Our Biggest Mistakes Trying to Optimize Our Whole Life (w/ My Wife)

00:00:00.240 | What happens when two relentless optimizers

00:00:03.140 | try to make everyday decisions?

00:00:05.320 | Well, today you'll find out,

00:00:06.680 | as I'm sitting down with my wife, Amy,

00:00:08.400 | to break down some of the recent

00:00:10.160 | behind-the-scenes moments from our life.

00:00:12.480 | From arguing about buying furniture,

00:00:14.240 | to rethinking what our kids actually need

00:00:16.400 | to learn about money,

00:00:17.480 | and why sometimes optimization becomes the very thing

00:00:20.840 | that gets in our way.

00:00:22.240 | We'll also take a bunch of your questions

00:00:24.180 | on lounge access for families,

00:00:26.060 | the evolving role of technology and social media for kids,

00:00:29.280 | how we're planning to step back professionally

00:00:31.520 | to have more time with our children

00:00:33.520 | while they still think we're cool, and a lot more.

00:00:36.640 | If you're a parent, an optimizer, or both,

00:00:39.160 | I think you will find a lot to relate to in this episode.

00:00:42.560 | I'm Chris Hutchins.

00:00:43.400 | If you enjoy this episode

00:00:44.720 | and you wanna keep upgrading your money, points, and life,

00:00:47.360 | click follow or subscribe.

00:00:49.880 | Amy, I'm glad you're back.

00:00:51.760 | I wanted to do this again because we got a lot of feedback

00:00:54.720 | that last time we had an episode with the two of us,

00:00:57.760 | we kind of went behind the scenes in our relationship.

00:01:00.000 | And if you look at the story of who we are,

00:01:03.040 | we've kind of become these two optimizers

00:01:05.840 | that really do everything in the spirit of saving more,

00:01:09.480 | earning more, trying to really live an amazing life.

00:01:12.920 | But sometimes that story,

00:01:15.800 | the optimizing just gets in the way

00:01:17.360 | of us actually doing what we want.

00:01:19.360 | So I thought today we could talk about

00:01:21.160 | some of the decisions we've been making recently,

00:01:23.200 | show a little behind the scenes of how you and I operate,

00:01:25.560 | and how some of the mistakes we make

00:01:27.640 | might be able to be avoided, hopefully by people listening.

00:01:30.360 | And I'm excited we're doing it.

00:01:32.360 | Yeah, I'm really excited to dig in and talk a little bit about

00:01:36.560 | both ways that our optimization efforts serve us,

00:01:40.320 | but also the optimizers curse and how it strikes every now and then.

00:01:44.560 | So I thought we would start with furniture

00:01:47.800 | because I think one of the bigger moments in the last few months

00:01:52.080 | that our relationship has had some ups and downs

00:01:55.840 | was around our desire to replace a lot of the furniture in the house.

00:02:00.240 | Yeah, I think it's a great place to start.

00:02:02.600 | The furniture conversation, unbeknownst to me,

00:02:06.000 | I thought would be a very easy, straightforward discussion around,

00:02:10.400 | should we purchase this bed?

00:02:11.960 | Should we purchase this nightstand?

00:02:14.200 | How do we essentially redo a kid's room

00:02:17.160 | to make it livable in the way we were looking to use it now?

00:02:20.360 | What actually resulted was what felt like World War Three

00:02:25.160 | in the back and forth that we had around something

00:02:28.200 | that I felt was so straightforward.

00:02:31.480 | So there were a lot of lessons there.

00:02:33.040 | But what was your take on it?

00:02:35.280 | So let me give a little bit of context to everyone.

00:02:37.560 | I am very out of touch with how much things cost.

00:02:41.240 | And I think it's really hard for me

00:02:43.480 | to spend money on things where I don't see value.

00:02:46.000 | So for some reason, buying a new iPhone,

00:02:48.240 | it doesn't feel like there's a great alternative to an iPhone

00:02:50.960 | for half the price, a third of the price, a quarter of the price.

00:02:54.400 | But when it comes to furniture,

00:02:56.120 | I always have struggled because functionally,

00:02:59.320 | nice furniture and less nice furniture is similar.

00:03:02.400 | What I appreciate, but struggle to appreciate in the price moment

00:03:07.880 | is the difference between quality furniture and not.

00:03:11.560 | I think everyone listening has probably bought that IKEA table

00:03:15.200 | that they had in college.

00:03:16.680 | There was a piece of crap that broke,

00:03:18.440 | that left all the marks you could,

00:03:20.440 | was definitely not made of solid wood.

00:03:22.320 | And so I appreciate those things, but it's really hard in the moment for me to understand that

00:03:28.400 | and say, oh yeah, let's spend that much on a certain item.

00:03:31.120 | Funny enough, it's actually way easier for me to commit to larger purchases in the macro.

00:03:36.640 | So when we were doing a renovation, the budget for the entire renovation seemed way more reasonable

00:03:42.240 | than actually looking at the line items of how much would it cost to put up these tiles

00:03:47.040 | or to buy a piece of glass for a shower door or those kinds of things were all things where

00:03:53.280 | there were moments where I was like, should I go try to buy this?

00:03:55.360 | Should I try to put this tile down?

00:03:57.120 | Like I just couldn't help myself on a line item basis,

00:04:00.160 | but it was way easier for me to look at it in a broad sense.

00:04:03.600 | And this isn't just true for renovations and shopping, but when we lived in New York City,

00:04:07.920 | I would buy a metro pass even if I knew that I wasn't going to ride the subway

00:04:14.480 | so much that I would make up for the savings because I knew how much I struggled even for $2.

00:04:20.560 | And keep in mind, this is a different time, a different budget.

00:04:23.040 | But even the $2 rides on the subway, I'd be like, should I walk $2?

00:04:27.360 | But if I paid the $80 at the beginning of the month, I just didn't think about it.

00:04:30.800 | And so I am much more capable of processing a large expense upfront

00:04:36.560 | than processing multiple expenses over and over again, and then compound that with,

00:04:41.840 | I struggle with the value of things where seemingly comparable things cost much less,

00:04:49.120 | even though I know they're not actually comparable.

00:04:51.440 | Hearing you explain it now makes a lot more sense.

00:04:56.000 | And it's something I wish I would have known when we kicked off the furniture conversation.

00:05:02.400 | I recognize that there is a lot more mind share that goes into assessing

00:05:07.760 | furniture piece by piece versus saying, here's the total budget.

00:05:10.960 | We are good with this budget.

00:05:13.120 | And now we can go off and make decisions a little bit more easily.

00:05:17.600 | I took the opposite approach, which was we were looking at adding two twin beds and a

00:05:23.760 | new nightstand in our daughter's room to make it more functional.

00:05:26.960 | And I had been scouring Facebook marketplace for what felt like months.

00:05:34.960 | And I finally found this bed that was perfectly suited for the room, the design, the material.

00:05:43.840 | It had under bed storage.

00:05:45.120 | I was just like, this is it.

00:05:46.800 | And it was $500.

00:05:49.280 | I was like, this is great.

00:05:50.480 | I'm just going to get your quick sign off.

00:05:52.560 | No biggie.

00:05:53.200 | And we'll go from there.

00:05:55.680 | We can always buy the other matching bed elsewhere.

00:05:58.720 | And your first question was, okay, are you planning on having the beds match?

00:06:03.600 | And I said, yeah.

00:06:04.400 | He said, okay, how much is a bed if you can't find the other one on Facebook marketplace?

00:06:09.120 | And it turns out it was $2,000.

00:06:11.920 | I knew that.

00:06:12.800 | And I had been doing research.

00:06:14.080 | So I think I was more price aware of what a decent bed or piece of furniture costs.

00:06:20.000 | You had not been conditioned around the furniture market because you hadn't really taken on

00:06:26.080 | that task.

00:06:26.880 | And so I think you were completely shocked in a way that your response made me feel like

00:06:34.000 | there was zero appreciation or thoughts or planning put into this.

00:06:39.520 | And I am not aware of how to responsibly spend.

00:06:44.560 | I know that was not the case looking back, but it just set me off in a way that I was like,

00:06:50.320 | how dare you?

00:06:52.400 | Because I put so much time and energy into this, trying to make it look nice

00:06:56.720 | with quality furniture, but also trying to find deals where I could.

00:07:01.520 | Yeah.

00:07:01.760 | In hindsight, I know how much you try to find deals and layer on coupons with card-length

00:07:07.680 | offers with racketing cash back and I had not processed the cost of furniture.

00:07:13.360 | So my initial reaction was, oh my gosh, how could a bed cost $2,000?

00:07:17.120 | Like I just couldn't process or comprehend a bed costing $2,000.

00:07:21.520 | Now, I feel similarly about all kinds of things.

00:07:25.760 | Then once I realized, oh, that's just how much they cost, it feels normal.

00:07:28.960 | Somehow buying a thousand dollar phone seems normal because I just understand the phone market.

00:07:33.760 | I understand how much these microphones cost.

00:07:36.400 | I had just not looked at the cost of furniture in general, especially that tier of furniture where

00:07:42.000 | we're not buying college Ikea furniture again for a very long time.

00:07:46.800 | I think we've had a lot of the furniture we have now either for a while or we got it from friends

00:07:53.440 | that were moving.

