The Personal Finance Podcast - Should I invest my Cash and Take Out Student Loans?!- Money Q&A

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Starting point is 00:00:59 should I invest my cash and take a... out student loans. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.com. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be diving into a money Q&A with a bunch of your questions. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to Mastermoney.com slash newsletter.

Starting point is 00:01:41 And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or whatever podcast player, you love listening to this podcast on it. If you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. I can not thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star ratings and reviews and following this show on your favorite podcast player. That helps us spread this message about building wealth to other people. Now, today, we have an action-pack show.

Starting point is 00:02:08 So we're going to be diving into a bunch of different things. And one of the things we're going to be talking about first at the top of the show is one of the best deals in travel hacking. And we're going to dive into the Southwest Airlines companion pass. And I'm going to show you how you can actually travel with someone for free and how to get that companion pass for almost nothing just for spending money on your normal bills. And the second question is, should I invest my money and take out student loans and or should I take that cash and actually pay down my school bill?

Starting point is 00:02:36 And so that's going to be the second question. We're going to dive into the difference between the 457 and the 403B. And then lastly, we're going to be talking through fraud and how it's growing in some individual companies, specifically some companies that have it on the dark web as well. So this is an action-packed episode. Can't wait to dive into it. So if you're ready, let's get into it. All right. So the first thing I want to talk about on this episode is the Southwest Companion Pass. And this is something I think a lot of people need to understand how this works, especially if you're interested in travel hacking. And if you are big on domestic travel, meaning you like to travel inside the U.S., this is going to be a

Starting point is 00:03:11 great thing for you, especially if you like to travel with a spouse or kids or who. whoever else. This is a really, really cool way to be able to have one person in your party be able to travel for free and you can earn points and miles and rewards for the other person to be able to travel for free as well. So this is a great way to get free travel with two people. And so if you're interested in that, I'm going to dive in at the top of the show here to the companion pass and then we're going to get into some questions as well. So if you're not familiar with the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass, what it is is the Southwest Companion Pass allows a designated companion to fly with you for free. Now, the way that this works is that they're going to fly completely for free,

Starting point is 00:03:48 and the only thing they have to pay is taxes and fees, which are like a $5.60 is where those taxes and fees typically start going one way. And so every time you purchase or redeem your points for a flight with Southwest Airlines, you're going to be able to bring someone, a companion with you, completely free. It is an amazing perk and an amazing deal, but you have to earn the companion pass. This is not something they just give away, obviously. And so this is something you have to earn. So I'm going to show you exactly how to earn a companion pass today. And as we go through this, you're going to see there's one way that's really easy to earn it and one way that's pretty difficult. And so the first way to earn it is you earn

Starting point is 00:04:23 $135,000 of qualifying points. And these points can come from flying with Southwest Airlines or using their credit cards or earning points through Southwest Rapid Rewards Partners. And so when you do this, you can earn 135,000 points. And if you do it through their credit cards, you're going to be able to get that Southwest Companion Pass. Now, I'm going to show you exactly how to do that here later on because there's a deal going on right now with Southwest's cars, at least at the time recording this. If you're listening to this later on in the future, just know this exists and wait for one of these deals to come up every time they come up. But there is one going on right now that I think you should definitely be taking into consideration. The other way to earn it is to fly a hundred

Starting point is 00:05:01 qualifying one-way flights, which is obviously less common and way more difficult. But if you're a frequent flyer, maybe your business flies a ton, and this may be a possibility for you. For most people, they're never going to be able to do this. So it's much easier to just earn those. points instead of flying 100 qualifying one-way flights. And so that's one of the best ways to earn is by earning those points. Now, the way that the best way to do this is to leverage credit card bonuses. So usually Southwest cards have bonuses that allow you to actually try to get to 135,000 points. And so you can get a sign-up bonus. You could use regular spending. You can combine these bonuses together. And once you have that 135,000 points, then you're going to be able to utilize the companion pass.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Now, I want you to think through this, before I tell you which cards have the great deal right now, I want you to think through this for a second because what you want to do, and there's huge benefits to the companion pass, but what you want to do is realize that the companion pass is actually valid for the entire year that you earn it in addition to the following year as well. So you can have the companion pass for up to two years if you earn mileage on a companion pass. So one big thing to note here is to strategize this in a way where you can start to a key. You can start to a key. accumulate points and earn those points at the very beginning of the year to get the bonus. And then if you can try to get those points in that bonus, like in February or March,

