How Much Should You Save for Retirement?

22:39Brian Preston:I do have a fun add-on for you guys to try again, just like we did fruits and vegetables last week, but I'll let you know when we get to the rapid fire. But yes, put RF at the beginning of your question in the live chat, and we will get that queued up and get ready for rapid fire in a few minutes here, probably between the 30 and 40-minute mark of the show. All right, let's go to the next question from tothehouse4368. To the house! It says, hi, Money Guy team. My employer is introducing an employee stock purchase plan or ESPP through Fidelity. Nice. They are offering a 15 % discount with a look back.

23:19Brian Preston:Is this a no brainer to invest in if I have the funds? Yes. Next question. Could you explain what it is as well? Maybe just give a little context or were you trying to outdo your last one? You did the longest answer. You should put this in the rest of the box. So for those of you that aren't aware, employee stock purchase plan is an opportunity that an employer, and it's not just publicly traded employers. A lot of times you can do this with private employers as well, where there's an opportunity for you as an employee to purchase the stock of the company with whom you work. And even better than being able to become an owner of that company, they often issue that stock at some sort of discount.

23:58Brian Preston:In this case, it's a 15 % discount, and there's a look-back period, which I'm assuming for To The House means that they look at the price at the end of the period and price at the beginning of the period, and they pick the lowest price there. So it amps up the return. And then you get a 15 % discount on that. Sounds good. So we're talking about free money on free money on free money on free money, and that's exactly how we look at it. We think that ESPP plans, when there's a discount, when that's available, are just like step two of the— Brian, can you have the thing up for me? are just like step two of the financial order of operations where you get free employer money.

24:32Brian Preston:Now, where do you have to be careful? Where do you want to be mindful? Well, most ESPP plans are capped at a certain dollar figure. You can only participate up to$25 ,000 of benefit per year inside the ESPP. And some ESPP plans have a lockup where you actually have to hold the stock for a certain period of time for an inter-qualifying disposition. Sometimes that's 12 months, sometimes that's 18 months. If you're in this scenario where they don't let you liquidate the stock and you have to hold it, and let's assume that you have other compensation coming your way as well. You have stock options and RSUs.

25:07Brian Preston:It would become very easy to become highly concentrated in your employer stock. Does that mean that you don't need to do the ESPP? Not necessarily. It just means that you ought to have a strategy in terms of how you're thinking about all the different pieces of stock exposure you're going to have. But we love ESPPs. In this case, it sounds like, yeah, this one is a no-brainer, but it's a no-brainer that you've got to use your brain for a little bit. Yeah, you've got to make it automatic. Create a system to where you don't want to have all of your human capital tied into where you have all of your investment capital.

25:41And that's what happens when you do too much of a good thing. So that's why you will need to create a structured system to where there's a plan to liquidate these funds, to diversify, take the gains and diversify. What you'll have to figure out is how fluid your liquidity is in your emergency reserves and other things to really go for the bonus round of getting the 12-month holding period so you qualify for the long-term capital gains versus ordinary income tax rates. But you can still create a system with that structure. And then every year, you just now get on a conveyor belt that you're turning parts of this ESPP into part of your liquid capital outside of the company.

26:22It's powerful, but you just got to go into it with your eyes open so you don't get too concentrated where you have both your human capital, meaning your wages, your time tied up into where you're trying to build financial independence in your investment capital. There is too much of a good thing, so create a system to protect you from that.

26:39Brian Preston:Love that. That's great. To the house 4368. If you would like a Money Guy Tumblr, just email winner at moneyguy.com since we answered your question today. I saw we had a friend show up in the live stream chat. It was MoneyGuyClips channel. So if you have not checked out that channel yet, be sure to go subscribe. You guys got excited, didn't you? I was like, oh my gosh. It's just a gimmick to get people to go look at our Clips channel. Well, I thought it was clever of our team to pop in there as MoneyGuyClips. And I was going to mention it anyway. we've been really it's been fun to watch everybody go check out the clips channel and also just the response a lot of you spoke very positively of how we split our highlight clips onto one channel for folks who want those and now on this channel that you're watching or listening to the Money Guy show channel it's all unique content we're only posting original long form content here so when you subscribe to each channel you know what you're getting so if you haven't subscribed to Money Guy clips and you like watching our highlights be sure to go check it out and give us some love or share with your friends.

