Afford Anything - Q&A: "I’m 26 and No Longer Motivated by Money. Am I Unemployable?”

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

#758: Joe says that if you tell an employer you’re not motivated by money, you’re unemployable. Paula says that’s exactly the person she wants to hire. Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins Paula to answer a question from a 26-year-old whose net worth is already 10 times her annual spending. Then they take on two more: whether target date funds are worth it, and whether a dad of young kids should make a career change that cuts his income by 60%. In this episode, we discuss: Why not being motivated by money can make you a better hire The two traits Paula looks for when she hires How to tell whether a small business is a good place to work, and when it isn’t A quick test for whether you’d actually enjoy your coworkers When a target date fund makes sense, and when it holds you back How to decide whether to make a big career change now or wait Why your savings might be meant for exactly this kind of leap If you’ve saved enough that a paycheck no longer drives your choices, this episode will help you figure out what should. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS Note: Timestamps may vary slightly depending on dynamic ad placements. (02:32) She’s 26 and no longer motivated by money (07:23) What Paula looks for instead of money motivation (12:54) The hidden risk of working at a tiny company (24:55) The 8-hour layover test for coworkers (33:05) Why Paula put her parents in target date funds (40:24) Joe’s 30-minute alternative to target date funds (51:33) Why your 401(k) target date fund may be junk (58:33) The case for target date funds as harm reduction (01:08:01) Should he take a 60% pay cut to switch careers? (01:13:37) Why waiting “one more year” rarely helps 🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED 👉 Building your own mix instead of a target date fund? See which account each fund belongs in: https://affordanything.com/assetlocation 👉 Episode #709, planning for a child with special needs, with Keith Wargo: https://affordanything.com/709-the-financial-reality-of-developmental-disability-with-keith-wargo/ 👉 Stacking Benjamins, Joe’s podcast: https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/ 👉 Strategic Coach, the entrepreneur coaching program Joe recommends: https://www.strategiccoach.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe, did you ever totally lose your motivation for making money? I lose my motivation every fourth day. Oh, for making money specifically. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. No, even after becoming financially independent, I still think of money as a source of value. If somebody's willing to pay you more for it,

then that means you're more valuable. Oh, you're more valuable. Wow. Well, whatever you're offering is more valuable. You're worth as a person, Joe. And that statement, Paula, will be 20 bucks. Oh. Well, Joe, we're going to talk to somebody today who is 26.

Their financial position is a lot better. They're not quite at financial independence yet. But they're doing well enough that the motivation to make money has subsided. Oh, cool. What does that mean? You know, what does that mean for their career choices? What does that mean for the job choices? Today's episode is largely a career slash jobs episode.

That's at the beginning of the show. And at the end of the show, we're going to answer a different question also about career. We're going to field a question from someone who wants to make a career change in which his new career is going to probably initially pay him 60% of what he currently earns. So he's going to take a big pay cut. And there's young kids in the picture. There's a lot of factors to consider. So it's very much the, what do I do with my life episode? Oh, good.

All right. Because I've been wondering what I do in my life. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. The show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship, acronym Double I Fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant, every other episode ish. We answer questions from you, and I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Saul Cahy. What's up, Joe? I've been contemplating this story problem, Paula, that I think I've finally solved.

What is that? So there's this boat and there's three people in it, but four cigarettes. And they're trying to figure out how to split those. So you know what they did? They threw the four cigarette overboard and the boat became a cigarette lighter. Ah. And with that, we go to our first question, which comes from Anonymous. Hi, Paula and Joe, thanks for taking this call.

I'm 26 years old living in the United States. and my net worth is roughly 10 times my annual spending. I have been listening to your show for years now, and it has been very helpful in me reaching my current financial state. Oftentimes the questions you and Joe answer start off about finances, but the answer you give ends on the lifestyle needs and wants of that person. Today my question will start and end on that lifestyle aspect. On the internet, there is plenty of advice on how to work your way to financial independence.

But what I can't find is how to work after achieving financial independence. I have not done this yet, but I have enough so that I am not as motivated by money anymore. I don't find working on someone else's time schedule acceptable, and I wish I could determine what projects I work on and not my employer. It feels like I have this negotiation piece that other employees don't have, and my potential employers can simply avoid it by not hiring me and instead hiring those workers who are motivated by the money and who are forced to work on someone else's time schedule. I am not at place in my career where entrepreneurship is a good option yet.

Because of my investments, I don't think I can accept a job doing anything other than what I want to do. And that is very clearly not what my coworkers are doing and not what employers expect of me. I'm starting to worry that I am becoming unemployable. I would appreciate any thoughts you can share on this topic. Thank you. She is 100% unemployable to a bunch of employers if you tell them that.

You know, I disagree. Oh, I think a bunch of employers would be like, yeah, you're not motivated by money. You're not motivated by the same stuff everybody else's, likely. But we got to give her a name first. All right. I have a name for you, Paula. Okay. Go for it.

I do. Well, it was fun watching your escapades and social media in Bavaria, my favorite place on earth. and you didn't invite me, but whatever. I'm not at all. Bavaria, Germany is your favorite place on Earth, Munich, that area? A thousand percent. Oh, just the entire Bavaria area is, yes. How have I known you for like a decade and I didn't know that was your favorite spot?

I don't know, especially since one of the oldest jokes on stacking Benjamin's been, has you ever told you about his trip to Bavaria? Because I will tell you a thousand times about my trip to Bavaria. So I see you in Munich, having fun, doing all the fun. Octoberfest off. So I'm living vicariously through you. But the last queen of Bavaria was Maria Teresa of Austria Esti. She reigned as queen consort from November 1913 until the monarchy's abolition in 1918. Wow. So we should call her Maria for Maria Teresa. How about that? That sounds great. Also, whoa.

Joe, I feel, have we met? I feel like I don't even know who you are anymore. That I know a bunch about the lineage of the kings and queens in Bavaria? Yes, where did this come from? I just went there to drink beer. I'm a big fan of the last king of Bavaria, who is King Ludwig. And so when I went, I was studying Ludwig in these wonderful castles that he's had all over Bavar. Do you even know about Lutvig's castles?

I have no idea. Oh, my God. You missed the best part of Bavaria. There's these beautiful castles that look like they were created in the, you know, in some fantasy middle ages, but far prettier. And they're all over the countryside in Bavaria. Wow. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think we've just given Maria something to do with, uh, you said Maria teresa? Yeah, let's just call her Maria. We can keep a chart. Okay. Okay. Fine. I think we've just given Maria something to do with, uh, uh, You know, Maria, while you are unemployed, I've got a suggestion for where you should travel. Go travel. The reason that I disagree, I believe, Maria, that you are imminently employable. In fact, you are the most employable because as an employer, I don't want somebody who's just like there to collect a paycheck. I want someone who is there for two reasons. One is mastery and the other is purpose.

