Ask HTM – Mortgage Payoff Loophole, DAFs to Maximize Tax Deductions, and Legally Evading a Medical Bill #1069 - How to Money

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Today we're gonna answer some of your listener questions.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's right, it's Monday. You know what we're gonna do today.
If you are a new listener, welcome and we hope
you enjoy the show. But this is where we do
take listener questions. We're gonna talk about Velocity banking. We've
got a listener who's interested in paying down some debt.
We're gonna talk about the easiest, the best, the most

(00:44):
efficient way to give your dollars. That's right. We're gonna
talk about donor advised funds, some of the ins and
outs there, and then we're also going to discuss some
legal ways to pay less of your medical bill. So yeah,
totally legal. We'll get to that more during our episode today.
Moved to an artica.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
They can't reach you there, figure death and hop on
a play. All right, If you get caught, then you're
in trouble, so.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's probably not worth it. What's the what's the group
that the Global International Group INTERPOL? After I was about
to say it was named after the Antarctica, Interpol, I
actually literally don't know what INTERPOL does except I feel
like it's some sort of global coordination when it comes
to law enforcement efforts.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Is a good rock and roll band too?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah? Yeah, they are? They still around? I don't know.
It's a good question. It's kind of got that drone
drony voice. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Before we get to list of questions, Matt, I wanted
to mention, like I wish I had like a grave
marker or something. It looks like one of our one
of my favorite companies is about to not exist anymore,
Rad Power Bikes, Rad Bikes.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I saw this, yeah, pulling out for all of our
homies over at rad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
So like the bikers, biking and bike companies had a
big run up in those early COVID days where everybody
was like, oh, let's bike, and so a lot of
bike purchases were front loaded and these companies were like
expanding their footprint, and it seems like there's been a
pullback in demand and some of the bike companies just

(02:13):
haven't known how to deal with that. After having bumper
years for a couple of those years the demand pullback,
they're just like, ah, we're freaking out, and sadly Rad
Power Bikes unless they get some sort of cash infusion
is going to be toast in the next month or two.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
It made sense when it made sense, you know, but
I guess the economics don't. They're not maintaining the business right,
whether it's the increased demand that we had, then maybe
there's a decrease in demand, but also the whole supply
side of things too, right, like given tariffs, and when
you are a company like Rad who's trying to compete,
I think with some of the companies abroad who are

(02:51):
making very affordable products like this, it's tough to kind
of beat them at their own game.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, they live in that one thousand to twenty dollars
price point. Now, some of these electric bike makers are
making stuff and.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
They're just shipping them straight from the five six seven
dollars price range, and so Rad's like, ah, we can't,
we can't roll with those profit margins. It's tough to compete. Yeah, yeah,
which actually maybe. So when I saw that article, I
hopped over and did some searching because I was curious
if the So I had a non E bike but
it was a cargo bike. So you had the rad
Wagon which was an E cargo bill do oh, that's right, Yeah,

(03:24):
you're still still holding up, so great serving you.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
I sold mine sometime last year since we never no
longer used it, but I looked up Uba and I
was happy to see that they're still in business. Although
they did move their headquarters to Europe, which which doesn't
seem like it aligns with market. I guess that made
more sense for them. Yeah, I don't know who knows
actually why they moved. I don't know. I just found
that really fascinating. I think.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think as far as rad power bikes, one maybe
good or thing worth telling people is to think twice
before you buy a bike from a manufacturer that might
go out of business, because I think the only way
I would buy a bike from them at this point
is if they had a massive kind of going out
of business sale, and let's say the model that you're

(04:10):
looking at that's twelve hundred dollars is on sale for
like six or seven hundred dollars, then I might be
willing to do that. But especially some of the bikes
that have proprietary gear, you might not be able to
get that gear in the future, and so you have
to think about.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
That special add ons. Yeah, it's just like, oh, no,
this is a system that's going to be around, right,
not to mention any sort of manufacturer's warranty that obviously
they won't be able.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
To uphold this right. And I'm thinking about even if
I needed something for my rad wagon, which I don't
think any anything right now, but it might be not
be a bad idea to buy a tire, yes, specialty tires. Yeah,
so like the tires are wheels. Well, I think the
tire size is specific that.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
You can find it from another manufacturer. Yeah, maybe maybe
that ahead of time. Yeah, either way, I would kind
of look over it with a fine tooth comb and say, well,
it looks like it's about to break. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
maybe stuck up on some Yeah, because if it's serving
you well man with a few good parts, you know,
they're stowed away in the garage. I could continue to
serve you for like another five ten years. Yeah, although
at that point you're probably not going to be houling kids. No,

(05:08):
probably not.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
So I enjoy it. I'll probably keep it around for
another year or two and then sell it like you.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Did with you. Yeah. In your case, you're even taking
a little dude to school, which is awesome. I told
I still miss the ability to do that because our
school's further it's further out. But the glory days of
piling like two or three kids on there at our
old house and then right into the neighborhood, bike in
to the local school. Great memories, best memories, so good.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
For sure, I would pour out a beer, but we're
gonna drink this one instead, so but hey, we don't
waste good beer. Sorry, this one is automatic IPA by
Creature Comforts. We'll give our thoughts on this one at
the end of the episode. Let's get the listener questions.
And by the way, if you have a question, go
to how to money dot com, slash ask, or just
record your money question on the voice memo app of
your phone. Email it over to us how to moneypod

(05:53):
at gmail dot com. Is that email address. Now, let's
take a weird question about like a unique way of
thinking about debt payoff.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
Hi, Matt and Joel Brock from Western Illinois. Longtime listener,
first time caller. I've always wanted to say that. On
your October thirteenth episode you said you wanted some weird questions.
I think I had one. I'm just over two years
into a new mortgage, and I'm looking for ways to
trim debt. I ran across something called Velocity banking, which

(06:25):
seems to be a way to leverage low interest debt
to pay ahead against the amortization schedule and cut much
of the front end interest. This seems very risky with
high interest debt, but it seems like it could work
with something like a low interest heelock. Is this a
legitimate strategy or is it wishful thinking? Thanks for the

