Mailbag: incl. Pay off the mortgage, or invest? December 24, 2023

0:09Welcome to Motley Fool Money, our very special Sunday morning mailbag edition. Andrew Page. G'day. G'day, g'day. How are you? I'm very, very well. I'm going to wonder, do you still have this punishing five-hour pre-podcast regime during the Christmas break or do you give yourself an hour or so off out of that on Sunday? No, I'm taking it very easy over Christmas. Are you? Rest and recover? Yes. What do they call it? Recovery sessions. Recovery sessions. I'll be doing plenty of ice baths. Tapering. Tapering for the... Tapering. Got to say, mate, I mean, they get paid plenty of money. footballers started their pre-seasons in early December really I mean it's their own and sports scientists do their thing right but yeah you're having the pre-seasons think oh it starts in you know footy starts in March I guess you start maybe maybe mid-Jan or Feb yeah starting already so it's a it's a hell of a thing um but we are pre-recording some episodes as we've have said already um this one's one of those we're going to give you content listeners right across the Christmas season unless I screw something up in the meantime that's the intent if you are listening to this uh it does mean i managed to do it okay or as paul and hansen said if you are watching this maybe i'm dead i'm not sure i will assume i'm not dead i will try very very hard to come back uh but these are pre-recorded so if anything really important or earth shattering has happened in the last couple of days we don't know about it or we do but we know about it the same time as you do unfortunately we didn't know about it back then when we recorded this episode we could we could really have egg on our face right i was like i think you should do this like well that's right that was the wrong call wasn't it it's perfectly safe and the whole thing's gone bankrupt or something yeah anyway we will be fine we know that we know that hey um we thought we'd do some mailbag questions mate and let's start with a question for someone who asked to be anonymous now i will like give our listeners a bit of a look behind the curtain this is the second time we've recorded the beginning of this episode because the first time around i mentioned the person's name and then read please treat me as anonymous and i thought i can't really come back from that well at least at least it was the first question we went like 40 minutes deep and then yeah because we don't edit we don't edit here this is one take we're doing it live i you know what i reckon our listeners have probably worked that out mate i don't think they've gone you don't say well that's amazingly polished there must be lots of editing involved no they don't they don't do that no um mate so let's let's go with the question hello wide wise sages this is our questioner please treat me as anonymous i've been a listener to both your podcasts for a number of years thank you and find it most helpful in fine-tuning my investment philosophy so thank you both you're very welcome my question is i have very recently become aware of a tax issue with some asx listed vanguard etfs i noticed that 15 withholding tax was deducted from dividends paid by the u.s total market etf and the ftse all world x us etf these are asx listed and therefore subject to Australian tax laws, just like those offered by iShares, BetaShares, SPDR, and VanEck.

3:12On contacting Vanguard, they could not provide any reason for the deduction. They pointed the finger at ComputerShare, who had the share registry doing the deduction. When I contacted ComputerShare, they pointed the finger at Vanguard. Lovely, guys. Well done. We were talking about the bureaucratic nightmare just the other week, weren't we? Things like that. I realized there was an IRS requirement of withholding 15 % tax on US-listed shares and ETFs, but I'm a loss as to why they apply this to ASX listed ETFs, including these companies, which have no US exposure. I was wondering if there's any way to get to the bottom of these, of this, sorry, or should I just sell out and buy an equivalent ETF from another provider?

3:47Hope you can shed some light on this mystery. Regards, anonymous questioner. I know the answer to this one, Ram. I don't either. I do know this one. Oh, you do? I was going to say I would contact Vanguard, but that's obviously hit a wall. I can answer this one. So it gets a little bit, it's actually very detailed, but it's just, you got to think through what's going on here. So the share market listing is not the basis for the tax consideration. So you can be a US-based company with an ASX listing and you're still subject to US tax laws. You can be an Australian company listed on the US and you're subject to Australian tax laws.

