Too Much of a Good Thing - On the Road with Lacey Langford, the Military Money Expert

August 4, 2021

By Matt Miner, MBA, CFP®

Today’s a great conversation with my friend Lacey Langford, the Military Money Expert®!

When it comes to post-high-school education, you can definitely have too much of a good thing. Today Lacey Langford and I discuss the traditional university route, college hacking, grad school, tech programs, entrepreneurship, and going to work in the trades.

Key Take-Aways: It’s all about the Why

Why this school?

Why this degree program?

Why grad school?

Why grad school for this specific thing?

If you’ll adopt this approach for yourself and your children, everyone will be better served.

Learn more about Lacey on her great site, LaceyLanford.com!

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Matt Miner: When it comes to post-high school education, you can definitely have too much of a good thing.

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Hey and welcome to the Work Pants Finance Podcast, where I serve up hard won wisdom about work, life and money. I teach you how to kill debt, build wealth, and avoid the wage slave trap. My goal as a podcaster and advisor is to help you put your money to work so you own your career, rather than it owning you. I'm Matt Miner your money guide and for the last dozen years my family and I killed debt, built wealth, and then I started teaching other people how to do the same thing. In 2018 I stepped away from corporate work to serve clients full time as a fee only fiduciary financial advisor. Work Pants Finance is the show for MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other professionals who want their financial plan to work as hard as they do.

One theme of today’s show is that saving, investing, and spending for your kids education has to fit into your overall financial plan. With that in mind, here's your money guide quick tip.

Roth IRAs are not the ideal way to fund education because they are such a potent account for your retirement planning that it rarely makes sense to tap it to pay for a kid's school. But you would never fund a 529 until and unless your Roth IRAs or backdoor Roth IRAs were fully funded, because it is possible to use the Roth IRA as an education funding vehicle. The Roth IRA has many more advantages than the 529 since the dollars are so flexible.

Unless your IRAs are fully funded, you probably haven't gotten to the part of your investing journey where you fund 529 plans. One exception could relate to a state income tax deduction you might get for funding your kids 529, but philosophically I believe that the Roth IRA and its flexibility benefit outweighs even the important tax break that you might receive for funding a 529.

As ever your situation is unique. Please get in touch if you would like to talk about education funding goals for your family. You can go to workpantsfinance.com/contact and send me a note.

Today's show originally aired on the military money podcast with Lacey Langford, the military money expert. I'm releasing it again as I prep for next week’s show about the topic of education funding. In today’s show, Lacey and I talk about traditional university, college hacking, grad school tech programs, entrepreneurship, and going to work in the trades. In education decisions, the key question to ask is why? Why this degree? Why this school? Why now? Why this program? Be sure to stick around to the end when Lacey puts me on the spot with three questions in her game, Plead The Fifth, where you'll learn why this episode is titled. Give your kids the gift of failure.

[music]

[00:02:18] Lacey Langford: Getting school to the max. Is more education the answer? Hey, welcome to the military money show, where I help the military community make save and invest money wisely. I'm your host Lacey Langford the military money expert.

[music]

Higher education has become associated as a requirement for success and as a necessity for young adults as they enter society and the workforce. Continuing education is consistently marketed to older adults with flexible online-only options that promise an increased salary within months. For most this education comes at a cost. According to Pew Research, one third of adults under the age of 30 have student loan debt.

The question becomes, is more education worth the investment and the possible years of debt?

[music]

Hey, Matt welcome to the show. I appreciate you coming back.

[00:03:36] Matt: Man, Lacey I am so happy to be back. I can't believe that I get to speak to your listeners four times in 2020.

[00:03:43] Lacey: I think this is a really good sign that you were willing to come back. [laughs]

[00:03:46] Matt: I think it's frankly amazing that you were willing to have me so really good to be here with you today and nice to see you after a long time apart.

[00:03:53] Lacey: Yes, it's a win-win. Well, I'm excited because we had talked about this previously and I think this is a very important subject to talk about is, is more education the answer? I think in the military community this is a topic that a lot of military couples a discussion that they have is should I go back to school? I haven't found a job. I might want to get my master's or some other type of education that will hold me over till we move again.

