How Much Do You Need to Retire (By State)?

21:45Is that just for us? There you go.

21:48Brian Preston:Is it a snake? Is it a snake with a big arm? A dragon. Okay. I got to be honest. I love that he lifts. That's all I could see. I was like, alright. A lot of arm curls in that meme. So it was a meme. It wasn't like a cartoon or anything? It was like an internet cartoon skit. Part of a popular website series. Now Now you know. Now you know. Wonderful. Well, this Trogdor, the Burner Nader, thank you for the question, and thank you for being here on the live stream and for the amusement. Did y 'all know that, or did y 'all, like, go Google it? Oh, you knew it. I had to Google it. Although once I Googled it, I did recognize some of the channel, like the Home Star Runner channel.

22:32Brian Preston:So I was like, oh, I have seen this around. You would not be surprised. I've never seen that in my life. I'm fully insulated. Well, now you have. All right. next question is from mi football you were hard messy middle in 2003 yeah like hard messy middle the only thing nerdy about 2003 for me was while i was you know helping my wife waking up in the night a lot of stargate atlantis oh okay jason momoa if you he'll always be stargate that's where he was from he was from stargate he was also baywatch like hawaii years i mean it's it's funny I don't know why we're talking about Jason Momoa, but there you go.

23:11Brian Preston:I don't either, but that was great. Okay, let's go back to the question. So Michigan football feels respected. How does the food change if you have a Roth 401k and an HSA? Does the IRA become less important further down the list? I save about 24 % and do not max out my 401k yet. So the real question here, I think, and tell me if I'm understanding this right, is, hey, what's the difference in Roth 401k and Roth IRA? Why would I prioritize the Roth IRA over the Roth 401k? And there are a few reasons why you might want to do that. Now, don't be serious. We love both of them, right? But when it comes to a Roth IRA, you can choose where you open that account at.

23:58Brian Preston:Do I want a Fidelity Roth IRA or a Vanguard or a Charles Schwab or a fill in the blank. With your 401k, you are held captive to wherever your employer has that plan. So it might be at a expensive insurance company, or there might not be very good investment options, or there might be limited investment options in there. So when you choose your own Roth IRA, you get to pick where it's held. You also get a wide array of investment universe that you get to choose from. So maybe your 401k doesn't have target date index funds, but inside your Roth IRA, you really want to go buy target date index funds.

24:35Brian Preston:So I don't think it's an either or, like I have to choose one or the other, but there are a few small reasons why Roth IRA, in our mind, comes up a little bit before the Roth 401k. Yeah, and by the way, if you think about step two is employer match, get that free money, is you can do Roth 401k contributions into that, fill up the free money bucket, but then, yeah, get to step five, love the HSA. And then I love the thought of you thinking about this, not an if and either or it's is really an and because you're going to do the Roth IRA next. And then after you fill that bucket up, then jump over to step six and you're a load up that Roth 401k over as part of step six as well.

25:19So don't think about it as either or it's more of an order of operations, hence financial order of operations so that you can get take advantage of all of these great tax favored heavily incentivized options to build your great big beautiful tomorrow i hope that helps clarify some things in my football thanks for asking the question all right aust the boss 12 16 has a

25:43Brian Preston:question for you hello money guy i plan on being a homeowner in the future five plus years is it a good idea to bank with a credit union now so I could get a mortgage there and have the best chance to do a rate modification. Thanks. Oh, wow. Man, thinking about really thinking ahead. Holy cow. Yeah. Really thinking ahead. Let me start with I'm going to start with what is a rate modification and why does it matter? So for those of you that aren't familiar, a lot of people think about, OK, if I go buy a home now and I've got this interest rate, the only way that I can improve my interest rate at some point in the future is if I refinance my mortgage, which means I have to go through a new closing with a new mortgage company and new terms and all that stuff.

26:29Brian Preston:But what you may not recognize is that a lot of times when it comes to a loan, if the prevailing interest rates have dropped, you can reach out to your current mortgage lender and you can say, hey, rather than me refinancing this whole loan or rather than me changing providers, would it be possible for me to do a rate modification where all the terms of my loans stay the same except for my interest rate? And I want to modify my rate from where it was when I originally closed to where rates are now. And usually there's just a few pieces of paperwork and a couple hundred bucks to knock that out.

27:01Brian Preston:So it's a lot more cost effective than doing a true refinance. Well, what us is referring to is that oftentimes credit unions, if they're holding your mortgage might be, because it's more of a relational interaction, might be more susceptible and more agreeable to doing a rate modification. So with that context, should he go ahead and begin establishing a relationship with the credit union now? And I think it may even be interesting to talk about the difference in credit unions and big banks. I've done a lot of people know that. I think this is probably from an educational of what's happened in the wonderful world of finance.