27:45Brian Preston:It's a great place to kind of get started on The Money Guy Show and more bite-sized chunks. That may be a good thing to share with folks as well. So just wanted to give that a shout out. It's the free sample selection. That's right. You walk around with a tray at the mall. I mean, our entire show is kind of a free sample, I thought. But okay, cool. Give us a sample. Here you go. Here's your sample. You'll love it. We have the best chicken in town. A lot of people have asked you, hey, why'd you do that? Why'd you split it off? And it's one of those things that at the end of the day, what we really want is we want things to be better for you guys.

28:16Brian Preston:So whenever we make any kind of decision of something we're doing around here, there's usually a reason and thought process behind like, man, this is something we can do. And if we do this thing, it's going to be able to make something more viable, better, more available, more attainable. And the Clips Channel was just one example of us doing that. It's almost like we're planners. It's like the beginning with the end in mind. There's thoughts behind the decisions. Ready for another question? Yes, ma 'am. Awesome. Kevin B8679 says, Hey, Money Guy team, my wife and I, both early 40s, have been diligent investors since our 20s.

28:54Brian Preston:Let's go. We are so far ahead of our goals. Could we take a savings gap year to fully enjoy the fruits of our labor? We say all the time that one of the benefits of saving early, getting out ahead early, hitting 25 % early, is you give yourself future flexibility. You give yourself future options. You give yourself the choice to be flexible in the future. And if one of those things you want to do is take a savings holiday or you call it a savings gap year, I say that's A-OK. That's one of the things about knowing if you're ahead of the curve, behind the curve, right on the curve. Yeah, can you do it?

29:34Brian Preston:Is it all right? Absolutely. Now, I will say one of the things we have clients who have done this, there are a lot of times you still want to think about the tax stuff. So even though I have like a savings year, well this might've been the year that I'm able to do some Roth stuff or I'm able to, or there might be a compelling reason to put money in my 401k less so for the savings aspect, but more so for the tax savings. I still want you thinking through those things, but if you are so far ahead that it allows you to take your foot off the gas, I think that's awesome. Yeah. Just make sure you do the work, measure twice, cut once, you know, So that way it's not, I feel like I'm ahead.

30:08Did you actually know you're ahead? And then I do think you're probably going to want to lean into the things that Bo was just talking about, like employer free money. Yeah, you got to still do that because you're just good with money. You can't leave free money on the table. And then also I would tell you, just like I talk about a millionaire mission, I talk about Roth contributions that I missed because I was either starting a company and I missed about$10 ,000 of total contributions over a four or five year. period. And I still kick myself for that because I know what that opportunity costs, what that legacy for my daughter and my family could be if I'd have fully funded those Roth IRAs.

30:47So I would just, things like that, that you just can't get the water back up the hill because the opportunity is just so strong, probably fund those, but then use the rest to reward yourself. And I think it's A-OK.

30:58Brian Preston:Now, I don't want to take credit for this because someone said this in the chat, and I think it's a great idea. It says, hey, you just got to be careful. Don't let a gap year return to a gap decade. Yeah. Cause it's great. Don't we all know college friends that did that? Man, absolutely. Hey, I'm just going to take a year and go find myself. And they took them 20 years to go. They never got the degree. They never got the degree. I got a, I got, I have several friends that took us, I'm going to take a gap year. I'm going to take off and go work this job just to build up a little extra money. Never got the degree.

31:23Brian Preston:Being ahead of the curve is great. So long as you don't make decisions that end up putting you behind the curve. And remember, one of the things, what most likely happens is when we take a break on savings, what we, tend to do is we ramp up our consumption. So we allow our lifestyle to increase for that year. Well, if it's a sticky lifestyle increase, meaning I use that to buy the newer car, buy the newer house, go on the vacation, whatever that thing is, recognize that now you've increased your footprint. So the additional savings in the future may need to be higher to account for that additional lifestyle.

31:55Brian Preston:Again, these are all wonderful things and all things that you can do. you just don't want to surprise yourself. And I love that what it's just worth noting, Kevin said hey, we started in our 20s and we're now in our 40s. Can we do this? This is different and I want all of my young 20-year-olds to say, this is not someone who says, hey, I started saving when I was 23 and I'm 26 and I'm way ahead of the curve. Can I take it? That's not the same thing. So just recognize there's a time and a place for being able to do this. And it's after you've been doing it for a while. Yeah, no, they've built up enough assets.

