RPF0479-Friday_QA
00:00:00.000 | Live from sunny South Florida, it's Q&A Friday.
00:00:21.080 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:24.320 | skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while
00:00:28.400 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:31.080 | My name is Joshua and I am your host.
00:00:32.960 | Today is Friday and to the best of my ability, we do Q&A shows on Friday.
00:00:37.080 | We've got a live phone conference, callers, listeners calling in with their questions
00:00:41.600 | and we'll go there in just a moment and see if we can provide some useful insight and
00:00:46.120 | wisdom.
00:00:52.800 | I enjoy doing these shows.
00:00:54.200 | It's more like kind of a live call-in financial Q&A radio.
00:00:57.400 | I enjoy doing them and I know you as the audience enjoy them.
00:01:00.080 | It allows us to deal with some more practical topics than all the topics that I list every
00:01:05.840 | week.
00:01:06.840 | I need that.
00:01:07.840 | I need you guys to ask specific questions from me in order to cover these practical
00:01:12.280 | topics because often I spend so much time thinking about weird theoretical, ideological
00:01:17.800 | stuff, etc. that I really need you guys' insight and questions.
00:01:21.760 | So today, it's going to be fun and we're going to get to some practical topics.
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00:01:44.800 | show, then I'll put out another message somewhere else.
00:01:48.480 | So for example, this morning I put out a quick email to the email list and that's where
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00:02:11.520 | That doesn't cost you anything.
00:02:12.520 | Or join the Facebook group, the Radical Personal Finance Facebook group.
00:02:15.040 | I use both of those groups for notification sometimes.
00:02:17.840 | I have to do it at the moment.
00:02:19.880 | I'm choosing to limit the access to these calls just so I can do enough of them.
00:02:23.760 | I probably at this point could do a daily Q&A show and just open it up to the whole
00:02:28.760 | audience.
00:02:29.760 | Who knows?
00:02:30.760 | Maybe I'll do that at some point.
00:02:31.760 | But right now that's not my plan.
00:02:32.760 | Go first to Mark in Washington State.
00:02:34.880 | Mark, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:02:36.280 | Thanks, Joshua.
00:02:37.280 | Thanks for taking my call.
00:02:38.280 | Go ahead with your question, please.
00:02:40.920 | So my wife and I, a bit of background, we've been following the Dave Ramsey plan and we're
00:02:46.760 | unsure of what we need to be doing in our next step since we are looking to be moving
00:02:52.000 | internationally, moving back to my wife's country.
00:02:56.800 | There's a lot I could say on this, but the basic point is we've concluded the political
00:03:02.560 | situation is such that we would not want to buy a home there.
00:03:07.380 | We could, as foreigners, be kicked out with 24-hours notice.
00:03:11.380 | And so we don't want to have any assets tied up in something like that.
00:03:15.040 | And so we're trying to figure out what we should be doing in terms of housing given
00:03:19.400 | that.
00:03:20.400 | And so we've thought up of three kind of options and would love your thoughts as to what we
00:03:24.560 | should do.
00:03:25.560 | The first would be to buy a home in the U.S., find a good rental agency company that could
00:03:32.120 | overlook that and manage it for us, hopefully near families so they could occasionally go
00:03:36.880 | in, take a look, make sure it's okay.
00:03:39.320 | The second would be to invest the equivalent of our down payment in maybe a no-load, low-turnover
00:03:45.960 | S&P 500 index fund so you can get the growth on that without paying constant taxes from
00:03:52.440 | the sales and turnover.
00:03:55.000 | The third option would be to just invest more in retirement savings since we are hoping
00:03:58.920 | to live overseas for life.
00:04:01.880 | The risk of being kicked out is rather low, but it is still there.
00:04:05.800 | And so we're just trying to figure out what we should be doing to prepare to own a home,
00:04:12.240 | though we don't think we can own one in the country we'll be living in for the foreseeable
00:04:16.000 | future.
00:04:17.000 | Well, I'm not Dave Ramsey, but since you mentioned his name, I'd be happy to be a co-laborer
00:04:22.360 | with him and coach you a la Dave Ramsey's plans.
00:04:25.760 | Which baby step are you in of Dave Ramsey's baby steps?
00:04:29.520 | We are in four, five, and six.
00:04:31.240 | We've been doing 15%.
00:04:33.480 | That's four.
00:04:34.480 | We have roughly $500 a month extra on top of that.
00:04:39.320 | We have $4,200 in each of our two children's ESA health savings accounts.
00:04:46.120 | They are ages two and a half and one.
00:04:49.000 | And then we obviously don't have a six because that's paying off the house.
00:04:54.480 | And we skipped the, if you're familiar, we skipped the 3B because we thought we would
00:04:59.320 | not be able to buy the home living internationally.
00:05:02.680 | And we've since taken a second step back and say, well, maybe we ought to be looking at
00:05:07.600 | buying a home domestically.
00:05:08.600 | And so for the last couple of months, we paused our retirement savings to just build up that
00:05:15.200 | fund a little bit more in case we did choose to buy a home.
00:05:20.920 | But we can throw those back in obviously if we decide to not purchase a home.
00:05:27.120 | At this point, you and your wife are completely debt-free.
00:05:30.640 | How much money do you have all told, including retirement accounts just all across the board?
00:05:35.160 | How much money do you have?
00:05:37.000 | So everything, if I include our emergency fund savings and Roth, it is, let me do some
00:05:45.240 | quick math, sorry, about $52,000.
00:05:49.920 | And when you are abroad, will you be earning a high income?
00:05:54.280 | We will be earning the equivalent of about $60,000 US.
00:05:59.240 | That goes a lot further in the country we're living in than it would be in the US.
00:06:04.480 | So we have some, I forget the word for that, but the cost of living will be lower.
00:06:12.680 | Arbitrage, there we go.
00:06:13.680 | Thank you.
00:06:14.680 | Geographic arbitrage.
00:06:15.680 | How long do you expect to be abroad?
00:06:18.400 | We're thinking 25 to 30 years.
00:06:21.680 | So this is, you're planning to raise your children abroad, be established there, establish
00:06:27.840 | your careers abroad, and then possibly return to the United States during retirement year
00:06:32.560 | or something like that.
00:06:33.720 | Correct.
00:06:34.720 | Correct.
00:06:35.720 | I think that the plan would be to retire here, most likely, with the caveat that there is
00:06:40.880 | the risk that we might need to leave given the political climate.
00:06:44.520 | But I think that risk is relatively low, but high enough I wouldn't want to have significant
00:06:50.360 | assets tied up that we couldn't be able to get out.
00:06:53.880 | And will you maintain US citizenship and/or apply for dual citizenship in your country
00:06:57.760 | of residence?
00:06:58.760 | US citizenship will be maintained, and we are not able to do dual citizenship in that
00:07:04.640 | country.
