Afford Anything - AI, Debt, and a Social Security Shortfall. Should Your Money Plans Change? With Rob Berger

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

#755: Many retirees fear running out of money more than they fear dying. AI is reshaping the economy, the U.S. now spends over $1 trillion on interest, and Social Security faces a shortfall. Rob Berger says if you're worried about all that, it's a sign you're thinking clearly. Rob Berger is a former securities lawyer, founder of the personal finance site Dough Roller, and host of a nearly 300,000-subscriber YouTube channel on investing and retirement planning. He started writing about money in 2007, just months before the Great Recession. In this episode, we discuss: How to tell whether today's high stock prices should change your plan When to trim a stock that's grown too big, and when to let it ride Why a booming economy can still leave so many people feeling squeezed What a looming Social Security shortfall could mean for your retirement How to cover your basic bills with guaranteed income, whatever markets do How to ease into retirement instead of going from 40 hours to zero Why daily spending habits matter more than investing knowledge Whether you're five years from retirement or five years into your career, this episode will help you separate what's truly changing from what never does. 🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED RETIREMENT WORRIES FEEL OVERWHELMING? SEE YOUR WHOLE FINANCIAL PICTURE ON ONE PAGE 👉 http://affordanything.com/cornerstone Rob Berger on YouTube 👉 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9C17-OMxa-7oRSaCtztObw Rob's free weekly retirement newsletter 👉 https://robberger.com/newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. added only 29,000 new jobs in September underperforming expectations. Meanwhile, inflation clocked in at 3.4% over the last 12 months. And the Fed responded by hiking interest rates by another quarter point, the first rate hike since 2023. Mortgage interest rates hit a new high. And bond yields are going bananas. We're going to talk about all of that and more in today's first Friday episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything.

not everything. This show covers five pillars. Financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship, acronym Double I Fire. I'm your host, Paula Panty, the master's in economic reporting from Columbia. Every Friday, the first Friday of every month, we host a macroeconomic look at the markets, the economy, what's been happening in the economy over the last month. Welcome to the October, 26, first Friday macro, markets, Markets and Macroeconomics episode. We'll start with the jobs report. It really did badly.

The U.S. added 29,000 new jobs in its latest report, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%. That is a huge decline over what we've done in previous months, and it really underperformed expectations. In August, initially, the BLS had reported job growth of 162,000 jobs. that number got revised down to 133,000. The good news is we're still growing, the bad news is not by as much as we thought we were. Two days prior to the BLS report, we get a little sneak peek by getting data from this other thing called the ADP report.

ADP is a private payroll processing company. They report report report showed that U.S. private sector employment increased by 90,000 jobs in September. So just so you know the difference in methodologies, ADP is a private company. They're a really big private company. And so they're just looking at their own payroll data, but they're big enough that their payroll data is a very large data set. Based on their own data, they saw an increase of 90,000 jobs in September. The BLS, which has totally different methodology, they only saw an increase of 29,000. So we're getting a big discrepancy from these two data sources.

The BLS samples roughly 119,000 businesses and government agencies covering 622,000 individual work sites. So that constitutes around 26% of all non-farm employment. And they count total jobs. That's how they come up with their jobs data. Their numbers get revised three times after one month, after two months, and then annually. Sometimes those numbers do get revised upwards. That's less common, but it does happen. but a disappointing report this morning from the BLS.

Turning our attention back to ADP and going into a sector breakdown, ADP saw that most of the jobs that were created, and this will be no surprise if you've listened to these first Friday episodes regularly, most of the jobs that were created were in education and health care. Those constituted about 55,000 new jobs. This is according to the ADP report. Leisure and hospitality was another 22,000 jobs. Manufacturing 17,000 jobs.

construction 15,000. Big loss in financial activities. That group lost to 16,000 jobs. Overall, especially considering the huge disparity between the August report and the September report, and given the successive downward revisions that we've seen throughout the summer, we're seeing evidence of cooling labor demand. Like, we're seeing that job growth has not been as strong as we previously thought. In September, we missed expectations by a huge margin. We further revised down July's numbers. So July figures were cut by an additional 31,000. Again, unemployment, as I mentioned, ticked up. It was at 4.1%. Now it's at 4.2%. So overall, we're seeing a slightly cooling labor market. That means that there is a argument that the Fed might

hold rate steady at its October meeting. We'll talk more about that in just a moment because the big new, I don't want to spoil it, but the big news is what the Fed did in September. You know what? We'll talk about that next. On September 16th, the Fed raised interest rates by a quarter point. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate to a target range of between 3.75% to 4%. That is the first rate increase that the Fed has done since 2023. And it was a a unanimous vote, which is crazy because Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has kept talking about how the Fed keeps having these good family fights. He's used that phrase multiple times. And in the last many, many Fed meetings, they have not been voting unanimously. There's always been some dissent. So to see a

unanimous vote indicating the whole Fed is in alignment, like I guess those quote unquote good family fights that Warsh keeps talking about are actually constructive. So Fed raised interest rates at its September meeting and investors immediately started anticipating even more rate hikes in the future. So right after the Fed raised their rates, new projections from industry analysts and investors started showing that a lot of investors believe, analysts and investors believe they're going to raise rates by another quarter point before the end of the year. So the current expectation is that the Fed rate is going to be between 4% to 4.25% in that range by the end of this year. But today's jobs data actually decreases the likelihood that they'll raise rates at their October meeting. So we'll see. I mean, we'll know by the next first Friday episode.

