Do you want to get serious about investing and saving, but need help understanding how to budget your paychecks? This week’s podcast is an unfiltered discussion with financial advisor Douglas Boneparth on everything you need to know to invest for short and long term goals and to gain financial control of your life.
FinTwit fav Douglas Boneparth (@dougboneparth) joins this week’s pod episode. Douglas is booked and busy – from being the President of Bone Fined Wealth, a member of the CNBC Advisor Council, author of “The Millenial Money Fix,” to founder of the Crypto Drip. We chatted about his career journey, his experience as a financial advisor, helping millennials, how the 2008 financial crash impacted him, what he would do if he was in his early twenties and how important it is for people to understand how money comes in and out of their life. He also gave some insight into how you should be doing with your money on a monthly basis so you can live, but also plan to retire comfortably. Douglas gives a quick financial literacy lesson on investing, taxes, 401K, budgeting, and taking financial risks that will have you racing to take notes. And of course, I had to ask him the big question on everyone’s mind - should I have a financial advisor? Join our discussion and learn everything school didn’t teach you about finance and money management that will set you up for financial freedom.
#personalfinance #howtosavemoney #investing
FinTwit fav Douglas Boneparth (@dougboneparth) joins this week’s pod episode. Douglas is booked and busy – from being the President of Bone Fined Wealth, a member of the CNBC Advisor Council, author of “The Millenial Money Fix,” to founder of the Crypto Drip. We chatted about his career journey, his experience as a financial advisor, helping millennials, how the 2008 financial crash impacted him, what he would do if he was in his early twenties and how important it is for people to understand how money comes in and out of their life. He also gave some insight into how you should be doing with your money on a monthly basis so you can live, but also plan to retire comfortably. Douglas gives a quick financial literacy lesson on investing, taxes, 401K, budgeting, and taking financial risks that will have you racing to take notes. And of course, I had to ask him the big question on everyone’s mind - should I have a financial advisor? Join our discussion and learn everything school didn’t teach you about finance and money management that will set you up for financial freedom.
#personalfinance #howtosavemoney #investing
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Good part about personal finance,
00:01 it's not very hard to learn.
00:03 Like there's not complex math, you know, it's behavioral.
00:07 - Welcome back to the Wolf Podcast.
00:17 My name is Gav Blacksburg, AKA Wolf Financial
00:21 from all your favorite Twitter spaces.
00:22 Today I'm joined by the,
00:24 one of the fan favorites from FinTwit we'll call him,
00:29 Mr. Douglas Boneparth is joining us @DougBoneparth
00:32 on Twitter, the president of BoneFide Wealth,
00:34 a member of the CNBC advisor council,
00:36 and of course an author and founder
00:38 in the world of web three.
00:39 He's doing a bunch of stuff.
00:41 And today we are going to dive a little bit
00:43 into his background, but also into exactly where
00:47 and what you should be doing with your money
00:49 on a monthly basis in order to help yourself
00:51 retire comfortably in that house you want in Bali,
00:53 in that yacht you want in the Caribbean,
00:55 whatever you need, today is going to teach you
00:57 how to get it.
00:59 All right, Doug, now that I've set you up
01:00 for a very high bar, I'd love to give you a minute
01:02 to introduce yourself here, talk a little bit
01:04 about your background, and then we'll dive
01:06 into the actual order of operations.
01:09 - Yeah, thanks for the awesome intro.
01:11 Yachts in Bali, okay.
01:14 We'll do our best.
01:15 So again, great introduction.
01:18 One of the more unique things about me professionally,
01:21 hopefully not personally, is I've been a financial advisor
01:24 and working in wealth management for 18 years now,
01:27 and I'm 37.
01:28 So I've been doing this since 19,
01:30 and that's largely a function of growing up
01:32 in the industry and growing up
01:34 in a financial advisory practice.
01:35 I've done nothing else in my professional life.
01:39 This is all I do, write financial plans,
01:41 deliver financial plans and advice,
01:43 and do investment management as well.
01:45 And I focus primarily on a demographic
01:48 that's 28 to 42 years of age.
01:51 So I was one of the first advisors to say,
01:52 hey, let's focus specifically on millennials.
01:55 It was a very cringy thing to say.
01:56 You got laughed at for doing that.
01:58 You know, this is like eight years ago,
02:00 but I knew if I really invested in our peers,
02:03 we would grow together.
02:04 And it was also a function of what was observed
02:07 coming out of 2008 and 2009.
02:10 Kind of very interesting times today
02:11 to go full 13 year cycle here,
02:14 from where we began to what looks like the end of the cycle
02:17 and into, you know, the next phase.
02:19 So it's been a crazy journey,
02:21 but focusing primarily on, you know, older millennials now,
02:24 relating to the issues that we face,
02:28 whether it was financial, excuse me,
02:29 whether it was student loans and dealing with,
02:31 you know, graduate level,
02:32 huge amounts of student loan debt.
02:34 How do we buy houses, start careers that are,
02:37 you know, entrepreneurial?
02:38 How do we settle down, have kids,
02:40 and get to where we are today,
02:41 which is in a position to accumulate assets?
