The Sugar Daddy Podcast
53: Building a Rock-Solid Financial Plan for Any Political Climate
Ever wondered how to ensure your financial plan remains rock-solid, no matter who's in office? In this episode Jessica and Brandon discuss strategies to safeguard your finances against the unpredictability of political shifts. With President Biden stepping down from reelection, they break down the potential financial impacts and explain why a robust financial plan is crucial for weathering any political storm. Discover the importance of long-term investing and hear their take on why emotional reactions to political events can lead to poor financial decisions. This episode is packed with practical advice to help you achieve financial well-being, regardless of the political landscape.
Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP55O4Ku4dukHcK0kExhpcA
Be sure to connect with us on socials @thesugardaddypodcast we are most active on Instagram
Ever wondered how to ensure your financial plan remains rock-solid, no matter who's in office? In this episode Jessica and Brandon discuss strategies to safeguard your finances against the unpredictability of political shifts. With President Biden stepping down from reelection, they break down the potential financial impacts and explain why a robust financial plan is crucial for weathering any political storm. Discover the importance of long-term investing and hear their take on why emotional reactions to political events can lead to poor financial decisions. This episode is packed with practical advice to help you achieve financial well-being, regardless of the political landscape.
Watch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP55O4Ku4dukHcK0kExhpcA
Be sure to connect with us on socials @thesugardaddypodcast we are most active on Instagram
Yeah, to say it in plain English, your finances should not be 100% dependent upon who is in office, and if your plan is dependent upon who wins the election, you don't have a good plan. It's plain and simple. Your plan should be able to function through whoever is in office.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Sugar Daddy Podcast. I'm Jessica.
Speaker 1:And I'm Brandon.
Speaker 2:And we're the Norwoods, a married millennial couple here to help you build wealth so you can live the life you've always dreamed of. Brandon is an award-winning licensed financial planner with over 10 years of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the US. Don't worry, we leave all the intimidating finance mumbo jumbo at the door Stick with us as we demystify the realm of dollars. So it all makes sense. While giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other, we are so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Speaker 1:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:We are talking about the news heard around the world about President Biden removing himself from reelection.
Speaker 1:So we are going to preface, before we dive into this, that this is not going to be focused on whatever political party you affiliate with. This is not the focus of this conversation.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure if you listen to our podcast, we know what political party you probably affiliate with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you are listening and you are part of the other side that we do not necessarily agree with, you could still take tidbits from this, because this is bipartisan in regards to information wise yeah, I do want to say I feel like we have all been speculating is he going to step down?
Speaker 2:what would it mean? Who would be kamala's running mate? Is it too late? I personally feel like it is too late. I mean it is late. We are four months away from election and there's a whole bunch of craziness happening. It's all polarizing, it's all insane. I know there's a ton of conspiracy theories floating around. I mean Brandon, don't let him fool you guys.
Speaker 1:He is a very logical thinker but he loves a rabbit hole and he loves a conspiracy. I don't love conspiracy.
Speaker 2:I love a conspiracy supported by evidence Well, but you definitely have your theories about things.
Speaker 1:Well, I also realize that the world works a certain way. I would love the world to work one way, but I'm also of the reality that I know that it does not function that way.
Speaker 2:Right. So I think, with all of the news outlets covering the fact that many of the donors have pulled out from monetarily supporting Biden and what that means, and prominent people asking him to step down, and then him kind of doubling down and saying he's not going to and now all of a sudden he did, that's a lot. But also, do we stand a chance in November? And what does this mean for, like a vice president? And I mean, there's just so much. There's so much that people are scared of that, we're unsure of, we don't know what the future is going to look like.
Speaker 2:And so we wanted to put this episode out because we are a financial literacy podcast and, whether you want to believe it or not, money is political, finances are political, healthcare is political, education is political is political. Education is political, especially in the United States. Everything is backed by money and money is backed by politics, and that, whether it's right or wrong or whatever our opinions are about that, it is what it is. And so, before people start panicking and moving money and thinking about the world ending, we thought it would be important to talk about some of the things that you can do and the things that you can control when it comes to your finances, regardless of who's in office or who takes office in November.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to say it in plain English, your finances should not be 100% dependent upon who is in office. And if your plan is dependent upon who is in office and if your plan is dependent upon who wins the election, you don't have a good plan. It's plain and simple. Your plan should be able to function through whoever is in office.
