay. And I just want people out there to hear, it's okay to rent.

24:15Brian Preston:You can still build wealth, you can still have your net worth go up by 50 % in a year, even if you're a renter. And that's a totally okay thing to do. Well, I think a lot of people, they have a recency bias in the fact that post-pandemic, we watched housing go up over 50 % in most markets. And everybody felt like, oh my gosh, this thing's running from me. I will say the last two or three years, we've seen things kind of level out to a degree. I mean, they're still going up slightly in some markets, but it's not running from you like it was back from 2021 through 2023 period. So I think it's okay if y 'all take a breather, get caught up on some of these other goals, build it up in the background.

24:57You're going to be okay. You're going to be able to have the time to make this dream happen for you.

25:03Brian Preston:Brian, this is literally it. What we're doing right now is literally one of my favorite things that we get to do sitting across from other real people talking about their finances. Yeah, you guys get to see this on Making a Millionaire, but we also do this for our clients every day at Abound Wealth. We get to dig in where they're at, figure out where the gaps are, and find where we can optimize and build a plan that works specifically for them and for their financial goals. If you've been watching this and thinking to yourself, hey, I want that. I want a professional with decades of experience in my corner looking at my specific situation, we're here to help.

25:37Brian Preston:Yeah, here at Abound Wealth, we are fee-only fiduciary advisors. That means that we are legally required to work in your best interest. And we love helping our clients optimize our army of dollar bills so that they can live their best lives. If you've reached a point where you're ready for some help, go check us out at aboundwealth.com or click on the link right below. We'd love to connect and see if we're a good fit for you. That's right. Head to aboundwealth.com and let's see if we can do this for you too. What about schooling? Because we talked a little bit about schooling last year. Has that changed?

26:09Brian Preston:Still a goal? Thinking about how you're going to navigate that? So the CHOOSE Act is something that is enacted in Alabama now. And you can apply to send your child to any school that is participating in it. So it's a lot of private schools. It'll send, let's, like, maybe three quarters. No, it's a set amount. Yeah. I don't know if I'm able to say. Six or seven thousand. Yeah,$7 ,000. Okay. They will give you to put towards schooling for your child. It's just like a scholarship. Basically a scholarship for kids to go to private K-12 in the state of Alabama. Yes. That's awesome. We have to apply and we have to get it.

26:44I know there's a pool. Our applications would start. We are not in the priority. So that is something we have to factor in.

26:52Brian Preston:But it's an option. It is an option. Yes. How did you guys find out about that? Like what did you? It's highly advertised in Alabama. Okay, got it. A lot of word of mouth. Well, I think it's one of those things that people might not realize. oh wow, my state has this thing where they have this opportunity that I can apply for that might be available. Yes, we know several families who have done the CHOOSE Act and they've received it. So we're hopeful. How old are your girls right now? Five and I'll go ahead and say Allie's three. Okay, so five at kindergarten already? Yes, in August, yes. At your school?

27:24Because I know that was one of the things we talked about. Okay. No, not at my school. Daniel's mom is actually going to teach her. Okay. And that's a choice. Yeah, yeah. It's at the same school she's currently at. It goes to kindergarten. Yes, and I say this unbiasedly. She's a phenomenal kindergarten teacher. I don't want to keep her there. She is worth every cent that we're paying. You hear that, Mom?

27:42Brian Preston:You hear that? She thinks you're great. That's awesome. Good. You guys are doing wonderful. You are in a fantastic spot. I love that we were able to have this conversation last year. That conversation wasn't the end of the conversation. It was kind of the beginning of the conversation. It allowed you guys to keep it going. And here we are a year later. You're in a great spot. I can't wait to see where you guys are three years from now, five years from now. Maybe some less Februaries between now and then. Oh, man. But some great – you guys are just – you're doing it. I am curious, though. There are a few things.