27:35post great recession a lot of your banks have now become they're not relationship focused i mean i think that the great recession really broke the banking situation because you had a lot of consolidation where a lot of local banks got completely busted up meaning they just went they went bankrupt or you know they couldn't make it so the bank had a lot of shotgun the federal government came in did a lot of shotgun marriages created a lot of consolidation to where you have a lot of big banks now. And unfortunately, with big banks, and we've seen, I'm not going to say the names, but you've all seen the scandals where artificial accounts, not focusing on not your relationship, just being straight up.

28:19And I've even experienced that with you have a great local bank, and then they get gobbled up by a big national bank. And then all of a sudden, you see they cut staff, a lot of the service goes away, and just that special connection is lost. So here's the way I would tell you, and I love where your thought process is, is you're thinking ahead at least three steps here. I love credit unions. I will say that. One of our dear, dear friends, I even gave him a complete shout out in Millionaire Mission because of what he's done in my life. And I've told this story before, is that one of my early clients back in the early 2000s when I went on my own was a school bus driver who'd come into a large sum of money, seven figures plus.

29:02And I thought it was, I'll never forget. I got a phone call one day when this person had just signed the contract. And then I get a phone call and it's the president of a credit union in Georgia saying, Hey, I've got a member who's coming to a large sum of money. I know this member and I'm just a little nervous. I want to find out who's going to be helping her out with her decisions. And if you're worried, he was trying to keep the money. he was not because he was like, look, we can't even keep this money because it messes up some variables. And he gave the whole reason. He just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to take advantage of his member.

29:37And he was very sincere. So this phone call, I was so impressed with it. We ended up, it turned into like a 45 minute to an hour phone call, created a friendship, which is kind of crazy if you think about it from a serendipity, Providence type standpoint. And then we ended up starting doing work and other things with that credit union. but I think it just shows the heart. And so I think if you go, now look, there might be credit unions because look, their game is very much like the bank game is the bigger, bigger, bigger. Sometimes they might lose focus of the mission as well. But I think you can go quickly interview, see how serious or how good they treat you.

30:13And there is nothing wrong with you going ahead and setting up a relationship. If you get those warm fuzzies when you meet this credit union, or even I was going to say, look, we've, because Bo and I, we own businesses and and we so banking relationships mean a lot they matter yep um so we've we've always focused on going and interview the banks seeing if they're if they're going to be in our corner and i even have like in the last two weeks we have a bank that um we're changing some things around account wise and structure wise and there was a an oopsie meaning that i had a a draft system that was changed and they didn't the the vendor didn't update things even though they had sent me a confirmation email saying no we've got this updated to the new account well it was like a 10 11 12 000 draft that hit well there wasn't enough money in the account because of the structure they covered it and said hey i know that you and bo don't want this thing to bounce so we went ahead and covered it you need to you know can we make sure that there's and i was like yeah immediately and i was the relationship that allowed but it was a relationship i mean they very quickly could have easily just let that bounce it would have been embarrassing even though it was just an error and that stuff happens to everybody so um you have to go figure out what you want from the relationship interview and then just see are you just a number or are you going to actually be able to build a relationship here that has value and and can they can be on this journey

31:37Brian Preston:with you can i can i go just a little bit longer on this one for a moment i think it's interesting most people don't realize because i want to i want you to tell one more story if you're up for ride story time uh most things in in in this world are negotiable a lot of you don't realize but like if you actually have a relationship and can talk to another human being you can negotiate i'm thinking about your very first car loan do you remember this yeah you remember this story yeah tell about that and tell because that was because of a relationship or you were setting the fact because i was trying to set the foundation so now look this bank is now gone because they've been gobbled in part of this great recession they've been gobbled up and now i know which bank they're a part of i'm not going to say the name of them because they have i have a storied history with them too but it's um i went in after i got my first job i had not even started this job but i had the offer letter and i was trying to you guys i've told the story i drove around it's a raggedy car all through high school and college um i got i got my first offer and i knew i need immediately needed to get a car so i had this used car that i was going to be buying for ten thousand one it was a Mazda 626 1994 oscillating fans I love those oscillating fans I still had a five speed um it was it was a really slick car and I went to the to this bank and they immediately said hey I had my offer letter and they were like um this is you know you don't have enough credit we're gonna need you to have a cosigner and I was I came back I actually went home and then I thought about it and I went back and I was like, man, this stinks.

