Afford Anything - Ask Paula: I Doubled My Investments During the Pandemic. What Should I Do Next?

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

#316: Pauly from Portland doubled the inheritance money he received from $50,000 to $100,000 during the pandemic. Now he’s wondering if it’s okay to use this $100,000 as a downpayment on a home in Portland. Is that a wise use of the money? Preethi accidentally withdrew funds from her Roth IRA as an excess distribution, and she’s already filed her taxes. What should she know for tax time next year? Michele wants to reach financial independence (FI), and her grandparents are leaving her their house. She already owns a home, and she’s torn between six potential options that will propel her toward FI. What should she do? Casey is in the market for a second rental property and wants to know: would we recommend purchasing a rental in a complex where she already owns a condo? Or should she diversify into a different complex in a different, nearby, more stable town? Fred doesn’t have access to a workplace retirement plan. Besides opening a Roth IRA, what else can Fred do to juice up his retirement savings? My friend and former financial planner, Joe Saul-Sehy, joins me to answer these questions on today’s show. Enjoy! For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode316 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to any limited resource that you need to manage, like your time, your energy, your focus, your attention. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most? Second, how do you align your decision-making around that which matters most? Answering these two questions is a lifetime practice, and that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pant.

I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. Every other episode, we answer questions that come from you, the Afford Anything community. And today, former financial planner Joe Saul Seahy joins me to answer these questions. What's up, Joe? Man, it's another week, and we are ready to go, aren't we? Oh, my gosh, absolutely. Fantastic. Well, we do.

We've got some great questions, and I can't wait to, you know, throw a dart at what the answers might be. That's so horrible. You know, I did that once. Years ago, I think it was in 2014 or 2015. I basically as sort of a media stunt for the blog, I blindfolded myself, threw a dart at a list of stocks, and bought whichever stocks I landed on. And then I tracked those for a year and compared it to the performance of the S&P 500. Did it win? I don't remember. Jeez, I would need to check my own website. So the Wall Street Journal asked a bunch of top money managers every year for a while. I don't know if they still do it. And they, they did the same thing where they threw darts and the dartboard almost every year one over the time that they did it. Nice. Reversion to the dartboard. Who knew? Actually, we knew. We knew. All right. We've got some answers that are better than a dart throw. Here is what we are going to cover in today's episode. Michelle is the first in her family to graduate from college and her grandparents will be leaving her their home.

She already owns a home, and she's torn between six potential options, possibly more, in her quest towards FI. What should she do? Casey is in the market for a second rental property and wants to know, would we recommend purchasing a rental in a complex where she already owns a condo, or should she diversify elsewhere? Fred doesn't have access to a workplace retirement plan, so other than opening a Roth IRA, what can Fred do to juice up his retirement savings? Polly doubled the inheritance money that he received from $50,000 to $100,000.

What should he do with this money? And Preeti accidentally withdrew funds from her Roth IRA as an excess distribution. What should she know for tax time next year? We're going to answer all of these questions right now, starting with Michelle. Hi, Paula. Thank you so much for your podcast and everything you've taught me so far. It's been incredible. My name's Michelle.

I'm 29. I'm first generation of my family to graduate from college, and I want to be the first to be financially independent. I wish my grandparents could live forever, but realistically, they're 90 years old and not in great health, so I stand in here at their home in the next few years or so. I want to be prepared when that happens. I'm really grateful for the gifts they're leaving me, and I want to use it in a good way. For my financial background, I make around 40K a year at a state job that I enjoy. I'll probably work there for 25 more years because at 54 years old, I'll be eligible for a full pension as long as I live.

My goal after 54 is to only work because I want to and not because I have to. I have around two grand in savings. I invests 30% of my income in a Roth 401k through my work and then an outside Roth IRA. I only get a $50 match for my employer because of the pension in the Roth 401k. I've got about $12,000 together in both of those accounts so far. I have a $95,000 15-year mortgage on my primary residence and it's worth around $125 right now. No credit card debt, no student loans. I make around $500 to $1,200 a month in a side waitress gig that I have. have not married, no kids. So my grandparents' house is worth around $200,000 right now and it's paid off in full. So I need your advice about these options for what I could do with it. So I know I could sell my

current house and move into their house and just live rent free. Ideally, I would take the $800 I was paying towards my mortgage and put it into my retirement accounts. Another scenario is to rent my current house and move into their house. I think I could net around $1,100 in rent, but I don't know if I'm brave enough yet to be a landlord. Another scenario is to move into their house but pull equity out of it and use it for something, probably not rental houses. I could sell both houses and then use a portion of the sale of it as a down payment on a new house and then invest the rest. But where do I do that? I'm very J.L. Collins-style investor. All of my retirement accounts right now are in VTSAX only with Vanguard. I'm never invested in a taxable account.

Or do I live off of the money from the sale of the house and then invest my entire paycheck in my retirement accounts? I've heard of that, like saving the portion that you make and then just living off that lump sum and then putting my whole paycheck towards my Roth 401K. I don't know. Which one's better? Or isn't it better, though, to put a large amount in it once, you know, disregarding dollar cost averaging and just saying time in the market beats time. the market, do I just put all of that money in a taxable account and let it grow over the next 20 years? Please help me. I really appreciate your advice. And I'm sorry if I said anything wrong. I'm still learning. So thank you so much. Michelle, thank you so much for that question.

Thanks for being brave enough to ask that. And by the way, you said everything right. You know, Paula, there are very few things that you can say that I would ever think is a, quote, dumb question. In fact, the only time I personally think a question is a dumb question is when a question makes a lot of assumptions and somebody is acting like they know a lot more than they do. And then I think, stop pretending you know so much because we're all making mistakes. So hubris is what creates a dumb question. That is. And humility, any question asked with humility is necessarily a wise question or a smart question.

And I think this on the first glance seems very complicated so I can see why you're struggling with this. But I think that whenever I see a complicated question, there usually is a simple answer. And the simple answer is, from me, anyway, I think you begin with what you want to do. And I don't know what you want to do from your question. She said that when she's 54 years old, she wants to reach financial. I get all that. I get all that. I don't know if she wants to live in parents' house and if she wants to.

I mean, I know she's worried about maybe being a landlord, maybe not being a landlord. I have some thoughts about that. But I don't know. I don't get the feeling that she knows what she wants to do with these properties. What does she want to have happen with the properties? I think it's much better to find advice about what to. to do with the properties once she's decided what she wants to do. Because I think all of these decisions, all the options she presented to me are fantastic.

