Calculating Your Future

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Well, if you're like most of our listeners and you love overthinking problems, we're the dog the day program, ladies and gentlemen. We are going to hear another quiz from the folks at

Quiz on debt and 401k returns

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the Wall Street Journal. But unlike many of the other quizzes that we've discussed on the show and commented on, this one requires some thought. It really does. This is a good one. You have to actually pay attention to this one. This may be a podcast that you don't want to just listen to while driving and halfway paying attention. You may want to pull over. This may be your rest stop, or you want to listen to this a little later while you're relaxing on the couch and have a pad of paper nearby so that you can write down the scenario and go, oh wait, that, at that, this is like this is like math class in middle school. You know, when you got those word problems and you went, uh, this makes no sense to my little brain that hasn't fully developed. Well, for us old people, this doesn't make sense to our brain that's now past development. Hi, everybody Hi everybody, Don here. That's Tom there. Hi, Tom. Hi. How's it going? Uh not good now. You really got me worried about this uh podcast, so we'll see how it goes. I'm quite sure. This is the Talking Real Money Podcast. And today's topic is how you make financial decisions when you've got a lot of different scenarios. Complex scenarios. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Like you have debt, you've got student loan debt, you've got uh you've got to pay for school, you've got to pay all these various things coming at you. Yeah. That's the and by the way, here's a little hint that they give you. The mathematically correct answer isn't the right one for everyone or every situation. So a lot of these answers I think are gonna come down to it depends. Yeah. Okay. I really think some of it is depends. These are really personal things. So let's get right into Well hold on, before we get into the quiz. Let me find it first. Darn it, what did I do with it? And you can go take this yourself at the Wall Street Journal, I believe, correct? Yeah, if you have a subscription and you have the app. That's one of the problems. Yeah. I couldn't I don't have an app. I have to use it on the computer. Tom does an app, so alright. So here let me just get let's do this. Let's do the first question. Okay. Because it's hard and you gotta pay attention to the costume. I'm gonna write it down. You scared me. Okay, here we go. Your 401k plan offers a dollar-for-dollar match on the first three percent of pay you contribute. So they double any dollar. I'm gonna try to make it simple for you. Yeah. You also have a ten thousand dollar credit card balance, accruing interest at twenty-two percent annually. Unbelievable these rates. You owe $5,000 on a car loan that charges 12%, and $50,000 on a student loan at 7%. Which provides the best financial return. Listen to that carefully. Okay. Prepaying the 22% credit card balance, prepaying the 12% car loan, prepaying the 7% student loan, or saving enough in the 401k to get the match. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. And this isn't either you have to pick one? You have to pick one. What's your answer? Wow. Uh hmm. The the thing is, in the question, which provides the best financial return time. Paying the getting the three percent match? Okay. I knew it was a trick question. It doubles your money. That's true. Okay. Thank you. All right. That was a short-sighted answer. When you say 22%, just the hive. I know it hurts so bad when you hear that number. But no, because you get 50% return on your money. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Which is more than 22. Gotcha. Right. Yeah. Okay. Right. There you go. You got that one. How about the next one? Well, you got you've got worse? You can get an 80. You can still get

