I'm unsure if I'm going to retire in my 50s, so when do I consider an after-tax bucket? My wife and I are 31, we're in the messy middle, we have a 27% savings rate and a six-figure investment portfolio.

but no boiling point yet. So what would you say to Josh? All right, I want to make sure I got the numbers right. He's 31, 27% savings rate and then what was right after that? He said six-figure investment portfolio, so he doesn't consider himself

in the, in the boiling point. Well, I mean, I'm high expectations, yeah. I mean, when you, when you start thinking about like, counts as boiling point, yeah. So, um, 100,000, six-figure portfolio, I'm just saying 100,000, you may be even more than

that. Let's say it was 200, 250,000. Well, all of a sudden, if you have a $250,000 portfolio and you make 10% on that money, the portfolio by itself, without you adding another dollar, made $25,000. That may very well be more than

you save in a year. So, that is an idea of when the boiling point begins to happen, like you begin to see the money just start to grow and build and grow and build and grow and build. And so, uh, you're asking the question, hey, I'm doing

the stuff that I'm supposed to be doing. I'm 31, but I'm in the messy middle. I'm not planning on retiring early. Should I be doing an after-tax brokerage account or when does that come in? Well, fortunately, we have a nine-step tried

And the process to help you figure out what you should be doing with your next dollar, Brian, can you hold the thing up? Do you have the thing you can hold up? Oh, I have two of them here, that's why I got confused. He saw two of them down

there and he didn't like when Spider-Man starts pointing. See, you had two of them, one's in the bond, you know, bound sections on that page. So what I love is you can follow the financial order of operations through and once you've, you know, you you've filled out your full

emergency reserve and then you've maxed out your Roth and you've done the spousal Roth and you've maxed out your 401(k) and you're at 27%. Here's what's unclear to me: Does 27% mean that you're

still inside the AEP? You're still at the process of maxing out your employer retirement account. If that's the case, I think he could keep doing that. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that and a lot of people find themselves in that place where I'm able

to begin maxing that out and I hang out in Step 6. Or if you're already at the 25% and you're satisfied that, I don't think it's crazy to go to Step 7 if there are goals that you have that a taxable bridge brokerage account might

help you complete. And that's what we often talk about is when does that account come in? Well, it begins to come in when there are goals you think about funding that that might be utilized for. Yeah, I I mean I'm going to get philosophical here because I'm the older

One, I get to do this because I'm the sentimental one. Also, Josh is, I mean, I resemble this in some ways, and I've shared with you guys that I thought I was leaving the workforce at 50. And that's why, if you ask me my why back in

the 20s, that I started saving in an aggressive manner. It's cuz I wanted to be able to leave work at 50. Now here I am, beyond 50, um, not leaving work anytime soon. I actually absolutely love what I do. I'm still very thankful of my 20-some

year-old self that was saving because it gave me more flexibility and options. So I'm, I'm not, you know, if you're looking for us to say quit saving, I, I look back and my older self now talking to my younger self, I'd say no, keep, keep saving.

But here's where the sentimental version of myself kicks in. I want you to take inventory of where you are. You're in your early, early 30s, messy middle, the messy middle. So that means spouse, kids, take inventory of how you feel like you're doing and be honest with yourself.

on not only being a good, prolific saver, but also maximizing life. And do you feel like there's drama within your family because you caused the financial mutiny? You were leaning a little closer to financial miser and maybe you, you and the family didn't do vacations, or maybe

y'all didn't um, make memories in the best way possible, or you created some hard feelings because of some of the ways that you, your family's calling you a tightwad. Take inventory. That now there's another side of this is that because I found myself on this is that

if you get to stages of life like in your early 30s where you know every one of those dollars is still so valuable cuz remember when you're 20 every dollar can become $88, has that potential. When you're 30 it's $23, when you're 40 it's

$7. So you do have a huge responsibility is that there's a huge power and just the value of your time when you're younger. So I would ask you take inventory of your life but then say you know I still feel like we're maximizing

life, we go on great family memories, we have vacations, my spouse is not upset with me, my kids don't feel like I'm some jerk who, who you know, yells at them because you know I'm not being a good father or whatever else and we're making

memories. Then there's nothing wrong with you saying well if I don't have a purpose for this money, you know, if you've taken account on being charitable but you just don't have a need for it, I'd still save it because a lot of

problems I see with people, like I remember this is a number of years ago I had an attorney come to me, he was making over $300,000, and then I said well let's see what you had saved and it just wasn't enough. I mean it was, it was a few

hundred, but I was like how are you ever going to retire at your age? I didn't say this, I was thinking this cuz I'm not a mean guy in person but, but the, the, the bigger your income is and if there's a

big disconnect between what your expenses are and your income. If they stay really close, but you never built the margin of savings, you're going to find that it's hard. And that's why I'm saying sometimes I have forced scarcity in my life, is where if I feel like I'm

checking all the boxes on the memory making and I'm being generous with charities and other things, I'll just keep saving and investing because I feel like that at some point in the future I might need that money. And it's it's never failed me so far. I think about all

the opportunities of buying commercial real estate, investing in businesses, buying equipment, that we don't know if the things we're doing with a social media channel is going to bear fruit. But I was thankful that in that season where I had plenty that I was

able to put a little bit extra aside, and versus just saying maybe this is, if I don't have a why to it, just going into more lifestyle, that that never seemed valuable. I I always consider myself a builder, not a consumer. And I think that

that that that understanding of maximizing both the sentimental stuff but also wanting to be a builder versus a consumer of life, um, never has failed me to this point. That's I love that. When do you think Josh should consider the after-tax bucket? I mean, if he's if he's

at step seven and he's, you know, he's loaded up all the tax-favored retirement accounts, 401Ks and everything else. Yeah, that's where that probably that extra savings, cuz that's where when you get into if you're doing real estate or other investment opportunities, the the

The easiest access to this point is going to be that after-tax account, but what if he's not doing it yet because he's still trying to get to 25% inside of Step Six? Does he have to start building the after-tax? Is it okay if he's doing Roth and

doing HSA and doing 401(k), especially at 31 in the messy middle? Is it okay if he just stays on that path as long as he's got his emergency reserves respected, meaning Steps One and Step Four? Because there is no replacement to access to good cash, but I think it's okay to lean

into the tax-favored stuff while you are in that building phase because if the government's going to give you an incentive, take advantage of it. Because believe me, once you get to a level of success, you're going to be like, 'Why is

the government no longer working for me? Why do they feel like they're taking so much?' It, it, it does flip on you at some point. Love it.

What You Need To Know To Retire Early

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What You Need To Know To Retire Early

What You Need To Know To Retire Early

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