The Stark Reality of What a $1.5M Retirement Looks Like in 2026

20:09Brian Preston:It's like, oh, find new friends. And while that's not exactly going to be prescriptive advice here, it is something to take note of. What is it? We are the sum of the five or ten people that we spend the most time with. If you do find yourself in constant circles with irresponsible financial decision makers or people who buy the latest, greatest car or go on the latest, greatest trip and run up the credit card debt and do those sorts of things, it may be worth just doing a self-assessment. and say, man, am I being negatively influenced because of the people I surround myself with? Or should I make sure that I'm also surrounding myself with sound financial decision makers that are doing the things that I'm doing and making the decisions that I'm making and value the things that I value?

20:49Brian Preston:Because you want to be careful that you don't slip into that behavior just because of proximity. Well, and also be the salt or the light that says, hey, I plan on retiring at 58 years of age. I would like to have friends there with me. So can you guys give at least a little bit? Maybe fund that Roth IRA so that I'm not living my best life in retirement while you guys are still working for the man. I mean, you can play it on the other side too and be like, hey, yeah, I know you all think I'm cheap, but I'm building something here. What are you all doing? And make fun of that. That's one of those things where I think that it's okay to present the contrast and maybe help them be better versions of themselves as well.

21:30Love that. Love it. All right. I Just Smile A Lot has a question for you. It says, hi, I'm 31, a high school counselor with a 75K salary on step four of the FU. My pension is 11 % of my income. My 403B has no match, but I currently contribute 2%. Should I stop contributions to the 403B and just do pension and Roth? What do you think?

22:02Brian Preston:So whenever I get a question like this, I smile a lot, I resort to the food. Brown, hold the thing up for me. Financial order of operations, nine step process to help you figure out what to do with your next dollar. Your pension's automatically happening, which I love. You got a$75 ,000 salary. 11 % of that is already going into your pension, which is wonderful. So now, all right, I'm doing that automatically. You said you're in step four, so you're building up your emergency fund. Once you get your emergency fund fully funded, so three months or six months of living expenses, then I do think you go to step five, right?

22:34Brian Preston:Now, in our opinion, Roth IRA likely is going to make the most sense because you get to choose the provider. You get to choose the investment options. It's going to be lower costs. It's going to be portable. I think that likely is where you would land, but some people would say, well, but what if I want to do the Roth 403B? Isn't that the same thing? I'm not going to fight you on that. I do think that the Roth IRA edges it out a touch for the reasons I just mentioned, but if you're still going to take advantage of and you're going to have that money going to the Roth 403B, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, although the Roth IRA is going to give you more flexibility, more options, more release valve access if you had to have it than that 403B will do.

23:14Brian Preston:But I think so long as you're doing one or the other and thinking about it in the Roth fashion, I think that that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, I do agree with Beau that I think the Roth IRA, primarily because you get to choose the provider, the low-cost index options, whereas now I think a lot of this has been fixed, but earlier in my career, teachers were getting hosed in a lot of bad ways. With the providers? Yeah, with the providers. I mean, and I'm not going to name names, but they were primarily putting people in stable reserves. They were insurance companies. Primarily the 403Bs were in stable reserve funds, offered zero index options, and they were very heavy on the commissions and internal operating expenses of the investment options.

24:01So if you are going to go 403B, do a little due diligence to see what your options are. Now, the fiduciary rule really blew up the world for a lot of these insurance companies where they actually had to start doing decent work for the teachers. So I think a lot of that's been fixed, but it still doesn't get you out of the homework that you need to go do that due diligence. Go look at the internal operating expenses. ask or look in the plan to see, are there index options that truly have the benefits of index funds, meaning that they're practically free. If you have an index fund that has an internal operating expense greater than half a percent, that's not really an index fund.

24:36That's a management fee pretending to be an index fund. So just pay attention to those things. But I think the FU is going to be your friend. Bo is exactly right. You sound like you clearly need to get the emergency reserves. Be thankful that, because I bet a lot of that 11 % is also your employer funding that. And then, but let's get the cash reserves right. And then let's jump right into maxing out that Roth IRA. And then step six, we can start piling some more money into that 403B as well. That was great. Well, thank you. I just smile a lot for the question. I hope that helps you think through your account types and what you're going to do next.

25:16Zach W is up next. He says they're a couple, 34 and 36, with about$1 million invested and living in a low-cost-of-living area. I know, looking really good. We are easily coast-fire and don't enjoy our jobs. Any advice, or it says but don't enjoy our jobs. Any advice on pushing for financial independence by 42 versus spending more on enjoying today? Ooh. Hi.

