School's in Session! Work Pants Finance Q&A, Part 1: Disability Insurance, Student Loans, Starting New Work, and Kids and Money

June 23, 2021

By Matt Miner, MBA, CFP®

Listener Q&A: Disability Insurance, Student Loans, Starting New Work, and Kids and Money

Ever wondered what it’d be like to ask your questions on the Work Pants Finance podcast or hear your voice on your favorite podcast app? Four brave listeners shared their questions with me, and today you get to hear the answers!

If you enjoy today’s show and would like to be invited the next time I record listener Q&A, sign up at workpantsfinance.com/resources.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Matt Miner: Ever wondered, what would it be like to ask your questions on the Work Pants Finance podcast, or hear your voice on your favorite podcast app? Today, brave listeners shared their questions with me, and you get to hear the answers.

Hey, and welcome to the Work Pants Finance podcast, where I serve up hard-won wisdom about work, life, and money. We teach you how to be a debt-free millionaire in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, and build a life where money works for you, not the other way around. I'm Matt Miner, your money guide and for the last decade, my family and I killed debt, built wealth, and started teaching other people how to do the same. In 2018, I stepped away from corporate work to serve clients full-time as a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor. Work Pants Finance is the show for MBAs, entrepreneurs, and other high-income professionals who want a financial plan that works as hard as they do.

This episode is all about you and answering your questions about life and money. If you enjoyed today's show and would like to be invited the next time I record listener Q and A, sign up at workpantsfinance.com/resources. This is listener Q and A, Disability Insurance, Student Loans, Starting New Work, and Kids and Money. Find more at workpantsfinance.com/30.

[00:01:18] Moses: Hi Matt. I'm in the middle of a career transition right now. Because I went back to school, I have been unemployed for a certain time, about two years or so. Now I know in personal finance, one of our basics that you have to have in place is disability insurance. That is something I've never had before, unfortunately, but I keep hearing about it in the personal finance space. I was wondering for somebody in my shoes who is not employed. I've heard it's hard to obtain disability insurance. Is it impossible? If it is impossible, do you have some tips as to what I can do to protect myself in case something happens to me and I am not able to get the kind of income that I want because of certain kinds of disability?

[00:02:11] Matt: Yes. That's a great question and actually, I have never tested the proposition with insurance agents of folks without income being able to apply for and potentially get approved, except that I have one client whose wife is a stay at home mom, and she has some small amount of disability, like maybe $1,500 to $1,700 a month. She was able to qualify for that without income and so it could be that there would be a small amount of coverage available even without documented income.

I think the only way to do this would be to find a broker and make some applications. Other than that, things that you can do is obviously move towards income as fast as you can, potentially to live as conservatively as you can, to stretch your savings. But I don't have a silver bullet answer for the exact problem that you describe. And then I would take a moment to jump up on my soapbox and say, this illustrates not necessarily that you could have done this in your past, but in general, when someone has income, if they have the opportunity to apply for disability insurance while they have the income, even if they buy less than they might eventually like to have due to budget considerations or something like that, it can be so comforting to have something in place.

Even if you would ideally like to have $8,000 a month in disability income if you're out there listening to this and you want $8,000, but you only want to pay for $3,000, $3,000 is better than zero and so getting it while you're able can be a good strategy for exactly the reason that you mentioned. All right, Makoto, what do you have for me?

[00:04:02] Makoto: Hey, Matt. Thanks for taking my call.

[00:04:04] Matt: Thanks for being here.

[00:04:05] Makoto: Yes. My question is around financial literacy for kids. I think your kids are a little bit older than my kids, but I was just curious, as a financial planner, what are the different things you've done or what are the different things you are doing to teach your kids or help them learn about finance, budgeting, thoughts around giving allowances, all these things?

[00:04:30] Matt: Man, you're really going to wind me up with this one. I like to start at the top of the pyramid with this. Dave Ramsey said it as well as anybody that we can think of our money in terms of give, save, spend. That's true whether you're three years old or whether you're 60 years old and so we want to give our kids this framework of thinking about money first in terms of being generous to others. Second, in terms of saving or stewarding that money. And then third, in terms of spending either on things that are necessary or things that they might want, and those are good. What do you need to do in order to be able to give, save, and spend?

You have to teach them about work. I was just reflecting on this this morning. My kids are 15, 14, and 12, so older, but not old and when you're trying to teach them anything, it's more work on you as the parent at the outset in order to go through that effort of teaching the skill and training to a standard and then checking behind them and then having them correct it.

