BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 444: Financial Advisor Fees, LLCs, and Stock Investing 101 | Ask Mindy and Scott

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Financial advisors are supposed to look after your money, but sometimes, their profits come first. We’ve had many questions about which type of financial advisors to use, which aren’t worth the fee, and whether you even need one in the first place. On this Finance Friday episode, Mindy and Scott are taking questions directly from listeners like you, and one of the top ones finally answers the question: what are these “fees” financial advisors are charging me!? You’ve got money questions. Scott and Mindy have answers. In this episode, they’ll touch on topics like which type of financial advisor to hire, whether cashing out your 401(k) early is ever worth it, what to do when your bank messed up your interest rate, when (and when not) to use LLCs for real estate investing, and how to start investing in stocks when you’ve only got $1,000!  Got a money question you want to ask Mindy and Scott? Head over to the BiggerPockets Money Facebook group, or click here to submit your question on our next Q&A episode! In This Episode We Cover How to start investing in the stock market with $1,000 (or less!) Rental property LLCs and why you’re probably wrong about “tax write-offs” Financial advisor fees and the ONLY type of financial advisor we’d recommend Cashing out your 401(k) early when you need to pay off credit card debt Return on equity explained and signs it’s time to sell/refinance a property And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Scott's Instagram Mindy on BiggerPockets Grab Scott’s Book, “Set for Life” Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Register for an Upcoming InvestHER Event Money Moment Hear Our Last Q&A Episode The Simple Path to Wealth—Index Funds Explained with JL Collins The Simple Path to Wealth (Book) Work with a Fee-ONLY Financial Advisor Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-444   Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email us: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, Finance Friday edition, where we answer your tough listener questions about CFPs, 401Ks, car loans, LLCs, cash versus equity, and investing in the stock market. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my has the answers to all the tough questions. Co-host, Scott Trench. Great to be here with my Tells It Like It Is, co-host, Minnie Jensen. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less, less, less,

just for somebody else to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you're starting. That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, going to make big time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, or debate the intricate nuances of whether or not to form an LLC, several LLCs or no LLCs. We'll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards those dreams. Scott, before we jump in today, we have a new segment on the show called The Money Moment. This is where we share a money hack, tip, or trick to help you on your financial journey. And today's Money Moment is, have you thought

about cycling your subscriptions? You love that one show on Netflix or Apple, but it only comes on yearly or every couple of years. Cancel your subscription until it comes back on. If you're not using the app after the show is over, turn it off and reactivate when it comes back on. This way, you can try several apps and not pay crazy amounts to keep them all. I actually do this when I am watching a show that is only available on that one app. I'll watch it and then I'm done and it cancel at the end of the month because it's getting to the point where there's one thing on this episode and one thing on that show and one thing on this streaming channel. It's like it's too much. I want to keep up with pop culture, but it's getting to be a full-time job and full-time pricing. Yeah, I completely agree with

that I think that you know, focus on the one, buy the monthly subscription for these TV programs, and enjoy it, and then turn it off and go to the next one. Then cancel. Do you have a money tip for us? Email money moment at biggerpockets.com. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening.

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please send us a voice memo or written question at biggerpockets.com slash money question. With that, let's kick it off. Mind, do you have the first one today? I do. Dear Mindy and Scott, how do I go about asking a financial advisor about their fees? When I inquired, they laughed it off stating that all funds have fees. I want to ask in the correct way this time to get an accurate answer. Thanks, Kay. So, Kay, your potential financial advisor gave you all the information you need here. They make their money based on charging for assets under management and likely selling other types of insurance products. There's other ways financial planners make money.

I think to reframe your question, what you're looking for at the highest level is, are you a fee-only financial advisor or do you make money in other ways? right so be careful with this financial advisors are sometimes super slick they'll talk about a big game and how they're how they're managing your money with these tax advantage strategies or you know tax lost harvesting and all this other kind of stuff and it's going to sound super slick those are those are financial planners again who make their money with by charging for assets under management and often selling you insurance products what you're looking for is a fee only financial advisor one trap that is starting to become more and more prevalent is financial advisors are calling themselves fee-based. They know people like UK are looking for fee-only financial advisors, so they charge a fee for