Mortgage payoff versus retirement saving

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an 80. Which would be higher than my normal average. Now you have to figure out whether to save more in your 401 beyond the match or use your excess cash to pay down debt. Which should you prioritize? Saving more in the 401k, prepaying the car loan at 12, prepaying the credit card at 22, prepaying the student loan at seven. And since this is uh pretty straight up, you're because you're not getting any added benefit other than saving, I would say the twenty-two percent. Is that your final answer? I guess so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good job. I'm at fifty percent. This is getting closer to my average now. So you want to pay off the credit card debt, but your money is tied up in the 401k. So you're considering borrowing 10,000 from your retirement account to pay off the credit cards. The rate on your 401k loan is eight percent. Should you do this? Yes or no? Yeah, it's simple. Yes or no? Okay, yes. Yes, you should. Yes. Oh, thank goodness. I I mean you know I have a huge thing against doing this because the whole reason you're saving it to 401k is for the far distant future. But I can't. But that's 22 percent is so painful. That you got to get rid of it. You just have to make it go away. Bingo. And it's gonna be more than you're gonna make in your you know, unless you're a real genius with the market or something. So yeah. So you paid off your credit card debt. Good for you. Okay. Congratulations. Can I quit there? Because we're at six I'm at sixty six percent. This is a good thing. No, you're at fifty. You're at no you're at sixty six percent now. Yeah, I'd prefer to retire now if that's okay. So it's good. Thanks. It's a D, you know that, right? D is for degree, as we like to say. So You have paid off your credit card debt. Now you inherit money and you buy a house. Because you paid off your credit card debt. That sounds expensive. You have a five hundred thousand dollar thirty-year mortgage that charges a six percent interest rate. Sounds familiar. You are fifty years old and want to pay off your mortgage by the time you retire. What should you do with any extra income? Here are your answers. A save more than the match in your 401k. B prepay your auto loan at the 12% rate. C. Prepay your student loan at the 7% rate. Or D. Prepay your mortgage at the six percent rate. But again, what was the objective here? The objective is to have the mortgage paid off, you said, by the time you retire, right? Right. But which is going to get you there financially faster. Well, though, you're if you're paying down debt, you always want to pay the highest interest rate first. Thank you. It didn't ring very well, but that wrong enough. That is your correct answer. Correctly. You correctly answered that question. That was pretty easy. Yeah. Well you're just getting smarter as it goes on. Oh, yeah. Wouldn't that be nice? All right, ladies and gentlemen. Can Tom pull off a solid B average? This would be come back of the average. Not a solid B, just barely a B. Sorry, more like college all the time. Okay. So is it a C or a B for Tom, ladies and gentlemen? Yeah. Actually, no. Oh, it could be worse than that. All right, 505. Your mortgage charges 6 percent interest. Yes. To get ready for retirement, you should prepay it or put the extra money into your 401, ladies and gentlemen. So it's either save the money in the 401k or wait. I forgot to give you your answers. Prepay the mortgage. Yeah. Put more money in your 401k. It depends on your risk tolerance. Oh, God. This this it depends. I'm gonna get a C here or a D or something. Did you say it depends? Is that your final answer? That's my that's my final answer. Oh, thank goodness. You got the B. Okay. I feel much better. You got the B. That's really sad. Actually, that was actually that was also No, the first answer was horrible because I didn't think through the uh all I heard was the 22 percent. Once you said that my brain shut off when you said 22 percent. I think that I think that may be sort of universal. Yeah. Uh I think people react really viscerally to that kind of number, uh which which again shocks me that anyone would carry a credit card debt at twenty-two unless you're desperation. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's trillions that are that people are paying that. So big a number. And so it it this real this is actually a pretty good point of inflection. If you're 25 and you just started a job and you have thirty thousand dollars worth of credit card debt at the aforementioned twenty-two percent, the 401k, unless it to get the match, I don't know that you it'd be a good idea to be putting money in that. You should be knocking down that 22 percent. No, to get the match. No, that's why I said if there's no match. Oh, if there's no match, yes, you should absolutely be knocking down the 22 percent. That's what the hierarchy is. Well, look, it's simple. Take the biggest return or the biggest guaranteed reduction in your outflow. Sure. So it starts, yeah. Take the hundred percent. You that first one, the if it's a if it's a dollar for dollar match, you get three percent, you put the whole three percent in. Yeah, you get your money. Yeah, free money. That's fifty percent, as you said. That's a pretty good return. Yeah. Well, actually, it's a hundred percent return year one. Now we're now we're both wrong again. Yeah, now we're both wrong. You can see two. But then you got twenty-two percent. Well, that hurts, but it's you know you you're getting four times as much. Yeah. So pay down the debt, though, eventually. That's the moral of our story. Thank you all for participating in the quiz show. We really truly appreciate you uh being here for this exciting edition of the sound like it, but we do. Thank you. You're welcome. Better. There we go. This is your boneheaded announcer with more. No, I'm your boneheaded. Does it get better from here? I mean, what's the deal? The show? Yeah. I thought it was pretty good so far. Okay, all right, okay. Well, you're bone. But it does get I think that most people's favorite part of the program is not that first segment that we do, even though it's highly informative and incredibly entertaining.

