How to Spot a Fee That’s Robbing You, Insure Your Kids’ Future, and Retire Two Decades Early (Money Q&A)

Transcript:

On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be answering What's up everybody?

And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of Master money.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be answering your questions on Money Q&A. Now if you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter.

And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube 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 today we're going to be diving into a bunch of different questions. We're going to be talking about fees and how to spot fees that are robbing you. We're going to be talking about how to ensure your kids future and how to talk to your kids about money and break that generational wealth curse. We're going to talk about how to retire a few decades early and someone is saving a huge portion of their income and we're going to dive deeper into their situation.

Plus, we'll go deeper into GAP Insurance and talk through how to plan your finances if you have a child with a disability. So this episode is action-packed. I'm really excited to dive deeper. So without further ado, let's get into it. So the first question that we have here is from Tessa.

Tessa says hi, Andrew. Your podcast has helped me immeasurably in building a strong foundation and feeling confident in investing. I am looking to reduce fees with my four O 1K and optimize long term returns, so I've just unenrolled from professional management at Fidelity to manage the account myself.

Some of the widely managed funds currently held on my account are FCNKX&DEMIX which have had very high returns but also high fees. DEMIX returns have been 228% over the course of one year and 28% / 5 years and 22% / 10 years with an expense ratio of 1.3%.

Wow, that's high. Should I consider keeping it given the historically very high returns say? Thanks so much for all that you do now. First of all, this is a great question and Congrats on taking the reins on your 401K. That is absolutely fantastic and thank you so much for the kind words.

I am so glad the podcast is helping you out. I think that is the entire goal with this show is to help as many people as possible do things like this. And as we start to talk about this, you will see that is a multi $1,000,000 savings that you could be coming up with as we go through this. Now, what are the most impactful moves that you can make in investing for anybody listening right now is that reducing investment fees is really, really important.

Just having a 1 to 1 1/2 percent fee can eat into your returns over 25%. Long term, this is a really big deal. And even though 1% doesn't sound like it's much money, it is an incredible amount of money.

In fact, once you start to do the math on 1% returns, it will show you just how impactful this can be. And so one of the things I want you to do is I don't want you to anchor to something that basically states, hey, historic returns have been really high over the course of the last year.

Short term returns are not something I actually look at much whatsoever. In fact, I usually try to look at the longest time horizon I can to see what those returns have been because that is going to be the best indicator on how this fund has performed through the UPS and the downs.

So a lot of times when I'm evaluating index funds and ETFs, I like to find funds that have been around at least a few decades so I can see how they did throughout, you know, different time frames. And if they have been here since past the Great Recession, that is even better because I can see the worst possible situation and what happened there.

Then I can see their progress throughout 2000 and 10 all the way up to 2020 when we had the COVID years and during COVID. I want to see what happened when that COVID drop happened. And then looking over the course of the next couple of years as well so that you can see pull backs, you can see bull runs, and you can see what happened to that fund over those time frames.

Because in reality, when you're investing for retirement and when you're investing in your portfolio, you want to understand what the worst case scenario could be and what the best case scenarios could be and how they actually react in some of those markets. The cool thing is you can build portfolios based on your tolerance and you will have the ability to figure out what funds actually work for that risk tolerance.

So a few notes for listeners is when I look up some of these funds, so DEIMX, for example, that is an emerging markets fund, which is formally Delaware's emerging markets. OK, So emerging markets have been hot as of late, which I think is super interesting. But the reported returns that I have are a little bit different than what you listed.

But either way, they're eye popping. And that's exactly the problem because emerging markets funds don't put up numbers like that by being safe. They don't do this in a way that causes it to be a safe fund to own. Instead, this fund holds nearly 83% of its money in just its top ten positions.

So it is heavily concentrated in its top ten stocks. OK, so that's one thing that could possibly be a red flag for some people depending on what your risk tolerance is, but it is heavily concentrated in two things, technology and Asian stocks. And so when you dive deeper into a fund like this, that concentration is why the real return is so high and it's the same concentration on why it could have a really hard pull back in a down market.

And so we just want to make sure that when we evaluate funds like this, we understand past returns tell you exactly what happened. And as you look deeper, you can see exactly what's going on there. Now, I want you to understand Part 2 of this, which is the 1.3% expense ratio and what this will actually cost you. Because an expense ratio can take a slice of a fund and it can really, really eat into your returns.

DEMIX charges about 1.32%. Now a broad emerging markets index fund can charge closer to 0.10%, so 10 basis points, which is significantly cheaper than that. Now that gap looks pretty tiny, and that gap doesn't seem like it's much when you start to look at this.

But here's the illustration that I want you to see. OK. Let's say you had $100,000 invested and you had it in both funds that are in a 7% rate of return over the course of the next 30 years. If you had to fund with a 0.10% in fees, you would end up with roughly $740,000 in that fund over the course of 30 years.

You'd be saying to yourself, that's amazing. Compound interest is absolutely fantastic. But let's look at the difference in fees right here, OK? Because that 1.32% in fees, that $740,000 drops down to $525,000 in that fund.

So you invested $100,000 and you lose just to that 1.32% fee over the course of 30 years, $215,000. So here's what I would say to most people out there listening right now.

Fees are not worth paying when they are inside of your funds. There are way too many low cost index funds and ETFs out there that have really low fees. In fact, Fidelity has 0% expense ratio index funds and ETFs where you pay $0.00 in fees whatsoever.