33:09I don't want, I'm trying to open my wings, leave the nest. And then here they are telling me I have to go ask my parents to help me out. So I went back to the, and I talked to the branch manager and I said, look, here's the thing I said, and this is why it is negotiable. I said, I'm brand new to my career and I'm going to be a CPA. I've got all these things going on here. You guys are making me bring my parents in. They don't have a lot of money and you're going to make them now be sign off on my name. I don't like that. If you take it, you need to take a chance on me because look, if you make me happy, you might, I'm going to eventually buy a house.

33:43I'm going to need to buy more cars and I'm going to need a place to deposit my savings accounts. Why don't you see if you can make this work? Because you're betting on me and the future relationship we're going to have. And he says, man, I appreciate that. And he actually called me back and he goes, you know what? We're going to do it. We're going to give you the loan. We're going to do the co-signing. And what's funny, I did give them close to 20 years banking relationship before all this gobbling up and horrible service kicked in and all the scandals that happened with this big consolidated bank afterwards.

34:16But at the time, I stayed true to that. I ended up opening up many accounts, business accounts and other things with this same bank. So yeah, if somebody, if you don't like, if it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, don't feel like you can't advocate for yourself because I do think that a lot of these things are negotiable and um and they would have been crazy not to give me that loan i mean it was just it was insane i mean it but i'm glad i stood up and and didn't just take the first thing that they threw at me love it yeah that was a great experience share

34:46Brian Preston:and i hope that all of that helped you ask the boss 12 16 uh thank you for the question and thank you for being here i think don't you because like we had that making a millionaire couple that was on i can't wait but bo put it in my head that they're you know i it's just like they came from nothing or it came from modest beginnings and then they built this big portfolio and i remember telling them at the end of the interview i was like i wish i could have met the 22 year old version of yourself and i kind of wish i could go back and meet the 22 year old version of myself to see that idealistic kid that basically was like hey you sure you don't want to give me this loan I mean, I just, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to experience that.

35:30If you're having your Ebenezer Scrooge type, you know, go back in time or back to the future, that would have been a cool thing to witness.

35:36Brian Preston:As someone who's been hanging out here for 20 years, I feel like you haven't aged a whole lot over the last 20. I imagine 22-year-old Brian's pretty much just like the guy sitting right here today, right? Not a whole lot different. I think I was probably funnier back then. You think so? Oh, man, if you could have seen me before the CPA lifestyle turned me into this, that was a good time back in those days. that's hilarious that makes me happy imagining even more fun loving time I'm telling you it's made me smarter and better with money but I'm probably a little less fun than I was back in college Brian was a good time well you're still really fun so props to you it all worked out maybe I needed to moderate it alright here's another question from Febreze Me Up we have some good usernames today it says I just received an inheritance of 10K from bonds.

36:29Brian Preston:I want to take that and reinvest. What are some good options? Love the show. And I mean, I think this is an interesting question. Whenever you have a lump sum of money, what do you do with it? What's next? So here's the very first thing I would do. The very first thing I would do, Fabrice, is I'd go to moneyguide.com slash resources, and I would download my free copy of the Financial Order of Operations. Brian, will you hold that up for me? because one of the things you need to answer is where am I in my financial journey? Am I still trying to get my highest deductible covered? Do I have high interest debt that I need to be paying off?

37:04Brian Preston:Am I putting money in my 401k? Where am I in this journey? And then I would say, okay, I've got this windfall. I've got this$10 ,000 that's now come my way. What is going to be the best use of that? If I have some debt that is high interest, maybe I don't need to invest this$10 ,000. Maybe I need to go satisfy some of that debt and wipe that off of my balance sheet. But let's assume for a moment that you've gone through the financial order of operations. You know exactly where to put that$10 ,000. You know, I'm either going to put it in my Roth IRA, or I'm going to use it to put more money in my 401k, or maybe I'm in step seven, I'm going to put it in an after-tax brokerage account.

37:37Brian Preston:Well, once you've made that assessment, what you invest in and how you choose to invest will also depend on where you are in your financial journey. Yeah, I think where you are in your journey, but then also I want to talk about the logistics of how you actually do it. Here's something you might not realize. Now, first, you have to go see if you wanted to, because you talked about reinvesting. I'm basically thinking you're thinking about liquidating it and then putting those assets elsewhere. What are the transaction costs on that? You need to go figure out, because bonds, sometimes you need to just figure out what is it worth?

38:07What's the spread? Is there any inefficiencies with that? But after that, there is a nice little thing about inherited assets. they get what's called a step up in basis meaning that um i don't know if there's any built-in gains to this bond from from whoever you inherited it from but the good news is is that whatever the value was on the date of death there will be a step up to that value so you could potentially be able to convert this to cash tax-free yep doesn't mean cost-free because there might be some transaction costs you need to know what those friction costs are but then you can kind of get a a start at square zero and figure out where in the nine steps of the financial order of operations that this is going to really help you out.

