Afford Anything - Ask Paula: We Make $300k. Why Are We NOT Financially Independent?

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

#448: An anonymous caller is dealing with guilt over spending a large cash gift. What’s the best use if she doesn’t have an obvious financial goal to throw at it? Eric reached financial independence a few years ago but he hesitates to quit his job. What the heck is a Roth conversion ladder and how can he overcome his psychological barriers? Another anonymous caller and his wife earn $300,000. He feels like they should be financially independent but they’re far from it. What’s going on? Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these three questions in today’s episode. Enjoy! P.S. Got a question? Leave it here For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode448 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, Joe, if you had to weigh the importance of the logistical part of money versus the emotional part of money, which one do you think matters more? It's funny when I was younger. I thought that the logistical part easily mattered more, but it clearly is the opposite. And you see that, by the way, with who's won winning Nobel Prizes? It used to be people like Harry Markowitz with the Efficient Frontier. Now it's people like Richard Thaler, who are talking about the behaviors that we make truly influence even more. how we react and use money. Right. So as your understanding that it's more the psychological piece than it is the logistical piece, as your understanding has evolved, society at large's understanding has also evolved in that same way. Generally, people think about me and they think about the way Joe thinks

about things. It's generally the way most people think about things is what you're trying to say. Isn't that what you're trying to say? And with that, welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off, against something else. And that doesn't just include your money. That includes any limited resource, your time, your focus, your energy. So what matters most? And how do you put that into practice? Those are the two questions that this podcast is here to discuss. My name is Paula Pant. I'm the host of the show. Every other week we answer questions that come from you and my buddy, Joe Saul-Chi, former financial planner, joins me to answer these questions. How you doing, Paula?

I am fantastic. I am feeling apparently very modest today. Well, speaking of the distinction between... Oh, there was a point to this. Right? Incredible. Speaking of logistical versus psychological concerns, we're going to kick off with a question from Eric. Hi, Paula. Longtime listener, first time caller.

My wife and I reached five a few years ago in our mid-40s, and I'm deciding whether now is the time. to retire from full-time employment. I don't intend to fully retire, but continue earning part-time income as a consultant, coach, and teacher in my field, along with volunteering in our local church community. I'm also looking to optimize work-life balance and to be a great husband and dad. We currently have about 2.1 million in investments, including about 1.5 million in tax-deferred retirement accounts. In addition, we also have a free and clear home worth about 1.1 million. At a 4% withdrawal rate, we have about $86,000 in annual spending power. Based on the past year of spending, I estimate we'll spend about $80,000 to $90,000 per year on necessary and regular

discretionary expenses. We have occasional one-time expenses that go beyond our normal spending. This may include home repairs and improvements, emergencies, and other unexpected expenses. I have a few questions before taking the leap. With so much of our net worth tied up in pre-tax retirement accounts, how can we minimize taxes and penalties for early with, I've heard of the Roth conversion ladder and 72T scheduled payments, but I'm not familiar with the details of those strategies. Our 600,000 and taxable investments are unlikely to sustain us for the next decade plus until we reach 59.5. My second question is more psychological. Are we truly ready to retire? What's the best way to handle the emotional impact of switching from saving to withdrawing from our investments? What if the market takes a big hit shortly after we leave the workforce? What if we incur a large, unexpected emergency

the expense. My wife is especially nervous about making this transition, and it would be great to ease her concerns before making any big decisions. Doing this together is very important. Thank you for all that you do. Eric, first of all, congratulations on reaching FI. You know, you started the question by saying you reached FI for the first time listeners, new listeners who have never heard of that acronym before. FI, financial independence, is the point at which work becomes optional, as it is for you now, the point at which you have sufficient investments that you could draw down from them and live on them. So defining that for anyone who's new to the show. And huge congratulations to you for reaching that point. It's a nice spot to be. Right? I want to start with the psychological

component of your question first. You mentioned that you will still be earning some part-time income from coaching, consulting, and teaching. So the first thing that strikes me is that even though the amount that you can draw down at the 4% withdrawal rate is equivalent to your annual spending between $80,000 to $90,000, so you've got that one-to-one matchup. In spite of that, it sounds as though you'll still be earning some type of part-time income. I don't know how much that's going to be, maybe 20 grand, maybe 40 grand, but whatever that is, what that signals to me is that you likely won't even have to draw down the entire 4% because at least some of your spending will be offset from your income. Either that or the one-time expenses, the home repairs and maintenance, the renovations, any major unexpected medical bills.

perhaps that is the aspect that would be covered by part-time income while the ordinary expenses are covered by the 4%. But one way or the other, whether it's ordinary expenses, 4% and one-time expenses part-time, or whether it's less than 4% for the first one or two or three years while you get used to the transition. Either way, the fact that you will still have some degree of income coming in should really small. smooth the ride, both logistically as well as hopefully also psychologically. There's a couple things that I'd like to add when it comes to the psychological part. I think those early conversations, Paula, and focusing with him and his spouse on what they truly value is going to be very important because, you know, to your point, the spending in those

early years, I mean, he is, he is so close. He's right on the line with the spending matching up to what the 4% rule is. If he's spending, about what he thinks he can spend, then making sure that he's focused in on getting the most value for his money. I think it's going to be really important. If they don't value it, don't spend that money. The other thing I think is playing the probability game, which is there's a big probability that he will be healthier during his early years in retirement and less healthy the longer he's retired. I love this idea of income streams. But I love this idea of income streams, but I always get worried when people tell us that they're going to continue working into,

quote, retirement, because two things happen, you fall in love with your time off. Number one, but also number two, back to the health aspect, you might not end up being healthy as for as long as you want to be. In fact, the number one reason people retire is not that they want to. It's that they have to. They actually retired a different age than they would have told you 10 years earlier. People are often surprised and it's usually earlier. I would take advantage of that consulting stuff early on and it's going to have a two-pronged approach.

Number one is it's going to ease off needing to access so much money early on because he has these income streams coming in. And number two, it's also going to help him with, you know, giving him a little bit extra time. He doesn't have to make all these big, heady value decisions that I talked about earlier. He's not going to have to make all those at once. He can kind of get his feet wet a little bit. So I like the idea of this part-time retirement thing, but working more and just kind of putting his foot in the pool a little bit. Right. It'll also add some structure to his day because, Eric, I think one thing that you're going to find when you leave your full-time job is that if there's no structure to your day, that's just as bad. It's the opposite, but it's the same as a day that is overly structured.

or too booked or too busy. They're opposite problems, but they're also the same problem. Well, there's a study, Paula, that our mutual friend, Wes Moss, talks about his book, about what the happiest retirees know. And they have a lot of hobbies. I don't remember the number. I think it's four. At one time I knew it was, they go into retirement with four hobbies.

