Afford Anything - Q&A: Wait, Are We All Wrong About Zero APR Strategies?

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

#573: An anonymous caller has always put her large purchases on zero percent APR credit cards, but something’s been nagging at her. Is she walking on thin ice with this strategy? Von is confused why he keeps hearing that Roth accounts are better than traditional if they both lead to the same mathematical result. What’s he missing?  Molly and her husband are well on their way to financial independence, but they feel unfulfilled with their careers. Can they afford to plunge into student debt with a 50 percent pay cut? Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these three questions in today’s episode. Enjoy! P.S. Got a question? Leave it at https://affordanything.com/voicemail For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode573 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe, would it ever be a smart financial decision to put a vacation on a credit card? If you have the funds already allocated for travel and you have a great points program, maybe. Ooh. So you're assuming that you pay it off when you say points program. Are you assuming you pay it off within 30 days? Yes. Ah, all right. Follow up then. Would it ever be a good idea to put a vacation on a credit card and let the balance ride for 18 months? I feel like this is foreshadowing to a question we might be answering. Is that what's going on? Oh, how did you know? How did you know? Because I know that a bunch of people are thinking right now, how could that ever be justified? But we're going to answer a question from a listener who makes a case for it. We're also going to answer a question from someone who is pursuing financial independence, but wants to make some big shifts before they get there. And we're going to answer a question about, out whether Rotha versus Tread is the right choice. All of that in one episode? All of that coming right up.

Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice carries a trade-off, and that applies to any limited resource that you manage, your time, your focus, your energy. So, what matters most, and how do you make choices accordingly? This show covers five pillars. Financial Psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship. It's double eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia. Every other episode-ish, I answer questions from you, and I do so with my buddy, the former financial planner, Joe Sal C-high. What's up, Joe? I am here and ready. I'm super excited to dive in this credit card question. Oh, man. Right. Well, let's hear it. Our first question

comes from Anonymous. Hi, Paul and Joe. This is anonymous and I wanted to get your thoughts on a strategy I use often to pay for somewhat larger expenses. So let's take a vacation for an example. If I have a vacation I want to pay for instead of putting cash away each month and saving it up and then paying for the vacation, what I prefer to do is open a new credit card with a promotional offer such as, you know, 15 months or 18 months interest free. and then I put all my vacation expenses on that card, pay it off slowly over the 15, 18, whatever promotional period months they've given me. And the way I see it is I'd rather invest my money today and pay my expenses later. And if these credit cards are willing to give me

an interest-free loan to do it, it makes sense in my mind. Sometimes I leave the card open. Sometimes I close it, it all depends on whether there's an annual fee, whether I like the cash rewards or the credit rewards they're giving me, and things like that. So I know other than the risk of identity theft and whatnot that comes with opening credit, do you have any other advice on this type of strategy? I've been doing it for many years now. I do have a number of credit cards open, but in my mind, that also can be beneficial because it increases the amount of credit available to me, and my credit score is over 800. So it doesn't seem to be an issue in that regard. I don't have a mortgage. I do have a car loan, but otherwise I've been very responsible financially. So curious to

hear your thoughts. Anonymous, what a fantastic question. And before we answer, we first need to give you a name. I know who it should be. I think of people that are credit card spokesperson because this woman is clearly advocating for credit cards and using credit cards. So the most popular person on television right now is Jennifer Gardner, who's doing it for Capital One, right? That's right. Yes. So I think her name is Jennifer. Jennifer, all right.

Well, Jennifer, fantastic question. You're fundamentally talking about credit card arbitrage, take out a loan at zero percent, invest that money at some amount that is greater than zero, and pocket the difference. Is she, though? because I didn't hear that she had the money already to pay the credit card off. I didn't hear the arbitrage piece of it. I did hear that it's at a low interest rate, but the piece where she's taking money and physically betting that she's going to do better with this money invested than elsewhere, I didn't hear that half the question, Paula.

Well, I guess it depends on the interpretation of the question because she had a line in there where she said something about, I'd rather invest my money today and pay for expenses later. So that to me implies that she has the lump sum and she is investing it at some amount that is,

assuming it's a 0% APR, she's investing that money at some amount that is greater than zero. Okay. But you ask a good question, Joe, because I think the crux of the answer is going to be, is she arbitraging this or not?

Does she have them? that lump sum or not? Yeah, and if it is a lump sum, is it dedicated toward these? Or is she saying, I'd rather leave my money invested toward things like retirement that I want or some other goal that I want, and I'm going to then cash flow this, but I'm going to cash flow at interrears. Right. Yeah, because she also had this other line where she said, instead of saving cash, right? So I think the reason you and I have different interpretations of the question is because you probably heard the part where she said, instead of saving cash and paying up front. But there is a fundamental question right there.

