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Dan Slagle  00:00

Everyone's situation is different, like you can go get generic guidance anywhere on the internet, but what I'm understanding is, like, you really, really need to know your own situation, you need to know your own numbers, know your own risk, you need to know, like, what is your definition of success. At the end of the day, the general rules out there don't apply to everyone.

Natalie Slagle  00:31

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Sligal, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner Dan Slagle, also a certified financial planner. Say hi, Dan.

Dan Slagle  00:46

Hello.

Natalie Slagle  00:47

In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So, grab your drink, get comfortable, and join us for our money dates. Hi, Natalie. hello Dan.

Dan Slagle  01:04

Happy spring,

Natalie Slagle  01:06

happy spring. I was thinking, how do we start talking without saying hello? And just hello just is nice. It's a good way to start off.

Dan Slagle  01:16

It's always nice to say hi, make direct eye contact, and just see where the conversation takes you, isn't that wonderful?

Natalie Slagle  01:23

That is wonderful. What are we going to talk about today?

Dan Slagle  01:26

That's a really good question. So I just want to start off by saying, you know, most financial advice is like built, it feels like, for just like the average person making just like average decisions, right? Sure, that's like the advice, the rules kind of at play when it comes to just general personal finance, but the reality is like a lot of our clients aren't average, I don't think you're average, heck, no one's average, every recommendation should be tailored to an individual person or an individual household, so what I'm getting at is there are a lot of different financial rules that most of our industry and most of the world tend to follow. And today I want to focus on what are the financial rules that you and I actually break, and the rules that we tell our clients, hey, it's okay if you break these two,

Natalie Slagle  02:21

I like this a lot, because we've broken them, like you said, we, we've told our clients to break them, and sometimes you need that, that permission, right? But you can't break them recklessly, like there has to be some analytics and intention behind

Dan Slagle  02:38

it.

Dan Slagle  02:38

Yeah, you have to know what the outcome could possibly be, and no alternative solutions to, if you break the rules, air quotes, for those of you who are just listening. By the way, Natalie and I are certified financial planners. We're co-founders of Fyooz Financial Planning. Just so you know, if you like the information you've been hearing, we are currently accepting new clients, and would love to entertain the opportunity to meet for a free consultation. We'll drop the link in the show notes. So, Natalie, these aren't reckless moves. Okay, I just want to start off by saying that the rules we're going to talk about that we break are not reckless moves, they are intentional ones, and there is a big difference between the two.

Natalie Slagle  03:18

Yes, absolutely. So, you know, when we're talking about what the pundits say in our industry, like, where is that coming from, and why does it not always apply to our listeners, to our clients, and it has to do with exactly what you're talking about, Dan, like there's breaking a rule with intention versus breaking it out of ignorance, out of breaking it without speaking to an expert. And today we're talking about breaking rules with intention. So, these rules - there's five of them that we're going to talk about today. And so I'm going to give you a quick tease, everyone, on the rules that that we talk about breaking with our clients. So the number one rule that we break, and that we broke, is starting a business is too risky. Starting a business is too risky. The second rule to break: donor-advised funds are only for the uber wealthy. Third rule: every kid should have a Roth IRA before they leave your house. Number four, renting is throwing money away, and number five, don't touch your portfolio before retirement. These are all the rules we've been told, and we are going to talk about breaking them today. So, let's start off with rule number one.

Dan Slagle  04:40

Yeah, let's do it. So, rule number one again, to reiterate, starting a business is too risky. I want to take a step back, and I do think there's risk associated with starting a business, but the idea of that it is too risky to go down that endeavor, I think, is a false narrative. So, of course, I always feel like I'm the stat person. Do you feel like

Natalie Slagle  05:00

they're the stack guy? All right,

Dan Slagle  05:02

I'll be the stack

Natalie Slagle  05:02

guy. I'm like, let's hear the stats for this

Dan Slagle  05:04

shirt that says stat guy. Well, according to 2024 data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, so very reputable source that we're working with