And I think what the hobbies represent are exactly what you're talking about, which is transition from this structured workday to this structural. day of kind of being an entrepreneur toward these hobbies that I didn't have time for before. I think structure is definitely the name of that game. Right. And what's beautiful about that is that structure is not necessarily synonymous with earning money. So, Eric, some of the things that you might do in retirement include money-making activities, like teaching, consulting, coaching.

Some of the things that you do might be volunteering for your church or for community organizations, as you mentioned. And some of those things might be taking up a new sport or a new hobby or a new fitness program. Maybe you'll get really into chess or swimming or playing chess while. So underwater chess. There we go. Underwater chess. Someone needs to invent it.

Eric, you can invent it. There's a hobby. But you know, the other aspect, you asked about the psychological component of drawing down, you know, switching from a saver mindset to a, withdraw mindset. And that is psychologically very challenging. If you haven't really come face to face with scarcity mindset, then the worst of your scarcity demons start to flare up when you are no longer actively making contributions into your accounts, when instead you are drawing down from those accounts. That really is where the head game happens. That is where the fear of not having enough starts to flare.

And there are a few ways to work on that. One is internal. It could be through journaling, through therapy, through prayer or meditation. So one piece of it is the internal coming face to face with the scarcity demons and what they represent. The other piece of grappling with that is so. and community-based, filling your schedule with reminders that you have a support system, that you have a village in place that will catch you if you fall.

That comes from deepening relationships, from spending more time with friends, with family, with community, from becoming really good buddies with your underwater chess player team. Community. Right? Exactly. The more secure we feel within our community, within our village, the more we know that no matter what happens, I'll be okay because I've got that combination of both radical self-reliance as well as community.

Either one in isolation is not sufficient, but having both together, that's what creates a true safety net. There was a interview that we did with an author by the name of Ken Honda. And Joe, I know you've interviewed him too. You and I had a long conversation. Remember, we had like a two-hour conversation after we interviewed Ken Honda the first time because I'm so taken with this philosophy. Exactly. He is known as Japan's Zen millionaire.

And in fact, it is one of our most popular YouTube uploads. It's not even a video, but it had, what, 200 and something. thousand views. So what he said really resonated with people. One of the many things he said was make a list of people whose couches you and your family could sleep on in the event of the worst case scenario. Let's say, I don't know, a cyclone hits your town, but you don't have cyclone insurance because you live in Kansas City and no one ever expects a cyclone to come down there, right? Joe, Joe was looking at me like I'm a total weirdo. Are you saying there's no tornadoes in Kansas? Is that what you're saying? No, no, no. I'm thinking, you know, the hurricane, the water

cyclone. Oh, like, what? Like, you ever see the Wizard of Oz? At least tell me you've seen the Wizard of Oz. We're not in Kansas anymore because there was a cyclone. In Kansas. Water cyclone, the hurricane kind. And I know everybody's shouting at their device. Kansas City's in Missouri. Okay. It's right there, though.

We're so close. Welcome to the meteorology podcast. Yes, that's right. But no, this is the part of our net worth that, you know, I'm totally on board with this. Because this is a part of our net worth we don't pay enough attention to. And it is a huge, huge piece. Our social capital? Yeah, my feeling of security, and I've said this before, really took a turn for the better when I realized, not that I had enough money, but that I had enough relationships that even if the money failed, that we would find a way, that I have enough people, and this is a fantastic feeling when you know that you've got people that are on your team enough, that we will probably be okay no matter what happens with our money. I don't want to ever have to rely on those, but that is a, that's a, that's a.

big piece of it, Paula. Right. I think the most important piece we talk about community because, you know, he talks about how worried his spouse gets about this. I think this is where my idea, this weekly 20-minute easy meeting comes in. You set a timer for 20 minutes. You don't have the big epic conversations. I know money nerds want to have the two-and-a-half-hour Camp David summit.

We don't need that. We just need 20 minutes. Look at what we spent last week. Look at how much we're going to spend next week. And that's it. It's called Camp Fye, not Camp David. Camp Fy meeting. There really is a Camp Fy.

Yeah, yeah. Could be Camp Fy. Camp Mustache. We all want to have a camp mustache meeting. It doesn't have to be this epic conversation. Cheryl and I have found that if we have these every week and if you're single, you still have them. A lot of our single people in the community have written me that they've done this weekly

meeting and it works really well because you know why? Whether we're single, whether we're in a relationship, we just don't take the 20 minutes to do this, to have this self-talk of looking through it. But especially for the two of them, I think it's about the two of them being okay, week by week on this really tactical week-by-week basis that our spending is okay inside to the confines of how close we are to that financial independence mark. Oprah wrote this fantastic book. It's called What Happened to You. She talks about how to deal with feelings of anxiety.

You know, historically, a thousand years ago, bad stuff happened to people all the time. And this was way before we had modern therapy. A thousand years ago, bad stuff happened to people and there was no such thing as going to counseling. So how did people deal? There are three components to re-regulating that she talked about in that book.

movement, rhythm, and community. Walking is a form of movement, a low-impact-free form of movement that also is very rhythm-based. Walking, listening to music, and being around community, being around friends, family, even just neighbors, right? They don't necessarily have to be your closest to relationships if you have what Robert Putt In his book Bowling Alone refers to as weak ties, people in your neighborhood whose faces you recognize, even if you don't necessarily remember their names, just seeing those same people every single day on your morning walk. That's a huge part of feeling as though you belong to the fabric of a society. And that itself is a huge piece of staying regulated. I think that ties in well with his comment of seeking work-life balance.

There's definitely a tie there. I want to caution him, though, about work-life balance because I don't believe that's a thing. I just don't believe it. In fact, I spoke recently. I interviewed a wonderful entrepreneur named Tina Wells, who has been an amazing entrepreneur since she was, I believe, 14 or 15 years old, Paula. she wrote a new book called The Elevation Approach. Of course, people can listen to me, talk to her if you just go over to stacking Benjamin's,

but her book Elevation Approach talks about work-life balance is baloney. There's no such thing. And I tend to agree with that. But what we're actually searching for is work-life synergy. And I know this might sound... Work-life integration. Yeah, it might sound... What does it call?

Jargon-y? Semantics. It might sound like semantics. But it truly is. She's like, listen, there's times when you're working and you got to work 24-7. There are periods of life when that happens. But you also have to make sure that that 24-7 fits into your overall fabric of your life. So if you seek work-life balance, you'll get neither.