02:45 You know, don't take for granted how hard it is,
02:48 you know, to start at zero,
02:49 enter the workforce at a crazy unprecedented time.
02:52 Here we are, and I'm talking then, not now.
02:55 So this is very true for Gen Z too, probably.
02:58 How to navigate that, how to take control of that,
03:01 and really just take advantage so you can succeed
03:03 and get onto those longer term goals that you have, right?
03:06 Financial independence, you know, starting businesses,
03:09 settling down family, so on and so forth.
03:10 - I love it.
03:11 Doug, so you've never known anything
03:13 but personal finance, really.
03:14 Did you have like a fallback plan at like 20?
03:17 It was like, if this doesn't work out,
03:18 I'm gonna like, you know,
03:20 make my own coffee brand or something?
03:21 - Yeah, I mean, hindsight now,
03:23 with all the things I love to do with my time,
03:25 yeah, I probably would have loved to have like,
03:27 opened a cafe and really like,
03:29 gotten into like, local politics
03:31 and be that connector in town.
03:33 I did not know that back in, you know, when I was 22.
03:35 There was a degree in public relations,
03:38 which has actually served me very well in my career
03:41 as a financial advisor, very much about communications
03:44 and how to play that card very well,
03:47 not just from a marketing standpoint,
03:48 but client communication and getting the points
03:51 you wanna cross to your clients as, you know,
03:53 you're talking to them about their money.
03:54 - You were actually, you were my age in 2008, right?
03:57 When everything hit.
03:59 What type of, how did that shape the rest of your career?
04:02 What was the big takeaways from 2008?
04:04 And then after this,
04:05 we could start talking for the average person,
04:06 they're making money each month, where should they put it?
04:08 But I just wanna get a little bit more
04:09 into your background.
04:10 - It was crazy.
04:11 I mean, I literally got off, you know,
04:13 I graduated from college, spent less than a half year
04:15 working, you know, continuing to work
04:17 in my family's practice, my father's practice,
04:20 worked throughout all of colleges
04:21 where the bulk of my experience came from.
04:23 So I was a full-time student and a full-time associate
04:25 advisor, still managed to have a good deal of fun.
04:29 But they were busy days.
04:30 The sky didn't fall until a little around a year
04:34 after graduating, October '08.
04:36 I got off the plane at JFK, like,
04:38 I always say like the day Lehman collapsed.
04:40 I think it was like a week or so after.
04:42 Things were getting really bad,
04:44 like the minute I showed up in New York City.
04:46 So I didn't really see, you know,
04:49 what I now can look back on as, oh my God,
04:51 until I actually like got there.
04:53 So those first two years in New York City
04:55 working in finance, those were the things
04:59 that opened my eyes to, quite frankly, a lot of things.
05:02 Number one, just how scary these things can be.
05:05 How fortunate I was to where my worst case scenario
05:08 was flying back home to South Florida
05:10 to figure my life out while I was watching people
05:12 lose their jobs, lose their businesses, lose their lives.
05:15 I mean, these were very, very dark times.
05:18 Hopefully we won't see again.
05:20 But yeah, that was a global credit crisis,
05:22 a global financial crisis on our hands.
05:25 Looking back at it, you know, all those moments
05:28 where we're all amazing learning lessons,
05:29 again, I didn't have the skin in the game of life
05:32 that I do today.
05:33 I can only imagine, you know, going through that again,
05:36 or doing that with two young kids and a mortgage
05:38 and all of these things where your responsibilities
05:40 are much higher.
05:41 So I think for young people, you know,
05:43 or Gen Z just getting started here, you know,
05:46 navigating it should be, perhaps we've given you
05:48 a little bit of a roadmap, you know, from 13 years ago.
05:52 I don't think it should stop people from being risky
05:54 in their youth and taking, you know, their shots,
05:57 if not now than ever, than when rather.
06:00 And I think there's a lot of things you can do
06:02 to make sure that you don't find yourself digging
06:04 a financial hole instead of, you know,
06:07 moving yourself forward, right?
06:09 I think it's much more accommodative in terms of,
06:11 you know, the gig economy was always around.
06:13 This is not a new novel thing 13 years ago.
06:16 Like people were side hustling forever.
06:18 But, you know, that's become more commonplace.
06:20 I read an article that said the millennials
06:22 that really made out the best from '08 and '09
06:25 were the ones who said, "Enough of this shit.
06:27 "I'm gonna go start my own thing
06:29 "and build their own businesses."
06:30 Now here they are 10, 13 years later,
06:32 quiet quitting doesn't apply to them.
06:34 You know, sure the economy and macroeconomics do,
06:37 but, you know, they've had this time to have something
06:40 that's their own, can call the shots, balance their lives.
06:43 The whole notion of, you know, how do I go back
06:45 to the office and also get childcare post COVID,
06:48 that's a huge component to, you know,
06:50 what the older millennials are thinking right now.
06:54 So if I was, you know, 22, 23,
06:57 it's going to be very much fundamental stuff
07:00 and knowing just how important it is to get that right.
07:03 How important it is to set yourself up for success,
07:05 the good money habits, controlling spending,
07:07 building the cash reserve.
07:08 And if you can get that done,
07:10 look at the opportunities that are going
07:11 to present themselves, right?