Dan Slagle  05:14

here,

Dan Slagle  05:14

only 20% of businesses fail in their first year. That number surprises me. It

Natalie Slagle  05:20

is surprising, because the what has been thrown around through conversations that I've had is half the businesses fail, and it's like, what data are you looking at? Because that's not necessarily true. It's actually only 20% of businesses fail within their first year. So go check the facts, everybody. So, I like that number, that

Dan Slagle  05:44

yeah, every business, every industry is different, you know. I think it's not only about getting through that first year, but thinking about what is the longevity of the business, right? So, in year one, based on those statistics provided, roughly 80% of businesses survive. If we fast forward to a five year period, about 50% of those businesses survive, and then as we get into the 10 year period, around I think it's like a little under 35% survive. So that survival rate actually decreases when we're looking at it from a different time period, right? The one five or 10 year period, and it's important to talk about why most businesses fail, and there's been research done. We're looking at research from CB Insights, based on like 100 startup post mortems, reveal like the most common reasons, and 42% no market need, so this to me stems to what is the business plan. Is there a market fit for the business you're creating? Right, so maybe by not identifying if there is a true avenue for future growth within your business, that to me explains why a lot of these businesses that did not succeed, why that did not exist, right at 42% showing no market need for what they're offering. That's pretty substantial.

Natalie Slagle  07:07

And I think that's it. Almost makes me question, why are you starting a business? You're either providing a service or a product. And when we created our business, we did the business plan. I remember Dan, I think you worked on that, actually a lot more than I did. So, thank you for that. But you provided all these stats on why we wanted to work with the clientele that we're working with, and why there's all this opportunity in such an untouched market, and there was a lot of just thought and research that we did, and the folks that we work with are highly educated, highly motivated. They're smart people. So, I'm like, I don't think the people that listen and our clientele are the type of people that would do no research and just say, "Hey, I'm gonna go start this hummus product and sell it and hope for the best, and I'm saying hummus, because I literally thought about creating a hummus line and selling, because I was really into making hummus, but I did no research, which is why it never came off the ground. But anyways,

Dan Slagle  08:11

that was your COVID passion, like you, that's when you were like, you got into, I want to start a hummus business, and

Natalie Slagle  08:17

hummus is

Dan Slagle  08:19

good,

Natalie Slagle  08:20

you know, I start going through the other, the other reasons why businesses are failing.

Dan Slagle  08:26

Yeah, so 29% out of that study ran out of cash. That's a direct correlation to the things that we help clients with. Obviously, from a personal side, we always want to make sure we have an emergency fund or liquid savings available should you need it. So, thinking about setting that also up for your business is going to be really important, and I think also leading into that, it's about even before you start your business. One piece of one thought I have around that, that we've experienced, and some of our clients have as well, is just making sure like we're being proactive in saving for those first few years of business, when revenue maybe isn't as hopeful as what you're expecting, right. We need to always have a good amount of cash on hand to weather any storm that may come your way, especially if it is like a slowdown within revenue. The other reasons are 23% of that survey a weak team, that's interesting, 19% out competed, and then 18% pricing or cost issues. So that kind of rounds out the list as like the top reasons why businesses within this specific study did not, did not survive. The stats are really informative because they can all be addressed, knowing 42% of the time businesses fail is because there's no market need. Okay, do your market research. 29% you ran out of cash. Well, a lot of our clients, they've been high earners for a long time, so they've built up the cushion, and we, like you were saying, Dan, we really make those projections on the business is not the expense.

Natalie Slagle  10:00

Expensive thing here, it's you being just a person living in this world, your livelihood is what's expensive. How do we make sure that you don't need to make money from the business for a long time? So I really like having the reasons on why they don't work as a reason or as a motivation to say hey, you can do this, and we have seen ourselves and our clients take this venture into starting a business, and it has been insanely profitable and a great setup for their family, the autonomy, the flexibility, and if I, if I could just, for anyone who wants to start a business, I just feel like this is such a powerful thing to do for, for your, for your life, for your finances, and so go do it with the help of experts like us. But this is a rule that I think is worth breaking, should, if you're able to put in the work and the research to set yourself up right.