But if you're okay with the ebb and flow because it all fits into your life plan, that is a much better approach. Meaning maybe I work 24-7 today, but I take the week off next week or, you know, whatever it might be. So just starting with the end in mind there of I really want this harmony together. It's a better way because I don't know. Before I talked to Tina, I'd search for work life balance forever. And it just doesn't happen. Right.

It's a losing proposition. But what I do want to have happen is I want to be in the moment with the person I'm with when I'm there. Right. You want presence. Yes. And that is truly. what I meant by work-life balance.

When I'm at home, I want to be at home. When I'm at work, I want to be at work. Joe, you work from home. Damn. I get them both. When you work from home, you live at work. That's the bear. If somebody would have told me that, well, and you know what's funny there, Paul?

I mean, I know you're cracking a joke, but you know from working from home, you have to create the boundaries there too. Because her people, and people found this out during the pandemic. Working from home is not all its crack. up to be. And we start crossing these lines. And you saw people in this malaise of, well, I'm half at work and I'm really at work and I'm half at home and I'm not really at home. And you have to set this heart out. I'm done for the day. I am done. And now I'm at home. I'm not at work. And now I'm at work. I'm at work. I'm not at home. Like it's got to be this this hard line in your mind. Otherwise, not only will you continue to cheat on that.

if you work for somebody, we've all had bosses that are like, oh, well, you're sitting right next to the computer. Why don't you just do this? No, I'm not at work. If I was at work, you wouldn't even have the opportunity to ask me that. But now that you know that I work from home, you think I could just sneak over the computer for half an hour, which by the way, turns into 45 minutes, turns to do an hour and a half, turns into, I miss dinner, I miss my family, I miss everything. Right, right. And what's Funny, Joe's, is so a few minutes ago we were talking about integration. You know, now we're talking about boundaries. And what's funny is there has to be a blend of both.

Yes. So on a day-to-day basis, when it is appropriate, those boundaries need to be there. But sometimes you're working on a project where you're, you know, think interval training, right? Sprint rest, sprint, rest. Sometimes you're working on a project where you're sprinting. I'm thinking about my thesis right now. Working on that thesis, what Columbia called quote-unquote winter break, and I'm using air quotes when I say that, that was an effing sprint to that first track, January 13. So the quote-unquote winter break that we had was actually hell.

It was every single day with no break just sprinting to that January 13th. deadline of getting the first draft of that thesis in. Man, I remember there was a period after that of about four days where I was like, I got to do laundry. I need to order groceries. Yeah. And this is the work life synergy. The other side has to then come back.

So knowing that you're there 24-7 for X number of days, you then have to have a counterweight for some time. I love the idea. you know, Jim Rome presents a congruent idea. He and Tony Schwartz in a book, it's several years old. Now, God, this book might be 20 years old. But it's about managing your energy and not your time. Yes.

And I think that is huge. Think of yourself like a tennis player. Tennis players, tennis players have a year-round schedule. And so they don't get these big breaks. So they have to decide which tournaments are the truly important ones and which parts am I just working on little things. which ones am I completely in and which ones am I there, but I really, I'm getting other pieces of my life in order. Or I just don't attend.

So you have to manage your energy. I like that idea is kind of a congruent argument to this. Should we address the logistical piece of Eric's question? Nah. This is far more fun. Why don't I dive into seven? 72T for just a moment. Sure.

So for people that don't know what that Eric's talking about when he says, I know rule 72T, but I don't know it intricately. What that means is 72T allows you to take money out of your IRAs pre-59 and a half, get around some of these penalties that he's talking about in a way that you're able to set yourself up with an income stream. So the IRS has a few different ways to do it, but basically here's what happens. you take the value of the IRA, you stretch that out over your life using one of a few different IRS calculations that they have.

There's three really basic ones. But one's kind of flat line. The other two are based on different ways to calculate what inflation would be. You then take for five years or till 59 and a half, whichever one's later. So as an example, if it's 57 and you start this, you got to go five years. to not violate the rule. If you start at age 50, you go to 59.5 because 59.5 is later. So you set these up and you get, for what we're talking about, just on a high level,

you get a consistent pension-like paycheck that comes out of your IRA. And as long as you do it that way, you can decide whether you want it, monthly, quarterly, however you want it, they don't really care. But it's got to be the same. You got to use the same methodology every year. You can't go, ooh, this way of calculating it fits me better this year. this way fits me next year. As long as you keep it the same, you can continue to take these payments from your IRA and not pay any penalties. It's a great way to do it for a couple reasons. Number one,

Eric is worried about making sure that he's got this consistent lifestyle, right? And that he doesn't overstretch himself. Well, using 72T makes that great. I mean, you are legally obligated to take the same amount out. So you can't spend extra money. from the IRA on other things. It's got to be this set amount. It also helps people early in retirement kind of regulate their spending and get used to a spending that's the same with the threat of all these penalties hanging over them. So you don't spend more money than you should because of 72T.

On the other side, a lot of people early in retirement, that's when they want to buy the RV or they might invest in a vacation home or an expensive vacation, whatever that might be. on the downside, you're going to have to find other resources for that. So from a high level, that's how 72T called the SEPP rule works. I would recommend heartily finding a CPA or a CFP who's done this before and work with them. I might pay them for a couple hours of their time at the very least because you don't want to mess it up. We will also link to an episode in the show notes, which we dedicate. to really deep diving into the mechanics of SCPP 72T.

That was episode 94, which we deemed the early retirement episode. One of the questions that you might want to ask a financial planner is which strategy would be better, SCPP 72T or using a Roth conversion ladder. My hunch is that SCPP 72T is going to be a better fit because a Roth conversion ladder is going to come with major tax penalties, and the $600,000 that you have in taxable brokerage accounts that you're going to be drawing from was probably not money that you want to spend on taking the tax hit associated with the Roth conversion. But of course, clear that with a financial planner and with an accountant who is looking directly at your account

statements. That's my early hunch based on what you've said. Mine too. As far as the $600,000 not lasting until you're 59 and a half, I think working is both the logistical and the psychological solution to that, not obviously not working full time, but even if you can bring in 20 grand a year doing something light and fun, you know, 20 grand a year, it doesn't sound like a whole lot. But in terms of the way that's going to affect your drawdown in terms of, of how it'll impact your ability to deal with one-time expenses, such as a kitchen remodel, in terms of the way it'll help you cope with moments of inflation when the price of eggs suddenly shoots up and then back down again. Oh, that would never happen. Right. You know, just a smidge extra goes a long way.

And I think to put a point on what you just said, Paula, because the, working, which is not the right answer for everybody, but I think it's going to be for Eric, because from the psychological point of view and the fiscal point of view, it makes sense in both alleys. Like, how often do we answer questions from people where doing X thing would be the best financial move, but it doesn't fit what the end goal is? And we see people do that all the time. Right.

