Money Pearls: Practical Reflections for Financial Clarity
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #234
Money Pearls: Practical Reflections for Financial Clarity
We return with another insightful episode of Our 2 Cents! On today’s show, we’re bringing you quick hits and meaningful financial wisdom from an acclaimed columnist. Tune in now!
- Gabriel’s Quick Hits:
- We officially say goodbye to the penny.
- Will preparing for Thanksgiving be cheaper this year?
- What would it take for mortgage rates to dip?
- Pearls of Financial Wisdom:
- Here are five key lessons we can learn from this legend of financial writing.
- Getting to Know Steve and Gabriel:
- What is your favorite sandwich?
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Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, Building Wealth for Life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest and financial news trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Welcome back everybody. We’ve got our exhilarating episode number 234 of Our 2 Cents ready to go for you today.
Steve Lewit: We’ve done 234 of these.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: Oh my gosh.
Gabriel Lewit: We have indeed.
Steve Lewit: And everyone is like a new one.
Gabriel Lewit: Let me put it this way, they’re not the same one.
Steve Lewit: Well, I don’t even feel like … It’s not like, oh my, we got to do another one. We’ve done so many already. Each one is very fresh and new. I love that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s interesting. There are a lot of financial topics out there. There’s a lot of updates to the financial world. We mix in current news and health items and yeah, there seems to be a very large amount of topics we could talk about. Now, some of the same things we cover in different ways of course some of. Retirement planning concepts are timeless, but it is surprising, there’s always so many new things to discuss.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s always new, but I was more thinking about, oh, we’ve got to do another podcast. I never think, oh gosh, we got to do another podcast like it’s a chore.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think that’s because we attempt to make them fun.
Steve Lewit: To make them unchoreful.
Gabriel Lewit: Because if it was boring, I don’t think I’d want-
Steve Lewit: We wouldn’t want to do it.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Ready?
Steve Lewit: Ready.
Gabriel Lewit: All right guys, we’ve got some inflation data to talk to you about today.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. The inflation is up.
Gabriel Lewit: The inflation index was up 3.1%.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. International is over-
Gabriel Lewit: We should also talk about printing of the penny.
Steve Lewit: By the way, I am really upset about that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we are going to talk about it today. But could you imagine, I’ve listened to a few shows in doing some competitive research that sound like that.
Steve Lewit: But people watch them.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: Maybe they can’t sleep.
Gabriel Lewit: Who knows? Who knows.
Steve Lewit: Anyway, just to report statistics all day long and talk about the stock market I’d be bored stiff.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. The price of gold was down 1.2% yesterday.
Steve Lewit: And why, John, do you think that happened? Well, because people didn’t buy it. More people sold it than bought it. That’s why.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t. Yeah. I couldn’t, couldn’t do that. Okay. Well, anyways, let’s talk about the penny briefly. This is what I call a quick hit for us here for you listeners. Goodbye penny.
Steve Lewit: Goodbye.
Gabriel Lewit: We talked about this earlier this year. Okay. Because earlier this year we talked about how the penny was no longer going to be printed. We call it printing, I think. Or what’s the word? Made. Manufactured. I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: Minted.
Gabriel Lewit: Minted.
Steve Lewit: Minted.
Gabriel Lewit: Minted.
Steve Lewit: Printed. Minted.
Gabriel Lewit: Minted.
Steve Lewit: Minted.
Gabriel Lewit: Are they the same thing?
Steve Lewit: No. No. Minted is different than printed.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yes, I know that. Okay. But I’m saying same thing. You knew what I meant.
Steve Lewit: I knew.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: I know all.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, America’s last penny was struck at the US mint in Philadelphia on November 12th.
Steve Lewit: I wonder if someone has that last penny.
Gabriel Lewit: The very last one.
Steve Lewit: The very last penny.