Dan Slagle  11:00

It's about being intentional and having proactive planning. Obviously, if you're in a partnership as well, you need to make sure there's a lot of things that we did not go through on this list that are just as important, right? So, looking at at the impact of can someone in your household still carry benefits, right? There's a lot like, whereas you and I, we just, we just went for it, and there's a lot of other financial planning conversations that need to happen to make sure things are up and running as adequately as as possible to make make the likelihood of survival that much stronger.

Natalie Slagle  11:33

Absolutely, well, let's go to rule number two. So, donor-advised funds are only for the uber wealthy. This is so wrong, right? So, a lot of our clients, I think there's a, that you know, donor advised funds are only for the Uber wealthy, and the other thing is, I can't afford to give that much money away to charity yet, and I'm like, that's that's bull crap, can I say that on this, I think people can afford to give away their wealth sooner than what they think, and there are different avenues to do that, such as establishing a donor advised fund. Now, there are times where donor advised funds are used to be strategic, and we have lots of content, we have. I believe we have a blog. We talk about donor-advised funds in a different podcast, so look that up, or just reach out to us on the ins and outs of

Dan Slagle  12:29

it.

Natalie Slagle  12:30

But I think a donor-advised fund can also be used as an encouragement to start giving away your wealth and set aside all the strategic aspects. That's for us to analyze and help you with, but just having a donor-advised fund, depending on where you go and how you create it, you don't actually need to start with a lot of money. I think our clients and a lot of our listeners can afford to just transfer two to 5000 grand from their brokerage or from their savings, they can, they will be fine financially without that money, and that's all it takes to get this thing up and running. What are your thoughts with donor advised funds? Dan,

Dan Slagle  13:08

I think it's a great tool to even if you don't have intention set aside around specific gifting to charitable organizations, it's such an amazing tool to have to be able to have readily available at your disposal when the opportunity presents itself to your point, like there's typically at least I'm not aware of any like minimum requirements to get the account up and running, and I think it's something that you can just continue to build through as you know, as your wealth accumulates, as income grows, maybe you know you have appreciated stock from a company like these are all really good opportunities to give your wealth, if that's important, right. And again, this is where the idea of receiving guidance to understand what's the impact from a tax planning perspective for your household. How does this impact your investment plan? How does it impact your long-term retirement plan, right? Like, to your point, unless, like, your goal is to truly give away all your wealth. This is something we need to carve out and understand what is the long-term impact by me giving x amount of dollars away per year, because we just don't want to do it recklessly, right? So, having the donor advised fund is, it's a really great opportunity to continue to allow your investment, like the investable portion, to grow within the donor advised fund, and and have the organizations that are close to you benefit from it longer term.

Natalie Slagle  14:34

Yeah. Well said. Well said. And and I also think it's kind of funny how we first started talking about this, they're only for the uber wealthy. Well, just like most things, I like to ask people, How do you define that? Like someone could look at you and I, Dan, and say you are uber wealthy, and I would say no, I don't classify myself that, I classify these people, and so I think we, we tend to think like, oh, there's all these things out there for. People who are uber wealthy, whatever that means to us, and you might be in the position where this, these types of vehicles were actually meant and created for a household like yours. So don't discredit the power of your wealth and how it could be shared, shared amongst others. You don't have to be a billionaire to give away your wealth. You can be in a much different situation with that. And speaking of giving away your wealth, this goes to rule number three: every kid should have a Roth IRA before they leave your house. So the reason why I added this to the list is because we have clients who bring up, like, "Hey, should I start a Roth IRA for my kid, and I'm like, you can't just like start it, there needs to be earned income, and you know, there's all these things, but I came across this TikTok video, which I'm not on TikTok, but I like found it and researched for this podcast, and here's what I did, because I, I did not think it was a good video, but I didn't want to out the person who created the video, so I was like, I'm just going to say verbatim what they said without saying who it was, because I can't do that. Okay, so here's what it said. Here we go. Your seven year old could legally have a Roth IRA, which means they could retire with multiple millions of dollars tax free by the time they retire at 64 Here's exactly how it works in real life. The first step is your kid needs earned income. The loophole here is simple: all you have to do is open a business and hire them. I have my son model in content and help me clean my office. Step two: pay them a salary. If you keep it under $14,600 It's tax-free in a business deduction for you. Step three is open a custodial Roth IRA at Schwab, Fidelity, or Vanguard. Now let's do the math. Let's say you pay your kid $14,000 a year and invest $7,000 into a Roth each year from age seven to 18, and then you stop that money can compound, that money can compound to $4.6 million by age 64 with an 8% annual rate of return. The other 7000 is invested into Bitcoin, do that for 11 years and leave it untouched until they are 64 earning a rate of return of 15% which is super conservative, that could grow to $125 million by age 64 And no, these numbers aren't wrong. This is what compounding looks like if you leave it alone for many, many years. End scene. Dan, I need your initial reaction to what I just shared. Go.