And so this is something where if you're going to pay a fee that high, someone better really be helping you and giving you a home run return. And that home run return better be available for decades and decades, which guess what, guys, I hate to say this, it doesn't exist. It's that boring Investing and consistently investing over time is what's gonna get you your results.

And so in reality, this is something where that high fee has to be earned every single year. Otherwise it's not her having whatsoever. So what I would do is I would go out if I was in your shoes. No, this is not financial advice, but this is me telling you if I was in your shoes, here's what I would look.

I would find comparable low cost replacements. I would go out and say, OK, here is DEMIX. Here's some of the things that it does. Here's some of the holdings that it has in place. And if you want to continue to look at something like that, there are plenty of funds out there with really low fees.

Fidelity has an emerging markets index, it's FPADX, and that has a 0.10% expense ratio. Vanguard has emerging markets VWO, Schwab has SCH, EE as in Eagle.

These are the same asset class, but they are at a fraction of the cost. And so in reality, what I would do is look further into some of those index funds and ETFs. I would evaluate them, see if they fit my risk tolerance and fit my criteria. If they do and I want emerging markets in My Portfolio, that would be the further place that I would look.

And so you can zoom out and look at your entire plan long term to see if there is anything else that you want to do or adjust. But I wouldn't look for lower cost options. There's plenty of lower cost options that are out there. And historical returns are just a shiny object. They're just something that a lot of funds put right in front of you or a lot of, you know, advisors put right in front of you.

So you could see over the course of one to two years, you know, here's the difference maker, here's what's going on, here's how this shifts over time. And in reality, I would love for each and every single one of you to kind of evaluate your funds on a yearly basis. I think you should be evaluating your funds on a yearly basis so that you can get in there and you can really make sure that you are doing the right stuff.

Fees are just really, really expensive. They're gonna cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars over the course of your lifetime. And we've done episodes in the past where I've talked about, you know, someone who's built up a $5,000,000 portfolio and their portfolio gets drawn down to half of that because they have a 1 to 2% fee.

And so we want to make sure that we are careful with this. And I really, really appreciate your question 'cause it is such an important financial education lesson for people to learn is that fees will destroy your wealth building ability. I would much rather pay a fee that high to someone who is gonna help me on a quarterly basis and help me, you know, with my index funds and ETFs and they can help you answer your questions, those types of things like an advisor or whatever else.

That's a better fee to pay than something in a fund. And in reality, if you can reduce all of your fees across the board, Oh my gosh, you're crushing it if you're doing that. So many DIY investors out there, you know, know this and they, the reason why they're DIY investors is because they want to reduce fees as much as possible.

But there's nothing wrong with, you know, having an advisor in, in in your corner as well, as long as that advisor is truly helping you and truly helping you along. But there's plenty of advisors out there that are less than a 1% fee when they are holding Aums. And so that's the, that's the reality. They really need to be helping you.

They need to be meeting with you quarterly. They need, there's a lot of things that need to be happening there. So in reality, you're making some, you're making some great moves here. I really commend you for thinking about this and looking deeper into those fees. Really, really important stuff. And I think it's really powerful for you long term to look further into that.

So great question. I truly appreciate it. And if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out. The next question is from Scott. So Scott said another great episode, Andrew, thank you. And he was referencing our car buying and cash episode that we recently just had. And he said, what are your thoughts on GAP Insurance?

Is 20% down a threshold on getting it or not? So first of all, Scott, thank you so much for the kind words. I truly appreciate that our episode talking about buying a car in cash and we go into how to finance cars as well in that episode, but that episode has gotten tons and tons of feedback that people are absolutely loving it.

So if you haven't heard that episode yet, go and save it or bookmark it or go check that out as well if you have not done so already, 'cause we get creative with it a little bit. We kind of talk about, OK, here's some cool ways to pay cash for cars if you haven't thought about it in this way. Now, one of the things that we talk about in that episode is how to finance cars.

And we have a rule when it goes to financing cars called a 241210 rule. What that stands for is 20% down, which is what Scott is referencing here. Four years or less is how long you have the car loan for. 12 stands for 7 + 5, so it's 7% or less spent on car payments and 5% or less of your income spent on maintenance.

And then 10 stands for driving that car for 10 years or longer. That's how you win with cars if you are going to finance them. Is following something like that Now in reality, there is something else that can help you avoid putting 20% down called GAP Insurance. Now GAP Insurance, here's exactly how it works.

OK, if your car gets totaled or stolen and your regular insurance only pays for the cash value of that car and if it has depreciated pretty significantly over the last couple of years or even the last year, you may be underwater on that car. So if you owe more than what the car is worth, GAP Insurance covers the difference.

Let me give you an example of this. Let's say you buy a brand new $35,000 car. Now we know the most expensive time to own that vehicle is when you make that first right turn out of the dealership. Why? Because that vehicle will typically depreciate 10 to 20% the moment you drive it off the lot.

It's the reality of owning A depreciating asset. And unfortunately, it is one of the things that we all have to deal with. And especially if you buy a brand new car, It's one of the main reasons why I don't buy brand new cars. I buy slightly used cars, one to three years used because I do not want to take that depreciation hit.

It's not fun for me. I'd really don't enjoy it. And so I don't like throwing money out the window. And so for me specifically, at least right now at this time of my life, I'm not buying new vehicles. Now. In the future, I would love to buy a new vehicle at some point in time. I've never bought a new vehicle my life before, but it's not something I'm going to do anytime soon.