(06:45):
hours upon hours of informational entertainment.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Informational entertainment, Jie, I don't think there could be any
higher compliment paid to what we do here on the
Podcastftain Infertainment. That's like exactly what we're seeing here, Like
we want you to be able to go home with
some practical knowledge and advice perhaps, but also we kind
of want to make you smile, so right, Like we
want to be able to provide value on both fronts.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, so it don't make you laugh for a smile,
then we're also not doing our job. Yeah, that'd be both.
It's a high standard that we hold here. How to
many headquarters, that's right, well, and I love weird questions.
I will say brock. You can go even weirder next
time if you want to.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
But this is weird.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
This is weird on the weird side of finance, and
so love that you're asking a question. I think we've
taken this one on the show a time or two,
but it's been quite a while. And this is one
of those strategies that draws a lot of eyeballs, especially
on certain corners of the Internet. And I think it's
because the promises are lofty, Right, you can pay off
your mortgage in five to seven years instead of thirty years.

(07:45):
And for a lot of people, they see that and
they are smitten. Right, that's enough to catch anyone's attention.
But the truth is, if mortgage payoff is by far
your most important financial goal, yeah, it is possible for
this to math madically help, but should that be your
most important financial goal? And it's also just not nearly

(08:06):
as helpful as a lot of influencers make it sound.
The pitfalls of the velocity banking I believe it goes
by other names as well, But the pitfalls of that
strategy can be many, and they can actually I think
push you in a direction of trying to win in
one aspect of your personal finance as well losing in others. Yeah,
but I do love that brock that you want to

(08:26):
trim some debts, and our answer since the beginning of
time basically is to not pay down your mortgage more
quickly than you need to. Are you around at the
beginning of time, Matt, Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Since the beginning of mortgages, I was there, and I
certainly still feel that way for listeners who have a
locked in mortgage, let's say, in like the two to
four four and a half percent range, Why would you
pay it off early when there are so many better
things that you could do with that money? But you
said you bought your home two years ago, meaning that
you don't have one of those cozy all time low rates.

(08:58):
But still I think I would ask you to think
about whether there are more productive things that you could
do with your funds, right, Like, do you have any
other debts that you might want to prioritize first? And
refer to the money gears as well, because I would
love to know where you are on the money gear spectrum?
Like what gear is it? One? We were just talking
about rad bikes, Like maybe you are on e assist. Oh,

(09:20):
what if we should we should build an e assist
into the money gears for your money gears. What would
that look like inheritance?

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Right?

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Or you're like you just bumped up two money gears, Yeah, exactly,
maybe that could be it. But for instance, if you
are in the final money gear money year seven, I
think taking some extra income that you have to pay
down this mortgage, it's it's a more reasonable decision and
more of a step that we could get behind, as
opposed to maybe let's say you were in a scenario
where you weren't fully funding your retirement accounts, where you

(09:49):
were carrying some additional higher rate debt, we would want
you to certainly prioritize that first.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Let's also just briefly mentioned that refinancing debt as rates
go down could be a smarter maybe not like today,
but maybe if you're looking around at your credit Union
and you're seeing I'm in the upper sixes or low
sevens or something like that, because when I took my
mortgage out two years ago, credit Union is offering something
in the low fives, which we have seen on certain
mortgage products, and so maybe that is a better way

(10:17):
to save on interest that you're paying towards your mortgage
debt than to just try this velocity banking route in
order to pay it off as quickly as possible. And
let's maybe talk specifically about this strategy. It's touted as
this way to pay off your mortgage more quickly through
the use of a home equity line of credit, and
the strategy it might make a little sense if your

(10:40):
helock rate was lower than your mortgage rate. But he
lock rates aren't great right now, Matt. There been quite
a while since that's been the case. Yeah, And so
I'm seeing and that's why I think this has actually
lost a lot of popularity. And I'm actually surprised brought
saw something about this, because it's just it's lost some
luster as he lock rates have risen. I'm guessing if
you're looking around helock right now, you're probably going to

(11:01):
be quoted a rate in the upper seventh low eights. Probably,
I'd imagine your mortgage rate is lower than that. If
you somehow had a helock with a much lower rate,
it would potentially tilt things in favor of attempting this strategy,
but even still we'd probably avoid it. And that's you know,
while rates have been slowly declining Yeah, could make the

(11:22):
strategy more appealing as helock rates decline even more, but
they're just not guaranteed to keep going down, especially with
inflation remaining a problem. Matt, I think it's been kind
of assumed that, well, mortgage rates are going to go
back down to back into that three four percent range
on mortgages and potentially those helocks as well. So I'm

(11:43):
just waiting it out and then I'll take advantage of
that low interest that again, But people who are like
banking on that assuming that that's coming to pass, I
think you're looking more to recent history than you are
to kind of a broader timeline.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, count your chickens before they hatch. Yeah. Ultimately, velocity
it adds that complexity. It does not offer superior results.
And I mean, honestly, many folks just don't have the
time or the interest to really make the velocity banking
strategy pay off. And then not committing all the way
right like they just say, you try it out, you
kind of fall off the wagon. It could then end
up causing you more harm just down the road as

(12:18):
your debt than balloons. And truly, the secret sauce to
velocity banking is making regular extra payments, and that is
something that you could do if you're so inclined, and
that would be a better approach just to leave out
the velocity part of it altogether. But either way, you've
got to be disciplined. I mean, you could automate those
extra payments so you don't forget, but even just paying

(12:41):
two extra payments a year could knock off something. I
think it's like five to six years from your overall
loan length on a thirty year mortgage. But oftentimes, when
you see these pitches or you're watching these videos online,
it's not a fair comparison. It's not apples to apples.
And oftentimes what they compare is a more where you're
making regular payments as scheduled on time, and then you're

(13:04):
doing the velocity banking, which oh happens to include these
additional payments, and they're like, oh, yeah, you're going to
completely eliminate this thirty year mortgage in seven years, it's
going to be gone. But that's not at all fair. Yeah,
there should be an intermediate mediary example there too, where
it's just like, oh, and here's somebody who makes three
extra payments every single year to their mortgage and I