Dan Slagle  17:40

My initial reaction is this is why I am not on TikTok, and watch TikTok videos, because I think this - I think there's some truth to certain items that were said, such as where to open up a Roth IRA, for example, but like that, I mean, the last like bit that you read about the, I think it was like 14,000 a year, or no, 7000 a year gets invested into Bitcoin, right?

Natalie Slagle  18:06

Yes,

Dan Slagle  18:06

that's what was said. Yeah, and you do that for 11 years and then leave it untouched until age 64

Natalie Slagle  18:13

earning a rate of return of 15%

Dan Slagle  18:15

earning a rate of return of 15% which you also then said, which is super conservative. I don't agree with that, and the final statement that could grow to $125 million by age 64 that's, I mean, that would be, that would be incredible, but I think that's just those are like pie in the sky type numbers, especially with the earning a rate of return of 15% like annualized, I'm assuming, and then calling that type of rate of return conservative, and then making the assumption that the money is just not going to be touched until age 64 There's a lot there that's just like out of control and out of the person's control, just out of control in general. And I don't agree with with that statement. I think there is the opportunity to open up with like a custodial Roth IRA. You and I kind of briefly talked about this, and the thing, the other thought that comes up in my mind is, like, you and I own it, we own a business, right? So, there's, there's like ample opportunity to put our daughter, when the time comes, on payroll and have her contribute to a Roth IRA. So, full disclaimer, our daughter is two, I'm not going to put her on my payroll as of right now, and I might never do that, you know. I think the opportunity needs to present itself. If she actually truly has an interest, they could be a really good opportunity, but I'm not gonna.. I'm like pretty strong, and in this statement that I'm not just gonna hire my, my child so I can contribute to their Roth IRA.

Natalie Slagle  19:41

Yes, and I think that, that well, I don't think I know that that is the reason why I put this in here, because I think there is a lot of parental guilt with something like this, like, oh, this is what other parents are doing, oh, I just need to create a business, and I'm like, you can't just create a business, it has even for tax. Purposes, you can't just create some kind of like bull crap business all because you're trying to get deductions or put money in, like the IRS would be all over that. I also think to your point, Dan, it's like I kind of want our child to be a child, I want them to be a kid, and I don't want them to necessarily think about work, we right now could probably technically hire our daughter as a two year old as a model for photos on our website, and then do this, and then grow her Roth IRA to 125 million by the time she's 64 Like, come on, come on, people, like, what are we doing? Why are we so fixated on on things like this, I do agree that this is a strategy to use when it's legitimate, and I personally wouldn't want to hire our daughter for her photos on our website, or maybe she can come clean her office, but it, you know, I think about our cleaners, they do an amazing job, they come once a month we're not paying them anywhere close to $7,000 a year, so it, it has to all make sense. And the way that this was framed, it was way too simple for something that's actually pretty complex, and I just don't want this narrative out there to be I'm missing out on this opportunity to do the Roth IRA for my kid, because you might not be missing out. It might just be that the facts don't add up for this to make sense, and for you not to have to deal with a big IRS audit.

