November 17, 2023 • 30 mins
Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like: why NOW is the time to apply for a Southwest Rapid Rewards card, chasing the market, actually investing your HSA dollars, ADU financing options, free refinances on the horizon, slippery slope of credit card use, ridiculous Ramsey rants, stalling on Social Security, Vanguard passing on BTC, & higher standard deductions!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're talking chasing returns, free refise and ridiculous
Ramsey rants.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, dude, In fact, we.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Are going to talk about the Dave during our episode today.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I almost went with wretched instead of ridiculous. Way wretched.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, ridiculous feels feels a little more accurate. Ratchet.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well, we do have a bunch of different personal finance
news to get to. These are stories that we think
are going to be most important when when it comes
to your personal finances. But dude, before we dive into
the stories, have we talked about the Companion Pass, the
Southwest Companion Pass recently?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's definitely been featured on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, okay, so I don't think we've talked about though,
how I have gotten it, or specifically, Kate's the one.
She's actually the one who has the control over who
gets the campaign.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
She named one, and am I up for grabs?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Maybe she is a You are able to change who
your companion is multiple times a year.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But can I just say the campaign Pass Southwest Campaigon Pass,
if you live in a Southwest city, it's the best.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is one of the coolest.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Possible travel perks because you're able to, like you said,
choose your companion and you can change it on occasion.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, unlike other airlines, it is a free pass to fly,
not just one time. That's an unlimited member. It's one
of the sickest deals in travel that few people know about. It. Literally,
you're flying for free. You just have to pay taxes
and like aeronovital fees or something. September eleven security fee
is like five dollars and sixty or something.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So the reason we are bringing this up, aside from
the fact, I guess we haven't talked about it or
talked about the fact that I was able to snag it,
is the fact that now is the best time to
apply for a Rapids reward card, because the idea is
that you get that card now, but you start racking
up those charges at the beginning of the year. You
want those to hit in the next year, twenty twenty four,
(02:05):
because once you get that companion passes good for the
remainder of that year, but then also the entire subsequent
year as well. So you're looking at close to two
years of being able to fly anywhere with a companion
for free.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Just timing it right, it is huge, an extra like
eleven months of having that free travel with for your companion.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Exactly just now is the time. And if you're.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Interested to know how to get it, how to do
exactly what Matt did well, you can go to howd
tomoney dot com and check out our recent article on that.
We'll also link to it in the show notes for
this episode. But it is one of the most underrated
travel benefits that few people talk about. We talked about
it with Lyn Metler a little bit back when we've
talked about how to fly your family around for free
the best way that this is truly the best way
(02:48):
to get free travel. And at the same time, you're
able to also get that free travel even when you
spend points for your ticket, so he says, you're racking
up a lot of points by getting those credit card.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sign up bonuses.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
You can both kind of essentially travel free for a
lot of the next couple of years, in all likelihood for.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
A long time, and those points do not expire. And
one of the key catches is the fact that you
are able to get that one hundred and thirty five
thousand points because you're also able to open a business
rapid rewards card, and way more folks qualify for that
then you actually would think details.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
In that article. But yeah, you're right, a lot of
people think, oh business card, Oh most.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
People may get to qualify, and we explain it all
in that article.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, so yeah, we'll make sure to link to that.
All right, but let's move on, Matt.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Let's give it the Friday Flight quick sampling of stories
we found to do it interesting this week. Let's start
off talking about investing and the S and P five hundred,
the stock market as a whole, the S and P
five hundred and the Nasdaq in particular as well. They
went into correction toward territory for a hot minute, but
very quickly things changed on a dime in the market
charge back up something like seven plus percent over the
(03:50):
course of just two weeks, might have been more like
eight or nine percents, and including a great week this
week thanks to better than expected inflation numbers, we saw
that kind of the CPI I never go down to
three point two percent year over a year. We're actually
seeing prices in some categories going down, which is welcome
news for consumers. But the Wall Street Journal Publishing article
(04:10):
about how this recent surge is getting investors excited. They're like, ooh,
market go up. I went in on this, and so
it prompted them to funnel more money into stocks. Basically,
they don't want to be sitting on the sidelines while
the market experiences a surge. And I totally get that.
But the problem with this sort of mentality, Matt, we
talk about it all the time, is attempting to chase
(04:30):
returns is that you tend to be behind the curve
when you take this tactic, you're often missing out on
the bulk of the games. Hey, I missed out on
that eight percent surge. I don't want to miss out
on the next surge. But you got in, maybe sadly,
at not the best time. And it makes you think
of investors in the Arc Fund, Kathy Woods Arc Fund,
this innovation fund, and guess what, almost all the money
went in near the top. Same thing with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, right,
(04:54):
a lot of the money getting went in right at
the top before things kind of took a tumble. And
we're all all for investing in the market, right, the
more the merrior if you have a long enough time horizon.
But the correction and the subsequent upward push, both of
those things are just noise, right, And so investing regularly
and dollar cost averaging are ways to head yourself from
trying to time your entrance, which is going to lead
(05:14):
to worse results overall. So, I don't know, it's this
trend following sort of approach that people tend to take,
and the best thing to do is to kind of
like put on your blinders and just keep doing the
same thing you're supposed to be doing, no matter what's
happening with the market.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Sure, that's right, but maybe use this excitement to go
ahead and invest like you would have otherwise. Yeah, there
is a lot more attention on investing, and if you
haven't done that yet, go ahead and get started. So,
speaking of investing, if you've got an HSA a health
savings account, actually investing those dollars for your future, not
saving those dollars, investing those dollars, basically using it as
(05:48):
a third retirement account of sorts, well that's going to
have a massive impact on your financial future. But the
problem is most folks are still using their HSA like
a savings account because maybe it's name that so they're
just they're just following the directions on the.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Label, yea, Joel.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
But I mean you can't blame them for it because
the marketing's terrible exactly. But they're using it like a
saving account to pay for those healthcare expenses in the
current year. And sure that is going to provide a
decent tax break, but it won't come even close to
what it is that you can.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Pull off if you put HSA dollars to work for
you in the actual stock market. There's a new study
and they found that only nineteen percent of folks use
their HSA in this manner. It's sort of like putting
a governor on a Ferrari, or like only using your
Ferrari to like run to Aldi. Yeah yeah, yeah, And
it's like it's capable of so much more.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
It's like one solid use, I guess, but if I
had a Ferrari, I'd be doing so much more with it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So we get that not everyone out there can afford
to actually invest those dollars that you are needing to
use those for some healthcare expenses, but we do eventually
want you to invest those dollars. That should be the goal.
And if you have plenty of cash on hand to
pay for medical expenses out of pocket, we want you
to think about investing your HSA dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It reminds me.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I was talking to a buddy recently, and as we
were talking, I remembered that this time last year, he
reached out and was like, Hey, between these two health
insurance plans and my employer is offering, which one do
you think I should get? And I noticed one of
them had HDHP up.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
At the top.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's a high deductible health care plan. And with that
included the employer contributing fifteen hundred dollars to his family's HSA.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Did you know that? Pretty sick?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's an amazing I mean that's a linking perk. A
lot of employers to say five hundred bucks or one thousand.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
But fifteen I could not believe it. And here's the kicker.