25:47Brian Preston:If we were sitting across from each other, the question is, What do you want more? I never want someone to be miserable, and I never want someone to have a really rough time, rough go at it today. But there are times and seasons in our life where, okay, I'm willing to take a little bit of pain, a little bit of discomfort, a little bit of extra discipline in order to have something greater in the future, something better. And so if 42 financial independence is like something that you and your spouse are thinking, man, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to hit this number. We're going to be able to truly exit, be very early retired, and live the life that we want to live on our terms.

26:27Brian Preston:And we recognize that the trade-off, the cost of that is going to be walking away from some, not all, of the experiences and things that we could do today, but we're okay with that, then that's fine. Or you may arrive at the conclusion, yeah, we only get to be in our mid-30s once. We don't want to wait all the way until 42 to start enjoying stuff because who knows what could happen? Who knows what the future could hold? We want to have a more balanced approach. Neither of those are wrong, but you guys have to decide for yourselves which one do we desire the most and which one are we the most willing to commit to.

27:00Zach, I'm going to tell you, I think that your hatred of your job is creating extreme options that you're choosing. You dislike your job enough. Now, look, it sounds like it's highly compensated because for you and your spouse to have a million dollars in your mid-30s, that's way ahead of the curve. You're doing great, but at what expense?

27:22Brian Preston:It doesn't say hate. It just says we don't enjoy it. No, I'm putting the word hate in there because, I mean, we don't enjoy our jobs. And because you know how I know they don't like their jobs, though, is because they're saying, hey, I want to retire at 40. I want to be financially independent at 42. So I think it's creating extremes because they're looking at their job. They're thinking about, but I could do this for another five to six years, and then I'll be financially independent. I would rather you maybe really take a life inventory and say, is there something that I can take being ahead of the curve and pivot to something else that I really would enjoy?

28:01And maybe have a career change. I mean, let's look at this and really measure twice before you cut, obviously. but it is one of those things where you can say, is there something else I should be doing that I would enjoy that would change from 42? Because the problem I have, I worry about being, calling yourself financially independent at 42 is that there's still so much life. I mean, where are you at with kids, raising kids at that point? If you have kids, where are you at with where you're going to live and retire? There's just so many people I've seen that think that they're financially independent at 45 or younger, when there's just so many curveballs that life's going to throw at you with health, with children, with family, with where you're going to live, that I just want you to make sure that you have all that figured out and not just building where you're going to just live this miserably life in a job you don't like, and then you're going to wake up in your mid-40s and now's when you think you're going to live your best life.

29:00I think there's some steps in between that you need to figure out how you can live and enjoy your life right now. Life should be happiness. It shouldn't be, how do I put this? There's going to be struggle in life, but you shouldn't wake up dreading going to work and chewing on your fingernails. I've been there, done that, and I think there's a better way.

29:19Brian Preston:Well, and I just think this is like a public service announcement, but we've just lived through too many folks who had these amazing plans for the future. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to save. I'm going to save. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And then all of a sudden, something they were not expecting, an accident, a bad diagnosis, an illness or whatever. And then that thing that they were so looking forward to, that thing they were so looking at being able to experience never comes to fruition because the time had passed or their health goes or the age. If there are ways you can figure out exactly what you said, how to enjoy today with a balance, like I'm still saving for tomorrow, still exercising discipline, still wanting to have something great tomorrow, but not sacrificing all of today, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

30:06Brian Preston:None of us know if we're going to breathe our next breath or wake up tomorrow morning. And so we ought to put time and effort and tension into making sure that we enjoy all the seasons and all the phases of life as much as we can without reasonably sacrificing the future seasons and future stages, because it's just not worth it to get to the end, reach the goal, and then not be able to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Money is nothing but a tool. And you're frothy enough with how much you have that you ought to at least do a thought exercise to see if there's a way you could start living your better life now versus just sucking it up and being miserable for the next six years.

30:44And maybe I'm over editorializing your happiness, but it's just to say you want to be financially independent at 42 is an indicator that something is not right that you're daydreaming about just being done at such an early age. Yeah. That was good thoughts. Thank you, Zach W., for the question. Andrew's question is up next, and then we're going to get to some Moneyverse memes, so stick around. Andrew says, hi, Money Guys. My retired parents still use CDs for their savings. Do CDs still have a place in modern personal finance?

