Latest / The Personal Finance Club Show / Tax Brackets, HSA Millionaires, and Real vs. Fake Christmas Trees | Ep 14

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Tax Brackets, HSA Millionaires, and Real vs. Fake Christmas Trees | Ep 14 · The Personal Finance Club Show

0:12
Welcome back to the Personal Finance Club show.
0:15
Hey, Jen. Hello Jer, how are you?
0:18
Good, you were just on vacation in Mexico.
0:20
I saw some ticky talks with mom. Yes, my mom's 65th birthday.
0:25
We went to Mexico, to Cabo. We had a time, a little resort,
0:31
and I just wanted to talk about my little time with the resort
0:34
had like included things, right? So there was like a sister
0:37
resort. So every night my mom and I went
0:38
to these shows and there was a Michael Jackson impersonator.
0:42
He's from Ecuador and he's the only Michael Jackson
0:46
impersonator in Cabo in Mexico. Sorry, according to this resort,
0:50
that's. What I loved about the
0:51
accomplishment? Show is amazing, mostly because
0:54
Michael Jackson's music is amazing.
0:56
But what I loved about this is that there was like standing
0:59
room, like my mom and I had to wait 20 minutes just to sit
1:01
down. Mind you, the night before
1:03
Chicago, we walked right in there.
1:05
There was no way. There was plenty of seats left.
1:07
Michael Jackson. That's how famous Michael
1:09
Jackson is, that in Cabo there was a impersonator from Ecuador
1:14
and there was standing room only for an impersonator.
1:17
This man has been dead for like 20 years.
1:19
Yeah, exactly 20 years after he died still.
1:21
Yeah. Yeah, he is.
1:22
He was a different level. People talk about what were we
1:25
talking about the other day? If if like Taylor Swift was as
1:28
big as Britney Spears, something like that.
1:30
And I say yes, but like, I think like Michael Jackson, The
1:34
Beatles, probably next level, A level that no one really has
1:39
reached. Yeah, my mom and I ended up
1:41
watching like a YouTube of him and it was like Budapest or
1:44
something, like Bucharest or something like that, and people
1:47
were just faint. I think it's probably the video.
1:49
They circulated a lot. They were just constantly
1:51
fainting. For the 1st 2 songs, they were
1:53
just pulling people out of the audience that had fainted.
1:56
And he didn't do anything for a good like 90 seconds.
1:59
He just stood there like he turned his head once at like 60
2:01
seconds in. But it was pretty banana.
2:03
So much so like, and we had the time.
2:05
That's the like. The problem is like it wasn't
2:06
even like we were just like man, it's not Michael.
2:08
It was like we still had a time because that's how iconic the
2:10
songs are and like the moves, so.
2:13
And how many fainted for the Ecuadorian impersonator I?
2:16
Almost fainted because we had to wait 20 minutes.
2:18
Yeah, it's just fun. Just some fatigue, OK.
2:21
Yeah, well, maybe that's the problem.
2:24
But worth it. Loved.
2:25
It nice. Well, I'm going to make a note
2:27
to to track that guy down for my next Mexican I follow.
2:29
Him on Instagram, he only had like 1000 followers.
2:31
I was like, really? It's different in Mexico.
2:34
That's awesome. OK.
2:35
Should we get into? It let's do it.
2:37
Let's talk about personal finance.
2:39
Let's do it. OK, explain it like I'm 5.
2:46
We are going to talk about tax brackets.
2:49
I, I said how do they work? But really I, I guess the better
2:52
question is like, why does it matter?
2:54
Why do tax brackets matter? Yes.
2:56
OK, so explain the US tax code to a 5 year old in approximately
3:00
3 minutes. No problem.
3:02
Setting you up for success, huh? Yeah.
3:04
Tax brackets are a very integral concept to learn because I think
3:08
a lot of people misunderstand them and then maybe make bad
3:11
finance decisions. And so the like, the core of
3:15
this misunderstanding is when someone says, hey, I'm going to
3:19
get a raise at work, I'm not even sure if it's worth it
3:22
because it's going to push me to a new tax bracket and I'm going
3:25
to take home less. And sometimes I hear people like
3:27
say I'm actually have less, I'm getting, I'm, I'm taking home
3:30
less money because I'm a higher tax bracket.
