How to Financially Prepare for a Baby

This episode provides practical advice and strategies for future parents to financially prepare for the arrival of a baby.

1. Assess Filing Status: Consider the financial implications of filing taxes jointly vs. separately as a married couple, especially in the context of contributions to Roth accounts.
2. Insurance Needs: Evaluate the necessity of professional liability insurance, particularly when a side hustle or small business is involved.
3. Financial Planning: Importance of a robust financial plan that includes an emergency fund, especially when planning for a child.
4. Budget Adjustments: Prepare for increased expenses not just from baby gear, but also from ongoing costs like daycare, which can be substantial.
5. Healthcare Costs: Make sure health insurance covers all pregnancy-related costs and be prepared for the deductible expenses for both mother and child.

1: Tax Implications and Filing Status

Discusses the nuances of tax filing statuses for married couples and how it affects financial planning. Quotes include:

• Brian Preston: "There are different rules that apply to each of your incomes when you file separately."
• Bo Hanson: "It's normally less advantageous to file separately due to the loss of certain tax benefits."

2: Insurance and Liability

Examines the necessity of insurance, specifically professional liability insurance for small businesses or side hustles. Quotes include:

• Brian Preston: "Insurance is something you pay for hoping never to use."
• Nate O'Brien: "Professional insurance is crucial, especially when you rely on your expertise to earn."

3: Financial Preparations for a Baby

Covers detailed financial strategies to handle the expenses and budget adjustments necessary when expecting a child. Quotes include:

• Bo Hanson: "The health insurance part is really crucial to plan for when expecting a baby."
• Brian Preston: "You don't have to shut everything down and stockpile cash."

1. Evaluate Tax Filing Options: Run scenarios for different filing statuses to see which is more financially beneficial.
2. Secure Adequate Insurance: Ensure you have the necessary insurance coverages, including health and professional liability.
3. Build a Comprehensive Emergency Fund: Aim for an emergency fund that covers at least six months of expenses.
4. Plan for Increased Expenses: Adjust your budget to accommodate new expenses such as childcare and healthcare.
5. Health Insurance Review: Thoroughly understand your health insurance coverage to avoid unexpected costs during delivery.

"Your neighbors down the road say to stop everything and pile up cash when expecting a child. What is the Money Guys' advice for upcoming Financial Mutant Parents?"
We'll walk you through that question and more in today's Q&A episode!

People

Brian Preston, Bo Hanson, Nate O'Brien

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

Nate O'Brien

Content Warnings:

None

Bo Hanson
All right, well, let's move on to that question from Swizzcheese. It says, the wife and I have a unique, unique tax circumstances. So we file married filing separately. So, one, can you speak to financial planning implications of filing separately? And two, currently, we're currently doing Roth 503, but want to do a Roth IRA.

Can I do a backdoor married filing separately? So can you just give a little guidance on this unique situation? So one of the unique things so people, a lot of people don't realize this, is that when it comes time to file your tax return, you can kind of choose your filing status. Some couples can choose married filing joint return, which is the common. The common filing structure for couples.

Brian Preston
But some other folks, you can elect to do a married filing separate return, where there are different limits and different rules that apply to each of your incomes. You essentially report your incomes independent of one another, and you fill out your taxes accordingly. And in some scenarios, when you actually look at the bottom line, taxes paid, it could be more advantageous in certain circumstances to file married filing separately versus married filing jointly. Now, swizz, I don't know what the answer is in your case, but here's what you do need to know. And Brian, you've done taxes for, like, a gazillion years, a trained CPA, which is super, super impressive.

When you change your filing status, whether you're going from single to married filing jointly, or married filing jointly to head of household, or married filing jointly to married filing separately, the tax rules that apply to you, and even some of the things that make you eligible for things like Roth contributions and Roth income limits begin to change. So one of the things I would encourage you to look at, and most accounting software will allow you to do this, or if you have a really good account and it'll let you do this, you can run your return one way, and then you can look at it another way and you can compare the differences. Well, if we do it married falling jointly, this is the bottom line tax we pay, and these are the credits we hit. And da da da da da. Married falling separately, different, different.

So you should look at it both ways and figure out which one is optimal for your situation and circumstance. I mean, look, married filing separately is such a unique structure. You know, just so people know that that means that likely, and I don't know their specific situation, but it is a very. You. You don't typically default to want wanting to file separately.

Nate O'Brien
Typically, you're trying to keep. It's normally less advantageous. Yeah, you're trying. There's liability protections, innocent spouse protections. There's all kind of things.

