#103 – Mortgage Payoffs, Investing Trade-Offs, and Retirement Questions—Explained

Christa DiBiase [00:00:34]:
So good to be here with you.

Wes Moss [00:00:35]:
Wes, and I’m excited to have her with us today to answer some of your questions and give you a little taste of my Retire Sooner podcast, which you can find and subscribe to on any podcast platform. Let’s dive right in.

Christa DiBiase [00:00:49]:
So many questions. Jason in Utah says I have 300k sitting in a GM financial right note, currently with a 4 1/2% rate. Before I began listening to your podcast, my plan was to use 200k of this money to pay down my mortgage once the interest rate fell below my mortgage rate of 4.375%. The other hundred K is my emergency fund. This wouldn’t pay off my mortgage completely, but it would enable me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. After listening to you, I’m now wondering if this is the best move. I’m a few months from 50 years old, happy almost birthday and has saved enough in my 401k to meet the 5 times my salary goal. T.

Christa DiBiase [00:01:28]:
Rowe Price, my 401k provider recommends for 50 year old 100% of these funds are in a target date retirement fund. I also have another 900k in a brokerage account made up almost entirely of S&P 500 index fund with about 10% in a foreign stock index fund. So no real fixed income balance outside of my 401k. For all intents and purposes, I consider the brokerage account more retirement money. Cash goes in and never comes out. Would it be better to use that 200k to add some balance to my brokerage account instead of knocking off a decade’s worth of mortgage payments? The bond funds I’m looking at have uninspiring 10 year annual returns between 2 and 4%. Perhaps I split the 200k up with half going to the mortgage and the other half a bond fund. The plan would be to retire in 15 years or so, so there’s still time to balance things out.

Christa DiBiase [00:02:20]:
It would just take a few years. Since you caused me to second guess myself, I would much appreciate your thoughts on how I should approach this admittedly good dilemma that I have.

Wes Moss [00:02:31]:
Just make sure, I want to make sure I’m getting that right number to 200,000 on the mortgage.

Christa DiBiase [00:02:37]:
Wait, let me say double check.

Wes Moss [00:02:42]:
So the question here is one, it’s a little bit.

Christa DiBiase [00:02:45]:
No, he doesn’t say the balance on the mortgage. He says to pay down my mortgage. So. So pay it down.

Wes Moss [00:02:52]:
Okay, well, I’ve gotten a ton of numbers here from Jason in Utah, but there’s some numbers left out. So I guess I’m going to have to make some assumptions here. But here’s the way I Look at this. 200,000 in brokerage money and 100,000 in emergencies. That’s 300 as I’m jotting this down, $900,000 in brokerage. That’s also after tax money. So now we’re at 1,200,000, let’s call it a million and a quarter in after tax money. Then we’ve got, he’s saying five times salary in his 401.

Wes Moss [00:03:31]:
I’m assuming that let’s again guess that to be 750,000. So we’ve got 1 million 455 million in after tax money and 750,000 in 401k. It’s $2 million total. And the ratio here is important. Two thirds of his of your Jason money is in after tax and that gives you a lot of flexibility. So that’s a good sign. And that gives you flexibility. I would say this, and this gives me a chance to kind of go through a mortgage payoff rule that I don’t know if we’ve covered much here, is that to pay down the mortgage or get rid of the mortgage, which again, happy retirees either have a paid off mortgage or, or they’re getting close to paying off the mortgage.

Wes Moss [00:04:15]:
And even though it’s a low rate, you still are going to feel more comfortable when you head into retirement without the financial burden of the mortgage. So if your mortgage today was 200,000, I would say that you’ve got 200k to pay it off, or even if it’s 300k to pay it off and you have a million and a quarter of after tax money to do it. And my rule of thumb here is that if you can pay off your mortgage with a third or less of your after tax money, then go ahead and do it. Even if it’s a low rate at four and a half, 4.75%. I mean that’s not a nothing rate, but it is somewhat of a guaranteed rate of Return because it’s gone, the interest payment’s gone and you want to do it anyway to be a happy retiree. So if it was 300,000, think of it this way. 300 divided by a million and a quarter, you’re only using 24% of your after tax money to pay it off. So I would lean towards, yes, paying down the mortgage.