I asked him about that. I was like, oh, by
the way, I remember we were talking about this. Did
you ever go ahead and join and choose that? And
he said, well, actually I thought I did, but I
selected the wrong one. Oh no, So yeah, I'm hoping
he's going to remedy his ways. Let's hope so this year.
But basically you're giving that is it's a sweet, sweet perk,
(07:50):
and you're giving up free money when your employer, free
money for future you, which means it's going to be
even larger than fifteen hundred dollars right now. Again, were
you to invest those dollars.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And again I get that huge percentage of people aren't
doing it because most people don't know how powerful an
HSA can be. That's why we're here to remind you
it can be massively powerful now you know. Yeah, And
we've got an article we'll link to in the show
notes if you want to know exactly how to use
and maximize your HSA if you have access to one,
or let's talk about eighty us for a second. At
Accessory dwelling units, we talk about them regularly. They're just like, hey,
(08:19):
you want to build a mother in law suite in
your backyard. That that's basically what an ADU is. And
we've been fans for a while. I almost built one
back at our in townhouse. It's like this close, but
they were just like some minor zoning issues where I
couldn't get past them.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
But the setbacks and whatnot. That's right, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So I was like, oh, it's gonna have to be
in the center of the yard. Now, I'm sorry, I'm
not going to do that. But often people are like interested,
but it's too expensive, right, and they've been hard to
finance and then saving up something like one hundred and
fifty K to build this thing. Even if it's going
to generate income, it's like it's a bridge too far.
Most people aren't going to be able to make it happen.
But it's actually now getting easier to get a loan
(08:57):
if you want to build an ADU because before lend
were not able to consider the potential rental income that
could you that could come from building that ADU, and
now they can. So basically, if you're buying a house
that currently has an ADU, the lender can factor in
seventy five percent of the likely rent amounts into what
they're willing to lend you to buy that house, which
(09:17):
is cool because it might allow you to buy the
house that's slightly more expensive with the ADU that's actually
going to be better for your bottom line. And if
you're trying to build a new ADU from scratch in
your yard where you currently live, you can get a
two h three K construction loan and a lender can
consider fifty percent of the likely rental income of that
ADU what it's likely to bring in. So just good
(09:38):
news for folks who have listened to us and they're like,
I love the ADU thing, but I don't have one
hundred and fifty K on hand to build that thing
from scratch. And yes, lending costs or hire, it's still
not cheap to finance that ADU. But if you have
enough cash to put towards that, and at the same
time you're able to borrow some in order to get
it to get it going, I think a lot of
people are going to be more willing to go in
(09:59):
the ADU direction totally.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
It's good to know that that's an option. And this
is great news because more states and municipalities out there
are allowing ADU construction. They've kind of gained steam, they've
gotten more popular, but the borrowing guidelines hadn't kept up
with that demand, with that desire for folks to build
those in their yards. ADUs are great for increasing housing supply,
that's another benefit, but they can also be perfect for
(10:21):
folks who are wanting to get into the real estate
investing game.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's just like a good way to test the waters. Yea.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like they're great for individuals, they're great for society as
a whole, like eighty US.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Great for cities. Yeah, they're not still increased density.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Silver bullet or anything to produce kind of the lack
of housing supply we have, but they're part of the
solution at least exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So on the note of financing, lenders are now offering
home buyers a free refinance perk, and so this is
a story in the Times. Basically, if rates go down
within the near future, what you can do is you
go back to that same lender and you can refine
without paying the massive closing costs that are typically associated
with doing a refinance. These programs are all different, So
(11:01):
what we would recommend is to read the fine print
because some of these come with higher initial fees. And
so if you are able to compare apples to apples
and you see that there are not higher fees than sweet,
obviously go with the one that has the free option.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's like a free meal down the road.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It's like a free night's stay were you to come
on back as long as you're not paying more for
that initial night's day. But we think a better idea
is just to do some more shopping and just find
the lowest rates that are currently available. Certainly, it'll suck
to pay to refine the future if rates do drop,
which they might. We've seen rates took down over the
past couple of weeks. But hoping that one of these
(11:40):
kind of gimmicky maybe free refine mortgages will work out
will likely cost you more if, in particular, if you're
paying more on the front end.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, or let's say it's like, oh, free REFI and
potentially at some point in the future, but it comes
with an initial quarter point higher rate or something like that,
well's probably not worth that trade off.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Right, you end up moving and never actually refinancing right
before you end up selling that produs, that's right, And
so we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
But there are stats out there about how if you
just shop with at least three lenders, that's going to
save you potentially thousands and thousands or maybe even five
digits plus over the life of your loan if you
just shop around. Most people, a lot of folks go
to just one lender, they just get one quote, they
go with that, and that is when you lose out.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
The most though exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And another thing, I was talking to a friend local
lender and some thanks for offering a free recast of
the mortgage, which is nice if you're not able to
come to the table with a bunch of money. But again,
if they're charging you more for that ability to do
a recast, then that's not something I should say. A
recast is it's sort of like a refi, but they
don't change the interest rate of your mortgage. They basically
(12:45):
reamateurize it. So if you come to the table with
some more money after the fact, it just reduces your
monthly payment, which is nice for like an extra one
hundred k or something like after the exactly, like after
the sale of a house in a year that you
decide to hang on to. It's like, okay, now let's
take those funds that we were planning originally the funnel
towards the new place.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Now we have the ability to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, and recasts don't get talked about much. Not many
people use those, but it can be a great tool,
I think, especially if you've got one of those higher
trade mortgages. Right now, and you do come into some cash.
Recasting is not a bad idea for some folks. And
speaking of debt, Matt, let's talk about credit card balances.
We've talked about how those balances have talked. A trillion
dollars is kind of a headline number, and we talked
(13:24):
about how it's kind of not as bad as it seems,
right because given inflation, given the amount of money and
people's bank accounts, that net worths have gone up across
the board. Is it a crummy stat Do we hate
to see it? Of course, But is it as bad
as some people have made it seem?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Not quite.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And of course we want to see everyone pay off
their credit card debt on time and in full. That
is one of our golden rules of plastic that we
talk about all the time. But just because the headline
number isn't as bad as it seems, it doesn't mean
that we're not seeing problems on the credit card front,
because it turns out that delinquency rates are up significantly.
The average credit card balance is now more than six
thousand dollars, which is fifteen percent higher than.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Was he a year ago.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I think people are relying on their credit cards more
than they were, and some of that stimmy money, like
we talked talked about mad that's drying up. And so
I think we're seeing an over reliance on credit cards
from a lot of folks. And you know, as everybody knows,
credit card debt comes with a variable interest rate, and
those rates have been increasing like clockwork. So you know,
we're not We're still fans of credit cards if you
(14:22):
use them the right way.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Like in order to score with the companion pass. Yeah,
Southwest exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like, man, the perks can be massive, they can
be significant, but credit card debt is bad through and through.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's gonna derail your personal finance.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Goals for sure.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think it can just be a slippery, slippery slope.