4:29The domicile of the listing itself, just literally the, where do you trade the shares, is not relevant for the tax implications. These two ETFs, and frankly, plenty of others as well, I don't know how many, but certainly plenty of others, these funds, the underlying fund itself, is actually domiciled in the US. And that's why this matters. So effectively, what you can do, imagine, it's a bit like, we've talked about just depository interest, CDIs before Ram, where, easy example is Block, right? The business that was Square that bought Afterpay. you can uh you can trade those shares on the asx but it's a u.s company and the u.s rules apply resmed is another one the u.s rules apply to the company itself you can buy the shares here you can buy bhp you can buy those shares in america but it's an australian company and so on and so forth yeah basically what happens here is because the fund is domiciled in other words not not the listing the actual business itself think about the bricks and mortar or it's a fund so it's a bit you know what i mean uh the business itself is based in the us the shares can be traded in australia and because of that you the company is ordered in this case the etf the fund is required to withhold that 15 tax so it's not the listing that matters it's where the actual uh business itself um is is domiciled so in this case even though as you say uh dear questioner anonymous questioner uh the vent the footsie all world x us etf is not at all in the us at least in its investments the fund itself is actually domiciled is based in the us and so they have us taxes now that said for all of that it actually doesn't matter to australia because we have a tax treaty with the us and effectively australian investors when you lodge your tax return you'll get a credit for that tax paid in the US and it comes off any tax you owe here in Australia.

6:22Now, I can't promise you'd get a refund of that tax if you're in a zero tax bracket, for example. So there may be circumstances where you don't want to do this and that would be completely reasonable. I don't think you can claim it. You might even be able to. Anyway, there'll be tax accountants out there who can tell me. So if you are in a zero percent tax rate, if you're an accountant listening, feel free to let me know or let us know and we'll let our listeners know or just go and see an accountant yourself. But if you are paying your own tax, so for example, I have US listed shares. I own them directly.

6:51When they pay a dividend, 15 % of that money is withheld. I just tell the accountant, hey, I pay this tax here. I've got to pay income tax on the whole dividend anyway. And so I just pay the incremental amount that I owe. So that's the way this works. Sorry, mate. When you say you tell the accountant, I presume that they just give you a form that you then - Oh, yeah. Right. I guess, is that the short version of it? but it's just sort of like it is appropriate as to what they've done. Yes. Give that to the end. If you do your tax yourself, do you want to get into that? I guess there's just an appropriate box.

7:23Yeah, exactly what it is. Exactly what it is. Yeah. Literally, I don't even remember the name of the box. If you do your tax yourself, it can't be hard. I mean, well, do your tax yourself is more difficult every year these days. But yeah, same thing. It's just international withholding tax. There will be a box placed on the form to say this much tax was withheld that effectively counts as a credit towards any other tax you owe and the tax treaties between Australia and the US. So I wouldn't worry about this at all unless you happen to be in a zero tax environment, which is probably superannuation in a pension phase, in which case you might want to just make sure that you're not paying tax you don't need to.

7:57And in that case, you wouldn't be able to have another ETF that was domiciled here because there's no point having that tax withheld for the sake of it. But it is a wash for anybody else. So don't worry too much about it, is my view. As I said, I own direct shares anyway, and I happily have that money withheld and it's offsets against the tax I owe. So there is no incremental obligation or there's no extra money for me to pay. That's just the way that the process works. Just extra paperwork. But at the end of the day. It's like, it's one number in one box. I wouldn't, like most tax things, I wouldn't change my investing approach to avoid dealing with the withholding tax administration, putting a number in a box once a year.

8:38It shouldn't be, in my view, an issue for you. again if you want to do it and choose something else by all means go for it but i wouldn't um i wouldn't worry about it personally okay there are some just quickly there are sometimes one fund recently i don't know if it's a vanguard fund or someone else's every now and again they do change their domicile for that reason and what i think you'll find is when these etfs get big enough in australia to justify a the problem is the fund itself effectively has to operate here in it as its own thing so if you're if you're getting currently the footsie all world x us etf there's probably, I don't know, I would assume billions of dollars in that fund in the US.

9:13If they opened a brand new one here, there'd be$48.50. And so the fees would be astronomical and whatever. So the trade-off kind of is, and this is what I would say to you if you've got to change, just be careful because generally speaking, you'll notice, I think, I'm pretty sure, the fees on these two ones you mentioned, the US Total Market ETF and the FTSE All World X US ETF, the fees are tiny. And they're tiny, tiny because the fund is under management in that fund is so enormous. If you were to have one that was domiciled here and it would have literally one one thousandth of the funds in that fund, the chance they can do it for that sort of fee is really, really small.