31:22Brian Preston:Have you ever heard of this before, parents saving in CDs? I thought you might have a thing or two to say. I definitely, you know, recognize parents that use CDs. And I even have, I've had clients that have done laddered CDs as a portion. And I've, now I've done a good job of when I've have clients or prospects that come in with these type of situations, I try to let them still use this tool because it's an appropriate, risk-adjusted is because you have more success, you are going to want to put a decent chunk of your assets in what we consider risk-off or very safe assets. CDs can play a part in that.

32:05But I don't know enough here because this is where the it depends. I don't know how old your parents are. I don't know how financially savvy or successful they are. But more than likely, they're going to want to have somewhere between 40 % to 60 % of their assets in something that can continue to grow in the background. And CDs, they don't even keep pace with inflation over the long term. So it's just one of those things where it's not a great wealth building opportunity or even a protector of long-term purchasing power. So I would try to work to get your parents to have a more full understanding of how money works so that they can use it appropriately, but also not get undermined in the long term.

32:48Brian Preston:Yeah. The question I would ask is what goal or what objective do you want the CDs to accomplish? If the question is, is cash or cash and equivalents, liquid investments still part, have a place in modern personal finance? Absolutely. And depending on the business cycle we're in or the economic cycle or where were the interest rates, you may hold your cash in a number of different places. You may hold it in a high yield savings account online. You may hold it in your brick and mortar bank account savings account. You may hold it in a certificate of deposit or a CD, or you may hold it in a, what was the one I didn't mention?

33:22Brian Preston:High yield savings account or in like a money market mutual fund. And depending on what's going on with cash and cash equivalents and interest rates, one of those four could very well be an option, but it's not always the same. There have been times and seasons where locking in a CD at a really high rate made a ton of sense. We haven't been in that season in a while now because high yield savings accounts and money market mutual funds have been more attractive from a return standpoint without having any lack of liquidity. But there might become a time if interest rates rise and you can start locking in CDs at higher rates for longer terms, that that could make sense.

33:58Brian Preston:I don't think it's a, does it have a place in modern personal finance? Because it's still a tool that can be used. But is it the tool that makes the most sense to accomplish that today? Maybe, maybe not. And that depends very much on your parents and their personal preferences. Look, I don't mind sharing. I don't have any CDs in my portfolio. And my mother, who you all know my father's passed away, and it was my mom and dad that had all the CDs. When I was a kid, that was their idea of investing. And I help mom out with now her investments, and we don't have any CDs in that either. But that doesn't mean that they don't have a place if that's your preference because I always try to, when clients come to me, I always want to know what their thoughts on money are, and I will build a successful plan around what they are comfortable with.

34:45That's right. And if you love CDs and that's the way you've done things, I'm going to figure out a way to make that work with a portion of the assets, not all of the assets.

34:54Brian Preston:Now, one thing just because we've seen this, if you have parents or elderly people in your life that really like CDs, we've seen this happen where they'll go around to all the banks and all the credit unions in town and opened up certificates of deposit with each one of them. Not to say there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but man, does it create a logistical difficulty when it's time to like - Well, there's a better way. Yeah, when it's time to transition or even when it's time to file their taxes and now all of a sudden you have all of these different tax forms coming from like 12 or 13 different institutions.

35:24Brian Preston:It doesn't have to be done that way. You can still get CD exposure without having to play that. Yeah, I realize if you have a brokerage account with the Fidelities, the Charles Schwab's, you can go buy CDs all over the country, all in one account. I mean, we've modernized you having your parents or grandparents don't have to drive all across town putting the money in different banks. That was a very fair, well-wrought answer. Thank you for that. Andrew Ray, thank you for the question as well. We love that you were here on the live stream and asked the question and that we got to answer it. All right, it is time to show you guys some personal finance memes straight from the Moneyverse.

36:05The Moneyverse.

36:06Brian Preston:Are we answering questions about these? Are we just reacting to them? Just reacting to them. Just reacting. All right. They're all personal finance related. They were submissions from Real Money Guy Financial Mutants in the Moneyverse. If you want to join the Moneyverse, just go to moneyguy.com slash moneyverse. It's free. It's our Discord server. We've got all kinds of conversation going on there about the show, about personal finance. And this week, we also talked about memes. One note, a bonus points were given if it was a Star Wars meme. And so we did get a lot of Star Wars submissions. So I just need, I needed to say that so that Bo would be prepared.