They're all great. And frankly, I think we need to have a crystal ball to know which one would work out the best. While some may get her, quote, richer more quickly, they're also the ones that could be the most damaging, which, and this is the one, and it's the one that I wouldn't do, I wouldn't pull the equity out of grandma and grandpa's house and take it and invest it. I wouldn't do that. I understand doing that. I know people that have done it. I know people have done it very successfully. That is always something that I would have a lot more confidence as an investor in terms of your overall approach than here. And frankly, even then I would question it. So I think taking out leverage in

the house would be a mistake. So, Joe, what I hear you say. is the first question that you want her to answer is, where would she prefer to live? Would she prefer to live in her current home? Would she prefer to live in her grandparents' home? Or would she prefer to sell both homes and live elsewhere? Exactly. So start with where does she prefer to live? And that will guide what should she do with these properties? It is far easier to have people help her with that. Otherwise, I feel like if you do the one that you think is going to have the biggest ROI, you're going to always regret the other decisions. But I think that if you go in with the one that makes you happiest, then get as much ROI from that decision as possible makes you a lot less uncertain. It's easier to get advice than tactically instead of strategically, meaning somebody telling you the right way to live or the right thing to do. I think it's way easier for somebody to say, oh, based on the fact that you don't want to be a landlord and you want to move into your grandparents' house,

then here's what I would do. I would sell that other property based on the fact that you don't want to be a landlord or, and by the way, this is really advice. This is exactly what I do. I'd either sell that property and then invest the proceeds and she can learn about investments and how to build that investment strategy or if she were going to be a landlord because she said she doesn't know if she has enough enough experience or confidence. I don't remember the exact word to be a landlord.

If she wants to get that experience, perfect time to start, right? Right. Start early, start now. And if you mess it up a little bit, I can't think of something that can go so wrong that she can't just sell the house two years from now when she decides that it's not for her. Right. So if she wants to experiment with it, I would do that early and learn because everyone, I think, that buys real estate, whether they're one of Paula's awesome students, learning from the best teachers of all time,

or just doing it by themselves, you're still going to make mistakes. And I think that stepping in it a little bit is a part of learning how it works. Right, exactly. It's what I always tell my students. I've learned a lot from the School of Hard Knocks. And, you know, when you have community support and guidance, you can short-circuit or skip over some of those School of Hard Knocks lessons and avoid some of the very expensive mistakes that happen when you,

just try to wing it. But no matter what, in any new task that you undertake, whether it's driving a car or investing in rental properties or learning how to go sailing, you know, no matter whatever it is that you're trying to learn how to do, you're always going to make mistakes. The key is risk mitigation. How do you make fewer mistakes and how do you make less expensive ones? I don't have a lot of regrets about the way that I've lived my life. But if there were one, it would be, I wish I would have failed sooner and more often. And I wouldn't have been so afraid of failure before I tried something. Like looking back, there are a few things where I think, man, if I would have just tried that out earlier.

Because you know what happens? You try it out five years later, Paula, and you go, oh, that wasn't the monster I thought it was between my ears. Right. And maybe it is. Because for me, I mean, you've heard my story. story. I was a landlord for quite a while. I sold my rental house last year. I couldn't be happier. So it wasn't for me, but I've tried it. And I know it's not for me. Right. You don't have to wonder what if you've tested it and you know through real life whether or not it's for you.

Yeah. So I would start there, Michelle, which of those options? Which of those options do you want? And then how do you then build the portfolio around it to go get that 54 year old financial independence? When it comes to, by the way, living off of the money, living off of the sum of money while she's maximum funding her retirement plans through work, I don't know if that would work. It depends on how much money she's going to be allowed by her employer to put into the plan. So we'd have to see her plan specific document. But if she's restricted by a percentage of her income, that's not going to be as efficient. And my gut said, I haven't done the math, but my gut says that's not going to be as efficient as just keeping a high savings rate and just investing all that money. So I've got some thoughts on this.

Michelle, first of all, congratulations on being the first in your family to graduate from college. That is a major accomplishment. So I want to highlight that right off the bat into everybody else who's listening who also is in a similar situation if you were the first in your family to graduate from college. That's huge. You know what? We haven't done a sound effect. We haven't done a round of applause in a while. Steve, this merits a round of applause.

So congratulations, Michelle, and congratulations to everyone who's listening, who is also the first in their family to graduate from college. That's huge. Second, Michelle, for these options that you've listed, I completely agree with Joe that the first question to ask is where would you prefer to live? In your home, in your grandparents' home, or in some alternate home. the impression that I get from the way that you asked your question is that you're trying to optimize for whatever is financially quote unquote best, meaning you would be, you would accept living in any of the above your home, grandparents' home or some alternate third home. You would accept that if that was the best financial decision. And that's great.

I applaud that commitment to your financial health and your financial life. However, if you talk yourself into living somewhere that you don't really want to live because you think that it is, quote, unquote, the better decision, then what ultimately is going to happen is that four years, five years, six years down the road, you end up not really liking living there that much. And you decide that you want to move. And ultimately, moving at that point is even more expensive. talking yourself into doing something that you don't want to do, and then five years down the road, realizing that you're unhappy with it and then undoing that decision, that ends up being more expensive than simply not making the, the quote-unquote, more logical decision in the first place. And so making a decision that's aligned with your values, it isn't just some feel-good rainbow and unicorn, let's all hold hands and sing preschool songs kind of a thing. it is strategically the best financial move because it reduces the risk of regret and regret is expensive, frankly.

So that's the reason that both Joe and I are in agreement on starting with the question of where you want to live and letting the rest of your decisions, downstream decisions, flow from there. Now, as to your hesitancy around becoming a landlord, hypothetically, for example, if you were a move into your grandparents home and then rent out the home that you currently own, that sounds like a great opportunity. And if you are very, very hesitant about being a landlord, if that's something that you just absolutely do not want to do and you don't even want to try it, then that's great. You have self-knowledge. You know where your boundaries are. You know what your risk tolerance is. And I applaud that degree of self-knowledge. But I would invite you to ask yourself what the source of your fears are and make sure that if it is purely fear that is holding you back, ask yourself to what degree

you might be willing to challenge yourself and you might be willing to push the boundaries of your comfort zone and not live entirely in a place of fear. And you listed a lot of different options. And whenever I hear people list like, hey, here's six different choices, usually the first one or second one that they list is the one that they most want to do. That's not always the case, but that's often the case. And so the first couple of options that you listed seem to involve, you know, moving into your grandparents' house, renting out the place that you currently own like that.

It sounds as though there's some interest in that possible path. And so if that is the case and if it's simply, I don't want to be a landlord that's holding you back, let's look at ways of addressing that, those internal obstacles. I've got a cool exercise that a mentor taught me, Paula, that we can talk about for a second. Cool. A problem that most people have is that your brain's pretty damn smart. I mean, even though my brain's telling me that I'm smart, my brain is pretty smart. And what we often do is we shut off all these doubts or we try to push these doubts down.

