December 9, 2025 • 15 mins
Scott Brown with Edgewater Family Wealth joins us to talk money, and kicks things off by discussing Trump accounts and explains what they are before moving on to mental hacks for accumulating wealth, including little tricks we play on ourselves, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I was listening to a best of and you guys
couldn't remember Santa Claus's reindeer. So just in case you forgot,
you know, Dasher and Dancer and Prancer, Vixen comment and
Cupid donner and listen. But do you recall the most
(00:25):
famous reiner all Jim Colbert?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
You mother?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You don't know if she has kids? Right?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Four one text seven seven zero three one beautiful. Thank
you for the serenading.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That was lovely. We appreciate that. I'm Jim.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There's deb Hello is here the sauce, I'm ready to
be responsible.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Let's do its only money.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So people passionate about planning for their future rise above
investment rifts to build.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Isn't that really just common sense financial advice?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's oh okay, it's all the money.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Wis Scott thrown from the Edgewater Family?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well he give it up in the triumphant return.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Mister Scott Brown, You've been dealing with this imposter while
I was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
People say he sounds like you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Edgewater Familywealth dot Com a fiduciary in town for thirty
eight years, making sure that your money lasts long and
gives you the nice life you want after you call
it good?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Is that close? That's pretty good? All right?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Call it good? Is that what you say when you leave?
I'm calling it good? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, thanks, boss,
I'm good. He leaves a party, I'm calling this good. Yeah,
Well that's the party. It's so funny.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
One of the topics I had today we didn't get
to was is how you leave a party without being that.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Douchebag guy that go, well, I just be the douchebag guy. Well,
the Irish exit kind of thing. Is that what they
call it?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Irish exit?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I love the Irish exit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Irish exited. Last night, I.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Find the boss, I look right, and then I said,
great party, I'll see you next year, and I get
the hell out.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's exactly what you do. The big goodbye as was
you know?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That was?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That was Larry David have was famous for the big goodbye.
He wouldn't He would avoid everybody until the very end
and he say goodbye goodness.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
See.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
What do you think they say you should do? I
don't know. Would you leave a party? What? What do
you think they say? Make the host?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hey, yeah, take the host and then.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Slip put some silver in your pockets. I don't know,
say as.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Little as possible, Hey, you gotta go, see you soon.
In other words, offer no explanation because it sounds like
you're trying to make up an excuse to leave.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Just leave, is what they say.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Got to get the kids, there's something bringing on the stove.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well say any of them. Nobody believes it. Just say, hey,
it's time for me to roll. Yeah, yeah, it's guy,
gotta get out of your party, saving shake the hands,
give a big thanks, and get out the door. It's
amazing what confident and being looking confident will do, because
that's kind of what the difference is. You're making something up,
or it's it's irrelevant.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Who cares.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody cares. Nobody's gonna believe you anyway.
I mean, you know you you've known the schedule for
a while now, well you know, I mean if you've
been there an hour and a half, so I usually
try to do an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, say
hey to all my friends. I don't get to see
usually around the building, and then get the hell out
of dodge. It's what it's for.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah, I've gotten older. Parties are harder for me. I
don't know what that is first, while I'm tired early,
I have one drink and I'm.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Like, okay, bedtime.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I'm looking for a couch to lay on, which always
embarrasses my wife.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Parking is more of a concern.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Do you guys do a company party at your place?
We do, really when.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
We're doing one this coming Friday. No, I'm sorry, two
a week from Friday. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Scott comes in on Tuesdays in the afternoon talk to
us about some things happening in the world of finance
and stuff. So if you want to get with Scott
and get an a you know, just have a consultation, talk
to him about where you are in your saving life,
what your plan is for retirement. You can do that easily.
It's edgewaterorfamilywealth dot com. There's a poll down bar there
where you can make an appointment or just make a
phone call. Somebody in the office will talk to you.
(03:52):
It could be you, Brach or whomever is available, and
they'll go over what you need to talk with and
if it needs more attention than you, make an appointment.