Like folks think, well, I'm just gonna go into debt
a little bit, what's it. I'm not delinquent, I'm not
behind on my payments, but way, what if I just
make the minimum payment?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
What's the big deal?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But it truly is a slippery slope, and once you
start going down that path a little bit, it's going
to keep you from achieving your different financial goals. Like
it makes me think about like snacking on candy like
it's been after Halloween now, and we've got these tubs
because we did the buy back, which we never circled
back around, and we ended up paying ten cents per
piece of candy, and then twenty five cents a quarter
(15:07):
for the full size or the king size bars, and
so I'm going to pay thirty five next year. Our
kids walk away with you with anywhere from three or
four bucks for those that chose to keep us selects
stash on hand to One of our daughters ended up
selling all of her, like, literally every single piece back
and walked away with I think closer to close to
ten bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
She does not have a sweet tooth. She well, she
understood that.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
It doesn't mean that you weren't not that you weren't
going to be able to have some candy at some point.
It's just that it was more on our terms, and
the selection was going to be a little more limited, huh,
because of course mommy and daddy are going to get snacked,
and she was all the good ones. And that's kind
of what I'm getting at here, is that when that
stash of candy is there, I think maybe I'll just
snag one of those almond joys. What's the big deal?
(15:51):
Maybe I'll take a butterfinger to work. In fact, maybe
I should take a bunch of them to work, because
it's nice to have somebody that work as well. But
there's a mindset, mindset that takes place, and all of
a sudden, subconsciously, I'm a snacker and like I'm like,
I'm eating candy left and right.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
When had I.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Looked at in this case, I guess my diet ahead
of time, I would have said, well, no, I don't
want to eat all of that candy. But there's like
a shift that takes place when you start going down
that path. And I think the same thing can be
true when it comes to credit card use. You think, well,
what's the big deal? But then after a couple months
of maintaining a balance, you start thinking, well, I've already
got the balance going, you know, li if we just
add a few more hundred to it, And I think,
(16:31):
in my mind, like, that's where it starts getting.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
A little dangerous. I mean, I think that's where your
finances is get derailed.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
We kind of have the ability to rationalize almost anything,
and I think it's true in the case of something
that's a great example, something as simple as Halloween candy.
And if you're saying, like how much candy do I
think I want to eat in the month of October
or I guess really November the answer if the answer
was probably for a lot of people like relatively little,
you know, and it can get out of control really easily.
(16:55):
So if you don't have hard and fast rules, hard
lines in the sand about how you're going to use
those credits cards, if you don't follow some of those
rules that we lay out, then I think you're bound
to find yourself in trouble down the road.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That's right, bound to find.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yourself tied up in these like crummy statistics that are
really what's lying behind those statistics is people who have
harmed themselves financially significantly.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It's harder to dig yourself out of that hole. They've
shut themselves on the foot.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
And not only are the those statistics crummy, but you
end up feeling crummy as well when when you can't
control yourself. And I think that's one of the takeaways,
is just knowing yourself. Because I think there's some folks
who can use credit cards wisely, but in the same
way I think there are some folks who also know
that I'm gonna be too tempted to spend. And for
those folks, we would say, don't mess with the rewards,
don't don't even think about the companion pass. We don't
(17:40):
want to highlight that too much. The same thing intrument,
same thing with booze, right, I mean, like that is true.
Like some people are like I can enjoy a glass
of wine and moderation. You and I we can enjoy
a crappier moderation. But I know not everybody can do that.
We've we have listeners who are like, hey, that's actually
the toughest part of the show for me.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
It's a struggle for yeah, which I totally get. Like
I realized that certain people are tempted differently towards different things.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, So keep that in mind. But Joe, we've
got more stories to get to. We're gonna talk of.
We will get to Dave Ramsey, but we have also
got some updated numbers from the IRS on tax brackets
and the standard deduction.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
We'll get to all of that right after this. All right, Matt,
we're back.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Let's keep this Friday flight rolling along.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And I'm probably gonna say flying.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
We can keep it, say that, keep the Friday flight flying,
but buying we are going to get to our ludicrous
headline of the week. That's the first thing up in
the second half of the Friday Flight every week. This
one comes from Think Advisor and the title of the
article is super Nerds Unite against Dave Ramsey's eight percent
sake patrawl rate Guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I'm not sure if this is kind of actually
a good headline.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, you know, like like a lot of times we
would disagree with the headline, but the actual headline, we're
kind of like, all right, yeah, well we'll count us
a part of those supernerds.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, we're kind of attempting to smack around. Here is
the underlying advice that led to the creation of this article.
And if you're not on Twitter, I don't know. In
my mind, Matt, this made all the rounds on Twitter,
So I'm not sure if you saw it an X yeah,
X yeah, we'll start calling it X. I don't know
when he gets a better name. I guess right, Twitter
was such a good name, it's such a good branding.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
X not so much.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
But basically you and I will say this too, We're
not usually all about bashing other personal finance creators here,
even if we don't agree with their information or their tactics,
but in this case we're going to make an exception.
That's because you know, Ramsey, in some hubristic rant last week,
told a caller that they can draw down eight percent
of their portfolio each and every year in retirement without
running out of money, which is double double with the
(19:36):
super nerds in this article who refute what Dave's claims
what they claim and really the studies have been around
Matt that have done a lot of in depth digging
on this for decades, and so these super nerds say, oh,
the eight percent thing that Dave Ramsey's claiming, it's imprudent
and it's reckless. Basically, Dave's math isn't mathing here, and
his tactic it fails more than fifty percent of the
(19:57):
time when you run the numbers, and if folks are
trying to plan out their retirement spending right, if they
were to listen to him, they can end up destitute.
Just I see this as reckless, and I feel like
Dave's done a lot of good work on the personal
finance front for a lot of years he's helped so
many people, but man, a.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Lot of people get out of debt. Yeah, but it
does not seem like he's helping a lot of people
invest their dollars. So some of that investing advice just
is thinks it's no good, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
So the authors of that article, they found this is
a quote here a retiree who listened to Ramsey and
followed an eight percent withdrawal rule while holding a four
fund stock portfolio in the two thousands, they would have
run out of.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Money in as little as thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And that's because Dave Ramsey isn't taken into account what's
known as a sequence of returns risk. And so even
though the market goes up most years, well, if you
retire into a bear market and you continue to pull
out eight percent each and every year, you were eating
into the capital significantly more so than on years that
are green, which means that you've got fewer dollars left
(20:57):
to compound for your future. The authors of this article noted,
when you get a bad sequence of returns early in retirement,
even good returns and subsequent years can't.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Bail you out.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
If you retired, let's say, at the very beginning of
last year, when the market had a rough, rough, rough year,
that'sactly been a perfect example of how even a great
year like this year can't make up.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For how harmful that first year was.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Exactly, so we feel that the super nerds in this case,
they've got data on their side, data that Dave's prideful
rants based on inaccurate information can't even overcome. So having
entered into the personal finance space via the Dave Ramsey gate,
I will maybe I'll go to bat for him a
little bit because further on in the article or maybe
it was the actual post of him when he was
(21:43):
providing this advice, but he was talking about the fact
that he says this is because he feels that he
can be demoralizing for folks who are basically playing it
too conservative. They feel that they need to actually have
saved and invested much much more money than what they
currently do, and that there's a chance that they end
up throwing in the towel they even stop before they've
even started, which I can completely sympathize with.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's what we talked about recently when Earner Leisure Guys
said he exactly million dollars financially independent last.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Week, but so so.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I guess we do sometimes talk trash about person. It's
not our goal to do that.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
But the problem, though, is when you are faced with
an audience or somebody that you're trying to help with
some hard information, you don't soften that by dangling or
putting out some false hope out there. And I feel
like that that's what Dave is doing here. He's he's
not being honest. He's not like, you need to be
honest and provide folks with the data in a kind
way as opposed to being like, oh, it's gonna be
(22:37):
all right. That's what's so weird about this is because
when it comes to debt payoff, Dave is so hardline
and crazy. He's incredibly disciplined about that and that's kind.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Of his stick. But when it comes to investing, he's like, ah,
it'll be fine. It is. It's like this super ambigu
gray area, which.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Seems counter to how he is when he when he
normally talks when it comes to talking about the thing
at least he's most known for, which is debt payoff,
Like it makes me yeah, Like when it comes to
debt he's the dude that's willing to say, hey, you
got some food in your teeth. Actually he yells at you.
