Financial Clarity Through Reverse Budgeting

Speaker 1 – 00:00
Budgeting, I believe becomes more important the higher income you are.
Speaker 2 – 00:04
Yeah, I think a big misconception is higher income means more organized. And I think oftentimes we find it almost
is the exact opposite.
Speaker 1 – 00:11
The justification process that we see. High income, high cash flow families, it’s dangerous. All that matters in a
financial plan is did you enjoy your life and did you set yourself up for long term, midterm and short term financial
security? We have the solution to all of this and it’s really simple. It’s not budgeting. It’s a specific type.
Speaker 2 – 00:32
I think it actually helps people on both sets of extremes. Overspenders, but then the underspenders as well.
Speaker 1 – 00:37
I call this. We see more and more common in our day to day that high income earners are feeling broke. In recent
years, there’s been a lot of wealth accumulation of stock market performance, you know, increase in job. And Ben,
how many times you meet a family making half a million dollars a year, even a million dollars a year, and you go
through a budget and it’s like, where’s the money to save?
Speaker 2 – 01:07
Yeah. I think a big misconception is higher income means more organized. And I think oftentimes we find it almost
is the exact opposite. The analogy we like to use is it’s almost like, you know, increasing a thermostat. If you do it
by, if you go to your thermostat, you increase it by 5 degrees, you’re gonna feel it. But if you incrementally do it by
one degree every so often, you just kind of get used to it. And I feel like that’s almost the case. As your income
rises, your lifestyle just kind of naturally rises with it. And if you don’t have the right systems in place to help hone
that in, things can get disorganized quickly.
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Speaker 1 – 01:44
Yeah, I feel like the frog and the boiling water is the hot water. Yeah, like, you know, the frog.
Speaker 2 – 01:48
Sorry, wait, you’re gonna have to explain.
Speaker 1 – 01:50
Yeah, this is analogy, right? Someone, you have the frog in the water and then you, the heat goes up and the frog
doesn’t realize. The next thing you know, it’s boiling and it’s dead. I feel like money. Just hear me out, Ben. Money
works the same way. A resident going out making 70,000, now making 300,000. But now they’re like, their student
loans kick in, they buy the house, you know, they have a kid in private school and these slow life progresses and
before you know it. So my analogy here, before you’re boiling on your Debt is like you’re not saving any money and
you’re just 4 or 5 extra income and it’s all going out the door.
Speaker 2 – 02:25
Yeah.
Speaker 1 – 02:25
You see, this is so common. Households making 300, 400, 500, all the way up to a million. We also have clients
that are seeing making 200,000. They’re way on track for retirement because they’re not the frog in the boiling
water.
Speaker 2 – 02:37
Yeah. And it’s funny you mentioned the resident. It’s funny. We sit with. Sometimes we sit with a resident and they
actually make it work. They’re on a 65,000 a year, 75, 70,000 a year salary. They have their student loan payment.
They’re able to put something in a Roth IRA, but they’re living super below their means on 70,000 a year. And then
when they make that shift to 300, 400, 500,000 a year, sometimes it almost feels disorganized and they’re almost
not able to deal with that income jump at the level that they can. So it’s interesting how they can make it work at
70,000, but sometimes they.
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Speaker 1 – 03:07
Have trouble at 500,000, no question. Yeah. So we have the solution to all of this, and it’s really simple. It’s not
budgeting. It’s a specific type. But before we go into that quick break, Ohio State’s paying Texas tomorrow to open
the season. Ben’s the biggest Ohio State fan I’ve ever met. Got to get your pick here. Is this home or away, by the
way?
Speaker 2 – 03:28
It’s home. It’s in Columbus.
Speaker 1 – 03:29
Okay. And they’re ranked higher or they’re ranked less than Texas. Right. But they’re still the favorite.
Speaker 2 – 03:36
Texas is 1, Ohio State is 3 in the AP poll. Home field advantage means something in college football. So Ohio
State’s like a two point favorite, I believe.