00:07:05.640 | Interesting.
00:07:06.640 | Have you ever owned real estate either personally to live in and/or as a rental opportunity?
00:07:14.960 | No.
00:07:15.960 | So let's start with that.
00:07:18.440 | I would not, if I woke up in your shoes, I would not pursue real estate.
00:07:22.880 | I don't see any reason to pursue real estate, at least not personal ownership.
00:07:28.240 | If you had some experience in it, that would be a reasonable thing.
00:07:34.680 | Or if you were going to be abroad for a short amount of time, that would be a reasonable
00:07:39.680 | thing.
00:07:40.680 | But 25 to 30 years, I don't see any benefit for you in engaging in real estate.
00:07:46.720 | Here's why I say that.
00:07:47.960 | Real estate is an asset class.
00:07:49.960 | Just speaking broadly, real estate is an asset class I'm convinced will only ever increase
00:07:55.000 | as wages increase or decrease.
00:07:58.280 | Real estate is a commodity.
00:07:59.960 | And so it has a specific connection to people's wages.
00:08:05.020 | So thus it'll basically in the aggregate only ever grow at the rate of inflation of wages.
00:08:12.760 | In time, real estate becomes worth less and less because the houseware is out.
00:08:18.240 | The land maintains some value, but the houseware is out.
00:08:22.540 | And so when you have a long time perspective, 30 years, if you bought a brand new house
00:08:26.280 | today and you move forward 30 years, your house is not going to be as valuable on a
00:08:32.480 | dollar adjusted basis 30 years from now as it is today.
00:08:35.400 | It's a 30-year-old house.
00:08:37.020 | Now the land may have changed and the underlying community may have changed, but on the whole,
00:08:41.560 | real estate is going to be a very steady asset class that will keep pace with wages.
00:08:48.120 | The ways in which real estate investors make their money are a fewfold.
00:08:52.540 | The most common ways is number one, to find an inefficient market, a mispriced house,
00:08:58.840 | something that is a deal because somebody's grandmother died and they got to dispose of
00:09:04.200 | the house and they want to sell quickly and they don't want to shine it up and fix it
00:09:07.640 | up and sell it there.
00:09:09.200 | So that's one way.
00:09:10.520 | Another way is by finding a neighborhood or a particular market that's on a growth trajectory.
00:09:15.840 | This town is growing, the business climate is growing, et cetera.
00:09:18.800 | That's another way.
00:09:19.800 | Or what most real estate investors do is their basic benefit of real estate is they can borrow
00:09:25.320 | money for a house and have a tenant pay it off for them.
00:09:28.340 | But it always involves some amount of work.
00:09:30.680 | When you start adding management costs in, it lowers your profit margin.
00:09:34.160 | If you're abroad, you're not going to be able to keep a good finger on the pulse of what's
00:09:38.320 | happening locally.
00:09:39.840 | When I start adding all those things together, given the fact that you have no history and
00:09:42.720 | no experience, I would not pursue real estate.
00:09:45.720 | I don't see any benefit whatsoever in that direction.
00:09:49.920 | Now the question is, what do you do?
00:09:51.960 | Well, at first, I would do nothing except just get myself established in the new country.
00:09:56.960 | If you've got, just speaking broadly, 50 grand, 50 grand can be eaten up pretty quickly in
00:10:02.640 | all kinds of things.
00:10:03.640 | Now we don't need to get into details of moving packages, who's moving you there, who's paying
00:10:07.880 | expenses, who's establishing you, et cetera.
00:10:10.760 | But if I woke up and had 50 grand and two young children and I was now we're moving
00:10:14.760 | abroad, I would just keep everything in cash until I made the transition, until I got settled.
00:10:20.100 | You might find out a year or two years from now that what looks awesome is not.
00:10:26.220 | You might hate it, your wife might hate it, and you say, "That's it.
00:10:29.000 | We're going back to the United States."
00:10:30.680 | You might find out that you love it and that it's wonderful, and you might start seeing
00:10:34.360 | opportunities.
00:10:35.600 | So I personally, if I were in your shoes, I would be very slow to do anything right
00:10:40.920 | now.
00:10:43.720 | Should you invest in stocks?
00:10:45.040 | Well, you already own some stocks.
00:10:47.120 | So certainly, you might just keep what you have.
00:10:50.440 | They're long-term investments, and so you might just keep what you have.
00:10:54.480 | Would it work well for you to simply invest money into a broad-based index fund?
00:10:59.320 | Sure.
00:11:00.320 | That's an easy and efficient investment.
00:11:02.400 | It'll probably be great.
00:11:04.040 | You can buy good companies very inexpensively in the U.S. stock market by purchasing a broad-based,
00:11:10.240 | as you said, an index fund.
00:11:12.440 | You can have an investment manager who's managing the fund for you, doing so very inexpensively
00:11:17.600 | in today's investment world.
00:11:19.320 | You can have great company managers, your boards of directors of all the many thousands
00:11:24.440 | of companies that you own and their executive teams, and they're constantly out searching
00:11:28.520 | the world for investments.
00:11:31.400 | So I would be entirely comfortable, if I woke up in your shoes, putting all of my investment
00:11:37.200 | dollars into a broad-based index fund.
00:11:41.320 | You can do it with an S&P 500.
00:11:42.320 | You can just buy a total market U.S. index fund and move abroad.
00:11:47.320 | Chances are you come back in 30 years, you'll have tons of money in there, and there's nothing
00:11:51.120 | to worry about.
00:11:52.120 | I would be comfortable with that.
00:11:53.520 | I would be slow to make that my entire goal.
00:11:56.800 | I would be open to opportunities I came across in the country of residence.
00:12:01.640 | Certainly if there is political instability, that is important.
00:12:06.480 | That is a concern.
00:12:07.480 | You always need to make sure you have a backup plan.
00:12:09.480 | Are you there in a governmental capacity where you have the support of the U.S. government?
00:12:14.400 | No.
00:12:15.400 | Okay.
00:12:16.400 | So you need to just make sure if it's that unstable of a region, you need to make sure
00:12:20.080 | you have a plan to get out of the country.
00:12:22.480 | If that means you need to keep a Jeep near the border so you can get across the border,
00:12:25.600 | if that means you need to have plane tickets and whatnot, make sure that you have wealth
00:12:29.960 | that's not in the United States but that's in a neighboring country, something like that.
00:12:33.840 | Just make sure you have backup plans.
00:12:34.960 | If you're in a region of the world that's that unstable, you need to think very carefully
00:12:38.820 | about your backup plans.
00:12:40.320 | I guess on the whole, I would move slowly, and I would wait to see until I got established
00:12:44.480 | in a local area what my opportunities were.
