Do THIS to Fix Your Finances in 2026

21:03Brian Preston:I'm like, guys, why don't we spread this out a little bit? So if you can spread it out and buy cars on a different schedule on a different timeline, often that's more advantageous from a financial standpoint. But undoubtedly, Brian, life happens. And sometimes we have to be in that place where we have to buy two cars. We have to have two payments at the same time. And I think that's where Skylar's going is, how do I navigate that? Well, I mean, the way the rule is designed is it's supposed to be 8 % total. And that's why you're staggering is such a valuable thing is because the ideal thing is you don't do this all at once.

21:38Now I realize people are going to quickly do the math based upon your income and be like, holy cow, that's just, if I had to do this for two cars, that means one of these is either going to, they're both going to be not great cars or one of these is going to be a beater. I mean, yes, it creates some hard decisions, but that's why I would spread this out as much as possible. And then it also, it puts pressure because what if If you did get stuck with the emergency situation where you got in a car accident and you had a gap from the value because maybe you had some negative equity and you had to buy two cars in a very short period of time, I want this rule to create the pressure so that you will do dynamic things to get yourself back on track as fast as possible.

22:23I recognize you might have to go outside of this, but I want this to feel like a weight on you to get back on track as soon as possible.

22:31Brian Preston:And anyone out there who's ever had two car payments at the same time, or if you have two, it just kind of stinks. Like it's a, it's a hard thing. That's why one of the things we love, and you can just think about this mathematically, if 23, eight is 20 % down, I don't finance for any more than 36 months or three years. And I don't spend more than 8 % of my monthly gross income. But if I drive cars for seven years, that means that I pay off the car in three years and I get to drive it payment-free for four years on average, if I can stack my payments instead of having two payments at the exact same time, it's going to give me a lot of reprieve in my monthly expenses, my monthly spend, which I think is a huge benefit if you can do that.

23:11And the why is, look, cars are napalm for your personal finance. They are absolutely, that's where, when people talk about the latte effect, I'm like, it's car payment is usually the first huge mistake I see people making, even beyond student loans. It's the car, but they go out there and they buy a car way too, too much debt. That's why when we react to these Steve-Os got me rolling and I see all these people with thousand plus car payments, it breaks my heart because, and that's what, but here we are, we speak out of both sides of our mouth, but with purpose and the fact, because I'm telling you, these things are napalm for your personal finance, but then I'm over here with an open hand saying, look, I don't want to be hypocritical myself.

23:57And the fact that I knew the only way I could get to my first job was through car debt. So I could actually start building this financial empire was I had to get to my job. So that's why we gave you 23.8 is because we recognize these things are horrible, but we're going to try to give you some grace and some flexibility by taking on debt, but you have to be scared. That's why this will also hopefully keep you humble and create character building where you drive a car that's not as nice as maybe you want and your ego wants and what your coworkers and your peers have. That's okay. That's why we say think Corolla, not Land Cruiser, is because we're trying to keep it as reliable, basic transportation until you You actually are a level eight or beyond in the financial order of operations.

24:44And then you can go crazy and do the Dave Maserati or whatever you want to do.

24:50Brian Preston:Good stuff. All right. Well, Skylar, thank you for that question. If you would like a MoneyGuy Tumblr, just email winner at moneyguy.com. Next question is from Nathan B. Our savings rate dropped from 26 % to 19%. I can't include the employer match anymore. I see what happened. Congratulations, Nathan. Maybe that's why it dropped. Got a big old pay raise. This is a great problem to have. He goes on to say, you often recommend getting serious about reaching a 25 % savings rate in your 30s. How aggressive should we be about getting back to 25 % while balancing other goals? And how does the early retirement plan change the equation?

25:36Brian Preston:There is a lot there. Oh, man, there is so much to unpack. Because what Nathan didn't give us was, he's obviously in his 30s, but he didn't tell us what his current age is. And I don't know when he started investing. Because if you go to moneyguy.com slash resources, we do have what you should save. Did I name it? How much you should save. I'm getting close. That was very close. I mean, obviously, if you started saving and investing 20 or younger, 10-15 % does amazing things for you. Unfortunately, a typical American doesn't start saving and investing until they're 36. So that's where the 25 % comes into play.