He's like, hey, you got some food in your teeth.
But when it comes to investing, he's afraid of being mean,
Like he's thinking, oh, let's just be nice of the
(23:17):
folks because we don't want to hurt their feelings. That's
the paradox here, and that's the part that I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
You and I we've talked about how the four percent rules.
It's a rule of thumb, and actually for a lot
of retirees, like I think you can withdraw more than that,
a little bit closer to five percent, right, But again,
you have to also be willing to pivot and be
flexible in those retirement years and in a down year,
maybe say have enough flexibility to say, listen, I'm gonna
withdraw a little bit less and in a great year
you might be able to take out a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But just to say patently, you.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Can take out eight percent from your retirement account no
matter what, every single year, like clockwork in retirement, well,
you might be setting some people up for a cat
food existence.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And that yes, which is yeah, that's like what of
his or not? What if it's not cat food? I
think he says like alpo like bogfood, because that's what's
going to happen with these with these folks, not the
folks that don't get out of debt, but the folks
who actually listen to nobody investing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I've seen we have cats at home.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Okay, while we're talking about retirement, let's talk about social security,
because another way retirees are shooting themselves.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
In the foot is to tap those social.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Security funds to early. There's a new retirement survey and
they found that fear over the future of social security.
Basically they think that it's running out of money is
causing boomers to sign up for that Social Security check
now instead of waiting, even though waiting would mean a
much bigger monthly check guarantee down the road.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And so that that.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Raises the question, I guess, first of all, is social
Security running out of money?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
What kind of is?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
But it is extremely complicated, Like basically, changes are going
to need to be made in order to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Protect social security.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
For future generations, and if they aren't made, well, benefit
amounts will have to be cut to a certain extent.
And even though politicians they see this problem lurking like
it's on the horizon, they just haven't done anything to
address it. Meaning more drastic action is going to be
necessary at some point. But bottom line is not going
to go away, because like I think, we can even
look to our personal lives, right, Like, think about sometime
(25:12):
when you allowed a luxury to enter into your life,
and before long you start convincing yourself that luxury is
now a necessity, huh. And it's hard to claw back
the money that is now going towards certain expenses. It's
hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, especially
in the same way social Security man, nobody's going to
be willing to go out on the limb to be
the bad guy and say, okay, no, we're not going
(25:34):
to fund this entitlement anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right, you know, those tweaks are gonna have to be made.
But people who are in their forties who say I've
been helping fund this to this scheme for twenty years,
you're gonna cut me out now, not gonna happen like
that would. Nobody's gonna get elected on that platform exactly.
And so we're confident that something's gonna get done, and
waiting longer if you're in good health makes the most sense,
by the way, from a retirement income perspective. Right, you
don't necessarily want to bank on the fact that you
(25:57):
can work longer, because like injuries or other hurdles, lots
of folks aren't able to work as long as they
had hoped.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, but still waiting to take Social Security, even just
a couple of years longer, can make a massive difference
in your retirement lifestyle by adding income those extra couple
of years that you worked and ensuring a bigger monthly
Social Security check because you held off on actually claiming it.
It's this double whammy that works in your favor. Right,
And so age seventy is where you reach that maximum payout.
It's the ideal age for a whole lot of folks
(26:24):
to claim that Social Security benefit. But a lot of
these social security fears matter overblown too. And so yeah,
I think you and I were both concerned about political
gridlock in DC. I think anybody who cares about this
country looks and sees just I mean, gosh, think about
the almost fistfight that went down in Congress this week.
It's hard not to think that it's just a circus.
A clown show up there lots of times. But in
(26:46):
those things, the fact that we're focused on fistfighting people
as opposed to actually getting legislation done, it prolongs the
reforms that soci security desperately needs. But I would still say,
even while that's true, don't let the fear of Social
Security going away cause you to claim early and harm
your financial future, like for decades to come, diminishing your
ability to retire on a healthy with a healthy social
(27:09):
Security check.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's right, man.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Okay, we had a really great conversation with Zeke Fox
last week. We talked about the crazy world of crypto
in light of the SBF ruling.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
We got some more crypto news for you.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
This came out this week from our favorite low cost
broke or one of our favorite low cost brokerages, I
should say, but Vanguard. They won't be creating a crypto ETF.
That's unlike their competitors over at Fidelity. Over at Blackrock
CEO Tim Buckley, he said that did you ever listen
to Jeff Buckley back in the day oli Jah? Yeah,
(27:43):
Well that's what he's known for right now, I don't
know that. Just popp him up brain, Sorry, CEO Tim Buckley,
not Jeff. He said that bitcoin is not one of
the asset classes that Vanguard focuses on because it is
not part of a long term portfolio. He actually said
that he feels the same way about gold, which is
actually interesting because we feel the same way. So maybe
(28:05):
we've got more more spiritual alignment with Fidelity. But bitcoin,
it's still one of the most interesting digital currencies out there,
even though we see it more as like a like
a speculative play rather than like a solid investment. But
as always, if you want dabble a little bit, make
sure that you keep your exposure to a minimum. We're
not going to hate.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Let's talk about last subject of this Friday flight. Malice
am I giving. It's more on people's minds right now,
this part of the season that we're entering, right we're
getting close to the end of the year. People are
thinking about taxes, but they're also kind of thinking about
generosity as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure, and well,
a quick update from the irs. By the way, they
just released the updated standard deduction for next year. It's
(28:45):
going to be twenty nine two hundred dollars if you're
married filing jointly in fourteen six hundred dollars if you're single.
The tax bracket income thresholds will increased as well. Not
going to share all those numbers much, and numbers doesn't
go great on audio, but across the board there are
increased by just over five percent. And I know that
most people don't decide what to give based purely around
(29:07):
tax breaks and tax incentives, but it is important to
note that a whole lot of people we encourage you
to give. We think it's a great thing. We're going
to talk more about giving actually next week with one
of the most interesting dudes in that space, Ellie Hasenfeld
from Give Well. But it's important to note that you're
not going to get any sort of added tax benefit
for giving, if you're claiming that higher standard deduction.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, that's good news that the tax brackets have basically
the percentages haven't increased, but the income limits have increased.
So bottom line, that means more of your income is
protected from those higher rates of taxation. That's what we
all want is to pay less taxes for the most part. Yeah,
all right, that's gonna be it for this Friday flight.
You can find the different articles and some of the
(29:48):
resources that we mentioned during this episode up in the
show notes at howtomoney dot com, specifically the Southwest Companion
Pass article.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Check it out. We want folks to understand how that works.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, and don't forget to sign up for the how
of Money News if you haven't already. It's a joyous
thing to get in your inbox every Tuesday. You can
sign up at hownamoney dot com slash newsletter. But Matt,
that's gonna do it for this episode. Until next time.
