Less Means Paying More

SPEAKER_01 0:05

We're gone to a really great financial feature. Tom and Don are talking real money.

Back to Basics

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Just another money Monday or Monday Money edition of the Talking Real Money podcast, and our our new thing on Mondays for at least a few weeks until we run out is uh focusing on going back to the basics. Because I've always believed, and I think Tom too, that money is really way too simple to be so bloody complicated, or at least to seem so complicated. And that's why, sixteen years ago now, I wrote a little tiny thin book. You can read in one sitting called Financial Physics, the the Basic Laws of Investing, the the basics of it. It's not complicated, it's a few pages per chapter. So what we're doing every Monday for the next several weeks is we're going to focus on one aspect of financial physics, one of the immutable laws or theories of uh financial physics with an F, F-Y-S-I-C-S available on Amazon uh in a Kindle or a regular.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

More than that, I remember last time I said that if anybody wrote me, I'd send them a free copy. You updated this a few years ago. What was it like three or four years? Twenty-two. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

So Well then I kind of updated it again recently, just a little.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Yeah, okay. But if you want a free copy of the actual book, you mean the paperback? Yes. If you go to talkingroomoney.com and click on Meet Advisor, whatever it is, fill it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

No, ask a ask a question. Ask a question.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Either one. Um and just say Tom said he'd send me a book. I sent out a couple of.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

So you have to put your address in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

By the way, they may take a while to get there because I sent them from Italy. So they tell me the mail from there is kind of slow, but they're coming. So if all kidding is a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah, and for for those of you uh who haven't been listening for a while, uh Tom has Tom is now back. You he wasn't he was here, but he wasn't, because we pre-recorded a whole bunch of people.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

As you know, because you yeah, you that you said it yourself, I'm lousy on vacation. I'm usually you don't do vacation well.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

You do lots of them. So I think you're thinking that quantity makes up for quality.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

They're great vacations, but yeah, I well, first of all, the girls always sleep like ten hours a night. You know, I sleep like six and a half, so I gotta fill that time. So I was even like people are very apologetic. Well, aren't you on vacation? Yes, but if I'm writing you, it's okay. I that was a decision I made. It's uh and they're like, well, I'll talk to you and get back.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Don't feel guilty. This is what Tom Tom has a streak of masochism.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

So, but anyway, if you want a free copy of the book of Financial Physics, go to the website.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Limit the number you're gonna send out.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

I've got them right here in the street that or burn them to stay one as well. Then I'll print more.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

How's your uh how's your how's your oversupply of uh the line uncrossed books that you ordered?

SPEAKER_03 3:02

I s I've been giving those out. I'm down to like five.

unknown 3:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

And by the way, we have a client thing coming up in a few weeks, so I'll give a few out there too. So Okay. He's just now that I think about it, I might order another 10 to do a keyboard. It's like a two-book library. No, I just read another recent book on the No, I mean that you're giving away. Oh, okay. And another one on 1942. Anyway, we we digress as we sometimes do. Really? No, I know.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

No, I'm talking real money digression.

Supply and Demand

SPEAKER_02 3:31

No.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

So you're this is your book, so I'm gonna ask the question. Financial physics.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

We're to rule number two. Now we were at rule number one. Just for a recap, what was it rule number one? Don't repeat the phone. Three ways to make money. Three ways to make money.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