(13:25):
don't know what that would put you around, but you
can knock out a thirty year maybe in like twenty
one years. Probably, yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Twenty twenty one years would be my guess something like
that if you're making three additional payments, And so that would
be more of like an Apple's Stapples comparison with what
Velocity Banking is trying to accomplish, and Velocity Banking it
makes it seem like the paidoff mortgage is the most
important financial goal to strive for, and it is a
solid goal, and it's one that's worth working steadily towards,

(13:52):
depending again on your rate and like your other financial goals,
but going all in in that pursuit would be what
we would say is an over prioritization of what, for
many people is a lower ranking financial goal. There's just
a bunch of other things they want to accomplish before
they go hogwild to try to pay off their mortgage
in as little time as possible. And so I just

(14:13):
think it's it's trying to over optimize, it's trying to
solve a problem that doesn't really exist, and it's just
it's an overly complicated way to potentially save a few
bucks on interest. It just doesn't fit into our framework
of prioritizing financial goals correctly.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
And if you.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Are again like you're alluded to Matt, if you're far
along on money Gear seven and you're like, yep, I
got nothing else to do with this money. I'm maxing
out all the accounts. Guys like I have tons of cash,
go for it. I'm coast fire and like, I just
really need to get rid of this mortgage. And then guys,
I'm debt free and I'm fully stocked for retirement.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Kudos, go for it.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
But even then, like, do you need to go the
velocity banking route and jump through the helock hoops or
can you just start making extra payments towards principle every
single month or making full extra payments however many times
a year you want to do that in order to
eradicate that debt.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
In short order. Totally. Yeah, for the most part. This
is why we think mortgages are pretty solid products because
they allow you to strive after multiple goals at the
same time. And that's one of the downsides. Like if
you were to try to save up for a home
and cash, guess what that's it's going to take you
like twenty thirty years. Probably it's just to save up
enough money. All the while you're missing out on all
the other things that you want to be able to

(15:24):
do with your money. So the same is true in
reverse as well. If you already have the mortgage, why
would you eliminate this more sooner than you needed to,
assuming you've got other goals and they want to achieve.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think some people might say, oh, it makes it
sound like we love debt and it's like keep your
mortgage debt around as long as possible. And it's not
because we love mortgage debt in and of itself. It's
because we highly value other goals. And we were talking
about optimizing your finances, being able to take advantage of
roth Ira contributions in max and not that account, being
able to take full advantage of your employer match and
your retirement account there, and saving and investing for other

(15:58):
goals you might have, like if your mortgage is reasonable,
like then yeah, you can do both at the same time.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, future goals too, because like right now, Brock, you're
probably thinking, well, no, I don't, there's not anything else
I want to do with my money. But just wait
a year or two. Like, there's always different things that
come up, different goals that you might like, different places
you want to go, different organizations you want to give to,
different businesses you might want to start. There are goals
that you don't have right now that I guarantee you're
going to have in like four or five years, and
you're going to think, man, I kind of wish I

(16:26):
had the money on hand to be, yeah, to be
able to do that without taking out a business loan
or something that maybe you would feel a little more
inclined to take on. Or it might even be an
opportunity that passes you by because you don't have the
wiggle room within your budget to be able to pull
something like that off. So it gives you options.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Liquidity is just an underrated thing in personal finance. And
if that liquidity isn't costing you a lot of money
because you're getting paid pretty well in your high savings
accounts and you're investing for your future, and your mortgage
rates not all that bad. I value liquidity. I think
it's important. That's right, all right, Matt. We got more
questions to get to, including the order of operations for

(17:03):
retirement accounts, we'll talk about charitable giving as well. Get
to that and more right after this.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
All right, buddy, we are back from the break. We're
going to hear from a listener who has one of
those rare pensions out there, but it's not enough. He
wants to invest more. We'll get to that one here
in a second, but first let's hear from a listener
who's looking to be a bit more charitable with his dollars.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Hey, guys, this is Austin from Alabama. I'm not sure
if you've done a deep dive episode on Dinner advised funds,
but I have a couple of questions about them, if
you can point me in the right direction. I've looked
at both Daffy and Fidelity Charitable and both seem to
offer good investment options. It seems like you don't lose
any value of your tax deduction if the investments within
the fund lose value. But do you gain extra tax

(17:53):
deduction benefits if the value of the investments grow past
what they were when you initially made them. Donation to
the accoun out I know the charity you donate to
gets the benefit of growth with a hopefully lesser initial
donation to the account. Just not sure if you the
customer also get extra tax deduction benefits from the games
of the investments.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
I hope you have a good day. Thanks. Austin wants
all the tax deductions, Matt, Yeah, he's like the duck
mane con more. This thing's gone up well.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
And yeah, we'll get all into your specific question, Austin,
but also just kind of we'll talk generically about donor
advice funds as well, because we we are I think
over the past few years you and I have come
around more and more and more on these donor advice
funds for many reasons that we'll get into in the
answer to this question. And I don't remember actually if
we've done a full episode on it. I know we've

(18:41):
done ones about charitable giving, and so donor buce funds
certainly made a big contribution to those episodes.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
And when we talked to Adam Nash's right, we spent
a good amount. We'll linked to that episode in the show.
That's for this episode as well, but we talked about
donor advice funds the CEO of our favorite Okay, well,
speaking of Daffy dot org four slash voices for Good
Tomorrow Okay, so I should specifically say December second is

(19:08):
the last day to donate to the How to Money charities.
We're going head to.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Head with a bunch of other we're also matching pod countations.
So yeah, if you like to give but you also
like it.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
We're putting our money where our mouth.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Is forced us to give simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
And our mouths are in your ears. So that's right,
Which means does that mean we're putting our money in
your ears?

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Now?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, something like that. Is that a literal translation? I
think it works like that.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
But yeah, we'd love it if you would partner with
us and giving this some of our favorite nonprofits and
kind of doubling the effect.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
While also out giving some of the other iHeart podcasts
out there who are perfectly fine, some decent shows, but
I would love for us to be able to with them.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Agreed me too, So okay, he mentioned two great options, right,
was it Daffian Fidelity that he mentioned specifically?