28:13Okay. The cash flow was. I remember last time y 'all were in here, I was always so impressed, and I gave y 'all several compliments. Y 'all's expenses, your monthly budget, your burn rate was right around$5 ,000 a month. So when the team presented to me your update, and I saw it had the car payment built into it because it has the car payment 320 instead of the 500.

28:34Brian Preston:And it's got some debt payment in there. How are we still at 5 ,000? What did y 'all cut? We got a little... I got a really exciting wild hair, I guess, on... You love that. You remember? Christmas Eve. I spent a whole day talking to our Wi-Fi and insurance. Oh, you went to all the ungrateful service providers. Let's go! Christmas Eve. It was totally worth it. It was Christmas Eve. Daniel's on the phone. That's when you decided to call all of them? Did you do your insurance too? Did you do all your own insurances as well? I did, yeah. So anyway, we found, we've been with the same people for years and years and we watched that number climb and climb and just talked with a couple folks.

29:12And just like that, we're able to cut, I don't, off the top of my head, I think for even just internet and phone, we were able to cut like$70 or so per month. Just for the phone call.

29:21Brian Preston:Phone call, absolutely worth it then. Yeah, and insurance was even better. It's not represented on here because last year our insurance was X. After the accident and a new car, our insurance was 2X, almost 3X. So I called and I thought that had to be a mistake. And they said, no, that's a real rate. So after shopping that, we were able to get it down even below what X was last year. So now the ungrateful service providers are going to up it again now that I'm talking about it. But yeah, we were able to keep a lot of stuff. And we cut a couple of small subscriptions here and there. We don't have a ton of subscriptions, but just little things like that.

29:56I gave you so much grief, but I do appreciate that. No, but that's in the moment. Not the best timing, not the best timing, trying to get girls ready and stuff like that. But anyway.

30:05Brian Preston:You know, it's kind of genius because I got to leave the person on the other end of the phone. It's like, this guy's calling me on Christmas Eve. Yeah, okay, whatever. I'm going to do whatever. I want to get home too. I'm going to do whatever you want. It kind of was genius. It was next level. There's some leveling there. For anybody who doesn't know in the audience is that when we say ungrateful service providers, there's a lot of our service models that are set up to reward new customers, but not reward existing customers. So you have to be a proactive user of their products. And that's why we call them ungrateful because they don't want to keep your business.

30:36You have to go advocate for yourself and get the best prices. And we were able to lock in just the phone and internet anyway for five years. So that's not moving for five years. Really excited about that. And then we'll call them again.

30:46Brian Preston:What's so encouraging, I think to the folks out there listening is that even though you added a car payment and even though you have these two other debt payments that are kind of silly and being cute with it, but they're there, right? You got these two other car payments, and your rent went up. Even with all those increases, because you guys were very diligent, you were able to keep your budget roughly the same. You were able to be an active participant in your financial life, command your army of dollar bills well, and even with those additional expenses, you guys were kind of able to stay net neutral.

31:14Brian Preston:That's awesome. That's a great example of not allowing your lifestyle to creep, but allowing your lifestyle to improve and your budget to stay the same, which I think is a lesson to be learned from that. I am starting to think, I mean, y 'all are doing so well. What's your new update on when you think you'll be out of step four? Because that was the big focus from the last meeting was that y 'all, and I could know the frustration because you want to get into step five so you can start funding those Roth IRAs again, especially when you see your army of dollar bills is growing so well. Y 'all seem to be closer.

31:48I mean, months, give us a feedback on how fast we're going towards this. Before today, before we talked about getting the car payments of 500, we were going to move the cash up to about 350 is what we were thinking. Right now we're doing 250 a week into the high yield savings, which gets about 3.1%. And that changes all the time, I feel like. Standing today, we are closer to that 11. I think it's 11.2, 11.3. Awesome. So originally our goal was about 16 ,000. That covers three months living expenses and some change. And excuse me, three months and the 1 ,000, that is. to cover the deductibles. So we're really close.

32:25I mean, I would say by October, that's bad math, maybe, but something like that, October, November.