their time and they charge for assets under management and sell expensive life insurance products. You're not looking for that, in my opinion. You're looking for a fee-only financial advisor. All financial advisors got to make money. So they're going to charge you either fees or they're going to manage your assets under management or sell you insurance products most likely. Fee-based financial planners get to do it all. And for me, personally, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a fee-only financial advisor, and the fee-only financial advisor should be upfront and clear with the rates that they charge on an hourly basis per project per year, whatever they base those fees on. Scott, I think you hit the nail on the head when

you said, they told you all that you need to know by their answer. And they did. When I inquired, they laughed it off. Okay, yeah, you know what? They laughed at you when you asked them what they charge. That right there tells me that this person either doesn't respect you or isn't going to treat you with the respect that you deserve. So it doesn't matter what that particular financial advisor charges. It doesn't sound like they're a good fit for you. And that's something that I think is important to keep in mind. You are allowing someone to, to either manage your assets or give you advice about managing your assets, that's a big responsibility. That needs to be somebody that you respect, you want to listen to, and somebody who respects you

and wants to listen to you. So in addition to all the great advice that Scott gave, I would say this guy isn't for you and find somebody who will answer your question with an honest answer. The fee-based sounds like a bunch of garbage. it's the best of both worlds for them. I would love for somebody to pay me a commission and also an hourly fee. But that's not how it works in real estate. I mean, I guess it is for some people, but that's not how I work.

When I hear fee-based, I run away. Yeah. And find somebody who speaks to you in the manner you want to be spoken to. And there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't think we are a good fit and stopping talking to them. Scott, did you say XY Planning Network? I have not. That's a great one to plug. Okay.

Well, now's a great time to plug the XYPlanningnetwork.com because that's a great place to go to find a fee-only financial advisor who will speak to you the way that you want to be spoken to who has specialties in a variety of different things. They have people who specialize in widows and widowers or people who specialize in those who run their own business, the LGBTQ community. Real estate investors. Real estate investors. They have a financial advisor for you. So, XYPlanningnetwork.com. And we have no current affiliation with XY Planning Network that I'm aware of. Nope.

They're just a really great company that I like to recommend because they do such a good job. Let's go to the next question here. Dear Mindy and Scott, my wife has an old 401k from a previous job with 12 grand in it. We could really use these funds to work on the house and pay off credit card debt. I have a great pension and she is already working on a new 401K. at her new job. How much does $12,000 actually hurt our investing in the long run? I know we would pay 20% tax on it, but with personal interest loans at 10%, it doesn't seem like too bad of an option. Sincerely confused. Okay, so not only are they paying a 10% early withdrawal penalty,

they are paying taxes on it as well. So they said 20%, I'm going to assume that this falls in the 20% a tax bracket in order to go with these numbers. But $12,000 in the market, time in the market is better than timing the market. I am more concerned with why they have credit card debt than the fact that they have credit card debt. Did they run into one little snafu and then they're going to be able to, once they pay it off, everything's going to be fine? Or are they going to cash out this $12,000, pay the fines and penalties?

and taxes on it and then find themselves in the same position again in a year. If your underlying spending isn't in check, then I would say absolutely not. Keep the money in the 401k, get your spending in check, and then figure out a different way to pay off your debt. If your underlying spending is in check, this was just a one-time thing, maybe your roof exploded or whatever and it wasn't covered under insurance, it's more of just a, you know, fluke, then I'd have to, I'd have to look at, you know, how old are they? Are they in their 20s? I think this would be a really bad idea in their 20s. All that time to grow. I don't like

taking money out of an old 401k. I really don't. I like putting it, I like leaving it there or rolling it over into a new 401k or a new IRA. I just think there's other ways to generate $12,000. to pay this off. Grab a side hustle that pays you $1,000 a month. In a year, you've got this same $12,000 without paying the penalty of the taxes. Because what's $10?200 is gone. So now we're at $10,800. And then you've got to pay taxes on that.

So what's 20% of that? That's another $2,400. I mean, you barely have anything left over after you pay the taxes and fees. I think that pulling money out of a 401k should be a last resort. It should be an emergency or really, we should try to avoid it at all costs, or I should be pulling it out because I have an opportunity to arbitrage it that's so lucrative that I can't forego it, right? So if these folks were saying, I got $10,000 in the bank and I want a house hack right now, and this is the way I'm going to do it is by taking out this money, okay, I've got some concerns, I've got some

questions, maybe you delay, but I ultimately would say that there's, there's, there's, merit in that. The returns on a house hack might be better than what these folks can get in a 401k if that's really what they want to do. But what we're hearing here is we want to work on the house and pay off credit card debt. And she is already working on a new 401k at her new job. So first of all, why are we contributing to a new 401k while liquidating an existing 401K? There's a penalty associated with early withdrawal before you liquidate your current 401K, which I don't recommend you do, yet Lee should stop contributing to the new 401K, right? So that's a no-brainer there. That's the first step we take here if you really need this money.