Starting point is 00:06:22 you're going to have the entire year to be able to travel. And then in addition, you can have the entire next year as well. Whereas if you time it in like, you know, October or November and you get the companion pass, you're only going to have 13, 14 months. So you want to try to extend that out as much as possible and try to time this to make it work. That's the ultimate hack is to try to make this work for the over the course of two years. So really, really important stuff as we go through this to make sure that you're looking

Starting point is 00:06:48 at that option throughout those two years. Now, some of the benefits of the companion pass is a unlimited use. You can literally use this as many times as you want as long as the other person books a Southwest flight. And so you can do this as many times as you want in between that validity period. It also has flexibility. So you can actually change your designated companion up to three times per calendar year, allowing you to share the benefit with different people if needed. And so this is a really cool thing. Say, for example, you want to travel with your spouse a few times. Maybe you want to travel with one of your kids. You'll be able to do that or you want to go travel with your friends. You can also do that. And so that's going to be another way where you can

Starting point is 00:07:26 have this flexibility and allows you to do so many different amazing things when you actually set this up the right way. In addition, lastly, it also gives you cost savings because only taxes and fees apply with your companion's ticket, which significantly reduces the cost of travel for people. So say, for example, you and your friend want to go to Vegas. And so if you and your friend want to go to Vegas, you have the flight. They have the companion pass. Well, you can split the ticket of that initial flight. And so that flight is going to be significantly less for both of you if you don't have points in miles or they don't have points and miles. And so this is another option for you. Or you can book it with points and miles and just have them pay you half and you can utilize the cash for your

Starting point is 00:08:01 trip or whatever else. And so there's a lot of different things that you can do here. And there's tons of benefits to this companion pass and a lot of really cool ways that you can travel domestically. So if you know you're going to do a lot of domestic travel, you're interested in traveling around the U.S. or places that Southwest actually goes, this is going to be a great, great option for you. And so how do you book with a companion pass? The way that you book it is you go in, you book your ticket, then you add your companion during the booking process. This actually asks you those questions, so you put you want to do it on Southwest's website, and you just pay those taxes and fees. Now, let's talk about these cards for a second, because I mentioned earlier that

Starting point is 00:08:34 right now there are two Southwest business cards that have welcome bonuses that can earn you up to 120,000 points. Now, this is extremely valuable because you are getting really close to that 135,000 point range. But this is one of the best offers that I have ever seen. But to get this offer, you have to spend $15,000 on these business cards as the welcome bonus. And so since you're spending that $15,000 as a welcome bonus, you're going to be able to get to 135,000 points because when you start to do that spend, you're actually accumulating points as well, which is a double whammy. This is why travel hacking is so valuable is the sign-up bonuses. The sign-up bonuses are going to allow you to get to that point in time.

Starting point is 00:09:12 We've talked about this a number of times on our travel hacking episodes on why it's so important to strategize around these sign-up bonuses so that you can maximize the amount that you can travel completely for free. And so this is the nice thing about these two cards is that you can combine them to hit the required points. And so the two cards are the Southwest Performance Business and the Sands. Southwest Premier business. And the performance business card gives you about 80,000 points after spending $5,000 in the first three months. So this is an easy one up front to hit, especially if you

Starting point is 00:09:44 have a business. Typically, most businesses are spending right around that and or more. And so you can hit that within the first three months. And then you get an additional 40,000 points when you reach $15,000 in spend within nine months. So you have nine months to hit this spend. And so if you can time this properly. If you know how much you spend every single month and you can time this properly, then you can go ahead and try to hit that. Now, as for, you know, which card to choose, the performance business card does have an annual fee that's about $100 more, but it also comes with additional perks. So you get 3,000 additional Southwest points a year, which is worth about $40. You get four A1 through A15 boarding passes per year. So if you want to sit in the