Not because I can't, just because I don't want to take that depreciation hit is the reality OK. And so if you drive a $35,000 car off the lot, OK, and it takes a 20% depreciation hit, that means that car is now worth $28,000 with a 20% depreciation hit.

And let's say a week down the line, you're driving your car and all of the sudden you get you total your car. Well, the insurance company is going to give you $28,000, but you still owe the $35,000 in the vehicle if you put nothing down.

And so now you're underwater on that vehicle by $7000 and you owe $7000 and you got to go get another car. Well, this is the predicament that a lot of people fall into. So GAP Insurance pays the difference there. It pays that $7000 for you if that were to ever happen.

So let's talk about the situations where you would actually want GAP Insurance, and there are a few. One is for people who put little to nothing down, OK. 2 is for people who take out a long term loan, something like 72 or 84 months. You're most likely going to need it. Then three for people who are rolling negative equity from an old car into the new car.

That's another reason why people get GAP Insurance 4 is if they are leasing because many, many leases require this anyways. They require you to have GAP Insurance. So if the car, if the company who is leasing the vehicle to you requires GAP Insurance, you can see why. And the last one is if you buy a vehicle that depreciates really fast.

So luxury vehicles depreciate really quickly off the lot and typically that's that's one of the things that you want to look at. But if none of those describe you and you put 20% down, then gap is usually not a problem you need to solve. But if you do decide to do it and you want to get GAP Insurance, here's how this works.

Many people will overpay badly with this because the car dealership is typically going to try to offer you GAP Insurance. They're trying to try to give it to you there. And usually it is a one time charge that is like in the 500 to $700.00 range. And a lot of times they'll roll it into your loan.

Well, typically that's where you overpay because when they roll it into your loan, you're paying interest on that money. It's not worth it whatsoever. Your own auto insurer, I would go and get some quotes from them. If you are at State Farm or Allstate or whoever you're with, go check with your auto insurer before you buy a vehicle and see what it costs.

Some people have reported back to me that their GAP Insurance is costing them $7.00 a month or roughly $88 per year. And the cool thing about doing it through your insurer is you can cancel at the moment your loan balance drops below the car's value. And so in reality, you do have a situation here where you can get the same protection for a fraction of the cost.

And so I would always, always, always, if you're gonna get GAP Insurance, you're gonna do it through your own insurer. But if you don't want that additional cost, if you don't want to just be throwing that money away to an insurance company, that's why we talk about putting 20% down to protect yourself. Now, 20% down could come from a number of different things. It could come from paying cash for that vehicle and saving up 20%.

It could come from you trading in your vehicle to that dealership, and that's gonna cover your 20%. Or maybe it covers a chunk of it and you cover the rest, the 5% or 10% or whatever the difference is. So it could come from a couple of different things so you don't have to worry about it. Also, if you're buying a used car that has really taken a major portion of the depreciation, you also most likely don't need it because you're buying the car at the actual value.

You're buying it at the value that it will be over the course of the long term. I'm sure it may slowly depreciate over time. Like for example, I drive a 2018 Ford F-150 and it's slowly depreciated every single year. But it hasn't been anything that's drastic like 20 or 25%. It's, you know, you know, 5 percent, 7%, things like that where your loan's already going to cover the difference there and you're going to be way ahead of it if you do finance your vehicle.

So GAP Insurance is a great option if you do not have 20% down or if you don't have enough to cover the gap there. If you're buying a new vehicle, though, and you don't have that amount of money, you most likely probably shouldn't be buying a new vehicle. Instead, you should be looking at slightly used so that you can make a more logical decision when it comes to your long term wealth building.

So for many people out there, don't overpay on a car, but GAP Insurance can help you with the difference there if you need to do it. So you don't have to put that 20% down. Now I get the argument, hey, let's get GAP Insurance instead and let's go ahead and invest those dollars because I can outpace the the market or I can outpace returns there. And that's completely fine.

Just run the math, do the numbers. It's going to depend on your situation and you're going to need to do the math because that's the reality of how this is going to work. So great question, Scott. I truly appreciate you sending that in and, and for sure look deeper into that for each and every single person situation. All right, so the next question is from Al.

So Al says I have a special needs son and I'm trying to legacy plan with him in mind as well as our daughter. He receives SSI currently and we don't know what the future holds for him. We feel somewhat in the dark about planning for him because of the asset limits he can or can't have to maintain his Medicaid status and services.

How do you plan financially for a special needs child without jeopardizing their benefits? So for many people out there who don't know when you have special needs or when you have a disability, and there's a number of different things and scenarios where this can happen. We have a member in Master Money Academy who's actually dealing with this.

Basically, he can't make a certain amount of money otherwise he loses all of the specific benefits that he has in play. And so we have to work through and be very specific on how we're thinking about building wealth when we do stuff like this. And so for Al, first of all, I want you to, I want to say and commend you for thinking about this and trying to plan this out.

And this is a very difficult thing to plan out. It is not, it is more complex than what most people realize. And I would recommend a couple of things before I start and dive into this is I am no expert in this whatsoever. I would recommend if you can find a high quality advisor who can help you who specializes in this kind of stuff, I think that could be very, very helpful.

And ACPA, who specializes in this stuff, could also be very helpful long term because they're going to know the rules and regulations. They're going to know how to make sure that you are doing the right things in the right order. So I would say when things get complicated like this, that is a wonderful time to find an advisor who can help you because that is a scenario where they will be able to help you through this process.