32:33I bet these things are doing, reached a lot of our millionaire milestones just off the size of their army of dollars. Yep.

32:42Brian Preston:Fantastic. Well, KevinB8679, thank you for the question. We hope that helps. Just email winner at moneyguy.com if you personally would like a Money Guy Tumblr. Oh, Kevin said they have eight to 10 times their salary invested. You know, the goal for about the time you get a 40s. He did say way ahead of the goals. Can you pull up the slide? Moneyguys.com slash becomeaclient. Just check that out. That's a great thing for someone in their early 40s. You know, when Brian and I were first building this business, payroll and HR administration was such a headache. I wish we had a tool like Gusto back then.

33:18Brian Preston:And honestly, we hear it from clients and friends. Once they make the switch, they're really, really glad they did. Yeah, here's the deal. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. We're talking automatic payroll tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, even 401k, all under one roof. Unlimited payroll runs for one flat monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. And it's ranked number one in G2's highest satisfaction list for 2026.

33:53Brian Preston:trusted by over 400 ,000 small businesses. And if we know our MoneyGuy audience, you like doing things right from the start. Gusto lets you do exactly that. So try Gusto today at gusto.com slash moneyguy and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash moneyguy. One more time, gusto.com slash moneyguy. Unlike other AI, Slackbot lives in Slack. It understands you, your team, and your work, so you can ask it for help with anything. Can I ask it to summarize client feedback? Yes. Can I ask it to find time for a meeting? Absolutely. Can I ask it to turn our meeting notes into a launch plan?

34:35Brian Preston:Sure. Can I ask it to call me Da Boss? Actually, you can. Da Boss. See how Slackbot can turn you into Da Boss at slack.com slash meet Slackbot. Go dropping. Love it. We'll have the forge light on for you. All right, let's move into our It Does Not Depend Rapid Fire segment where Brian and Bo will rapid fire answer your personal finance questions, but they cannot say the words, it depends. They have 30 seconds combined after the question is read. I am going to give them an additional for fun challenge today to see what they do with it. I want to show Brian, give you a little nod, and see how many Disney references you can bake into your answer.

35:20Brian Preston:And remember, I'm going to be a little harder on you if you just kind of say, Mulan, at the end of your question, that does not count. Brian is stressed. Look at him. But you can recall Disney stuff, Disney characters, Disney phrases. I think you can. Bo, I'm not positive about, but we'll see what happens. Well, I can, but normally, but you put stress, and all of a sudden I turn into a different animal. Well, that's the fun of this game. You were getting too good at 30 seconds, so we've got to do something. Bo's good at it. I think everybody comes to see the hijinks of me struggling and failing.

35:53Brian Preston:Did you see how many people began in their normal nomenclature on the internet using Kiwi happy and banana happy? I use it regularly now. Right? Like, it's like a thing. You created a trend of being Kiwi happy. Makes me Kiwi happy. Makes me banana happy over here. Exactly. If you don't know what we're referencing, go listen to a couple Ask Money Guy shows. I guess that'd make me banana happy. Past. Oh, man. I love that. All right. So with that, let's move into rapid fire. Here we go. Question one, can you do both step four and five together if you're past a three-month emergency fund and why?

36:36Brian Preston:I'm going to say yes, because if you have the three months, you have an emergency fund in place, but you are building towards a full emergency fund. and I really want you to be able to take advantage of that Roth if you can and you can get to the Zars if you need them. Look, first you got to make sure the slipper fits just like Cinderella and make sure you have that three months really does give you the protection so at midnight you don't turn into the pumpkin. I'm so impressed. I'm going to lose this one. This is magical. Brian just got 10 points on the board and we are moving on to question two.

37:12But yeah, I like Roth IRAs.

37:15Brian Preston:that wasn't even in the 30 seconds that's step five next question in your opinion what is the best way to save HSA receipts for future reimbursement

37:27Brian Preston:oh don't think I'm going first every time no I think you I mean you have to put yourself in the future like in Wally and you have to kind of plan ahead so scanning the documents in and then saving them so you have them in the future no matter what happens to mankind For all of my receipts, I scan them into a folder by year, and I also have a spreadsheet where I'll list them out. So if I have to show the spreadsheet and the receipts, I have a repository that I could very easily come up with those whenever I do HSA reimbursements. Well done on all fronts. Ten more points to Brian. All right, next question.