3:32
And that's impossible. That never happens.
3:35
And OK, in the last episode I promised and I will continue
3:38
this episode. I'm going to always make a
3:40
metaphor that maybe a 5 year old could understand.
3:42
I'm actually very excited. And so imagine a set of stairs
3:46
like the staircase at your home if you live in two-story home,
3:50
or just any set of staircase. And imagine you get paid in
3:55
candy bars like a big old Snickers or Three Musketeers or
4:00
a Milky Way or a not a Twix. Twix comes in 2 packs and that
4:04
kind of gets Twix. Gets 2 strays OK.
4:06
Well, I just it just it's adds level complexity that we can't
4:09
'cause what it is it 1 Twix per step is A2.
4:12
You know we need a single bar. Butterfinger would be fine.
4:14
Oh. But it gets stuck in your teeth,
4:17
for me at least. Have you had the Butterfinger
4:19
problem? Yeah, I think we've all had that
4:21
problem. I haven't even thought about a
4:22
Butterfinger in probably 10 years.
4:24
Because of that, I'm like, I don't want to lose a tooth.
4:26
I think my last Butterfinger was when I was like 11 years old
4:28
but. Yeah.
4:30
Here we go. OK and there's also a candy bar
4:33
eating monster who will take a bite.
4:35
But the the monster wants you to have some candy.
4:39
So the when you like do a little chore, you get a new candy bar
4:44
and it's placed on the next step.
4:46
So your first candy bar is on the first step, the second candy
4:48
bar is on your third, second step, 3rd and 3rd.
4:50
And so let's say you do 3 chores and you get 3 candy bars in each
4:54
of the steps, right? And so on the, the first step
4:57
the, the monster says, hey, I'm not going to take any bites of
4:59
that one. That's your first one.
5:00
You get to keep the whole thing. The second candy bar the monster
5:03
takes a little itty bitty 10% bite, you know, only 110th of it
5:06
the monster takes. And the third step they take
5:08
like a 15% bite and all that to like the 10th step.
5:11
And the 10th step they eat 37% the monsters 37% of the candy
5:15
bar. And so each of the.
5:17
And so when you, if you do another chore, even though the
5:20
can't, even though the monster's taking a bigger bite from the
5:24
previous step, it doesn't mean that you end up with less candy,
5:27
You still end up with more candy.
5:29
And so if you, if you do 10 chores and you get up to that
5:32
10th step, your last candy bar, instead of being the full candy
5:36
bar, it'll only be the, you know, whatever it is, the 63%
5:40
candy bar, because 37% is going to the monster, AKA the federal
5:44
income tax government. But in the first candy bar.
5:50
And so when people say, oh, I'm going to push a new candy, I'm
5:52
going to push a new tax bracket. That means you like taking
5:54
another step up and your new income above all the previous
5:57
steps is going to be taxed at a higher rate.
6:00
But all those previous steps is still safe at their rates.
6:03
And that's what marginal means. Marginal means only from that
6:06
point forward is that new tax bracket in effect.
6:08
And so when someone's saying, hey, I don't even want to do
6:11
another chore, it's not worth it.
6:12
I don't end up with less candy. No, it's not true.
6:14
You're going to get more candy. You're just not going to get as
6:16
much more as you would have gone for your very first chore.
6:19
And you know, I think philosophically, marginal tax
6:24
brackets are a good thing, right?
6:26
Because someone who's making $2,000,000 a year and then makes
6:30
another $100,000 and they go from 2 million to 2.1 million,
6:33
that $100,000 isn't very meaningful to their ability to
6:39
live a, you know, reasonably healthy life, right?
6:43
And so if that gets taxed at 37% or even 50% or even like in a
6:46
90% like it did back in like the 50s when marginal tax brackets
6:51
were really high, like that person's still going to have
6:53
their first $2,000,000, that's safe.
6:56
Whereas if it's your first $100,000 you're making, you
6:59
know, maybe 100,000 is too big. If it's your first $50,000
7:01
you're making, then you're going to kind of like need all that
7:04
money. You're going to really it's
7:05
going to make a big impact. So I would prefer that first
7:08
100,000 tax very, very low and like 0 or 5 or 10%.