When I'm hiring, I look for people who, number one, love acquiring skills and getting better at skills, who have an intrinsic love of learning and love of skill acquisition and development. And all of that is embedded in mastery. And mastery doesn't have to necessarily be a specific technical skill. You know, it could be those softer skills of like learning the operations of the company, better judgment, better decision-making, better collaboration, critical thinking. All of it together is under the umbrella of mastery. And so somebody who is intrinsically motivated by mastery, finding that as an employer, is gold.

And when I find that person, even if I want them to perform a task that they're not necessarily great at yet, so long as they are adequate at that task, but they are devoted to learning and they're devoted to improvement. And I can tell because, you know, you can tell by the way you talk to somebody. You can tell by are they practicing the skill in their own time? Are they just genuinely curious about how to get better? If they are that type of person, I'm all in. So mastery is one.

Purpose is the other. They've got to believe in the mission of the company. They've got to believe in what we're doing. They've got to believe in the dent that we're making in the universe. If someone's got those two things, I'm glad they're not motivated by money. That would be the wrong fit. Sadly, you and I are going to end up agreeing because, well, because the second half of my discussion here was that you got to look for the right employer because I think that in any big

organization, you know, I worked for American Express. My son worked from Microsoft. When you get into any big organization, you end up with middle managers who sometimes, Paula, the customer gets lost. I've seen this before. The customer gets lost. The reason why we're working kind of It's lost and all the manager wants is if your butt's not there at 8 a.m. and leaves at 5 p.m. then shame on you. So you get this robotic stuff that's going on in a lot of corporate America that you can't do much about. So I think where for a lot of people, the big organization can offer you a big ladder. American Express is a fine company. Microsoft is a fine company. There's a nice ladder that you can move up and you can expand your skills and they have great benefits. but also it comes with some drudgery. I remember going to half the meetings I went into Paula, you're like, what are we doing? I do not want to waste my time doing this, right? So I felt the same way as Maria.

I felt unemployable. As an entrepreneur, I feel completely differently. And as somebody who's worked in small businesses, a small business works much more Paula like what you're talking about. So I think you've got to be very careful, Maria, about where you apply. Because a small business person is far less worried, far, far less worried about you filling the chair at the right time and making sure that my boss's boss is happy and that I can, you know, fill out the TPS reports on time, whatever it might be, all the garbage that comes to corporate America. They don't care about any of that. They care about whether the job gets done or not.

My assistant, Tina, my right-hand woman, Paula, you know Tina. Tina worked for me when I was a financial planner. Tina called me up one day after I'd sold my business. A few years later came and goes, Joe, can I work for you again? And the reason was I'd sold it into a much bigger practice and it was becoming pretty corporate. And I said, listen, I went into podcasting. It's not financial planning. So I can't pay you what you made before.

She goes, I don't care. I want to be part of this organization where at the end of the day, the end user of what we do matters. and that was what we had used to do together, and that's what she wanted to get back to. So she took a pay cut so that she could do work that she thought was meaningful. She also knew that I don't really care if you're in the seat at X time or X day. I care about whether the end user gets the thing on the day they expected it and that it's a quality product that they want to have. And that's what Tina believes in. She can get behind that.

She gets excited when one of our videos does well or, you know, a social media piece does well because that's another person who gained financial literacy. So for her, it's less about the paycheck. It's much more about the mission. But I think that's going to happen, Paula, much more with an employer like you than it will working for middle management Microsoft or Google or Procter & Gamble or, you know, one of these big, huge organizations. I think it's much more likely you're going to find that. So I think you've got to start off by looking in the right places. And you'll find not only are you not employable. Paula, like you said, I think you're valuable.

I will give a couple of warnings, though, not to be the pessimist. But number one, when you're working in a small business, there are so few people there that the personalities of just one or two key people will have an outsized impact on, your experience there. So I remember straight out of college, immediately upon me, the summer after my senior year, the summer after graduation, I was an unpaid intern at the local newspaper, and that was two days a week. And so in order to actually make a paycheck, the other five days a week, I worked for this very small business. It was a small gardening company. The personality of

the owner was, we'll just say, abrasive, even though it was a small business, even though there was a lot of, we didn't have the bureaucratic TPS report nonsense, but when you've got an extremely small company, a company of four or five people, and the founder slash owner has an abrasive personality, that's an instant no, right? Like, it's such a small group that like, particularly when that abrasion comes from the top, no. That's horrible. And sometimes those people are working for themselves, frankly, because they're unemployable, because nobody will work with them. So they had to create their own business and they treat people like, I've had similar experiences. No, it isn't necessarily having the good news, though, Paul, about financial independence.

What Maria is talking about, you can tell that person to take a hike much more quickly. You don't have to put up with it. You can go, you know what? I'm gone. That's the good thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I stayed there for like less than two months. And after that, I was like, I'm out.

Peace. So, okay, so that's one warning about working for a small business. The personality of one or two people will have an out, you know, just a totally outsized impact. The other warning is that, and I've seen this inside of my own business, unfortunately, it took us a long time to get organized. My skill set is not operations or systems or structure. For a long time, I operated at the level of unconscious incompetence, meaning I didn't know what I didn't know.

and I didn't realize that we were so lacking in systems until ultimately I hired a fractional COO. She came in and she initially did an audit of the company and she was like, you don't have formal written job descriptions with a scope of work. You don't have an organizational chart. You don't have KPIs. You know, you don't have any scorecard so that people know how they're doing. You don't have regular performance reviews.

And I was like, what's that? You know, we didn't have any of that stuff. And I didn't even realize that that was stuff that we were lacking until I brought in a fractional COO who audited the place and said, you guys have a lot of low-hanging fruit. And so it was through her that we hired an operations person who is just, she's so excellent that now I feel like I work for her, which is great. Like she's the grown up in the room. And so I get to be the podcaster

while she gets to be the grownup. Well, and that's good, Paul, from another perspective, because I lost my first employee ever, who's a great person to work with. I hired this assistant when I'm a financial planner. She works with me for almost two years. And then next thing you know,

she's working for another advisor down the hall. Right? Just like, hey, it's not me. It's you. Yeah. I think I did that the opposite way around. but it truly was me, it wasn't her. But she didn't say it that.

