Financial Advisors React to Their FAVORITE Finance Creators

0:00Andy Hill:Spring is here and there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness, dial it up, or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry, or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender. Because this season, there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks. We all have that dream trip we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life, or usually price, gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60 % off hotels and up to 50 % off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.

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0:48Brian Preston:Go to your happy price. Priceline.

0:51Humphrey Yang:Zippity-doo-dah. I hear we got some content creators that work in the financial space that we actually know and love today.

0:59Brian Preston:Brent, I am so excited to see what some of our friends have to say about personal finance.

1:03Bo Hanson:What home price can you buy with your salary? So if you look at this table, I used a 6 % 30-year mortgage rate, and then I calculated the mortgage payment that you could expect. And then I just backed into what your salary should be for different home prices. For example, on a$400 ,000 home, the monthly mortgage payment is$2631 per month, which means that the suggested salary is$112 ,750. Using the 28 % rule of home buying for comfortable affordability. This payment column does include property taxes and insurance monthly. And I also assume that you had a 20 % down payment. So I think that this shows that homeownership in America is really tough because the median price of a home in America as of the latest data was$410 ,000.

1:42Bo Hanson:The median household income is around$84 ,000 per year, which means that the median household income cannot afford you a median priced home anymore in America. And in other regions, it's even harder. So in San Francisco, the median priced home was$1.39 million as of 2026. And just to show you the salary suggestion to buy a high-end home, here's a table for these homes. Now, what you can afford is not the same as what you can qualify for by the banks. And I'm going to make a video on that next. So if you want that video, follow me for more. Wow.

2:11Brian Preston:I agree with a lot of what he said. We have a slightly like different flavor, just a touch. Cause we think when it comes to buying a home, we want you to follow three, five, 25. He said that all of his assumptions assumed a 20 % down payment, but this is a first time home. We would argue that you don't have to put down 20%. You can get away with putting down three to 5 % on the first home. We want to make sure that you can stay in that home that you see yourself being there for at least five to seven years. And we want the total housing expense or total house payments not exceed 25 % of your gross income.

2:40Brian Preston:So I think we were really, really close, but just some subtle little nuances there on difference. Oh, come on. He's about to throw me under the bus. We love Humphrey. No, of course I love Humphrey, but we disagree a little.

2:52Humphrey Yang:The biggest shock and awe for me, though, was San Francisco. Humphrey, let's get you on over here. Move on over to Tennessee. We'll see what we can do with your equity that you probably have in your house. Because goodness gracious, you know, starting out at a million and a half dollars, that's a steep price tag.

3:10Andy Hill:There are very substantial consequences to filing a return receiving a refund that wasn't legitimate. Here's how this usually plays out when a fraudulent return is filed. For example, claiming a refund for tax withholdings that were never actually paid on a W-2, the IRS may initially release that refund as a part of normal processing. Then they match it up with their records and demand repayment of the refund plus interest and penalties. Best case scenario, you have a 20 % accuracy related penalty. Also possible, you can get a 75 % fraud penalty. And in almost every case, the refund is already gone.

3:44Andy Hill:The scammer has disappeared. And the IRS only looks to you for the money.

3:48Humphrey Yang:This has got to be a new thing, Beau, with identity theft. You just went through this process. Is it a PTIM?

3:53Brian Preston:Yeah, not a PTIM, but an IP PIN. IP PIN, there you go. It's a number that you can get that resets every single year. It's with the IRS specifically to you as a taxpayer that before a return can be filed on your behalf, that IP PIN has to be associated with it. So if you're someone who's concerned that your information has been stolen and that fraudulent returns could be filed on your behalf, you can go out to the IRS website, apply for a pen. It's super, super quick, super, super easy. And it's just another way to keep yourself protected from fraudsters trying to take advantage of it.

4:25Humphrey Yang:Yeah, unfortunately, there's way too many of those out there. That's why I don't also sleep on freezing your credit because it's more likely the criminals are trying to use your credit more than you are as a financial mutant.

4:36Bo Hanson:My wife and I went from a negative net worth to over$1 million in 10 years. And smart investing made it happen. During that time, our household income averaged around$180 ,000 a year. Above average, but far from rich. The real difference was how we used it. First, we paid off our high interest debt before investing. It's hard to grow money at 10 % of the market if your credit card is charging at 25%, right? Then we saved and invested a big chunk of our income each month, stayed consistent, and let the market do its thing. That's how we reached Coast Fire by 40. We didn't try to time the market or chase the next big thing.

5:12Bo Hanson:we kept it simple, low cost index funds and ETFs instead of chasing single stocks and crypto. And here's the part that really stuck with me after interviewing hundreds of millionaires on my podcast. They all said the same thing. Automate your investments, reinvest your dividends, ignore the noise and stay the course. Building wealth isn't about getting lucky. It's about creating habits that keep you consistent when things get uncertain.

5:37Humphrey Yang:You make the good habits as easy as possible and the bad habits that much harder, automatic for the people.

