Are you a college student that has a bunch of questions about what adulting looks like? Then this episode is for you! Josh & Austin are joined by Maddy Miller, a college student herself, who came on the show with a list of finance and investing related questions to ask. The three of them walk through questions about credit cards, paying of debt and loans, car insurance, filing taxes, investing money, and so much more. Listen now!
Main Talking Points
[2:43] – Save & Spend Ratio for Jobs While in College
[6:20] – Credit Cards: When & Why
[11:50] – Pay off Debt or Start Investing?
[17:32] – How Do You Invest Your Money?
[22:36] – Buying A Car & Car Insurance
[32:38] – When To Get Off Your Parent’s Insurance
[37:22] – The “Maddy” Joke of the Week
[38:24] – Best Way To File Taxes
[44:23] – Tips On Saving Money in College
[49:38] – Ask Honest Questions!
Links & Resources
Invest With Us – The Invested Dads
Free Guide: 8 Timeless Principles of Investing
Social Media
Full Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to The Invested Dad’s Podcast, simplifying financial topics so that you can take action and make your financial situation better. Helping you to understand the current world of financial planning and investments, here are your hosts, Josh Robb and Austin Wilson.
Austin Wilson:
All right. Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the investor dads podcast, the podcast where we take you on a journey to better your financial future. Today, we are talking with a college student, and she, who we’ll introduce soon, will get a chance to ask us any questions she wants.
Josh Robb:
Any question? Maybe we should narrow this down-
Austin Wilson:
That is a little broad.
Josh Robb:
Let’s narrow the scope to just our focus. We’ll talk about finance and investing.
Austin Wilson:
Finance it is.
Josh Robb:
I don’t feel confident answering questions about how to milk a cow or nuclear semiotics, anything like that.
Austin Wilson:
Probably that’s the thing she’s learning in college. I don’t remember anymore. So anyway, that is what we’re doing. We have Maddy Miller here with us. Maddy, you’re a college student. Tell us a little bit about where you’re going to school, what you’re studying and how you know Josh and I.
Maddy Miller:
Well, first I just want to say thank you so much for having me on the podcast. This is really fun. I am going to be a senior this upcoming year at Taylor University and I am majoring in strategic communications, which is a really broad major, but a lot of parts I really like about it is marketing, which is kind of what brought me to this internship. So this summer I am interning at Hixon Zuercher Capital Management as the marketing intern and that is how I know The Invested Dads because I edit their podcast every week. So now I get a chance to be on it.
Austin Wilson:
We’re very thankful for Maddy.
Josh Robb:
She has to listen consistently and non stop to our voices and she still likes us and talks to us.
Maddy Miller:
Yes, I do. So this is really fun.
Josh Robb:
All right. So you as you were editing through these, you’ve learned some stuff by listening to it, hopefully.
Maddy Miller:
Yes, I know what RMD stands for now.
Josh Robb:
There you go. There you go. So we thought maybe what would be fun before you head back to school because you’re getting ready to go back. We’re recording this kind of on your end of the internship here with us, that we give you an opportunity to just ask some of those questions maybe we haven’t got to yet and maybe some of your college friends also want to know.
Austin Wilson:
So Maddy, what is your first question from a college student to the Invested Dads? We’re going to call this ask an advisor college edition.
Josh Robb:
Addition?
Austin Wilson:
Addition, with like-
Josh Robb:
A-D-D.
Maddy Miller:
Yeah. So I have a bunch of questions written down and I actually got some of these questions from my friends, too.
Austin Wilson:
These are legit college students.
[2:43] – Save & Spend Ratio for Jobs While in College
Maddy Miller:
Yeah, these are college student questions. So my first one is going to be, what is a good save spend ratio for summer jobs and jobs when you’re in college?
Josh Robb:
That’s a great question. That’s something that is hard to answer in that everybody’s different. Your job may be paying you $8 an hour, or you may be getting paid $15 an hour or more or less, depending on what you’re doing. Some of those college jobs are like two bucks an hour till you’re crazy. So sometimes you may have to spend 100% of that just because of what your lifestyle and your cost of food and all that. Here, we believe in a couple things and Austin I have talked about it and one of those is habits.
So more so than what percentage should I be saving and what percentage should I be spending, the idea I think makes a lot of sense for anybody your age, is to start building those habits. So maybe it doesn’t matter so much the dollar amount but to say okay, I need to start making a habit of saving some money. So, if you getting 100 bucks a week in your college job, which most of that just goes to food and eating out with your friends every once a while, but if you just say what if I just take $10 of that and put it to the side or something.
You just set a goal and start working towards that. Along with that, achieving goals is a huge psychological win that allows you then to kind of expand that habit towards other things. Because saving for retirement, especially when you’re 20 year old is thinking, okay, if I’m going to retire at 65, that’s 45 years from now, no one thinks that far along. No one plans that far ahead. So be able to reach short term goals allows you to then better understand those long term goals. So not so much how much but the habit.
Austin Wilson:
Yeah, I kind of view it two different ways you could do it based on hey, you’re probably not going to achieve a ton of long term savings with the limited money that a college student will make or whatever, maybe you will, that’d be awesome if you did, but you might be like, hey, I have this tuition bill coming up in August and that’s the number I need to get. So this is how much I need to put away until then and do it over this many weeks. That’s what I need to do and then the rest is spending money.
That’s one way to look at it or you can look at it is this is the money I need to maybe you don’t have an exact amount you need. So this is the money I need every week to live on. So I’m going to go ahead and that shove that into the spinning account and then everything on top of that is automatically saved. So there’s kind of two ways to back into it, but automation as a young saver, I think is very key. And even as an older saver.
I love automated savings. So if you’ve got a bank anywhere, you can set up recurring transfers, and your $100 goes into your account on Friday on pay day or whatever and automatically on Friday $10 goes to your savings account or whatever that may be. Just set it up to automatically do it and you’ll be amazed with how fast some of that stuff adds up.
Josh Robb:
I’m a fan too of, set some short term goals that you know you’ll get to, and that you’ll be able to achieve and then reward yourself when you get there. So if you’re saving up for a cool pair of shoes, or let’s say you’re going to be a senior this next year and before you head out into the real world, you may want to do a special trip with some of your friends or something. So set that goal as okay, we want to do this little trip with our friends. I need to save to get there and then enjoy that.
Don’t be afraid to spend that money when you get there to that goal because again, that’s helps you in the long term is have short term kind of intermediary goals that get you to that end point and celebrating those along the way.