Starting point is 00:10:23 front of the plane because you want to get off really quickly, you get that perk as well. And you get $365 worth of in-flight Wi-Fi. if you're going to be flying a lot. So it works as a credit when it goes on Southwest. And so you get those Wi-Fi credits every single year. And this also covers an all-day pass for Southwest Wi-Fi as well. So you can also do that. And if you travel often, this can be a really, really good deal. Because if you combine these two bonuses with these two cards, you not only get the companion pass, but you also get to accumulate a large number of points that can be used for future travel. So you get two things for the price of one, which is why this is such a good deal. You get that companion pass and you get all these points. that you can also use for additional free travel in the future. And so this is something where I think it's really effective, especially if you have a lot of business expenses. Like, for example, I own a number of different businesses. And so this is a great deal for me in cards that I am actually actively

Starting point is 00:11:13 opening right now because of how good this deal is. And this is why I wanted to talk about on this podcast, because if you even have, you know, rental properties or anything with an LLC, anybody who has a business can actually open one of these cards. And it doesn't have to be some huge, massive business. You can be making stuff on Etsy. You can be doing, you know, very simple things. but as long as you have an LLC, you can actually open these cards and start to accumulate some of these points and work through this system. So I think this is a really, really cool way to be able to accumulate points. I'm going to link both the cards down below so that you can check them out. Now, when you first open up these cards, you're going to see the sign-up bonuses on there

Starting point is 00:11:46 as well. And if you use our links, that's actually an affiliate link. If you can find a better deal somewhere else, go for it. Absolutely do that. But if you want to support the show, go ahead and use our links down below as well. Because this is an amazing deal. It's something I'm doing. So I want to talk about more things that I'm doing actively on. this podcast. And so making sure that we're doing that is going to be really, really helpful, I think. So I just want to talk about that up front and the top of the show. Now let's get into the next question. All right. So the next question is, hey, Andrew, love listening to your podcast and learning about all things money. Thank you for all the time and knowledge you bring to us.

Starting point is 00:12:17 Something I wanted to ask as I prepare for nursing school in the fall is whether or not you suggest I take out a low interest loan to pay for school. My husband works full time and his income covers all of our expenses. Well, that's amazing. And I'll be working very part time hour. We have no debt other than a car, which is $11,700. And we've been slowly starting to invest in our Roth IRAs. I have roughly enough cash to fund my first semester in $7,000, and there's four semesters total. I was wondering if it would be more valuable for me to invest my money in a Roth IRA or just

Starting point is 00:12:49 pay for my tuition, reducing the amount of potential debt upon graduation. I'm also applying for scholarships to see if I can get any tuition help. I'd really appreciate your input on the matter, and thank you so much for your time. So this is a fantastic question and a great consideration for a lot of people. Like if you're really worried about building wealth, this is a massive thing that you should definitely be considering. And for sure, I would kind of think through this. And I'm so glad that you're thinking of this process and kind of asking you this question.

Starting point is 00:13:14 So here's how I look at this. And there's a number of different ways that you can see this. But number one is what is the interest rate currently on these loans? That's the first question I would ask myself. Because if the interest rate is above 6%, then I would go ahead and try to pay in cash and make sure that we kit that because we don't want any high interest. interest debt within our lives. All of us want to make sure that we were avoiding high interest debt, if at all possible. And this is one where I would try to avoid it and, you know, just go ahead and pay

Starting point is 00:13:39 that cash for the first semester and then move on from there. But if you are looking at some of these interest rates on these student loans and you can get really low interest rates on student loans, then this is a consideration I would seriously think through. Now, if you're the type of person where your money psychology is like, I don't want to touch debt whatsoever. I don't want to get near debt. This is not something I'm interested in doing because I don't like handling debt. Well, that would be one situation to consider. But outside of that, if you're interested in optimizing your financial situation and you are okay later on down the line having student loan payments, then this may be a consideration for you because one thing to think through here is you only have so many years that