00:12:47.480 | I don't see a compelling value proposition to trying to take all of the cash that I've
00:12:53.000 | saved and move it directly, immediately into the market at today's valuations.
00:12:59.760 | That's especially magnified because of the uncertainty of the coming days in your own
00:13:05.080 | schedule.
00:13:06.080 | So I would probably just leave everything in cash for the next couple of years, move
00:13:09.480 | abroad.
00:13:10.480 | In the meantime, we may have a recession.
00:13:11.480 | There may be a dip in market prices.
00:13:13.000 | You can always buy in to another market fund.
00:13:17.720 | If you're investing in index funds, that means that you basically buy the premise that the
00:13:22.320 | market is pretty efficient.
00:13:24.240 | And so basically, you can buy in at any point in time.
00:13:26.480 | And when you've got a 20- or 30-year time horizon, you're not going to miss out because
00:13:30.460 | you keep the money sitting in a bank account for a year or two until you get established
00:13:33.520 | abroad and then go ahead and buy in.
00:13:35.320 | That makes a lot of sense.
00:13:38.920 | Would you recommend to continue?
00:13:40.960 | We've been doing the 15% into tax advantage Roth IRA accounts.
00:13:45.600 | Would you recommend to still do that 15% there?
00:13:48.560 | Or would you put pause on that as well until we know for sure we wouldn't be using that
00:13:53.200 | cash in a different capacity?
00:13:55.400 | Yeah, I wouldn't.
00:13:56.680 | And I would – I mean, personally, if I woke up in your shoes, I would not bother with
00:14:02.940 | any of the U.S.-based retirement accounts and things at this point in time.
00:14:08.000 | And here's why.
00:14:09.420 | As someone who's living abroad, now you're going to keep your U.S. citizenship.
00:14:13.620 | And so the U.S. government will continue to believe that they're entitled to your income
00:14:17.880 | even though you will be living abroad and working abroad.
00:14:23.800 | The U.S. government out of all the governments in the world is the most tyrannical in the
00:14:27.400 | world when it comes to their claim on you.
00:14:30.360 | And by the way, I would seriously investigate other options depending on the place that
00:14:35.560 | you're going.
00:14:36.560 | And that sounds like it would be in a politically unstable place.
00:14:39.760 | I want that blue passport.
00:14:41.480 | But if I were of the mental mind that I was happy to move abroad, I do think – you don't
00:14:48.440 | have enough money where this is going to matter at this point.
00:14:50.640 | But I do think it's always important for people who are wealthier to consider renouncing
00:14:54.960 | U.S. citizenship and count the cost.
00:14:56.800 | There are some benefits but there are a lot of costs.
00:14:58.680 | And the big one is that the U.S. government thinks that they're entitled to all of your
00:15:02.440 | income that you earn in another country, that you spend in another country just because
00:15:06.120 | you have a blue passport.
00:15:07.740 | That said, there is the earned income foreign exclusion.
00:15:11.000 | And as long as you're out of the country, I believe it's 330 days, something around
00:15:15.920 | that, somewhere between 300 and 330 days, then up to a certain amount which is in excess
00:15:21.320 | of six figures, the U.S. government will not tax you on that money as long as you're out
00:15:26.680 | of the country for the appropriate amount of time.
00:15:29.160 | So you will be able to avoid the U.S. income tax.
00:15:32.920 | Well, if you're avoiding the U.S. income tax, then why should you worry about putting
00:15:37.260 | money into an account that's going to save you taxes on the income tax that you're not
00:15:43.000 | paying?
00:15:44.840 | Perhaps something – and I don't know the rules on this.
00:15:46.880 | It's kind of specialized.
00:15:47.880 | I've always meant to think this through myself.
00:15:50.400 | But since I haven't decided to move abroad, I haven't detailed it.
00:15:53.620 | But you might – there might be benefit of putting money in a Roth IRA because you're
00:15:58.440 | not being taxed on the money anyway and maybe it would be sheltered.
00:16:01.640 | The U.S. is certainly a very stable economy.
00:16:04.440 | But I don't get all that excited about keeping money in the U.S. system with the exception
00:16:08.760 | of the stability.
00:16:10.400 | And as an expatriate, I think there will be opportunities that will be available to you
00:16:13.560 | that aren't available to people who are full-time in the U.S.
00:16:17.240 | Are you going to be in Asia or – in Asia, what region of the world are you going to
00:16:22.840 | be in?
00:16:23.840 | Aaron Ross Powell: We'll be in the Asian regions.
00:16:25.640 | Trevor Burrus: So if I were in the Asian region, I would establish some accounts in Singapore.
00:16:32.240 | If I were in Singapore or Hong Kong, I would establish some accounts there and I would
00:16:34.960 | participate in those markets as well and I would at least keep some of my assets in Hong
00:16:40.280 | Kong or Singapore as being outside of U.S. jurisdiction but still in a very stable financial
00:16:47.720 | center.
00:16:49.000 | And there will be things that will open up to you as well.
00:16:50.880 | Don't be scared to invest where you know the opportunity.
00:16:53.720 | For example, I'm going to make up a country.
00:16:55.200 | Let's say that you're – you're living in a country that's very volatile but you're
00:17:00.080 | going to – nearby and you say, "All right here in Cambodia, I see some opportunities."
00:17:06.200 | There are often lots of opportunities at which you can apply capital and if you know the
00:17:10.520 | opportunity and if you can build the network and you understand the culture, there are
00:17:14.400 | huge business and investment opportunities for somebody like you in many of these regions
00:17:19.720 | of the world.
00:17:20.720 | Where in the United States, having $30,000 doesn't do much for you, you can move in
00:17:25.520 | and you can invest in an apartment complex.
00:17:27.840 | You can purchase a couple of apartments.
00:17:29.280 | There are all kinds of things that open up to you as an investor with $30,000 of capital
00:17:33.880 | in some of the South Asian markets.
00:17:36.440 | And many of these markets are very stable, very powerful and have a lot of opportunity
00:17:40.040 | in them.
00:17:41.040 | So I wouldn't jump on that today.
00:17:43.200 | It's going to take time to get your feet under you, get your family moved.
00:17:46.440 | But that's the point is look for opportunities that are there and especially if you're going
00:17:50.840 | to be in Asia, set up bank accounts in Hong Kong or Singapore, set up some assets there
00:17:56.560 | and use that as your banking center.
00:17:58.920 | Investigate the five flags theories from the world of offshoring.
00:18:03.360 | Investigate some of the opportunities.
00:18:04.360 | There are a bunch of big brands that do good business and maybe subscribe to a couple of
00:18:08.520 | the newsletters that'll point you in the direction of some of that if you haven't researched
00:18:12.040 | that.
00:18:13.040 | That's helpful.
00:18:14.040 | That's helpful.
00:18:15.040 | Thank you.
00:18:16.040 | Great.