But I do have some some tips or some thoughts in the ways that I would approach this also is I would first start like that. I would start with a professional and try to find a professional, but then I would try to figure out exactly what you're trying to avoid. So SSI and Medicaid Services tied to it have a countable asset limit of just $2000.

And this is the difficulty that I find with a lot of these programs. And so if your son personally owns more than that, his benefits could be suspended or lost. So one of the things that many people say is never leave money or assets directly to your son. An attorney who specializes in this can also be very helpful because if you leave it in a will or as a beneficiary or informally, everything below is about routing support to him and making sure he gets coverage and making sure he gets his needs met.

That's the big key and I know that's what you're trying to do. I would make a third party special needs trust the center part of your plan because this is the cornerstone tool and this is built for exactly what you're describing. So there are third party special needs trusts. Sometimes they're called supplemental needs trust, which is a trust that you create and fund with your money for your son's benefit.

OK, Because the assets are owned by the trust and never by him, they don't count against his $2000 limit. So this is the beautiful thing about a trust and This is why you should have attorney help you through this process to set this up. But this trust is going to be something that can help you avoid that limit because all of the assets that you put into that trust will be owned.

Specifically buy that trust because it's funded with your assets, meaning money that was never his. There is no Medicaid payback requirement. So when your son passes or whatever remains can go to your daughter or whoever you direct this money to go to. So if you wanted this to go to someone else, you can also do that as well.

The third thing I was do is I would try to point everything towards that trust instead of your son. So you can redirect your legacy towards this trust. You can ensure that your daughter has access to it as well. And you can update your wills, your life insurance beneficiaries, you can update, you know, all of those different things towards the trust.

So the trust is the owner, for example, for my kids, which is a very different trust. But for my kids, we have a trust in place that allows my kids to get our assets and our money if anything were to ever happen to us. And I have it set up in a way where you can customize it where each kid is going to get a certain amount of money at a certain age.

It's going to be 33% at a certain age, 33% at another age and 33% at a third age. And you can customize these in any different way that you want to. And so the beneficiary of all of my accounts is actually the trust. It is not my kids anymore. It is the trust that we have in place.

And so then you have the ability to have this. And so you can think about it as a middle person. The trust is the middle person between your assets and your son. So they're not designated directly to him. But also just making sure that you have like if there's grandparents in play or if there's other folks in play who you feel as though could give money to your son, make sure they understand this concept as well.

Because any person who names your son directly in their will can accidentally just disqualify him. And so it's really important that everyone gets their dollars pointed at this trust. So if you or have other people who like maybe a a distant grandparent or an uncle or an aunt who want to give money to your son as well, they need to point those dollars at this trust.

So everything is kind of going towards this trust is the key. Now, one thing you can do is you can add an ABLE account for everyday expenses and accessible savings, things like that. So for anybody who doesn't know what an ABLE account is, this is a tax advantage account that your son can own where the balance does not count against SSI up to $100,000.

So you or he can contribute up to $20,000 per year inside of this account. And this is ideal if, if there is money that he needs for day-to-day care or if there's money that he needs to access, it gives him some independence in managing his own funds. And you have the ability to be able to get some tax benefits.

You have the ability to be able to kind of ensure that he gets his needs met with an able account. And I'm sure you've you've potentially used this before. Another thing I would do is prepare what is called a letter of intent. A letter of intent isn't a legal document, but it may be one of the most important things that you create because it is.

A letter of intent is where you write everything down, everything that you would want a future caregiver to know, his routines, his medical history, his likes and dislikes, the things that soothe him and give all this information as much as possible. Because this document is going to outlive you. And having this in place is is really important and you can have it to where any future caregiver can get this letter of intent in this document.

I think it's really important to have also thinking about your daughter as well, planning your daughter's role thoughtfully. I know you want to make sure that you are taking care of both of them. And so I would probably plan your daughter's inheritance separately and then decide if you want her to be a trustee on your son's trust or who you want to be a trustee on your son's trust and kind of do it in that way.

But in reality, this is a complicated, A much more complicated situation that you really have to plan for. And so I would plainly tell you to bring in a professional here and find an attorney who specializes specifically in special needs planning or even in elder law, not just a general estate attorney.

I wouldn't just find a general estate attorney because the rules are very, very complicated. And so we want to make sure that we find someone who can help us through this so you're not in the dark because you want the best care for your son and you want to make sure your daughter is also taken care of. And so because of these two things, I would say that a professional is the most important thing that you can do.

And it is money well spent big time. I mean, this is big time money well spent. And if you feel as though you're in the dark, they can help you and walk you through that situation. So definitely find an attorney. Try to find the best one you can in your area or your state because it's really, really important so that you're not in the dark.

But I appreciate you sending in this question. If I can help in any way, shape or form, please let me know. This is something that you really want to talk. Sit down and talk to someone. So I want to talk about a scam text that I have been getting as of late. And this is going to be our scam for the week that we will talk about about a financial scam of the week that I have been getting as of late that I think is pretty interesting.

And this is one that's probably been coming to a lot of you as well. And I have it on my phone so I'm going to read it here. But it says dear Amazon customer. So if you're an Amazon customer out there, we are writing about a product from your June 2026 order. Following inspection, this product falls short of quality benchmark and has been recalled.

For your safety, please stop using the affected item pinning review and to review the recall details, request a refund. Please open the page below. So sorry for the inconvenience. We are dedicated to this strong Product Safety standards. And so it gives a link to click on down there. And so I investigated this a little bit and I said this looks a little fishy.