She didn't say it that way. She said it's not you, it's me. But I heard it the opposite way, right? That it was me. And what I learned was that when you're an entrepreneur too, somebody like you and I, you're an ideas person. Yeah. I come every day with a, oh my God, this is important.

And then the next day, something else is important. And you know what? In truth, they're both important. Yeah, I do that too. Yep. And just because they're important doesn't mean that's what the business should do. And the advice I got from my mentor after that because I was like, how could I have stopped that from happening? He goes, Joe, you were impossible to follow.

You were impossible to follow because every day there was a new mission statement. And I said, well, that's just me sharing my current thinking with like my buddy, my assistant. My mentor said, to you, she's your buddy that you work with. To her, you're setting up like what the expectations are. And every single day, the expectation's changing. Well, we want to look over here. No, we want to look over here. We want to look over here.

So I actually learned something at that point, which was when I share stuff with my team, it's got to be, you know, we're not going to act on this. But my current thinking is we might want to start talking about moving the ship to this. And Tina has told me, who's worked with me for a long time, she's like, I love it when you do that because we're not steering the ship that way. And 85% of the time, guess what happens, Paula? I never talk about it again. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm the same way. Like I, so this is a warning if you do go work at a small business is the personality of the founder might be a little bit of like the Tasmanian devil. You know, that cartoon Tasmanian devil that like comes in at the big twister. And there are times that I feel like every single day. That's what I kind of, that's what I do at work. I show up and I'm like, hey, everyone, you know. And I just like show up and create chaos, which is why it's so great. to have an operations person who was like, yep, nope, systems process, who can just be that ballast and that counterpoint.

But I also tell you what, it doesn't matter what Maria's age is. If she can help the founder, and I know a bunch of founders that are open to this, you're always open to it. I'm always open to it. When you get somebody in your organization that goes, you know what, this is a little bit chaotic. Yeah. When it's way cat, this is a little bit chaotic. Do you mind if I create a system around this one piece?

every founder, I mean, any good founder is going to go, yes, I need that because these aren't stupid people. It's funny, there's a group called Strategic Coach that I got training from for a long time. Love them, highly recommend them if you're an entrepreneur. They said this brilliance that got you to this point in your career is not the thing that's going to take your company to the next level. And generally, people in Strategic Coach, Paula, were people like you and me who we got there because we had a bunch of of great ideas. We were first movers. We wake up in the morning. We were self-starters. We knew how to how to make stuff happen. But your business gets to a certain point. That's chaos and you need systems and processes, which is exactly what you're putting in place now. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Sometimes I marvel, not to derail this conversation into like founder personality, but like sometimes I marvel at you know, I'm like, what, what the hell did I do that got me to this point where now I've got a small and I'm like, I don't quite know how this happened. Like, I just had a lot of ideas and I did a lot of things and some stuff worked out and that compounded over a decade and here I am. And yes. Well, and this is the psychology of any good founder is that at some point the founder begins realizing there's a difference between them and their business. Yeah. That afford anything has moved away from Paula Pant. Still an important part of it. You know, I look at as an example, I'm fairly close to people in the Clark Howard organization. And Clark has been around for a long time, but Clark Howard

is not Clark Howard. Clark Howard does not even think of Clark Howard. It's a, Bill don't know who Clark Howard is. He's a great personal finance influencer. And he's been around for a long time. used to have a show on the HLN network. In the Atlanta area, he's like a household name. Just huge in the southeast. Yeah. Absolutely huge. But Clark is not Clark Howard. I don't even think of Clark Howard as the man Clark Howard.

I think Clark Howard is this organization now. And Clark shows up when the mic's hot and does his piece that he's brilliant at. And he's got wonderful people around him doing everything else. And if you can find that type of a mission-oriented place where they know exactly who they're serving. They're trying to serve them as well as possible. I think that your days where you go from drudgery to so fun. You're skipping to work. I mean, because while you're getting paid,

it still is about so much more than the paycheck. Right. Yeah. You know, I think you need to find a company that's led by somebody who is humble enough that they know that there are a bunch of things that they're bad at and they're looking for people who are better than them at certain things and who is like, a founder who's really motivated by the mission and motivated by growth and who won't let their own

ego get in the way of that. You need a founder who's like got that humility combined with that drive to grow. But humility is an interesting thing because it has to also inside of it, it has to have confidence. Like I used to be a founder who in my early days who was like insecure and lacked confidence. and that just made me step onable or step overable. It meant that as an organization, we became weak. The strongest personalities dominated, not necessarily the best ideas. And so as I matured as a business owner, I really locked on to,

here are a few things about our organization that truly matter. And I don't care how strong your personality is. These are the handful of things that are. not changing and if you don't like them, then this is not a good place for you to work. Here are those things that are set in stone and then here are the things that are not. And so like basically I became much more clear about what matters and what doesn't. And so yeah, so you need somebody who is neither insecure nor egotistical. But this is the great thing about financial independence is that there's a ton of those people

out there. There are actually a lot of those people out there. I don't think you find this applying in big organizations. I think you go to small organizations and you have to be willing to quit when it's not the right fit. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I've heard somebody say, I thought this was a good litmus test. Imagine that you are, the people that you work with on a day-to-day basis, imagine that you're at the airport together and you discover that you are stuck on like an eight-hour layover.

Would you want to spend an eight-hour layover with this person? or with these people. And if the answer is no, then like, don't work with them. But if the answer is like, okay, cool, we're stuck on an eight-hour layover, it's probably going to be a good time. We're probably going to enjoy it. In the context of a layover, layover is always kind of suck. But, like, it's going to be the best possible layover.

Great. That's who you want to spend your days with. Much better. Yeah. Maria, I agree that for money-related purposes, you are unemployable. which is what makes you so perfectly employable for the reasons that anyone should be working. I don't like to use the word should,

but for the best possible reasons to be working, which is mastery and purpose. Thank you, Maria, for the question. Congratulations on being in the position that you're in at 26. That's incredible. Yeah. Congratulations on having a net worth that's 10 times. your spend.

And thank you for letting us talk about Bavaria. That was kind of a you thing, Joe. Thank you for letting me talk about Bavaria. You'd like to hear more about the best of Bavaria. We're going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors who pay our bills. When we come back, we're going to hear from someone who is baiting Joe and I into what's inevitably going to be a debate. This person brought up a topic. Rhymes with Target mate smunge. Oh, no. Really? Really? Are we going there? You're kidding, right?