00:18:17.040 | I wish you guys all the best.
00:18:19.400 | You'll have an adventure no matter what and recognize, just give yourself an option.
00:18:23.600 | A lot of times people find out that what they thought was going to be awesome isn't quite
00:18:28.080 | so awesome as they wanted.
00:18:29.640 | So don't paint yourself into a corner.
00:18:31.920 | Give it some time to make sure it works out.
00:18:33.920 | John in Pennsylvania, welcome to the show, sir.
00:18:36.240 | Hi, thanks, Joshua.
00:18:37.800 | How can I serve you today?
00:18:41.280 | I have a question.
00:18:43.440 | I think it's a pretty simple math question just to do an Excel spreadsheet, but I guess
00:18:48.960 | there's some other surrounding questions about it that I had.
00:18:53.880 | It's about a pension from an old company that I used to work for.
00:18:57.800 | They're offering a payout for a one or two month period window.
00:19:03.840 | It was a pension.
00:19:04.840 | It's a big global company.
00:19:07.480 | You may or may not be around when I'm 65.
00:19:10.120 | I'm 38 now.
00:19:13.200 | It is money that I kind of knew was there in pension form, but I wasn't really deeply
00:19:20.600 | highly counting on.
00:19:22.200 | They're offering a lump sum payout versus a monthly payout that I can take now until
00:19:30.920 | I die.
00:19:31.920 | It seems to be that the lump sum payment is about 21 years worth of the monthly payment
00:19:39.800 | if I take it now.
00:19:40.800 | So if I live more than 21 years, I would, I guess, dollar-wise get more money, but of
00:19:46.840 | course that doesn't factor in inflation and all that stuff.
00:19:49.880 | I guess that's kind of what I'm trying to figure out.
00:19:51.840 | I can do the Excel spreadsheet to tell me when these two payouts equal each other, but
00:19:57.080 | I'm not really sure how to account for inflation just eating up the value of those dollars.
00:20:05.880 | My tendency is just to say I should probably take the lump sum or wait until traditional
00:20:10.440 | retirement and take the normal payout at that time.
00:20:16.000 | Are either of the amounts, the lump sum payout or the monthly income, are either of them
00:20:21.200 | substantial in your current financial picture?
00:20:26.080 | Not at all.
00:20:27.080 | I mean, nothing to say that it'd be a nice chunk to have, but I'm also not sure the tax
00:20:33.720 | implications of taking the lump sum.
00:20:35.480 | It's about $23,500 for the lump sum and the monthly payout would be $91.
00:20:43.040 | And then there's like a 50% joint annuity survivor benefit.
00:20:48.040 | So it goes down if I die from my survivor.
00:20:51.720 | It's like $88 and $87 after that.
00:20:55.160 | Are you required to make a decision?
00:20:57.120 | They're either going to send you a lump sum or they're going to start paying or can you
00:21:00.140 | defer the decision?
00:21:01.400 | Yeah, the third decision is do nothing.
00:21:05.360 | They may or may not offer this again in the future.
00:21:08.320 | That's one thing that this opportunity could come up next year or 10 years from now or
00:21:11.960 | whatever.
00:21:12.960 | Or if I do nothing, it's just I get the normal pension payout if the pension fund is still
00:21:20.080 | existing when I'm 65.
00:21:22.320 | Why do you think they're making this offer?
00:21:25.200 | Why do you think they're trying to buy you out?
00:21:28.360 | The company, a lot of my friends still work there.
00:21:31.000 | It's a big global company, but certain divisions are not doing excellent right now.
00:21:35.160 | I imagine it's probably a little bit of bookkeeping or trying to save costs on administrative
00:21:39.320 | costs of how many people they have in the pension is my guess.
00:21:43.160 | I don't think the huge company would completely go away.
00:21:48.640 | It's been doing poor for about two or three years, but I don't think it'll necessarily
00:21:52.840 | go under or anything like that.
00:21:54.160 | But the pension fund may be mismanaged or something like that.
00:21:57.280 | But I think it's just cost savings for how many people they have in the fund itself maybe.
00:22:02.400 | Well, there's always a risk.
00:22:04.440 | Don't worry.
00:22:05.440 | I mean, unless you're aware of something specific or unless you're aware that this particular
00:22:08.920 | pension fund is significantly underfunded, there are always risks.
00:22:13.560 | There are always risks in investing.
00:22:15.800 | Anybody can bail and they can stop paying you any time on anything.
00:22:19.120 | So you've got to be aware of the fact that those risks always exist.
00:22:25.200 | Your question is basically a mathematical one.
00:22:27.920 | And so what I would do is I would go back and say, what's the alternative use of the
00:22:31.680 | dollar?
00:22:32.960 | If I, for example, if you are just going to say, I'm going to put the money into stocks.
00:22:39.760 | Well, if you have a lot of stocks already, then maybe this doesn't help you that much.
00:22:44.980 | Maybe it's not that much of a deal.
00:22:47.880 | If the pension is you think it's poorly invested and it's underperforming, then maybe making
00:22:52.420 | that move would be useful, putting it into stocks.
00:22:55.600 | But if it's not going to make a big difference, then you might just consider it as a useful
00:22:59.720 | asset and wait until you have a better opportunity.
00:23:02.680 | A lot of times a pension is, especially if they're trying to buy you out, you need to
00:23:07.440 | investigate it carefully, mathematically and see, did they put themselves on the hook for
00:23:12.020 | too much of an obligation?
00:23:13.840 | Often a pension, they're wanting to get rid of it because it's too expensive.
00:23:16.760 | I mean, the major trend for companies has been to eliminate guaranteed defined benefit
00:23:22.560 | pensions in favor of defined contribution plans, such as 401k plans, because they're
00:23:28.440 | less risk for the company.
00:23:30.340 | So you want to look.
00:23:31.960 | Sometimes you got a sweetheart deal.
00:23:33.160 | There are oftentimes where there are things that are mispriced.
00:23:36.200 | Sometimes annuity contracts are mispriced from insurance companies and they offer people
00:23:42.760 | buyouts.
00:23:43.760 | So I'm always very suspicious when I start getting letters from somebody saying, "Hey,
00:23:48.320 | would you want this lump sum of money?"
00:23:50.320 | Because they might be doing that because they mispriced something and they actually have
00:23:53.900 | made a guarantee that's much more valuable than they would otherwise be.
00:24:00.640 | The way that you do need to do the spreadsheet, sit down, and it's not just the break even.
00:24:05.920 | That's not the...
00:24:07.120 | The break even analysis doesn't tell you anything.
00:24:09.400 | It doesn't help you to say, "Well, 21 years, I'll get all the rest of this payout."
00:24:13.960 | That doesn't tell you anything unless you've got some usefulness for it.
00:24:17.520 | What you need to do is you need to do a present value calculation.
