Episode 15 - Mastering Marital Finances: From Budgeting to Tax Planning
Unlock the secrets of financial harmony in marriage with insights from financial experts Deb Meyer and her special guest, Den Murley, a Certified Financial PlannerTM and Certified Financial Behavior Specialist®. They delve into the dynamic world of couples' finances, shattering the myth of the spender-saver binary and advocating for a stronger foundation of mutual understanding. Discover how to navigate shared versus separate accounts, illuminating the path to financial unity and individual autonomy within a relationship.
You'll learn to reframe the adage “we can’t afford it” to an enlightening explanation your kids can easily understand. This journey of self-discovery and communication about money is the key to breaking long-standing negative financial patterns.
This episode is also a strategic conversation on tax planning and retirement. It offers guidance through the current tax landscape and shares tactics for thoughtfully timing income recognition. Join Deb and Den for this comprehensive guide to family financial planning, where managing emotions and creating a legacy take center stage.
Episode Highlights
(00:03) - Transforming Relationship With Money in Marriage
(07:33) - Influence of Childhood on Financial Habits
(14:26) - Teaching Finances and Generosity to Children
(19:31) - Tax Planning and Retirement Strategy
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:01.771)
I am so excited for you to meet today's guest, Den Murley. Den is married with two young kids and he holds both the Certified Financial PlannerTM and Certified Financial Behavior Specialist(R) Designations. He's an advisor at Belonging Wealth Management, which is a fiduciary financial advisory firm that helps clients simplify retirement, reduce taxes, and understand investments. All right, let's dive in. Den, true or false? In every married relationship, there is always a spender and a saver.
Den Murley (00:33.551)
I'm going to say false. And that is one of my pet peeves about the financial information that's out there and the way we behave with money. So yeah, I think that is false. I mean, it's the same as saying in every marriage, there's a good driver and a bad driver. Well, I imagine most of the insurance companies would disagree with that and say, you know, some marriages have two bad drivers and some have two good drivers.
So yeah, that's always been, anytime I hear that, I just think, hmm, I wonder what that actually means. So yeah, it's just, that's always something that just, again, anytime I hear it, it's like, ah, no, that's not, I don't know if I buy into that fully.
Deb Meyer (01:14.839)
Yeah. So in your own marriage, do you have a type and your wife has a type? What's the...
Den Murley (01:22.282)
I think when we first got married, there probably was a type. But I think we have done a lot of work to balance each other out. I don't even know if I would say I was a saver, I was more of a hoarder of money. I mean, for instance, I bought my wife's engagement ring with money I'd saved from when I was a kid. So there was a tendency to hoard it.
She was probably more willing to spend. But then as we got married and we started kind of merging together over the years, I think we've definitely balanced each other out. Yeah, I think you may have somebody that's in every marriage, there may be somebody that has more of a propensity to spend or more willing to save. But to make a definitive statement of, you are a saver and you are a spender, I just, I don't fully buy into that.
Deb Meyer (02:22.165)
Mm-hmm. Well, for the people that do have more of a proclivity to save or spend and find themselves in conflict, are there any strategies you suggest in working towards more of an agreement on what a reasonable budget looks like or cash flow for the family?
Den Murley (02:37.762)
Yeah, I think having those conversations with each other, just being open and not...
Deb Meyer (02:45.36)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (02:49.878)
not weaponizing the way somebody interacts with their money. And I think just having those, there's a writer that I read and he's also a pastor, but he says, we're shaped by the questions that we ask God. And so if you think about that, the questions that we ask and the questions that we engage with, they shape what we become. So if you look at it from an individual's perspective or in a marriage's perspective, the questions we're asking each other.
Den Murley (03:21.114)
Those are very important, but also in asking those questions, the environment that you're asking those questions is also key in any marriage. And so I think, yeah, I think just having those conversations with your spouses and then giving your spouse space to respond, those are huge. And those have been very beneficial, at least for me, my wife may disagree, but.