This is something that I want to make sure I understand what the product was to ensure it wasn't like a food item or, or something along those lines. And so you open it up and it wants you to log into your Amazon account. But then I looked at the URL and it looked at it pretty quickly and it said it was a URL that looked like Amazon, just like it, but it wasn't Amazon.

And so what's happening here is that these scammers are getting your login information, then they're going to Amazon, logging in and stealing your credit card information that has been stored inside of Amazon or trying to or ordering things or whatever else they can do. And so they're trying to get as much information as possible out of you.

And so this is one of those things that I just want you to watch out for. This is the scam of the week. And we talk about a lot of these over time. And so it's really important to have that financial protection plan in place as AI keeps advancing. It is one of the most important things. Now, one of the my favorite ways to protect your finances online is a service called Delete Me.

So if you haven't heard of Delete Me before, what they do is they go to data brokers and they remove your personal information. So if you Google your name, if you Google your address, if you Google you know your phone number and put it in some quotations, you're going to see your information pop up on a ton of different websites.

These are data brokers. And these data brokers can sell your information to anybody out there. And in fact, many times if a financial scammer out there gets a piece of your information like your address or your name, they can try to find the rest of the information to put the puzzle together. So they can open things like student loans in your name, or they can open things like credit cards in your name.

I know because I had my identity stolen, which is why I'm so passionate about this. And so if you go to joindeleteme.com/PFP 20, you get 20% off Delete me. But they give me these reports. It shows me how many hours they have saved me. And it's been hundreds and hundreds of hours every single year because it takes a lot of time to get your information removed from those websites and a lot of hoops that you have to jump through, but they do it all for you.

So again, go to joindeleteme.com/PFP 20. They have been a long time sponsor of this podcast and a sponsor that I absolutely love and have been using for years and years. All right, the next question is from Gayathri. So hi Andrew, currently I am wondering, is term insurance worth it and how much to take and until what age should I take it?

I am a 43 year old female and I have no health issues. So thank you so much for the kind note. And this is going to be something where I'm going to explain step by step right now how to think about term insurance. So I have my term life insurance through Policy Genius. Policy Genius has been a long time partner of this show as well, and I have used them for a long time.

But you want to start with the only question that matters for most people. Does anyone depend on you financially? OK, because if someone depends on your income, whether it is a spouse, whether it is a child, whether it is an aging parent, whether it is a business partner, those are the situations where you would likely want to have life insurance for most people.

You don't want to get whole life insurance. You don't want to get all these different expensive life insurance plans. Instead, you want to look into something like term life insurance. The way that it works is that it's going to cover you for a specific time period. So let's say for example, you're 43 years old and you want to have term life insurance all the way up until the age of 60.

Well, if you're looking at that, that means that term life insurance is going to cover you for the next 17 years. The thought process is that if you get term life insurance, it's going to be so inexpensive. Like for example, mine's 30 bucks a month for about $1,000,000 worth of coverage. And so when I look at this, I'm saying to myself, OK, well, I've got this time frame where I got this life insurance policy when my son was born at the age of 30 and I am going to have it all the way to the age of 60.

By the time I turn age 60, My Portfolio is going to be large enough that nobody is going to need life insurance anymore because My Portfolio can cover everyone's living costs and we're living off of it and all those different things. And so most people say, hey, once you get term life insurance, it's cheap and then invest the difference.

And that's going to help you accelerate your portfolio and grow your portfolio over time. And so if you feel as though someone is depending on your income, then you got to figure out how much coverage do I take out? Because if you were, if something were to happen to you during that time frame, you want to make sure that your kids are covered or your family members are covered.

And so they aren't going through really hard financial struggles. And typically my rule of thumb is anywhere from 8:00 to 12:00 X what your one year income is. So you can take the number that you make every single year, let's say it's $100,000 per year, multiply that by 12 and you want $1.2 million worth of coverage.

And you can do this on each family member. So if you want life insurance, then your spouse wants life insurance, you each can do your individual policy and multiply that number by each individual person. That way you have enough coverage on hand. So 10 is like right in the middle. That's the the range that you can look at. 12 is if you want to be a little more conservative and just make sure you have enough term life insurance is cheap enough that if you're young, going to 12 is great.

But if you feel as if the cost is too high to go to 12, you can always go to 10 and be OK there. So for most people, this lands anywhere from 500,000 to $1,000,000 in play. That can help with this scenario. Let's say for example, you have a 12 year old and you're 43 years old. Well, if you have a 12 year old and you're 43 years old, they really only need about a decade, 8:00 or so of coverage.

And so if you say OK, $500,000, that's going to help cover living expenses, that's going to help cover, you know, college, all those different things, then maybe that's enough. But if you feel as though you need more than that would be the way to think about it. So 10 to 12 times your income is the key here. And I think the the length of time is really important as well.

So for most people, you do it all the way up until you feel as though your portfolio can cover everything else. So when you map this out, a lot of times people will do it up to the age of 60 or 65 because that's when they plan on retiring. Then they don't have to really worry about it anymore because then they know they have enough portfolio value there to to be able to hand it down to their kids or their family members if they need it.

And typically your kids are out of the house or they are old enough by them. So those are the two things is looking at when the people who depend on you won't need it anymore. And so if they're gonna be an adult or if they if your portfolio is going to be large enough that it can be handed down to them and you don't have to worry, then those are the two scenarios where you can think about it.

Now, if you have a really large portfolio now, then you also probably don't need it unless you just want to have it on hand to be safe because that large portfolio can help take care of them as well. So those are just some of the scenarios and some of the things to think through as you go through this and independent brokers, the best place to look for these, you know, policy Genius is where I did mine.