00:07:54.320 | And so we haven't actually been in the market to buy quality, last a long time furniture

00:07:59.920 | really ever more than a couple pieces at a time.

00:08:03.040 | That was the whole point of all the work I was doing was to move towards finding quality furniture

00:08:10.000 | pieces and not living the Ikea life.

00:08:13.040 | Now, the irony here is that we wanted to kind of get inspired because we hadn't really talked

00:08:20.480 | about, well, what do we want to do in the girls' room?

00:08:22.560 | How do we want to lay it out?

00:08:23.440 | And that opened up a conversation that I know you weren't ready for, which is, well, if we're

00:08:27.360 | going to redo the girls' room, like what other room should we do?

00:08:29.680 | And I think in your mind, you're like, oh, well, I was just trying to get some beds.

00:08:33.840 | And here you are now talking about renovating or remodeling the whole house.

00:08:36.960 | But so we actually ended up going to Ikea, not necessarily to buy furniture, but because

00:08:43.760 | it's just when you have limited space, you live in a city and you want some inspiration,

00:08:47.840 | walking around Ikea, you can kind of get a bunch of ideas for how to lay things out.

00:08:51.920 | Food court with meatballs makes for a great dinner for the girls.

00:08:55.280 | It's pretty fun.

00:08:56.160 | They actually enjoy walking around Ikea.

00:08:58.240 | And the irony is that we ended up with two new Ikea beds.

00:09:01.760 | I swore we would never bring another piece of Ikea furniture into this house again.

00:09:08.720 | And after all of this debate and the back and forth that we had with furniture,

00:09:15.040 | we end up with two twin Ikea beds.

00:09:17.520 | Now, was that because I pressured us into spending less money?

00:09:22.640 | Or how do you actually feel about the beds now that we've kind of gotten

00:09:26.080 | our World War Three furniture argument out of the way?

00:09:28.160 | I hate that you're bringing this up because I actually feel okay with it.

00:09:33.200 | I was expecting to look at it and just shake my head every single day I have to walk into that room.

00:09:40.640 | And I think the one saving grace about the furniture we did buy is that Ikea has a variety of different pieces that are

00:09:49.760 | super low quality, super low quality, just really cheap stuff.

00:09:53.280 | And then they have proper real wood pieces.

00:09:56.320 | And I think because we bought some real wood beds, they just feel more sturdy and legit.

00:10:04.880 | And so do they look like a restoration hardware bed?

00:10:09.280 | No.

00:10:09.920 | Do they serve the purpose for what we need right now?

00:10:13.040 | Yeah.

00:10:13.920 | And I'm okay with that.

00:10:15.360 | But again, I really have to swallow my pride here.

00:10:17.760 | And I hate that you're calling out this Ikea bed situation because I

00:10:22.080 | just so badly wanted us to get comfortable moving beyond Ikea furniture.

00:10:30.640 | And here we are.

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00:13:20.480 | One of the things that happens when you buy new furniture in your house is you have furniture you have to figure out what to do with.

00:13:25.040 | And I think you really crushed the process of maximizing getting rid of furniture in our home.

00:13:31.840 | And I think anytime you have stuff to get rid of, you can sell it, you can give it away, you can donate it.

00:13:37.280 | How did you think about what to do with all the stuff we were trying to get rid of?

00:13:41.600 | And what are some of the things you learned about making that process easier?

00:13:44.480 | So I did crush selling all of our old furniture, particularly cribs and some of the old stuff that we just needed to move out of the house to get space for older kid items and/or furniture.

00:13:58.160 | And I think because there was a sentimental value for us, I wanted to have a bit of certainty that it was going to go to a good home and be loved by someone else.

00:14:10.720 | And so my thinking was I'll post on Facebook Marketplace because I'll be able to meet these people.

00:14:16.240 | I'll ensure that it's going to a decent place.

00:14:18.480 | And it's great because we can also emulate to our daughters the importance of selling furniture to make money to then repurpose that for new furniture that's coming in because that's how money works.

00:14:31.440 | And so originally I took all of the items, I took pictures of them, I added a link from where we purchased them, and I just threw it in ChatGBT and asked it to spit out essentially a Facebook Marketplace description.

00:14:46.000 | And it was wildly successful at drafting short descriptions that I could quickly just go and post on Facebook Marketplace.

00:14:54.720 | I think it even had some of the details.

00:14:56.000 | It was like title and description.

00:14:58.400 | It did.

00:14:58.880 | It was so good.

00:15:00.080 | The downside is that I realized after the fact because I became too reliant on it was it would randomly hallucinate the cost of these things and how much I should price it at.

00:15:12.160 | And so I remember there was one thing I posted on Facebook Marketplace and I had zero interest.

00:15:19.520 | No one messaged me about it.

00:15:20.720 | And I was like, well, that's kind of weird.

00:15:22.640 | And when you asked me about it, you said, how much did you post it for?

00:15:26.160 | And I went back and looked and it was like two or three times more than it should have been.

00:15:30.720 | Still less than we originally paid.

00:15:32.560 | I think it was the IKEA nightstands.

00:15:34.560 | It turns out the resale value of IKEA is very, very low.

00:15:38.240 | Yeah, that's right.

00:15:39.120 | That's right.

00:15:39.760 | And so anyway, note to sell for those listening, go in and just search what you're looking to sell to see what everyone else is pricing theirs at on Facebook Marketplace.

00:15:50.400 | The one thing that I realized after having done all of this was I love the dopamine hit of selling stuff.

00:15:58.080 | It just it feels good getting out of the house and getting a little extra cash.

00:16:02.000 | It was not worth my time for how much time I spent going back and forth with sellers.

00:16:07.840 | And there are also a lot of sellers that have unclear profiles.

00:16:12.880 | And so people would say, hey, is this crib available?

00:16:16.000 | And was it available?

00:16:17.920 | Yes, based on their name of BBR Rockstar and them living in Arkansas.

00:16:23.920 | And the only thing on their Facebook post is an old rundown Bronco from 1960s.

00:16:28.400 | I don't know.

00:16:29.840 | And so then, of course, I start creeping like, who is this person?

00:16:33.120 | Do I feel comfortable meeting up with them, having them come to the house?

00:16:36.400 | And so I think the high level concept of selling it to showcase to our girls how you make money and how you can apply that for new stuff was great.

00:16:50.960 | The actual time I spent to make however much it was across all the different things we sold was definitely not worth it.

00:16:58.720 | Optimizer's Curse.

00:17:00.560 | I think in hindsight, if we went back, there were things like cribs and big piece of furniture where it totally was worth it.

00:17:06.800 | And then I remember walking in the room and you're laying out this jacket for a two year old from Patagonia taking pictures of it.

00:17:14.400 | And I remember asking, I was like, how much is that jacket going to sell for?

00:17:17.840 | And I want to say you sold me $20.

00:17:19.680 | And I was like, is it worth taking all these pictures and going back and forth with people on the Internet and then having a stranger come meet up with you for $20?

00:17:27.520 | Like we could just donate it.

00:17:29.280 | And, you know, you might even get a tax receipt that probably would save us $10.

00:17:34.080 | So we're talking about $10 here.

00:17:36.480 | And I just remember your face and you were like, yeah, this is not worth it.

00:17:41.520 | But did you end up selling the jacket?

00:17:42.880 | I did.

00:17:43.600 | And you know what?

00:17:44.560 | It was not worth it.

00:17:45.280 | You are so right.

00:17:46.880 | And I love that you called me out.

00:17:48.880 | But also the woman who picked it up for her son loved it.

00:17:52.480 | And it made me feel really happy knowing it went to a good place.

00:17:55.920 | So you were right.

00:17:58.320 | But there was a silver lining to it.

00:18:00.720 | And maybe I was wrong, right?

00:18:01.680 | Like that feeling.

00:18:02.640 | You can't put a price on that feeling of you got such a hit.

00:18:05.600 | Every time you came back, you walked inside and you were like, my Venmo account is bigger.

00:18:09.600 | I sold that thing.

00:18:10.560 | Like you loved it.

00:18:11.520 | And there are things I do in the kind of reselling credit card points game that a lot of people would

00:18:17.280 | say aren't worth the time.

00:18:18.320 | But if you love the game, right?

00:18:19.920 | Like when I play video games, I don't get paid at all, right?

00:18:23.520 | But like I enjoy it.

00:18:24.480 | There's a dopamine hit.

00:18:25.440 | And so some dopamine hits you pay for, some are free, and some you get paid for.

00:18:30.160 | So you could kind of argue that if this is one that you really enjoy doing, our girls get to learn

00:18:34.640 | a lesson from watching it happen and you get paid, maybe it is worth it.

00:18:38.880 | But maybe it's just more worth it with things that cost hundreds of dollars instead of tens of dollars.

00:18:43.360 | Well, it's also one of those things that for Facebook Marketplace specifically,

00:18:47.520 | they only saw part of the process, right?

00:18:50.000 | Like I wasn't bringing them out onto the street with me to meet this person and actually do the

00:18:55.760 | handoff and get paid because safety first.

00:18:58.640 | So were they able to understand the concept?

00:19:01.760 | Yes, but there were probably better ways to do it.

00:19:04.160 | Yeah, we actually got a question from someone that said, how are you thinking about teaching

00:19:07.520 | your kids about money and investing at such a young age?