Gabriel Lewit: What if it was like a row, a printing press that made like a hundred last pennies all at once? Which one’s the last penny?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I don’t remember the last time I used a penny. Younger, I remember you count your pennies and when credit cards weren’t a thing thing, you go into a store and you put the pennies and …
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I saw this the other day. There was a sign at a store I was at, which did say, if we are short of pennies, and we may have to give you nickels round your … And they had a little mini handwritten sign up. And that was the first time I saw that. It made me think about this. And then I saw this article. I said, “We’ll do a quick hit on the show.”
Steve Lewit: When a nickel is going because they’re expensive, I think. What does it say in the article?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, the penny costs 3.70 cents to produce.
Steve Lewit: And then nickel costs 18 cents, I think.
Gabriel Lewit: A nickel costs 13.80 cents to make.
Steve Lewit: It doesn’t make sense, does it?
Gabriel Lewit: Who knows? So it’s crazy to me though. It said that they made 3.2 billion pennies in 2024.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Like who’s using pennies?
Gabriel Lewit: But people are short. There’s shortages of them. Where are they? The question is where did the 3.2 billion pennies just for 2024 go.
Steve Lewit: They’re souvenirs now. People are holding them thinking they’re going to be valuable.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t have that many pennies.
Steve Lewit: I have no pennies.
Gabriel Lewit: Who has the pennies?
Steve Lewit: Do you have any pennies, Katie? No.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s the question. If anybody out there knows-
Steve Lewit: Where the pennies are.
Gabriel Lewit: Where the pennies went-
Steve Lewit: We want to know.
Gabriel Lewit: We want to know.
Steve Lewit: Please write that in. Because nobody here at STL has a penny.
Gabriel Lewit: Nobody knows where the pennies are.
Steve Lewit: We don’t know where the pennies are.
Gabriel Lewit: I might have a penny at my house somewhere.
Steve Lewit: I do not have a penny.
Gabriel Lewit: I have one. I know for sure I have one. But there’s many billions of more pennies.
Steve Lewit: Was that the last one?
Gabriel Lewit: The last ones would probably be worth a lot if you kept them. All right. All right. Okay. Well, that was all we wanted to say.
Steve Lewit: Well, there’s not much more to say.
Gabriel Lewit: There’s not much more to say.
Steve Lewit: The end of the penny.
Gabriel Lewit: And also given our show is called Our 2 Cents we have to talk about anything partly related.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Now do we change the name of the show?
Gabriel Lewit: No. No. We talked about it before. We’re going to keep it. It’s a throwback.
Steve Lewit: Okay. We’ve become a throwback show.
Gabriel Lewit: We are classic now.
Steve Lewit: Classic.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: I love it. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Vintage.
Steve Lewit: Vintage.
Gabriel Lewit: Vintage sounds old. I think classic sounds … Classic Sounds like it’s stylish still. Classic.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Vintage sounds used. Like vintage clothing is used. Vintage pennies.
Gabriel Lewit: So other quick hits, so I got a couple of quick hits for you today before our main topic of our show.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Despite rising food inflation, which if you’ve gone to the grocery store, have you seen this?
Steve Lewit: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Food is pricier this year than it’s been in the past.
Steve Lewit: It’s really onerous. They’re really high prices.
Gabriel Lewit: Very high prices. Now, the good news is, according to Wells Fargo, Thanksgiving dinner, which you might be buying stuff for about the time you listen to this show, might be cheaper this year despite rising inflation. Now, we’re not talking a lot cheaper. We’re talking essentially, it is down just a few percentage points. Because a 10 pound bag of potatoes is down 1.5% from last year. Okay. So if your bag of potato … Hold on, let me do the math here. Costs … How much does a bag of potatoes costs?
Steve Lewit: 5.99. I don’t know. $10.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. You’re going to love this. Okay, so if you’re, you’re $6 bag of potatoes is down one and half cents or one and a half percent, you would save nine cents.
Steve Lewit: Nine cents. Nine pennies.
Gabriel Lewit: Nine pennies.