Austin Wilson:
Those fancy shoes Josh was referring to, those are Crocs.
Josh Robb:
Well, the insulated Crocs for the winter time. That’s the thing
Austin Wilson:
Those are the ones you have to save up for.
[6:20] – Credit Cards: When & Why
Maddy Miller:
Yes. Awesome. That made a lot of sense. Thank you so much. I think kind of going off of that. A big question that I actually asked some of the other people that work here earlier in the summer, and then a lot of my friends suggested this question, too, is all about credit cards. So I kind of feel like I’m at that stage where like, you should maybe have a credit card but what would you guys say? When is the right time to get one? How often should you use it and why is a credit score important?
Austin Wilson:
I’m going to beat Josh to the punch on this.
Josh Robb:
Get this Austin.
Austin Wilson:
It’s different for everyone.
Josh Robb:
Hey, that’s a good answer.
Austin Wilson:
See, it can’t be wrong, but it really is. It depends a lot on people’s spending styles and how closely they track things. Also, there’s how much they want to spend. Because yes, building credit is important over a long term and having good credit, when you want to buy bigger things like a house, or if you need to take out a car loan or something, having a good credit score is really going to help you to lower the interest rate that you’re going to have.
That being said, you do not need to make a lot of money to qualify for a credit card with $3,000 limit on it, and if you spend that, and you don’t have the ability to pay that back on the month you buy it or whatever, you could be paying a lot of interest. So it’s all about discipline. So those people who are disciplined who can pay the statement balance or whatever, every month, and without incurring interest, credit cards are great because you can get some nice rewards and stuff like that.
If you’re not disciplined, and you can spend more than you can pay off in a month. Probably best to stick to more of a debit card where you’ve got, you’re paying with the money you already have in your checking account. I think that as a college student, probably a smart thing to have a credit card for two purposes, really. Number one is maybe you can have something that, heaven forbid, your parents help you, they help sign for it or whatever and it’s just for emergencies.
If your car breaks down and they’re across the country, $2,000 you don’t have in your pocket, you could put it on there and work it out. Talk to parents about that, but that’s one option. The other one is something small and recurring, that you know you can pay off every month but it’s just going to help you build a payment history of on time payments, something like always put your gas on this credit card. That’s all you put on your credit card.
You only put $100 a month or whatever on it and it pays off automatically, something like that. I think ski when you get out of school and you have bigger expenses, and stuff like that, it’s worth looking into if you’re into that. There’s a lot of options on benefits to credit cards, but I think keeping it simple while you’re younger is probably key.
Josh Robb:
There’s a reason why when you go to college, there’s a bunch of banks there trying to get you to sign for a credit cards. They see it as a money making opportunity because college students don’t necessarily pay attention and at 24% interest or whatever they’re charging, they make some money off of these college students. So, like Austin said, it really comes down to are you disciplined enough to understand that a credit card is someone paying for you, and you’re promising to pay them back a little bit and if you don’t do it on time, they’ll take some interest along the way.
Austin Wilson:
Or a lot of interest.
Josh Robb:
So, like Austin said, some of the best things you can use a credit card for, if your main goal is just to establish credit so that you have some sort of credit history because if you leave, and even getting an apartment, a lot of times they’ll do a credit check on you. To have a credit history, if you have a phone and you pay your own phone bill, have your credit card pay that and then just have it pay off each time.
Now you have a reoccurring credit with some transactions on it that does not have any late payments and so you’re establishing credit that way. So make sure you’re keeping it disciplined. Again, back to that discipline and the habits. The habit of checking, monitoring and paying off that credit card is huge. Miss payments not only give you huge interest, but it hurts your credit in the long run.
Austin Wilson:
Length of credit established is like the length of your longest account, those kind of things factor in your credit score pretty heavily as well. So if you get a credit card, even if you don’t use it much when you’re younger, even just having the account open over time is going to help your score.
Josh Robb:
You don’t need seven of them. You don’t need a lot, maybe just one to really help you along the way and depending on what you do, back when we were allowed to travel, hotel-
Austin Wilson:
Back in 2019.
Josh Robb:
A hotel, more often than not would prefer a credit card because for them that’s a little bit more stable. A lot of places would not take a debit card because they’d have to put a hold on it and you have to have a certain amount of money.
Austin Wilson:
Well, that’s the annoying thing from a consumer’s perspective. If you are do traveling or whatever, or just if you’re buying something you may return, using a credit card is so easy because it’s not physically taking the money in and out of your checking account that you’re living on. It’s in and out of the credit card account, that by the time the statement comes at the end of the month or whatever, it’ll be a wash if it’s a hold or whatever.
Josh Robb:
So those are the benefits. So, we’re definitely not against having credit cards. In fact, it does help you establish credit, as long as you have those habits and discipline and that’s the key.
Maddy Miller:
I will say I was encouraged by some other employees that work here to get a credit card. So I did, and I feel really responsible with having one.
Austin Wilson:
That’s good.
Maddy Miller:
I also got, like a reward of $20 for having good grades last year. So that was kind of fun. So I guess it is worth having a credit card.
Austin Wilson:
Do we still get that?
Josh Robb:
Either my grades were real bad or that was not available back in the day, and I’m not going to tell you which one that was.
[11:50] – Pay off Debt or Start Investing?
Maddy Miller:
Okay. So next question kind of goes along with like the college theme. It would be about like college debt and college loans. So should I, after I graduate, so I’m a senior. So I’m going to be graduating in a year from now, which is crazy, but should I after I graduate, aggressively pay off my loans and my debt, or should I start investing when I have a job? What does that kind of look like?
Austin Wilson:
Yes.
Josh Robb:
Yes, the answer is yes to both.
Austin Wilson:
The answer is yes.
Josh Robb:
So to break it down, saving and paying down debt are both goals that we think you should do. One joke I like to say is moderation, meaning you don’t have to go hundred percent on one or the other. That’s where I land because of a couple things and Austin loves compounding. Compounding interest, if you ever want to get on a long tangent with him bring that up.
Austin Wilson:
It’s like the eighth wonder of the world.
Josh Robb:
It is. It’s awesome.
Maddy Miller:
Austin told me that on my first day here actually. So I always remember that.
Josh Robb:
So compounding is just simply your money growing and using that growth through grow some more. So if you have $1, and it goes to $2. So now that $2 is now compounding and going forward, and so each new dollar added is making it grow even faster.