The Fed's going to meet again just before Halloween on October 27th and 28th. And that will be their second to last meeting for the year after that. their final meeting of the year is going to be December 8th and 9th. Before I move on, just a quick reminder as to what the Fed rate is. So the Fed sets a target rate that banks charge one another when banks loan each other money overnight. So how this works is Bank A might loan some money to Bank B overnight, super short-term loan, and the Fed sets a range, and that range is currently between 3.75 percent.

to 4%, the Fed sets a range of the interest rates that Bank A would charge Bank B for that overnight loan. And that overnight rate is the foundation for the cost of money throughout the system. Like how much does money cost? That rate is the foundation for it. It is the benchmark. So if you then decide to go get a loan from a bank, if you, decide to get a he lock or a small business loan, or if you take out a new credit card and you're thinking about what the interest rate on your credit card is, which you shouldn't because you should pay it off in full. But if that's the type of thing you pay attention to, that rate is going to sit on top of that Fed rate. Now, if it's a credit card, it's going to sit on top of it

by a lot. If it's a he lock, it's going to sit on top of it by a little bit. But the Fed rate is the baseline. And by the way, the way that the Federal Reserve holds that rate in place, is by setting what it pays banks in order to keep their cash at the Fed, because a bank is not going to lend to another bank for less than the amount that they make from the Fed. That's how that whole system works. And that's why it's a really big deal that the Fed just raised rates for the first time since 2023. I hope that explanation emphasizes why that's such a big deal, because it means stuff's going to get more expensive. Sorry. It is. And it's ironic because the whole reason that the Fed raises rates is to battle inflation,

but in order to battle inflation, stuff has to get more expensive. The cost of money has to get more expensive. Because if something's expensive, then you use less of it. So if the cost of money is expensive, then you borrow less of it. That's at least the theory. Businesses take out fewer small business loans. Homeowners don't take out helox to do a kitchen renovation. That that cools the economy, which cools inflation. Speaking of which, new CPI data dropped, the Consumer Price Index, comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the same people who give us the jobs report. And the latest CPI data, information released in the month of September that covers the rate of inflation as of the month of August, shows that inflation over the previous

12 months was at 3.4%. That's the headline inflation number, so it includes everything. If you strip away food and energy, like groceries and gas, if you remove those two elements and look at what's called core inflation, which is inflation minus groceries and gas, that was only 2.4%. The cost of food and the cost of energy made up a huge portion of that headline inflation number. So that's the latest CPI data. Meanwhile, there's another set of data. It's called the PCE, the personal consumption expenditures. It's data that's released by a different government agency, the BEA, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The PCE data is what the Fed looks at when they're thinking about inflation.

And their latest report shows that real PCE increased 92.8 billion in August. That is a rate of 6 tenths of a percent, at a monthly rate of 6 tenths of a percent in the month of August. For the previous 12 months, it found identical results to the CPI. It found 3.4% year on year as of August. And if you strip away groceries and gas, core PCE, so everything excluding food and energy, that was 3%. So headline PCE and headline CPI are both at 3.4%. Meanwhile, core PCE is 3%, core CPI is 2.4. What does all of that mean?

It means headline inflation, no matter which survey. you look at, headline inflation is 3.4%. That's inflation that includes everything that you buy. There is a little bit of disagreement as to how much of that is attributable to groceries and gas. And if you use one set of results, the CPI, it says it's a really big deal. If you use a different set of results, the PCE, it says kind of a big deal. But where they both converge, where they both agree is that headline inflation is 3.4% over the last 12 months as of August. And that is about a percentage point and a half higher than where we want to be. And that is why the Fed raised interest rates. Now, this might have an impact on our trade. Prior to the Fed's decision, the president

demanded that the Fed cut interest rates and threatened that if they don't, then he's going to cut off trade with the countries with which the U.S. maintains trade deficits. So he wrote, and this is an exact quote, quote, lower the rate or I'll stop trading with countries with which we have a deficit, end quote. And we do have big, big trade deficits with many, many countries, with dozens of countries, including some of our top trading partners. And the higher our interest rates are, the more we pay, according to the president for each point of interest in this country that we pay, that costs 650 billion. He stated, quote, some countries are paying half, a point and we're paying four points and yet we're a much stronger credit than they are, end quote.

So his position is that the U.S. should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world. We are extremely creditworthy as a nation and a strong country and a very creditworthy country should mean a lower interest rate. He holds a position that we should be paying the lowest interest rate on earth. Kevin Warsh and the rest of the Fed unanimously voted in the opposite direction. The Fed has a dual mandate. So the Fed's job is to manage both inflation and unemployment. And a strong jobs report, which is what we thought we had for the month of August, strong

jobs means that the Fed doesn't have to worry as much about unemployment. And so if we have a strong jobs market, that means that the Fed then has more leeway to raise rates. So the Fed declined to officially comment on the president's remarks. Kevin Warsh did say, quote, short-term interest rates are the predominant to achieve the dual mandate, end quote. So it sounds as though Warsh is narrowly thinking about exactly the dual mandate, which is the Fed's job, and time will tell as to whether or not this will result in halting trade with

some of our trading partners, at least with the partners with whom we have a deficit. Meanwhile, here are two things that we do know. number one, we know bond yields are going bananas. In September, the bond yield hit a 22-year record, the 30-year treasure yield, hit it broke a 22-year record. The 30-year treasure yield hit 5.5 percent. That's its highest level since June of 2004. And the 10-year note jumped to 5.223 percent, and that, we haven't seen that since June

of 2007. That was on September 25th. When that happened, again, that was September 24th, 25th. When that happened, everyone was freaking out because we haven't seen a 30-year bond yield like that since 2004. And I thought that was going to be the end of the story. But yesterday, literally yesterday, the 30-year yield hit 5.69%. that was October 1st. That is the highest spike that we've seen.

So bond yields climbed past 5.6% on September 29th. By September 30th, they were at 5.64. And then yesterday, they hit 5.69. And as of today, as of this morning, they're down a little bit. They're at 5.61. Recording this on Friday, October 2nd. It's currently just before noon in New York. Why is this such a big deal?

like why are we all freaking out about the fact that the 30 year and 10 year treasury yields are so high? Number one, that poses a huge risk for the stock market. Because if you can get what is essentially a risk-free 5.7%, then why wouldn't you pull money out of stocks to buy bonds? In fact, this is not an investment recommendation. That's just, it's kind of a rhetorical question, but I've mentioned on this podcast, I used to have an all-equities portfolio. And very recently, a couple months ago, when 30-year yield started going high, I think it was at 5.2%. I pulled money out of some of my stocks in order to buy bonds.

Again, not telling you what to do, but I personally am going to buy more bonds. Because if I can get nearly 5.7% on something as safe as a 30-year treasury, why would I not do that? So high bond yields are risky for the stock market because to justify holding onto a stock, you have to expect that the risk premium is worth it. Like you have to expect that that stock is going to deliver and that it's going to deliver such big gains that it's worth the risk. And if enough investors decide to pull money out of stocks and buy long-term bonds instead, that's bad news for the stock market.

So that's one reason why it's a big deal. And the other is mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are largely based on the 10-year treasury. Right now, the current average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is roughly 7.44 to 7.51%. Freddie Mac puts out a weekly survey, and the Freddie Mac's survey data that was released yesterday, October. over 1st pinned the weekly baseline average at 7.28%. This big, huge surge in bond yields means mortgage rates have just experienced their largest weekly jump in four years.