07:13 I would have killed, had I had money in 2009 and 10,
07:17 would have loved to have bought, you know,
07:18 a city at a dollar,
07:19 if Sirius satellite was like pennies, you know,
07:22 that's, you just bought the S&P or NASDAQ
07:24 and pretty much crushed it from then till now,
07:26 even with this correction.
07:27 And you don't get to do any of that
07:29 unless you're really approaching, you know,
07:30 your adult life and your finances in an adult way.
07:35 And unfortunately that's not a knock on being young.
07:37 It's like most people just don't even have that at any age.
07:41 So this is a really amazing opportunity
07:43 to take advantage of how you are to get set up.
07:46 So that compounding you're about to do
07:48 over the next 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years,
07:51 you're taking full advantage of that
07:52 because life's going to catch up, right?
07:54 You're going to, you know,
07:55 regardless of what, you know, recession we're in
07:58 or how bad things get, you know,
07:59 most people are gravitating towards finding someone
08:02 to be with and love and start a family
08:04 or build stuff together.
08:05 That's why we do this stuff.
08:07 That's why we live.
08:08 And you can do that a lot more easily
08:10 and you have more choices and options and flexibility
08:13 when you approach that on unstable footing,
08:15 especially in unstable times.
08:18 - Should most people have a financial advisor?
08:20 - I mean, you know, a bias for me to say, of course,
08:22 people should be working with someone.
08:24 The truth is you can learn a lot of this on your own.
08:27 The good part about personal finance,
08:29 it's not very hard to learn.
08:30 Like there's not complex math, you know, it's behavioral.
08:34 The hard part is, the learning piece that's very hard
08:39 is training yourself to behave a certain way
08:42 when certain things happen, right?
08:44 Tuning out the noise, getting those regular contributions
08:47 into savings or investment, right?
08:49 Not letting lifestyle creep get the best of you
08:52 and your ability, you know, to put off gratification of today
08:55 for a gratification later on.
08:58 Figuring out how to balance those two things, right?
09:00 This isn't fire movement at my firm.
09:02 We're not trying to squeeze every little last drop
09:04 of toothpaste out of the tube, you know,
09:07 but we are trying to be smart with our money,
09:10 but more or less balance, you know,
09:11 how smart we are with our money
09:12 with the things that we wanna do today
09:14 versus what we need to get done tomorrow.
09:16 - Perfect, so let's talk about pecking order.
09:18 Now, this could apply to, you know,
09:20 the average millennial or Gen Z
09:23 that is graduating college and has $60,000 salary,
09:27 or it could apply to somebody that's in their 40s, right?
09:29 And is just bringing in a daily income
09:32 and really hasn't started building that nest egg yet, right?
09:34 It could be anyone on that span.
09:36 So let's say somebody has nothing really set up yet.
09:39 Maybe they're trading a few stocks in Robinhood, right?
09:42 They haven't really done too much in the world of 401k
09:46 or Roth IRA or all these pieces,
09:48 and they're bringing in, let's say 5k a month
09:51 just for a nice, you know, kind of round number.
09:53 How should that get broken down on a monthly basis
09:57 in order to allow them to live, right?
10:00 Because like you said,
10:01 that's the whole point of doing all this,
10:02 but also to set themselves up for success down the line.
10:05 - Yeah, the first thing is cut yourself some slack here.
10:08 You're going into experimental mode,
10:10 especially for the folks who are just starting out.
10:12 They haven't had too many cracks at, you know,
10:14 12 month periods, 24, 36.
10:16 You just haven't had a lot of time in the game
10:18 to really get used to cashflow.
10:20 So what comes in, what comes out, confidence in earning,
10:24 what maybe incentive comp looks like
10:25 if you're getting more than just, you know,
10:27 your base salary.
10:28 These are all variables that, you know,
10:30 could move you left and right
10:31 when you think about your money.
10:32 So first cut yourself some slack.
10:33 Know that you're going into this with, you know,
10:36 the goal is to learn.
10:37 So once you get that concept down,
10:39 we do want to focus on cashflow.
10:41 I think, you know,
10:41 that the thing you should spend a lot of time on here
10:45 is getting to know your numbers
10:46 and how money comes in and out of your life.
10:49 It's very easy.
10:50 You know, start with what you make, you know,
10:51 and what's certain.
10:51 That's that base salary you gave us $60,000 here.
10:55 I would like to know how much of that do we need
10:58 to live comfortably.
11:00 Danger here, right?
11:01 Comfort to you, me, and someone else,
11:03 and where you've been from and how you grew up.
11:05 This is a very subjective thing here.
11:07 I want you to take a very practical approach to that,
11:10 right?
11:10 What's a, you know, if you're renting,
11:12 what's, you know, moderate, you know,
11:14 to moderately conservative rent, right?
11:17 What do you need to buy for grocery?
11:19 Start teasing out these numbers,
11:21 because ultimately you want to find out
11:23 what you need every month to make your life work, right?
11:27 And you need to balance that against,
11:29 well, how much then can you consistently save and invest?
11:32 Right?
11:33 So take your 5,000, let's use that.
11:35 We're going to take 20% off for taxes.