While you file separate, I will tell you, it blows up a lot of planning opportunities. That's why it has to rise to a threshold that you. That you have this structure. I had to, because at first I didn't know the answer either, so I thought I'd, you know, fortunately, I keep these nerdy little tax references so that I get too stumped. And listen, this is pretty fascinating is that, you know, you know, it all comes to because the IR's is so they thought about this.

They want to know, if you're filing separate, do you live with your spouse? Do you not live with your spouse? And that matters because if you live with your spouse, like on Roth, phase out, income, phase outs, we know typically for, like, a married couple, I mean, that thing is close to $230 to $240,000. Yeah, live with your spouse, your income phase out at zero to $10,000, a little bit different. So you pretty much can't do Roth if you're filing separate, because if you're living with your spouse, if you live out, away from your spouse, y'all are.

Y'all are filing separate returns. Maybe this is separated, like the marriage is coming to an end or something. It does go up to $146 to $161,000 income phase out for 2024. So you can see there's a lot of restrictions. Be careful.

Do your research, and then also just make sure that the reason you all are filing separate, really, is you were told this by an attorney or you were told by somebody you know has done all the work, because it does add some, some complications. I'll leave it to you to do the due diligence and research, but that's a great question. I wish I had the rosy answer that told you no rock and roll. Just contribute like normal. But it's a pretty complex situation.

Yep. Well, swizz cheese, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate you taking the time to ask a question, and we love to say thank you by sending you a tumblr. So if you would like one, just email Matt. Matt moneyguy.com, and we'll work on getting that sent out to you.

Now, you said his name two separate ways. At first you said, swiz cheese. Like, that's what it is, Swizz. And then you said, thank you, swiss cheese. Did I?

Bo Hanson
I'm sorry, Swizz. No, I didn't. One more time. I feel like schoolhouse rocks is going on here. Rivy, do you know schoolhouse rocks?

I do. Okay, awesome. Oh, yeah. I can sing you some of the songs. I could sing you the preamble if.

Brian Preston
You want, but you can't go. No, I'm just a bill. Nice try on Capitol Hill. Let's keep going. Next livestream will just be a concert.

Bo Hanson
Who sang it better? Schoolhouse rock. You know, what do you think? Is there a chance? Do you think it might happen that one of the four book tour locations, Brian, might randomly break out in song?

Nate O'Brien
No. No. Might that happen? You never know. The only way anything can happen is if you are at one of the book tour locations.

Brian Preston
So go to moneyguy.com book tour and get your tickets in Nashville, Texas, Georgia. I'm sorry, I'm doing it wrong. Nashville, Dallas, Atlanta or Washington, DC. Get your ticket so that you can come hang out with us. We want to meet you guys.

We want to see you guys. And you might get to hear Brian Sing schoolhouse rock. No, you're not going to hear that. I will say this weekend, I got my. Somehow y'all fixed the email issue and I'm still getting.

Nate O'Brien
I'm now getting the money guy newsletter. You had a crackpot team? No, it took three weeks for me to get it fixed. I don't know what Megan danched. It was a fluke thing.

Now I get the newsletter every week and I thought was cool. This week is when I read the email, there was actually a sales update on the tour because they're. And just for you guys to, you know, if you're playing along, they're not telling me numbers on purpose because I. This is. This is not a joke.

I really told them. I was like, don't tell me anything because I'm, you know, I'm nervous about this whole endeavor of asking you guys to come out and see it. Meet us at these book tours. Well, anyway, in the newsletter, if you go to Moneyguy.com, you also can subscribe to the same newsletter. It had an update and it said Dallas VIP tickets sold out.

And then it had Washington, DC. Its vip sales were in very small. Very close to being sold out. So I was like, what? There's an update?

Because they're keeping me in the dark. I got a little bit. So that kind of gave me the tingles. It made me feel pretty excited that you guys are actually coming to see us. It really does make me happy.

Bo Hanson
And the VIP ticket, you get an actual meet and greet and actually get to hang out with the guys with us, have some time before the show to share a story, get a book signed, whatever you, like, you know, get a picture, whatever you might want to do. And it's just cool to see that people want to say hi, you know? That's great. It's going to be so fun. I love it.

Brian Preston
I think I am so excited because. We want to say hi, too, so we're excited to see you all. Okay, are you ready for the next question? Yeah. What are we down to?