Maybe have opportunities for employment but I think right now with everything that is happening in the world there's a global pandemic, it's changed the way we're doing business and education. I want to know, do you think traditional education is still the way to go? I know that's a hard question right off the bat.

[00:04:41] Matt: I think we can handle hard questions here. I'm going to first cop out a little bit and then I'll give you the real answer. The cop-out answer is of course it depends. I've always been well-served by education. I've been drawn toward education throughout my life. I enjoy academic work and it's been helpful to me. I've learned content that has helped me think has helped me do things. I've met people that have meant the world to me in my life.

I met my wife in high school, that's education. I think that you're absolutely right. Education has been this untouchable economic good. If you could have invested in the price of tuition that would have been a great place to park your money. Starting in about the early '90s. This has risen much faster than inflation and there's been seemingly no stopping a runaway train. This pandemic that we've been living through and the other disruptions that we've experienced in 2020 have definitely forced to rethink.

Just this morning, Wall Street Journal had an article that said, How to Get a Tuition Discount? Just Ask. This was referring to pricey post-secondary schools. Education I think is super important. On the other hand, it can be made into something that it was never intended to be which is this be all end all of young adult existence and the only ticket to a fulfilling life. I definitely do not think it's that either.

Somehow, it's a Goldilocks education and that's figuring out what makes sense for the individual student. What makes sense for the family and then how you put those things together into an educational experience that's going to serve everybody and not just serve the institutions that are selling education because that's what they're doing.

[00:06:24] Lacey: I think a lot of people forget that sometimes that many schools are for-profit.

[00:06:29] Matt: Whether they're for-profit or not, they are for revenue. It doesn't matter whether they're trying to please shareholders or their board of regions. It's still a very economically oriented business.

[00:06:40] Lacey: I think I come from a place that my education was non-traditional. I started community college after high school and realized that wasn't for me. I didn't take high school seriously. I wasn't going to take college seriously. I was really interested in working, that drove me. When I had a paycheck. I think I started working when I was 14. That was motivating to me like learning what I was doing on the job and then the cold hard cash at the end was highly motivating for me. Then I went into the military and started back to school towards the end of my commitments and then finish community college and then transfered to university.

I came out of school with no debt. I had to work some through college to make sure I had the Montgomery GI Bill. Then I was waiting tables, I was doing a lot of different things to pay the bills but ultimately walked away with no student loan debt so that's different from experience a lot of people have, but it also makes me think that maybe schools are the thing. Now that I'm in entrepreneurship I think what if I had actually spent two years in an internship under a successful entrepreneur? How would that look for me now if I was living and breathing what I was interested in?

[00:07:55] Matt: Yes, and I think you touched on something so important there which is to always ask the question of what the education is for. In my own experience, I have an MBA and I sometimes run into folks who are thinking about pursuing that degree who want to be entrepreneurs like you just said and they say, "It's a business degree, I would like to do this to support my entrepreneurship." I really challenge them. It was like, "One, MBA really is a feeder to certain types of salary jobs."

Being an MBA is about going and being a highly paid employee in someone else's business. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you're so much better off seeking out experience too. If you took what you spend on a top-tier MBA and put it into actually doing the thing that you want or somehow interning or collaborating with someone who you respected, that might be between $100,000 and $250,000 in seed capital that you could put towards launching your business.

What business can you watch for a quarter-million dollars? You can launch a really good business for a quarter of a million dollars in cash. Understanding what the education is for is so key. I do want to circle back a little bit to my prevaricating on that first answer and say that it is my strong perception that a bachelor's degree as a credential is pretty important for most people who want to go work for other people. Then that comes down to thinking about how you get that. I love the way that you described Lacey, of doing that through the military then starting a community college, and then transferring to a university.

We talk about a similar path sometimes with our kids of even doing dual enrollment during high school graduating with some undergraduate credits, perhaps starting at the community college transferring to the state's flagship school, and then graduating debt-free. Maybe in that time only having to have paid maybe between one and a half and two and a half years of full boat university tuition. I also agree with the other thing that you said which is that it's so important to work because if you've never worked before you graduate from university what experience do you have to offer to any employer?

Even if you say waiting tables like you said it doesn't connect directly to what you want to do after school the ability to show up on time to collaborate with other people to deal with difficult customers. Like those things, all transfer and are super-duper important. I love the path that you described.