Yeah. Because that definitely is going to cloud. I can see already going to cloud Paul the pan's answer. Yeah, and Joe Sal Cahy's answer, right? Oh, I think I'm going to be pretty clear either way about my answer. So if under the assumption, Jennifer, that you have a specific lump sum of money that is dedicated to nothing other than, this one very specific expense. Let's say that you're going to take a vacation that costs $10,000, hypothetically. We won't get hung up on the number. We'll just use that as an easy round

number. Let's assume that you have a lump sum of $10,000 that is dedicated solely to the purpose of the vacation. So it is cash that you have saved up over time. Now it's a lump sum, and you have two options. You can either use that money to pay for the vacation, or you can put that $10,000 on a 0% APR credit card while simultaneously taking the $10,000 lump sum and putting it into a high yield savings account. I'm going to be very clear. We don't want to expose this money to risk because this is a very short term, 15 to 18 months. So we're not going to put it in the stock market because the stock market is not a high yield savings. account, even though in a bull run, it can sometimes feel that way. We're going to put it into a high-hield savings account or into a money market account or into CDs into some type of cash equivalent that has some interest rate that is nominally greater than zero, right? And then we're going to, after 15 to 18 months, pay off the credit card with that lump sum that is dedicated to no other purpose. In that case, assuming, in know thyself, assuming that you're not going to be

tempted behaviorally to use that lump sum for any other purpose, I can see a case for this. I don't see a case for it. And the reason I don't see a case for it is specifically because what we're talking about doing is not just mortgaging my future income stream, because because now my income stream has to be dedicated to paying off this debt. I want that free cash flow to really be free to work toward my future goals, not towards stuff that I already did. Even if I have the money to do it already, I'm still in this strategy dedicating future resources, my money in the future coming in the front door to pay down this debt that I had. I don't want to have a trip today and for the next 12 to 18 months I'm paying for it. I want that

trip to be paid in full. And I'm a guy who's been there, Paula. I used to do this all the time. And not this, by the way, I would do this a stupid way. Jennifer's doing it the smart way. Even though it's smart, I don't like it. But I did it the dumb way. I would just go, you know what, I deserve a vacation. And by the way, the worst words a broke person could say, or I deserve it. I deserve it. I deserve it. Yeah. And I totally, we go on vacation. I remember my honeymoon with Cheryl was all on credit cards. It was horrible. And I actually, it's funny. We have fun, but I even remember as I'm buying things going, I have no idea how I'm going to pay for this. I'll figure it out later.

When we did then our first trip with our children, I actually did side hustles to put money away ahead of time. And I remember I bought this trip in little pieces. I would make enough money for the first hotel stay and I would then get the room. Then I do the next room. And I gamified it ahead of time, Paula. And what was cool was when I went on that vacation. vacation, that was a phenomenal vacation because I owed nobody anything in the future. I came home

and I was rested and I was ready to take on the future, not address what I'd done on the past. And I don't think this is as much about the money, frankly, as I do about the mind share in the future. I want my mind to be focused on bigger and better and more for me, not based on what I already did. So between the money and the mind share, I don't like it. The strategy doesn't work. Sure, it works. If you've got the cash set aside, you can do it. You can make a little money, Paula. I think you address that. Great. I just don't want to be focused in the rearview mirror with my future time. Now, I do agree about the mind share component because as we say at the top of every episode, you have limited mental focus, you have limited cognition, right? You can afford anything but not

everything and that applies to your focus and your energy. And so the question is how much focus and energy is this draining and where could those cognitive resources otherwise be allocated? But, and I want to be clear, I'm making the assumption, let's say that Jennifer is spending $10,000 on a vacation. And let's just assume that to save that $10,000, it takes her 10 months. Let's assume she saves $1,000 per month for 10 months. At the end of 10 months, she has, a $10,000 lump sum, and then that entire lump sum gets put into a high-yield savings account that is earmarked for absolutely no other purpose besides this vacation. And then if and only if that is the circumstance going into this, then I can see the case for

it. But I can see the case for it to them. But then my question still is, okay, now I had the money. for it ahead of time. I feel good about that. The money is in a safe place. I don't have to worry about variability. I've checked all the boxes. Is all this rigamarole worth 400 bucks? Joe, you and I have been answering questions from our communities for many, many years. In the ZERP era, the zero interest era, we never really got this question because savers were not rewarded. The interest rates that you would get on a savings account, even a quote unquote,