7:11
And that last 100,000 like over 2 million tax very, very high.
7:15
That's the general concept anyhow.
7:16
We could get into like all sorts of problems with the tax code,
7:18
but that's, that's marginal tax brackets.
7:21
And so if someone ever tells you, hey, I'm going to push
7:24
another tax bracket, it's not even worth it.
7:26
I'm going to have less money. Say that's not true and tell
7:28
them the story about the steps and the candy monster, how
7:31
you're all, all your previous steps are safe because the candy
7:33
monster only a certain amount of those, but the new candy is
7:36
going to be taxed a higher bracket.
7:38
And so even though your top tax bracket might be 37%, your
7:42
average candy bar is, you know, when you average all those about
7:44
the 37% and the 0%, it might be like, you know, 20% or
7:49
something. So that's what a marginal tax
7:51
bracket is. OK, yeah.
7:53
I have some questions about this monster.
7:54
I'm like, he's kind of like, fair because he won't eat all
7:58
your candy, but OK. Like metaphors about the US
8:00
government. I feel like a monster.
8:02
Eating your candy is a very A1 for the federal government.
8:05
It's like kind of chaotic, don't really agree with all his
8:08
decisions, you know, eating my candy at the end of the day.
8:13
But you know, there's, you know, he's got a heart of gold.
8:17
Maybe he's trying to do right at the end of the day, hopefully.
8:20
He's got a heart of gold. I'm gonna leave that there.
8:23
Let's move on to our next segment.
8:25
Money, Money. Can I ask a dumb one?
8:30
Yes, you can. Are you asking a dumb person are
8:31
asking a dumb question? We don't know.
8:33
Let's find out. OK, let's find out.
8:35
We have some. We had some questions, a couple
8:37
of questions actually about HSA. We had an anonymous question
8:40
that hopefully you'll just be able to kind of bring it all in
8:43
together. This question is from Brooks.
8:45
I don't know Brooks could be any gender, but Brooks asks.
8:48
For the past decade, I have been making the Max contribution to
8:51
my HSA and using it to pay for medical expenses.
8:55
In my family, our expenses meet our deductible most years.
8:58
Last year I heard from several people that I shouldn't use my
9:01
HSA to pay for medical expenses. Instead, I should invest through
9:05
my HSA and let that money grow. Triple taxed advantage, what do
9:10
you recommend paying for medical expenses now with untaxed
9:12
dollars or using the HSA as an investment account with tax free
9:17
contributions, growth and withdrawals?
9:19
Jeremy, talk to us. I do think he made a little bit
9:22
of an error that he said pay for the medical expenses now with
9:25
untaxed dollars. I think what he meant is taxed
9:28
dollars, he's already paid income tax on that money, then
9:31
he would use that post tax, already taxed money to pay for
9:34
his HSA contributions. So a little bit of ground
9:39
framework here. And HSA is a health savings
9:42
account. It's a bank account.
9:44
And the intention of that bank account is instead of putting
9:46
money into your checking account, which is gets income
9:49
tax when it comes out of your paycheck, you can put into an
9:52
HSAA health savings account. And then at tax time you can
9:56
say, hey, government, I put $5000 into my HSA.
10:00
Please don't tax me on that money.
10:02
And then they won't. You'll get it, you'll get the
10:04
refund, or it will have come out in the wash with your, your
10:07
withholdings, whatever it is. And so he talked about the
10:10
triple tax benefit. That's tax benefit #1 any
10:14
contributions into an HSA don't you don't pay income tax on.
10:19
So if you make $50,000 a year and you put $5000 into an HSA,
10:23
you're only taxed as though you made $45,000 a year.
10:27
That 5000 goes straight in tax benefit number 2.
10:30
Is it gross tax free? And so if I put that $5000 in
10:34
and let it sit for let's say 14 years, in which case that's time
10:38
to double twice, 5000 becomes 10,010, thousand becomes 20,000.
10:43
Now I have $20,000 in there from a 5000 original amount and that
10:48
money is still untaxed. You don't pay tax on any of the
10:52
growth or dividends you receive along the way.
