Not Bogle's Vanguard

SPEAKER_01 0:05

You're gonna a really great financial future. Tom and Don are talking real money.

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Do we really need new ideas? Do we? Really? Particularly when it comes to

Vanguard’s New Product Push

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investing. Yeah, occasionally there's something good that that crops up from lots of academic research. I mean, the Nobel Prize winner, Eugene Fama, said that uh Wall Street comes up with new ideas every week, and he's seen over his career maybe five that actually did anything. So do we need all this new stuff? That's the topic of today's Talking Real Money podcast with me, Don McDonald, and Tom, the master of bad dad jokes, Cock, in the other room over there, 3,000 miles away.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Mastering them every moment, by the way. How much more, as somebody asked me once, how much more efficient can the efficient frontier get, right? I mean, how many more little tweaks can you add until you're making more money without taking more risk? And then I was like, uh you don't need to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

But it seems like pretty good. Wall Wall Street, which is the the moniker we have for all the financial industry, really. It kind of encompasses all of it. It's the broadest one, I think. Why is it that Wall Street seems like they need to present something new and gadgety and gimmicky to investors every couple of weeks?

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Well, because you want it. You've asked for it. I don't. You want you want the pill that now is working for people that like to lose weight around uh retirement income. You want to you want to give somebody your money and you want it back, but you'd like to maintain liquidity at the same time and a decent return, if you don't mind, and get a bunch of your money back at the same time without having to worry about it at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah. And you know it's funny, it used to be that most of the gimmicky, the gadgetry came from the periphery of the industry, from new fund groups, from uh brokerage firms, from insurance companies. They were the tinkers. Well, ladies and gentlemen, once again, we've got an old school, sensible company, gigantic company, that it feels like is tinkering a little bit too much to us. Maybe we're just old.

Annuity Tradeoffs

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That could be too.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Well, we are.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah. We're talking about Vanguard, the largest mutual fund company in the world. That's right. And it feels like every week or so they have to come up with some new product so that they can issue a press release and get quoted in the Wall Street Journal or Barons or something.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

You know, they don't like to be forgotten like anybody else. The Vanguard Target Retirement Lifetime Income Fund is what we're talking about now.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Trevor Burrus, Jr. We've we've we've been proponents of Vanguard's target date funds, their target retirement funds. They're different kinds. There's a retirement income and then a retirement not income, but this is a new variation on the theme. What sets this one apart from the other ones? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Well, they've added in, they've added on uh an annuity to the end of this, right? So that you are getting a payout, you are giving up liquidity, um, but you're gonna be you're gonna be getting regular paycheck. This is what this is the challenge, the trade-off that so many people face as they get into retirement. They, as I said, they just want to know they're gonna get their money every month to pay the bills. Um and many of you have told people, look, I just want that predictable income. I don't want to be dependent on portfolio withdrawals, especially when the market's down, especially with the return of risk return, you know, pardon me, the sequence rigging risks, all those things. And people have said, so I'd rather just hand I trust Vanguard. They're gonna do right by me, so I'd rather just hand them the money and get my money back.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Basically, what they're doing, though, is I guess it's taking target date funds one step past where it's exactly right. Target date funds were a way for you to not manage your portfolio. You just give your money to Vanguard, and it's an automatic process. It over time it becomes progressively less risky. Well, the way this one works is at some point in the future, 75% of your portfolio still sits in the target date fund. Right. And they take 25% and they put it in an immediate annuity that starts paying you an income for the rest of your life. Now, what happens to that 25%? Goes into that annuity. Does it belong to you anymore? Nope.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

That money is gone, and you face still the issue that we've touched on many times, and it does come up liquidity, right? Because if something big happens and you need that money now, can't get it anymore. Ever. Um the other one that frankly is a huge challenge to this, as it always is, although it's only 25% of your money, inflation, right? I mean, and now inflation back to, I don't know, depending on who you believe, four percent a year, et cetera, et cetera. The annuity is not designed to keep up with that. Um the other thing that I frankly I couldn't find, maybe you could, is what all this costs. It was hard for me to tell exactly what it is. Well, because they there is no See, that's the problem.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

There is no explicit cost. It is implicit. It is built into the returns for the insurance company, which I believe in this case is TIA.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

That's right. They use the TIA program, the secure income account, they call it too.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

