6 Reasons to Save as Much as You Can in Your Retirement Accounts Even If You Want to Retire Early – Money Q&A

Transcript:

On this episode of money, Q and a, why you should invest in retirement accounts, even if you plan on retiring early,

what's up everybody. And welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of master money.

co and said day on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking about money Q and a, and we're going to be answering the question, why you should invest in retirement accounts. Even if you are retiring early, if you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram, Tik TOK, Twitter at master money Co and follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on.

And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five. Star rating and review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now I am pumped for today's episode because we have a bunch of different, great questions that we're going to be answering on today's money. Q and a, like I said, we're going to be answering, you know, why you should invest in retirement accounts.

Even if you plan on retiring early, we're going to answer how and when should you consider a financial advisor, which there are times where you should be considering someone like a financial planner. We're gonna be talking about some of my favorite budgeting apps are out there and how I actually use those budgeting apps.

If you are looking for a very specific granular budget, we'll go through that. And then should you keep your first home as a rental property? And how should you think about that process is the fourth question. In addition, we're going to try something new here today, where at the end of the show, usually the show would end after that fourth question, but I'm going to also add in some of the additional health things that I'm doing.

So we're going to call this just health corner. And some of the things that I'm doing. In the health space for myself, because I think it is something that is very, very important. Health is wealth. And so we're going to be talking in health corner about some of the things I do. Every single money Q and a, we'll kind of add some things that I'm trying, testing out things that are working for me, things that are not working for me.

And we're going to talk through that today as well. The first one. So. Really, really excited for that. So without further ado, if that's something you're into, let's get into it. All right. So the first question is coming in from a listener who is planning on retiring early. And it says I currently invest in my 401k with my employer match.

I built my emergency fund in my high yield savings account. And after taking index fund pro, I started my individual brokerage account in Vanguard, in which I hold some VTI. Now I understand the stairway to wealth, but my goal is to retire in the next seven to 10 years and a good portion of my savings are going into these retirement accounts in which I cannot withdraw money until I'm 59 and a half.

How can I sustain my lifestyle with an investment? If I want to retire way earlier than 59 and a half, or how would I withdraw from these accounts and how would I prioritize my brokerage account since I can withdraw from that penalty free over this timeframe? So here is a great, fantastic question. So there's a couple of things we want to talk about here is.

First of all, your taxable brokerage account I want to talk about. Secondly, I want to talk about Roth conversion ladders. And then I'm going to give you six different reasons on why you should consider continuously investing in your retirement accounts. And then I'm going to also just make the case for that taxable brokerage account.

So starting off. I want to say this up front is if you plan on retiring in the next seven to 10 years, and that is significantly earlier than the actual traditional retirement age of 59 and a half. And you do not think that that differential in tax rate is worth what Nick Majulie calls return on hassle, meaning that it's not worth the hassle to save that 15 to 20 percent in tax rate that you would save in some of these retirement accounts.

Then overall, I think a taxable brokerage account is a fantastic place to put money, especially if you're going to have a large nest egg that you're going to be living off of. Now, the downside to the taxable brokerage account is you're going to pay long term capital gains on that taxable brokerage account.

Meaning that depending on how much money that you are making, if it's like 42, 000 or something like that, or below is the 0 percent tax bracket. For most people though, they are in that 15 percent tax bracket, meaning that they will be paying 15 percent taxes. inside of their taxable brokerage account.

Now, if you have a large taxable brokerage account that you've been investing in for a long period of time, then the gains are going to be a majority inside of that account. You don't get that tax free money like you would in the Roth, and you don't get that tax free money, and you don't get to Put tax free money into the account, like you would with your pre tax account, your 401k, 403b, all of those different things.

So I want to put this caveat in up front. There is nothing wrong with a taxable brokerage account. In fact, we had an episode with Jeremy Schneider from personal finance club, talking about the six different ways that you can access your retirement funds early. That is one thing that I definitely want you to consider.

Also, we had an episode with Katie Gaddy talking about the Roth conversion ladder and different ways to. Optimize your tax situation when it comes to these retirement accounts. If you want to retire early, I'm going to link both of those episodes down below, because if you're in this situation, I definitely want you to hear both of those episodes.

Cause we dive really, really deep into this stuff, but I'm going to talk about one thing that you can do and then how I would use also use the taxable brokerage account. So you can have this taxable brokerage account in place. I would definitely start funding a taxable brokerage account. If you plan on retiring in seven to 10 years, because you need that bucket available for that flexibility.