Joe and I disagree on this one. Do we disagree? Do we definitely do? And that's coming up next. You're wrong. Welcome back. Our next question comes from Matt. Hi, Paul and Joe. This is Matt from Utah. I have a question about Target date funds. I know Joe. is not a fan. I've heard him rant about that many times over the years, but I hear guys like Rob Berger, who is a YouTuber that I respect, John Luskin, who is one of the leaders in the Bogleheads Group, who I respect a lot, Peter Lazaroff, who is a financial advisor and owns a firm, who I respect. They all invest most or all of their money in a target date fund or an all-in-one fund and they all talk about the positive reasons of why that is and why they are believer in

those. I don't do a target date fund myself, but I'm intrigued by the idea of them. So we'd love to hear you guys discuss that. Thank you. Matt, my favorite topic because I am super pro target date funds. I agree with Rob Berger. Rob was recently on the show. He was on our October first Friday episode. In fact, I actually recommended to my parents. I got my parents into target date funds. I think if you are somebody who self-selects as the type of person who listens to a personal finance podcast regularly, you're someone who is, who knows what a bogell head is. You have a sophisticated degree of knowledge, an advanced degree of knowledge. like you like this stuff. For those of us who are in this world, for those of us who know what the

letters ETF stand for, use the term nerds. But like what is a nerd? A nerd is somebody who is just super enthusiastic about a niche topic. Like for those of us who are personal finance enthusiasts, target date funds are probably unnecessary. That doesn't mean they're wrong. They're just like unnecessary because we loved a nerd out on this stuff. But for some, somebody like my parents, the more I try to talk to them about it, the just the more complicated and overwhelming it seems. I just told my parents like, hey, go into a target date fund, call it a day, the end. That's exactly what I put my parents in. Joe? Oh, I thought he wanted to hear your opinion. I thought he said he already heard mine.

He's specifically because Joe is Mr. Anti-Target Date Funds over here. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I am not. And he knows I'm not. I'm not anti-target-day fund. I understand what Target Day funds are meant to do. I just don't think you should use them. There's a difference. So by the way, let me start off by talking about the three gentlemen that he brought up. So Rob Berger recently on this show, Peter Lazarop, by the way, coming up on Stack and Benjamin's very soon. Yeah, we should get them on our show. We've already recorded the interview and it's going to be great. And John Luskin is a guy that I never bet against. In fact, in my slides, when I do keynote talks, I have actually a slide, which is John Luskin talking about this. John Luskin says, something to the tune of, give me the knowledge to know that a 10 fund allocation beats a one fund allocation, but the wisdom to know I will never maintain it. And I absolutely love that.

I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. Because how often have we found people that get into the weeds? They go too far in the weeds and then they don't maintain it. And John says this is why you should use targeted. So John is pro target date funds, right? Because of the fact that you won't maintain it. Rob, I don't know why, Rob. I love Rob.

I don't know why Rob's pro target date fun. If I may. Rob, what I love about him, he has this wisdom, like this deep simplicity about him. It's one of the most compelling attributes. It's not that hard. Yeah, you can just, you can tell by talking to Rob that he has a deep understanding of everything. And because his understanding is so deep, he makes it all very simple. He has kind of these Morgan Howsell vibes in that way.

My assumption is probably the reason that Rob is pro-target date funds is for the same reason that I put my mom and dad. in target date funds, which is when you encounter someone and you know that you don't want to overwhelm them with complexity and you want them to take action and you want that action to be 98% instead of 100% target date funds are ideal. It's the same analogy I've used with, there are some people where an annuities have hit, right? They're never going to learn it. They're never going to know it. And so giving them a stream of income can be a good idea. Peter, I'd never heard that Peter use it.

I'm sure Peter uses a fixed set of funds. I mean, Peter manages billions of dollars of other people's money. So I'm sure he has a fixed allocation fund that he uses that probably is overseen by him. So even if it's a target date fund, he knows why he's there. He knows the guts of the fund. He's the guy that's doing it, I think, Paula, because of the fact that he's a super nerd. and he's like, I'm eating my own cooking. That's a guess, but I bet that's why Peter does it.

Rob, I think you're probably spot on that simplicity wins the day. So for people I haven't heard this rant before, if you have heard this rant, I apologize. But for people I haven't heard this rant, I'm not anti-target date fund. I'm pro you. I am pro you. I think that the problem with target date funds are immense, and you can lose tons and tons and tons of money by staying in a target date fund too long. You don't understand what the downs

of target date funds until you do a very simple Google search. By the way, you know how long that Google search takes? 30 seconds. It isn't super long. I don't need to go into it today, but it is not, it's not hard to find out what the problems are.

It's also not hard to figure out three funds that you pick yourself that actually you own and you know why you own them. I think even if you're not, a nerd, you're smart enough to know how to pick three funds. And I think the value of picking three funds yourself is so important when the market goes down. At some point, somebody asked me the other day, like, do you think we're headed for a correction? I said, yes. They said, when do you think it is? I'm like, guess what? I have no idea. But I know there will be one.

There's going to be one. There's a zero percent chance we won't have a correction at some point. if you own stuff that you don't understand, you're much more likely to sell that. The whole time I was a financial planner, what frustrated me the most was people who refused to understand the stuff that they had. And there were, Paula, to your point, there were some people where they weren't going

to understand it no matter what. And you know what? For those people, a target date fund is better than nothing. I can see those people own a one. If you tell me, you know what, I'm just going to pick a target date fund. I'll go, you know what? Let's go together.

let's spend half an hour and we're going to set up a three fund portfolio that's going to be better than this target date fund this junk that you're going to pick you're going to know why you have it you're going to pick it yourself with me you're much more likely to maintain it you're much less likely to get rid of it at the wrong time if we get done with a half hour and you're not with me I'm going to say you know what go do a target date fund so I'm not negative target date fund I just think too many people go, oh, you know what? I'm brilliant and everything else, but screw it. I'm just going to do the crappy thing with my money. Why? Why do we do that? When we're analytical about so many other pieces of our life, I think we think the asset allocation is difficult. And words like

a fish and frontier make it sound difficult. But it's not nearly as difficult as people make it. So I just don't want to give up on you. That's why I don't like a target date fund. Before you just go throw your money in a target date fund. Go try. Give it a shot. You can do this. All right. So, Joe, counterpoint. In order to pick even three funds, there are some foundational building blocks that you need to learn. First of all, if you're really starting from scratch, you first need to be convinced of why an index fund is better than cobbling together like SpaceX and micro strategies and Lulu Lemon. There are people who think that investing means you pick a hand,

any mini, mini, moa a handful of individual stocks, throw them all together into a portfolio, I don't know, maybe like take a flyer and buy some on margin and call it a day, right? So if you're truly a beginner, even the foundational building block of you want the bulk of your portfolio at least 90%, of it, if not more, to be passively managed index funds. Like that, that revelation alone, I have spent hours trying to convince people, like beginners, of simply that, because then they have these objections. They come back, you know, and they're like, well, but if you had simply bought Amazon in 1998, you know, like. Right. Money morning quarterback. Yeah, exactly,

like with the benefit of hindsight. Sure. And so it takes a long time. If you're, if you're, somebody who's a beginner, it takes a long time even to be convinced of the value of index fund investing just as a foundational building block. And once you get there, then you have to understand that there's a distinction between large cap, midcap, and small cap. There are these breakout categories based on size. Then you have to understand that there are other breakout categories based on growth, value, and blend, then you have to understand that there are other breakout categories based on industry, but we don't necessarily want to target a specific industry.