38:03Brian Preston:Is it okay to buy a fun car with a loan if you are on step eight and ahead of the curve? Yeah. If you're on step eight, you get to do what you want to do the way that you want to do it. If you're saving 25%, you're building towards financial independence, you've done all the things that you need to be doing, then absolutely, you can go buy a fun car. And if you choose to finance it, that's your prerogative at that point.

38:32I'm sitting there trying to think of this. Look, Gaston would drive a fancy car financed. But I don't know that I think it's the greatest idea.

38:40Brian Preston:Time's up. I don't know if you get that one, Brian. That seemed like you just threw that one in for no reason. No, I knew because I had a way I was going to go in it, but I just didn't have enough time. I was blanking on Gaston's name for some reason. So no points on the board for that, although valiant effort. Okay, next question. When Brian says, automatic for the people, is he referencing REM? Well, it's actually REM and Weaver Dees. I was about to say Weaver Dees, baby. Remember, I went to UGA. Beau went to UGA. That's where R.E.M. got Automatic for the people. It's a slogan from a famous restaurant.

39:15Really, really good restaurant.

39:17Brian Preston:Nice. A little bit of trivia for you. I didn't give any Disney. I should have put a Disney on there, too. That's all right. You did a UGA reference. Yeah, you did a lot of references there, apparently. Anyway, moving on. A lot of pixie dust there. Yes. Where does saving for maternity leave, about to start the messy middle, fall in the Foo? it's going to be like a four thing uh emergency funds and it's one of those things where if you're saving from maternity leave and you're going to be out of out of income you need to make sure you have enough resources to cover while you're out especially if it's going to be non-paid maternity so i'm going to say it's inside step four yeah i was going to say it just like you know because when you have kids you get in the weeds just like rapunzel and you're stuck up there worried about how you recover things so make sure you have a good emergency reserves it gets you three to six months so you can survive that well.

40:05Brian Preston:Don't be stuck like Rapunzel. 10 points for Brian. All right, next question. This one's for Brian. Your view on the future of the CPA career path as AI capability continues to improve? I think it's like most things. I think that a lot of people are calling for destruction, but I think there's going to be an opportunity to maximize. because yes, compliance is going to be different, meaning tax filing. But if you don't think that we're going to still need people's intelligence on how financial statements and businesses work, I think you're mistaken. You said this was for him, but I'll just tack on too.

40:40Brian Preston:Please do. I agree. I think that tax preparation will become much more automated, much more efficient, and it will allow CPAs not fall into the slog of tax season the way they have previously. Mulan. That's exactly what I said not to do. Come on. You know Disney references. I wouldn't have even come up with that one. All right. Next question. I'm just waiting for one single question about lions or about fatherhood or about something because that's the only thing I can think of is Lion King. I'm literally just naming every character in the Lion King right now. That's all you can think? I know you have some certain types of fans in your household.

41:20Brian Preston:I'm just telling you. I'm telling you. Anyway, moving on to the next question. Does it make sense to withdraw from an HSA with the required medical receipts to fully fund a Roth IRA in a given year?

41:37Brian Preston:Nobody who's listening can see you shake your head. But if you're tight on money, you have no money, and you could pull out of that, would you not fund a Roth IRA with that? Because we let them get into emergency reserves for funding that sometimes. Yeah, but I think that HSAs are more valuable than Roth, So I think that would actually be maybe stepping it down a touch, especially if I have the receipts to be able to do it. Because I don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul. I want to add to both. Time is up. We will come back to this. I'm going to tell you, that one would definitely, that's a depends answer.

42:11I mean, I'm just saying that after the fact. I need to dock 10 points from your score.

42:15Brian Preston:I want to think through why it would depend. We're going to come back to that one. You did not fulfill the time requirement on that. All right. What skills would you recommend people that are new to the workforce? So what skills would you recommend to people who are new to the workforce with AI up and coming? My opinion, interpersonal skills, the ability to talk and communicate directly with another human being, look them in the eyes, have a conversation, make people feel heard, make people feel welcomed. I think that that's something that AI is not going to be able to replace. yeah I mean you want to be the the tigger of poo and the fact that you want to be so bubbly and friendly that because no AI is ever going to be if you ever notice AI can't write jokes very well they're just not funny so be tigger let's face it I dialed that one in it still worked though like I feel like I still give you the points for it well I mean Bo had already taken all the good easy answer on that so I felt like I was just giving him a punctuation alright All right.