Wes Moss [00:05:19]:
And then if I’m connecting the dots here, the mortgage is 4.75. You mentioned bonds, right? So when you’re looking, and this applies to anybody looking at bond funds, I know if you pull out your 401 statement, you’ve got this 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, 10 year and lifetime rate of return. And you see that for all the funds, when you look at your bond funds, those returns over the last couple of years are not going to look good. But that’s not that relevant. You’re looking into the past when interest rates were really low. So bond funds didn’t do well because rates rose, prices dropped. So in bonds, Christa, remember, yield is destiny, meaning that where rates are today, that gives us a really good idea of what bond returns should be over the next five years. So if your bond fund is paying 4.5%, it’s very likely that you’ll get around that over the next five years per year.

Wes Moss [00:06:15]:
Yield is destiny in the bond world. But to some extent that’s pretty close to the rate on the mortgage.

Christa DiBiase [00:06:24]:
So 4.375. I don’t know if that makes a difference. You said 4.7.

Wes Moss [00:06:28]:
Oh, okay, 4.3. So still, I would say bonds should be in that range from 4 to 5 over the next couple of years. But it’s not a guarantee. Paying off the mortgage is. So I would say that I would lean towards using some of that outsized after tax money to be paying down the mortgage because of the way your assets are balanced from a tax perspective, way more in after tax than you do in pre tax. And you’re already at the financial levels of being a happy retiree. Getting rid of the mortgage is yet another part of that methodology to be a happy retiree.

Christa DiBiase [00:07:05]:
Okay. David in Ohio says, I have a question for Wes. My 401k has a combination of traditional and Roth contributions. I occasionally rebalance my portfolio between different investment options. How in the world does my 401k provider keep track of which dollars are traditional contributions or earnings and which are Roth contributions or earnings? So seems like an impossible logic puzzle to determine which dollars are invested in which fund as the dollars move around and therefore which Earnings are taxable or non taxable. Do you have any idea how they do this, David?

Wes Moss [00:07:38]:
So this is a. It is a weird logic puzzle because usually when you log in, you’ll see a just one pie chart, but then the pie chart will have a sliver that is the Roth part, and the rest of it is the regular 401k part. Why don’t they just have two? Why aren’t there just two charts? If you do a rollover into IRAs, you’re going to roll the pieces over separately. You would roll your traditional for 1k into a traditional IRA if you choose to do so. And the same thing with the Roth, it would. It wouldn’t go into a traditional ira. So it is a little puzzling. Why don’t they just have 2 charts? And most for 1k providers for some reason don’t do that.

Wes Moss [00:08:18]:
But it’s actually not nearly as hard to track as you might think. So every investment, it just gets its own tax category, and each one of those, as you reinvest, stay in that tax category, and your contributions will stay in either tax category. So really, even though it looks complex and you’ve got multiple things going in every month, contribution here, contribution there, they just tag one is for one K and one is Roth. And then once those assets are tagged, it’s very easy to see where the appreciation is coming from. So it’s actually not. The systems are totally designed to do that. They’ve been doing it for decades at this point. And this is serious stuff.

Wes Moss [00:08:59]:
401 planes are super regulated. They go through very serious audits. They go through very serious checks and balances. And this is not something I see them mess up. So the systems are designed to keep track of the different tax buckets and, and even though they don’t display it all that well, they’re keeping track.

Christa DiBiase [00:09:19]:
Derek in New Hampshire says, my niece is 10 months old, and for her birthday and Christmas going forward, I’d like to give her money instead of clothes and toys she’ll quickly outgrow or forget about. I’m considering opening a UGMA account for her, but I’d like your thoughts on those accounts versus a 529 plan. I have a feeling college may not be as common or necessary by the time she reaches that age. Would you prioritize contributing to one account over the other? I know the 529 could be rolled over into a Roth IRA later, which is a nice option. We live in New Hampshire. Are there any other types of accounts I should be looking into.

Wes Moss [00:09:55]:
Yeah. This is a question that goes back to Derek about the flexibility of either custodial accounts or the UGMA or UTMA accounts. And in most states have both. They’re very, very similar. One allows for a broader list of assets to put in them. But just in think of them as a brokerage account for your child. You can put up to the nineteen thousand dollar level. You can put more in one of these UTMA or UGMA accounts than that, but that’s the gifting limit in any year.