10:54
And then the third tax benefit is if I withdraw that money, if
10:59
I write a check or use my debit card against that account and
11:02
pay for a qualified medical expense, going to the doctor,
11:06
the dentist, even things like sunscreen and preventative care.
11:09
There's a long list of what counts that isn't taxed.
11:12
And it's like the best tax advantage account, better than a
11:15
Roth IRA, better than a four O 1K, better than TSP.
11:18
It's better than all these because none of the other
11:20
accounts have no tax on the way in and no tax on the way out.
11:25
And So what Brooks's friends are telling them are saying, hey, by
11:33
paying for your medical expenses in the first year, you're really
11:39
only using one of those tax benefits.
11:41
You're it's going in tax free, which is good, but then you're
11:44
immediately taking out before any growth.
11:46
And so the, the growth tax free doesn't matter and then the
11:50
withdrawal tax free doesn't matter because you're there is
11:53
no growth to be taxed or there's no growth to be taxed on the
11:56
withdrawal. And so they're saying, here's
11:58
the strategy that they're suggesting.
11:59
I'm going to tell you, I'm going to explain the strategy and how
12:01
to do it. And then I'm going to tell you
12:03
if you should do it, which is his real question.
12:05
And so here's the strategy. You Max fund your HSA every
12:08
year. So for 2026, the Max
12:10
contribution you can make as an individual is 4400 or as a
12:14
family is 8750. So Brooks today has a family.
12:17
So the strategy is you Max fund your HSA, you put the 8750, then
12:21
when medical expenses come up, you don't pay for them out of
12:24
your HSA. Instead of grabbing the debit
12:26
card for your HSA, you grab your regular old credit card or you
12:30
know your regular old debit card.
12:31
You pay for it out of your checking account with already
12:33
taxed dollars. Then you keep all the receipts
12:37
for those medical expenses. So let's say I go to the doctor,
12:41
I get a $500.00 bill. I save that into a folder in my
12:45
Google Drive with the date set. It says, you know, December
12:48
11th, 2025 doctor appointment. And then I create a spreadsheet
12:53
and called HSA receipts and I say I logged the date, the
12:57
description, the amount, and then the refund status.
12:59
And so I have a very careful record of every single time I've
13:02
paid for medical expenses and whether or not I've reimbursed
13:05
myself from the HSA. Then after you do all that, you
13:10
wait many, many years. So you wait.
13:12
So like let's say you put in the $5000, it grows to $20,000.
13:15
Then in that 14 years later, you can then reimburse yourself.
13:19
You can take the $500 that you spent on a medical expense out
13:27
of the $20,000, and then you're left instead of with 4500 like
13:30
you would be today, you're left with 19,500, right?
13:33
Because that has had time to grow.
13:35
And you can transfer all these receipts you now have careful
13:39
IRS auditable records for from over the years, the HSA has
13:43
grown, grown, grown, grown, grown.
13:44
You can pay for all that with future dollars in today's costs,
13:48
right? So we know what things cost more
13:50
over time. So maybe the doctor appointment
13:52
today is $500. Maybe in 20 years it'll be
13:54
$1000, but you can pay for it with your grown money and only
13:59
pay the $500. Grown money, sorry.
14:02
Yeah, if you're grown, your own grown money and then when the
14:04
IRS comes and audits you, it says, hey, you just withdrew
14:08
$30,000 from your HSA at once proved to me those were for
14:11
medical expenses. You said, hey, I'm reimbursing
14:13
myself for the last 20 years of medical expenses.
14:16
And then you can take your $30,000 and then go buy a boat
14:19
with it or whatever because you, you know you're doing it right.
14:21
You're you did pay for it with out of your checking account
14:24
when it happened and now you're just reimbursing yourself.
14:26
You just happen to be reimbursing yourself years
14:28
later. This, as far as I understand, is
14:30
legal. Illegal.
14:32
I was about to ask. Consult your your CPA if you're
14:36
concerned about the legality things.
14:38
Am I crazy or are there HS as that are use it or lose it?
14:42
You're not crazy. Well, I don't know if you're
14:44
crazy, but this isn't the reason you're crazy.