38:48Because that is, and then I think that also honors what I always like to tell people when you inherit assets, also take a moment to just think about what would whoever, you know, bless you with this, would kind of put a smile on their face too. Because I do think that there's some weight to when you get a blessing like this, what the intent and how can you make this actually have some legs that you can remember this and it actually has some long-term value to you and gives you a leg up. Because I hate it when people come into money and they go buy a new car or they go put it in lifestyle, and then you think about this blessing just got squandered in a lot of ways.

39:27So I always tell people when you get any type of blessing or somebody gives you an inheritance, try to honor it and make sure it actually sticks around and gives you some legacy.

39:36Brian Preston:So when they think about what to invest in, they've gone through all that. Should they go buy some individual stocks, maybe some Bitcoin? Maybe they should go do some options. Well, it's back to your point. When it comes to investing, what are the actual things that they should be buying? Yeah, I mean, we like index funds. Like, love them. That's what Roth IRAs, those type of things. And that's why I even think about, y 'all know, I lost my father in my mid-20s. My mom gave me and my brother$10 ,000 from a life insurance policy. And I can never forget, I paid off a little bit of, you know, it helped me catch up on, you know, I didn't have credit card debt, but it definitely there was some period, some expenses that I need to get caught up on.

40:17I might have paid off, I think that maybe that car loan that I might have paid that off. But then I definitely funded a Roth IRA with that money. And that's, it makes me still happy that I think about, you know, came into this money for something I'm not, you know, love to give the money back and have my father. but still I feel like it has legacy now because that's part of this Roth IRA that I have.

40:39Brian Preston:Yeah. So if you're early on in your journey, a great solution might be target retirement index funds. It's a type of investment where there's only really two answers you have to come up with. How much can I save? In this case,$10 ,000. And when do I think I might need this money? If I think I might need it 30, 40 years in the future, I can look at a target date index fund some point in the future. Or maybe you're further along in your journey, you've reached the boiling point and you're at$500 ,000,$600 ,000 of assets. Well, then I would look at my overall allocation and say, okay, where am I underweight?

41:12Brian Preston:What are the undervalued asset classes that I might want to get exposure to? And then I think about really good low-cost index funds inside of those asset classes to make sure that I have a very robust and well-diversified portfolio. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most.

41:50Brian Preston:Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. 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+. Great. Febreze me up. I hope that helps. Thanks for being here and asking the question.

42:26Brian Preston:T, W. But look at the content, T. We realize Febreze is a cleaning product. First released in 1998. They think we don't know what Febreze is? That's so messed up. We know what Febreze is. Isn't Febreze one of those things that's part of the Mandela effect, where the logo changed or something? I don't think that was Febreze, was it? I don't remember that being right now. I thought it might have been one of those. Bo is looking up. Yeah, Ruby, tell them a joke while I'm looking this up, bro. I have a question. I might be wrong. I know Fruit of a Loom is one of those things. The Monopoly is one of those things.

43:06Brian Preston:Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, so it is part of the... Look at you. Steel Trap. People remember Febreze being F-E-B-R-E-E-Z-E with two E's instead of the correct spelling with just one. Correct spelling. I don't know. That's not a real word. Well, I'm just going to put the correct spelling of the brand. Some people say that they've changed it. It's all a conspiracy. Which one is it? We don't know. Mandela Fetman. And that one still kind of messes me up. Don't let us get started about Sinbad. Yeah, we're not getting started on this. No, don't do it. He just is embarrassed. It was in the movie. That was real.

43:43Okay.

43:44Brian Preston:I watched it as a kid. We have a question from... Can I say one more thing? Bernstein Bears or... Oh, my God. No, this one you debunked. You proved this one. I will say. unless the collider really did create and change things um i went home we have all of my childhood books or my wife's childhood books from like the 60s and 70s from like because we got them all um it was spelled you know it was spelled the way that we didn't think it was spelled if you don't know what they're talking about go google the mandela effect the berenstein bear sinbad and you too can have the hilarious day that we did when bong ryan discovered the mandela effect so fruit of the loom changed i'm gonna stick by fruit of the loom and sinbad was in that movie it was just it's true all right are you ready for twc's question absolutely because i've got it queued up here he asks investment options in 529 plans are too conservative for funds that won't have to be liquidated for 18 to 22 years could a roth be used as an alternative approach for paying for grandkid college expenses?

45:03Brian Preston:Okay, let me double back before. I don't even want to really talk about the Roth part because you said, hey, 529 plans are too conservative for funds are going to be 18 years in the future. Most 529 plans now, and you can go look because every single state now sponsors their own 529. Most 529 plans will give you a number of different options you can choose from on how to invest though. So one of the options might be an age-based allocation, which I agree with you, tends to be pretty conservative inside of 529s. But then oftentimes there's also an aggressive age base, which is a little bit more equity heavy than the regular age base.