Wes Moss [00:10:27]:
So it’s over. If it’s over 19,000, you’d have to do a gift tax return. But the way I would look at this is that the only downside. Well, the downside is this and depends on how you look at as a parent, Eric, which is the money is theirs at either 18 or 21, depending on the kind of account. And then they can use it for anything they want. The pullback or the one ding on these, in my opinion is that once the interest and once they earn, once the, let’s call it dividends and interest or capital gain goes above what they call the kitty tax rate, which is about 2,600 bucks in a year, it starts to get taxed at your income.

Christa DiBiase [00:11:08]:
Well, he’s the uncle.

Wes Moss [00:11:10]:
Well, if he’s setting it up for them.

Christa DiBiase [00:11:13]:
Custodian.

Wes Moss [00:11:14]:
If he’s the custodian, then it would go back to his tax bracket. Okay, so there’s some tax issues with this and to some extent that’s why I would lean towards the 529 plan, even though it seems like it’s more restrictive because it only can be used for education. By the way, I love these. He said, Derek said, I’d rather give them money than clothes they’re going to outgrow. That’s such a Clark audience thing to say.

Christa DiBiase [00:11:37]:
The other thing with those UGMA and utma, if the niece does go to school, it does count against her FAFSA.

Wes Moss [00:11:44]:
Yeah, financial aid and technically 529s do a little bit, but they’re maybe not as they’re not counted as high.

Christa DiBiase [00:11:51]:
I think as long as the student doesn’t own it. Right. It’s the custodian’s account. It’d be David’s account.

Wes Moss [00:11:57]:
I don’t know exactly how the formula.

Christa DiBiase [00:11:59]:
For FAFSA or Derek’s account.

Wes Moss [00:12:00]:
Sorry, Derek, but here’s why I like the 529. Because you can remember secure 2.0 allows for these things to be rolled into Roth accounts. And if you end up putting $35,000 into one of these things as a 529 plan, then that can get converted into a Roth for your niece and then that is a jump on retirement. You could still technically use it for. You could still leave it in the 529 and still use it for education. But if you educate her over the years to say, look, this is your nest egg for retirement, this goes back to the zero year, zero savings plan, which I think that we all have to start thinking about saving even earlier in America because things are that much more expensive, it’s in line with that. So I like the flexibility that the 529 plan gives you to potentially convert that into a Roth over time. That could give your niece a huge jump start on retirement.

Wes Moss [00:12:58]:
It’s way more valuable than some piece of clothing that she’s going to outgrow in six months to a year. So I would lean towards doing the 529 knowing that you have more flexibility in the future.

Christa DiBiase [00:13:11]:
Awesome. Andrew in Iowa sent this one and he said, hi, Wes, I have a question on how asset fees work. If it seems to me like the only two ways to charge an asset fee would be A, the issuing company lowers the fund’s price from what it was, pocketing the difference, or B keeping the fund’s price the same, but a fraction of each share is basically forcibly transferred back to the issuing company. If option A is how it works, that would already be taken into account when viewing price history charts. But with option B, I’d have to do that math myself to find true performance. Which option is more accurate? Or is there a different explanation that I haven’t considered?

Wes Moss [00:13:51]:
Andrew, here’s how it works. The fee in any etf fund, mutual fund. So first of all, they do not take shares back to pay your fee. That’s not the way it works in today’s world. If an ETF has a fee of, let’s call it a quarter of a percent per year, they essentially divide that up by 365 and they probably actually do it by business day as opposed to calendar days. But let’s just do simple math. 0.25 quarter of a percent divided by 365 is 0.00068% per day. And that gets taken out of the price that you see on the chart.

Wes Moss [00:14:27]:
So it is a net price of the fee in any particular fund. So you do not have to recalculate them pulling back shares to pay for it. It’s just automatically done. So what you’re seeing is net and it just makes it very, very easy. More Money Matters straight ahead. Have you heard about the rule of 55? It allows many Americans to tap into their retirement savings as early as age 55 without the usual penalties. That’s right, 55 Georgians could be enjoying their retirement a decade earlier than they might have otherwise planned. Don’t miss out on an extra decade of retirement fund just because you don’t know the rules.

Wes Moss [00:15:08]:
And our team can help with that. You can find us@yourwealth.com that’s y o u r wealth.com let’s get back to some of these questions.