Then if they are not obedient, perhaps getting involved in some discipline and instruction and, you know, it just feels a whole lot easier to just empty the dishwasher yourself. I can tell you that every one of the plates in our house has a chip in it. On the other hand the kids, they need to learn about the importance of these things. Sometimes when I'm around advisor forums and stuff like that, I hear financial advisors talk about their clients whose adult children have fewer skills and less work ethic than they could have, and shame on the kids, but shame on the parents.

We've got to teach the kids to work at an age-appropriate level. That means not being harsh, of course, not being overly demanding. On the other hand, they usually can do more than we actually think that they can, and I've seen this demonstrated in my own life. There's a particular family I'm thinking of that's really excellent about asking a lot of their kids and not in a harsh way, but I've seen their kids, who are a little younger than mine, at different times be as or more capable than my own children in certain areas just because the parents expected it of them. Don't get me wrong. I think my children are pretty well-trained and pretty capable, but just as a mindset, the kids typically can do more than we think if we're willing to lay the track for them to run on.

Once we kind of got those money buckets and then a work ethic, and then, "Hey, you're part of this family. You're going to contribute." we have then gone to-- I just, again adopted Dave Ramsey's name for this one. We started with commissions. You had a baseline level of chores that you were expected to do as a member of the family and then if there were certain other tasks, you might be required to do it as a child, or it might be offered to you as an opportunity. Sometimes I've put these things out on a low-bid contract and seeing what the kids come up with, who wants it most, but we try to think of these particular tasks and then pay for that special work. That maybe took us through like age six or seven with our kids and then they started to be able to do things in the neighborhood.

Great areas to look again, has to be age-appropriate, but raking leaves, lawnmowing, dog-walking. An example of lawnmowing jobs that can be easy to come by, our neighbors who might not employ a regular service, but they're going on vacation. You can market yourself to them as, "Hey, I'll cover for you while you're on vacation". Maybe you just came into a really busy time at work. You can usually tell which neighbors might be feeling a little overwhelmed by their meeting schedules by the look of the lawn and those are great people to solicit. Our kids have had varying levels of success with things like lemonade stands. You have to think about your customer and talk to people and how are you going to present this product? I don't know that that's a really economically viable one, but we loved the fact that they were trying and thinking about it.

Then the last thing I'll say, and then I'll pause for a moment and see if you have any follow-ups or clarifications. Pretty early on, around age five or six, as soon as they could understand numbers, we implemented something in our family that we've called a bank of dad. That's a bank that pays a 10% interest rate and so we just track that on a spreadsheet. They can deposit or withdraw that bank account first of all. Unfortunately, friends, it's not open to podcast listeners, but second of all, even for my children, it's capped at $1,000 as the maximum deposit there to not bankrupt me. I have one in particular who would be happy to put the pedal to the metal on a guaranteed interest rate, so we've done that and tried to introduce them to banking that way.

By the time they had their first $1,000 there, and all three of the kids have done this now, we opened up student checking accounts for them with a debit card and the vision there is the next $1,000 there and that becomes their operating fund. The bank of dad money just sits over there earning interest and if they want to spend money, they spend it from their checking accounts now. Only one of my children has gotten to the level where he's saved up another $1,000 in his student checking account and now he's opened his Roth IRA and he funds that regularly out of his income. You got there, I guess, the philosophy of money, philosophy of work, where to go find work, and I think you can be more creative than I've illustrated in my answer, but maybe just trying to get those juices flowing.

Then lastly, a little bit about the banking that we've done in our family. Last thing I'll say there just because I was thinking about it, I was maybe stumbling a little bit with my entrepreneurial ideas. There's a really good book called The $100 Startup. I'll link it in the show notes. I don't remember the author, right offhand. Not everything in there would be suitable for children, but again, might get their juices flowing on things that you can do for a low amount of capital upfront that have the potential to yield some income. I don't know. Makoto, do you have any follow-ups or ways you'd like me to clarify anything I said?

[00:10:37] Makoto: Yes, no, I think that's been really helpful firstly to kind of start with the high-level framework, and then break it down into whether you're starting to give chores, different household jobs. I'm curious. I know your oldest started the coffee roasting business.

[00:10:57] Matt: He's actually my second to give credit to the oldest.