Starting point is 00:14:16 you can get money in the Roth IRA. You're not going to be able to get these years back when you want to contribute to a Roth IRA. So you have to consider that option when you are starting to think through this. Now, for most people, the shotgun approach is going to be, hey, don't go into debt. But I think there is a deeper level that you have to think through when you go through this. So historically, investment returns are, you know, right around 7 to 10%. Really, they are 10% and above when you look at the S&P 500, especially as of late. But we want to be conservative when we are thinking about this stuff. And so coming down to around that 7% rate is how I like to plan stuff out just to be

Starting point is 00:14:47 extra, extra conservative. In addition, you also want to think through, you know, this money has opportunity costs and it has opportunity costs in both directions. And so you want to think through if I invest in my money and my raw, IRA now, I could benefit from these compounding returns. I get that tax-free growth, which is amazing. So that's one thing you definitely want to consider. But again, if you don't want debt in your life, it may not be the best thing for you at any given time. Now, you mentioned applying for financial aid and scholarships. That's the number one thing I'd be trying to go after right now. In fact,

Starting point is 00:15:18 I would try to go after that pretty aggressively because if you have the option between these two and you can get those dollars down and be able to, you know, reduce the cost of college, that's going to significantly improve your situation in the long run. Specifically, if you want to be able to invest some of these dollars, I would try to apply for as many loans as possible. That's one big thing that I regret when I went to college. I wish I would have applied to more financial aid and trying to get more scholarships because in the long run, if you think about that, you should be treating that like a job to be able to get as much money as possible when it comes to financial aid. So anybody listening to this podcast who's in high school or they're in college, try to apply for every

Starting point is 00:15:53 single thing that you qualify for. Because the more you get, the less dollars you have to pay down in debt later on down the line, which is really, really important overall. And I think a really powerful thing, if you can hone down on more financial aid. It is very important to try to laser in on financial aid. And I think that is something that most people should be doing when they are applying for college. But also, you've got to take into consideration. Do you have a fully funded emergency fund? Because if you do not have a fully funded emergency fund, that is another option that I think you definitely want to consider up front is a no high interest debt, B, have that emergency fund funded first, and then you can go into making sure that you can utilize this cash on hand into your Roth IRA.

Starting point is 00:16:34 Now, you can also utilize something like a hybrid approach and try to pay the rest of your Roth IRA throughout the rest of the year. And so maybe you put a portion of it in and then pay the rest of it throughout the rest of the year. But again, if your interest rate is low, if you can get a low interest rate, I don't know what the student loan interest rates are being offered right now. But again, if you can get a low interest rate, like I've seen student loan interest rates as low as 2%. Some of them are 3.99%. I looked up a couple other ones in my area,

Starting point is 00:16:58 specifically, they're around 4%. And some of those ranges, I'm okay with you investing in the Roth IRA. If you could get a hand of the payments down the line. Now, you also have to think through, and I would utilize a student loan calculator to see, hey, where are these payments going to land? Am I comfortable with those based on what I think

Starting point is 00:17:12 my expected salary is going to be when I actually graduate? Because you're going to have this over the course of four years, then you're going to graduate, and then you're going to see what your expected salary is going to be. and I want you to consider that and actually plug it into your budget if you can to think through what that would actually be. Now, one thing I would also consider when you think through this is if you are

Starting point is 00:17:32 waiting for scholarships to come through, I wouldn't make my final decision until you get the response for all those scholarships. Because if those scholarships come through and they're going to cover a lot of these costs, then it makes your decision very easy. But if those scholarships don't come through and maybe they just cover a portion of it, then you could pay cash for a portion, use the other half for your Roth IRA, do a couple of different things like that. But first, make sure it is not high interest debt. Make sure all your other high interest that is paid off. Two, make sure you have that emergency fund funded first. And then lastly, then you can utilize that cash in order to go forward and then put it into your Roth IRA or whatever else you want to grow those dollars over time. Because you got to make sure that you have all of those

Starting point is 00:18:08 bases covered. And if you're wondering where to keep that emergency fund, I like a high yield savings count. That is my favorite place to keep the emergency fund. There's a bunch of different great ones out there, some great rates out there as well. I'm not associated with any of them. I have mine an ally bank just because I like the bucket system that they have there, but I would move it in a heartbeat if I, you know, if I found a better option out there. So not like I'm married to one specific option. And so I think for sure you want to just find the best option for you. So avoiding high interest debt, having that emergency fund fully funded, if both of those things are done, and you are okay with the payments later on down the line.