43:19Brian Preston:Next question. My advisor, 1.5 % actively manages equities and is confident he'll always outperform. But most data shows index funds win in the long term. How should I evaluate that? I'm 29, married. We're dinks. And step six of the food. I just have one statement, then I'll let you take it. Pride and ego comes before the fall. Yeah. If he says he's going to do that over and over, has he been doing it? Like, has he been outperforming? So for asset management only, active management, one and a half is pretty steep just to try to go out there and pick and do selections. But I don't want to be so presumptuous and say, oh, no, no, no, he can't do it, he can't do it, he can't do it.

44:03Brian Preston:I mean, if your advisor is Warren Buffett, he has a track record of doing that, but I'd want to see the guys, the person, the advisor's track record. It's not Disney, but I'd like to see the Sports Almanac. Now, Back to Future is not Disney. It's universal. All right. Last question. Buckeye fan here. This is not from me, by the way. No. There's enough of you already in the room. Wow that it made it in here. As UGA alums, do you hate Florida, Auburn, or G Tech the most? Yes. No. That was not the question. We have friends at all of those, so I wouldn't say that I hate any of them. I don't pull for any of them very often, ever.

44:45I can't. I don't hate any of those. And I have a story. That's why I have to say it depends on every one of those.

44:50Brian Preston:Oh. You just. Okay. Because I want to give a better answer on that. I want to give a better answer on it. And with that, Rapid Fire is now complete. I can give a much better answer on that one. And Bo did not try at all on the Disney reference. So, Brian won 40 to nothing. I mean, not even. Skunked me and just absolutely demolished me. I can't believe neither of you just threw in a great big deal tomorrow. You know what? I actually was. Anytime you're talking about saving for retirement, done and done. I wanted to say it. Ten points on the board, but I will take those ten points because I thought of it.

45:24No.

45:24Brian Preston:That would have been good. Would have been good. So can I clarify the college question? You can. We'll start there. Look, I have a close – y 'all realize I grew up a Florida fan. My dad played down at the University of Florida. He was Steve Spurrier's blindside left tackle for all those years. He was friends with Steve. So I went to University of Georgia because of this beautiful thing called in-state tuition because I had some scholarships because of the Gulf War that didn't end up happening. So it was kind of a coincidence that I ended up at the University of Georgia. So that's why I don't dislike Florida.

46:01I'm one of the unique Georgia fans. I want Georgia to win, but I don't have the hate for Florida because I just know I'm too close to that program from childhood. The other thing, Auburn. I almost went to Auburn. I even did a walking video on this. I was early accepted to Auburn, and I gave the story of Auburn's recruitment plan back in the 90s was they just had your family pull up in a minivan. They threw the most attractive person you've ever seen into the minivan with you and rode around with your family, showed you the campus, took you in to meet the professors. It's brilliant. it was diabolic and the fact that I immediately was like that I was going to go to this school.

46:41So I told all my buddies in my junior year after I'd done this and got an early acceptance, hey, I'm going to Auburn. A lot of my buddies from high school ended up going to Auburn because we had this pact that we were going to do it together. And then, of course, that scholarship fell through. I ended up going to UGA. But I spent a ton of time at Auburn, went to a lot of house parties and other things. I mean, I literally would skip weeks because there's this thing called student notes back when I was in jail. I'm sure it's illegal now, but I would literally

47:09Brian Preston:during the realm of AI. I mean, well, for those that didn't know, they would print it on red paper. They would pay nerds to go copy, sit in class and write down notes. And then for the people who didn't want to go to those big lecture classes, you just go buy the notes and I can memorize anything. So I would ace exams. Big classes were easier. Majors, I had to actually go to class. But I would spend weeks over in Auburn. So I have a lot of love for Auburn as well. That's why I pick on all Auburn fans is because there's a likeness there. Speaking of nerds, what's the story? I pick on tech a lot.

47:46But I do have one of my dearest, dearest friends. And I toured tech because I came really close to thinking about tech too because I'm nerdy and I was good at math all through high school but one of my dear friends went to Tech and so I have a lot of love for Tech as well.