Christa DiBiase [00:15:19]:
Christa Dibias David in Massachusetts says this is less of a what do I do? Question and more of a who should I ask? Question. You should ask Christa Little backstory. I’ve been successfully saving for retirement for many years. I’ve amassed about three and a half million dollars, mostly in a self directed Schwab brokerage account. But I also have some accounts with a Merrill Lynch CFP who is also a fiduciary. Yes, cause if you I knew you guys would ask. I’m 58 and starting to think about retirement plans. I know from listening to you guys and doing my research I need to start transferring money from my aggressive investing brokerage accounts and putting it into safer things like bonds.

Christa DiBiase [00:15:57]:
But that’s where my knowledge runs out. Every time I ask my financial planner, she starts babbling percentages and figures and my eyes glaze over. I want Even when I listen to you give advice on the podcast, I often lose my ability to comprehend what exactly I should be doing and start drooling mindlessly. I love it. My question is, are there any financial planners who can speak in plain, understandable English that a moron like me can understand? As I said, the majority of my investments are in a self directed investment account. I don’t want to transfer that entire thing to my financial planner. And as I will suddenly be paying huge annual fees on the other hand, I know I need to diversify, but I just don’t know exactly what to do or what products to buy. How do I find a person I can talk to, perhaps pay a one time fee, who won’t give me generalities but instead very specific things to do in a way I can understand? In other words, how and where exactly can I find a great fiduciary financial planner and roughly how much should I expect to pay? Do I pre interview such a person so I won’t end up with someone else? I’m confused.

Christa DiBiase [00:17:01]:
To Speak with And if I do pre interview, what questions should I ask to find out more if the person is fluent in plain speak? Thanks. And I love learning from you guys. This is such a. I just have to say I love this question. No, you should never feel confused when you’re talking to your financial planner. I think that is so important like that they put things into plane. I mean I’m totally, I’m totally with. This was David right? Yeah, I’m with David on this.

Christa DiBiase [00:17:28]:
Like I need someone to make it very simple for me to understand and I work with Clark and Wes but as Clark loves to say, I was an English major.

Wes Moss [00:17:38]:
So David again it’s a really interesting perspective on all this. I’m trying to be plain speaking. I mean I guess I’m not doing a good enough job because he says he’s listening and he’s mindlessly talking.

Christa DiBiase [00:17:52]:
It seems like he doesn’t know what he should do in his situation. So he wants someone he can talk to.

Wes Moss [00:17:57]:
Let me make sure I’m doing this in a, in, in a plain spoken way. Our industry, for some reason there is a lot of math in the industry. So I think it is easy for people. It’s hard actually for people to be plain speaking because so much of this is about numbers, percentages, ratios and analytics and it’s hard to be able to explain all that without talking about numbers and analytics. And investment options are infinite and then the way you can choose to invest is also infinite and everyone’s a little bit different. So it is a. Now David’s already, he’s, he says he’s probably drift, drifting off right now. So let me restart and say how I would.

Christa DiBiase [00:18:39]:
Can I say one quick yeah please. He may be like me, I’m a visual learner and so my planner will he. I have him like draw me things, write everything really and like for me stack it up and show it to me as well. Because I, if someone just speaks at me that is tough for me too.

Wes Moss [00:18:57]:
I am a giant. I mean the biggest believer in drawing. I think the drawing drawing you love.

Christa DiBiase [00:19:03]:
A chart you love.

Wes Moss [00:19:04]:
I love drawing the chart right there.

Christa DiBiase [00:19:06]:
Yeah.

Wes Moss [00:19:07]:
I love drawing out a retirement plan on a piece of paper or some sort of iPad or whatever it might be. Think about investing this way. David, your core question was how do I get less risky over time? Think of the investing world as just two pieces. Stocks, they’re risky. Bonds, cash, they’re not. So imagine that’s the only two things you have to worry about. Risky assets and non risky. And Any portfolio could just be a combo of the two.