[00:10:08] Lacey: That's a really good point you bring up waiting tables, you learn to deal with conflict. Somebody that's super unhappy and there's not much you can do about it. Whatever you say, isn't going to appease them. Really working on keeping your cool and solving a problem, I think is something I definitely learned waiting tables. I also think teach, their own, I really enjoyed working versus going to school, but I knew that's something I wanted.

I really wanted to learn how to be an adult, have my own life and my own path that I'm choosing, whether those were great choices or poor choices. You learn the hard way sometimes, but I definitely was living. A lot of times people just think this is the next step. I have my undergraduate degree. I have to get a master's degree or I have to get that MBA. I think it was really good. The point you brought up about MBA leading into working for somebody else for a very specific salary, that type of thing. What about just, let's say a master's degree in education or a master's degree in, I don't know, sociology. [unintelligible 00:11:13] [laughs]

[00:11:14] Matt: Yes, you got to, I feel like I've said this even already today, but on this one, I just always push people to, again and again, ask the question why you mentioned a master's in education. Oftentimes if someone's a public-school teacher, their employer may be paying for that. That may actually enter their union contract result in a direct pay increase, depending on the jurisdiction that they're working as a teacher in.

Well, that may be part of your financial plan. If you happen to learn some stuff that lets you serve students better along the way, so much the better. Something like people who are just casting about for the next thing to do. I love how our friend Paula Pant talks over there at Afford Anything about how she was thinking about going on a study abroad program.

She was like, "Well, this is going to cost like $25,000, and I don't want to spend that much money just to go over there for a few weeks. How about I just go abroad program?" If you're looking for the next thing to do, go look for the next thing to do, but don't look for the next thing to do while paying tuition dollars and foregoing full-time employment for somebody else.

The question is always how the degree fits into your overall plan. You may have an interest in a degree either academically or perhaps because of the people that are there or even for your career, but if it doesn't fit into where you're at in your family or with your finances, it still might be not the right decision, at least at this time.

[00:12:34] Lacey: Is there a rule of thumb people can use for deciding the value of that extra education? Let's say you're going to get an undergraduate degree. Should you be earning a certain amount in salary the day you graduate or start your job or same thing with your master's degree? If you are employed already, should your pay go up a certain amount? What is a standard that?

[00:13:00] Matt: I think you really have to look at the field on that one, but I think especially if you're going to pay for something out of pocket. I'm going to answer first in the context of grad school and say that for something like a master's or a professional degree, one-yard stick because I thought about this is your first-year salary, if that could equal or exceed the tuition portion of what you paid.

To put that in an MBA context, two years at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, where I went to school was going to run you about $110,000 or $120,000 right now, just in tuition and fees. I know, but first-year pay from there is in the neighborhood of 130 to 160. That would pass that test. What you don't want to do is go to a school that costs similarly to Duke, but pays similarly to someplace that doesn't pay as well as that.

You don't want to spend $100,000 on a degree that only pays $65,000 a year, I think that would be bad math. Undergrad is a little bit different. It's more like a hurdle that you have to clear, but even in that way that you and I were talking about it earlier of perhaps combining community college with state schools, that would actually meet that criteria because you might spend a couple of thousands or a few thousand dollars a year going to community college.

Now you're up to $6,000 for two years. Then here in a flagship North Carolina School, you're at $25,000 a year and that actually includes living expenses. Now you're at $56,000 for the program. Well, first-year post bachelor's degree holder can make mid-fifties or even much more than that, depending on the field

[00:14:30] Lacey: Talking about community college, that reminded me of another reason why community college was good for me. I've talked about this on the show a lot, that I really struggle with test-taking. Smaller class size was very helpful to me to get extra help. If I have questions, there's not as many people in the room and then office hours, those type of things. When I transferred to a university, I did struggle. It was a lot more to keep up with. They were moving at a different pace. I think it was really good to get my core classes out of the way in an environment that was better for my learning capabilities.

[00:15:05] Matt: I think that comes down to knowing yourself. I would also love to say that I went to university all four years and I would often go to office hours and it was, I don't want to say completely deserted, but in a lecture class that might've had 200 kids in it. There would be one or two or three kids that would show up for office hours. Even in a big university environment, avail yourself of the resources that are there and you can still get a lot of help.