And, and in that episode with Katie Gaddy, who is the host of the money with Katie show, she talks about having that taxable brokerage account to help you bridge over some of the years, as you start to consider something like the Roth conversion ladder. Now here is what the Roth conversion ladder is. And it's a really important thing to understand so that you can access your retirement funds early.

The way that it works is it is just like doing a backdoor Roth IRA. But the thing is, when you convert money from your traditional IRA or rollover IRA or whatever else you have available, when you convert money from that to your Roth, IRA, you're gonna pay taxes on that money. Okay? So when you pay taxes on that money, that money gets rolled into the Roth IRA, and then you have what is called the five year rule, meaning you have to wait five years before you can access those funds.

But if you do that every single year, based on how much money you need, you'll be able to access those funds penalty free because contributions to the Roth IRA can be accessed penalty free as long as it's been in that account for five years, that is called the five year rule. And this concept I'm talking about here is called the Roth conversion ladder.

So we have full episodes talking about this as well, but what you do is then in year two, you move money over again. And year three, you move money over again. And then five years down the line, you're going to be able to start to access the amount of money that you need every single year without having to pay that 10 percent penalty that you would have to pay in a Roth IRA.

If you tried to pull that money out before age 59 and a half, because this is a contribution, you're contributing this money over to that backdoor Roth IRA, this is a really important concept to understand. So once you start to do this Roth conversion ladder in five years, you're gonna be able to access that money.

The question then becomes, well, hey, what do I do for those first five years? How do I live off that money? You got a couple of options here. A, you can start to convert the money over in your working years, but you're going to pay a little more taxes on that because your taxable rate is going to be higher during your working years or B, you can have some sort of account or accounts that helps you bridge those first five years.

Enter the taxable brokerage account. The taxable brokerage account is perfect for this bridge. It's going to allow you to actually have money in place that can withstand five years or so of your expenses. So this is a great reason to have this. Another way that you can help bridge that gap is if you had an HSA over the course of the last five to 10 years, and you had medical expenses that you can reimburse yourself for.

In that HSA. So I love the flexibility of the taxable brokerage account. I do think it needs to be part of your portfolio if you plan on retiring within the next seven to 10 years, but I don't think that you should negate retirement accounts. I'm going to give you a bunch of different reasons why here, because I think it's really, really important to understand why so.

First of all, I want you again to listen to that episode. We give you the six different ways to access your retirement accounts early with Jeremy Schneider. But also number one is a lot of people think that you can't touch your retirement account money until age 59 and a half, but there's a rule called SEP.

If you've never heard of SEP, it stands for substantially equal periodic payments, and there are different reasons why you can take money out of a retirement account before age 59 and a half. And you can do this without penalties. You can use the money for medical expenses. You can pay for your kid's college, or you can even buy a house by pulling it out early.

There are also new rules that are going to allow you to take the money out if you're really sick or a victim of domestic abuse. And there's a bunch of other things there, but really my favorite way to do it is obviously the Roth conversion ladder, which is why we talk about it so much. Now, number two, the second reason is that you're saving money on taxes, specifically if you have a really, really high income, then saving the money on taxes in your higher earning years, when it comes to something like your 401k or doing it in your IRA is going to be really beneficial for you.

So I would definitely consider this, especially if you have an accountant. So if you have a CPA who is in your corner, talk to your accountant and say, Hey, I want to retire within the next seven to 10 years. They need to be part of this plan. And say to them, here is my current tax situation. You know my current tax situation.

Am I better off contributing to my 401k or my IRA? And or am I better off just putting this money in a taxable brokerage account and taking the tax hit up front? For most of the time, especially if you're a high earner, and a lot of high earners are the ones that retire early because they have the fuel to the fire to be able to retire early.

So if you're making a lot of money and I'm talking about, you know, if you're paying 30 percent taxes, things like that. Then you want to maybe consider this as well, because when you take the money out in retirement, your income is likely going to be lower. So the tax differential here, a lot of people call this tax arbitrage.

And I can give you an example here. So let's say you have 20, 000 and you can either put in a retirement account or pay taxes on it and invest what's left in a regular account. And your tax rate is really high. Let's say you're really, really high earner and you're paying a 44 percent tax rate. Okay. So if you invest 20, 000 at an 8 percent interest rate, For 15 years in a retirement account, after 15 years, you pay 15 percent in taxes when you take the money out and you end up with 54, 000.