Luck, right? Wasn't it lucky?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Luck, luck, work, looks, and and illegality. Cheating. I was kidding about the looks thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Uh, but this one's supply and demand. This is kind of an interesting topic because if you're I I was when I was on vacation using air quotes, I did watch stuff I don't normally watch because I don't really have time to do it. But there was one piece piece from Michael Lewis, who's written a lot of great books. Um, there was an edited piece from 60 Minutes. And on the edited piece, Michael Lewis says the stock market's rigged. Yeah. Rigged to get you can't it makes it sound like you shouldn't invest in stocks. No, if you're a trader, you shouldn't. And this is what this chapter gets to it.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Rule number two, supply and demand is really a rule that applies more to the short run rather than long-term investing. Because the wonderful thing about long-term investing, and let's focus on stocks. Let's just keep that our focus right now. The the wonderful thing about long-term investing is that supply and demand matters less than the ability of the company to become more valuable in the eyes of investors. Over time, that drives gains, uh, probably to a higher extent than rising demand. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Yeah. No, and that's something you need to know, but I don't know that it really should change the way you invest.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Again, we're if you're a trader, then yeah, but the problem is look at that chapter very closely at the very end of it. I love these. It's got all the crypto or all the bubbles over time. Exactly. So it says that, yeah, while you may know the right way to invest, you m many, if not most of us, occasionally fail to practice the right way to invest, and we forget the lessons of supply and demand. When the supply is finite, when there is no increase in the number of whatever it might be, and there are more people who want whatever it might be, the price of whatever it might be goes higher. More buyers.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

That's pretty much I think you used the term immutable. That's pretty much a fact. I mean, it really is, right? It did that's just demand. So and and I I it's a simple equation.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

And before the show, we were talking about your house. And you jokingly said, the value of my house hasn't gone up in two years. Oh, it's supposed to always go up. Well, I know. No, guess what? That means the supply is static, but demand is also static. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

But you brought up an absolutely, I think, exclamation point, exclamation point example in the book, the dot-com bubble, 1997 through 2000. A fascinating time, right? Where you had all these companies going public. I think pets.com did go public, right? I believe. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Oh, they did oh, so you mean the puppet puppet master stock. Whatever. Oh, I mean, uh I I had a neighbor who was a bellman at the Grand Floridian who made hundreds of thousands of dollars on an AOL tip he got from some guy in the lobby.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

And then But this was clearly a matter of supply and demand. And there was because there behind these many of these stocks, not all of them, but many of them, was just the whole idea of that it it it should go up because of X. There was no there was no there was no earnings, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Well, and it's very similar to what we're seeing right now with artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Exactly. Uh that this has to mean X down the road. And that's something I think is very important. X plus Y does not always equal Z. Especially in the short term.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Or one plus one does not always equal three. Wait, two.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Um and remember in the short term, which is most you make a very good point that we all said, well, no, I'm a long-term investor. I'm not a trader, I'm not a market timer. Everybody says that. But then when I get to meet with many of you, well, you know, I'm not. But last summer I did X because it was so on the other.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Oh, the recent one is yeah, but I did buy some SpaceX.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Because well, I mean, come on. It's got nowhere to go but up. Yeah. Well, okay, they might go up, they might go sideways, they might go down. Uh, and I'm talking about the rockets and the stock.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

But here's the thing I think you need to remember. There's somewhere between 10 and 15 billion trades a day, stocks that trade, I mean, the trade stock trades. Stock trades, pardon me. A day. That's a lot. Uh for those of you playing at home. Um, and and in a general sense, not in the short term necessarily, by the way, and I think Eugene Fama's already mentioned this. Marketplaces are relatively efficient. Not there's inefficiencies, you can find them, and maybe people have found them this year with the semiconductor trade. I don't know. Uh that has taken I still can't believe it, Taiwan to the thirty third largest market, market cap wise in the world. South Korea, number six in the world.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

I mean, these are chips, chips, chips, chips, chips, chips, and more chips.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

And not the ones you're going to eat. Um, by the way, which I really missed in Europe because it's hard to find a decent potato chip.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

By the way, just wonder what was the daily trading number?

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Ten to fifteen billion shares.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

I just went back and I looked a hundred years ago. If we go back a hundred years.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

And it was ten to fifteen shares a day.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

No, no, no. It was about it was about two hundred and fifty million.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Two hundred million, a hundred years ago. Wow. That sounds like a lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. No. That's over the year. I had my figures on it. It's about a million. It was about 900,000 a day, 800 to 900,000 a day.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Still, even that sounds like a lot in 1925, whatever it is. But if you're really looking at all this, the thing I like about this chapter is the supply and demand aspect of all this. Um the impact on stocks primarily comes down, again from the academics, economic data, interest rates, or corporate results. And it's always should be you should anticipate that it's something unexpected. How do you anticipate something that's unexpected? You can't.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