high yield savings account back in 2018 was so laughable. The question never came up. I think the reason that this question is coming up now is because we are still living in a, historically speaking, a normal interest rate environment, but relative to the last 10 years, it feels like a high interest rate environment. And so assuming you can get a 0% APY credit card, the bandwidth for arbitrage is there. And that's a new opportunity that was not there a few years ago. But the question, to your point, Joe, is, all right, what does that actually translate to in dollars and cents? That spread, and this is a simple spreadsheet calculation, what is that spread and what in dollars and cents does that pencil out to over the span of 18 months? Because if this is an amount of money that is

ultimately a rounding error, then is it worth the cognitive overhead? And I know that for some people, $400 is a lot of money. And it certainly can have a nice effect on a month, maybe even a couple months of your lifestyle. I often go back to what would I do with that time? And even though it might take an hour or two hours, my answer then would be, yeah, okay, fine. You know what I mean?

I don't know that then I really have an opinion. It's much more, yeah, okay, if it works for you and you put the money aside and it's not betting on the future. The only thing that I do wonder, though, still, let's say you put this money in a safe place and it's there for the vacation. But then disaster strikes the next nine months and you have to go and raid that fund for some other thing. It just feels like there's so much Apollo that could go wrong.

Yeah. The risk is behavioral, not mathematical. Yeah. The risk is that most people behaveurally will use that money for something else. If I take the vacation and then my dishwasher breaks three days after the vacation and I paid for the vacation ahead of time, I don't have these competing goals for my money. The question here is that whether it works or not, because I know what Jennifer's opinion here is, it works. It's worked for me. And for me, that's not really the question. Does it work?

Of course it works. It's given all of the other opportunities and all the other things that you have going on in your life, is it worth it? Is it worth all the things that could go wrong? I think a lot of that is going to depend on how demanding is Jennifer's career. How much room for growth promotions raises does she have inside of that career? Does she have any interest in starting a side hustle or pursuing some other avenue that would yield her multiple streams of income? Those are all of the more lucrative avenues that she could be pursuing. But if those don't seem viable, I don't know the circumstances.

I don't know what she does for a living. I don't know the circumstances of her work or her health. I think that cognitive bandwidth is the real trade-off here. You know the variation of this question that we did used to get prior to the pandemic during that ZERP era? The variation of this were people asking the same question about car loans. We didn't used to hear this question about credit cards. Zero percent car loan. Yeah, we used to hear this question about zero percent car loans.

This is back in like 2015, 2016, because, yeah, that was the arbitrage play back then. But the cost of a car, it was for most people, we're talking an amount of money that's under $20,000 for a lot of people, especially back in 2015, 2016. And so then the question became, again, how much could you really arbitrage that for? What would be the monetary value of that effort? And then how does that pencil out in terms of being worth your time and energy? So I think Jennifer's got it. There's your calculation. Yeah. And then I think every individual has to come up with their answer. Wow. Joe, you and I started

with diametrically opposed answers and we seem to converge at the end. It's so annoying. I thought we were going to be opposite ends of the spectrum on this one, which we started off as. It's so, so annoying when we agree. But I do think that the assumption that this is a lump sum arbitrage play, that is the foundational underpinning of all of this. Because, Jennifer, if you don't have the money yet and you're putting the vacation on a credit card with the idea that over the next 18 months you will slowly save up that money, that's a different story. Don't bet your future mind, share.

Exactly. Or your future income. Just don't bet your future income. Yeah. So I'm operating on the assumption that you have the lump sum before you take the vacation. This is why I like comparing the way we evaluate companies and the way that financial analysts evaluate companies to people. Because what I found was if you unemotionally look at your financial picture, the way that financial analysts look at a stock, you're going to make a lot better financial decisions.

I feel like a lot of us, Paula, we go to work and we make very logical decisions. and we come home when we make very emotional decisions about our money. And I think we need to have that board of directors look. If I had a board of directors and a balance sheet and quarterly earnings I had to put out, there could be negatives to that too, but let's go with the positive. Would I make this move if I had a board of directors to talk to? And what's the number one component everybody looks for, free cash flow? And the reason they look for that is the company can pivot.

The company can double down. things going well, they have all of this opportunity. Free cash flow equals opportunity, not just for business, but for you or me. And then like we talked about earlier, then for us also, because we've only got one brain versus a company that's got tons of brains working for them, I need free mind share, which for me is also like free cash flow, right? If I can free up my energy to think about whatever I want to, and I'm not dedicating my brain to all these little things, I think that's pretty phenomenal. It's funny, there's a character in fiction in the old Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I remember Watson asking him in one of the very famous tales, there was

something in the paper about some socialite. And Sherlock Holmes goes, I don't know who that is. And Watson goes, you know everything. You know everything about everything. How do you not know who this famous actor is? I feel like I'm talking to Paula Pant, by the way. How do you not know who this actor is? And Sherlock Holmes said the best thing, he's like, I only have so many brain cells. I don't want to waste it on this stuff. I got to keep it free for the big things. And that is why I don't know any pop culture. No movies, no music.