32:30Brian Preston:And I would argue if you have three months of living expenses, you don't have to add the deductible on top of that. You can include that in that. So maybe the goal is really closer to 15 ,000. I think 16 ,000 is okay because you're like 5 ,100, but somewhere in that ballpark, I think once you get there, I'm going to argue that for you guys, that is a fully funded emergency fund, or at least it's a well-funded emergency fund, where now you can start doing some of these other things. Well, and think about it. I'll make the same point I made last time. If you reach here, because Bo just found you another$1 ,000, maybe in September, if y 'all cross into this threshold in September, you still have until the following April to fund these Roth accounts, y 'all are going to still be able to get some of this money in there.

33:08So we might only have to sit on the sideline, even with the chaos that y 'all have had in the last year, you missed last year, or whatever the year was. I think there's, I'm optimistic because the good news is you had money when the emergencies came. And the good news is when it rains, it does pour. And that's the point I made last time. But y 'all probably do for a good patch where knock on wood and prayers be answered. You don't have the chaos y 'all have had in the last year because it doesn't normally happen all at once like that. So hopefully we get a good stretch and y 'all get some dividends from all your discipline.

33:47Brian Preston:And I think about, what was the car payment you calculated? They need to increase it. Did you remember the number? Yeah, I have it over here on this page. $498. $498. I'm so excited to think about it. We know if you continue on this 0 % payment plan that you're on, in 10 months, you're going to have the vacation paid off. In 24 months, two years, you have the furniture paid off. That's going to free up$150 a month. That's going to be free and clear capital. If you adjust the car payment and you follow 238 and you get it paid off, And that's another$498, so$500. There's an extra$650 per month inside of the next three-ish years that you're going to be able to deploy towards these goals.

34:24Brian Preston:If you're putting away the$250 a week you're doing right now, then you have another$650 a month you have to work with, you're going to blow through getting the emergency fund filled up and also getting Roths filled up and building your armory-of-dollar bills and being able to save for house down payment. It's going to be awesome. That's good stuff. It's going to be great. That's probably when you start funding the sinking fund for a house down payment at that point too. Because if you remember from our previous discussion, just because y 'all had good employers that were pretty generous with your contributions in the teacher retirement system, y 'all were doing close to 22 % just by funding the match and other things.

34:58And once you fund the Roths, I think you'll be pretty much back to that same category to where you can feel really comfortable with funding the house down payment.

35:05Brian Preston:Any questions you have for us, you think forward, you think about the direction you're moving, any questions we can answer for you guys between now and when we do this again next year, because let's say this is an annual thing now. I'm kidding. One of them you just answered, that was about the sinking fund, about the, you know, what does it look like getting back into Roth, going into the house payment? How would you, I guess, follow the food? That would be the best way to do it. Get in there and max that Roth and then... Right, okay. No, I would, after you get the Roth funded, because you get to step six, and that's where I was saying, y 'all were kind of, do the math to figure out what your savings rate is at that point, but assuming it's going to be greater than 20%, because it was like 22 % last time y 'all were in here, then I would feel very comfortable with you guys because that's really step five.

35:47That's close to having step six completely funded. That's where it's step seven. You say, wait a minute, maybe we amplify up our emergency reserve, which is step four for having that sinking fund to fund this goal of housing. Because remember with your first house, you can put down as little as 3%. And y 'all had originally told us the goal was around$300 ,000 purchase price. I think that that starts working and you can reach that$10 ,000 you know $9 ,000 to$10 ,000 down payment pretty easily within you know it starts stacking on top of each other and you'll feel really good about it we've still got a little time I'd love to know what chaos or anything because y 'all said you've had conversations you heard about February

36:25Brian Preston:February was chaos that day that was the chaos I want to know now that y 'all are having such good communication about your money has it unearthed or turned over a stone that you know previously wasn't because y 'all weren't talking about it as much? Because it seems like y 'all are healthier with your conversations on money. Can we help your marriage? That's where we're looking for some back padding. It's absolutely a net positive for sure. We were raised differently with money. And so even what, we're seven years into marriage. That's not a long time, but it's a good amount of time to kind of - That can be a shaky time, by the way.