Nate O'Brien
I get 15 seconds on this one. I'm just kidding. We'll be normal. You're down to however long it takes to answer Ricky's question. Ricky.

Ricky. Ricky says, I'm an engineer with a pretty new side hustle, and I'm not sure what to do about professional liability insurance. It's expensive. Do I really need it when I'm a small company with an LLC in place? Well, do I need liability insurance?

Brian Preston
Only when you get sued, right? Like, that's the name of the game, right? So we get business owners. Ask me all this. Ask this question all the time.

Oh, do I really need this insurance? Do I really need to. Oh, do I really need a renter's property? The renter's policy. Do I really need to protect my contents?

Well, only if there's a fire flood in the building. Yeah, then you'd need it. Do I really need professional liability? Well, only if you end up in a litigious situation where someone thinks you did something wrong and accuses you of doing that something wrong, and then you have to defend yourself from actually saying that you did that thing wrong. Insurance is so unique.

Cause it's the one product that we all pay for and we hope we never, ever, ever use. Right? I mean, think about most insurances we have. We don't want to get sick and go to the doctor. We don't want to get in a car crash and have to fix the car.

We don't want to die and have life insurance paid out. We pay for insurance and hope we never use it. Professional insurance is the exact same way. But, man, it is something that if you don't have it and you need it, that is when you start to see people. That's when you hear the tragedy stories of, man, I was doing this and doing this.

Then all of a sudden, this thing, this event, this happening, caused me to have to shut down. And I just don't know. I don't know that it's worth risking it. Well, Ricky, I think you're not too different than us in the fact that you're an engineer and you have a. You do have this side hustle engineer is a very specialized.

Nate O'Brien
I mean, people are paying you for your knowledge, and I don't know if you're doing structural engineer. I don't know if you're doing design work or what, but people are going to be relying upon your competence. And that does open you up, especially, you know, to a standard that you could be easily sued. So I will tell you, I would err on having insurance because I'm always nervous about what I don't want to have happen is that you work so hard to build and then, you know, one mistake, because we all, to err is to be human. You make some mistake and then this catastrophically takes you out.

And all the work you've done, your family's impacted, and all these other things, it's just not worth it. So if I can, you know, it's no different than why does cash get two steps in the financial order operation? Step one and step four is because step one is highest deductible covered, so that you can just basically wipe away all the catastrophic risks that you have so you can get back to your wealth building journey. Well, professionally, you need to do the exact same thing. You need to check the box on getting your.

Your catastrophic things that can make you drive you to points of desperate decisions. Get that. That taken away and get that covered. Now, here's what I would challenge you to do. I have.

We've had professional insurance with the same providers for decades, and then I found out, and then we've got workers comp with a different provider. Then we had, like, this owner's policy with a different provider. I was running. I was running, like, five or six different insurances with different providers. And, and at some point, I'm sure I was getting the best deal by doing this shop shopping method.

But then I took my own advice. Just like we tell you guys, you will get to a level of complexity that you'll want to graduate to a professional that can kind of turn your complex situation into an easier, but an even better situation. So I reached out to an insurance broker and told him some of the struggles I was having. He was able to consolidate everything down to still have, like, four policies, but now it's all through one broker who's handling. He's shopping it.

He saved me money, I got more coverage, and I even got it less. So take advantage of if you feel like you're over your skis a little bit, because you've never done this before, you don't know what options are out there. Check around in your community and see who the business broker. The brokers who handle that type of insurance for multiple successful people in your neck of the woods. And I think you'll find that there's somebody who might be able to help grow with you as you find more and more success.

Brian Preston
And you note that it's expensive, there's some things you can do to adjust that. If you think that, oh, man, this is really expensive, perhaps you've been really diligent and you've been saving, so you have a really healthy cash reserve, both personally and professionally. You can increase the deductibles on that policy. The higher your deductible on your professional liability, the lower the premium will likely be. So you can squeeze that balloon a little bit to try to get it to be more affordable as you continue to build and work through growing this business.

Bo Hanson
Awesome. Well, Ricky, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate your question. If you would like a money guy Tumblr, we'd love to send one to you since we answered your question today. Just email matt m a t ty.com and we'll work on getting that sent out to you.

Ready for the next question? She was waiting to see if I was going to say anything because I've. Interrupted every question the first time. We've not gone on a huge aside in between questions. You are the one that caused that rebuke.

Nate O'Brien
I was not going, but I will. Say all I did was smile. And now here we are. I fact checked this, but John Michael just said DC is now sold out of vip tickets. I haven't fact checked it, but that's what.