26:12So, Nathan, you might be, if you started young enough, you might be okay at 20%. But you then threw in a curveball. You said, but we might want to retire early. Well, when you have big obligations that you're putting on your financial resources where you want to quit using your time for labor and you want to start using it on your terms, you better save like a son of a gun because I mean that's where we see the fire movement the dirty little secret for the fire movement or fine movement if you want to go the next endeavor instead of retire early is that this is why these people save 40 to 50 percent is because if you're going to drop out at 45 50 55 years of age you better build up your nest egg that much sooner so you can have that flexibility flexibility that much sooner too all right let's think about this

27:02Brian Preston:this pragmatically because your question is how aggressive should I be getting back to 25 %? Well, we know that money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to accomplish our goals. So step one, you need to list out what all your goals are, right? What are my goals right now today in my thirties and what sounds like potentially the messy middle? What are my goals for early retirement? What are my goals long-term? Then you have to assess, okay, where am I in pursuit of those goals? Has the savings rate we've been on caused us to really miss out on some life stuff? And now that I've gotten this pay raise where I can't include my employer match anymore, I'm now able to do some of those short-term life goals.

27:37Brian Preston:And that's going to eat up some of that new pay raise. Or have I been doing that and I can begin saving this and I need to deploy the dollars that way? And then how much have you built towards those goals, whether it be financial independence or whatever? So you have to define, okay, I have these five different goals I want to achieve. I am 60%, 70%, 20 % of the way towards each one of those goals. The answer to those questions will then dictate how aggressively you need to get back to 25%. And there's a great tool that we have that could help you. If you go to learn.moneyguy.com, do our Know Your Number course.

28:11Brian Preston:Because one of the things that's going to help you to find is, okay, what is my finish line? If I know that I want to be financially independent at 50 years old and I need to have$5 million and based on my current savings, I'm getting there no problem, then okay, maybe I can just stay at my current savings rate and then I can focus on funding some of these other goals. If, however, I have a shortfall and I'm not there yet and 20 % won't get it done or what he dropped down to, 19 % won't get it done, maybe then I do need to increase my savings rate back to 25 % to make sure that I can get back on track.

28:47Brian Preston:So there's some homework you have to do to triage your situation to determine what the best path forward is. You're spot on with the know your number, but I do think we got some additional information just came across the line here is Nathan is 28. They already have one and a half times their income already saved. Their new income. And this is their new income, which by the way, we know for a married couple, the rule where you don't get to count matching is$200 ,000 and greater. So wowser. Nathan, you are crushing it. Congratulations. Well done. And by the way, don't forget on the work with us.

29:26I was literally going to say, don't forget everything I said. We can get you from the Financial Mutant survey to the client survey very quickly as we're tracking this data with that type of course and trajectory that you're on.

29:39Brian Preston:That is moneyguy.com slash become-a-client. Wow, you knew that one. It's funny you say it. I never know what to do when I'm giving the work with us is because it is a weird, you know. URL is got dashes. You just go to moneyguy.com and click on become a client. It's right there. She said it cleaner than us. Oh, I thought this through. I thought about where that button was going to go. That's good stuff. 28, one and a half. I know, he's crushing it. He said for 30s, and I was like, so he's in his 30s, but then he's 28, of course. Financial meeting status. Beast mode. Beast mode. Alright, ready for the next one?

30:21Brian Preston:Did you give him a thing? Oh, yeah, Nathan. You get a Tumblr. Hey, because I'm looking out for you, go to moneyguy.com slash becomeaclient. And you can email winner at moneyguy.com and we will send you a Tumblr, Nathan. Everybody have a good Thanksgiving? I did. Sure did. Getting some thumbs up from the team. What about you? I did. Can you get some walks in? Are we going to have some new Tangent Times? Thanksgiving edition Tangent Times? You should know. You should know. I went with two intentions into Thanksgiving because I traveled last week I was down in Florida I was going to read the Reddit thread for the book things that we're talking about Reby and I are talking about and then I was going to record some tangent time did I do either the answer is no I mean we had relatives well first we had only we had two days where it was just the family but realize when I say the family my oldest daughter actually came with us and you have to know if you have a senior in college you don't get them anymore I mean it is I'm in that sad you know I'm barely in the crumbs of the bag that I'm shaking out of knowing that she's about to do this adult thing so it was glorious to kind of we were doing bike rides we were you know hiking we were going to parks it was glorious so I didn't and then the relatives all showed up on Tuesday and then it was off to the races.