Or, I mean, just this idea where the value clashes with the goal. So the fact that I feel like working a little more is going to solve both the issues, I think that generally points to the right answer for me. Right, exactly. So thank you for that question, Eric. Enjoy your underwater chess team. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. The holidays are right around the corner and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared.

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But they also have the FinTech Hustle that got them named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine. That's what being a fifth third better is all about. It's about not being just one thing, but many things for our customers. Big Bank Muscle, FinTech Hustle. That's your commercial payments a fifth-third better. Joe, I think we're up for another question. Already. Already. It's that time. For those of you catching this on YouTube, this is the first video question that Joe and I are doing in the video. Tingling. Tingling. Yes, right? This is the first question where you can see our faces. So for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, congratulations for being the first. I'm Paula Pant. Early adopter. Right? Exactly. This is only what

our like 500th YouTube upload that we're like maybe we should put some video on this. Wow. Who knew? Who knew? So Joe, whose question should we answer? I think, well, next up we have anonymous. And whenever we have an anonymous caller, that means we give them a name. Ooh, all right.

So is this a man, woman, child? It is a man. Could be a man child. I don't know. No, no, I'm sure it's not. I'm sure it's not. Let's see. We've been going with things you've been watching on TV or movies. And have you watched anything? Have I watched? No, I'm taking this question seriously. Have I watched anything? I saw cocaine bear. I saw cocaine bear last week. Did you? Wasn't it terrible? It was the most ridiculously terrible, awesome. movie. I highly recommend it. One hour into it, I was like, one is this going to be over? Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was hilarious and stupid. It was so bad. All right. So this was Ray Leota's last movie. Ray Leota, who's been in a ton of movies. He was in

Goodfellas. He was in all kinds of stuff. He is the, he's the main bad guy. He's like the overlord bad guy. So maybe this should be Ray. Okay. All right. Then our next question comes from Ray. Hey, Paula. How's it going? Anonymous from Texas. My wife and I earn about 300K. We live in a pretty high cause of living in central Texas. And we are looking for ways to get that additional money to just be comfortable around paying off a credit card or lower credit card balance, increase for savings rate, et cetera. Like I said, we earn about 300,000 a year. We have two kids in daycare about $3,200 a month for both of them. We spend about $15,000, $60,000 in property, Texas. We have a mortgage of $2,200 every month. And our credit card balance covers anywhere from

22 to 2,700 every month. We don't pay them full, which we're okay with. We don't have any car payments. We own or with our cars in full. But again, I have some time to spare every week. I have about 15 hours to spare every week from, you know, a busy 35 hours a week job. I've read a lot that income, the combined income, household income, is enough to be fired. But obviously, we're, I don't feel we're nowhere near fire in general. So anyways, we'd love to hear. what you have to say about that. Again, we invest about 600 bucks every month, just after tax brokerage accounts,

mainly in investment, in fact, in index funds, VOQQQ and SHWP dividend. Dividend income is not quite there yet to a point where we feel comfortable just using it for living expenses. So anyways, we'll love to pick your brain as far as what ideas you have that we can use to increase our monthly income.

I'm okay if it's anywhere around 750 to 1,000. Really, I just want to make sure that have that extra gap of comfort. But anyways, thanks for the show. Appreciate it and looking forward to hear from you. Bye-bye. Ray, thank you for the question. First of all, with an extra 15 hours a week, you can make way more than $1,000 a month.

So I did some quick math. There are on average 4.3 weeks per month. That's 52 weeks divided by 12 months, right? So with an average of 4.3 weeks per month, we're talking about 64, 64.5 hours per month that you can dedicate towards working. So let's take the higher of your estimate, $1,000 a month. If you were making an average of $15.50 an hour, again, $15.15 per hour, that alone would be enough to bring in an extra $1,000 a month. I have total confidence that you can make more than $15 an hour, right? So if you brought in on average, let's say, $45 an hour in whatever side hustle you're doing,

and we can talk about some of those ideas in a moment, I mean, if you brought in, on average, $45 an hour, then that extra time could be an extra $3,000 per month before taxes. You know, that said, though, Paula, the first thing I want to caution, not just Rayon, because I do like the idea of using this extra time, bringing in other income. but without the right money management tools in place, a lot of times people focus on the income side. The big thing is, is to create a gap. And by the way, I also think that Ray is thinking about this correctly from another standpoint that a lot of us that listen to money podcast, like we focus just on the expense side. How can I spend less, spend less, spend less when often

the answer is exactly what Ray is talking about. However, this is is what happened in my life. Because early on, and I was a money disaster, because I didn't have good savings habits, I did a horrible job, just a horrible job of using that income correctly. So because I didn't have any systems, Paula, if I'd made $100,000, I would have spent $120. If I would have made $120, I would have spent $140. And the lie I kept chasing, and it was a lie, was that I could just earn more money to solve my money issue. And that is a lie. And I think a lot of people live that, right?

They're just like, okay, things will get better if I just get the next raise. Things will get better if I get the next promotion. Things will get better. Things got better for me when I locked down some good money management systems. So I would just say to Ray, yes, I love it. And I think like you, Ray can make more than 1550. I think he can as well. But I'd also want to talk to him about his systems of how he's going to make sure that that money creates a gap.

And that is not, you know, a lot of people think it's discipline. Like discipline is going to be the answer like it is, you know, working out or whatever it might be. But you know, Paula, as well as most people know, better than most, that the discipline is not the answer at all with your money. Anyone who's relying on discipline does not understand how behavior works. And that's also true for working out as well. Working out ultimately becomes a habit. It's not a discipline. It's a habit, right?

It starts a discipline. But the cool thing in this case, yeah, but in this case, it doesn't even have to be a habit. Right. You set it up on automatic payments and it just goes. So it's even easier. In fact, actually, if we want to use the working out analogy and then this isn't, sorry, this is how my brain works. I've always wondered. I have always wondered.

There are, like Nepal, for example, we use squat, toilets. And what that means is that you have to squat every time you poop, no matter how old you are. Your entire life, anytime you want to number two, you must squat. So it creates this automation. You have to do, I mean, assuming you poop once a day, you have to squat at least once a day, even when you're 85 years old. And so it creates the society where 85 year olds can squat, right? Right? Because you never lose that sense of movement, right? You practice it. And it's automated, so to speak, right? It's automated because it's built into the very structure of society. And so even when you're 60, 70, 80, 90 years old, you can pop into a full squat,

just like that. Anyway. It's incredible. Yeah. So that's automation at its finest. I wasn't talking about that that's incredible an 85-year-old could squat. I'm saying it's incredible that you could turn this into a poop analogy. The Paul's first thought was, hey, I got the perfect analogy for this. This reminds me of how Nepalese people poop. That's the quality that we get here and afford anything. No, but it is a great analogy because it's automatic. It just happened.

