Can My Wife Become a "Stay-at-Home Mom?"

Primary Topic

This episode explores the financial feasibility and implications of one spouse becoming a stay-at-home parent, focusing on the necessary financial adjustments and strategies.

Episode Summary

Hosts Brian Preston and Bo Hanson delve into a listener's question about the financial implications of his wife becoming a stay-at-home mom. They discuss the importance of not solely relying on potential future inheritances for financial planning and emphasize the need for robust personal savings and investment. The episode also highlights how external financial gifts should be viewed as bonuses, not guarantees. The conversation is interlaced with practical advice on financial planning, focusing on maintaining a solid savings rate despite income reductions, and understanding the impact of such life decisions on future financial independence.

Main Takeaways

  1. Don't rely solely on future inheritances; plan finances based on current assets and realistic savings.
  2. Understand the importance of maintaining a strong savings rate, regardless of income level.
  3. Evaluate the financial implications of a reduced household income when considering one spouse becoming a stay-at-home parent.
  4. Use financial tools and resources to simulate future financial scenarios and plan accordingly.
  5. Maintain open communication about financial goals and expectations between spouses.

Episode Chapters

1. Introduction

The hosts introduce the episode's topic and set the stage for the discussion. They emphasize the importance of financial planning. Brian Preston: "Good financial health requires more than just hope for future gifts."

2. Listener's Question

A detailed discussion on the listener's scenario where the husband contemplates the financial viability of his wife becoming a stay-at-home mom. Bo Hanson: "It's crucial to plan as if the money won't come, to ensure financial security."

3. Financial Planning Advice

Advice on how to approach financial planning when considering major life changes, such as reducing household income. Brian Preston: "Always consider the worst-case scenario in your financial plans to ensure you're covered."

4. Closing Thoughts

Summarization of the key points discussed and encouragement for listeners to engage with financial planning tools and resources. Bo Hanson: "Empower your financial decision-making with solid data and realistic planning."

Actionable Advice

  1. Evaluate your current savings: Regularly assess your savings rate and adjust according to life changes.
  2. Use financial calculators: Utilize tools like wealth multipliers to understand the future potential of your current savings.
  3. Plan for worst-case scenarios: Always have a financial backup plan in case expected incomes or gifts fail to materialize.
  4. Communicate openly: Ensure all financial decisions are discussed and agreed upon with your spouse to maintain harmony.
  5. Educate yourself: Continuously seek financial education to improve your planning and management skills.

About This Episode

"Do you have any parameters for determining whether my wife can become a stay at home mom? Income would go from $150k to $70k. No mortgage or debt of any kind."
We'll walk you through that question and more in today's Q&A episode!

People

Brian Preston, Bo Hanson

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Transcript

Brian Preston
Do you see what I mean, though? Marathon runner. I mean, when we try to put this in, somebody's gonna turn this into a 45 2nd clip, and people go, what was that? Good luck. I mean, should we put on a clock?

Bo Hanson
Should we give him exactly 45 seconds to answer the next question? You wanna try it? You wanna try it? That would be a fun exercise. Can we say a minute?

Ruby
I don't think you're gonna be able to do it. I'm not a question. I asked you not gonna say one word. We're gonna give you 1 minute to go, and then you can always come back to the. And then we'll pick up the pieces out.

Brian Preston
Full disclosure, though, with this exercise, I know I'm not good at it, so this is why this is a fun exercise, is. I would like to give you some credit. If you practice, if you just practice or, like, work on it a little bit, you can do it. Well, think about how practice. How much better practice.

Bo Hanson
How much better are his media hits now than they were a couple months ago? Right. Your media hits are getting better and better and better and better. Again, it's a muscle you have not flexed. That muscle's getting jacked now.

Brian Preston
You know what I mean? Yeah, I want it. Okay. Do you want to try? Are you doing it on this question?

Is this a good question to do? Yeah, I mean, I'm just gonna go with the question I've got. I'm not overthinking it. So we're doing 1 minute. 1 minute.

Okay, let's hit it. Go. Oh, my. Okay, Brian. To answer in 1 minute, Connie's question.