Now option B is you invest 11, 200 in a regular account at 7. 5 interest. And after 15 years, you don't pay any money on taxes when you take the money out. So you end up with 33, 000. So by using this retirement account, you have 64 percent more money. This is a very smart choice, but it's a very smart choice, especially if you don't plan on earning a lot more money when you retire early, if you're going to retire early and not do anything at all, then it's an even smarter choice than it would be.

Now, if you're going to earn more money now, if you're planning on retiring early and then you're going to go start a business or something like that, maybe a different question that you need to talk about. The third thing is asset protection. So if you're worried about asset protection, protecting your money in most states, your retirement accounts are safe from creditors, even if you go through bankruptcy.

So if you're worried about something like that, or you're worried about making sure you have total money protection, retirement accounts are much easier for that. Also planning for a family, if you are going to have a family in place, retirement accounts are much. Easier to leave to your family member when you pass away.

So if you're worried about a state planning in the future, that has another option on why you should keep those. And then, like I said, number five is Roth conversions. I think the Roth conversion ladder is the most powerful tool for the folks who want to retire early, who still want to access retirement accounts.

So make sure you're checking out the Roth conversion ladder. And then obviously you're paying fewer taxes in your working years. So when you're paying those fewer taxes, it is really, really powerful to be able to do this kind of stuff because it means you have more money over time now. There are some reasons that you should not contribute to a retirement account.

There are some reasons why you should not contribute to a retirement account, even if you plan on retiring early. And obviously one of those is if you have a chance to invest in something with really high cashflow, something like maybe there's an apartment building out there that you want to invest in and has really, really high cashflow.

That might be an option where that cashflow can kind of replace your income. And if it can, then you kind of run the numbers and make sure that you can find out. If that really, really works, if your 401k plan has really high fees or your four 57 or your four three B has really high fees, that's another reason not to invest in those retirement accounts.

I'd rather go with those taxable brokerage accounts. And if you're sure, if you think your taxes will be higher when you actually retire, maybe you have a business that's thriving and you don't have to do a lot of stuff for it. And you think your taxable rate is going to be much, much higher. That's another reason not to contribute to retirement accounts during that time frame.

So those are some of the reasons that I would consider. But honestly, thinking about the taxable brokerage account, utilizing that taxable brokerage account as a bridge when you're doing that Roth conversion ladder is going to be something that is really, really important. Now, if you're brand new to personal finance, you're hearing this, you're like, what the heck is this guy talking about?

Don't worry, this is more advanced stuff that we are talking about here. But this is something that really, if you plan on retiring early, I'm so glad that you're thinking about this, because this is something you definitely want to consider as you go through this process. Now, I hope that's helpful. If it's not shoot me an email and we can go through some more details on it.

All right. The next question is what are your thoughts on hiring a financial advisor? And at what point do you think it's necessary to get one or in what situation would you recommend one? There are a bunch of different situations that I think a financial planner is going to be very helpful for people.

Now we have some rules here when we talk about financial planning and financial planners. Is the first thing you want to do is you want to make sure that you avoid advisors that charge you fees on your investments. So a lot of times there'll be branded as assets under management or a U M. And you want to make sure that you are not hiring an advisor just to invest your money with really, really high fees.

A 1 percent fee when it comes to advisor is actually a multi million dollar decision, depending on how much money you're investing over the course of 30 to 40 years. So it may sound like a 1 percent fee is not a lot of money, but it absolutely is. So say, for example, you get to the end of retirement and you have a million dollars invested.

A lot of you listening to this podcast are going to have a lot more than a million dollars invested because of the stuff that we teach here, but it's, let's just say you have a million dollars invested. In an account with a 1 percent fee, and let's say they're charging you 1 percent assets under management, and they're investing it in mutual funds or index funds, and it's a total of 1 percent that you're paying, which sounds like it's not a lot, but if you think about this, that's 10, 000 every single year, and let's say you're retired for 30 years, what does that mean?

You're paying 300, 000 in fees just for someone to invest your money. That is a huge problem because if you think about that, 300, 000 is not also just the 300, 000. It's also the amount of money that you could have additionally invested in that account over that timeframe. So it's the opportunity cost in addition to losing out on that 300, 000, which is a million dollar decision.