36:46If he doesn't understand something, maybe we'll explain. Maybe we won't. Maybe we'll just let him live. We'll have to find out. But these are all finance related and Star Wars related.

36:55Brian Preston:So Brian, they're all Star Wars related. They're all Star Wars related. Flip the table. I think people wanted to see you react to Star Wars stuff too because they know it's not your... Awesome. Can't wait to not get all these. First, your skill set. We'll say that. All right. Let's pull up the first one. It says, I'm investing now. And then Padme says, in low-cost index funds, right? In low-cost index funds, right? Brian giggled. Brian giggled. Yes. This is a very popular meme format. Have you not seen this, Beau? It's a background. I get the joke. I don't know who these people are. Have you seen them before?

37:35Brian Preston:No. Okay. Wow, you haven't even seen them in this format? Is that Keira Knightley? No. That's who that looks like to me. Are you just doing that for comedy sake? That's who that looks like to me. All right. Is that not who that is? Okay. Well, that was the first one. I liked that one. By the way, that is the future Darth Vader. That is the future Darth Vader. That's Anakin Skywalker. He looks so nice. and that is that is it let me go ahead blow your mind spoilers Luke and Princess Leia mom and dad right there oh well that seems sweet alright next one another common meme format have you seen this format though I've never seen the Star Wars format like this so we have a Padawan after one investing thread holding hands with boring index funds and tax advantage accounts and looking a little flirtatious at tax-free passive income through a 19-step real estate strategy with nine refinances.

38:32Brian Preston:So the meme I get, and I think it's hilarious, are these actual characters from the movie? No. Okay. This is probably AI-esque. Yeah, I think AI was utilized in a very fun way. Thank you for doing that. That's funny. That's funny. Okay, good. I like this one. I thought a boat would at least have seen this format. I get the meme. And it's funny, right? Because boring index funds. Well done. That's the one you got to hold hands with. That looks very Star Wars-esque. And I love how, because you've seen this meme where they're not, they're just on a city street in normal street clothes. So we gave it a Star Wars flair.

39:04He's even got a lightsaber on his holster there. All right. I'm not announcing who's winning these. I just realized. I think this one is better than the first one. Well, we'll make awards in the moneyverse. You know who you are. Okay. Third one. We got two more. This one's a good one. We got a picture of Yoda. It says, foo or foo not. There is no try.

39:26Brian Preston:I get that joke. No, no, you get that joke. Fool or fool not, there is no try. Hold on, is that too impersonating? We got Eeyore at the beginning and now we got Yoda? Who else might show up? What a treat. What a treat. That one's cute, right? They did a good job. All right, and last but not least, we've got from the new Star Wars. I don't know who that is. Oh, I'm blanking on his name. What is his name? Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren. I know. Okay, it says, when an emergency fund happens and I need to refill my emergency fund, and then we have the Kylo Ren quote, I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it.

40:07You both look confused about that. That's funny. I mean, I think, look, Kylo Ren, when he puts the helmet on, is the coolest voice. You know, even when I do Rise of the Resistance when I'm at Hollywood Studios, I still love how that voice is, but I feel like this is a little forced to get a cool character into a meme. Okay, fair enough.

40:30Brian Preston:I don't know the line. I don't know the character. I have no context there. But I'm a big - Adam Driver. I'm a big - Adam Driver is the actor. That's the actor. That's true. I'm a big fan of emergency funds, though, and I like those. Would you have the strength to refill your emergency fund? I think you have to. You have to. All right, well, that's all we got. if you want to see the rest of the meme submissions, what? What I want to know is the content team. Bo and I are not involved in this stuff whatsoever. And I would love to know on a scale of how this was pitched. This is going to be great.

41:05I can't wait to see it. And this is probably one step above the arm wrestling that Bo requested. Wow. Noted. They did not like this. No, I did not. Please don't mishear us. Don't mishear us. I appreciate the creative efforts that went in from the Moneyverse. Wow. That was okay. I feel bad for Bo. I guess this is my empathy towards Bo is that I felt bad that he was just like, I felt like the fish was like, please put me back in water. Please put me back in water.

41:33Brian Preston:He got two out of four. I did. I knew 50 % of them. I knew half of them. Considering that he was at a disadvantage. That doesn't mean you can breathe on land as a fish. Go to moneyguy.com slash moneyverse to join our free Discord server. if you haven't already. Thank you all for y 'all's effort. And thank you for being part of the Moneyverse too. Yeah, it was really fun to see all of your submissions. I enjoyed it immensely. Somebody just said, I want to see fitness memes next. Now we're talking. I like that. Maybe next time, maybe next time. And there are so many correlations between fitness and health and wealth.