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah in the question.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Vanguard's also good some of the best low cost choices
for donor buys funds. So if you're like, we're to like,
go to open one, well, and we'll tell you why
we would consider Donorvius one two in a second. But
we think of all those three and you typically hear
us when we're talking about investing. Fidelity and Vanguard are
the ones we talk about all the time like they're
the best of the bunch. They're incredibly low cost. But

(20:17):
when it comes to donor buce ones, actually somebody has
beaten them, and that is Daffy. So kind of crazy
to think that, like Vanguard and Fidelity are not the
best in this space at least. So Daffy has fees,
And we actually wrote an article on our website about
Daffi then, and when we're looking at the data, we

(20:37):
will link to that as well. Yes, something like thirteen
times lower fees depending on your account balance, Like it
could be more or less if you go with Daffi
versus Vanguarden Fidelity and Vanguarden Fidelity. While they're awesome for
low cost investment choices, they're fees on donor avice ones
are still higher. They're less than most of the rest
of the donor biased onund space, but these.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
It's a different it's a completely different feast us well, right,
because I mean as far as the last time I checked,
they charge like more of assets under management sort of approached,
so it's like point six percent or yeah, point five
point six percent, which and that's what's so great about
Daffy is just like a flat fee. I love the
simplicity three bucks of a flat fee three bucks a month,
and the underlying investments are incredibly low costs as well.

(21:20):
Oh and by the way, there's expense ratio on the
total stock I actually checked out recently.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
And if you care about site infrastructure, an app that
makes it easy to donate and like gamify as the
whole process. Daffie does a great job at that too.
And donor Ofvice Funds, Matt, that you really used to
be for rich folks and Vanguard and Fideli. They lowered
the costs some, but they're just they're not anymore. That
was one of the biggest hurdles to using donor Avice
Funds was like, well, the fees probably not gonn outweigh it.

(21:48):
For small time donors, like normal average people who listen
to how to Money, it's like, yeah, I want to
donate maybe like hundreds thousands of dollars in a year,
but I'm not donating like six figures. And that is
typically what made sense back in the way donor advice
funds used to be structured, but Daffi's kind of really
changed that. Now it's widely accessible to everyone listening.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Totally. Yeah, Basically, what Robinhood did to investing is what
Daffy did to charitable giving with donor advised funds. And
he's asking though, whether or not he gets an extra
tax benefit. Now, if your investment grows inside of your
donor advice fund and then you donate from that increased amount,
you don't that doesn't matter when it comes to the
deduction that you get in the year that you donate

(22:31):
to that donor advised fund. You only get that tax
donation based on what you initially put in. So let's
say you put in ten thousand dollars and it grows
to twelve thousand dollars and then you give away that
full twelve thousand dollars, you're still only getting a ten
thousand dollars tax deduction. So that's just that's basically how
that works. Essentially, this maybe this is helpful, a helpful

(22:52):
way to think about it. A donor advice fund is
managed by five oh one C three itself, and so
you are making an atribution to that organization. That's why
you get the tax deduction in that year. It's just
that they then get to hang on to your funds
and they you advise as to where those dollars go.
It's they're sort of like a middle man. Yeah, the

(23:12):
money is sitting there. You get to and decide where
it is you want to send that out a later date.
That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
And the interesting thing is, Matt, like you mentioned the
growth of the fund, you can't and people slice this
up all sorts of different ways. You can give ten
thousand in the year twenty twenty five and not donate
a time from your donor advised fund until twenty thirty five, right,
and you might have twenty five thousand dollars in that
account at that point. You still you got the deduction
in the year that you put the ten thousand dollars

(23:39):
in though, and there is no additional tax deduction based
on the growth of that fund.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Based on the growth or the later giving right as
to where it is you allot those this funds.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
And that is one of the really cool things about
donor advised funds, but it also is one of the
potential downsides that people have discussed as well that it
can lead to people kind of taking that, oh, I
want to grow this nest egg for future giving, but
not actually giving those dollars for many years or potentially decades.
And some people see that as a downside, and I
tend to agree. They're like, I have like a both

(24:11):
and approach. I like the idea of putting money in
my donor advice fund to give it this year and
next year, and then also growing some of that for
future bigger contributions I want to make down the road.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, it is. It is something that I'm personally wrestling
with as well, the fact that there's a part of
me that knows that any dollar I hang on to
now is not going to an organization that then allows
them to do good with that money. Yeah. And I
think it's something like two hundred and fifty billion dollars
that is currently sitting in donors advised funds. Wow, that
there are a lot of nonprofits who are saying, oh
my gosh, it'd be nice if I could we could

(24:43):
get our hands on just a little portion of some
of those dollars. I think that's in the in the US.
And so, while yes, it's a good thing that it
gets some of those dollars, those taxable dollars out of
your tax return essentially as an individual. And while it's
I guess good that you don't have to decide right
then there where all that money is going to go,
the deferral of that decision making process can lead to

(25:05):
that money just sitting there and amassing into this like
giant five O, one C three nest egg, you know,
like it still kind of almost feels like a retirement account.
Like I think it would be easy for a lot
of how money listeners to enter into that. Oh I
need to grow this as large as possible while not
looking at the immediate need in the world today one
hundred percent. Yeah, And that's why I really like the
idea of doing both. I think of both mostly as

(25:27):
a way to streamline my giving, which I think it's
an underrated perk of the donor Avice fund. Is it
You minimize your paperwork, right, It's so easy? Yes, I
mean I love that, And then that is like truly
one of the coolest things is instead of getting a
tax receipt from every single nonprofit that you donate directly too,
you get all your fund giving is funneled through one

(25:49):
specific channel, through your donor advice fund, and so you
don't have to keep up with all those year end receipts.
Everything is in one place if you have a donor
advice fund and you use it as your central giving hub,
and it just makes tax time so much easier. That
was one of those things where I was like, yeah,
maybe that'll be a nice perk, but it's been one
of my favorite things. It's so nice if you are