This is why we call it a million dollar decision. 000. Imagine if you had more money in that account and it had a 1 percent fee or imagine it had a 2 percent fee, which is also very common for advisors that hold some of these funds. So say, for example, it's 20, 000 per year. That's almost 600, 000 over the course of your retirement that you're paying an advisor just to have that money invested.

Really important to avoid this at all costs. But there are advisors out there that you can hire to put together a financial plan for you, meaning that you pay a one time fee and they map out your entire financial plan. We've had a bunch of them on this podcast before Rachel camp comes to mind. Jesse Kramer comes to mind, and these are great options for people who have no idea what to you have no idea what to do with your tax situation.

You have no idea what to do with your money, and you just want somebody to tell you what to do. This is a great option. So you pay a flat fee. A lot of times it's anywhere from 2, 000 to 5, 000, 6, 000, 7, 000, a one time flat fee. They put together a financial plan with you. They meet with you multiple times and your plan is in place.

And then you just follow the plan and there's no assets under management. You're not paying that 1 percent fee or that 2 percent fee. They put the plan together for you. And then you follow that plan and you can check in anytime you want with them. And then you pay them hourly for those check ins, but it is a much more cost effective way to have an advisor.

And your corn. Now, when should you do this? When should you have an advisor in your corner? Let's say a number one, you get a huge financial windfall and you have no idea what to do. I get messages all the time saying, Hey, I just got a 700, 000 inheritance. What do I do? I just got a million dollar inheritance.

What do I do? I just got all this money. What do I do? Finding a certified financial planner is going to be really, really important. Now you need to vet these planners. You need to get references from these planners. You need to make sure that there is no percentage fees based on your investments. All they're doing is putting a plan together for you, and then you move forward with that.

Number two is if you have really complicated finances, so this things that come to mind here are. Things with your business, for example, or if you have a child with special needs, or if you like to give a lot of money away to charity, these are all different reasons why you have different complicated finances that maybe an advisor could really, really help you or your tax situation.

You're just getting hammered on taxes in your CPA isn't helping enough advisor can kind of get you some strategies in place and help you with that. So these are reasons why you should have an advisor. And if you are someone who is just trying to get your financial life together, just following something like the stairway to wealth, for example, just that step by step guide at the beginning is going to be absolutely perfect for you.

But if you're somebody who's completely lost, you don't know where to invest your money, you don't know what to do, then advisor, a financial planner. is someone who can help you. I would look for that CFP designation, certified financial planner, if you can, because that's going to be really, really helpful for them to be able to put a plan together for you.

And then going from there, but watching out and making sure you're not continuously paying fees every single month is going to be the number one thing that you need to do. And you need to be ruthless about this because there are some great advisors out there. There's some amazing ones. We've had a bunch on this podcast.

There are also some out there who just want that fee from you. And so you've got to make sure that you are watching out for that. Hope that's helpful. The second part of that question actually is do you have any budget app or template recommendations? I absolutely do. So we've talked about this a couple of times before.

There are some new recommendations. I test out budgeting apps all the time. If you guys have not noticed yet, one of my favorite ones has. Now been a partner in and sponsor this podcast is called Monarch Money and Monarch Money is actually an X mint employee who came out and started Monarch Money and it has this really modern dashboard, but you can budget your money in there.

You can automate your money in there. There's a lot of really cool things that Monarch Money has. So if you haven't checked that out, make sure you check it out. We have it linked up in the show notes as well, if you want to check it out, but that is a great option for a lot of people. And it is one that works really, really well.

They got a lot of really advanced tech features. And if you go through all of the guides on the how to's and all those different things on how to use more like money, and you're really interested in kind of dialing that budget down and making sure you have automations in place, that is a great option for a lot of people.

Number two is another great one is, uh, YNAB and YNAB. We've talked about for a long time. YNAB is a great app to use for budgeting. If you want to make sure that you are in there every single month, you are looking at this line by line and on budget. It is what I used to actually fix my money 10 years ago.

I've been using it for over a decade now and really love YNAB. It is spelled Y N A B. It stands for you need a budget. And so YNAB is another great one. I have tons of friends who use it as well. It's fantastic. Now, one that I use. Honestly, a ton is rocket money and rocket money really isn't great for the budgeting side.

What it's great for is monitoring your spending and monitoring specifically subscriptions. So rocket money is an automation tool that I definitely use in our money automation systems. And it is one where I will go through there every other month or every quarter. And I will look at subscriptions. I will look at the ways I spend money and the things that are recurring spending.