So again, mortgage rates are based off the 10-year treasury. Ten-year treasury is really high at this moment. And the 10-year, it often trades like right around nominal GDP, and nominal GDP is higher today because of inflation. As we just talked about, inflation is at 3.4%. You know, if we expect that inflation is going to be 3.4% over the next 10 years, I'm not saying it will be, but like, let's say that that that is your starting assumption. And then you also expect that real GDP will be 2%. And you put that together and now you're at 5.4%, up to 5.5%. Like, it's not a surprise that the 10 year is trading where it is. And if that's where the 10 year is trading, then add a couple more

percentage points to that. And we end up with mortgage interest rates at 7.5%. We need inflation to come down so that bond yields can come down so that mortgage interest rates can come down. In the meantime, if you're shopping for a home, you're facing 7.5% 30-year rates. And that probably means that if you're an existing homeowner, you are locked in, golden handcuffed to your 3% mortgage. And if you do have to move, you are likely going to end up holding onto that property so you can keep that mortgage. And so we're seeing a lot more people become quote-unquote accidental landlords, unintentional landlords, because you don't want to give up that low-interest rate mortgage. And then if you have to move, like for family or for a job or something, maybe you rent for a

while. We're seeing an increase in rental demand. We're seeing a lockup in the housing market. It's a low buy, low sell, like just a low volume of transactions situation in the housing market right now. But because we're supply constrained, prices stay high. So for anyone who is a current homeowner and you become an accidental landlord, if that's your situation or if you know someone who's in that situation, we have a free guide. It's around some of the biggest mistakes that beginner rental property investors make. And if that's you, again, if you're an accidental landlord, which more and more people are becoming, you know, they've never intended to be a landlord, but like you don't want to sell your home and you have to move. So if that's you and you're in that

situation, afford anything.com slash rent. It's a free guide of just here's some mistakes that people often make when they're beginners, just some things to red flags to look out for. It's totally free. afford anything.com slash rent. If you are an intentional landlord, this is actually also going to be good for you because it walks through some of the inviolable math that you want to keep at top of mind as you are thinking through your purchasing decisions because the demand for rentals is strong. It's actually growing. Rental demand is growing.

So if you buy the right property, the returns are out there. I was just talking to somebody who just bought a triplex down in Texas, but there's a lot more strategy involved. So again, afford anything.com slash rent. Great guide. Whether you're an accidental landlord or an intentional one, this will orient you on the basic math that you need to always keep in mind as you're thinking through your decision-making. Now, for those of you who are current renters who aspire to own your first home, like if you've

never owned a home before and you feel priced out of the housing market, we are going to be holding a workshop on that. The date is not set yet, but if you sign up for our newsletter, we will announce it when that is ready. So for anyone who's like feeling priced out of the housing market, feeling like you aren't ever going to be able to buy your first home because how can you, when mortgage rates are seven and a half percent, we're going to hold a workshop on it. It will be in likely late October sometime, like late October or early November. Sign up for our newsletter, afford anything.com slash join. And we will announce it once we have the date and time set in stone.

Again, that's afford anything.com slash join. All right, we're going to take a break to hear from the sponsors who allow me to bring all of this to you at no cost to you. And for the remaining portion of this episode, we're actually going to play an interview that I recorded with our good friend Rob Berger at a conference called FinCon, which I went to a couple weeks ago. Rob Berger is a former litigation and securities attorney who started a very popular personal finance website called Do Roller in 2007. He sold that website in 2018 and then became the founding deputy editor at Forbes Advisor. He now hosts a very, very popular YouTube channel focused on retirement planning. He's also the author of a book called Retire Before Mom and Dad, so all about how to develop so much financial independence that you can retire before your parents do.

So we're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who make this show available to you for free at no cost to you. and when we come back, we're going to chat about today's markets, today's economy, with Rob Berger. From morning hockey with a cup of coffee to Timbits and road trips, Tims and Canadian Tire have always gone together. Now it's official. You can now earn Canadian Tire money at Tim's. Link your Triangle Rewards and Tim's Rewards accounts to earn twice with every Tim's run. Terms and conditions apply. Visit timhordens.com slash triangle for details. Rob, welcome to the show. Hey, Paula. How you doing?

I am fantastic. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure. Rob, you have been covering personal finance since 2007. You have seen a lot of changes. I mean, 2007, to state the obvious, is pre-Great recession. You're aging, maybe, but yes, that's all true. The world of personal finance is unique in that, on one hand,

there are elements that are classic and timeless and universal. There are rules of money that are just classic timeless universal. And the economy always changes. How do you square what's classic with what's changing? Yeah, it's a great question. Particularly today, because one of the biggest changes is AI, which we can talk about, I tend to think that a lot more stays the same than actually changes. It's just that what's changing is what gets our attention.

And for good reason. I mean, obviously, AI is truly different. You know, this time is different. This time is different. I think AI technology, for a lot of reasons, is fundamentally different than technologies that we've had in the past. But at the same time, I think the basic fundamentals of investing haven't changed. Valuation still matters.

You know, it can appear not to matter for a time, but in the end, it eventually matters. And from a retirement planning perspective, sort of the rule of thumbs that you sort of alluded to, like how much can you spend safely out of your portfolio when you retire each year, hasn't changed. A.I. is not going to change it. And so, yeah, there are things that don't change and there are things that change. The risk is if we convince ourselves that's sort of the basic fundamental things that don't change, if we convince ourselves that maybe they have, that can lead us, I think, into some pretty big mistakes. Like, for example, if we think that the lofty valuations are fully justified because this time is different,

and therefore there's no risk in the market. Yes, they're high, but that's because of AI. I think that can lead us into some real trouble. So let's stick with the topic of valuations. At its most basic level, the value of a company is the value of all of the cash that it will make in the future, discounted back to present day. Right.