And this mentor said, don't do that because your brain's bringing up doubt for a reason. your brain is very clearly doing it. So instead of pushing it down or pushing it aside or trying to push through it like some people will tell you to do, instead do this, write out exactly what the doubt is. So take a piece of paper and put a line right down the middle, write out all the doubts. I've never been a landlord before. I don't know that I would like having tenants. I'm not certain if the toilet broke what I would do.

I don't know what. So list out every single thing that's in your brain and put it out on. paper. This is the powerful thing is that once again, I'm going to go back to this. Your brain's incredibly intelligent. And you know what's happened every time that after this mentor taught me this, that I wrote the stuff out on the piece of paper, my brain came up with an answer to every single one of those. Once I got it out of the shadows and I put it in front of me, then I said, well, I could hire management company or the toilet example. I could hire management company or I could watch a YouTube video about fixing a toilet or I can take them one at a time

and just realize it's a learning experience. I've got a neighbor who's very handy that maybe could go out there with me the first time when something breaks at the house. I've never been a landlord before so I could take Paula's. I could do all these different things. Right. But your brain has all these questions, but it also has the answers. And I'll tell you, I thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo when my mentor first told me about this. But then when I did it, now I do it every time. The second I feel fear, I write it all out. And then my brain goes, oh, so I need to do this next, this next, this next, and this next takes care of it. Yeah, I agree. You know, another exercise that I found to be very helpful is jumping jacks. Jumping jacks are an excellent exercise, yes.

Also, writing out the worst case scenario because oftentimes I find that I have doubts or fears or uncertainties. And if the worst case scenario is unexpressed, and as I love your expression, Joe, in the shadows, if it's not articulated, then my brain has this lingering like, oh, everything could fall to pieces. But if I actually write out, what is the worst case scenario? Let's say, let's say I were to move into my grandparents' house and rent out my personal home. What's the worst case scenario? All right, let's see, maybe worst. Worst case scenario. Or, right, let's see, maybe worst case, the home is vacant for six months, and I have to pay the mortgage out of pocket for those six months that it's vacant. And then the tenant moves in and they punch a bunch of holes in the

drywall and take a sledgehammer to the countertops, right? If I sit there and I imagine the worst case scenario, first of all, it helps me understand that not all of these things are all going to go bad all at the same time. Because the worst case scenario, because the worst case scenario that I'm thinking about is like comically exaggerated. Not saying that these things never happen, but once I express what is the worst case in my mind, I realize that the likelihood of all of these worst case scenarios happening in sequential order is nearly non-existent. And on top of that, I also, once I articulate, all right, what would I do if that happened? it helps me devise a plan.

All right, well, what happens if the tenants punch a hole in the drywall? What do I do? Well, I hire someone to patch up the drywall. I kick them out. Number one. And then I hire someone to patch up the drywall. I had a client who was a engineer. She built highways in the state of Michigan.

And she explained to me that before they did any new building project, they would always address every single thing that could go wrong. They would look at everything that could go wrong, and only then would they start construction. And I feel like when we're planning, it's a great way to plan. Like plan out. Here's all the things that could go wrong with this plan. And by the way, we were talking about this right after Bernie Madoff passed away, was that you see people get scammed.

And when people get scammed, it's often because of the fact that there was this product or this thing. and everything seemed awesome. Yet you and I, I know, Paula, that every strategy has a downside. And it could be a fantastic strategy, and it should be the one that you do, but it still has a downside. And it isn't choosing the one that doesn't have a downside. It's making sure you know what it is before you proceed. If you have a strategy and you would tell me that it's a strategy that can't go wrong, no fail, you haven't looked hard enough. Right.

Exactly. But speaking of managing downside and managing risk, Michelle, I am in agreement with Joe's recommendation not to take out leverage against either property. And I want to be clear, this is for the sake of everyone listening, I don't mean that as a universal recommendation for all people. I mean that specifically for you, Michelle. And the reason, and Joe, I guess I'm assuming you and I both have the same reasoning here. The reason that I don't recommend that Michelle specifically takes out leverage is because she doesn't have a clear plan for what she would do with it. What she said in her voicemail is borrow against it and use it to invest somehow. Like there was

no plan for what would happen with that money. Without a plan and without confidence in that plan, I would not borrow and then try to figure out what to do with this borrowed money. It would be, and the reason that I want to emphasize that is because there might be other people who are listening to this who are experienced rental property investors, and they would be great candidates to take a cash out refi against some equity in a home that they own and use that to buy another rental. Or they would be great candidates to borrow against equity and use that to fund a small business that they run, even. You know, there are a lot of very, very valid for borrowing against equity in a property. So I want to be clear that there are many people

who are listening for whom that would be a great option. But Michelle, at this stage in your life and with this lack of certainty in a plan, that's something that I would avoid. Oh, Michelle, one last thing that I also want to address. You asked about dollar cost averaging versus lump sum investing. So here's the deal with that. The reason that people recommend dollar cost averaging is because you can't invest money that you don't have yet. And so when we think about investing a certain amount from every paycheck, dollar cost averaging in that context makes sense because if it's the month of May, then you don't have your paychecks from the month of September yet, right? You can't invest money that you don't have. And so as a strategy, investing a little bit

of money from every paycheck makes sense because it buys you into the market as soon as you have the money. But in scenario B, where you have a lump sum of money, statistically speaking, it does make the most sense to invest the entire lump sum in one big go because time in the market beats timing the market. So another way of looking at this is if you have a lump sum in scenario B, if you have a lump sum of money and you space it out and you take this big lump sum and you meter it out such that you're slowly buying into the market over time, if you think of that from an asset allocation point of view, what that means is that you are over-allocated into cash during the time in which you are slowly metering out that money. That's the reason why,

statistically speaking, lump sum investing has a higher likelihood of giving you greater returns, but the reason that lump sum investing isn't talked about more often is because for the majority of people, most people don't have lump sums. Most people can only invest from every paycheck. And if you are budgeting from every paycheck. I mean, then you have to dollar cost average because you can't invest money that you don't have yet. Thank you, Michelle, for asking that question and best of luck with whichever decision you make. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors.

