Three Funds, One Risk Dial

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Ladies and gentlemen, that in honor of Tom's obsession with the 1940s. Yes, the World War II era. The Andrews. No, those weren't the Andrews.

1940s Song Banter

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Sounds a little like them. Could be. Sounds a little like 'em. I you know, I just write these prompts. This is what I do. I write these prompts and then I listen and then I rewrite it and I I write some bad lyrics, and I know they're not the greatest lyrics. They're thrown together in like 20 minutes, so I'm not a songwriter, but this stuff comes out flipping clever.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, and you could put that on a 78 and then play it on a swing years program and get away with it, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

I I'm good. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm entertained. And I you know, if you're not entertained by your own podcast, well, who will be really?

SPEAKER_03 1:19

You're gonna laugh at your own jokes too? I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

I laugh at my you laugh at your own jokes. You nobody else does, that's why. I got it. You you I forgot what the word is. You cynic, you know. Comedian? Yeah, okay. Contradictorian. I don't know what contradictorian. Contradictor. You contradictator. That's probably pretty close. That's pretty close. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Talking Real Money, talking real money. Uh, we are gonna talk about something really different today. I don't think this is a subject we've ever done in like 2,000

Three Funds, One Decision

SPEAKER_02 1:52

episodes. The topic today is three funds, one decision. How do you pick among three very well diversified exchange traded funds that we discuss a lot on this program? This was a suggestion for from a rabid listener who said, What is the big difference between these? So, ladies and gentlemen, Tom Cock has gone out and done the hard work so you don't have to, and he has explored all the ins and outs and ups and downs and sideways and so forths of three funds AVGE, DFAW, and VT. These are all total market funds, one from Avantis, one from Dimensional, and one from Vanguard. So, what are the differences?

SPEAKER_03 2:44

I gotta give full credit to Craig, who's a loyalist, very loyal. Thank you, Craig, who did some digging on these as well. He sent over some research he had done as well. So it's really great stuff. Um, yeah, this is a fascinating topic. And we have a question that revolves around the world.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

You say that about all our topics, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

This is a really fascinating topic. Okay, whoa. Pay attention. Yeah, because here's the thing. And we have a question about whether or not it makes sense to just use a fund or why do advisors use, you know, 10 to 12 funds in a portfolio. Well, that's later in the episode. Yeah, that'll come up. So AVGE, as you said, is the Avantis Global Equity Fund. Uh DFAW is the uh dimensional funds global fund, and then VT is the Vanguard Total World Index Fund. So I guess at the end of the day, before we'll cut to the chase, these are all three very different funds. I I don't even know if you can actually compare them in many ways.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Actually, see, I I find them very similar, but different internally. I their structures are but in terms of what they are meant to accomplish in a portfolio, their purpose is very similar. It really depends on, hey, guess what? Depends on you.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

The final choice is gonna end up depending on you.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Yeah, so Vanguard is an index fund. It'll be pure index. Yeah, the global basket of ten thousand securities. You get that at 0.066 basis points is what we call it in the industry.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Six one hundredths of one percent.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

And so it's designed to give you exposure in one fund at a very low cost, the globe. Pretty good fund. Um, and by the way, uh it's done well in terms of performance. We'll compare all of these, but their performance is very similar. There's only a couple of years to look at them because they haven't been around that long. VT's been around longer, but AVG, E, and DFAW really only about two and a half years, so a very short period of time. AVG a little longer, but DFAW.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

So for to get the Well, it just took it took dimensional a little bit of time to convert everything to ETFs. Whereas Avantis started off as a pure ETF house.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

And remember that the products are we'll get into the specifics here in a minute, but uh they're for the most part, they're fund of funds. So these own other funds inside of them to give them that diversification. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