So here's the big problem. Let's say you take the highest payout, too. That's single life, that's you, the owner of the account. If you die the next day, it's gone.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Yeah, and this is we had an argument with somebody earlier. Remember, they said, well, you know what, that doesn't happen. We'll Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Unless you choose joint life, which means smaller payouts, that's right. Or you chow you choose a survivor benefit of some sort or a guaranteed minimum, but uh you can with a single life conceivably lose twenty-five percent of your money and instantly.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

The challenge with that is the psychological one in a lot of ways, too, right? It it because it feels like if I go to Vanguard and they manage my money, we're on the same side, right? We're we're both trying to, you know, push this, make me some money, create some income. But as soon as you get in this annuity type relationship, they're betting against you, right? Because the sooner you die, the more money they make. It just has a weird feeling to it. I it it's just a product, again. If you really had to take some of your money, as you just said, Don, you could buy an immediate annuity of some kind, but keep the rest of it managed in some fashion that's going to create income other outside of that. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

It But here's the rub, and this is really the the this is not the point that nobody talks about because what is TIA in the business of doing? One of those A's is annuity. Yeah. That's one that's what one of those A's means. And so they're in the business of selling annuities. And if you're selling annuities, does it make sense to tell your potential customers that really essentially for the first 10 to 15 years, you're just getting your own money back. If you die within that first 10 to 15 years, you've just gotten your own money back in those income payments and you never collect any interest from these things. You're just it's just paying you back your money. It's like you put it in a mattress and you draw out whatever that payment is. Well, it'll last you 10 to depending on how much you're there, how much you have in there and how much you're taking out, it's gonna last you 10 to 15 years, then you got nothing. With an annuity, if you live longer than they think you'll live, you gotta live a really long time for these things to pay off. They usually win the bet.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

Yeah, and they're they're good at knowing the odds and they'll play them correctly. That's why I love the headline of which you can go read this yourself. It's all free. At Morningstar, the headline in this particular case was called guaranteed income in your 401k. Sounds good in theory. Which it always does, right? It's a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

The reality is there's no way to get free safe money. You can't get a free safe income. They are gonna get something, and and they're gonna get something that is unclear to you. You're when it comes to any kind of insurance, you are making a bet with the insurance company. Who is more likely to win? If you win, if we win more often than the insurance companies win, then there will be no insurance companies. Then it's AIG all over again. They have to make more. Exactly. So

Active-Passive Confusion

SPEAKER_02 9:16

now That's not the only little thing that Vanguard has come up with. That one I can live with. This one, absolutely 100%, no way. There's the new I just got a press release on this. The new Vanguard dynamic active passive model portfolio series. Is that a passive aggressive? Passive aggressive portfolio series. I mean, really. Wow. Um what are they doing? I want you to explain it. I read it about three times. I couldn't figure it out. At first I thought it was just like factor investing. It was like rules-based investing, like Avantis and Dimensional. But it's not. Here's what it is. See, Vanguard has really had a difficult time deciding what it is. Are they an index firm? Are they just trying to give you the market? Or are they an active manager? Well, throughout their history, and this was something that we even asked Jack Bogle about, and he couldn't really answer it because he's such an advocate of indexes. Well, we just do it because we do it, basically was his answer. That was. Yeah. Why do they have active funds? Well, because we've had active funds.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Well, then why do you keep making new active funds? When the evidence says active funds sometimes they outperform, but more often than not, they underperform indexes. Why do you bother? Well, I think the reason people bother is because they make more money on active funds. I'm just guessing. Vanguard now has created a new product where they build a portfolio with some low-cost index ETFs or mutual funds. Yeah. And some active managed man actively managed funds. So they're trying to guess which which funds are gonna do better. So they're actively deciding whether indexes are active, actively make you more money, actually.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Well, the in their news release. What do we have here? More confusion. The their news release says, quote, integrates Vanguard's evolving economic and market views with forward-looking capital market assumptions.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah. See, okay, market timing. That's just market timing.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Come on. That's that's silly. Um, designed to balance risk and return through a disciplined and repeatable process. How can it be repeatable if you're looking into the future? How do you know anything more about the future than anybody else knows? No, you don't.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Oh, and I can't define what this costs either, by the way. They're creating these four advisors. Yes. So um they're exp because I think, and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but the research I've done, it appears that the only way you can get them is through an advisor. So if you're getting them through Vanguard's personal advisor services, you're probably paying about four-tenths of a percent. Uh if you're using an outside advisor, you're probably looking at one and a quarter percent.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

