Ep. 1983: Coast FI’s Missing Passengers

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Let us see it in the quiet ground. Nobody hurries the spring. Everyone shouting a golden sound. We only whisper one thing. Home the world and on it cheap. Tend it slow and let it keep. The wind will blow, the branch will sway. The patient garden stays. Talking real money.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

I don't know what generation is which anymore. I get very confused, so I'm not going to call you by your correct gen name because I don't

Coast FI and Retirement Reality

SPEAKER_03 0:42

know what it is. But folks under, let's say, 35 right now, I have to give them credit because apparently they're more ambitious and might even be better savers than this generation. Thus, we know our name. We were baby boomers than we were. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Talking Real Money. Don here, Tom there. This is the show about your dough and how you can make it go a lot farther and do a lot more, but maybe not as much more as the FIRE people, the F-I-R-E, Financial Independence Retire Early acronym, people would like to think. New article came out from the Wall Street Journal and well, not news a couple weeks ago. And it discusses a new, well, I don't know if it's new. It's new for me, this new number, Coast FI.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, fire has uh moved to the Coast. It's Coast FI. I don't think it's uh geographic. I think it's Coast. Coast as in after you've got the independence. Roll down the hill. Right. Financial independence, etc. And yes, the fire. You don't hear much about the fire movement anymore. Apparently the flames have been doused.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Well, I think that uh reality sunk in. And we'll talk about the reality of doing this in a minute. But let's talk about what is Coast FI and what is the point.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Well, the the point is to have enough in your investments to fund your full retirement without any more contributions after a very at a very young age. To crank it up early.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

When you hit this number, you don't have to add any more money to your retirement portfolio because based on whatever the market and your investments will do for you, you're going to meet your retirement goal at age 65 or whatever age. Well, wait. But what if wait, the the last two words in fire are retire early.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, you know, I mean something this doesn't matter. Yeah, it's something this doesn't consider, by the way, is uh a big part of most people's retirement is Social Security. If you if you gear down, if you really work hard until 30, we'll talk about whether that's happening or not, uh and save a ton, extreme savings, and then decide to take a you know lesser-paying job or do something in the public sector, whatever it is, that will impact your retirement because that will impact your social security benefit, right? Because of how much you're putting

Inflation Breaks Coast FI

SPEAKER_01 3:11

into there. But let's talk about really, really doing a great job saving early on and then um just coasting. Uh they they talked to uh the article mentioned uh if your goal is to have $1.8 million by the time you retire. So how much do you need by the time you get to 65?

SPEAKER_03 3:31

So again, these people are counting on they're saying I'm not gonna take anything from my portfolio. So they're not retiring early. They're retiring normally, but they're not going to save anymore for retirement. So it's a variation on the theme. Got it. And the idea is 1.8 million. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

The idea is they're not gonna work as hard after they've reached the number, right? They're not gonna be saving anything more, et cetera. Um, so assuming, I think this is a big assumption, assuming a rate of a return, a rate of return of 7%, the COST FI number at 35 would have to be $240,000. That's how much it would be set aside. Then you get the 7% a year, and then by 65, it's $1.8 million. That's again just compounding. You're not adding anything to the uh the savings whatsoever at that point. Um, they talk about another woman who says they they've reached the $300,000 at age 31 and have not added to their investments in the last three years. So I this is a fascinating topic, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

That $1.8 million. Now uh uh I'm guessing that's $1.8 million in age $65.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, that's uh there's that little thing called inflation in the right.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah, because I figure that if if you got a 35-year-old who reaches that who wants that $1.8 million by the time they retire in 30 years at 65, that they need to have five point eight million in spending money equivalent at four percent inflation. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Right. At four percent, which by the way, we've had periods where it's been greater than four percent.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Which means that that recently that Coast FI number now rises to 767,000, not 239. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Uh inflation is a problem. As I said, Social Security could be a problem. There's other problems. By the way, this is fascinating because you know, fire was a pretty hot, well, can I say it, hot uh thing to follow here the last few years. And interest in Coast FI, according to Google, has grown 50 percent over the last year. 50 percent growth in the last year. And uh a survey by TIA says that 15 percent of respondents said they're actively pursuing Coast FI, which you know, we're getting close to one out of five here.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