Brian Preston
That's in the live chat right now. Oh, I'm getting thumbs up from the crew. Wow. Thank you, guys.

Nate O'Brien
That scarcity of opportunity. Look, who knows? I mean, I really don't know because they're keeping the numbers from me. Atlanta, and then, you know, here in Franklin. Y'all better get on in there and get that Nashville.

Brian Preston
Be a cool Nashville. Would be a cool one to come see Franklin because it's like our stomach. It's our hometown show, truly. You're gonna see where we go to lunch every day. You're gonna see the place where our team hangs out.

Nate O'Brien
And when you're disappointed that I'm not actually going to sing, you can actually go to Broadway and then go to honky Tonk. There you go. You can still get some live music. Well, that's exciting. It's easy to get live music here.

Brian Preston
You all walk into not at the. Money guy book tour. Love it. All right, we have a question from Chris up next. He says, if your neighbors down the road say to stop everything and pile up cash when you're expecting a child, what is the money guy's advice for upcoming financial mutant parents?

Bo Hanson
I have some thoughts, too, but I want to know what your thoughts are. Well, okay. So stop everything and pile up cash. Okay. It depends on what having a child means for you.

Brian Preston
Does having a child for you mean that one of the spouses is now going to leave the workforce and stay home? Like, maybe they're going to work through maternity or paternity or whatever, but post that, you're going to be. Well, yeah, maybe you do need to have additional cash in order to be able to weather that store if there's going to be a big lifestyle change. But if you've been doing all the stuff that you're supposed to be doing, if you've been following the financial order of operations, Brian, hold the thing up. And by the way, if you want your copy, you can go to moneyguy.com resources.

And you've been following this and you're saving diligently. You've got a fully funded emergency fund, and that emergency fund for expecting parents should probably be around six months of living expenses. And that's sitting there. And you're also putting money in your Roth IRAs and your HSAs and your 401 ks, and you're saving 25%. The beautiful thing about the financial order of operations is even when you have life changes like a child, like a baby, it should not cause cataclysmic changes to your finances.

Now, yeah, you may have to come out of pocket to go buy the crib and the bouncer and the bottles and the this and the that. There are. There are expenses that will incur. But does that mean that you need to shut down everything and stockpile as much cash as possible? My opinion, having done this three times now, I don't think that that's absolutely necessary.

Nate O'Brien
I was going to ask and rebuy, maybe this will set it up for you, because, look, I'm the old timer. I got kids in college now, so. But it. I remember kids not being. Besides the.

The capital expenditure on the furniture, you know, and the setup of all the gizmos that they sell you, by the way, I'll go ahead and save you some money. Don't buy the white one. The white. Not that it's not its own expense. But I don't know.

There's a single person that does that. There's some crazy prices out there that. You do not, you know, probably use that extra savings into the diaper pail. That will remove as much smell as possible from your house. That's a good one.

And then the other thing, and I even now, look, I'm not a doctor, and I'm just telling you what I did for in my life. Like the bottle warmers. Yeah. I think because they tell you, don't put it in the microwave or whatever. I know that the attorneys make them say that, but do you know how many times I heated up stuff in the microwave?

But then. And then. Shook it, shook it, shook it, shook it, shook it. This is national advice. He's a financial advisor.

But it's just the gizmo's gadgets that are so wasteful. Don't. Don't take advice on the bottle for me, by the way, because, like I said, I have kids. I actually really liked my bottle. They probably endorsed that when I had.

Brian Preston
We just put it in the hot water. Yeah, I know that also. But what I. What I have found having kids now at this stage of college, but also had babies at one point, but, you know, basically, we just swept the dirt and laid them down in these packing plays and cribs. But they're not expensive when they're little.

Nate O'Brien
It's more of when they get a little bit older and you. You know, and they. Yeah, this.

Camp, they go to cheer competitions. They're part of the football booster. Yeah. That's when kids actually get expensive, from my experience. So the saving for a baby, besides the cribs and stuff, is.

What's your thoughts? Here's the thing. You want to fight. I agree, actually, with everything that you're saying. Don't get bamboozled into spending so much on all of this baby stuff.

Bo Hanson
Yeah. Obviously, there's some stuff that's nice to have, and maybe you want to splurge, but you don't have to. But here's something that I've mentioned in passing before, and then I've seen people kind of comment or want more dialogue on is the health insurance part. And this can vary for everybody. That's the thing.