14:47
What you're thinking of as an FSA, the bane of my existence,
14:50
because there's these two very similarly named accounts,
14:53
HSA&FSAHS as health savings account, FS as flexible savings
14:59
account. And a flexible savings account
15:01
is similar, but you have to spend it all by the end of the
15:03
year. And my advice for an FSA is
15:06
really simple. Never put a dollar in there
15:07
unless you're sure you're going to spend it.
15:09
If you are, then do, because you get the tax break from putting
15:12
it in. But you know, if you put $5000
15:14
in an FSA and you only spend 2000, you lose that money, which
15:17
is like mind blowingly crazy to me.
15:20
Yeah, OK. Gotcha.
15:22
So anyway, that's that's the strategy, which is don't
15:25
actually spend money out of your HSA now.
15:27
Wait until retirement or when you want to buy a house or years
15:31
and years later. That way you get that triple tax
15:34
benefit, not just the 1 tax benefit.
15:36
What's my take away? This kind of falls into like you
15:42
got to do a lot of things, right to make this work.
15:44
You have to keep very careful records.
15:46
You have to, you know, make sure that this is like defensible to
15:51
the IRS in case you're audited and you have to be paying for
15:54
money. You have to be paying with money
15:55
out of your checking account. Now, I kind of like the idea
15:59
that I can go to the doctor and not feel like it's hitting me
16:01
right in the pocketbook and say, OK, that is what this money is
16:04
there for. And I'm already getting this
16:06
great tax benefit. I'm not paying income tax and in
16:08
this money and I'm not paying tax and taking it out.
16:11
And so the way I operate my HSA is I keep about 1 to $2000 in
16:17
cash in there and the rest from over the years I let grow.
16:21
Brooks said that he basically spends it all every year, which
16:23
is fine for him. I might just keep doing that.
16:26
But you know, if you like what I said, you like that strategy,
16:29
you think that it's going to result in more money down the
16:31
road, go for it. But I think this might be one of
16:33
those things where people get so caught up in the nuance that
16:37
they're like, is it really even worth the effort if you make a
16:41
mistake or if it just adds, like, stress to your life?
16:45
Because I think, you know, 30 years down the road, are you
16:47
going to really have so much more money that's going to
16:49
really make a meaningful amount of difference to your life?
16:51
Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe not.
16:53
But I don't I I pay for things out of my HSA as they come up
16:57
and then let the rest grow for some future date.
17:01
OK, WWJD. What would Jeremy do?
17:04
Got it. Oh my gosh.
17:07
I think that acronym has been taken by some other slightly
17:11
more famous Jay. He's up there with, he's up
17:14
there with MJ and The Beatles. OK.
17:18
All right, Brooks, thanks for writing in hope that answered
17:20
your question. Let's move on to our next
17:23
segment, Scroll Patrol. Jeremy has not seen this video.
17:30
I got it from the Internet. This is a quick one.
17:32
So Jeremy, click on that link, watch that video, Let us know
17:35
what you think. All right.
17:37
I'm not buying that. That's way too expensive.
17:40
I don't even need that. Actually, I wouldn't even buy
17:42
that normally. I just oh, hold on, hold on now
17:46
that's a that's a good deal. That's a real good deal.
17:49
I don't know about that shipping, though.
17:51
Put two of those in my cart. Put two of those in my cart
17:53
right now. That's funny.
17:56
I like that. So yeah, if you're just
17:58
listening and not watching, that probably didn't make a lot of
18:01
sense to you. But basically there's a white
18:03
board that said Black Friday on it.
18:05
And then there's a price of 299 and he said $299.
18:08
He said that's too expensive. And then they wrote $600.00
18:11
above and crossed it out. And then he said oh that's a
18:13
good price. And then they wrote 51 dollars
18:15
shipping. He's like, oh, it's too
18:16
expensive. And then he crossed that out and
18:18
said free shipping. He said, oh it's a great price.
18:19
And so of course, you know, it's a, it's a funny video.
18:22
I really like it. It's really well executed.
18:24
I think it's true because I think a lot of companies do
18:27
this, but I think it speaks to a, a concept in personal finance
18:31
called anchoring, which is $299 by itself seems like a lot of
18:37
money, but when you compare it to 600, it seems very cheap.