11:37 That gives us $4,000 left, right?
11:40 Let's say rent and everything you need is 3,000.
11:43 You got a thousand left, you know,
11:45 I don't know where we're living or where,
11:47 I don't know where this is,
11:48 but in this very back of the envelope scenario,
11:51 you got a grand left.
11:53 Okay, I can make it all work on three grand
11:55 and pay the tax man.
11:56 So now what are you going to do with that $1,000?
11:59 Before you figure out how to chop that up,
12:01 I want to know, can you do that consistently?
12:03 Can you get through three, six, nine months
12:05 of saving that thousand?
12:06 What if you find out it's $1,250, right?
12:09 Or what if you find out you're just reaching
12:11 into your savings, right?
12:13 To go get $500 to pay your bill.
12:15 Well, you're saving a thousand a month only to use 500.
12:18 You got it wrong by 500.
12:19 Okay, make the adjustment three, six months later
12:22 after living that experiment.
12:23 That's why I started with cut yourself some slack.
12:26 You're going to have to figure this out
12:27 and get consistent at it.
12:29 This is hard.
12:30 This is hard because it's the behavioral part again, right?
12:32 You got to train yourself to do this.
12:34 If you're not good at this or you've never done it,
12:37 no one sits down at a piano and starts busting out Mozart,
12:40 you know, unless you're a prodigy.
12:42 And most of us don't have, you know, that capability.
12:45 So you're not going to do that here as well
12:47 for the most part.
12:48 So once you've got cashflow in order,
12:49 I call this being a master of cashflow
12:51 and you're consistent with money in, money out.
12:52 Now you got that thousand dollars.
12:54 Where should it go?
12:55 Where should it go?
12:56 I'm a big fan of first building that cash reserve.
12:59 I probably have a hotter take that,
13:02 that flies in the face of compounding.
13:04 You know, you hear your mom or your grandparent
13:06 or someone be like,
13:07 oh, you should be putting some money
13:09 in your retirement plan, you know,
13:11 or you should be putting that money away and investing it.
13:13 The sooner you do, the more time you have to compound.
13:16 I totally get it.
13:17 When you got time on your side, you know,
13:18 compounding is your friend,
13:20 but we invest and put risk on our money
13:23 so that we can stay invested and continue to see out
13:26 whatever strategy we put into place.
13:28 For most young people, it's buy and hold.
13:30 Stick with buying the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ
13:33 or whatever your aggressive portfolio is.
13:35 We're not talking picking stocks here.
13:37 We're not there.
13:38 There's time and a place for that.
13:39 We're just talking about, you know,
13:40 being consistent with this kind of behavior.
13:43 But listen, before we do any of that,
13:45 I want to build that cash reserve
13:47 so we have the confidence and the comfort
13:49 of being able to stick to that investment strategy,
13:51 whatever it is.
13:52 So rule of thumb,
13:53 three to six months of your living expenses in cash, right?
13:57 We just did that in cash flow.
13:58 Now these two are playing right into one another.
14:01 We know what we need each month to be comfortable.
14:03 It was 3,000.
14:04 You know, we're feeling good.
14:05 We're young.
14:06 You know, worst case scenario,
14:07 we got to move home.
14:09 Maybe three months, you know, is where you're at.
14:11 You need $9,000 in cash before I would say,
14:14 "Look, let's start investing."
14:16 Or you could say, "Look, you know,"
14:18 and that would take nine months, right?
14:20 You say, "If I was just focusing on that one goal
14:22 "of raising cash before putting any money in my 401K,
14:25 "IRAs, or in a brokerage account,
14:27 "nine months, $1,000 a month is gonna get me
14:30 "to my three-month cash reserve."
14:32 Double it if you're going for six.
14:35 You can split this, right?
14:36 You can say, "Look, I'd rather get to $9,000 in cash
14:40 "over 18 months, right?
14:42 "And maybe a bonus will hit and shorten that
14:44 "and get money into my 401K."
14:46 We'll talk about that and talk about the priority.
14:48 You get to choose here.
14:49 Some people are gonna say,
14:50 "I wanna feel really secure and comfortable and safe
14:53 "knowing I can cover three months of expenses
14:55 "or six months of expenses before
14:57 "I even wanna think about the markets or investments."
15:00 And the irony here is when you do that,
15:02 the goal's not to think about it
15:03 after you make the investment.
15:04 It's to let it do its thing.
15:05 But if you're just not there
15:06 and you're building these things up for the first time,
15:08 it's okay to go step-by-step,
15:10 and it's okay to focus on this cash goal here, too.
15:12 By the way, you're only gonna accumulate more cash
15:14 if you say, "I wanna buy a home as my first goal
15:16 "in the next four years as well."
15:18 But let's put that off to the side.
15:19 So I'm a fan of saying, "Hey, maybe let's get ourselves
15:22 "situated in this foundation built out
15:24 "before we start investing,
15:26 "because I think it makes for a better investor."
15:28 You can choose if you wanna split that up.
15:30 Now, once we do get that cash reserve set up,
15:34 then we can think about, all right, what's our next goal?
15:37 If it's not a short-term goal,
15:39 like buying, I define that as four years or less.