00:19:10.880 | What should we be doing?

00:19:12.080 | And I've thought about this a lot and obviously our girls are still too young

00:19:17.520 | to necessarily have a brokerage account and be buying stocks and figuring all that out.

00:19:21.760 | So that is in the future.

00:19:23.120 | That is the plan is to do those things.

00:19:25.600 | But there's a couple things we do now that I will share beyond what you did with them

00:19:31.280 | talking about what we're buying and selling and how selling it allows you to buy new things

00:19:35.200 | because they were so excited about their new bed and you're like,

00:19:37.200 | yeah, but now we have to sell the old bed so we can get the money to pay for the new bed.

00:19:40.480 | And one of my favorite things is taking them to the recycling center.

00:19:43.840 | And I know you have some feelings here, so we'll let you share them.

00:19:46.160 | But we collect the cans and we put them all in the garage, all the aluminum cans or the glass

00:19:51.600 | bottles.

00:19:52.240 | And every time there are leftover ones on the table or in the kitchen, we're like, okay,

00:19:55.840 | who can take these down to the garage?

00:19:57.200 | And once they get filled up, we go to this recycling center and the girls dump the cans

00:20:01.280 | into the bins and then they wait in line.

00:20:03.840 | And then someone hands anywhere between two and seven dollars.

00:20:07.520 | So this whole ordeal usually takes 30, 45 minutes and we leave with less than $10 every single time.

00:20:13.440 | So again, is it a good use of our time from an hourly rate standpoint?

00:20:16.960 | Maybe not.

00:20:18.800 | But the lessons learned relative to what we would have otherwise been doing, right?

00:20:22.720 | We probably otherwise would have been spending two hours at the park instead of one.

00:20:26.240 | So it's not eating into income generating activities.

00:20:29.760 | But the girls, every time we finish, are like, wow, now we have money.

00:20:33.280 | And sometimes we go to Goodwill and I'm like, let's pick out a book.

00:20:37.680 | Not because we can't go to a bookstore, but because they're six dollars isn't going to buy

00:20:41.760 | books at a bookstore.

00:20:42.640 | It's only going to buy a book at Goodwill.

00:20:44.800 | And so we got to be careful with where we go because I don't want them to learn.

00:20:48.800 | You do all this work and you only have enough money to not do the thing you want.

00:20:52.160 | But the general lesson that they learn is we've got to go do this thing.

00:20:55.600 | We don't really like it.

00:20:56.800 | But at the end, we've earned money.

00:20:58.800 | And we've talked about, do you want to save this money for later?

00:21:01.040 | And so we might not be totally honest with them about how much the money is and how much

00:21:05.440 | things cost, but they might make six dollars and we'll go.

00:21:08.880 | And I'll say, what do you want to do?

00:21:09.920 | And I'm like, we want ice cream.

00:21:11.120 | And then after that, what do you want to do now?

00:21:12.400 | And they're like, well, let's go do something else.

00:21:13.760 | And I was like, well, do you want to do that or do you want to save some of the money?

00:21:16.080 | And we can go do something special tomorrow with it.

00:21:18.320 | And so even though they might have already actually spent the whole six dollars practically

00:21:22.640 | in their minds there, we earned money.

00:21:24.960 | We don't want to spend it all today because we might want to use it tomorrow.

00:21:27.920 | And now sometimes we go to the recycling center and I remember we did it one morning

00:21:32.080 | where I think there was a birthday party in the afternoon.

00:21:34.240 | And one of our daughters was like, I don't want to spend it today because I already have

00:21:37.680 | something fun today.

00:21:38.400 | Let's save it.

00:21:38.960 | We could do something fun later.

00:21:40.160 | And so it's been really fun to teach them those lessons.

00:21:43.520 | There's a guy named Rob Phelan who sent us a book called M is for Money.

00:21:46.960 | And, you know, we just kind of like read through it.

00:21:49.360 | And it's just like teaching them the words around money, some of the lessons around money.

00:21:53.280 | So that's a cool thing.

00:21:54.720 | Beyond that, I think we've set up accounts that we can put some money in, but they're not

00:21:59.840 | actually in their names.

00:22:00.800 | They're just a separate bank account or savings envelope, depending on the platform.

00:22:04.720 | Just so we can kind of say, well, you earned this money.

00:22:07.040 | One time there were a bunch of Amex offers at I think it was Home Depot.

00:22:10.960 | And so I just took them and I was like, hey, we're going to buy these gift cards and we're

00:22:14.320 | going to sell them on the internet.

00:22:15.520 | And so I had them scratch the little numbers off.

00:22:17.600 | I had them type the numbers in the screen.

00:22:19.200 | And I'm not sure they really knew what they were doing, but they knew that they had to go do

00:22:23.360 | something that wasn't as fun as going to the park.

00:22:25.440 | And at the end, the reward was they had this thing called money and then I gave them the

00:22:30.320 | option of how they wanted to spend the money and they got to do something cool.

00:22:33.520 | Yeah, I think those are all so great.

00:22:35.440 | I love the idea of delayed gratification as far as how do you think about the way in which you're

00:22:43.200 | using the money you make.

00:22:45.840 | And so I think that's a good lesson.

00:22:47.680 | Do I love the feeling of them going to the recycling center and just touching all of the things and coming

00:22:54.240 | back all grimy, no, but I do think it is a really good lesson.

00:22:58.720 | And to your point about brokerage accounts, I like the idea of giving them age appropriate

00:23:05.120 | responsibility and ownership.

00:23:07.120 | And so when they get to an age where we can open brokerage accounts for them and say, hey,

00:23:12.320 | you have this much money, you choose how you invest it and you're responsible for the gains,

00:23:16.000 | you're responsible for the losses, and you decide how you want to learn about investing

00:23:23.440 | and what it means to save and invest for the future.

00:23:26.240 | So I think there's going to be a lot of really interesting conversations that'll come up as they

00:23:31.360 | get older, but I'm really, really excited to see how they dabble and learn and play with

00:23:38.880 | money in the future.

00:23:40.000 | Okay, so on the idea of kids and money, we got two questions from Emily and John.

00:23:45.280 | One was around what advice you have on saving for our kids' education, and the other is how do you

00:23:52.240 | think about opening accounts for your children and which accounts and why?

00:23:56.960 | So I've definitely thought a bit about this, some of them not as relevant at their age.

00:24:00.480 | When it comes to college savings, I know there are a few kinds of accounts.

00:24:03.840 | The primary one and the only one that really seemed to make sense was a 529.

00:24:08.000 | And in some states, the tax advantage of having a 529 is amazing.

00:24:12.960 | In some states, it's almost nothing.

00:24:14.560 | You still have the benefit of the money grows tax-free, but you don't get any tax savings

00:24:20.480 | putting money in.

00:24:21.200 | You don't get any special tax savings putting money out.

00:24:23.120 | In fact, if you take the money out and don't need it for education,

00:24:26.240 | let's say someday in the future, college isn't as important and they haven't changed the rules.

00:24:31.200 | I think you can roll some of your 529 into an IRA, but not all of it.

00:24:35.280 | And so, I think that there is some risk, not a ton, but some risk that if you don't need that money,

00:24:41.200 | because maybe your kids don't go to college, maybe trade schools are cheaper, maybe college becomes free.

00:24:45.680 | Though, I think in that scenario, they will probably change the 529 rules that you will have to pay a penalty to take it out.

00:24:51.520 | And if you don't live in a state that had tax benefits going in, that penalty is likely going to be more punitive than the tax savings of the tax-free growth.

00:24:59.040 | That said, we have a 529, we have contributed to it.

00:25:02.480 | I think if your kid gets a scholarship, I think that waives the penalty on those dollars.

00:25:07.200 | So, I do think that if you have enough excess savings, it's not necessarily a terrible idea to put money in 529.

00:25:14.560 | If you live in a state where that 529 plan and those contributions have tax benefit, it's even more advantageous.

00:25:22.080 | I think there is one thing to call out that some states, the fees associated with your 529 are actually pretty high.

00:25:28.560 | Some states, they're really low.

00:25:30.000 | You do not have to open a 529 in your state.

00:25:33.760 | So, California has really low fees, but some states don't.

00:25:36.800 | And a lot of times people open Utah or Nevada 529s.

00:25:39.840 | But I think if your state has a tax advantage, you might need to open it up in your state.

00:25:43.520 | So, on the 529 front, it's something we've contributed to.

00:25:46.640 | It's something I'm aware of not wanting to max out too much too early, because I just have no idea what the future of education looks like.

00:25:54.640 | I don't know how expensive it will be, whether they'll ever figure out

00:25:58.080 | how to get the costs under control.

00:25:59.520 | You could make a case that you want to put in the full max of half a million dollars,

00:26:03.040 | and you can make a case that that would be so much and it'd be crazy.

00:26:05.680 | At a minimum, I think if you put in the amount that can roll over to an IRA,

00:26:09.920 | I think you're probably in a good spot, because that gives you a good backup plan.

00:26:13.760 | Other accounts for kids.

00:26:14.720 | Putting money in a kid's Roth IRA is amazing.

00:26:16.880 | Imagine putting money in that for their entire life until retirement, 50 plus years of compounding,

00:26:22.560 | they're not going to have to pay any taxes on any of the gains forever.