00:24:20.680 | And because this is a lifetime payment, the simplest way for you to do this is to call
00:24:27.760 | an insurance agent and ask them, "How much...
00:24:32.160 | If I wanted to buy an annuity payout today from a commercial, a highly rated, A-rated
00:24:39.040 | commercial insurance company, if I wanted to buy a straight lifetime annuity," line
00:24:43.400 | up the numbers with what they're offering.
00:24:44.900 | If they're offering you a 50% joint and survivor, then said, "I'd like you to calculate for
00:24:49.680 | me a 50% joint and survivor annuity payout.
00:24:52.760 | How much would I need to give you in order to buy a $91 monthly income?"
00:24:57.520 | Is $91 flat or is there an inflation adjustment on the amount?
00:25:01.600 | Michael O'Hara I think it's flat, but I'd have to read the
00:25:06.400 | fine print here.
00:25:07.400 | I think it's flat.
00:25:08.400 | Tedd Johnson Okay.
00:25:09.400 | So you just ask them, "How much money would I need to give to you to buy a $91 a month
00:25:13.640 | flat payout for the rest of my life with a 50% survivor benefit?"
00:25:17.760 | And they'll give you a number.
00:25:18.840 | Now if that number is higher or lower, then you can start to understand the relative benefits
00:25:25.480 | of it.
00:25:26.800 | I wouldn't jump to start incurring income from them unless you had some use for it.
00:25:32.480 | An extra $91 a month is probably not that big a deal.
00:25:35.320 | I would probably either leave it or take the lump sum and do something else.
00:25:38.840 | But that's the simplest way for you to do.
00:25:40.280 | Call an insurance agent, get a quote on a commercial annuity, and compare it that way
00:25:45.680 | to try to find out what the present value is.
00:25:48.160 | And then just read the paperwork carefully.
00:25:50.300 | Is it inflation-adjusted?
00:25:51.300 | If so, maybe that's very valuable to you.
00:25:54.720 | And how do the themes work?
00:25:57.840 | That's the extent that I would be able to answer it without reading all the paperwork.
00:26:01.160 | But I think if you do that, if you call an insurance agent, get a quote on a commercial
00:26:04.060 | annuity and read the paperwork, you'll have a little more information to make a better
00:26:07.960 | decision.
00:26:08.960 | Fair enough?
00:26:09.960 | Michael O'Hara Thank you.
00:26:10.960 | I appreciate that.
00:26:11.960 | That's very helpful.
00:26:12.960 | I think my instinct was always to not take deals when they're offered like this because
00:26:19.160 | of exactly what you said.
00:26:20.560 | But my instinct is also the easy way, and I don't have to do any work to do that.
00:26:26.680 | So I wanted to make sure I wasn't just jumping to the easy path.
00:26:29.360 | But I will call the insurance agent since I have insurance with a guy, and he can probably
00:26:34.200 | run those numbers for me.
00:26:35.200 | So thank you very much.
00:26:36.200 | Preston Pysh (00:36:40): Yeah.
00:26:37.200 | Any insurance agent that works in the areas of life insurance, anybody that does that,
00:26:41.480 | it's just simple.
00:26:42.480 | They're just going to pull up the software on their computer.
00:26:46.800 | They can run that.
00:26:47.800 | It's about a 10-minute job.
00:26:48.800 | And that'll be the simplest way to get some starting assessment.
00:26:53.000 | All right.
00:26:54.000 | Bruce in Massachusetts, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:26:56.840 | How can I serve you today?
00:26:57.840 | Bruce D. Lawrence (00:37:10): Hi, Joshua.
00:27:00.000 | Thank you so much for taking my call today.
00:27:02.360 | Really enjoy your show.
00:27:03.360 | Love the advice you always give.
00:27:05.200 | It's always kind of practical and well thought out.
00:27:08.440 | I was calling because I read all the different financial bloggers and things like that, and
00:27:13.920 | I definitely have a plan that I'd like to be financially independent in 10 years.
00:27:18.840 | But in addition to that, I certainly want to make sure the more important goal is I
00:27:24.800 | take care of my family.
00:27:26.160 | And I recently just got married, sold my house, and just trying to figure out kind of what
00:27:31.560 | the next steps are.
00:27:32.560 | I've never rented before, but that's our plan for the next year, kind of assess where we
00:27:38.800 | want to go from there.
00:27:39.800 | I live in the Boston area.
00:27:41.840 | The cost of housing here is quite expensive.
00:27:44.480 | So I'd love to hear your thoughts on just kind of the pros and cons of having a family
00:27:51.280 | and renting versus owning.
00:27:53.360 | I think financially it makes more sense to rent, but I feel like I might be missing out
00:27:57.180 | on other things.
00:27:59.280 | So I know you always have good questions and thoughts for your guests to keep in mind when
00:28:04.040 | they're making decisions like that.
00:28:06.080 | Congratulations on your nuptials.
00:28:08.160 | How recently were you married?
00:28:10.600 | A couple months ago.
00:28:12.740 | My wife is from India.
00:28:14.480 | She's amazing, and it's really exciting to be entering this phase in our lives.
00:28:19.640 | And we certainly plan on looking into having kids, blessed and fortunate enough to do that.
00:28:25.760 | So kind of just big picture advice, then let's talk some specifics.
00:28:33.280 | And to clarify, you sold your house.
00:28:36.000 | So at the moment you are renting and neither you nor your wife own any real estate at the
00:28:41.000 | moment?
00:28:42.000 | I have property in another state with my father.
00:28:46.920 | We built a house from – we just bought land and built a house from the ground up.
00:28:50.920 | So that's like an additional property.
00:28:53.440 | It's owned free and clear, so I just have to pay a little bit of maintenance and taxes.
00:28:58.920 | My dad helps me with all that stuff.
00:29:01.400 | Great.
00:29:02.400 | So to begin with, I think it's always important to start with the human factor and not the
00:29:08.220 | financial factor.
00:29:09.800 | We don't want to serve the idol of finances or we don't want to be slaves to money.
00:29:16.360 | The money is our slave.
00:29:18.180 | And so everything we do with money needs to fit us, not the other way around.
00:29:24.560 | So it's never a good idea to do something just because it's a wise financial thing.
00:29:29.640 | We always want to start with what's right for us and then figure out the wisest way
00:29:34.540 | to handle the money given the constraints.
00:29:39.820 | If I were newly married, I don't look around and say, "What's the cheapest place that
00:29:44.100 | I can find?" and then move into it.
00:29:46.700 | I start with saying, "What's an appropriate thing for us to do, an appropriate way for
00:29:50.460 | us to live?"
00:29:51.460 | I think at the beginning of a marriage, for many people, I would recommend what you've
00:29:56.460 | done to start off with renting together and eliminate the hassle of home ownership and
00:30:04.460 | enjoy the phase of newlyweds.