Come in and hang out with these guys and let
them tell you what they need to do.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
That actually happens quite frequent. We get a lot of calls,
which I'm thankful for because it feels like we're helping
a lot of people. And as I've said many times
on the show, more frequently than not, these people are
not ready to be our clients or even sometimes interested
in being our clients.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But they have some you know, basic questions.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
You know, I'm thinking about doing this, or I'm thinking,
you know, my four one K has that and it
can you help me?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
How much should I save?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
And usually within a five or ten or fifteen minute conversation,
we can point somebody more or less in the proper
direction taking those first steps towards achieving at least some
kind of financial independence, which those first few steps that
we've as we've talked about for years now are the
hardest they are.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And I think what you find is is you kind
of lose that nervousness after that first call, and you go,
oh Jesus, that wasn't that pain.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That wasn't that painful.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'll do this again, and then you'll learn it more
and more you get confident, then you'll want.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Alert you know kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Well, you really, I think what you realize more than
anything is. You're not it's not you're not that bad off.
Usually it's not unfixable, it's not irrepaarable. You can you
can make process towards your goal without how to stop
eating or turn off the cable or.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Never take it.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
You know, these things are fixable, And I think people
say there. I think a lot of times they're afraid
we're gonna say that's it, shut off the cable.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, you know, you're no.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
More Dinners, No, you know TV dinners every night, And
we almost never say that.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
We never say that, at the fact the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Sometimes usually have our time people getting people to spend
the money they've saved for that long.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Well, yeah, we're convincing, convincing them not to be anxious
about it, right, Like I've had people come in who
are very visibly anxious about the conversation we are about
to have. And then when it's very clear to them,
or should at least be very clear to them, that
they're on the right path, they're not. You know, yeah,
maybe you need to fix this or you need to
fix that, but you're not in bad shape. But I
can still see they struggle to let go of that anxiety,
(05:44):
so sometimes it takes a couple three times for them
to actually believe what I'm telling them or what the
numbers are telling.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And by the way, if you have any questions now
you can text us seven seven zero three to one.
Scott is here in studio, will be here for another
fifteen minutes or so, so you can certainly do that.
Let's get to the list, though, because this actually made
a lot of news last week and the week before
when Michael Dell and his wife, whose eyes are perpetually open,
steps a week and steps up and gives like six
point twenty five billion dollars to start these Trump accounts,
(06:14):
and then I mean, I don't care what you read.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Everybody had a piece on the Trump account.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Do I do it? What is it? What do I do?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
What is the Trump account? It sounds a lot like
a four to one K is what it sounds like?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
It sounds to me? And there's still some ambiguity surrounding it.
A lot of the details have not completely come out
from the big beautiful bill. But what it essentially is
like an iray or a raw. It's more like an
ira in that it's tax deferred. It's not tax deductible, okay,
it's the gross tax deferred until you spend it. So
any child between currently, how it's written is from January
(06:47):
first of this year through the end of twenty twenty seven,
right coincidentally, I don't know who's going to be president
during that time. Everybody who's born between that timeframe will
get a thousand dollars contributed to that account. Then Franz family,
relatives whoever, can contribute up to five thousand dollars to
those accounts throughout the child's lifetime. And it's the thousand
dollars is only going to people who are born in
(07:08):
that period, but people under the age of eighteen are
eligible to open.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Them on their own or through their family.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Sure, and just take advantage of the system that's set
up for that money.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, it's kind of cool. I actually did the math.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
If you to put six grand, if you to put
if the thousand dollars had opened the account for an
eighteen year old right now, eighteen years ago, and then
let's say the family and friends added five grand, which
is what you're eligible to add, it would be worth
about thirty thousand dollars today. If it had been invested
in the S and P five hundred, which is essentially
what they're talking about doing so, and the beauty of
it is it's not just for retirement, it's for whatever,
(07:41):
buying a house, and they have some limitations college houses
and some other things. I think even you can open
a business with it. But how do how you verify
these things or qualifies? Really kind of the devil's in
the details. Sure, I mean, I mean, would you suggest this?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I mean, why not?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a three thousand dollars right, qualify?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, you just got to open the account, right.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And again, how they're going to distribute this, how the
money gets moved from one place to the other, I
have no idea, and I'm a little concerned they don't have.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
An idea yet.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
But essentially it's it's pre money and then it's an
opportunity at birthdays. You know a lot of times you
get your use We used to get our five dollars
bill or whatever they get in probably twenty nowadays. Yeah,
from granted exactly, and you knew which relatives were cheap,
by the way, Yeah, like I don't want that on
a little bit, But anyway, that money could go into
this particular kind as well, till you get to the
maximum of six thousand total bulls coo.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
All right, let's move on mental hacks for accumulating wealth.