00:26:25.440 | That would be amazing.

00:26:26.080 | The challenge is you can only put money in a Roth IRA if you earn that money as income.

00:26:30.640 | And so, unless your kids have a job and income, it's really tough to do.

00:26:34.400 | And by tough, I mean you can't do it.

00:26:36.400 | And so, there are a lot of conversations about hiring your kids, especially if you have a small business.

00:26:41.680 | It gets even more difficult when your kids are young enough that they can't actually do a job,

00:26:46.160 | and then how much do you actually pay them for?

00:26:48.000 | So, could I have one of our daughters come in and voice read sponsor ads and pay her for it,

00:26:53.600 | and then take that income and give half, I think 50% of it to a Roth IRA?

00:26:58.080 | Yes.

00:26:59.040 | But would I practically hire a toddler to do ad reads?

00:27:02.240 | Like, probably not.

00:27:03.360 | And so, for our situation, we haven't had a way to do that.

00:27:07.280 | The third type of account is custodial accounts, where you open an account in their name,

00:27:10.960 | and it's legally the child's.

00:27:12.320 | They can use it for anything, not necessarily college.

00:27:15.280 | It does have an impact on their college eligibility for financial aid, because it's their money.

00:27:21.440 | I think it's even more impactful than if you keep it in your name.

00:27:25.120 | But at the end of the day, if you have the right kind of estate planning done, your will, your trust,

00:27:29.920 | whether the money's in our name or the money's in our kid's name,

00:27:32.400 | at some point, it will go to our children if we don't spend it.

00:27:35.200 | And so, they don't need those custodial accounts now.

00:27:38.720 | Whether the money's in their name or our name, we're not going to be putting so much money in

00:27:42.800 | that we couldn't just give it to them later.

00:27:44.960 | I think each parent can give each child $19,000 a year tax-free.

00:27:49.920 | I think that's the gift tax exclusion amount right now.

00:27:52.800 | So, if we were going to give them $100 a month, it would take a long time to hit an amount

00:27:58.720 | that we couldn't each give them $19,000 to catch up later.

00:28:02.080 | So, we haven't opened any custodial accounts.

00:28:03.920 | We have, through our personal bank, set up like separate savings accounts for them.

00:28:08.560 | We could even get a debit card with their name on it.

00:28:10.800 | So, we have the ability for them to have those accounts, but they're not legally in their name.

00:28:14.560 | And I don't know if it makes a lot of difference right now.

00:28:17.600 | The only thing that I've been considering is Bank of America has this Museums on Us program,

00:28:23.360 | where if you have a card in your name, and it doesn't work with guests, you can get free access

00:28:27.840 | to all these museums online.

00:28:28.960 | I think it's the first weekend of the month.

00:28:30.480 | So, I have thought it would be really nice to get them their own debit cards with their own

00:28:33.760 | names on it because then they get free access to museums.

00:28:36.720 | So, if we made any changes to this system, I think it would be get them Bank of America debit cards

00:28:42.240 | and whatever accounts we needed to get them those cards so they could get free access to museums.

00:28:46.560 | It's a nice little hack.

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00:31:13.360 | Another question we got along the lines of kids and how we're thinking about accounts was kids and

00:31:19.760 | how we're thinking about technology. So someone asked what types of phones do we plan to give our

00:31:23.600 | kids as we grow up and what kinds of access to technological devices will they have? Right now,

00:31:28.800 | they're a little too young. We have iPads for airplanes to watch shows, but they're not really

00:31:33.440 | using them for anything. But unlike the bank account stuff where I've spent a lot of time

00:31:37.600 | thinking about it, this is one where I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about it. So I'm curious

00:31:41.200 | what you think technology and devices, what role they play for our kids down the line?

00:31:47.360 | D- It's interesting because there's the upside of technology and devices, which is they will start to

00:31:55.280 | use it in school pretty soon. Our oldest is five. And so is she going to be given a tablet at school

00:32:02.720 | to do certain work? Probably. So it's hard to say no devices, no tablets, no, none of that. I think the

00:32:11.600 | thing that I personally care a lot more about is what is on those devices and how are they using the information

00:32:19.120 | on those devices. And specifically social media is one thing that I care less about the phone,

00:32:26.640 | which obviously phones lead to a variety of ways that they can isolate themselves and go deep down

00:32:33.600 | rabbit holes that you may not be aware of. But I actually care, I would say the most about the social

00:32:40.000 | media and its implications. And so I think my current thought around it is we should delay giving our

00:32:49.760 | daughters smartphones or smart devices and specifically access to social media as late as humanly possible.

00:32:57.760 | I'm talking like 18, if we can. And there are probably parents of older kids rolling their eyes

00:33:03.920 | right now. Like, good luck. You have no idea what's about to hit you. And that may be true.

00:33:08.960 | But I think for me, if you look at the brain and the prefrontal cortex being the last region

00:33:16.560 | of the brain to mature, and that's where decision making, impulsive control, social behaviors, like all

00:33:24.720 | of that is formulated there. And that coupled with children, particularly younger children who are using

00:33:33.280 | social media regularly, it actually changes their brain and not for the better. And so for me, I think

00:33:40.960 | as much as we can try to figure out how we hack this system so that maybe we're working with other parents

00:33:49.760 | in the community, in this school, in the class to say, let's all just make a pact that we're not going to

00:33:55.760 | give our kids smartphones or social media accounts or whatever it might be until a certain age. I think

00:34:01.680 | that could potentially be a conversation I could see myself having. But at the end of the day, I'm

00:34:07.280 | curious to get your quick take. This is definitely a battle that I think is worth fighting.

00:34:12.240 | I think it's pretty clear that data shows that social media for not just children, but basically

00:34:17.600 | everyone is not a benefit. And as people are developing and haven't figured out their place in

00:34:23.360 | the world and how to act, it seems even worse. So I'm 100% aligned. It seems like delay social media

00:34:29.040 | as long as possible, and try to create a healthy relationship with everything outside of it

00:34:33.760 | before it plays a role. On the flip side, I was a total nerd. I remember going to probably fifth or

00:34:41.920 | sixth grade with my dad's laptop and playing cannon fodder with one other kid at school and loving it

00:34:48.400 | and dialing up on BBSs and using random weird apps to speak French to people when I first learned French

00:34:54.400 | in school in other countries. And like, I was a nerd playing on the computer all the time. And there

00:35:00.080 | wasn't social media as much. There were chat rooms, definitely on IRC and AOL instant messenger. So

00:35:06.160 | there was a little bit of stuff happening, but not nearly in the way it is now. We didn't have fast

00:35:11.760 | enough internet where people were sharing images nonstop or video calling people or any of that.

00:35:16.240 | And so I think it's important for our kids to learn to use technology and understand all the

00:35:23.200 | things that they can do with it and how valuable it can be, while at the same time not getting to a place

00:35:28.640 | where it is the only thing they're doing. I also remember spending time in the woods running around

00:35:33.680 | doing all kinds of stuff. And so I think the flip side of this is if that's something that's important

00:35:37.760 | to us to not do, maybe talk a little bit about what is important for the kids. Because I know you've

00:35:42.320 | thought about this a lot. And when I think of running in the woods, I think of free range parenting and

00:35:45.760 | all this stuff we've also talked about.

00:35:46.720 | So I think how things have evolved today is there is a much bigger focus for the two of us around the

00:35:54.480 | concept of free range parenting, which is not like let your kids run wild, allow them to make every

00:36:00.000 | decision under the sun. They choose when they go to bed, they choose where they go on their own.

00:36:05.280 | That's not free range parenting, but it is allowing them autonomy and the ability to own decisions that

00:36:13.760 | are age appropriate. And I think that allows them to understand the pros and cons of how they make

00:36:21.760 | choices. It allows them more autonomy and the confidence as they get older to be able to get

00:36:28.080 | out in the world and do something productive. And I think with technology nowadays, it's just become so

00:36:34.480 | easy that even when we're not hovering over our kids, we know exactly where they are. We know exactly what

00:36:40.560 | they're doing. There is no ability for these children to really escape and be independent like we used to

00:36:47.200 | be when you talk about running in the woods and that's something that I'd like to somehow

00:36:52.080 | get back to with our kids. So free range parenting is definitely something top of mind for us.

00:36:58.560 | And then I think we've had this conversation so many times, but we're always assessing like,

00:37:03.920 | what do we actually care about? Because it's so easy to get caught up in these cycles with other parents

00:37:11.200 | and the community and the social pressure of what extracurricular activities are your kids doing?