Speaker 2:Okay, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I've never I mean I've never changed my plan based on who's in office. But what do people do when they make changes based on who's in office?
Speaker 1:Smart people who have a thorough understanding of how the economy functions and how their personal finances functions, don't necessarily make a ton of changes based upon who's office, because they have a much better understanding of how the economy as a whole function and they realize that obviously there might be some minor fluctuations based upon people's emotions and people moving money based off of that as far as who's elected.
Speaker 1:But for long-term investing, that's not what moves the needle. Let's think about it this way. You know, as the United States economy do, you think that it would be smart to have it based off of just one individual who is voted on by people. And I'm going to put it out there Majority of people don't have enough information and they don't care to find out enough information to make an actual intellectual decision on who should be president based upon their own personal needs, because there are a lot of people out there that feel a certain way about certain topics and they're actually voting for someone who is 100% on the opposite side of addressing those issues. So it's not smart to have economy based upon that one individual who is in office Because, let's be honest, the president also is really just a figurehead.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:He really is the way that the world economy functions. You can't make decisions all for that. You can't make decisions off of that.
Speaker 2:So it's just like when anything else large happens in the world and people are starting to pull money out, moving money, closing accounts, start putting money under their mattresses. It's a long game right, especially when we're talking about investing. The market will fluctuate, there will be highs and lows, and the time is what will help even out your investments.
Speaker 1:Yes, and this is purely focused on a financial aspect. I'm not talking about moral aspects and you know, equality, stuff of that nature. That's not what we're talking about in this episode. I think that's a completely different conversation.
Speaker 2:I'm simply talking about, from a financial aspect, some of the things that you should focus on so that you can weather the storm regardless of whoever's in office. Well, it looks like a storm is a coming in November, and I don't think there's enough umbrellas to shield us from it.
Speaker 1:Well, first thing you need to focus on is what can you actually control? And I? What I always boil back, and you know what I always come back to is I have these conversations with Jess, Don't worry about things you can't control.
Speaker 2:It's very annoying to hear him say that often.
Speaker 1:You can think about them, but continuously thinking about them for long periods of time is not the way that you should spend your energy. You need to focus on the things that you can control. So, for example, what is one of the main things, the main things that we always talk about? You can control your budget. How much money are you spending? What are you spending it on? You can control that, regardless of who is in office. You have the ability to control what you're spending the money on. Now, obviously, there are fluctuations in inflation, which I'm not going to even say that. That has nothing to do with the president. I know you guys don't want to hear it, but that has nothing to do with the president. The president doesn't affect the inflation for the entire world. It doesn't work that way. But you can't control your budget, okay. Okay, you can also control your savings rate. How much are you actively saving, whether that's in an emergency fund or your 401k plan, an IRA, whatever it may be, you have control over that.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, that's fair.
Speaker 1:You know whether it's also just like you know do you have some risk mitigation? Do you have life insurance? Do you have estate planning? What is the asset allocation in your investments? Are you as aggressive as you need to be, or if you're an older individual or as conservative you might need to be? You can control those things. So those are the things that you should focus on, and making sure that they are aligning properly with the goals that you are trying to achieve.
Speaker 2:So is there any event where you would recommend? If somebody is investing in their R age and we're still pretty aggressive? Hey, now there's a change in the presidency. Do we go more conservative for a period of time?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Okay, you just made a blatant face.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is like so, for example, most of the people that are investing are investing in what's called a qualified plan. It is a plan that is meant for retirement and it has tax benefits to it, so therefore it has a much longer investment horizon before you'd be using the money. So, for example, if I'm 41 years old, let's just make it for even numbers that in my 401k plan, I'm not going to access it for another 20 years. Why would I make all these knee-jerk reactions for four years for something I'm not going to touch for 20 years?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, because people panic.