They made it super simple and they're super cheap, so that's why I like them. But if anybody depends on your income, you definitely want to look into this and you want to make sure that you were doing 10 to 12 times your income. All right, the next question is from Andrew. Andrew, I love your name. All right, so I found your podcast in 2025.

So I'm still trying to catch up to all your unreleased episodes. I have 135 left until I'm caught up to the new releases when they drop. I signed up for your Mastermind e-mail list for your book selection. I'm an avid reader, so after seeing a book recommendation, I'm trying to either read it or print it or listen to it in my library app.

I am immensely grateful for both your podcast and reading list. Please keep both up. Well thank you so much for sending that message. I truly truly appreciate it. That is absolutely amazing. I finished my doctorate in systems engineering while working full time and at the time had an immediate family member passed away in 2024 for which I am working to pay off estate taxes and Max out investments.

I should have the estate taxes paid off by the end of 2026 and only have a mortgage left that is about 3.375% interest. I'm investing 30% of my paycheck into a brokerage account. Investing 17% into a raw 401K. Holy cow.

And received a 9% match at work and I saved 23% of my paycheck into a high yield savings account in my personal brokerage account. I enjoy investing in ETFs and stocks I dig into in my Roth. I am mostly large cap but diversified across medium, small, and international.

I am 34 and I plan on retiring at 44 to 45. With that information, if you were in my shoes, where would you recommend I look for the next steps to becoming financially independent? Based on those numbers, do you see any place that I overlooked? Andrew, first of all, this is one of the most impressive setups I have ever seen in terms of people sending this in.

You're absolutely crushing it so far and the amount of money that you are investing right now, it's getting close to a 70% savings rate. With a 70% savings rate, you can retire really quickly. You are on track to being able to retire in those the early 40s. They're by far, if you continue to do this, and I think this is really, really powerful because you're putting 30% into a taxable brokerage.

I'm reading this back now, 17% anywhere raw 401K and the 9% match on top, which is the massive bonus there. Awesome stuff. And 23% into a high yield savings account. So right now, the first thing I would see is a 23% into a high yield savings account.

If you feel as though that cash is making you comfortable and you feel that that's a good spot to put it, that's completely fine. But if you are trying to get to that six month emergency fund and beyond and maybe you just want to have enough cash on hand because you're retiring early just in case anything were to ever happen, that makes sense as well.

But once you get to that 66 to 12 months range, then you want to think about your swan number, so your sleep well at night number. Anything above that 6 to 12 months range needs to either, you know, benefit you in a way where it helps you sleep well at night so you don't have to worry about it. And or it's probably too much cash to put in a high yield savings account for my specific thought.

But if you are still working towards that number and that's why you're putting that amount in there. So that's the first place I would look is try to decide, OK, well would I rather invest more of these dollars into my taxable brokerage account or something like that so these dollars can continue to grow over time. That would be the optimal place to put it after you fully fund that emergency fund unless you are looking at getting some extra years of cash in case there's down here.

So you can pull from those cash and make sure that you are you're defeating sequence of returns risk things like that. So that's the first place I would look. Secondly, I would stress test the the bridge to age 59 and 1/2. So I would think through, OK, what is the single most important concept at retiring at 44?

Well, a lot of higher earners get surprised because most of your money is in your Roth 4O1K or things like that. So what is your plan to actually access some of this money if you do need it? There's a bunch of different things that you could do and we've done an entire episode on this that you can check out. We dive deep into all the ways that you can access your money if you retire early.

But there are things like you could do a Roth conversion ladder. There is the 72 T, there is set payments that you can set up. There's a lot of different things that you can do. So you want to map out the years as to what you're going to do from age 44 all the way up to age 59 1/2 when you can actually access some of those funds.

And maybe that's what the taxable brokerage is for. And if you are trying to use the taxable brokerage to bridge that gap, I would probably take a portion of that cash once it's done and I would put that cash savings in the taxable brokerage so that you can utilize that as well. Next, I like that you're going all in on a Roth. I think a Roth, even for high earners can be a great spot to put money and Roth is absolutely fantastic.

But have someone run the numbers for your tax situation, see if you want to put it into a traditional. You could do something like that as well if you wanted to. But the Roth does allow you to pull contributions out and it does give you some some great benefits there. And I think there are a couple other accounts you could look into.

If you have a high health plan, you can look at an HSA and see if those triple tax benefits can help you 'cause if you save those receipts while you have that HSA, you can access those funds early. So if you're healthy and you feel as though you can utilize an HSA, that's going to help you in early retirement as well. And I think that is a really good place to, to look at this for that triple tax advantage.

And then also look at the mega backdoor Roth because it seems as though you're a high earner. If your company does allow for after tax contributions, the mega backdoor Roth could be something that you look deeper into to get even more money into your Roth if you wanted to go that route. So I love that for, for many other things. One big thing to note, this is a huge one for a lot of people is planning for health insurance.

And so starting now by planning for health insurance can be really, really important because health insurance is pretty expensive. And as you get to the point in time where you're trying to cover health insurance from age 44 to age 59 1/2, that's about 16 years plus the five years of getting a Medicare.

So you could be looking at about 21 years before you get to Medicare age. And so figuring out, OK, how is health insurance going to work for me until I get to Medicare age is something a lot of people get caught off guard. Like right now I pay $2200 per month in health insurance in Florida. Every state's going to be different.