31:49I mean, cause once you, you know, it's funny, my wife, we'd go to bed at night and she went, whew, I am just drained. Whereas I'm like amplified because I think this is the extrovert versus introvert is cause she's like, every morning you're out there, I'm like putting casseroles in the oven. I'm like whipping up eggs, you know, making coffees. I mean, I love having a house full of people. It's just, it's, it's fun. So I did absolutely nothing that I was supposed to do and I'm feeling a little guilty and a little behind now because I'm because now I was like well I'll just catch up at Christmas no one because we have the same problem I'll have a house full of relatives in the house and I won't do what I'm supposed to so I got to get

32:30Brian Preston:serious about catching up on something really did have a fantastic thing it sounds like it was a great no it was it was good and I ran into a few of you guys out and about too and that was always glorious um I had one in Hollywood Studios we were we're in the parks in 50s prime time that was kind of fun. Had another one in a restaurant that I had taken the whole family to. It's too close to my house down there, so I don't want to say where that was, but it was glorious. You guys are always so awesome when we get to see you in public, and I appreciate you making me look cool in front of my relatives, too.

33:05Brian Preston:That's what it's all about. No, I'm just kidding. What's funny is I don't ever know if people know who we are because we're nerd famous. We're not real famous. It's not like we're Chris Pratt when I went to the bathroom four times walking past Chris Pratt's table when I saw him in a restaurant one day. Because I know who nobody is but I knew who Chris Pratt was. So we're not like that. But it is one of those things where if you watch that Eddie Murphy documentary that's on Netflix or whatever, he talks about that your crazy fans are only like the teenagers and 20-somethings. Well, we know in our key demographics, I mean our key demographics are like from 26 to 50-something.

33:45these aren't exactly the people that are going to be Justin Bieber chasing you down the street so I never know if people know where we are oh look at that it doesn't make all the sounds anymore but we just crossed 620 ,000 subscribers

33:59Brian Preston:hey look at that thank you for all of you that actually just subscribed you did that, thank you so much we do appreciate it, that's always fun we probably ought to start giving value here otherwise people are going to start the tangent time is going to take people out Too tangenty. I do have another question queued up. It's from HelloGoodFriend. It says, when considering the three-bucket strategy, is there an optimal bucket that high-growth assets like stocks and low-growth assets like bonds should go in? Yeah, Roth. Should each bucket just include a mix of both? Next question. I'm sorry.

34:37Brian Preston:The last part was should each bucket just include a mix of both? So expound, Brian. Expound on what you said. Here's the answer. Here's the answer. It depends on where you are in your financial journey. If you are someone who is just starting out very early on in your financial journey, we don't really want you thinking about what's known as asset location too much. We want you focusing on how much can I save? How much can I save? How much can I save? Because what's going to impact your future of financial security more than anything else is going to be your savings rate and just putting that money to work.

35:10Brian Preston:So how much can I save? And then where should I put it? And we actually have, Brian, can you hold a thing up for me? We actually have a nine-step process to help you figure out the most efficient places to put that savings. And you can use things like low-cost index funds, target retirement index funds, all of those sorts of things. But at some point, you likely will graduate to the point where not only does it matter how much you're saving, but you can actually have some benefits from Think about how you allocate your assets and how you locate your assets, what type of assets you own, what types of accounts.

35:43Brian Preston:And we do have some guidelines and thoughts there. That's why the best, most improved chapter when I was writing this book was the step seven, hyperaccumulation, if you look at Millionaire Mission. Because exactly what Bo says, most important thing in the beginning, that's why steps one through six, is to keep your life out of the financial ditch and then to focus on the savings and investment rate with the Roth and the tax advantage. But then you get to step seven, you start thinking about how you're actually going to use the money. And I don't mind just giving you the answer, kind of the Cliff Notes version of this is growth assets, but not so growth that if you lose money, you're like, oh gosh, it went to zero.

36:22Growth, not speculative. Yeah, it's not speculative. It's Roth. That's your tax-free account. that bucket, you really want to stick it to the government as much as you can legally by putting those growth assets. Because, man, don't we all want to be tax-free millionaires? That's always been my dream, to have the Roth assets over seven figures. You want to put into the taxable account. This is stuff where not only you want access to liquidity for getting to the money quickly, but you can still put in tax-favored stuff like dividends, capital gains, things like that. because there's some tax benefits there as well as being easy access.