Speaker 1:That's the problem. People panic also because they don't have a plan. What is one of the key things to have in place so that you don't panic in any scenario? You have a plan. That's the purpose of a plan, so that when S hits the fan or that negative scenario happens, you've already thought about what you would do in that scenario instead of trying to think about what you would do when you're already in it. That is the purpose of a plan and that is the number one thing that people don't have. They have no plan for what they want. They don't even have a plan for if nothing bad happens. They're just living day by day, going to work, putting money here, putting money there. They haven't actually sat down and worked out a plan of hey, I'm here today, I want to accomplish a, b and c, what do I need to do to do that? Okay, all right, and that also kind of leads into the whole uh second thing I was going to bring up avoid making knee-jerk reactions.
Speaker 1:That is the way you've said three things already, but now we're on the second thing, that is the worst thing for anyone to do is to make a knee-jerk reaction based upon some movement and say the market. So the one thing that I always hear people talk about is if you're old enough or if you've heard your parents. Oh, you know, in 2008, when the market crashed, my 401k plan went down and it was terrible and I don't trust investments anymore. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That was a knee-jerk reaction, and what they failed to realize was is that that was for a few months and then the market rebounded and you had record highs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So making a knee-jerk reaction, a call to these people to miss out on, at that point in time, some of the highest gains they could have had. And it's all about having a plan. And most of these people ended up pulling money out of their investments. So it was still in the 401k plan, but they put it in cash instead of just leaving it in the investment, and so when the investment went back up, they were sitting in cash, so they missed out on that going back up. And the thing is these were people who weren't going to even touch this account for another 10 years, so there was no need to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it becomes from a place of fear and not having a plan.
Speaker 2:I think too you have clients who I know you've had to talk to when things have happened in the world and the questions are, and I even know like our family members sometimes will text you and be like, should we move the money?
Speaker 2:And you're always like no no no, and you are so unemotional about it, whereas they're so emotional and, granted, it is their money. But you're also working to make them more money, not lose money. But you are so, just matter of fact, when you're like, no, don't touch the money, leave it there, you're going to be fine, and people are like in panic mode in their heads, making it a thing when really they just need to stand the test of time.
Speaker 1:People have recency bias, you know. They think about the worst thing that just recently happened, but they don't look at it.
Speaker 2:Is that a term Recency bias?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think so I'm going to have to look that up.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that in my life. Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:So people think about the bad thing that just recently happened. I said recently, but whatever, we'll look it up.
Speaker 2:I feel like recency bias sounds better than recently bias.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's recency bias, I don't know that either exists but we'll find out.
Speaker 1:But what ends up happening is that if you were to just step away and look at it from a historical context because basically all the stuff you hear about market performance is all based upon historic performance that's what they mainly use. So if you take a step back and you look at the trajectory of performance of the market over a longer period of time, it's up. It's up Now. Obviously in short interims you have drops, but if you look at it over the whole thing, it's going to be it's up Now. Obviously in short interims you have drops, but if you look at it over the whole thing, it's going to be it's up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, if you zoom in, like I said, you see the little drops, but over the long period, which is what we're focused on, it's up. So, using just logic, off of that you know you should be fine. Now, obviously, if you're in retirement or going to be in retirement, then you have a little bit more worry. But if you have proper planning you wouldn't have to worry either. So, for example, my mother is retired. I don't have any worries about what the market's doing for her because we've already set her retirement up where she has more than enough money to cover her regular daily living expenses, and it's guaranteed money that's going to come in, regardless of what the market's doing, until the day she dies. Now she is invested in the market with her other money, but that is not necessarily money that she needs to live on day to day. So even if that amount went to zero, she is still going to be able to live the life that she has right now. And that's where it comes in, once again, planning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that I mean that makes total sense, right, Like structuring everything so that your accounts can weather the storm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I like when I hear like this isn't for most of us, cause we're millennials and we're still working whatnot but people that use the 4% rule one of the issues I have with the 4% rule, which means that you are pulling.