18:40
And so a lot of times what companies will do and like, no
18:43
one's more guilty of this than like social media influencers
18:45
like selling courses like we are somewhat guilty of, but we don't
18:49
really do this that bad, but we do it a little bit.
18:52
But you know, sometimes influences they'll be like this
18:54
course is a $25,000 course. No, but now it's only 1000.
18:58
You're like, wow, 1000. And I'm like, wait a minute,
19:00
it's not $25,000 course. You just made-up that number.
19:03
But when you, when you think about $25,000, you think about,
19:07
you know, a year of spending at a university or the, you know,
19:12
the, a raise you might get, you're like thinking of these
19:14
really big terms and then $1000 seems small.
19:18
But if you're like, if you're like, oh, you can find all this
19:22
information in a book for $12.00 from Amazon or from $0.36 and
19:27
late fees from the library, or you can watch this guy read it
19:31
to you for $1000. Course you'd be like, that is
19:34
outrageously expensive. And so he's like really
19:36
demonstrating the real true human, you know, response to
19:42
price anchoring companies use all the time to justify their
19:47
pricing. And there's there's another
19:49
video I saw this Black Friday where someone was in Home Depot
19:52
and there's all these like Black Friday sales, like, like big
19:57
price tag, like the size of a sheet of paper.
19:59
And he like lifting him up. And underneath the Black Friday
20:02
price was the regular price, which was the exact same price.
20:06
And, you know, I'm sure that wasn't all.
20:08
And I'm sure there's some that are cheaper and some there is
20:10
the same or whatever. But certainly makes for like a
20:12
very poignant video where you're like, OK, like these are just,
20:15
you know, fake sales. And so I think as a consumer,
20:20
you just have to be aware of that and say, hey.
20:22
You know, like I say, you can, you can get 100% off anything
20:25
you don't buy. Just don't buy it.
20:26
You save 100%. Say that again.
20:29
That's like the real, that's a real Black Friday sales.
20:32
Just don't buy it. And and if you do buy, you know,
20:35
do do a little bit of research. It's a great site called
20:37
camelcamelcamel.com where we can paste an Amazon link and it'll
20:41
show you the price history. And you know, sometimes I'm
20:44
like, OK, actually legitimately this is as cheap as it ever
20:47
gets. But almost all the time the
20:49
price is just kind of like a little bouncy, like up and down
20:52
and somewhere it's maybe it's at the top, maybe it's at the
20:54
bottom, but it's not like this is some companies want you to
20:58
believe that there's like some very timely pressure.
21:01
Like it's usually super expensive.
21:03
It's very cheap, but only for a moment.
21:04
But usually that's not true. Usually the price is about the
21:07
price at any time of year or there's many, many sales
21:10
throughout the year where that would become the price.
21:12
So I like. Yeah, yeah, I mean, if all goes
21:14
well, this episode will be coming out December 18th, so
21:17
some of you last minute stragglers will be buying your
21:19
Christmas gifts right now. Don't just don't.
21:23
Just first of all, just don't be my family and I don't do gifts
21:25
which. You said are you be a proponent
21:27
of not buying any Christmas gifts?
21:29
I do. We don't do gifts.
21:31
It's so chill. We're all grown.
21:33
Well, there's no, there's no babies.
21:34
So like that makes it easier. Oh my God.
21:36
But like that, we're Grinches and we.
21:38
Just like we just chill and eat. But anyway, I just think that
21:41
you should not fall for the hype of like these huge, massive end
21:44
of year Christmas sales because they're probably not actually
21:48
deals A. 100 percent, 100%. You're gonna buy it, Just buy
21:52
it, but don't think you're getting some huge discount.
21:54
Yeah, and do and be aware, yeah, be aware of it.
21:57
And and I think waiting to buy, a lot of times if you wait to
22:00
buy something, you realize you don't even need it at all.
22:02
And so I think we're just delaying it by a month is even
22:05
if the sale goes away is on average a good decision because
22:09
maybe you wouldn't buy a few of those other things.
22:12
Period. So at Shawn dot Hermes, I have
22:15
never seen a kind of before that I'm aware of, but I give you an
22:18
A+ because I have no critique because I thought it was really
22:20
funny and it really illustrated the the topic well.