Listener call on retirement allocation

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Yeah. Uh it's the next portion of the program, which is where we start to uh well help you individually by answering your questions that you've sent in to us at talkingrealmoney.com using the ask a question or the contact button. You send them in, we answer them. And here's the Wow, every time I answer a question, it goes. So are we going to go to the phones first? Or we're gonna do that. Well, that's what happens. Sometimes Tom will uh turn your question into an actual phone call with you. And here's a perfect example of one of those moments. Yeah, let's go to the phones and talk to Bob, who uh calls us from uh Houston, Texas. Hey Bob, how are you? I'm doing fine, Tom. Thanks for taking my call. Uh I've got a question for you. Um my wife and I are both scheduled to retire in about three and a half years, and we have uh our portfolio is not quite what we want it to be, but we're stacking it up right now, so hopefully we'll be in a better shape. But we've got about a total portfolio of eight hundred and forty-three thousand and um six hundred and thirty-five thousand, or I'm sorry, six hundred and sixty-five thousand of that uh is it is in the market, and is in the market, and it's um most of it is in a Vanguard Target 2035 fund, and um then we've got about 165 or so in various CDs and money market cash liquid type of stuff. And um, we know I we feel like we need to move, we probably maybe have too much in cash, but we feel like we need to move some of those target funds to maybe index funds. And so I just wanted to get your take on allocation of our funds. And uh the second part of my question is we recently um met with some Fisher investment people, and I just kind of they they were really a hard sell, and they um they they were you know want to take over our investment advice uh for one and a half percent of our portfolio, and but they they said that they can do better than what we've been doing, and they said that you know that our allocation is where our problem is. And so we we we believe our allocation needs to be improved, but we would love your take on it, and I appreciate your time. Yeah, you betcha it's great. Both of those are great questions. Let's let's start with the asset allocation. Remember, in the 2035, the target day 2035 fund, it's probably somewhere around 70% in stocks, 30% in bonds. Then you also have, as you said, 150 or 160 just in bonds, correct? Correct. Okay. So then remember that that because when you say 80% in the market, fidelity target 2035, a substantial amount of that money is already in fixed income, is in bonds. Um that's true. Yeah, so something to think about. Yeah, so something to think about because what you want to look at is the entire thing. Because if, as you said, you're at 840, you're trying to get to a million, which I think is very doable. Of course, you know, who knows what's gonna happen in the market in the next few years. And by the way, you you're kind of hard on yourself there at only at 840. Remember, the median savings and retirement plans in America today is about 200,000. So you're well above the uh the typical. So um, but let's just talk about this. So, because here's the way I would look at it before I even got into the asset allocation. Um, if you you should have a plan that says, here's when we want to retire, here's the income we need, and here are the various sources of income, right? Because are you gonna be eligible for Social Security? Is your wife gonna be eligible for Social Security? Are there any pensions? That would be the starting place because that's a certain amount of money, right? At a certain time. Then you look at the portfolio and say, okay, we're going to need to draw X from the portfolio to add to those