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Wayfair's Black Friday deals for up to 70% off. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Sale ends December 7th. Our next question comes from Fred. Hey, Paula. My name's Fred. I'm a long-time listener. Thanks for everything that you do for people trying to do better with their finances. My question is related to retirement account options for people who don't have access to a 401K. I have been working in nonprofits, small nonprofits, for my entire adult life. And we don't typically have access to 401Ks or other kinds of tax-advantaged retirement accounts. I have a Roth IRA for myself, but I know that to really maximize my retirement savings,

there needs to be some additional usually employer-sponsored retirement account to really, you know, juice my savings and I just don't have access to one. What are some ways that I can do that for myself if I can't figure it out with my employer? And what are some other ways for people in my position to try and save for retirement when we don't have access to 401Ks, 527? or those other kinds of accounts. Thanks so much for all your help, and thank you for answering my call. Fred, thank you so much for that question. First, absolutely put money into a Roth IRA.

That's a fantastic option. I'm glad to hear that you're doing that. Keep doing that. Max out your Roth IRA. Second, if you have a side hustle, you have three different types of retirement accounts that you can open that would be connected with your side hustle. You can open a simple IRA, a SEP IRA, or a solo 401K.

And what you can do is put every dime of what you make, every dime of earned income from that side hustle into your retirement accounts. I mean, up to a certain limit, you know, there are maximum contribution limits. But if you hit those maximum contribution limits, then you have an excellent problem on your hands. So at least for this first year, for the sake of just putting more money into retirement savings, if you start a side hustle, open a retirement account, and then from a budget point of view, don't plan on living on any of that side hustle money, put it all into retirement savings. That's an excellent option that can give you additional tax-deferred retirement savings or tax-advantaged retirement savings given that you don't have anything from your primary workplace. Beyond that, the standard taxable brokerage account

is still a fantastic investment vehicle. It does not give you tax advantages, but it does still give you the ability to invest in the market and to have those investments grow and compound over time. Yeah, I don't have a lot to add here because there are other tax-deferred vehicles that can be super helpful, but this is where it becomes a minefield because you start playing in territory, Paula, where there's a lot of salespeople who are still doing the wrong things. There was some state-by-state legislation is rolling across the country now, which is putting some better restrictions on annuity sales as an example. And for somebody who doesn't have a retirement plan, what an annuity is, now a lot of money

nerds that listen to this show are like me. Hear the word annuity and you go, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yet if I said, hey, what if you could have a lifetime income stream that you cannot live? Like, oh, yeah, okay, I'm listening. Well, that's the basis of annuity. Or I could have this tax deferred vehicle where I'm only going to pay tax when I take it out and I can put money into this after I put money into my IRA. Oh, yeah, that sounds really cool.

But then you say the word annuity, and that's because there's so many bad players there. So I'm going to, there's one annuity kind of annuity site that I actually like with people I trust. And I trust it because people like Gene Chatsky are on their board, Gene Chatsky from the Today Show. And it's called Blueprint Income. I know Matt and Lauren, the two creators personally. I didn't know them.

I knew them because I heard from fantastic people in this industry that they are the people moving in the world of annuities. In fact, it's funny, I was at a meeting about the future of annuities a couple years ago with not just Gene, but also with Michelle Singletary, Rick Edelman, some great financial people and people from the annuity industry. And Matt Carey from Blueprint Income was one of the people there pushing for the annuity industry to get more clean. up. So if you look at a place like Blueprint Income, if you decide that, yeah, I want to put more money away into a tax deferred instrument, I would still do a lot of education around annuities. I wouldn't just get it from Blueprint Income before I invest there. But of course, I'd say the same thing, Paula, about whatever they decide to invest in inside the brokerage account, right? Because when you open up a non-qualified brokerage account, you still have to invest in something.

even if it's you know Michelle was talking about investing in VTSAX I would still want to know why I'm doing that and what's in it and why it works I'm still going to want to do some homework but you know you start to run into some minefields when you look at tax deferral it stinks but it's not I'm with Paula it isn't it isn't a death sentence you can still save a lot of money the nice thing that you'll have to if you open up a brokerage account would be much more flexibility to do what you want with the money whenever you you you you you want to do it. So I love flexibility. An annuity, not so flexible. So that's my thought process. The other thing, and I don't want every single one of my answers to lead back to real estate, but I invest in real estate outside of any type of retirement account. I'm just using normal, ordinary, aftertax money that I use when I buy real estate investments, but I think of them as a retirement investment because I'm building a stream of cash flow and passive income that will serve, hopefully, knock on wood, serve me well in retirement. So that's not for everyone. And Fred, you're going to have to decide if that's something that even interests you or not.

But that's certainly a worthwhile income stream that is outside of the boundaries of tax advantage retirement accounts. Well, and another way to buy real estate inside that brokerage account is a REIT, a real estate investment trust. And I use real estate investment. trust, I get a nice dividend from those. It's a much more tax advantage dividend than a bond payment is going to be because of the fact that sometimes it's a return of principle, if there's work on the property. So for me, I'll take a re-over a bond for most applications any day. Right. Any day. Right. But Fred, to your original question of not what should you invest in, but rather what types of accounts should you use. If you have a side hustle, you will effectively be starting a new

business. And once you start a new business, then you can have employer-sponsored plans because that business that you start will be the employer. And so once you employ yourself, then you as the employer can create retirement investment vehicles for yourself as your own employee. And again, this doesn't have to be a full-time thing. It can just be something that you do on the side, but it's an excellent option for giving yourself the capacity to put more money into tax-advantaged retirement accounts. That said, a tax-advantaged account is essentially a deal between you and the government in which the government says, I'm going to give you some tax advantage in exchange for the promise that you're not going to touch this money unless these certain conditions are met,

typically those conditions being age. Getting that type of a deal is great. I mean, who doesn't love a little bit of tax advantage? But missing out on some tax advantages doesn't mean that you can't still build a great, quote-unquote, retirement portfolio using taxable brokerage accounts. So don't get too attached to the positioning of 401Ks, 403Bs, CEP IRAs, simple IRAs. They're positioned as retirement accounts because of the age-related limitations on withdrawal, but truly they are simply tax-advantaged accounts. And so you're not missing out on the ability to retire. You're just missing out on some tax advantages.

So thank you, Fred, for asking that question. Our next question comes from Pauly. Hey, Paula, this is Anonymous from Portland. Well, actually the last time I called you, you and J Money, named me Pauley. So, you know what, this is actually Pauley from Portland. Two years ago, I received a $50,000 inheritance. I was sitting on the inheritance in cash debating exactly what I wanted to do with it when the pandemic hit and the market dropped. I eagerly began dumping money into the stock market as it dropped and as it climbed back up.