00:37:16.000 | Or how are they feeling about math entering kindergarten and those topics? And do they like

00:37:22.640 | math? Are they excelling in math? Are they doing extracurricular math? And I think where we have

00:37:28.720 | done it out in those conversations is at the end of the day, the things that we care most about is that

00:37:36.400 | they're good people. They're kind people. They're not bullies at school. They're genuine to help someone

00:37:43.600 | when someone needs help. And they're curious about the world. They ask questions. They want to know how

00:37:48.480 | things work. They're curious about other cultures and understanding perspectives. And I think if we can

00:37:53.680 | focus on that and they end up contributing for the better to their communities as they get older and they're

00:38:02.160 | kind, then I think we did a lot of things right. I totally agree. It's funny how when I look at hiring

00:38:09.520 | people, intellectual curiosity is so important. And it probably makes sense that that's also something

00:38:14.400 | really important as kids. It doesn't have to be as intellectual for them. But I just want them asking

00:38:19.520 | questions. Now, I think any parent listening is like, well, there's another side of that, which is

00:38:24.560 | constant questions. One of our daughters, you ask a question, you're like, oh, be careful. You don't

00:38:28.160 | want to get hurt. And she's like, well, how hurt? And I go, well, you might hurt your arm. And she's

00:38:33.360 | like, well, how hurt would my arm be? Do I have to go to the hospital? Am I going to die? You're like,

00:38:36.960 | no, no, you're not going to die. You just, you know, you might get hurt. So how hurt? What would we do

00:38:40.560 | with the hospital? If I had to go to the hospital, would I see how many doctors, you know, you go down

00:38:44.160 | and he's like, you're like, I love supporting your curiosity, but like, we've got to go to school

00:38:48.400 | right now. And like, it could just be a lot. And so to me, I think just trying to spend time with

00:38:55.120 | them, just trying to help them understand these things is so important. I think back to Sahil Bloom

00:39:01.280 | wrote this book, Five Types of Wealth. And in it, there's this chart about the time you spend with your

00:39:05.360 | children. And I was talking with my friend, Kevin Rose, who's been on the show a few times. He has two

00:39:09.680 | daughters. We have two daughters. And we were talking about when we wanted to stop working

00:39:15.440 | and take time off. And I think so often people say, gosh, when I just get to this point, I can take a

00:39:20.240 | break. And this conversation happened at a point after I had Jillian on to talk about mini retirements.

00:39:26.560 | And I remember Kevin saying something like, you know, in X years, I think it'd be really great to

00:39:31.440 | just take a break. And I said, well, I've been thinking about this also, but we're in this magical

00:39:36.800 | moment. I was like, how much do your kids like you right now? And he's like, they love me. They

00:39:40.960 | always want to spend time with me. And I was like, me too. Like, we are the coolest people to our

00:39:45.120 | children right now. And then we were talking about like, at what age did we stop wanting to

00:39:49.200 | hang out with our parents? Because a lot of times you think about how much time you have to spend with

00:39:54.240 | your kids. And you think, well, when they go to college, that's when I don't get to spend more

00:39:57.440 | time with them. But before college comes ages where they don't want to hang out with you.

00:40:02.400 | And right now we're in this really magical moment where they really want to hang out with us.

00:40:06.800 | And we actually got a question from Lexi that was like, how do you think about stepping back from

00:40:10.160 | your career while your kids are young so you can spend more time with them? And I think this is a

00:40:14.960 | big thing that we're starting to have a conversation about together. How does this look like for me versus

00:40:19.440 | you? And what do we do to really make sure we spend time with the kids? And I think we're fortunate

00:40:24.880 | that we both work on this podcast. And that's really flexible in terms of when we work,

00:40:30.240 | how our time is. I think, unfortunately, when you own a business, whether it's a podcast or a big

00:40:35.280 | company, it's hard to not think about it all the time. It's in your control. We definitely don't have

00:40:40.160 | the luxury of clock in, clock out, never think about where we're not there. And there's something

00:40:45.600 | magical about that. Like a part of me is like, man, if I just had one of those jobs, it would be so

00:40:50.320 | easy. When I'm home, I never have to think about work. I don't even know what that's like. It's been

00:40:54.080 | decades. But I think that one thing right now that's really top of mind is how do we make sure we spend

00:41:01.200 | more time with them, helping them learn, helping them see the world, traveling with them within the

00:41:06.720 | confines of school schedules and all of these other things, while also not spending so much time with

00:41:13.840 | them that we lose our own professional endeavors, our own curiosity, things that challenge us and help us

00:41:20.000 | grow and learn. So it's a really tough balancing act. Full disclosure for everyone listening.

00:41:24.720 | There's a world where we talked about next summer, like maybe because summer is a time where they're

00:41:28.720 | out of school. Maybe we take summer and take a month or two off. So maybe we pause the podcast.

00:41:33.600 | Maybe we take the business sacrifice of not having episodes come out so that we can spend time together

00:41:40.640 | as a family for a month. No promises. Maybe we'll just batch record in advance. But that's a really

00:41:46.080 | important thing that I think over the next decade is important. And I know you've thought about it a

00:41:50.480 | lot even more. So maybe share a little bit about what you're thinking.

00:41:53.840 | I think going back to the Saul Hill discussion you had with him and his five types of wealth,

00:42:00.160 | one of them is the wealth of time. And I just remember when I heard that it hit me like a brick

00:42:06.800 | wall. I was just not prepared for it. And it goes back to what you were saying, which is

00:42:11.760 | 95% of your time with your kids is spent in their first 18 years. And then it plummets. It basically

00:42:18.480 | just nose dies off a cliff. And if you think about it in those 18 years, like you said, only part of

00:42:25.680 | that time, they think you're magical. And the other part, they're like, no, I'm going to prioritize my

00:42:29.200 | friends, my social group. You're not cool. You're actually the least cool person I've ever met.

00:42:34.480 | Get away from me. And so it's not even 18 years. It's actually maybe more like 10 or 12. But I think

00:42:42.240 | optimizing and focusing our time and energy to be available for them in times where they're not as

00:42:52.080 | tightly scheduled from morning to night. And they think we're magical. They think we're the best things

00:42:58.160 | that they've ever experienced because right now we are. Let's optimize for that. And so if that means

00:43:04.640 | working less or shifting our priorities to accommodate that and get as much quality time together, I think

00:43:11.120 | that's super valuable. And so that's something that I know we're really refocusing our efforts around.

00:43:16.960 | One of the experiences I had, as I was thinking through this, we both work from home and I was

00:43:23.760 | working in my office and the girls were playing with our repair nearby. And through the door, I could hear

00:43:30.240 | them laughing and giggling and playing and being silly. And all I could think was like, I love working.

00:43:35.760 | But do I love it that much? Is it so important that I should be having someone else play with my kids and

00:43:44.720 | be silly and funny and create all these magical moments while I'm working on something? And it's

00:43:52.000 | pulling my time away from that. And honestly, it felt really bad. It was a tough realization to think that

00:43:59.280 | this is how I am choosing to spend my time. Now, I also recognize not everyone has the luxury of saying,

00:44:06.080 | I'm just going to make my work more flexible or I'm going to pull back on my hours or whatever it might be

00:44:11.440 | to accommodate this. So I recognize it is a true privilege to sit here and say, I want to spend my

00:44:19.920 | time and I want to allocate it differently to accommodate the time with the girls while they're

00:44:24.640 | young and think we're great. I agree that not everyone can do that. But we had this conversation

00:44:29.760 | with Jillian on the podcast about many retirements a month or two ago. And it doesn't mean that you have to

00:44:36.960 | stop working forever. So when you think, gosh, what would it look like to not work for the next 40

00:44:41.760 | years? Like that seems daunting when you think, well, my kids are young. What would it look like

00:44:46.560 | to take a month off of work in the summer? There's a version of this at every level. And so maybe it's

00:44:51.920 | just traveling. We're talking about doing this next summer. When we used to travel, it was kind of

00:44:56.320 | vacations. When we travel with kids, I often said that it feels kind of like a work trip because you're not

00:45:02.080 | actually traveling, you do stuff. I think you said it would go even further.

00:45:05.200 | Yeah. Work trips are not remotely like traveling with kids. Work trips, all you have to worry about

00:45:12.000 | is you and your work. There are no other schedules, no other small, but very large personalities that

00:45:18.480 | you're managing and needs and all of that. No, a work trip sounds like a dream. Okay. Very different.

00:45:26.400 | I think traveling with kids is a trip and it's a trip that can be very enjoyable, but it's also

00:45:33.600 | demanding. And I can't think of any trip that we have taken with kids despite our kids being wonderful

00:45:39.760 | and us having a really good time where I didn't come home thinking, I am so freaking tired. I just

00:45:45.920 | need a vacation from the trip we just took to decompress. I totally agree. While at the same time,

00:45:53.360 | I don't want to come off as anti travel with children because we've had so many incredible

00:45:58.720 | memories. And as much as it's not the same as an old vacation, the idea of watching your kids explore

00:46:05.920 | and experience new things and take part in new cultures and just get the magic of running around.

00:46:10.640 | We're talking about next summer. It's like maybe we go to someplace in Switzerland and they just run in

00:46:14.080 | the mountains and the fields. It sounds so awesome. Excited to do it. And I think that it's something

00:46:20.880 | everyone should probably both be prepared for. And I think in our last episode that we did together,

00:46:27.040 | you talked about a lot of your tips for doing that. And there's an episode that by the time

00:46:30.880 | this comes out might've already come out about traveling with kids. So I'm not going to go down

00:46:34.080 | the rabbit hole of how to do it, but it's just something I think taking the time to make happen

00:46:40.160 | is really important. And whether that's a road trip, whether that's a staycation, we met families

00:46:46.000 | when we were traveling around the world that took a year off to travel around the world with their

00:46:49.280 | kids. There's a lot of versions of what that looks like. I just think it's really impactful and I love

00:46:56.160 | to do it. The one last quick thing I'd say there is it's important to not lose sight of why you are

00:47:03.440 | traveling beyond your kids. Right. And so I think it is important to say you as a couple or you as a

00:47:10.160 | parent, where are you interested in going? And then couple that with kid friendly activities while you're

00:47:17.600 | there so that you feel like you're at least being able to see a part of the U S or the world that you're

00:47:24.080 | excited about, but you're keeping the kids entertained in a way that they're not going to drive you crazy

00:47:29.760 | because then that's no fun for anyone. So I think it's satisfying a bit in getting close to the places

00:47:36.960 | that you actually want to experience and prioritizing that for yourself personally, but then also just

00:47:42.240 | making sure that there's a spattering of very kid friendly focused activities while you're there.