36:57And then your tax-deferred, your traditional, your employer match, and other things if they're not in the tax-free buckets, is this is where you're going to put your bonds. Things are going to be taxed at the ordinary income tax bracket. Load up things like that. Conservative-type assets will go in there. This is the magical thing we get to do when you get more sophisticated in your investments when they get to a size where you go, So, man, these guys make money sound so simple, but I'm finding as I have more and more success, it seems to get more complex. That's what we're here for, is that we tell you, yeah, focus on the savings, right?

37:32Keep it simple. Don't let all this noise and how to do it right keep you from making good decisions. That's why we do index target retirement funds in the beginning. But then, yes, once you start having success, this is exactly the financial mutant type stuff that we try to maximize and help you take advantage of. but it does add some complexities to your personal finances.

37:52Brian Preston:Love it.

38:18Brian Preston:Supplies Last ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash collegepc. You have one new message. Translating. Disney and Pixar's Hoppers is now available on Disney+. You could say that again. Critics are calling it Pixar's funniest movie ever and a wildly entertaining ride. Blizzard Potato. It's certified fresh and verified hot. Now we party. This is incredible! Wow, I am clear in the rest of the day. Disney and Pixar's hoppers, now available on Disney+. Rated PG. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition. 100 % whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day.

39:10Brian Preston:And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. I, oh, let's go! Can I just throw one other thing? Also, do not, word of caution, do not sacrifice allocation for location. Meaning, I see this all the time, someone will have, oh man, I don't really have a whole lot of qualified assets, I don't have a lot of tax-deferred assets, and I got my Roth, so I have my aggressive growth assets, so all I have is this after-tax account. But man, I know that it's really inefficient to hold bonds and fixed income. So I'm just not going to hold any of those things.

39:52Brian Preston:Don't do that. Remember, you always have to define your allocation first. Should I be a 80-20, a 20-80, or somewhere between? You define that first. And then once you have the appropriate allocation that matches your unique risk tolerance and your unique risk capacity, then you figure out, based on your account structure, how can I locate the most efficient way possible? And sometimes, this is crazy, but we have clients based on strategies that we've implemented where they might have to hold bonds inside of a Roth IRA. I know that sounds insane. I know that sounds crazy. But if we've done a really good job of doing like Roth conversion strategies, and we've now converted all the qualified assets into Roth assets, and the Roths are in those big like high seven-figure numbers, yeah, you got to make sure that you keep the allocation intact.

40:39Brian Preston:Location is great, but it's like it's a cherry on top. It's not a main course. I don't know if I'd have given that example. But it's true. It's the exception to the rule, though. You said it was true. Well, I mean, you see stuff like that. Because some people do have huge... You've got$3,$4 million in Roth assets. I mean, we have some clients that have seven-figure Roth accounts. It's glorious when you see it. Pretty cool stuff. Well done. Well played. Well played. Well played. One, I don't mind sharing because it's public. you know when Delta went through that whole restructuring they offered their pilots when they gave up some of those pension rights they offered to convert some of that money into Roth assets if you're a Delta pilot and you did that and went into the Roth well played because it was right around like great recession its teeth kicked in so everything that you put into those Roth buckets got completely amplified up it's fun what we do for a living because we get front row seats to see unique things in history and then you get to, you're like, oh, there's an example that I can share.

41:45Like I was on a, on a state call yesterday with a client and they were asking me, we were talking about irrevocable trust. We were talking about revocable trust and living wills and all these terms. And they were asking me how this worked. And I said, well, let me tell you a story. And I was telling them like, one example was a client that didn't need the complexity, but had gone to a seminar attorney who had them setting up LLCs for four-wheelers and all these weird, strange things. And then another one setting up irrevocable, trying to set up irrevocable for somebody who just didn't have a net worth that required that.

42:20So I loved having examples to share. And then I had another example where I was like, I had a super successful client, mega success, where multiple deca-millionaire type success, but had a physician father who set up all these irrevocable trusts. And then now the legacy that this father left for his super successful family is that they have for the next 15 years trying to unwind the complexity of this crazy estate plan. So just be careful. I mean, that's what I love. But I mean, getting back to the point of, I just love that we see these things. So then we get to share it with you. So you guys don't have to fall into those traps and you go into this whole experience with no matter if you're at the beginning of your journey, where you just need to focus on the basics and keep it simple but keep it functioning and moving forward, or if you're at the point where you're at the level of complexity and you just don't know what to believe, we got you covered.