That sounds right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Um I and I I what I don't uh apparently this is a product that was created to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Oh, I was waiting. There there is no problem that this is solving. Wha why? What why what I am so baffled.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Except the problem it's solving is it keeps Vanguard in the conversation around exchange traded funds, of which you know this. It's like 80% of the new exchange traded funds are actively managed. They have an idea, they they say they know something about the future. And my take is Vanguard wants to still be in that conversation, even though correctly the reputation of the firm, basically, if you ask the public, has been built around index investing. But they don't think that's the same.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

This me, this guy here. I'm just disappointed. I really I am, you know, I I every day I grow increasingly disappointed with Vanguard. Oh, good. I thought you were gonna say me. So No, they're just I think they're pandering. I think they're uh they they've lost their internal compass. They've gotten greedy. And they're a nonprofit. Right. Which you don't have all

Nonprofit or Not?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

right. You want an aside, this is an interesting, I just this is something that's always bothered me. Vanguard is a not-for-profit company owned by its shareholders, so why do they care how much money they make? But apparently they do. And I've had the same thing, like the same beef with like hospitals. You know, hospital, nonprofit hospitals like locally, we have one called Advent Health, which is owned by the Seventh-day Adventists. And they're a nonprofit. They're a not-for-profit company, but they charge an arm and a leg. They're building these state-of-the-art buildings that are like ridiculously expensive. Uh the the the executives, the administrators, they they pay them all very, very well. They they act like they're for profit. They feel like they're for profit when they're nonprofit. There's a lot of that out there. 877 or 855 cars for kids. You heard what California did with them, didn't you?

SPEAKER_04 14:39

Yeah, shut them down, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Basically said you can't raise money in California because it was going to an obscure That's right. They said it was helping kids. It was going to an obscure Jewish charity in New Jersey that just well, cut most of the money for their internal efforts. It's how much of it was passed on to others.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

I think you raise a good point.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

We're just people are crooked. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

By the way, if you want to learn more about Vanguard, there's a fascinating uh it just came out, I believe, uh by uh a podcast that I've listened to over the years called Acquired, and they just did a very lengthy episode on Vanguard, its roots, and they agree with you, Don. They're like they're they're not quite where they should be from the last 30 years. Let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

So it's become a profit-based thing. It's like the the people at the top are just looking for big bonuses. I that's the way I feel. I don't know that, but that's the

Ask a Question

SPEAKER_02 15:29

way I feel. Hey, would you like to ask us a question? We love it when you ask us questions. You can go to talkingrealmoney.com, by the way, the new and improved and and and much easier to, I think, much easier to navigate, talkingrealmoney.com. Uh, and uh just click on the button that says ask a question, and you can ask a question. You can type it in, or you can click the little mic button in the corner of the every screen and speak it in. But if you type it in, Tom either reads them on our podcast or

ESOP Concentration Risk

SPEAKER_02 16:02

he gets together with you on the phone. Hey, thanks, Don.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Let's go to the phones from uh Sparks, Nevada. Rob joins us. Hey Rob, thanks for being part of Talking Real Money.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yeah, thanks for having me on. I love listening to you guys. That is I had a question about uh Aesop. Yeah. You guys don't talk much about ESOP, but um, so I've been at my employer for eight years, and I have a bunch of uh employee stock ownership. Um and uh so I have roughly 72 percent in my 401k. The rest is in the uh I let uh Charles Schwab do my um picking of the stocks um as a high risk, but uh I was wondering, you know, should I maybe not have that much and do I get the return on it that I would if I were in a little bit more in mutual funds?

SPEAKER_04 16:56

Yeah, so what percentage of your overall holdings would be invested in the employee stock ownership plan?