Austin Wilson:
Beautiful thing.
Josh Robb:
It’s huge. So you can’t do that unless you’re saving money. If your primary focus is paying down debt, which is great, you miss out on from 20 all the way to whatever, 65 or whenever you’re retiring, all those years of that dollar compounding. So each dollar has a timeframe. So the money I’m saving now in my late 30s, doesn’t have as much time to compound as money I saved when I was 20. So the earlier you start, the more compounding power that dollar has.
Austin Wilson:
You can put in less of your own dollars the earlier you start by a lot, overtime.
Josh Robb:
That is depressing for older people to look at a chart like that, but you have to say proportionately less as a 20 year old to get to be, let’s say a millionaire than if you started when you were 40. You have to more than double how much you’re saving for that, because it compounds, it grows. Now the reverse side though is, the longer that debt is there, the more interest you’re going to pay on that debt. So the reverse side is and why you want to pay it down is, the longer it sits there, the more it’ll actually going to cost you.
So if you go to school and the tuition is $40,000 a year, that’s if you paid it today, but if you get a loan, it may be more like $56,000, $60,000 by the time you pay it off. Who knows?
Austin Wilson:
It’s interest, like it’s a mortgage. So you have if say, I don’t know, what student loan interest is right now, but when I was going to school, it was six, 8% on a federal loan or whatever. That’s six or 8% or whatever on the outstanding balance paid annually, and you pay a 12th of that every month or whatever, just like a mortgage and that goes down. The proportion that you’re paying of interest is going to go down if your payment stays the same just like a house, but it is a lot of money.
The power of the investing while you’re young is so important that if I were to give someone a recommendation, now everyone’s financial situation is totally different, but I would say the going in like ideal position is you, Maddy go get a job after college and you have a 401k offered. There’s some sort of match, like you put in five, they put in three yada, yada, yada, they match you.
So, the going in baseline position that I would suggest, based on the majority of people would be put in whatever it takes to get the match on your retirement savings for as early as you can and then that’s good. That’s what you’re investing at age 22, or whatever you’re doing. Then use your additional money from that point on to pay not only the minimum, but above the minimum on your student loans. So then you’re doing a bit of both.
Josh Robb:
You can adjust that. I mean, it’s not set for life. So if you say okay, I may need to buy a home in the next year or two. Maybe you back down on your debt payment, start saving for a down payment. You’re flexible but any extra dollars that aren’t being used for something, that’s where the debt gets paid down. So to answer your question, yes, you should be doing both, but is one more important than the other? In the long run, investing will beat the debt just from compound.
Austin Wilson:
I think moderation like Josh talked about is key because there are people who literally they won’t invest, they won’t take a vacation, they won’t do anything until they’re completely debt free. They miss out on A, living, enjoyment of certain things and B, you miss out on a lot of investing. Because if you were to literally put every dollar you had towards paying down your student loans, your house or whatever, and did not do anything else, that’s time that you’re not investing in not being exposed to a stock market that historically has gone up over time.
Josh Robb:
Then the last thing is, depending on your career, and you mentioned marketing, so this normally does not apply, but let’s say you’re going into education. Depending on what you do, there are loan forgiveness programs. So if you go to an underserved local area for school, if you work there for certain amount of years, they’ll actually forgive your loans. So depending on the programs, there may be a reason why you don’t even focus on it at all knowing that if you do everything right, you’ll end up with zero debt anyways.
Josh Robb:
Or if you go to some large corporations, they may have some sort of program where they help pay down your debt on top like as an incentive. So, everybody’s different, but the goal will be to balance or juggle between savings and paying down the debt.
[17:32] – How Do You Invest Your Money?
Maddy Miller:
One question kind of going off of that is like, I’ve always heard that you need to pay off your debt and stuff. On the other side investing, I really feel like that’s not something I’ve heard a ton about. So what does that look like? I guess, plain and simple, how do you invest your money?
Josh Robb:
Great question. So what Austin said is, depends on when you leave school if you get a job that offers a retirement plan within your job, within the company, that’s the easiest way because they can take it right out of your paycheck, it becomes automated, like Austin said. So if they have what is called a 401k, which is just the company retirement plan, or if you’re in the nonprofit world, it’s a 403 B, same thing, just two different structures. That is the easiest way to save, because they can take it right out of your paycheck.
Austin Wilson:
You never even see it.
Josh Robb:
You don’t even see the money, and usually there’s a match involved. So you get extra money, free money from the company on top of what they’re paying you in order to help you with savings.
Austin Wilson:
I don’t care what you say, you can’t beat free money.
Maddy Miller:
Yeah, I love free money.
Josh Robb:
So that’s the easy way. For young people, the other great way of saving is a Roth IRA. A Roth IRA is a little different than your company retirement plan. This is money you put in after it’s gone through and you’ve paid taxes on it. So it’s money that you’ve gotten. So if you have a job and they pay you and you get your paycheck, normally you have money taken out for paychecks. So that money you get is after tax money, it’s already been taxed.
So then you could take that money, put it into a Roth IRA and a Roth IRA is just the bucket that the money goes into. It’s the account name. The nice thing is, since that money’s been taxed, every dollar goes into a Roth IRA, you’ll never pay tax on it ever again. So if you put $10 in, and you don’t touch it, and it grows to $10,000, you only pay tax on $10. That $10,000 is tax free.
So there’s so much benefit for a Roth IRA, especially for a young person. So chances are, when you leave school, you’re going to be in the lowest tax bracket you’ll ever be in during your working career.
Austin Wilson:
Because your income typically will go up over your career.
Josh Robb:
Yes, you’ll earn more as you get farther along in your career. So that’s the best time, if you’re thinking I got to put money in after taxes, I should put as much money as I can in when I’m in the lowest tax bracket, so I’ll pay the least amount. So Roth IRA is huge for young people. So if you have any extra money, that’s where you can put it.
Austin Wilson:
Speaking of extra money, so if you put that in priorities of where would fall between paying off loans and your 401k, that would probably be like number three. If you have money left over after you’ve already got your match. So you’re going to call that part good on your 401k, you’ve already got a nice payment of your student loans taken care of, maybe not as much as you can do but a nice payment, that’s what your next bucket would naturally fall to.