43:15Brian Preston:Hello, good friend. If you would like a Money Guy Tumblr, just email winner at moneyguy.com. We had a poll running. Oh, really? You may not have realized. But the results are in, and I literally just clicked away from it. Who wrote this in there? Oh, wow. No, they wouldn't. Would you Justin Bieber chase Brian down the street? Disclaimer, not a recommended strategy. 55 % said yes, they indeed would. Brian is a big enough deal to them. Because the financial mutants are trying to put a little dab of, a dollop of humor in there because nobody is chasing us down the street. We've seen videos, like cell phone footage of people chasing Brian through Disney.

43:56Brian Preston:Just like chasing him down. You know, that's what I was, in the last few months, I've been to Vegas with some friends, and then I was in Disney, and they're like, I thought you'd be recognized more. And I was like, look, we're in two places that I don't think there's as many financial mutants running around because this is not good decision-making going on in a lot of these places. It's just like we go to Stevo, got you rolling. Probably not a lot of financial mutants hanging out in the lobby of wherever his dealership is. Stevo. Rivi, I've got a question for you. Do you and John do your net worth statement December 31?

44:31Dude, are you putting her on the spot like that right there? No, I mean, no, I'll be transparent.

44:35Brian Preston:I never get to it on December 31st like you guys do. And then my other question was like, do y 'all do it together or does one of you take charge of doing it? I usually take charge of doing it. You take charge of doing it and then y 'all sit down and do the thing. Just because I don't know, I come around to you guys all the time. Yeah, I love it. We're a good influence. You are a good influence. I'm curious how other people handle it. You know what I mean? How about when we hire new content people? We're like, hey, are you doing a network statement? We're immediately like, the peer pressure is just strong.

44:59strong. There's like peer pressure in here.

45:02Brian Preston:They just showed up and they're like, sure, yep. Because it's so good. I am now. Because, you know, it's funny. You mentioned earlier, you mentioned the date that my wife and I do. And what we do is we plan all of our travel for the whole year. We'll get together in January, book everything. She's already starting to like plant seeds in preparation. Hey, I'm thinking about, let's do this for the kids. Let's go here with the kids this year. And hey, I was thinking about with this couple, let's go. Like she's already got her and it's awesome because now we get to like talk about and enjoy getting to look forward to that and the net worth statement is just kind of one part of that day date i usually do it early to mid january just because that's when i get to it yeah and then you have all the numbers from the year and then you have all the 12th i love it since you asked my problem and remember that is currently on sale with code black friday 2025 if you want to do your net worth statement as well go to learn.moneyguy.com if i was being completely honest and transparent the things that typically are not the most accurate on my net worth is sometimes I forget to update my footnotes and then I forget to the cars and the house don't always get updated as much as they should for any improvements or things like that or just the value of the cars.

46:14In my household, I think I've been saying for years that my household assets, meaning furniture is like$25 ,000 or$40 ,000.

46:22Brian Preston:I think it's the same thing. It hadn't changed since I started doing this since 2006. And believe me, the furniture is worth a lot more now than it used to be. I feel weird putting things like that on my net worth statement. Like we have gear or like things that probably are worth, well, I know they're worth money. But I'm like, we're not going to sell this. I don't know. Maybe I'm too conservative. We're too good. Our net worth tool has sometimes been too good. It confuses bankers. Because I've put deferred taxes. Yeah. And I've learned anytime I talk to a banker or anybody, I have to remove all the deferred taxes because they just get confused by why would you show deferred taxes?

47:02I'm like, well, because I'm trying to minimize. I want to know how much this money really is mine, not how much the government would have a hold on just because I have a large 401ks and businesses.

47:12Brian Preston:We were doing a thing one time and we submitted stuff to the banker and both of our network had deferred taxes on it. And he said, hey, what are these back taxes for? and what's the payment schedule? And they were like, no, no, no. No, no, no, no back taxes. No back taxes. It's assets. You can count it. That's funny. That got real nerdy real fast. It really did. I was like, I'm glad that you all understand that. That sounds great. All right. Brandon 161 has a question for you. It says, hi, Money Guy Show. Do you have any tips on how not to be a financial miser? Oh, yeah. I recently doubled my income, which is amazing, but I find myself penny pinching and I feel it is affecting my social and personal life.