So you have to understand, like, yes, there are breakout categories based on geography, Europe, Latin America. There's also industry like financials versus tech. There are all of these different ways that you can classify various index funds. And if you're designing a three fund portfolio, you might want to, allocate based on, let's see, a small cap allocation and a value allocation, but you wouldn't necessarily want to have, let's say, an industrials allocation and a Peruvian allocation. Why not? There's like this understanding that you need to have in order to know why you're making those decisions.

Like if you're going to go outside of simply VTSAX and chill, why would you choose to prefer certain categories but not others? You just name the answer. Why? And the answer is, if I'm a beginner, why am I defaulting to a Target Day fund? I should not be defaulting to a Target Day fund. There is zero reason if I'm a beginner to start with a Target Day fund.

I'm going to start with a VTSAX. I'm going to start with the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. I'm going to start with one index. And guess what that does? That buys me time. I don't understand why you would start with a target date fund over an individual index if you're just beginning your journey into investing. Because you want,

because you want some combination of a stock allocation and a bond allocation. And that mix. Why? Because if you're 65, your asset allocation is going to be different than if you're 25. If I'm 65, I'm still going to have short-term assets that I need. And I'm still going to be basing money on. my goals. And the problem with the target date fund, if I can't tell you what these different things are, do you understand how the target date fund actually is working to make this stuff happen? I mean,

do you have any idea? So if I can't convince you there, why wouldn't you just have cash and then have money for your long-term goal? Why would I have this weird middle ground of bonds, which are phenomenal? It's a great time to buy bonds right now. Yeah. Why would I, I have ridden bonds all the way down that I don't understand because I thought I was just pressing the easy button, right? I have no idea why my Target Day fund is corroding the whole time when I could have had cash for my goals for the next several years and I would have had stocks for the rest of it. I bet you would have done better.

I'm fairly certain you would have done better doing that. And you're giving yourself time to learn because you're feeling the emotion and you get to know what this one fund is. And over time, as an investor, you start picking stuff up. Oh, I own the total stock market. At some point, you know, that either the thing online, you know, or the big thick thing that comes in the mail, if you still get it that way, you start leafing through this. You start wondering what you have. It's fantastic. And then you go, oh, okay, this buys a little bit of everything. Well, how do they chop up everything? Oh, some of these are large, some are mid-sized, some are small. That's interesting. What if I had three different funds?

One large, one mid, one small, myself. You start getting more interested over time. I don't think you start with a target date fund. I wouldn't tell anybody to start with a target date fund. But a target date fund is functionally a three or four fund portfolio. At Vanguard, and I haven't checked its composition recently, but if my memory serves me correctly, target date fund at Vanguard is totally U.S. stock market, total U.S. bond market, total international market, and I think, I think total international bond market. So I think it's those four funds. I probably should have double-checked that before we started recording. Well, but the question to ask yourself is two things about that, Paula. It is, number one, do you understand how those things work together?

And then number two is, is learning about how those work together worth the time that you're going to commit? Because you talk about how you have to learn this and you have to learn this, you have to learn this. The whole time you're talking, the thing that I'm wondering is, is it worth the time? Is it worth the investment of the time to learn those things? For a lot of people who are not into this, like the type of people who don't listen to personal finance podcasts for fun are people who, find learning this kind of stuff overwhelming. And if you can just say, you know what, I'm planning on retiring in the year 2045. So let's just put it all in there and it'll take care of itself. They don't need to learn the ideal mix of U.S. versus international or the ideal, even the ideal

mix of stocks versus bonds versus if you're simply taking the J.L. Collins VTSAX and chill, you at a minimum need to know what your stock bond allocation is going to be. As a guy who's a financial educator, and I've seen that financial literacy, understanding your money changes lives. I am never going to tell you to not study it. I'm never going to have that point of view. I'm never going to have the point of view. If you know what, just phone it in and do it kind of crappy.

And, you know, it'll end up probably a. okay, you're going to be better than sticking with cash. You're never going to know how this thing that drives all your goals work. I can't have that point of view. That's not the point of view of a financial educator who sees this is driving everything else, right? Driving your happiness. There's a huge ROI. There's a gigantic ROI to understanding how this stuff works. And even if you're, you know, because you keep talking about the person that's not a nerd that doesn't listen to this, My job and your job, I think, is to turn people into those nerds, to make this entertaining enough that people are like, hey, sign me up. How do I learn more about this?

The light bulb for me, there's two different light bulbs. Light bulb for me, number one is this is not as hard as I thought it was. Light bulb number two is, oh, this isn't even really about money. We're not talking about money. We're talking about life. We're talking about more life. And that's when, by the way, the money stuff starts getting exciting because then you go, oh, okay. okay, if I get better at this, then I get to do more of this stuff that I really want to do.

Yes, 100,000 percent. If I can't get past that, if no matter what I do, you're like, no, no, no, I need to be dumb about this. I want nothing to do with it. Screw you, Paula. Screw you, Joe. I'm like, please, God, put it in a Target date fund. Please, God, put it in a Target date fun. Because at the very least, even though you're going to land the plane too often, even though

with most of these target date funds, you got everybody's Sunday crap, you know, the Sunday buffet where a restaurant throws everything in there that they couldn't sell all week. They put that in their target date fund. That's not what's inside a target date. Let me look up what's in the Vanguard Target Date Fund. I believe it is total U.S. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on. Vanguard is a huge different.

If you have the Vanguard Target Date Fund, you don't have the average Target Date Fund. That's not the Target Date Fund in your 401K. The Target Date Fund in your 401K is through the obscure mutual fund company that you've never heard of is a collection of their funds that wouldn't sell individually that they're putting into the potato salad of a Target Day fund. A potato salad of funds. It is. It's gross. I'm not a guy who hasn't studied this, Paula. You don't have to worry about having crappy funds in your Vanguard one.