DFAW and AVGE, not correct.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yeah, not not VT. That is a solely operated uh fund on its own. But anyway, okay, so you're gonna want to know which ones made more money. You're gonna want to know which one's cheaper. I know because I talk to you people all the time. It's just well, how much is it? And I don't want to spend any more money than I have to. We love that. Um, and which ones made more money? Here's the reality in terms of the performance, because this is the thing people go to first, anyway. For that two and a half year period that you can examine them side by side, right? 24, 25, and half of basically 26. AVGE has made a total return of 50 percent, VT 48%, and DFAW 47%. That's not appreciably different in any way, sense, or form.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yeah, but you know that's such a short period.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

It's very short. But here's the thing about that. You could clearly say that you can kind of reason why AVGEs made more in that period of time. Let's talk about AVGE for a moment. First of all, when it comes to remember, AVGE and DFAW are what they call factor-based funds. So they invest more in smaller companies, they invest more in value, they work with things like profitability, right? Momentum. There's things inside the fund that are different than a pure index. Those

Factor Tilts and Risk

SPEAKER_03 6:46

things, those particular parts of the market have done better than what VT owns more of, large sort of growth companies over this two and a half year period. That's why AVGE, which by the way is 23 basis points compared to the only six you pay at VT, has made more in, as Don said correctly, short period of time. But even when you boil that down, there's differences. So dimensional, for example, and thank you, Craig, for he provided this up front. I went back and looked to make sure it was right, but DFAW, for example, has a different look at profitability than A VGE in case it's not complicated enough. Um they look at fundamental accounting, whereas Avantis looks at cash accounting. So they don't include include accrual. These are things I don't think you need to worry about, right? The idea is they're exposing you to a factor that has shown over the long haul to provide a little bit of additional return, right? Um uh it's fascinating, though, that that these are considerations by some. DFA is has a different look at their their core factor exposures. And this again came from stuff that Craig found. Thank you again for that. Um to reduce turnover. They don't want to move the portfolio around very much. Avantis, more aggressive in their tilting. Remember, tilting is more to small, more to value, more to profitability, more to momentum, some of these other factors. None of those things would surprise you to know because Avantis is the up and comer. They've been the one that are they're you know, the rival, if you will, they're former people from uh dimensional. So they've been they've been doing all that. Um so the again, when I look at all this, and let's see, so there was I gave you the oh, DFAW, by the way, because uh just to give you the cost comparison again, A VGE at 23 basis points, DFAW is 25 a little bit more, and VT at 066 basis points.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Here are here's another really interesting fact, though, that I discovered in looking at these three funds. The Vanguard Total Stock Index, you'd think that was the total global stock market. Hmm. You'll just listen to these numbers. VT has just barely over 10,000 stocks in the portfolio as of its most recent report. Okay? 10,000. AVGE, the Avantis Global Equity, has 11,500.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

11,000, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

11,500. DFAW, 13,700.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Yeah, and so because you know what the difference is?

SPEAKER_02 9:25

What is the difference? What does VT leave out that these other two put in?

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Which asset class? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

I don't know that. Frontier markets?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Let's tell what people what frontier markets are.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Frontier markets are the below emerging markets. Nigeria could be a frontier market, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

And who has those? The DFAW and AVGE. Not included in VT, which some people could call more conservative as a result of the Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

And the other thing is microcaps. VT limits itself to small caps, microcaps. I don't even remember where the breakpoint is for micros anymore. Is it nine ten in terms of the 10 million uh uh uh capitalization?

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Yeah, small, small, small.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

So uh what's really interesting is that that tells you that VT is a much more conservative fund. That also explains a part of the difference in the fee structure because buying stocks in emerging or in frontier markets and microcap markets involves larger spreads, higher costs of trading, just trading costs in those markets. So uh it's um they're different. You're right. I mean, there's a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

So this is you said it correctly ten minutes ago. This is really up to you. If you say I just want to own the globe in an index, VT is your best spot.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

I want to own the safer globe in the index.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