48:05Brian Preston:Very thorough answer. All those schools I have some affinity to because of just personal friends and close dynamics. I'll throw in a go dogs to respond on that. Since we're in our It Does Depend segment there was a question that you guys just kind of stopped and did not fulfill the requirement on it was, does it make sense to withdraw from HSA with the required medical receipts to fully fund a Roth IRA in a given year? There was a lot of debuts going on. I think Roths are better than HSAs in the long term. That's where we have a disagreement. Because look, I do agree. HSAs are triple tax advantage, quattro tax advantage if your employer has the right structure, which is just completely incredible.

48:45But it is amazing from a legacy standpoint, because maybe it's different because I'm now in this stage where I'm thinking about legacy of my assets and having a special needs child that can actually stretch the retirement accounts over their life expectancy because of her struggles. The Roth is just so daggum cool that it's tax-free for forever, essentially.

49:08Brian Preston:And that's why I'm not suggesting that you don't do the Roth. I'd love to see you do both, but if you already have the receipts that can justify pulling the money out of the HSA, I'm going to argue you already have the receipts that you could do that at any point in the future. So you've already got the dollars acting and behaving like a Roth in every single aspect, except for the legacy aspect. That's a really great point. But I think I'm going to leave them HSA because once I put them in the row, I mean, I guess technically I can get to a penalty free tax free. I pull my basis out, but man, that HSA money, it's still growing tax free and it's free and clear.

49:42Brian Preston:If I've got the receipts to get it out, I like the HSA dollars. But I would find some way to do both of them if you can. That would be my absolute best answer. You say instead of or, it's an and. Instead of or, it's an and. I think so. There you go. Go make more money. There's the answer. There's no depends with that. Spend less or make more. Spend less or make more. That was fun. A few honorable mentions that I do agree with our audience on. can't believe you didn't do a cars reference and a question about cars. Lightning McQueen, anyone? Also, somebody said, can't believe you didn't say a whole new world when it comes to talking about AI.

50:24Brian Preston:I have a good one too. I know. There were some good ones in there. What's a quote from cars? I thought like you could just say, you know, oh, don't go take out. Or I guess if you're on step eight, you could take out a loan to buy a fancy Lightning McQueen or like, I don't know, you could throw in one of their names or something. I'd probably been more of a mater. Oh, yeah. We're both thinking telemetry. For sure. Exactly. So anyway, you could have taken it several ways. But just for fun, I wanted to shout out because the audience was having some of the same thoughts that I was having. All right.

50:56Brian Preston:With that. Pixar. That's not Disney. Right? Well, Pixar is Disney. Yeah, Pixar. Marvel is Disney. So any Toy Story reference would have been there? In a weird way, even the Simpsons are now Disney. Really? Yeah, because they bought Fox. Ay caramba. But you're not going to go to the Disney parks and see The Simpsons there. But you will see Lightning McQueen. I mean, they're currently at Universal, but give it a few years. You never know. There's some weird dynamics. We rode The Simpsons ride at Universal, and it was funny because they have a little thing that plays. That stuff was so funny when I was a kid.

51:28Brian Preston:My kids did not think it was hilarious and would not get away with that being like cartoon programming these days. I don't know if it was ever designed for children. It was crusty. Because it's crusty. and he's always ripping off heads and doing all kinds of crazy gross stuff. Oh, man. All right, we've got a few more questions. Oh, also. 23.8 for Mater, cash only for Lightning McQueen. See, that's good. It writes itself. That's really good. It writes itself. Also, Brian literally said pride goes before a fall. You instantly, Mufasa falling off the cliff. Pride rock. You could have incorporated, like, he just laid that.

52:03She's mad she's not answering. He just handed that to you on a platter. This rapid fire was for you.

52:07Brian Preston:No, honestly, I thought this is so easy, they're going to nail this. It's hard to do stuff under pressure. It's true. Well, that's also meant to be a little difficult. I just don't have a really good Disney catalog here ready to roll. I overestimated your Disney catalog. But it was fun. Thank you for humoring me. Thank you for the great answers to the financial questions. I think Bo has classified himself as a universal family anyway because they just got back from that vacation. It was great. Maybe so. It was really great. Next. No, we won't do universal references. I feel like that'd be even harder.