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Yeah, so it's roughly 72% is in um stock employee stock.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Okay. And um how close your I think I saw in your note here uh in your early 50s. Here's the thing. Um, and we've had clients, by the way, who have been in eSOPs and uh retired, and it's been really good. Um we are not fans of owning company stock in a well, we're not comp fans of owning individual securities because there's just too much risk associated with them. Instead, we'd prefer to see everybody invested in a 10,000 stock portfolio just to get rid of the risk, the potential risk of default, right? Because some companies go out of business. And also the other worry is you're part of the Bessonbinder, you know, 96%, the professor that found that uh only 4% of the stocks really made all the money the last hundred years in the in the market. So we don't want to miss out on that if we can. But here's the part that I think you should think about. Because I this it may be the greatest company since, I don't know, I I could I say General Motors, I'd be showing my time my age, you know, um, or or we could go through the litany of ones that looked awesome. And here in the Seattle area, we had one called Washington Mutual, which was the largest trust bank in the world and that went bust. Um and I think in your note you mentioned something about Enron. But here's the thing I would consider. Part one is anytime you invest in company stock, you now your livelihood is dependent on that company. Now you've thrown your retirement into that same pile of money. In other words, if something goes wrong and you lose your job, you got to go find another job. But if you lose the money, then um then you got to start over for your 401k. And that that is a possibility, especially in an ESOP, because that's just gonna be a riskier proposition than a than a publicly traded company. Um so that is one huge worry. The other one, frankly, is always the rules on getting the money out are a little complicated. It's not like having money in a regular retirement account. It's trickier to do that. Um, but I would urge you to really think hard about being diversified, having 70% of your money in one thing. I mentioned Washington Mutual. I had friends who worked there and were still working there at the end. In fact, I can remember a phone call two days before the whole thing went up in flames, where one of them told me, I have 80% of my money, my 401k money in Wamu stock because I know it's going to turn around. I believe in this company. I know the CEO, guy actually that I knew as well. And uh it it it it's coming back. It's a great firm. And this is part of the problem with owning company stock. You work there, you know the people, you know it's a great company until the moment that it's not. And that's been the history, by the way, of even great companies. Very few that are like who are around for extended periods of time and continue to be successful. So, yeah, the short answer is if it was my money, I would start to diversify out. You mentioned a in your note a very high return, which is wonderful. But the frankly, to have individual securities, the return has to be far higher than that. I think you mentioned 17%, to make up for the risk that you're taking, the risk-adjusted return, and it would have to be off-the-charts return to make up for the fact that you have so much money concentrated in one firm. So I would prefer that not that go ahead, but I I would prefer that you start selling that off and clean it up. Certainly have it cleaned up, I don't know, in the next six, seven, eight years.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

So for compounding interest, I mean, do I get that with the ESOP? Um, is it accruing interest as it sits there in the in Charles Schwab 401k account?

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Well, you're getting the you're getting the no different than the value of the shares that I own in my companies, right? These are so I'm getting an increase in that based on the success of the firm, the profitability. And then they, I think with an ESOP, they set, and please, I I don't know all the rules, so if somebody wants to call me and tell me I'm wrong, they'd go ahead. But they they reset the price, I think it's annually or something like that, where they look at everything and say, anybody gonna sell shares? Here's how much you're gonna get, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah, it's once a year we have employees buy in, buy out. Correct. Um, and then so once a year I get you know a huge basically bump from owning all the stock, but I just also look at um my portfolio where I have uh the fidelities and you know, this American Beacon Small Cap, all those. Well, they are, you know, they're getting good returns too. They're going up. So I watch my account go up during the year. When I look at my ASOP, I just see it once a year. So that's why I was trying to figure out you know, is it a good deal or not?