I never have any clue about what's going on. I'm Sherlock Holmes. You are Sherlock Holmes. Paul Holmes. You know, there's another example in Sherlock Holmes where Holmes doesn't know. Copernican theory, Holmes doesn't know that the earth revolves around the sun. Wow. He doesn't know the basics of the solar system.

And it's for exactly the same reason. That's maybe stretching it a little bit too far. I do recommend that you should know that the earth revolves around the sun. A little bit of science. Yeah. Yeah. But Sherlock Holmes's point was he's unlikely to use that information in solving a case. It is, I think, Sir, Arthur Cunand Doyle's making.

a real point there. You only have so much. Free cash flow, free brain power. Watch how you use that. And I think that's the case for me with this strategy as well. Right. So Jennifer, thank you for the question. And best of luck with whatever route you decide to take from here on out. You know, Joe, Molly and her husband are thinking about making these major, major career changes that come with a 50% plus pay cut. We're going to talk to them. at the end of this episode. But before we do... You know what I love about Molly's question, too?

Yeah? I went through this. Mid career. Mid career. About to make a bunch more money and decided to take a massive pay cut. Ooh. All right.

We're going to have that discussion at the end of today's episode. But before we get there, we're going to hear from Vaughn who has questions about Trad accounts versus Roth accounts. Vaughn is up next. The holidays are right around the corner and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared.

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That's your commercial payments of Fifth Third Better. Our next question comes from Vaughn. Hi, Paul and Joe. my name is Vaughn and I have a question or rather more of a comment about Roth versus traditional retirement accounts. I've heard you guys discuss this topic on several occasions over the years and whenever you list the benefits of a Roth account, you always leave the listener with the impression that a Roth will end up generating more spendable income in retirement than a traditional account because all of the growth will be withdrawn tax-free. It seems like you're

implying that getting taxed up front on the contributions will yield more than getting taxed at the end after all of the growth has happened. But this is mathematically untrue. If the tax rates happen to be exactly the same in retirement as when the contributions are made, then a traditional account will yield exactly the same amount of spendable income as a Roth. For example, $10,000 contributed into a traditional account will grow to $174,494 in 30 years if invested at 10%. If this is then taxed at 20% at withdrawal, you end up with a net spendable income of $139,59,59595. With a Roth, that 20% tax would be paid on the $10,000 up front, so the actual contribution into the Roth would be $8,000.

And $8,000 invested for 30 years at 10% grows to $139,595, which is exactly the same net spendable income as the traditional account. I apologize if I missed the point you were trying to make about Roth versus traditional accounts, but I felt it was important to clarify this particular fact. I love the podcast and especially enjoy the episodes with caller questions. Thank you both for all you do to promote, financial literacy. That's probably because I'm on those episodes, Vaughn.

Very certain. Vaughn, thank you for the question. And my answer is going to be brief. So in the hypothetical that you laid out, a person who's contributing to a Roth, in your example, contributes less money than a person contributing to the trad. So in the example that you laid out, the person contributing to the trad contributes 10,000. The person contributing to the Roth contributes 8,000.

One of the many reasons that I love the Roth is because the Roth allows you to make additional contributions above and beyond the limitation with the Trad. So if a person were to make a $10,000 contribution into the Roth, rather than the $8,000 as you outlined, in other words, if the person were to not reduce their contribution amount based on the tax payment, then they are effectively contributing more money than they otherwise could if they made a trad contribution. And by virtue of making that bigger contribution, that extra $2,000 over time, that compounds into much bigger savings. So the benefit to the Roth is, as I see it threefold. One is, yes, you get the benefit of tax-exempt growth, all capital gains, all dividends, all of that is tax-exempt.