52:38Brian Preston:All I'm going to do is back to the future the entire time. All right. Let's do a couple more long form questions and give away a couple more tumblers maybe. Let's move to Haley's question. It says, as you make more income over time, when do you circle back to fund your emergency fund more? I'm having a hard time grasping when you go back and fund it further, assuming you make more over time. It's not a one and done. Yeah, this is where the art meets the science of it. And I think there's not a right or wrong answer, but a really great time to do it is every single year when you do your annual net worth statement, one of the things you're going to put on there is what are my cash and cash equivalents?

53:20Brian Preston:Well, as soon as you see that number sitting there, you want to do a mental check in your mind. Okay, what's my burn rate right now? Okay, I spend$5 ,000 a month every month. I need a six-month emergency fund. I need$30 ,000 in there. Oh, I've only got$25 ,000. Okay, I need to beef that up. That would be a really good time to check it, and it gives you a reminder annually, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Also, I think when you get pay raises or your income's going up, you immediately look at it and go, because look, life happens, so you're going to have stuff coming in and out of your emergency reserves because your water heater goes out, you have to replace the roof.

54:00There's all kinds of things. So a perfect time is when you get a pay raise, you can think about, hey, from a forced scarcity standpoint, yes, I'm going to have 20%, 25 % of my money going towards investments. But I probably should go ahead and beef up my emergency reserves because three to six months is not what I made last year. It's three to six months of what I'm spending now. So it's an ongoing analysis of what you have coming in and out of your household and financially. And then just the engine is getting beefed up every year as your income production gets stronger and stronger. You need to act accordingly.

54:37You can keep money going in to feed the fuel of not only your emergency reserves, but your Roth IRAs and everything else as you're going through the financial order of operations. Love that. Your shovel is kind of shoveling the coal into the different furnaces to keep the motors running. Great.

54:57Brian Preston:Ken laughed at that. Well, Haley, if you would like a Tumblr, just email winner at moneyguy.com. We would love to send you one. Next question is from Pepster60. It says, what do the guys think of adjusting my portfolio mix to more conservative when markets are at all-time highs and less conservative on corrections? For context, we're in step nine and have about 2.5 million saved and 65 and retired. I get really nervous about people, because I'm going to reread your question with slightly different vernacular. Hey, what do the guys think about timing the market when it's scary and being aggressive when it's not scary?

55:42Brian Preston:Well, we don't think that timing the market works really well. Or reverse those, kind of, because it's saying when the markets are all-time highs. Yeah, go more conservative and vice versa. Problem is markets, especially bull markets, can run really hot for a really, really long time, and bear markets can turn really, really quickly. This, to me, just seems like a way of market timing without calling it that. So what I'd rather see with a portfolio of$2.5 million at age 65 and retired is an allocation that makes sense whether the market is at an all-time high or whether it is in a correction. If you have the right asset mix, the right asset allocation, it ought to be sound in both of those environments so you're not having to make those adjustments.

56:28Yeah, I mean, that's what I was going to say. 65-year-old, you've kind of won the game, and I don't know what your burn rate is, but that's why I immediately want to stress test your plan, see how ahead of the curve you are, because then we could adjust the allocation based upon how much you want to build for legacy, how much needs to be built for just paying today's expenses. And that way, the plan is good before, during, or after, no matter what life or the financial markets throw at you. I wouldn't be so in the weeds that I'm literally trying to day trade or time the market based upon valuations.

57:04Because I just, it's exactly what Bo said, is that the typical bear market is like 11 months or something like that, but bull markets can run years. And you just, I'd feel for you if you're trying to go all of a sudden very conservative because you think we're in this bull market and things are overvalued. And then you kick yourself. You're just setting yourself up for a lot of just, you know, hassle factor of majoring in the minors versus, you know, just your money should work harder than you do. And you should be on a beach somewhere enjoying your money.

57:36Brian Preston:And this is not a hard and fast rule, but in our experience, as people age, they become more sensitive to changes. But due to that increased sensitivity, they're likely to seek out confirmation bias. Oh, right now the market's overheated. If you are constantly thinking, oh, I'm going to change when X happens, you begin to start looking for and seeing X a lot more frequently. and, oh, okay, the market just went down 5%. I need to adjust. Oh, the market's all the time high. I need to adjust. And what you end up doing is creating a lot of motion inside your portfolio. And oftentimes that motion is, one, going to create costs, but two, you're likely going to be getting it wrong more often than you're getting it right.