It's it's more conservative. If I want to have, oh, you know, some exposure to the factors, if you will, then I would say it's DFAW. If you want to take a little more risk, right? You want to you want to own, and by the way, it's interesting that that AVGE still owns more stocks than VT. I would love to know the percentages in each one of those asset classes because I bet you AVG still owns more small value and internationally small value. Of course they do. All those things. So it's it's riskier. It has to be by owning those securities.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

This is why I keep saying we we could just end our show if everybody understood this one premise. We would never have to do another podcast about investing, ever. One premise. DFAW and AVGE, Dimensional and Avantis, are sold based on higher expected returns based on academic research. Why do you get higher expected returns? Only one reason. Higher expected risk.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Yeah. You've got to live with greater volatility.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

And that applies to the entire world of investing. All you have to do is look at what is the promised or expected return. If it's higher than this other safer product, this other product, then it's a riskier product. In one way, shape, manner, or form, it's riskier. If it promises more or delivers more, it may you may not see the risk yet, but you'll probably see it someday. But it is more risky, I guarantee that. That is the one thing I can guarantee is that an investment that pays more and is expected to pay more must somewhere have more risk affiliated with it. Sorry, that's the way it works. You can't have your cake and eat the whole thing and it still be sitting there on the counter. I'm gonna eat it.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

So, okay, so to go back to the where we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Because it gets stale if you just leave it on it.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

It won't matter to me. Go back to where we started. You're gonna ask us which is the best single fund solution. And I'm gonna say, and I hate saying it because it's Don's line. It depends. It depends on who you are, what you're trying to accomplish, how much risk you want to take, um, and what kind of portfolio matches up what you're trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

That's which brings us back to our other simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple rule for building a portfolio. Know your risk profile. Because once you know that, then you can answer the question, how much risk can I stand taking? But the even bigger question, how much risk do you really need to take?

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

If you're set, why are you stretching for ri to for higher returns when you don't need them?

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yeah. I think that's what they just want.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Is it you want to die with more money? Why? Why? You'll be dead. No matter where you go after you're dead, no matter where you believe you go after you're dead, you're not going to be taking money to any of those places. There's no there's no afterlife bank, there's no in the ground bank, there's no reincarnation bank, uh whatever your belief is, no one has taken their money with them.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah, or unless it's the final episode of Outlander, and you might be dead, you might not be dead. So I haven't watched Outlander.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

I gotta convince Debbie.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

It's a good show, you sure? I enjoyed it, yeah. And you know I'm pretty cynical about time traveling.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

You are. I am too, a little bit. The time travel things. I like science fiction, but the time travel, because I know time travel can't happen. It just is physically impossible.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

Yeah. There's the the the time-space continuum. And by the way, thank you, Craig, again for this topic suggestion. Guess what time it is?

Listener Questions Begin

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Talking real money question time. No, I won't. I won't. I won't do another question.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

This question goes right to the heart of the matter that we just discussed from Matt in Hyde Park, Utah. Um he says, Don and Tom, greetings. First and foremost, thank you. I've loved the shift to podcast only and no advertisements. Wait, killed all the ads? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I killed the ads. They I really they they were annoying.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

And made me feel important though to listen to the case.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

They weren't making much money, so nobody missed it.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Such a nice listening experience, you said. I also hope you don't push the podcast to 20 minutes as the 30 to 40 minute episodes are even better. Okay, you're just we're shooting for 20 to 40.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

We usually end up right around 30. Yeah. But we're not gonna time it. It's however long it goes. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