Don't even look it up. It doesn't, it isn't there. Fidelity, you're going to be fine. Dero Price. You're going to be pretty good. But you know what? You get to a bunch of these fun families and you see their Target Day fund. They're awful.

The average Target Day fund is high expense, a bunch of junk inside of it, junk funds, and they land the plane too soon, meaning that you're losing this last doubling that many people need to get the retirement they want to have. You know, we spend so much time talking about safe withdrawal rate. Oh my goodness in this community. And yet we let Target Day fund go. We should get further away from the stupid safe withdrawal rate and live away from that. So we're happier. And we should get rid of trying to, I don't know what we're trying to solve by keep bringing up target date funds, but we should get rid of the fact that those exist because if we design it, there's so many upsides. Okay, how about this as a compromise? Only Vanguard

Vanguard target date funds as long as they're at Vanguard. I would put Fidelity target date funds. Okay, or Schwab? Fidelity or Schwab? I would even put T-RoeRole price in there. Okay, cool. Yes. How about only target date funds from those four providers? Vanguard Fidelity Schwab. apologize. I haven't looked at the American Century one. I'm sure it's probably pretty good. I haven't looked at a few of the, you know, but I've looked at a ton of them, a ton of them. I'm looking right now, Vanguard Target Retirement 255. And it is, my guess that I had made off the top of my head was entirely accurate. It is total U.S. stock market, international stock market, total U.S. bond market, and international bond market. So it's four funds, U.S. stock, U.S. bond, international stock,

international bond, exactly as I said. Even if it's a good one, I believe that you can know how this works. I'm not going to stop believing. I'm with you in an ideal world. We would all learn personal finance and wear our seatbelts and wear sunblock and not drink too much alcohol and exercise every morning. We live in the world as it is, not as it should be. Who said that, Paula?

And I know. Are you throw my own words back at me? Is that what you're doing? A wise man once said. I know so many people who, due to lack of financial education, have filled their portfolio with crypto and a handful of individual stocks. And then they think that like putting money into draft kings and polymarket is investing.

If that is the alternative that we are facing, if it's like, if your whole retirement plan is like crypto draft kings and the SpaceX IPO, then just go into a target date fund, dude. Yeah. Okay. I'm on board. No, really, I am. I'm always going to be Pollyanna. about this. I'm always going to be. It is my mission. You know, Johnny Appleseed,

personal finance that someday we can all, we can all do it. And because of that, you know, I'll let HR people recommend the Target Day Fund. I will let others recommend a Target Day Fund. I don't think once you get into Target Day Fund, you care more. I don't think once you get in a target date fund, you learn more. I don't think you understand any more about how important it is to be good at this stuff, but I understand that if you don't, you will. If you don't, you will, meaning eventually the pain becomes severe enough that you will? If you don't go into the Target Day fund, you will have to think about how do I do this? How do I do this? Or not. I mean, don't be wrong. It could be that you don't. But I guess,

and that was kind of harsh. Yeah. The probability is, is that you are much more likely to take your money seriously, track it, follow it, get involved, get the education that you're talking about, the several steps of education, you're much more likely to do that. I don't think a target fund leads you to any of that, any of that. You go, you know what? It's just like when I was a financial planner. I talked to people about disability insurance. You know what they'd say. I go, so let's talk about disability. I got that covered. Oh, how do we have it covered? Well, I have disability insurance through work. Oh, that's cool. How much do you have? You know what the next answer was, Paula. They didn't know? I don't know. I don't have any idea. So I check the

box, even though I haven't checked the box. Having disability coverage to work does not mean that you've studied how much you should have, whether you should have it, if it makes sense to have it. It's the same thing here. I guess the question comes back to what is the alternative? And if the alternative is either keep your money in cash, often the alternative is one extreme or the other. It's keep your money in cash for far too long because you don't know what to do with it. Or it's take on undue risk through individual stocks, through heaven forbid getting into like buying stuff on margin, right? Through all of the stuff that, you know, the worst of Robin Hood. And I'm not anti-Robin hood, but, you know, the worst of it.

if the alternative is one of those extremes, then a target date fund as a place where you put your money that is 95% of the way there, 98% of the way there. Directionally, there is nothing wrong with it. You're going to be fine. The money is asset allocated in a way that's appropriate to your timeline. And if it's Vanguard, you're not being charged excessive. the fees, I don't see any issue with it. And then that gives you time that over time, you can learn about personal finance if you want to. And I hope you do. But like, I also hope

you quit smoking. And a lot of people don't. And a lot of people go their whole lives, never quitting smoking. And we have to think about harm reduction for those people too. So, okay, so you see it as potato salad and I see it as harm reduction. Well, I'm more interested in the financial education piece than I am about how bad many of the Target Day funds are that are out there. But yes, as what he really wanted, though, he asked the question, what was your take on it? And I think we got too much of my take again. No, he wanted specifically Joe, your take. No, he specifically wanted your take, I think.

I thought he wanted your. Well, okay, he got our take. Yeah, yeah. We got each. I think he did. So I don't disagree with John Luskin. I mean, to talk about three people. I just disagree on where we come out.

John Luskin is like, you have a 10 fund allocation. You're not going to maintain it. I've seen that 100 times. He just comes out on, well, then press the easy button and buy a Target Day fund and never worry about that again and be sloppy. I don't come out at the same places, John. What I think is interesting about this, by the way, is the contextual nature of all these. The fact that we disagree, I think is great for people who are money nerds because you can really

get a more full view of the picture by where we disagree. Rob, I haven't talked to personally about this, but I do agree with you. I think it's to simplicity. Peter, I think Peter's still driving his own bus, right? I can't imagine Peter investing in some no-name targeting. I've known Peter Lazaroff for a long time. And there's no way. No, no way.

So smart people with different reasons why they, get there. And I respect all those reasons. And I respect yours too, Paula. Hey, Joe, want to go to a buffet on Sunday? By all the crap that they can't sell. I read that Tony Bourdain. Did you read Tony Bordane's book, Kitchen Confidential? Man, I was all about the Sunday brunch until I read that book. If you love Sunday brunch, don't read Kitchen Confidential. Because he will tell you, it's all the crap that couldn't sell all week made into salads. Yeah. Delicious.

Yum. Well, you can pay for that Sunday brunch with your job. You like this segue? You like this segue? Ninja. Such a segue. This is how the pros do of people. Because you need a job to be able to pay for Sunday brunch.