So I would say no matter Ray, what you set up, what income you come in, I wouldn't just be thinking about that. I'd be thinking about how do I make it so I never see this money. So it automatically goes to what the area is. And one thing you say that you're comfortable with, that I'm not comfortable with, is the fact that you don't pay off all the money on your credit card every month. Ding ding, ding. That's like 20 to 24% interest probably going into somebody else's pocket.

Think about paying an extra 20% on all that stuff. Right. Yeah. Forget it. Yeah. Same. And I mean, you know, I don't know. Maybe he's got some teasers. 0% interest rate on the credit card for the moment, even if that's the case, I still don't like it.

Fix the habit. Yeah. Make it a habit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, really, and that's the automation.

That's the first thing that we both want to see you do is set up an automation such that the credit cards get paid in full, automatically every month, just set it to auto pay for the complete full amount. That's where the extra income comes in. I agree with you, Joe. I don't want him to start the side hustle without also simultaneously starting auto pay in full for the credit card. Yeah. At the very least. And into those investments that he has. So he has these investments.

The other thing I didn't hear about was tax shelters. If he's going to need some of this money after 59.5. Let's put that money in a tax shelter so he avoids the friction of paying tax on the any gains it makes, any dividends that get paid out, any of that stuff. any of that stuff. Get it inside a tax shelter so he doesn't have to. It's certainly part of it he's going to want for after 59.5. So at the very least, you should have somebody going, maybe he does. And he didn't mention it, but I didn't hear it.

Right. Yeah. Now, for making more money, because he was asking about like what our thoughts are there, you and I have a mutual friend, a guy named Nick Loper, who is always got just a ton of weird ideas to make money at Side Hustle Nation. Nick's podcast you can find wherever you're listening to us. I thought of Nick right away when he was talking about, you know, what could I do? Well, I think what Nick does well is he takes this big cacophony of various side hustles and he puts it into a framework. And his framework essentially

boils down to three broad categories. There are the side hustles that fall into the category of gig economy work. You know, this is stuff like driving for Uber or DoorDash or becoming a dog walker on Rover, something like that, right? The benefit of gig economy work is that it's immediate. You don't have to do the hard startup legwork of building a website, building a brand, circulating your business card around, which today has just a QR code. You don't have to do any of that. You can just get plugged into a platform, and that platform is designed to send you some immediate hit of work right away. But because of that, because of that relative ease, that low friction, a lot of people are drawn to it and there are low barriers to entry to

doing any of that. It's not high skilled work and it's readily available for a high volume of gig workers, right? And because of that, it doesn't pay very well. So gig work is fine if you just need a quick hit of cash right away. Like if you're in an emergency situation and you're like, I need something this week or this month. It's fine for that. It's fine as a short-term band-aid, but it's not something that I would want anyone to do full-time or long-term. Beyond that, there are two other categories of side hustles.

And broadly speaking, you either sell your expertise in the form of time. You are an expert in knowing how to play the guitar or play chess or speak French or Spanish or Italian. And there are people who are willing to pay for that. So you can sell or maybe you're an expert in graphic design or full stack WordPress PHP coding. Whatever it is that you do, you have this very specific skill that has higher barriers to entry because it took you a while to develop that skill.

Therefore, you can command a high hourly rate, higher hourly rate for having that skill. either as a consultant or as a tutor or as an expert witness, right? There are many ways that you can monetize having a skill that took you time to develop. So that's another broad category of side hustles. And then the final broad category of side hustles are products. Actually, when it comes to selling products, the real daddy of the business is Steve Chu. His expertise is e-commerce. And he was recently a guest on this podcast.

Has the show aired? I recently interviewed him. I actually don't know if that show has aired or will air relative to when this episode is going to come out. It's a roundish now, aroundish. Yeah, aroundish. To give you a little behind the scenes on our production schedule and how I don't know what's going on around me. But Steve Chu is amazing. He wrote The Family First Entrepreneur for those of you watching on YouTube.

I'm holding it up right now because I literally have it on my desk next to me. he is the person to tune into if you want the details on e-commerce. Well, or if I think even broader, Paula, if you decide that, because I think that third category of years could be even broader, which is where I'm going to create an ongoing business. And even if the business is not an actual product, the product might be something like we do, even for those people reading Steve's book about creating it the right way. his book to me answered a question I used to ask entrepreneurs when they would come into my office.

I would say, are you working for the business or is the business working for you? For 99% of people, everybody knows what they answered. No, I've become an employee of my business. Like I created this beast and I worked 24-7 and it is not at all what I dreamt of when I started it. And Steve is great at turning that around. Right. At going, no, no, no, no, no. the business is going to work for you.

And the systems he talks about are just amazing. Right. Exactly. Ray, I would think about when you're trying to figure out what you want to do with your side hustle, you want to find that Venn diagram intersection between the skills that you have, particularly any skills, knowledge, expertise that takes time to develop. So what special, unique skills do you have? that's one circle of the Venn diagram.

The other circle is what problems exist out there in the world. And these don't have to be like nuclear war. Like the problem could be people want to learn how to speak Spanish and they need help, right? That is a problem. But she'll get paid more if you can solve nuclear war. Well, yes. Like that's an example of a problem.

Like people have all kinds of, maybe their problem is that they're grappling with some kind of lawn care issue. Like, there are all kinds of micro problems that people in your area need solved. So what skills do you have? What problems exist out there that other people need solved? And then the third circle is, what are people willing to pay for? Because there are a lot of problems, and some of those problems people are willing to pay to solve.

Other problems people are not. So your skills, the problems that exist, and then the problems that people are willing to pay to find a solution for. That then diagram intersection is where you find your optimal side hustle. Last place I advise Ray, do not chase a cocaine bear into the forest because it does not end well for you. I don't want to give away the movie because it's an epic with layers and layers of things going on. It doesn't end well.

I'll just say that. Wow. Really giving it a lot of credit. By the way, did you know that there is a real cocaine bear? There was a real cocaine bear. Yeah, there's a real. And he's on display at a shopping mall in Kentucky. And if you go to that shopping mall's Instagram page, you can see that people get their

wedding photos taken in front of cocaine. Oh, man. No, it's true. It's true. Really? I am linking. I'm going to make a note right now. Show notes link to Cocaine Bear's Instagram page.