36:59Seven years is when you You hear about that shaky seven-year itch. But we're still learning, even if it's not like the obvious, oh, I know that she likes to go spend, or I know that he likes to save. We're learning little micro things about each other, and even in money, that we didn't know in the first six years. It is things. Yeah, we're going, oh, okay. I didn't realize that this was a priority. Okay, we need to talk about if this needs to be a big priority, small priority. We definitely are still learning. And we revisited some of the, let's bring up old videos and stuff. one of the videos that you guys talked about even recently was talking about you and your marriage and some things that are important to you that aren't important to you that aren't important to me or vice versa.

37:41It's been, you know, we open up the conversation and we have some of those line items in there for, Hey, this is fun money. This is your fun money. Who am I to say what you're going to do with your fun money? If we have everything automated and we're doing the things that we set out to do with our plan, everything else is fair game, I guess. Is that where the furniture came from? Who pushed the furniture? I'm not going to say who pushed or anything like that. We're definitely a team here.

38:02Brian Preston:It was an us decision, obviously. And I love it. Now I have, I have, uh, I have drawers now. I used to put all my stuff in plastic bins that we got from Walmart. So all my clothes were in plastic bins for like first four years of marriage. I love them. I'm very frugal. So plastic bins were cool, but now I got, you know, matching sets. Do you remember that it was breaking though? It was breaking. Yeah. The foundation of the furniture was breaking. It was a need. It wasn't just a want. The weight of your underwear and shorts and pants was breaking the plastic. I wear a size 15 shoe. So, yeah, put my shoes on top of it.

38:34I do have another question. This is going to be probably no-go territory maybe, but it's a question that came up nonetheless. We talked about it. I'm scared. One of the line items we have is for, so I worked at Publix. We have the employee stock. I know where you're going. And we feel very weird having just a large amount. I'm again, not doing great math, but let's say it's like, it's more than 10%, 12 and a half percent of our investment assets are in one holding or in one company. That just kind of makes us feel weird a lot of the time. Now, I love the company. I think it's going to do great.

39:09I don't work there anymore necessarily, but I hope it continues to do great. I always tell my friends that as long as Publix is doing well, my kids are going to go to college. So would it be a dumb idea to pull some of that out at the risk of, you know, what the tax burden might be and then fund some of those things like Roth or fund the rest of our cash to get us there. That way we're not completely in one holding, I guess.

39:28Brian Preston:Yeah. I don't think it's crazy. One of the things that you'll notice is that obviously it was a larger percentage of your portfolio last year than it is this year, right? Because as your portfolio grows around it, it represents a smaller and smaller portion. But you're the person who likely knows the enterprise and knows the organization better than anyone else. Now, not being there, perhaps not as much. And so if it is something where you feel like you are overly concentrated there, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, it's done well, it's performed well. I'm not tied to the company. I don't have any insight into that company.

39:59Brian Preston:Because the question I would always ask when I sit across from clients and do this, and it's the old ESPP, the$16 ,000. If I said, hey guys, I'm feeling very generous right now and I'm gonna write you guys a check for$16 ,000 just because I wanna do that, but you have to invest it. Would you go buy$16 ,000 of public stock? I would not do that. Would you would not do that? So every day that you make the choice to not sell a holding you have, you're kind of making that choice. Now, obviously there's some tax costs and some friction. If I gave you that$16 ,000, what would you do with it instead? Oh, we'd fill up the cash immediately.

40:29We'd fill up our cash.

40:30Brian Preston:We'd probably fund Roth IRAs. We'd buy S &P 500. And so if you're in the position where you are not as convicted around, oh, I want to be a holder in this. I want to be a shareholder. I like the individual stock. I don't think it's crazy. Do the exercise to figure out the tax impact and think through that. I don't think it's crazy to think about decreasing that position. And you can use that to fund some of these other goals to accelerate the process. The only asterisk I'll put on it is that you have to ask yourself, which column am I in? Am I a builder? Am I a consumer? As long as all the things, the proceeds, take out the taxes, but the proceeds are going into the builder column.