Steve Lewit: Which you’ll never see.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so you’re paying less this year on your potatoes.
Steve Lewit: says here that you’re paying less on wine too.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, it does say your wine is down of .1%.
Steve Lewit: Amazing. Amazing.
Gabriel Lewit: And don’t worry, folks, your turkeys are down 3.7%.
Steve Lewit: Something to give thanks for.
Gabriel Lewit: So, you might pay about 50 cents less this year on Thanksgiving dinner than last year.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s important. Look, if you have 20 people over for dinner, you’re going to save $10.
Gabriel Lewit: It did say national name brand … Now here we go. Name brand frozen veggies are down 15% and private brand dinner rolls are down 22%. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Now why do you suppose dinner rolls are down 22%?
Gabriel Lewit: And producer Katie should know this. It says pumpkin pie prices were down 3% annually. Did we pay less for our pies this year is the question by 3%? No, they’re up.
Steve Lewit: We probably-
Gabriel Lewit: Well hen this article is bunk man.
Steve Lewit: Bunko.
Gabriel Lewit: This reminds me-
Steve Lewit: I’m sending it to Deerfield’s Bakery.
Gabriel Lewit: This is totally off the beaten path here. My son here, who’s almost 10, he started using Microsoft Copilot. He figured out how to use AI.
Steve Lewit: Oh my god.
Gabriel Lewit: And he just searches car prices. I think I made him depressed last night because I said, you know that the prices that ChatGPT … Well, Copilot is probably not accurate. Just don’t put a hundred percent stock in them. He was really excited about these prices. So then he goes and Googles what the prices are, which are of course different. And he proceeds to start telling Copilot, chatting with it like Copilot, you need to fix your prices. And it starts chatting back. I’m so sorry.
Steve Lewit: Sorry that I made a mistake.
Gabriel Lewit: And then he said he felt bad that he told the AI and the AI felt bad. I said, it’s an AI right? You don’t have to … It has no feelings.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But he’s-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, this is the world we’re living in.
Steve Lewit: He sees AI as a buddy. Somebody.
Gabriel Lewit: Anyways, my point is maybe this article’s data points are incorrect because our pies were pricier this year than last year. Who knows? So these may or may not be your experiences, but yeah. Yeah. Apparently beer prices are up 3% as well.
Steve Lewit: Oh, gosh.
Gabriel Lewit: I have heard this actually from a client. The cost for soda are up 7%. Soda is a lot more expensive if you’ve gone to buy it recently than it used to be in the past.
Steve Lewit: I’m sitting here trying to think of why this happens. Where did the demand go up for soda? Or do tariffs increase the prices? Where does that come from?
Gabriel Lewit: It’s probably some plastic cap manufacturer somewhere probably increase their prices by four cents. The printing label increase their price by one cent and then they pass the seven cents soda increase off to you or whatever percent.
Steve Lewit: Produce, I understand. They can have bad crops and it’s more expensive, but other things, it’s like, why does soda go up all of a sudden 7%. I think you’re right.
Gabriel Lewit: I just told you.
Steve Lewit: You did. You did.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s little things like that. So supply chain.
Steve Lewit: That was very wise.
Gabriel Lewit: The price of freight to ship the soda went up one cent per mile. I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: I’ll check with Chat-
Gabriel Lewit: You just blame it on the supply chain. If you want to sound smart, it’s the supply chain.
Steve Lewit: I’ll check with ChatGPT and see what it says.
Gabriel Lewit: It’ll tell you something.
Steve Lewit: It will tell me something.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. All right. Last quick hit for you today, which is related to the interest rate drop that occurred. We’ve gotten a couple of quick questions. Why haven’t mortgage rates come down further?
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Yep.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. So here’s the answer. Okay. It’s because the 10-year treasury yields have not dropped significantly.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I was going to say that.
Gabriel Lewit: No. I’m going to call in my resident economist, Steve, to talk about what the 10-year treasury yield is and why it moves and why that has an impact on mortgage prices.