The real cocaine bear. Does he look like he's got his face full of powdered sugar? He does not, you know, so the real cocaine bear. So I went on. on internet like deep read. To see how much of this is based in fact. Like you watch the movie. Yes, exactly.

Now Paul is like, is there a book about this? Can I read more? Because the depth of this thing just... So the real cocaine, because oftentimes cocaine is cut with flour or with baking soda. And to the nose of a bear, that smells like sugar. And so when this cocaine was thrown from the airplane, the real cocaine bear found the bags of cocaine, probably smelled the flour or the baking soda. thought it was sugar and ate it. And so he ate just bags and bags and bags of cocaine. He survived for about 45 minutes. And then after about 45 minutes, he had like literally every system failed. Who knew? Who knew that would happen? Right. Just massive cardiac arrest. I mean, every organ just shut down.

Wait a minute. The bear in the movie lasted an hour longer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in the movie. movie the bear goes on a killing spree, but in real life, the real cocaine bear lived for about 45 minutes and then had a very gruesome demise and is now taxidermied and on display at a shopping mall in Kentucky. And if you're looking for a place to get wedding photos taken, you can do it there. Because where else you're going to get your wedding photo taken? You heard it first on the Afford Anything podcast. Ray is like, how did my question lead to this? I don't know what the, what's where they're at. Who knows? This is what you get when you're an anonymous caller. Well, yeah,

cocaine bear and the poop analogy, all in the same show. Oh, wow. Yeah. High class here, here at the Afford Anything podcast. See who's next so maybe we can do another one. Ray, thank you for your question. Big takeaway. Please, please, please, Joe and I both really want you to set up an automatic payment in full on your credit cards every month. Do that with your side hustle income. And also, once you've done that, second priority is divert more of that side hustle income into saving in tax advantaged accounts. There it is. We'll return to the show in just a moment. Our next caller is anonymous also. Oh, are we going to do another cocaine bear reference? We are not. Like we did in the, we are not. We did that. Been there. That's been done. But I do want to talk about

this thing. So one of my podcast listeners actually who I met at a financial independence retreat, sometimes I get gifts from podcast listeners. And this one particular listener sent me this thing called a squatty potty. Have you heard of it, Joe? Are we seriously? Are we seriously just bringing this back around to potty again? So if you live in a country like the United States where you don't have a squat toilet, but you want to mimic the experience of having a squat toilet, meaning you want to kind of, you know, keep your knees elevated, it can help with constipation. There's this thing called the Squatty Potty.

And it was inspired. So on the topic of side hustles and entrepreneurship, the Squatty Potty is a $30 million business. And they have the best commercials. $30 million business. And it was inspired by a woman named Judy, who was constantly. constipated and needed to keep her knees up so that she could mimic being in a squat position while using a United States toilet, right, a non-squat toilet.

So in honor of Judy, who inspired the creation of the $30 million squatty-pottie business, the Squatty Potty Empire, our next caller is going to be Judy. Actually, Paula, before we do that, can I play the Squatty Potty commercial for everybody? Yeah. Because it is hilarious. Okay, they are not a sponsor. No, no. This is just, we appreciate creativity.

And when you're selling better poop. This is where your ice cream comes from. The creamy poop of a mystic unicorn. Totally clean, totally cool, and soft serves straight from a sphincter. Hmm, they're good at pooping. But you know who sucks at pooping? You do. That's because when you sit on a porcelain throne,

this muscle gets a kink in a hose and stops the Ben and Jerry's from sliding out smoothly. Is that a problem? I don't know. A hemorrhoids a problem? Because sitting at this angle can cause hemorrhoids, bloating, constipation, and a buttload of all that crap. And seriously, unicorn hemorrhoids? The glitter gets everywhere. But what happens when you go from a sit to a squat? Walla. This muscle relaxes and that kink goes away faster than Pegasus's laying sweet sherbet duke. Now your colon's open and ready for battle. That's because our bodies were made to poop in a squat, and now there's a product that you squat in your own home.

Introducing. And there it is. Oh, brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Bravo. I'm, you know, I'm convinced. We were, we were meant to squat while pooping.

That's how we were built. Your soft serve comes from the sphincter of a unicorn. Like at the beginning, I remember the first time I saw that, Paul. I'm like, what the, what are you talking about? And when the Ben and Jerry's not coming out right, that's when you learn out of squat. Like, really? This poor anonymous caller. is like, we haven't even gotten to her question yet, and we are already so far off the rails.

All right. Let's bring it back. This is Judy. Judy, yes. Here we go. Hi, Paula and Joe. I'm a big fan of the show, and I learn so much every week. My question today is about how to think about windfalls.

I'm a teacher earning 66K between salary and tutoring. I got started with saving late. I was in grad school until I was 32, thankfully not going into debt but not saving much. I'm currently 39, single, no kids, and I have a total of 126K in retirement. I contribute 10% to my 403B and my employer contributes an additional 5. I'm currently putting another 5% into a Roth. I now have 119K in my 403B and 7.5k in my Roth. I do have a quick question about that.

How much would you put into a Roth in my circumstances where I don't really expect my tax bracket to go up by a ton by retirement. All of my funds are in Vanguard Lifecycle Index 2050. I know I'll do better soon. A year ago, I bought a house for 180K. I have 140K remaining on a 30-year mortgage fixed at 4.375, no other debt. I have about 34k of my own savings in a high-yield savings account. My question is really about money I've received as gifts. In the past few years, my parents have gifted me 60K incredibly generously. Right now, it's sitting in a CD in I bonds. In addition, I have 20k and savings bonds for my grandparents. My challenge is with how to think about this money. In some ways, I feel ashamed that I didn't earn it. In other ways, I think about a society that values my labor as a

teacher so much less monetarily than that of my lawyer parent, and then I just feel grateful for my parents' generosity. In either case, I want to use this money wisely. One thing I'm sure about, is that it can't be anything I come to need to pay the bills. I've thought about putting some of it into retirement or my house, but I wonder if that's really the best use of it. I think I'm reasonably on track for retirement if I continue at this 20% rate. Does that seem right? After pondering, I think what I'd most like to do with the money is to use it to create room for some larger occasional expenditures that are really hard when you're living on one relatively modest income and trying to save ahead for things that are likely to break in an older home.

What I really, really want to do is to take a two-week trip to Uzbekistan for about $5,000 next summer. In general, I would be very happy if I could plan to take a $5,000 trip every, say, two or three years. I think my family would feel like I was using the money well if I used it for meaningful things over time, rather that be trips I care about or something really special for my home. So often on the show you talk about where to put money in terms of when you need it. The challenge here is that I don't really have a set timeline. I wonder, does what I'm describing seem like a reasonable vision? If so, where would you put the money?