47:56Brian Preston:So this is a good question because I do feel like one of the first things you guys talk about is, is it affecting your relationships, right? So do you want to expound on that? Well, Brandon, if you were a guest on Making a Millionaire, it's a show that we release every other Monday. If you want to be a guest on there, you can go to moneyguide.com slash apply and you can apply to be a guest on Making a Millionaire. If you were on there, one of the questions that we would ask when we sit down with you is, okay, why? Why are you penny pinching? What's the purpose? Because what we really want to get to the base of is what's the thing that's causing you anxiety in your life that even with this increase where you've doubled your income, why is it that you feel the necessity to penny pinch?

48:38Brian Preston:Is it because of some baggage from childhood or some experience you've gone through? Is it because maybe you were not as disciplined as a saver early on as you should have been? Or is it because you have an unrealistic view of what your current financial circumstance is? And a lot of times that's what it is. Brian, we've had clients as well as friends where we've talked to them and be like, hey, you're doing this and this does not make sense. You're tracking your expenses right now and you're squabbling over this eating out meal when it cannot change your financial situation. You have to really dive in to the behavioral aspect of why that mindset still exists.

49:16It's funny. I think we're a good balance because, look, the majority of Americans are not going to be wealthy. And the biggest problem they have is they don't have discipline, that first ingredient of the wealth creation formula. But then the sad part for me, and we can see it by doing our annual surveys, not only on our financial mutants but also our clients, is most of the people who are consuming our content, you're just not going to die broke because you have the opposite problem that the typical American has is you have discipline for days. And I just know in my own journey, and what's funny is I was listening to a podcast this morning, and then we even just pressed publish.

49:55Did I say that right?

49:57Brian Preston:You did. And the gentleman who, because I'm doing great at describing, but I never can remember his name. I described to everybody when he gave the keynote is he basically said, I got to the top of the mountain. And then I quickly realized it was not what I thought it was going to be. So I was running back down the mountain telling everybody, quit. It's not what I thought it was going to be. What's that guy's name? Casey Neistat. How can you guys remember this stuff so easily? But anyway, so I kind of have the same experiences that if you're a financial mutant and you think that when you get to$3 million,$5 million, whatever the XXX is and you're formulaing your brain, that once you have this, it's going to solve all your problems.

50:35I think you're going to find it's much more empty than you realize. So that's why I'm always very deliberate with telling you, don't ruin your relationship since you have this key muscle of discipline. Make sure that when you get to be my age in your 50s, that you look back at your 20s, you look back at your 30s, you look back at your 40s in these very distinct phases of life and that you don't have regrets. because it breaks my heart when I find out, like I had a very dear friend that his marriage almost ended because he was still making his wife keep receipts to give to him every time she used a credit card.

51:14And they didn't need to be doing that anymore. That might've been very valuable at the beginning of the marriage in your 20s when you're doing budgeting and other things. But when you go to a more cash management plan and you're more making your money go to the pots and you don't have to track every little thing, that's going to be healthier for somebody than to look like you're hyper, you know, managing, micromanaging everything that your spouse is doing. And it's the same way when your kids don't want to go on vacation with you because you still got them sleeping in the closet in a sleeping bag and a blow up mattress, because that's cheaper than actually getting the adjoining rooms.

51:50You might be losing the plot a little bit on what money as a tool can and cannot do for you. Don't mishear me. This is not die with zero, where I'm assuming that you're going to be an investment banker who can make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, so you should go live a hog-wild life in your 20s. I'm trying to give you the balance that there's definitely a dance here is I want you to be disciplined, but I want you to not have regrets when you get older.

52:16Brian Preston:It's one of the reasons why we say we want you to save 25 % of your gross income so that it can be an unlock for spending. It's not so they can be restrictive, like, oh, I've got to save, save, save. It really is more for financial mutants to say that, okay, if I do this, I can check the box. You guys can't see this, but I made this little sticky note flow chart. And this is what I basically said. I want you to ask yourself these questions, Brent. Hey, am I under 35 years of age? If the answer is no, I'm older than 35, okay, have you done the Know Your Number course? Do you know what your number is?

52:48Brian Preston:Have you assessed where the finish line is? Do you know where you are today and are the steps you're taking on track to get you from where you are today to where you want to be, right? That's if you're over 35. If you're under 35, ask the question, okay, am I going to be part of the fine movement? If the answer is yes, same thing. Have I done the Know Your Number course? Do I know where I am? Do I know where I need to be? Am I on the right trajectory? Do I need to make adjustments? If you're under 35 and you're not trying to do fine and you're saving 25 % of your gross income, then you can stop there and you can just free yourself to say, man, I'm doing what I need to be doing.