I've told you this before. Your podcast is my favorite, and I look forward to it every weekday. Yay. Matt, we got a doctor we're gonna take you to go see. All right. Uh, here's my question. You guys suggest one fund solutions pretty often, such as VT or A V G E. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I personally have a three fund portfolio of U.S., Total International, and AVUV Small Value. I've been tempted to go to a one-fund, but my frugal side can't get past the expense ratio issue, as my current three fund portfolio has an expense ratio of 0.6. If a one fund solution is such a good idea, why do financial advisors tend to add multiple funds? I know a few advisors who don't do this, but most do. I bet you guys at your firm have an average of six to fifteen funds in your portfolio. Please correct me if this is accurate. It seems the main reason advisors do this is to make themselves look more intelligent to their clients and lead them to believe that portfolio management is complicated, which it is not. I'm guessing the outcomes of one port one fund portfolio and ten fund portfolio is often close to the same. Um, Rob Berger, your uh YouTube truth teller, says that you would manage a ten thousand dollar portfolio the exact way as a five a five million dollar portfolio. I tend to agree with him. What say you?

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Okay. Good question. Good question. A lot of stuff in there. Thank you. I can't. One thing that I want to question myself is your six-tenths of one percent. Was it six? No, did he say six? Yeah, six one hundredths. Six one hundredths, no way. I'm sorry, but there's no way.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Yeah, I don't know what those sort of thing is.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Because if he has A V U V in there, that's twenty-five basis points right there. So that's going to skew the number up. If he has an international and a U.S., the international is going to skew it up a little. I don't I don't see how unless everything is in just like VT and a little bit of a but even then it can't be six.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

No, it can't be six, because you've got the twenty-three in there anyway.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Whatever. That's just a quibble. Okay. That's a quibble. All right. Here's the deal.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Yep.

Why Advisors Use More Funds

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Um if you over overweight things like value and small and other other factors like profitability and momentum and things like that, you really get in and you tweak over and above what DFA and Vanguard are doing based on each individual's risk profile. There is actual evidence, actual evidence, by the way, from Vanguard and from Dimensional, that shows that your expected based on the past return might be a few basis points higher in each of those things. And then when you add it all together, that becomes several basis points higher, which when you have a larger portfolio, which is what most people who deal with an advisor have, usually you're in the seven-figure area when you're dealing with an advisor now. That starts to become real money, these little tiny incremental bits and pieces. But you're right. There is a portion of earning your keep to that, I think. A little bit. I think there is a perception of the. Oh, there are lots of things to consider. It's actually managing money is complicated.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

It's not tax loss harvesting. Right. There you go. Which you really can't do with one fund. But if you have many funds, and some have done this, and some have zigged and some have zagged, and you can book losses, that can be important, especially if the portfolio is larger than $10,000. Number two, there are things you can rebalance better with using more than one fund, right? Because I'll give you an example. The last year, so I imagine that, and I didn't go look at the rules, but a DFAW, for example, it probably rebalances the portfolio every few days, weekly, something. In other words, if anything's out of sync in what percentage it should hold in the portfolio, it's going to change.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

It's immediately changed.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

It's changed. Conversely, a professional managed portfolio may let those winners run a while longer, and then you're the momentum that you get from that adds to the portfolio value. So that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

And by the way, they adjust essentially daily.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Okay. I knew it was very quick. So that again, you're right, Don, we don't know what the future holds, but in a general sense, that rebalancing ability probably pays off in your favor.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

And actually, where if you really want to read a detailed explanation of this and a number of other factors that make hiring an advisor make sense financially, go online and look for Vanguard's Advisor Alpha paper and read the whole study because it gets into these weeds, the the tax management, the uh the expected returns, the a lot of the things that an advisor does that go over and above just having a bigger portfolio. That's just a tiny little, as a matter of fact, portfolio management. Read the paper. You'll find portfolio management is less than a third of the expected added return that an advisor can bring to a person's portfolio. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Tax loss harvesting, rebalancing, risk management, those are things that can be done better. I will say this. It's more personalized, too. Yeah, I will say this, because I do see this from some advisors, non-fiduciary advisors. Oftentimes they have 20 funds in a portfolio. Not because they're trying to build the best portfolio, because they're trying to cover their you know what as best they can. So oftentimes people say, Well, I want index funds. Oh, you have two index funds in there. Oh, I want to own this. Oh, you have all that. And it's a total mishmash. A hodgepodge. Yeah, I was gonna say that, but I didn't want to steal your thunder. That's okay. So that's not right. But a properly covered designed to steal your stuff, sure. Yeah. Uh it makes sense. So, but thank you, Matt, and it's a very thoughtful