How would you figure out how much to spend and at what rate? Thank you so much for any thoughts or framing you can give me. Beautiful, beautiful. Judy, I love the question. First of all, please, please, please do not feel. ashamed at receiving these gifts. The work that you do is wonderful and meaningful and it changes lives. It is not highly compensated, but it is so, so valuable. Second of all, you are stewarding this gift with wisdom and thoughtfulness. The way to disrespect a gift is by being flippant or casual about

it. There are people who spend their whole lives building a legacy for future generations, only for that future generation to squander it. And that's disrespectful to the ancestors. But what you are doing is the opposite. What you are doing is respecting the gift that your parents and grandparents have given you by being so thoughtful about it. I can tell from the question that you asked, from the, not just the words that you used, but also the tone in your voice, right? That is how you respect this money and the labor that your parents and grandparents used in order to procure it. And the third reason is giving is a blessing to both the giver and the receiver. Gracefully receiving a gift is itself a loving act towards the person who gave it

because you are allowing yourself to receive. So for all of those reasons, I would encourage you not to feel ashamed about this. And in fact, I love that rather than relying on this to pay bills, you want to use it for something meaningful. I think everything that you outlined is a wonderful idea. Putting it into a retirement account would be a wonderful way of signaling, hey, thank you for giving this to me. I'm going to make sure that this money is put in place so that I can take care of my future self.

When I am in my 70s or 80s and maybe my health is not what it is today, future me will be cared for. And I know that, you know, that's what your parents and grandparents would want. I think that's a wonderful thing to do with it. Using it to pay off part of your mortgage if that's what you wanted to do is also another wonderful way to use it. again, because that is just a different iteration of taking care of the future version of you. And using it to travel. Like Uzbekistan, first of all, I love the specificity of Uzbekistan. Right?

Yeah. That tells me that you've really put a lot of thought into this. Like, you didn't, you know, not that there's anything wrong with going to some of the more common places that people go. But if you're talking about Uzbekistan, you have really spent some time. deeply studying the globe and thinking about places that you could visit that would really enrich your life. So I think that's a wonderful use of the funds. And it sounds as though with no debt, with 20% of your income going towards retirement, it sounds as though everything else is on track, as far as I can tell. I think she's close enough, though, with her money that I don't think

I, of those three choices, I don't think I'd pay off the mortgage. I think the mortgage is at a low enough interest rate. Like, that is my least favorite. Don't get me wrong. Studies showed that people pay off their mortgage before they retire are happier and it's great to be conservative. So it's a good use. But the other two I find much more compelling. I 100% agree. Yes, entirely. I thought right away. She said she doesn't have a timeline. That is baloney. She definitely has a timeline of when she's going to use the money. But it depends on which one of these two choices she decides on. If she decides to put it in a retirement account, well, then we know she doesn't need it until retirement.

And then she's got her timeline of that money and she can invest it appropriately in investments that have the growing season that fit that timeline, right? Stocks and real estate, great for long term, short term. You know, right now she's in CDs, I bonds, perfect for short term stuff. So immediately she goes into long term mode. She can transfer it into index funds that meet that criteria. if she goes the other way into this becoming a travel fund, well then she can break those into CDs matching that amount of time for the short-term ones.

And the longer ones, the ones that are longer than maybe seven, eight, nine years, those years worth of travel that she's budgeting for, she can put again, I think, into the financial markets, especially 10 years out.

I think she can do that without much worry. So she's got her timelines. I think she just has to decide which of these two. Now, my feelings about both of these. Number one is if she goes with putting it toward retirement, that means that the Uzbekistan trip is going to come out of her budget. And so she's going to have to find a way to get that money. And that might upset the apple cart when it comes to her fantastic, as my mom says,

when it comes to that fantastic savings rate that she has. She might have to slow it down if she does that. That's a big trip every couple of years. So putting the money aside for the trip, make sure she continue on the strategy that she's on with her savings rate with freedom for worry. So something just occurred to me. All right. She's 39 years old. And she talked about wanting to take a trip every two to three years.

Let's take the shorter of that number. Let's assume that she's going to take a trip every two years until she meets retirement age. So let's just say from age 40 until age 60, she's going to take a trip every two years. So over a 20-year time span, that's 10 trips at a cost of $5,000 per trip. That's $50,000. She has $80,000. So even if she were to say 50,000 of this is my travel money, that still leaves the other $30,000 that she can put into retirement accounts.

And now she's got a timeline for all of it. $30,000 goes into retirement accounts and then the rest. Yeah, exactly. Of the two, because she already had. this savings habit going, she's got the system going, and I think it's a good system that she has, if it were me, and it's not me, and I think that we need to be clear about this, this is Judy's goal, not Joe's goal. If it were me, though, I think I would work to protect that habit. Just, just this would protect the habit and this would be that travel money. Plus, this is the other thing,

Paula, when I was a planner, I saw people that would just never take the trips because of the guilt feeling. And when she led with the guilt feeling, like you feel so guilty about that money and the fact that you have it, you're like, oh, maybe I'll let it grow a little more. Maybe I'll grow. But the thing it's not growing is your time on earth. So I would take the trips. And I think that then she creates those meaningful memories, which is what the money is used for. I love it when people, by the way, give money before they pass away. I think anybody out there that is already financially independent, they know they have enough money for themselves, no matter what they do. Like take the amount you think you're going to spend and double it. And if you still have money left over,

I love the idea of gifting it to people and organizations you care about while you're alive. They can use it sooner. You get the reward of watching them flourish because of your help. They're probably more likely to spend it in a way that is less wasteful because they know that you're still there. And you can see them spending the money. So I think it works from a lot of different places. But in this case, in this case, I think she's got the timeline. I think she does have a timeline for no matter which way she goes. I'm, I'm looking at facts about Uzbekistan right now. Of course you are. Of course. Because in my head, I was like, wait, we've never changed somebody's name before, but can we change her name from Judy to the name of some famous Uzbekistani? But,

well, before we get there, before we get there, I just need to know if squatty potty have a foothold. yet in Uzbekistan. There's a pun there. There's a pun there. There's a pun there. I didn't know there's a pun there. Because you put your feet on the squat, anyway.