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're talking chasing returns, free refise and ridiculous
Ramsey rants.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, dude, In fact, we.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Are going to talk about the Dave during our episode today.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
I almost went with wretched instead of ridiculous. Way wretched.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, ridiculous feels feels a little more accurate. Ratchet.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well, we do have a bunch of different personal finance
news to get to. These are stories that we think
are going to be most important when when it comes
to your personal finances. But dude, before we dive into
the stories, have we talked about the Companion Pass, the
Southwest Companion Pass recently?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's definitely been featured on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, okay, so I don't think we've talked about though,
how I have gotten it, or specifically, Kate's the one.
She's actually the one who has the control over who
gets the campaign.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
She named one, and am I up for grabs?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Maybe she is a You are able to change who
your companion is multiple times a year.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But can I just say the campaign Pass Southwest Campaigon Pass,
if you live in a Southwest city, it's the best.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is one of the coolest.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Possible travel perks because you're able to, like you said,
choose your companion and you can change it on occasion.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, unlike other airlines, it is a free pass to fly,
not just one time. That's an unlimited member. It's one
of the sickest deals in travel that few people know about. It. Literally,
you're flying for free. You just have to pay taxes
and like aeronovital fees or something. September eleven security fee
is like five dollars and sixty or something.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
So the reason we are bringing this up, aside from
the fact, I guess we haven't talked about it or
talked about the fact that I was able to snag it,
is the fact that now is the best time to
apply for a Rapids reward card, because the idea is
that you get that card now, but you start racking
up those charges at the beginning of the year. You
want those to hit in the next year, twenty twenty four,
(02:05):
because once you get that companion passes good for the
remainder of that year, but then also the entire subsequent
year as well. So you're looking at close to two
years of being able to fly anywhere with a companion
for free.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Just timing it right, it is huge, an extra like
eleven months of having that free travel with for your companion.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Exactly just now is the time. And if you're.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Interested to know how to get it, how to do
exactly what Matt did well, you can go to howd
tomoney dot com and check out our recent article on that.
We'll also link to it in the show notes for
this episode. But it is one of the most underrated
travel benefits that few people talk about. We talked about
it with Lyn Metler a little bit back when we've
talked about how to fly your family around for free
the best way that this is truly the best way
(02:48):
to get free travel. And at the same time, you're
able to also get that free travel even when you
spend points for your ticket, so he says, you're racking
up a lot of points by getting those credit card.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sign up bonuses.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
You can both kind of essentially travel free for a
lot of the next couple of years, in all likelihood for.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
A long time, and those points do not expire. And
one of the key catches is the fact that you
are able to get that one hundred and thirty five
thousand points because you're also able to open a business
rapid rewards card, and way more folks qualify for that
then you actually would think details.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
In that article. But yeah, you're right, a lot of
people think, oh business card, Oh most.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
People may get to qualify, and we explain it all
in that article.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, so yeah, we'll make sure to link to that.
All right, but let's move on, Matt.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Let's give it the Friday Flight quick sampling of stories
we found to do it interesting this week. Let's start
off talking about investing and the S and P five hundred,
the stock market as a whole, the S and P
five hundred and the Nasdaq in particular as well. They
went into correction toward territory for a hot minute, but
very quickly things changed on a dime in the market
charge back up something like seven plus percent over the
(03:50):
course of just two weeks, might have been more like
eight or nine percents, and including a great week this
week thanks to better than expected inflation numbers, we saw
that kind of the CPI I never go down to
three point two percent year over a year. We're actually
seeing prices in some categories going down, which is welcome
news for consumers. But the Wall Street Journal Publishing article
(04:10):
about how this recent surge is getting investors excited. They're like, ooh,
market go up. I went in on this, and so
it prompted them to funnel more money into stocks. Basically,
they don't want to be sitting on the sidelines while
the market experiences a surge. And I totally get that.
But the problem with this sort of mentality, Matt, we
talk about it all the time, is attempting to chase
(04:30):
returns is that you tend to be behind the curve
when you take this tactic, you're often missing out on
the bulk of the games. Hey, I missed out on
that eight percent surge. I don't want to miss out
on the next surge. But you got in, maybe sadly,
at not the best time. And it makes you think
of investors in the Arc Fund, Kathy Woods Arc Fund,
this innovation fund, and guess what, almost all the money
went in near the top. Same thing with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, right,
(04:54):
a lot of the money getting went in right at
the top before things kind of took a tumble. And
we're all all for investing in the market, right, the
more the merrior if you have a long enough time horizon.
But the correction and the subsequent upward push, both of
those things are just noise, right, And so investing regularly
and dollar cost averaging are ways to head yourself from
trying to time your entrance, which is going to lead
(05:14):
to worse results overall. So, I don't know, it's this
trend following sort of approach that people tend to take,
and the best thing to do is to kind of
like put on your blinders and just keep doing the
same thing you're supposed to be doing, no matter what's
happening with the market.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Sure, that's right, but maybe use this excitement to go
ahead and invest like you would have otherwise. Yeah, there
is a lot more attention on investing, and if you
haven't done that yet, go ahead and get started. So,
speaking of investing, if you've got an HSA a health
savings account, actually investing those dollars for your future, not
saving those dollars, investing those dollars, basically using it as
(05:48):
a third retirement account of sorts, well that's going to
have a massive impact on your financial future. But the
problem is most folks are still using their HSA like
a savings account because maybe it's name that so they're
just they're just following the directions on the.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Label, yea, Joel.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
But I mean you can't blame them for it because
the marketing's terrible exactly. But they're using it like a
saving account to pay for those healthcare expenses in the
current year. And sure that is going to provide a
decent tax break, but it won't come even close to
what it is that you can.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Pull off if you put HSA dollars to work for
you in the actual stock market. There's a new study
and they found that only nineteen percent of folks use
their HSA in this manner. It's sort of like putting
a governor on a Ferrari, or like only using your
Ferrari to like run to Aldi. Yeah yeah, yeah, And
it's like it's capable of so much more.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
It's like one solid use, I guess, but if I
had a Ferrari, I'd be doing so much more with it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So we get that not everyone out there can afford
to actually invest those dollars that you are needing to
use those for some healthcare expenses, but we do eventually
want you to invest those dollars. That should be the goal.
And if you have plenty of cash on hand to
pay for medical expenses out of pocket, we want you
to think about investing your HSA dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It reminds me.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
I was talking to a buddy recently, and as we
were talking, I remembered that this time last year, he
reached out and was like, Hey, between these two health
insurance plans and my employer is offering, which one do
you think I should get? And I noticed one of
them had HDHP up.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
At the top.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's a high deductible health care plan. And with that
included the employer contributing fifteen hundred dollars to his family's HSA.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Did you know that? Pretty sick?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's an amazing I mean that's a linking perk. A
lot of employers to say five hundred bucks or one thousand.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
But fifteen I could not believe it. And here's the kicker.
I asked him about that. I was like, oh, by
the way, I remember we were talking about this. Did
you ever go ahead and join and choose that? And
he said, well, actually I thought I did, but I
selected the wrong one. Oh no, So yeah, I'm hoping
he's going to remedy his ways. Let's hope so this year.