9:48And so just kind of careful what you wish for. I'd rather the once a year, one number in a box paperwork and have a fee that is probably, it's a lot, lot lower anyway, put it that way, than it would be if you're investing in the US domiciled one. So hopefully at some point there's enough Australian investors to do it and who want it and Vanguard and other fund managers can create a second fund and domicile idea. That'd be great for everybody. In the meantime, I wouldn't be put off by it personally. I'm glad you're here, mate, because that was all news to me. I appreciate that. Thank you. It's one we've dealt with a few times.

10:18I'm going to, why not? I'm going to, quick plug, because it's Christmas. Go for it. We have a service called ETF Investor at The Motley Fool. It's something like 29 bucks a year. It's stupid cheap. Rip off. I tell you what, it's 29 bucks a year, fair think of it. Anyway, well, I'm not complaining about it. It was my idea to make it that cheap. I wanted it to because I thought I wanted to get a whole lot of investors who haven't started investing a really, really simple, cheap on-ramp to investing. That was kind of the idea. And ETFs are an easy way to do it. So if you want to try that out, fool.com.au forward slash join-ETF-investor.

10:49Pretty straightforward. fool.com.au forward slash join-ETF-investor. If you want to have a look at that, feel free. I say that partly as a plug, well, entirely as a plug. But you asked about knowing about that sort of stuff. I've been through this for the recommendations we made for that service. I got you. That's why I know the answer to this question, which is fortuitous in this event. Otherwise, we both look at each other dumbstruck and move on to the next question. Yeah. Yeah. Go and take Vanguard. This is like, but I'm going to say I feel that pain. There is nothing more frustrating than being stuck on hold for like a million hours, getting through to someone.

11:21I'll transfer you. I can't do this. And just, it is, you know, one of the inner rings of hell is you stuck on a phone for eternity waiting to speak to some bureaucrat. It's a nightmare. It's entirely possible. Speaking of that, mate, we actually are in hell and don't know it, particularly if you've ever flown Qantas because I think it's about four and a half hours these days on the phone if you want to change your flight. So maybe that's how we know we've gone to hell. We start having to contact the Qantas customer service. I'm sure it's unfair. I'm sure it's not four and a half hours. I'm sure it's only three hours and 15 minutes.

11:50Oh, that's all right then. Yeah. Hey, yeah, here's a question from someone who calls themselves Ram. Now I'm going to assume or hope or believe it's not you, but let's find out. Hi, Scott and Andrew. Thank you for your contribution to the investment community. this podcast is my favorite for my walks around my suburbs parks awesome i'm really really glad i'm one of those investors who always wanted to enter the market covid enabled me in 2021 my question is timing yeah i've saved enough to pay off my mortgage not a big mortgage i'm a minimalist says ram but now i'm in a dilemma as to whether to pay it off or keep the money in an offset account and use that capital to invest when opportunities arise or should i pay it off and start again also the other part of me like every other australian is saying buy another decent property for a better lifestyle i know it's general advice only says ram with a wink it's clearly not you uh what do you definitely not me what do you guys think what would you do if you were in this situation and ram says i'm in my mid-40s and have teenage kids thank you much appreciated best regards ram now we can't give personal advice obviously as you as you well know uh but from one ram to another mate what do you think i mean congrats that's that is a grade a problem to have um i don't think there is as we often say there's no one right answer here i i i can see a lot of sense in going in either direction there is there is something incredibly we talked about this the other day actually incredibly liberating empowering satisfying in not having any mortgage debt or rent.

13:27The amount of money you need to earn to sustain your lifestyle is so radically different. Think about anyone else out there listening. Take away your rent, take away your mortgage repayments. How much richer are you per week? It is huge. And it's a kind of wealth that, you know, it's different to looking at a portfolio of shares that may be going up over time, But it is an immensely freeing situation to be in. So I, this is just me, I would err towards that. Now, presumably you're just not going to go part-time and slash your income in half. Although if you did, I would not fault that at all. Depends on what you value in life.