5:44Brian Preston:What I love is that there are even tools out there that you can use to make those easy habits even more simple. It's while we have the financial order of operations so that when you're doing what Andy says, when you're saving some for the future and putting that money to work for you, we actually have a step-by-step process that can walk you through what's the best next use of my next dollar. If you want to get your free copy, go out to moneyguy.com slash resources. check out the financial order of operations.

6:12Humphrey Yang:Yours just won't be laminated. Won't make those cool sounds.

6:15Brian Preston:I mean, it can be. You can laminate. They can be laminated.

6:17Humphrey Yang:No. Only teachers have laminators. There's only one.

6:21Bo Hanson:Frugal rule number five. George. Always be knowing where every dollar's going. I had to defy the laws of grammar to make that rhyme, but it's worth taking the creative license here. This one is all about budgeting, and it's a huge part of living that frugal life. By tracking your income and expenses, you'll have a clear understanding of where your money's going and where you can make adjustments. And this way, every single dollar has a job. So nothing gets mindlessly spent on big dumb cups or grande ice sugar-free vanilla lattes with an extra shot of espresso and a splash of coconut milk.

6:50Brian Preston:Is that his coffee order?

6:51Bo Hanson:I'm going to do the frozen pineapple passion fruit lemonade. Surely not.

6:57Humphrey Yang:Surely not. I bet that's his coffee. I mean, we probably have people we could find out.

7:02Bo Hanson:And then I will do the cinnamon caramel cream nitro cold brew.

7:06Humphrey Yang:And I'll do the grande. Oh, yeah. Look at that fancy drink.

7:08Brian Preston:I love what George said that budgeting is, it's absolutely necessary depending on where you are in your financial journey. What we often see with Financial Mutants is they start with budgeting. Because how can you know if your dollars are going where they're supposed to be going if you have no idea where they're going at all? So setting up a budget, learning how to follow it, learning how to track it is a wonderful skill set to have. But I would argue once you've got that down, it is possible to graduate away from budgeting.

7:34Humphrey Yang:To a cash management plan where you just automatically have the money going into the accounts you want, where you can pay yourself first and then live without regret with the rest of your money. But don't skip out on the budgeting in the beginning. You got to get that muscle memory going.

7:46Andy Hill:When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... And room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like...

8:05Brian Preston:Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels?

8:08Andy Hill:It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Introducing VirtuoUp, the latest in a long line of innovation from Nespresso. It's innovation you can touch, sense, and taste in every single cup. With a three-second start, easy open lever, and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Sip for yourself. Shop Virtuo up exclusively at Nespresso.com. This is one of the biggest weaknesses of traditional retirement planning advice that we see online. The idea that you pick one number and stick to it forever.

8:53Andy Hill:So we need to get rid of this idea that we're going to say, hey, I'll take 4 % of my portfolio and withdraw that forever. Instead, let's use decision-based rules. This creates a much more resilient plan, and it might sound something like this. If my portfolio is under stress, I temporarily adjust. If markets fall below a defined threshold, we'll call that X, I adjust. If the markets recover, I reset. If my income sources change, my spending adapts.

9:24Humphrey Yang:I mean, Aaron is spot on. I mean, this is the thing is that I think when you're 20 plus years from retirement, I'm perfectly fine with people using what I call napkin financial planning techniques, which is, you know, you could do a back end to what your number is through the 4 % withdrawal rule or multiplying your income by 20, 25%, you know, times your income. But as you start landing the plane, you need to stress test what you've got going on. And you need to make your financial and retirement plan personal to you. And it's hard to do that with these one-off things that are very popular in the whole financial media content side of things.

10:00Humphrey Yang:But that's where our job as financial planners, we navigate a lot of this stuff. So you don't have just one retirement and wonder what your blind spots are. We actually help people navigate this every day.

10:10Brian Preston:Yeah. For the hundreds of clients that we've worked with that we've helped get to and through retirement, one of the things I think that's always wild that a lot of the blogs and articles don't catch is that most times in retirement and in financial independence, the withdrawal rate is pretty dynamic. Very rarely is it static 4%, 4%, 4%. There are seasons and times where you might have 7.5 % and then a 5.5 % and then a 4 % and then a 3.5 % and then a 12%. And that's okay if you stress test a plan to make sure you understand because what you want is you want a financial plan that molds to the life that you want to live, of not trying to mold your life to some stringent financial plan that doesn't ultimately match what you want your dollars to do.

10:52Bo Hanson:You should never have to pay any interest on a credit card ever if you do this correctly. Credit cards should be used only. Putting expenses on the card, getting the rewards, and then paying it off in full by the time it's due. Most people are completely oblivious to what their credit card balance is. They have no idea how much they pay in interest. All they do is they go and make the minimum balance and think they're all hunky-dory, where behind the scenes, it's a dumpster fire. And if you do have to pay interest, it should just be for an emergency only where you need to spend the money, not because you want to go to Coachella and just have a great time.

11:23Brian Preston:And I would argue that if you have an appropriately funded emergency fund, if you have three to six months of living expenses and readily available cash, you can save yourself from that entity described where you have to rack up credit card debt, where you have to be charged interest. I love what he said. Credit card use? A-OK. Credit card debt?

11:43Humphrey Yang:No way.