Wes Moss [00:19:43]:
One of the most famous investors of all time, Benjamin Graham, he was Warren Buffett’s teacher, said that most investors would be in great shape at age 30, 60 or 90, with half in stocks and half in bonds. So imagine that’s it. They really could think about the investment part of this, which goes back to your risk, is that you gotta find some comfortable level. And Benjamin Graham tells us that whether you’re 30, 60 or 90 years old, pretty good starting place. So imagine you have a total stock market index for your stock side and you just have a Treasury money market for the other side. That’s it. Imagine that investing is just that simple. Now you were also asking, how do you de risk over time? Well, it’s pretty simple.

Wes Moss [00:20:33]:
Less in the risky bucket and more in the safety bucket. So maybe if you’re 50, when you were 50, you’re 58 now. David, you were 75% in total stock market and only 25% in money market, treasury money market. And you say, you know, when I’m 60, I want to make sure that at least half of what I have is really safe and still making me a little bit of income. So you say, I’m going to go from 75% risk, 25% safety, to half in risk and half in safety. And it can just be that simple. It really can be that simple. Now, I think the more I talk, the more I’m going to get complicated.

Wes Moss [00:21:11]:
So maybe I just leave it there. But there is more to it, because you may want to do it gradually and do it 5% per year. But now David’s starting to drift off as I do that.

Christa DiBiase [00:21:21]:
But what about the finding a financial planner?

Wes Moss [00:21:23]:
So there’s a couple things. One, if you have a fiduciary already and they’re managing some of your money, then maybe that’s an okay way to hedge your cost here, whereas maybe they manage a part of it and then you’re still getting direction, you’re still getting planning, and then you’re managing the other part of it, and there’s less of a fee there. So that’s a good way to kind of split the difference, if you will. The other way would be to go to a place like a Vanguard that has their personal advisor services. And that’s a really low. It’s about a third of a percent per year. I think it’s 0.35% per year. And you’re probably not going to get the exact same person, but you’ll always get somebody that can help you with some of those planning questions you’re talking about.

Wes Moss [00:22:09]:
So that’s another way to do it in a low cost way. There are advisors that’ll do hourly.

Christa DiBiase [00:22:17]:
And.

Wes Moss [00:22:17]:
You may pay them 1500 bucks or $3500 for a custom plan. But the financial advice industry, it’s hard to have a business doing that. There’s very few people that do that and do it, I think in the right way because it’s just a hard business. It’s like every single time you’re finding some new family to help is just a one time thing and then they’re gone. But remember, right, go back to the set it and forget it. Retirement planning really isn’t a set it and forget it. So most of those hourly planners would say, look, you’ve got to come back at least twice a year anyway and keep paying. So there does.

Wes Moss [00:22:55]:
In order to do it right and be set and settled, you either do it on your own, do a relationship with an hourly planner where you’re going to go back once or twice every single year and keep things going, or you opt for kind of this hybrid model where your CFP is managing some of it and you’re managing the rest, or a place like a Vanguard that has a advisor services where you’re going to pay a small percentage over time. Okay, I think that was plain speaking.

Christa DiBiase [00:23:29]:
I think that was good, David.

Wes Moss [00:23:30]:
I don’t know.

Christa DiBiase [00:23:31]:
Let us know, David. Okay. Leslie in North Carolina says, hi, Wes, I have $20,000 that I want to invest in VO, but I’ve been waiting until the stock market goes down a bit so I can get a better price. I’ve been waiting for several months, but the market keeps going up. Would I be better off just going ahead and investing?

Wes Moss [00:23:48]:
What’s Leslie doing?

Christa DiBiase [00:23:50]:
Timing the market.

Wes Moss [00:23:51]:
She’s timing the market. Timing the market shows up in a lot of different ways. I think when you think of timing, you’re thinking of somebody buying and then selling and buying and selling, but just not investing is timing. So she’s Leslie, you’re just timing the market. You fall victim to being a human. Hey, I’d like to get a better price. Market seems high. Maybe I’ll wait till it corrects.

Wes Moss [00:24:14]:
Totally human, totally normal. And it is a hard problem to solve because we want better prices, ironically. What happens, Christo? Prices go down, market’s down 10%, 20%. What’s Leslie’s probably say? Might go down more, Might go down more. I think I’m going to wait. Then what happens? The market goes Back up. So what’s the elixir? The only elixir I know for this is just to set it and forget it. From a dollar cost averaging perspective, DCA dollar cost averaging is the only way to trick yourself into being invested.