Speaker 1 – 03:45
And are you worried at all?
Speaker 2 – 03:46
Yeah, I think Texas is better for sure.
Speaker 1 – 03:48
They’re better.
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Speaker 2 – 03:49
Well, they’re, they have more continuity and I think that’s big in a week one opener. Having a lot of your defense
back, having a quarterback that you know what he’s going to be. I mean, Arch Manning has played Julian Saying
for Ohio State. This is going to be his first really meaningful snaps and it’s going to be in a, you know, big time
game. Whereas we kind of know what we’re getting with Arch and Texas defense. So I, I do feel like Texas is
actually the right side in this one.
Speaker 1 – 04:14
Ooh. Okay. All right. Well, win or lose, both teams, both of these teams can still make the cfp. Right.
Speaker 2 – 04:20
For sure. I’d be happy to be wrong, of course.
Speaker 1 – 04:21
Perfect. Okay, well, back to the regular program schedule. I don’t know if I said that right. But anyways, here’s how
this works. So I noticed this. So not to date myself. Been a financial advisor 15 years now. And so we started when
I started before it became like EWA and a big group and a team, so working with a lot of doctors. And I noticed,
and I, that as they started transitioning from residency to their attending job, I could tell you all kind of stories. The
first one, we had this plan in place with this one physician and she called me and said, hey, can we wait and can we
pause all those savings we have? Like, we had like, you know, backdoor Roth and a brokerage account or student
loans.
Speaker 1 – 05:05
And then she sent me a picture of a Kate Spade receipt when she had spent her entire first paycheck at Kate
Spade. It was like $7,000 worth of stuff. I was like, okay, that’s fine. And then I, then there’s a couple other stories.
That’s not even the worst one. That was funny. Now, now she’s on track. But I came up with this because I realized
like, these physicians aren’t gonna budget. They’re too busy. It’s not, it’s not interesting at all. They’re not gonna
track in an Excel spreadsheet, like every time you swipe a card at Starbucks. Yeah, I’m not gonna do a latte at
Starbucks today or I’m not gonna do. It’s nonsense. And by the way, I think you should do all that, these
experiences, if that’s how you want to spend your money. So I developed this system.
Speaker 1 – 05:51
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And I, how I developed this system was I actually had a coach that told me because were nothing to do with
budgeting. She’s like, hey, you got to start your day at 5:30am Cause I know these goals of like working out, doing
like this morning routine. And I had to be in the office by 7:30am Back. This is back in the prior know before were a
private firm to report numbers. And there’s like the system. You, you were there too. You know what it’s like you
can’t be late for that. The numbers at 7:30, of course. So you know, you hit snooze a couple times, you’re at six and
now you don’t have time. At that point we’re in suit and tie. So like you don’t have time. You’re showering, you’re
getting ready, you’re trying to beat traffic, trying to park and get in.
Speaker 1 – 06:31
And then you’re all sweaty with that suit jacket on. And like your day is just ruined, like the minute you walk in the
door. But having some. Some ptsd.
Speaker 2 – 06:40
Yeah, you really kind of went through it there. I think you were. I think you were telling a story. I don’t know where it
went, but.
Speaker 1 – 06:44
You were just reliving the haunting memories of my past, man. But anyways, I know you were there too. But
anyway, so she gave me the advice. You’re learn, you’re okay. We figured out you need to wake up at 5:30am
program your coffee pot for 5:35am and this is back, this was 15 years ago. I didn’t have a Keurig. I couldn’t afford
waiting coffee maker. Take the coffee pot off the coffee maker. And So I knew 5:30am If I don’t make it downstairs,
the coffee would start and it would spill everywhere. And so that, as simple as that is, was one decision. It fixed
every decision, right? One decision eliminated all of these excuses hitting snooze. And so I thought, why don’t we
incorporate that into financial planning somehow? And so I call this reverse budgeting.