00:30:08.960 | There is just a simple proverb or an aphorism that I love, which is during the initial stage
00:30:15.500 | of marriage, just simply focus on learning your wife or if a woman is listening, learning
00:30:21.260 | your husband.
00:30:22.700 | Focus on learning your spouse and focus on enjoying that time together.
00:30:28.740 | In the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament and the Christian Bible, there was a law that
00:30:33.660 | says when a man is newly married, he is not permitted to be sent off to war.
00:30:38.260 | He must be given a year to stay at home and learn how to please his wife.
00:30:43.460 | So conceptually, I like that as a basic fundamental principle.
00:30:48.100 | When I was married, I sought to withdraw from every community organization I had previously
00:30:52.700 | been involved in.
00:30:53.700 | I sought to withdraw from every entangling connection or commitment that I could disentangle
00:31:01.780 | myself from.
00:31:03.300 | Part of that includes real estate.
00:31:05.020 | I don't think you should immediately, after being very recently married, say, "Let's run
00:31:11.100 | out and start house hunting."
00:31:13.060 | Because when you're newly married, you hardly know each other's language.
00:31:16.180 | You hardly know each other's goals.
00:31:18.100 | You hardly know each other's dreams.
00:31:19.700 | You hardly know what you want or what you need.
00:31:23.220 | Time has a tremendous benefit of helping those things be established to help to understand
00:31:30.220 | what your wife's preferences are, what her style is, what are the things that are important
00:31:34.380 | to her, for you to talk all those things through.
00:31:37.260 | And there is no substitute for time.
00:31:39.660 | So on the basis of that principle, I would encourage you to move very slowly and to focus
00:31:45.460 | on rent, just rent.
00:31:47.860 | I don't even mind paying more.
00:31:49.100 | I'm not worried about making finances number one.
00:31:51.660 | My wife is more important than my money.
00:31:53.960 | And so we focus on my wife first.
00:31:56.500 | We focus on building a solid, establishing our marriage first together before we worry
00:32:04.100 | about money.
00:32:07.500 | There's no reason to be wasteful.
00:32:10.020 | So I'm not saying that in order to establish a marriage, you've got to go and spend massive
00:32:13.820 | amounts of money that you don't have.
00:32:15.300 | That's not the principle.
00:32:16.300 | The principle is just focus on the relationship.
00:32:19.500 | The phase of life of being newlyweds is a unique phase.
00:32:24.020 | It is a blessing to be together, to be able to enjoy that relationship.
00:32:29.380 | And it's a really fun phase, especially even before children arrive.
00:32:35.540 | There's a phase at which when you can enjoy being husband and wife, when you can enjoy
00:32:40.020 | the freedom, the companionship, all of the blessings that come with being able to be
00:32:45.220 | together, to live together, to travel together, all of those things that you couldn't do before
00:32:50.820 | you were married, you now have that opportunity and you have the freedom and flexibility of
00:32:56.860 | not yet caring for children.
00:32:59.260 | And so I would focus on renting and enjoying the time.
00:33:02.340 | This is when my wife and I, we tried to do a bunch of traveling, went on ski vacations,
00:33:07.020 | and we did things that would be more expensive when you're buying right now, if you go out
00:33:11.180 | to dinner and you're buying four or five meals versus two.
00:33:14.220 | So we focused on doing some of those things that are really fun to do with two people
00:33:18.780 | that are much more challenging to do later when you have more mouths to feed, more Lyft
00:33:23.140 | tickets to buy, more ski rentals to do, all of that kind of thing.
00:33:27.700 | So that's the principle.
00:33:28.700 | Now let's talk practical.
00:33:32.160 | Do you, are you and she settled that where you are is where you think you'll be for coming
00:33:38.540 | years or decades, or is there any question about that?
00:33:41.220 | No, I think we'd stay in this area.
00:33:44.580 | My family's in this area and the job opportunities for both of us are really good.
00:33:50.700 | I'm in a settled career, I'm working for local government and she's got a lot of job opportunities
00:33:56.780 | in her field in the Boston area.
00:33:59.620 | Okay.
00:34:00.740 | And do you have money saved where you can afford to buy a house?
00:34:06.960 | So I certainly could afford to buy a house right now if we so made that decision, but
00:34:13.760 | it would be a big mortgage, which I want to avoid.
00:34:16.140 | So I probably have about maybe 200 that I could put down towards the house right now.
00:34:21.100 | But I mean, in the Boston area, you're looking at maybe six, 700, the cost of houses for
00:34:29.140 | just something, you know, halfway decent.
00:34:30.980 | So I'd want to say about more if we did make that choice in the future.
00:34:35.340 | Is your wife a semi-recent Indian immigrant or was she born and raised here in the United
00:34:39.900 | States?
00:34:42.060 | She came over here for school for a PhD.
00:34:44.980 | Is she, does she retain some of that flexible immigrant mentality where she's willing to
00:34:50.540 | live differently than many U.S. Americans live or is she fully acculturated?
00:34:54.260 | She says, this is what I'm going to live and this is how I'm going to live and I'm not
00:34:56.740 | taking anything less.
00:34:57.740 | No, she's amazing.
00:34:59.220 | She's got all the wonderful benefits that they always talk about that immigrant mentality.
00:35:04.780 | Good.
00:35:05.780 | So that's a blessing.
00:35:08.220 | Definitely.
00:35:09.220 | I'm very, very, very blessed, very fortunate to have her.
00:35:13.940 | Good.
00:35:14.940 | Yeah.
00:35:15.940 | It's, that's a real blessing.
00:35:16.940 | Cross-cultural relationships and things like that bring, can bring a unique set of challenges,
00:35:22.740 | but they can also bring a unique set of blessings just given the varying background and if you
00:35:28.420 | fit well with the Indian culture and if she retains some of the wonderful things about
00:35:32.180 | that culture, that's a real blessing.
00:35:34.560 | So I would explore options and here would be a couple of things.
00:35:38.420 | Number one, the most important thing is to get clarity on what your plan is and her plan
00:35:43.500 | is together.
00:35:45.460 | How much, you know, you mentioned I want to build a plan for financial independence in
00:35:48.780 | 10 years.
00:35:49.780 | What does that mean?
00:35:50.780 | Does that mean you want to quit your job in 10 years?
00:35:52.660 | Does that mean you want to be able to quit your job in 10 years?
00:35:54.980 | Does that mean you want to build a business?
00:35:56.980 | You know, she has a PhD.
00:35:57.980 | Is that for, does she have some area of research she wants to pursue?
00:36:01.580 | Is what is the, what are the family goals?
00:36:04.100 | And I would just spend a lot of time writing down those dreams, those goals, and working
00:36:08.820 | on those things together to see what your long-term plan is.