Maybe next to it. If you put your foot in it, then you might have a problem. Judy, we'll just stick with Judy for now. The other thing that occurs to me, so the $5,000 figure for the trip to Uzbekistan, as well as any future trips, if that's what you want to spend, that's amazing. but one thing that I would encourage you to look into, if, if, if, if, if, if, and I'm saying this, not just for you, but for the sake of everyone listening, if you are sure that you can pay off a credit card in full every month, right? If you use a credit card just for ordinary expenses, like your groceries, your gasoline, just ordinary everyday expenses, if you know you're not going to do extra spending because you've got it, if you know you're going to pay it off in full, then what I would do is I would take out a card that gives you airline miles, and especially if you're planning on taking one trip every two years,

I'm guessing you're going to be able to buy this airline ticket with miles just by using the miles that accumulate from normal daily spending on your credit card, if you pay it in full every month. I don't know if the 5,000 figure includes airfare or not. You know, if it doesn't, and the reason I'm thinking about this is Uzbek. Pakistan is not, it's not like Japan, that, you know, a high cost, and it's not an expensive country to travel in. There are some parts of the globe that are just significantly cheaper to travel in than others,

and the biggest cost factor of that trip is the airfare. But once you're there, the food is cheap. The accommodations are cheap. Ground transportation is cheap. You can probably significantly reduce the cost of some of the trips that you want. to take by using airline miles to fly there. And that changes up the amount that you need a budget for each trip, which also changes the total amount dedicated to each trip, the amount that goes in the trip bucket versus the amount that goes in the retirement bucket. Well, she can also play some games

of that, right? I mean, if the $5,000 comes in low, she can then allocate the rest of that money toward the next trip to go to a high cost area that she might want to visit, you know, keep the budget the same. The long-term budget's the same, but the short-reau. run budget just varies based on the place that she goes. Right. Exactly. So maybe Uzbekistan is $3,000, but Lesothu ends up costing $6,000, right? I was so surprised, by the way, just in Western Europe, just moving across the global a little bit, the difference, I'd never traveled through Spain until just a few months ago. The cost of traveling through Spain so much less than France, which I've been due several times. It was just blown away by the cost difference. Countries right

next door to each other, and I felt like I could buy a lot more with a lot less in Spain. Yeah. I was surprised. Just country to country right next to each other. Italy, not cheap and right around the corner. Food in Albania has gotten really expensive. The average Albanian, I was reading in the Financial Times the other day, spent 60, 60% of their household income on groceries, on groceries. Groceries.

Wow. I just remember to your point, too, when we were in Laos, just you could spend tons of money there. I mean, and by spend tons of money, I mean, almost none. You can live very, very well for a long time on very little money in lots of places, but Southeast Asia was wonderful. Yeah, Judy, I can't say this enough. I love the destinations that you're looking at. I just, I love it when people go to places that,

that are less common as travel destinations. And I say this as somebody who has been to nearly 50 countries at this point. I don't think I've quite hit the 5-0 mark, but I'm pretty close. There's a different quality of experience when you're in a place where you're not on a tourist conveyor belt. There's just a certain raw, realness, rawness, authenticity. I know that's an overused term. I find there are two completely different experiences. And by the way, I appreciate the tourist conveyor belt.

I do. But like as an example for me now, now that I've been to Western Europe several times, I was telling Cheryl that that almost feels less like a vacation and more like just like my little getaway place, you know, not like I'm not exploring, but certainly when we were in Southeast Asia, there were places we went or it felt much more like I was learning. I was experiencing some brand new culture. the people I was meeting with that were from Michigan originally living on the Arkansas, Texas border.

They didn't see me every day, which was fascinating. It's so fun to see and experience just different cultures. It was awesome. Right. Well, Judy, thank you for the question and enjoy all of your trips. Send us postcards. Joe, we did it again. We did it yet again.

Stuck the landing. It was incredible. And we, we talked about squatting. We talked about squatty potty. Cocaine bear. Cocaine bear. Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the grossest way ever. We, um, yeah.

This is one of my favorite shows. Talked about Uzbekistan. Cocaine and poop. That was the theme of today's show. Cocaine poop and Uzbekistan. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And Ray Leota. Special guest star Ray Leota. Well, Joe, where can people find you if they want to hear more of your antics? You can find me, and sometimes you can find Paula as well on the Stacking Benjamin Show. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you'll find Paula on our Friday episodes. Just like you can now see us on YouTube from time to time together on the Ford Anything channel. You can also catch Paula and I and the team on YouTube. Our Friday shows we put on our YouTube channel as well.

Because this closing is airing audio only. So just, so y'all out there in Audio Land know, we have just started uploading actual videos to YouTube, the Ford Anything YouTube channel, two of today's three questions. We have also answered in video form on YouTube. I know. Two out of three. Eric's question was audio only, but we weren't, you know, rolling video at the time. Sorry, Eric. Sorry.

Our bad. No, we got to focus on our words. That's right. But the other two questions, the two anonymous callers, we answered in, these are the first videos, actual video videos, that we have uploaded in years. So come say hi to us in the comments on YouTube. Come look at our faces. Exactly. Yes. Our adorable face. I think the word is adorable. Adorable faces. Oh. Oh. That's the way people talk about us, Paula. Adorable.

Well, thank you for joining us, Joe. Well, thank you for having me again, Paula. And thanks to all of you in the Afford Anything community. You can, if you enjoyed today's show, please, please come find us on YouTube and just leave a comment under one of the videos to say hello and say that you enjoyed it and see what we look like. YouTube.com slash Afford Anything is our channel. And Joe, I'm sure you're what, YouTube.com slash stacking benjamins? Stacking Benjamins, yeah. How did I guess?

So weird. Right? Cryptic. So yes, if you enjoyed today's show, find us on YouTube and leave a comment. and say hello and just share the love. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube while you're there and share it with your friends. And be like, look at these faces. Aren't they?

Aren't they faces? Aren't they faces? They're very facie. Facey. Yeah. As opposed to what we talked about a lot today, which was feces. And with that, we are signing off. Thank you so much for tuning in.

I'm Paula Pant. I'm Joe Salci. Hi. And we will catch you in the next episode. Here is an important disclaimer. There's a distinction between financial media and financial advice. Financial media includes everything that you read on the internet, hear on a podcast, see on social media that relates to finance. All of this is financial media.

That includes the Afford Anything podcast, this podcast, as well as everything Afford Anything produces. And financial media is not a regulated industry. There are no licensure requirements. There are no mandatory credentials. there's no oversight board or review board. The financial media, including this show, is fundamentally part of the media. And the media is never a substitute for professional advice. That means any time you make a financial decision or a tax decision or a business decision,

any time you make any type of decision, you should be consulting with licensed credential experts, including but not limited to attorneys, tax professionals, certified financial planners or certified financial advisors, always, always, always consult with them before you make any decision. Never use anything in the financial media, and that includes this show, and that includes everything that I say and do, never use the financial media as a substitute for actual professional advice. All right, there's your disclaimer. Have a great day.