Josh Robb:
It would fall between that and your short term goals, because when you put money in a Roth IRA and your company retirement plan, there are rules in place that penalize you if you try to take it out early. So it’s designed for retirement. You actually can’t touch it without a penalty until 59 and a half. So if you’re 20, there’s a while that that money is there until you get the chance. Now you can’t, there’s certain rules and stuff but in general, we tell people don’t plan on that money being accessible until 60.
From a saving standpoint, that’s huge and you balance that between short term or long term goals because again, since you can’t touch it, and I know maybe I’m going to have a down payment, that’s not where that money goes because it’s not the most efficient way of getting it back out.
Austin Wilson:
So as far as the practical answer of how to open up an account, that is A, really easy if you have an employer that has that as part of your benefit plan for retirement. So they’ll handle that for you, no problem whatsoever. B, if you want to do some investing on your own, you can open up an account through a well-known custodian. Think of people like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, E-Trade, all these things online, you can have different kinds of accounts, whatever you want to do.
That’s if you want to manage it yourself. C, you can work with an advisor. You can go see a financial advisor, and they’ll get you set up with whatever you’re looking for. So a couple different ways to go about it.
Josh Robb:
With technology, especially young people, you understand technology. There’s easy ways of doing that. They have accounts, and they have companies that are set up focused towards your generation to say, okay, we need to get you in the market and invested. So let’s make this as easy as possible and speak to you in a way that you’re used to. You can do it all on your phone, which is great.
Austin Wilson:
I was thinking of Betterment as an example. This is not sponsored in any way, shape or form, but that’s a well-known app that makes investing really, really simple.
Josh Robb:
They help you with choosing how to invest too, because that’s the next question. What do I do with this money once it’s in there? Some of those are called robo advisors, meaning their automated advice service in that they help you along the way to choose how you should invest. So it removes that question of, okay, I got dollars in there. What do I do with these? What’s it going to do? So the nice thing there is there’s at least a program to help answer those questions to get to where you need to be.
[22:36] – Buying A Car & Car Insurance
Maddy Miller:
Awesome. Kind of going to a new topic is like buying a car. So next year, I’m going to buy a car, which is like scary, but also exciting. So what does buying a car look like for someone that maybe doesn’t have a lot of money, just because I’m coming out of college with debt and what’s, I have written down what’s the deal with car insurance?
Austin Wilson:
Great questions. I have a couple of thoughts. So first of all, a lot of people that you graduate who get their first job are probably going to go out and buy a brand new car. A brand new car nowadays, in 2020 is an easy $25,000.
Josh Robb:
Or more.
Austin Wilson:
Or more, or vastly more and that’s a lot of money, if we already talked about all these other uses for your money. Paying down debt, saving for retirement, saving for short term goals, obviously, you need money to live on too. That monthly car payment is huge. So my advice would be aim for a used car, a nice used car, something reliable, something affordable, when you graduate college and in a perfect world, you would maybe set that as a short term, middle term goal to have at least a lot of it, if not all of it saved for by the time you can get there or whatever.
Maybe you’ll have some graduation money or some money from some working during school or whatever. That’s a big help. Otherwise, it’s not the end of the world to take out a small car loan, and interest rates are pretty low right now in general, but I would advise going used because depreciation is very, very, it impacts the value of a car very quickly. So you buy your $25,000 car today, tomorrow, it’s worth 20. And at the end of the year, it’s worth 18 and just keeps dropping, dropping really quick for a few years and all of a sudden, you owe more than the car’s worth.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, and along with that, that’s the biggest thing or mistake we see people heading into the workforce do is when you get that first real paycheck, if you’re used to your college jobs, and you get some fun, spend money, and all of a sudden you look at this thing, and there’s a couple extra numbers there that aren’t normally there, there may be is even a comma somewhere and you’re pretty excited.
So you’re like, oh boy, I got all this money. I feel really rich because this the first time you have this full time job. That they’ll go out and they’ll max out that whole amount and their budget then gets really hard. So when you see that first paycheck, don’t use it as a license to spend all those dollars that you see on that paycheck. Because there’ll be things that you’re obligated to do, and there’ll be things you want to do.
If you tie up everything with your obligations, like a car loan or things like that, the fun stuff, it gets harder and harder. So what kind of car should you get? A safe one, a reliable one, but in general one that you can afford and that gives you flexibility, because once, you’ll find, once you’re responsible for everything, it’ll tend to have problems. Maybe need new tires, and those are all additional costs after pay for the car. So having some flexibility in how much you spend the car gives you flexibility down the road if you need to do repairs or anything like that.
Austin Wilson:
So if you buy a brand new car and you take out a loan to pay for the brand new car, so two things that maybe are not ideal from a financial standpoint. You A, you have to have full coverage insurance on that brand new car, and because it’s a brand new car, and it’s worth more, your insurance is a lot higher. So those are things to consider.
So that kind of ties into your next conversation about insurance is, generally speaking, the more new and expensive and fancy your car is, the more expensive your insurance is going to be, because it’s worth more if they need to replace it or repair it. Now, a used car is obviously worth a lot less. So insurances a lot less, and there’s a lot of different factors that goes into insurance, but generally, there’s two different kinds of venues of insurance.
You can have full coverage or collision insurance, that kind of thing where if you wreck your car, and it’s your fault, you pay your deductible, which is like $500 or $1,000, whatever, you can set it to a number of things. Then after that the insurance company pays for the rest, to fix it or to give you a brand new car. The other way to do it is to get lesser insurance, still legal, but you can have something that’s like liability and comprehensive and those kind of things.
The minimum kind of a level of insurance and if your car’s not worth as much that may be worth thinking about, because it’s a lot less money, but then if you crash your car, it’s your fault, you have to go buy a new car. So really the rule of thumb is if you, the way I kind of think of it is if you have the ability to very quickly pull together or very cheaply pull together the money if you crash your car, and it’s not worth much to go buy something similar, it may be worth paying just kind of a more basic insurance if your car’s not worth very much, but if your car’s worth a lot, it would take a lot of money that you don’t necessarily have on hand to replace it. Something with a little bit more enhanced, like collision insurance might be worth looking into.
Josh Robb:
So we look from a high level insurance in general. So life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, everything. Insurance is designed to take the risk of something happening and give it to somebody else. So when I pay for my car insurance, if I don’t have insurance, anything that happens to the car or while I’m in the car, I’m responsible for. So that’s a lot of burden. If I crash into somebody else’s car, not only do they have to fix my car, so I have a car, but if it’s my fault, I’m fixing their car or paying for them to get a new car.