Ruby
It says the husband's parents will give him 1 million at age 65. So they and my husband are confused why we're aggressively funding retirement, 48% of our income. Ooh. We're in our late thirties and only have 50k in retirement, though. How old are you?

Am I crazy? How old? In their late thirties. Okay. And they have how much?

And, oh, I was gonna be like, go. They have 50k. They have 50k in their retirement. They're saving 48% of their income, but their parents are saying, hey, at age 65, we're giving you $1 million. Okay, go.

Brian Preston
Go, Connie. So, first of all, I was going to. I was going to be like, if you're saving 48%, what are y'all doing? Especially with this? But then you gave me the rest of the story.

If you are in your late thirties, that means that there was a lot of procrastination at some point. If you're only at 50,000. So it sounds like your spouse has recognized, hey, we're a little behind. So he went beyond 25%. So I'd first go to moneyguy.com resources, see what saving and investing 25% can do for you by age.

So then you all can have a conversation on do we need to be at 48% or do we need to be closer to 25%? Now the second part of this, the million dollars, look, a parent telling you that you inherit a million dollars at 65, that might happen. I mean it very well. But are you sure it's going to happen? There's a lot of life that can happen to people where maybe that money goes away, maybe their intentions change, maybe there's something that happens at that million dollar goes away.

Not want to base your entire financial independence on somebody you care about dying or giving you something, go ahead. Don't skip leg day. Get your personal finances in order. I think you all are in the right path. Just have good communication and look at what 25% can do for you.

Is that my number? That's not. But that's not a minute. Oh, what was it? It's close.

It's a minute and 20 seconds. I blew past. I was like, surely that's not the number. That's not happened. Now Bo can give you the real answer.

Ruby
What else would you like to say? Oh no, that was great. That was great. I actually thought it was a good, it was a good answer. Here's what I thought of as I was hearing the question, I thought of the jelly of the month club.

Bo Hanson
That's what I thought about. Right? Because Clark Griswold. Clark Gris. There's a case study involving Clark Griswold where he knew some money was coming his way.

Brian Preston
He made some, cousin Eddie, he made. Some very aggressive life decisions banking on that money showing up. And unfortunately, when it came time for that money to show up, it did not show up. And Mister Greswold was absolutely stuck. Now, I'm not saying that's the situation that's going to happen with you and your parents may be super financially independent where they can give this kind of gift.

Bo Hanson
What I worry about is what if that doesn't come to fruition? What if the economy changes? What if their circumstances change? What if that thing that they said was going to happen does not happen? We've seen this firsthand with people that are near and dear to us where a parent said, hey, we're going to pay for college, we're going to pay for college, we're going to pay for college.

We're going to pay for college. Pay for college. Pay for college. Student gets to college and all of a sudden parent says, hey, by the way, I don't have any money. I can't pay for college.

We have seen that actual thing play out. Now, here's what I want you to focus on, connie, you are in your late thirties and you got $50,000 saved up, which is incredible. If you go to moneyguy.com resources, look at the wealth multiplier, you can see what that wealth multiplier can turn into. What I worry about is if you stop saving and you cut back your savings and you just begin on living all of your income and you live this lifestyle, and then at 65, you get $1 million, which, by the way, $1 million when you turn 65 will not be the same as $1 million today. So the purchasing power of $1 million then will not be the same as today.

Well, if your lifestyle is increased and you want to just use really easy math, 4%, 5% withdrawal rate, a million dollars could generate maybe 40, $50,000 a year of income. If you spent your entire life living on more than that, and your lifestyle has increased with inflation, but the gift does not increase with inflation, you're going to come up short. So I would encourage you save as though that million dollars is not going to show up so that you'll be prepared for retirement, even if it doesn't. And then what happens is, by the way, that doesn't mean, say, 48%. It means to get to 25%, get to where you should be, to get to the number you need to be at.