But basically you're giving that is it's a sweet, sweet perk,
(07:50):
and you're giving up free money when your employer, free
money for future you, which means it's going to be
even larger than fifteen hundred dollars right now. Again, were
you to invest those dollars.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And again I get that huge percentage of people aren't
doing it because most people don't know how powerful an
HSA can be. That's why we're here to remind you
it can be massively powerful now you know. Yeah, And
we've got an article we'll link to in the show
notes if you want to know exactly how to use
and maximize your HSA if you have access to one,
or let's talk about eighty us for a second. At
Accessory dwelling units, we talk about them regularly. They're just like, hey,
(08:19):
you want to build a mother in law suite in
your backyard. That that's basically what an ADU is. And
we've been fans for a while. I almost built one
back at our in townhouse. It's like this close, but
they were just like some minor zoning issues where I
couldn't get past them.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
But the setbacks and whatnot. That's right, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So I was like, oh, it's gonna have to be
in the center of the yard. Now, I'm sorry, I'm
not going to do that. But often people are like interested,
but it's too expensive, right, and they've been hard to
finance and then saving up something like one hundred and
fifty K to build this thing. Even if it's going
to generate income, it's like it's a bridge too far.
Most people aren't going to be able to make it happen.
But it's actually now getting easier to get a loan
(08:57):
if you want to build an ADU because before lend
were not able to consider the potential rental income that
could you that could come from building that ADU, and
now they can. So basically, if you're buying a house
that currently has an ADU, the lender can factor in
seventy five percent of the likely rent amounts into what
they're willing to lend you to buy that house, which
(09:17):
is cool because it might allow you to buy the
house that's slightly more expensive with the ADU that's actually
going to be better for your bottom line. And if
you're trying to build a new ADU from scratch in
your yard where you currently live, you can get a
two h three K construction loan and a lender can
consider fifty percent of the likely rental income of that
ADU what it's likely to bring in. So just good
(09:38):
news for folks who have listened to us and they're like,
I love the ADU thing, but I don't have one
hundred and fifty K on hand to build that thing
from scratch. And yes, lending costs or hire, it's still
not cheap to finance that ADU. But if you have
enough cash to put towards that, and at the same
time you're able to borrow some in order to get
it to get it going, I think a lot of
people are going to be more willing to go in
(09:59):
the ADU direction totally.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
It's good to know that that's an option. And this
is great news because more states and municipalities out there
are allowing ADU construction. They've kind of gained steam, they've
gotten more popular, but the borrowing guidelines hadn't kept up
with that demand, with that desire for folks to build
those in their yards. ADUs are great for increasing housing supply,
that's another benefit, but they can also be perfect for
(10:21):
folks who are wanting to get into the real estate
investing game.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
It's just like a good way to test the waters. Yea.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Like they're great for individuals, they're great for society as
a whole, like eighty US.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Great for cities. Yeah, they're not still increased density.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Silver bullet or anything to produce kind of the lack
of housing supply we have, but they're part of the
solution at least exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
So on the note of financing, lenders are now offering
home buyers a free refinance perk, and so this is
a story in the Times. Basically, if rates go down
within the near future, what you can do is you
go back to that same lender and you can refine
without paying the massive closing costs that are typically associated
with doing a refinance. These programs are all different, So
(11:01):
what we would recommend is to read the fine print
because some of these come with higher initial fees. And
so if you are able to compare apples to apples
and you see that there are not higher fees than sweet,
obviously go with the one that has the free option.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
It's like a free meal down the road.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It's like a free night's stay were you to come
on back as long as you're not paying more for
that initial night's day. But we think a better idea
is just to do some more shopping and just find
the lowest rates that are currently available. Certainly, it'll suck
to pay to refine the future if rates do drop,
which they might. We've seen rates took down over the
past couple of weeks. But hoping that one of these
(11:40):
kind of gimmicky maybe free refine mortgages will work out
will likely cost you more if, in particular, if you're
paying more on the front end.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, or let's say it's like, oh, free REFI and
potentially at some point in the future, but it comes
with an initial quarter point higher rate or something like that,
well's probably not worth that trade off.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Right, you end up moving and never actually refinancing right
before you end up selling that produs, that's right, And
so we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
But there are stats out there about how if you
just shop with at least three lenders, that's going to
save you potentially thousands and thousands or maybe even five
digits plus over the life of your loan if you
just shop around. Most people, a lot of folks go
to just one lender, they just get one quote, they
go with that, and that is when you lose out.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
The most though exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And another thing, I was talking to a friend local
lender and some thanks for offering a free recast of
the mortgage, which is nice if you're not able to
come to the table with a bunch of money. But again,
if they're charging you more for that ability to do
a recast, then that's not something I should say. A
recast is it's sort of like a refi, but they
don't change the interest rate of your mortgage. They basically
(12:45):
reamateurize it. So if you come to the table with
some more money after the fact, it just reduces your
monthly payment, which is nice for like an extra one
hundred k or something like after the exactly, like after
the sale of a house in a year that you
decide to hang on to. It's like, okay, now let's
take those funds that we were planning originally the funnel
towards the new place.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Now we have the ability to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah, and recasts don't get talked about much. Not many
people use those, but it can be a great tool,
I think, especially if you've got one of those higher
trade mortgages. Right now, and you do come into some cash.
Recasting is not a bad idea for some folks. And
speaking of debt, Matt, let's talk about credit card balances.
We've talked about how those balances have talked. A trillion
dollars is kind of a headline number, and we talked
(13:24):
about how it's kind of not as bad as it seems,
right because given inflation, given the amount of money and
people's bank accounts, that net worths have gone up across
the board. Is it a crummy stat Do we hate
to see it? Of course, But is it as bad
as some people have made it seem?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Not quite.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
And of course we want to see everyone pay off
their credit card debt on time and in full. That
is one of our golden rules of plastic that we
talk about all the time. But just because the headline
number isn't as bad as it seems, it doesn't mean
that we're not seeing problems on the credit card front,
because it turns out that delinquency rates are up significantly.
The average credit card balance is now more than six
thousand dollars, which is fifteen percent higher than.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Was he a year ago.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I think people are relying on their credit cards more
than they were, and some of that stimmy money, like
we talked talked about mad that's drying up. And so
I think we're seeing an over reliance on credit cards
from a lot of folks. And you know, as everybody knows,
credit card debt comes with a variable interest rate, and
those rates have been increasing like clockwork. So you know,
we're not We're still fans of credit cards if you
(14:22):
use them the right way.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Like in order to score with the companion pass. Yeah,
Southwest exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's like, man, the perks can be massive, they can
be significant, but credit card debt is bad through and through.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
It's gonna derail your personal finance.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Goals for sure.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think it can just be a slippery, slippery slope.
Like folks think, well, I'm just gonna go into debt
a little bit, what's it. I'm not delinquent, I'm not
behind on my payments, but way, what if I just
make the minimum payment?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
What's the big deal?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But it truly is a slippery slope, and once you
start going down that path a little bit, it's going
to keep you from achieving your different financial goals. Like
it makes me think about like snacking on candy like
it's been after Halloween now, and we've got these tubs
because we did the buy back, which we never circled
back around, and we ended up paying ten cents per
piece of candy, and then twenty five cents a quarter
(15:07):
for the full size or the king size bars, and
so I'm going to pay thirty five next year. Our
kids walk away with you with anywhere from three or
four bucks for those that chose to keep us selects
stash on hand to One of our daughters ended up
selling all of her, like, literally every single piece back
and walked away with I think closer to close to
ten bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
She does not have a sweet tooth. She well, she
understood that.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
It doesn't mean that you weren't not that you weren't
going to be able to have some candy at some point.