Fractional Real Estate Risks

SPEAKER_03 21:45

question. All right. Moving on from David in Murana, Arizona. I think it's the second time we've been in Murana, Arizona recently.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Don't remember going, but you know, I could have been drunk.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Beautiful place. Please tell me your opinion on the real estate income funds like. Arrived. Oh, geez. I'm curious if they are a good investment. Arrived. Have they arrived on?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

There are lots of these that are selling to the general public. They're they're fractional ownership. They're uh they're kind of private. Arrived uh is a company that buys properties, a lot of single family homes. Holy moly mackerel. Uh and they you, along with other investors, own a portion of that home. Like, you know, here's a home, a house. An ugly house at that, with a thousand investors in this house. I mean, it is just a bad looking house.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

When I go to their website, what's the first thing I see?

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Houses.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

No. Nine percent. Nine percent. That's the first thing I saw on their website. Guaranteed nine percent.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Yeah, but here's the deal. Come on. Here's the deal. Um I mean, yeah, they've got some money. They're saying that their historical yield is 8.5, but they have some properties that are 12. But I'm telling you, look at some of these uh uh this really doesn't even matter. Some not all houses go up in value. If you buy a house and a neighborhood turns south, you can lose everything.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Don't you turn south and then go in the neighborhood?

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yeah. I mean if they go downhill. Oh if they fall apart.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Okay, but wait a minute. How could they create a nine percent yield off a home anyway?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Are they gonna be able to do that? Oh, because they're renting it out. I see. And they are hoping that the well, there it's a total return. So remember, they're also selling these houses after about five years. I see. So it's a rental return and then a profitability return, and their numbers work really well in a rising real estate market and in a hot rental market, which by the way, we've just happened to have had for the past several years in most of the country, except a lot of the flyovers. Uh so uh yeah, we've had a good market which allows them to look backward and say, hey, we're we've paid nine. Can they pay zero? Sure. Can they return negatives? Yeah. Can I get more? Oh, they've got an answer to the liquidity question. They said, while we expect that you will buy these for the complete term, we make a secondary market. However, you may make less than you expect if you sell in the secondary market and there are fees associated with it, and uh could be a terrible deal for you. So they've covered their dairier too.

unknown 24:44

No.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

So that's stuff is this stuff is high high return. Wait a minute. Oh, this one ties into the beginning of the show, too. High returns mean what?

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Fill in the blank. Risk, more volatility. You know that's the truth. Come on. So no, this would not be something we like. Uh and we only looked at arrived. We didn't look at I didn't go.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

I I can tell you all the others are similar in one way, shape, manner, or form.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

From Muckle Teo, uh, Washington.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

As a matter of fact, wait, there was just recently, I just read about this like in the last week, uh, a real estate deal, one of these kind of deals that turned out, and I'm not saying arrived is this, but it turned out that it's either horribly managed or was an outright scam, losing people millions. So you know, that's the other risk. You don't know these people. They can't lie online.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yeah, they can lie online. They and they have they have

Medicare Premium Worries

SPEAKER_03 25:41

your money. You can't go get it tomorrow. So, yeah, good. I like that. Um, Muckle Tia, Washington, Barbara. I'm a retired woman, 87 years old. My investments have dividends that last year totaled $16,000. Also, Social Security has readjusted my claim. I received more than twice what I once got for Social Security. I've up well, I'm assuming somebody passed on and gave you their benefit. I'm guessing that would be the case. I've upped the percent of uh tax taken from my SSA. Last year my gross income was $78,000. I'm worried that my income will reach $99,000 at some point and trigger Irma making payments to the IRS each year, but Irma worries me. Yeah, because that is the break, I think. Isn't it a hundred and something where you have to pay more your your premium goes up at that point? I always forget the numbers because they adjust them too. But if your question is what can I do about it? Not a lot. You could take less money, I guess, from your Well, but if they're paid out as dividends, I you know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Well you could get into something that doesn't pay dividends, I guess. You could move your money. That but but here's the thing. Again, uh how bad is Irma really?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