This was in a taxable brokerage account. ended up being really profitable for me, and the account currently sits at around $100,000. But I've hit a bit of a snag, and here's where my question lies. One thing the pandemic made you realize is that I would like to own my own personal residence, and Portland will really likely be the home for me for life. Portland has also seen an enormous rise in housing prices over the last decade, and I suspect it will continue to rise. I don't want to be too negative, but I think Portland will probably be a death.

nation city to move to as we see climate change make other cities kind of too difficult to live. I know it's a bit cynical, but the main thing that's important is that psychologically, I think that Portland is a great place to be in the long term in a place I'm going to be. And that locking in a housing price is better to do sooner rather than later. So I have about 100K invested in stocks in a brokerage account. I'm considering employing it out to have it in cash for a 20% down payment on a house. which I'd likely buy in the one to three year range, but not before one year. I know you've recommended that people do not use the stock market for goals that are short term like this,

but if I don't tap into this money, I'd have to save for like four to six years, maybe a little more to have a down payment this large. And by that point, housing prices will likely have risen and I'd have to save even more. Do you think that tapping into the brokerage account is okay? Is it wise? Is there something I might be overlooking or am I doing a bit of a tail wagging the dog thing and it's actually okay to pull my money out of the brokerage account? I would really appreciate your thoughts on this. Paulie out. Paulie, thank you so much for your question. All right, let's talk about using money in a taxable brokerage account, specifically money that I'm assuming is invested in stocks or equities for an immediate purpose. You are absolutely correct in that if a person wants to buy a house in the next one to three years, I would never recommend that that person put that money into stocks because the stock market in the long term tends to go up and to the right.

You know, the stock market in the long term tends to rise, but in the short term can be very volatile. And so if a person is planning on using money in the next one to three years, a volatile asset, set class like stocks is not the place to put it. But you're in a different situation. You have money that you already put into the stock market and it happened to go up. And now you have the opportunity to do anything you want with this money that has already risen. And so there's no reason not to take money out of your taxable brokerage account and use it to make a down payment on a property. That's exactly what I would do fiber in your shoes and what I would recommend that you do. If you had called a year ago and said, hi, my name's Polly, and it is currently March of 2020,

and I'd like to buy a property in March of 2022, should I put this money into the stock market or not, then no, from that perspective, if this were March 2020, the answer would be no, don't put it in the market because you plan on using this money two years in the future and you don't want to take the risk of, you know, a 50% drop if you're going to be using this in such a short time. timeframe. But that wasn't what happened. What happened was you put the money in. The result was that it happened to rise. And that's fantastic. Now you can absolutely harness the fact that that money has grown to put that money into a different goal. So I want to separate out the decision-making process from the result. A lot of this I've learned from poker players. Annie Duke will link in the show notes to

previous interview that I did with Annie Duke, where she talks about, you've got your hand and you need decide how to play it, and when you decide how to play your hand, you do so based on probabilistic thinking. No matter what decision you make, that decision is going to be within a range of possible outcomes, but the outcome is not necessarily a reflection of the soundness of the decision-making process itself, right? A given decision will lead to a range of possible outcomes. that means that a sound decision might lead to a negative outcome. And conversely, a poor decision might lead to a positive outcome. And that's where we really need to separate the outcome from the decision. The way to look at this is if you run a red light and there are no consequences,

you don't get into an accident, you don't get pulled over and get a ticket, and you reach your destination faster, does that mean that running a red light was a good decision? No, it was a poor decision that in this particular case happened to yield a positive result. Similarly, if you are a very, very safe driver, but you get into a car accident that was no fault of your own, does that mean that you made a bad decision? No, you made a good decision and that good decision had a negative outcome. So separating the decision making from the outcome, that's the big picture lesson that I want to emphasize for everyone who's listening. And then for you, Polly, specifically. At a conceptual level, that's the reason why I wouldn't recommend that you put money

into the stock market if you plan on using it in the near term future. But if you have money that you've already invested, there's no reason not to use it for whatever you want to use it for. Yeah, I don't have much to add except one thing, which is really not part of the question, but it's the way that we look at money. And I'm all for this too. I think we're drawing it sooner or rather than later, the second that he said, Paula, that he's going to want to use it to buy a house, I thought, take it out now, like immediately take it out because we don't want any more volatility. So to your point.

But the thing that he also wants to realize is that while he presented his case for this being a good investment decision, and I think a personal property should always, you should always make a good investment decision. you're also taking money that's an investment that when I was a financial planner, I would never want you to think about that as an investment again. Because any plan that is based on you moving out of your primary residence, which I see fairly often, I think is kind of flawed. And the reason is flawed is I've been on the other ends of those discussions

when someone is at the point that they have to move. They don't have enough assets anymore. And they have to move. And so they came to see me to see, okay, what are my strategies? And unfortunately, the strategy was you should probably sell the house and you should move someplace else. And I'll tell you what happens then. And it doesn't happen with everyone. But you're far more emotional about it.

This is a place where you've lived and you've had friends over and you've had these experiences. And that's no longer a kitchen. That's a kitchen where we had the best Super Bowl party ever. This is the living room where I did, you know, whatever big thing. I wrote a book or I did whatever the thing is that I did. And the rooms all of a sudden have meaning. So instead of being these four walls that it can be for and should be for a rental property where I'm thinking about it, now it becomes very emotional.

And I'll tell you that is an emotional feeling that you don't, for some people, they really don't want to experience. And so what I always advocated was always make a good investment decision, but don't consider your primary residence an investment. Consider it to be your home base, a place where you're going to do cool stuff. So what that means then, Polly, is that you're going to be taking this off your net worth sheet. You're taking money that right now is a piece of your net worth to go get financial independence or whatever your goal is, and you're taking it off the table.

So I would redo your plan making sure that you're okay with that. But by the way, this was exactly what you called in about was to do this. So I should always start with what my goal is. And if this is your goal, I would definitely do it. But I'd also know that there's another side of the stick. I always, as you know, because I always quote, begin with the end of mind, there is another Stephen Covey quote, which there's several. But there's another one I love, which is whenever you pick up one end of the stick, there's always another end. And we talked about that earlier with Michelle, right?

When you make a decision, there's going to be other ends of that decision that come along with it. So you have to remember the other side. And I think what I presented was just the other end of the stick. Joe, what you said is interesting. I agree with you that a primary residence is not an investment. But I agree with that for different reasons. My reason is simply that it's something that takes cash out of your pocket every month rather than puts cash into your pocket every month. And also it is not purchased with any type of calculation or formula.

It's not purchased with a regard for ROI. It's purchased for emotional reasons of personal preference. I would still do all those things. I would still make the best deal I can possibly make. I would drive as good a deal on that property as I would as if it was going to be an investment property. Oh, sure. I mean, there's no reason not to negotiate for it. What I'm saying is I agree that it's not an investment. It is a consumer purchase. It is not an investment. I do, however, when I do my own net worth calculation, I include the value of my primary residence in my net worth statement. That's just something that I want to highlight because there are different approaches to how a net worth statement is calculated. And this is a controversy in the world of personal finance. Should your primary residence be listed on your net worth statement? Okay, so since you made this a thing, can I weigh in officially? Sure.