Starting point is 00:18:40 There's nothing wrong with investing it in the Roth IRA if you want to go that route. But if it's high interest debt, no, I would not do that. And if it's something that you still don't have any cash on hand for the emergency fund, then I would make sure to have that emergency fund first before I started to put those dollars into investments. That's the order I would look at it. So I hope that helps. And congratulations on starting nursing school. Can't wait to see what you do and really, really excited for you. So I appreciate the question. Thank you. All right. So the next question is, if my employer offers both a 403B Roth and a 457 Roth, what aspects would make you lean one option

Starting point is 00:19:16 over another. I work at a college, so I have a pension that is required to contribute to through the state. Outside of this retirement account, I have a Roth IRA. My goal is to have an investing rate of 25%, and I am in a spot where the third account would be needed. So I'm trying to determine which retirement account to use. I unfortunately do not have access to the HSA or this election would be simple. I do have a brokerage account, but I think the retirement account, either pre-tax or Roth, would make more sense, but feel free to disagree. So this is a wonderful question, and I think a lot of people need to think through this when they have these options. And so I'm so glad that you're thinking through this. It looks like you are doing amazing on your investing front and you were actually

Starting point is 00:19:53 saving that 25%, which is so incredibly powerful that you are doing that. For most people listening, I want you usually saving 20% or more. So 25% is really where I want you to get to. And I think that's really, really powerful that you are starting to get to that option. And so let's look at the options and the key features of both of these. And I'm going to talk through some of the things that I like about them. So first, let's look at the 403B Roth. So in two, 2024 at the time recording this, you can contribute up to $23,000 in the 403B Roth or $30,000 if you're 50 year older, including that catch-up contribution. So if you're over the age of 50, you have a catch-up contribution and you can contribute up to $30,000. 4-3B Roth typically has a wide

Starting point is 00:20:34 range of mutual funds, investment options, a bunch of other things that are available. But withdrawals made before age 59 and a half are subject to a 10% penalty unless you meet certain requirements. and RMD start at the age of 73 at the time recording this. That can go up, that can go down. A lot of times they change in the future. But right now, RMD start at age 73. Now let's look at the 457B Roth. So the 457B Roth also allows contributions up to $23,000 or $30,000 if you're 50 or

Starting point is 00:21:04 older. And it is generally similar to the 403B and often includes mutual funds and other annuities as well. It's very similar in terms of investment options to the 403B. The difference with the 457, is that there is no early withdrawal penalty after the age of 59.5 as long as you have separated from service. So if you've separated from service, there is no early withdrawal penalty. And this makes it more flexible if you need to access funds early. RMDs also start at age 73 for this one as well.

Starting point is 00:21:33 And so there's a bunch of factors when you kind of look at these and try to make your consideration. Both plans have separate contribution limits. So this is going to allow you to potentially double your savings if you can afford it. And you can contribute to the maximum to both plans independently, which is a significant advantage for high savers. But one big consideration is early withdrawal flexibility. So the 457B Roth plan allows for penalty-free withdrawals upon separation from service, regardless of how old you are. So that's the big key there, is it's regardless of age. And this flexibility can be particularly beneficial if you plan to retire early. So if your big plan is to retire early and you're looking at financial independence, this is going to be really, really beneficial for you

Starting point is 00:22:14 is to have that 457B advantage because you might need to access your funds before age 59 and a half. And so that allows you to do that. But the 403B has a limitation of withdrawals before age 59 and a half typically incur a 10% penalty. So if you're going to retire early, the 403B does have that 10% penalty, whereas the 457B has the advantage when it comes to that flexibility. Now, if you look at investment options, they both have similar investment options that kind of depends on what you have available to you, but they both have very similar investment options when it comes to that. One thing I like is that you already have a Roth IRA. And so because of that,