I forget what the month of goes up to.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yeah, here's the deal. I I believe okay, it's at 109,000 singles. 109, okay. 109. Okay, so your part B premium. See, this is we're equivalent over very little money. At $109,000, your Part B premium for Medicare is $203. Your Part D is zero.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

So you're paying $203. You're at uh from $109 to $137, she's not going to go above $137. Doesn't sound like it. Her Part B is going to go up to $284, $82 more. Yeah. Part D will go up to $1,450. So making her monthly increase is yeah, it's right, it's right just eleven hundred dollars a year. A year. Yeah. All of this consternation and frustration and and and scrambling for $95 a month. It's not that much. No. Well, and there's nothing you can do about it. If you make more than a half a million, how much is it then? Uh your extra monthly is $578. But you're making over half a million dollars. You can afford it. You can pay it. You can pay it. I mean, really, what is it with us? We are obsessed with it. It's the is it it was Ben Franklin who who said penny wise, pound foolish, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 28:26

It was.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Yeah. Uh think about this. You're being penny freaky and pound stupid.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

By the way, there's uh having just arrived off the continent, there's many places that are far worse. I think somebody told me when I was in Italy that only half the people there pay taxes at all. They hide their income, they just they just don't pay into the systems.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Uh okay, we got time for one more here.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah, but if you want to go to 30 minutes, we gotta do one more.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Uh Portland, Oregon.

Selling Winners Without Taxes

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Yeah, we'll still take a question from Oregon. Tyler, uh, Tom and Don, I found you guys too late. Oh no. I'm in the accumulation phase, and over the last six years started with buying single stocks. By mostly luck, I have a portfolio of primarily tech stocks that is up significantly. I think Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Google. Yes, those have all made a lot of money. Uh I've turned off DRIP, which is the dividend reinvestment plan. So hopefully we'll be able to slowly change the weighting of my portfolio over time. You're gonna love the question. Guess what the question is?

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Taxes.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Yep. Any suggestion how to get out of this without while reducing my capital gains hit. I would be in the highest tax bracket if I were to sell them and do not have enough losers.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Well, don't sell them all. Do it over them slowly. Do some tax planning so you don't bracket creep. That's how you manage it, but you moved into the I I do love this. We we make here's the we make a lot of money. This guy made a lot of money. He got lucky and he made a lot of money. We want to keep it all. We want to keep every last cent. I don't want to share with the government. Do you drive on highways? Are there schools in your neighborhood? Um, do we have an Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps and Space Force and Coast Guard? Okay. I was waiting for Coast Guard. I was gonna throw them in. Okay, please. Are any of those things semi-important to you? If so, pay your damn taxes.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Guy, you're tough. So, okay. Um there's uh but he's looking for the trick.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

There is no trick except manage it, planning.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Yeah, something. I I I I'm kidding there. But yeah, there's no other than that. I would have a strategy grand cayman's. I forget all the taxes. Yeah, I don't know. I say Nevis.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

But I maybe Nevis and St.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

I don't know. Don't don't don't hike your bracket. You're right. Do as best you can, take it over five years. And by the way, in those five years, maybe some of them go down a little bit and you have some you know losses to offset too.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Okay, wait. Okay, hold on. Hold on. That comment right there is like maybe I'll have less money and I won't have to pay taxes.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

As much tax. Wait, wait, wait, lose money. That's a good idea. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that is a great way to reduce your taxes.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Okay. Yeah, buy Dogecoin. Go ahead. There you go. You want to lower your bracket? Buy Dogecoin. There's other coins, by the way, that can lose. I just like the Dogecoin because it was started. The thing about Dogecoin, unlike all the others, it was literally started as a joke. And it became worth billions of dollars.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