fixed income sources that'll give us the total we need to live on in the future. Once you've established that, you can go backwards and say, okay, here's how much we need to save, and here's how much we need to make on that money to get us to whatever the portfolio needs to be to pull safely from it. That's that's a lot there. But the bottom line still is before you even get to the overall asset allocation, I would want to know how big that portfolio needs to be at retirement to sustain you and your wife into the well into the future, right? Rather than just saying, well, our goal is a million dollars, which is a fine goal. But but if you knew that the number of the amount that you need to pull from that portfolio, that would be the number rather than the gross amount. And by the way, you're a great candidate to to write a plan of some kind because you're right in that hot and you're right in the red zone, right? You need to know that uh look, if I if I do X, Y, and Z, I can retire in three years. I just met with somebody yesterday that wants to retire now and looked at the numbers and said, go ahead. Why are you messing around here? Um, so that would be I would write the plan first, then work on the asset allocation. But my guess is right now you're you're probably more in fixed income than you want or need to be. The other part would be to take the risk quiz, too, which would be a good idea to just get a feel for your sort of emotional makeup around money. Um, that's part one. Part two in terms of Fisher, Fisher is probably the most aggressive and maybe the best marketing and sales uh organization in the registered investment advisory business. They advertise a lot, as you know. Once they get once they get a hold of you, I went through the process maybe 15 years ago because I was kind of curious. They don't quit. I mean, they're gonna keep calling you. They, you know, they're they're all on you. Um but at 1.5%, that's kind of spendy. That, for example, just as a uh a look, that would be 50% more than I think you should pay. So that's pretty spendy. Part two, I don't like anybody who tells you, look, we can fix this and make you more money, because nobody knows if they can make anybody more money. The future is uncertain, and even the best of stock pickers, as Fisher are, are gonna, they don't know that they're gonna pick the right stocks, right? So, and that brings me to part three. I'm not a fan of theirs because they are stock pickers, because they are people that claim they know what the future is going to look like. And so we're going to invest you with that in mind. Ken Fisher, somebody I've known for a long time, interviewed him on TV, et cetera. But the point of the matter is Ken is a bright guy, but he doesn't know anything more about what's going to happen tomorrow than you do or I do. So I'd rather see you, as you correctly said, some index funds, build the portfolio right for what you're trying, how much you're trying to gain in the next few years to get you to retirement. That's part of the overall plan, and not hire somebody who's going to charge you one and a half percent a year, which is uh in today's world is pretty expensive and also tells you, look, we can make you more money. I don't think anybody can make that kind of promise. That sounds perfect. I really appreciate the advice. And I know my wife is gonna listen in and um we just appreciate both of you guys, and uh, we love the show, and you're helping us a lot. So thanks for all that you do. Well, thank you, Bob, for listening. Thank you for for sending in your question and uh for being part of our uh our little phones, phone calls we're doing now on the podcast, which we love. Appreciate it. You take care of yourself. You take care as well. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye,