Speaker 1 – 07:31
So 15 years ago, I remember with a specific client, she was an ob gyne physician finishing residency, transitioning
out. And she had, you know, $400,000 school loans. She had like $20,000 of credit card debt. And she, by the way,
like, we hadn’t started working together yet. She was kind of ignoring my calls because she was stressed in
residency, you know, spending for boards, all this stuff. And she’s like, matt, I want to get out of school that quickly.
And it’s like, I’m fine to live the way I was before because she was living a little bit above her means as residency.
And so we mapped this out and we created. She was one of my first, probably one of the first 10 reverse budgeting
clients. We’ll say when. So out of her income, I believe her income netted to $12,000 a month.
Speaker 1 – 08:20
And so what I’d seen before, if we let all this 12,000 come into a checking account, next thing you know, you’re
swiping your mortgage payment, your student loans, you’re living paycheck to paycheck like that. So when we map
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this out, and we wanted to have that same coffee pot analogy, we’ll reset the tone from day one and then automate
the thing. So we mapped it out where I believe 9000 was going into a fixed account. That fixed account was all
stuff we knew had to go out. So this is fixed bills and fixed savings. So this was. She bought a townhouse so she
could have afforded a much bank would have proved her for twice the amount of house. I believe that was $2,500
a month. Her student loans we wanted to pay off in record time. So like five years.
Speaker 1 – 09:04
So we set a automatic payment. I think it was 4,000amonth. And then we used bonuses to pay those down
because she was going to have a big RVU bonus. And then we had savings at the time that was 2000amonth. This
is a. By the way, she was netting 12 after maxing out her 401k. So the 2000amonth went into a brokerage account
and from there we used part of that to max out a backdoor Roth every year. The rest of that we started
accumulating and then we had some basic, like the car payment, utility bills. So that made up the 9,000. And she
knew that was in a separate checking account. And she actually went to her HR department and said I want the
first 9,000 going over here. And she knew mentally that’s off the table.
Speaker 2 – 09:43
Yeah. Cause all of those bills are basically on auto pay.
Speaker 1 – 09:45
They’re all auto pay. You just the savings get drafted automatically to, you know, at that point it was a different
company, but Fidelity, this plan with the same client’s still in place and she’s on great track when she’s going to be
financial, she’s out of debt in five years. She’s on track to be financial dependent by 55. And she didn’t graduate out
of residency until she was like late 30s. So. But the 3,000amonth was the, was sent to a totally separate checking
account. So if you think about the decision fatigue, you’re stressed out. Can I, should I order food tonight? Can I
afford Starbucks? All she had to focus on her financial life was the fifteen hundred dollars of pay she’s paid twice a
month or the three thousand a month that’s going to this account.
Speaker 1 – 10:32
And I told her, listen, this is your meant to be spent account. The 9,000 on it. You forget about that. We know it’s
going in, it’s going out, the 3,000, we spend it. And so there was some tight months. So she had expend it like four
days before her next paycheck. And she called me, what do I do? And, and because I, I encourage her for the first
six months of this, let’s not, let’s put the credit card away, don’t close the credit card. Let’s just try this like debit
card. By the way, obviously recommend credit cards are more protected. But I think for the money temperature
system, the coffee pot getting up in the morning without hitting stew, this is how you train yourself. And so there
was a couple mess ups. So the brokerage account, thank God we had that, we would.
Speaker 1 – 11:13
Some of it was invested in the market, some of it was for the backdoor Roth. The rest of it we kept in the money
market for these little slippages that happened. And so, you know, we’d send her a thousand or two thousand right
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the way. But having these layers of protection allowed her. We never raided the investments, we never raided a
Roth, we Never raided her 401k. So we built this little mini fortress, these walls around. So the core plan never got
off track. That makes sense. That’s just a simple high level view and a success story. And how the reverse
budgeting system works. But instead of like, I see people. Yeah.
Speaker 1 – 11:50
What would you say, like when you meet like a engineer, not to pick on engineers and they have like the last 10
years of every dollar they’ve spent, then like, what do you think? Like, do you think that’s a good use of time?
