Ask Paula: How Do I Pay for Grad School?

Yeah, we need a cold open cold cold. Does that mean we get ice cream at the open? Is that what you're trying to say? Oh, Van Lewin came out with ranch flavored ice cream hidden value and flavored ice cream. Oh, yeah. It's true. Is that the same company that made the the the the the macaroni and cheese ice? Yeah, same company. Because when one gross flavor isn't enough, it's a merging between craft hidden valley. No. And ice cream. No. I've I've looked everywhere for it. I've literally I've called every single Van Lewin. Why? Why do you look for this? Why? Why would I not? Well, on that note, you can eat anything but not everything. Every ice cream flavor you eat is a trade off against another. And that also applies to your money and your time and your focus and your energy. You can afford anything, not everything. So what matters most? That is the question that this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pamp. I'm the host of the afford anything podcast. Every other week, we answer questions that come from you, the community and my buddy, former financial planner, Joe Salci. Hi joins me to answer these questions. What's up, Joe? What's what's up besides grossness? I don't even know if I could talk to you at how can you do that? I am looking everywhere. I've I've called every store. Apparently they were at sale in select Walmart. I've checked the website. I can't find it. And it's all sold out. The supply chain on ranch ice cream, man. I'm telling you. I'll tell you the best ice cream I ever had that I didn't know that I would like when we were living when I was Cheryl and I were doing the nomad thing and we didn't have a home. We lived in Stauvermont for a month and we walk from the place we were renting downtown and they had this soft serve ice cream that was a swirl Paula and it was two great Vermont flavors mixed together. Listen to this, a swirl of blueberry and maple swirl together. Oh, it was heaven. That was so good. But if they threw ranch in there, I would have barfed. It would have been horrible. Hey, speaking of barfing, our first call. No, it's such a good call. That's the worst transition ever. Well, I was thinking health. You know, speaking of health, speaking of health. Our first call is from an emergency department nurse and he's got a conundrum. Let's hear it. Hi, Paula and Joe. My name is Jeremy and I work as an emergency department nurse in the Bay Area, California. First, I want to say thank you so much for what you guys do with the podcast and afford anything. I have learned so much in the last year and a half or so of listening and the weekly episodes are one of the highlights of my commute to work. I'm calling today with a question regarding personal finance in graduate school. I'm looking at pursuing a doctorate's degree that will allow me to work in a high paying specialty of nursing. I've already punched the numbers to know that the future earnings of this career change will more than pay for the degree in the long run. But I just had a question regarding the short term financing. The three years that this degree will take is going to be costing about $160,000 in tuition and fees. And while I know that I can or I won't be working full time during this program, I'm pretty confident that I can work part time or on an as needed basis to at least cover my living expenses. I don't think that my salary while I'm in school will be able to contribute in any meaningful way towards paying for this degree. So that leaves two options that I wanted to highlight. The first is student loans. When I was an undergrad, I had much more of a Dave Ramsey debt-averse mindset. And so I worked through school and I received scholarships and was able to graduate with my bachelor's debt free. I've gone to have since softened and I would be willing to take out a student loan. I'm just not sure though if that is a good thing to do just because I've heard these stories of how the interest can really just bear you for ten years or however long it takes you to pay off that loan. The other option that I have is that I've invested about $70,000 so far in a taxable brokerage account. I'm considering if I should take that money out of the market and use that plus savings that I can accumulate in the next year and a half before I start school to at least chip away if not pay for the degree and then just kind of graduate and start working. Yeah, so that's really the two things that I'm weighing is the interest that I would be paying on a student loan versus, you know, taking away the earnings potential of my investment portfolio. I know you obviously can't tell me what to do but you both can help to frame my thinking. So I do look forward to hearing from you guys and thanks so much. Bye. Jeremy, thank you for the question and I'm honored that we are one of the highlights of your commute. First, congratulations on this upcoming doctorate. I love that you want to elevate your game, pursue a specialty, learn more, make more. So I'm thrilled and really excited for this next step for you. All right, so how do we pay for it? A couple of things come to mind right away. So your question was essentially, do you rate your taxable brokerage account, pull out $70,000. That'll pay for half of the tuition and fees. You'll still have a $90,000 gap. So that's option one and then option two is keep that money in your taxable brokerage account and borrow the entire 160 or option three would be the half and half option. So that's what you've asked and we'll basket those options, put them to the side and explore a few other possibilities because I think there are some choices available that you might not yet be seeing. First of all, given that you are pursuing a doctorate, there are many doctorate programs that have quite a bit of funding and quite a bit of financial aid. Part of this is going to depend on where you go to school and how big their endowment is. Part of this is going to depend on the specific program that you pursue. But what I would do if I were in your shoes and what I did do, because I'm in grad school right now, is