Dan Slagle  21:32

This is like the perfect example of like the societal guilt, or like even within our industry, I see posts like this all the time on like LinkedIn, right? Like, why would you not do this, and, and I think it's just one of those things that make you, as a parent, feel like guilty if you, if you're not doing it right. So, like, I welcome clients bringing up this conversation in our visits, if it makes sense, right? Like, you need to still take care of yourself and your financial future, and then we should be thinking about our children. My dad was self-employed. I never had money put into a Roth IRA for me in this instance, and I, I think I turned out okay. And for me, like a lot of the work I was doing for him, I wasn't like, what was the example like? Cleaning, I guess. Maybe I did clean, but I was like filing his receipts, right? Like, that was a way for me to get allowance. But it's just, it does feel like one of those like guilt items that's put out there. It's like you're stupid if you're not doing this

Natalie Slagle  22:36

right.

Dan Slagle  22:36

And here's why. And I'm going to lay out all the numbers for you of what the future growth could be. I don't necessarily think it's it needs to be for everyone,

Natalie Slagle  22:45

right? Yeah, it's very clickbaity, very click baby. What's rule number four?

Dan Slagle  22:51

Oh, rule number four. Another one that I feel like, as these rules continue to go, they're getting a little more heated, a little more tense,

Natalie Slagle  22:59

a

Dan Slagle  23:00

little more tense. Rule number four: renting is simply throwing money away. So, just, just so you know, in our show notes, or you can go back to your library, we do have a full episode on home ownership versus renting. It's called "Home Ownership versus Renting: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I believe it's episode five. So, again, that episode is going to provide a lot more context into this conversation. There's a few areas that I always want to focus on when it comes to the conversation of renting versus buying, like in the trade-offs. Right, we're not pro renting or pro buying, right? Our personal situation has us currently renting. We have been homeowners in the past. We're not going to get into the full story again, you can go back to episode five and listen to that, but the myth of, or the rule is, renting is simply throwing away money. The truth is, like, the cost of home ownership, or buying a home, looks so much so different in 2026 or today's world, versus like our parents' generation, even when you and I first bought a home in, gosh, 2016 so 10 years ago, a decade ago, you know, the environment looks so different, like the valuations have appreciated, interest rates are a lot higher, I think, you and I, when we first bought a home, our mortgage was like $1,500 a month, and then after we sold, we were renting a two-bedroom place for, like, granted, like a different part of the country, like, for 1700 and I look back and I'm like, if you and I were still in that home and had a $1,500 mortgage, like, that would be insane, like, you can't even find a studio apartment for $1,500 where we are, that's crazy,

Natalie Slagle  24:39

it is crazy. Well, and that's kind of the issue in the market right now, are people don't want to move because then they'd have to give up their interest rate and that mortgage, and at this point if we still had that mortgage, then I would still gladly be a homeowner, but we made different life decisions if it was only a decision on the cost of renting versus. Home ownership, then,

Dan Slagle  25:01

yeah, different, yeah, and with, with home ownership versus renting, like, there's other ways to build wealth outside of home ownership. I think that's another, like, societal pressure of, like, you need to buy a home, own a home, or you're stupid when it comes to your money, and there are other ways to build wealth realistically outside of home ownership, because you can stay in the home, like in that, like our example, we could be in that home for the next 40 years, like I don't know what the housing market's going to look like at that time. Would assume the price of the home will continue to increase over time, but we're not realizing any of that equity until we sell our home. So, how is that any different for you and I versus like when we have surplus cash flow, putting money back into our business and building equity that way.