Speaker 2 – 12:00
No, I, I think the problem with that is they almost view it as like a, like look how good I am at financial planning
because I can track every expense that went out over the last five years. But that doesn’t mean anything if you
didn’t, if the plan’s not aligned to like your goals, if you don’t have it clearly written out, if you’re not defining what
you actually want to do with all those savings and all that tracking, but the reverse budgeting, I think it actually
helps people on both sets of extremes. So you have, let’s say the overspenders. So you mentioned the example,
you know, one person. But I think this is actually even better for couples because too often if this system isn’t in
place and everything flows into one account and they’re spending here, they’re spending there.
Speaker 2 – 12:43
Too often I see just a lot of finger pointing. Well, you know, you spent that this month and so that made the credit
card bill higher, but then I didn’t spend anything, so now I want to spend this. And it’s just a lot of finger point and a
lot of stress. So this system really gives you the guardrails in place to spend what you can spend on a monthly
basis in order to keep your plan on track. All the savings you had mentioned, keeping the bills paid, so on and so
forth. And then on the other side of things, if you have someone that is an amazing saver that actually can’t spend
or isn’t comfortable spending, they’re living way below their means. This almost encourages them to spend more
today.
Speaker 2 – 13:20
If you can give them the peace of mind saying, hey, everything that you’ve detailed was most important is on track
by spending 6,000amonth in bills, savings, utility payments, loan payments, et cetera. If you can take care of all
that in 6,000amonth, and you have 6,000amonth in your variable account, but you’re only spending two of it, well,
what’s that other 4,000amonth doing for you? Giving them the permission to spend that full 6,000amonth. A lot of
advisors would say no, save it, save it. But if they’re already on track for everything that they’ve detailed was most
important. It’s almost our job, I feel like, to encourage them to spend that difference, make sure that they’re not
living with any regrets today. So the system helps, I think both scenarios, the overspenders, but then the
underspenders as well.
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Speaker 1 – 14:08
Yeah. And I think this is re, this is guaranteed results. And then the discussions can be not finger pointing, just
calibrations like you decide like maybe they don’t, they can’t spend the 4,000amonth bullets. Let’s put that over the
fixed account and let’s develop financial independence early. And maybe that maybe we’re going into shorter term
account where you’re buying a vacation house. It’s not something you’re going to spend every month, but it’s
something you will eventually increase your lifestyle outside of like the retirement or college plan. But you know,
let’s save in a short term account. I would call that 1.0. Reverse budgeting. Two accounts, one fixed, one variable.
The keys to success. You contact your HR, you say I want my paycheck split. First nine goes here, next three goes
here, or first five, next five here, whatever that’s personalized.
Speaker 1 – 14:50
And just make sure that fixed account is paying all your fixed bills and it’s paying all of your fixed. I would view your
savings as fixed bills, short term, midterm and long term. So short term would be make sure you have an
emergency fund of six months, three months cash, three months invested. Make sure you have, you know, 529
plans, maybe a brokerage account for college Planning, make sure you have a brokerage account. If you want to
retire early or become financially independent, make sure you’re retirement accounts are all maxed out. And the
nice thing about the reverse budgeting is the 401k is going to get maxed out before you even see your money. But
a 401k, it’s retirement prep. It’s not, it’s not financial planning. You got to have all this together as financial
planning.
Speaker 1 – 15:27
So that’s 1.0 and then obviously the variable you spend it. I would say 2.0 is what we found common in especially
in high income earners with the money temperature where you said like the gradual money, the temperature
increases can, it’s like the frog example can get you before and it’s too late. I can’t tell you how many times we met
with someone making 800, 900 million. They’re bringing home 36 to 50amonth and there’s not much left over to
save. Sure they’re maxing out their mega Dr. Roth at the hospital, but then they’ve got three kids in private school,
they’ve got a two million dollar house, you know their credit cards probably 15, 000amonth. The next thing you
know a lot of stuff’s accounted for, this thing breaks.
Speaker 2 – 16:16
Or they want to put in a pool. It’s just. Yeah, there’s always something.