Steve Lewit: Well, the 10-year treasury is the interest rate charged or given if you buy a 10 year … If you lend money for 10 years, this is the interest you’re going to get. Okay. Now what’s interesting is normally short-term interest rates change quickly, but long-term interest rates change slowly. And especially now because people are fearful of the future, long-term interest rates are stuck. So even though short-term interest rates went down, long-term interest rates remain unchanged and the mortgage market ties into long-term interest rates.
Gabriel Lewit: That was perfect.
Steve Lewit: Perfect.
Gabriel Lewit: Well done. Bravo.
Steve Lewit: Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: My son’s soccer coach, none of the parents know what his nationality is, but he just says, bravo all game to the kids.
Steve Lewit: Bravo.
Gabriel Lewit: Bravo. And you just don’t hear that very often.
Steve Lewit: No, you don’t.
Gabriel Lewit: Bravo.
Steve Lewit: It’s a great word.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s a great word.
Steve Lewit: You know where you hear that all the time?
Gabriel Lewit: The opera.
Steve Lewit: In the opera.
Gabriel Lewit: I figured that was what you were going to say. Where you have spent time in your life. For listeners that don’t know why we’d say that.
Steve Lewit: And I got a few of those. Not that many, but I did get a few here and there.
Gabriel Lewit: It is a very nice word.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. So yes, the 10-year treasury here, hold on … Is still in the 4% range. So mortgages are sitting around 2.12% higher than that 10 year treasury, which is why you add those up, four plus 2.12 and you’re over 6%.
Steve Lewit: Honestly, that’s not bad. Historically, that is a pretty good rate.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And so people are asking when will they get to say 5.5%? Well, you might need the 10-year treasury to go to about three and a half percent and hope that the spread on various mortgages is roughly around that 2% range. And that’s why you still do find different mortgage providers, some might be six and one might be six and a half. You still want to shop around.
Steve Lewit: Definitely.
Gabriel Lewit: But it doesn’t appear at the moment that the 10-year treasury is on its way downwards to that level just yet.
Steve Lewit: It does not.
Gabriel Lewit: But still 6% better than it used to be.
Steve Lewit: Well, people were getting mortgages at nine and a quarter and 10.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I don’t know who. I don’t remember anybody getting one that high.
Steve Lewit: Nine. Yeah. I think I remember 9%.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, if you have a higher than 6.5% mortgage, maybe you got 7% or seven and a half percent. You could consider refinancing.
Steve Lewit: Go refinance. Exactly.
Gabriel Lewit: And then as they keep dropping, just keep in mind, if you refinance, we suggest not extending your term back to 30 years every time.
Steve Lewit: It’s amazing how many people today still have mortgages at two and a quarter, 2.75, three, three and a quarter. Isn’t that amazing?
Gabriel Lewit: Wow. That’s a great rate.
Steve Lewit: Fantastic.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s why nobody wants to give them up.
Steve Lewit: It’s like free money. That’s why people are not buying homes. They don’t want to give up their mortgage and get a more expensive one.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. Yep. Yep.
Steve Lewit: Yep. That was a great tidbit.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Well-
Steve Lewit: Oh no, you didn’t call it a tidbit.
Gabriel Lewit: That was a tidbit. Yep.
Steve Lewit: Oh, are these tidbits or did you call them something else?
Gabriel Lewit: Quick hits.
Steve Lewit: Quick hits.
Gabriel Lewit: You could call them tidbits if you want.
Steve Lewit: No, I like quick hits.
Gabriel Lewit: Quick hits.
Steve Lewit: Tidbits brings them down in meaning. These are very meaningful tidbits. Quick hits.
Gabriel Lewit: They very much were.
Steve Lewit: Everybody wants to know about the penny.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I hope you found them as meaningful as Steve did here.
Steve Lewit: Changed my life.
Gabriel Lewit: Three very important quick hits for you. Yes. Pennies, Thanksgiving prices and mortgage rates. All right.