turn over every rock in your search for grants, fellowships, scholarships, financial aid that either does or does not come out of the financial aid office. So I'll tell you how I did it. As you know, I'm doing a fellowship, a one year fellowship at Columbia University right now, that culminates in a master's degree in business and economics journalism. The entire thing is fully paid for every dime. I'm paying zero. In fact, they're actually giving me a small living stipend. So my out-of-pocket costs are nothing. Now, of course, there's opportunity cost. I am not growing a Ford anything in the way that I otherwise would be. I have a bunch of ideas for things I'd like to do with a Ford anything, but those are all on hold. So yeah, there's the opportunity cost of paid work that I'm not doing while I'm in the program. But other than that, in terms of actual out-of-pocket costs, mine are zero. But here's the thing. I never worked with the financial aid office, because when you work with the financial aid office, you go through exactly the same procedure that the majority of people are going through, which means that you and the bulk of the other students are all competing for the same very, very, very small pool. So what I did, and this was actually a 10-year plan, I looked for fellowships, which don't come from financial aid. I looked for fellowships that would cover the cost of the program, and I found a particular fellowship, and the first time I applied for it was back in 2012. A little known fact. In fact, Joe, our buddy, our mutual friend, Len Penzo, wrote my letter of recommendation back in 2012. That's great. No wonder I didn't get in. Oh, hey! That's a fantastic writer. No, just kidding. I love you, love you, Len. So I applied back in 2012. I didn't get it. But it always stayed on my mind. And so I applied again in 2020, and that time I got waitlisted, and then I applied again in 2021, and that's when I got accepted. And you also learned, I think, during that process, Paula, that they liked that. That if you were persistent and showed that you wanted it bad enough, the third time was a charm. Like, I remember you telling me one of the administrators gave you that advice kind of off the cuff, right? Yeah, so the second time I applied, I got waitlisted, and the following year, the director of the program personally emailed me to say, hey, I just want to let you know applications are open, and I strongly encourage you to apply again. Hint, hint. At which point, I promptly had a meltdown because I knew in that moment that if I applied, I would likely get it. So that was a moment when it became real. But my point in telling that story is that most of my classmates who are getting exactly the same degree that I am, a master's in business and economics journalism, most of them pursued it in the traditional route. They applied for admission, then they applied for financial aid. There's nothing wrong with that, but it limits the amount of financial aid that you could potentially receive to only what is available through those channels. When you look laterally, you may discover little-known opportunities that might not be widely promoted, they might not be well advertised. A good friend of mine who is in the same fellowship, she just got accepted to Columbia Business School, and she's getting a full ride through a scholarship that is literally not advertised at all. It's not publicly known. It's nowhere on the website. People only know about it through word of mouth. So my point is that there's a lot out there, and finding out what those little-known opportunities are is going to involve reporting. And reporting is calling people up, developing sources. It's calling people on the phone, talking to them, having phone call after phone call after phone call with people who have been through the program, or who are involved in that world, and who know things that are not available online, who know things that chat GPT doesn't know, who know things that only get transmitted through word of mouth. Well, and in Dr. Thomas Stanley's books that came along with the millionaire next door, Paula, he wrote about how millionaires and multi-millionaires work, and it's almost always through connections and word of mouth. So developing relationships where you're in that stream, I think is super important. I wanted to talk about just two things. First thing is return on investment. My first question when I hear a number that high is what is the return on investment going to be? And before I even launch into this topic, I don't agree, Paula, that all college is about ROI. There are degrees that people want. There's a quality of life they want. We pursue knowledge because it makes us a better, more well-rounded person. That's great. But when you're looking at this amount of money and you're thinking about taking out debt, I do agree that college needs an ROI if you're going to go into debt to get it. If you're not going into debt, let's take the class. Let's do the thing if it adds to it. So I don't know the answer to that. What is the salary difference going to be if I do this? I love what you said then about financial aid because that was my thought process too. We need to find a different way around the traditional means. And by the way, I don't want to talk to Jeremy here for a second. I want to talk to everybody else because you spoke about not working with the traditional financial aid office. Let's speak for a second about expected family contribution, which is how the traditional financial aid programs work and why Jeremy is screwed when it comes to this type of aid. So money that is in a non-irée account that's sitting out in the open like Jeremy's brokerage account, in expected family contribution terminology, that money counts incredibly heavily against him. And by the way, the more you understand expected family contribution, I hear all this stuff about people. Like it doesn't make sense and they don't understand the average person when you walk through how it actually works. Maybe it doesn't make you happy. Maybe you don't like it. But it's pretty logical, Paula. And what