That's really maybe maybe this will help. Let's reverse the number. Let's say, okay, you go, I can live on 1.8 million today. Yeah, I can do that. Because you're thinking you're thinking 1.8 million, that's gonna generate uh 4%. Yeah, it's gonna generate about $75,000 a year in income. And that with my Social Security, I'm gonna be comfortable. Hold on. $1.8 million today, 4% inflation over the next 30 years, you only save the equivalent of $500,000.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, that's not gonna work. Um inflation is a killer. It's hard on anyone who retires, right? Because the cost of things go up after you retire. And in this case, you're you're you're not noting the cost of things going up while you're planning for retirement,

Life Changes Sink Plans

SPEAKER_01 6:46

right? So that's one, I think that's one downside. The other is frankly, when I look at this and think of my own life and and how different it is.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

And us old people can't help but do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Because if I had just made decide on this course at 30, uh, it never would have worked because there was a broken marriage along the way. There was a late child, there's a lot of changes that happened that made me spend a whole lot more money than I ever would have imag ever, ever would have imagined.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Well, and there were things way beyond our control. I uh I I had a in 2008, I had a business fail. Uh income vanished pretty much completely. And, you know, that that uh unassailable retirement fund had to be tapped to pay the mortgage.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah, and those things do happen. So there's a lot of variables, life variables, uh, as I said, and all those things I just mentioned for me were after the age of 50. So you may have had a huge amount of savings. I had a decent, a decent amount of savings, but basically that all went away at 50. I here's the other part that I that I think people we tend to step back and look at and say, well, because stocks have made 10% a year for 100 years, I can run a calculation based on 7% a year. I don't think you can do that. I don't think with any certainty you can say stocks for the next 30 years will make you 7%.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

We hope you you can certainly hope that it that will happen. Yep. Um, but you can't absolutely count on it. And what bothers me about this is that it is, it feels so absolute. And it goes back to my theory that we we crave black or white answers, yes or no answers. This works or this doesn't work answers. And life doesn't work that way. We live in a not just a world of grays, we live in a world of almost infinite hues. And that means that there is no absolute answer. We could we love them. We do, we love absolutes. We we we we crave them because they're so simple for our brains. We don't, it doesn't tax them too much. But this won't necessarily work and you can't rely on it. Yes, yes, save what you can, but don't stop doing it. Ah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Thank you. By the way, here's a here's another idea for Coast FI. I like the name Coast to Coast FI. Shouldn't it be a radio show or something? Coast F.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

Well, that was Art Cull's Coast to Coast FI. Coast to Coast FI.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

On the on the West of the Rocky Mountain Cave in the Sierra Nevada's Oh, I can remember listening to that show. Anyway, um, what about

Early Saving, Simplified

SPEAKER_01 9:28

this as an alternative? Because I love, love, love, love really saving a lot early on. Because we know that compounding is it it's huge. No matter what the rate of return on stocks might be. So you could really, and I think it we've talked about this previously. I think every dime a child makes, and I'm talking about like real earnings, like you know, jobs, that kind of thing, can be other things in there too, that parents hopefully are chipping in, helping them with a Roth IRA, because then you get decades of growth. That's huge. I think that's admirable. And then I think in your 20s, which is a time when most people don't save much, that if you're able to really figure out a way to save that 15 or maybe even 20, or maybe even more. By the way, I think one of your calculations said to get these numbers, you had to save about half of your money.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Well, yeah, to get to your your host FI number, there the real the one that would get you the equivalent, uh, you literally had to save about 50 percent of your after tax income.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Which would require you to live in my basement.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

You know, I mean, or nobody's another interesting fact is that uh of between 18 and 30 year olds, uh about half of them still live with their parents.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Good Lord. No, okay, I'm not laughing at you. I don't know what I'm laughing at.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

