@WakeUpCall – ‘How to Money’ with Joel Larsgaard

The host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins Wake Up Call to talk about the ‘Trump Accounts’ for kids and pitting Uber and Lift against each other.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I bet Joel Larsgard thinks that buying lottery tickets is
a great investment strategy, don't you, Joel?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Uh yeah, duh. Doesn't everyone do that?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Can't? Okay, So just.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Go the low and slow route, the index fund route,
when you can just do it all in one fell.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Swoop, right. My brother and I were having a conversation.
He said, at this point, I think my retirement plan
is going to include winning the lottery.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, you know, I'm just banking on my kids taking
care of me and my old age.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Okay, well, good luck on that. So let's talk about
kids and the new Trump accounts for kids.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Let's do that. So this is one of those things.
We've just got a bunch more information about these accounts
over the last week, and this was these accounts were
something that became reality in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,
Love saying that every time, and so they're essentially available.
You can put money into these accounts if you have

(00:56):
kids who are eighteen and under. But the thing that
makes these accounts most interesting, because I don't really think
they make sense for most people, is if you have
a newborn, because that's when you get free money from
the government. Under these accounts, one thousand dollars essentially seed
money that you can invest on behalf of your child
for their future. And I think there's gonna be a

(01:19):
lot of confusion around these accounts. We'll probably have to
keep talking about them, because yes, you could put more
money in than what the government is giving you, and
yes you can put money in for kids who are
even older than newborn, right for your elementary or middle
school aged kids. The problem is they just aren't the
best from a tax perspective for everyone. And so I

(01:40):
love the idea of you know, somebody with a new
baby getting that free thousand dollars investing that on their
kids behalf. But I just think there are better accounts
that people should be more interested in using to build
wealth through their kids than using those kind of newfangled
Trump accounts.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Okay, so but if it so, let's talk about this
just a little bit, because you're saying there are better
account accounts out there, but this is a kind of
a seed money and if you're I mean, why would
you not take it?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
No, you take it. If you have a new body,
you take the thousand dollars. You just don't utilize the
account beyond that. After the three thousand bucks, you just
indest that money watch it grow. But you turn your
attention to other accounts, like the five twenty nine account,
which has become more flexible in recent years, and so
you can use that for higher education. If you don't

(02:33):
want to do that, that can be money that can
be rolled into a roth higher So I guess the
annoying thing is I mean, aren't we already kind of
annoyed by the proliferation of retirement accounts? What does each
one mean? And what are the specific rules for each one?
My goodness, let's add another one into the mix. I
wish we could have just used the five twenty nine
accounts system and found a way to have the government

(02:53):
contribute a thousand bucks there, But no, we didn't do that.
We created a new account. The other thing I think
it's worth mentioning here is entrepreneur Michael Dell announced that
he's offering an additional two hundred and fifty dollars for
kids ten and younger, And so this is kind of
an interesting public private partnership. When I first heard this,
I was like a little skeptical. I was like, what's

(03:13):
going on here? But it's kind of cool that he's
at least he's basically said, hey, I want to see
not just newborn kids over this three year span. It's
a very limited run for these Trump accounts. We'll see
if they get extended. I want to see other kids
have some money put into their accounts as well. And
so if you have some kids who are ten or younger,

(03:35):
they're going to be eligible for this two hundred and
fifty dollars in free money that Michael Dell is putting up,
which is great.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I think anything that you start that you have people
saving and maybe get that mentality going. I didn't have
it when we were kids, Like I didn't learn to
start saving. One of my best friends did. She had
a five twenty nine account and she would push her kids, Hey,
when you get fifty bucks, put five in that account.
And they actually are doing very well. They're like eighteen

(04:02):
and twenty or nineteen and twenty now and doing great
because their mom kind of taught them that from the get.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Go, you know. And I think that's actually as these
are not my favorite accounts, like I said, I would
love to see using existing accounts that are already awesome
that people are using widely and just how the government
put maybe a little bit of free money into those
accounts instead of trying to create something brand new. But
I think that the probably the best thing that's going
to come from this is kind of like what you're

(04:28):
talking about. I think we're bound to see young people
being a little more We're already seeing like gen Z, Hey,
they're interested in investing in ways that previous generations were not.
And part of that's just because it's at their fingertips.
It's easier than ever to pull off. And there's new
companies like Robinhood that have just made it super simple
for better or for worse, to be able to become

(04:48):
an investor. And I think that people are going to
open these accouts. They are going to be like, wait
a second, how's that seed money performing. They're going to
you can you go along with your kids and say, hey,
that thousand bucks you got for free, you know you're
eight years old, that's that's worth twenty one hundred dollars
now because of how we invest it, and then like,
let's see if it'll double again in the next seven
or eight years, and that could be seed money for

(05:09):
school to reduce debt. You have to take on. It
could be the down payment for a house in the future.
And I do think that the kind of just getting
people in that mindset of investing and watching money grow
from an early age, that could be one of the
most powerful things that these accounts create.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Okay, and then real quick because we are out of time,
but I want to hit on this. You're saying that
if you can kind of pit Uber and Lyft against
each other and save some money.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, so there's this new new data came out, and
if you have both of the apps on your account,
but check both before you take a ride every time,
because the savings can be significant. The difference on average
is something like fifteen percent per trip in savings if
you check both and you go with the cheaper one, Okay,
but especially on longer trips, it can be a lot

(05:52):
more in savings. So if you're like, yeah, I want
to save forty bucks because I'm taking an Uber trip,
we'll check Lift too. You might just save a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Okay. Good advice as always that we get from our
very own Joel Larsgard. And for more great financial advice,
you can listen to Joel every Sunday from noon to
two right here on KFI. You can also follow him
at how to Money Joel. Thank you, Joel Larsgard, Thanks Amy.
All right, have a great day.