Little tricks that we play on ourselves, and we can
say little tricks we plan on ourselves to save money.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is that what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, i'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
So, and what drove me to send that to you
was I was having a conversation with my brother in law.
My brother in law is in the same business. He
actually was my intern thirty years ago and is still
in the business with me. And we were driving somewhere
to get food or something for the relatives, and we're
having a conversation and I said to him, you know,
when I buy it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We're talking about cars. He's a car guy, he loves cars.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
And I said, you know, when I buy a new car,
I don't pay cash. And he was a little surprised,
and he said, go on, And I said, well, what
I do is I will finance the car for two years,
but pay it off in a year. And he was
still kind of looking at me funny, and he said,
I do the exact same thing. And I asked him why,
and it was the same reason. Let's say you buy
a fifty thousand dollars car. You've saved the fifty which
(09:22):
is awesome by the way, and you say, well, I'm
just going to pay cash for the car because I
don't want to pay interest or any of those things.
I get that, and I'm not saying that's wrong. Don't
don't take this as an absolute. But the trick I
play on myself is I'd like to keep my fifty
grand and then I forced myself, through my income through
cash flow, to pay off the car in one year. Now,
somebody might be listening and say, well, once you pay
(09:43):
interest for that year, and that's that's true, I will.
I'll pay a lot less interest, a minimal or nominal
amount of interest.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You're only financing him for a couple of years rates.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Really actually a year.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
That's always what I've done over the last thirty years
of my life when I bought a car.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Is I didn't take cash because I have the cash.
I like the cash.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I want the cash like everybody else, right, I like
to look at it in the account.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It feels nice, and because cash is king.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Indeed, those are three words that the older I get
the more and more, I understand cash is king well.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
In the beauty of cash and people.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
A lot of times clients will fuss at us because
we make clients who take income keep more cash or
in treasuries or something that looks at least like cash
and so much that it won't go down.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
We keep. We make our clients who spay.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Let's say, have a client who spends thirty grand a
year out of their lump sum of assets, I make
them keep at least eighteen months worth of cash on hand.
Now I might keep it in a money market or treasuries,
but it is a cash instruments. And sometimes clients will
fuss at us in a good market because why do
I have so much cash? Why is it all in
the market? Of course they won't say that if the
market drops thirty percent or right. And the reason I
(10:47):
say that, and the reason I talk about cash and
what the reason why Ross is saying cash is king
is because it gives you options. Because if I have
to sell a bunch of securities to create the thirty
grand for the person I just described, but market's down
thirty percent, you're losing. I gotta sell way more stuff.
And you say, well, what's the big deal with that? Well,
not a big deal. But then you would say, because
(11:07):
the market's going to come back. But here's the problem.
I've sold thirty percent more stuff. I don't have any
more for when the market comes back up. So I
am I am a stickler with my team. If I
see an account where somebody's taking income and I don't
see eighteen months cash, somebody's in trouble. Really, Oh yeah,
big time. Because I went through I went through ninety nine,
I went through two thousand and eight. I saw the
(11:29):
clients who succeeded in the clients who didn't, and the
clients who had cash reserves were able to make much
better decisions that allowed them to get through those periods.
Because we know the average recession lasts fourteen and a
half to fifteen months historically from peak to trough to peak.