SPEAKER_04 21:50

It it it it it it appears on paper, yes, because the return you described would be about 50 okay, that's 19.46 percent. So that would be, you know, 50% high or almost 100% higher than what you expect from a general stock portfolio. But what I was trying to say is the risk equivalent with that is off the charts. You're taking a ton of risk by having so much in an individual security, especially for somebody that that that is, you know, you're not old, but you're not that young yet either. So I mean, that's the other thing. If you were 30, then sometimes I'll say, yeah, you could have a little bit in that. But the idea that it's wound into the same company of which you're relying on for your income, and now you're going to rely on them for your retirement really would make me nervous. So yeah, I would figure out a strategy maybe over the next five years to sort of reduce my pile in that, maybe turn all of my savings now in the plan, especially all the money that's come that you're saving now, into a diversified portfolio. You'd want to make sure maybe you have some fixed income there. You might want to have a little more fixed income than you might because the risk you're taking is so much higher with owning that one security. So the expected volatility could be greater as well. But yeah, we're not fans of individual stocks or I'm not fans of individual stocks and just saw one recently where somebody lost a ton of money in their uh 401k, which kind of surprised me. And I'm not a fan of eSops, not because I'm not a supporter of capitalism, which I most certainly am, and it worked out well for me. Uh, but the fact that at 51, if something really went catastrophically wrong, you might have to start over again. I did that uh 20 years ago and I got lucky because I got in uh Don McDonald and I started a firm. It worked out really well. The company made money, we ended up uh merging with another firm, that's all worked out. But that was an aspect of luck to that that I'd prefer prefer not to do again because it would just be it would just the the idea that I had to restart and do all that again, it was it was kind of petrifying. As I said, it worked out. I'm one of the lucky few. But in your case, I don't think you need to take that risk. That would be the other thing. You're taking risks that I don't think you necessarily sound like a saver. I would want to diversify that portfolio. I'd want to get out of that my company stock, and I'd want to do it, you know, as I say, probably within the next five years.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yeah, it's just yeah, that's 72% is what's yeah, making me a little nervous.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I think you're right to be nervous. I think you're you're you're you're you're thinking about the right thing. And again, if you wanted to retire in the next 15 years and something really bad happened, you'd be in a position where you couldn't do that. That's what I'd be worrying about.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Yeah, on the other hand, if if I had it all in stocks um and something really bad happened, then um you know.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

But there's a risk of a risk of a default for the whole world stock markets. Now that could happen, right? We could have a major conflagration, but even in World War II, uh, you know, the stock markets rebounded after that, et cetera, et cetera. So even if we had a global uh awful, you know, war that cost, you know, lives, et cetera, et cetera, a lot of lives, capitalism hasn't made a figured out how to survive. The odds of that happening are tiny compared to the odds of something really bad happening to your own firm. And again, the other part is the reason I really trust I struggle with people owning their own firms is you believe in them. I work there, I know the people, I know the product, it's really going great. And we all have that sense of like, oh, I know what's going on here, and you really sometimes do not.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Right. Yeah, you always try to look for the writing on the wall, you know, for a conversation.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

It's hard to say, it's hard to find. It's hard people that have been inside other great firms, WorldCom, et cetera, and they hang in there right to the end because they uh Enron, remember right before that all went bust, they had a big meeting and the head of HR said, you know, somebody asked him, should I help sell my stock? And they said, Hell no, you know, we're coming back. And I think they believed that right to the end, and then the whole thing blew up. I would hate to see that happen to you. And frankly, as I said, it's risk you're taking that I don't think you need to take. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for your call. Yeah, no, keep listening. Really appreciate it. Enjoy your

More Listener Questions

SPEAKER_04 26:05

summer, and uh thank you very much for being part of the program.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

And then here's the other way, Tom, gets the question.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

And we need more of these. You need more typed questions. Yeah, let's go. It's the summer.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

I know. You guys, your fingers have gotten lazy.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Or they fell in love with trees after all these years. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Or they ran out of questions. We've just plain run out of questions.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Trees have been laughing at me the last couple of days.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Every question that can ever be asked. Come on. Yeah. And we might as well just I'll be honest with you.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Sometimes you raise stuff that I hadn't heard of, like this question raised. Because when Don and I looked at each other and went, we don't know that. We didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

So yes, I know that. So he actually shared part of the question with me, not the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 26:47

Not the whole thing.

GI Bill and College Savings

SPEAKER_04 26:48

So all right. Uh from Del Rio, Texas. Boy, does that sound like Texas or what? Del Rio?

SPEAKER_02 26:53

It does sound like it's it means the river.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

Del Rio. Uh Jeff writes us. Hi, Tom and Don. My wife and I both transferred our military GI benefits to our kid, so her college is taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yeah. That was an interesting one. We both looked at each other and went. You can transfer your GI benefits, your college benefits to your own. Yes, you can.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

That's crazy. By the way, that's how my my old man went to college, and I guess part of medical school back in the lit mid to late 1940s. So we're been around for a while.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, I mean I knew it was good for you, you, the military members, but I didn't know you could do it for your spouse or your kids.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Her grandpa and grandma opened a 529 for her, which will grow and eventually be used for her Roth Ira.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Nice. After 15 years.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

It has to be in there for 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Right. It has to be in there for 15.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