22:23
Yeah, I thought he was that. That's you in an alternate
22:25
universe like you would make some a video like that for sure.
22:28
I just do the same thing in like blue infographic format.
22:31
He's like. No.
22:33
OK, cool. Last segment of the episode,
22:40
Jeremy had time today as I mentioned it is the holiday
22:43
time. So you just posted your post
22:47
real versus fake tree. What are we seeing here on your
22:50
Instagram? Post these these cute emojis.
22:52
All right, so Whitney on the left, she buys a real Christmas
22:55
tree every year for $80. Very reasonable, maybe even a
22:57
good price for a Christmas tree. Wendy on the right buys a fake
23:02
Christmas tree for $250, but she reuses it every year and then
23:07
she invests that extra $80 every year in an index fund.
23:11
Fast forward 50 years of Christmases later, Whitney has
23:15
50 dead trees and Wendy has $126,000.
23:22
It's my. Confession about this?
23:24
Yeah, well, so I did not make this post the back in the day
23:29
when Vivi and Shane were still working for Pfc.
23:32
Now they're working. That's why you put it in the
23:34
group chat. Yeah, yeah.
23:36
So Vivi and Shane made this post to me, to my eye, I'm like kind
23:41
of a robotic, like borderline autistic.
23:44
I just think this is the exact same post we've made every
23:46
single time, which is like spend less money, invest, you end up
23:49
with more money. It's like the the simplest
23:51
topic, but this post is like insanely popular.
23:54
The the first time we put we've reposted like for a few
23:56
Christmases now and the first time we repost, we posted it was
23:59
like the most popular post of the year.
24:01
And like I don't like all cut to Vivian Shane, like they made it.
24:04
I don't get it. Like it's not a extraordinary
24:07
amount of money, but I think, I think, you know, my guess and
24:11
why it's so popular is that people.
24:13
They got emotional. Exactly.
24:15
It's like, how dare you? And I don't know what they're
24:17
saying. I.
24:18
Didn't even know what comment to pick.
24:19
I was like, they're heated. I don't even know actually.
24:22
Someone was like up on my DMS about this comment too.
24:23
And they're like, they're like you're destroying the livelihood
24:26
of families and I'm like the hard earned gains of families.
24:30
And I was like, Oh no, I literally don't even know what
24:32
you're talking about. I'm talking about buying like A
24:34
and then she's like, Christmas tree farmers work really hard to
24:38
build a color because they're like, OK.
24:40
People don't play about Christmas.
24:41
You had a whole bunch of Mariah Carey's in your comment section.
24:43
Totally. And you know, no disrespect to
24:45
Christmas tree farmers, by the way.
24:46
Like I like, I'm sure they're really great people, but like,
24:49
you could literally make that argument about any frugality.
24:52
Like, yeah, like don't buy TV. Those TV employees work really,
24:55
you know, whatever. Like, you know, Christmas tree
24:57
farmers I think are a little bit more tangible because like,
24:58
they're real people cutting down trees.
25:00
But like, but like anytime you're not spending money,
25:02
there's someone selling the thing who you know is whose
25:05
business is going to be hurt by it.
25:06
So it it felt like an attack on small business to that person.
25:09
And I didn't mean for it to be anyway what the commenters say.
25:13
Yeah, I had a hard time picking which comment because some
25:15
people were lighthearted about it, but some people were like
25:18
Grinch, like you stole Christmas.
25:21
This commenter, they weren't. They wasn't such a hot take,
25:25
they said I used a fake $30 Garland for two years, two
25:29
months total of that time. It's very squished and ugly,
25:32
only enough to cover 1 bookshelf.
25:35
Just bought real bows for $40. It'll only last one month, but
25:38
it covers 2 shelves, fireplace, window, and two dresser tops.
25:42
It's gorgeous, smells good, and I don't need a giant tub to
25:46
store it in an attic. I have reached my savings goals
25:49
and this was one of those annual splurges that I hope to continue
25:52
because it brings me joy. She or I don't know the gender,
25:55
but they got really got after you because they were just like,
25:57
why would you take my joy? It's Christmas.