42:03I mean, that could actually be pretty good. Love that. Health is wealth. Love that. All right, let's get back to some questions.

42:09Brian Preston:So of those four, there was a winner and that winner will be announced in the Moneyverse. And what do they get? It's probably going to be in the newsletter. Am I able to say what they get? Okay. I'm getting yes. There's going to be a special role given in the Discord for meme challenge winners, and it will be those four folks. I love that. Do you think one is more of a winner? Which one was the best? I guess I didn't ask you. I like the one where almost being distracted into investing into some real estate or other type of thing. That one. That one was probably my favorite. That's a good one. Boring index funds and tax-advantaged accounts.

42:47That one was good. Solid. Love that. And Bo actually recognized that one.

42:52Brian Preston:I got that one. It didn't have real characters in it.

43:01Brian Preston:All right. Next question is from PJ Dadla. You want to keep talking? On the first one, was that from one of the old movies or is that like a new movie? Like that's Darth Vader and the mob? That's from the prequel. Okay. You're not. Okay. So not the original ones. I mean, like the ones that came out in the 80s and 90s or those like modern day? No, that's the ones from the early 2000s. Bo, there is the late 70s, early 80s. Those are the ones. That's the original three. I think you've seen some of them, right? And then George Lucas came back and he brought one, two, and three, the prequels in. Got it.

43:34And then after Disney bought the franchise, they added stuff on the back end and they even threw in some one-offs. It gets confusing. They've just done all kinds of things now. It's confusing now. Yeah. And they killed Boba Fett. Or maybe not as cool. I was going to say, I don't think they killed him. But you just didn't love the... Brand-wise. Brand-wise, gotcha, gotcha. You didn't love the character arc. My favorite character in the world. I mean, look, I'm not... Y 'all know I love Disney, but I have been disappointed with some of the character arcs on some beloved properties. Do you agree?

44:12I mean, it's bad. I'm trying to be nice. Let's get back into fitness.

44:17Brian Preston:Not finance, not fitness. Let's get back into finance. Let's just say all of my figurines that I kept from my childhood that I was like, man, these things could be worth a fortune when I'm like an old man. Because if Pokemon can be worth this much, Star Wars is going to be worth a gazillion dollars. Little did I know, be careful, guys, with Pokemon. Someday they might just completely change some of these things that have tremendous value, and then you realize it's not worth it as much. You heard it here first, warning from collector Brian. That's the reason you shouldn't invest all your money in Pokemon.

44:51Brian Preston:That's the one right there. Well, I did think we had somebody, we did a collab. It was Austin and Robert, and we were talking about trading cards and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Because I keep threatening I'm going to bring in my card collection, and he says, I don't think that they're going to be worth it. That's not going to be worth anything. All right, are you ready to do some personal finance questions? He's not. No, no, no. I misremember. It was a different context. Who gave you the 1990s cards that were just given to you? Oh, it was our doctor. Yeah. It was our dentist. Oh, my gosh. That's what it was.

45:27They're not worth anything. The dentist. Great. Next question. Our favorite Clemson dentist. Is from. I'm not going to say his name because now it's embarrassing. PJ Dad Life. And it says, MoneyGuy team, loved your Making a Millionaire episode yesterday. You talked briefly about ESPP. How much of your investable portfolio as a percentage is too much to have concentrated in your employer stock? What's your take?

45:57Brian Preston:Well, before we answer the too much, let me rewind to the beginning. What is an ESPP? It's an employer stock purchase plan where as an employee of the company, you are given the option to buy into the stock of your company, oftentimes if it's a publicly traded company at a discounted rate. So I can get a 15 % discount. And then oftentimes, even at a favorable price. So in a trading window across six months or three months, I get a 15 % discount off the lowest trading price in that window. It's a really, really good thing because if something is worth$20 today, but I can then go buy it for$15, I immediately have $5 of embedded value based on the discount.

46:41Brian Preston:So employee stock purchase plans are wonderful tools. We think of them, Brian, hold the thing up for me. We think of them like step two of the financial order of operations. Now you can see if you are someone, especially if you work for a publicly traded company and you have the ability to participate in ESPP, but also some of your compensation comes in the form of restricted stock units or performance stock units, or maybe even some sort of options, then very, very quickly, a lot of your capital, a lot of your financial wealth can become tied up in your employer stock. And so the question that PJ is asking is, all right, how much is too much?