Speaker 1 – 16:19
So 2.0 obviously the easier, it’s easier to do the budget before you’re in the water that’s getting heated up. It’s like
get your hop out of. Let’s hop out of the water. So stay if you want to stay in the water. Let’s do an Excel
spreadsheet and let’s just like finger point at each other. Everything we’ve spent money on last year. Well guess
what, it’s too late. Forget about it. Let’s use that data and look at your specific habits. Let’s look at. We very few
have conversations about oh, you need to spend less of these categories. No, let’s just high level this. It’s just like a
workout plan. Your credit card’s 20amonth. We can get your financial plan on at 15amonth. Why don’t we test just
getting up in the morning before saying you give up this or you give up this. It works.
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Speaker 1 – 17:01
Money is a temperature. You can start slowly getting gains. So 2.0 I’m going to say is so 1.0. You set these two
accounts up. 2.0 is on top of that short term you actually we can categorize into and this I would say is really
important. Your 20s and 30s and your 40s and 50s not as important. But I would say in your 20s and 30s, when
your net worth is just getting started, you actually want to have like a separate savings account per category
because inside of your savings, we’ve found things can call shotgun on each other.
Speaker 1 – 17:37
So if you have like in general, 50,000 in cash and now suddenly you need a new roof, you want to go on a vacation
because you’re really stressed out and you are unhappy with your car and there’s a medical emergency that can be
gone in one year. Right.
Speaker 2 – 17:52
And so the concept was good, but then you ended up blowing it off.
Speaker 1 – 17:56
So like, yeah, you got thrown back in the water. You didn’t even know it. So we’d recommend out of the fixed
account. So imagine we have these two accounts. The variable is just getting, it’s gone every month. Out of the
fixed account, you’re going to different vendors like your car payment, your mortgage. And the fixed account, the
savings. We actually, the short term, I’d recommend you have a couple of different savings account. We have one
that’s an emergency fund. It gets to a level that doesn’t get touched. The second one is, okay, the next two years
we want to do a new bathroom, we want to, we have to redo our driveway. That’s going to cost 30,000. We’ve got
two years to save up to that. That’s, you know, 1250amonth without interest that we have to put in there to do that.
Speaker 1 – 18:40
Then we have a vacation fund. That one’s going to be, you’re going to save it, you’re going to blow it. But if you
don’t do that, you may have this fixed and variable account and the variable is getting spent every month. If you
don’t have your vacation money set aside, where is that going to come from? That’s a layer of protection where you
don’t touch the long range planning.
Speaker 2 – 18:58
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Every dollar should have a purpose. I mean, if you put everything in one bucket, it’s easy to prioritize something
over another. Whereas if you can clearly delineate where your money is going in your head, you’re more likely to
save for it because it’s written out as opposed to if it’s all going in one bucket. Generally the first thing that comes
up is what it gets spent on. Whether or not that was your first priority or not.
Speaker 1 – 19:19
Yeah, this is like a Dave Ramsey envelope system, but without being like having cash. Right. Which is like there’s so
many reasons that stupid one is like general cash isn’t even covered by insurance. And like who cares cash
around? I always actually a lot of people do and I get like, I have a catting. I’m like, do you have a Venmo? Because I
never carry cash. But it’s like an envelope system. But you don’t want to have 5,000 or 50,000 literally of cashing
and envelope. So typically the clients we work with, higher income, want to have these different categories. And
your bank account can have multiple savings accounts. You can generally do that without fees. And just all this is
automated. This is one meeting a year. You’re setting it up, it’s one decision. You’re eliminating thousands of
decisions.
Speaker 1 – 20:00
Countless fatigue, countless disagreements, countless finger pointing, all by setting it all up right from the get go.
Setting the plan from the get go and then just autopilot it real quick.
Speaker 2 – 20:07
I think that’s what gets lost in the people that are tracking every time they swipe a card is all of that time that you
spent doing it. You’re getting to the same place as if you just sit down once a year and organize this once you’re
accomplishing the same thing, but you’re saving yourself.