00:36:15.620 | And just spend a lot of time in communication, spend a lot of time dreaming, spend a lot
00:36:18.980 | of time writing those things down.
00:36:20.980 | I would spend a lot of time-
00:36:21.980 | Yeah, that's exactly what we do.
00:36:23.460 | Yeah, every month we go over our budget and talk about our values and goals and how we're
00:36:27.420 | accomplishing it.
00:36:28.420 | So yeah.
00:36:29.420 | Good, good.
00:36:30.420 | Then the next thing is spend a lot of time trying to figure out, the best that you can
00:36:34.860 | determine, what do you think that you and she would like to have?
00:36:39.340 | What do you think that you would need?
00:36:41.060 | What kind of place would you like to live in?
00:36:43.260 | There are benefits if you buy, let's say you buy a duplex or a triplex or a quadplex, something
00:36:48.700 | like that.
00:36:49.740 | You may have the money where you could be able to buy something like that, and that
00:36:53.020 | can be a really valuable way for you can get some tenants, which will pay you rental income,
00:36:58.740 | and yet you can have your own space.
00:37:00.800 | So you have the benefits of having additional rental property that helps to build your net
00:37:04.820 | worth, but it also gives you a place to live.
00:37:07.900 | If you can do that, it's not quite as nice of a luxury lifestyle as it is to have all
00:37:13.300 | four walls be your own, to have a big old yard all around you and a beautiful oak tree
00:37:18.100 | that's yours alone, but for a young married couple or for a couple with young children,
00:37:23.500 | that can be really, really, really, really valuable.
00:37:26.060 | And if you and she are willing to take those lifestyle challenges, we'll say, where it's
00:37:32.620 | not quite the easiest, most fancy life, that can make a huge difference in your financial
00:37:39.620 | situation.
00:37:40.620 | So you talk about that.
00:37:41.760 | Is that a sacrifice that you're willing to make?
00:37:43.600 | In general, from my experience, I would say this.
00:37:46.960 | From the time of newlyweds up through the time your children start to reach, say, the
00:37:52.320 | ages of four, somewhere in that range, three, four, five-ish, no hard and fast rule, you
00:37:59.000 | can pretty much live anywhere, do anything, and it really doesn't much matter if you live
00:38:04.040 | in an apartment or if you live in a house in the suburbs type of things.
00:38:08.480 | Once your children start to reach three, four, five-ish, or once you start to have a houseful
00:38:15.120 | more than two children, you start to appreciate something as simple as a backyard.
00:38:21.120 | There's a reason why demographically today, young single people and young married couples
00:38:26.520 | often like to live in a city, and then as they have children, they often like to move
00:38:30.360 | to the suburbs.
00:38:31.360 | That has not changed.
00:38:32.640 | Demographic shifts are happening, but that has not changed.
00:38:35.600 | And the reason is as simple as wanting to open the door, toss the kids in the backyard
00:38:39.440 | and say, "Please, I need some quiet in the house."
00:38:41.560 | So that's really, really valuable, but you don't necessarily need that now.
00:38:45.060 | So given that you're working towards financial independence, I would personally look around.
00:38:50.320 | I would start in just the apartment that you are.
00:38:53.160 | If she's willing to do some kind of house hacking, like I described, big house, have
00:38:57.560 | tenants, et cetera, that can be a major boon to your wealth.
00:39:01.560 | I would try to buy something like a duplex as my first property.
00:39:05.080 | If you can buy a duplex or a triplex, you live in it yourself, rent out the other units.
00:39:10.160 | Oftentimes you may be able to make the mortgage work where it'll cover most of your mortgage
00:39:12.800 | payment.
00:39:13.800 | And then when you move out to the next place, if you can continue on selling when your kids
00:39:17.520 | start to reach a certain age, then you can move into that larger single family house
00:39:21.040 | that fits your lifestyle more.
00:39:23.520 | Final comment, you've got to shop the market and you've got to be patient.
00:39:27.880 | Real estate, the timing of the buy matters.
00:39:30.540 | It matters hugely.
00:39:31.540 | So that's where you need to put on your prognostication glasses.
00:39:34.880 | Look at the Boston economy, look at the local market, study it, study the historical trends
00:39:39.360 | and ask yourself, is now the time for me to be buying real estate in the Boston area?
00:39:45.200 | Especially if you're looking into rental property, I would spend some time talking with investors
00:39:50.620 | and try to figure out what's the ratio, what's the price to rents ratio, are there deals
00:39:55.400 | right now?
00:39:56.400 | Is this a good time to buy or is this a good time to sit tight?
00:39:59.980 | And this stuff matters.
00:40:01.260 | If you can time it well enough, it'll make a big difference to you, especially being
00:40:05.340 | in a big economy.
00:40:07.140 | But all of those things are local considerations.
00:40:09.140 | Is that helpful?
00:40:10.820 | Yeah, definitely.
00:40:12.180 | It's all the stuff that I've been thinking of.
00:40:15.220 | I just, like I said, I really value the advice you give your guests and wanted to make sure
00:40:19.620 | I wasn't missing some subject or some area that I should be thinking about.
00:40:23.940 | I did look into the idea of duplexes a while back, but I don't think it suits my specific
00:40:30.700 | needs.
00:40:31.700 | I don't know, just my goals or the quality of those houses always seem to be because
00:40:36.660 | of zoning board and regulations and things like that, really, really old homes.
00:40:40.580 | And even if they had been redone, there's still a lot of just maintenance upkeep issues
00:40:45.260 | that I didn't want to get into along with tenant stuff.
00:40:48.300 | So I did explore that option a while back and kind of determined that wasn't a path
00:40:53.220 | that I wanted to go down.
00:40:54.220 | I'd rather be more efficient with budgets and stuff like that, as opposed to getting
00:41:00.220 | into that area.
00:41:01.220 | But I appreciate the advice.
00:41:02.220 | That's definitely a path to look into, at least for people.
00:41:05.500 | All those things are localized scenarios that you need to understand on a local basis.
00:41:09.700 | Here would be my final encouragement to you, something that I learned.
00:41:14.860 | Housing is not particularly important to me as an individual.
00:41:21.060 | When I talk about crazy stuff, living in a car, living in an RV, living on a boat, living
00:41:25.900 | in a tent on the beach, my personality and my goals, I would be perfectly happy to live
00:41:32.020 | in those contexts.
00:41:33.540 | And I'm a pretty extreme – I'm a pretty radical guy.
00:41:36.140 | So when it comes to financial independence, things like that, I would.
00:41:41.380 | I would not in South Florida.
00:41:42.620 | I like air conditioning too much.
00:41:44.900 | But if I lived in a place that was a little cooler, I'd set up a canvas wall tent and
00:41:48.500 | a wood stove and live in that.
00:41:50.860 | I would.