[00:10:59] Makoto: Okay, so your children going out and kind of looking like even a lemonade stand, trying to find other ways to start a small side hustle or a business, was that something that you really encouraged inspired them? Was it something that they just wanted to do and you helped out here and there? Obviously, there's different ranges. Maybe some kids aren't really interested. Would you say you'd really encourage every child to explore those things? Just, you learn so many things from trying, even if it's not super successful.

[00:11:34] Matt: Yes. I think back to the earliest venture with all due respect to George Bluth and Arrested Development, the first child venture was a banana stand and I can still recall one of the children offering a handful of mushy banana pieces to a passerby in Cary, North Carolina, who dutifully bought them, but they've learned some things about product presentation since that time. Yes, we have certainly encouraged them. We've encouraged them both positively to say, "Look. If you do this here can be the result."

Our daughter has twice paid for herself or partnered with us to pay to go to a summer camp that we maybe otherwise would not have chosen to fund and she really valued that. Actually, three times she's done that. Maybe she's trying to get away from us. Then they've been able to-- My son, Ben likes to buy things for his outdoor hobbies. He likes that he can just choose to buy something that he thinks is interesting. Just the other day, he wanted to choose to buy a unicycle, so he went on Amazon and researched unicycles and bought them so like, hey, look, you can, you can do this, you can be generous to others, you can save up money, and you can have some of these things that you want. Other than asking is this an okay thing for me to buy, you have the economic resources to just go ahead and get it and that's pretty cool when you're 10.

They have also maybe had some natural bent in that direction. I mean, we've trained them for that. Then the last thing I would say, on the negative side is that we have insisted that they be responsible for their financial mess-ups ever since they were small and so, again, you have to be careful how you implement this. True accidents are one thing, but if you've been told not to do something and then you do it, and that results in property damage, then 100%, you will be responsible for replacing or repairing whatever it is that you broke.

If you've been told-- This is an exact example, right? You may not throw the ball in the house. If you throw a baseball through the window, you have to buy a new window, and that has really happened. I'm trying to remember the specifics of it. We've even had them pay for co-pays for medical procedures that resulted from accidents from undertaking activities that they had been warned against and so just that ethic of financial responsibility. Again, we don't want to be harsh, but we're trying to raise competent, productive adults and I also don't want to claim success because my kids are still kids, but this is the aim. Those are my thoughts on that. Anything else?

[00:14:09] Makoto: No, that's really helpful. I think I want to chat with my wife and start thinking about more of these things and how to practically start these things up with our own kids, yes, so appreciate your thoughts.

[00:14:21] Matt: Good deal. Well, thanks, Makoto. All right, Rohan. How may I help you today?

[00:14:27] Rohan: Hi, Matt. I'm calling in from Charlottesville, Virginia. Just graduated with an MBA degree. It was a lot of fun, but I've accrued a lot of student loan debt as a result.

[00:14:38] Matt: I feel you on that.

[00:14:41] Rohan: I'm starting a job next month, and it comes with a signing bonus, a substantial one. To give you some numbers, my student loan debt is around $160,000 and the signing bonus or the joining bonus is around $60,000. My question to you is, how should I think about spending this bonus because one condition of this is if I happen to leave the company before one year, then I would earn the bonus on a prorated basis. If I'm there for six months, I get to keep half of it, so should I attack the student loan debt right away as soon as I get it, or probably wait a few months to be more confident? That is one part of it, but there's this whole other part of I don't have a car yet. I mean, do I just get by without a car? I did that during this MBA and I'm thinking about how should I think about spending versus attacking the debt versus save and investing. Should I even start thinking about it?

[00:15:51] Matt: All right. Thanks, Rohan. Those are really good questions. A couple of thoughts on that and then I really welcome you to come back with further questions because one, this is a really important question. Two, this is a very common question. I would just start out by saying, first of all, congratulations on completing your MBA. I think it's a tremendous degree. It has served me well and I enjoyed both the program and everything that's come after. Second, congratulations on having a great new job and a really generous signing bonus. That's a substantial signing bonus. Most signing bonuses are in the $10,000 to $30,000 range, so I think that you can feel well blessed by the provision of a signing bonus of that size. Before I dive into the rest, do you have any other kinds of debt besides student loans or only the student loan debt?

[00:16:43] Rohan: I only have student loan debt right now.

[00:16:46] Matt: Okay, and besides the $60,000 signing bonus, what is your approximate annual income, including any other types of income or compensation that you might receive, like stock or other investment income?

[00:16:59] Rohan: Income would be close to $200,000 before taxes?