It's just that it was more on our terms, and
the selection was going to be a little more limited, huh,
because of course mommy and daddy are going to get snacked,
and she was all the good ones. And that's kind
of what I'm getting at here, is that when that
stash of candy is there, I think maybe I'll just
snag one of those almond joys. What's the big deal?
(15:51):
Maybe I'll take a butterfinger to work. In fact, maybe
I should take a bunch of them to work, because
it's nice to have somebody that work as well. But
there's a mindset, mindset that takes place, and all of
a sudden, subconsciously, I'm a snacker and like I'm like,
I'm eating candy left and right.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
When had I.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Looked at in this case, I guess my diet ahead
of time, I would have said, well, no, I don't
want to eat all of that candy. But there's like
a shift that takes place when you start going down
that path. And I think the same thing can be
true when it comes to credit card use. You think, well,
what's the big deal? But then after a couple months
of maintaining a balance, you start thinking, well, I've already
got the balance going, you know, li if we just
add a few more hundred to it, And I think,
(16:31):
in my mind, like, that's where it starts getting.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
A little dangerous. I mean, I think that's where your
finances is get derailed.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
We kind of have the ability to rationalize almost anything,
and I think it's true in the case of something
that's a great example, something as simple as Halloween candy.
And if you're saying, like how much candy do I
think I want to eat in the month of October
or I guess really November the answer if the answer
was probably for a lot of people like relatively little,
you know, and it can get out of control really easily.
(16:55):
So if you don't have hard and fast rules, hard
lines in the sand about how you're going to use
those credits cards, if you don't follow some of those
rules that we lay out, then I think you're bound
to find yourself in trouble down the road.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That's right, bound to find.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yourself tied up in these like crummy statistics that are
really what's lying behind those statistics is people who have
harmed themselves financially significantly.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It's harder to dig yourself out of that hole. They've
shut themselves on the foot.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
And not only are the those statistics crummy, but you
end up feeling crummy as well when when you can't
control yourself. And I think that's one of the takeaways,
is just knowing yourself. Because I think there's some folks
who can use credit cards wisely, but in the same
way I think there are some folks who also know
that I'm gonna be too tempted to spend. And for
those folks, we would say, don't mess with the rewards,
don't don't even think about the companion pass. We don't
(17:40):
want to highlight that too much. The same thing intrument,
same thing with booze, right, I mean, like that is true.
Like some people are like I can enjoy a glass
of wine and moderation. You and I we can enjoy
a crappier moderation. But I know not everybody can do that.
We've we have listeners who are like, hey, that's actually
the toughest part of the show for me.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
It's a struggle for yeah, which I totally get. Like
I realized that certain people are tempted differently towards different things.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, yeah, So keep that in mind. But Joe, we've
got more stories to get to. We're gonna talk of.
We will get to Dave Ramsey, but we have also
got some updated numbers from the IRS on tax brackets
and the standard deduction.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
We'll get to all of that right after this. All right, Matt,
we're back.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Let's keep this Friday flight rolling along.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And I'm probably gonna say flying.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
We can keep it, say that, keep the Friday flight flying,
but buying we are going to get to our ludicrous
headline of the week. That's the first thing up in
the second half of the Friday Flight every week. This
one comes from Think Advisor and the title of the
article is super Nerds Unite against Dave Ramsey's eight percent
sake patrawl rate Guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I'm not sure if this is kind of actually
a good headline.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, you know, like like a lot of times we
would disagree with the headline, but the actual headline, we're
kind of like, all right, yeah, well we'll count us
a part of those supernerds.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, we're kind of attempting to smack around. Here is
the underlying advice that led to the creation of this article.
And if you're not on Twitter, I don't know. In
my mind, Matt, this made all the rounds on Twitter,
So I'm not sure if you saw it an X yeah,
X yeah, we'll start calling it X. I don't know
when he gets a better name. I guess right, Twitter
was such a good name, it's such a good branding.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
X not so much.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
But basically you and I will say this too, We're
not usually all about bashing other personal finance creators here,
even if we don't agree with their information or their tactics,
but in this case we're going to make an exception.
That's because you know, Ramsey, in some hubristic rant last week,
told a caller that they can draw down eight percent
of their portfolio each and every year in retirement without
running out of money, which is double double with the
(19:36):
super nerds in this article who refute what Dave's claims
what they claim and really the studies have been around
Matt that have done a lot of in depth digging
on this for decades, and so these super nerds say, oh,
the eight percent thing that Dave Ramsey's claiming, it's imprudent
and it's reckless. Basically, Dave's math isn't mathing here, and
his tactic it fails more than fifty percent of the
(19:57):
time when you run the numbers, and if folks are
trying to plan out their retirement spending right, if they
were to listen to him, they can end up destitute.
Just I see this as reckless, and I feel like
Dave's done a lot of good work on the personal
finance front for a lot of years he's helped so
many people, but man, a.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Lot of people get out of debt. Yeah, but it
does not seem like he's helping a lot of people
invest their dollars. So some of that investing advice just
is thinks it's no good, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
So the authors of that article, they found this is
a quote here a retiree who listened to Ramsey and
followed an eight percent withdrawal rule while holding a four
fund stock portfolio in the two thousands, they would have
run out of.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Money in as little as thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
And that's because Dave Ramsey isn't taken into account what's
known as a sequence of returns risk. And so even
though the market goes up most years, well, if you
retire into a bear market and you continue to pull
out eight percent each and every year, you were eating
into the capital significantly more so than on years that
are green, which means that you've got fewer dollars left
(20:57):
to compound for your future. The authors of this article noted,
when you get a bad sequence of returns early in retirement,
even good returns and subsequent years can't.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Bail you out.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
If you retired, let's say, at the very beginning of
last year, when the market had a rough, rough, rough year,
that'sactly been a perfect example of how even a great
year like this year can't make up.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
For how harmful that first year was.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Exactly, so we feel that the super nerds in this case,
they've got data on their side, data that Dave's prideful
rants based on inaccurate information can't even overcome. So having
entered into the personal finance space via the Dave Ramsey gate,
I will maybe I'll go to bat for him a
little bit because further on in the article or maybe
it was the actual post of him when he was
(21:43):
providing this advice, but he was talking about the fact
that he says this is because he feels that he
can be demoralizing for folks who are basically playing it
too conservative. They feel that they need to actually have
saved and invested much much more money than what they
currently do, and that there's a chance that they end
up throwing in the towel they even stop before they've
even started, which I can completely sympathize with.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's what we talked about recently when Earner Leisure Guys
said he exactly million dollars financially independent last.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Week, but so so.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I guess we do sometimes talk trash about person. It's
not our goal to do that.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
But the problem, though, is when you are faced with
an audience or somebody that you're trying to help with
some hard information, you don't soften that by dangling or
putting out some false hope out there. And I feel
like that that's what Dave is doing here. He's he's
not being honest. He's not like, you need to be
honest and provide folks with the data in a kind
way as opposed to being like, oh, it's gonna be
(22:37):
all right. That's what's so weird about this is because
when it comes to debt payoff, Dave is so hardline
and crazy. He's incredibly disciplined about that and that's kind.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Of his stick. But when it comes to investing, he's like, ah,
it'll be fine. It is. It's like this super ambigu
gray area, which.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Seems counter to how he is when he when he
normally talks when it comes to talking about the thing
at least he's most known for, which is debt payoff,
Like it makes me yeah, Like when it comes to
debt he's the dude that's willing to say, hey, you
got some food in your teeth. Actually he yells at you.
