AAR46 - Financial Half-Truths

0:00Is the idea that renting is throwing away money. I have heard this many, many, many, many, many, many times. And it's funny, when I first started my job and we were renting, I heard a ton of advice about, you know, renting is throwing away money. And a ton of advice focused around being against renting. And then now that we have a home, I hear a ton of stuff positive around homes, but I also hear a ton of stuff like, oh man, upkeep is horrible. Or, oh great, you signed up for upkeep for the rest of your life. everybody has an issue with with uh any any decision you make basically this show is sponsored by liquid iv with the days getting longer and warmer i'm spending way more time outside but lately i was hitting a massive afternoon slump i quickly realized that plain water just wasn't cutting it i needed a better hydration i could actually trust to keep me going that's why i rely on liquid iv as an investor i'm a data guy so i love that they have scientific advisory board of world-renowned researchers knowing it's backed by real science gives me peace of mind in fact Liquid IV Sugar Free is the only clinically tested hydration solution that has clinically demonstrated to hydrate faster than water.

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3:28good morning everyone and welcome back to at any rate my name is evan ray and we are here to help you make sustainable financial changes without breaking a sweat please as very often give a warm welcome back to the valuist of valuist investors andrew say there good morning andrew hey good morning like how how much of a value are we talking like i'm still wearing socks with holes in them or like how are you viewing me here like like you get to eat lunch right next to warren buffett at mcdonald's you're not going to sit like at the same table as him you know i mean that's just not realistic but you're going to be maybe one table away you know you're going to be stuck right behind the big ordering screens so there's going to be like a shadow on you but you're going to be right next to him still so i still think that's pretty cool i i am so down for that yeah just just to be osmosis next to give me like a little piece of whatever he's got going on i'm down yeah you'd have an awesome pick coming out of there i guarantee it maybe he'd offer you a fry that's a possibility or you offer him a fry i don't know what will be better I would probably be so awkward next to him I'd just be like hi how do you think you'd react if you met Warren Buffett would you like fangirl and scream and freak out or would you try and play it cool I would try I would not be able to I just know myself too well I respect that know thyself that's all that matters so in today's episode we're going to be looking to discuss a lot of we're titling as financial half truth So common financial advice that's out there, personal finance advice, that is really just oversimplified, at least from our point of view.

5:13It's catchy. It sounds good. It's a great soundbite. It'll get people thinking. Maybe it'll get people to take action on their finances, and that's all fantastic. But a lot of times, oversimplifying things and making it a little bit too easy to digest can be very, very dangerous, especially when we talk about, I know we've mentioned it before, Social media content is definitely a massive factor nowadays, especially for younger people like me who consume a lot of it on different platforms about different topics. If anything personal finance related comes up or they get kind of caught in a loop of engagement for personal finance content, then that can kind of become your only source of personal finance content and information and learning.

5:59and that can lead you down some really difficult paths if that's the only thing you're ever exposed to. And a lot of these rules, they're definitely not all negative and they're not coming from a negative place and they don't have a negative goal. But a lot of times they can be something that we'll say works for like 80 % of people and absolutely wrecks the other 20 % because they're in such a different financial state or point in their lives or type of job, whatever it is, that whatever works for the 80 % is not necessarily going to work for that 20%. So the goal today is to go through some of those and basically just myth bust a lot of these repeated tidbits, sound bites that you hear all over the place.

6:38So to start out, the one that I have definitely heard many, many times, I've heard online social media content, I've heard it from coworkers before, is just max out your 401k. 401ks are, they're freaking fantastic. They're incredibly powerful. They're awesome. They're amazing. And you definitely hear it from coworkers a lot because 401ks are usually involved with your employer. And so it's very common to be like, hey, our company offers a 401k, you should be dumping money into that. Or I also know some people who were part-time for a while and when they went full-time, they were like, I need to just dump money into my 401k to catch up.

7:11And that kind of just goes on indefinitely, honestly. And they indefinitely are trying to catch up and dump money in there. But some of the issues around the idea of just maxing out your 401k, First off, it just completely ignores liquidity. It doesn't acknowledge the lack of liquidity in a 401k and what dumping a bunch of money into your 401k actually means for you and means for your near, middle, or even long-term financial future up until retirement. Because that money is going to be locked up until 59 and a half. Not to mention, I know that this is one of the things that bugs Andrew the most is the investment options are so limited in a 401k.