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00:49:04.480 | those who support us. Speaking of travel, we had a question from VJ come in around lounge access for

00:49:11.280 | families, specifically with Avenger X losing guest access. How do you think about that?

00:49:16.240 | When we travel, I think lounges can be amazing because the last thing you want to do is get to

00:49:21.600 | an airport late with kids and be trying to rush them around. Inevitably, someone needs to go to the

00:49:26.480 | bathroom. Someone's hungry. Even though we live close to an airport, I think we get to the airport

00:49:31.600 | earlier when we're traveling with kids. We probably try to deprioritize layovers as much as possible,

00:49:39.120 | but when they happen, you don't want a 30-minute layover with kids. You want a longer one. You have

00:49:42.800 | more time at airports with a family. For context, the Capital One Venture X has removed free guest

00:49:50.000 | access into the Capital One lounges, but they've also removed guest access from the Priority Pass

00:49:54.880 | membership that comes with it. For anyone not familiar, Priority Pass is a program that gives

00:49:59.120 | you access to lounges all around the world at different airports. Most premium, think $395 or

00:50:05.280 | more annual fee rewards travel cards, come with a Priority Pass membership. They come in a lot of

00:50:10.800 | different flavors. This person said, "Gosh, in order to get guest access, you have to spend $75,000 on

00:50:16.560 | the card. Is that worth it? How should I think about this?" It's funny because we had the exact

00:50:22.240 | same question about the exact same card because we both have a Venture X. I remember doing the math

00:50:28.080 | and thinking, "Gosh, to spend $75,000 on this card versus other cards we have was not going to happen

00:50:33.920 | on its own. What is the opportunity cost of that?" If you were going to spend that would have otherwise

00:50:40.720 | gotten 4X points on hotels, that's a real cost. I can't remember the exact cost I came up with.

00:50:46.800 | Let's call it $1,000, but it was large enough that when I took the cost and then I looked at how

00:50:52.880 | much it costs to bring kids in, which if you just pay for them is like $20 or $25 or $30 depending on the

00:50:59.120 | program and the lounge, we would have to go to a Capital One lounge like 30 times for this thing to

00:51:05.040 | actually break even or 10 times or whatever it was. It was way more than the number of times you've been to a Capital One lounge.

00:51:08.400 | In fact, I think we've been to the Capital One lounge twice ever. The annual cost of Capital One lounge

00:51:16.080 | visits if we had to pay for our children was $100. Now, the counter to that argument is if we were at

00:51:23.200 | the airport, and maybe you would have a different answer to this, and the only lounge we could go to

00:51:27.360 | was a Capital One lounge, but it was $25 per kid, would we actually spend the $50? It would be so much easier

00:51:34.160 | for me to lose $500 spending money on a card than it would be for me to spend $50 to get into a lounge.

00:51:41.840 | Knowing that we have access to so many other lounges, we just don't have access to bring our kids into this lounge.

00:51:47.520 | I feel like this concept is going full circle back to the whole furniture discussion we had. But yeah, I think it honestly

00:51:55.200 | depends on the moment of how painful the travel journey has been so far. If it's painful, and there's a kid that needs to

00:52:01.200 | use the bathroom, and one's like, I'm hungry, and they're tired, and you just want a designated place to sit,

00:52:06.880 | I would pay lounge access any day. But if things are going well, everyone's chipper, and things are smooth, I think it might be hard.

00:52:14.880 | And it's one of those airports with play areas and all kinds of stuff. Yeah.

00:52:18.560 | Yeah. So here is my quick feedback. And this is probably relevant to a lot more people than just

00:52:23.600 | thinking about Capital One Venture Act. So when it comes to Priority Pass, most Priority Pass memberships,

00:52:29.760 | other than Capital One, have guest access. So outside of the Capital One proprietary lounges,

00:52:36.320 | which you need a Capital One card for, almost all premium cards that come with a Priority Pass membership,

00:52:42.320 | except Capital One, give you guest access. So any other one of those cards might be a great option

00:52:48.480 | if you're going to a lot of airports with Priority Pass lounges. Now, I think the biggest, most important

00:52:53.040 | thing to consider here is, depending on where you're based and what airline you fly, certain lounge

00:52:58.400 | memberships might be way more important to you than others. We don't have a Capital One lounge in San

00:53:02.880 | Francisco. I know there's one in Denver, but it's in Terminal A. And when we fly to Denver from San

00:53:08.080 | Francisco, we usually fly on Southwest in Terminal C, United into Terminal B. And so we're almost never

00:53:13.120 | in Terminal A. So it's both inconvenient in Denver. And usually we have a layover that's not that long.

00:53:19.360 | So we're trekking to another terminal. So for us, Capital One is not a big priority. Whereas in San

00:53:25.280 | Francisco, there is a Centurion lounge, which is American Express. There's a club lounge, which is Priority

00:53:30.480 | Pass. And there's a United club. If you're flying United, there's probably three United clubs. And

00:53:35.280 | then there's a couple of Priority Pass lounges. So we don't really need Capital One access for our

00:53:40.080 | home airport. And our home airport is probably where we end up at the lounge the most, because we usually

00:53:44.000 | get to the airport an hour and a half early, just in case things go wrong. By the time we're through

00:53:48.560 | clear and TSA pre, we're like, oh, now we have an hour. And inevitably, the kids are hungry. So I would

00:53:54.400 | think about it as which airports are you going to be at? And what are the lounges there that you might want

00:53:59.120 | to access? If you're traveling internationally, I think Priority Pass has enough of a footprint that

00:54:04.560 | you really don't need to think about a specific program. When it comes to programs, Amex is very

00:54:09.200 | similar to Capital One. You need to spend $75,000 on one of the platinum cards in order to get guest

00:54:15.360 | access to those lounges, or you have to pay. And so similar problem you have there. You can get

00:54:21.040 | authorized cards for a lot of your family members, including your children, depending on the program.

00:54:25.920 | But usually they cost anywhere from $125 to $195. So in the Capital One case, adding two authorized

00:54:32.720 | lounge access card members for $125 each might be cheaper than spending $75,000. But it might not be

00:54:39.520 | cheaper than just paying every time you go. So those two Capital One and Amex are in their own world where

00:54:44.880 | you have to pay to get more access for guests. But the Amex platinum card does give you access to your

00:54:51.840 | Priority Pass, your Escape lounges, your Plaza Premium lounges with guests. So it's just the

00:54:56.480 | Centurion Club and the Delta Sky Club where you don't get access for guests. On the Chase side,

00:55:02.080 | if you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve or a Ritz card, you get free guests in the Priority Pass lounges,

00:55:06.560 | you get free guests in the Chase lounges. The Chase lounges, funny enough, you can actually access

00:55:10.960 | with any Priority Pass membership just once a year. So everyone can kind of get a taste of the Chase

00:55:15.680 | lounge, but you can't go regularly, but you get guests. So Chase is a great platform for guests on

00:55:21.120 | all the lounges you get access to, but there aren't as many lounges as the Amex lounge network. And then

00:55:26.560 | with each airline program, you can get a United Club card and that'll give you access to the lounges,

00:55:31.360 | plus one guest, plus any dependent children. You can get the American Executive card that gives you

00:55:36.320 | access to the Admirals Club with your immediate family or two guests. It also gives you access to Alaska

00:55:41.680 | lounges because they have a reciprocal relationship. Alaska has a lounge membership,

00:55:46.400 | but it doesn't come with any of their cards, so you have to pay for it. And then the Delta Reserve

00:55:50.160 | card is probably the worst. You get access to sky clubs, you only get 15 visits, and you only get

00:55:55.440 | four guest passes. You get no guests guaranteed. So not a good option for families. I think you unlock

00:56:00.640 | guests on that card with spending $75,000 also. So for us, I look at it and say, we got to cover SFO,

00:56:07.600 | and we kind of want to cover enough access that we can usually find something. But we don't have

00:56:13.040 | access to the Admirals Club. We don't have access to the Sky Club. And so there will be times where we

00:56:18.160 | just don't have what we need. And depending on the circumstance, we might have to pay. But ask yourself

00:56:23.120 | how much you're really going to spend before you go out and try to find ways to spend $75,000 on a card,

00:56:28.160 | because as painful as it might be to spend $25 for two kids, it might actually be cheaper. And so

00:56:35.040 | that's kind of how I'm thinking about lounge access now that we're thinking about it regularly with kids.

00:56:40.000 | Well, I think the other thing is it's not permanent. Families can go and test what it feels like

00:56:45.600 | to go and pay out of pocket to get into these lounges. And if they do it and they say, okay,

00:56:51.520 | that's really painful. And we realize we're actually having to pay out of pocket quite a bit,

00:56:55.520 | then okay, cool. Reassess and maybe it makes sense. But nothing's permanent. And yeah,

00:57:00.720 | it may actually be a better deal to just pay when you need it versus trying to earn access in advance.