And where that gets very confusing, especially right now, is that there are skills that were once scarce that have now become abundant like writing and coding. As employees, we understand how that affects our current value in the marketplace. But for companies

that have built businesses around the premise that coding or writing or information is scarce, suddenly the underlying premise of the company is different. And so understanding how much money that company will make in the future and then discounting that back

to its present day is a lot harder. do we have to apply a totally new framework to understanding how to value companies given these types of changes? I don't think so. Not at all, as a matter of fact. I mean, it is true that as technology is advanced, there's going to be winners and losers, right? It's just like, you know, when the car first came out, when Ford, you know, figured out how to manufacture cars and bulk, I probably wouldn't have wanted to run a company making saddles. You know, it was probably on a downtrend. And it's going to be true now. You know, like you said, what was scarce because of AI now in many cases, take coding as a perfect example, is now abundant. That's going to hurt some companies, maybe put them out of business, and it's going to help other companies.

And that's what technology, that's just what it does. I don't think it changes the fundamentals of valuation. It can, for a time, make value in a company very difficult because it's very difficult to model future growth. Like if you're modeling Coca-Cola, probably not too difficult to get a reasonable sort of feeling for future growth. But now when you try to model hyperscalers, you know, or some of the other AI companies or energy companies, I mean, all the companies that are affected by the buildout, energy, for example, a lot of people are trying to do it, but it's a lot harder. That doesn't change the fundamentals. The fundamentals are still the same, in my view.

You sort of alluded to the idea that there might be overvaluation of certain companies, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, so tell me if I'm stating this accurately, but there may be some overvaluation of some companies that are at the cutting edge of AI, the hyperscalers, because of exuberance in that area. Do you believe that the Mag 7 or some of the biggest tech companies are overvalued? And if so, should people be reallocating their portfolio? Great questions. So when I think about overvaluation and people ask me about overvaluation, I think generally the question I actually hear is not are the companies overvalued, but rather will they crash anytime soon? Is the market overvalue what people really want to know? Is it going to crash before Christmas? Right.

Or something like that. To that question, of course, I have no idea. Historically, if you look at, say, a P.E. metric, and that's certainly not the sole way to value a company. valuations are elevated. Now, you know, we can talk about, well, for different reasons, maybe the rules have changed a bit from accounting perspective. And so maybe there's some justification in higher, say, PE values, for example. But even with that, they're certainly elevated above historical norms.

And there might be a lot of reasons for that. Interest rates have been relatively low. Of course, they're going up now. But even still, I remember getting 16% on the six-month CD. And that was 1982. two, I do think historically valuations are high, particularly in certain sectors and in the United States. At the same time, I'm not changing my investment approach at all. I'm not changing my asset allocation. It's largely low-cost index funds, although I do own a few individual

stocks, although none in the hyperscaler world. I'm not changing a thing because I don't know when the market's going to come down. I don't know what will trigger it. I don't know how long it will last and trying to time that and then time re-entry back into the market, it's just more opportunities for me to fail. And I've just found long-term success if I just leave it, leave it along. You mentioned you own a few individual stocks. With those individual stocks, if you start out with a reasonable allocation, but then some of them grow and due to that growth accidentally become bigger pieces of your portfolio, bigger allocations of your portfolio than you intended. Do you trim that growth or do you let them ride? I trim it a little bit. So the one example

for me is Apple. I invested in Apple in 2013. We trim it largely by giving some shares away to charity. But it's still probably 10% of my portfolio. Some will have a hard and fast rule. You never have an individual stock more than, say, 5% or whatever, I don't set a rule like that. One of the things I ask is, if we lost it all, how would that affect our lives? Apart from me being very, very sad, if that happened, right? Yeah. But would it change our lives as we know it? And if the answer is no, and the company, I think, is still fundamentally sound, I'm going to continue to hold it. So in the case of Apple, I'm not selling anything. When we next contribute to our donor-advised fund, we'll contribute Apple shares. But other than that, yeah, I don't tend to sell it just because it's reached a certain

threshold. And in fact, if you have a portfolio of individual stocks that end up doing really well, it's going to be because of just a few of them. That's just what history tells us. And so, yeah, I'm not a believer in selling the winners unless something's changed fundamentally about the company. There is right now a lot of pessimism. What's sometimes challenging to square, about the pessimism is that we are living in what on paper appears to be an economic boom time. The stock market is doing well. GDP is growing. Inflation is down to a three-handle.

On paper, all of the economic data seems to be very positive. And yet, there is a lot of pessimism and a lot of frustration. People feel prices are too high. People feel housing is unaffordable. People are worried about their jobs. And we see this across all. age groups. I mean, there's arguably a bit more pessimism with Gen Z, but really across age groups we're seeing this kind of pessimism. How do you square the positive economic data that we're

seeing with the pessimism that is the overriding sentiment? Honestly, I don't think that's an uncommon situation. And it can go both ways. You can have a very bad economic situation where some groups are doing quite well. And you can have what seems to be a very good economic environment, which I would describe what we have now for all the kind of the reasons you mentioned, and yet there could be a lot of folks that maybe not aren't benefiting as much. And I think you really hit the nail on the head. One of it's inflation. And the thing about inflation is it's cumulative, right? It's not, you know, we've had high inflation. Now it's come down, of course. But, you know, that nine or 10 percent that we hit is baked into prices

forever, unless we have deflation at some point. And even now, you said it has a three handle. I think it's a three-four. You know, that's still well above the Fed target. Is it the worst inflation in the world, no, but it's certainly higher than I think consumers want to see. And then you add to that right now the price of the pump. I mean, people see that and it's, you know, and people are trying to live on a budget. And, you know, that's one of those commodities you want to pay as little for as you possibly can, and the prices keep going up. And you mention homes. I mean, it's very difficult for the younger generation. Of course, I'm speaking for someone who will be 60 here soon, to afford a home. And you see the age of first-time buyers. It keeps going up and up and up. I think all of that,

comes together and makes people, a lot of folks feel not all that happy about the situation. And I think it makes perfect sense. I would feel the same way if I were in that situation. Now, I hope you don't ask me for the answers to all of that and the solutions, because I'm not sure I have them. Do you think it will get worse before it gets better? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, the truth is I have no idea. The things that concern me long term would be our debt, of course, in deficit. We're spending over a trillion dollars in interest payments. And there's a couple of things specifically that concern me. So it's easy to point the finger at Washington. But of course, we're the ones that vote politicians into office.

And can you imagine a politician today for president, senator, it doesn't matter, if they said, here's my platform. We're going to raise taxes and we're going to cut benefits because we really need to get the deficit under control. And we have to do this not just among the wealthy. Yes, they'll pay part of this too, but the middle class has to pay too. Because we simply can't burden the wealthy alone. It won't fix the problem. The numbers just don't add up. So that's my platform.