41:08I think it's a win for the long term. Now, any portion of this is to take your pain down so you can consume or do something easier. I don't love that because sometimes it's the same point I made last time y 'all were in here. I want the fact that you're not funding your Roth to hurt so that it keeps driving your positive behavior and discipline to try to fix it faster. Sometimes when we pull the easy button and just go squeeze the balloon and find assets somewhere else, we don't get the behavioral benefit that we should. So as long as you guys are using that$16 ,000 only for builder column transactions, I think it works.

41:49Don't shortchange yourself on that.

41:51Brian Preston:I happened to notice in your budget, there was a line for giving that was like$325 a month, right? That's something that you guys, it's important to you that you're doing. One of the things I immediately hear is, oh, I've got these highly appreciated shares over here of public stock, right? It's done well. If I were to sell it, I have to pay some capital gains. One of the things that I can do though, if I chose to use what's called a donor advised fund, you guys heard of these, right? You can open up a donor advised fund at Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab. Well, rather than giving that$325 every month to the organization that I'm giving that money to, I could donate appreciated shares to my charitable giving account.

42:28Brian Preston:And then I can give the 325 from there. So one of the things that you might want to do is if I just take 325, multiply it times 12, that's almost$4 ,000 a year that you're giving to an organization or various, you could fund that$4 ,000 with those public shares and the money you were giving, you can use to deploy to these other goals. And then you won't pay any taxes at all on those gains. Because when you gift the appreciated security, you get a deduction for the fair market value and all those embedded gains go away. You don't pay them. The organization doesn't pay them. So that might be a way just to shift your cash flow a touch to be able to do what you're trying to accomplish without having to bear a tax burden to do it.

43:09Well, and also realize the 0 % capital gains tax for married couples is taxable income. It's right under$100 ,000. So I bet if y 'all go and look at your taxable income, y 'all might have a little room for some of this to not even be taxable. So, and I would work within those confines because maybe you don't do it all at once. Maybe you go and you figure out how much of this can we get into to the 0 % capital gains column, because that's free. And then maybe if we fund charitable goals with some of this other portion, there's a really creative tax way that lets you fulfill the goals of still being a builder, but minimizing the taxes as much as possible.

43:53That's really cool. Love it. I'm glad I asked. We talked about not asking. I'm glad we asked. No, that's a powerful one. Y 'all are in the perfect income threshold to where - We got two different options. You've got a lot of planning opportunities And it's not even the worst when you cross those thresholds just because it's 15 % federal. But Alabama, you got 5 %? State income tax? I should know, but I don't know. I think it's around 5%. It's somewhere around 5 % to 6%. All those southern states that have income taxes are somewhere around the 5 % to 6 % range.

44:24Brian Preston:We gave you homework last time. I want to give you some homework this time, all right? Number one, hey, you should consider consolidating some of your old retirement accounts. You know, those are some accounts to clean up. Maybe that's a priority that you guys think about. I love that. I'll take that one. Why didn't I think of that? keep building your emergency fund. I think a realistic goal for you guys should be somewhere between that$15 ,000 to$16 ,000 threshold. You're already doing that. I think you should have a serious conversation about potentially revamping your car payment so that you can fit it inside that 23.8.

44:51Brian Preston:Brian already did the math for you. You take it from$320 a month up to$498 a month. You get that knocked out inside that 36-month window. And then you ought to look at last year's tax return, do a very quick projection. There's software you can use. You can do it through a spreadsheet. see how much room you have left in the 0 % capital gains bracket this year. Consider liquidating the public stock at 0%. Or if you're over the 0%, maybe think about shifting how you do your charitable giving. Use a charitable giving account, charitable gift fund, gift depreciate securities, donate to your organization from there, and the money you are going to do to the organizations use to fund some of these other goals.