they say is, and their thought process and expected family contribution before they give you financial aid is that money sitting over there, college should be a sacrifice. If you're going to go to a university, it should be a sacrifice and this money is available. We don't want to give you money that's either subsidized by the government or is a grant until you go through that money. Now, they do leave some money, a small amount of money available for expenses, emergencies, other things. But by and large, they want this to be a sacrifice before they give you money. And that makes total sense to me. So for that reason, this great job of saving that Jeremy has done has made it nearly impossible for him to get subsidized loans or to get any of the traditional grant opportunities that are out there. But, Paul at your point, non-traditional grants, look at what he does. If he worked during the pandemic, are there some organizations that are doing special things for first responders? My wife works in healthcare. I go to a hotel and they go, hey, are you a first responder? You know, they're offering up first responder things. And I don't know if that's the case, but my point is there is this subset of the audience that Jeremy is already a part of that might make him completely eligible, Paula, for the stuff that you're talking about. So I think that he's chased away from the financial aid office. I usually like also working with the financial aid office to find out what they have available. So I like doing both. But I think that because of his EFC problems, expected family contribution problems, they're just going to shrug. So he's kind of chased to the alternate areas. Jodi, your point about the ROI on the degree, or you could also calculate net present value. I know some people who've run Excel spreadsheets where they're like, all right, what is the net present value? You know, that calculated based on your age and based on the expected bump in future income. Sure. Like what's my crossover point going to be in the future? Yeah, exactly. But the other calculation, Jeremy, that you could run, and this is just a quick back of the napkin one, the rule of thumb around student debt is not to borrow more than what you expect your first year salary to be, that first year after you complete your degree program. The reason for that is because if you borrow the amount that you expect that first year salary to be, then you can pay 10% of your first year salary income over the span of 10 years, and you'll have that student loan paid off in 10 years. And that's not counting any raises that you receive over the span of those 10 years, right? So to make the math simple, let's say that you expect to earn $100,000 the year that you graduate, if you borrow no more than $100,000, then you can pay back 10,000 a year for 10 years, and you'll have the student loan paid back in a decade. Now, of course, there's going to be interest, yes, but also you're going to get raises, so those will broadly offset each other. Essentially, that rule of thumb exists because it's a formula for keeping your student loan repayment burden down to 10% of your income, and for containing that student loan repayment period to only 10 years. Which, if you think about it, Joe, I mean, as I said, this program that I'm in right now, the first time I applied for it was 2012, and I ended up actually starting the program in 2022. So there's a 10-year wait in one direction or another, right? In my case, from the time that I wanted to get into the program to the time that I did actually start, there's a 10-year gap. So one way or the other, you're paying 10 years, you're either paying it forward in time or you're paying it backward in money. And frankly, if you're going to pay 10 years one way or the other, it makes more sense to pay it backwards in money, because then you will have the benefit of the degree, of the career boost, of the higher income at an earlier point, right? To flip that logic, Jeremy could save $16,000 a year for the next 10 years and then pay $160,000 in cash a decade from now, but that just wouldn't make sense. And I don't just mean it wouldn't make sense because you haven't calculated inflation into that blah, blah, blah. I mean, it wouldn't make sense from a strategic level because it would behoove Jeremy to get that bump in his career now when he's a decade younger than he will be in 2033. Joe, I'm curious as to your thoughts, setting aside our shared advice that Jeremy should turn over every rock looking for fellow ships and other programs that will cover his doctorate. Setting that aside, what do you think of his specific question? Raid the taxable brokerage account or take out student loans? I think a loan strategy makes a lot of sense if the interest rate is low, which means that I think he's going to have to be pretty careful about which loans he chooses and puts together a comprehensive package because that's going to be a lot of money, which is going to encompass several different types of loans. But if he can secure low interest debt, any low interest money he can borrow, I would take to leave the 70,000 in the brokerage account. What do you mean by low? I would say below seven, seven and a half. I would take that debt, anything above seven and a half percent. I would try to instead take out of the brokerage account. Yeah, that's inflation. Yeah. These days. Yeah. Well, luckily, that slowed down a little bit, right? I think we're going to continue to see that slow again and get back to some regular averages. But to your point, though, because of inflation being so high, we've seen the Fed move, which means interest rates are up. So his chance of securing that easy low money is going to be more difficult than before. To me, it's going to depend on the interest rate of the debt. And also, I would keep some money in brokerage no matter, because that's buying him flexibility for later. And even though it might not make initial economic sense, how many times on this show, Paula, have you and I talked about people over optimizing and oops, they needed flexibility. Right. People under represent