And the next question that we are going to address is from someone who is thinking about changing jobs, thinking about changing careers, in fact. and his new career will likely initially pay him about 60% of what he's currently making. How should he plan for that? We're going to answer that up next. Welcome back. Our final question today. Oh, I realized I didn't thank the last caller. Thank you, Matt.

Thank you for that question. Yeah, thanks, Matt. Thanks a lot, Matt. No, I thought that was great. I did too. Yeah. I just had to. I am mailing you a vat of potato salad after this.

It's going to show up at your doorstep. You're going to be like, who sent me this potato salad? So thank you, Matt. Our next question comes from Lucas. Hey, Paula and Joe. I hope you're both doing well. My name is Lucas, and I love your perspective on the timing and financial risk of a career change for myself.

My wife and I are both 35. We have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter that has special needs and also a six-month-old son. My daughter will likely need lifelong support, so we're trying to plan responsibly for future care costs that are still hard to estimate. We both work in IT consulting at large professional services firms. Our combined compensation is about $375,000 annually, including salary, bonuses, and ESPP. We spend roughly $110,000 per year today, but we expect that number to rise to about $130,000 starting in 2027 as daycare and other kid-related expenses increase. Over the past four or five years, we've paid off our mortgage and saved an average of about $5,000 to $6,000 per month into our taxable brokerage account. We still get our full 401k matches,

max our HSA, and dependent care FSA, and have a little over $840,000 across our 401ks and IRAs. So we've been comfortable contributing as much as possible towards our taxable brokerage. By the time I expect to make a career move, we think we'll have about 12 months of necessary expenses and cash reserves, and we also plan to purchase a new vehicle before then. The complication is that I'm considering a transition into financial planning around late summer 27. I'm comfortable starting near the bottom of the totem pole and expect my income could fall by roughly 60% initially. That would bring our household income down to around $250,000, just as we have two kids starting in daycare and our expenses are at their highest.

I'm not really happy in my current role, and I feel confident that financial planning is the right long-term move for me, but I'm struggling with whether this is the responsible timing. Should I make the switch in 2027, accepting a temporary step back in income, or stay in IT consulting another year or two to build a bigger cushion? Before you ask about the timing of the transition, I've already taken major steps over the past few months to position myself for the switch, including taking a financial planning externship. I've been heavily networking with local CFPs the last couple months to gauge the market in my area, and I've started studying for my Series 65 to make myself more attractive. I'm also taking my last block of paternity leave in

January and owe my company 30 business days after returning. By that time, it will be performance discussion season and bonuses are paid out in late May, and 401K matches are in late June, so worth staying into the summer. I know that's a lot of info, but what do you guys think? What blind spots do you see? Am I accounting for the right things, especially given our children, higher near-term expenses, and the uncertainty around our daughter's long-term care needs. Thanks, y'all. I love this question. Yes, Lucas, thank you for the question.

I misstated. So Lucas won't be making 60% of what he makes. His income will fall by 60%. That's a significant drop. Where'd your head go to right away? Like, what are you revolving around? Because there was a lot there. And I'm very curious about what kind of the focal point is.

for Paula as she's starting to unpack this. Honestly, the first thing I thought, I'll just be blunt here. Lucas, looking at how much you are contributing to taxable brokerage accounts right now, five to six thousand per month, I thought, this is what it's all for. The enormous saving that you are doing right now and that you have done for many, many years leading up to this point, paying off your mortgage, building a massive taxable brokerage ballast, building like the flexibility in those, you know, having not only a very, very well-funded retirement accounts that will take care of you when you're 65 and a half and older,

or 59 and a half and older, but also building out the flexibility of having those taxable brokerage assets. Like, this is exactly what you're doing it for. You're doing it so that you don't have to spend these precious years of your life in work that you don't find fulfilling, that you don't find enjoyable. If you are going to go to work every day and spend hours away from your family, you want to be doing work that is worth your time and attention and energy and effort. And I can think of nothing more worthwhile of that money. more worthwhile of those savings, more worthwhile of like what should be the beneficiary of all of

this short-term, flexible money that you've saved? It's the ability to change jobs, right? Or change careers in your case. Honestly, when I heard your question, it sounded to me a little bit like just one more year syndrome. Hey, this is not right for me, but if I just stick it out for one more year, maybe I would be on slightly better footing. You're already on good footing. Do it now. Rip the Band-Aid off. It's going to be uncomfortable for the first couple of years, and then it's going to get better. You're going into financial planning. You're not trying to become a stand-up comedian. No offense to stand-up comedians. But you're going into a field where you are likely going to be making good money after a few years. Let's start that clock as soon as you can,

because the sooner you start that clock, the sooner you will be making good money doing the thing that you want to do. I'm 100% there with you. I had a couple steps before I got to the steps that you mentioned, Paula, because the first thing that I thought about was my own career in financial planning and my kids were really young when I started my career. I could have taken a job that paid more. I could have taken a something that would have, you know, been way more secure than starting up this new business. But I chose to do that then. And I was so happy that I got the pain out of the way while my kids were young.

So I felt like we were dealing with the wrong currency. The currency of money, I think, is important. The fact that he has it is great. Everything that you said is great. But before that, I think the big currency is time. And when he talks about having a young family and do I, you know, wait a couple of years for things to change, he's going to end up with older kids with a different set of issues. It's not like my kids' issues went away when they got older. It was just a different set of problems and opportunities.

But at that point, you have a career that you're leaning into, one that it sounds like you want to have long term. and you have the happiness that you've already done the thing that I call swim the moat, which is really what you have to do when you get into financial planning. There's this moat around this great job, and a lot of people don't make it through the moat. So if you're going to take that chance, I would rather do it when the kids are young. The other thing, it was really cool, Paula, when my kids were young and money was much tighter, which you mentioned, you know, money on a budget level is going to be a lot tighter than it is now. We did just some really cool stuff when we didn't have money.