And then I will start to cut things out that I do not value. So I will literally go into rocket money and say, Hey. What things in here do I not value if I want to reduce my spending? How can I reduce my spending? And I will go through all of those different automations and I will cut it out. And there's a free version of rocket money, which is why I like that.

And then if you're a spreadsheet nerd, if you like to have your budget in spreadsheets, there's something called tiller. If you've never heard of tiller, tiller will actually automatically connect with your bank so that you can make a really. Quick and easy automated budget in spreadsheets. So that is another cool tool that you can use.

Uh, that is a paid tool as well. So YNAB, Monarch Money, and Tiller are all paid tools. We have a link for YNAB down below where I think you can get like four days free, something like that. And Monarch Money we have a promo code for a discount as well, uh, if you check out the show notes. And then Rocket Money Has a free plan that you can start and test it out.

And then tiller is one that is also a paid tool. I think it's yearly is what tiller is. So those are the four options that I really, really like. A lot of folks that I know have also been using meant for years and years and years. I think meant is a little bit harder to collaborate on. Whereas Monarch money YNAB are great.

If you have a family. It is great to kind of manage money with a partner. So that is really, really helpful. And if you have a family, that's the two that I would look at and consider. There's also obviously always the reverse budget where you save off the top and then you spend what is left over. That is the easier way to budget your money if you really hate budgets and do not want to budget your money.

So if you guys have any questions about that or any further questions, just let me know. All right. The next question is what are some strategies to think about when it comes to buying in or upgrading to a better primary residence? Some folks might sell their existing home and use that money towards their new home.

But what about if you want to keep your first home that's paid off as a rental option and buy a bigger, better home? Should you borrow against home number one to finance the second home? Is it still the 20 33 rule? Or how do you actually think about this stuff? This is a great question. So First of all, if you are going to do something like this, and if you're considering something like this, the number one thing that I want you to consider, because I understand that the home is paid off, and that's probably why you want to keep it around and use it as a rental property.

There's a couple of different options here. But first of all, we got to figure out, hey, is this house that I purchased, that is completely paid off, Is this house even viable to cashflow? What do I mean by that? Is will this house cashflow based on current rents even though it's paid off? You may say, yeah, it's going to cashflow based on it paid off, but you still have to run the numbers on this rental property because sometimes it will not or it will not make sense.

So what I would suggest is utilize a rental property calculator. We actually have one that we just finished. Putting together. So I will see if we can link it up on the show notes below. So you can check that out, but utilize some sort of rental property calculator so that you can run the numbers on this.

Now, how do you run the numbers on this? You look at your current rents on that specific neighborhood and say, how much is this going to rent for? And you're going to run the numbers through this rental properties, looking at things like, you know, what are the monthly expenses going to be? You got to put in vacancy, right?

You got to put in capital expenditures. You got to make sure you factor in insurance. You got to make sure you factor in a bunch of different things, property management, if you're going to have somebody management. And make sure we have all of these line items filled out and see if this cashflow. So that's number one is, does this cashflow and some quick rules of thumb is typically on a house like this, the expenses are going to be 50 to 60 percent of the actual rent price.

And then you also want to make sure that it's actually cash flowing enough to make sense to keep the house. Now, secondly, on your second existing home, once you figure out what that cashflow number is, maybe it's cash flowing X amount of dollars every single month, then you can qualify that cashflow number as part of your income to increase your income from that 30 percent of your income when it comes to the 2033 rule.

If you don't know what the 2033 rule is, that means that when you buy your second home, we want you to put 20 percent down. On that house, because you're rolling equity over typically, then we want you to have 30 percent or less of your income spent on housing, meaning all of your housing costs, when you run that total cost of ownership number, it should be 30 percent or less of your total income coming in your total household income.

And then three is three times your annual salary is what should be spent on the purchase price of your next house. So if you make a hundred grand a year, 300, 000 is what you should spend based on household income. If you make 200, 000 a year, 600, 000 is what you should spend on the house. Now at the time recording this, it's harder to find houses with that three X rule, but I telling you, if you follow that three X rule, it is going to be extremely, extremely helpful when it comes to buying a house.

We learned that from the millionaire next door, and it is one that I have always. Always used when it comes to buying a house is making sure it's three times or less my, uh, household yearly income. So once you run the numbers on there, you can qualify that income as part of your income there, then you can decide, Hey, what do I want to do on the next house?