When I was 18, the first thing I wanted to do was get the hell out of the house. Yeah, that's and not ever go back.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, that's a long time. So, but the extreme saving early, I think, is admirable. What about it just adjusting it a bit later, just saving less? I think stopping saving a bad idea. I I just think because it's a habit that that we should all be doing if we have income.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Plus, if you're gonna continue working until 65, you're giving up you're giving up that free money that your 401 kid might give you.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah. So yeah, this is uh I think it's kind of a risky strategy. I think it's kind of a well, I think it'll burn out like the fire movement did. Can I say that? Um so I and I don't again, I don't know, I don't know what my budget might look like 15 to 20 years from now, if I'm still alive.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

Um odds are, given what you're doing, your budget's gonna look really small in 15 or 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I know one part of my income's going away. But here's the thing. I don't know if you're 25, if you can say that with any certainty whatsoever, what your life's gonna look like.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

I know you can't. Okay, I'm just gonna go way out on a limb here and say there is no way you are going to accurately predict the next 50 or 60 years of your life. Ain't gonna happen. Sorry, you just don't know enough. You do not know enough. Let's see. Oh, you know, speaking of not knowing enough, I wanted to make this little comment. I was I have a software program that I use and uh it for editing audio. It's very, very good. And I was I got a note about some comment on Facebook about it because I'm in the group, and I which I hate. But it was a guy who bought the quote lifetime version of the software.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

And he bought it years and years and years ago when it was a previous version of the software, it was 1.0 instead of 2.0, and it doesn't work on his new computer anymore because it was 1.0, not 2.0. And he was going on and on about how, wait a minute, it's not my lifetime? Um You know, you think for a species with big brains, we actually use them once in a while. If the if if if you actually believe a lifetime guarantee or a lifetime purchase actually means your entire lifetime, good luck. You're delusional. Why then I get a car with a lifetime warranty and I'll buy it for my two-year-old and hope they live to 100. That car company's got to fix it. That's not the way stuff works. It works for the lifetime of the product. Like if it's 1.0, it works through 1.999 versions. And then 2.0 is a totally new program. You gotta buy it again. You think somebody's we we think stuff is just supposed to be free. Yeah, like our consultations at uh Apellos.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, well, that is actually free. That we actually talk to you for nothing, and we actually do a portfolio analysis for nothing. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

You just go to talkingrealmoney.com, click meet an advisor, but but wait, Tom, come on. Free.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I'm gonna get a uh full court sales massive barrage of drones coming by your house.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Beat me up in that meeting, and you're gonna make me become a client, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Dropping contracts on your front lawn until you sign. Yeah, we don't do that either. No, that's sorry. No, that's not our style.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Ah, but we do this, right? We we take your questions. We love your questions. Tom really loves your questions because he has a paper fetish. And uh he's he he's feeling a little lonely. The the pile of paper is getting a little bit too small for him. Uh so come on. He can actually grip it with one hand instead of two now. Uh

Summer Doldrums, Listener Mail

SPEAKER_03 14:36

so send me some questions at talkingrealmoney.com on the ask a question button. You have to type those. But now that we're back into here's the thing, Tom. Part of the reason your question pile went down, I believe, is the August doldrums. August, I our download numbers every I look back, every August. Fewer people listen to the podcast, fewer people ask questions, fewer people are doing stuff. It's like the whole world is on break for the month of August, and they don't come back until sometime after Labor Day. And now that thankfully, we're pretty much after Labor Day, and the world can go back to spinning on its axis. So send in those questions, talkingrualmoney.com, so that Tom can do this, this thing right here. Look, what he's gonna do.

Treasury vs. Muni Bonds

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Paper, go.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

And uh from from the city that which I will be spending more time in soon, San Jose, California, which is immediately adjacent to Santa Clara, California. Um, Gary writes, Tom and Don, are you biased because you live in Washington and Florida? Yes. And have and have no state income tax. Pardon me, I should have put that part in there. Yes. Yeah, we're biased anyway.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Uh I live in California with a 9.3% income tax.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Which is why I don't live in California.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, no kidding. September 1st, I bought a 52-week T-bill yielding 4.12%. On that day, bank rate showed a one-year CD available at 4.35%. So 4.14.3, which I calculated to be 3.95 after state tax. Because remember, the interest he's going to be paying state income tax on. I think investing in treasuries is better for those of us who live in high-income state uh income tax states. Or did I miss something? No, you did not. You're absolutely right. Don corrected me on this this morning in the pre-show uh in the green room when we were talking about this, because I forgot that state income taxes do not have to be paid on federal interest, on uh T-bill interest, right? So that's a pretty good deal, actually. So at the 4.1, um, you're getting that uh state tax-free. So that's yeah, I'd think you're it's a good decision.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yeah. Um and that's why we really we have been a little bit remiss for those poor folks in these high-tax states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, those states. Um not mentioning more often that if you are subject to state income taxes, those intermediate-term treasury funds like the one at Vanguard start looking a whole lot better because your after state tax yield will probably slightly exceed that of a BND or something equivalent.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