00:57:07.680 | So coming back a little bit to spending more time with the kids and thinking about professional stuff,

00:57:12.240 | you've been working on the podcast for a couple years. You've been thinking about what to do.

00:57:15.520 | We've had an au pair for five years. It's been great. But you're actually thinking of making a big

00:57:20.720 | change. And by thinking of our making a big change next year, can you share how you thought about it

00:57:26.800 | and how you're feeling and what it is? So we have decided that our current au pair,

00:57:34.560 | her year is up with us end of this year. And so in having to go through the process of assessing

00:57:41.840 | what the next childcare phase looked like for us, I think there were two realizations,

00:57:47.280 | one of which was the saw Hill bloom. 95% of your time is spent with kids in the first 18 years of

00:57:52.960 | their life. So that felt very jarring for me. And I was like, I want to be very intentional about

00:57:58.080 | spending more time with them while they're younger. And the other part was our youngest, who's three now,

00:58:04.720 | will be going to school in more of a full-time capacity in August. And as we thought about what

00:58:10.720 | our summer travel plans might be and all of that, it felt like a very natural break point to say,

00:58:17.760 | okay, I'm going to step away from more full-time work duties and focus a lot more on full-time

00:58:25.360 | childcare and spending that quality time together. So that's going to be the change.

00:58:30.320 | And it'll be a change for me because I have never been the person, nor do I think I would ever have

00:58:38.640 | been the person that said, I'm going to step away from my work and my career to focus 100% on my

00:58:44.080 | children. I love working and my career has always been very important to me, but times in life change

00:58:51.040 | and here we are. And it turns out that I feel different now than I used to. And so we're going

00:58:56.160 | to try it out. You're also going to be taking a huge responsibility of absorbing both of our work

00:59:02.640 | across other team members that we have. So a huge thank you to you. I think we're going to try it. We're

00:59:08.080 | going to see how it goes. And I'm sure there will be lessons that we're happy to share through the process.

00:59:14.480 | Yeah. I think we've had an au pair for five years and it's been a fantastic program for us. And someone

00:59:20.640 | reached out and asked a question. Riley said, you know, did you ever think about daycare instead of

00:59:24.800 | an au pair? And I think we talked a lot about that the last time we were on, but at the highest level,

00:59:29.600 | the au pair program, especially with two kids, especially with the flexibility of having nights

00:59:35.040 | or weekends or being able to bring someone with you when you travel, it was just much more the program

00:59:40.000 | for us. I also had an au pair as a kid. So I was really comfortable with the concept. It served its

00:59:45.120 | purpose really well. But like you mentioned, if the kids are in school in August and we want to take

00:59:50.160 | a month or two off in the summer, then we're just talking about January to May. And we're already

00:59:56.480 | taking a trip in February for a week. We're already taking a trip in April for a week. So it's like,

00:59:59.840 | how many months is it? And do we want to commit to childcare for a year, which is the way the au pair

01:00:04.720 | program works for four or five months. And you've been feeling this way. So I think it's a little bit

01:00:09.680 | of an experiment. We have no idea how it'll go. I think we're fortunate that some of the more

01:00:16.000 | strategic business things that we do, thinking about the podcast, the newsletter can be squeezed

01:00:22.000 | into a couple hour conversations every few days. So you have the benefit of, you could probably work

01:00:28.160 | five hours a week and get some of that exciting, professional thinking, challenging stuff done without

01:00:34.880 | doing the day to day work. Me and a couple other people will take that off your plate. And you can

01:00:39.920 | still have a little connection to work while being able to focus full time on the kids for a period of

01:00:45.920 | time. And we'll see how it goes. But we're actually going to trial run this starting tomorrow. And so Katie

01:00:52.160 | actually reached out and said, how are you doing after your surgery? And so for people who don't know,

01:00:57.760 | maybe share a little bit about what happened last year and over the last few years, what's happening

01:01:03.200 | tomorrow and why for really anyone listening, it's important to think really proactively about your

01:01:10.560 | health. In 2019, I found out I have this genetic mutation called BRCA mutation BRCA1 or 2. Basically,

01:01:19.920 | it increases the likelihood that I would have certain types of cancers. And so I have been going

01:01:26.320 | through very consistent tests, MRIs, ultrasounds, and all of that just to be proactive in making sure

01:01:33.680 | that if cancer did arise, we got ahead of it as early as possible. And for those people listening,

01:01:38.400 | the increased likelihood was like greater than 50% before you die that you would have breast to ovarian

01:01:44.480 | cancer. It was not like, oh, you have a 3% more likely chance of this. It's a pretty serious

01:01:50.160 | increased risk. Yes. Yeah. It's like a 60 to 80% risk depending on your situation. So last year,

01:01:57.440 | I moved forward with a risk reducing mastectomy. And it was definitely one of the hardest decisions I made

01:02:06.080 | because I didn't have to do it. It was risk reducing. So it was preventative. And I did it

01:02:12.800 | at a time where our kids were young. And so it was like for a period of time, sorry,

01:02:17.040 | mommy's not feeling well, or I can't pick you up. Or I had to sit out when you guys were doing super

01:02:21.840 | fun activities. And so that was kind of a bummer. But the upside is I am so, so glad I did because

01:02:29.040 | it's just a huge relief that I no longer have to worry about these semiannual tests that I used to do.

01:02:37.040 | And if something came back questionable, having to wait with that anxiety of like,

01:02:42.160 | what does this mean? What is it? And so this year, I have decided to move forward with the rest of what

01:02:49.920 | I can control, which is an ophorectomy. So that's getting my ovaries removed. And I will be doing

01:02:55.600 | additional reconstruction from my mastectomy. The thing that I have realized through this process

01:03:03.200 | of moving forward with an ophorectomy and the mastectomy from last year is one, there is surprisingly

01:03:11.200 | little research that goes into women going through menopause. And in doing the ophorectomy,

01:03:18.480 | it will automatically kick me into menopause. So starting tomorrow. And so it's very surprising to

01:03:24.960 | me that there's not more research and custom kind of tailored approaches. And it's really more of a

01:03:32.720 | bandaid solution at this point, where if you get put on HRT hormone replacement therapy, which I will be

01:03:38.480 | tomorrow, they basically put you on based on your age, and then they titrate you over time. So good

01:03:44.080 | luck to you, Chris. I have no idea what my reaction is going to be to things as of tomorrow. But I'm

01:03:50.720 | hoping we can titrate it in a way that gets me feeling relatively normal and not just like a wild

01:03:56.080 | woman of emotions. So that's one thing as it relates to hormones and hormone replacement therapy.

01:04:02.240 | The second thing that I have really come to realize through this whole process is the healthcare system

01:04:09.120 | right now is not set up to be proactive. And so that means we as individuals need to fully take control

01:04:18.720 | of being proactive for our own health, because no one else is doing that for us. You can have the best

01:04:26.800 | medical teams, you can even have concierge doctors. But at the end of the day, they still have other

01:04:32.640 | people that they are helping and serving and almost all of them are overworked. And so it is on us and it

01:04:42.080 | is all our responsibility to make sure that we are driving the conversation around what it is you need,

01:04:49.680 | whether it's tests, scans, proactive procedures and so on, to stay ahead of your health because

01:04:56.880 | you are going to be your best advocate. So first off, I'm so proud of you for doing all this.

01:05:01.040 | I know it's been a journey, but I also know that the amount you were nervous about the procedure last

01:05:08.720 | year relative to how you felt after recovery was so wildly different in a positive way that if it takes

01:05:18.880 | redoing how we do work as a business so that you can take off effectively the next month or two,

01:05:24.960 | which is really just preparation for taking off next year. I'm so excited to do that because I think

01:05:30.880 | this satisfaction I know you'll have of not having to do these regular checkups, not having to, you know,

01:05:36.640 | I remember when they first described it to you, they were like, the difference is you don't have

01:05:39.840 | to do the surgery. You just need to be prepared that there's a really, really, really high chance

01:05:44.560 | that one day you're going to go to the doctor and you're going to have cancer and it's going to stop

01:05:48.480 | your entire life in that moment. And you're going to change everything. You won't have that fear.

01:05:52.160 | And obviously there are still other types of cancer. There's still all kinds of health conditions

01:05:55.600 | that could happen. So it's not like we're going to stop being proactive and stop monitoring things,

01:06:00.240 | but the one that was a extreme risk for you will be gone. And that's amazing.

01:06:04.400 | So I am ready to wake up at four o'clock tomorrow to take you in and be with you the whole time.

01:06:10.960 | And I'm really excited for how I know you'll feel on the other side of it all. On the preventative

01:06:16.960 | medicine side, I think just one anecdote that I've shared a little bit before, but I have high

01:06:22.080 | cholesterol. I saw a good doctor at a good healthcare system and she was like, you have high cholesterol.

01:06:28.240 | You should exercise a little bit more. And this has been going on for years and just didn't have

01:06:32.400 | the time to stay on top of the latest research, the latest drugs that are out, how long this has

01:06:37.280 | been happening. I hadn't seen her before ever. And the more I dug into this, the more I looked into

01:06:42.560 | getting a heart CT scan for like a hundred dollars. There are places around the country you can go get

01:06:47.600 | it for free to really properly assess your risk and realize that there's a lot more you can be doing.