If it does not cashflow, I mean, if the cashflow is not worth your time, then a, your option one is to sell the house for all the equity in the new one. If it does cash flow and you want to hang on to it and you want to be a real estate investor, if you're interested in real estate investing, then you can hang on to that house.

But I still think the 2033 rule is going to apply here. So since your house is paid off in cash, you can take those payments that you would normally utilize as a mortgage payment, for example, and you can roll those into your down payment fund so that you have enough money available there and Order to make sure that you have that 20 percent down.

Otherwise you're going to be having to pay PMI over that timeframe. And so you really don't want to do that, especially if this is going to be your bigger, your forever home. You don't want to have these additional expenses weighing you down over that timeframe. Now, how do you finance this? The beautiful thing about this is because you're going to be living in this house.

You have great financing options available to you. So if it makes sense based on your situation, you have literally a huge array, you have traditional financing. There's a bunch of other options that you have. So if you have an ex military background, you have VA loans available, which reduce your fees.

You have other things that are available to you as well. So the way that I personally would do it is I would still put that 20 percent down, make sure the housing cost is going to be 30 percent or less of my income, but I would qualify the new rental income as part of my income. Whatever the cash flow is not the total, not the gross rent coming in, but the actual cash flow after all the expenses are paid for, I would qualify that as part of my income.

And then I would look at three times annual spending. This is just going to protect you. It's going to keep you financially safe going forward in the long run. And sometimes it's hard to get that 20 percent down payment, especially if you're looking at like a million dollar home, for example. So saving 20 percent down or 200 grand is somewhat difficult at times.

So then the question then becomes, Hey, Is that cashflow worth it on the first house? And, or do I need to sell this house and then roll the equity over? It just depends on what your total goals are. If your goals are to become a real estate investor and you want to do this over and over and over again, I think that's a great goal and a great way to look at this, but if you're looking to just have one rental and then upgrade to a bigger house.

That's also another great option that rental will help hedge against some of these things. But at the same time, you just want to consider some of your options there. Now, you could utilize like a HELOC, for example, on the first home, like you suggested here, if you don't want to go on a loan. But right now, interest rates on HELOCs are not great.

So you have to find that right interest rate that's going to make sense for you within that specific situation. Since interest rates are so high, I'd rather have that 20 percent down payment. So I'm not paying so much in interest over that time frame, especially with high interest rates. At the time recording, his interest rates are above 8%.

So you just want to make sure that you are really, really cautious about that as well as you finance this. So in summary, I think utilizing houses that you've lived in as rental properties and starting to grow a portfolio that way is a really, really wise decision. But at the same time. I still think you need to use the 2033 rule when it comes to rolling over and buying your second house, but I would qualify the income from the first house.

All right. So the last thing we're going to be doing on some of these money Q and a is going forward. Maybe we'll do them once a month or twice a month. We'll figure out the frequency on this is I want to do a health corner. What I mean by health corner is I test out so many different things when it comes to my own personal health.

And I want to kind of talk about this stuff. You're not interested in the health side of this at all. You just want to learn about how to manage your money and build wealth, generational wealth over time, completely understand. Uh, this is just like extending a normal episode out even longer than normally would be.

And so that is why we're going to do health corner just to kind of talk about this stuff. Now, health corner is presented by the plunge. If you've never heard of the plunge, it is by far one of my favorite health tools that I have been utilizing as of late. It is a cold plunge, a freestanding cold plunge that can get down to 37 degrees, but I have never taken it down to 37 degrees.

I usually get into the cold plunge right around 48 to 50 degrees in that range. And what I use it for is I typically do it in the afternoon. A lot of people like to do it in the morning. I like to do it in the afternoon because when I start to have that afternoon crash, I jump in the cold plunge and it has a number of amazing benefits.

Hey, it gives me a ton of energy. B, I sleep better at night and C, it helps me recover from lifting weights and playing pickleball and all these different things that I do all the time. So if you have never considered cold plunging or if you never tried it, I would definitely try it. And then take a look at the plunge.

The plunge is by far the best version. Of a cold plunge. And it is, it is one where you don't have to put ice or anything like that in there, it actually has a chiller with it that actually gets the water to that temperature. So it is one of the most amazing tools that I have been using over the course of the last few months.