So now I’m going to buy insurance that says, okay, no longer am I fully responsible, but now this company, who I want to pay monthly to, is taking that responsibility on. So then if I crash my car, the insurance company who I have this contract with says, now we’re responsible for taking care of everything. So all I’m doing is taking, the risk doesn’t go away, I’m just passing it to somebody else. Same is true with health insurance.
I could be responsible for anything that happens to me health wise, but if I get health insurance, and a lot of times companies will provide that for you, they’re just taking the risk and moving it to somebody else and say, okay, now the health insurance company is going to cover the cost if I get sick. It’s no longer my responsibility, and in response to that, I will pay them for them taking that response. So that’s the easy way think of insurance.
You’re just taking a risk and hang handing it to somebody else. So with car insurance, you can say how much of that risk do I want to hand to somebody else. That’s what Austin was talking about is if I don’t think it’s worth paying X amount of dollars to the insurance company, because it’s a $2,000 car and I can find $2,000 to buy a new one, I’ll only hand them half the risk.
I’ll just say, your cover if I hurt or get in something else’s issue, my car I’ll take care of. Your risk is just everybody else around me. So you’re just passing risk. So everybody needs insurance. Because especially in today’s, especially if multiple people are involved, there’s a lot of costs associated and a lot of risk associated.
Austin Wilson:
Well, and especially I do not know about every state in the world or in Ohio or in the country, but in Ohio, it is a law, you have to have at least liability insurance, which is the insurance company, you’re paying the insurance company to cover other people.
Josh Robb:
Because that’s the biggest worry is you do something dumb and hurt somebody else, not their fault, and now they’re stuck because no one’s paying for it and that’s the biggest-
Austin Wilson:
That’s the minimum legal side in at least Ohio.
Josh Robb:
Speaking of risk and insurance, so there’s health insurance, which normally full time jobs most employers recover. You get your car insurance. You’re renting, you don’t own the house or the apartment. You don’t need home insurance, but you do need renter’s insurance. Because what if something happens to your stuff in the apartment? If I have a couch and I have my computer and I have all that stuff, and there’s a fire or somebody breaks in, I would like to replace those things.
So even though it’s not your place, everything in there is yours, and it’s really cheap. Renter’s insurance is very cheap. So, if you’re out on your own, there’s loads of things to think about is what risks do I have and can somebody else take that risk from me.
Austin Wilson:
Before we move on from insurance, just a main point of when you graduate, and you start to look at car insurance and renter’s insurance or if you buy a house, homeowner’s insurance or whatever, I would advise looking to bundle it within a company, if possible, or get quotes to do so because you can often save a lot of money.
Josh Robb:
The biggest thing is, like you do with a lot of stuff, shop around. So with insurance, just like anything else you’re buying, I want to know what it costs and I want to compare it to other things out there. So you’re not going to offend anybody if someone gives you a quote, and you don’t have to take it right then. You could go ask somebody else for a quote, and then you can compare them. So, if you go again, I don’t know why I’m on shoes today, but if you’re going to buy shoes, at least me, my awesome Crocs, I’m going to shop around.
What store has the best deal? They’re all the same product. I’m getting Crocs either way, but who sells the Crocs for the cheapest and same with insurance. Not necessarily has to be the cheapest, but who sells the best deal for the insurance. That’s what I’m looking for. So, shop around for that and like Austin said, most good companies will bundle and say, you got a car and you have renter’s insurance? We’ll give you a deal if you buy both from us. So then it gets a little cheaper.
Austin Wilson:
An independent insurance agent, just kind of a buzzword. They can look at insurance through different providers and give you truly a lot of options and a really good deal.
Josh Robb:
Now there’s even some online. Again, going back to the technology, I just renewed my insurance and I did everything electronically. They shopped around for me, they got me multiple quotes, and it was an independent insurance agent and they did all that fun stuff but I did it all, I don’t even know the person, what they look like or anything, but we did all and we digitally signed documents and everything. So it’s very easy.
Austin Wilson:
I love technology.
Josh Robb:
That’s the whole goal is if you need insurance, if everybody needs insurance, which everybody does, let’s make it as easy as possible to get it.
[32:38] – When To Get Off Your Parent’s Insurance
Maddy Miller:
Kind of going along with the insurance thing, this is a great segue, is when and how do you get off your parent’s insurance because I know that there’s an age, is it 26? So for me a 22 year old, that isn’t a few years. So what does that kind of look like?
Austin Wilson:
I think a lot of that depends on the insurance that your parents have, because first of all, you are likely not completely free for your parents to have on their plan. So there’s a balance of, hey, mom and dad, are you going to help me a little bit longer? Because when you get on your company’s plan, you’re likely going to have to pay some out of pocket yourself. So maybe it’s cheaper for you to be on their plan than it is for you to be on your own plan or the coverage is better, but generally speaking, at some point you’ve got to get on your own insurance and it’s different for everyone but the legal now it was through Obamacare in-
Josh Robb:
2007? When we were teens.
Austin Wilson:
So whenever Obamacare got passed, that age of 26 became parents coverages can cover their kids through age 26. Now that things change A, it may change if there are clauses in some of these, like if you’re offered insurance at your company. A lot of times your parents plan will not let you keep it or keep theirs. If you have a kid, or if you’re offered it through your spouse’s plan, or whatever, a lot of times you’re going to be forced to come off of that. There’s a lot of exclusions, and a lot of it depends on your parents plan.
Josh Robb:
It’s a conversation with your parents in saying, what am I allowed to do? So some are even tied to college. Like, if you’re a full time student, you can do this. Once you’re out, there’s some kind of weird things on whether you can stay or not post that up until that 26. Then you can have that conversation with them and you could even work out a deal. Maybe you stay on their plan, but you pay them a little bit, because then they’ll know how much each person costs on the insurance, like you’ll get a breakdown.
The insurance company says, here’s how much you pay for each person. You can say, hey, you know what, it’s cheaper for me to be with you guys. What if I just pay you the dollars each month to compensate you but I stay on that plan. So it really is a conversation with your parents. What’s their ability to help cover the cost for you? What’s the plan allow, and then what makes sense for everybody.