There's a politician, I believe, who started with a coin that was worth $165, and it's now worth, I think I read recently 13 cents or something.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

So Liberty. Yeah. Liberty Financial.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

Down a lot.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

So if I got the numbers wrong after the case, poor souls who got into that. Something that was on last week tonight with John Oliver. You should watch the la the a couple

Buc-ee’s and Crypto Aside

SPEAKER_02 32:09

of weeks ago. By the way, uh you don't have these where you live. We do. Son? Uh no, Bucky's.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

No, we don't have Bucky's.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

No. For those who don't know, Bucky's holds the record for the most gas pumps at any gas station in the world.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

This is the Don's favorite place to visit when he's out on the road.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

No, I can't. We went and got gas the other day, and I went, I've got to stop doing this. This place, the prices are great. Everywhere else, gas was $389, $399. At Bucky's, it was $379. I went, eh, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

So you add it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

But it was a madhouse, absolute madhouse. But anyway, that wasn't what the story was about. You were talking about Bucky's because? Well, Bucky's is a a bunch of places to fuel your car. They're for cars, not even trucks, just cars. And it's a giant grocery store, actually, snack and junk store. They have a logo of a little beaver. Turn to the side with a little red hat on.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

You don't actually have to turn to the side.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Bucky Beaver. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Shocking.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Um Well, the and the funny, the founder of the company's nickname was Bucky Beaver.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

So which he got from a cartoon, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

Is there a point of all this?

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Makes oh much more. Yes, there's a because it the irony is just dripping.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

They've taken to suing every single company in America that has an animal, a cartoon animal mascot on their logo. Doesn't matter what it is, alligator, moose, doesn't matter if it's a cartoon mascot, they're suing. Gotta be expensive. No, they're the the what's happening is these people are all dropping their cartoon mascots because they can't afford to fight the suits. Oh. They're just giving them to old Bucky. So John Oliver, who's very funny, he's very liberal, but he's very funny. He's won all kinds of Emmys and things. Sure. His group, his writers and all came up with the idea of creating a cartoon logo for their s they have a squirrel that shows up on the I'm not gonna go there. But anyway, they put they created merchandise with their cartoon squirrel looking almost exactly like the Buckeys logo. And and are selling merchandise with this new logo on it called Buck Off. In hopes that Buckys will sue them.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

It's a funny bit.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

Because you'll sell a billion more of the whatever.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

And in that same episode, they talked about crypto. So anyway, um Liberty Financial.

Questions and Closing Notes

SPEAKER_03 34:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Okay, we're done. Time's up. Time's up. You want to send us questions, just go to talkingrealmoney.com and uh hit the button that says ask a question or record them in the lower right-hand corner with the little mic button. And let's see, what else? Oh, if you want to meet with uh an appella advisor just for a few minutes to get some like to have somebody look at your portfolio and go, why do you have 20 funds and 33 stocks?

SPEAKER_03 35:12

No, it's more than just a few minutes, too. We analyze every security you hold and give you a nice report that shows you how diversified you are, how much you're paying, how much risk you're taking, all those things.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Okay, but to see that just adds to the cost.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

It's free. I just said it's free. It does not come with a cute little cart cartoon character, though. So sorry.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

I think we should put them on the cover. I don't know about buttons. I don't think Apello wants to be sued. No. I know they don't. I know. I know they actually very careful.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Very careful.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Anyway, yeah. Click on the button that says ask an advisor. You can then have a meeting with an advisor. So there we have it. Um, who was the guy who wanted us to go long with our episodes?

unknown 35:51

I forget.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

One of the questions, and thank you.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Well, look, you got your wish. We went long. Because, you know, we don't care. We're just gonna sit here for however long it takes.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Talking real money.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

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