I would attack the credit card debt like an emergency and try to cash flow the house investment at all costs, or the best of my ability, rather than tap into this $12,000 that's already been tax advantaged in the 401K personally. So that's my simple answer. and there's a number of steps I would take before pulling it as a last resort if it really came down to that. Yeah, I don't like pulling money out of a 401K unless, like you said, there's another opportunity.

I don't think either of these qualify as the other opportunity. Awesome. Moving on, Dear Mindy and Scott, a year ago, I purchased a truck at 5.9% rate. I happened to check the account and loan and the rate says 3.9%.

Should I come clean and alert the bank or stay quiet and hope they don't ask for more money later. Sincerely, TB. This is a dilemma, Scott, because on the one hand, you want to come clean. You want to act ethically and honestly. On the other hand, it's a bank that made a mistake. How much do you want to alert them to the fact that they made a mistake? And a year ago, rates could have been 3.9%, but they probably weren't. So TB has given us a trick question here. the answer is to sell the truck immediately and buy a much more reasonable paid off fuel-efficient vehicle with the proceeds of that.

So that's the right answer here. Next question. Just kidding. But that is exactly what I would do. In this case, like the bank never makes an error in your favor, right? So it's always in the reverse. You've got to be paying attention with these things. Good on you for spotting this.

what I would do is I would inquire, I would contact the mortgage company and say, looking over my statements, can you just confirm these facts about my mortgage? I'm just looking to confirm these items. And I think that's a great approach. That gives you on the right side of the ethical balance without calling out, do I have a higher interest rate here? Just can you please confirm that my most recent statement was accurate with these things here? I think that would be the approach I'd take and see what they'd. come back with. If you were really sure that it was a 5.9% rate and there wasn't a variable

component to this, then yeah, I think that there's an ethical item there to call it out and change it. But the first step I would take is calling the bank and actually just confirming the number on there. Maybe they'll provide context or a statement or whatever that clears the situation up for you and explains why your rates lower than you thought it was. I wonder if he was always paying 3.9 or if he started off paying 5.9 and it dropped for some reason. That's a good answer, Scott. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going,

and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch's subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking.

You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at monarch.com code pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed.

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sell your data and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit northwest registered agent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registered Agent.com slash money-free. Okay, next question here. Dear Mindy and Scott, I have a friend who has several real estate rentals and insists on using an LLC for tax rate-offs. However, my accountant advised him against an LLC. Can you explain when one should put rental properties into an LLC and the pros and cons of doing so? Thank you, Deb. Ooh, Deb, I like this question a lot because there are so many nuances to the LLC.

An LLC is a limited liability company, and you should always put your rental properties into a limited liability company, except when it doesn't make sense, such as you can't keep your money separate. So there is this thing called piercing the corporate veil. And what that means is you have, there's a wall between you and your corporation or your LLC. And if all of your personal money stays on the right side of the wall and all of your corporate money stays on the left side of the wall, the wall hasn't been pierced. The corporate veil hasn't been pierced. But if you, the person, put money into the LLC account or you pay a personal bill with LLC money, that wall, that veil has been pierced.

And now all of the protections that the LLC did offer are gone. They're moot. And any good attorney can figure out a way that you have pierced that corporate veil of unless you are fastidious about keeping your personal and your business money separate. Can you keep your personal and business money separate? Of course you can. Is it super easy to co-mingle your money? Absolutely.

So you have to be really, really conscious about keeping the money separate. Should you need an infusion of cash into your business, your personal money is being lent to your business with a formal loan and a payback schedule and all of that. It sounds really complicated. It's not that complicated. It just takes some thought. So if you are going to put a rental property into an LLC for the purposes of protection,

you have to make sure that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever co-mingle money. If you can't, and be honest with yourself, if this isn't something that you're going to be able to do, then get yourself a really good umbrella policy. I would still put each individual property into an LLC, especially if you're in a state like Colorado where an LLC is $50 to start it up and you can do it yourself on the Secretary of State website. It takes like 20 minutes. So I would absolutely do that to start the protections. But then you also want to get yourself a good umbrella insurance policy that ensures the protection because the person that's suing you, and that's the only reason you put a rental property into an LLC, is to,