(26:12):
itemizing your deductions yea, to not have to wait on
all of those charitable receipts to come in. When you're
getting all your documents together. It puts a smile on
my face to know that, like here it is right,
this one pdf has all that information, not having to
hunt and peck for all of it. In addition to that, though,
let's mention two the fact that you can donate appreciated
assets in order to avoid taxation as well. So, for instance,

(26:35):
let's say some of your investments have soared in value, Well,
you can make donations of those inflated assets from your
taxable brokerage account. That way, you don't have to sell
those securities and you don't have to pay tax on
that gain, you don't have to pay capital gains and
then you're getting a bigger tax break for the donation
because of that increased value as well. So I think
for a lot of folks, it's a better idea to

(26:56):
donate appreciated assets that are outside of any retirement accounts
than to just donate money from your bank account, because
then if you want to say, replenish the balance that
you had there within the tax taxable brokerage, well, then
invest those dollars. But you are certainly going to come
out ahead from a tax standpoint by donating appreciated assets. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
So not Yeah, you're not paying the capital gains tax,
and you're also getting the tax deduction for the donation
you made, which is kind of beautiful tax planning on
two fronts.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
And I've done that, Matt.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I did donated some bitcoin that I had in the
probihood account.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, and so done. Bitcoin did a little bit of
ethereumer this year.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Back when, back when like big crypto was essentially at
ridiculous all time highs, I was like, well, I have
more exposure than I want in this and so the
perfect way to get rid of some is to donate
it put it into my donor advice fund, and that
was that's a great way to kind of avoid some taxation.
I didn't want to like sell it to rebalance, but
giving it away to my donor advice fund and avoiding

(27:56):
tax in that way and putting more money towards giving it.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Was like, that's a and win. That's how you do it. Man.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
That's really cool. And Robinhood and Daffy also work really
well together. They make it pretty seamless, especially on the crypto.
On the crypto front, I'm hoping I'm hoping they get
better at the single stock donation front. I agree from
I'm with you, Robinhood or Daffy. That would be like,
that's on my Christmas special list. All right, let's get
to another question. This one is specifically about order of

(28:22):
operations for retirement accounts.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
Hi, Matt and Joel. My name is also Matt. I
am from s Grant, Pennsylvania. I had a question about
retirement accounts. Right now, I can contribute to a pension.
I contribute about six point two five percent of my
pay to the pension. I also have been contributing to
one hundred and fifty one hundred and fifty dollars a
month to a roth IRA to Fidelity. My employer does

(28:46):
offer a deferred compensation plan or four fifty seven. It's
both the traditional and the ROTH four fifty seven. I
can never understand the difference between a RAP DIRA in
the four fifty seven. Am I off contributing to the
roth IRA through Fidelity or either the traditional or ROTH

(29:11):
for fifty seven, which my employer offers. If this information
does matter, I'm just turned forty years old. I've I
work on to state government. I've been working for the
state for approximately ten years. Right now, I don't currently
have the funds to contribute more than one hundred and

(29:31):
fifty dollars a month, but I do plan on contributing
more in the future as I do realize I am
a little bit behind in retirement savings. Thank you for
everything you do and I really enjoy the show. Thanks
a lot.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
R jel So Matt from Scrayton. Is that what he said?
He's from Scrayton. He says his name was also Matt.
So he said he's also Matts. And he also said
he's forty years old, which makes total sense because that's
when we were all born. In the eighties. Man, so
many were old Matts. That was peak Matt. I know,
way too many Matts in the eighties, and it's I'm
pretty sure it's been downhill ever since then. Yeah, it's

(30:07):
still a great name.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Have you thought about changing your name just because it's
so widely used? Matthew is great, but Maddie Maddie.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
There's a lot of yeah, alt mix. That's why I
went by a mixed so often as I kid growing up,
people call you by your last name. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, it sounds like Matt's making a lot of progress
on investing for retirement. He's got the pension that he's funding,
he wants to do more on top of that. Pensions
are great, but most of our listeners are probably like,
what's a pension? Or I remember those things existed, but
I never had one offered to me. I actually did
have one offered briefly for a few years, and UH

(30:41):
was able to work for the state penitentiarydding I wish
what an interesting job.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
But did you see the article a couple of weeks
ago about the rise in some of those Oh, yes,
like state pen Maybe that's why that's.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
What cubicle jobs are declining. More people are going to.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Just trying to find something to do. So jobs that
were normally less prestigious, less glamorous are getting a ton
of applications for those gigs are way up.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
He saw recycling centers being one of them. And I
met a guy the other day who runs a recycling center.
His son's on my son's basketball team, and that dude
has some stories. Let me tell you that some stories.
I was like, you should start a podcast. I will
listen to everything.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Okay, small, I'll continue the tangent before we get on
with answering the questions. But I was talking to again, Yeah, similarly,
a fellow dad from school, and he is an insurance
claim investigator for and he's looking out for false or
fake fraudulent claims, whether it's home. So his big thing

(31:44):
was our fires. He's like a fire investigator, and so
whether it's like vehicle fires, he's like, those are really
pretty sketchy because you don't want to touch anything while
you're in there and trying to figure it out. But
he's like at homes, there's the most fascinating. I'm like, oh,
how can you always tell? He's just like one of
the big giveaways is that you can and see where
the family photos were, but then they've told them because
that's not something that a lot of times families can replace,

(32:07):
and so that's oftentimes a sign that it was an
intentional fire that was started in they're trying to take
the claim, the insurance claim, and that fascinating. But yeah,
he was relating a bunch of stories too. I'm just like, man,
there's so much that you've learned over the years.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
It makes me think that Mike Row, instead of like
dirty jobs, you should just do like an interesting jobs.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Podcast, right because they're fascinating.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Soon you will have interesting jobs and I would love
to hear more about what they do, because yeah, they're
probably more interesting in our job. People think podcasting is
like this really interesting job. Yeah it is interesting. It's fun,
but I wasn't super fun.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I don't know how interesting it is. I guess the
interest comes from and this is why we take a
loose of their questions that the interest comes from hearing
from listeners in their unique situations. Honestly, like that to me,
that's where all the fascination lives.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
But say one more thing real quick about the pension,
go for it. I want I just want everybody out
there listening who has a pension to know that that's yeah,
USA typically not well, that's also just typically not enough.
Like even when I was working at the job where
I had the pension, I knew it wasn't going to
be enough to fund whatever lifestyle I wanted in the future,
and so investing in addition to the pension. Teachers often