58:22Brian Preston:I just don't think it sets you up for a ton of success. That's great. You want to do one more? Let's do one more. Let's do it. Scott H. asks, can you please explain how the HSA can be used as an investment account as opposed to spending it on medical costs each year? I believe you can reimburse past medical expenses later in life. And we've had a lot of debate about why HSAs are so great. So really break it down for Scott. Take it away. First, I want to take some credit because I think we have single-handedly helped a stat that comes out every year forever. And I love this stat. As we were saying, only 4 % of Americans were actually investing their HSA.

58:57I'm happy to report, and I think it's because we've been sounding the alarm on this, that number is like 12 % to 15 % now.

59:03Brian Preston:That's right. So still, but 80-plus percent of Americans are still using their HSA as a clearing account. And I would still tell you to pay attention because, remember, with an HSA, you have to have a high deductible insurance plan. Make sure you're keeping enough liquid for your out-of-pockets and any deductibles that you need to be nervous about because you don't want to get caught in a medical year that you can't invest. But assuming you have that covered, yeah, a lot of your HSAs are attached to, like, I know a lot of us are using Fidelity now. Fidelity, that's right. And it's very easy to go buy index funds and other things just like you would with your brokerage accounts or your 401ks or your Roth IRAs.

59:44You can do that within your health savings account once you figure out how much needs to be for liquidity to cover, you know, deductibles and how much can I just let it work in the long term and just grip, rip, and go.

59:56Brian Preston:And so here's what you do. You incur that medical expense today. You pay for it out of pocket with cash that you have on hand. You save the receipt. You scan it in, most likely, in some sort of digital form. You have a spreadsheet where you're kind of keeping track of that. And then if you invest those dollars and they grow through time, you can then reimburse yourself at any point in the future for that medical expense. So you can be, in the year 2040, reimbursing yourself for medical expenses that you incurred in the year 2026. It's a fantastic way to build up a truly legit pot of tax-free, readily available assets.

1:00:33Brian Preston:You just have to make sure that, like you said, you have the cash to cover your deductibles or anything of that nature. And then you also have the cash that you can actually cover those medical expenses with outside resources. Well, I mean, if you think about in terms of, let's say you had$25 ,000 of contributions and expenses with that, but fast forward to 12 years in the future or 15 years in the future, and now it's worth$100 ,000. The thing I always thought was magical was you can go and reimburse yourself in the future for that$25 ,000, but the net$75 ,000 gain, it's still working. and it's not taxable or it's just out there.

1:01:12It's like it's magically created because you did. Now, you did have to have the cash to cover those expenses in the year that you incurred them, but it really is a magical thing. I mean, here's where I'll take it to bonus rounds. You know, my youngest daughter will never probably live on her own, and we moved here to Tennessee for a special school. That special school is 50 grand plus a year. I get a letter every year from the school, and we have a medical doctor and everything, where this is a qualified medical expense, I've been paying for these tuition fees. I have, without a doubt, no matter how big my health savings account gets.

1:01:50You're going to be cool. It's going to be tax-free when I pull it out because of that private school that we moved up here for. So that's why I'm like, grow, baby, grow, because I can't wait to pull the money out at some point completely tax-free.

1:02:03Brian Preston:Love that. Grow, baby, grow. And with that, make sure you go to moneyguy.com slash resources to see how your savings can grow with our new resource, How Much Should You Save. You can download that for free. Again, moneyguy.com slash resources. And if the slipper fits, as Brian says, you can also click on the button that says become a client and just learn more about what we do at Abound Wealth Management. So thank you so much for joining us today on the live stream. We'll be back every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central. And we can't wait. kudos to you probably y 'all figured out I'm not exactly the biggest fan of it depends section the rapid fire but Ribi somehow she put Disney in there so it makes me smile the things you talked about and I did I actually thought about I want to make sure I say great big beautiful tomorrow I also was trying to get a Sherman's brother reference in there maybe even the Bancroft brothers reference in there just because we have had both Tom and Tony by the studios here in the last few weeks.

1:03:06So just some really cool Disney stuff. And for those of you who don't know any of those things I just said, go do a little dive and I think you'll be impressed. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Bo and the rest of the content team. Money Guy team, out.

1:03:19Brian Preston:The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities, laws, and regulations. 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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