Number two, you get to make larger contributions than you would otherwise have the opportunity to make if you invested in a trad. And number three, there is the variability of not knowing what your tax rate will be in retirement because on one hand, you likely will be making less money. On the other hand, there's a likelihood that the government might raise tax rates in the future, and we don't know what the government is going to do. So given the impossibility of predicting tax rates in retirement, particularly for anybody who's going to be retiring 10 years or more from now, we remove that variability. We remove that volatility by virtue of paying that tax bill up front. So we have added certainty and we have the opportunity to make a bigger contribution than we otherwise could when we choose the Roth account. I do want to emphasize one thing, though, just a dollar being a dollar being a dollar, if he's taking the path of a single dollar and tax rates remain the same,

he's 100% correct. So he is absolutely 100% correct. But when you're choosing a vehicle, Paula, I like your interpretation, which is which one buys you the most. And I get that additional flexibility to put more money away into the Roth because I'm using the after-tax dollar. that gives me a fairly big upside. Now, it's on the eye of the beholder, right? I got to be able to take advantage of that opportunity for that to work.

But if I can and I have that additional cash flow, why would I not go with that? I think there's a few others, Paula, to add to the ones that you like. A few other benefits? Yeah, a few other benefits. Sorry, a few other reasons why I would go Roth. Number one is if you just look historically and if you talk, to anybody in the tax realm. Tax rates versus where they've been historically are really low. And if you go and you look anywhere online, you see this national debt clock. It's very easy to say

that there is change that has to come. It isn't a political football like we see on a daily basis in Washington. It's not political. It's math. If the math doesn't happen, only bad things happen. And so at some point, there has to be a change to the tax. So number one, Vaughn, was your assumption that tax rates remain the same. Most tax experts, and you guys know me if you've listened to afford anything for any length of time, I don't like playing the crystal ball game. But this is not a hard thing. Tax rates at some point are going to have to be higher if we solve the math problem. Yeah.

So that means pay the tax now. The second reason for that, too, by the way, is also tax flexibility. Tax rates are a stair step. So the second assumption, Vaughn, you make is you're putting money in at a 20% tax rate and you're taking it out at a 20% tax rate. You know what's cool about the Roth? If I want to go into the next tax bracket that's higher, I want to go 23, 25, 28, 30, whatever, I don't care what tax rates are in the future. I can do it because the... the same reason we said with Jennifer, I don't have that mind share anymore that I have to worry

about what tax rates are. I don't have to worry about it at all. It doesn't matter what tax rates are. I paid it on the way in. So I have the affirmation that I know what my tax bill is already. I go, you know what? Tax bill that I have today, I'll take that. And I never worry about it again. And now if I want to take $100,000 out, I can do it. If I want to take $10,000 that I can do, it doesn't matter what I take out because the tax rate later on is going to be zero. and I really love that. Now, you could say, Joe, you're challenging my assumption. Let me challenge yours.

What if the government changes the game, right? What if they do that? Again, I don't like playing that the crystal ball game, but if we go there talking to every single tax expert I've ever met, this has become such a foundational tool that so many people use and the way that we choose our government is based on elections, I can't imagine Social Security or the Roth IRA rule changing a ton. Even if the Roth IRA rules or the Roth 401K rules did change, the tax treatment of existing contributions would have to be grandfathered in. So I can see a possibility that maybe one day this opportunity won't be there for future contributions.

but if you were to retroactively change the rules on contributions that have already been made, there would be such backlash, upheaval. Huge, right? Enormous, enormous upheaval that the voters just would not allow it. Von, I could be wrong, but what Paul is talking about this changing things on existing accounts has only happened materially once. And during the Reagan administration, they changed some. some of the limited partnerships that were huge tax havens and they wiped it out.

And by the way, all these investments got wiped out. The investors got totally screwed. There was a monster backlash back in the 80s about that. I don't know of another time. There might be another one, but that's the only one that when I've dug through history, I've found where they retroactively did that. So, Paula, I'm with you. It could happen, but that's such an outlier.

They're going to build a moat around that. and protect that. And man, if they changed that rule, I think a lot of stuff went wrong. Let's talk about a third thing, too, which is just foundationally. I would rather pay tax on the money going in and let the money grow. And let's say I do a really good job of making that money grow, Paula. I paid tax only on the small amount that I put in. And I'm not sharing my growth with anybody.

the growth is 100% mine. So if I do a great job of managing this, let's say I get crazy and I decide to go with, I don't know, maybe the efficient frontier. Let's just say that I went that way. And I grow it. That shocks no one. And I grow it so much bigger than I would in that other way, right? If I do that in a traditional IRA and I grow that $10,000 extra $4.5 million, like historically I did, that four and a half million dollars now if I do it in a traditional I have to share that

four and a half million dollars with my uncle Sam right and I love Ed Slott's joke about this the tax expert he's like he's not even my real uncle and I still have to share it with him but in the Roth any additional growth that I get in that it's 100% mine I'm not sharing it with anybody so I also like that so I like the flexibility I like that I can lack in my tax payment and I know based on today, not based on if, if this happens, if I'm in the saved tax bracket, if tax rates remain the same. I don't going to worry about any of that. Thank you. I'll take what the cards I've got today are. I'm going to pay that tax now. And now I have supreme flexibility. I love it. I absolutely love it. So, Vaughn, you're not wrong. There's nothing you said that's wrong.