(33:08):
fall prey to this. We talked about this with Dan
from four to three of you wis they teachers have
the ability to retire in style if they're taking the
both and approach, And so I just want to put
that out there to everybody who has a pension. It's great,
it's it's an awesome first step, and not everyone has that,
But you need to do more than just the pension.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yes, one of the legs of that retirement stool. But
I'm glad that Matt from Scrayton that he is looking
to the roth Ira. That's almost always going to be
the best next account to prioritize.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
And part of the reason is that you get to
choose the brokerage that you're going to do business with.
We always talk about fidelity.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
They keep costs incredibly incredibly low, but let's say like
you're kind of comparing and contrasting for fifty seven's and
roth iras well that four fifty seven through your work.
Who is that with? Well, I'm not sure, Like you
might have access to some of those super low cost ETFs.
But on the other hand, maybe those expense ratios they

(34:03):
could be a good bit higher, right, Like you could
be paying instead of zero like some fidelity funds, Like yeah,
literally zero, This isn't hyperbole. You could be paying Anything
higher than that is infinitely more. Right. So, given the
wroth iray's greater level of flexibility, given the greater levels
of control that you have, that's totally what we would

(34:24):
be opting for here.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
And that's also because Matt didn't mention having a match
in his four fifty seven right, So yet another reason
we'd probably change our minds if your employer were to
offer a match in addition to the pension, but a
match for the four to fifty seven contributions, because even
if the expenses were high, the match would overcome that downside. Yeah,
the four to fifty seven, it's it's a kin to
a four to one k, right, it is made available

(34:45):
to you as an employee. The roth iray, though, is
available to anyone under the income threshold, So once you
start making too much money, then you can't contribute to
a roth ira anymore. And then if that were the case,
you'd go straight to the four to fifty seven. But
it also has higher contribution limits, similar to a four
oh one K, where you can suck in was it
twenty three dollars this year?

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I believe?

Speaker 2 (35:08):
And but yeah, they also have, similar to those traditional
retirement accounts, workplace retirement accounts, slightly tighter rules around withdrawals.
Although the four to fifty seven is typically better than
a four to one K, and so if you were
to separate from your employer, the funds are much more
easily accessible than a four oh one K, But still

(35:29):
the wroth is the most flexible, the easiest. But yeah,
you might want to get to eventually filling up both
would be great, that's right.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, and he did mention that his four to fifty
seven comes in the wroth flavor as well. You get
your traditional but then you got the Wroth And depending
on the specifics, they can make a whole lot of sense.
But again, given the fact that we are not sure
some of the particulars given your four to fifty seven.
With that in mind, I think it's a good idea
to stick with your roth IRA there fidelity, And I

(36:01):
do think the four to fifty seven makes sense after
you've maxed out your wroth IRA first, so you're looking
at seven thousand dollars for twenty twenty five. That increases
bumps up to seventy five hundred dollars next year. So
the goal would be to fill that wrath iray bucket
up first and then move back to contributing to the
four fifty seven. I think it would be a great
goal if you hit something like fifteen percent of your

(36:23):
overall savings rate in the future, but just slowly but
steadily increasing that amount. And my guess is, honestly, I
think you will be contributing to the pension. You'll be
fully funding I'm sure the pension that's required, right, Like
he's saying six but he said six and a half percent,
that comes directly out of the paycheck, right, But fully
funding your roth IRA voluntarily, but then also voluntarily sticking

(36:44):
even more money into the four to fifty seven as well.
I think that's going to set Matt in the map
from Scraton is gonna put him the catbird seat when
it comes to retirement.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
So those are it's nice to have those next goals.
Like I still remember when I was starting out investing
and it was like I was told, oh, masxing out
the roth Ira is the next goal, and I was like,
that's going to take me a while, like I don't
know when I'm gonna get there, And finally hitting that
point just feels like this momentous occasion and then you're like, oh,
now now there's another bucket to fill beyond the four
to one K match. For me, then it was like,
let me put more of that. Maybe I can get

(37:15):
up to ten percent of my income in the four
oh one K. Can I even keep bumping that up?
And so it feels like this game where you're just
kind of continually challenging yourself to do more, And so
I look back on those days with fondness, like where
it was. It's a fun money challenge to go after.
And I think Matt's gonna I don't know, I think
he's gonna make a lot of rapid progress on that.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Totally agree, But we've got more to get to a
couple additional listeners including we're gonna hear from a long
time friend of the show. We'll get to him, and
one more right after this.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
All right, Matt, we're back. Got more money questions to
get to. Let's take a question now, specifically about paying
off a medical bill.

Speaker 6 (38:00):
Joel and Matt. This is Drew from Richmond, Virginia and
move to improve. I hope you guys are doing well.
So I have a medical debt question. I, after negotiating,
trying to get the price down for a while, still
ended up with a medical bill this year of about
fifteen hundred bucks, and they put me on a payment
plan with zero interest. So that's good. You know, best

(38:21):
case scenario. It's about one hundred and fifty bucks a month,
and I've been paying that for a few months now.
But then this month I got a letter in the
mail that said to call them and if I pay
by the end of the year in one lump sum,
they'll give me a thirty percent discount on the remaining balance.
So there's about one thousand and thirty seven bucks left

(38:42):
on it, which means it would be around seven hundred
and twenty five dollars if I paid it in a
lump sum this month. I don't really have the cash
at the moment to cover that unless I pull from
my emergency fund or you know, maybe take on a
little credit card debt to pay that. And I know
that's not ideal, but I was asking if you guys

(39:03):
could help me figure out if it would be worth it.
I had some emergencies the past year or two, so
my my emergency fund is only about a month or two.
So yeah, I wanted to hear you guys thoughts. Is
it worth it to just try and pay it all
off this month and then be done with it, get
a thirty percent discount? Or should I just keep paying
one hundred and fifty bucks a month for the next

(39:24):
several months until it's paid off?