Speaker 1 – 20:24
Hours, days worth of all that matters. All that matters in a financial plan is did you enjoy your life with the money
that’s exited that you’re never going to get back? And are you on track for your goals? Like are you on, did you enjoy
your life and did you set yourself up for long term, midterm and short term financial security? Those things are
going to happen in the short term. You’re going to set up your kids for success. And then long term, you know, you
got to make sure payment stop, you know, paycheck stops and you’re not healthy. You got to make sure you have
enough to continue your lifestyle for, you know, you and your family.
Speaker 1 – 21:00
So midterm buckets, we typically recommend 529 plans and brokerage and the long term buckets will be your
401k getting maximum behind the scenes, backdoor Roth and then maybe you know, direct index brokerage
account, just in general. There’s lots of other categories. I’m just trying to keep it high level. But that would be 2.0 is
we got the reverse budgeting inside of like the cash flow, every paycheck. And then 2.0 is we’ve got the, we’ll call it
the reverse budgeting inside these short term accounts, midterm accounts and long term accounts. And then 3.0
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is just calibrating it because very few people hit that sweet spot where you’re saving, where you’re ba. You know,
you’ve no regrets, you’re living a present life and you’re also secure for the future. We see people lopsided like,
whoa, you’re not saving anything. And you’re going to be.
Speaker 1 – 21:45
If you one of you loses income, you’re totally screwed. Or with people that are, you know, splitting split labels that
are worth 10 million bucks. So it’s like there has to be balance. And that’s why, you know, you want to set this on
autopilot. But it’s more important hit the balance of like giving yourself permission to spend as your income goes
up, but also adjusting the financial plan to make sure your financial security. Because if you set the temperature of
like I can retire off 10,000amonth adjusted for inflation to 20,000amonth, suddenly you have a big pay raise and
you’re saving that all, then you’re going to way over accumulate what you need. But if you just spend the difference.
Well now your assumptions when you go to retire need 15 and you only your savings only on track for 10.
Speaker 1 – 22:24
So financial plan has to be calibrated often. That’s why people don’t understand these little levers can really affect
over saving versus under saving and making sure you live a life without regret. For sure, for sure. Okay, well, any
other I think we. And the other. The psychological thing behind this I think is so important is Ben, how often do you
meet with people that have just a lot of financial like guilt or financial stress of like, can I spend this? Can I do this
all the time?
Speaker 2 – 22:54
And this system eliminates a lot of those problems. It’s. People don’t know how much they can spend on this. If
something is too expensive, if they’re saving enough, if they’re not saving enough, if their housing payments too
much, if it’s not enough, like what’s their range? This really helps organize all of that. Because if you can give
someone the peace of mind of saying, hey, every. And if you’re an EW client, you’re familiar with this because every
budget is split into two. There’s fixed expenses and variable expenses. And every meeting we go over, have your
fixed expenses change is your. Did your property taxes get reassessed? How’s your mortgage payment? Making
sure that number is what it is from a expenses and savings standpoint so that we can then calibrate how much we
can realistically be spending on a Month to month basis.
Speaker 2 – 23:39
So from a peace of mind standpoint, it’s almost the analogy of like the guardrail analogy with the kids in the fence.
Like, if you can give someone that space to explore, then they can feel like they can spend it without having to
worry, man, am I spending too much? Is this enough?
Speaker 1 – 23:56
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Blah, blah.
Speaker 2 – 23:57
Because they have, they know in the back of their head that, hey, everything else has already been taken care of. If
you don’t have that system in place, it’s hard to tell if you’re spending too much or spending too little.
Speaker 1 – 24:08
No question. The other, I think this is so important too, because like budgeting, I believe, becomes more important
the higher income you are. And you hear me out on this because some people are, okay, if you make a hundred
grand a year, that’s a great living. By the way, it’s way above the national average. Generally speaking, like you have
to be careful. Like with, you can’t live in a million dollar house. You have to be generally, you are careful and you’re,
you got your kind of ducks in line, right? The sloppiness occurs when you’re that neurosurgeon making a million
bucks a year. Like, and then suddenly it’s like you and your spouse are like, yeah, we can afford this, we can afford
that. And suddenly you have, all your money’s gone. You see this countless times.