And you can check it out with our link down below. You can go to the plunge and you can check out the plunge. And use promo code P F P and it'll get you a discount as well. So definitely check that out if you're interested in it. Now, today on health quarter, what I want to talk about is something that I have been doing for the last year and a half or so that has improved my health significantly.

And this may sound very simple to a lot of people, but what I'm talking about here. is I talking about actually adding a ton of different vitamins to my diet every single day. So what I found early on was I was not getting enough nutrients in my diet. I eat vegetables and I would take, you know, green supplement, those types of things.

And we'll talk about the green supplement I take here in a second. But then all of a sudden I realized I just was not getting enough nutrients in my body and I was getting sick all the time. So once I started to have kids, anybody who has kids right now knows that kids bring home all kinds of sicknesses when they come home from daycare or playing with their friends and they spread sickness like wildfire.

And then all of a sudden what I found was I was getting Sick every single weekend. So I decided, Hey, I got to figure this out. I'm getting sick way too much. My immune system is not strong enough. I got to figure out why. And what I landed on was I was not getting enough micronutrients in my diet. So what I ended up doing is I went on Amazon.

I said, Hey, I'm going to start. Testing out different vitamins and figure out which ones are going to work for me. And I'm going to go through the list of the ones that actually do work for me. And the ones that I've landed on where I get sick significantly less than I used to just by changing and doing this one habit.

And this probably costs me 30 to 50 a month to buy all these different vitamins, but it is by far one of the best investments I have ever made because I. feel better. I have more energy. I perform better and I'm not sick all the time. So I can actually show up to things. Uh, so all those things really matter.

So I went on Amazon and I got one of those days of the week pill bottles and then I got my wife one as well. And with those days, the week pill balls, I think it was five bucks on Amazon. You can find a bunch of them out there and this is going to help me just kind of stay organized. Then I went out and I started to test a bunch of different vitamins and all of a sudden I realized there was a specific group of them that were really helping me and then overnight me getting sick every other week, all of a sudden, boom, just stop.

It's solved that problem. So if you find yourself in that same situation where you're like, Hey, I'm getting sick a lot all of a sudden, like this is crazy. Why am I getting sick so much? Try this out. You can consider doing something like this and testing it out for your own body. But here's what I take. I take a vitamin D pill.

I take a zinc pill, which zinc kind of upsets my stomach a little bit, does the same for my wife, but I still power through it. A vitamin C pill. I take a multivitamin, and the one I take is a men's multivitamin. It's called Ultraman. It's just one that I had a bunch of them on hand that we bought a long time ago because I saw them on sale.

So that is another one I take. B complex. I take magnesium, which helps with sleep, helps with a bunch of other things. I take folate, which just helps with, you know, getting more nutrients in. Fish oil for brain health, ginseng for brain health, and then beyond that, those are the pills I take, then beyond that I take Organifi's greens supplement, uh, so it's like a powder, a greens powder, and then creatine, and then whey protein, so creatine and whey protein are just because I lift weights six days a week, so I've always been taking those for like the last decade or so, and then whey protein is obviously just to help supplement that as well, so Those are the supplements I take and the vitamin D has helped significantly.

That was the one I tested. I think I was not getting enough vitamin D at the time. That helps a ton. Vitamin C, I will ramp up a thousand milligrams. I will even ramp up to two or three thousand milligrams during the sick season. And these other ones, the B Complex gives me more energy. Magnesium helps me sleep better.

Fish oil, ginseng are great for brain health, all these different things. And you can start to add different supplements in and see what works really, really well for you. But that's the list that I have utilized. I put them in my pill bottle. I take it every single day. I just remember to take it. I put it by my toothbrush and that is what I've done to kind of improve my health just day to day when it comes to my immune system.

Now the plunge actually also helps with your immune system. And I've noticed I have not gotten sick once since I've been utilizing the plunge as well. So that is another great option for a lot of people, uh, is it actually strengthens your immune system over time if you do it the right way. So. These are all just different supplements that I have been taking over the last couple of months.

And this is why I want to talk about health corner. It's just like a bonus content piece for a lot of you, if you're interested in health and some of the stuff that, that I'm personally doing. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this money Q and a, and if you got value to this episode, consider leaving a five star rating and review for this podcast.

We cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five star rating and reviews. And thank you for investing in yourself because it's exactly what you're doing. When you listen to this podcast is you are investing in yourself. Can I thank you guys enough for listening? And we want to bring you as much value as we possibly can.

So again, thank you guys so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.