Steve Lewit: Changed my life.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Well, what will also hopefully change your life are five pearls of wisdom from a legend of financial writing. Now, I mentioned this on the last show that this was something we wanted to talk about. It’s a little bit behind by a couple of months here, but back in September, a fellow named Jonathan Clements-
Steve Lewit: Very well known.
Gabriel Lewit: Was a fairly well known in the space, Wall Street Journal finance columnist who unfortunately had passed away and he had lots of writings, he had lots of insights, he had lots of thoughts about financial planning. And the thought was is in a memorial for him is to share some of those in this Wall Street Journal article, or sorry, New York Times article we found was sharing some of his pearls of wisdom.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, he’s very, very opinionated
Gabriel Lewit: And he did have a few good pearls of wisdom here. So the person that wrote the article that we’re referencing here apparently reviewed dozens and dozens of columns and articles over three decades in a pile of his books and pulled out for us here some of the top things that they felt was worth sharing.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Could you look up … I’m trying to think of his most famous book. Can you guys look that up and see what that is? Because I think I read it.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe. Okay. So let’s start with number one here for you folks. Number one, doing the thing that you’re passionate about is overrated for the young.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I have a problem with this one.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, okay. So he wrote here, when I talk to college students, I don’t tell them to follow their dreams, Mr. Clements wrote in How to Think about Money, which came out in 2016. Instead, I tell them to focus on making and saving money. He said that the assumption that pursuing your passions is better to do in your twenties and in your fifties is nonsense. He thinks the opposite is true. He says, if you can get yourself into great financial shape early, you can spend the last quarter or more of your career worrying less about money and more about happiness at work.
Steve Lewit: So, this is coming from somebody, folks who live their life exactly opposite the way Clements suggested. I live my life. So I’m not sure about this one because when you’re young and you have passion and you want to go into the arts and dance and travel the world, maybe you don’t want to make money early, maybe you want to make money later in life. You know who here.
Gabriel Lewit: You know you’re a financial planner. So that would be the recommendation you would make for somebody to set themselves up for financial success in the future is to follow their passions and don’t make any money while they’re young and ignore the eighth wonder of the world which is compound interest.
Steve Lewit: Well, here’s the problem. That’s what I did. Look, I talked to a young woman yesterday, a daughter of one of my clients who’s traveling the world and she is 28 years old. She’s very bright and she’s just having a ball. And you know what? I thought that was great. And of course I have other young people that graduate and they put their nose to the grindstone and they work, work, work to get themselves financially and say, I’m going to enjoy myself later in life. But I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong in that.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think the point he’s trying to make is what he ended with. If you can get yourself into a great financial shape early, you can spend more time focusing on being happy versus worrying less about money. Now what’s interesting, I also had a young client who inherited some money from grandma. This was just this week, I met with them. She’s 18. She came with her dad who’s trying to help her get set up for the future and put seven grand in a Roth IRA because she was working and had some earned income.
Steve Lewit: Outstanding.
Gabriel Lewit: We just said, okay, if you just slept on this for 45 years until she’s, well, 63 at 10% rate of return, that $7,000 one-time would turn into how much money?
Steve Lewit: In how many years?
Gabriel Lewit: 40 years.
Steve Lewit: 40 years.
Gabriel Lewit: I think we did 40. 37 years or something. We did 65 I think was when she was 65.
Steve Lewit: Well, let’s say it Doubles every 10 years.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: All right.
Gabriel Lewit: Well no … That’s.
Steve Lewit: Right?
Gabriel Lewit: That’s at 7.2%. What if you do 10%? So you’re very aggressive.
Steve Lewit: Well, let’s do it at 7.2 to start with.
Gabriel Lewit: I have the numbers.
Steve Lewit: Oh, you know the-
Gabriel Lewit: It was 511,000. I just wanted you to guess a number. You’re making this less fun.