make sure that you don't get sued or to protect yourself against getting sued, the person that's suing you is going to go after the big dollar figures. And when you have an insurance policy of like a million dollars, that's probably more money than you have. And they'll go for that instead. One thing to note is that if you put your property into an LLC, if you title it in an LLC, you could get your mortgage called due. There's a clause in every mortgage called due. There's a clause in every mortgage called the due on sale clause, which means if title changes from Scott Trench to Scott Trench LLC, then that is considered a sale because the title changed. And the mortgage lender could call your note due, meaning, hey, you have $300,000 left on your loan. You owe us $300,000 by the end of the month.

Is it likely that they're going to call it due if you continue to make payments? No, it isn't likely, but it is an option. So you have to be aware of that. Now, when you buy the property, if you put it into Scott Trench LLC instead of Scott Trench, the name, you put the mortgage in that name and the property in that name, then you have nothing to worry about. I think you framed it really well. I want to start with a couple of points here, though. I have a friend who has several real estate rentals and insist on using an LLC for tax write-offs. The LLC does not, let me repeat, does not produce tax write-offs or tax advantages in really any form for a traditional long-term rental property investor. It does not produce tax advantages, right? It's a pass-through entity. The rental

income or loss from your LLC in your real estate business will pass through to your personal tax return. Do not set up an LLC for tax advantages. An LLC is an asset as a part of your overall asset protection strategy. Okay. And when you're thinking about asset protection, you got to think about a ton of holistic things. To Mindy's great points, right, you got to run this thing as a business. You got to have a separate bank account. You've got to actually, you know, manage it like a business, separate, you know, email address, all these different things. Do not commingle them. It's, you know, wins a good case. Wins a bad case to use an LLC because of the corporate veil. When you're buying your first house hack, you're living in the property. How can you pop

possibly make an argument in front of a judge that your business is separate from your personal. Another bad use of an LLC, in my opinion. Someone's worth 25 grand and buys their first house hack rental property, and all of their wealth is now in their $10,000 or $15,000 of equity in the business. Why would you go to the trouble of setting up an LLC, paying the $800 bucks in California, for example, filing a separate tax return, which your CPA may charge you $1,000 or more for, if it actually produces any revenue, when you have no other meaningful assets to protect. When's a good use of an LLC?

Maybe you have a business that has, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 rentals. Maybe it generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in wealth. Maybe you have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in other assets outside of that business that you want to protect. Maybe you have a property management, a company running your business for you and are participating by managing the property manager, not managing the property store. directly. Now there's a clear distinction between your personal assets and the operations of the business. So when you go think about the LLC, don't listen to the attorney or the CPA alone.

Get a broad perspective here that includes investors, your lender, your CPA, your attorney, and form your own opinion here. Here's a great business model. I'm a CPA. I see that I have a new wish real estate investor who's a little concerned. concerned or feels icky about their situation with their rental properties and their asset protection. As the CPA, I advise said client to set up four LLCs, one for each property and a holding company that strips the equity. This is a topic that you can clearly see I have a vendetta against. Now, sure, there's some asset protection advantages potentially in there that might be valuable for an Uber wealthy investor or someone who has a ton of these things. But what's realistically

happening here is there's an $800 fee or whatever the fee is in your state for filing each one of those LCs. You've got to file a separate tax return each year on those things. And who's going to file that tax return? It's going to be your CPA who set up all of those different entities there. That's a great business model. That CPA makes $4,000, $7,000 per year forever after. And they, of course, will give you a great rate compared to the next CPA because they set it up and know how it is. So you're stuck with, like, this is the trap that I think people fall into when we talk about the LLC argument, and this is why you've got to think for yourself. Is there a right answer here? No. There's pros and cons for that equity stripping and multi-series LLC component that I just talked through, and there are

major cons. The right place for LLCs, in my view, is when there's other assets to protect, and it's a part of an overall asset protection strategy. Now, how can I protect my assets outside of an LLC? To Mindy's point, there's an insurance agent who's also a part of your asset protection policy, and then there's how you operate your rental business, right? Stay up to date with the law. Make sure your lease meet state requirements. Make sure you're maintaining your property appropriately. Make sure it's clearly spelled out who's responsible for lawn care. It's snow removal, for example, on your property, right? Make sure everything's in good condition. Those are the things that are going to provide more asset protection for many new investors than an LLC in the early stages. Thank you, Scott. Somehow I missed the tax advantages or tax write-offs part of the question. And you're right. There are no tax right-offs or tax advantages for an LLC. It's just a pass. through. I'm glad you caught that thing. When you pay your accountant $2,000 to file your tax return at the end of the year, that's tax deductible. But I'd rather have the $2,000 and pay tax on some percentage