But if you're selling a bunch of stuff in the
trough because you didn't prepare for that downturn, the results
(11:53):
to your portfolio long term are very detribal.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, very detrimental. Well, you can't make that money back
up and you've lost it at the worst rate.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, it's and if you retired in ninety nine, or
you retired in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Think about it.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
If you had half a million dollars, let's say, and
then you woke up at the end of eight and
now you had three hundred and.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
That what that does to your psyche, What that does
to your spending, the way it makes you feel for
the next twenty years that you're retired. You have to
prepare your portfolio, especially when you go to take income
and retirement for those downturns. And that's going back to
my car thing. It's because I like to have cash.
Some people freak out about cash. As I like to say,
sometimes you win by not losing.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, we keep cash as well, and we have the
money where we need it, but we do keep up
quite a bit of cash. Actually, somebody made a comment
because I'd say something about that.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Where do you keep it? Oh, stop in a pillow
case in my backyard?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Tread here in a drawer.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's kind of actually my question. I've heard that advice,
not from you, I've heard it from movies. I've heard
it from.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Friends that like, you grab that money, you bury it?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Why bury it?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Literally? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Why?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Like, why is that a stereotype. When it comes to
money getting buried in the backyard.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
That's Depression era thinking because you know during the depression.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It comes from the Bible, too, is that right Bible?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Well, well, yeah, the one son buried his money so
it wouldn't be spent. The other one invested it, and
that the dad you know, awarded the one who took
the risk, and not because the one who buried it
didn't do anything with it.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Unintended consequences.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, apparently the you know, Bible, it's not my son.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
That's strange parenting.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Just clear up all the confusion. You should never bury cash.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
No.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I've had literally had clients who put money in the
walls of their home, which if your home burns down,
is generally not a good idea, stupid.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Or even forget it that it's there.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Or they or they passed.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And in two cases that I can think of, the
person passed and then the relatives. One of them knew,
so he was able to dig into the wall, and
I think somebody found out later after the fact and
did not get the loot.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
So we're not.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Talking about one hundred bucks, We're talking about tens of thousands.
Of dollars, and that's Depression era thinking. You know, literally,
I don't know how many thousands, literally thousands of banks
went out of business during the Depression, and so people
who were born in that era in particular remembered that
and thought, well, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
To me again.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's like in the movie It's a Wonderful Life
and there's a run on that bank. That's exactly what
that looks like. You know, people want their cash out
of the bank, and the bank's like, look, man, that's
wrapped up in his mortgage and that guy's business. We
ain't got it the money. It's not we don't have
a big room of money, dude, it's not like that.
That's not how banks work.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
People think that though, they think, well, for for every
dollar I have on this statement, there's some cash in
a vault. But it's more like, no, for every dollar
you have on that statement, there's about twenty five cents
in the vault. Yeah, if you're lucky, If you're lucky. Yeah,
And that's how banks leverage and obviously make money.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Scott Brown with us again, that's Edgwater Family Wealth Edgewater
Familywealth dot com. If you'd like to go and make
yourself an appointment for a consultation. You can do it easily,
just go to that pulldown bar and maybe that consultation. Hey,
what do you feel about gold? It's you know, we've
never really talked about this. You know, gold gets pushed
a lot, and of course it made it over four
thousand dollars an ounce, and you know, and it's so
bizarre how that is moved around. Do investors look at
(15:06):
gold as a safe haven for money or is that
a place where you put your gold when you're not
sure about things or money when you're not sure about things.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Where does that go?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
I think you're right about with your latter statement. I
think people gold is a store of value. When things
aren't going well, gold tends to uptick. So I think
the average in return of gold over the last forty
or fifty years is probably around seven or eight percent,
which isn't terrible. Most of that has been gained in
the last few years. It goes through spurts, so when
we have downturns in the economy, gold tends to grow. Right,
(15:35):
People see it as an alternative asset class well, at
least I'll have the gold which I can then do.