That's correct.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

But let me let me for you in California, let me just take that one step farther. Um you might want Vanguard is really good about creating double tax-free funds. Um they get a California Muni fund? Yeah, oh wait, they have a great one. That would allow you to be exempt from the uh equivalent yield. Uh let's see, the the fund is the California Intermediate Term Tax Tax Exempt Investor Fund. It's a regular mutual fund, not an ETF. Let me see, is there an ETF version? You know there probably is. Um If there's not, there will be. Yeah, um the California, if you if you're uh just a hundred thousand dollar earner in California, the that that that California intermediate bond fund, 3.2% yield, is equivalent taxable to 4.66%.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

That's a big deal. Sure. Yeah. So that might make sense over the other two.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

And that's a pretty darn safe product because it's high quality.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

They're not they're not uh funding, you know, the new race course in uh Bakersfield or something, so no.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

No, it's really I mean the the uh the VCADX, which is the one we're talking about, has an expense ratio of nine tenths of one percent.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

It is nine tenths of one percent or nine.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

I'm sorry, nine one hundredths of one percent, nine basis points. Yeah. I misspoke. You just overcharged 5,200 California bonds.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Good diversification.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Average duration of less than six years.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Um, it is eighty five percent A-rated or better. So good quality. So it's very high quality bonds, lots of them. Um, and you're you're gonna get an even slightly higher yield. And if you're in a high federal bracket, then it starts looking even better. Yeah. So yeah, good. We should here's the problem. It's a podcast. And it means we have to give long answers like this one. You know, well, if you're in this situation, you need this one. If you're in that situation, you need that one. Uh yeah, get an intermediate treasury fund, and you'll save the state tax.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yeah. And we had nothing against California. I'm a native of the great state of California. I'm a golden bear if there ever was one, but you look it too. That's that is gold, isn't it? Uh, let's go to Bonnie.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

You're more of a silver bear.

Four 401(k)s, One Portfolio

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Silver bear.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

I was waiting for that to come. Bonnie Lake, Washington. Jeremy writes, hello, I'm Jeremy, 47 years old, and I need some helpful guidance. Well, I know we can provide the guidance part. Uh long story short, two months ago, I found out that I have four count them one, two, three, four, four oh one case through previous employers. So I opened up to live. Well, I opened a Schwab cash. I'm not sure what that means. Like I guess brokerage, traditional, and Roth IR. I rolled over the 401k to my traditional, and now I'm having a hard time making a decision on what to invest in.

unknown 20:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

I read Financial Physics. Hey, that's a recommended by my wife's co-worker.

unknown 20:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Thank you, wife's co-worker. That's very nice. I would like to hear your opinion. I have 10K lying around and maxed out the Roth with 7.5 and left 2.5 in the brokerage, and now trying to decide what to invest in within the Roth. I'm looking for an aggressive portfolio. So here's what I came up with. SCHE, which I believe is the Schwab uh Emerging Markets. Yep. F N D A, which is also a Schwab product, which is odd because it sounds like a fundamental, it's a U.S.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

small cap fund.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

S C H F, which I I think we looked up, but I don't remember what it is.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

S E H F is international equity.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Okay. That's what he's suggesting. It is Roth. So um, hmm.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Well, do we know what what's in his other account?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Well, he gets to that. I saw your recommendation on your website for A, V, G, E, and B and D. Can you help me decide between these two and give an explanation as to why?