Stocks, wealth concentration, and market fears

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bye-bye. Some of the questions, though, Tom just reads. He he prints them to paper. He could read them on an iPad or something, but apparently he doesn't know how to use those. So he prints them to paper and he reads them to all of us here on the program. And here is an example of how he does that. Yeah, and this is my chance to even the score since you asked me all those five tough questions. Right. And I don't know what these questions are. This isn't these are actually given you the first question before we went on the air and you still blew it. That's true. That's a good point, by the way. Speaks very highly of me. All right, this comes from Bonnie Lake, Washington. Uh Stan. It's a Bonnie Lake indeed. It isn't Bonnie. Uh Isn't that the water supply for the Seattle area? Bonnie Lake? I think it is. You're gonna ask me more qu I I'm asking the questions now. Oh, sorry. I'm asking you. No more. Sorry, go ahead. All right. If true that fifty percent of stocks are owned by the top one percent of individuals, might there that be a systemic problem? I assume those transactions are mostly in managed portfolios. Amazing to me that the market is able to endure this. Endure what? Yeah, I it's a little okay. But let I here's what my takeaway was when I first. I was gonna say this is not a very clear qu I didn't hear a question in there. Well, it's yeah, it's it's but it's more like what if all these people I'm not sure that fifty percent of the stocks are owned by one percent of the population. I that sounds high. That sounds more concentrated than I thought. It is that it is a it is a large number. What what I think I'm getting from Stan is what if all those people just decide tomorrow I want my money out of stocks and they sell all their stocks. Okay. Then the market falls fifty percent. Aaron Ross Powell The market would go down. Yeah. Yes. Market would go down and it would go down a lot because there's not enough people buying. They act as uh they act monolithically that they all do the same thing at the same time? Are you kidding me? Don't they have a secret club somewhere? If there's a group of s of rich people that are just suddenly selling, I guarantee you there will be another group of rich people who will suddenly be buying the Trevor Burrus. Yeah, especially if prices go down twenty percent. People say, sure, I'll buy that. Yeah. I'll take two of those, three of these. By the way, according to the Federal Reserve. Yeah, what's the concentration? It's fifty point two percent of the stocks are owned by the top one percent of U.S. Council. Okay. More concentration than the same. And what do you have to do? How much do you have to have to be in the top 1 percent? Oh it's it like 10 million or something or 20 million? I know. What uh you're talking about um net worth? I guess we could live with net worth as the number of. You want net worth? Yeah, because your income is too hard. Yeah, income's very tricky because various sources. But uh net worth Um net worth of the top one percent. I'm gonna say ten million. Thirteen to fourteen. Million. Million. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So okay. But back to Stan's question, what's your response? My response is they don't behave monolithically. But what if they did? If if even if they did, uh somebody's gonna come back and buy. Somebody's gonna be buying and let Why because here's the thing. The comp this this this question kind of implies a zero sum game. And that's a lot of people's thinking when it comes to the market. The market isn't just static. It's not, you know, these companies sit there and people trade them back and forth. These companies are all growing entities, growing or collapsing. They're all living entities. They're doing something. That's the difference between owning stocks and owning gold or bitcoin. Stocks are doing something. They represent a business that is doing something. It's either doing something good or it's doing something bad. If it's doing something good, it is becoming more inherently valuable. And that value, if people sell emotionally, there will be other people who will recognize that value. That's happened in every market. And by the way, there's been a huge concentration. In terms of net worth? In term no, the w the the concentration, like the wealthiest. Yeah. Regular people in the 1920s did not own stocks. No, very few. Well, the latter part of 1920s, a lot more it it as a percentage, it grew a lot when the market took off and you had the bucket shops and all that stuff. It did grow a lot that first twenty years. But not to the level of today, nowhere near it. No, I think there are more people that own stocks today. So, and certainly the having a retirement plan, an employer-sponsored plan where you're owning stocks has led to a greater number of people that are involved. But I think the other question that we need to answer here is, and I think it is somewhat legitimate, what happens when all of us old baby boomers have to sell our stocks so we can pay for the old folks' home? Uh it again, because they're breathing living entities, it's not just supply and demand. If it was a zero-sum game, then baby boomers aging and selling their stocks would cause the market to decline. It may adjust the expected price-earnings ratios that the market's looking for. So we may have some declines, but it's not gonna be at any point for any reason we can have a major decline. You're not gonna predict it. I I know you're trying, but it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. Okay. Good answer. I'm gonna have to agree. Yes. John Kenneth Galbraith uh uh estimated in in 1929 that about one and a quarter million Americans owned stocks. Okay, don't tell me. Wait, I'm gonna take a guess here. We're 330 today. Gosh, was it like 40 million Americans total in 1930? Uh no, 120. 120. 120 million. Pardon. Okay. Wow. Way underestimated that one. Okay. So what you're saying is one percent. 1 percent. Yeah. And now it's something like 30 percent? I think Oh, I think it's higher than that. In one way, no, it's sixty I just found it. Wow. Okay. So when you count mutual funds and ETFs and IRAs and all those things, okay.