Speaker 1:If you're in retirement, you're pulling out 4% rule. One of the issues I have with the 4% rule, which means that you are pulling. If you're in retirement, you're pulling out 4% of your investment portfolio each year to live off of and you're hoping that you make that up in the market. So that's basically replenishing what you're pulling out. The issue with that is one market performance and then also, if you need money within a one to four, one to five year time period, you're going to be using that money. It's already earmarked. It shouldn't be invested. So therefore, like most people, when they get into retirement using the 4% rule, they didn't pull out two or three years worth of income. They pulled out one year of income or waiting to see what the market does, and then they're waiting for the next year to pull out money, and so that's where you run into issues.
Speaker 2:Well, that's really big in like the fire movement, financial independence, retire early. So you have some people in their like thirties and forties doing that and they're pulling out that 4% which I know, like you just said, you have a pretty big issue with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that, and that risk becomes exponentially larger when you so. For example, if you're retiring at 60, average life expectancy is around 85, so that's 25 years. Now add another 30 years to that, or another 20 years to that. That risk is exponentially higher now.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now also the thing that people you know, jess and I always used to joke because I'm a math person, her not so much.
Speaker 2:Not at all.
Speaker 1:But there is something called sequence of returns when it comes to investing. All right, now what that means is is that while you're contributing money into your 401k plan, like, you have money in there and you're not pulling any of the money out, so it's all staying in the account. It does not matter the order of the annual returns, so you can have, you know, one year where it's 10%, another year where it's 20%, another year where it's negative one, and One year where it's 10%, another year where it's 20%, another year where it's negative one, and you can switch all those numbers up, let's just say over a 20-year period of time. You can do whatever combination of those returns and it's still mathematically going to come out the same.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, yeah, so it doesn't matter what that order is. Now. What ends up happening is, though, once you reach the point of decumulation where you are starting to withdraw money from your 401k plan, that sequence of returns is extremely important, because you are now pulling money out. So if you start to pull money out and you have early on, you know, those first one to five years of you pulling money out, if you don't have the returns that you were expecting in the market and you have down years, that is drastically going to affect how much money you have and whether or not you have enough money for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Because, the money that you're pulling out is compounding and you're missing out on the compound interest. No, no, it's not that.
Speaker 1:You're not missing Once you start to pull money out. So, like most of the ideal scenarios are like the market's up. So, like you know, if I get 5% or 10%, 8% in the first few years of you withdrawing money, that works.
Speaker 2:But let's say, the first year you draw it out, the market is down 5%.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see, second year the market is down. You've you're down. Say you're down 1%. People think people don't know. Mathematically Now you have to basically double what you thought your return was going to be in order to even just get back to even where you thought the end result was going to be with that amount of money. Mathematically, it matters tremendously. This is why I'm a big proponent of having guaranteed money as part of your plan when you are quote unquote retiring, becoming work optional, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2:Well, and two, if you're doing the math because I've done the math on the 4%, I mean a lot of the people, especially in the FIRE movement, are living very frugally. Some of them have started moving overseas because cost of living is not as high, things like that. Because think about, if you're taking 4% of a portfolio but you want to be pulling out $100,000 a year, which most of them are not doing right, you need a lot of money. In order to do that, you need to have a ton of money already invested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can do the quick math for you. For example, let's just say if you're going to pull out $60,000 a year, the kind of rule of thumb is that you need 25 times your income and that falls into the whole 4% rule. So at that amount you would need 1.5 million.
Speaker 2:Currently invested in order to pull out $60,000 a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at 4%.
Speaker 2:Right and like yes, you can live off of $60,000 a year and people do it, and people do it with less. But that's not a life I want to live.