15:42 If it's four years or less away, I'm generally risk-off.
15:45 I generally don't wanna risk losing that principle
15:50 when I need to go execute on that goal.
15:53 Nothing like losing 20% of your home savings goal
15:56 four months before you need to close,
15:57 'cause you did what Warren Buffett told you to do
16:00 and go in the S&P 500, right?
16:03 This year would be a good example of that.
16:05 You know, "Oh, right, you did well,
16:08 "saving the last two years only to watch
16:10 "all those gains just evaporate."
16:12 You're now not getting the window treatments you wanted.
16:14 All right, I get it.
16:15 So, shy of addresses, so after you've mastered cash flow,
16:18 getting your cash reserve, right?
16:20 We can start to focus on putting risk on our money now.
16:23 So, here's the pecking order, right?
16:25 Cash reserve, right?
16:27 Now we're gonna talk about those retirement accounts.
16:30 All right, so this is where we wanna now grow our money
16:31 in the most tax-advantaged way possible.
16:33 So, if we have access to an employer retirement plan,
16:36 most people have a 401(k) or a 403(b)
16:39 if you're at a not-for-profit, or 457 if it's government.
16:43 Whatever your retirement plan is,
16:44 you have a pretty good amount of money
16:46 you can put into these things.
16:48 This year it's 20,500 as the employee contribution,
16:51 what you can defer or take out of your paycheck
16:53 and put in there.
16:54 Beyond that, so that's a lot.
16:56 So, on the, you know, that's probably not gonna get
16:58 filled up on our example, right?
17:00 Of that $1,000 a month, we're first filling up cash,
17:02 and then we have another 1,000.
17:03 Hopefully income is going up over this period of time too,
17:06 and that's okay.
17:07 So, we're gonna start to work on that.
17:09 We also might get a matching contribution.
17:11 So, guys, or guys, like I'm talking to everyone here,
17:14 the one exception I usually grant here
17:17 is for that matching 401(k) contribution, right?
17:19 That the quote-unquote free money.
17:21 If you gotta put 3% in to get 3% match,
17:24 like, go for it, go for it.
17:26 But as far as, you know, putting in that full $1,000
17:28 ahead of accumulating your cash reserve,
17:30 typically, hey, let's make sure we got the order
17:33 correct for you here.
17:35 So, we got 20,500 that can go into your 401(k).
17:38 Next year it's 22,500, that's 2023.
17:41 So, good amount of capacity, write them in there.
17:44 Typically you can choose that on a pre-tax basis,
17:46 the money that will go in,
17:47 not taxed in the year you're putting it in.
17:49 It'll come out taxable later on.
17:52 Or you can put it in as Roth dollars.
17:53 So, you're gonna pay tax on the money you're putting in.
17:56 But when you take out all that growth
17:57 and what you put in, no tax at all.
17:59 Young people like the Roth.
18:00 The answer is really having a mix of all things.
18:03 So, you can play, you know,
18:04 the tax distribution game later on down the road.
18:07 It's not what we need to be going further into here
18:10 for the scope of this chat.
18:12 And then after that, there's Roth conversions.
18:14 So, if, you know, this is a strategy that allows
18:18 more money to go into retirement plans
18:20 that ordinarily wouldn't be able to go in there.
18:22 It's just taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code.
18:25 It's a traditional IRA contribution that's not deductible.
18:30 But the loophole is you can convert
18:31 those after-tax dollars into Roth dollars.
18:34 There's some rules and some things
18:36 you have to pay attention to before you do that.
18:38 But it basically brings us from, if it's this year,
18:40 20,500 up to 26,500.
18:43 All right, that's a lot of dough
18:45 to be putting in just retirement accounts.
18:48 But the next step after that,
18:49 if you can make that happen every year
18:52 and then move into contributions or systematic investment
18:57 in what we call just a brokerage account
18:58 or what we call this non-qualified money,
19:00 non-tax qualified, we'll just call it a taxable account.
19:03 If you can get that 200 a month, 300 a month,
19:05 a thousand, whatever it is, and do that regularly,
19:08 look what we got.
19:09 Your paychecks are coming out regularly into your 401k.
19:12 Once a year, you're gonna do those Roth conversions.
19:15 And every month now you have 500, 1,000,
19:18 however much money it is, going into your taxable account.
19:22 Do that.
19:23 Do that year in, year out, and build up that asset base.
19:27 What do we got?
19:27 We got you in control of your cash flow.
19:29 We got three, six, nine, maybe 12 months
19:31 of living expenses in cash reserve feeling nice and safe.
19:33 Chunk of that going into those IBONs, right?
19:36 Joke's hot.
19:38 - We haven't even touched on IBONs yet.
19:39 - Yeah, I know, we're not.
19:40 We're not gonna even get there.
19:41 We got our cash reserve.
19:42 We have master cash flow, cash reserve, maxing out 401k,
19:45 doing Roth conversions, and getting a certain sum
19:48 into the market every single month.
19:50 Anyone who can do this or gets to this level,
19:53 I mean, that's like platinum star status.
19:55 That makes my heart feel so good as a financial planner
19:59 because it shows that you've made it to this point
20:01 of asset accumulation.