with their money the need for flexibility. And as human stuff happens, so I want to leave some money in a spot where if things change along the way, I've got the ability to get myself out of a tough situation that might happen next year, the year after. Yeah. So at the most, without knowing his personal situation, so I might, if I knew it, be more specific, but I might at most spend 50 of the 70. Yeah, Joe, I agree with you. I would, Jeremy, my tips would be similar to Joe's, borrow money that's at an interest rate that is lower than, I'd say, seven or eight percent. And in total, don't borrow more than the amount that you expect to earn in year one after you graduate. But Jeremy, the good news that you have going for you is that you're pursuing a doctorate, and there are so many more funding opportunities at the grad school level than there are for undergrads. So I think that if you pursue that route, and especially if you're flexible about where you go to school, again, because different schools have different endowments. And so for the better endowed schools, almost no one pays the sticker price or anything even close to it. I think that three-legged stool, loans, brokerage, and funding can put this plan together. So thanks, Jeremy, for the question. Call us back in six months and give us an update on what you found and where you're going. Congratulations, Jeremy. You know where he's not going, Paula. Where's he not going? He's not going for ranch-flavored ice cream. He might be. He might be. Probably not. Probably not. We'll come back to the show in just a second, but first... Rental property owners. Apartments.com's all-in-one suite of property management tools makes the rental process easier. Get your property on the nation's top rental network, Apartments.com, where renters are searching for the perfect place, just like yours. Apartments.com lets you add the information renters want to see and the details that make your property special. You can also screen and receive applications, create leases, collect rent, and track maintenance and expenses, all-on-one site. Apartments, single-family homes, duplexes, condos, and townhomes listed on Apartments.com are viewed millions of times per month. This valuable exposure is available to you as a landlord, as well as a robust suite of resources that can be accessed anywhere at any time. If you're ready to find the perfect tenant, get started today by adding your property to the best rental network. Go to Apartments.com.com. That's Apartments.com.com. PAULA. Innovative businesses see every day as an opportunity to create something new. Dell Technologies Advisors are here with tools and expertise to help you do incredible things. Because Dell Technologies believes there's an innovator in all of us, learn more about smart PCs powered by the Intel VPro platform that's built for business, find tech that's right for you, by calling a Dell Technologies Advisor today at 877-ASK-DEL. Our next question comes from purportedly Rudolfo. Hello, Paula. As far as you know, my name is Rudolfo. I've been listening to financial podcasts for probably six years now, and I have a question I've never heard discussed on any podcast anywhere. 401k loans at the age 15 above the limit is $30,000 currently. My understanding is that with a loan, you do not have to pay a penalty. You just have to pay interest. When you pay it back, let's say the interest is 5%, and you take out the max of $50,000 loan. That would be an interest of about $2,500. Would it be possible to take out a loan, pay it back the next day with 5% interest, which would be $2,500, and that would be a way of getting an extra $2,500 into your 401k. And then if you could do that repeatedly, say you do that four times during the year, you could put an extra $10,000 into your 401k for a total of $40,000. Is that something that can be done? Is there a limit on the number of times you can do it? And is the interest simple interest, or would you have to keep it out for an entire year to put the whole 5% in? I would appreciate your answer, and thank you very much. Rodolfo, so as far as you know, this is our answer. Here is the problem with your strategy, which by the way, Paula, everyone thinks this is great. It sounds fantastic. Number one, let's talk about how great this is. Number one, I pay myself back the interest. So I'm not hurting anyone because I'm putting more money back into the thing. So I put money in, and then I get to put more money in, and for Rodolfo's case, he's thinking, dude, maybe I get to raise the cap. Maybe I get to put more money in because of this little loophole. Sounds awesome. And because of that, because this money is not in the market, by the way, when I take out the loan, I'm getting a rate of return from myself, which is great. So the market goes down, that's fantastic, right? Because I take the money out, I pay it back, I pay back interest, I get to pay back more. No harm, no foul. Sounds like the ultimate loophole. Sounds fantastic. But... So let's talk about all the reasons you don't want to take out a 401k loan in the first place. For everybody, but Rodolfo. You don't want to take out a 401k loan because most of the time the stock market goes up. Over long periods of time, the trend is always up, and that is not magic. It's not wizardry. It's not a bet like you see on these TikTok videos. I don't want to bet on the mystery of the market when I could put all my money in a whole life insurance policy and bet on myself, right? Never take financial advice from TikTok. Wise words, Paula. Wise words. So always bet on the market because the market is, if you're using index funds, the market is a reflection of our economy. That's all it is. And we could spend an hour going over the mathematics that will prove to you that this is just an economic indicator that things are going okay. The market has to do between eight and a half and ten percent over a long period of time for our economy to continue. It has to. So beyond that point, I want to bet on the market going up. If I'm betting on that and I got my money in a 401k loan, Paula, I'm losing out. I'm