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Oh, well, no B and D. You wanted to be aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, at 47, I don't know how much you need in bonds. Um I mean 401k.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Is that aggressive, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah, he's but he says the 401ks are 22 grand. He's leaning towards S C H B. S E H B? I don't think we looked at it.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Okay, here's what I don't like. Um he's well one, he keeps looking at these specific market funds that should be part of a broader portfolio, not the he's trying to build too complicated a portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

I was just gonna get to that. Why are you spending so much time on this? Here's what I would do. I would do this. In the Roth, it's a no-brainer with I think it's 10,000. I'd put it all in A V G E. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

And then I wouldn't have a problem with putting everything in A V G.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Well, yeah. Then in the 401ks that rolled over to the IRA, um, that's where you could, if you had to, you could have an A V G E and a B N D if you want some balance. But you're 47, you should be taking a lot of risk there.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Well, you should be, but go ahead and take go to talkingrealmoney.com and take the risk quiz just to see where you fall on the risk tolerance scale.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I met with somebody yesterday who's 100% in stocks and his risk quiz number is 58. Oh, whoa. No. Did they pay any attention? I don't know. Um, yes, actually.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah, no, you don't want SCHB because SCHB is basically a large cap growth fund. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Um, let's see. He also wants to you're gonna love this. He wants recommendations for the $2.5 uh $2,500 in the brokerage for passive income.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

What does that mean? And what what Okay, wait. Passive income.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Come on. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

On $2,500, I can get passive income maybe $50.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Not a lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Boy, I am gonna be living high on the hog. Run right down to your local 7-Eleven. Why? Why do you need passive income on $2,500? You don't. No.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

No, you don't. No. That should be a one fund situation. And by the way, just because you if you want to break it up a little bit, put it in it with a different company, you could go DFAW there, which is the dimensional all-world. So there you got two different companies running money for you. You're really out there. But I I think you're over you're working too hard. This is just spending

Simplicity Beats Overthinking

SPEAKER_01 24:07

too much time here.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Well, speaking of big brains, here's the problem. Sometimes we we switch our big brains down to the yes-no state. We just don't want to do anything more than yes, no, yes, no. Like the Robin Hood thing we talked about yesterday. Yes, no.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Oh gosh, please.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Uh and then and then we save all of that capacity for overthinking our investment portfolio. When it just really needs simple. It needs simple. Remember, a fund like AVGE or DFAW, these are globally diversified funds that own not just hundreds, but thousands and thousands of stocks in almost every country on the planet, uh, from the largest to the smallest with an emphasis on the smaller, and they are so well diversified, you don't really need to bother with all this other stuff because that other stuff is already in there.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And you don't have to do all the work. I mean, they do it for you. So, and with these, no offense. It's great that you've saved. You have these are not huge amounts. I don't think they require a lot of rebalancing inside there. The companies will do all that for you. So that's pretty simple.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Yeah, it's just it's it's I I it's it's not necessary to to get this crazy and uh diversify. We don't want you to do like there was a piece I read on Apple News recently uh about a guy who uh had a bunch of money in a 1.2 million and an S P 500 portfolio. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the the Vanguard S P 500, V O O ETF. And a lot of people have that and think they're massively well diversified. And I loved the way the article approached it. Think of it this way it's as if you have about a third of your investment portfolio in a technology fund. You're betting on one technology sector fund with 30% or more of your portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

No, it's almost 40%. 40% 38%. Yeah. It's and you know I've been saying this for a while, and I just looked at another portfolio yesterday where individual stocks were purchased, which again ended up being like guess what was in there? Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, all these companies, um you're piling into them over and over and over again. We're riding this up, which has been great. Um, but out that means that in that in this case, Don, the the the the 1.2 million uh in that fund, uh almost 500,000 is in information technology. Does this have a familiar ring to it? And again, I'm not I'm not trying to, you know, uh pull down the fire alarm in a theater or something, but I but I but it worries me, and there's just no reason for it. Again, very simply, um in a portfolio that we talked about this recently, that we design, we build about 10% of your money