14:08But if you enjoy your work and you're going to continue to work, I would then find that You just end up building up capital, which you need to do something with. And yeah, buy some shares. I think that's really, really hard to go past. Could you, if you are going to take some equity and buy shares and do it that way, I think that's fine too, honestly. I would be more inclined to do that with, and I think this is the case here for Ram, is a relatively small mortgage. So it's just like there's such a huge buffer that, you know, it's very hard to see anything going wrong. I don't see any fault in that as well.

14:44To do the maths and which is the best solution, well, let's say that the market's about to go on a 10-year tear. Yes, absolutely, you know, put it in the offset account and buy as much as you can. If it's going to be pretty ordinary returns over the next 10 years, just pay it off and go for it that way. So that will be the right answer is like, you know, ask me in 10 years and I'll tell you what you should have done. Should you buy another property for quote unquote lifestyle? So I won't do the usual rant here. Other than to say - Yeah, other than to say, insert right here, go on. Other than to say - Well, yeah, I actually had this conversation recently with a friend.

15:29And it's like, oh, you know, we had that, you know, if we won the Powerball, they go, I would do this and I'd have a property in Milan and this. And I was like, why? Why would you? It was like, oh, because then I could go there whenever I want. and it's just like yeah but here's here's here's how i would do it right i would i would just air b &b it i would i go to milan yeah and i would i would rent the most beautiful place i'd rock up i grab the keys i'd have a great time and then i'd hand it back and then i've got nothing to deal with there's no agent calling me up saying the smoke alarm needs a new battery or you know just it's very easy to have so i i get i get the aspiration the aspirational desire to have another place that you can go to but i reckon i would it depends how frequently if you're the kind of person who's going to who wants a house down the coast and you're going to go there every weekend yeah okay and you can afford to do it okay sure fine buy a house if realistically it's going to be something you get to two or three times a year do the maths and i reckon that you'll find that just renting is going to come out well you're going to come out miles and miles ahead on that plus you get to go somewhere different each time plus you don't have the the hassle of dealing with it in uh in the interim um i had a someone um espoused this to me years ago they were a bit of a motorhead they loved their cars but they drove this beaten down old toyota around but every now and again on the weekend they they'd hire a beautiful sports car and drive up to the mountains have a great time and then hand the keys back now was that expensive per hour of car driving time type thing relative to what it would have been if you owned it outright yes but given that you're only doing this occasionally and you add it all up that you're actually miles ahead so he was sort of saying i get to have a different car all the time there's no hassle i've got garaging the whole damn thing it's just it's just easier and it's cheaper and so yeah i i again, there's no right or wrong.

17:30Me, personally, I would love to have that flexibility and freedom, and whenever I want to go somewhere, I just go, just Airbnb it, and I've got, there's the lifestyle part, tick, without the headache, tick. 100%. Now, can I just, I'll let you, I'll hand it over. I'm just hearing someone shouting at the podcast machine right now, going, yes, but when you buy that property, you get the, you know, you get to double your capital every seven years. Here comes the rent. Here comes the rent. I'm just like, well, that's cool if that's your expectation then absolutely do that um if it's not your expectation don't yeah um i so back to the question to be any of the question i personally mate i reckon i would pay off the mortgage um for two well two one general reason one specific reason the general reason is you can't beat peace of mind uh while the house price can obviously fall uh as long as you're not selling it who cares it's right whereas if you invest in shares and you get that wrong you do risk your capital now technically you risk capital in both cases and even the same size capital in both cases you know mathematically again on paper if your house falls 10 percent or your share portfolio falls 10 percent and the same cash then you you lose the same amount of money both ways difference is at some point you have to pay the mortgage off so i think i i would i would honestly pay the mortgage off um if it was me um second point is the specific bit which is right now particularly with interest rates that you're probably paying somewhere between very very high fives and six and a half percent um after tax you know the average share market returns not miles ahead of that and so i also think the opportunity is relatively modest now if rates were back at two percent you might have different conversation and rates might fall at some point from this from this point or you or you felt you could average 15 per annum because you're almost as good as Buffett or something, then yeah, sure.