[00:15:29] Lacey: One of the most memorable things that happened to me at a university when I went to ask for extra help was one of my professors. I won't say who or what class it was because I'm pretty sure he still works there, told me that maybe finance isn't for you, maybe you should just think of doing something else. I remember thinking I luckily was older going through college that I had already served in the military and I thought, "Okay, you're a jerk."

If you say that to a student like instead of actually trying to help me with-- I was actually just asking him to help me work through one problem. Instead of helping me work through that one problem, that's what he said to me. I thought, "Okay, well lesson learned, I won't ever ask you for help again." Also, I thought, what would you say to a 21-year-old kid or 20-year-old kid?

Like this is how you're going to treat somebody that maybe doesn't know better, that they would accept that's how professor or an adult or somebody in leadership should talk to somebody asking for help. I just felt really bad for other students because I thought if you did that to me, I imagine you've done this a thousand times.

[00:16:29] Matt: Yes. In my line of work, I could lose my license for advice like that.

[00:16:32] Lacey: [laughs] Like, "Yes, just go somewhere else, pick a different major.

[00:16:36] Matt: Here's some other bad advice.

[00:16:38] Lacey: [laughs] It's right. Just fun, Lacey's story of college.

[00:16:43] Matt: You've demonstrated that you have some competency in finance subsequent to that.

[00:16:47] Lacey: I know, one day, I hope I'm much much bigger. I can just be like, "Hey, guess what, buddy? It did work out after all contrary to your advice." [laughs]

[00:16:56] Matt: That's right.

[00:16:58] Lacey: Well, when should be the line in the sand for people to say this education is enough because I've coached people that are in the military that come in and say, "I have $300,000 worth of student loan debt. I am thinking about getting another degree because I'm not really enjoying my current career path." That's a true story that actually happens. What should be the line?

[00:17:21] Matt: Honestly, if that person is not persuadable on the basis of some data, I mean, unless they're earning a half-million dollars a year, but I'm assuming that they weren't.

[00:17:27] Lacey: They were not.

[00:17:28] Matt: That's like a case to go seek out professional therapy. I mean, you need to look at education, not as an end in itself, even if you enjoy it. Education is a luxury good and needs to be consumed either with excess resources that you may have or with a specific ROI and a very business-like look at how it serves your particular goals.

We just keep coming back to that, like, "What is this for? Why are you doing it?"

The answer to that question drives everything. Then for someone like what you just described, which I think happens, we'd ask the question, "Why is this time different? You've already got three or four degrees. Why not look at how to use those degrees and leverage experience to transition into whatever the next thing is?" Education is not always the ideal transition tool. I think that a lot of times, even back to our entrepreneurship discussion earlier on just getting out there and getting after it is a better way to get results than piling credits on top of credits.

[00:18:31] Lacey: Yes. That's what I thought. That if you're unhappy in your current career path and that's why you're seeking out more education, that actually your unhappiness is only going to be compounded when you tack on more debt. If you think you're miserable right now, let's put another 20,000 on top of that. It's only going to get worse.

Not that it's like, "Suck it up," but it is a little bit of tough love that, "Hey, right now you do need to work." You need to be paying down that debt and figuring a different career path and start to work slowly towards that goal. I think sometimes unhappiness leads people to be seeking something else and that something else may not be something that's going to make them happy. It could actually make it worse.

[00:19:13] Matt: Yes. It might hurt them. I think also action rather than avoidance is always a great curative for feeling bad about what the next thing is, like, just go start trying, try a bunch of stuff, and see what happens. Pick the best option and pivot from there.

[00:19:27] Lacey: I do feel like a lot of people fail their way to success. I feel like that's what I have done. I've failed my way to success that it's just like, "Hey, that didn't work." Or I needed to try again, do better. I didn't understand the playing field or whatever component went into it, and why it wasn't a success for me, but it led to something else that then was one step. Then that led to something else. That's another step. I think education is the same thing.

[00:19:52] Matt: Yes. Preach it, Lacey.