Everyone's going to suffer. Would they get elected? Not a chance. Right? We won't solve problems until we have no other choice. And you actually see that start to percolate on Social Security. Because we know that in about, what is it, six years now, I think, roughly, we're going to run into a problem. Because the trust fund, the fund is going to run out.

benefits will get cut. And so you already see politicians starting to talk about a solution because they've painted themselves into a corner and now we have to act, right? But all of that gives me a great concern because that's just one issue, right? That's still, you know, even if we solve social security for now, we still haven't fixed the debt or the deficit. And in fact, the solution to social security, if it's, for example, raising payroll taxes, and apologies if this is far more going down the rabble, I love the rabbit hole than you want. No, I love the rabbit hole.

That's just money that's going to an important thing. Right. But they can't now fix the debt and the deficit. Right? This is all connected. Right. But the other part of the concerns that I alluded to is that this is not a taxed a wealthy kind of problem.

Yes, that'll be part of any solution, but that won't fix the problem. And, you know, I'm always cautious when I hear politicians sort of put that out there as a solution. We just need to tax the billionaires. Well, maybe we do. that's not going to solve our problems. And, you know, we shouldn't tell the rest of us that we're not going to have to make some sacrifices because we all will. One way or another, it's going to happen. What type of sacrifices do you think are coming down the pipeline?

Well, I mean, you could talk about means testing social security, for example. Of course, you could talk about raising social security tax. There could be some complete overhaul to the health care system. I mean, it's obviously not imminent. but at some point, those costs between Social Security and Medicare, those are the primary drivers of our deficit. We can cut military some. When I say that, I don't mean that from the perspective of,

is it a good idea or not? I have no idea. Military used to be the driver of our spending. It's not today, not compared to things like Medicare and Social Security. So I just don't see how we solve the problem without some sacrifice in those areas. And at least right now, that's the third rail of politics, right? No politician's going to get up there and say, we need to make some changes to these programs

because they'll be kicked out of office. But eventually, we're going to be forced to do something. We'll see how it works out with Social Security because that's, I think, the first one that's going to hit us. Yeah, Social Security in particular has been surprising because we're now, as you said, only six years away. 2032 is when it becomes insolvent. And that means benefits will get reduced.

If there are no changes, benefits get reduced to, 70% of where they currently are. And for many retirees who depend on Social Security, getting 70% of their current Social Security checks is a devastating cut. Yeah, you just can't do that. I mean, there have been changes in the past to Social Security. We've changed the retirement age, right? We've increased it.

That helps a little bit. Of course, they've inflation adjusted it. They've taxed it. That wasn't originally part of the Social Security program. So we've made changes in the past. You just have to do them in a way so that they've, don't affect folks that are in retirement now or close to retirement. You know, but there's pros and cons to that.

Because, I mean, I think the younger folks are saying, well, look, there's already this huge wealth transfer from the working class to the retired class already. And that's true. But you can make changes that don't go into effect for a long enough time into the future that folks can prepare. At least that's how they've done it in the past. I'm not a social security expert in the sense of, I don't have my finger on the pulse of all of the little levers that they're.

can pull to make the corrections, but at the end of the day, you can only do one of two things, raise more revenue or reduce the benefits or some combination of the two, and it's going to have to happen. There's just no other alternative. And the pain's going to have to be spread out. That's the point that I think gets missed. The wealthy can't solve this problem. It just doesn't, the numbers don't add up. Right. You mentioned also the debt and the deficit. To the extent that High yields on long-term treasuries are a warning signal. The situation that we're seeing right now is like the yields on 10-year treasuries and 30-year treasuries are really high.

Some people are saying that's just a liquidity issue. You know, Scott Bessent is saying it's a liquidity issue and we need to buy up the That hasn't worked out so well for him so far. Right. So, yeah, I mean, there's the school of thought that says it's a liquidity issue, buy up the older stuff and that'll inject more liquidity into the system. And then there are other Stanley Drunken Miller who are saying, this is actually a red flag, it's a warning signal, we should pay attention to it.

And if we let the bond market lead us with accurate price signals, you know, that might be the thing that helps solve ultimately the deficit in debt crisis because the bond market is going to speak in the way the bond market is going to speak. I agree with that. I just don't think the government is very limited in their ability to manipulate, which I know is a strong word, but manipulate the bond market. And certainly if yields continue to rise, it's going to put more and more pressure on our annual budget, right? And our deficit's going to go up as we pay more in interest, you know, as we issue new debt at those higher yields.

You know, old debt matures and they're just refinancing it, right, plus the new debt that they need. And we have some big competition, right? We go back to AI. The infrastructure built out. I think the number that I've heard most recently is $7 trillion. That's with a T. I remember when a trillion was a lot of money. Seven trillion between now in 2030, a lot of which is going to be financed through debt. So it's not just our government going out to the bond market asking for money.

It has a lot of competition. And so, you know, if yields do continue to rise, yeah, it's going to, that's the kind of thing where our government will only, it seems like they'll only act when they're forced to. The bond market could force the government to act. Right. And we've seen it how it's affected the administration and its dealings overseas. You know, the bond markets, you're not going to manipulate the bond market, I don't think, in any effective way. The latest attempts show that.

Again, I don't profess to be an expert in U.S. Treasury market. I watch it like you do. But it seems to me pretty silly to think you can make policy in a way that's going to allow you to dictate the bond market. It's just not going to happen. Not that I can see. So do you think that ultimately the bond market will be that forcing function? That I don't know, right? I mean, there's so many different things that affect the bond market, the yields.

And oftentimes, in my view, it's hard to know exactly what's affecting the bond market, just like the stock market. I mean, you know, you tune into the news, which I do every day, the financial news, and you hear pundits say, well, this is why this is happening. It's because of our growing debt and deficit, or it's because of the AI infrastructure built out and demand for debt, all of which sounds very reasonable to me. I don't know how they know that that's what's actually causing the yields to rise.

Maybe they're right. I don't know. I tried to predict future yields and I'm just wrong every single time. So I've just stopped trying to guess where it's going to go. So yeah, the answer your question is I have no idea. Do you think that this is something we can grow our way out of? As long as we remain the global leaders in AI,

as long as we continue to have high GDP growth, as long as we remain the most economically productive nation in the world, can we simply grow our way out of the deficit and debt problems that we have? That strikes me as highly unlikely. I mean, the growth prospects, we've had high productivity. And even that, I think, to some, is a bit of a mystery. Again, we can try to guess as to why. Some folks say that AI will increase that productivity, and it might.