And Steve, feel free to beep out the word. I'm going to say, I don't give a shit. But I think there's a bigger question, which is what I probably should have said, since I think we're parsing my words now, is that I don't think you include it anymore in your how do I get financial independence calculations. Correct. That's what I'm mostly worried about. I really don't care if you put it in your network statement or not.

it's so irrelevant to me. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Your network statement is kind of just sort of there for ego. But yes, I agree. If the question is, how soon will I reach financial independence? It's not part of that statement anymore. Yeah, that's what I, what I truly meant. I need to learn to say what I mean. But yeah, Polly, to answer your question, I am totally in favor of you taking this money and using it to make a down payment on a property. And I love the fact that you know that you're going to live in Portland for the long term. You sound very confident about that. You've said it twice. So especially given the fact that you will be planted in Portland for the long run, that sounds like you're the perfect candidate to be an owner-occupant of a primary residence. With that enthusiasm about his hometown, by the way, don't you think he should be in the Chamber of

Commerce? Yes, part of the Tourism Board. Absolutely. Come to Portland. Instagram feed that promotes Portland. By the way, nothing I like. better than starting in Portland and drive down the Columbia River Gorge. Well, thank you, Polly, for asking that question. Enjoy your new home. We'll come back to the show in just a second. But first, our next question comes from Preeti. Hey, Paula, this is Preeti. First of all, thank you for providing the community with your insightful and thoughtful podcast. I always love hearing your perspective and Joe's as well. So I wanted to ask you a tax-related question. I accidentally withdrew funds from my Roth

IRA as an excess distribution this year, but I've already filed my taxes for the year 2020. I will probably have to deal with this next year, but wanted to know your thoughts on any consequences for this. I'm 32 years old, and the Roth IRA has been open for less than five years. I don't qualify to make any Roth contributions this year due to my income. And the way this Roth IRA was funded last year was through a backdoor rot. So any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Thank you again. in advance for your help. Preeti, thanks for the question.

And that is a conundrum. And we have some good news. Hopefully, I know Paula plans for this episode to come out just before taxes are due. And sometimes there are things that happen in the schedule. I know as another guy who has a podcast that's changed our schedule around. But if that happens, you may be able to. And you're going to want to get a tax person involved here because even though you already did your taxes, you could file an amendment to your taxes to change up your taxes because tax day

hasn't come yet. So because of that, I would explore filing an amendment to your taxes to take that into account and not have to worry about it. Now, if for some reason you hear this after tax day, or if you're somebody else with this problem and you're listening to it after tax day, that is definitely when you get some professional tax help. And you're going to want to do it soon because there may be a penalty. And if there is a penalty, that meters running from the moment tax day hits. So get help, get help quickly and take care of it with the IRS as soon as you possibly can. I think a lot of this highlights the importance of having a tax professional working with a CPA. I mean, I know that when I was in my 20s, I was resistant to that for a long time because I was

frugal. And being steeped in the traditions of frugality where you never pay somebody to do something if you can do it yourself, I was very reluctant to pay for professional help. And in hindsight, that was one of my bigger mistakes, you know, not waiting as long as I did to get, not just a CPA, but also my bookkeeper for my business. All the professionals that I work with these days, they're instrumental in allowing me to grow, to scale, to manage. Because when it comes to the world of finance and particularly a topic that is as nuanced and as ever changing as tax planning, you know, what was true in the world of taxes in 2019 is not no longer true in the world of taxes in 2021.

And what's true now is not going to be true in the year 2023. like taxes are a rapidly and continually evolving segment of the law. Like there's that expression that tax code is written in pencil. And so one of the benefits of having a professional that you're working with is that their job is to keep up with all of the changes. And that's exhausting. That is just not something that a non-professional could reasonably do on their own. Yeah, this is for me a much longer discussion because I always want to surround my people with experts in the areas that are important to me. But what I don't want to do is I don't want

to completely delegate it. I don't want to give away all of it. So I delegate the 99% of the work that I could do myself, but I make more money off doing something else. So I'm going to calculate the ROI between what makes me money and what makes me less money, which is why, like, I don't repair my appliances. There are many things that happen around my house that I don't take care of myself anymore, Paula, because I realized that my ROI is elsewhere. And I can, A, have more fun. And I'm not swearing about something that I'm not an expert in.

I can hire somebody else to do it, but I still know how it works. So that if it isn't done the way that I want it done, I have an opinion about it as well. I always cringe when people would come into my office when I was a financial planner and they just wanted to hand it to me. They didn't want to understand it. They wanted to hand it to me. And that was so frustrating. It is much, much, much better to have a bookkeeper, but you know how to keep the books yourself. You just don't do it yourself.

And then also to have enough knowledge that to your point, as the text code changes, not only is your expert going to pick it up, but you understand what the change means for you. Right. And then you can with them have a meaningful conversation about maybe doing better in the future. Absolutely. It needs to be a collaboration between yourself and your CPA, yourself and your financial planner, yourself and your bookkeeper. your job is not to be the expert. Your job is to be a very good client. And being a good client means knowing enough that you know what questions to ask.

And frankly, asking the right questions is, in my view, sometimes arguably harder than having the answers. Knowing how to ask the right questions is a skill. It is a lifelong practice. And your job as a client is a... to have enough knowledge that you know how to ask the right questions. If we think about you as CEO of the company of You Inc. and the people around you work for you, I think about the best bosses I ever had. The best bosses I ever had relied on me to do my job, to do my job well, but they knew how to spot check in the right way. They knew exactly how to spot check. And your job here, Paul, I think,

is to be that person that knows how to spot check. Right. How to spot check. And also how to how to bring the talents out of the team that you surround yourself with. Right. How to lean on them to say, hey, here's what I'm thinking going forward. How do we maximize all of my assets and minimize my liability so that this works the way I wanted to work? Right. But, Prithi, for the specific question that you asked, Joe is correct. If you are listening to this prior to tax day 2021, which is May 15, 2021,

then you could file an amended return for the year 2020. So if there are any modifications that you need to make or actions that you need to either do or undo, and Preeti, I'm not just talking specifically about your situation. I'm saying this for everyone listening. If there's anything that you want to do that would impact your 2020 taxes, then you've got until the tax deadline to get it done. And if you've already filed your taxes, don't worry. You can always file an amended return, but just be aware of the deadline and make sure that you take whatever steps you need to take for whatever it is that you want to do prior to May 15, 2021. So thank you, Preeti, for asking that question. Our final question today comes from Casey. Hi, Paula. My name is Casey. I love your show. I'm so excited for the chance to maybe have you answer my question. I bought a condo a few years ago.

as a primary residence, but I use it as a rental, don't tell, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I bought it for $140,000. And then a few months later, maybe like a year later, Amazon announced that they were building their headquarters about two miles down the road. So condos that are exactly the same and the same complex are going for around $180,000 now. Also, because of what's happening in the neighborhood, I do suspect that within the next 10, probably within the next five years, the complex will get bought out for redevelopment. The empty lot on one side of it was turned in, like they built a huge new condo building there about 10 years ago. And a much larger complex about the same age directly in front is undergoing a redevelopment right now. All of the owners got buyout.