7:48So if you're really looking to go and tweak things and maximize your returns as much as humanly possible or just have fun doing it and learning about it, a 401k is not going to be an ideal vehicle for you. And one last thing I want to mention that's a pretty big deal for me is that it doesn't build account diversification. Most people, frankly, can't afford to max out a 401k. They can't afford the$23 ,000,$24 ,000 a year that you need to put in to max it out. Even if you can, there's a really good chance you're not going to have much left after that to invest or save elsewhere. And so what this does to you is, you know, say you start a new job or like me, you graduate college and you just start dumping money into a 401k.

8:27Five, eight, ten years down the line, if all you've been doing is dumping money in there, you still, you know, can't afford to buy a home if you want. You can't afford to purchase a nicer car if you need or want to. You can't easily afford to move. You can't, you can't, uh, you aren't really building towards early retirement or anything like that because all of your money is locked up in a vehicle that is going to be locked up until 59 and a half. And having diversification where money is in different accounts that have different upsides and downsides to them and different timelines to them would mean that you would have the flexibility to afford, if not all, at least some of those things while still reaping the benefits of a 401k as much as you can.

9:05But, but I know you for the most part agree with this, but what makes you agree with this or agree with being against this statement. Yeah, I agree with all of it because those things are all true. I guess one of the things we could talk about for a second, if you don't mind, is when you say ignoring liquidity, you mentioned kind of all the reasons, potential reasons that that could be a problem for somebody not having money to move, not having money for a new car. Are there other things, could be, I don't know, psychological or relational or whatever like that would also be affected by that in your opinion that maybe aren't immediately obvious on the surface?

9:51Yeah, another issue, the first thing that comes to mind around the lack of liquidity is that it doesn't allow it to contribute to an emergency whatsoever. We're all going to go through financial emergencies at one point in our life and are realistically at multiple points in our lives. And if your money, if the vast majority of your money is locked up in an account like that, getting it out or getting any kind of access to it is going to be very difficult and costly for you. costly because if you try to withdraw early, you're going to have to pay all the taxes on it as well as pay a crap ton of fees on that withdrawal as well.

10:24And it could be very complicated for you because there are ways to take loans against your 401k and that sort of stuff. But first off, you're going to be limited as to how much that loan is, of course, but it's also going to be a complex process. You're going to be taking on some risk as to how quickly you're going to be able to pay it off. And of course, you're always going to be paying interest on whatever that loan is are going to be taking against it. So 401k just stops you from being able to react to a financial emergency as well as a financial opportunity. Like let's say right now you, you know, I don't know, your parents were moving out of their home and they were offering you a really good discount on the home because, you know, you're their child, of course.

11:00And you wanted to be able to jump on that because you were, you know, at a point in your life when you were ready to have a home and you wanted to have a home, but you realized that all you'd been doing is maxing out your 401k for the past four years and you didn't save anywhere else. And even though they're giving you a great deal, you just genuinely can't afford it. And even though your net worth, you know, looks fantastic and it looks like you could easily afford it. All of that money is locked up in there. And all you have is, you know, let's just make up number 3000 in an emergency fund. And, and that's, you know, all you have to your name is your 401k and emergency fund.

11:31That's fantastic. You built your net worth, you've saved and invested, and you're going to be worth quite a lot by retirement, but you're not going to be able to do much until then. And that is, that's a very easy trap to fall into, I think. No, that's huge. Yeah. Great example. beautiful all right so something kind of along homes as well and again i've heard this many many times especially since us purchasing a home i've heard it many many many many more times is to pay off your mortgage early and especially something like prioritize paying off your mortgage early over over a lot of other stuff first off this this does feel great emotionally for a lot of people a mortgage is the biggest financial move that they will ever make and the biggest financial of burden and debt that they will ever take on in their entire lives.

12:18And so it feels fantastic emotionally to pay that off. And I know a lot of people, they're incredibly proud to be at an age where they have paid off their home and all they pay is property taxes and utilities and that sort of stuff and upkeep, but they don't have to pay down a mortgage. And that is absolutely awesome and incredibly powerful for them. But to prioritize paying it off early can be very questionable mathematically. It's a very complex equation that has a ton of factors go into it more than we're going to be able to dive into at this moment. But just to show you how big the gap is up front that can't really be covered by those other nuances is that straight off the bat, a 4 % mortgage payoff or maybe even a 5 % or 6 % mortgage rate that you have, paying that off early and saving that 4 % or 5 % or 6 % interest on that loan is not going to outperform a 7 % to 10 % plus percent return that you could get in something like the stock market or something like investing in real estate elsewhere or something like that.