There were things that I thought were so fun. Last year, I did this really cool thing with General Motors and the Barclay card. They flew me to this park. They didn't know because it was outside of Detroit because I was doing this job with General Motors. They didn't realize it was the park that we went to every Saturday. We just got this membership to the Detroit Metro Parks. And we would go there every weekend. And now I'm doing what I do, standing in front of,

of a suburban and I'm doing these media hits across the world at this place that I went to because we had no money. We enjoyed the farm that was there. We enjoyed the beach that was there. We went on picnics. We did all of this stuff. And I remember that so fondly and it didn't it didn't cost anything except the membership to get in and whatever the food was that we were going to eat and we had to eat anyway. And doing stuff on less when your kids are young, I think my kids are happy doing things that don't cost a lot of money because they did it when they were young. So there's a piece of me, Paula, that actually gets really excited about this as a potential opportunity for the family to kind of come together while you are, you know, a little bit on

the struggle bus beginning a brand new chapter of your life. But the money part, he's got enough. Yeah, you've got plenty. With regard to, you mentioned you have a child with special needs, we did an episode, I'm sure you know this far better than I do, but we did an episode with Keith Wargo, episode number 709. In that episode, he talks about financial planning for a child who has long-term needs. So episode 709, he talked about special needs trusts and able accounts and many, many other financial planning tools. I say that not just for you, but for anybody else who also is planning long-term for a child of special needs. Episode 709 is resource for all of that.

But with regard to, Lucas, your question, career change now versus career change later? Career change now. You've got it. you're ready for career change now. No question. Yeah. There's nothing that will be significantly different in a couple more years other than you will be older. Your kids will be older.

And you will have just spent a few extra years doing this thing that you don't actually want to do. And a few fewer years doing the thing that you do really want to do. And that buys you. This is so like Maria's question in that way, is the freedom to do the thing that you're passionate about? Yeah. He's able to do the thing he's passionate and that pays.

I think Maria can do that too much more than she thinks she can. Maria can become a stand-up comedian. Maria, we're living vicariously through you. That might not be the answer she was looking for. But seriously, Lucas, the thing that you're going into, yes, there's going to be a short-term income hit,

but it's only going to be short term. Probabilistically speaking, you're going to be making very good money after a few years. So start the clock. I mean, Joe, you're a former financial planner. Do you disagree with that? No, not at all. Yeah, if you want to get into it, do it now. What I also love is that, especially if it works for a small firm, he'll have some of that flexibility we told Maria about.

You'll work in a small firm with people that are really passionate about helping people achieve their financial goals. if you need to leave for your kids, whatever it might be, whether it's a doctor's appointment or something at school, you can generally do it because you're very in control of your day. It doesn't mean you're not going to spend a few hours at night making up that time, but you've got the ability, maybe not at first, depending on the firm, but within a few years you have the ability to have that flex time that is great when you've got kids your kids age. I think that's a pretty cool place to be. Wow, that was a quick answer. It was. Do it. Joe and I converged on that answer quickly, unlike Target Date funds.

Don't go back. Well, Lucas, thank you for the question. And I can't wait to hear you call back and hear you tell us about your career move into financial planning. Congratulations. Joe, we've done it again. And we only fought a little. That was pretty good. Joe, where can people find you if they would like to mail you potato salad? A fun place to hang out with you, me, our friends, OG, and Mom's Neighbor Doug and the Jesse Kramer is Monday afternoons on YouTube where we record our Steck and Benjamin's episode.

In fact, on this coming Monday, we are going to be a little early in recording our Halloween episode. So I've told everybody they need to dress up. We need to see some costumes. We need to have some fun. We're going to have some good Halloween. Scary moments fun. I'm going to give you, Paula, and Jesse and OG some scenarios. Do you go in this financial basement or not?

Dun, dun, done. And then I give you the beginning. of a financial horror movie. And I'm going to have you guys tell me the dreadful ending of each of these. So we're talking about financial horror our Monday YouTube recording. Or if you can't make it on Monday, just swing back by the day before Halloween, October 30th. And you can hear it then too. Oh, excellent. So wow. So you get you get a super sneak peek if you watch it live on YouTube. We're recording it way early, mostly because of this ankle of mine. Ah. Well, thank you, Joe, for joining us. And thanks to all of you for being part of the Afford Anything community. If you enjoy today's episode, please share it with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. Share it with, well, don't share it with a stand-up comedian. Kind of insulted them.

Share it with a guy that sold you that crappy Target Day fun. Share it with your favorite financial advisor. Oh, that's good. Also, When you're applying for jobs, but you're not actually money motivated, share it with all of the people that you talk to during that application process. Share it with the founder of the company of the small business you work at because they get so distracted. You could probably get them to listen very, very quickly. Share it to get distracted. Share it with anyone from Bavaria.

Oh, yeah. Share it with all Bavaria. Yes. Yes. Share it with all of those people and more because that is the single most important way that you spread the message of great financial health, financial literacy. This is the stuff that you need to know to have a better life. It is the foundation of a better life. That's why it's so important to share.

We have a free guide to help you work through what assets should go where based on the tax treatment of like you got a Roth IRA, you got a 401K, you got your taxable brokerage accounts. What assets should you put in which account? That fancy term for that is asset location. Not to be confused with allocation. So where do you locate your assets? You can download that for free at afford anything.com slash asset location. That's afford anything.com slash asset location. If you have a burning question that you want to ask us, afford anything.com slash voicemail.

And you know you do. You know you do. You absolutely know you do. In fact, I would recommend that you bait me and Joe into a debate. Oh, don't. Oh, please do. Oh, God, no. Because that's everybody's favorite part of the show.

I strongly recommend. Throw out something that you know. Let's see, Joe. What else do you and I disagree on? I'm not even, I'm not going to suggest it. I'm not going to go there. Let's all hold hands in Michigan versus Ohio. Be great.

Oh, we don't want to do code. Please don't do that. Don't do that. Again, that's afford anything.com slash voicemail. Michigan wins. Not Michigan. Like the University of the state of, University of Michigan's gross.

You know, historically, the only two states that have ever gone to war with each other are Michigan and Ohio. Over Toledo. Over Toledo. And we won. Did they? We did. We meaning Ohio.

What did we get is consolation, Paula? You got the Upper Peninsula. We got the Upper Peninsula. Ohio was never going to get the Upper Peninsula. I'll take Luzid. Don't get, no offense, Toledo. I love Toledo. Toledo Zoo is amazing.

The Toledo mudhens are a great baseball team, but I'll take the Upper Peninsula. Wow. Hot take. You know the name of Toledo's baseball team. I do. Well, for more trivia, make sure that you're following this podcast on your favorite podcast playing app, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcast, whatever you use. Go to YouTube.

You can find us there. You can see our beautiful faces. YouTube.com slash afford anything, hit the follow button. I've just told you to do like 12 different things. Do them all. Do them all. Absolutely. And you don't while you're at it, get out of that Target Day fun.

Learn as an allocation. And have some potato salad and quit smoking. Thank you again. I'm Paula Pan. I'm Joe Salci. Hi. And we will meet you in the next episode.