Wes Moss [00:24:56]:
That just means that, okay, look, I missed it. The market’s up 10, 15%. I should have known better. Woulda, coulda, should have done matter. So what am I going to do? I’m going to take my 20,000, I’m going to divide it up over the next five months, four grand a month or four months, five grand a month, and then I’m going to put it to work in whatever investment I’m thinking about. And if the market goes down, great, that means the next time I get to buy it lower and then it still goes down. The next month I get to buy it lower. So you’ve solved your problem.

Wes Moss [00:25:27]:
On the other side, if the market keeps going up, you’ve put some money to work and at least that portion is higher. So you’ve at least tricked yourself into becoming a long term buy and hold investor. And that’s the psychological way to try to fight against timing the market.

Christa DiBiase [00:25:45]:
John in Rhode island says, when my stocks offer dividends, I take the cash accumulated and usually buy another kind of stock or invest in stocks that I like. Am I better off doing that or taking the dividends from each particular stock and putting it back into that stock? What should I do, John?

Wes Moss [00:26:04]:
One word answer. Automatic automatic reinvest. Automatic dividend reinvest. Now I’m going to couch that by saying what John is doing is also a great method. Okay, because let’s say you have a handful of stocks and you’re getting dividends regularly or every quarter from all of your different individual holdings or ETFs that are also paying dividends. Being able to see the money come in as cash, which is what happens when a dividend gets paid. You have cash shows up in your account. Then being able to make the choice of buying the same stock, or maybe you want to be buying some other sector that helps rebalance the account by putting cash to work in other areas without having to sell because you’re now putting new money to work, that’s not a bad strategy at all.

Wes Moss [00:26:54]:
And in fact, when someone is in retirement, it’s pretty typical to not be on dividend reinvest because A, you’re either using that cash or B, you want to use that as a rebalancing tool. So it’s a totally fine methodology that you’re doing however, if I had to choose one, John, the easier and frictionless we can make investing, which is already kind of a full time job or a full time sport, usually the better. So that if I had to choose one of the ways to do it for you, I would say automatic reinvest. Because the day you get cash is the day you get more shares or purchase more shares. And over time it eliminates those periods where maybe you didn’t think about it for a month or you’re away for two weeks and you’re playing catch up and you forget to do the dividend reinvest. This takes that worry off the table and you can always rebalance in another way. So the easy answer here is automatic. What you’re doing, John, is still totally fine.

Wes Moss [00:28:00]:
Automatic makes it potentially a little easier.

Christa DiBiase [00:28:03]:
Jeffrey in Virginia says, I am a Clarky going way back, having opened my Roth IRA in the late 1990s at Clark’s insistence. I’m retiring this year and want to keep my contributing to my Roth ira. I max out the amount every year my spouse and I file taxes. Married, filing jointly. My spouse will have W2 income for the foreseeable future due to this income. The IRS joint filing can I just contribute the yearly max to my Roth IRA going forward, assuming my spouse is sufficient, has sufficient W2 income and call it a day, or will I need to have a part time W2 job to cover my contribution limit?

Wes Moss [00:28:38]:
The simple answer here is spousal IRA allows you to do this. The spousal income spousal contribution allows you, Jeff, to be able to do this. So I think of it in two phases. Usually you’ve got your last year of work and you may have worked three months or six months of that year. So you do have income that year and you can make your contribution because your own income has exceeded the 7,000 or $8,000 and you can make your contribution. But let’s say you have stopped and you now have no more wage income, which I think is really the heart of your question. As long as your wife is working and she’s making enough to cover both of you, you can both do the full contribution. So if she’s making 25 grand, that’s more than enough for you both to put in the $8,000.

Wes Moss [00:29:25]:
And that can continue for as many years. But the key if you’re married filing Joy, as long as one of the two spouses is earning enough, you absolutely can keep doing it. Chris Dibias, thank you so much for coming on, being here and doing some of this Q and A with me. Love doing these here on Money Matters and I invite you to hear Christa and me every week as we talk about ways to retire Sooner, retire happier and answers to your retirement questions on the Retire Sooner podcast. Follow the Retire Sooner podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and look for new episodes every Thursday. Of course, during the week, it’s easy to reach out to us and the Money Matters team. You can just go to yourwealth.com that’s y o u r your wealth.com and have a wonderful rest of your day.

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