losing out in two ways. I'm not getting that market upside. And the second thing that's happening, I'm forced to take money that could be contributing more money later to go into the stock market. I have to use it to repay that loan instead. So if I have enough money to do both, repay the loan and put money in the stock market, that's great. But in the vast majority of cases, what I've seen is that in real life, we take these dollars that could have been more money into the system and instead are repaying for this past mistake that I made. Do not borrow from your retirement for that reason. Now, to Rodolfo and to everybody else, this is why your super strategy doesn't work. And it's going to be very frustrating. The money you put into a 401k loan is usually pre-tax money. If it's pre-tax when it goes in, it's going to be after tax when you pay it back. You pay it back with money out of your wallet. You pay it back with money out of your wallet. And that means- I like the stage whisper on a podcast. It is. It's a secret the government doesn't want you to know. By least favorite phrase, by the way, the government doesn't care what you know. Banks don't want you to know. Banks don't care what you know. Here's what they don't want you to know, Rodolfo. It's a lot of work for not much benefit. And let me explain this. The money that Rodolfo takes out, that money is tax exempt. Now, usually what I'd see is people take this money out. They buy a car. They buy a thing. And the problem there, Paula, is that if they've invested that money someplace else, that they took out of the 401k loan, they have to repay it with after tax dollars. So let's say it's a pre-tax 401k. They repay more money because they got to pay the tax on that money out of their wallet to repay it because the money's gone. It's invested in a car, you know, a real estate problem, whatever it might be, the money's already gone. So you're repaying it with different dollars. But let's take Rodolfo's specific academic hypothetical. Right. With Rodolfo's, unless they're assessing all the interest all at once, they're assessing all the interest all at once, this is a different deal. But he's going to go through all the paperwork. He's going to go through all of the legalese. He's going to get this loan. It's a pain in the butt. People have been through this to know this. It's a pain in the butt to get. And if the interest is being assessed daily, he's going through a ton of work for marginal utility for a little tiny, and then it becomes the best use of time argument. Like, why am I going to spend all this time maybe putting a smidge the way my mom says it, a smidge more money into the 401k? So Joe, let's clarify. In Rodolfo's case, in this academic hypothetical, he's not using that money for any other purpose. He's holding that money purely for the purpose of making an additional contribution, which means that he is not repaying pre-tax money with after-tax money. So the tax consequences for Rodolfo's situation are actually not so dire. However, Rodolfo, the entire interest rate is not going to be assessed in one day. If you borrow $50,000 for 24 hours, you're not going to have to pay back $2,500. On a $50,000 loan that you've only held for 24 hours, it's very rare that a loan would have a flat fee lump sum interest rate that you accrue immediately the minute that you take out that loan. Typically, interest rates are assessed incrementally over time, so you might have to pay back an interest rate of 5% per year, which means that the daily interest rate on that loan is going to be marginal for you to be able to pay back $2,500 on a $50,000 loan at 5%. You'd have to hold that loan, which means you'd have to keep it out of the market, keep it losing money to inflation, for a sufficiently long period of time such that you'd likely end up losing. At the best, it's a significant amount of work for just a little bit of arbitrage. Right? Right. And let's say he wins. That use of time, that use of worry, that use of everything, if he puts that money in the market and he gambles it in a one-year timeframe, it's a horrible gamble. Well, you still do. 10-year timeframe, 20-year timeframe might be a better gamble, but no. I mean, with a 5%, I know it wouldn't be because with a 5% annual interest rate, in a specific year where we had a down market and an extremely low level of inflation, under those circumstances, he might win arbitrage that year. But if we think of expected value over a 10- or 20-year timeframe, if we expect the market to, over a long-term annualized average, go up, let's say, even 8%, but he's taking money out of his 401k, leaving it in cash, waiting until he accrues sufficient interest and then repaying it, he's losing. He's losing big time. And if he takes the money that's sitting outside the 401k and he invests it like it would have been invested in the 401k, he then is going to have to come up with the money, extra money to repay that's after tax money on top of his pre-tax money because now the principal that he's going to repay from is not there anymore. And by the way, all this money that's interest as well, this after-tax money gets piled into the same account. So if it's a pre-tax 401k, it's going to get piled into the pre-tax account. Here's another kicker, Paula. That money then is counted as pre-tax money when you get to retirement and it's going to get taxed again. So just more insulted. There's just so many reasons not to do this, just not to mess with it. I think the biggest reason, Rudolfo, if we can reduce what we've just talked about to a singular reason, it is that this strategy couldn't be repeated four times a year for the very reason that the interest is going to accrue daily. And so if you were to hold this loan for 24 hours, as you talked about in your voicemail, the amount of interest that you would have to pay yourself back is going to be negligible. Even if you were to hold the loan for a month, the amount that you would pay yourself back is still going to be pretty negligible. And if you were to hold it for a year, then in the long term, you would lose that arbitrage game. And the slice that you win by comes back to what's the price of your time that you're investing in this. I just think the time versus the potential value, it's not there. As I see it, it's a negative EV decision. Yeah, agreed. Even if your time was worth zero, it would still be a negative EV decision in the long term. Sure. But it was an interesting thought exercise, so thank you, Rudolfo, for the question. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. Speaking of 401ks, Joe. Oh, tell me there's more. Can we get more? There is. Yes. On the topic of 401ks, we're going to switch to talking about the Roth 401k. And that is the focus of our next question, which comes from Nandini. Hi, Paula and Joe. My name is Nandini. I really enjoy listening to your podcast and I recommended to so many of my friends. As an immigrant, I was struggling to understand even the basic things in financial investing and your podcast helped me a lot. I have two questions today. I recently learned that my company offers Roth 401k and I started contributing to it. My question is, if I already do Roth 401k, are there any advantages to do Roth IRA in addition to that? Other relevant information here is currently I'm not maximizing Roth 401k. And if I have to open a Roth IRA account, I will need to do a back to Roth IRA due to income limits. My company also offers after tax mega bank to Roth account with the limit of about 44k. The money contributed to this account can be rolled over to either Roth 401k or Roth IRA. Based on this information, could you please suggest if there are any advantages to open a Roth IRA account? And my other question is, I often feel overwhelmed about investing. There are various funds such as index mutual funds and ETFs. What's the best way to identify which funds to invest in? Is the expense ratio and average returns the main factors? Or do you advise looking at any other factors? Appreciate your time and guidance. Once again, thanks for everything you do. Nandini, thank you for your question. I'm thrilled to hear that this podcast has been so helpful for you. That makes me very happy. So thank you so much for saying that. To your question, from a tax perspective, a Roth 401k and a Roth IRA, including a back to a Roth IRA, which is what you would need, from a tax perspective, there's no reason to favor one over the other. Tax wise, you're good either way. There are, however, two reasons why you might want to prioritize a Roth IRA or a back to a Roth IRA, which function in exactly the same way. There are two reasons why you might want to prioritize that over the Roth 401k. One, a Roth IRA gives you more flexibility in terms of your ability to access the principal. When you put money into a 401k, like we just talked about with Rudolfo in our last answer, when you put money into a 401k, it's locked up. You can't touch it. And if you do try to touch it, if you try to make a 401k early withdrawal or if you try to take out a loan against your 401k, then there are all kinds of penalties, taxes. It's just not something that you want to do. By contrast, when you put money into a Roth IRA, you have the option to tap the principal, the contribution that you made. You have the option to access that money. I wouldn't ever recommend doing it. I would recommend keeping that money in there. But at least in a worst case scenario, if there was ever a real emergency, you could access your principal contribution to a Roth IRA without incurring penalties, taxes, or even just the paperwork hassle that comes from trying to tap a 401k. That additional flexibility is one of two reasons why you might want to favor the Roth IRA. The other reason is that if your 401k is provided by an employer, oftentimes the investment choices that are inside of employer-provided retirement accounts are limited by contrast. And of course, I don't know how good your employer-provided retirement account is. Maybe you have a fantastic one that has a bunch of wonderful options. If that's the case, then you're very, very lucky. But for most people, they have to compromise and get into funds that would be their second or third or fourth choice when they're shopping from the funds that are in their employer-provided account. By contrast, when you open a Roth IRA, you get to choose what brokerage you want that Roth IRA to live at. So if you choose Vanguard or Schwab or Fidelity, and I think all three of those are wonderful choices, if you choose any of those three, you're going to be able to invest that money in this wide array of index funds of your choosing. So to summarize, in a Roth IRA, the flexibility is greater and the investment options available to you are greater. I have nothing to add on that advice, Paula. The only place where I'd like to chime in is on just your financial planning strategy around having both of them. So the idea that your 401k might be limited makes the IRA good to be able to give you better diversification. So often, when someone would look at one of my clients' 401ks, it wouldn't look very well diversified. And the reason was, we would just use whatever was really good, the asset classes that were really good inside the 401k. And then we would round it out with the other asset classes, because you can get anything you want in most major brokerage accounts. We would then, at whatever firm we decided to land the IRA in, we'd use that to round it out. So if you looked at my client's IRA account, it would look not very diversified. If you'd look at the 401k, it wouldn't look that diversified. But when you put the two together, which were there to achieve the same goal, you get this perfectly aligned mix of assets that met the efficient frontier, which, by the way, leads me into her second question, which is, do you look at average returns? No, because then you will be chasing returns, which is always a mistake. And more money pours into what did well last year than any other asset class. And what's amazing is I feel like, Paula, people like you and I are screaming this from the rooftops on what feels to me like a daily basis. Do not do that. And yet it happens all the time. People