53:24Brian Preston:I'm paying myself first. I'm checking that box. I don't have to pinch pennies once I've done that. Whether I spend a gazillion dollars on whatever this thing is, so long as I've paid myself first, I'm okay and I can do it freely without any guilt. I feel like we just in real time watch Bo create a decision matrix that will show up potentially on the resource page. No, because this is a great point. Because a 28-year-old comes to us, it's completely different than if somebody comes to me who's 42. Because if you're at the beginning of your journey, I want to acknowledge and celebrate with you that you're a hyper accumulator when you're at the beginning.

54:04Because that is going to add flexibility. But when I find out that you're doing this stuff, because it's back to the make wealth, the maintain wealth, and then the multiply wealth. Where are you at in the journey? and that's why the 40-something year old who is already at the main, now at the maintained wealth but still living like they're, you know, broke as a joke, you might have lost the plot. I think that's a great, like I see where your brain, we share a brain so I see what you just did there with that decision. I'm like, we should create something like that.

54:36Brian Preston:God, do you need me to hold on to this sticky note so y 'all can, okay, we'll archive this one away. That's the archive right there. on the desk. No, but that could be because then you could put little bubbles with the products that kind of help with the things because that's what people say. Are you just trying to sell stuff? No, I recognize that there's going to be things you need on this journey before you actually need a wealth manager. And that's what we try to design. That's what the Know Your Number, that's why the Net Worth Tracker. We're trying to give you the resources so that you can kind of go grab those tools when you're in need before you need to hire a wealth manager.

55:12Love that.

55:13Brian Preston:Great. Well, Brandon161, if you would like a MoneyGuy Tumblr, just email winner at moneyguy.com. Let's go on to Money Marathon's question. It's about the net worth statement. It says, are kids 529 on the balance sheet? I ask as the balance can potentially be converted to an IRA for unused funds. we never have a crystal ball if they don't attend college or have over saved. Basically saying, you know, you don't know what they're going to use the money for in the future, whether or not they're going to do college. So do you count this on your balance sheet, on your net worth statement? This falls under the category of, you just heard, I made a confession earlier in today's show that I don't update the footnotes like I should sometimes because I'm so excited to update account balances.

56:04is I will tell you, I consider 529s to be footnote items. They're not to be listed under your assets. They serve a very valuable purpose, but they're not for you. They're for your children and their education goals. The same thing with pensions. I think pensions are more of a disclosure that you put on the footnotes than your ability to put them on the net worth statement. Unless there's a convert it to an IRA, because a lot of them now, if that's the case, it's a gray zone and we can talk about that. But for people who are strict government employees, those promises are more footnotes to offset.

56:45And it's the same thing with 529s. It's not your money.

56:50Brian Preston:The other thing I would say is you said, oh, well, one day they can be converted to IRA balances. They can be converted to IRA balances for the beneficiary. That's often going to be your kids. And your kids' assets wouldn't be listed on your net worth statement anyways. 529s in our mind are a prepaid future expense, so we're okay getting that off of the balance sheet. Now, let's say something happens and your kid doesn't go to college and decide that you're going to recoup those funds and you're going to distribute them all and you're going to pay the tax on the earnings and you're going to pay the penalty on the earnings and cash it back out.

57:17Brian Preston:Once you've done that, it will come back into your net worth statement. But right now, while it is still a prepaid future expense, I think it stays a footnote item. No different than home equity is not going to be a balance sheet net worth statement item unless you sell your house. And then it becomes part of your net worth. But while it's not actually there in existence, we do not include it because we want that to stay conservative. We want your net worth to really point towards what is building towards your financial independence, your great, big, beautiful tomorrow. I'm trying to think through other things that don't show up on some of the stuff that aren't our footnotes.

57:52Brian Preston:And for us, again, if you use our tool, it's like accounts for kids, 529s, UPM accounts, that sort of thing. It's insurance. Okay, I have this term insurance. Here's a policy number. Here's how much. Here's who the owner is. Here's who the beneficiary is. Disability insurance. One of the things I think that's very, very helpful to list in your footnotes is who are the people in the estate documents that matter? Who's the executor and who are the trustees and who are the guardians? if you can have that all in one place and something were to happen to you or something were to happen to you and your spouse, it just makes it very easy for whoever that executor is to step and say, okay, here it is.