19:22Exactly, exactly. So even if you thought you were though, the risk of, again, there's a guaranteed saving of the interest at a relatively high level now and you're getting the lifestyle benefit. The other thing I'd say is the offset account, you said this before, mate. I have actually used it relatively responsibly, I think. But I don't say that to big note myself. I guess I'm just making the point it's possible. So many people, they use the offset account and then all of a sudden realise they would really like to buy a boat or a car or do a renovation. It's an ATM machine. The banks know what they're doing.

19:55Correct. They want you. And it's one of those things where people say, yeah, but I can use it sensibly. It's like people say with marginalised. I can use it sensibly. And maybe you can, but maybe you can't. And again, once the money's there, it might go up a little bit. Well, it probably won't go up at all if you just get to offset the interest. So the risk is effectively, the upside is capped and the downside is, well, what if I start spending some of that money? I'll put a bit of money for the holiday. We really do need to fix the deck and all that sort of stuff. So again, like everything that can be used for good or evil, I would be just very, very careful about the way you consider that part of the process.

20:31In terms of the second property, I'm not sure actually what the question was about. Is it for a better lifestyle? I think you mean trading up your house, so getting a bigger house or a bigger unit. Oh, I thought it was a second holiday house. Saving to buy another decent property for a better lifestyle, when I assume the last bit suggests an upgrade of a house. Again, what do I think? I don't... I think there's... I'll talk about both sides of my mouth. Again, home is a lifestyle asset. If it's going to make you happier for the rest of your life, then that's a pretty good payback. So, you know, do what you want to do.

21:12Now, you're going to pay interest on that, so be careful and make sure it's worthwhile. The other thing is, obviously, it's easy for me to say, it's easy for anyone to say with the Goddard House already and they're happy with, but there is an element of lifestyle inflation, which is a phrase I love. I'm sure plenty of people use it. Dave Gow from Strong Money, who has been on the Good Oil, if you want to have a listen to that, talked about lifestyle inflation. Of all the different types of inflation, you can't control the food prices or the petrol prices or whatever, but lifestyle inflation is, well, I'd really like a bigger insert X here.

21:38I'd really like another insert Y here. It's not bad. It's not wrong. Live your life. Enjoy your life. buy the things you want to buy do what makes you happy um but there is something about when is when is big enough big enough and how much do you have to pay for that and to your point mate do it in terms of hours and years worked how many years how many more years would i have to work to make it worthwhile is that worth the extra bedroom maybe is it worth the bigger backyard maybe um i'll say you know we my wife and i'm my family we moved to barrel out of the southern shire the south of sydney um to a to a bigger house is i think smaller about the same size backyard is reasonably bigger, about an acre and a half, which is lovely.

22:15But we moved an hour and a half away and paid the same price. So, you know, we could have probably bought a bigger place in Sydney and paid another million bucks for it. So, you know, do what makes you happy. I would just encourage you to think really, really, really carefully about the financial obligation you're imposing on yourself if you do that. And just to make sure it's genuinely going to make you happier and happier enough to make the trade-up worthwhile. Don't just fall for the trap of lifestyle inflation. The bigger car, the better car, the newer car the bigger house the you know bigger or better everything else at some point you kind of you know the the superpower is saying i've got enough and that's not easy in our society for a million different reasons i don't mean that cynically or conspiratorially um humans are just like that right we're comparative creatures keeping up the jones is a thing because it's a thing no one decides they want to keep up with the jones they just feel like they should yeah um it is pretty insidious but it's not it's not it's no conspiracy um the superpower is actually saying you know what i think i'm okay with that i think i think i'm done you know i've got enough and that's and that's fine and then and then frankly getting your joy out of i now don't have to work if i don't want to or i now own my own home or i now whatever whatever those things are yeah my disposable income is through the roof because i have very little housing costs yeah exactly exactly and you know that's um and look well you and i were chatting before this complies complain about the everything in my house has gone wrong in the last 18 months like it's everything which is annoying as hell but i didn't have anything to pay for the previous four or five years meaningfully then you know so these things go in fits and starts but you're right mate when you when you can get to a point where you're saying actually no i'm going to own this house outright or or the mortgage is meaningfully lower or whatever it is the other thing too i will say and everyone's different i know what uh what uh job you've got ram not you ram the other ram the questioner um i don't know what your your job is but there's also something nice about hey if i lose my job then i know you know we've got a we got so you know the offset account we took out when we bought this place was bigger.