You un you expect that there will be something unexpected.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

You don't know what the unexpected will be, but you have to figure that into your return calculations and primarily your risk calculations.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

And this is the part people forget, right? Mm-hmm. So think about it for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

We've had over the past five hundred years that we can track uh several very large demand-driven bubbles. And in every single case, they could not be sustained because eventually the demand dries up. The the last person jumps into the pool splashing the water out. The the greater you you've run out of greater fools to whom to sell. I don't care what your metaphor is. There's something that causes these to fall apart, and so far, none of them have ever continued to infinity and beyond. You know, it's the latest Toy Story movie was in this summer. I have not as yet seen it.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

I asked my grandsons last night, they're like, nah, I don't really want to. What?

SPEAKER_02 11:23

What I was shocked. Okay. Um that tells you how old the actors are in it now. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

So uh again, thing that I think people need to remember is yes, this is always in the background, but the reality has been being diversified into a lot of stocks, letting the economies grow, letting companies become more productive has been the way to invest rather than trying to figure out what might happen in the economy, whether it be supply or demand, whatever it is, that could drive prices in the short term.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

And the trick is recognizing that it is bloated demand or reduced supply that is causing the short-term fluctuations and don't play the game. Refuse to participate. You can refuse. You can you gotta tamp down your greed. And that's really what drives it is greed. FOMO. Silly, silly acronym.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Anyway, um we just we we discovered something really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Um well, a month or so ago, we noticed that the number of questions we were getting had dropped off dramatically. Um and we discovered all it takes is for Tom to go on vacation. Unbelievable in the world. I mean, really, the number of questions. If you've been listening to the Friday QA podcast, it's not just the written questions. We're now doing eight or nine questions. Wow. We were doing four or five a couple of months ago. Now we're doing eight or nine questions on a Friday. And Tom, how many questions do you have now?

SPEAKER_03 13:02

I have 40. Uh here's the thing that's fascinating, by the way. The art you did for one of them that showed me sitting there reading something, looking out over the water or whatever. Oh, yeah, the emotional. It was I'm like, how the hell did he do that? I have a picture from the vacation that looks exactly like that. Really? Yeah. I gotta send it to it was crazy. I was like, how did that sound like that was my psychic art.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

I was like, just go now. People are gonna go, well, what episode was that?

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Well, whole it was the one of the QA. It might have been last Friday's QA. So No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

You're not on my QA's.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

No, no, but it you said while Tom's on vacation, there's something that was the headline. I don't know, something like that. Vacation was in there, and it showed somebody sitting there reading, and it was a shot from behind, looking out over their shoulder at the old European town on the right, and then I think the water in front of them. It was I was like, wow, that's the way did you see the one with you on the quiz show?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

I did not see that. Oh, you got that's the July 1 show with your head down your head down on the desk.

Social Security Timing

SPEAKER_03 14:12

No, that's well, while you're digging around on that, I'm gonna ask the first question. All right, you ask the first question. This one comes from Portland, Oregon. Jason. Says Tom and Don, I've been listening to you guys for some time now and love your show. So thank you for that, Jason. My question is around how to determine the opportunity cost of delaying Social Security and how it affects your break-even point. I'm married in my late 50s, plan and retiring soon, so I'm working through my financial plan. It's often recommended delaying social security until age 70 because it maximizes the benefit amount and provides a larger survivor benefit for a spouse. I'm gonna stop you right there. That you can pretty much say is true.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Yeah, those are those are true things, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

They are. If you're married, I think it always makes sense. But and we just there was just a senator who passed away recently who was not married, who passed away at 71. I thought he's gonna be looking for us because he's gonna say, I only got my one year of Social Security. What's with you guys?