58:31Brian Preston:I have the playbook of everything I need to know to be able to pick up these pieces. And so if you can keep that information there and updated, it really, really helps everyone be on the same page, especially if you have a less involved spouse. Okay. And here's another thing it does because we just did this. This year we updated the guardianship provision in our estate documents for our kids. Because one of the things I was doing when I updated our footnotes is like, man, okay, the people that were going to be guardians, we still love them. They're still amazing. They live in a different state.

58:59Brian Preston:And our kids at the age now that if something happened to us, we don't want our kids to have to move into a different state. So we changed who the guardians are in our state documents. It was updating the footnotes on the net worth statement that illuminated the need to do that. So if you're doing this consistently, it will bring to light the things that need to be updated and adjusted. Well, yeah, it's a great communication tool. That's why we try to share that. Insurance agents, CPAs. And then another thing that I think is very valuable is I like that this is essentially the decoder ring for if you share like a password manager with your spouse and you'll have a shared password manager, the net worth statement is going to be the decoder ring to know where all the institutions that you have accounts.

59:43so that they can, if something happens to you and they're the non-financial spouse, they can go recreate or know where everything is.

59:53Brian Preston:That's great. Very good thorough answer there for money and marathons. Thank you for your question. I don't know how we went from 529s to password managers to pensions. I mean, we tried to, we just tried to give all the facets to it. You're right. Us starting in one place, wandering in the woods for a while, and ending up in a wild location seems very uncharacteristic. I don't know why I didn't make two cups of coffee. I keep looking at this thing. Why did it not? Why is there only, or did I not put enough volume? You know, in the coffee maker you can add more? Because it's this, whatever. I know, what y 'all don't know, behind the scenes.

1:00:31We're not sponsored yet. I know. I'm not going to say anything. I'm not saying any brands. Rebe for the last three months has been changing out the beans in the espresso machine. And I've been like, no, yuck. No.

1:00:43Brian Preston:One of them didn't work. And I don't even like to think that I'm at that high maintenance, but this one, this one was pretty good. And Josh recalibrated the machine. He did. He just grind setting all the stuff. So I think there were a couple issues going on. Chef's kiss. Your coffee machine's a little too fancy in a way. I refuse to agree with that premise. take a little extra TLC and by the way it might also be because I just came from the Thanksgiving holiday I've been loading it up with peppermint mochas cookie butter in your machine? all these flavored, you go to the grocery store and it's like, you know some people get excited about going to liquor stores, I get excited about going and looking at the creamer aisle in the grocery store because that's where my indulgence is these days, it's not the liquor store anymore Mr.

1:01:34Brian Preston:Rogers thing that you have to ever say. No, but it's true. I go in and I'm like, oh my God, cookie butter. What is that? And then I'm like, oh, wow, coffee cake. Yeah, I must try that. So that's my fun. So drinking coffee as coffee this morning, because I didn't put anything but a splash, just a little splash of half and half. It's like, no, I still like coffee. It doesn't have to have all the gimmicks that I put into everything. I love it. But I did. I saw him several times just look kind of sadly. It was a good cup of coffee. Now, we are past. Oh, yeah. I'm glad. Thank goodness. It's past. It's almost 11 o 'clock.

1:02:10I don't need to have any more caffeine.

1:02:11Brian Preston:That's another one of our money guy rules is Brian does not take any caffeine after 11 a.m. He's too powerful if he does that. No, I just don't sleep. Well, this has been amazing. Thank you for all of your financial questions. We will be back here Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central answering even more of your questions. And remember to head to moneyguy.com. We have the Black Friday sale happening right now. Only one more day of that. So be sure to take advantage. If you are interested in the net worth tool or any of our courses, go to learn.moneyguy.com and use code blackfriday2025 to take advantage of that 20 % off because then it will go away and it will be back to normal price.

1:02:51Brian Preston:So we know you would love a deal like we would. So please take advantage. I know I said it last week, but still I'll give a belated thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanksgiving was just last week and we couldn't do half the things when we do studio tours people say did you know it was gonna be like this no and we're still like we're an overnight sensation that's been doing this for 20 years at this point but it's it's still I don't take for granted anytime we get to meet you guys in public or you come do studio tours or just even you show up in a live stream means the absolute world to us because we we are having a blast I I mean, I couldn't think of a better thing to do for a living and the changes we're making in people's lives.

1:03:30And you make all that possible. So I just want to make sure I said thank you. I'm your host, Brian. Joined by Bo, Reby, and the rest of the content team, Money Guy team. Out.

1:03:39Brian 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. A Bound 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.

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