Austin Wilson:
Sometimes the coverages are different, too. So compare the coverage that you’re offered at your job to the coverage that you’ve already got through them. If the one at your job’s just, it’s a way better way, cheaper option or way better coverage, then it’s probably a no brainer, but sometimes that’s not the case. So I think that’s another answer where it’s probably different for everyone, but it’s a good thing to discuss. Because, you’ll be given a packet or whatever, when you get that job of here’s our insurance options and what that looks like. So that’s where you’ll take that and say, hey, mom and dad, let’s sit down and talk about what the options are what’s possible, and make the correct decision for you.
Josh Robb:
Depending on their age, your parents’ age, there may be some parents who are going to be 65 around that same time you are looking for insurance. They’re going to be moving to Medicare, which really is not going to allow you to stay on any plan with them. So it really depends on their situation as well as what insurance do they have or will they have when you’re looking. Along with that, a lot of those bills, cell phones. Maybe it’s cheaper for everybody to stay on the same plan if they’re okay with it.
Again, you could work out a deal and say, hey, what if I kick you 60 bucks a month and then I just stay with you guys in the group play. So there’s nothing to say that just because you stay with your parents that I’m not really an adult yet or anything like that, because you’re just making a prudent decision to help everybody benefit from the best cost.
Austin Wilson:
There are a lot of things that we, when my wife and I got married, that we would stay with our parents on XYZ and just give them money for or whatever until we got married. Then it was like another independent step where it made sense to kind of bring some of that stuff in house, and that’s different for everyone as well.
Josh Robb:
If you can save some money, who wouldn’t. It’s not like to say, oh, man, that means I’m just still a kid. I haven’t been adult yet because I don’t pay my own cell phone bill, but in a sense, you’re smarter adult by making that financial decision to say I’m saving 20 bucks a month by paying them 60 instead of paying 80 myself. So you’re making the right choice.
Austin Wilson:
I think sometimes even insurance is an option for car insurance and stuff, but that’s one that you may, depending on what your life looks like, may want to take independent because you don’t want if something happens when you’re an adult, adult for to raise their rates. The cell phone bill, not necessarily going to be an issue, but if a car accident happens that can impact things but yeah, I would say I’m with Josh, There are a lot of options, it’s like sharing a Netflix account or whatever. It just makes sense sometimes.
[37:22] – The “Maddy” Joke of the Week
Josh Robb:
Let’s do the dad joke of the week, but it’s not the dad joke.
Austin Wilson:
It’s like the college student joke of the week.
Josh Robb:
It’s the Maddy joke of the week.
Maddy Miller:
It’s the Mad joke.
Austin Wilson:
The Mad joke of the week.
Maddy Miller:
That’s funny. Okay, I’m really excited for this one. I got the news that I get to share the joke and so I was really excited. Okay, are you ready?
Josh Robb:
We’re ready.
Austin Wilson:
Buckle up. It’s time.
Maddy Miller:
This is a college joke kind of take. So it goes with the theme.
Austin Wilson:
So we’re not going to get it?
Maddy Miller:
No, no, you will. It goes with the theme. Why did the sun skip college?
Josh Robb:
I don’t know.
Maddy Miller:
It already had a million degrees. I thought that one was funny.
Josh Robb:
I like it.
Austin Wilson:
I had to think about that for a second. I got it. Degrees.
Josh Robb:
A million degrees.
Austin Wilson:
Don’t they measure that in Kelvin?
Josh Robb:
Kelvin?
Austin Wilson:
Kelvin.
Maddy Miller:
Kelvin?
Austin Wilson:
Kelvin?
Maddy Miller:
What is that?
Austin Wilson:
Wait, isn’t that where it starts at zero is actually zero energy-
Josh Robb:
No movement of molecules.
Austin Wilson:
Then there’s like really hot.
Josh Robb:
Then hot. Science.
Maddy Miller:
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Austin Wilson:
See, that’s why I’m glad she can’t ask that question. Finance-
Josh Robb:
Don’t ask me about Kelvins.
[38:24] – Best Way To File Taxes
Maddy Miller:
Only finance. Okay, another few questions. One, what is the best way to pay taxes? So I just paid taxes for the first time, I think or maybe second time. I can’t remember this year. I used H&R Block, but what’s your guys’ take on that?
Josh Robb:
So I would say the best way to pay the taxes is to have it automatically deducted. So when I’m talking to actually just paying it. When you get a paycheck, you can have them take money out ahead of time. So actually paying taxes, the best way to do it is when you get the money. So from a paycheck say, go ahead, take some money out for me right now. For filing taxes, the best way is whatever is easiest for you based on how complex your situation is.
So if you’re have a job, and you’re out of college and there’s not a lot of craziness in your tax life, H&R Block or anything online, you can do it yourself. Now I think H&R and some of those have partnered with the government where it’s free to file your federal tax return. So it makes it super easy. As long as it’s not that complex, then you’re not really missing out on a lot.
When you start adding dependence and maybe you have business income or other side things that complicate things, then maybe having a CPA help you make sense but for most people, especially straight out of college, it’s pretty simple. Here’s what I earned. Here’s how much I saved or what I can deduct, usually just a standard amount I can deduct, and then here’s how much I owe, then I write a check or get a refund and then I’m done.
Austin Wilson:
I would say if the vast majority or all of your income is on a W-2 and the taxes are already withheld, super simple. You can do it online in five minutes. It’s not a big deal.
Josh Robb:
A W-2 by the way is the form you get the end of the year from your employer.
Austin Wilson:
Which shows your wages and then all the taxes that were pulled out and those are the numbers you input really in H&R Block or whatever.
Josh Robb:
Do you get pictures now? Do they-
Maddy Miller:
Yeah, this past time I was able to take a picture and it filled it and it was awesome.
Austin Wilson:
The more complex your situation gets, the more CPAs are valued.
Josh Robb:
The reason why they’re there is the tax law is complex. So if you have simple situation, then there’s no need to dive deep into the tax laws to see what I can do to help. The more complex your situation gets the more is there anything out there that’s they’ve made a law on that will help me. So if I’m out of school, and I’m just working a job and getting paid normal wages, then it’s pretty straightforward and you save less time and less money by just doing yourself, filing it and calling it a day.
Austin Wilson:
Correct. Oh, but on that note, there are calculators online, but everyone, not everyone, a lot of people think it’s wonderful to have a huge tax refund at the end of the year or the beginning of the next year or whatever. As a young person, I would say that’s probably not a great thought process to have. It’s not a bad one if you use that for a specific purpose every year, but in general, you should use the little calculators on the IRS website to calculate pretty much exactly what your taxes are going to be. Then only have your employer withhold the amount that really minimizes the return. So you have the most amount of money in your pocket each week or each month or whenever you get paid.