24:08I took out a bigger loan and I put some extra money in the offset. Now that was dangerous if I spent it, but knowing that I didn't have to worry if I lost my job for whatever reason, I hope my boss likes me and will keep me around, but you know, who knows what's going to happen. So just the comfort of knowing I could make enough repayments out of the cash I had in the offset if the worst came to the worst, it's just a really significant emotional benefit. And so don't discount that one as well. Yep. But look, I'll move on, but I would just say if you're living in a very cramped two-bedroom unit with two teenagers and you can afford to upgrade and not overstretch yourself, then it doesn't – yeah, hell yeah, right?

24:45Like it's – yeah, that's why I said at the start there's no right answer but hopefully some thoughts there. I just – I guess I'll put a line under it just all by saying is that don't obsess too much about the number of whatever your net wealth is. Yeah, yeah. You know, because what doesn't fit into that is lifestyle and freedom and optionality and those other things, which I think personally, as I get older, I'm putting more and more and more emphasis on. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

25:23I got a question from Ivan. Hi, guys. He says, thanks for the entertaining info and ongoing rants. pretty sure you guys won't be replaced when the ai overlords take over which i would otherwise consider a compliment i'm just assuming that ivan figures no ai is going to bother ranting the way we do it's going to be a little more a little more temperamentally uh balanced or something i'm not i'm not sure what ivan means by that but either way if we keep our jobs i'll be pretty happy with that quick question they they can they can train there's a lot there's a lot of uh there's a lot of hours to train those ais on so i'm pretty sure that like we could be replaced pretty pretty easily after this episode i'm going to type in chat gpt a rant in the style of andrew page from strawman.com see what it gives me um so quick question says ivan in line with similar questions over the last two weeks so this is this question is a bit older so you know a few weeks vanguard has launched a superannuation product in australia and although vanguard has been around for a while both here and overseas this is a new product how do you evaluate something that needs a long-term outlook but hasn't got any performance history i assume their culture and people have a lot to do with it but how do you put culture into a spreadsheet knowing the main assets of a company leave the company every friday afternoon i hope this makes sense he says on a different note why not just say this is a two-hour rant um i mean podcast and be done with it at least the long-form listeners will be there for the end part lol yeah but the trouble is is we say that and then it becomes a three hour correct all right we have no shame nor self-discipline ivan Ivan finished with full-on Ivan.

26:53Thank you, mate. What do you reckon, mate? How do you evaluate Vanguard Super, given it's a new product and has no performance history? I'm not familiar with the product. So I think, yes, you want an institution that is on a very firm footing, and that is absolutely the case with Vanguard. Other than that, it's really just depending on what the mandate is. They probably have a pretty clear mandate as to what they're going to invest in and how they're going to do it. So I don't think you'll find there's too much surprises there. They're not going to turn around one day and say, we're all in emu farms or whatever it happens to be.

27:30So I, again, I hesitate a little bit because I don't know what the product is. But in terms of would I trust them as an institution, yes, I think I would. And I assume that there's pretty clear guardrails as to what they can and can't do. and you probably want something pretty vanilla anyway, right? You don't want something that's too esoteric or, you know. So, yeah, I wouldn't lose any sleep over that, particularly if the fees are attractive, right? If the product itself looks attractive from a cost basis, then, yeah, I'm not going to worry too much about it or am I wrong to say that? No, I don't think you're wrong at all.

28:15So, I know the Vanguard super product a little bit and it's basically somewhere, but it's kind of most akin to the Australian Super or other Super kind of direct investment options, but generally pretty heavy in ETFs. And so I think there's, Vanguard Super is a little bit different to most other, oh, sorry, most other products we talk about because if you said, what about Magellan as a fund manager or the Magellan flagship fund, for example, you might say, well, it's done this, it's been that, that's why I want to invest in it or I don't. So you're specifically taking the investment style and returns of the investment manager and choosing to play along with that.