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Thanks guys, that's right. So this is Drew, and he
mentioned move to improve his his newsletter, and I think
in his last newsletter he actually mentioned the fact that
he'd gotten laid off, so I'm not sure. I think
he might be focusing his efforts elsewhere. Yeah, as he's
trying to maybe right.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
At least he's on hiatus, which yeah, and his news
are so good, like so.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
I really I really enjoyed it. We'll put a link
to it in the show notes. Even yeah, let's get
a bunch of subscribers, because that'll give them more options
down the road, and maybe he'll be like, oh, I
do want to fire back.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
It's one of those really like accessible fitness newsletters. So
because I don't think of myself as like a fitness
freak anything like that, but it's helpful information that I
don't want to go full Andrew Huberman, but a nice
newsletter that breaks down some of those concepts is I appreciate.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
So totally.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
All right, Well, let's get to the heart of this question.
I mean, the answer partially hinges on whether or not
you might be able to get forgiveness for this debt.
You didn't mention anything about that, but I think it's
worth noting and checking into, because yeah, you've been granted
a zero percent payment plan, which is nice, but I
would look up the financial aid eligibility rules because Drew,

(40:30):
you might find that, depending on your income, you qualify
for more than just a helpful payment plan, but you
might qualify for full forgiveness. And your provider they're not
always going to tell you, hey, what do you make? Okay,
guess what you actually qualify? For full forgiveness on that
debt because you don't make enough. You make so what
it's usually four times the poverty line is often times percent. Yeah,

(40:54):
that's that's what the hospitals use. So that would be
a game changer, right, allowing you to get this debt
off your back without disturbing your e fund at all.
You often can find the financial aid section on your
provider's website that outlines the details, because yeah, depending on
your income, than it'd be nice forgive it in one
fell swoop. And then it's like who cares about the

(41:15):
payment plan? Who cares about the discount. It's like unnecessary,
It's gonna be gone all the way. Yeah, one win,
get rid of this thing altogether. They the hospital will
likely require proof, so, for instance, a copy of your
tax return, but of course, if you meet the income requirements,
take advantage of that policy. If you don't qualify for
full or partial forgiveness. The other thing to consider is

(41:35):
how quickly you'd be able to restock to beef that
emergency fund back up, because if you can do it
in a reasonable amount of time, I would take that
discount and you know, dedicate your resources to getting that
efund stout again in pretty short order. It's never fun
to deplete and to have to tap your emergency fund,

(41:56):
but man, the discount makes it pretty appetizing though, right,
Like a thirty percent reduction and your bill is awesome.
And he was even asking about like potentially putting it
on a credit card as well, and I think that
could even make sense as well, because most credit cards
are sitting around twenty percent, and so that essentially buys him.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And that's twenty percent. That's an apy, right, so you're
looking at closer to a year's worth of time to
be able to pay that off while off your credit cards,
still getting well, still coming out ahead. From a financial standpoint,
I'm not saying that that's a slim dunk decision, but
when you are looking at the numbers, that should help
to inform you whether or not this is like, oh,
I no, I'm not supposed to do that, but financially speaking,

(42:34):
looking out the numbers, it could make sense for you.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
And you could even opt for a new credit card
with a zero percent introductory rate of twelve eighteen months
something like that, and yeah, you know what, I'm going
to pay this off in four to five months because
I don't even want to flirt with that deadline and
having to pay interest on this sum. But yeah, if
you can get it for fully forgiven, that's the best.
But you definitely take advantage of this discounting. If you

(42:57):
have to put it on a credit card, just make
sure you have a strategy to pay it off in
no time.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah, I would say twelve months or less. And I
want to mention too. Drew mentioned he came across like
multiple or several emergencies this year, and for him and
honestly for other folks out there, this is the time
of year to reevaluate your budget, to look at some
of the bigger expenses that came from out of the
blue ingrained. In this case, it was a medical expense.
So there are certain medical things that you can't plan for, obviously,

(43:24):
but there are other things that are a bit more periodic,
and honestly, even periodic physicals and different things like that
are can be more schedulable, right, and so creating some
of these sinking funds because the idea is that fewer
and fewer expenses as you progress through you on your
financial journey, Fewer these expenses are coming out of the
blue providing a shock.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
To your overall budget, no doubt. All right, let's get
to our Facebook question of the week. This one comes
from anonymous. She says, I'm a single mom with a baby.
My company automatically provides one hundred thousand dollars in life
insurance with the option to purchase more. I need to
decide if I need to buy more now, otherwise I
could be denied if I try to get it later.
I have rental properties and a retirement fund. How should

(44:05):
I decide if additional life insurance coverage is needed?

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Nice not something I ever had. Did you ever you
had an employer sponsored or employer provided life insurance plan?
I did.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
It was like one times my salary, or was either
one or half times my salary. I don't remember what
it was, but I'd take it. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
It was something not bad without having to fork over
a single dollar. Right. Many companies offer these small amounts,
but then they then and here's the catch, they allow
you to buy more life insurance during open enrollment from them.
But for most healthy folks out there, it doesn't make
sense to buy more through your company because it's gonna
be expensive. It's best to shop for a policy on

(44:43):
the open market, and in large part that's because you
can take that life insurance with you when you leave
the job. And so yeah, shop around on the site
like policy Genius, even Costco even they offer life insurance
as well. So that's right, I can go to partner
with a company that offers Yeah, I can go there
for my she for my tragger pellets, and also for

(45:03):
my life insurance tool.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
You can get anything you want to cost. Go these
things well, and I think yeah. The exception would be
if you have a long history of really tough medical things,
you might be uninsurable on the open market, and so
you might thank the good Lord above that you have
access to life insurance through your employer, because what seems
like it would be more expensive is actually cheaper for
you because you can't get it anywhere else. But if

(45:26):
you're healthy, the truth is, shopping on the open market
is probably best. We love you have rental properties, right,
and that you've saved for your future. Really well, it
sounds like you might be leaning towards self insuring to
a greater degree because of all the good work you've done,
and you know, while having more assets, it might indeed
mean you need less insurance, but so much depends, I think,