[00:19:54] Lacey: [laughs] What about schools? We talked a little bit about community colleges versus universities but what about different universities? How do you balance the reputation and the education with the cost of going to that school? Because I think that's a big deal is a lot of times I really want to go to that school because it's Chapel Hill. I want to go to it. Can you tell we're from North Carolina where Duke [chuckles] State but how do they balance that tuition with if it's going to be worth it's ROI?

[00:20:27] Matt: This question highlights a key point in college planning, which is that parents and students need to understand that school choice is going to be a huge part of what drives their total cost. That means looking at the program costs, that means looking at in-state versus out-of-state. That means looking at the cost of private versus public in your area. That means looking at things like can the student live at home? How accessible are part-time jobs, all these things, but school choice ultimately becomes the biggest single variable input into what this total thing is going to cost.

Keep that in mind and full disclosure here, I went to a state school for undergrad on a scholarship, and then I chose to go to a expensive school for graduate school and take on debt. I reflect positively on both of those experiences. I don't have the experience of going to an expensive undergraduate school. My opinion though, is undergrad needs to be paid for with cash. There's just not enough salary differential between an NC State engineer and a Emory or a Duke engineer to justify the full boat tuition difference between those schools, for example.

Now, if you just have a lot of money for this, you can go ahead and just choose the school that's the one where you want to go to. Step one, in this process, school choice matters. Step two, undergrads should be debt-free either by making a conservative school choice or by just having lots of money to throw at the problem. We already talked about grad school as a road to nowhere earlier and I just want to say grad school can be a great stepping stone.

All of the income statistics would say more education leads to more income, but more education doesn't lead to more income for everyone. More education leads to more income for people who have a pretty great plan for how to use that education. For graduate school, if that ROI is there, typically you're going to want to go to the school that's best for you and that may either be the school that is reputationally best, or maybe a school that somehow you fit with, or maybe a school that some specific employers or industries recruit from that you are really targeting.

Those are the ways that I would think about that. Honestly, you can't know the future, but you can put these things into a spreadsheet and make reasonable estimations. If you need help with that, find someone who can talk through it with you. Other than buying a house, it's one of the most impactful, single financial decisions that you can make, whether for yourself or for your child.

[00:22:51] Lacey: That is a very good point. I also like the point that you make that there's not a big difference in undergraduate. In your example, if you're going to be an engineer, that's graduated from NC State or somebody that's graduated from Duke that's, you're paying a bigger bill by going to Duke and if you're not getting a scholarship or already the money was saved, or like you said, you have it just to spend, it really just doesn't make sense.

[00:23:12] Matt: Let me say one more thing. I want to talk about the anti sweet spot from a college planning standpoint. Your flagship state school tends to be in a pretty good place as far as being a good return on investment. For us around here, that's NC State, UNC, and then your true Ivy or very elite, you all know who these schools are, the top 10 or top 15 schools in the country. Those schools tend to have big endowments, and it may be that if your child is capable of gaining admission to one of those schools, that actually a lot of resources may be available for you there and so you may want to just go ahead and apply.

If you can get into Harvard, it's probably worth going, and you're probably not going to pay $70,000 a year, even though they publish that number. The anti sweet spot tend to be schools that are in that 30 to 100 rank that are private and have high tuition bills without having either the large endowment to offset those tuitions or the massive alumni network clout that a true Ivy would have. Those would be, I'm definitely not going to name any of those on the show, but those would be schools to watch out for because the bill can be high and the ROI is the starting salaries of the availability of high starting salaries maybe even less than at your flagship state school.

[00:24:27] Lacey: That is, I think a major benefit of the upper universities is the connections. That is getting a job maybe that you wouldn't have been exposed to had you not attended that university and like you said, have the alumni network that they have.

[00:24:43] Matt: I'm saying that the price may even be lower for those schools than for these other private schools.

[00:24:48] Lacey: Okay. What about a trade. Going to tech school, community college and learning that trade for two years or a year versus continuing on getting your undergraduate degree, or do you think that it's still important if you have a trade that you still should have a four-year degree?

[00:25:06] Matt: We're back to, it depends on that one. I think the student needs to decide whether they do or don't need that. Probably there's not going to be an easier or cheaper time to get a four-year degree than between the ages of 18 and 22. if you're going to do it, just go ahead and knock it out at that point, knock it out in three years, and just be done with that but I love tech schools.

