Ditch the Suits - Your Money, Your Life

The 3-part series on financial advisors was excellent. The discussion on what it means to be a fiduciary, how an advisor gets paid and why it matters, and what to expect when working with an advisor was so informative. Great education!

One of the guest with her experience in higher education was an administrative assistant at Stevenson. Not sure what curriculum is written in “15-20” years of higher ed as an adminstrative assistant but seems dishonest. The rest of the podcast felt like mindless babble with absolutely zero substance.

I found these guys online and was considering hiring them but listened to the podcast first. Holy cow did I do a 180. I gave it 4 episodes and found these guys to ramble without saying much of anything. I literally listened to 7 minutes of a metaphor about funnel cake at the state fair that went nowhere. But I lost it when I listened to the 4% withdrawal rate episode. Not only do these guys not have a clue how the 4% rule works, they spend the episode talking about how there’s a bunch of “financial planners” out there that just hear “4%” and blindly apply it without understanding it. THESE GUYS DONT UNDERSTAND IT! It’s not “withdraw 4% every year” it’s “withdraw 4% the first year, and then adjust that $ amount for inflation yearly”. It’s a deliberately low percentage based on historical sequence of return risk factored in, and these yahoos pat themselves on the back for poking holes in the theory because “you have to think about sequence of return”. They then go on to rail Bengen because he’s adjusted the 4% upwards in recent years, as his original work was based on just stocks and bonds and now uses a more diversified portfolio with small caps etc, but these guys simply say “he’s not even consistent!” The fact that people trust them with their retirements when they can’t read a simple article about a topic and educate themselves before basing several podcast episodes on it is frankly terrifying. Don’t waste your time on the rambling episodes but more importantly don’t expose yourself to bad information here.

I find this podcast to be fair and unbiased and relatable. The hosts speak to specific financial situation’s and events in the information is always relevant.