[00:17:03] Matt: Okay, so that's very good. I mean, one of the things that I think about as it relates to student loans, anything below one times annual pay is generally a manageable loan amount. That doesn't mean it's fun and, of course, depends somewhat on the cost of living in the area. I understand that you're headed to probably a higher cost-of-living area generally, but you're below one times annual income on the student loans. If your comp is like most other MBAs, it only goes up and that happens generally, especially in the third, fourth, fifth year and so at the end of the day, this is going to be just a part of your history that you'll work your way through.

I do think referencing back to Moses' question at the beginning, that it would be wise while you have this good income to, especially if there's anybody counting on your income, or as soon as there is, to go ahead and put some disability insurance in place while you have this. Certainly, understand what your employer is offering and then consider whether you would layer additional private disability insurance over the top of that, but having done that, I think what I would recommend is that you go ahead and get to the place and find housing, and then become somewhat stable in your job. Get a sense whether it's going to be a complete catastrophe, or whether you're highly confident you can stick it out for at least a year. You'll probably have a sense of that by the third or fourth or fifth month in the job. I don't think that you need-- Are you on a six-month forbearance as it relates to repayment of your loans?

[00:18:45] Rohan: There are some monthly payments that will start three months from now.

[00:18:49] Matt: Yes, so that's fine. I mean, you can just begin making the minimum monthly payments, which should not be a problem based on the income that you describe. Then as it would relate to setting up your household, I just would encourage you to keep your fixed costs as low as can be reasonably managed in your situation, so you'll want to look at reasonable level of rent, not going totally bananas on your food budget. I think as it relates to your car, you probably don't want to drive a junker in your situation but there are a lot of very not-junk cars that can be had for $8,000 to $15,000. There's a big difference between, say a $15,000 Toyota Camry or a $8,000 Ford Fusion that is a perfectly fine car versus say a $55,000 BMW. One feels more fun as a post-MBA grad for sure, but you probably can do that soon enough, and if you can save a little bit of money out of the chute with a reasonable car, I think that makes sense.

The other thing you could look to do, which potentially could be very lifestyle-enhancing for you would be to live quite near your office and then to use rideshare services or rental cars if you want to go check out the broader area. If you're only doing it occasionally, that can definitely be a cheaper answer than owning the car. On the other hand, the kinds of cars that I've just described, the $8,000 Ford Fusion and the $15,000 Camry, those cars will depreciate very minimally at this point. Really, all you're looking at there is just the cost of insurance and license and tags, just aggravation of owning a car. They're not going to go down in value very much. Whereas if you buy, of course, a brand new car, it goes down in value quite a bit faster.

Then, once you've established your monthly budget, I would go ahead, and if that monthly budget is-- On a $200,000 income, it would be very easy to come up with a $12,000 a month budget. I recommend that instead, you aim for a $4,500 or $5,500 a month budget or $6,500 a month budget. If that's the case, and you're looking at a six-month emergency fund of $25,000 to $40,000, maybe that is your $60,000 at that point. Once that's done now, even after taxes, you've probably got $7,000 or $8,000 a month that you could choose is to put towards the student loans.

As it relates to investing in general for where you are at in the process, I recommend probably obtaining any available employer match and maybe maximizing a health savings account because that account has some special characteristics that might be beneficial for you, but beyond that, I think it would make a ton of sense to focus on clearing up the student debt. Especially if you think that you would like the experience of being debt-free and then spoiler alert, everyone that I've ever known who's paid them off, has been happy to be debt-free. That was a pretty long answer. I'm happy to talk a little bit more about any of it or any follow-ups that you might have, Rohan.

[00:22:04] Rohan: No follow-ups at this point, but I have an instinct towards probably putting some money towards investing, even when it logically doesn't make sense to do. Loan interest is at a high rate. It's around 6.5% annual interest for the student loan. Logically, probably it doesn't make sense to try to invest the money and make it grow at a higher rate, but that's where I've found myself gravitating to. If you have any tips on how to not get distracted and stay focused on your goal.

[00:22:39] Matt: I think there's a couple of thoughts. You'll just have to decide what you really want. It's your money, so you get to do anything you want. The US government does whatever it wants with money and it's not even their money. You're in a much better position than they are. One possible way to grapple with that would be to set yourself a special investing budget. If the budget that I illustrated for you, let's just pick $5,000 a month, and let's imagine that you have after taxes an additional $7,000 a month available to you. Maybe you chose that $5,000 budget rather than, say, a $6,500 budget for your lifestyle in order to leave $1,500 a month free for investing that you otherwise would've chosen to spend on travel, food, car, clothes, whatever the things would be that you might otherwise buy.