26:00
I think we could go out on a limb and say this is probably a
26:03
female. I don't know, I'm maybe I'm
26:05
pitting with a broad brush, but I've never I don't even know
26:08
these words like Garland and and bows.
26:10
I don't know what that means, but it's BOUGHS smell of.
26:15
Pine. Yeah, but I like the smell of
26:17
pine when I'm like out in the forests, like killing something
26:21
that used to be alive. No, I'm just kind of, I'm not a
26:26
vegetarian either, so I can't judge.
26:27
But all right. So my answer to this commentary
26:30
is like 100% go for it. When I post, you know, this
26:34
versus that type post, I think a lot of people think that like
26:38
I'm anti Christmas. If you spend money, you're it's
26:40
literally just a thought experiment being like, hey,
26:44
here's, here's one of a billion choices you make with money
26:47
throughout the course of your life.
26:49
Here's one of the impacts it'll have.
26:51
And you know, even my friends like Jeremy, you're not going to
26:54
like this. I bought a coffee or something.
26:57
I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm not the, I don't mean to be
26:59
the joy stomper. I just want someone to be
27:01
thoughtful about it. And this person is she's reached
27:04
her savings goals. It brings her joy like that is
27:08
100% winning with money like Bravo clap, clap, clap.
27:11
I don't know if my mic always picks up clapping.
27:13
I think it. Like I can hear it, yeah.
27:14
OK, you're doing it and the goal with everything in our content
27:19
is about living your best life, living a good life, being happy,
27:22
like maximizing the joy and and generosity of your life, not
27:27
being the richest cemetery in the graveyard, right?
27:30
You don't want to be the dead guy that's covered in gold coins
27:33
because that's not when your head's losing.
27:35
You didn't get to use it right. And.
27:37
So yeah, I have zero problem with this.
27:41
We we have a fake tree at home right now.
27:44
Got. A fake tree, I think it's.
27:46
More about like dead pine needles and right.
27:50
I'm just. Lazy things like that.
27:52
Yeah, laziness. It's not like I'm really banking
27:55
on my real tree savings to be my retirement or something like
27:58
that. I just think it's a little more
28:00
convenient. But I'm sure when our kids are
28:03
of the most magical Christmas age, we'll probably get a real
28:06
tree and and enjoy the pine. Wow, so you're a hypocrite.
28:09
You're not only the Grinch, you are a hypocrite.
28:11
You stole Christmas. Phoebe and Shane made this.
28:13
They're the hypocrites. Wow.
28:16
Actually they usually sign their name at the bottom, but I think
28:18
I might have replaced their caption with my caption beside
28:20
my name, so I might have stolen their.
28:21
Work plagiarism. I know I forgot that.
28:24
Oopsies. Amazing.
28:27
OK, so do what you want. This is just one example.
28:30
You can either buy a coffee every day or get a Christmas
28:32
tree. And I'm just getting that math,
28:33
not mapping. Well, OK, Merry holidays,
28:36
everybody. And hopefully this hit home.
28:39
And you don't think that Jeremy's the Grinch?
28:41
That's all. We have time for you today on
28:43
today's episode of the Personal Finance Club Show.
28:46
Thank you for listening and we'll see you again next week.
28:49
And don't forget to live by the 2 rules of Personal Finance
28:51
Club. Rule #1 Live below your means
28:53
and rule #2 invest early and often.
28:56
See you next time the. Personal Finance Club Show is
28:58
produced by Jeremy Schneider and Jen Wendia, music by Essa Balu
29:02
and Homie. Send your questions to podcasts
29:04
at personalfinanceclub.com. The Personal Finance Club show
29:08
is Co hosted by Jeremy Schneider who is a co-owner of Nectarine
29:11
and SEC Registered Investment Advisor.
29:14
The views expressed on this show are those of the hosts and
29:16
guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Nectarine.
29:20
Please refer to hellonectarine.com for all
29:22
relevant disclosures. This podcast is for
29:25
informational and educational purposes only and should not be
29:28
construed as personalized investment advice or a
29:30
solicitation to buy or sell any security.
29:34
Listeners should consult their own financial, legal or tax
29:36
professionals for advice specific to their situation.