45:41Brian Preston:And it's less conservative, maybe a little more fitting, but then even most plans now will allow you to do your own customized portfolio across the low cost indices that they have. So if you are someone who wants a specific level of risk exposure inside the 529, it's not uncommon for 529 plans to have a small cap index, a large cap index, a total market index, an international index, where you can build an allocation to match the level of aggressiveness that you want to have inside of that plan. So I'm not going to concede that all 529s are too conservative. No, that's too strong of a statement because you think about it, you even get to choose.

46:18You don't have to work in your own state unless there's a huge tax benefit in your your state because you can go look at like and i'm just doing this off memory but utah is vanguard yep i mean you get to go choose whatever index fund that you want to to maximize the 529 here's here's the crux of what i think he's getting at is he's looking for instead of doing the 529 he wants to use the roth ira and i would tell you it's back to this isn't an either or it's really an and um because i don't when you get money into a roth ira because you're limited on how much you can put in a Roth IRA. They cap you out at around$7 ,000 a year.

46:55You're going to not want to use those assets, whereas college is going to happen. You're going to want to use it. And I will tell you, having a child that's a senior in college right now, and I'm happy to report, we just paid this. Basically, we've paid for three and a half years because we just paid her first semester of her senior year. so we're three and a half out of four years paid for and the 529 covered three years and i'm very pleased because you don't i didn't want to be left holding the bag on now here's the good news 529s have gotten a lot of escape hatches built into them now you can fund roth iras with them you can pay off student loans with them you know you can do k through 12 you can pass them down to relatives it lots of escape hatches if you overfund it but i like that it's built into the system that you're going to use this.

47:49And if you use them for qualified expenses, it's completely tax-free growth. Whereas the Roth IRA, I just, that money is so valuable that I want you, as soon as your kids, and this is a conversation I had with a client over the weekend, their kids are starting to work. They're teenagers, they're lifeguarding, they're doing other things. And I'm like, go start doing dollar for dollar match on those custodial Roth IRAs so you can prime the pump, get that money on those Roth IRAs so that you can turn them into savers and investors at an early age. So that way it's not an either or, it's an and. And so that you not only have the 529s, but you also can prime the pump once they start working and open up those custodial Roth IRAs.

48:29Man, oh man, are you creating a legacy for the next generation if you can combine those things.

48:35Brian Preston:Love it. Great. TWC, thanks for being here and thanks for the question. Matt C. has a question next. He says, is medical debt good debt, quote unquote? My youngest needs braces. Quoted$6 ,000 before insurance if I paid in full or$150 per month with$2 ,000 down at 0 % interest. Should I use my emergency fund? What is it after insurance? Or is there not an insurance? That's a great question. That is a great question. I kind of took those as two options, but there may be another option. There's literally someone out there who is pinning their kids smile on us like that. You know what I mean? They're going to be like, oh, sorry, junior.

49:20Brian Preston:I just thought this was an interesting question about types of debt. Because you do talk about good debt and bad debt and emergency funds and choices you have to make. This is more, this isn't a good debt, bad debt. This is more of what's the need for my child. And that's the thing. Now, look, this is why these industries, oh, they really get you because you're like, oh, my gosh, I got to. But you have to kind of, you know your situation and have to do what's the best for your child. And this isn't really debt. It's really of, do you have the money or you don't have the money because they're doing a 0%.

49:52Brian Preston:Well, that's what I'm, what's unclear that, and maybe I missed this, is were you getting a discount for paying the$6 ,000 up front? Or could you just pay that$150 a month at 0 % interest indefinitely? because if there's no discount for paying up front, the 0 % is certainly something that you could take advantage of here without getting yourself into a precarious spot. But I'd want to do the math on that. Generally speaking, when you pay up front, you pay up front because you're going to have some sort of cost savings there. But even if you were to take advantage of 0 % on this type of thing, that debt's not supposed to stick around forever.

50:27Brian Preston:So I'd want to have a very finite plan about how, okay, I'm going to knock this out over the next 12 months or over the next 18 months so that you get it off the balance sheet and move on. I would rather be, if you, assuming you have a well-funded emergency fund, I'd rather just knock it out because I worry about the unintended consequence of, because look, there is a bank being brought in here and yes, it's 0%, but they're waiting for you to step out of line and then slap you with interest and penalties. All those, a lot of times when you see 0%, they're very effective if you use them perfectly, but there's a lot of language in there that if you fall off the straight and narrow, that you get slapped with fees.