It's being torn down. and they're building like high-end mixed-use residential, blah-b-de-blah. My complex was built in the 1950s. It's clean and nice, but it's a rapidly gentrifying area. So that's the condo I own. I'm in the market to buy a second condo, and I'm wondering if it makes sense to purchase in the same complex. I have a tenant.

The condo meets the 1% rule where my monthly payments are roughly $1,300. He pays $15.50 a month. I'm wondering if I should buy another one in that, complex, since it's easy and they're quite inexpensive, especially for the D.C. area. Or my parents live in Vienna, Virginia, which is a very, very wealthy suburb, a little bit farther from the city. They've owned a condo in Vienna for over 10 years. I could buy a condo in their building for about $250,000. Condo fees are the same and use that one as a rental instead. The benefits of there are less crime, fancier neighborhood, more stable neighborhood, and honestly just diversifying.

So I guess that was a long-winded way of asking, if I'm buying a second rental property, would you recommend purchasing it in the same complex where I already own a rental property? Or are you a fan of diversifying into a different complex in a different but nearby town? Thank you so much. I hope to hear back from you. Bye. Casey, I love your question. First of all, those are beautiful birds chirping in the background. What a pleasure, like, what a joy to listen to. Second of all, I totally get the sense that we would be friends if we ever met. The moment that you said the words high-end mixed use, blah-bidi-blah, I was like, oh, yeah, we're going to get along just fine. That's exactly the way I think.

I was thinking when she said it, that's how Cheryl refers to me. You're a high-end mixed-use, blah-di-blah. I am high-end mixed-use, blah-bony-blah. But anyway. Yeah, I love it because it's like this recognition of what's going on, along with the like, cool, I recognize it, but I'm not impressed. Blah, blah, blah. Exactly. But I'm not caught up in it.

Anyway, Casey, love the question. Here are my immediate thoughts. First of all, on the surface, it's a question of, here are two different investments. How do I compare the two? there's the mathematical answer and then there's the ease of life answer. If you want to look at this mathematically, what you could do is run a spreadsheet, calculate the cap rates on both properties, take a look at what kind of cap rate are you getting from buying a condo in this building at today's prices.

What cap rate would you get from that? Compare that to the cap rate that you could get, buying something in Vienna, compare those two results, and then weigh those results in the context of the risk profile. So, for example, if you get a lower cap rate from the property in Vienna, but there's also a lower risk profile, meaning there's lower turnover, more stable tenants due to the fact that it's a more stable neighborhood, then that cap rate contextualized with the risk profile of the neighborhood could be desirable or not desirable. So this is essentially a question. The mathematical answer is you're trying to look at what your risk-adjusted return is and you do that by running everything through a spreadsheet. looking at the cap rates, contextualizing those in the context of risk, and then making a decision as to which of those two options gives you the better risk-adjusted return. So that's a mathematical

answer. But honestly, there's a little bit of like blah-bidi-blah just with that answer because the other element of this answer is what's going to be the easiest and what's going to give you the best experience as a landlord? And you've mentioned that buying this unit in the same building would be easy. I get the impression that, even though it's not like a very wealthy high-end neighborhood, I get the impression that you still get high tenant quality, probably low turnover, probably not a ton of repairs and maintenance. I mean, I might be wrong in those assumptions, but if those assumptions are correct and managing a condo in the same building is going to be pretty easy to do, and assuming that it's going to give you a good return, which, I mean, if you're buying it for $180,000, I mean, even with a

rental payment, the $15.50 per month that you mentioned, it sounds like that's still going to have a good cap rate, given low capax and high occupancy, it seems like just for ease of life purposes, that might be a pretty darn good option. Oftentimes, when I think about diversifying, you know, diversification can kick in once you have three, four, five units, and you then want to diversify into some different location so that you don't have all of your eggs in one basket. But if you've just got one unit, I don't think there really needs to be diversification when you're going from one to two. I think that's more of a question when you're going from five to six.

I have only two things, which are just, you know, I like talking about how conceptually, Paula, you and I think about these things. And I think there's two concepts here that I weighed anyway. The second one was diversification, so we'll talk about that last. But there's even one before that, which is, I feel like in a discussion like this, the thing that I would bring up first is, Casey, the one you choose, just Murphy's law, is probably going to be the wrong one. Yep. And I'm not saying that it will be, but if we look at it that you choose the wrong decision, which of those two decisions. assuming it's the wrong one, makes you the least unhappy.

So I like framing the question that way because it kind of takes away the regret and the second guessing if we do choose the wrong one. So that's first. But the second one, Paula, is this idea of diversification in the first place. So I'm glad you brought that up because I agree that diversification, not so much going from one to two. But let's just talk about diversification in general, if you don't mind. Diversification is actually a double-edged sword.

We think about it in a good way, which is that it makes sure that if one piece of our portfolio blows up, the other piece doesn't blow up along with it. So diversification is always recommended by professional financial planners, but I think it's actually for two reasons. One that has to do with you and the other one that has to do with them. And the reason I say them is because a professional financial planner does not want to be the person that recommends a. strategy with a high standard deviation, meaning the chance of it blowing up is as good as the chance

of it going up. When you decrease your diversification, that comes with a rise in the range of possibilities in a lot of cases. So in other words, if I have three different investments in my portfolio that respond to different stimuli, the chance that they're all going to blow up at the same time is low. But if instead I take all that money and I put in one asset class and they all go up at the same time and all go down at the same time, I turn this thing that used to be a kiddie ride into a mean roller coaster that goes way up and way down. So financial planners will often present diversification is a good thing. But diversification, Paula, if your goal is to increase your wealth quickly, getting rid of diversification, assuming you understand the risk of that,

is the way to become profitable much more quickly, which is why I think, again, you begin with the end of mind. What am I trying to do? Am I trying to diversify this so that I get a smoother ride or am I trying to make money more quickly? And looking at the possibility of maybe redevelopment here, maybe people potentially wanting to buy this property for a much higher price tag than what you may even pay for it today, right? So there are these things that might happen. On one hand, if that doesn't come true and maybe the neighborhood goes the other way, well, that could potentially be uglier than if you bought the second property in Vienna versus if it goes your way, this could end up being phenomenal. A good analogy, because we're all money nerds, is what one

financial guru, you're going to love this, Paula, Dave Ramsey says to do versus what Dave Ramsey did. And by the way, there's plenty of reasons to rip gurus. This isn't a rip of Dave Ramsey. This is just pointing out a truth. His baby steps tell you to diversify. His teaching says to diversify. Dave Ramsey did not get wealthy diversifying.