Deb Meyer (03:46.363)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I guess I'm curious too, and if it's getting too personal, just feel free to be like, yeah, no. But do you believe in kind of one joint account and no separate accounts? Or what's your standpoint on the actual account distribution when you are married?
Den Murley (04:05.646)
With our finances personally, we have one account. And we have, we've been married for 12 years. And we have one account. Now we do have like our kind of our separate money, I guess that's not, it's like, oh, you got money for a birthday or like we're adults, but we still give each other like, she's like, I don't know what kind of clothes she's gonna want specifically, so I'll just give her money. I'm like, hey, here's, you know, whatever.
But so like that money is set like that's our birthday money or whatever. But yeah, in terms of our everyday finances, we do we do one pot. I think I think that's. That's beneficial because it helps with, you know, having that communication and having those communication lines open. And because I mean, if you're you know, you're right, if you if you have children in a marriage, you're raising them together, why are finances separate? And so I think for us personally, that's worked really well.
Deb Meyer (05:14.327)
And is that where most of your clients are out as well, that the vast majority of checking accounts are one joint account?
Den Murley (05:23.498)
Yes, yeah, most of our and it doesn't matter if they're in their early 30s or if they're in their 70s. It's all of our clients that we've seen. They all have, you know, a joint. It's all joint. They're all the beneficiaries on everything. And so everything's together.
Deb Meyer (05:40.843)
Yeah. Well, I've heard a lot of different opinions on it. And it was funny, a few years ago, I heard a speaker talk about how you have to have the joint or the separate accounts. And I was just like, well, not necessarily. If things are going OK, it's all right to just have the one.
Den Murley (05:57.994)
Right? Yeah. I think I think that just goes to, to I won't say what works best in your marriage, but you also everybody's different. So you have to take into account like, this is how and if you're having fights about like how the money is being spent, like, that's a that's a conversation you need to have. Because clearly you have different priorities and different perspectives and, you know, different upbringings and different
Deb Meyer (06:18.939)
Sure.
Den Murley (06:26.994)
interactions with money in your past. So those are conversations that need to be had in a healthy way and in a way that's going to build up your marriage. Because I mean you think about how many fights or center-ground finances and just the amount of conversations. Because we always will have our clients do a risk tolerance assessment and they say, oh do we need to do them separate? No, no, do them together. And sometimes they'll do them in the office and it's like, oh this is really like this is uncomfortable because you can feel the tension. And it's like, oh, this is going to trigger something in their marriage on the way home.
Deb Meyer (07:01.839)
See, I'm the opposite. I'll have them take it separate and then I'll kind of stack them side by side and be like, well, you have this risk tolerance, you have this one and kind of compare and contrast. Like, okay, so the middle ground here is XYZ when it comes to the long-term asset mix, yeah.
Den Murley (07:06.475)
Okay.
Den Murley (07:16.094)
Yeah, it's always funny because we've had a few of them doom in the office here and just watching and just sitting back and observing. It's like, wow, that is an intense conversation that you're having in front of people.
Deb Meyer (07:34.763)
Exactly, exactly. But I mean, that's the place to be kind of working through some of those issues too, right? I mean, that's our job as financial advisors is to really get in deep into some of those uncomfortable conversations and help people through it. Because, you know, you shouldn't have to be doing things in a silo all the time, especially if money is a source of conflict in your marriage, or even if you're a single parent, just if you're not confident or clear on what the best path forward is, being able to seek a trusted advisor is always helpful. All right, so I know you have a couple of different designations, but a lot of people probably aren't as familiar with that certified financial behavior specialist designation. Could you explain a little bit more about it, kind of why you even went down that road to pursue it?
