Ran the numbers on a $500K house at 6.75%. Live there 7 years, then sell. -Monthly payment: $2,594 -Total payments: $217,929 -Interest paid: $181,079 -Principal paid down: $36,850 Seven years of payments and you own $36,850 more of the house than you did on day one. Add property taxes, insurance, maintenance, closing costs and the 6% to sell it, and roughly $355K is gone for good. You walk away with about $215K of equity, most of it your own down payment plus appreciation. Now the other path. Rent at $2,900/mo (rising 3%/yr) for the same 7 years: about $268K gone. Take the $100K down payment and put it in the S&P 500 instead. Using the actual last 7 calendar years of returns, including the -18% year in 2022, that $100K is sitting at roughly $305K. $305K in a brokerage account vs $215K in a house. And the renter spent $87K less getting there. Before anyone yells: the last 7 years were one of the strongest stretches in market history. Run it on the 2000s and the house wins. This is a backtest, not a forecast, and past returns don't promise anything. But "renting is throwing money away" is a bumper sticker, not a spreadsheet. Run yours before you sign.

Just got a new client because we bonded over the San Antonio Spurs. Spent 90 minutes talking sports and 5 min over the plan (for the fifth time). “Send the DocuSign, I’ll knock it out this weekend.” Go Spurs Go.

Find me a wealth manager that replicate this

After using this app for 14 years, I finally gained my first client that found me on X. I've seen dozens of awesome advisors (and other professions) just absolutely kill it with marketing & biz dev on this platform. I just thought they had a special formula or were best friends with Elon. Turns out that everything they say about just posting all the time, mostly without giving a tweet a second thought, is the absolute truth. 14+ years I've been using this platform all wrong. I will raise my hand and admit that I did/do have mostly college football and NBA content on my 'For You' page. The majority of my time on X was 'content consumption' not 'content creation'. That to me is now what I view as the 'Secret Solution'. I made a commitment at the beginning of this year to post all the time, at everything. I've blasted hundreds of lame tweets but just kept at it. It's September and that means I've spent 9 months just yelling into to void before anything happened. And then something crazy cool did happen. Over the last 6 weeks my silly fun tweets generated 2.7M impressions(!!!). 9,000+ people went to my profile. I had over 8,000 hits on my website and 15+ emails/dm's/meetings. And now 1 client. (With more soon to come) I love X. It really is the one place where people building anything can share and connect. Anyway, if you're an advisor and ever want to connect, I'd love to talk. And if you're someone wanting to work with an advisor who specializes in charitable giving tax planning and builds their own custom portfolios -> send me a dm. Let's chat.

My wife after I put the baby down after 43 attempts last night

“We get influencers to sell bonds”

Warren Buffett is stepping down as Berkshire Chairman at 96 years old. In his goodbye letter, he says that “Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me.” His son Howard will take his place (“Howard has been a Berkshire Director for 33 years. That’s a longer apprenticeship than I served before taking the reins at the age of 34. Greg [Abel] runs the company. Howard will guard its culture and values.”) Incredible 60+ year run. 🐐

This email came last month from a client that I have been chasing since before LeBron James had a ring. But seriously, I have been talking to this individual and family for quite a long time and have always stayed in touch. Constant emails, the check-ins, the "Hey, saw your son did this on Instagram," and "Hey, saw this happened at your church recently. Congratulations." All of that. It pays dividends. I'm happy to announce that this client is a wonderful addition to the Baskets Capital family. This client has a tremendous plan in place. They have a million tax advisors and have constantly just sought to improve their own investments and opportunities in a variety of different ways, but never truly built out a concrete path on what separates one investment manager or advisor from another. As much as I love the community of financial advisors that have a really good take on the good planning that should be done (and trust me, it should be), you can truly constantly keep working with great clients by paying attention to what they keep saying over and over and by adding value on the investment side too. Don't just knock it and throw it away. "Thank you for clearly spending alot of time analyzing the portfolio." Did I think that this huge amount of effort and a completely free use of my time on breaking down all of this family's investments would lead to me actually winning them as a client? No, absolutely not, but it's so great to know that there are more rewards for people that just keep at it. I had a post last month that went pretty viral about Mark Dowdle, who's an exceptional long-distance runner, and the guy just never gives up. That's a huge part of this business too. Anyway, I'm pumped and have to share.

Future Proof is on 🔥 ATTN ALL FINANCIAL ADVISORS If you're not doing everything you can to help your clients by streamlining operations, then you're going to get left behind. Anthropic, Claude, just made a partnership announcement with Redtail, Wealthbox, Zocks, Addepar, Wealth.com , Envestment, Orion, Blackrock, Vanguard and iCapital. And the biggest hit is that Schwab has full exclusivity for RIA custody partnerships. Crazy timing with Anthropic's IPO coming up right?