continue to put money in what did well last year. We bet on, quote, what's done well lately? That doesn't work in investing land. The other thing that doesn't work is expense ratio planning. And the reason is, is that if you look at three indexes that you think do the same thing, there's the potential that they might not. Now, give me an example. There was some big news that came out recently about a lawsuit against, against a broker chouse because of an oil ETF because even the broker mistook this oil ETF as being the same as another oil ETF. And by the way, I wouldn't go into an oil ETF. Like if she's considering her asset allocation, I wouldn't even go there. But the point is, if you're just comparing average returns, that's a mistake. I also think comparing expense ratios, the first place to begin, the place to begin is what rate or turn do I need? And then the second thing to look at is which mix of investments historically got me there. And I would look at something called the efficient frontier. And you and I had a discussion when I was a guest on your podcast for the book, we went into this extensively. What is the efficient frontier and how do you find it? Where do you get there? And that's a pretty long discussion. And once you've done that, Paula, then you get much closer to what you need. And then we look at the expense ratios of the indexes that got you there. And we make sure we're not stepping in it by making sure we understand just a little but you don't got to know everything about everything, but you certainly got to know that you're not stepping in it by choosing the wrong ETF just because you looked at expenses. So I do, I do a little bit of due diligence, make sure it's through a big company. It's pretty straightforward. If you're doing this right, it should be pretty straightforward. But just, you know, it's a quick being search, right? Oh my goodness, a being search. I said that specifically to see your eyebrows go up specifically for that reaction. You're welcome America, they in the world. They're welcome. Wow. But I would do a very quick search just to make sure they're there. But start off with what you need, what return you're going to target, then look at how do I diversify appropriately to reach that. And then third, I compare expenses and go with the least expensive option that meets Michael. To that discussion about the efficient frontier, we'll link to that in the show notes, which you can subscribe to at affordableanything.com slash show notes. Totally free. On the issue of the Megaback Door Roth IRA, don't be over optimized. Make sure that you leave money available in case you need it soon. You don't want to have to jump through any hoops to get your money back. But beyond that, the more the merrier when it comes to the Roth, I think whatever she can afford to do that she knows she's not going to need right away. If she can move that money into a Megaback Door Roth position, I would do it. Just be aware that tax, make sure you have the money and reserve to pay that tax today. The only downside is lack of liquidity. Liquidity, yeah. Right. Say it all together. So thank you, Nandini, for your question. To summarize our answers, prioritize the Roth IRA, the backdoor Roth IRA, then the Roth 401k. And if there's money left over, then the Megaback Door Roth and choose your investments based on the efficient frontier, prioritize, of course, low cost passively managed index funds. And so long as you are in passive index funds, I wouldn't over optimize the expense ratio. Expensory ratio matters when we're talking about an actively managed mutual fund versus a passive index fund. But inside of the world of passive index funds, they're all going to be so close to one another that there's no reason to be splitting hairs. Thanks again for the question and congrats on being so proactive about funding all of your Roth accounts. Roth accounts are my favorite types of accounts. Fantastic. Well, Roth or HSA, come on. Oh, you know what? I like the Roth better. I mean, I love the HSA, but I like the Roth better. Got to say, oh, the HSA fans go crazy. I know headlines shocking Paula reveals. All right, our last question today is about inflation and the 4% rule. This question comes from Andy. Hi, Paula and Joe. Hope all is well. My name is Andy and I have a quick question about how to calculate annual inflation with regards to how it works with the 4% rule of thumb. I get that the 4% rule of thumb is meant to be inflation adjusted. But where does that actual inflation number come from? I just assume that we would use the average inflation from the previous year, but now I'm thinking that since it's an ongoing measurement, we would use whatever number is listed in December of the previous year. For example, according to an inflation chart that I'm looking at, the average inflation for 2022 was 8%. However, in December of 2022, inflation was at 6.5%. To adjust the 4% rule of thumb for inflation in 2023, do we use 8% or 6.5% or is there a different way that I'm not thinking about? Looking forward to hearing what's probably a shockingly simple answer to this question. Thanks again. Andy, thank you for the question. And I love the headline that you wrote in your question, the shockingly simple answer to the inflation question associated with the 4% rule. Yeah. There is a shockingly simple answer. It is revealed in all of its glory in episode 377, which is the episode in which we interviewed Bill Bangan, who is the creator of the 4% rule. Bill Bangan, in 1994, decided to look at the performance of investment portfolios across 30-year time horizons beginning in 1926, so beginning from 1926 data. And so spanning 1926 to 1994, he looked at the performance of portfolios across all of those historic time periods, including the historic inflation that took place during that time. Now, a little bit of trivia. Can anyone tell me what the inflation rates were like in the late 70s and early 80s? Joe, you're old enough to remember. Oh, come on. Yeah. You're old enough to remember the late 70s, early 80s, aren't you? I am, but I was 12 in 1980. However, I do