I'm familiar with this through my John Deere background. Technicians could get their associate's degree paid for by the dealership, have a guaranteed job with the dealership, they had to sign a contract in order to do that. They were working while they were in school and then if they were motivated to get a four-year degree, those credits could potentially transfer to an in-state school and they could complete a bachelor's degree and would have had a large portion of it paid for and been working the whole time. I think that's a terrific route.

One thing that I saw with trade school programs, or just knowing people who came out of those, and I may just again be shaped by my agricultural background here, but in my opinion, if you've got a job that requires rolling around on the concrete, you want to figure out a way to not be in that job by the time you get a little bit older and that just means having a plan to become the general manager or become an owner and, you know, help other people do that. [chuckles]

I think that that is one challenge, sometimes those programs feed into careers where you work with your body and you've got to have a plan for that. That would include both how to not do that beyond the period when you don't want to do it and then also appropriate disability and health insurance along the way because those are riskier careers. I loved your question about a trade. I think that for the right group of people, this is possibly the fastest path to high income and wealth outside of a very select few places. AC tech, plumber, electrician, any of these things have relatively high starting wages. Your time to money in the job is immediate.

The thing with these jobs is if you've got a work ethic, a capability to learn a willingness to show up, and the ability to pass a drug test, you can excel in these careers and people only care about what you do. This is an ultimately egalitarian thing. What I would encourage someone who was thinking about a trade to do would be to gain the experience through some an apprenticeship and experience building path, working with a capable older member of the trade. What I would think would be great would be to look for some way to begin, to build small business experience in parallel while working part-time.

Some examples of that if your boss is an electrician, you could begin offering home energy efficiency assessments, and that he's not threatened by that. You're not pulling wire in the house, but you guys have a chance to cross-sell that and you get to meanwhile, gain this experience. Okay? I own the company, I've got some equipment, I'm billing customers, I'm interacting with the public and selling jobs, or if you're a plumber, you could do video pipe scoping or whatever it may be, but find some way to gain that entrepreneurial experience alongside the trade experience that you're gaining.

Then again, look to become the owner of that business as soon as you reasonably can, both so that you can have those returns that accrue to owners and not to employees. Also so that you put on path, your exit plan from doing the hard physical tasks that only become harder as you get older.

[00:28:13] Lacey: Those are really good thoughts on that. That is something that's not discussed a lot. I think just plumbers, like they make a ton of money. That's something that everybody needs. Nobody wants a broken toilet or sink in their house. That's going to get fixed real quick. It's not something anybody wants and they're willing to pay whatever to get that handled.

[00:28:30] Matt: Yes, you don't ask the price before the man comes. It's like, "What time please?"

[00:28:35] Lacey: Yes. [chuckles] How quickly could the toilet be fixed? That's what needs to be done. I think you bring up a very important point is I think at any career path, you should have some type of exit strategy and part of your transition, like you said, when you're hitting 40, 50 years old, like you said, you don't want to be turning a wrench on the concrete. It's going to be harder on your body, but you have this capability to make a lot of money at a young age very quickly.

I've helped a lot of young people that I'm just in shock how much money they have. I'm like, "Oh, do you have a degree? You're only like 20 years old. Please tell me the backstory on how you have half a million dollars. I love to hear it." It's because they have a trade.

[00:29:21] Matt: Because they don't have a degree.

j[00:29:22] Lacey: Right.

[laughter]

A lot of times I feel like I have gone the wrong way here. [chuckles] I could have maybe done entrepreneurship a different way. I think that's very important though, that some of those, maybe you have some type of computer trade of some sort that might be different where you're going to be in a nicer environment, making those adjustments or fixes but if you are turning a wrench or, rolling around on the ground, like you said, or working out in the weather, like in the elements, you're working out in the freezing cold, doing electrical wiring, those types of things that will get old. I think it's something that people should really think about and more and more if school isn't your thing, and you really want to build wealth and just experience life. That might be the fast track.

[00:30:06] Matt: I think it's a great track for the right person.

[00:30:08] Lacey: Is there anything else that I'm forgetting to ask you because I know you know more on this than I do. Why should people really be thinking is more education the answer?