I mean, you know, we could all think through that and say, yeah, that kind of makes sense, Yeah, how that would work. But from my experience with our government, it's like when you get a raise and some families spend the raise. Yeah. Right? That's what our government does. It spends the raise, whether it does so through increased spending or it depends who's in an office,

increased spending, lower taxes, a combination of the two. I just don't see increased productivity or growth solving the problem force. It may give us some temporary relief. but long term, it doesn't strike me as all that realistic. And if we go down that path and then we have a reversal of our growth, we're going to be in a lot of pain. I mean, we've enjoyed economic privileges in this country for a very, very long time. We all hope it continues. But we also know that nothing lasts forever.

Right. And I'm not making a prediction as to what or when, but it concerns me to think, well, we'll just grow our way out of this. this problem. To me, that's attempting to find a solution without having to experience any pain. And while that sounds great, it'd be great if that's how it worked out. I'm very suspicious. Given everything that we've talked about, for the people who are on the verge of retirement, we'll say with retiring within the next five years, it can feel a little scary to retire at a time when so much is changing so fast. AI, big deficit worries, big. debt worries, lingering inflation worries, like there's a lot to be concerned about right now.

To be worried about so many things and simultaneously voluntarily give up your income can be a very stressful event. What would you say to anyone who would like to retire within the next five years but is worried about the current state of things? I think the first thing I would say is it's good to worry. You should worry. That's actually a good sign. That means you're thinking clearly. There are a number of ways I think you can address retirement, even in uncertain times. And the times are always uncertain. It's just that sometimes they feel more uncertain than others. The first thing I would think about is what forms of guaranteed income do you have? So obviously, Social Security comes to mind, even with the potential cut in theory. You may have a pension.

Most people don't. I don't. But you may have a pension. And you can generate other forms of guaranteed income. An example would be a tips ladder. And right now they're priced pretty well. I haven't looked at the yields in a few weeks, but, you know, at the 30 year was close to, I think, 3% real, I believe. So you could build a tip slatter that would... The 30-year bond is at 5.2% Right, nominal. For nominal. Nominal. And so you could build out a 30-year tip slatter that would effectively give you an inflation-protected guaranteed income. And can you generate and put together enough guaranteed income just to cover your basic necessities, right? And then with your 401k money that you've got invested or your IRA money, that can be sort of for everything else.

Now, this plan doesn't work out perfectly for everyone. Right. Depends on your specific circumstances. Some might say, well, I don't really need, you know, 100% of my necessary expenses covered by guaranteed income. Maybe 75%'s enough for me. Okay, fine. But I think that can give folks, a lot of security to know, look, worst case, I've got these forms of guaranteed income that will, I can get buy one if I had to. You could even think of a single premium immediate annuity, not a huge annuity fan, but that can be part of that as well. And then you could invest the others in a diversified portfolio that can be for all the things over and above your necessary expenses. I think thinking about a retirement plan that way can help folks weather the emotional

storm that you're going to go through. You are when you're retired. It's scary. There are other things you can do. Don't go from 40 hours of work to zero. Maybe you go part-time. My mom, the perfect example, she retired as a school teacher, and then she did substitute teaching. In fact, she still does a little bit now as a way to make a side income. And she enjoys it, keeps her active, like being with the students. Retirement used to be full stop. I'm done. I'm out. And I don't think that's as much the case today. So you could transition into retirement, which is frankly what I've done. You know, because I was worried too when I officially retired a few years back. Yeah. And so doing some side works helped me get over that, you know, that emotional hurdle. So that's just another way

to do it. I think most people when they retire are nervous. It's normal. You shouldn't think you're different or it's easy for everyone else because it's not. And what I found is, once you've lived that way for a while, whether you've got a little bit of part-time work or not, you eventually adapt and adjust. And I wouldn't say that the fears completely go away, because there's always something out there to worry about. But you do adjust to it, and you'll lean into it and you'll enjoy retirement immensely, I hope for most people. But those are some ideas, the way I think about it. So you can deal with all the uncertainties in a way that helps you sleep at night.

Hmm. What about on the other side of the curve? So somebody who's just beginning their career, given the uncertainties of this time, a person beginning their career who doesn't know how AI is going to affect their future career trajectory. They also don't know generally. Like, do you optimize for a career that pays well or something that you enjoy? Do you, they're all of those questions that every young person, every person in their 20s has asked. But now they're asking it in a different. context, in a different environmental context. What advice would you give to them? So a few things. One, I would be thinking about living below my means as much as I can so that I can, one, get out of any debt that I have, including student loans, and I can begin saving and investing immediately. And the thing I would say is, if you're 25 and you think, well, Rob, yeah, I know, everyone's going to say that. Right. But 65 is a long way away. And it's just, you know, really? But the thing that people miss is you don't have to wait until you're 65 to enjoy the benefits of living below your means, getting out of debt, and investing. You'll start to see the benefits when you're 30, 35, and 40, and I'll give you an example.

I switched jobs at one point in my career, and we couldn't retire. We weren't financially independent, but we'd been saving, and we didn't have a lot of debt, and so we were in pretty good shape. And I landed in a job that I quickly learned was not for me. And the thing that helped me was I knew, because we've been saving, that I could take a pay cut if I want. I could go without work for six months. We'd be okay. And I can't tell you the benefits that gave me. And it ultimately allowed me to not only take a new job, take a new job that had a significant pay cut that ended up being the best job I ever had and ended up making more money.

But I didn't know that going in. So that's an example of living below our means, getting out of debt, saving and investing, had a real tangible impact on our lives long before I turned old, like I am now, and retired. And so that's the first thing. The second thing I would say, though, about careers is I would never lose your curiosity and I would never get too comfortable. Always be learning. This is something I tell my children. My son is in the computers and AI. I bought them a subscription to Claude.

I said, I want you to be using this. as much as you possibly can and learning. And he is. He's actually built some great apps for our family, actually, which has been a lot of fun. So I think you don't want to get too comfortable in whatever role you're in and start to lose that edge.

I don't mean that you can't just relax and enjoy life. I'm not suggesting you burn 100 hours a week trying to learn something new, but particularly in today's economy and the market and with AI, I think those that can adapt and learn and self-taught are going to be in a much better position, at least for the kind of maybe white-collar professional jobs we're talking about, but even in other industries as well.