SPEAKER_02 15:08

But he seems to be looking for us, trust me. Okay, after life. I'm really confident.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Jason continues. I understand that logic, but I'm wondering whether it applies equally to everyone. This is so important. Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

No, yes, everything is personal.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

That's the thing. Every one of these is an individual case. Anyway, he says using a bucket strategy with short-term, midterm, and long-term investment buckets, delaying social security in 70. You'd need to fund your spending from ages 62 to 70, using assets from your short and midterm buckets. I think that's pretty much true, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

That's true. If you retire early, yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Yeah. Once these are depleted, well, you and I what what's early to you and I know? Uh once these are depleted, the next source of funding would ultimately be the long-term bucket. Now, here's a very important thing, Jason, because you say, which is likely invested in growth-oriented assets, which you would expect to be earning 10 plus percent annually over the long term.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Ooh. Well, um Okay, expecting no.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Hopefully, the average investor does not make 10 plus a year. The market can return that over the long haul.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

But that's not a yeah, the average investor definitely doesn't do that. But this is uh Let me finish.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Should the expected return of the long-term bucket be considered the opportunity cost of delaying Social Security? In other words, when comparing claiming at 62 versus 70, shouldn't the break-even analysis account for the foregone growth of the assets that must be withdrawn to bridge over those eight years?

SPEAKER_02 16:38

In other words, of course it should. Yeah, sure. Of course it should. And here's the thing. If you are going if you're planning to retire at age 62, you really should have spent the ten years prior to that creating a plan that saves you from those longer-term bucket touches.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Yeah, I think that's true.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

By the way, uh what we're saying is that okay, best case, don't retire at 62. Wait until 70, you're gonna have the most money. But if you must retire at 62, if you know you're going to retire at 62 and you'd like to delay Social Security, then you need to make sure you have a plan for shorter term assets to tide you over through that period to cover those whatever.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

What we're really saying is the short and intermediate term buckets need to be of a size to cover the eight years.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Right. If not, if not, then take social security earlier, maybe. Yeah. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

It is a personal thing. That's the point that I think needs to be recognized. There isn't a lot of things. And here's our problem.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah. Here's the problem with doing a podcast with 2.2 million downloads a year. That means tens of thousands of people are listening. Every one of those tens of thousands of people is slightly different, yet we have to provide advice for the greater number of them. And for the greatest number of everyone listening, the best advice is to wait as long as you are able to collect Social Security because your income, your your check rises by eight percent every year, plus inflation.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

And don't die and be mad at us and haunt us.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Well, that's the like any insurance or annuity, which social security is, by the way, it's an annuity.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

It is.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

When it it there's a there's a downside risk. There's an upside, there's a downside. Yep, if you wait until 70 and you die at 71, you lost your bet.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

But if you live until 101, whoa, did you win? Yeah. And if you're married and the other part of the side, yeah, and and the fact of the matter is your spouse, if you're a man.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

My wife, not a same age. Oh, yours, yours is yours, she's she can be collecting into whatever, whatever time.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Well, she's gonna collect way past your passing. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Which doesn't bother her, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

All right, um, she's got other guys lined up.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Big

Investment Clubs Exposed

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Jim, right. This is from Big Jim in Florida.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Big Jim. Well, everybody knows Big Jim.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

We're gonna answer his question. Love the show. Thanks for the infotainment. I love reading old, out-of-date personal finance and investment books from the past decades. I'm gonna stop you right there. You must have a lot of extra time. Sorry. Uh okay, you're gonna love Don's book then. Sometimes it no, I'm kidding. Sometimes the ideas in them are timeless and universal, but sometimes it makes me laugh how bad the advice given can be. One of my favorites is Oh, you're gonna just love this, Don. Oh, God, what is it? Wealth without risk by Charles J. Oh, Charles J.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Givens. Yeah. But he used to be on the business radio network.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

He also used to be in prison. I think he ended up in prison eventually for financial malfeasance, didn't he? Yes, that's correct. I think he died. I want to say he died in prison.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

He died in prison. Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Uh, always a funny topic that comes up in old books is forming investment clubs with friends. Uh when one of your recent episodes talked about the regulations and such related to your industry, it made me think about the investment clubs because many of them are informal and unregulated. Yes, I think that's true. I'm surprised at the charlatans on TikTok and MySpace these days that people aren't pitched these things from the past. Um, do you guys he goes on and on. I he says, I guess these vehicles used to exist when people had to purchase around lots of shares and to pool their money. I that was one reason, but the other one was because the collective genius of all these people is going to do better than the market.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Well, uh yeah, okay. Originally I think it was for a social thing.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Yeah, get together rather than the bridge club.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Um, do you guys have any funny or tragic stories about people joining investment clubs? Maybe I'll start one myself to get the ball rolling again. They're still out there.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Oh, they're still out there. They're still out there.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