know this. I know that CD rates were commonly paying 10% the price of gold was through the roof. Inflation was rampant. And so interest rates were incredibly high. In fact, a lot of people with life insurance policies they bought at those times were, you know, locking in these whole life insurance policy rates on the cash value at 10 to 12%, just screaming big numbers. So yeah, you're looking at double digits. So here's a precise answer. In the 1970s, the inflation rate ranged from a low of 5.5% to a high of 14.4%. In 1980, Joe, when you were 12, the inflation rate was 14%. Yeah. Yeah. Fun fact, it was actually not the highest inflation rate that the US has ever experienced. The highest inflation rate ever seen in the US, the all-time high was 23.7% and that took place in June 1920. So that escaped Bill Bagnon's model because his model starts in 1926. But his model includes the longest stretch of heightened inflation that the US has ever experienced. So in 1920, June of 1920, the US had its sharpest peak of inflation. But if we want to talk longevity rather than severity, the longest stretch of heightened inflation was the 1970s. The model includes that. And the reason that I talk about this is because when you are mathematically modeling outcomes, there are two ways to do it. You could either model based on historic data or you could model a set of hypotheticals on a spreadsheet. What Bagnon did to arrive at the 4% rule was that he modeled based on historic data. And each methodology has its pros and cons. But what we know is that using a model that includes the double-digit inflation of the 1970s and 80s, we arrive at... the 4% withdrawal rule. Now, his model assumes that the portfolio is invested 50% in an S&P 500 index and 50% in intermediate-term bonds and assumes that all of this is an attack's deferred account. If you want to read the original paper, it was published in the Journal of Financial Planning in 1994. We interviewed him on this podcast, episode 377. We will link to that podcast in the show notes as well. So the shockingly simple answer is every inflation rate that we have experienced from 1926 to 1994 is included in that model. So not to worry. Simplicity to the rescue. Yeah. Well, simplicity and the Fed for all that we can criticize it, for all that we can mock J. Powell for at one point, suggesting that inflation might be transitory. I got to hand it to him. We are not the Weimar Republic yet. All right, Joe, I think we've done it. Wow. Already. You know, this is good. I feel like the through line on this episode was just rounding out your thinking a little more about your situation. In all four questions, didn't you feel like that was kind of the through line about maybe there's a little bit more of an answer? Right. Maybe there are alternate ways of doing it. Let's think laterally. Yeah. And it's funny how that's a happy mistake of a lesson. Not a mistake, but we didn't plan these four to have that through line. It's just the way it happened. Yeah. Every episode accidentally ends up with a theme. It does. It truly does. And this one's is think bigger. I could have done without the ranch dressing ice cream theme, but the rest of it was beautiful. You don't know what you're missing. And technically neither do I because I've looked everywhere and just cannot the supply chain, the supply chain on ranch ice cream. Come on, supply chain, get it together. Seriously. You know what we will also throw into the show notes? A clip of Stephen Colbert eating Hidden Valley Ranch ice cream. Stay tuned for that. Oh, must see TV. You look at the ingredients and they've got onion powder and garlic powder in the ice cream. Oh. All right, Joe, where can people find you if they would like to know about more of your culinary delights? My brand of deliciousness is called the stacking Benjamin show and it's available for samples or a complete meal every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, wherever you're listening to finer podcasts like the afford anything show. And coming in June, Paula Pant is back. I am back as of mid June. I will be rejoining the stacking Benjamin's round table. It will be hilarity ensuing with Paula. Somehow, somehow it appears and I don't know yet, but as we are recording this episode, Paula, you're in a three way tie for first place for the trivia contest, the annual trivia contest. Wait, aren't there only three contestants? Yeah, but you're in a tie for first, which also means you're in last, which is usually where you're at. Time for last. Yeah, we also tied for last then and tied for middle. She's like, I haven't, I haven't improved at all. I finished last every year or so. But they've done well. You could be in first place by the time you get back. Anything is possible, Joe. We need a wagers on this. Someone's got to start putting some money online. Don't tell OG that. Don't because he will. That'll be bad. Ooh, then I will certainly tell him I'll text him right now. You should give him your ranch ice cream against his. Maybe he's got to give you ranch flavored ice cream. I would love that. I've been trying to find it everywhere. And then you've got to give him like Woodford. They probably cost about the same. If you're buying that ice cream on the black market, maybe they do cost the same. Who knows? All right. Well, thank you for being part of this community. This is the Afford Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend or a family member. That's the most important thing you can do to spread the message of strong financial health. You can chat with other members of the Afford Anything community by heading to AffordAnything.com slash community. And you can find me on Instagram at PaulaPant, P-A-U-L-A, P-A-N-T. Don't forget to hit the follow button in your favorite podcast player. And while you're there, please leave us a review. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is PaulaPant. I'm Joe Salci. And we will catch you in the next episode. Here is an important disclaimer. There's a distinction between financial media and financial advice. 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