And probably why we've glossed over it. And this is just me speaking, fellow financial mutant, fellow Messi middler, who's done this recently. Like, I would say, this is why I love financial order of operations. Cause that step one is cover your highest deductible. So, yeah, depending on your health insurance, make sure you know what that is.

Make sure you have it saved up. Because if you're gonna go deliver a baby, in a hospital, there's gonna be expenses there. And also something that, like, I knew academically, but then you're there and you're like, oh, yeah. Like, oh, the baby has a health insurance deductible, potentially, things like that. So think about that.

Do you have that covered? So, no, don't just, I wouldn't say just stop everything and just stockpile money for no reason, but I would say just make sure you're following the foo so you can go download that@moneyguy.com resources if you want to know which steps to follow. And just think through that part. And I think that doesn't even have to be a scary thing. It's just kind of like, oh, make sure you check the box.

You know what to expect and what your plan looks like. And I think that that's maybe something that's been mentioned in passing that was worth a little bit extra. So there you go. Because that is true. That was probably, that was more of a thing than buying the car seat and buying the diapers.

Those things you can get pretty thrifty on or borrow or. It's really not crazy, in my opinion. So that's my two cent. The other thing is, begin with the end in mind if your expenses are going to change. I mean, one of the things that we keep hearing, and by the way, we hear you guys, when you comment, when you write us, when you, we read these things.

Brian Preston
Yeah, we've heard you're like, oh, it's not the diapers. It's not the this. It's the daycare. It's. That's right.

Bo Hanson
And I get it. That's the thing. That's. And that's gonna vary from person to person, too. So what you may have to do, it's less about stockpiling cash and it's more about reworking your budget.

Right. Post baby, post maternity, post paternity. What is. Are, what are our expenses going to look like? And you have to really, like, dive into that.

Brian Preston
That might be an expensive thing, and that might cause a change. But in my opinion, I don't think that means you have to shut everything down and just stock Paul cash. That would not be what we would say. I have one more tip that might save a few bucks, is that when you're going through and you're shopping for the furniture and all the things, and you're like, designer pack and play or stroller or furniture that's white and pristine versus affordable, remember, a good filter is knowing everything you buy will get pooped and thrown down and peed. And if you go through that, if you go through that filter, it will help give you perspective that maybe you want to buy the more affordable thing, that you won't just, like, cringe every time a new stain or a new thing shows up on it.

Nate O'Brien
Um, I. I use that in my house because here's the other thing. By the time the second kit to Vince, when the second kid comes, the safety protocols will have changed and they'll tell you you need to buy new cribs, the way they can change strollers and everything. And you're like, what? I mean, it's so.

Just don't get so caught up in what you spend because more than likely what you buy, you will pretty much have to throw away after your kids leave or give it away. Isn't that true? Tell me if I want. Can I be honest? That's the thing.

Bo Hanson
Like, you can, you'd be surprised at how much you can, like, borrow or that other parents will pass down to you or that you can get on Facebook. Marketplace is still really good. So that's why I'm no shame. If you want to go buy the nice thing, like, if that's what you can do, go for it. But I just get.

Nate O'Brien
But I'm still working. Because when I. Between my kids, they safety protocols have changed. So all the stuff from my oldest child to when my second child was born, they said you no longer could use it. So I want to know, is that a moment in time that back in the early two thousands to that 2000, we had a cataclysmic shift in the way safety protocols were?

Or is this a scam to where just like when your kid, when you're between your three kids, did they keep telling you, nope, it's all changed. You have to buy brand new stuff? Well, some stuff changed. I mean, definitely, yes, safety protocols for sure changed. I think we call this engineered obsolescence.

Have you seen this scam? You know what really cooks my goose? Can I tell you what I get from. Yeah. How are they going to break this up?

Brian Preston
It'll be fun. You know, we did. We our first. So we had our first daughter. We had a crib, and it was awesome.

Our second daughter came two years later, same crib. It was awesome. And so it was like we didn't know if we were going to be done with. And this was in another house, and so we kept the crib. We put it up in the storage unit or not in the storage, in the attic.

And then we moved houses. We moved all the baby furniture we're trying to figure out. We're going to have a third. Not have a third. We finally have a third.

Guess what we ended up doing but a new crib.

So, you know, don't do it the way I did it. Something like, yeah, but there was some there. You're still drinking, bro. There's no get right now as a coffee. And then I take a sip of.