Starting point is 00:22:49 continuing to contribute to one or the other is going to allow you to continue that tax-free growth in which roll. And this could be a great strategy for tax diversification. But if you are planning on retiring early, if that's the big key here, is if you're planning on retiring early and you want some that flexibility, I like that 457B flexibility that allows you. And like you know, I really, really am someone who is always going to consider flexibility as one of the main weights when I'm making financial decisions. I want as much flexibility as I can possibly get within the parameters of tax diversification. So for example, a brokerage account, a taxable brokerage account obviously has a lot more flexibility than something like a Roth IRA, but I'm still going to choose a Roth IRA

Starting point is 00:23:28 over the taxable brokerage account because of that tax free growth. And so if I'm going to earn more money in that account, I'm obviously going to choose that first, but flexibility becomes a major factor if all else is equal. And so in this situation, most things are equal here. There are some minor differences as well. But if all else is equal, I like flexibility and I like having the availability of that flexibility. But that's what would tip me over the edge, is having that flexibility available if you're looking to retire early. If you're not, if you're someone who thinks they're going to work past age 59 and a half, then honestly you can choose either or whichever one you think may have some great options. But if you are going to retire early, you plan,

Starting point is 00:24:03 you might retire early, then that might be the option is to be able to look at that 457B because it gives you that additional flexibility that you may need. So hope that helps, answer your question, and let me know if you have any other questions. So lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy, clothes don't fit anymore, and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding. And when your life grows, your responsibility grows with it. That's something I've been thinking about more this spring, making sure the safety net we have in place actually matches the life that we're building. And that's where PolicyGenius comes in. PolicyGenius is an insurance

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Starting point is 00:27:22 All right, so this is an interesting thing I would kind of want to talk through as well. you know, as we start to do, usually on some of these money Q&As, I will talk about some current events when it comes to scams and things that are going on online. This one is really interesting because I think this is something that is happening a lot more and we're seeing a rise in people getting tricked with AI and deep fakes when it comes to fraud. And so if you guys didn't know on the dark web, there is something called fraud GPT and they utilize the same technology as like chat GPT and they use generative AI as well. And what they are doing is they are targeting businesses, because obviously businesses have a lot more money than us individuals to try to give

Starting point is 00:28:00 them information. And so when this happens, a lot of times what's going on right now is they will create deep fake accounts that look like executives and specific companies. And those executives are asking for either personal information of customers or they're asking for financial information or they're asking for banking information. So for example, recently a finance employee in Hong Kong was tricked into transferring $25.6 million after a deep fake video with fake colleagues and executives showed up asking for him to transfer that money over for a specific business deal. And so the rise of this generative AI has made it difficult to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent communications and criminals are using AI to create credible messages

Starting point is 00:28:40 quickly and automate this whole process where they can basically steal money from companies or steal information from companies. Now the problem is to counter these threats, a lot of companies are utilizing AI in order to counter these threats because that's really the only way they can do it right now. And so it's becoming an increasing problem. And you may have heard me talk about in the past that I had my identity stolen a long time ago. And when that happened, it was actually through the company that I was working at. Someone acted like they were the CEO of the company and asking a specific employee in the HR department for a bunch of names and information on individuals that worked in the company. And that HR person actually sent it to the CEO and it had a bunch of our social security numbers on there.

Starting point is 00:29:22 And in fact, it had, you know, thousands and thousands of employees with their social security number on there. And so this was something that became a huge, massive issue overall. And it was something that was very, very difficult for a lot of people. Now, this is one step further where they are actually creating videos and deep fake videos that looks like their executives in the company asking for specific information. And so this is happening more and more and more. And on a small scale, it's those companies that are sending fake invoices and things like that to try to get businesses to pay. these fake invoices. And so as this starts to grow, it could be, I want you to just think through this. I don't want to scare people that are listening to this podcast, but I want you to think through it is probably only a matter of time before your information could get shared. And so the way to combat this is, one, limit the amount of information that you give to other companies. I think

Starting point is 00:30:08 it's really important to understand that. And you really got to make sure, especially when you're paying for things online, is that use a credit card more and more and more. Because if they get any of your banking information, it's going to be very difficult to get some of that money back, especially if they do a direct transfer. So you got to make sure that you are protecting yourself in that way. But then also making sure that you just remove your personal information from the internet. And I talk about this all the time because the less information than they can find about you, the better off you are going to be when it comes to getting out of some of these situations.