I don't know what with I don't know if they
think they're walking down to Public's with it and peeling
off a sliver to pay for their eggs saloon. Yeah,
but I have always said this about gold
I was listening to a best of and you guys
couldn't remember Santa Claus's reindeer. So just in case you forgot,
you know, Dasher and Dancer and Prancer, Vixen comment and
Cupid donner and listen. But do you recall the most
(00:25):
famous reiner all Jim Colbert?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
You mother?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
You don't know if she has kids? Right?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Four one text seven seven zero three one beautiful. Thank
you for the serenading.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That was lovely. We appreciate that. I'm Jim.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There's deb Hello is here the sauce, I'm ready to
be responsible.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Let's do its only money.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
So people passionate about planning for their future rise above
investment rifts to build.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Isn't that really just common sense financial advice?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It's oh okay, it's all the money.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Wis Scott thrown from the Edgewater Family?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well he give it up in the triumphant return.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Mister Scott Brown, You've been dealing with this imposter while
I was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
People say he sounds like you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Edgewater Familywealth dot Com a fiduciary in town for thirty
eight years, making sure that your money lasts long and
gives you the nice life you want after you call
it good?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Is that close? That's pretty good? All right?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Call it good? Is that what you say when you leave?
I'm calling it good? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, thanks, boss,
I'm good. He leaves a party, I'm calling this good. Yeah,
Well that's the party. It's so funny.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
One of the topics I had today we didn't get
to was is how you leave a party without being that.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Douchebag guy that go, well, I just be the douchebag guy. Well,
the Irish exit kind of thing. Is that what they
call it?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Irish exit?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I love the Irish exit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Irish exited. Last night, I.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Find the boss, I look right, and then I said,
great party, I'll see you next year, and I get
the hell out.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's exactly what you do. The big goodbye as was
you know?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That was?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That was Larry David have was famous for the big goodbye.
He wouldn't He would avoid everybody until the very end
and he say goodbye goodness.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
See.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
What do you think they say you should do? I
don't know. Would you leave a party? What? What do
you think they say? Make the host?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hey, yeah, take the host and then.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Slip put some silver in your pockets. I don't know,
say as.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Little as possible, Hey, you gotta go, see you soon.
In other words, offer no explanation because it sounds like
you're trying to make up an excuse to leave.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Just leave, is what they say.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Got to get the kids, there's something bringing on the stove.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well say any of them. Nobody believes it. Just say, hey,
it's time for me to roll. Yeah, yeah, it's guy,
gotta get out of your party, saving shake the hands,
give a big thanks, and get out the door. It's
amazing what confident and being looking confident will do, because
that's kind of what the difference is. You're making something up,
or it's it's irrelevant.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Who cares.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody cares. Nobody's gonna believe you anyway.
I mean, you know you you've known the schedule for
a while now, well you know, I mean if you've
been there an hour and a half, so I usually
try to do an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, say
hey to all my friends. I don't get to see
usually around the building, and then get the hell out
of dodge. It's what it's for.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah, I've gotten older. Parties are harder for me. I
don't know what that is first, while I'm tired early,
I have one drink and I'm.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Like, okay, bedtime.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
I'm looking for a couch to lay on, which always
embarrasses my wife.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Parking is more of a concern.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Do you guys do a company party at your place?
We do, really when.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
We're doing one this coming Friday. No, I'm sorry, two
a week from Friday. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Scott comes in on Tuesdays in the afternoon talk to
us about some things happening in the world of finance
and stuff. So if you want to get with Scott
and get an a you know, just have a consultation, talk
to him about where you are in your saving life,
what your plan is for retirement. You can do that easily.
It's edgewaterorfamilywealth dot com. There's a poll down bar there
where you can make an appointment or just make a
phone call. Somebody in the office will talk to you.
(03:52):
It could be you, Brach or whomever is available, and
they'll go over what you need to talk with and
if it needs more attention than you, make an appointment.