45:25Brian Preston:I think if you can do those things, you guys are going to continue on an awesome trajectory. Cool. You are awesome. Oh, you're awesome. Thank you guys so much for coming to hang out with us. Thank you for letting us get a peek behind what it actually looks like when you put a plan in place. And I think a lot of people are going to value getting to see that and getting to recognize that, holy cow, this stuff works. The food is actually there for—emergency funds matter. They do a thing. Thank you, guys, for being a living example of that actually happening. And I'll play the uncle part in the fact that I feel like a part of this, the consolidation, that didn't surprise me at all.

45:58It's because I think a lot of people run into the exact same wall you all do, is you just don't know how to do it because that's where all of a sudden your simple financial life gets very complex. That's exactly, you have no idea. We have an entire team that that's what they do is logistically they're paperwork ninjas. They know how to call all the administrators. And so that stuff, that's something that typically a good financial planning firm will help people out with. Also, I think you guys coming back, because y 'all are our first kind of repeat offender here. Not offender. But you know what I mean.

46:32Don't say offender. You know what I mean. Don't say offender. I'm a red pen. This is the accountability because I love the fact that it sounds like even there was a halo effect of the first time you came. It expanded your conversations for months after. I like to think that probably for the last week as y 'all knew y 'all were coming back in town, there was probably like, oh, my gosh, are they going to ask us about this? And there was, you know, it probably spurred a whole nother level of accountability and discussion on things. And I think that's like all things. We talk about health is wealth and other things.

47:02I'm the same way with accountability on what I eat, when I go to the doctor, when I go to the gym, because I'm trying to always, anytime I know I have to kind of be held accountable for the actions that I took, I straighten up a little bit. And I think a lot of people do that with their personal finances as well. So I love that y 'all got to let us shine a light on that and kind of show that this can be a beneficial thing from a behavioral standpoint too. And it's not just us. Obviously, we talk about it because we share the experience. But people that we work with, they're excited that we had this experience.

47:35And so we've had the opportunity to share with them. I love it. And they go, well, who are they? My friends at school call them wise guys. So very smart. The wise guys. You are wise.

47:44Brian Preston:Yes, you're the wise guys. Wise guys. We're like the mafia in Alabama. The money man, the dinero dudes. What else are they saying? That's amazing. But it's spurred conversations with our coworkers. and I have a friend who actually, I think she opened a 401k. Hi, Emily. We started talking about these things. She's my closest friend at work. And she said, well, what did you guys talk about? I was like, well, we talked about all these things. And she said, okay, I have a question about that later. And so we're even calling Daniel at work. So, I mean, there's a ripple effect. So thank you. Thank you guys for what you do.

48:16Obviously you can see we're not perfect by any means. It's been a difficult journey, but it's been a fun journey. We're really excited just for the effort that we've put in. Thank you guys for what you do and how I hope I hope this reaches You know millions and millions people not our video necessarily but the the work that you guys do It's encouraging and the messy middle because that's what everybody is short on time You're short on money and you're trying to figure out how do I make this little Go a long way. You know are a perfect example of a little can create huge Ripple effects for the future and I think that that probably spurs a lot of good conversations.

48:50Actually We want to even talk to more people like you guys where, yes, you make a good income, but your shovel's not so big that everybody's like, ho-hum, of course they have money. You guys are a case study of that, yes, you can have good income, but it's really your discipline and your good decisions that are generating the fruit that's growing in the background. Beau, if others want to apply to making a millionaire, where do they need to go?

49:17Brian Preston:Yeah, if you want to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com slash apply. Or if you want to check out any of our resources, any of our free tools, you can go to moneyguy.com slash resources. And we already bragged about earlier, and I don't think we gave the website. Go to learn.moneyguy.com if you also want to know about our net worth tool. I'm your host, Brian. Joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy team. Out. The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston 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.

49:54Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through Making a Millionaire. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. The guests featured on Making a Millionaire are not clients of Abound Wealth Management at the time of recording. Their participation should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Abound Wealth Management.