Then that $1,500, that just is your fun money, whether that's Dogecoin or commodity speculation or S&P 500 index funds or saving towards your first rental property, whatever it is, you're setting that budget at a reasonable level where you're clearly saying, "Hey, my priority is to clear these student loans. I can't get a 6.5% percent guaranteed rate anywhere else, but my interest is in this investing project. I've found a way to do that, and I'm going to start at this level." Which also brings up another point, which would be, you need to decide what you want to invest in and why. You have to have a thesis for your investment, and then you have to fully understand the investment. Otherwise, you're just gambling. It starts with making the investment selection, developing a thesis around it, and then you can set that budget.

I think for all the reasons that we've talked about, especially the rates that you mentioned on the student loans, I still would generally advise you to consider clearing those up. The last thing that I always like to say about student loans, I don't know anything about your particular loans, but if the loans are separate loans, I'm always very slow to recommend consolidating or necessarily even refinancing. At least not refinancing all of them. I really like it when you can clear a loan and have that loan go away.

Then the cash flow that was previously dedicated to that loan is put back into your monthly budget. Once you consolidate or refinance, then the loans are all in a big lump, and now you have to clear the entire thing in order to get relief from any of the monthly payments. That's the analysis about the order in which to pay off the loans and how that affects your cash flow is something to consider alongside the rate.

[00:25:30] Rahan: Thanks so much, Matt. Getting to attack those student loans. Thanks so much.

[00:25:34] Matt: Absolutely, Rohan. Thanks for being here.

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[00:26:09] Amy Sloan: Hey, Matt. This is Amy Sloan. Thanks for taking my question. As a mom of five, the oldest of whom are drawing ever closer to the day they'll be living independently. It's really important to me that they leave home equipped to make a wise financial plan of their own. If all my husband and I have done is plan for our own financial present and future without giving them the tools to safeguard their own, I don't think we'll have actually been wisely planning. Related to this, I have a two-part question. First, what are some age-appropriate ways we can bring our children into our own family's budgeting and financial planning processes?

[00:26:48] Matt: Bringing kids into your budgeting and financial planning process is super important. There are different answers to this question. For very young children, as well as for adult children in their 20s, for example, but I'm going to focus my answer on children aged 10 to 16. That's an age range where kids are fully capable of grasping financial concepts. They have some judgment and discernment, and they're also forming their own beliefs about the world around them, including about the topic of money.

As you discuss money topics with your kids, do your best to put yourself in your kids' shoes and make sure the messages you're sending about money in your family are the messages that you want your kids to receive. Remember, as parents more is caught than taught, so role-modeling good money habits and healthy money scripts is key. Our kids pick up so much more than we imagine.

Different families have different levels of comfort about how and how much they talk to their children about money. My conviction is more is better. Most parents, for a variety of reasons, share too little. In the Miner family, we share actual spending data, but not income or net worth data at this point. I think those things will come later in estate planning conversations with the kids. We want to share the spending data now, so they understand just how much it takes to provide for a family of five. We think that sharing that spending data orients them towards appropriate income goals for themselves. A lot of what you teach your kids about money will be personal to your family. As I shared earlier in the show, we start at the top level. Earn, give, save, spend. Then put just a little bit of thought into how you can involve your children in each of these areas. I think if you do that, you'll be just fine.

Here are some specific thoughts. Let them see you and your husband have budget meetings. Invite them in to see the budget or at least particular categories, and then have them create their own budgets with categories to give, save, and spend. As they reach their early teens, decide what you're going to pay for and then what they need to pay for and turn those budgets over to them. This could include clothing, extracurriculars, or parts of the transportation budget, as well as their own entertainment. One of the things grownups do about money is make choices. You can talk to your kids in the moment about how you're evaluating financial trade-offs. These can be big or small, but here's a small one.

You might say, "Normally, kids, we make homemade pizza on Friday nights and that's delicious and economical. However, I have to work right until 6:00 PM, and if I start on pizza at that point, we won't eat until 08:00 PM, so today we've made the decision to order pizza instead of making it, even though that's more expensive. Now, kids, we have plenty of money to order pizza tonight, and we'll be back to making our own pizza next week." You could have even more fun with this example if you have older kids. You might imagine that ingredient costs $10 for three pizzas, and the pizza order with tip is $60. You could go ahead and offer to pay someone $30 to make three pies, and you can keep the difference. The point of this is to help kids understand that when it comes to money or time or any other limited resource, you can do anything but not everything.