Natalie Slagle  25:46

I mean, it's not at some point we're either gonna sell our home when we're older and realize the equity then, or we're gonna sell our business. So, to your point, like, why is putting one, why is one so heavily praised compared to the other, and obviously that's so simple. There's different risks, there's different appreciation. We get that, but to your point, Dan, there's being a homeowner is not the only way to being wealthy, and this isn't us saying renting is better, but we do find that there's so many people that believe home ownership is the end all be all, that we're like, we just want to raise a voice to say renting is also okay, and we have a lot of very well off clients who are renting,

Dan Slagle  26:37

yeah, and when we are in our professional day to day environment, building out longer term, long term financial plans for clients to say, like, here's what the future may look like if just all things we know today remain consistent, or we maybe add in some goals, like we have built throughout our career very successful long term financial plans, assuming someone rents for a very long period of time or indefinitely throughout their life, there's no right or wrong way to go about it realistically in today's world, so that's a, that's a rule we personally break, and, and truthfully, a lot of our clients do as well.

Natalie Slagle  27:15

Yeah, and even our guests, our last guests on our podcast talked about how they were going to buy a home, and they decided, I mean, it kind of was more on the value side than the financial side. They wanted flexibility. Their parents are getting older. If something happens and they have to move, it's a lot easier to move out of an apartment they're renting in downtown LA than a home that they own. So we just want to make sure we're providing a different lens on the whole renting is throwing money away, that's just not the full story there. All right, the last and final rule, Dan, what is

Dan Slagle  27:54

it? Don't touch your portfolio before retirement, right? I think the conventional wisdom here is if you touch your portfolio before retirement. Your distributions are going to trigger taxes, trigger penalties, and derail just overall compounding interest long term. Our take on it, Natalie. Why don't you get into our take on it? I want you to share your opinions on

Natalie Slagle  28:16

it. I love convincing clients we need to do distributions from your brokerage account, and they're like, why would you know? Are you sure? You know, what does this mean? We're only in our 40s, or whatever it may be. And it's like, look, you made a life change. We, we have clients who've moved to Europe. We've had clients who were working and have decided to take a few years off. Like, can we get creative here? People, can you reward yourself for your financial success prior to your 60s, which is not guaranteed. I just feel like it's like a weird professional high when I'm like, let's start distributions, you know, and we talk about what money we're pulling and from one investments and the tax implications, obviously that's all being done, but I think you know, as I get older and we see people pass away unexpectedly, and we see people get to this point of retirement, and then they're like, now what, it's making me realize that more often than not people are going to pass away with with wealth still left over, and so why are we not tapping into it sooner in a way that just enhances our lifestyle, whatever that means for you. I'm pretty passionate about this.

Dan Slagle  29:35

Yeah, well, you just shared an article with me recently that I believe talked about how the reality of like longevity and retirement is typically health, I think, declines. What do you remember the age of that article? What the article said was at 72 It

Natalie Slagle  29:51

was starting at age 60, you have 12 good years left, and so yeah, starting at

Dan Slagle  29:59

72 Yeah, 60 plus 12 is 72 We were both right.

Natalie Slagle  30:03

Yes, I wasn't saying you were wrong, Dan. I was just giving you the background on how we got to 72 Anyways, you talked about that article.

Dan Slagle  30:12

I skimmed it. I think you thoroughly read it, but I'll give my two cents on that article. So, it talked a lot about, like, if you retire, for example, I believe at age 60 you're going to be in better shape, you're going to have more health. So the article is like encouraging retirees, or even if you're not retired, to do the things early on in retirement, right? Like a lot of, with in working with a lot of our clients who are in their like early 40s, we're potentially planning for like, and I think this is more, this could be another rule that we add to the list, like we're potentially planning for like 4050 years of longevity, right? Like, not only leading up to retirement, but getting them to be able to fund all the way through retirement, and a lot of times throughout our past, what we've seen is like clients pass away with a lot of assets, and you know you need to think about what are your goals with the dollars, if it's leaving a legacy, that's fine, but if it's enjoying your wealth, the article talked about like this time period of from 60 to 72 where you really need to take advantage of it, right, so like doing the things early in retirement is really important, and we see a lot of our retiree clients doing that, like taking the vacations at right at retirement, versus like your health is going to kind of wind down, like you're not going to be able to do like these more active vacations when you get into your 70s, right, and then like, and then spending might curb down compared to what you had experienced in like the early stage of retirement, obviously we need to consider, like, what health costs could look like, but I think what I'm getting at here is, like, taking distributions from your portfolio is okay, even if you're doing a little bit more upfront in retirement versus what you have to, or anticipate taking in the future.