And then what happens is, as you get closer and closer to age 65, you will be able to assign a probability to how likely is this million dollar gift going to happen? Well, as the window narrows, as the timeline narrows, it becomes more and more highly probable. Then you can begin thinking about, okay, how do I incorporate that into the plan right now, nearly 25 years out, I think it's too early to start factoring that in. By the way, can I get 10 seconds? Because I think I can do this whole thing in 10 seconds.

Ruby
Let's see. See, I'm developing that muscle. You know what happens when you assume you're going to get a million dollars at 65? It turns a beep out of you and me. He was doing the assumed thing.

Oh, I got it. My summary was, hey, chop that up. That's a YouTube short. There you go. That's it.

Bo Hanson
Chop that one up. That's fantastic. Self bleeped, too. Nailed it. 10 seconds.

Minute, 18 seconds. Just needed a little second. The problem is when you go on a tv show, they don't come back to you two minutes later and go, Brian, do you want to do it again? And be like, no, I'm a marathon runner, so I didn't get it on the first take, but that was a fun game. That was a fun game.

Ruby
Well, Connie, I would say, no, you're not crazy. I just think that there's that 48%. That's a conversation. Is that actually what it needs to be? Yep.

There's probably some due diligence or even, like, some explaining and talking and communicating with your spouse on that. That could be done. So hopefully that helps. Thanks for being here. Okay, next question is from Steven.

It says, I have that with a. Ph or a v. This is with a v, Steven. With a v. I misspelled it.

Bo Hanson
I wouldn't have known I misspelled it. How could you? Good thing we clarified. Steven asks, I have been working while my wife finishes her doctorate in fine arts. So not high paying.

Ruby
Now that she's done, should we stop saving to help pay off all of the new debt, which is about 70k?

Bo Hanson
Well, Stephen, I'm going to use. I'm going to use you as a cautionary tale. I apologize, but this is an educational program where we want to educate others, and I'm assuming that you'll be okay with this. If not, I apologize. If not.

But you just said something, and you're kind of recognizing this. Man, my wife is going to graduate with this degree, and it's a low paying. It sounds like it's going to be a low paying career, and yet we have a lot of student loan debt that is going to have accumulated to acquire this degree. That's going to be low paying. Well, that's what we would call a negative arbitrage.

Right. I bought this thing, this education that cost this much, but the payoff I'm going to get from it is lower than that. What we would like to see in an ido situation is, can you balance those? Our rule of thumb is you never really want to have student loan debt that exceeds more than what you expect the first year salary in your vocation to be. And if you can do that, you're likely going to set yourself up on solid foundational footing.

However, we know, because the studies let us know, tons of Americans don't find themselves in that situation. They find themselves in a situation just like yours. Hey, we're about to have a lot of debt. How do we approach this? How do we tackle this?

How do we think about getting out of the student loan debt? Well, so go to moneyguy.com resources or go to moneyguy.com millionaire mission. I've got a book that details all the steps of the financial order of operations and the mindset and the origin story. You need to quickly figure out the student loan rate that your wife's subject to. Is that going to be high interest debt?

Brian Preston
Is that going to be low interest debt? And if it's high interest debt, let me give you some perspectives. If you're in your twenties, it's six and over, is what I consider high interest. If you're in your thirties, it's 5%. If you're in your forties, it's 4%.

Because we want you to be out of student loan debt at some point in your life. But that's going to kind of prioritize where you are in the financial order of operations on paying off those type of debts, because, look, I know Bo said you're the cautionary tell, but it's one of those things where I think you and your spouse can definitely get this accomplished and overcome because you're already, I mean, you're hanging out and watching a financial show called the money Guy show. So that's a good start. That is a great start. There's about, you don't have to be perfect to still come out on the other end with tremendous success.

So I would encourage you, just stay the course, follow and be inspired, and let the system actually nurture and accelerate your path. That's what the financial order operations will do. Can I ask you to expand on just one thing that we've seen play out practically? Cause he said, hey, should we shut down all our savings and pay off this debt? And you've had people that have done this before.

Bo Hanson
Like, you have people in your life that have said, hey, I've got to get out of debt. I've got to be debt free. I've got to be debt free. I've got to be debt free. There was, I think there was an attorney who I'm thinking of tell.