(45:47):
on the liquidity of those assets, because those rental properties
four one ks, they're not easily liquidated, and you don't
want to write like that. The whole goal is to
is to not liquidate those those things. The we don't
know all your details, but we think you might want
to consider something like a five hundred thousand dollars or
a million dollar twenty year level term insurance policy, because yes,

(46:10):
you're doing the right thing on the investments, but you
also want to protect your baby, and you want to
protect those assets as well. And you might hear a
million dollar policy that's probably expensive, but it's actually not.
Like if you look at the numbers for a late
twenties like single female, we're talking twenty five to thirty
five dollars a month. So shopping around for a policy

(46:32):
is I think, especially for someone who's handled their money
incredibly well, like this should be a drop in the bucket,
a protectionary mechanism that really doesn't cost very much but
provides a lot of peace of mind and a lot
of financial backstop.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
That's right. And I don't know if you did this intentionally, Jul,
but a twenty year plan makes a lot of sense too,
because that baby should be all grows up and a
fully functional adult earning their own money. If you're own
salary at that point in time. Yeah, maybe thirty year,
but yeah, if you're planning to have more kids. But
I think you know, paying off those rental properties over
time and the rents increasing over the years. I think

(47:08):
with that in mind, like you might find that you
can kick this term life insurance policy to the curb.
And yes, like you were say, angel to fully self ensure,
but I'm thinking you're probably not there yet. One additional thing,
and this is really important, but make sure that you
don't name your baby as the beneficiary of this life
insurance policy. If you do, the court controls where that

(47:31):
money goes. You go into probate and within a will. Right, like,
this is where you're gonna name a guardian to take
care of your baby once you are no longer here.
But you can also then decide where it is that
all of your money your properties go to. But when
it comes to this life insurance policy, you're gonna name
them that same person. I would think, right, whoever gets

(47:51):
your kid, you want them to have the funds to
be able to really take care of that kid. But
you're gonna name that guardian, that caregiver as the benefit
fishiary of this life insurance policy, so that will go
go directly to them.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yep, the extra step, but a crucial one, and it's
it's one going back to that beneficiary every year or two?
Do I have the right person listed? Is it's still
the same person that I want my kids to go
do We had to revisit that recently, like, Okay, if
we die, where do we want our kids to go?
And you know, uh so, yeah, those are the kind
of things that it's not even just to set it

(48:25):
and forget it. Oftentimes those questions have to be revisited
over things change. Man, Yeah, or you want to get
back to the beer, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
This is an automatic IPA by Creature Comforts Brewing Brewing.
And I'll say this used to be called automatic pale
al and I thought, so, yeah, have we talked about
this on the show before, or maybe it was Kate
and I that talked about it?

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Why did they change it?

Speaker 1 (48:46):
They cheg so also actually talking to a local brewery
owner friend of mine, and I actually asked them the
same thing because we're just kind of reminiscing over actually
we're reminiscing. We're just talking about stuff that we keep
in our fridge all the time, and this is actually
a beer that I keep them my fridge, pretty like
on the rag. And he said he's pretty sure they
did it. Just from a market share standpoint, people know
they're looking for i pas whereas pale als just they're

(49:09):
just not nearly as popular. I believe it. I believe it. Yeah,
so folks see the i pa and they're thinking, oh,
that's something that's that's something I'm gonna like, because it
was kind of a beefier pale and it was a
really it tasted exactly the same. Where what is the
line between pale ale and ipa. I mean, it's happiness perhaps, yeah,
but it's gravity. I don't know. It's got to be
like a gradual gradient like effect.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
And so, yeah, you can have a paale that tastes
like an ipa and an ipa that tasts like a
pale because there are somewhere along the.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Spect they are very similar.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yeah, it's in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
I think so a certain degree. But you like this one, Yeah,
it's it's approachable, topy, it's not over the top. It's
got this light yellow, strawl like color that I really appreciate.
And the description on the can Matt says pillowy, and
I will say it is luscious on the tongue, and
I do. I appreciate that kind of voluminous feeling.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
While simultaneously being radiant. Yeah, I feel like that's the
adjective that appeals to me, just like that fresh green
happiness going on. It's why I always loved it. Loved
it as a pale and I think I love it
just as much as an ipa.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, I guess, like exactly.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
I think it's one of my favorite just standard go
to beers that Creature Comforts makes. It's such a good one. Yeah,
it really is.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
It's delightful and it's just not as beastly as a
lot of the other IPAs that are out there in
terms of in terms of alcohol content but also in
terms of taste. Sometimes there are just incredibly abrasive and
this is nice, casual but delicious.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Only six percent. And by the way, it's called Automatic
because it's named after Weaver Diese Automatic for the people
in Athens Georgia, which is what the RAM album was
named after. That same meeting three which have you been to? Yeah?
One time?

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Okay, it was delicious good, but it's not there anymore,
is it.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Every Actually, it's so funny that you mentioned this some
the text reread with me and my former roommates from Uga.
The weaver De's was in the news again saying that
they're going to close next year, and then one of
my other roommates was like, this is a story that
comes up every like six years. I don't I think
every six years maybe, and it maybe there's a loan
that comes due or something like that. Maybe and they

(51:07):
reach out to some press, they write a story and
maybe they get another influx of customers. In flux the customers,
but also maybe an infusion of cash. Who knows. I
don't know. We need to go. That's a more cynical take.
But no, it's still around, but it sounds like it
may not be around for long. For too much longer,
visit while you can, maybe not onli Red power bikes
where they're like, sorry, guys, this is the end of
the road. But yeah, happy, happy riding and enjoy your

(51:32):
bikes while you can. Sure all right, that's going to
do it for this episode, and if you have a
money question, holler at us Matt. Until next time. Best
Friends Out, Best Friends Out,

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Ask HTM – Mortgage Payoff Loophole, DAFs to Maximize Tax Deductions, and Legally Evading a Medical Bill #1069

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Matthew Altmix

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