Consolidating TSP into Vanguard IRA

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It just turns out though there's a lot of concentration of the massive wealth. Okay. Talk about overthinking. You're worrying about something. Don't buy trouble, as we like to say. So okay. Uh let's go to another question from beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. Is this an actual question? This is an actual question. All right. Well, that was the last one's a question. What happens if everybody sells? Uh Kevin writes, I'm married, 72-year-old retired federal employee with a pension, waited until 70 to claim social security. All right. My spouse is also 72, no pension and social security. It's a little curious because she should be able to claim on your social security if she's married to you, but okay. Um I have two IRAs. One is my federal thrift savings plan, TSP, with about one and a half million in a target date fund, and one with Vanguard also in a target date fund with about a million and a half. Okay. My spouse and I each have Roth IRAs and a brokerage account with Vanguard. We have no debt and are comfortably retired. As I reach RMD age 73 next year, I'm thinking about moving my traditional TSP into my Vanguard IRA to consolidate. Although the fees with the TSP, he says 0.04, I think that's four basis points, are slightly lower. You mean four one hundreds of one percent off? Are slightly lower than Vanguard 0.08. The difference is insignificant. Any downsides of this consolidation. Yeah, the differences are insignificant and the downsides are minimal to non-existent. Actually, I I would argue that that you're better off because your options are better at Vanguard. The GSP is a very fine plan. But he's in a he's in a target date. So even then, you can you could own more small values. I don't know what the GSP is. Oh, I see. Owning a target date at Vanguard and owning a target date. Again, that's where I get to there's like six one way, half a dozen the other. And we're literally talking about a few dollars in fee differences. Yeah. And here's the reason I would consolidate. Uh it's just easier as you get old. I run into this often where people have various accounts at various custodians, something happens, somebody else has to deal with it, it just makes it harder. I would have one custodian, and Vanguard would be a very fine one at that. So if you're just going to use it, Don said target day fund, it's probably a little better than the one you have at the TSP. Not a lot, but a little better. Yeah, I don't have the breakdown. Well, let me see if I can find the breakdown of the TSP. I don't know if you can find it for the TSP because uh sometimes those funds are hard to crack. Um let's see. So let's use what well he his target date would probably be like uh a 2025. Yeah, that's probably okay. Sure. Uh let's see if I can find it. TSP target date 2025. I don't know if it's available. I don't know if it's public. I really I've never looked. I have never looked. We have looked at the you know, C fund and the other funds, but uh let's see. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. You're gett you're probably well, it's just a pretty good allocation. What's the uh U.S. to international ratio? Uh U.S. to international is uh uh about C fund, three percent in the S fund. Okay. And eight percent in the I fund. So only eight percent of the overall, which probably half of is it. Which is well, it's 14 percent. It's 14 percent, so it's about uh 70-30. 70 U.S. 30 international. So you get a little small. I mean, yeah, you're not getting much value there either, by the way. No, you're there's no value tilt. No, no, there's no no value. But there's no value tilt at Vanguard either, I don't think. Not much. Uh let's see. So let's look at Vanguard. Vanguard's 2025. Uh Target retirement 2025. Give me 2025. I don't want those other ones. I it doesn't want to give me 2025 because it wants you to quit now, 2024. Oh, sorry. Target retirement 2025. Fine. There it is. VTTVX. VTTVX has a breakdown of oh, the wow, isn't that interesting? That is really interesting. The uh TSP is so much more conservative. In terms of the stock to bond ratio? Yes. Oh. It's uh almost 80-20 or 2080. What? It's tw only twenty percent in equities? Yeah. Vanguard is crazy. Which I'm much more comfortable with. I mean, you're not gonna get much growth in a twenty-eighty fund. You're gonna get a lot of things. No, yeah. Vanguard's looking better all the time. Uh Vanguard also has a pretty sizable chunk in inflation protected securities. They have about nine percent into the bonds or nine percent of the portfolio. Wow, okay. Yeah, it's a substantial. Yeah. Yeah. Uh they're liking Vanguard more all the time, Kevin. It's good. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They have the total stock market and the total stock market plus funds as their their uh their U.S. and international. Then they have uh international bond and U.S. bonds. So they have both, whereas the TSP just has U.S. bonds. I I'm thinking the Vanguard is looking really, really good. Again, I I would have done it anyway just for consolidation purposes, but now adding this in makes it even easier. I'll put it that way. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's really a much better portfolio unless you're hyper-conservative. If you're somebody who is like you know, you have a very low risk quiz score, you really want to protect assets over and above everything else, then the TSP looks better. But in this case, you've got fifty percent in really safe securities with an inflation hedge. Yeah. And 50 percent in the entire global stock market, pretty much. I mean they're I wonder why TSP is so conservative. That is really I think it's because it's the TSP, really. I see. Okay, yeah. And the U.S. The U.S. international is uh twenty-eight at uh twenty-eight US nineteen. So it's a little bit more international. On the TSP or Vanguard. Yeah, okay. I I'm just liking the Vanguard more and more every day. There you go. Yeah. And wow, that vanguard. Congratulations on all your saving, by the way. Well done. $76 billion fund. That's a pretty big fund for just one target class. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And a yield of two and three quarter percent. Fairly high. That's not half bad. Anyway, there you go. That's the answer. Yep, that's the answer. And if you want an answer, come to talkingrealmoney.com. We have all the answers.