of it personally. Sorry, in the early stages of investing, at least for me. All right, Scott, here's our next question. Dear Mindy and Scott, at what dollar amount do you decide to cash out your equity or keep getting rent payments, even though the rent might not be great return on equity, J.M. Okay, I'm going to reframe the question here a little bit. It's not, it's, what they're, they're talking about return on equity, right? So when I buy, let's say I buy a house hack, right, I'll use an example. I bought a duplex house hack a number of years ago, um, with, uh, a partner right now I own that with my LLC. Um, that duplex appreciated in value greatly. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity in the property.

Right now that property is generating, I don't know. $15,000 in cash flow, let's call it, on 250 grand in equity, right? So what is that? That's going to be like a five-ish percent cash flow return on my equity. I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, five-ish percent cash flow on that equity. If I wanted to up the cash on cash return from that portfolio, I could re-leverage the property by cash-out refinancing, getting a higher mortgage balance, reducing the equity, and potentially getting more cash flow. With higher interest rates, that's become harder. Two or three years ago, that's what you do, right?

You just cash out, refinance, you pull it out, and your payment might even go down after you pull out a ton of cash because we had such low interest rates. Nowadays, if I were to do that, I'd probably have less cash flow than I have today because I'd have a higher interest rate. I have much less cash rate because I'd probably get a bigger balanced loan, first of all, and I'd have a higher interest rate. I might be negative. So in a theoretical sense, in a stable interest rate environment, I think that it's when your return

on equity drops below a certain threshold that you're comfortable with. That's when you pull out cash. And there's an art to that deal to hold the property for five years, seven, 15, 20, whatever, it's whatever you're comfortable with. In today's environment, I think in a practical sense, we're all stuck, many of us long-term in real estate investors, right? Like, we're not going to refinance our property at a higher interest rate unless we have an incredible opportunity to redeploy the cash, and we're going to make way more money on the new investment, because it's clearly, or almost all cases, going to hurt the cash flow and returns on the existing property to move from a 3% interest rate mortgage to a 7.5% interest rate mortgage today.

Hopefully that answers this person's question and a more practical, both the theoretical construct and the practical constraints of today. Awesome. Scott, I don't have anything to add. That was a really great answer. Oh, all righty. Awesome. Dear Minion, Scott, my daughter would like to dabble in the stock market with her own money. She has about $1,000 saved. Where would you direct her to start?

V-O-O-O or V-T-Sax? Sincerely anonymous. Okay, well, V-O-O is the S&P-500 index. That is the 500 largest companies in the U.S. And VTSAX is the total stock market index, essentially every publicly traded company. So what is her goal? With $1,000, and when Anonymous says my daughter, I'm thinking somebody who is younger than 18. And she uses the word dabble.

So I'm thinking a child. $1,000, I think either one of these is going to be a good choice. I would honestly, at that age, I would have them choose a company that they love. like. They go to McDonald's as a big treat. Or they go, my little neighbor, Abby, loves Costco. She gets so excited to go to Costco. I would buy one or five shares of a company that she understands, she recognizes, and watch that stock specifically. And then either V-O-O or VTSA-X, even a tech-heavy fund might be, good at this age. She's going to have a ton of time to grow. What are the biggest growth stock companies right now? The fang companies, it's heavy on tech is the top growth companies.

So I would go with one of those, the bulk of the money going into either VOO or VTSAX with a little bit left over for a company that she can follow, maybe a couple of companies she can follow, so that she can learn how to read the stock market, the ticker symbols, the, you know, the, when you look it up online, read the whole chart and start to get a feel for that. She also will get interested in it because then when you go into Costco, I own part of this company. There's like a sense of pride when you own part of a company when you're that age and it gives you maybe a little bit more understanding because the source. stock market is this theoretical thing. And V-O-O and VTSA-X are going to be this like concept, more than a hard, a hard, tangible thing you can grasp. But when you own a share of Costco, you can walk into Costco and she can say, I own this company. I own a portion of this company.