He's like, hey, you got some food in your teeth.
But when it comes to investing, he's afraid of being mean,
Like he's thinking, oh, let's just be nice of the
(23:17):
folks because we don't want to hurt their feelings. That's
the paradox here, and that's the part that I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
You and I we've talked about how the four percent rules.
It's a rule of thumb, and actually for a lot
of retirees, like I think you can withdraw more than that,
a little bit closer to five percent, right, But again,
you have to also be willing to pivot and be
flexible in those retirement years and in a down year,
maybe say have enough flexibility to say, listen, I'm gonna
withdraw a little bit less and in a great year
you might be able to take out a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But just to say patently, you.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Can take out eight percent from your retirement account no
matter what, every single year, like clockwork in retirement, well,
you might be setting some people up for a cat
food existence.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And that yes, which is yeah, that's like what of
his or not? What if it's not cat food? I
think he says like alpo like bogfood, because that's what's
going to happen with these with these folks, not the
folks that don't get out of debt, but the folks
who actually listen to nobody investing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I've seen we have cats at home.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Okay, while we're talking about retirement, let's talk about social security,
because another way retirees are shooting themselves.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
In the foot is to tap those social.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Security funds to early. There's a new retirement survey and
they found that fear over the future of social security.
Basically they think that it's running out of money is
causing boomers to sign up for that Social Security check
now instead of waiting, even though waiting would mean a
much bigger monthly check guarantee down the road.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And so that that.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Raises the question, I guess, first of all, is social
Security running out of money?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
What kind of is?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
But it is extremely complicated, Like basically, changes are going
to need to be made in order to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Protect social security.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
For future generations, and if they aren't made, well, benefit
amounts will have to be cut to a certain extent.
And even though politicians they see this problem lurking like
it's on the horizon, they just haven't done anything to
address it. Meaning more drastic action is going to be
necessary at some point. But bottom line is not going
to go away, because like I think, we can even
look to our personal lives, right, Like, think about sometime
(25:12):
when you allowed a luxury to enter into your life,
and before long you start convincing yourself that luxury is
now a necessity, huh. And it's hard to claw back
the money that is now going towards certain expenses. It's
hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, especially
in the same way social Security man, nobody's going to
be willing to go out on the limb to be
the bad guy and say, okay, no, we're not going
(25:34):
to fund this entitlement anymore.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right, you know, those tweaks are gonna have to be made.
But people who are in their forties who say I've
been helping fund this to this scheme for twenty years,
you're gonna cut me out now, not gonna happen like
that would. Nobody's gonna get elected on that platform exactly.
And so we're confident that something's gonna get done, and
waiting longer if you're in good health makes the most sense,
by the way, from a retirement income perspective. Right, you
don't necessarily want to bank on the fact that you
(25:57):
can work longer, because like injuries or other hurdles, lots
of folks aren't able to work as long as they
had hoped.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, but still waiting to take Social Security, even just
a couple of years longer, can make a massive difference
in your retirement lifestyle by adding income those extra couple
of years that you worked and ensuring a bigger monthly
Social Security check because you held off on actually claiming it.
It's this double whammy that works in your favor. Right,
And so age seventy is where you reach that maximum payout.
It's the ideal age for a whole lot of folks
(26:24):
to claim that Social Security benefit. But a lot of
these social security fears matter overblown too. And so yeah,
I think you and I were both concerned about political
gridlock in DC. I think anybody who cares about this
country looks and sees just I mean, gosh, think about
the almost fistfight that went down in Congress this week.
It's hard not to think that it's just a circus.
A clown show up there lots of times. But in
(26:46):
those things, the fact that we're focused on fistfighting people
as opposed to actually getting legislation done, it prolongs the
reforms that soci security desperately needs. But I would still say,
even while that's true, don't let the fear of Social
Security going away cause you to claim early and harm
your financial future, like for decades to come, diminishing your
ability to retire on a healthy with a healthy social
(27:09):
Security check.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's right, man.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Okay, we had a really great conversation with Zeke Fox
last week. We talked about the crazy world of crypto
in light of the SBF ruling.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
We got some more crypto news for you.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
This came out this week from our favorite low cost
broke or one of our favorite low cost brokerages, I
should say, but Vanguard. They won't be creating a crypto ETF.
That's unlike their competitors over at Fidelity. Over at Blackrock
CEO Tim Buckley, he said that did you ever listen
to Jeff Buckley back in the day oli Jah? Yeah,
(27:43):
Well that's what he's known for right now, I don't
know that. Just popp him up brain, Sorry, CEO Tim Buckley,
not Jeff. He said that bitcoin is not one of
the asset classes that Vanguard focuses on because it is
not part of a long term portfolio. He actually said
that he feels the same way about gold, which is
actually interesting because we feel the same way. So maybe
(28:05):
we've got more more spiritual alignment with Fidelity. But bitcoin,
it's still one of the most interesting digital currencies out there,
even though we see it more as like a like
a speculative play rather than like a solid investment. But
as always, if you want dabble a little bit, make
sure that you keep your exposure to a minimum. We're
not going to hate.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Let's talk about last subject of this Friday flight. Malice
am I giving. It's more on people's minds right now,
this part of the season that we're entering, right we're
getting close to the end of the year. People are
thinking about taxes, but they're also kind of thinking about
generosity as we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sure, and well,
a quick update from the irs. By the way, they
just released the updated standard deduction for next year. It's
(28:45):
going to be twenty nine two hundred dollars if you're
married filing jointly in fourteen six hundred dollars if you're single.
The tax bracket income thresholds will increased as well. Not
going to share all those numbers much, and numbers doesn't
go great on audio, but across the board there are
increased by just over five percent. And I know that
most people don't decide what to give based purely around
(29:07):
tax breaks and tax incentives, but it is important to
note that a whole lot of people we encourage you
to give. We think it's a great thing. We're going
to talk more about giving actually next week with one
of the most interesting dudes in that space, Ellie Hasenfeld
from Give Well. But it's important to note that you're
not going to get any sort of added tax benefit
for giving, if you're claiming that higher standard deduction.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, that's good news that the tax brackets have basically
the percentages haven't increased, but the income limits have increased.
So bottom line, that means more of your income is
protected from those higher rates of taxation. That's what we
all want is to pay less taxes for the most part. Yeah,
all right, that's gonna be it for this Friday flight.
You can find the different articles and some of the
(29:48):
resources that we mentioned during this episode up in the
show notes at howtomoney dot com, specifically the Southwest Companion
Pass article.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Check it out. We want folks to understand how that works.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, and don't forget to sign up for the how
of Money News if you haven't already. It's a joyous
thing to get in your inbox every Tuesday. You can
sign up at hownamoney dot com slash newsletter. But Matt,
that's gonna do it for this episode. Until next time.
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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