[00:30:20] Matt: I think just with any education, the plan is to ask why this thing, why right now, and then whether it's worth it. I love the, if you want to call them this, the more non-traditional paths that we've talked about of either combining community college and university or pursuing some sort of a trade certification via a community college or just going straight into an apprenticeship program with a job that's not going to be outsourced, that everybody needs. Where you can start working at it when you're young, where there's a real opportunity for ownership.

It's unlikely that any individual will found the next Semiconductor corporation, but any individual with the right work ethic can found a successful plumbing company and can grow that to be really big if they want to do that.

[00:31:01] Lacey: They could train other people to do the same thing, then you're able to pass that on.

[00:31:06] Matt: Yes.

[00:31:06] Lacey: Is there a resource or tool that you've been using that makes your life easier? It's been a while since I asked you this question, so I thought you might have an update.

[00:31:15] Matt: Yes, and it's going to just make everybody groan out there, but the best one that I can come up with is Zoom. I was using Zoom before it was cool, but it has definitely been my total lifeline for any number of things. Over the last six months have done all manner of things on Zoom. I know we're all suffering with Zoom fatigue and been reading articles about how it's tough to look at people's eyes all day long on a screen, but it has been during this pandemic time, a pretty effective way to be in touch with people.

Even as we emerge from this, I think that the ability of a tool like Zoom to cut down on things like driving and create flexibility as far as location, where either I or my clients might be is good for everybody.

[00:31:59] Lacey: Yes. I think too, the social stuff. Getting together for game nights and just chatting with people happy hours, it's been able to bring people together. I think it is a really great resource or tool.

[00:32:09] Matt: Yes. Thanks, Lacey.

[00:32:10] Lacey: When you said using Zoom before it was cool, I think a lot of people don't know where that originates from. That's a song. I was country before country was cool. Oh wait, I was country when country wasn't cool.

[00:32:21] Matt: [laughs] That's right. That's the word.

[00:32:22] Lacey: I might have to put a link into that so people can listen to the song if they've never heard it before. I just saw two guys on YouTube that videotaped themselves watching a Dolly Parton song for the first time. It was Jolene. They were maybe 17, and they were like, "She's really good. This is--"

[00:32:41] Matt: Jolene's a great song.

[00:32:42] Lacey: Isn't it? I'm going to link to that one too. Don't worry people. If you've never heard Jolene, I'm going to hook you up. [laughs] All right. What is a book maybe that you've been reading lately or some content that you've been consuming?

[00:32:55] Matt: There's been a lot of that, but one of the ones that's probably had the biggest impact are two books; The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and Atomic Habits by James Clear. I chose to take this time during pandemic when everything was so disrupted in our family's life, to try to reset on certain things that I wanted to do. I've been working out six days a week and have been more regular in some of my online efforts. The Duhigg book, it's all case-based, which just means it's stories, and it lays the foundation for how habits work.

Then the James Clear book is really like an operations manual and tells you how to take this habit research and turn it into stuff that you do in your life. I'm several months into working with that content, and it's been really helpful for me, both personally and professionally. That's what I'd go with on that.

[00:33:40] Lacey: Those are good ones. All right. Now, it's time for my favorite part of the podcast. Just because you've been here before, doesn't mean that you're not going to have to play game time.

[00:33:50] Matt: Lay it on me, Lacey.

[00:33:51] Lacey: Okay, so today we're going to play Plead The Fifth. I'm going to give you three difficult questions and you only are allowed to not answer one of them by pleading your First Amendment right.

[00:34:03] Matt: Fifth Amendment Rights.

[00:34:04] Lacey: I'm sorry. Fifth Amendment. [laughs] Good question.

[00:34:09] Matt: We practice all our amendment rights here at the Miner household.

[00:34:12] Lacey: [laughs] That's good. You can tell your kids today that you were able to tell me that I had it wrong. I think I have been saying in other ones First Amendment right. That is so hilarious. I'm going to call it everybody else has played Plead The Fifth. That will get corrected. Take your Fifth Amendment Right. You only get to choose one, and if you make it through without pleading the fifth, then you get bragging rights.

[00:34:38] Matt: Okay. I'm ready.