20:03 More importantly, more importantly,
20:05 it's put you in a position to have control
20:07 over your financial life.
20:09 Because your real life is going to say,
20:12 what's the expression?
20:13 Man plans, God laughs, right?
20:16 Like, gonna have a kid, congrats.
20:19 You got laid off, you got promoted.
20:21 You received an inheritance.
20:22 You've been disinherited.
20:24 You know, like these are things that are outside
20:26 of your control that are gonna happen to you.
20:28 And when you have a plan or you at least have
20:31 these pieces in place, making changes,
20:34 you're more nimble, right?
20:35 You can make a change easier.
20:36 Things aren't catching you by surprise, right?
20:39 There's no knee jerk reaction to throwing cash
20:41 at something that needs your attention.
20:43 Or the opportunity is finally staring you in the face
20:46 to go buy a dip or a depreciated asset
20:48 or an experience that you wanna have
20:50 with someone you love or like.
20:52 You don't need to think about what that is.
20:54 You know, it's all there for you.
20:55 You know how to think about that.
20:57 And I think being in that position is what, you know,
21:00 personal finance is really all about.
21:02 I think control is the word to use here.
21:04 Who's in control, who's not in control.
21:06 Who put in the work and created the discipline
21:09 and behaviors to remain in control
21:11 because things do get wild.
21:13 And right now is a good time to show you
21:15 just how crazy things can get or will get.
21:18 - So just to recap, started with 5K,
21:22 1,000 of that went to taxes,
21:25 3,000 of that went to expenses.
21:28 And then the other 1,000 now is used over time
21:31 or quick, depending on that person's preference,
21:34 to build up your cash reserves.
21:35 Then you're going into your 401K.
21:38 How do you decide between the 401K
21:40 and the Roth IRA at that point?
21:42 You're typically funding the 401K first?
21:44 - Yeah, if the 401K has the ability
21:47 to contribute Roth dollars,
21:48 you're prioritizing the 401K
21:50 'cause it has a higher threshold
21:51 to how much money can go in there.
21:53 And you know, if you started $6,000 in your Roth
21:55 instead of your, you know, 401K,
21:58 six and a half dozen the other there.
22:00 But start with the bigger bucket.
22:01 Fill up the 401K.
22:03 It has more time constraints on it
22:04 in terms of IRS rules and things like that.
22:07 But you wouldn't be choosing between the two.
22:09 Start with your retirement plan at work,
22:11 then get into Roth conversions
22:14 if you can afford that as well.
22:16 - Okay, so now once all of those have been hit,
22:18 let's say, and it wouldn't be happening in our example,
22:21 but let's say someone had more money perhaps,
22:23 or they got that raise.
22:24 Where's money going towards after these have been filled?
22:27 Because of course, these do have limits.
22:29 - Right, so once we hit all those limits
22:32 and we find out that we still have free cash every month,
22:35 all right, so what we call free cash
22:36 is the ability to continue to invest from our cashflow,
22:40 or you receive a bonus or some incentive, right?
22:42 So you get a commission or your annual bonus.
22:45 You know, you first look to see,
22:47 do I need to top off my cash reserve?
22:48 Nope.
22:49 Have I already maxed out my retirement plans?
22:52 Yup.
22:53 You know, you can either then go about this
22:55 by making a lump sum investment
22:56 into that taxable brokerage account.
22:58 I prefer to average that amount in.
23:01 So let's say you got a bonus that netted $24,000,
23:04 I'm gonna go invest $2,000 a month for the next 12 months,
23:09 that lump sum into the portfolio,
23:12 or into a taxable brokerage account.
23:15 - And you also mentioned beforehand
23:17 that you're just going with those indices.
23:19 You said there's a different time for stock picking.
23:22 Where is that time?
23:24 - Yeah, I mean, it's pretty subjective.
23:26 We call these opportunity portfolios,
23:28 or folks when they wanna get involved
23:30 in alternative investments,
23:32 whether that's VC or crypto, or you take your pick.
23:36 The alternative investment umbrellas
23:39 is pretty big these days.
23:40 We got fractional art, fractional real estate.
23:42 You can do all of these things.
23:44 We tend to draw a line in the sand.
23:45 I don't really wanna see more than 10, at most 20%
23:48 of an individual's investable network.
23:51 So take all the investments that you have,
23:54 take 10, 20%, that's the threshold.
23:55 I don't wanna have really more than that.
23:56 So if you had $100,000 of investments,
24:00 and we're drawing a line in the sand at 10%,
24:02 I don't really wanna see more than $10,000
24:04 in something that's alt.
24:07 Maybe up to 20%, that would be $20,000.
24:11 I don't know if it's worth the while at 100 grand.
24:15 You get to decide as the investor.
24:16 It's just really keeping those thresholds in line.
24:19 But a lot of the stuff that you might be interested in,
24:22 we call this the size of the position.
24:26 So you wanna go buy four of your favorite companies
24:28 that you wanna hold on long-term,
24:30 but we're talking about investable assets of $50,000.
24:34 All right, hey, far be it for me to tell you
24:37 not to go put $2,500 in each of those companies, right?
24:41 Or 1,250 bucks.