Just talk a little bit about that. And she won. She was very successful, very good attorney. Did have student loan debt right out of school, and I found out that she was not. She worked at a good law firm that had a really good retirement plan.

Brian Preston
Found out that she was doing zero money to the 401K, even though there was a great match from this employer. She was so excited well, she also, she felt like she had to get out of all debt. And I was like, you'll notice, never get those years back that you're at your, at that age. You'll never get the years back to get that free money from your employer. That's the equivalent of 100% guaranteed rate of return.

That's why I really do talk about the financial order of operations is because we try to really do the assessment, we go through triage for you of what do you need to do first? That's why highest deductibles, number one, getting that 50% to 100% guaranteed rate of return with your employer making those contributions because the government incentivizes that. That's very important. And then step three, now, let's focus on those high interest debts. And look, high interest debt, because I know credit cards are even, like, at 20% right now, and you're like, how in the world do you have employer match before credit cards with 20% interest rates?

I would say is because very few things are going to give you 50% to 100% guaranteed. So that's why we've tried to give you the path that lets you maximize, but also have a path to get out from under the weight and the pressure of this debt. It's great. Thanks for the question, Stephen. Really glad you're here hanging out with us and talking personal finance today.

Ruby
Thomas's question is up next. Hey, I have a question for you, Ruby. Yeah. How many people do you think you gotta pick a number have never been subscribed to the channel before. They just subscribe today.

Bo Hanson
Like, today was like, number of people. Yeah. Like, how many people in the live chat right now have subscribed? Haven't subscribed. Let me ask you a better question.

How many people in live chat should subscribe? Do you know? You don't. You just try. This is basically Bo saying, subscribe now.

Brian Preston
That's what I'm going to say. That's smart. That is smart. I will say, like, I know that we have people that watch that don't, aren't subscribed yet. We know that.

Ruby
So I'm always like, yeah, come on. If you like it, subscribe. Here's the thing. If you're not subscribed, you're renting your seat. And look, hey, that's fine.

Bo Hanson
We would love to know you're there. We want to know that your butt is in a seat. And the only way we can know that is if you subscribe. And by the way, when you subscribe, you stay up to date with all the new stuff that we're putting out there, all the exciting stuff that we release. So if you're not subscribed, we would love it.

If you subscribe. I do want to clarify, and I know we have two more questions that we've got to get to soon, but here's the thing that. That I think is interesting. You say subscribe, so that's going to help you on YouTube. But I think the real value is going to moneyguy.com and then signing up for the newsletter.

Why do you think that's a big value? Because this thing is rocking it now. I mean, the crew knows. There was, there was a two to three week period where somehow my email address was not. I don't know.

Brian Preston
And I looked in spam folders. I looked everywhere. And, you guys know, I was losing my mind. I was like, because these letters.

Bo Hanson
I'm curious. I know what Megan at done in. The newsletter this week that I was like, get it? I was like, y'all gotta forward that thing to me. I want to see, because we're doing tips of the week.

Brian Preston
We're giving you time stamps on the best questions for the week. And then Megan's even writing some. Some content in there that's. She's showing you some of the slides that. That have really connected.

And I love it. I think it's really good. So, yeah, of course I want you to subscribe on YouTube. I'll do like, all the other influencers out there. Ring the bell so you can, you know, you know, everything.

I don't even know what that does, but it's okay. Do you know what? Ring the bell. I don't even know what it means, but, you know, but it. But I know it's important.

But then. But I think that newsletter is the bomb diggity right now. So, you know, and Megan is crushing it. It really is great. I have people in my world, like friends, who say, hey, man, I saw that piece in the newsletter about things I learned when I changed jobs or things I learned when I bought my first house.

Bo Hanson
I'm like, awesome. That's. And they're like, I don't listen to your show. I talk to you all the time. But I got the newsletter.

Newsletter's pretty good. And I was like, oh, well, here's another inside baseball. And then I promise we'll get back to what y'all are even here for my publicist, you know, because I have this publicist for the book. She's like, you know, I signed up for y'all stuff. She's like, all y'all do is send out, like, this really nice newsletter.