Steve Lewit: I’m thinking it through out loud. I’m sharing my thoughts with you and my process. That’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah, 500 grand. That’s amazing.
Gabriel Lewit: Off a one $7,000 Roth IRA. Now if you were 21 or 22, yeah, you could skip around and miss all your 20s, but at some point you’ve got to start saving for the future. And the sooner you start that compound interest works it’s magic, staying aggressive and making high rates of return works it’s magic and voila, you’ve set your future self up to be much, much further ahead.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That’s very pragmatic. But what if you’re an artist. Some things you can’t do when you’re … What if you want to play football? What if you want to dance? What about the joy of life? I’m serious. Folks they were all smiling at me here.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we have more quotes to get to. So that’s a great question you pose, but not one for this show. Yes. You’ve got to find the right balance there. Money or happiness, I guess you’ve got to choose.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Future happiness or current happiness.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Because I know a lot of people that are in their 40s that have not enough money and they also are not very happy.
Steve Lewit: Your son comes to you and says, dad, I want to play soccer, and you know the chances of him making it in soccer are one in a million do you say no? Do you say no?
Gabriel Lewit: He’s obviously going to go pro.
Steve Lewit: No Nathan. Go out and go out and get a part-time job selling lemonade on the street corner.
Gabriel Lewit: No. I tell him, if you haven’t made it in soccer by 21, then go get a job. Because if you haven’t made it by 21, you’re probably not getting in. So, he’s still starting young and the right balance.
Steve Lewit: I’m going to give up to your pragmatism.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Quote number two.
Steve Lewit: Quote number two.
Gabriel Lewit: Winning isn’t everything, but not losing is really something.
Steve Lewit: Absolutely.
Gabriel Lewit: So, you like this quote.
Steve Lewit: I love this one.
Gabriel Lewit: What do you feel about this quote, Steve?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Winning is great. Losing really hurts. Believe me, I’ve lost enough.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, so his word was a two-word commandment. Minimize subtractions.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But you’re going to have them. It’s great to win, but I think losing has more meaning because it tells you something about your limitations and your subtractions. It’s like every time you lose, it takes you one step backwards from what you’re trying to accomplish. So if you’re out trying to find a new job, every time you get a turn down from a company, it takes the wind out of your sails and it works against you. So these little accomplishments add up to big accomplishments and I think that’s what he’s saying. Is set your life up so even small things that you succeed in, so you never go through these subtractions of making mistakes and losing.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s a good interpretation.
Steve Lewit: I thought that was amazing like me.
Gabriel Lewit: But it does say he was talking about two different things. He was mostly talking about investments with high fees that chip away at returns.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s okay.
Gabriel Lewit: I like your interpretation of it.
Steve Lewit: It’s the same thing.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s the same thing.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Look, everything has fees in it somewhere. Nothing is for free.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I like this statement. I just had a client the other day, markets have been going up and up and up and up and up, and I cautioned that he should be a little bit more conservative. If the market keeps going up, I don’t want to miss out. And I said, “But we’re going to win when the market goes down,” which it will go down. And you’re going to probably jump out ahead at that point because you haven’t lost as much.
Steve Lewit: Hard to understand. It’s really hard. Emotionally we can’t understand that.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s like getting a grand slam is not everything, but not striking out is really something. If you can get on base every time in baseball, it may not be hitting grand slams, but you’re going to be a superstar if you can get on base and hit singles doubles at a very high clip. That works out to be more important.
Steve Lewit: Unless you’re a home run hitter.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Like Judge just won the MVP.
Gabriel Lewit: All right.
Steve Lewit: He is a home run hitter. He is not a singles and doubles. So all of these you have to take with a grain of salt.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Just like your turkey. Grain of salt.
Steve Lewit: Salt is cheaper too, by the way.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Quote number three, the tax man favors the patient. Mr. Clements wrote in his book, the Little Book of Main Street Money. He says the tax code is stacked favor of savers. Okay. He was talking about 401k or similar type pre-tax accounts with tax deferred growth. You’ve got the Roth IRA where if you can put like I was saying with my client, that money was in a Roth IRA, that 511,000, if she’s patient is all a hundred percent tax-free from one-
Steve Lewit: We forgot to mention that.