Diversify Beyond Tech Stocks

SPEAKER_01 27:03

is there. I'm okay with 10%, but I'm not okay with almost 40% because you're just taking a huge amount of risk. And we've seen periods of time where the drawdowns can be substantial and they can be lengthy. In this case, this is a 64-year-old person who may retire soon. What you don't want to be doing, it's okay, I guess, if you're 35 and you're hoping that it works out. I still wouldn't invest it that way, but it could be very harmful if you're close to the withdrawal stage and you get a big drawdown right when you're starting to take the money out. That's exactly what you don't want to have happen. So I love the article because it just points out that you should be better diversified. You shouldn't count on any one part of the market. And the risk, I think, there is very, very high due to the fact the returns have been very, very good. And you're gonna say, no, they're gonna continue to make a lot of money. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Yeah, exactly. Maybe, maybe not. And I would rather be I would rather err a little bit on the maybe not side as opposed to having 40% of my portfolio into something that takes this huge, huge, huge decline and and really hurts me. I'd rather be more broadly diversified. And that's what you get, like an AVGE. I think AVGE, and I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but my guess is looking at the portfolio, that their exposure to these same stocks is probably closer to 20 percent.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah, I think it's even less. I think it's fifteen percent, but okay. But yeah, so it's somewhere in that ballhart.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

I don't have the exact number in front of me, but anyway, thanks so much for being a part of Talking Real Money. We appreciate you being here. Please, please, please tell a friend or two about the show. And send in your questions because Tom is lonely. He needs you to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

I need I okay, all kidding aside, if you don't send any questions, you won't hear from me. Don't just gonna do the show. So for those of you who'd like to hear from me on the program, and we met with somebody yesterday who said, Yeah, I'd like hearing you on the show. Uh keep sending.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

If they met with you in person, that's a good thing. They had to say that. Yeah, that's a little bit of pressure.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Not a little, that's a lot of pressure. Uh so if you want to hear my sparkling voice and uh rub out Don's baritone, then you gotta you gotta keep sending questions. Otherwise, you that's all you're gonna get. You're gonna get lengthy music interludes and Don's voice. That's it. So your decision to make, of course.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

And go ask those questions at talkingrealmoney.com with the ask a question button or the little microphone in the corner, which will place them on the Friday QA show that I do do without Tom. You do do? I do do without Tom. By the way, I don't know if there's anything significant to this fact, but Oh, uh oh. The consistently highest downloaded episode is the Friday QA podcast.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

So so remember the thing I just said about Tom not being on the podcast anymore? Just saying. Yeah, someone someone else is probably getting ready to make it. It's probably not me.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

I don't think it's me. It's probably just the QA aspect of it, but yeah, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

I do the stats, so anyway.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Um and my short story podcast. Exactly. And by the way, by the way, for those of you who asked for it, the line uncrossed, and a lot of you did ask for it. Uh apparently a lot of people do not like reading books and they want to listen. I turned The Line Uncrossed, my Civil War novel, into an audiobook that's up on Audible. So you can listen to it there now.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I might do it again on my drives because um I usually listen to podcasts, but I might I'm I love the book. I love listening to audiobooks on long drive. I used to do that all the time. Yeah, I I love that.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

So Yeah, I do love listening. And that's why I did the short story podcast, because I remember how much I loved listening to audiobooks on long drives, and that's why I came up with lit reading. I went, wouldn't it be cool if I could like hear stories while I was doing a 15-minute drive. I could find a story that was 15 minutes or seven minutes or 30 minutes or whatever the drive entailed, and just listen to a nice short story and get to the end of it and not have to, you know, come back later.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Yeah, I will say this. I don't think lip reading works that well in a podcast, but your call.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

That joke's never been done on this show. Never. Never been done, lip reading. Thank you for being so original.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

I'm working on it, man. I got guys back here writing. They don't do a very good job, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

They should be fired from a 1950s bad pun book.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Hey, let's give him let's give him one from 1961. He'll think we're really working back here or something. Yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

All right, thanks for being there. Take good care of yourselves. We'll be back really soon.

Disclosures and Sign-Off

SPEAKER_04 31:46

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SPEAKER_00 31:59

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SPEAKER_04 32:08

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SPEAKER_00 32:41

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SPEAKER_04 32:46

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