47:19Brian Preston:And I'm even going to add a tail end to that. How should I think about having a strategy for that moving forward? Yeah, I think, you know, it's always back to, you have your human capital, meaning the hours you put in at work, there's your investment capital. you don't want to have everything tied into the exact same thing because then you literally have all of your eggs in one basket. But you also have this frothy opportunity where if they're giving you pretty much a guaranteed rate of return with the way they discount, it's pretty good to take advantage of this. So always, you know, look, I think it's somewhere between 5 % to 10%.

47:56I think 10%, you get over 10%, it gets really scary. We've had young clients who've gone well into 50%, but they were in their 20s and they probably had a lot of chances of recovery. Because this is where the it depends comes in. If you're somebody who's in your 20s and you don't have a lot of people counting on your income and your money, yeah, you can probably swing for the fences a little differently. But if you come to me and ask this question when you're in your 40s and you've got a house full of a spouse and kids, it's a different answer. And it's going to put it somewhere in that 5 % to 10%.

48:29territory.

48:30Brian Preston:If you can get there, a lot of times though, and we see this, even though your desire might be to only have five to 10 % exposure, you may be in this place where the RSUs that come in for you just blow that up and five and 10 % is not realistic. So what do you do in that circumstance? I would think strategically about how I maintain my exposure as the treadmill of incentives keeps flowing. So like if I have RSUs that are vesting today, I know that if I sell them today, it's my lowest tax cost point to sell. Because when they vest, that's when I'm taxed on those when it comes to RSUs and PSUs. So I'm gonna sell immediately, incur no additional tax burden, and then I can redeploy, re-diversify.

49:12Brian Preston:If I have ESPP shares, and I'm not worried about paying ordinary income tax, and I just wanna purchase it at the purchase window and then immediately sell, immediately liquidate, I can wash that ESPP dollars. Most ESPP plans limit you to$25 ,000 a year that you can participate. I can sell those periodically as I acquire the shares, assuming there's no holding period. So there are things, there are strategies you can do that as the stock becomes available to you, you can slowly start taking some off the treadmill as more gets put on the treadmill to where you might not be able to get down to 5 % or 10%, but you're at least chiseling some off on the side to begin building up wealth outside of your incentives.

49:50Brian Preston:Because some people, especially if you work in high tech or something like that, it's hard to get to that 5 % or 10 % number just the way the compensation is structured. Yeah. Matter of fact, there's probably some people at SpaceX right now. Literally the one I was thinking about. You know, 100 % of their net worth is pretty close to 100 % is going to be in their SpaceX. Thank you, PJ Dad Life, for that question. And thanks for the answer, Ryan and Bo. Do you think PJ Dad Life was private jet or pajamas? That's what I'll stand out for the first 20 seconds of that question. You were thinking the same thing?

50:26I didn't even have a thought on that. Or is his name PJ?

50:30Brian Preston:Honestly, that's what I thought. Maybe his name was just PJ. Like it stood for an actual name. Because think about how different the context is between private jet dad life and pajama dad life. These are two very different individuals. Or he's just a Patrick. Yeah, maybe he's just like Patrick James. Yeah, probably more likely. All right. Next one's from Captain Morgan, 7352.

50:58Okay, got to laugh out the entire writing career. I don't know what type of... You would like this. What does that say about our team? That's hilarious. Got a little captaining you. Pirate fans. All right, the question says, the wife and I are both 40. We have three times our incomes in savings. Are we behind if we have no other net worth? because I feel behind living in employer-subsidized housing compared to others who own their home. What do you have to say to Captain Morgan?

51:29Brian Preston:Well, so, you know, we've done a number of studies, a number of shows where we will look at the Fidelity study. We've also, like, added our own numbers in terms of milestones that you should shoot to achieve at certain ages. And we say, by the time you get to 30s, we want you to have one times your annual income saved up in liquid net worth in your portfolio. Well, by the time you get to 40, we do target. We want you to have three times your annual income in a liquid portfolio. What's a little bit unclear about the vocabulary you used is you said we have three times our income in savings. Are you going to interpret that as like investments, not like a savings account, not like cash?

52:07Brian Preston:Like I have three times between my Roth IRAs and 401ks. I think that's probably liquid portfolio. We're going to give them the benefit of the doubt that that's liquid portfolio because this is really about a housing question. And I think that, you know, begin with the end in mind, Captain, is that where do you plan on retiring? You know, because based upon the way you said that there's employer subsidized housing, it makes me think you might be in technology or something like that, because some of those high cost of living areas, you do see campuses where there's even housing potentially provided.