13:15Just prioritizing paying that off is not going to be realistic. Not to mention that that 7 % to 10 % to invest elsewhere is going to keep that money accessible to you instead of tying it up in an asset like you would in a home. And so like we talked about before with a 401k, if you need access to that money that you've been investing and earning 7 % to 10 % in, you can sell that and you can use that elsewhere and quickly liquid liquefy that into cash to use wherever you need to if you've been prioritizing paying off your mortgage to save that four or five or six percent and doing very little other than that then when that emergency comes up or that opportunity comes up well all your money is is in the house and now you're gonna have to take like we talked about before maybe a loan against the home and again that's going down a rabbit hole of complexity as well as paying additional interest towards that loan.

14:06So even though I think that this advice is coming from a good place because it has a really good sort of finish line, a really good powerful finish line for you, but it ignores a lot of the risk tolerance along the way, you know, stuff like job security as well. If, if, if you have been prioritizing paying off your mortgage and then you get laid off from work, well, that money that you've paid towards your mortgage is, isn't really going to do you much good unless maybe you refinance and lower the rate or something, but it costs to refinance. It's a much more complex process to get that to a sustainable place than to just initially have been investing it elsewhere, earning an even higher return, and let that money continue to be accessible to you during this layoff so that you could get you and your family by for the time being.

14:51At least I personally, and kind of the vibe that I get from my coworkers as well, is that this advice likely comes from a time when this was more financially feasible. as a lot of things were during, during more financially prosperous times, during much more affordable homes, when it was much, much easier, more affordable to get, get your hands on a home. It made a lot more sense to say, okay, well, I easily have enough cash to throw a little bit extra cash at the mortgage and pay it off early. And that seems kind of like a no brainer because I know I'm saving money from it. But nowadays when, when incomes are so much, so, so much lower compared to the cost of a home and compared to a mortgage to get a home, in addition to the greater accessibility of something like investing in the stock market and information education around the stock market just like stuff like online brokerage accounts like plink or something like that they're so easy to get a hold of that you might as well be going down that accessible easy route than trying to push yourself down the other route that doesn't really kind of apply anymore at least doesn't apply in the same way but but Andrew use it as a stock market investor how do you personally for yourself and your family way paying off something like a personal debt, for example, a mortgage versus just investing it elsewhere.

16:04Yeah. I mean, you kind of described how I do it. If I'm between the decision of pay off the mortgage early or pile more money into an investment account, like the one I have at Plank, shout out to our sponsor. It's putting that in the market all the way. And maybe some of that's driven by the fact that I enjoy picking stocks. I enjoy putting money in the market and I have the risk tolerance for that. You kind of touch on like there's a time and a place and a type of person who might pay off their mortgage early and feel more benefits of that. Like if you've experienced a bankruptcy from mortgage debt or have seen somebody who's experienced a bankruptcy from that, that could be hugely motivating to you as a person.

16:52But going back to that 80-20 idea that you mentioned, if it's like 3 % of people who would be better off to pay their mortgage early, that doesn't apply to 97 % of us. So yeah, I would totally not pay off the mortgage early. And then the last thing I'll say that I thought was interesting, the refinance game, we're starting to learn as a society that that's basically a bet on interest rates if you're planning on refinancing. One of the things, if you go deep, deep into the weeds of the stock market, you start looking at interest rates and realize that from 1982 until 2022, we had just always falling interest rates.

17:41So that advice, refinance, refinance, refinance. You could always do that every few years because rates kept falling. Like you're saying, times have changed now. And we're not... When you get down to the bottom of interest rates, you can't really go much lower, right? So it's been a while since we've had interest rates come down. And you just have to understand if you are, depending on refinancing, that you are making a bet on interest rates. And that's not a game that you can really play anymore. Now that springtime is here, it is time to update and reset my wardrobe. Last month, I talked to you guys about how I was getting my shipment from Quince in the mail.