Dave Ramsey got wealthy building one company doing one thing. And there were a bunch of things that could have gone wrong. So to me, that's a great illustration of the upside and. about when to use diversification and when it might be a hindrance. There's that expression. Don't put your eggs in multiple baskets. Put your eggs in one basket and watch that basket. I interviewed another poker player once, Bill Perkins.

And Bill Perkins said, the best way to get wealthy is to make one bet that you firmly believe in. You understand it. You get it. You're all about it. leverage the hell out of that bet because you understand it, you love it, you get it. And then the last part, Paula, don't be wrong. Which is all true. Right.

And to be clear, we are not anti-diversification. And the expression of, you know, put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket is said a little facetiously, right? Take that with a grain of salt. But that goes to illustrate one end of, like one extreme. end of the discussion around diversification, which is it is not always the case that diversification equals good. And the point at which you need to diversify or the point at which you might want to diversify doesn't always happen immediately. And when you do diversify, you would want to make sure that you're diversifying into a place that is different enough. So I don't know how

different Alexandria, Virginia is from Vienna, Virginia. And I don't know if some economic factors affects one of those two places. Will those same economic factors affect the other of those two places? Is it the case that you could get adequate diversification being in those two places? Or is it the case that you would want maybe five or six units in Alexandria? And then when you're ready to diversify, you do so by buying units in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or the Tampa St. Pete Clearwater area in Florida. Maybe that's how you get diversification. I'm thinking about Rich Carey. He's a real estate investor who bought, at this point, he's got 30 units in Montgomery, Alabama. And he's looking into new markets because at this point he has 30 units that are all in the

same city. And that city, by the way, the economy of Montgomery is very, very dependent on the military base staying open. So if that military base in Montgomery were to ever close, he'd be screwed and he'd be screwed to the tune of 30 units. And that's a risk that he inherently carries. So at this stage, he's looking to diversify by expanding into new and different markets. But he wasn't having those conversations, even when he was down at 10 units. We met when he had about 20 units. And at that point, he was saying, you know, I think with 20 in Montgomery, I think it's time for me to start looking into new markets. And so that was on his mind starting at around the 20 unit mark. But then, of course, he went and bought 10 more. So all of that is to say, Casey, I don't think you need to diversify yet. And when you do, I would question if Vienna, and again, I don't know the area, but I would question whether or not Vienna is adequately diversified enough or if any economic factors,

that impact one area would have a similar impact in the other area. And if that is the case, then Vienna wouldn't, if that's the case, which I don't know whether or not it is because I don't know the area, but if that's the case, then Vienna would not provide adequate diversification and you would want to look in a totally different market, different like New Hampshire, different. And Paul is not saying that people in New Hampshire are different. She's saying that it's far away from Virginia. Correct.

Oh, I mean, New Hampshire, they've got, they live free or die. I have to tell you, I spent over a month in Vermont this summer and I fell in love with that area. Like, hey, yeah, I'm all about it. Yeah, it's a beautiful area. So, visit New Hampshire. There it is. That's the takeaway right there. Casey's like, how did we get here?

What? So thank you, Casey, for asking that question. Joe, we did it. Unbelievable. Are we done already? Already? It flies by, doesn't it? It does fly by.

That was really fun. And I hope we helped a lot of people. Absolutely. Joe, where can people find you if they want to hear more Joe? If you want more Joe. And why wouldn't you want more Joe? You can find me at the Stacky Benjamin's podcast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wherever you're listening to us here. you'll also find Paula there on most Fridays, where recently she started catching up on our

Friday trivia challenge. Dun, done, done, done, done. This is pretty amazing, pretty incredible. By the way, the fact that Jillian had been there before and was the furthest away from that answer, and I'll let people go listen to the show to understand what we're talking about, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, But blew me away. I was sure Gillian was going to get it.

And Paula got it. Yes. So every Friday, we answer a trivia question. And I'm in last place. But the gap between me and second place, last out of three. But the gap between me and second place is starting to close. Every year, Paula spends the whole first half of the year in last place. And then she roars back the second half of the year.

It's like she just puts her feet up. Oh, yeah. And then it's July? Okay, I'm going to start playing now. Time to take the competition seriously. That's right. So this time she started early, apparently. But anyway, stacking Benjamins every Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Well, thank you to everyone who is tuning in. Thank you for listening to this show. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. Number one, share it with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing you can do to spread the message of financial independence. Number two, leave us a review. Joe, have you left us a review? Have you left me a review?

No, I haven't. Oh, there you go. No, I've been on the stacking Benjamin's podcast for like five years now and I have not yet left it to review. I think that's what, by the way, I think you've been on it for like seven or eight years, but he's counting. Yes. We just passed 28 million downloads. Whoa. Congratulations.

Yeah. Thank you. It was just one listener, re-downloading it over and over and over. It's my mom. Thanks, Joe's mom. Wow, 28 million downloads. That's how many people get to hear me being in last place. Makes you feel great, isn't it? She's like, oh, no. All right. Well, the three things you can do. Number one is to share it with a friend or a family member so you can help afford anything.

catch up to stacking Benjamin's 28 million downloads. Number two is to leave us a review. I can do that. Oh, thank you. I will take the leadership position on that. Wow. Awesome. Thank you, Joe.

I look forward to reading your review. And number three is to hit the subscribe or follow button in whatever app you're using to listen to this show so that you don't miss any of our awesome upcoming episodes. Oh, but number four, if I can throw in a number four, subscribe to our show notes. Go to afford anything.com slash show notes so that those synopsies of every single episode will be sent directly to your inbox, hot and fresh, straight off the press. My favorite review of the Afford Anything podcast was a five-star review recently that said, I listen for Joe. And thank you to whoever did that, but you'll also know my review. When you read five stars, I also only listen for Joe. Joe's great.

My favorite review was someone also left a five-star review and said, If you listen at like 0.5x speed, Paula sounds like a trippy hippie who's taken too many mushrooms. I took a screenshot and I posted it in my Instagram stories and I'm like, this is officially my favorite review. It's just great. I don't know where you came up with that, but that's officially my favorite review. That's so good. Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pat.

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