Come in and hang out with these guys and let
them tell you what they need to do.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
That actually happens quite frequent. We get a lot of calls,
which I'm thankful for because it feels like we're helping
a lot of people. And as I've said many times
on the show, more frequently than not, these people are
not ready to be our clients or even sometimes interested
in being our clients.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
But they have some you know, basic questions.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
You know, I'm thinking about doing this, or I'm thinking,
you know, my four one K has that and it
can you help me?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
How much should I save?
Speaker 4 (04:21):
And usually within a five or ten or fifteen minute conversation,
we can point somebody more or less in the proper
direction taking those first steps towards achieving at least some
kind of financial independence, which those first few steps that
we've as we've talked about for years now are the
hardest they are.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And I think what you find is is you kind
of lose that nervousness after that first call, and you go,
oh Jesus, that wasn't that pain.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That wasn't that painful.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I'll do this again, and then you'll learn it more
and more you get confident, then you'll want.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Alert you know kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Well, you really, I think what you realize more than
anything is. You're not it's not you're not that bad off.
Usually it's not unfixable, it's not irrepaarable. You can you
can make process towards your goal without how to stop
eating or turn off the cable or.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Never take it.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
You know, these things are fixable, And I think people
say there. I think a lot of times they're afraid
we're gonna say that's it, shut off the cable.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, you know, you're no.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
More Dinners, No, you know TV dinners every night, And
we almost never say that.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
We never say that, at the fact the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Sometimes usually have our time people getting people to spend
the money they've saved for that long.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Well, yeah, we're convincing, convincing them not to be anxious
about it, right, Like I've had people come in who
are very visibly anxious about the conversation we are about
to have. And then when it's very clear to them,
or should at least be very clear to them, that
they're on the right path, they're not. You know, yeah,
maybe you need to fix this or you need to
fix that, but you're not in bad shape. But I
can still see they struggle to let go of that anxiety,
(05:44):
so sometimes it takes a couple three times for them
to actually believe what I'm telling them or what the
numbers are telling.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And by the way, if you have any questions now
you can text us seven seven zero three to one.
Scott is here in studio, will be here for another
fifteen minutes or so, so you can certainly do that.
Let's get to the list, though, because this actually made
a lot of news last week and the week before
when Michael Dell and his wife, whose eyes are perpetually open,
steps a week and steps up and gives like six
point twenty five billion dollars to start these Trump accounts,
(06:14):
and then I mean, I don't care what you read.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Everybody had a piece on the Trump account.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Do I do it? What is it? What do I do?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
What is the Trump account? It sounds a lot like
a four to one K is what it sounds like?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (06:27):
It sounds to me? And there's still some ambiguity surrounding it.
A lot of the details have not completely come out
from the big beautiful bill. But what it essentially is
like an iray or a raw. It's more like an
ira in that it's tax deferred. It's not tax deductible, okay,
it's the gross tax deferred until you spend it. So
any child between currently, how it's written is from January
(06:47):
first of this year through the end of twenty twenty seven,
right coincidentally, I don't know who's going to be president
during that time. Everybody who's born between that timeframe will
get a thousand dollars contributed to that account. Then Franz family,
relatives whoever, can contribute up to five thousand dollars to
those accounts throughout the child's lifetime. And it's the thousand
dollars is only going to people who are born in
(07:08):
that period, but people under the age of eighteen are
eligible to open.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Them on their own or through their family.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Sure, and just take advantage of the system that's set
up for that money.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, it's kind of cool. I actually did the math.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
If you to put six grand, if you to put
if the thousand dollars had opened the account for an
eighteen year old right now, eighteen years ago, and then
let's say the family and friends added five grand, which
is what you're eligible to add, it would be worth
about thirty thousand dollars today. If it had been invested
in the S and P five hundred, which is essentially
what they're talking about doing so, and the beauty of
it is it's not just for retirement, it's for whatever,
(07:41):
buying a house, and they have some limitations college houses
and some other things. I think even you can open
a business with it. But how do how you verify
these things or qualifies? Really kind of the devil's in
the details. Sure, I mean, I mean, would you suggest this?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I mean, why not?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a three thousand dollars right, qualify?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, you just got to open the account, right.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And again, how they're going to distribute this, how the
money gets moved from one place to the other, I
have no idea, and I'm a little concerned they don't have.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
An idea yet.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
But essentially it's it's pre money and then it's an
opportunity at birthdays. You know a lot of times you
get your use We used to get our five dollars
bill or whatever they get in probably twenty nowadays. Yeah,
from granted exactly, and you knew which relatives were cheap,
by the way, Yeah, like I don't want that on
a little bit, But anyway, that money could go into
this particular kind as well, till you get to the
maximum of six thousand total bulls coo.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
All right, let's move on mental hacks for accumulating wealth.