51:10Sometimes they even bring in the interest that you've got to defer.

51:15Brian Preston:But there's a relativity question here too. I'm not disagreeing with you that they could use the emergency fund, but if your emergency fund is$8 ,000 and you take$6 ,000 to go, that You have to triage your situation and go, man, because, yeah, if you get where it's taking you down to where you're hitting bone, yeah, well, take advantage of this. You've got to put yourself under the pressure of that. You've got to follow the straight and narrow and then get yourself back as fast as possible. Because, look, your health is I'm never you can't write us a question saying, should I buy my kids prescription or fund my Roth IRA?

51:55Come on, guys. I mean, seriously, we're going to tell you. that their money is only a tool it's not you know it's not the only thing in your life you know there's there's a lot of things outside of the money that we get and that's why we try to give you the flexibility and it also ties back to this is why a lot of people think the financial order of operations is a walk up the mountain hitting each step and if the content team wants to pull up it's actually not it's a there's a lot of things that are going to happen in your life that pull you forward pull you backwards you just need to be prepared and maybe this medical expense is one of those things that sets you back a little bit.

52:28Brian Preston:Did you find, have your kids, Ruby, had dental stuff yet? Any dental stuff? Okay. Did you find that like after, because we've already done the one bout of braces and I've had to do a bunch of cavities at this point and stuff. After the first time that happens, like the very first cavity or after that braces, you got militant about their teeth? Oh yeah, no, it sounds terrifying. Like every single night I was like, girl, did you floss? You better floss. You flossing right now? Are you wearing your retainer? Did you? Because I felt like I had to protect that investment, right? this because it's not it's not inexpensive right like yeah it does get expensive do you find that you got that way or no no i mean realize i'm a person that's y 'all don't i'm giving you way too much information oh um my wife has she's blessed with great teeth so she doesn't get cavities all this stuff i'm one of these people that i think if i just look at a piece of candy a cavity starts because i've just grown up my dentist when they you know you have deep wells in your teeth or something like that so i've always i've always been very meticulous with brushing my teeth and stuff because as a kid i had cavities and had a lot of feelings um so i'm just over the top with flossing and everything else so i'm kind of always been on the kids about brushing their teeth because just because i know the struggles i had as a kid now my wife and i think fortunately knock on wood my girls um they got their mom's teeth so they're great they're golden they could really there are some of you out there who don't have to be militant about your dental care and somehow you come out the other side perfectly fine and then there's other results this is all it goes back to if I was born in the wrong century I would have probably died after childhood because I mean I don't see well I have horrible teeth I mean this is why it's a blessing to be born in the in the century that I'm born in that somehow there's value in what I do versus what would have probably been valuable back in that that that century wow so much so much was there so much ground cover i'm also blown away by the science and technology of like teeth stuff like when they do like the palate will expand and they put the breath like i don't i don't really understand how it works how you can make all your teeth get fixed but it was wild to watch like they you know they weren't straight and they were straight it's mind-blowing to me no i mean and look i've got i I mean, I've got one that's getting wisdom teeth cut out in the next two weeks, and I've got another one that had surgery to get chains inserted because the tooth wasn't coming down.

54:50I mean, there's crazy things. So you're talking about the technology. I don't even know. I mean, once again, it's good to live in the time we live that they can do these things.

55:01Brian Preston:Wild. Well, Matt C., I think we're saying that the investment in your child's braces is worth it. It's worth it. I just feel like I need to bring it back home to mention that. but i will it goes back to something you asking the question being here there's nothing wrong with you asking if there are any discounts right you know cost reductions or any you know go ahead and ask you know i know it sounds crazy but it's worth at least i i do that on about everything i probably got people crazy medical yeah you do actively i've watched it in real time but yeah like that kind of stuff medical bills hey i've got this bill come in i'd love to go ahead and pay this in advance can we work something out or if i pay you today it'll be this amount and then the second worst answer you can get is no so you might as well ask we'll ask and look in the comment section there might be somebody who works in that industry and tell you yeah we're just waiting for you to ask for a discount or no this your insurance is the only discount worth looking into all right i've got another question from anthony f it says i'm a disabled veteran and utilize va health care i currently do not use health insurance offered by my employer.

56:11Brian Preston:Should I enroll in a high-deductible plan in order to open an HSA? And I think he's bringing up a great question because you love HSAs, but does everybody need an HSA? How do you think about this? So, Bo, you probably know this. So is he probably on track here? That's what I'm guessing is most likely what's going on. And that's going to be completely covered or heavily subsidized by the military and the government. So, I mean, I'll let you give the answer because we don't want you to make a bad financial decision just because we love HSA. That's right. As much as we love HSAs and being able to take advantage of it, one thing we all have to do, whether you're someone who has, you know, VA health care or TRICARE or whatever, you have to assess, man, is the insurance that I currently have access to, maybe I'll work for an employer who has a very solid Cadillac, highly subsidized plan, and I see the high deductible option that would give me the HSA availability, but then I've got this other Cadillac option that's really, really good that has low out of pockets, has co-pays and all these things.