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20:35Evan:The report is called A Generational Moment, reigniting human connections through a tangible network of intangible assets. For a limited time, you can access this research at a discount at einvestingforbeginners.com slash reignite. That's einvestingforbeginners.com slash reignite. I just want to kind of go back and emphasize something that you mentioned around different people and different mentalities and kind of personal lifestyles that affects how you handle debt and how you handle investments and mortgages and everything along that is that if you're somebody that does have a very low risk tolerance and you're somebody that knows that if you're taking a risk with your money whatsoever, even if you left 10 bucks sitting on your front porch overnight or something, that kind of financial risk just stresses the heck out of you and you're going to lose sleep over it or your life is going to get worse or your health is going to get worse because of it, then I would say that something like paying off your mortgage early can have a lot of mental upsides for you.

21:32Because at the end of the day, we've talked about before, but what are your whys for wanting to earn money? Having greater numbers in your bank account by itself alone, all factors the same, is not going to make you happy. What's going to make you happy is living the kind of life that you want to live and having money give you access to that. And so if getting a higher return in the stock market is going to stress you out a ton and make your life worse because of it, then something like paying off a mortgage early and sort of getting that guaranteed 4%, basically guaranteed money off that mortgage and off that interest rate, if that's going to help you sleep better at night and you're still going to be earning some money and you're still going to be doing something with your savings, then that can definitely have a lot of upsides for you.

22:15So kind of weigh and look at what that financial situation would look like for you and how you would feel if you were in either of those and weigh it that way. I know myself, I'm okay with taking a little bit more financial risk because I have experience with the stock market. I've studied the history of it to some degree. And so I'm okay with taking that bit of financial risk to get a higher return. But if that's not you and that's not your style, then that is completely okay as well. Just tailor it to yourself. It's so true. so what's what's the next one on our list uh next one on the list is still focused around housing because i mean so many people every everybody needs somewhere to live and some people get home some people rent and so this definitely leads to a lot of turmoil between the two of them and so to kind of go the other direction is the idea that renting is throwing away money i have heard this many many many many many many many times um and it's funny when when i first started my job and we were renting, I heard a ton of advice about, you know, renting is throwing away money and a ton of advice focused around being against renting.

23:21And then now that we have a home, I hear a ton of stuff positive around homes, but I also hear a ton of stuff like, oh man, upkeep is horrible or, oh great, you signed up for upkeep for the rest of your life. Everybody has an issue with any decision you make basically. And this is the kind of advice that I used to hear when I first started is renting is throwing away money. And the first issue and kind of the most clear mathematical issue with it is that it's just ignoring stuff like property taxes, insurance, maintenance, you know, transaction costs, like closing costs that you have to make during a sale.

23:52Homes have a ton of sunk costs. You don't just pay off, you know, you don't pay up towards equity on a home and that's all that ever happens or do renovations that add value to the home. You do a ton of stuff that just goes nowhere, basically. like the biggest one at least for us is property taxes you know that's several hundred bucks a month that goes towards nothing it's something we have to pay we don't get a choice to pay it even if we paid off the mortgage we would still have to pay it but that money heads towards nothing just the same as rent does you're not building equity with property taxes or anything like that you never get that money back and you don't get direct access to it another another reason that renting can have some upsides compared to a home is that even though a home is an asset, it's something you put money into and has the potential to grow for you and you can resell that later and it gives you life benefits.

24:47It's not necessarily an investment. It's not necessarily going to grow at a desired or expected rate, especially if it's an older home or needs a lot more upkeep or it's not in the most desirable area or the most thriving area financially in the housing market. There's a ton of factors that can make a home not necessarily a big, powerful, fantastic investment so that you might as well, quote unquote, be renting and just have the flexibility to leave whenever you want instead of being tied down to something that's not going to give you a ton of financial benefits. And then one last thing to mention is that the renting can be a huge, have a huge upside financially in high cost of living areas.

25:29If you move to a place where to buy a house is a million dollars plus and you are just not earning the kind of money to afford that as the vast majority of people aren't, then renting can be much more affordable or realistically your only affordable way to get by and live in that area. And like we talked about before, it's great to have bigger numbers in your bank account, but if the only reason you have it is to have it, then it's not going to make you happy. If living in that high cost of living area makes you happy and gives you the kind of life and lifestyle that you want, then paying a higher cost on rent can be worthwhile, especially if that's your only way to get access to that lifestyle.