Gabriel Lewit: Little $7,000 contribution.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That’s huge.
Gabriel Lewit: He mentions HSA 529s. You put money in, you’re patient, you let it grow. It’s going to have very big tax benefits for you down the line.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. I like this next quote. Don’t just stand there, do something. Okay. He wrote in his book, From Here to Financial Happiness, want to enjoy life more, put down the remote back slowly away from the TV and do something where you’re a participant, not an observer.
Steve Lewit: Now he doesn’t mean go out and drink beer with your buddies.
Gabriel Lewit: Perhaps he does. As opposed to watching a TV show with friends at a bar, drinking beer.
Steve Lewit: With your buddies. Yeah. So what do you think he means by that?
Gabriel Lewit: I think he means life is short as he was obviously talking a lot about. He had got a cancer diagnosis and apparently was aware of his passing.
Steve Lewit: Mortality.
Gabriel Lewit: Mortality. And I think this might’ve been before that occurred when he wrote this book, but the point is you’ve got time in life and you’ve got to take advantage of it. And don’t just stand there, do something. It’s a nice quote.
Steve Lewit: So, a lot of folks lose their energy to accomplish stuff and they sit back and let the world go by and they don’t have any meaning or purpose. This is a problem, folks that we hear a lot with people just about to retire. Always the question comes up, well, what am I going to do after retirement? What’s going to be my purpose? I have no place to get up and go to in the morning. I have nothing to work towards. If that’s the deal, that’s not a good deal for retirement because life without purpose I think is not much of a life at all. So I think what he’s saying is to find that purpose in life at every point in life.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, he is, because his next quote is, no really do something. And this is from this other book, How To Think About Money. He writes, we aren’t built for leisure or built to relax, rather, we are built to strive. And he says, this realization can be a key to a happier retirement given how much we humans love the feeling that we’re making some kind of progress. Retirement can be a continuation of one’s career where you find fulfilling work of some kind that just doesn’t involve money necessarily.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Look, when you retire or at any time you have a vision, you think, oh, this would be great. I want to travel the world. And now if you really want to travel the world, go out and figure out how to travel the world. That’s what we humans do. We accomplish stuff. And that’s what makes life really interesting, and that’s really rewarding and fulfilling when you accomplish what you set out to do. Look folks, many of you have worked all your lives and saved and saved, and you have retirement funds that you can now retire on and live a great life. You should be so proud of that. That’s not easy to do. Look at the rest of the world. Most people are not in that situation. So these accomplishments, I think … I love that quote. Don’t stand there, go out and do something, man.
Gabriel Lewit: Amen.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Amen.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, so there’s I think a lot to take from that. And good ideas, good quotes, good thoughts to ponder. And certainly I think we appreciate those insights and those pearls of wisdom that he was kind enough to share with the world during his journey.
Steve Lewit: And accomplishment is the topic of my new book coming out.
Gabriel Lewit: Your new book that’s been coming out for my how many years now, Steve?
Steve Lewit: That book is at the Publisher, folks. I will let you know in six months when it’s published so you can all buy one.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m still not going to hold my breath.
Steve Lewit: Neither am I.
Gabriel Lewit: Anyways, how about with a minute … We’ve got a minute or two left here with our target time.
Steve Lewit: That was called a commercial.
Gabriel Lewit: Let’s do a quick getting to know you, Steve.
Steve Lewit: Oh no. Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s your favorite.
Steve Lewit: My favorite.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. I’m going to toss you a curveball,
Steve Lewit: Okay.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: What’s your favorite sandwich?
Steve Lewit: You know what the first thing that came to mind?
Gabriel Lewit: What?
Steve Lewit: Peanut butter and jelly.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s not your favorite. Really?