Josh Robb:
Yeah, because in a sense, any refund you get, if you get a tax refund in April-
Austin Wilson:
That’s some interest-free loan to the government.
Josh Robb:
You gave the government money that you shouldn’t have given them, they’ve given it back to you, but they don’t give you anything extra for them holding. So what Austin was saying is in general, let’s say you make $30,000 coming out of college, and then you get a $3,000 tax refund. You’re pretty excited, I got $3,000 of extra money. Well that’s 10% of your income that you could have had and sone something with. So, that’s the way we look at it is refunds aren’t bad, but if they’re big refunds, you probably could have, we think you could manage the money better than the government did, which they did nothing with and gave it back to you.
Austin Wilson:
You could use it to pay off debt or to invest. Those are the two kind of main, or to just live on, but those are the two main things that are actually value added.
Josh Robb:
Now, the other side of the argument is that tax refund is almost a forced savings because you don’t get it until the end of the year and then you get this lump sum that then you could do for whatever but-
Austin Wilson:
Most people go to Best Buy and blow it on TV.
Josh Robb:
That’s true.
Maddy Miller:
Well, I got $30 back and I bought a pair of shoes.
Josh Robb:
See, pair of shoes. Were they Crocs?
Maddy Miller:
They weren’t Crocs, I will say that but I did get $30 back. So that was interesting.
Austin Wilson:
That’s all right.
Josh Robb:
I saw a thing online. Speaking of Crocs, I just had to. They had the little heel thing that you can flip up or flip back.
Austin Wilson:
I don’t know. I’ve never owned Crocs.
Josh Robb:
Man, you’re missing out.
Maddy Miller:
I’ve had so many pairs.
Austin Wilson:
Missing out? I think this is the reason that I got married was I did not have Crocs.
Josh Robb:
Oh, man. I saw this online. The guy when he had it flipped up so he could just slide his feet in and out. He called that two wheel drive and then when he flipped it back to protect his heel that was four wheel drive for his Crocs because then his heels stayed in.
Maddy Miller:
That is so funny.
Austin Wilson:
Do you have camo Crocs?
Josh Robb:
I do not. I have, I shouldn’t admit what.
Maddy Miller:
You should.
Austin Wilson:
You should. You already opened the thick can of worms.
Maddy Miller:
You have multiple.
Josh Robb:
So right now I have two pair. I used to have three. I used to have the lined winter Crocs which were great but I got rid of those.
Austin Wilson:
I think they should close the holes completely on winter Crocs.
Josh Robb:
Well, the thing on the inside does so that you get nothing in there.
Austin Wilson:
A little ventilation.
Josh Robb:
Right now I have two pair. I have an Ohio State pair and a blue pair. The blue pair by the way, I’ve had for I think 15 years, well over 15 years-
Austin Wilson:
Is that so you can switch teams on the weekend because your wife’s a Michigan fan?
Josh Robb:
No, the blue ones are the originals I got and they’re great and I’ve worn them, like I said for, it’s over a decade I’ve had these things and they’re still great. I wear them all the time because they’re waterproof. So I’m in a volleyball league. When we’re done in sand volleyball, you’re all messy. I just put my Crocs on and then I go and rinse off my feet but I only have to worry about getting my shoes.
Maddy Miller:
Wow, you’re kind of making me rethink Crocs.
Josh Robb:
They have flip flop Crocs now. They’re pretty cool. They’re pretty cool.
Austin Wilson:
So this is like the side underlying discussion of the whole thing is Crocs.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. Know about my passions.
Austin Wilson:
Crocs and your kids.
Josh Robb:
That’s right.
[44:23] – Tips On Saving Money in College
Maddy Miller:
Last question. What are some tips or ways to save money in college? So I’ve gotten good advice from people throughout the years, but I have one more year left. So what is your guys’ best advice? It could be so little or something big.
Josh Robb:
So Austin and I have already mentioned it once. The first is and it’s best this way, hide it from yourself. So automate your savings. One of the best ways to save in college is to do it and then forget about it. So even now to the point where they can let you round things, I think some of the new credit cards and stuff can let you round your purchase. So if you buy something for 9.95 it can take got five cents and make it $10 and move it over to a savings account. So it can do little things like that, that force you to save without really thinking about it.
Austin Wilson:
There’s even an investment app. I think is Acorn? Is that what that was?
Josh Robb:
One of those does it like that.
Austin Wilson:
Where it rounds it up to the next dollar and then invest the change. I think that is so cool.
Maddy Miller:
Wow. That is cool.
Josh Robb:
So the first thing is automate it or make it so that you don’t have to think about it correct. Because you’ll save more that way. Because you will forget that you’re actually doing it.
Austin Wilson:
A real practical way to do that is to open up a savings account, not at your bank. So like an example is there’s a ton of options out there but a high interest online only a savings account that you don’t regularly look at. You just automatically send $5 a week or $10 a week or $50, whatever you can afford. Automatically do that and then you’ll never see it but then sometime you’ll log in and you’ll be like, hey, I got $800 here I didn’t know about. Then that’s going to be a really cool thing. So yeah, automation is a huge, huge thing.
Josh Robb:
The other one is, this is the time of your life more than any other, well, besides a wedding, that people are going to be giving you money. You think graduation and those things, you’re going to get money from people for celebration and that’s great money to save. That’s money you can put away because you weren’t necessarily anticipating or planning for that in your budget, and then all sudden, hey, here’s some money and just any new money that comes in that away, park it somewhere else separate from what you’re normally spending from.
So that’s ways to find money or get money without thinking about it. Then the other way to save in college is by planning. So if I know what I need, once I cross that need amount, everything above that needs to have a reason for what it’s doing. Because everybody knows if you have $1 and you don’t have a reason for it, that dollar is going to disappear. Because you will go buy coffee, you’ll do whatever you want, which is there’s nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t plan for it, the money finds a reason to get out of your pocket pretty much well.
Austin Wilson:
That’s one of the Dave Ramsey-isms and there’s a lot of people agree or disagree with Dave Ramsey on a number of things, but one of the things he says is give every dollar a name. So if you know that you’re bringing in $100 a week as a college student, wonderful, that’s great. Make sure that you know exactly where every dollar is going.