Thoughts and prayers to whoever this guy is

Financial advisors everywhere are going to get fired. If you have an internet connection then you can use this tool without having someone read the words off a screen to you. And yet, I'm not scared. I think this just makes lazy financial advisors even lazier. Those FAs that are constantly improving their own systems with AI and doing the work themselves will get that much better and separate from Lazy FAs. There's a huge difference between making AI do all the work vs you still do it and AI supports. For example, we use AI tools for recording meetings and add those notes into CRMs. I then have auto emails/texts given to me day of for the next meeting I have with that client. Stupid simple. Most FAs have that. We also just spent the last 10 months developing our own agent that everyone on the team can text. AT ANY HOUR. And that agent handles all notes, CRM info (not PII), and plugs into RightCapital, Slant, Holistiplan etc. "What did Wemby say in our last meeting about his travel destinations in retirement? I need to send him those travel details, draft that email in my email right now." "Manu just texted me asking for his tax return from last year because of the new property they're looking at. Needs to send to his bank. They chose the one in Crested Butte. Do research on it, look through notes for address, and draft an email for all the great things to do in CB with a full restaurant list. Oh, and send him that special Argentinian wine to he likes so much to his house with a note that says 'Congrats'!" Everyone can text and get answers or get things done. AI is powerful, but will not replace the advisors doing the right work. You better still be building every financial plan yourself.

Nothing beats ☕️ + 🌊 mornings

Had a call with a retired air traffic controller. 32 years in the tower. Retired 8.5 years ago. Turns 65 in December. House paid off. Zero debt. TSP sitting in the G Fund at about 4%. Moved it there after a drawdown scared him out of the stock funds. CDs at two banks. High-yield savings. Everything earning 4% or a little better. Keeps his income low on purpose. 12% bracket. First thing he told me: an advisor once told him most advisors aren't worth the fee. Second thing: my fee is a hurdle over his 4%. He's right on both, at least as far as the return goes. So I didn't pitch return. Here's what I told him: "You didn't put the money in the G Fund to grow it. You put it there so you'd stop watching the market every day. You told me you still watch it every day. So it hasn't done that either. The plan isn't about beating 4%. It's three things. Your wife's cushion if you go first. The house you're selling and the one you're buying. And how much of that 12% bracket we fill with Roth conversions before RMDs, so she isn't stuck with a bigger tax bill as a single filer than the two of you have now. If I can't show you those three on one page, don't hire me."

Completely humbled and proud to say that our podcast that we started just over a year ago is getting acquired. Advisor Freedom has been an absolute rocket ship of growth and fun. It's amazing that the world and private equity recognize that growth and talent from the show. I am allowed to report that after hours of praying that we settled on selling for $1,000,000,000. Some would consider this life changing money. I just know that a lot of good will come from this new transition and our family and firm will be more dedicated than ever to the show. Thank you to all our guests that we've had on the show. You made this possible. We love you. Onward! What should I buy first? ***This post is a joke. Please stop giving private equity firms (scammers) my phone number. But also go listen to the pod. It's great.

Just talked to a 58-year-old with 30-plus years in oilfield services. Planned to work to 67. Just found out his job may not exist in December. ~$1.15M in the 401(k). ~$100K elsewhere. Two paid-off houses, one his wife inherited that they'll sell. Spending target $11,000/mo. He asked me the same question twice: "Why is my retirement score a 51?" Because the plan he gave me was Plan B and the life he might get is Plan A. So we built both, side by side, on one page. Plan A: out in December, draws from the 401(k) at 58 under the rule of 55 (which is why the money stays in the plan instead of rolling to an IRA), Social Security at 62 at $2,810/mo. Plan B: works to 67, Social Security at 67 at $4,158/mo, survivor benefit to his wife of $4,021 instead of a lot less. The score is the plan as it sits today, before any decision gets made. The point of the page is to show which decisions move it. Sell the house. Delay the claim. Keep the withdrawals inside the rule-of-55 window. He wanted to know if he was okay. The honest answer is it depends which December he gets. Now he can see both.

🍔

Average Twitter interaction: Me: "Some people prefer to rent." Twitter: "HAVE FUN WHEN THE LANDLORD KICKS YOU AND YOUR KIDS TO THE CURB!!!" Also me: "Some people prefer to buy." Twitter: "HAVE FUN DURING THE NEXT '08 HOUSING CRASH!!!"

BREAKING NEWS: Water is wet.

This post is for the fellas. Get to CO every August and drink Coors Banquets. Your business will triple/you’ll get that mega promotion/your taxes will disappear/etc. Or your emotional and mental well being will dramatically improve. Either way, it's a win.