57:12Brian Preston:And it might make sense based on the type of medical consumer I am, I ought to take the better insurance and not be able to do the HSA. That's an okay assessment to make. It's an assessment that you ought to work through at least every year as you're working through open enrollment to make sure you understand, okay, based on the next year that I'm going through, what is the best plan for me? If I add up, here's what I think my out-of-pocket is going to be. Here's what the premiums are going to be. Here's what the prescription is going to be. Here's what the tax benefit from the HSA would be. And I compare two columns.

57:45Brian Preston:I want to select the one that's most optimal. And sometimes it'll be the high deductible HSA plan, but sometimes it'll be the other plan. And in this case, it sounds like there's a chance, Anthony, that the current insurance that you're on might be better than going to a high deductible plan. So you need to make that assessment based on your specific medical usage. Well, I love it. I think what Anthony's done is he's probably gone to moneyguy.com slash resources, downloaded his own personal copy of Foo, the Financial Order of Operations. And he's thinking, hey, I see step five has Roth and HSA.

58:17So it must be so good that ought to do it. Well, it's no different than it's treated as a checklist. When you're looking at the financial order operations, you get to step two, employer match. If your employer doesn't offer a match in the 401k, you just kind of check it off and say, well, it's a great opportunity for most, but my plan doesn't really allow that. So I'm going to move on to high interest debt. Same thing. You get to step five and you say, yeah, I realized the HSA with that triple tax advantage is an incredible opportunity for many, but I get free or I get subsidized health insurance because of my disability, I would be crazy not to take advantage of what is free or provided or prepaid for my benefit because of my service.

58:58So you just go check the box and go, it just doesn't work for me. And that's really what we're trying to get you to do with the financial order operations is that we just want you to make sure you put the personal in personal finance. But we're trying to money as a tool and we've tried to create the better way for money. But it is very personal and you have to kind of go through and then you have to now triage what's the best things for my situation to maximize this love it yeah that's really great

59:25Brian Preston:anthony f thank you so much for the question and thank you for being here um you want to do one more sure let's do it milkman please says good morning money guy team my wife and i feel like we're on track for retirement but are incredibly stressed as we enter family planning any advice to help us stay on track during this transition? Oh, Bo, I'll let you, because you know me, I get all sentimental as a guy who's got older children now. I'm always like, just go have babies. I think a lot of financial... There you go. Can we make that a t-shirt? Just go have babies, Brian Preston. I think a lot of financial mutants are in this place where they say, hey, man, I'm doing all this stuff and I'm saving 25 % and I'm on track and I'm tracking my net worth and I'm doing it every year and everything is looking great.

1:00:15Brian Preston:But man, there's this big unknown, unknown associated with starting a family. I mean, there's gonna be another human being that is going to be dependent upon me and I'm going to have to, it's going to affect the way that I might be able to work. And it might affect career trajectory. It might affect income. It might affect savings. It might affect spending and all these unknowns. And so they begin to get really, really stressed about that. It's one of the reasons why when you listen to any of our content, and especially for young folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, we say that when it comes to what you ought to be doing financially, your goal should be to save 25 % of your gross income.

1:00:49Brian Preston:And if you can save 25 % of your gross income, you can remove that stress because odds are if you're able to do that and you do that for your entire career, you're going to be able to write the ticket on the kind of future life that you want. And so the question that I would ask you, Milkman, is are you at the place where, okay, I've been doing this stuff that I'm supposed to be doing. I'm a financial meeting. I'm moving the right trajectory. I'm going to have this family. I'm going to start a family. And even though there's some unknown unknowns, I feel pretty confident that I'm going to get back to once things normalize, once things settle out, I'm going to start making financial decisions the way that I have traditionally always done that.

1:01:26Brian Preston:I'm going to be a saver. I'm going to live on less than I make. I'm going to exercise discipline. So long as those things are true, you're likely going to be fine. It's not like what happens is all of a sudden these two financial mutants decide to start a family and then they have a baby and immediately they're getting all kinds of credit card debt and they start buying timeshares. They start making these horrible financial decisions. Who you are pre-family, at least from a financial standpoint, is likely going to be similar to who you are after so long as you make sure you put controls in place to keep yourself in check.