Paula, like you talked about, I didn't thought about that, that you can put in more money. but also on both ends of the stick, you just have the opportunity to have more. And I love that. Right. So episode 541, you can hear it by going to afford anything.com slash episode 541. I had a long conversation with Katie Gotti Tossin, the host of The Money with Katie podcast about this exact topic. Because Katie's position also very much Vaughn reflects what you said.

You know, she makes a case for trad accounts, but she's using the assumption that. that a person would contribute less money to their Roth than they would to their Trad. And so we had that conversation on episode 451, where I very much am a proponent of the notion that one of the primary values that you get from that Roth account is the opportunity to make more contributions than you otherwise could with the Trad

by virtue of not adjusting your contribution amount for the tax bill. Love the question, Vaughn. What I love about this, Paula, is that we get to kind of peer behind that short-term and obvious stuff. Right. Exactly. Unpack all of the layers. Absolutely, which is where the fun truly is in financial planning. Exactly. So, Vaughn, thank you for the question. Molly and her husband want to make a career change that would slash their income by more than half. We're going to hear from them. Next. Our final question today comes from Molly. Hey, Paula. Hey, Joe. Thanks so much for all that you guys do. My husband and I, we are on the path

to financial independence. We've been planning. And right now we're considering some major career shifts to nursing and possibly for him teaching. However, we'd be effectively looking at making about half or less than half of what we are currently making. But we're We do believe that these careers will be more personally fulfilling and allow us to kind of spend our time as we'd like with our family. We both would need to go back to school to get the degrees needed. A little bit about us. We're both 39 years old. We have two kids, two years old and six years old.

We make about 250K collectively. And we make about 14K from rental income net from two rental homes. We have about 750K. thousand in retirement, which is mainly pre-tax sumroth, 20k in cash, and about 800,000 in real estate equity, which includes all of the properties. The reason I mentioned that is because I've been considering possibly maybe taking out a he lock or tapping into that for a new property, but that's a little bit of a different question. But I just wanted to mention the equity in case that's also a tool that you guys want to consider. We're about five years from paying off 165,000 left on our primary mortgage,

and we have 70,000 left on each of the rentals, and those bring in about $1,400 a month in net profit. And we have no other debt right now. I believe that if we were going on our path that we're currently on, we could live off of $4,000 a month for basic expenses and with maybe a bit of a offer for vacations and other fun expenses. So we're close to financial independence, but we had never really planned on stopping work. We were just going to slow it down. Here's the major questions that I had for you. What are some of the blind spots that we're not considering as we consider this major transition for our family? What are some of the ways that we can continue to save and maximize potential benefits if we do become a nurse and or teacher as we plan for the second part of our

life. And also, should we be taking out student loan debt right now to pursue these degrees? This could cost about $25,000 for an accelerated bachelor's for nursing and possibly up to $10,000 for a teaching degree. I appreciate your time. I really appreciate everything you guys do. And thank you. Molly, first of all, I want to congratulate you on those numbers. So the first thing that I hear is you and your husband currently, you're making $264,000 per year. combined, including your rental income. That's on average $22,000 per month, pre-tax. And you're spending $4,000 a month. So income 22,000 a month, expenses $4,000 a month. Steve, can we get a round of applause here?

Yeah. Right? That's incredible. So, and it's because of that that you have been able to build such an impressive net worth. You're doing so well. You have absolutely. You have absolutely, laid the foundation that now allows you to make these career changes from a position of strength. So that's incredible. I want to commend you on such great, great numbers because I have full confidence in your ability to make these career changes, right? You're making two well-funded career changes from a position of financial strength. Doing this thing that a lot of people think about, but people rarely do, I think takes a lot of guts. It truly does. But it also values the thing that we've

said over and over during my time here, Paula, which is valuing time. Yeah. Money nerds tend to have a great value of cash, but not enough value of time. And this clearly shows that as the clock ticks, you're going to do the thing that lights you up. And I think that's powerful. The thing that I want to emphasize is a guy who's been there. So for people that don't know, when I was 39, I got a message from a boss of mine who is giving two weeks notice at a company that you don't give two weeks notice at. And it was a very shocking letter that said, I don't know what I want to do. I know that financial planning I like, but I don't love. I've been lucky.