26:07But as a homeowner yourself, Andrew, do you think homeownership is sort of overrated as a wealth building tool? Kind of when you compare it to renting as just throwing away money or how do you view that conversation? I think for most people, yeah. It's not something you really want to rely on. Unless you're the type of person who just spends everything that you make and you just never put anything away, which I can relate to that mentality for sure. Um, it can be like a, oops, I accidentally built wealth tool, um, for people, which is good, you know? Um, but if you are more financially literate, more making decisions that are benefiting your financial future, then yes, I don't think it should be, uh, your primary wealth building tool for all the reasons you mentioned and um just that the idea it is a lot more illiquid than than some other wealth building options yeah renting definitely leaves your finances much more liquid and accessible and that can have have a ton of financial upsides and a ton of lifestyle upside so i definitely don't regret you know renting when we did i mean especially for us we were young we had recently graduated college we didn't have you know tens of thousands of dollars sitting somewhere to go put towards a down payment and you know renovate things or you know do anything like that we just physically didn't have access to that and so especially for younger people try to kind of let that you know slide off your back so to speak when you hear people say that renting is throwing away money because it's very easy to not understand that it's just physically not possible for a ton of people, especially young people, but also especially people who, who haven't, who have had financial hardships or haven't earned what they wanted to earn or deserve to earn in the past.

28:04Money doesn't just, you know, come out of nowhere and, and make it accessible just because you think I should have a home doesn't mean that suddenly money poofs and appears somewhere and I'm able to afford it. It just doesn't work that way. And it's, it's completely okay if it doesn't. And if that's something for your future, then that's completely fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, totally. Next one coming up here, actually, I just received yesterday from Stephen, Stephen co-host of the Primary Investment for Beginners podcast. He sent me a video of somebody online that was posting about that Roth IRAs are for poor people.

28:42and this was definitely this was definitely an example of rage baiting I mean just make something that's gonna piss a ton of people off and guess what he got engagement from it you know this person was duetting the video it works to make that kind of content but while I've never heard it put this bluntly or directly I have definitely kind of got this connotation from other content before so I definitely think it's worth covering and discussing but the idea the Roth IRAs are for poor people. Initially, when I got the video and I started the video and heard him saying that, I thought he was going to say, oh, because there's income limits to put into a Roth IRA.

29:26And there are some backdoor conversions you can do, but those can be difficult. And especially tax and related to taxes can be a complex thing to go through. And a lot of people need help to do that kind of stuff. I thought it was going to go in that direction. I was like, okay, you know, you baited me up front, but at least it was useful. that was not the direction that was sort of the the the end of the complexity of the statement was that they're for poor people so in reality what they were saying was that roth iras were only created for poor people to invest and give them you know a good safe place to invest but that if you can there's just so many other ways to to build money more quickly and what this led to was he's just selling a course and that was that was the whole end goal of this and then again i've definitely seen this kind of content before maybe again not so directly targeted Roth IRAs but targeted stuff like homes and the stock market and actually accessible more dependable ways to grow your wealth people will target that and say oh because it's easy I bet you it's the wrong thing to do and so I'm going to tell people that you know if it's easy and accessible for them there are other ways that they could be building a ton of money much more quickly when you actually look at these other ways to make money faster quote unquote or make a lot of more money they usually they're not going to involve employment or a side gig or anything like that they're going to be just a shot in the dark with a ton of high risk and even even if time is just your risk you know people talk about drop shipping all the time there's a lot of stuff out there that can uh that can necessitate a huge time investment even if it's not a huge financial investment and even just as often as that it's it's just a scam to you know get a ton of engagement get people scared about whatever they're currently doing financially and scare them into doing whatever they think they should be doing instead but really in reality roth iras are a very very powerful tool for anybody who has access to it and when they talk about poor people i mean the vast vast majority of people have access to roth iras and they're not going to in terms of of income limits and they're not going to find a ton of tools out there that are going to be more powerful than growing tax-free and being able to withdraw tax-free later that it may sound boring and not that exciting not as exciting as here go do this thing and i guarantee you'll 10x your money in two months it's not nearly as exciting as that but it's much more powerful than you might realize up front even if it sounds more boring quote-unquote but have you heard this kind of take before we've gotten this kind of connotation from people?

31:54No? Okay. No. Not at all. It kind of makes me mad to be honest. The Roth is one of the best tools in personal finance. How are you trying to take this away? How are you trying to push people away from that? Come on. Yeah. It's very, very disappointing. And especially, we're kind of going to discuss this a little bit more later, but around the realm of how to consume personal finance advice in a healthy, sustainable way. One of the things is, is whatever they're telling you, if you follow their advice, is it going to benefit them in some way? And just because the answer to that is yes, doesn't mean that it is, you know, throw away bad advice.