1:02:00Brian Preston:So I do not think that starting a family is a financial decision. It's a life decision, but it's a life decision you can go into confidently, understanding that if you start out as a financial mutant, odds are you're going to get back and stay a financial mutant even through the messy middle. Agree, disagree, want to fight. I'm glad we let you go first because I'm going to blow this whole thing up. He's saying I have a different take. Well, no, it's just that this question immediately made me think of and a pop culture reference, and I'm going to probably screw this up. Content team will correct me.

1:02:30Is it Mike Judge and Idiocracy?

1:02:33Brian Preston:Yeah, that sounds right. If you go watch the first 10 minutes, I'm not saying you have to go watch the whole movie, but you can probably find this on YouTube. If you watch the first 10 minutes, the whole plot of this movie is that really smart people overthink having children and they keep putting it off, putting it off so they have success and other things. Meanwhile, people who aren't so smart just have babies, babies, babies. I mean, it makes this whole, And society just shifts because the people, they just quit having babies on this side and then the other side. And we end up with Crocs and all these other things.

1:03:04You've really just got to go watch the first 10 minutes and you'll see what I'm talking about. And I think that sometimes I think about that pop culture reference to sometimes as financial mutants. You're so determined to build your financial success. And I'm all for, and I think it's great that you're disciplined. But also don't overlook that money's just a tool. and your family is to take it from a guy who's in his 50s children are get much older super sentimental life is so cruel because when you are more sentimental your kids will become more independent and it creates these all strange dynamics and um you know because it is special i know there's a lot of people out there that are even in our comment section telling you marriage is not good kids aren't good and all this and i'm telling you it's the opposite i think that it's pretty awesome and um i even got a unique situation because you know i have a child on on the spectrum they'll probably never live on our own um so even with those curveballs i think there's a lot of good that comes from it maybe i shouldn't be so opinionated about it but i'm just telling you from a 50 something year old sentimental guy um don't overthink it too much i want you to do your homework measure twice cut once but it's okay to have kids i love it and yes what can i do to

1:04:17Brian Preston:prepare, I think one of the things, just like anything else, are you following the financial order of operations? Do you have a fully funded emergency fund? If you don't, maybe as you enter into the season, whether it's going to be additional medical costs and there's going to be additional stuff here in the house, maybe you need to bolster and beef up your cash position a little bit as you move through this transition so that when the stress comes, because having babies is a stressful thing, you can rest assured, okay, I've got cash in the bank. I've got my emergency fun there. There's just one less thing I've got to think about.

1:04:49Brian Preston:All I've got to think about right now is how warm is that milk supposed to be? How do I change the diaper? Those are the things that you want to be able to focus on, not the financial stuff. You still get to follow the foo, even when you're in the messy middle. That's the point, right? Did I get the movie right, by the way? I think you did. I was Googling it. The content team is telling us. Now the content team is like, don't say that. Because it's not exactly the cleanest movie. Good to know. I have not seen it. I'm not saying you have to go watch the whole movie, but it is very interesting to watch the whole setup.

1:05:23Brian Preston:I've never seen that movie before. We all learned something today. Maybe I know what we're going to do watching the content. The edited version. We need to find the Superstation version of it. Because Bo and I have, let's say this just because I know we're coming to a close. Bo and I have a very similar background. The fact that we grew up in South Atlanta. And anybody who's from Atlanta knows Superstation, TBS. TBS. Ted Turner's thing before AOL, Time Warner, bought them out. Notorious for putting movies on there. And they were censored movies, though. So we have a lot of common, you know, talking about great movies.

1:05:57Hey, we watched this movie. But you go watch these movies now through the streaming platforms. You realize they're a lot dirtier. I don't remember that part. So you've got to go find the TBS version of these movies when we mention them to you.

1:06:10Brian Preston:Oh, love it. All right, well, Milkman, please, thank you for being here. Thank you for the question. and if anybody watching or listening wants to continue this conversation make sure you go to moneyguide.com resources because we have tons of free downloads free calculators for you to use to keep thinking about your personal financial situation hopefully help you build confidence in what you're doing so that you can actually just focus on what really matters that's the whole point so thanks for joining us thanks for being here we'll be back at 10 a.m central live streaming next week. There's a better way to do money.

1:06:44And look, a lot of you guys take advantage of all that free stuff that Rebe was talking about, but also a lot of you are super successful. And if you've gotten to that point that you need somebody to help you co-pilot the seven, maybe even multi seven figure success story you've created, we'll leave the porch light on for you. Consider fulfilling the abundance cycle. I'm your host, Brian Preston, Mr. Bo Hanson. Rebe and the rest of the content team and the wings, Money Guy, out.

1:07:10Brian Preston:The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Presson and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through The Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice.

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