01:06:53.280 | I think the more I realized exactly what you said, you just have to be thinking about this yourself.

01:06:57.920 | I will say that having direct primary care, having a concierge doctor can really help

01:07:02.080 | because you have a partner in this that does have the time, sometimes has done the research,

01:07:07.280 | is on top of things a bit more, but you've still got to care about it yourself. And so it's just

01:07:12.320 | something that I think is so important. I think that one benefit we have now is that these language models

01:07:18.160 | using ChatGPT are so good. I'm not going to replace a doctor with them, but being able to upload

01:07:23.120 | lots of results, being able to ask questions, being able to just dig in to something that has

01:07:27.680 | access to lots of research, has access to all kinds of conversations happening is something that I'm

01:07:32.320 | really excited that we have access to now because I think it has a huge amount of value to our lives.

01:07:36.720 | And so I just think it's important. So I agree with you 100%. I think that this is not an episode

01:07:42.000 | about health per se, but it's just a constant reminder. And the last question I have to bring up from

01:07:49.360 | a listener was how do you think about caring for your parents? And I think this is just another

01:07:54.240 | thing that when it comes to your parents, when it comes to people getting older, it's easy to take

01:07:58.960 | that responsibility on ourselves. But I know that for a lot of people in our generation, their parents

01:08:04.320 | might not be as proactive as them. And so as they get a little older, you end up taking it on for someone

01:08:09.440 | else. And I remember the moment where I was like, all right, have we done these tests? Now we've got to go

01:08:12.880 | do these tests, let's be preventative. And it's a slow process, because some people just have different

01:08:19.280 | outlooks on how they approach things. But one hack I will share is that because high cholesterol and heart

01:08:25.920 | health issues run in my family, there was an organization that would schedule your I think

01:08:30.720 | it was the Family Heart Foundation, I'll put a link in the show notes, but they have a free consultation that

01:08:35.600 | you can do. And so I'd been telling my mom all about these cholesterol heart issues for a long time. And I would say

01:08:41.600 | she took it somewhat seriously. And then I scheduled a call for me, my sister and my mom to get on.

01:08:47.040 | And all of a sudden, she's like, Oh, this doctor said this thing, we should do that. I was like,

01:08:50.880 | I'm not going to try to get an argument right now about how I've been saying that forever. But sometimes

01:08:55.920 | teen up a professional that understands the situation with your aging parents can be helpful

01:09:01.840 | to get them over that line. And they just sometimes might need to hear it from other people,

01:09:06.320 | from peers, from doctors, but taking that preventative health approach, not just for us,

01:09:10.320 | but for our family is really important. I think it's less urgent for our kids, but we're still

01:09:15.520 | thinking about it. There is a point in time where we'll have to decide when they find out if they have

01:09:19.200 | the BRCA2 mutation and all those kinds of things. So I didn't go through all the other hacks for aging

01:09:24.320 | parents. Go back to episode 114. We talked about having conversations about money, make sure they have

01:09:28.800 | their estate plan and their trust in place. I think the other big thing, and you can come back quickly to

01:09:33.920 | health that I think about with our parents that we talked a lot about recently is around cyber

01:09:38.640 | security. I think I am terrified with the fact that right now both of our voices are being recorded.

01:09:43.920 | They are going on the internet. It only takes a 15 second sample for someone to reproduce our voices,

01:09:49.600 | call our parents, use the information you can find online to try and convince them to send money and do

01:09:55.600 | things. And so I think it's just really important, especially in today's age, to help them go through

01:10:01.920 | a series of checks, make sure that they're using two-factor authentication, make sure that you set

01:10:07.040 | up some kind of safe word, or even a great idea I heard was to just set up a two-factor code and share

01:10:13.840 | it within your shared password manager and use that as the code to share amongst your family so that,

01:10:18.800 | hey, is this really you? What's the code? And they have to go look in their one password or their device

01:10:23.680 | and figure out the code. And so those kinds of things are important. Or ultimately, just like we

01:10:29.280 | might do with driving, sometimes you have to take the keys away. And I can't imagine having to have

01:10:34.160 | this conversation with my parents, but at some point it might be, hey, let me help manage the money.

01:10:39.680 | Or maybe there's a step along the way, hey, let's set up a approval process. Whereas if you need to

01:10:46.080 | make a large transfer, me or my sister have to help sign off on it. Like it's not because I don't trust

01:10:51.920 | you. It's wild how all these tools make it so easy to spoof an email, spoof a website, spoof a voice,

01:10:58.160 | spoof a video. It wouldn't surprise me if in the next year they can get a FaceTime call from me that looks

01:11:04.160 | like me and sounds like me, but isn't me. And so we just got to be more careful, share more about what's

01:11:09.280 | going on. Be compassionate during the process, which I'm working on. And that's just one of the

01:11:14.000 | other things. So I think I shared this link in the recap from the Long Angle event, but fortify5.org is

01:11:20.320 | a cool cybersecurity assessment that one of the other attendees at the event put together that

01:11:25.440 | is really interesting to just kind of see what you might not be doing on the cybersecurity front.

01:11:29.440 | But any other tips before we wrap up about dealing with parents as they age?

01:11:34.000 | Yeah, you brought up some really good ones, two others, one of which is, I think our parents'

01:11:39.360 | generation is a bit more private than our generation is. And so if you recognize that your parents are

01:11:48.240 | aging noticeably, I would say start small, but start really trying to chip away at getting information,

01:11:56.720 | getting access, getting them comfortable with you knowing more, because then it won't be so jarring

01:12:03.200 | when you get to a point where, God forbid, you have to take the keys away. There's more trust,

01:12:08.720 | and they've kind of brought you into this cone of privacy. The other thing that I really loved,

01:12:13.600 | and I remember you doing this a few years ago, for Christmas, you gifted your parents lab work.

01:12:22.320 | And I was like, Oh my God, they are going to hate you for this. But it was brilliant because it was

01:12:29.040 | something that you knew genetically was an issue. You wanted them to get the work done. And in doing so,

01:12:37.200 | it kind of forced the conversation and it gave you the door open to say, Hey, have you gone and done that?

01:12:43.040 | What were the results? Like, let's talk about it. And that actually kicked off much greater open

01:12:49.120 | conversation around their health. So I thought that was a really clever way to go about supporting aging parents

01:12:56.000 | in the way you did it.

01:12:56.960 | Yeah, I've also gifted both my parents and then we both gifted your parents delete me subscriptions that we paid for.

01:13:02.960 | It's funny. I feel like right now I'm sitting here wearing two articles of Viore clothing.

01:13:07.200 | You're drinking element. I'm talking about delete me.

01:13:09.760 | I don't even know in this moment whether they are sponsors for this episode. And we didn't talk about doing ads for them.

01:13:16.480 | But it's funny because when you talked about that, I thought you were talking about delete me.

01:13:19.760 | I was like, these are actually products we use.

01:13:21.520 | Yeah.

01:13:21.840 | The one thing I love about running this business together, which someone asked if we would talk

01:13:26.160 | about and didn't is that all the brands that you've been working with that now, you know,

01:13:30.720 | me and other people are going to take on the conversations when you step away, like they're

01:13:34.080 | actually brands we love. And then my final way to wrap this up is I've been drinking this Tobo Chico the whole

01:13:39.920 | time. I have not been using a coaster and I've noticed something that I thought would be a great

01:13:44.960 | way to end this episode. And that is that this table, which I believe is a restoration hardware

01:13:51.360 | table that we got from a friend when they moved, has no noticeable rings, nothing. It's a really nice

01:13:56.720 | table. This table behind me, which I can tell by how cheap it is, was a table that I'm guessing you

01:14:02.320 | bought on Amazon for a very low amount of money. And somehow the ring is not only noticeable, but it

01:14:07.680 | is gray. So somehow I'm looking at this furniture thinking we now have this gray ring. And all I can

01:14:13.920 | think about is I really wish we bought a nice end table because this table now has this gray ring that

01:14:19.840 | I will never be able to unsee. And a part of me is like, oh, should I sand this and restain it?

01:14:25.520 | And then I'm thinking it was probably $20. We could just replace it, but that seems wasteful.

01:14:29.760 | You know what we should do? We should buy a quality table. And that is how I'm leaving

01:14:34.000 | this conversation right where we started with a desire to buy a quality table. Then I'm sure we'll

01:14:39.280 | be met with a actual quality table that costs way more than I want to spend. And I will be stuck again

01:14:44.560 | in my optimizers dilemma. Babe, I think that is a brilliant idea to buy a quality piece.

01:14:51.040 | What a good idea. Amy, I love you. Thanks for joining our another conversation

01:14:55.360 | on the podcast. I'm curious what people think. Let us know. Should we be doing this more often?

01:14:59.280 | You'll see the insides of our working relationship.

01:15:02.880 | All right. That is all I've got for this week. I hope you love this. And if you did,

01:15:07.520 | give us feedback. Podcast at allthehacks.com. That is it for this week. I will see you next week.

Our Biggest Mistakes Trying to Optimize Our Whole Life (w/ My Wife)

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