Speaker 1 – 24:51
The executive who makes a half million dollar base, half a million dollar bonus, cash bonus and half a million
dollars of stock. I can’t tell you how many times they’re in the absolute cash crunch because they’re. The whole
year, they’re justified. Maybe that person’s clearing 25amonth right after their 401k. All the saving, like, oh, we’ll take
care of the savings when the bonus comes. And now suddenly they’re wiping out credit card debt. Maybe they get
house needs improved.
Speaker 2 – 25:20
Yeah, maybe they had RSUs that, you know, vested, but they didn’t sell. And they’re, they have a surprise tax.
Speaker 1 – 25:25
Bill because, well, that’s the biggest one. Yeah, right. So the half a million dollars of RSUs they invest, three years
later, the stock price is higher. You pay taxes on that value. When they initially, you know, vest, you can withhold, I
think 24% most companies, but they’re in a 37% bracket. So 13% of that now worth a million bucks. That’s
$130,000 taxable. We see this all the time. Where does that money come from? Well, you can’t touch your 401k,
you could take a $50,000 loan or you’re making one and a half million dollars a year. You’re talking about taking a
401k loan out. What? Like, this is why reverse budgeting is so important. You have to plan off that half a million
and that bonus.
Meeting Title: Reverse Budgeting.mp4 Meeting created at: 3rd Nov, 2025 – 4:17 PM
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Speaker 1 – 26:03
Let’s say, let’s pay taxes on a third of it, let’s save a third of it, and then let’s spend a third of it. But, you know, don’t.
The justification process that we see, high income, high cash flow families, it’s dangerous. I mean, if you. That’s
where I would say the sweet spot for reverse budgeting. Because they’re also low on time and they need that
forced accountability. They need to save time. They need to have that decision fatigue off the plate. And having
both spouses understand that be like, what do you mean, we can’t afford this? My. It makes one and a half million
dollars a year. Well, not exactly, yes, on paper. But here’s how the cash flow works. So every client that we’ve had
on a reverse budgeting system, I can tell you that definitely have given us the feedback.
Speaker 1 – 26:46
They’ve, I can’t say eliminated stress, but they’ve eliminated a lot of financial stress. And their financial plans, I’d
say, are probably, you know, in the top one percentile of results given. Okay, here’s their income versus the results
of what their net worth is on paper. I mean, this is like steroids injecting a financial plan. If you want to do one
thing, set it up. But you got to set up this, the 2.0 and the 3.0 and the ongoing calibration. It can do wonders, the
automatic systems over time into your financial plan. But Ben, any closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 – 27:18
No, I think just work with a team that helps you implement this because I think a lot of advisors would say, oh, like,
save every. Save, save, save, save every dollar. Everything that you’re accumulating, save. You know, we have a lot
of clients that are looking back, or not necessarily a lot of clients, but people I know there are people that save
every dollar that they earn. They don’t take that trip in their 30s and 40s. They have all the money in the world in
their 60s. And they look back and say, man, I, I regret. I wish I, I wish I had taken that trip. Or I wish I’d spent more
time with my kids when they were in the house. I don’t see them as much. And you know, my health isn’t as good. I
can’t take the trip.
Speaker 2 – 27:54
I have all this money. I can’t even spend it. So work with a team that is encouraging this balancing system because,
you know, a lot of advisors would say, well, you need to save because we’re working for retirement. But if you save
all this money and then you don’t end up spending it, then you could have some regrets. So I think a system like
this really helps put into perspective what you’re saving for and helps organize things so that you can spend with a
lot of peace of mind. I think just peace of mind is what we’re working to help clients achieve.
Speaker 1 – 28:24
No question. Well, thanks for joining us and look forward to catching everyone next week.