Speaker 1:And that's $60,000 and you're not taking into account taxes. Right Because most of the people are saving money and you might have some Roth here and there, but it's also a good portion of a pre-tax.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So like you have to have a significant amount of retirement already available to you in order to even do that, unless you want to live in poverty, which in some cases I guess these people are doing because they're just living so frugally.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, like I said. I mean, and also the thing is too is most of the times, the avenues that you can use to accumulate that much money. You don't have access to all of that Because, for example like if you're looking to retire early, you can't put all your money into a 401k plan or an IRA because you have penalties associated with it. So a lot of that money is going to be saved in a brokerage account where you're being taxed each year on it.
Speaker 2:Where else could you keep your money?
Speaker 1:I mean, that's not really what this episode is about, so we're not going to get into the woods of that. But what I'm saying is that for most people, majority of their retirement savings is based upon their 401k plan IRAs Right, and if you're going to retire early, you have to have that as obviously part of the plan, because you are going to need money when you're 60 years you know 59 and a half years old or older but you also need money, you know, up until that point and you need to have it in a place where you can access it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without penalty, correct yeah. All right, yeah, all right. So no knee jerk reactions. What else would you advise?
Speaker 1:Here's the one man Also like it's, it's. I think we kind of went over it. It's kind of plays in with the previous one as far as no knee jerk reaction, but analysis, a paralysis by analysis. Often people think about things way too much and way too deep and it prevents them from doing anything. So, in all honesty, inaction is a decision. Most people think that they're not making a decision, but inaction is a decision in and of itself. That means you're not doing something.
Speaker 2:But aren't you kind of recommending that people don't do anything in these situations?
Speaker 1:I'm talking about paralysis by analysis. So therefore you might analyze, so there might be something that you Analyze. Analyze, you might need to make some type of change, but you've overanalyzed it now and you're not making any change. I'm not saying don't make any changes. I said don't make knee jerk reactions.
Speaker 2:That's a difference. Okay, if people are thinking well, what kind of changes should I or could I potentially make in an administration change? What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 1:I mean honestly, most probably the first one I would think of is maybe tax implications.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:So, depending on how taxes you know any changes they make to taxes, you might want to change your plan in regards to mitigating, you know, the tax liability that you may have. That's the first one I could think of.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That's probably going to be the most pertinent one.
Speaker 2:Somehow lowering your taxable income if taxes are being raised.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we always talk about. You know, it's not necessarily what you make, it's how much you get to keep. So you might need to reassess your plan. So, for example, like if you make a lot of money, you also need to reassess your plan. So, for example, like, if you make a lot of money, you also may need to reassess your estate planning.
Speaker 2:You know as far as what type of estate taxes might be involved if you have a large estate you know, so there's things like that so what I'm hearing is we might need to be buying a G wagon for your business to offset some tax implications. No, we are not doing that.
Speaker 1:Do not put that on the radar of the. Irs, we are not doing that. I am a remote financial, a virtual financial planning firm, and I have no really needs for my car. So no, irs, we are not doing that. Don't come out at me.
Speaker 2:Okay, fine.
Speaker 1:But leading to the next one, and this is the big one, ignore the people on TV.
Speaker 2:We watch so little TV because it is stressful and it makes my blood pressure go up and I just can't do it anymore. But even like you know scrolling, you're going to see it online and social media and then propaganda and all the things. It's just like you have to just tune out a little bit.
Speaker 1:Well, most of the thing about this way, the number for most of those, like you know, online outlets, whether it be people on social media or on tv themselves you know talking about the market finances in general most of the time, their number one goal is not to educate clickbait, it's clickbait, not educate yeah, it's too. It's. It's to get views right, it's to get people to watch their shows.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be provocative, it's gonna be dramatic, like that is literally the goal of television so I mean, if you think about it, so like I can, I I can remember that you know we're in. We're still like kind of basically in the historic long bull run and for the longest time, like for years, you have people oh, this bull run can't go this further. We're gonna, it's gonna and by bull run I mean the market going up, and they're like like this can't last, this can't last, it's going to go down. It's going to go down, the market has to go down, and this has been going on for years.
Speaker 1:For years people have been saying this and it hasn't happened. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but what I'm trying to explain to you guys is that no one knows what the market's going to do. You can look, have a much better understanding of being able to see pattern signs and understand, maybe, where it could be moving, but no one actually knows what the market's going to do, because if they did, they'd be the richest person in the world yeah very simple probably wouldn't be talking about it on television, if I know exactly what the market was going to do.