You don't hear as much about them.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

And and and by the way, there are cases, there are lots of cases of investment clubs scamming people.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

They're just not big enough stories because the scams usually run into the tens of thousands of dollars, which don't get news coverage. But there are flat out Ponzi scheme investment clubs, or there have been. Uh there's a lot of affinity fraud um in you know, good in social groups and things. Uh there are some investing clubs that are really just multi level marketing.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

And wasn't that the one back east where they were said our return was twenty something percent and then some Looked into it and found that it was like 2.1 percent.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, that's probably one of the Ponzi schemes.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

And there's no reason to expect outperformance from a group of people that are picking stocks. In fact, anything, I'd say it's the opposite is probably true. But um so no, I don't really have any funny. Don just mentioned a few tragic stories. But I would to get educated about money and investing, that would not be the place I would go. I'll put it that way. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_02 22:25

No. No. It's uh it's it maybe it's a social thing, but it's a social thing that encourages bad investing behavior. So I think the use of the term investment club is a misnomer because they're really just stock gambling clubs.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

And I know we picked on AARP. I have not AARP, um, AAI? AAI.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

The American Association of Individual Investors.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

And here's why I know Paul Merriman does a lot of work with him. He gets mad at me when I do this, but in a general sense, if you go to those meetings every month, it's the idea de jour, it's the guy's written the new book, it's the here's what you have to have in your portfolio today. I do not like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Well, and and AAI basically sells their own newsletter that's the hot stock newsletter.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Good point. Good point.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Um, I I it's not even a fun thing to do necessarily. I I would rather have been there.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

We've been there.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

We've spoken. No, I I mean just investment clubs. Oh, I see. Investment clubs. If you want to get together with a bunch of people, join a social service club or something. Then you pool some money and you go help people instead of trying to get rich, which you're not likely to do.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah. All right. Got time to squeeze in one more.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

We decide how long the shows are.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Well, I'm just that's why I'm looking to you for a little leadership.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

I'm looking at the time, and look at that.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

We're under 30 minutes.

Umbrella Policy Protection

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Uh, who knew? Okay, from Farmington Hills, Michigan. Scott writes us, Tom. I don't know why I ignored you here. When I retire, I want to roll over my funds.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I'm not upset. I'm okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

My my 401k plan to my individual Roth IRA and traditional IRA. According to Grock, 401k plans have the tightest protection from personal liability lawsuits.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yes.

unknown 24:15

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Because they are a risk. Under IRIS. And they uh IRAs and Roths are not. That is correct.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

That is that is true.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Michigan, where I live, seems to protect the individual IRA and Roth IRAs as well, which is true in the great state of Washington. I don't think you can any jud I think they're fairly judgment proof. I don't think you can go get your money on somebody's retirement plan in Washington State. I know every state's a little different. I know that you guys are not lawyers or give legal advice. Oh, sure, we give legal advice all the time. Just not good legal advice.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Um, it's exactly worth every new. Don't listen to him. You know, you freak out compliance every time you say stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I can't wait for that one. Uh, but you might have come across this before with your clients. Based on a pad pod, a past podcast. A bad podcast? Don would recommend an umbrella policy as an option. That can be expensive yearly expense. Not really. Umbrella policies are pretty inextreme. I mean, once I've had. Uh I realize the risk is low to worry about this, but wanted to protect myself against the stupid. Longtime listener, listen to guys talk about past, blah, blah, blah. Please don't mention my last name. I'm not going to mention that. We don't mention last names. Uh the question is then at hand. Will an umbrella policy protect you, protect your your retirement assets? Yeah. Because if you have a five million dollar uh and somebody slips and falls on your you know deck, then that would write the check. Sure. And I again, they're pretty inexpensive generally.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Um again This is a human foible. It's a we we we worry about everything. And the problem is we overweight things we probably shouldn't be worrying about. Ooh, what if I get sued by for somebody slipping on my sidewalk? Do you know how rarely that actually happens to individuals? It's it's it's pretty rare. And that's why in vel umbrella policies are relatively inexpensive. Uh but you know yeah, if you're in a state where your IRA and your 401k is protected, then you don't and those are all of your assets, or the bulk of them, then you need a much smaller umbrella policy. But you insure against risk that you worry about, that you truly are concerned about. And if liability risk is a concern, then you need a liability policy of some kind that protects the assets that you have. You don't want to exceed those assets necessarily, but uh protect them, sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