[00:34:40] Lacey: All right. What is your biggest money mistake to date?

j[00:34:44] Matt: One that I hate, and if I'd been working with someone to help me, that I would not have done was I sold out of S&P 500 index funds in March of 2009 to fund a down payment on a house. That was pretty much the low point for the market. It wasn't that I was afraid and couldn't handle the stock volatility. The big planning mistake that I had made was having money that I needed within a short period of time tied up in stocks. I ended up getting to sell shares at about a 50% discount in order to raise a certain amount of cash for a 20% down payment on a home. That's one that always sticks with me, both as an unforced error on my part, and a reason why it's good to have someone by your side when you're making these decisions.

[00:35:33] Lacey: That's a lesson learned though. You've taken a lot out of that. Like you said, it stuck with you. Some of our biggest mistakes are part of our biggest success.

[00:35:41] Matt: That's right. Or as Dave Ramsey says, just some more stupid tax.

[00:35:45] Lacey: Yes, that's true. Next one. What is your proudest money moment?

[00:35:53] Matt: I don't know what it says about me that they both are negative, but my two proudest money moments would be clearing our $225,000 in student loan debt in 2014 and paying off our house in 2019. It's funny that getting rid of the debt has meant more than balance sheet or net worth milestones.

[00:36:11] Lacey: I don't think that's negative. I think that that's a huge accomplishment and definitely something to be proud of. That is a great money moment. All right. Last one. What's one thing that annoys you that people do with money?

[00:36:25] Matt: One of the things that annoys me or just makes me sad when I see people do with money is use it in a way that is hurtful to themselves or others. One of the ones that I see here are just parents who are exasperated with children not taking responsibility for their lives but then continuing to enable that irresponsibility through a variety of different gifts or bailouts. It's exasperating the parent, it's clipping the child's wings and it's hurting people with money even though that's not the intent. That's one that I never like to see.

[00:37:05] Lacey: That I think plays well to the subject today about is more education? I think a lot of children also get in the habit, "I decided now I want to get my master's, so I need you to help me pay for that or pay for my room board, or basically keep me on the payroll for a little bit longer," when they didn't necessarily take their undergraduate serious.

[00:37:23] Matt: No, that's just one of the many ways that can happen.

[00:37:26] Lacey: It was interesting. I've recently been watching on social media, I've really loved Sara Blakely. She's the founder of Spanx, and she's married to Jesse Itzler and he is successful in his own right. I think he's had books, successful companies with airplanes, things like that. He's definitely an entrepreneur. They're real big about letting their children fail. They have maybe a two-year-old, three-year-old to like maybe 10, and that's part of them learning they have to learn something new all the time, like dance moves or whatever it is.

The family decides the learning topic is, and they're learning one, to continue to always striving to improve, but also that sometimes you're not going to do well the first time. You have to keep going. I think that that is a very good thing to be annoyed at.

[00:38:13] Matt: There's the memo to parents, is give your kids the gift of failure.

[00:38:17] Lacey: Yes. That is so true. We'll leave it right there. That was a good one to end on, Matt. I appreciate you coming back on the podcast. I always have so much fun talking with you and I always learned so much, so I'm hoping everybody else has enjoyed this as much as I have.

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[00:39:42] Matt: Today, the recap and takeaways really boiled down to asking and answering that question why, as it relates to education choices. If you'll adopt this approach of asking why for yourself and for your children, everyone will be better served. Thanks for joining me for this bonus episode. I'll talk to you next Thursday, until then this is Matt Miner, encouraging you to plan to fund the life you love.

[music]

[00:40:08] Lacey: Matt Miner is a fee-only, fiduciary financial advisor and Founder & CEO of Miner Wealth Management, a North Carolina Registered Investment Advisor where Matt provides personalized, unconflicted, advice to clients for a fee. He’s also my dad, so please be nice when you talk to him! Matt is a Certified Financial Planner Professional and holds a Series 65 securities license. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Finance from Arizona State University, and his MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Work Pants Finance is Matt's financial media business where he talks about work, entrepreneurship, kids and money, taxes, investing, and other personal finance topics. WorkPantsFinance.com exists to share wisdom and provide general financial information. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. You are an individual and probably need personal advice for your specific situation. You should consider building relationships with helpful, caring, and competent professionals who understand your unique context and can provide advice that is tailored to your needs

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