Some states you can get it for cheaper. I have a family plan, so I have, you know, 5 people on my plan, but that's how much I pay right now. And so you want to make sure that you're also considering that as you start to progress through a lot of these different things. So just making sure you have your health insurance planned out as you do this.

And then concentration risk, I love that you're looking at individual stocks and index funds and ETFs. And I think that's perfect because those are really well diversified. And just making sure you have a diversified portfolio, it sounds like you do is wonderful. And keeping the mortgage on hand, I mean, that mortgage interest rate is really, really low.

So I would not pay that off anytime soon unless you really want to. If you have enough cash on hand to be in the position to do it if you felt like it, that's another great position to be in. But in reality, you haven't overlooked anything major, which is rare. And I think that is AI commend you for that.

Let's get to put this clap up for you. I'm going to clap it up for you because I think that is absolutely incredible. What you are currently doing in the way that you are working through this is absolutely powerful. What I would do is pressure test your plan. I would pressure test, OK, what would happen in different scenarios if the market dropped.

That's one thing I would do. I would pressure test just the health insurance to make sure that you have that coverage in play. I would make sure that you are capturing any additional ways to invest those dollars because you're saving so much. You could do the mega backdoor Roth of the HSA. That's incredible too. And also just make sure you're enjoying life a little bit.

Make sure you are having a little fun and and do the things that you want to do. It sounds like financial freedom is your number one goal, which I love that and I think that's absolutely fantastic. And if you do all of those things, you're not just on track, you are miles ahead. You're in the top 1% of people who are managing their finances.

And I think that is absolutely incredible. So really good job. I would love to see how much progress you make going forward too. So keep me updated. I love this kind of stuff. All right, the last question for today is from Jerry. So Jerry says, hey, good morning, Andrew. I recently found your podcast on Spotify and I've been deep diving into my financial future.

I'm 35 years old and been in the electrical trade for 13 years. Awesome trade. And recently got a new job working for an International Paper as an ENI tech. So electrical instrumentation, we are union and this comes with some new benefits that I'm not accustomed to.

First, they do offer a 3% company match and I am 100% gonna get, but they also have a pension plan. All right, that's amazing. I'm making $45.46 per hour topped out in my trade, and we have unlimited overtime potential. My son is a senior in high school this year and plans to take part in my company's FAME program.

They pay him to go to school for two days a week and he works at the mill for three days. It's a two year program and once he graduates he'll be just shy of 100K by the time he's 20. Awesome stuff. I made a lot of poor financial decisions in the past and I'm just now starting to invest in my future. I'm wanting to guide my son in the right direction from start so he doesn't have to make the mistake I made and will be set up at a young age.

I'd like some tips on how to guide him in the right way and also thinking about my newborn son's future as well. I came from nothing and my goal is to build generational wealth for my boys and financial freedom for my wife and myself. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, I'd appreciate any advice. Well, first of all, This is why this podcast exists is for people who are trying to figure out their financial future and trying to figure out what to do next.

So Jerry, awesome stuff. I am so proud of you for even, you know, getting this far and figuring all this stuff out. Now, here's the cool thing about this is absolutely get that match and that pension is going to be a huge, huge deal. And I would say you've already done the hardest part.

You've come from nothing. You figured it out and now you want to change this and change your family's financial future. And this is one of the most powerful things that people can do for their families is you can change the trajectory of your family by doing a couple different things. One is I would lock in the foundation first.

I would figure out, OK, what order do I need to think about this? Well, first let's make sure we get the emergency fund in place. So one month of expenses is what we want to start with the 136 method. One month of expenses is in place. Then we want to make sure we have all high interest debt paid off.

So anything between that 6 to 7% interest rate needs to be paid off. Then get to three months of expenses in the emergency fund in cash while getting the four O 1K match. Then once you're at three months expenses, we're going to start to invest. We're going to start to invest those dollars, you know, aggressively.

We're half's going towards the emergency fund, half's going towards investments. Once you get the six months of expenses in your emergency fund, then you have the ability to be able to invest all of those extra dollars towards your investments. OK? That's how we start this off #2 understand that your pension, if it's guaranteed, this is going to be something that you will be able to utilize like a paycheck.

A pension is a huge and increasingly rare benefit. This is one of those benefits that really doesn't come around much often, and I'm sure for most people these are going to go away fully at some point in time unless something changes. So don't fully count on your pension money until it's vested 1 but once it's guaranteed and it's vested then you can utilize this as part of your financial plan.

Meaning that if you need $100,000 per year by the time you retire and your pension is going to cost cover $60,000 of that, then you only need to cover the rest, the $40,000 per year in order to be able to retire, plus Social Security and all the other fun things that come into play. So if your pension is covering let's say $60,000 and you need to cover $40,000, that means you would need about 1,000,000 bucks invested in order to be able to retire because you could draw it on 4% per year roughly.

And so that's going to start off to kind of think through how to utilize your pension in a way that makes sense when you start to invest. I would look at opening a Roth IRA for your family and then contributing to that four O 1K, making sure you continue to get that match and then contributing the four O 1K after is really important.

For 2026. You can put $7500 per year in the Roth and then start to contribute to that four O 1K and even a taxable brokerage if you have more money leftover after that. If you get a bunch of overtime or whatever else. I think that's wonderful. And then be cautious about lifestyle creep because as your income increases, you want to make sure your lifestyle stays the same.