24:43 I just am wary about that only because
24:47 if you get into that ahead of the discipline
24:49 you're trying to build and the consistency,
24:52 it's gonna disrupt that training you're gonna do, right?
24:55 So it's not so much, hey, how much money do I have
24:59 in order to break off a piece to those alts?
25:01 It's how far have I come as an investor
25:04 to be able to adequately invest in this space,
25:08 not have it be something that interrupts
25:11 all the good work that I've done to get to this point.
25:15 So that's how I generally think about it
25:17 because I don't think at the end of the day
25:19 clients will still come in and be like,
25:20 "Hey, I put $10,000 in Fundrise."
25:23 Okay, like out of what, $300,000?
25:27 I'm not gonna even make a comment about that.
25:30 Client says, "Hey, I know we just started out
25:32 "but I put $5,000 into Lex or Masterworks,
25:37 "fractional art or fractional real estate."
25:41 I'll be like, "All right, was that necessary?
25:44 "We're just getting started on these regular contributions.
25:47 "Like I wanted to see a good year plus of that
25:50 "before we started."
25:51 That stuff's not going anywhere.
25:53 Like this notion that you're missing
25:55 the greatest opportunity of your life
25:57 is probably not the case.
26:00 The greatest opportunity of your life
26:01 is to build the skills that we're talking about here
26:04 so that for the next 10 to 30 years
26:06 and basically from the day you die,
26:08 you have good money skills.
26:10 You have the ability to navigate your financial life
26:13 to a pretty high degree and that's gonna be important
26:15 and it's gonna be a tool that serves you well
26:17 throughout your entire life.
26:19 - Americans are pretty scared right now
26:21 with the current market conditions though, right?
26:23 We have insane inflation.
26:25 We have war going on around the world.
26:28 We've got problems with gas, electric,
26:30 oil, political problems.
26:32 Do you still feel pretty comfortable?
26:34 - What else is new?
26:35 - Right, when you look at 10, 20, 30 years down the road,
26:39 are you still pretty comfortable and confident
26:41 in the American stock market and environment
26:45 and ecosystem and everything that's being built?
26:47 - Yeah, it's pretty bearish and depressing
26:49 to bet against all of that.
26:51 I mean, then don't bother with this, right?
26:54 If you don't have an optimistic outlook for humanity
26:59 and our society and people,
27:02 we're not gonna have a very productive conversation
27:05 because obviously underpinning a lot of this
27:08 is the continual growth of a global community,
27:12 of a domestic community, that society does get better.
27:15 It's very easy, especially in today's world of social media
27:19 and how quickly news travels and the internet,
27:22 to get bogged down with the bad news,
27:25 the headlines, Mercury's in retrograde right now.
27:28 So I mean, for whatever that's worth,
27:30 all of these things, it's hard.
27:32 It's harder and harder to ignore the noise.
27:35 And I get that, and it's very easy to slip down those holes,
27:38 but I choose to remain obviously bullish long-term.
27:43 And you can go to old timers like Warren and Charlie Munger
27:48 who would obviously tell you these legends, right?
27:51 To do the same, and they've been right their entire time.
27:54 Does that mean they're gonna be right?
27:56 Who knows what the future holds, but yeah,
27:59 a lot of this is predicated on the continual growth
28:01 and these things happen.
28:03 - For sure, and one of my last questions is,
28:06 after what you just said, right?
28:09 This relies upon having an optimistic outlook
28:11 and everything.
28:12 I present exhibit one, your Twitter timeline,
28:15 and I would love to hear with that outlook.
28:20 - Is it not optimistic?
28:21 - 'Cause I'm just curious, I feel like most financial
28:26 advisors probably go to their timeline and it's like,
28:29 all the good things about the US economy or all this stuff,
28:33 and you take a very different approach and it works for you.
28:35 And I'm just curious how you go about kind of walking
28:38 that line in between.
28:40 - Yeah, it's a really good question.
28:43 If you didn't have the context of who I am and my humor,
28:47 or wit, or sarcasm, or cynicism at times,
28:52 and didn't have that context--
28:53 - Someone say genius.
28:54 - Yeah, genius.
28:55 If you looked at some of those tweets, of course,
28:57 you're gonna be like, oh my God, like,
28:59 this guy's advising people with their money?
29:03 I mean, the whole point of what I'm doing here
29:05 is to flip all of that on its head, right?
29:07 I'm taking the other advisors often, and by the way,
29:11 I was very guilty of doing this years ago too.
29:14 Cringy platitudes, I mean, come on,
29:17 what real financial advisor are you doling out
29:19 in 280 characters?
29:21 Anyone who's been a financial planner long enough knows
29:23 this gets down to the individual level
29:25 when we work with clients one-on-one.
29:27 Painting with broad brushes is very hard
29:29 in personal finance, it is personal.
29:31 So, it's obviously for the giggles and the laughs,
29:35 and out of context, you might be like, whoa,
29:37 by the way, when people see it out of context
29:40 and get to the comments, that's when the real fun begins,
29:42 because most people following me or in the comments
29:45 know it's humor, and they can't wait for the person
29:47 who didn't get the joke or doesn't get it.
29:50 It's part of the package of what I'm doing there.