Brian Preston
And then when you have updates, I was like, yeah. And she's like, you probably should be using that a little differently. And I was like, well, that's just kind of how we do things. We don't try to ruin your life. I've signed up on those email lists where, you know, you're like, oh, my gosh, 19 emails.

Day two is just, you know, just crushing me. We have, on purpose, not done. It's very on brand for the way we're using the email. So sign up. I mean, it's not, like, really the big thing for me because I see it in all the content chat rooms.

People like, if only I'd start asking for email addresses back when I started. And I have that regret. I mean, I started doing this 18 years ago, and I just wrote it for the ride for a long time. And now I'm so sad. Of all the people that I probably could have known who they were.

So in case platforms changed. So that's why we're serious about email addresses, because I think it's just nice to know who your audience is, know who the people are, and get connected. We don't try to blow you up or ruin you or do anything like that. So feel free to go sign up@moneyguy.com. Dot man, look at the chat.

Bo Hanson
Some great chat comments coming in. I love the newsletter. It's never spam. I like that. Thank you.

That is very kind. So, in summary, you should subscribe to this YouTube channel that you're watching right now. And then you should go to moneyguy.com and click on Connect with us. Or scroll down to the bottom and there's a little email field that just says, like, hey, connect with us. Put in your email, and that's how you get that newsletter on Saturday.

Ruby
All right, are you ready for another financial question? I know Megan's probably like, will you stop talking about this newsletter? There he is with that dag on newsletter talk again. Okay, Thomas's question is up next. It says, do you have any parameters?

Brian Preston
Cause I had already written Thomas's name down. You'd already started this. And then we ended up. Go ahead, hit us. Why did you not let me go with that?

Bo Hanson
Do you realize I was about to put on a show of a lifetime? I was a psychic. Oh. I was about to turn it on. I would have caught on eventually.

It'd have taken you a while. Sorry I missed that opportunity, Thomas. You say Thomas. Thomas has a question. He says, do you have any parameters for determining whether the wife can stay home, can be a stay at home mom?

Ruby
So it sounds like she has this desire potentially income would go from 150k household to 70k. They don't have any mortgage or debt of any kind. I thought that this was an interesting question, because I think this is a common scenario where one spouse wants to stay home. And also, just what do you bought when you want to make a career change? Or like, one person isn't going to make the same amount?

Any parameters or thoughts on how to make a change like that? Man, I love this question so much because I get asked it often, right? Because, again, Reeves, we're in the messy middle. This is the world in which we live. And I hear so many people say all the time, oh, man, I wish I could be home.

Bo Hanson
We're paying for. We're paying for daycare. We're doing this. We got our kids going, all this place, and I just. I don't love work, and I want to be home, and I want to spend time with them.

That's when I choose to remind them, hey, just, just let's level set real quick. Money is nothing more than a tool that allows you to achieve the things that you want to achieve. It allows you to work towards your real goals, and it helps you get there. It's not the goal in and of itself. But.

Brian Preston
But does that mean you just follow your heart, bo? No, you just follow your true being. And then you never be. No, you have to assign, okay, what are those things that I value, and what are the goals that we have? So you said right now, hey, we're making $150,000 of income, and we're going to go into $70,000 of income.

Bo Hanson
That's a 50% decrease in your income. Here would be the first question I would ask. Can your lifestyle, can the lifestyle that you guys are living take a 50% decrease or take near a 50% decrease? Now, if you're getting rid of, like, childcare and daycare and that sort of stuff, there's a good chance that. That maybe it could, because the name of the game is savings rate.

But the reason that we want to have a high savings rate is so that we can replace our living expenses. Our living expenses, the dollars that we need to do the things that we want to do. So I think where that pendulum swings depends on your lifestyle. If you can get your lifestyle down low enough that you're still saving 25%, even when you go from 150 down to 70. If you can live off of 70 and you can still save 20% to 25% of that, or depending on where you are in your journey, you figure out what that savings rate is.