Natalie Slagle  32:01

Yeah, it's they call it the retirement spending smile, where your expenses are really high right when you retire, and then it kind of drops down because your health and your mental capacity starts to decline a little bit, and so then you're just, you're not traveling as much, you're not doing as much, and so your spending goes down, and then your spending ramps back up in the end, because of medical costs, you know, that's that's like, instead of this just plain trajectory of, okay, your expenses will just inflate by two or 3% every year, it's like, actually, it's going to look like this smile, this U shape, but regardless, it's like for a majority of our clients who are in their 40s, still very much in their accumulation years. I don't want people to be so focused on this retirement timeline, because even when they get there to what we were talking about, it's you're not going to have 40 good years, you're maybe going to have 10 to 15 good years, and then your life is going to look a lot different than what it does today. So, how can I convince you that financially you could afford to take a distribution from your portfolio, so that you can go on more vacations, so that you can work part-time, and you can be with your kids more? I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know, you know what it's, what it's providing you, but there's an option there, and I think people should absolutely, if they can afford it, that's what we're here to help you assess. If you can afford it, they should absolutely consider taking portfolio distributions before retirement. Big rule break here. Love it.

Dan Slagle  33:39

Yeah, well, I one final thing I'll add is, you know, obviously working with a professional or having some sort of guidance in terms of like making sure if you do take a distribution, like getting to a point where you have the financial flexibility to like almost manipulate the tax implications of where you're drawing the money from. Feel like I'm all over the place when I'm like waving my hands, talking about like the different, the different buckets, but you know, you got your brokerage accounts, you could Ross traditional IRAs, like liquid savings, right? We can look at what are the implications if we take money from x account versus y account and show you what the benefit could be again longer term to minimize, at least from a tax planning perspective, minimize the tax impact of taking an earlier distribution.

Natalie Slagle  34:25

Absolutely, what do you think all of these five rules have in common? Dan,

Dan Slagle  34:30

well, I think these, these rules are just like general principles that live out in our world right now, and after going through this, and something you and I really live by, especially with within our household, within our clients, is like everyone's situation is different, like you can go get generic guidance anywhere on the internet, hopefully not that TikTok person, but what I'm understanding is like you really, really need to. Your own situation, you need to know your own numbers, know your own risk. You need to know, like, what is your definition of success at the end of the day, right? Like, that is what's most important, is the general rules out there don't apply to everyone, because every single situation is different, and that's what we're trying to get across when we talk about breaking these rules, and how we have broken these rules, and how we've truthfully seen a lot of our clients do it, and just again, it's understanding what the impact could be if you again break one of these general rules that maybe doesn't even apply to you, so what I'm getting at is just tailored specific to your situation is most important, and really all that matters,

Natalie Slagle  35:49

all that matters. Yes, absolutely. Well, this was a fun topic. I feel like we could actually dive into each of these five rules in its own episode to give more data points and to talk about each one specifically, but I appreciate you going on this journey with me, Dan. I'm glad that we are rule breakers. We certainly break some of these rules for us personally, and we encourage our clients to break rules all the time to do exactly what you're talking about, like live the life for you, not for other people that these rules were created. I liked how you said in the beginning, Natalie, you're not an average person, and I was hoping you were going to go on a tangent on how wonderful and great I am, and I was waiting for it. It didn't come. Maybe it'll come after we stop recording, but we are not average people. Our listeners here, you are not an average person, so don't make average financial decisions. Thanks, Dan.

Dan Slagle  36:44

Thanks, Natalie. Bye

Natalie Slagle  36:45

bye.

Dan Slagle  36:48

Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below. Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website@www.fyoozfinancial.com

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