Speaker 1:I would just sit back in my island you know wherever over the water and we're just about to buy an island, a few islands, and just do what I do yeah, so avoid.
Speaker 1:Avoid all that. That noise, it's just noise. Yeah, I like you can learn something from these, but it's going to be on specific finance topics, not just the overall view of the economy, because, like I said, for every view on this side, you can find just as many people that are on the opposite side, that have a completely different view but have the qualifications to quote, unquote talk about it. So you got to really, like I said, once again, all goes back to focusing on what you can control. You don't control the market, but you can control your long term investing. You can control what you're invested in. You can control making sure that you're making your contributions each pay period to your investments for the long term. Those are the things you can control.
Speaker 2:Good advice babe.
Speaker 1:And once again it comes back to making common sense changes. As we said before, if the market's down one day, don't have a knee-jerk reaction and pull all your money out of your accounts. No, don't do that. That's not a common sense change.
Speaker 2:I mean we look at our investment accounts. What maybe once a month? Yeah, I mean, because we're not Maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we're long-term investors, so my long-term plan is not based on a year-to-year basis of what's going on in the market.
Speaker 2:It is nice to see it going up when I have checked it recently, which is very nice. But again, it's like you check it, you make sure everything's okay and then you log out and you know when I think of it I'll log back in. But this is not something I mean. Some people are checking their stuff on a on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, like that just sounds exhausting, like you're stressing yourself out.
Speaker 1:There's no reason to be checking your four if you're, you know, in your thirties or forties. There's no reason to be checking your 401k plan balance on a weekly basis. There's just not.
Speaker 2:You heard it here first. It's a long.
Speaker 1:That is a long-term investing account. You shouldn't be making decisions based off of day-to-day fluctuations Now. Obviously, if you're starting to see patterns and changes over years, then, yes, maybe you might need to make some changes, but you also probably need to speak to a professional about it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But you don't need to be making these knee-jerk reactions. You need to make common sense changes when it comes to these things, and common sense changes often take time to take a step back and think about it from a logical standpoint, not an emotional.
Speaker 2:Planning logical standpoints.
Speaker 1:And also, at the end of the day, just be flexible within reason. What does that mean? So we always talk about having a plan, and I always advocate that. Having a plan is great, but it's the act of planning that is more important, because if you have a plan and you're not implementing it, it doesn't matter. So the active implementation of it is planning Now also, it's also constantly reviewing your plan and making sure that it still aligns with your goals and is still working towards achieving those.
Speaker 1:So, for example, even just changing within, being flexible within reason could be your goal changed. So you could have had a goal two years ago that, now that you think about it, that goal is no longer something that you're looking to achieve. So you could have had a goal two years ago that, now that you think about it, that goal is no longer something that you're looking to achieve. So, therefore, you need to reassess what your goal is and, once you have a clear definition of what that is, you need to make some changes to your plans, because, more than likely, there are going to be changes that need to be made in order for you to focus on that new goal.
Speaker 2:Right, but that should happen regardless of a change in the presidential office.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. You should always be focusing on re-evaluating your plan and, like I said, re-evaluating it to make sure that one it's working towards the goal that you had talked about, but then also making sure that have there been any changes in your life that need to be accounted for? When it comes to the plan itself, Right.
Speaker 1:Because I could think of. I mean, I could think of things where, you know, a year or two ago were a goal and now they're not a goal anymore. I'm like that's no longer important to me, so you need to make changes for that.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah. So that constant introspection, assessing, thinking about family changes. Were you single and now you're married? Now you're married with children? You had one child, now you have two. I mean, all of those things matter for sure.
Speaker 1:And also just kind of taking a step back from the finance aspect. We're inundated with so much information now. Think back to I mean even just think back to Obama period, where we had social media, but it wasn't to the extent that it is now like we weren't tied to it, like instagram didn't exist at that time right you know we weren't seeing it twitter time.