There's a good chance that you're still going to be able to reach and achieve financial independence later in life based on the lifestyle that you're living. We have seen scenarios where there are households that make less than $100,000 gross, where they're able to make it, where one spouse drops out and stays home. We have seen it where there are households that make $300,000 gross and they could not afford for one spouse to stay home. It all comes down to living expenses and lifestyle and the opportunity cost of making that decision. And what you have to do is you have to do some soul searching around goals, and then you have to do some budget tracking to see where are we and realistically, where can we be.

Brian Preston
Okay, first thing, Thomas Cash is your friend. You're going to. I would tell you, I've been there, done that. I've walked this journey. When I.

When I started my first venture in 2002, I went from six figures to $17,000 my first year out. So how did I make it out on the other side? Well, that's why cash. I had to actually build up enough cash to get me through what I already planned was going to be a lean few years. I mean, I think I had planned for three years, so I built up cash accordingly, and that's.

That's going to be step two. So cash is your friend? No, that's going to be a very powerful, powerful tool. But you need to know, kind of begin with the end in mind, meaning that, yes, this is a pretty dramatic drift. You go from 150 to 70.

That's a material change using that accounting term. So you got to figure out what's the way out. And there's going to be either somebody has to make more money, or y'all gotta just dramatically change your expenditure, your spending structure. So that works within that. And if there's a spread between those numbers, that's when step three is put on those 3d glasses.

This is when you kind of start doing the homework. You see how much cash you have, you see how long you anticipate that you'll have this situ, that you need to have to reach your new equilibrium. Then you'll need to come up with a plan. And I always say, when you're doing planning, put on your 3d glasses, because this means you go right, three separate plans. You're going to have the dream.

This is like, man, you know, my spouse quit working. I got the best promotion at work. It all lined up perfectly. This thing we're building blossoming memories. This was the best idea ever.

And then I want you to do the down to earth plan. This is where you're like, this is what will likely happen. It's going to be a struggle for us. But if this lines up, if I do this, if we cut this expense here, it's going to be okay. Then I need you to assume the do do plan.

This is the third one. Don't skip this step. Nobody wants to do this step, but it's important to actually do the doo doo plan, because this means maybe not only does she quit working, but maybe you lose your job. You need to kind of start thinking about, what does that mean? How do I, what is the come out on the other side of survival?

And I think if you do that exercise, you'll kind of have all the variables you need to now have an open communication with your spouse, and you'll figure out, how do we do it? I can tell you, you know, my catalyst, when my dad passed away in 2000, I was like, I do not like where my life is right now. But it took me, like, 14 months from the time I had this realization to when I actually pulled the trigger of saying, I am going to make this change, because I realized I just didn't have enough money. I didn't like where I was. So I used that time to kind of build the bridge and get me to where I wanted to be financially.

I think that's great. Great answer. So, yeah, Thomas, it's certainly possible, but pay attention to everything they just said. That was a great answer. Then good luck on figuring it out.

Bo Hanson
It's a hard. That's messy middle ish. And I realize success does not require perfection. This is the messy middle when you're short on both time and money. But just be deliberate with the process.

Brian Preston
We've tried to give you the steps. You can make it through this. But I respect her desire, and I respect the creativity. Cause we get a lot of questions, like, you know, daycare is expensive, messy. The messy middle is messy.

Ruby
So you got to make some choices. And so good answer, guys, as they think through that, Daniel's question is up next. He says, y'all talk about when to start saving for retirement, but is there ever a good time to stop saving for retirement? Is there a time where the dollars are better spent than put into stocks and retirement funds? Well, that's the whole idea of financial independence, right?

Bo Hanson
Like that's, that, that's the whole thing that we're working towards, right? Where we accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, and then we get to the point to where we know that our pot of money is so big that it can provide for the rest of our lives, no matter what the economy throws at it, at the standard of living that we desire. And then we have to, like, flip the switch and we turn into spenders where then we start consuming the assets and living off of the assets. And what I think is so funny is there's a dear, dear, dear friend client of ours, and every single, he's been retired, I don't know, seven, eight years now. And he writes this every year.