We just we had we had a gathering recently, and there were a number of attorneys there, and there was a kid going by in their boat, and they yelled up, Hey, can we go up and slide down your slide into the water? You know, I live on the slide. Oh my gosh, you're you're and they're they were going, You understand the lie? I was like, let them go on the slide. It's okay. So they went on the slide. No head damage or brain damage at this point.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Yeah, but you know, again, that's the we worry about everything. But I have said for many, many years, you know, since my days as a regular talk show host, before I was a money talk show host.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

You're an irregular host?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Yeah. Um if you if you really we sit around, we worry about all these horrible things that could happen, and yet every single day, every single day, most of us get in to a multi-thousand-pound gasoline propelled or electrically propelled grenade uh uh bomb and drive it down the road where other idiots are pointing their bomb mobiles at us and but probably had tragedies in our families around. Right. So but the what is the most likely thing that happens? We don't protect against that. We don't, you know, you still go out and drive. Yes, we do. Yeah. But that's the most that's one of the places where you're most likely to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

You are the only guy I know who can go to work really just by going upstairs.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

I love it too. I love it. I mean, uh it was so funny. Debbie went off and played bridge the other day here in our bubble celebration, and she was back like two minutes after the they finished playing. And I said, Isn't it nice that we don't have to go more than five minutes away to do stuff?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Right. We don't have the things that one of the downsides of where I live, you have to drive 30 minutes to go.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Oh, you're out in the middle of flipping nowhere.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

It's true. That works both ways, though, by the way, because it's Yeah. Does it? One of the things in Europe that I forget every time I go to place like Rome or Athens, there's a lot of people there. You're wandering around like, can't wait to be by my little lake with no sound other than a bird going by. I guess it was.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Well, okay, that's a pretty big bird. That's an eagle. That's true. That's an eagle.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Anyway. So anyway, um, yeah, the that fact is, yeah, it I would get the I would get the umbrella policy because I don't find them to be expensive. But if you do, then don't get it. And hope that your protections from the state take care of your money when when a tragedy befalls you, is the way I'd put it.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Okay. Uh I'm just checking the prices of umbrellas. Uh the typical depending on where you are and what your risk profile is, because it it really does, it depends on the what cars you own, what like if you have a trampoline in the backyard or boats or RVs or a pit bull or whatever it might be. So remember, if you have a pit bull and live by a lake with a very attractive slide, you're gonna be at the high end of this range. But generally speaking, a million dollars of umbrella coverage costs between 100 and a half a year and four hundred a year. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah, which I don't find to be a lot, but you might so if it's two hundred bucks, you might say, I'm not gonna pay two hundred bucks. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Oh, and by the way, they factor in your credit history, whether you're married or not.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Um my rate goes up or down based on the marriage.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

You are you are way at the top.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Way off the charts for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

You have a giant black dog. That's true. While is he's a gentle giant, will scare the crap out of someone.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

He does do that.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Uh let's see. You have a a body of water immediately adjacent. You have a deck with multiple levels. That's it. It rains and snows there.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Um not looking too good in sure.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

You've got gigantic trees that occasionally fall down. Uh-huh. Uh let's see. Oh, yeah, you got boats. Uh you have a hot tub. That's okay. That's true. Have a hot tub, too. What other how many cars do you have? You have three cars. Yeah. You have a teenage daughter. You're just totally yeah, no, she's still gonna be on your policies.