52:41If that's the case, we know a lot of people who work in these areas, but then they plan on retiring somewhere completely different. So what does that look like? Because maybe this is just the way it is, and still you should be as productive and efficient at building your wealth in the background, but maybe have a plan for when you do finish or retire, maybe in your 50s, that you're going to go and retire in a lower cost of living area.

53:08Brian Preston:Yeah, when I read this off the cuff, not knowing anything about your unique circumstances or your personal goals, three times your annual income and investment. It could be military too, though. There's just so many different ways you have employer-subsidized housing because then you have a pension. We just don't have, I don't have enough contacts on the captain. I don't feel like based on this. Maybe, what if this is actually a captain in the military and his last name is Morgan? And we're just, we think, here we are all making alcohol jokes. We are horrible people. Y 'all are bad people. This is the guy serving our country and y 'all are joking about booze.

53:44Thank you for your service, Captain. Thank you, Captain. You're not a pirate.

53:47Brian Preston:Thank you, Captain. I don't think Captain's behind. It doesn't seem to me that Captain. I don't, yeah. Housing, no housing, take that out of the equation. Our little rule of thumb milestone, three times annual income in liquid portfolio. If you've already got that, I'd argue that it seems like you're certainly on track. And if you are military, you got that going on, plus you got a pension building in the background, there's a chance you're actually out ahead of the curve, Captain. Hey, when was the last time you actually drank Captain Morgan? College. I mean, it's probably been seven to ten years for me, too.

54:21Brian Preston:I mean, not a big Diet Coke fan. That's the one thing that I liked with Diet Coke, if you were curious about that. Thanks for telling us. Learning so much today. I don't like Diet Coke at all. Me either. There's some people like a gaga over it. I don't. Anything with the fake sweeteners has a bad taste to it. That's why you drink those energy drinks. I'm not going to give them a free plug. But I think they all have an artificial taste to them that I don't like. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. Well, you're wrong on that. All right, next one, Firefighter725. It says, I'm about to purchase land adjacent to my property on a home equity loan at 6.5%.

55:04Should I accelerate my payoff or continue to put money in my brokerage and invest?

55:11Brian Preston:How old are you, Firefighter? Firefighter, if you're in the chat, let us know how old you are. What's the rest of your portfolio look like, Firefighter? Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong potentially with using a home equity line. I mean, that's probably a good use of a home equity line if you're trying to, because it is improving your land or making your property more valuable. It's just, is it the right thing to do in your station in life and what you're building? So because the thing is 6.5%, you just want to have a plan to how you can extinguish that debt. See what I did there? As soon as possible.

55:49That got a laugh out of the team too and the wings.

55:52Brian Preston:Yeah, I think it depends on all the questions that I sort of asked. If you're in an income situation where you could pay it off quickly and you have a healthy financial foundation underneath you and perhaps you're a little bit further out on the experience spectrum, I think accelerating the debt payoff makes a lot of sense. If you are younger, maybe you don't have as big of a financial foundation, and you have debt under control, I don't think it's crazy to think about building the brokerage assets because of how valuable the money multiplier can be. Yeah, and if you want to be part of the FIRE movement and set your portfolio ablaze, you're probably going to need to have money working for you in the background So you're definitely going to have investments out there working as well.

56:37Anymore? Anything else? Maybe a four alarm.

56:43Brian Preston:He's going to work in CD ladder. I thought he was going to make some connection with working hard with your back, your brain, and your hands, and your money's working harder than you do. What does that have to do with the fire station? Well, a firefighter is really strong and works harder with his back. You went there. All right. There you go. Okay. I'm just gonna be quiet I was just trying to think of what else you were gonna say but clearly he wouldn't we all know firefighters are strong this sounds like every romantic novel out there that sounds like a factual are you saying firefighters do not have to be strong no I'm just saying my brain did not even go anywhere near that man maybe at some point this guy's gonna take his shirt off oh my gosh the way that I it's just so far from what I meant but I'm glad that you know what that was fun it works harder and stronger because he's a firefighter Brian I sit at my desk and type he has to like fight fires fight fires and rescue people with his strong back oh my gosh I'm so sorry guys alright A lot of people in here guess it.