He's like, guys, I keep trying to spend money. The account keeps getting bigger, the portfolio keeps growing. I'm trying to. And we're like, yeah, man, that is exactly what a beautiful financial independence plan looks like. Because he was such a diligent saver, he did so good building up those resources that once he hits financial, hit financial independence, they don't have to save anymore.

Now, what I worry about, Brian, and I'd be curious to get your thought on this. I see so many young folks that they get an Excel spreadsheet or they get a calculator, Google sheets, and they're like, hey, I'm 39 years old, and I figured exactly how much I've saved up until now, and I'd had the wealth multiplier. And I know that that 39 is going to exactly turn into this by the time that I'm 65, I'll have to save another dime. Is that the advice that you would give someone? Well, the problem, this cuts both ways.

Brian Preston
And the fact that the more you spend, that's the bigger your financial tell is in the future that you're going to have to carry that weight, because that's always been my secret hack to being good with money. I just didn't spend a lot of money. I mean, if you don't spend a lot of money, even as you start making a lot of money, even if I quit making a lot of money and saving a lot of money, if I just don't spend a ton or, you know, really can afford and have this, you know, it's not because I don't have a minimalist life, but I just don't spend a ton of money unless something brings purpose to me. You know, it's. I'm very deliberate with how I spend, so I don't just do it for the sake of it.

But it is one of those things where I think that I. This. There's get wealthy behaviors, there's stay wealthy behaviors, and I hesitate if somebody like Daniel, did Daniel give his age? No. I get nervous about 20 somethings who are in great income situations thinking that, hey, I'm already saving 25%.

I can go on easy street now. And this is when I should go buy the McLaren, you know, or something like that. When you don't have your critical mass yet, you haven't built up that first hundred thousand dollars is legit. And then if you're after, you get to 100,000. That's why I can't wait for the milestone episode that we have coming out, is because it's going to show people the way a financial mutant thinks about money.

And all those milestones you're hitting financially so you can know you're on the right path. What I don't want to have happen is you have a great income in your twenties. You get to your thirties, and then you pull up and you just start living, and then it changes, and you're like a professional athlete that had this golden opportunity to save and build, but you just never reached the critical mass. It's what should have been or could have been. Now, on the other side of that, I have 40 somethings who write me, who tell me they're seven figure portfolio.

They tell me how there's a lot of pride in them, that they're living this tight, wild life, but their family's complaining that they keep staying at KoA sites and all these cheap things that they're doing on vacation, and I'm like, you have lost the plot on what money is for you. I mean, if you're, all of your loved ones hate your idea of a vacation because you're doing it like you are on spring break and your 20 something year old broke self, you might be doing it wrong because you only get one decade to be in your twenties, one decade to be in your thirties, one decade to be in your forties. I want you to live your best life. And I see this, and this is something I encourage. I think a lot of people think as financial advisors, we're out of the mold of Suzy Orman.

She had this very popular segment where people would call in and say, hey, I want to go to Europe. No. No way. Hey, I'd like to go get another car. No.

No way. Hey, I would like to go see a relative that I haven't seen, and they're on their deathbed. No, way. Get the heck out of here. You better be saving more money.

And that's what I think everybody thinks financial advisors are all about. The no, the reality is, is one of my favorite things is because most people who come see, you know, a wealth advisor like us is they're already successful. They already have multiple seven figures. So. So I get to tell them, yes, go do more, please, spend more of your money, make more memories, do more things with your family.

But I don't do that without having the taking the temperature of the situation and know that they really are unstable ground. So that's why if you're one of those people and you're not at the point that you need a financial advisor yet, I would encourage you go to learn dot moneyguy.com dot we do have a know your number course. You can do some great spot checks and some work with our tools, and you can play around with the variables on rates of return, inflation, your savings rates, all those things will let you see are you ahead of the curve, behind the curve, or right on the curve? But just don't live a life of regret where you either save too little or save too much. I'm more about that Goldilocks situation, and that's why I've tried to put the mindset in millionaire mission to not only do the math and the analytics, but also give you the mindset so you live the best life you possibly can.

Ruby
The money Guy show is hosted by Brian Preston. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound wealth management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the money Guy show. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.