That way you could take those extra dollars and put it towards your financial freedom so you don't make the same financial mistakes that you say you may have made in the past. Now let's talk about teaching your son about finances because what he is doing already, I love that you guys are doing that program. I think that's absolutely incredible. And one of the things that he can do is he can open up, since he's making money now, he can open up a Roth IRA.

And so this is going to be a really, really powerful opportunity because most people never get it. And a Roth IRA grows tax free long term. And when you're young, putting money in a Roth IRA means you have more time for this money to grow. And the growth of that money is going to be the majority by far.

And he's not going to ever have to pay a dime in taxes on the growth of that money. And so because of this, this could be a really, really powerful account for him over the course of the next. Why? Because if you open a Roth IRA, I'm pulling up an investment calculator right now. So let's say you put in that $7500 per year over the course of 45 years, at a 10% rate of return, he would have $5,391,786 in this account.

And the amount of that that would never have to pay a dime in tax, meaning the growth of that money is just over $5,000,000. So $5,054,000. That is a massive benefit because he has so much time for this money to compound and because he has so much time for this to work for him.

And so because of this, the Roth IRA is really powerful for young people who have time and time for their money to grow. And then secondly, I would teach him the behaviors before dollar amounts. So teach him and, and lead by example because kids watch your example, especially when they're his age, lead by example.

So at his age, habits matter more than numbers for anything. So teaching, pay yourself 1st. Every single time you get paid, a portion of your paycheck is going to go towards your Roth IRA or whatever other investment accounts you want to go towards. So a minimum of 20% is always the key. But if you can get him to save 50% now and kind of get in the habit of that, boy, oh boy, he can retire in his 40s pretty quickly if he wants to do something like that.

Avoiding debt is the second thing and kind of showing and teaching about debt and why it is important to avoid debt at all costs. If he wants to buy a truck or if he wants to buy something that is really, really of interest to him, making sure that he pays cash for stuff like that can be important to, to establish some of those boundaries.

Because a classic mistake for folks in the trades is, you know, making good money and then all of a sudden they go out and buy a $60,000 truck. No, you want to avoid that at all costs and want to be something where, you know, you don't want him buying side by sides or whatever else that he would want to go out and buy and be able to, you know, go and finance it because many people go out and finance that.

I think that's really, really important for your newborn. What I would say is there's a lot of things that you can do if your newborn was born over the course of the last couple of years. The Trump account gets that one $3000. Make sure you do that for sure. And then a 529 plan helps save for college. That's another thing you could do and then using like a taxable brokerage account or a Trump account if you want to save for them for long term future stuff is is great.

I'm not a big UTMA or UGMA person because of the the restrictions, but I am a huge custodial Roth. Once you have earned income, but you got to have earned income before you open a custodial Roth IRA. That's the rules behind that. But being the model, the role model for all of your children, that's the big key.

And then talking about money, I like to frequently have conversations about money and how it works. Again, you're going to notice that your kids are going to have different personalities when it comes to money. I have one kid who he saves every single penny. My other son spends every dollar he gets immediately when he gets it.

And my daughter's too young to to know yet, but we'll see how she is. And so I have to teach them very differently. And the lessons are very different for each and every single person based on their personality and kind of how they operate when it comes to money. So I would ensure that you are teaching them and leading by example in that way as well.

So the bottom line is getting the full match, understanding your pension, getting that emergency fund built up and making sure you have all of this stuff in line is really, really important. And time will do the heavy lifting for your kids, which is great. And you can kind of get a bunch of different things set up and build something really serious here.

You got so much time for this money to compound still that you're still very young. And I think there's a lot of cool things that you could do. So your past mistakes, don't beat yourself up about those. This is the time is now. And you can do some really great stuff with this if you set it up right, so you can build that generation wealth for you and your family, which I am so excited for you to do.

Listen, Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. If you have questions, again, make sure you reach out. And if you want direct help from me inside Master Money Academy, I am answering messages every single day. We are doing weekly live coaching calls every single week, working through people's finances.

And we are doing monthly master classes, going through a specific topic and teaching you about a bunch of different things. Plus, we have a six month system now inside Master Money Academy where if you follow the steps, every single week I tell you exactly what to do to transform your finances over the course of the next six months.

You will transform your finances in the next 6 months by joining Master Money Academy. There's a couple of things that I want you to be able to do. 1 is you gotta be 100% committed. You have to be willing to at least invest about an hour or so per week in learning about your finances. Two, you have to be willing to do the work and put the time in and the energy in.

This is not something that for people who are just going to be Willy nilly and not do it, You have to be willing to do it. And three, you have to be willing to actually want to build wealth. If you want to build wealth and you want to change your financial life forever, I would love to invite you to join Master Money Academy because I promise you it'll transform your life.

And I'm personally every single day in there helping people and I answer every single question every single day inside Master Money Academy. So I'm really, really excited for that. So if you are in debt, if you are someone who is investing, but you're just kind of investing in random accounts, you don't really know what you're doing.

If you're someone out there who is trying to build wealth and generational wealth for you and your family, I'm helping families every single day inside of Master Money Academy. The link is down below in the show notes. So please check out that link down below if you have not done so already. And there's a 7 day free trial, Go check it out.

We have all of our courses in there. Take some of our courses, come to a live one-on-one coaching call, ask some questions. And I will directly answer you and ask some questions in the community. And I will personally answer each and every single one of you. And if it's not for you, nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but would love to see you inside Master Money Academy and can't wait to meet you inside.

So please join down below. And thank you so much for listening to this episode. We will see you on the next episode.