Steve Lewit: When I was a kid, I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a quart of milk. I would sit down in front of the TV at that time, which were not much of a TV and watch the New York Yankee game.
Gabriel Lewit: Was this milk delivered by the milkman?
Steve Lewit: It was delivered by the milkman in a bottle. It had a little fat. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Have the cream on top and everything.
Steve Lewit: Cream on top. And we had a little box in front of our little house, and they would come and deliver milk. And I would sit in the basement in front of the TV with a big bottle of milk and two or three peanut butter and jelly … It’s the first thing that came to mind.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, but you still like those today?
Steve Lewit: I haven’t had a peanut butter … I’m going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich this weekend.
Gabriel Lewit: With milk/
Steve Lewit: No. I don’t want to drink milk.
Gabriel Lewit: Come on.
Steve Lewit: Probably with orange juice.
Gabriel Lewit: Relive the … Ew. Ew. I don’t know about that.
Steve Lewit: I don’t know about that either. But I’m definitely having a peanut butter and … That’s the first thing … What came to your mind?
Gabriel Lewit: Do you cut the crust off the edges?
Steve Lewit: Absolutely. You have to cut the crust off the edges.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m just curious because I much prefer crust free.
Steve Lewit: Well, you didn’t grow up in New York. New York. You cut the crust off the edges.
Gabriel Lewit: No. I say crust free.
Steve Lewit: Crust free.
Gabriel Lewit: That would be cutting the crust off.
Steve Lewit: Oh, I thought you said something else.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. No Sans crust.
Steve Lewit: All right. Sans crust.
Gabriel Lewit: Sans. Whatever.
Steve Lewit: It’s a new typeface.
Gabriel Lewit: I mispronounce-
Steve Lewit: It’s a typeface.
Gabriel Lewit: Word sometimes.
Steve Lewit: Sans crust.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: What is your favorite sandwich?
Gabriel Lewit: Because I hate making it at home always, but a good tuna sandwich somewhere I am a big fan of. Especially if I don’t have to make it because I hate mixing it with the mayonnaise and all that stuff. And to get it to taste good, you got to put stuff in it.
Steve Lewit: So where would you go for a tuna sandwich? If I said, let’s go out for a tuna sandwich, where would we go?
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know. I don’t have them that often because I usually … I don’t know. Panera has one that’s not great, but it’s better than nothing.
Steve Lewit: No. Panera.
Gabriel Lewit: But that’s what I mean. A good one somewhere. Somewhere where they’re good, but you don’t see them that often.
Steve Lewit: Where would you go for a hamburger?
Gabriel Lewit: A hamburger?
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know. I would go to perhaps Culver’s maybe. I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. What’s that place in-
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t eat that many hamburgers. I’m a chicken sandwich fan.
Steve Lewit: That sells hamburgers for like 20 bucks or 20. What’s it called?
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Steve Lewit: Very expensive place for hamburgers.
Gabriel Lewit: If you go to a Wildfire or something, they’ve got a good hamburger.
Steve Lewit: Delicious. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know. Something like that. Anywhos. That is our show for you today, guys. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. We’re going to have another show for you before Thanksgiving next week. We’ve got some Thanksgiving themed stories and topics to share with you so tune in and we can’t wait for the opportunity to spend some more time with you. We hope you have a wonderful week and weekend.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And folks, if you’re thinking about hamburgers or tuna fish, we’re going to explore during the week and give you the best burger and tuna fish places that we know of on the next meeting.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m not sure we’re going to have time for that.
Steve Lewit: I’m going to squeeze it in.
Gabriel Lewit: But Steve will tell you how his PB&J is without crust.
Steve Lewit: Over the weekend. Definitely.
Gabriel Lewit: And with his side of orange juice.
Steve Lewit: Definitely. I love it.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Delicious.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, we’ll talk to you soon now. Take care. Have a great rest of your day.
Steve Lewit: Stay well everybody. See ya.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
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