Bo Hanson
Good for you. Like, that's your choice at that point, you know, but you don't have to do it. You know what? I'll say it was my choice. But do you think it was my choice?

Brian Preston
It was not my choice. I'll say, good for your wife. Good for Jenna. That's right. Yeah, Nate, have fun with that one.

Bo Hanson
All right, are we ready for the next question? Did Chris get a tumbler? Oh, no, thank you. Thank you, Chris. I would love to give you a tumblr.

Sorry, I almost forgot. There. You can email Matt m a t toneyguy.com. We'll work on getting that sent out to you so you can drink some coffee from it while you're a little tiny bit sleep deprived with you know who else. The safety protocols change between kid one and kid two.

Brian Preston
You the parents. Do you remember? Number one, you're like, oh, my. And then number two, you're like, ah, here's a bag of cheetos, or whatever. You know what I mean?

Maybe that wasn't your experience, that was mine. There's a exponential decrease in the pictures taken between each child, too. I mean, by the time you get to your third child, you're like, when. I know I get an annual picture. Get an annual picture, the school pictures come home, you're like, oh, I guess we ought to buy that one.

I wish we had a live camera on all the content team behind, because they're all just shaking their head. They're like, oh, how is this still going on? I don't know. Sorry, team, we're all parents. Sorry.

Nate O'Brien
Bo's fault, not brain. All right, ready for Rachel's question up next. It says, both me and my husband are teachers. We're 31, and we finally reached 100k after starting to invest back in 2019. So that's 100k in investments, which is 2019.

Bo Hanson
That's really good. But then she says, we were in step eight of the foo, so they're feeling really good. But after a lot of emergencies that happen back to back, we are now at step four, and it's going to take six months to get our emergency reserves fully funded. Please tell this financial mutant we are going to be okay. Oh, yeah.

Brian Preston
Oh, it's what happens. This is live. It's a financial journey. Nate, I know you don't have it, but we have a really great illustration I wish we could pull up on the screen that shows what people think food looks like. They think it's just like, all right.

I go from step one to step two, and then step two to step three and three to four, all the way to step nine. And in reality, that's not what happens. That's not the way that life plays out. What actually ends up happening is we go up for a little while, and then we go down, and then we go up again, and then we go down. And it is much more of a journey.

And that's okay. You know what I heard, Rachel, in your situation? I heard, holy cow. Good on you guys. That you had an emergency fund in place.

That when all of these things happened that took place, they didn't derail you. You were able to navigate those just like a financial mutant should. So the fact that you had to take a step back, the fact that you had to go from step eight back to step four is okay. It's part of the process. It's part of the financial journey.

And that's exactly what a financial mutant would do. Yeah. I think it's pretty noble that it shows how much of a financial mutant you are that you feel this pressure, because that's the one thing I say. Life is going to create these complexities or struggles or obstacles. And it's okay if you have to get off the food track temporarily, as long as you just have the pressure.

Nate O'Brien
That there's a clock ticking in the background and you don't know when the alarm will go off, when that next emergency comes. But based upon the way you ask that question, I think you will. You said it's going to be six months. If you were able to go from 2019 to now, 2024, and in that five year period, less than five year period, build $100,000 of liquid assets that are working for you, that's spectacular. That's impressive, and you're really crushing.

You'll get on track. And I love, because your teachers, more than likely, you probably have some pensions working in the background. So this. You are completely setting yourself up. That as you cross through each decade of your life, not only will you make memories, but you're going to be able to celebrate that you had a life well lived.

And congratulations on being such an awesome financial mutant. I mean, most 31 year olds haven't even started. Like, you went from zero to 100,000. And by the way, the first hundred is the hardest. Hundred next hundred comes a lot easier.

Brian Preston
You went from zero to 100 from 2019 to 2024. That's insane. And you're only 31 years old. You are crushing it. And you are going to be okay.

Keep doing the things you know that you're supposed to be doing. And this is for Rachel. You know, we show in one of our illustrations where somebody was saving $10,000 a year. It takes them seven years to get to the first hundred thousand dollars. That means Rachel did this in five.

Nate O'Brien
So that means a really good savings rate. But also, rest assured, Rachel, the research also shows, one, you're in your path to a million. That same seven plus, you know, like seven and a half year period that it took you to get to your first hundred thousand. When you're on that journey, the math works out that you actually pick up the next $500,000 of your million dollars. So this thing will accelerate and get even faster.

Congratulations on reaching that first milestone. 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.

Bo Hanson
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