I've saved some money. And I'm going to now see what other mountains there are to climb. and I thought he was being metaphorical. He went on and climbed Mount Everest twice. He runs an adventure travel company now. He did a complete pivot from financial planning and truly inspired me and a lot of other people, which is why at age 40, I sold my financial planning business, decided to become a high school teacher. That led to beginning my blog, which then led to the podcast, stacking Benjamins,

with led to me being here with Paula and you, which is the highlight of my career, of course. But my journey is not Molly going to be a lot different from yours in a couple ways. Things are not going to work out the way that you think that they will. And I think that's foundational, Paula, because there were a couple questions there around taking on new debt. And when it comes to taking on new debt, when your income is going to drop a lot, I just know that that could be the beginning of a lot of bad stuff. So I would encourage Molly to ask this question, is there a way to do this without taking on debt? Now, certainly the answer might be no.

It knows an acceptable answer. But if so, what is the contingency plan if instead of pursuing this, all the sudden you decide to become a blogger like I did? or you decide to do something else. And now you took out of this debt for school and it doesn't matter anymore. And you don't have the income stream that's coming from this career at the end. Or you finish the degree and there's no job in the area where you want. You know what I mean? All the things that could go on.

I would think through those before you take on any debt. The second thing is, and I did this too, I would playtest this lower income stream you're going to have. I like this. I've done this a lot for myself and with clients. When clients were going to have a baby, we would simulate what the expenses related to the baby. If they were going to upgrade their house and have a bigger mortgage, we would simulate this. So what you do to do this is you and your husband, Molly, figure out how much money is going to come in the front door. And the money that is over and above that that you make now, I would like you to use direct deposit and direct deposit that into a savings account that's different than your main account.

Now, the cool news is if you can't live off that, you could just go. get the money out of the savings account. But you truly on a cash flow basis now feel what it's going to feel like in a risk-free environment. Because now the money's still there, but it's not in your checkbook anymore. You do a dress rehearsal, essentially. It is a wonderful exercise. You'll find out tons of stuff. You'll feel stress you didn't feel before. And you can't know what that's like, I think, without doing that. And because you have this wonderful opportunity, I would do that ahead a time. Play test what it's going to be. Test drive it. Right. And the value of doing that is that then you also accelerate your savings, which, Molly, it sounds like you already are doing that given the delta

between what you spend and what you earn. Which helps with my problem with the debt, right? Yeah, exactly. My problem is taking on new debt. You could use this money toward your education then. Right, right. It's fantastic. The third thing I'd like you to do then is, figure out, you said that you're close to financially independent, I would really want to know how close. How close are you to being financially independent? Because if there's no worry at all about financial independence, then this is a great move. Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad move if you're not. But I want to know if I'm really, really, really close versus am I far away? because I want to know what I, what do I need to do to get to financial independence?

That's going to change materially when you're bringing in half the income that you're bringing in now. Right. But I don't know how relevant it is. Molly has indicated that they like to continue working in some capacity. They're interested in these new jobs. And so I think one of the benefits of financial independence is that it allows you to make major life changes from a position of strength. And it seems to me like Molly and her and her spouse are already able to do that. If they're there, absolutely. If they're not there, I just don't know

how close that calculation is. If they're like, hey, we did a complete financial plan and here's my numbers and I've calculated this. Great. If it's granular, fantastic. If it's not granular, I just think this is an opportunity to get more granular to know exactly what the change is going to be. right now they can dedicate a lot of money toward financial independence. One of the future realities is that you won't be able to dedicate as much money toward pursuing that if you have a smaller income stream than you have today. So how is that going to change the game for you? I just want to know that going in.

Again, Paula, I don't know that that's going to change my decision, but it certainly is going to change my strategy over the long term. And if I know that before I make the move, how kick-ass is that versus, oh, I made this move? And now I'm realizing this changed some of the long-term stuff in ways that I didn't know. I would just know it going in. I love how the pilot looks at the flight plan and knows the flight plan before they take off. You're about to embark on this kick-ass new journey that I took myself. It's not the same journey I took, but it's very much along the same lines. I wouldn't trade it for anything, Molly, I think it's fantastic. I do this 100%. I would just know what headwinds you're going to have ahead of time. And I think by playtesting and by modeling, and then third, by seeing

if you can avoid debt, if there's a way to do that or minimize the impact of the debt, those are my three concerns. Listening to her numbers, I don't see, I just don't see any reason to take out the debt because, again, that delta between what they earn and what they spend is so wide. It seems to me like they could pretty rapidly cash flow this. That's funny. I'm glad I'm not alone there because I was surprised by that question. Yeah. Because she said that at the end, I was like, what? What? Right. It just seems unnecessary. Maybe she's like Jennifer from the beginning. Maybe she wants to arbitrage it. Right. I'm going to arbitrage my college. I'm going to take out zero percent loans. I'm going to put it all on a credit card. You know what's funny? My opinion of that might be different,