unknown 30:51

Good point.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

All right, you're making me feel bad now.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

So uh yeah, yours, yours is gonna cost a lot more than mine.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

True. All right, you want to do the ending? No, you do the ending, but I want to see what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

You don't remember, you forgot what to ask, don't didn't you? You forgot what to tell people to do at the end of the show, didn't you? You've been gone so long.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

I've been my head's been baked by this high temperature.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

There was one of the pictures you sent us that Debbie went, God, is he that sunburned? Oh, it was really hot. It was you were you remember you're a very white man. Very white man.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Not anymore.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Oh, oh, I found the episode. You're right. It was the QA episode. I thought it was.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

It's just remarkable though. Had the exact same picture from the trip. When I saw the most recent one, it's kind of scary.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

The July 10th episode called Question Onslaught.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Um isn't it shot over somebody's shoulder and you can see the back of the show?

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Shot over a fake Tom's shoulder. I had a I had AI make it. It was it took me about it took me about ten iterations of this.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

It's pretty accurate.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Originally you look like uh John Slattery.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

And I went, no, that's not it. And then he started to look a little bit more like Paul Merriman from behind.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Okay, I'm okay with that too.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Okay, and then I then I went I oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I sent the What did you now who this is gonna hurt my feelings, right? It's not I can feel it. It's funny, it's funny, it's funny. I sent I sent because it was a really it was the John Slattery version of you. It was very thin.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

I like I like John Slatter. It was very thin. I like John Shepherd.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

So I sent in I sent in our show cover logo. Yeah. And I said this fat guy Slattery now? I said, make him a little chunkier. Well, ChatGPT misinterpreted that as make the cover photo chunkier.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Oh this is bad. And it created it created this gigantic Tom. This must have been after the trip, after the pasta and the pizza and all the dessert.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

I I'm telling you, when it came back to me, I almost fell out of my chair. I was laughing so hard.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

If you're in if you're what if you're in a good mood, I'll send you No, do not send that to me because I haven't I did a pre-trip weigh-in and I haven't done the post-way-in yet. I gotta wait to see what that's gonna look like.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

If you look at this, you'll go, well, thank God I didn't go that far. I went out there, but not. But it was shocking. It took our cover art and it turns you into giant.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Let's just leave it at that. What do you say? So however you end this thing, I appreciate it if you go ahead and now I'm thinking now I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Now I'm thinking that I have to put it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Well, you know, I did a lot of thinking on the trip too about how much longer I want to do the podcast. So, are you done there? Then that might be it. So see you later. Good.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

All right, I better not put it up. But it was it was very funny. You if you hadn't gotten back from a pasta eating extravaganza, no, not to mention the pizza, dessert every night, etc.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

And breakfast every day in the hotel with the buffet. So I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Speaking of which, you know, when I went away for a few days from my birthday to a resort, the Disney Place, I came back, I was like six pounds heavier. Yeah, oh, I'm sure I'm there. I went, geez, I gotta stay home.

Thanks for Listening

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Anyway. Thank you all for listening. Send in those questions, keep them coming at talkingrealmoney.com on the ask a question form if you want to meet with one of our lovely fiduciary advisors for a few minutes for free. For free. For nothing, no obligation, no high pressure sales pitch. Just click the button that says ask uh no, meet an advisor. I'm as bad as Tom now. Thank you. And and don't forget to tell people to join you and everybody else you know every day or every weekday, listening to Talking Real Money.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

The opinions and views expressed in 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 subject to change without notice, including any forward-looking estimates or statements which are based on certain expectations and assumptions.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

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SPEAKER_01 35:15

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SPEAKER_00 35:48

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SPEAKER_01 35:53

Apellate Capital, LLC DBA Apello Wealth, is an investment advisory firm registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm only transacts business in the states where it is properly registered, or excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Registration with the FCC or any State Securities Authority does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Appello does not provide tax or legal advice, and nothing either stated or implied here should be inferred as providing such advice. Thanks for listening, and please visit talkingrealmoney.com for more information and important disclosure related to performance of any specific index or fund quoted in this podcast. I think I need a nap.