Speaker 1:Twitter was around, but you didn't see it the way that we do now. We're like, we're just basically attached to what you see all the time. So I don't think so now. Granted, like you know, some things are different, but I don't think that the world has drastically changed in regards to the dangers or negative things that are occurring. I think we're just now inundated with it so much that it seems like there's so much more, when in reality, the world's probably always been like this. It's just that our technology and news it wasn't able to keep up with it, so we didn't see it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do say that a lot and I do think about that quite a bit because I do think you're accurate. But it's hard to think about it like that because it is in our faces at all times at this stage.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't before, but things were still happening.
Speaker 2:We just didn't know about it at the speed of light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also I would say, like you know, like I'm not to dismiss any certain things that are occurring now that could have long term lasting effects negatively on groups of people Not to discount those, because those are things that we do need to focus on, but I'm a person who I love history. It's one of my favorite subject matters and I think, unfortunately, we don't most people don't focus on it enough, because history shows you a lot. It shows you a lot and it can really help you dictate where things are and also give you really perspective on where you are currently. I love history so much that I realize people have always sucked Like.
Speaker 1:The human race is not a good species. They've always done terrible things and if you look at history it shows you how bad we can be. So you have to have kind of some perspective of that. Like I mean just simply thinking about there was a time period in europe where people would take their kids and have lunches and gather to watch a beheading yeah, that's wild like this was the entertainment of the day with to have with your family to watch someone be beheaded that's crazy, and I wasn't even allowed to watch the simpsons growing up.
Speaker 2:But here we are and also fun fact.
Speaker 1:I think the last beheading in europe happened in like the 60s or 70s. Oh wow. So it was like something like before. The guillotine was actually like completely outlawed. It was in modern time. That is insanity, so like kind of having that perspective on social media having that perspective kind of helps me personally, but it's not to say that we don't need to address certain things so that we don't go back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's like history is absolutely about to repeat itself.
Speaker 1:So it's recognize signs that we've seen in the past and address those signs and don't dismiss them like we did in the past, so that we don't have the same things occur again.
Speaker 2:Know better, do better. Yes.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, you should be in control of your finances. You shouldn't have your finances be controlling you based upon who is in office.
Speaker 2:All right. So no knee jerk reactions. Make a plan, reassess your goals Don't watch too much TV or social media and let that influence you and be flexible when you're thinking about what changes might need to be made. But again, don't let those changes happen because there is a change in office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's also knowing yourself, it's knowing yourself. And if you need help with that, it's acknowledging that you need help and getting help. I always joke and say sometimes I'm the wall between my clients and doing something stupid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do say that a lot and I do think you have clients too who are very smart people, but they are also emotional people and they would be tempted to make those knee-jerk reactions if you didn't, if they didn't have you to bring them back down to earth to say, nope, we're not touching anything yep, and I take those calls and I walk them right back off the ledge.
Speaker 2:I know it's going to happen and it's like I said, like that person knows who they are that alone covers, covers your your fee, right Like making sure that they're not losing money by making those kinds of.
Speaker 1:I would say so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's good. Well, you know, if, if we leave you with anything, money is political. Please go and vote, regardless of what side you're on, votes do matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to hear people complain that don't vote. Yeah, that's not an option, and and I'm going to say this too if you're black and you don't vote, I don't want to hear from you either, just simply stating that our people fought, died for the right. So if you're a black person and you like, I'm just not going to vote this time I don't want to hear, not an answer.
Speaker 2:You're not my people at all. Solution oh, all, right, we're going to end on a spicy note.
Speaker 1:Apparently today, I was feeling that one Sorry.
Speaker 2:That's fine, it's our podcast. You can say what you want. Well, go vote. Please show up at the polls and hopefully this episode is helpful to you in not making knee-jerk reactions and remembering that investing is a long-term play. Until reactions, and remembering that investing is a long-term play Until next time, Don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid. Until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the sugar daddy podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the sugar daddy podcast at gmailcom, or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.
Speaker 1:Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with, or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.