58:01Brian Preston:I'm going to say it because you put it out there. A lot of people trying to guess what energy drink he was referencing. I know. It's none of the ones you guys have said. It's a performance energy drink. I knew you would be offended by a few of these guesses. I knew you would. I don't do this often. I don't do it often, but I'm a C4 guy. Why would you give the brand? Because, look, I don't want some of these. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I don't do this. I don't want you to say the brand, but there is one. I always think these things already have way too much. Because you love coffee, too. And these energy drinks have so much caffeine already in them.

58:33We have one of our editors. I love this guy. But he buys one that is like double. These are already too much, but they advertise. It's kind of like, if you remember, I'm of a certain age. When everybody realized cola was kind of not great for you, there was one, I can't remember if it was, there was definitely Surge. Surge is what they had in high school. And then there was another one that was even worse. That was like, you know what? We're going to embrace that we're unhealthy, but we're going to give you just more of it. And, you know, that's our whole marketing gimmick. I mean, I don't know.

59:06I'm not into, I don't do the energy drinks. I'm just not into that.

59:10Brian Preston:Look, I don't do them regularly, but every now and then if I need some sort of pre-workout or something like that, that's... Coffee. I do coffee. And I even cap that. But coffee for a pre-workout, it's just a different vibe. Like hot beverage pre-workout, not great. not a fan. It just ought to be a high on life. Well, that's, yep. I am. Well, now you know. Not so much at 4 a.m. You know, you guys said that this was going to be a spicy live stream. I think it was. I think it went everywhere, every which way. I did not expect it. I hope you all had as much fun as we did. But I don't mind sharing just because anybody who watches show, y 'all know I had this insecurity because I had a mole cut off my face yesterday.

59:53Oh, my God.

59:54Brian Preston:Why would you bring it up? Why would you bring it up? Go ahead. Because I was insecure about it. No, go ahead. Well, because I can bring this back around to the moneyverse. You don't. You know, because I pull it. What's funny, I was sharing that we're not famous, but we are nerd famous, meaning you never know where our people are because they show up in the strangest places sometimes. And yesterday when I was at the dermatologist, the PA comes in and she goes, I was so excited. It's my life. And I figure, I don't know if it's, but she knew who we were. Yeah. And I'm sitting there in just my skivvies, you know, because it's one of those, you know, where they're going to, you know, in a thing.

1:00:39So it was just an interesting experience, but it was still very thankful that she followed our content.

1:00:46Brian Preston:That is very nice. PA, if you're out there listening, thanks so much for listening to, supporting the Money Guy show, and for keeping Brian healthy for all of us. But what's funny is Bo said that he had a similar experience. He wasn't recognized, but he had them rolling. He had them laughing because he does uncomfortable situations and tries to make people laugh. If I'm ever in a medical situation where I have to be in my underwear, I'm cracking jokes the entire time. I probably would have done the same thing, but I didn't know. So I'm already, you know, when you're sitting there half naked, it's not, you know, you just, I don't know.

1:01:19I'm not the funniest version of myself when I'm half naked. You guys can watch this back and decide whose mind is actually in the gutter today, okay? I'm just saying, I meant that purely factually. You guys are the ones that are taking it places. No, you were the one that said, you know, because firefighters are strong and they work hard. I said they were strong. Oh, my God. I can't. All right. Well, we do need to wrap things up. And thankfully, we did answer a lot of really good personal finance questions today and had a lot of good conversations. Those conversations always continue at moneyguy.com.

1:02:00That's where you can join the moneyverse. That's where you can get free resources and calculators that help you on your financial journey, hopefully so. So go check that out and we'll be back every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Central, sometimes more off the rails than others. But thanks for joining us today. I had one more thing I was just saying too. We had a collab go out. And you guys, if you haven't seen, we did with, it was Austin and Robert. There's a collab, but they A-ed us. I would love for you guys, go check it out if you want to be entertained. This episode and Austin and Robert are actually amazing.

1:02:36and you should go watch it. No, it was. It's on the Rich Habits podcast. Rich Habits podcast, but they did, I mean, they made Bo look like he was my age in his 50s, and then me, they were like, hey, I bet Brian's insecure about the bags under his eyes. Let's go ahead and give him twice as many. And so go check it out if you want to be entertained, and it's just, it's interesting. The episode was great, though. They did a fantasy football draft. It was great. It was super fun. We obviously did so well that they were like, Man, those guys showed us how smart they are. Let's see if we can humble them with these thumbnails.

1:03:11You're funny. Love you guys. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. Money Guy team, out. The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities, laws, and regulations. 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.

1:03:51All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.