Little tricks that we play on ourselves, and we can
say little tricks we plan on ourselves to save money.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is that what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, i'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
So, and what drove me to send that to you
was I was having a conversation with my brother in law.
My brother in law is in the same business. He
actually was my intern thirty years ago and is still
in the business with me. And we were driving somewhere
to get food or something for the relatives, and we're
having a conversation and I said to him, you know,
when I buy it.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We're talking about cars. He's a car guy, he loves cars.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
And I said, you know, when I buy a new car,
I don't pay cash. And he was a little surprised,
and he said, go on, And I said, well, what
I do is I will finance the car for two years,
but pay it off in a year. And he was
still kind of looking at me funny, and he said,
I do the exact same thing. And I asked him why,
and it was the same reason. Let's say you buy
a fifty thousand dollars car. You've saved the fifty which
(09:22):
is awesome by the way, and you say, well, I'm
just going to pay cash for the car because I
don't want to pay interest or any of those things.
I get that, and I'm not saying that's wrong. Don't
don't take this as an absolute. But the trick I
play on myself is I'd like to keep my fifty
grand and then I forced myself, through my income through
cash flow, to pay off the car in one year. Now,
somebody might be listening and say, well, once you pay
(09:43):
interest for that year, and that's that's true, I will.
I'll pay a lot less interest, a minimal or nominal
amount of interest.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You're only financing him for a couple of years rates.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Really actually a year.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
That's always what I've done over the last thirty years
of my life when I bought a car.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Is I didn't take cash because I have the cash.
I like the cash.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I want the cash like everybody else, right, I like
to look at it in the account.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It feels nice, and because cash is king.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Indeed, those are three words that the older I get
the more and more, I understand cash is king well.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
In the beauty of cash and people.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
A lot of times clients will fuss at us because
we make clients who take income keep more cash or
in treasuries or something that looks at least like cash
and so much that it won't go down.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
We keep. We make our clients who spay.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Let's say, have a client who spends thirty grand a
year out of their lump sum of assets, I make
them keep at least eighteen months worth of cash on hand.
Now I might keep it in a money market or treasuries,
but it is a cash instruments. And sometimes clients will
fuss at us in a good market because why do
I have so much cash? Why is it all in
the market? Of course they won't say that if the
market drops thirty percent or right. And the reason I
(10:47):
say that, and the reason I talk about cash and
what the reason why Ross is saying cash is king
is because it gives you options. Because if I have
to sell a bunch of securities to create the thirty
grand for the person I just described, but market's down
thirty percent, you're losing. I gotta sell way more stuff.
And you say, well, what's the big deal with that? Well,
not a big deal. But then you would say, because
(11:07):
the market's going to come back. But here's the problem.
I've sold thirty percent more stuff. I don't have any
more for when the market comes back up. So I
am I am a stickler with my team. If I
see an account where somebody's taking income and I don't
see eighteen months cash, somebody's in trouble. Really, Oh yeah,
big time. Because I went through I went through ninety nine,
I went through two thousand and eight. I saw the
(11:29):
clients who succeeded in the clients who didn't, and the
clients who had cash reserves were able to make much
better decisions that allowed them to get through those periods.
Because we know the average recession lasts fourteen and a
half to fifteen months historically from peak to trough to peak.