though. Oh, if they've got the lump sum. Well, because a college education ostensibly has an ROI attached at the end, right? Again, looking at this like she's a company. If a company makes a move to increase future ROI or ensure that I have an income stream coming up in the future, taking on debt to it, it's the same reason my opinion about the card that we used to talk about, right, the zero percent of low interest financing. If you need this car to get to a job, and you're not going to be able to bring in the income stream because of that will then certainly take advantage of the low interest debt to make sure that you've got the reliable ride. I don't know. That's an interesting thing about how our opinion changes based on the use of the money. Well, I think that's because with Jennifer from earlier in this episode, Jennifer's talking about a teaser rate on a credit card that's going to expire in 18 months.

whereas Molly, if she were to take out student loans, assuming they had a very low interest rate, would be arbitraging against a much longer term loan where that low interest rate on a long term loan is fixed. And so there's an inherent risk when you're doing something short term because disaster can strike that impacts your next 18 months that will materially change the outcome in a way that having the benefit of time on a longer term student loan. time is, yeah, is forgiving. And going back to my free cash flow analogy earlier, Paula, because it's a long-term loan, right? The cash flow impacts are going to be a lot less too. Right. The payment's going to be less every month. Right.

Exactly. But Molly, I love it. I think, Paula, you love it. I absolutely love this. And again, to me, I don't see financial independence as a binary. I think that's perhaps one of the philosophical differences between myself and many people in the fire movement. I don't define it rigidly as some fixed point in time at which your residual income can cover your current living costs. I don't run that point in time analysis.

I view financial independence as a spectrum. And the why behind that spectrum is in many ways so that you can live the life that you want to live and do so far. from a position of financial strength and not be forced into suboptimal living or working conditions due to financial necessity. And so, Molly, I see you as in many ways already financially independent because you and your spouse both have the capacity to switch into lower income, but more satisfying, more gratifying jobs that better align with the lifestyle that you want. You have the ability to switch into careers that you plan on staying in for the long term because you want to, right, because that excites you. So as I see it, you've already won the game. So congratulations,

Molly. And thank you for the question. What a beautiful question to end on. So great. I love the big financial planning questions. Well, Joe, where can people find you if they would like to hear more great financial planning wisdom normally at the beginning of the year on the stacking benjamin's podcast we focus on debt getting out of debt on building a good balance sheet last year we focused on managing your time in 24 and really setting good priorities this year paula we began with increasing your income so 2025 we kicked it off with a two part series for people that don't know stacky benjamin's generally a variety show where we cover a range of topics. I flew to Las Vegas last year and I interviewed a guy who knows how to make money and

teaches people how to make lots of money. His name is Alex Harmosey. He has a couple books, which are all around $100 million, $100 million offers and $100 million leads. He buys businesses as his income stream. In his second year in business, many years ago, he made $25 million. This guy's made $100 million in a year. So our clickbaity title, which I don't think is clickbaity, is how to make $100 million in 2025.

I will tell you this. You will increase your income in 2025 by listening to these two episodes. The interview was so dense, Paula. It was a 45 minute interview. It was so dense and so full of good stuff. I brought it home. I had my partner OG sit down with me and we just played it back. and we stop it periodically and we go, okay, here's how you implement this.

He talks often to entrepreneurs. Most of our audience are not entrepreneurs, but so much of this is nine to five job career advice as well. It's not just for entrepreneurs. So we break it down. We talk tactically about how to make this happen. If you just go back to our January 1st and January 3rd episodes, part one and part two, Alex Harmosi and how to make $100 million in 2025.

Wow. Wow. That sounds incredible. All right. Well, those two episodes are available anywhere where you like to listen to podcasts. Finer podcasts. Thank you so much for being part of this community. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. First and foremost, share this with the people in your life. Share it with your friends, your family, your siblings, your colleagues, your barista, your dog walker, the person at the clothing store.

Share it with the person at the grocery store who checks out your bananas and milk. share it with everyone in your life. Number two, subscribe to our newsletter, afford anything.com slash newsletter, where you get fresh insight that you will not find anywhere else. And number three, open up that favorite podcast player of yours and make sure that you are following us. And while you're there, please leave us a review. You can also head to YouTube.com slash afford anything. Smash the follow button, hit the notification bell. leave a comment. Tell us what you like about this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Paula Pan.

I'm Joe Solcihai. And we'll meet you in the next episode.