And that's something I try to teach my kids to the extent they'll listen to me. They listen less and less as I get older. I don't know. Maybe I should talk less. Maybe they'll listen more if I talk less. How old are they? They're in the 30s. 30s and 40s is sort of these.

overlooked decades, it's even notable that I've just asked you about people on the verge of retirement and people at the beginning of their careers. I've asked you about the two far ends of the distribution, 20s and 60s, and then skipped over that messy middle of the 30s and 40s. Yeah, when you get to that point, a lot of folks, you know, you've got, maybe you have a family, maybe not. You've probably got some kind of career job that you've been in for a little bit, and it's kind of become your identity, it's become your routine, and that's great, and it's comfortable. And, you know, you think, I'm just good. This is what I'm going to do until I'm 65.

And maybe that is. Maybe it's great. Maybe it's wonderful. But then again, maybe not. And that's where I just think you can always be learning new things. I mean, I think about, you know, I'm almost 60, and here I am trying to learn AI, right? A whole new thing, brand new thing. But it's been a lot of fun. And it's helped my business immensely. Not that everyone has to necessarily learn AI. It's just one thing and a pretty important thing. Right. My big change to online business in my blog was in my 30s. And I learned, I didn't know how to build a website.

I never heard of WordPress. I never heard of Paula Pant. I know. Shocking. And I had to learn something all new. I think it's what makes life fun. And it will help you maybe survive any shocks that come your way. And they will come.

Well, you were in the game before I was. I mean, you'd never heard of Paula. I'd never heard of Broad Burger. I mean, you started in 2007. I didn't even start until 2011. I'm just curious for myself. 2007, you began writing about personal finance, and within a few months, we enter the great financial crash.

Yes. We enter the Great Recession. Right. Tell us about that time. You were this public voice that was trying to make sense of money at the most confusing possible time in our lifetime to try to understand money. Yeah. So even back then, I was a big believer in low-cost index funds.

And don't change what you're doing because of what's going on around you. And so when we entered that, I stayed the course to borrow a Jack Bogle saying, a book. I stayed the course. The result was, and those that did, made a truckload of money by doing nothing. Right? Isn't a great thing? I did that. What did you do?

I did nothing. Okay. I kept contributing to my 401K. didn't sell anything. And, you know, here we are almost 20 years later. And that was the message that I was trying to convey back then. It's the message that I try to convey now. Now, if I'm being totally transparent, I had it pretty easy. We didn't lose our house. We didn't miss a mortgage payment. I didn't lose my job. A lot of people suffered, as you know. And so it's easy for me to sit here behind a mic and say, oh, just stay the course. I get it that it's hard.

And there can be extreme circumstances where, you know, maybe you need to cash in your IRA because you need to eat. I get it. And that's going to happen to some people. And it was a very difficult time and a scary time. I mean, people thought the banking system was going to collapse. We weren't sure what was going to happen. And truthfully, maybe it came pretty close to it. If you can stay the course, I think in the long term, particularly if you have a well-diversified portfolio,

it puts us in the best possible position to have a positive outcome. No guarantees. Right? They're just aren't in it. But I think it puts us in the best possible position to have a positive outcome. What is your definition of risk? Not knowing what I'm doing. To me, risk is just uncertainty.

Right? We don't know what the future holds. And so some things are riskier than others. For some things, the future is more uncertain. So that, to me, is risk. And I'll add to it. Anything you might do to eliminate risk comes at a cost. There's always a fee associated with it.

So you could take your money out of stocks and put it in a high-yield savings account. You're about as guaranteed as you can get to not losing actual dollars. FDIC insured, but it costs you something. Your expected return is a lot lower. And you very likely may not even keep up with inflation. So, yes, we should deal with risk. And sometimes we need to buy that insurance. You know, we should probably have an emergency fund.

And so we say, yeah, it's a cost, but it's worth paying. Right. We can take that too far. You can buy too much insurance, right? But yeah, that to me is risk is just uncertainty. Do you think people tend to make financial mistakes due to a disregard of risk or an overabundance of risk or a combination of both but misapplied?

Yeah, I mean, mistakes can be made on either end of that. You know, you see Bitcoin go up and up and up. so you jump in right before it crashes. Or you see stocks go down and you get scared. I mean, I know people that sold out in 08 and 09, and I talk to them, and they're profoundly regretful that they did that. I mean, for them, it was a, you know, a life-changing kind of mistake. Fear or greed can get you.

And then there's other aspects of it. I mean, I think a lot of mistakes get made when you're doing your best to deal with family. Right? I mean, money is not just about the stock market. It's about, you know, your relationship with your parents, the relationship with your spouse, a relationship with your children, and helping people or having people help you. You can do a lot of good, but a lot of mistakes can be made there because it's not just about, you know, numbers in a spreadsheet. It's about real human lives that you're trying to, hopefully, you're trying to impact in a positive way. And sometimes mistakes get made. Sometimes you make decisions with the best intentions. And maybe it was a good decision based on what you knew to help this person or not help that person or tough love or not tough love. And I'm just grateful my kids probably will never hear this show so they won't hear me talking about this. So the mistakes get made in a lot of different ways when it comes to money. And all of us, I believe, myself included, carry baggage from our childhood. I have significant baggage from my childhood when it comes to money.

Now, in my case, I think it's helped me because as a child, we went to a lot of financial pain. So it caused me to want to save and not overspend and not get into credit card debt. But we can't escape our childhood. We all bring it forward one way or another. And that is true, I think, with money as much as it is anything else. And to the extent that we bring our childhood with us, do you believe that getting better at money is more a function of information and education, or more a function of self-knowledge, self-reflection, psychology? I would probably, well, you could do both, but I think of it more the latter.

I also see it as a function of routine and habits. Because when you think about getting better with money, you know, we can talk about sort of investing and staying the course. I think what's just as important is what you do with that extra $100 in your checking account when you're two days out from payday. And do you use it, do you spend it in a way that you probably didn't have to and it's gone? Or do you save it? And there's a balance there.

I'm not suggesting the only thing you should do with extra money is save it. Sometimes you want to enjoy life a little bit. I get it. When I talk to people that are struggling, it's often their daily spending habits that are causing the problems. What I try to convey is, I'll tell you a story. I used to drink mocha at lattes from Starbucks almost every day. Wow. The proverbial.