35K can then be moved out, and the max would be 7K a year because you have to have the that amount of income. I opened an UGMA account. Uniform Gift to Minor Act. Uniform Gift to Minors Act.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Uniform Gift to Minors Act.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Yep. Account for her when she was born and started with an initial $1,000 and have automatic contributions monthly of $100 and we'll transfer it to her when she is 21. She's rich. She says oh, it says she's only two. This is a real location.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Well, she hasn't gone to college yet, then.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Okay, no, not apparently not. Currently it's 65% S. She's gonna be rich. Yeah, no kidding. Hang in there. SWTSX, which she says is the total U.S., and 35% SWISX. Total international. My question is: should I stop the current funds and instead just purchase A V G E for her, which is the Avantis Global Equity Fund? It won't be automatic anymore, which is a huge plus to set it and forget, but I have to go into my own account monthly to purchase A V G E, so buying through her account at the same time would not be difficult. Also, is there anything else I can do to be setting her up for success? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

There's no ginormous benefit. I mean, it it it it it's it's ease of use. If it's easy to use and it happens automatically, there's a lot to be said for that. You you might make a fractionally better return with AVGE. Might. There's no guarantee you will. Uh historically you would have, but there's no guarantee you will. What you have now is a very well-diversified portfolio. It's gr it's gonna be found money for your daughter anyway. You're starting her off in an a in an amazing place when she gets into her twenties. Amazing, and you're setting her up for an incredible retirement when she's in her sixties or seventies. So good.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

I don't know about a whole bunch of things. If you're doing the five, if you already have the the college setting setup figured out with the GI Bill, you've got the Roth IRA, you've got the five twenty nine, you've got the UGMA. I mean, it kind of covered all the bases there. I can't think of anything else. Really?

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Yeah, you're doing great. You really are doing great. Well done. Good job.

SPEAKER_04 30:02

And now go down and get in the river. Just text.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

And now and now go to talkingrealmoney.com and type in your questions. Thank you. Yeah, please do. Or or if you look on the news site, there's a little mic in the lower right-hand corner. You click on that and you can record them. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

Same place you can take the risk quiz, same place you can ask for help from an advisor, same place where you can listen now to many podcasts which are right up on the home page. Very convenient, Don. Very convenient.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

All of them. Well, well, five are on the front page, yeah. You have to kind of there are over 1900 now out

The New Book Plug

SPEAKER_02 30:38

there on the website. Oh, and by the way, the the uh my new book's been out for a little while, and thank you all for buying it. Uh I think some of you have bought it. And how about thanking us for reading it? I read it too, and I loved it. So Thank you. Well, some people may not have gotten through it yet, been out that long. Some people are slower readers than you. Yeah, well, I like my wife.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

I set aside time every day to read. I don't mess around with that.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

You are you are disciplined. No, I'm not inspecting it. This is a book I loved.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

It was not hard to read.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

It was very, very, very, it's called The Line Uncrossed. Yes, this is a blatant plug for my book, but it's a labor of love. It's it's a story based true based on it's truly based on the life or part of the life of my great, great grandfather, John B. Anderson, who at the age of 14 enlisted in the Union Army in the 6th Indiana and went on to serve in Shiloh and Chickamauga, Chickamauga, it's called pronounced Chickamauga, Georgia. Chickamauga in Georgia, and was captured and uh actually spent quite a bit of time in the Andersonville prison, which was the most important.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

So I gotta ask you that question. So the wound he suffers in the book, not to give too much away, is that the same type of thing?

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Very similar to the same wound he suffered. Yeah. I I mean I didn't know the details, I knew he was shot in the face. Yeah. Wow. So I had to write details, and since I had seen pictures of him and you could see a scar.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Really?

SPEAKER_02 32:08

This is how I this is how I believed it might have happened. It is a fictional book. Levi is not John. John did not grow up on a farm. Levi grew up on a farm. It's just that's the fiction part of it.

SPEAKER_04 32:20

But tells the story very well, both of the period and the person. So thanks.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

And you can get it paperback, hardcover, and ebook. The ebook, of course, is the cheapest. Yeah. Go get it. It's everywhere. It's Amazon, it's BN, it's all over the place. I love it. Thank you so much for being a part of our show. And uh go to the new Talking Real Money website, tell some friends about what we do, and uh keep sending in those questions because every day we want to spend some time with you, Talking Real Money.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

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

SPEAKER_00 33:03

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SPEAKER_01 33:12

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SPEAKER_00 33:45

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SPEAKER_01 33:50

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