29:53 But yeah, I mean, I haven't gotten any pushback
29:55 from clients, from social media,
29:57 'cause they know that's not how I feel.
29:58 We do a really good job communicating with them
30:00 and working with them.
30:01 It's a shtick, obviously, and I think that you need
30:04 comedic relief, right?
30:05 I think this stuff is very boring.
30:08 I'm passionate about it, you hear it in my voice,
30:10 but I'm also self-aware.
30:12 Most people aren't like you or I,
30:15 running Twitter spaces all day to talk about finance,
30:17 or me running panels at conferences
30:19 and working with clients to help people
30:21 be better with their money.
30:23 People aren't as passionate about that,
30:24 I guess it's not a conference they're passionate about it,
30:26 but this is boring stuff.
30:28 It's inherently a grind, following your own cash flow,
30:31 getting disciplined around saving and investment.
30:34 With long-term investment, there should be
30:35 no immediate gratification.
30:37 It's a big problem, what we had the last two years.
30:39 We got to a point where you could pull
30:40 scrabble tiles out of a bag and make money
30:42 within five minutes.
30:43 That is the worst possible mindset to have
30:46 when we're thinking about investing long-term.
30:49 There should almost be no immediate,
30:50 I would like you to be paying more up front
30:52 so you can really appreciate the gains you have.
30:54 Now, I would love everything to go up all the time,
30:56 I think everyone would, but that's just not how it works.
31:00 So, getting some humor into the world,
31:03 that's where the account really took off
31:05 in the dark, dark days of 2020 with the pandemic
31:09 and everyone losing their minds.
31:11 There just needed to be a little streak of humor,
31:15 and something I've always done.
31:16 I laugh and create jokes to hide the pain.
31:21 That's usually why people love comedians and comedy,
31:25 is 'cause it really helps them look at things
31:27 just a little differently.
31:29 So, if you're seeing my stuff and you're like,
31:30 "Wow, that's really depressing or really bearish,"
31:33 it's actually the opposite, and that's why it works.
31:37 - Perfect.
31:38 Hey, if somebody listened to this podcast
31:40 and they're like, "I want that guy
31:41 "to be my financial advisor,"
31:42 how do they get in touch with you?
31:44 - Yeah, I mean, bonafidewealth.com,
31:46 Twitter, DMs are open.
31:48 If you hit me up, I'm just gonna say,
31:49 "Hey, shoot me an email," douglas@bonafidewealth.com.
31:52 There's, yeah, if you can't get ahold of me,
31:54 it's you, not me.
31:55 There's a thousand ways to do it.
31:57 Reach out, I love the pitch, I appreciate that a lot.
32:00 Follow along, so yeah, Twitter's probably the best way.
32:03 - Okay, perfect, awesome.
32:04 Doug, this was fantastic.
32:06 For anybody that's listening,
32:07 and this is not gonna be out for a few weeks,
32:09 but when it does come out,
32:10 we do Twitter Spaces together pretty much every Monday
32:13 at 11 a.m. EST.
32:14 We talk about stuff like this,
32:15 we talk about a bunch of other personal finance topics,
32:18 we bring in guests,
32:19 sometimes our friend Austin Lieberman and others.
32:21 - Awesome, that's great.
32:22 - Yeah, absolutely.
32:23 Doug, this was fantastic.
32:25 I've been learning this stuff from you
32:26 over a recurring basis over the last several months,
32:29 but I feel like every time I learn
32:30 a little bit of something new,
32:32 and it's helpful for me to rehear it,
32:33 because then I can re-share it with others, right?
32:35 So it just passes it through my audience.
32:37 - It's consistency, it's always consistency.
32:39 If you gotta hear the same,
32:40 you know, P.T. Barnum had it good.
32:41 You gotta hit 'em up with the same thing
32:42 over and over and over again,
32:43 that repetition ultimately turns into behavior,
32:46 and that's what we're trying to do.
32:47 - Love it, anything else you wanna share today?
32:49 - No, no, everyone hang tight.
32:51 It gets better.
32:52 It's good, we've been enjoying good for a long time.
32:55 Now we gotta go lick some wounds, it's okay.
32:58 - He says a spy closes at new lows.
33:01 All right. - No!
33:02 I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
33:03 We'll see what happens.
33:05 We both have a lot of hope for the stock market.
33:08 Actually, not kidding,
33:09 spy closing at new lows here.
33:11 We'll see what happens with it.
33:13 Regardless, regardless, if you're young like me,
33:16 Doug's taught me, this is a great opportunity.
33:18 I'm gonna be able to buy this B500 for cheaper.
33:20 - Yeah, get ready.
33:21 Get ready for some opportunities to come around.
33:23 Look, if you zoom out, you know, go back,
33:25 zoom out to 1929, things look really good.
33:28 - Zoom out to 1929.
33:31 When in doubt, zoom out. - We're way off.
33:33 We're way off, we're way off the,
33:34 what lows are you talking about?
33:35 We're way, way off the lows of 29.
33:39 - I love it, I love it.
33:40 Okay, more to come.
33:41 We'll be chatting with Doug on a regular basis.
33:44 Thank you so much.
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33:47 (upbeat music)
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