28:51When you're in a super fund, there's two levels to think about. And this is for everyone talking about any super fund, by the way. The first is the fund manager. So the person pulling the strings. The second though, is the strings they're pulling. So Vanguard as a fund manager or Australian super as a fund manager or AMP as a, sorry, super fund again. Sorry, let me start again. Vanguard as a super fund, Australian Super has a super fund. AMP is a super fund. The funds themselves is, are they going to run the fund in accordance with the law? Is your money going to be there when you want it? So that's the first level.

29:25The second is then, which investment options should you choose? If you go with Australian Super, you can choose from one of, I think there might be six or eight different premixed options. And then you can choose ETFs within that. You can choose to direct your own investments within that. So you think about that and think, well, hang on. So what is Australian Super? You know, should I invest with them? Well, should you use them as your fund manager is the first question. And if and when you say the answer is yes, which of their fund options do you take? And that's when you want to decide whether or not that makes sense.

29:55Now, if every one of AMP's fund options, I shouldn't pick on them, but I will, is terrible, don't use them as a fund manager because you've got no good options within it. But frankly, I could join Australian Super today and I could say, put 100 % of it in a Vanguard ASX ETF. Right? in which case i think you can't show 100 they've got rules but you know what i mean um in which case i'm asking myself is australian super the right trustee are they the right administrator and then i'm asking myself is the investment option within that good so when i go back to vanguard supermate i guess i that's what i'm kind of saying in terms of how you should consider it vanguard has been around for decades uh they're as reputable as they come uh it doesn't mean nothing can go wrong things can always go wrong they're owned by the unit holders so there's no conflicted incentives at a corporate level.

30:40They may be at an individual level, obviously. People get bonuses and stuff. So maybe there's, always think about that. But generally speaking, it's kind of pretty reasonable and pretty trustworthy. I'm glad they're in the super space. Their fees are still a little bit high at the moment relative to say Australian super. I did look at them. I've got an SMSF and I even went, oh, maybe I can choose Vanguard super. I chose not to. The fees will probably come down in time, or might certainly come down in time, unless they can't get to scale. So that might be the only question you might want to ask yourself.

31:09But even if they do, they'll close down in orderly fashion. So I don't see any significant material risks with Vanguard, even though it's brand new. We know the company, we know the culture relatively well. They've got 50 years of history of it. And if they're just literally just, you know, pulling the strings, directing the traffic, there should be nothing to worry about. But that's so, that's with that. In terms of in general, the questions or the suggestions you made are spot on. So yes, look at the culture, look at the company's background, all that kind of stuff. Absolutely makes perfect sense.

31:40I will say with the investment funds, by the way, what I love about your point about the assets walking out every Friday afternoon, that's really important because even at, I'll pick Magellan for fun, Hamish Douglas left Magellan recently, relatively recently. So when you look at Magellan's track record, Magellan in quotes, whose track record are you looking at, Magellan or Hamish's? So then moving forward, even though the fund has a long history, will it be run the same way with a new fund manager, with a new chief investment officer, as it was by the last one? And that could be better or worse, by the way.

32:10I'm not saying it's going to be only worse, but it's worth thinking that through. And if you think about investing with a fund manager, or sorry, with a fund, understand who was actually pulling the strings and whether that person remains in the seat. Otherwise, even though it looks like it's got a long track record, it may absolutely not, and it wouldn't be the first company that blew itself up under a new management. Nice. Anything more on that, mate? No, nothing to add. Now, Darren... Very Charlie of you, thank you. Darren sent us an email. And I don't know whether I should be offended or not.

32:42He says, Dear Scott and Mr. Page. Ooh. I don't know how you're Mr. Page. Anyway, best show in town, says Darren. What can one say? Although I do wonder, with the amount of talking you both do, if there could have been a better use of your talents with a weak emoji. Is he saying we're really good and better at that than investing or we're wasting our time talking so much? You can take that number of different ways. I'm taking it in the most favorable way that I can. He thinks we should be. Well, you've mentioned a couple of times you want a Joe Reagan-style deal with Spotify. So maybe he's going down that path.