Appella offer, book plug, and outro

32:21

Well, now And if you want a bigger, longer time asking your question rather than just in a podcast, well, we will actually give you some time with one of our advisors at Apello Wealth, which is a fiduciary hundred percent all-the-time fiduciary firm. And here's the uh the catch. There is no catch. That's the catch. No catch. We promise you, Tom? Yes. Cross your heart, hope to die. Okay. That you will not high pressure sell them into something. Well, what date is this gonna air, by the way? Oh, so you're going to do it after a certain date? Just do it. When do you start selling the indexed annuities? What's the date this is gonna air? It's important. All right, hold on. I'm looking. I'm looking at the date this one is going to air. I'm looking. Okay. You gotta give me a second. Okay. It will air on the 3rd of June. Therefore, at this moment, we have Can I say it? Yeah? You can say whatever you want. I don't care. There's they're gonna be change at the top. Leadership change, so things may change. So Noah they're not. I'm just having some fun. It's coming. What's coming? We've got a new L Hefe coming in. So who cares? Why would our listeners care if we have a new CEO? I don't think they get a new CEO and they decide instead of making software, they're gonna make ice cream. I don't know. Why would they do that? Who wants software in the middle of July? All the advisors go on vacation and the clients too in the summer months. So I'm just having some fun. Does it matter? No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Pay no attention to him. If I was smart, I'd edit it. I'd edit that part out, but I'm not that smart. I'm not. I just let it go. I don't really care. You know, you guys really do generally hear. You just hear what we do. It's barely edited. I personally think we should make our daily meeting part of the podcast, too. No, I think not. Okay. I think not, because then you're gonna get Debbie's smart aleck cracks in the background. I think it makes it funnier. Wise cracking from across the room. It's really good. Debbie loves harassing Tom. I think. And me too, I guess. All right, we gotta go. Please tell friends. Please. We're asking nicely. Tell other people about the program. Uh go buy my darn book, please. Love it, by the way. Um please buy my darned book. My darn book. It's called The Line Uncrossed, and it is available now on all those major online shows. Not in libraries, sad to say. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's gonna be in some libraries eventually. I can take my copy and donate it, right? I don't think they'll put it on the shelf. What they'll probably do, you donate it and they sell it. No, seriously, that's what they do. They sell it as a fundraiser. To get in requires some sort of how much is it cost to buy the book? Depends on which version you buy. If you buy the Kindle, it's five dollars. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Oh good Lord. Go spend five dollars. If you buy the paperback, I think it's sixteen ninety nine. Yeah, okay. And then there are two hardback versions. There's the Amazon hardback version, which is a printed cover. Yeah. That's twenty-five ninety nine. Okay. Can I make a suggestion? Pay off the twenty-two percent credit card first, then go buy Don's book. And then there's the fancy schmancy Barnes and Noble dust cover version. Ooh. That's $28.99. Wow. Is that what you have all over the house in various libraries in your home? Yeah, I have like a hundred copies. I've got to be able to do that. Something really interesting. They're going public. They're they're they're building new stores. Remember when it was all over? They weren't going to do that anymore. But do you know what they did to turn it around? No, I'd love to hear that. They personalized the experience. For example, um I'm talking to my local Barnes and Nobles about coming in personally and doing a book signing. They do that now. They do book signings like small bookstores used to do. Did you tell them we could promote it on the podcast? Get like two people there? I did. Three on a good day? Three or four, but better than none. No, I agree. That's fun. Good for you. I mean the book's not selling like hotcakes, so until it does, then I'm probably not going to be on the top of anyone's list. Christmas is a good one. But I worked really hard on it. It's well written. It's a great story. It really is. Thanks. All right. Thank you all. Keep listening. Tell your friends. And remember, in addition to book talk, this is also talking real money. The opinions and views expressed on this podcast were current on the date recorded. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends that are based on current market conditions constitute our judgment and our subjects change without notice, including any forward-looking estimates or statements which are based on certain expectations and assumptions. 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