Starting point is 00:30:42 Because all they have to do, some of these criminals, once they get a piece of your information, all they have to do is Google the rest of your information and they'll be able to find that info and utilize it against you. So for example, a lot of times what they'll do is they'll Google your name or your address and quotations or your phone number, whatever pieces of information that they get. And all the rest of your information comes up because these data brokers have them on the internet. And so the problem with this is that you need to have this information removed from these data brokers. But it takes so much time for you to get this information removed from these data brokers that I try to do it myself. And it literally took me forever. And so my favorite service to utilize for this is a service called delete me.

Starting point is 00:31:20 And delete me as a service, if you go to join delete me.com slash pfp 20, you'll actually get 20% off delete me in their service. But what they do is they go to these data brokers and they get that information removed off of the internet. It's really important to do this. I cannot stress enough because they found thousands of different websites with my information on there. And if you want your information on specific things, maybe you own a business and you want to be on specific websites, you can tell them that stuff and they'll make sure to avoid going to those websites. but what they want to do is get it off of these data brokers that are selling your information and or just giving it out to the internet for free, they want to remove that personal information off

Starting point is 00:31:58 there so that you are less susceptible to some of these frauds because I am a true believer that you've got to protect yourself now because it's only a matter of time before some of this stuff starts to happen to the rest of us. And so there's an article that came out on CNN recently that was just showing all of these different deepfakes. We'll put it down in the show notes below, but it was just showing all these different ways that generative AI is starting to become a huge problem. So get your personal information removed. Make sure that you are really cautious on the information that you actually provide to everybody else. And utilize Delete Me. I'm telling you, DeleteMe is going to save you hours and hours and hours of time. So if you go to join DeleteMe.com

Starting point is 00:32:32 slash PFP20, that's going to get you 20% off. They have a bunch of different plans on there. And it is a really, really great service. But also, if you own a business, make sure you are training your employees on some of this stuff because you don't not want to lose money within your business because this is happening so frequently. So you want to make sure you're training employees on generative AI. Make sure they're maybe calling you directly on the phone to your phone number and approving some of these big purchases and or if there's transfers of money or invoices that come in. Maybe they have to check in with you before they do that. Now, if you own a really big business, that may be difficult, but make sure there's checks and balances. So this does not happen to you.

Starting point is 00:33:06 It's really important that this doesn't happen to you. In addition, make sure you have fraud protection training for your employees as well that they go through. Make sure using multi-factor authentication for a lot of this stuff. There's just so many different things that you need to be doing. And we're going to be talking more and more and more about this stuff as we start

Starting point is 00:33:23 to progress. And I am going to be talking more and more and more about this stuff. Most people don't talk about this in the finance world, but I think it is really important to protect your finances, especially with all this fraud

Starting point is 00:33:33 going on and it's growing so incredibly rapidly. And the reason why I'm passionate about this stuff is because it happened to me and I just told you about it, but it happened to me. And so I had to do a lot of different things in order to get back to normal again.

Starting point is 00:33:45 And now that we're back to normal, I never want to go back to that situation. And I never want anybody listening to this podcast to have to go back to that situation either. So that's why we talk about this so much. And that's why we're just trying to make you aware of a lot of these different things that are going on all the time. So listen. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. I hope you truly enjoyed this episode talking through the Companion Pass, the 403B, the 457,

Starting point is 00:34:06 and also trying to decide, hey, should I pay cash my first semester? Should I invest those dollars in the raw, high array? A lot of great action-pack stuff in this episode. I truly hope each and every single one of you got value in this episode. And again, if you guys have questions, make sure you join that Master Money newsletter by going to mastermoney.com slash newsletter. And you'll be able to respond to any of those newsletters that come out with your question. And hey, you may get an answer on the show like we did today. So thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. We will see you on the next episode.

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The Personal Finance Podcast - Should I invest my Cash and Take Out Student Loans?!- Money Q&A

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