Now, when it comes to the financial planning process itself, and in my mind that means budgeting, balance sheet, taxes, investments, insurance, estate planning, and the ever famous college planning. There are a few ways to include the kids in this process. Many financial advisors, including me, would be happy to meet with their clients' children. This can be a great way to bring a new voice into the conversation. Can also let older children know that it's not just their crazy parents who think about this money stuff. Beyond that, I encourage you to think about what you'd like to share with your kids in each of these topic areas.

We've already covered budgeting. As it relates to your balance sheet, you could talk them through what you have there even if you don't disclose actual amounts. You have on your balance sheet, checking, savings, retirement accounts, cars, other investment accounts, private businesses, family property, and anything else where you're choosing to track the value of an asset.

Do you use debt? Do you like debt? Do you recommend debt to your children or do you wish that they could be debt-free? Discussing your balance sheet with them is a great place for this discussion. Finally, on taxes, they need to know that it costs a ton of money to live in this country, especially if you're economically productive. How do your kids feel about you paying taxes? How many vacations could you buy with your annual tax payments? When the time comes for them to pay taxes, how are they going to feel about that?

As it relates to investing, talk with them about the purpose of investing and explain to them compounding over time. Tell them what you are investing for. Perhaps you're investing in order to be financially independent at a young age. Perhaps you are investing because you know that there may come a time when you are no longer able or willing to work. Perhaps you're investing for a particular goal, a family vacation property, or even a large vacation.

You can talk to them about how insurance works. Let them know that insurance is insurance and not a financing tool. Insurance is for high-cost low-frequency events. House fire, major medical, liability events. It's not for cell phones, cordless drills, and chipped windshields. As far as estate planning, you can talk to them about whether you have ever been blessed to receive a gift. Do you hope or plan to leave gifts to your children or grandchildren? What would you like to share with them about your estate?

Then finally for college, I think it's really important to let the kids know about your expectations of their and your contributions to this important expense. How should they shape their own thoughts when it comes to selecting and paying for college?

[00:32:24] Amy: Second, as we think about our older kids and teens, what are the top three money skills they should have or topics they should understand before they leave home?

[00:32:34] Matt: Amy, you ask about what kids should know when it comes to money. Of course, the first topic kids need to learn is that we work because we were created to work and it is through work that we have money to bless our neighbors, save for the future, and spend on cool things and experiences now. As it relates to money, our kids need to learn that the creation mandate is, "By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread." In that quote from Genesis 3:19, we see both the curse and the joy of work.

The curse because work, for now, is mixed with toil and continued blessing and fruitfulness because when we work, we are rewarded with the fruits of our labor. Second, coming way down from theology to money tactics, kids need to learn to increase their savings rate and that a high savings rate now leads to freedom and flexibility in the future. You can illustrate this with matching savings programs, with higher than market parent banking interest rates, or by helping them direct their own money into investments that illustrate the power of money working for you while you sleep.

Third, kids need to know how to make a basic budget and track their transactions. Now, besides these three, kids need to know the danger of debt and the basics of investing. They need to know how to talk to people and ask for what they want, including negotiating price. That will be very important for them in their employment or in their business. They need to understand some of the differences between entrepreneurship and employment. They need guidance selecting and pursuing a career. They need a basic understanding of how taxes work, we talked about that above, and the awesome and often destructive power of the state. There's lots more, but that's a pretty good start.

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Thanks for joining my guests and me on this first-ever call-in show. If you'd like the chance to ask your questions on the show in the future, go to workpantsfinance.com/resources and get signed up there and be sure to tune-in Friday when I release a guest interview about family budgeting from Amy Sloan's own site, humilityanddoxology.com. Until then, this is Matt Miner encouraging you to make a financial plan that works as hard as you do.

[00:34:44] Matt's daughter: Matt Miner is a fee-only fiduciary Financial Advisor and founder and CEO of Miner Wealth Management, a North Carolina registered investment advisor where Matt provides personalized unconflicted advice to clients for a fee. He's also my dad, so please be nice when you talk to him. Matt is a certified financial planner professional and holds a series 65 securities license. He earned his bachelor's degree in finance from Arizona State University and his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

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

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Matthew Miner