00:41:51.860 | I'd be that guy in the gold rush who was going out and living like a hobo out on the
00:41:58.580 | land to do a gold rush.
00:42:00.700 | So what happened, what I learned is I brought a lot of that to my marriage.
00:42:05.700 | And my wife is wonderful.
00:42:08.020 | She is not high maintenance.
00:42:09.640 | She is just a wonderful woman.
00:42:11.740 | But I was so intense that in the early part of our marriage, I didn't spend all that
00:42:16.580 | much time listening to her.
00:42:18.340 | And I was starting with always the number one thing being the money, the money, the
00:42:22.580 | money.
00:42:23.580 | How do we do this efficiently?
00:42:24.580 | After all, we got to have the most efficient plan to financial independence.
00:42:27.100 | This is the most important, financial independence, financial independence.
00:42:30.580 | And I forget the exact circumstances.
00:42:34.380 | But one day, I just woke up and the Lord really convicted me and I just realized that I was
00:42:39.780 | not listening and honoring what was important to her because – and I realized that I was
00:42:45.860 | diminishing by my constant commentary on housing, by my constant thing about, "Look at all
00:42:51.540 | these wasteful people and living in these giant mansions when they could live in a shack
00:42:54.780 | by the river and be just as happy because they had all kinds of free time."
00:42:58.380 | I wasn't listening to what was important to her.
00:43:01.020 | I wasn't paying attention to it.
00:43:02.540 | By always focusing on the money, I was diminishing that.
00:43:06.340 | And I realized that our house is very, very important to my wife.
00:43:11.460 | Most of her work comes out of and relates to our home.
00:43:16.540 | And so it's important to her in a way that's different than it's important to me.
00:43:21.580 | And I really realized that I had not honored her.
00:43:25.740 | I had not loved her.
00:43:26.740 | I had not understood what was important to her.
00:43:29.860 | And I resolved to change and I resolved to change.
00:43:33.660 | And so I started to focus and make a bigger focus of making sure that home projects were
00:43:39.020 | done.
00:43:40.020 | I sought to make sure that she had plenty of money available for any kind of home changes
00:43:45.540 | that she wanted to make, any kind of decorating things, anything that was important to her
00:43:52.700 | that I made sure to do that.
00:43:53.860 | And I stopped talking about stupid things and started honoring the value of living in
00:43:59.540 | a beautiful, comfortable home.
00:44:02.100 | And she really appreciated that and has appreciated that.
00:44:06.060 | Now you don't have to be stupid with it.
00:44:08.580 | We still live in kind of a lower class neighborhood at the moment.
00:44:11.920 | We live very modestly, but there are certain things about our house that aren't great and
00:44:16.780 | we'll change that in days to come.
00:44:18.600 | But I think that attitude made a big difference.
00:44:20.340 | So as one encouragement from one who's a few years down the road to you as another newly
00:44:27.260 | married man, I would encourage you, make sure that you're honoring the things that are important
00:44:32.880 | to her and recognizing the fact that she looks at the world differently than you do.
00:44:40.160 | And if you honor her and make sure that everything that she needs is your priority first, there's
00:44:47.080 | a real truth to the aphorism, "Happy wife, happy life."
00:44:51.280 | I always come at it, I do all marriage counseling from a biblical perspective.
00:44:54.840 | The scripture says, "A man should love his wife as he loves himself."
00:45:00.780 | And so that means that as I love my wife, that's an extension of it, that I always look
00:45:05.280 | and try to understand and look through her eyes and see what's important.
00:45:09.280 | And that means that finances and getting the cheapest place to live is not always the best
00:45:19.160 | plan.
00:45:20.160 | So good luck.
00:45:21.160 | Congratulations on your marriage.
00:45:22.160 | Give yourself to it and you will find the rewards are tremendous.
00:45:25.800 | I think that's something that needs to be applied in frankly, just about every area
00:45:29.640 | of life.
00:45:30.640 | I think it's related to housing.
00:45:31.920 | Remember, money is not the God.
00:45:33.920 | Money makes a terrible master.
00:45:36.280 | And those who put money as their number one priority of how can I get the most money,
00:45:40.360 | I mean, there's a reason why we don't think highly of the word miser.
00:45:44.000 | You always picture some guy out in the back of his, some lonely old bearded hairy smelly
00:45:49.880 | man out in the back of his shack with a rusty mason jar filled with coins, counting his
00:45:55.840 | stacks of money.
00:45:56.840 | And he's lonely and he's miserable, but the money is his master.
00:46:00.240 | It's like Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
00:46:02.000 | My precious.
00:46:04.320 | Money is a terrible master.
00:46:05.460 | Money is a slave.
00:46:06.460 | It's a servant and it should be used to meet the needs of humans.
00:46:10.280 | The resources are here to meet your needs.
00:46:12.520 | And so that means that they'll change over time.
00:46:15.020 | If you spend all the time meeting all of your wants as fast as possible, you never have
00:46:18.560 | any money and then down the road, the needs are never met.
00:46:21.200 | But if you do it right and are careful, but always prioritize humans and always prioritize
00:46:27.320 | life, then you can really get the best of both worlds.
00:46:30.280 | You can enjoy the abundance and the freedom that plenty of money brings and you can enjoy
00:46:34.920 | the peak life experiences that make the difference of having a life worth living.
00:46:40.080 | Life worth living is not measured by arriving in the cemetery as the richest dead guy among
00:46:44.520 | the many.
00:46:45.800 | Life worth living goes much deeper.
00:46:48.640 | Money is a servant.
00:46:49.640 | It's a slave.
00:46:50.640 | It's something that should be used to build a big life.
00:46:51.640 | All right, that's it for today's show.
00:46:52.640 | Thank you all so much for listening.
00:46:53.640 | I'm your host, Adam McLean.
00:46:54.640 | I'll see you next time.
00:46:55.640 | Bye.
00:46:56.640 | Thank you all so much for listening.
00:46:57.640 | Happy Friday, happy weekend, happy Labor Day weekend to you.
00:47:00.640 | If you celebrate holidays such as that, I hope that you enjoy the time away.
00:47:05.480 | Remember, as with many things with Friday, make this weekend a special weekend.
00:47:09.920 | Plan something special.
00:47:10.920 | My family and I, we're leaving town.
00:47:12.680 | We're going to go and visit some friends.
00:47:14.800 | Really looking forward to that.
00:47:16.600 | Make the day special and plan for it and make a peak experience.
00:47:21.040 | A little bit of thought in advance can take many experiences from ordinary to extraordinary.
00:47:27.160 | Hope you've enjoyed the show.
00:47:28.160 | Hope it's served you.
00:47:29.160 | Hope it's given you something thought-provoking.
00:47:30.160 | I'll be back with you next week.
00:47:45.860 | This is the Radical Life Media Network.