But if you're selling a bunch of stuff in the
trough because you didn't prepare for that downturn, the results
(11:53):
to your portfolio long term are very detribal.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, very detrimental. Well, you can't make that money back
up and you've lost it at the worst rate.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, it's and if you retired in ninety nine, or
you retired in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Think about it.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
If you had half a million dollars, let's say, and
then you woke up at the end of eight and
now you had three hundred and.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
That what that does to your psyche, What that does
to your spending, the way it makes you feel for
the next twenty years that you're retired. You have to
prepare your portfolio, especially when you go to take income
and retirement for those downturns. And that's going back to
my car thing. It's because I like to have cash.
Some people freak out about cash. As I like to say,
sometimes you win by not losing.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, we keep cash as well, and we have the
money where we need it, but we do keep up
quite a bit of cash. Actually, somebody made a comment
because I'd say something about that.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Where do you keep it? Oh, stop in a pillow
case in my backyard?
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Tread here in a drawer.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's kind of actually my question. I've heard that advice,
not from you, I've heard it from movies. I've heard
it from.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Friends that like, you grab that money, you bury it?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Why bury it?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Literally? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Why?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Like, why is that a stereotype. When it comes to
money getting buried in the backyard.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
That's Depression era thinking because you know during the depression.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
It comes from the Bible, too, is that right Bible?
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Well, well, yeah, the one son buried his money so
it wouldn't be spent. The other one invested it, and
that the dad you know, awarded the one who took
the risk, and not because the one who buried it
didn't do anything with it.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Unintended consequences.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, apparently the you know, Bible, it's not my son.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
That's strange parenting.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Just clear up all the confusion. You should never bury cash.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
No.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I've had literally had clients who put money in the
walls of their home, which if your home burns down,
is generally not a good idea, stupid.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Or even forget it that it's there.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Or they or they passed.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And in two cases that I can think of, the
person passed and then the relatives. One of them knew,
so he was able to dig into the wall, and
I think somebody found out later after the fact and
did not get the loot.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
So we're not.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Talking about one hundred bucks, We're talking about tens of thousands.
Of dollars, and that's Depression era thinking. You know, literally,
I don't know how many thousands, literally thousands of banks
went out of business during the Depression, and so people
who were born in that era in particular remembered that
and thought, well, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
To me again.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, that's like in the movie It's a Wonderful Life
and there's a run on that bank. That's exactly what
that looks like. You know, people want their cash out
of the bank, and the bank's like, look, man, that's
wrapped up in his mortgage and that guy's business. We
ain't got it the money. It's not we don't have
a big room of money, dude, it's not like that.
That's not how banks work.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
People think that though, they think, well, for for every
dollar I have on this statement, there's some cash in
a vault. But it's more like, no, for every dollar
you have on that statement, there's about twenty five cents
in the vault. Yeah, if you're lucky, If you're lucky. Yeah,
And that's how banks leverage and obviously make money.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Scott Brown with us again, that's Edgwater Family Wealth Edgewater
Familywealth dot com. If you'd like to go and make
yourself an appointment for a consultation. You can do it easily,
just go to that pulldown bar and maybe that consultation. Hey,
what do you feel about gold? It's you know, we've
never really talked about this. You know, gold gets pushed
a lot, and of course it made it over four
thousand dollars an ounce, and you know, and it's so
bizarre how that is moved around. Do investors look at
(15:06):
gold as a safe haven for money or is that
a place where you put your gold when you're not
sure about things or money when you're not sure about things.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Where does that go?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
I think you're right about with your latter statement. I
think people gold is a store of value. When things
aren't going well, gold tends to uptick. So I think
the average in return of gold over the last forty
or fifty years is probably around seven or eight percent,
which isn't terrible. Most of that has been gained in
the last few years. It goes through spurts, so when
we have downturns in the economy, gold tends to grow. Right,
(15:35):
People see it as an alternative asset class well, at
least I'll have the gold which I can then do.
I don't know what with I don't know if they
think they're walking down to Public's with it and peeling
off a sliver to pay for their eggs saloon. Yeah,
but I have always said this about gold
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