Yes. The latte factor. and I stopped not because of money, but because of health. It was just not good for me. The first day, I didn't get a mocha latte, I was driving myself up a wall. It was the worst, it was awful. And three weeks later, I didn't miss it.

And you fast forward 15 years, been 15 years, something like that. It would make me sick today if I drank one. And the point of that story for me is, we have a lot more control over what makes us happy than we realize. And a lot of things make us happy, and if we did without them, it would be very hard for time,

and then we wouldn't miss it after a while, and then maybe even our lives would be better without it. And so I think daily habits, monthly habits in terms of us and money, is probably the single most important thing to gain control over. You're not going to learn that in a textbook. You're going to learn that trial and error.

At least that's how I learned it. Right. You've been doing this since 2007, 19 years. In that time, you've received thousands of questions from your audience. How have you seen the tenor of those questions change over the past 19 years? Well, a lot of the change has been from going from sort of a general personal finance kind of content, which was what Doe Rolter was, to today where it's very much focused on retirement planning. and the investing that goes with it. And I suppose, you know, the folks that listen to me have gotten older as I've gotten older. And so the questions are very different today. I mean, back then it was everything from how do I improve my credit score to what's the best cashback credit card or whatever. Today, it's questions for retirement.

What do you think the most asked questions are? Any idea? What do I think the most ask questions are? What do they ask me the most? All right. If I had to guess, I would guess that they're asking you about, asset allocation and retirement, a combination of stocks, bonds, cash, as a cousin to that, that they're also asking you about asset location.

Yep, those are two big ones. And I would guess that they're asking you about drawdown strategies. That scares people. Yeah, exactly. What are the best drawdown strategies, which accounts, how do you rebalance in the face of drawdowns, etc. probably some contingent that's asking you about overseas retirement or geo-arbitrage retirement. Which I know nothing about, but yes, they do ask me that.

Yeah. I guess everything that I've discussed so far is tactical. Well, I'll tell you, and you nailed it, I'll give you some specific examples. So you mentioned asset allocation. And that's a big one. But specifically, they want to know how much cash should I hold. Cash is a big, big issue for retirees. And they want to know as part of that asset allocation plan, how much should be in cash and where should I keep?

Probably my number one question. Another one, and you alluded to this too, is how much money can I spend each year without going broke? That's kind of a 4% rule question in a way, although that tends to be not really how I answer it today. But one of the biggest fears of retirement is the fear of running out of money. And studies have shown that people are more afraid of that than dying. So that's a really big question. And the other one is going back to kind of asset allocation, people send me their portfolios. Like they'll say, here are all the tickers I own, here's the percentage I have, and they want me to evaluate it.

But here's the catch. A lot of these portfolios are being managed by an investment advisor. It's often at a big firm. And their concern are the fees that they're paying and the complexity of the portfolio. and it's amazing to me. I just got one the other day. $400,000 portfolio. And I'm trying to remember how many funds.

I think it was 20, no, maybe it was 10 funds. They had them in like 10 funds. Absurd. And the funds were absurd. They know that it's wrong. They know that this is not how they should be investing. And they know they shouldn't be paying the fees. But they're afraid to go out on their own.

So that's the third kind of question I get a lot. How do I leave my advisor? And can I really do this on my own? And that's a hard question to answer because it's not just tactical. It's emotional. So there's a lot of issues that go into that. But those are probably three of the biggest questions I get now. People don't ask me how to improve their credit score anymore.

I don't care about that. Right. I do get a lot of the is my advisor ripping me off questions? I hear that a lot. And to a certain extent, if you have to call a show to ask, you know. Maybe you've got your answer. Yeah, exactly. That alone tells me that at a minimum there is some broken trust between you and your advisor.

Yeah, I think the industry, I mean, the industry still runs on an AUM model. One percent is the standard. And what happens is when people get into retirement and they realize I could be spending that 1% on fun stuff or I don't know, food, And I'm paying it to someone, it stops making sense at that point for a lot of folks. And they're struggling to figure out what to do about it. Right. Yeah. Do you think AI empowers people to directly handle their money,

to do a better job of directly handling their money? Or do you think it could create like a false sense of knowing just enough to be dangerous? I think on the edges, on sort of the margins, it might help some, but by and large, no. It doesn't. Not because it can't, in theory, and I use it a lot, even to manage my own portfolio. Not to make investing decisions, by the way, just to know what's there. First of all, for a lot of folks, they're not comfortable using AI in that way. Right.

And even if they try, they get back a response. They don't feel that they can effectively understand, is this a good response? Is it accurate? Maybe I didn't ask all the right questions. Maybe I'm, you know, maybe I got a perfectly good answer. answer to the question I asked. Right. Maybe there are seven other questions I should be asking.

I don't even know those questions. So, yeah, I don't see AI at the moment as taking all these folks that are maybe sort of locked in with an AUM advisor and setting them free to manage their own portfolios. That's my instinct anyway, yeah. That's a good point. The judgment or the discernment. Yeah. It's a big part of it.

Yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more? Just on YouTube, Rob Berger, you'll find me there. And I send out a newsletter. It's free every week. You can sign up for that if you'd like.

And we would love to hear also your questions. If folks are listening, I have a question, they can send it to me. I've got a database. It's a couple thousand now. Wow. So it'll take me a little while to get through them all, but I'm trying. Wow. That's incredible.

Thank you, Rob. Thanks, Paula. That's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening. I want to tell you where I'm at. I am in Munich, Germany, right? right now. I actually recorded this morning's episode, that whole first portion of it. I'm like sitting in a hotel room in Munich looking up bond yields. So I wanted to say a quick hello to any

Afford Anything listeners who are in Germany. Thank you for welcoming me to your beautiful country. Thank you for being part of this community. Speaking of community, if you want to interact with other members of the Afford Anything community, you can go to, you guessed it, affordanything.com slash community. Completely free. It's a place where you can interact with like-minded people. Talk about bond yields. Talk about mortgage rates. Talk about all of the things that are on your mind. Or at least those are the things on my mind. And again, remember, if you want to learn about the most common mistakes that beginner rental property investors make, you can download that guide for free at afford anything.com slash rent. And if you would like to hear announcements about

the workshop that we're going to run for people who are trying to try to do that. to buy their first home who feel priced out of the housing market. Again, we haven't set a date or time yet, but when we announce it, we will announce it on our newsletter. Affordainthing.com slash join. Thank you so much for being part of this community. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I'll meet you in the next episode.