And it makes it a little more real and it makes it a little easier to understand. I completely agree with Mindy's answer. I think especially the younger, like let's this daughter was 12 or younger. I just think there's so much more value in the comprehension and understanding of buying a piece of a company that they know. Like the, when you see a kid buy, you know, there's a while back, you know, it's like, well, it's a company you know, eight-year-old kid. Nike loves Nike. Great. Let's buy a share of Nike stock right now. You own a small piece of Nike. That excites a child in a way that owning a slice of the VOO or VT Sacks will not. And I don't think it's really about the returns here at this point in time.

If we're just starting to dabble, it's about understanding what we're doing and the power of investing, to Mindy's point. Now, if you're saying, I'm trying to start a system of investing where my daughter who just got her first paycheck and is now going to be working year round after school and in the summers at this job, and I need a system for investing. Okay, now we're going into the index fund and beginning to pick that our core. formula here. But for the first little investment, I love the specific stock company that they know can follow, can understand what's going on and learn kind of the basic concepts here. Now, this person also asked about VOO versus VT Sachs. And I just want to call out, what is the difference here? VOO is the SMP 500. It's the largest 500 companies in the United States. And VT Sachs is the total stock market index, which is every publicly traded company in the United States.

States. So you're really arguing a very semantic point here. In historically, the returns have been very tightly coupled. And going forward, the returns will be very tightly coupled. VT Sachs is heavily weighted by market cap. So it's heavily weighted towards the 500 largest companies in the U.S. It just has additional exposure with some smaller companies. Those smaller companies, if they were to get big, would make it onto the S&P 500 and replace some of the other companies in VLO in a future state. So you're investing in almost the same thing, and it's just not a big choice. It's just do you want the big companies or VT Sachs? For what it's worth, J.L. Collins likes VT sacks. I think he's probably right. I happen to start investing in VO years back. So I'm in VOL.

If I were to start over, I might have a 51%, 49% preference for VT Sachs versus VO, but it's really a semantic point. You might also consider international exposure at some point, but that's a whole another topic for another episode. And that's VTI, if you want to think about that one for another index fund there. So hopefully that wasn't too confusing. Bottom line, don't spend a lot of time debating about VO versus VT Sachs. The returns, I bet you over the next 50 years will be within one or two percentage points between the two funds. We'll see if I'm right, but that would be my guess. Scott, you mentioned Jail Collins. If your child is thinking about dabbling in the stock market, I would imagine that they would be old enough to read a simple path to wealth, which he wrote aimed at his daughter, who I believe was 17 when he started writing the stock series on his website.

So it is, and he wrote it in easy to understand terms so that his daughter would know how to invest when she decided to start it. investing. So that is a great book to give your child to start reading as well, so long as they can understand, I would say maybe age 12, 10 or 12, depending on how advanced they are. But if they're ready to start dabbling in the stock market and have already saved up $1,000, I would guess that they're ready to read a simple path to wealth. I do wonder, it would it be easier to get them to buy a single share of a stock they know or to read a six-hour, seven-hour book, which is fantastic, by the way. I don't know. That would be, yeah, I'll find that out in 12 years when Katie grows up. Take a road trip and do the audiobook because J.L. Collins narrates it and he's got

a voice. Oh, I should do that now. Baby would probably fall right to sleep for those dulcet tones. That's the simple path to wealth. It's a fan favorite for me and Mindy for a lot of BP money listeners, J.L. Collins, he's been on the show a few times. Definitely go check that one out. I'll plug that as well. Okay, Scott, we have a correction to make. On a recent episode, we mixed up the terms Medicaid and Medicare. Medicaid is a health care system for people with low income, whereas Medicare is for people over the age of 65. The wealthy early retiree with zero income would technically qualify for Medicaid, but there are ethical concerns about taking Medicaid when you don't actually qualify on an income or net worth level.

That's right. Or for disability. And they would not qualify for Medicare, just from an age perspective, until traditional retirement age. Right. So apologies for mixing up those terms. They're so similar that my mouth sometimes gets confused. Well, should we get out of here, Mindy?

That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. We enjoy answering your questions. So again, if you have a question for us, you can submit it. at biggerpockets.com slash money question. All right, he is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen saying, Got to shake, Rattlesnake. If you enjoyed today's episode,

please give us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you're looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash BiggerPockets Money. Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaelin Bennett,

editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the bigger pockets team for making this show possible.