Josh Robb:
So that’s great ways to save. The other is just keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities. So if you’re around and somebody says, man, I wish I could help with this. Well, okay, if that pays me and I want to do it, there’s opportunities for you to earn some extra money as well. College students have the time and the energy to do things to earn money. Just straight up, they have that flexibility. You’ll have more time now than you will ever, ever your life. So if you’re interested, you could find a lot of reasons to earn money. A lot of opportunities.
Austin Wilson:
Or it’s sometimes it’s not even earning money, but it’s earning free services that you would be paying for otherwise. So some examples that come to mind that might not be applicable for you because you’re already going into your senior year and probably have things figured out, but one thing that was a great opportunity for me when I was in college was being a part of residence life because I got free room and board.
So that’s something that I didn’t have to pay for and it was something that really changed my financial situation coming out of college. So if you have opportunities to earn a free place to live through working or whatever when you’re in college, that can change a lot.
Josh Robb:
It may not pay you but the thing it’s reducing-
Austin Wilson:
You may not get a paycheck, or that loan that you have at the end is all of a sudden going to be a lot less or whatever. So some opportunities like that are good. Practical ones, I think is shop at Aldi. That’s my home.
Maddy Miller:
For groceries and stuff?
Austin Wilson:
That’s not a steadfast truth but finding a affordable place to shop and cooking at home is probably a lot more affordable in general than eating out all the time.
Josh Robb:
Yes, definitely.
Maddy Miller:
I just reduced my meal plan for this upcoming senior year.
Austin Wilson:
Oh, boy. Less Chick-fil-A?
Maddy Miller:
Yeah, less Chick-fil-A, hopefully some more cooking. I’ll probably still eat Chick-fil-A a lot.
Austin Wilson:
It is good. It’s fun to eat.
Josh Robb:
That teaches you all those fun adult habits, cooking. You don’t really think about till you’re on your own and you’re like, where’s my mom to cook me my dinner and all of a sudden I need to figure out on my own. So it’s fun and when no one else is relying on you cook you can try and then if you fail, no one else is going to know-
Maddy Miller:
No ones going to know except maybe my roommates.
Austin Wilson:
I was always taught that if you like to eat, which I love to eat, you should probably like to cook. Think on that, chew on that.
Maddy Miller:
That’s a really good philosophy.
Austin Wilson:
Write that down.
[49:38] – Ask Honest Questions!
Josh Robb:
That’s good. All right. So wrapping up. I think those were great questions and speaking of getting ready to go out on your own, as you’re going into senior year, then you’re going to be an adult.
Maddy Miller:
Yeah, #adulting.
Josh Robb:
That’s right. So what do you do? Our answer to that, and this is something that Austin and I talked about is the best thing you can do are find people who you look up to and respect, who are older than you that you can ask honest questions about because going out to this world, there is no book, there is no adulting for dummies, there might be, but it doesn’t help.
You have to figure some out on your own, but if you have people in your life that are willing to share their experiences, they can help you avoid a lot of mistakes that they had made, that you can step around and learn from.
Austin Wilson:
You are going to still not do things 100% the right way looking back. So know that that’s okay, you’re going to learn it, maybe you could pass that little nugget along to someone else.
Josh Robb:
So be open and look for people in your life that you would just love to form that relationship to say, hey, if I have a question about whatever it is, can I just call you and ask because that would be really helpful, because it is scary. Getting your first apartment, moving out, having that responsibility, getting your own insurance, all those things that you were asking about, they’re not fun.
Austin Wilson:
I think it’s a good thing to want to be an adult. It’s a good thing to want to be independent after college and I feel like there’s more and more, as time goes along, it’s not uncommon for people to be less and less independent while they’re older. I feel like you’re missing out, there are exceptions that is very practical and very useful thing, but I feel like as a young adult, you miss out on a lot of life experiences if you take the easy way out. If you don’t have to.
Josh Robb:
Mistakes can be made when you’re young, because you have a lot of time to recover from them. So don’t be afraid to try something, take a risk. If there’s a job opportunity that you’re just not sure about, that’s the best time to try it. You have very little obligations, and you have the ability to see if it works for you.
Austin Wilson:
That’s the thing. Don’t wait till you’ve got a spouse and a kid and a house to take a risk.
Josh Robb:
Let’s see if this works.
Austin Wilson:
This is the one time in your life-
Josh Robb:
You can still do it, but there’s a lot more stress involved.
Austin Wilson:
This is the one time in your life you can pretty much get away with anything. Another practical piece of advice for anyone who practically is adulting is probably subscribe to The Invested Dads Podcast.
Josh Robb:
That would be it. That would be good.
Austin Wilson:
If you were to do one thing, that’s what you should do. So Josh, how can listeners support us?
Josh Robb:
So like I said, subscribe. That lets you know when we send out a new podcast each Thursday. You can leave a review on at Apple podcasts especially that just helps more people see our podcasts in the results. Then if you have any questions, so Maddy came with a lot of awesome questions from her kind of timeframe right now in college. If you have questions and like us to answer those in a podcast, shoot us an email at hello@theinvesteddads.com.
Austin Wilson:
Be sure to share this episode you enjoy with friends, family, maybe with a college student in your life who might be interested about some of these things. As always, check out our free gift to you, a brief list of eight principles of timeless investing available on our website. These are overarching investment themes, meant to keep you on track to meet your long term goals. It’s free on our website.
Well, Josh and I are going to thank Maddy. She’s been a great guest and she’s been a great help for us in this podcasting and growing in over the last few months. So thank you for all that you do and we wish you the best as you go back to Taylor, although we’ll still be in touch.
Maddy Miller:
Yes.
Josh Robb:
Thank you again and we’ll talk to everybody else next week.
Austin Wilson:
Thank you. Bye.
Maddy Miller:
Bye.
Outro:
Thank you for listening to The Invested Dads Podcast. This episode has ended, but your journey towards a better financial future doesn’t have to. Head over to theinvesteddads.com to access all the links and resources mentioned in today’s show. If you enjoyed this episode, and we had a positive impact on your life, leave us a review.
Click subscribe and don’t miss the next episode. Josh Robb and Austin Wilson work for Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. All opinions expressed by Josh, Austin or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for investment decisions.
Clients of Hixon Zuercher Capital Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. There is no guarantee that the statements opinions or forecasts provided here in will prove to be correct. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment. Any investor who attempts to mimic the performance of an index would incur fees and expenses which would reduce returns. Securities investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principle. There is no assurance that any investment plan or strategy will be successful.