Den Murley (08:26.134)
Yeah, so for me personally, I really enjoy people. When I was a kid, we went on vacation one year, we had to lay over in the LA airport. One of the most fascinating parts of that vacation was, for me, was just sitting in the LA airport watching people. And I think I was probably like 10 or 11. So that's just like, that's the one thing, one of the things about vacation that just sticks out was just watching people. And so the financial behavior specialist, you'll see this with, you know, there's some financial planners that have it, some financial coaches that do it, some financial counselors, but really what it does is it, you know, blends the theories and tools of financial behaviors to help people kind of better understand their financial beliefs. And their, maybe their dispositions or basically they're kind of unpacked.
Things that they've done in their past and how those things are impacting them now. Um, so to be perfectly clear, it's not, I'm not a financial therapist. Um, those are very different, um, interactions, but, um, it really, I mean, it's, it's more of, like I mentioned earlier, asking the questions, it's more of just asking people the questions, um, to, to help them see, okay, you know, maybe, like, for instance, we had a individual in our office.
Den Murley (09:52.734)
very diligent saver, was in his 60s, we were talking about, you know, you're never gonna spend this money with your current withdrawal rate, like you're just not going to. So we were talking and I said, you know, I think he was 58. And I told him, I said, you know, 58 year old version of you is not our client. 88 year old version of you is our client. We have to be mindful of 58 year old you, but we also have to navigate around eight year old version of you.
And he kind of sat there and he said, you know what? So when I was, he said, when I was a kid, I had to go, they didn't have much money. So he said, we had to monitor all of our expenses. He said, so one of my jobs was every week I went out and I would check the gas meter to make sure I could track where we were at over like what we had spent before. And so you look at the man's portfolio and his savings and his spending. He's 58 years old. He's been working since he was 18 and has a saver mentality, just save, work, work. And he had never connected his current work habits to what was shaped in the home of origin for him. And so those are the kind of questions that we try to bring up with clients. And we always tell clients, you know, everybody comes in and they want to talk about investments and they want to talk about the numbers.
Well, we can put it on a calculator, in a spreadsheet or in software, but until we really get into the whys and the how did you develop this, that's where the financial playing decisions are really made in my opinion. Obviously, the money is a component, but once you really get into the behaviors and the interactions, that's where you really have white bulbs start to go off for people.
Deb Meyer (11:47.179)
Yeah, I've got to believe there's a lot of people carrying baggage from childhood or early in life just into their adult decisions. I mean it is a really hard pattern to break even I find it my in my own instance of like, okay, my dad was always super frugal and turn off the lights in every room every time we leave the house and just really driving the savings things home and all the time. And it's like, well...
Sometimes you have to also enjoy it. You save really hard and sometimes you just need to be able to let go and enjoy it once in a while.
Den Murley (12:19.394)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
Den Murley (12:25.238)
Yeah, I heard your story and it really resonated with me. Cause my dad, growing up, my parents were always very diligent savers. For a while they were both single parents. And so they had that survivor mentality. And so when they got married, had me, I remember always growing up, we can't afford that, we can't afford that.
Den Murley (12:52.966)
And my dad died in 2016, very suddenly of a heart attack. And so I kind of got a front row seat to their finances at that point, because my mom was like, ah, what do I do with all this? Or like, what do I do with this? And so I started going through their finances and I was like, man, okay, like they were very diligent savers. And then I realized growing up in them saying we can't afford that, it wasn't that we couldn't afford that, is that
they weren't going to spend the money on that. And so, yes. And so now with our kids, we have a son that's six and a daughter, she'll be four in about three weeks. So now when I'm talking to them, I'm like, hey, we can't afford to do that, but we choose not to spend the money on that. And so it's a very distinct difference between can't and won't. And so it's like explaining that to our son.
Deb Meyer (13:25.635)
Right, very different distinction.
Deb Meyer (13:35.264)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (13:43.009)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (13:48.771)
Won't.
Den Murley (13:52.274)
Like if you want to buy that toy, you have money from Christmas or birthday or whatever, like you can, but once you spend that money, it's gone. And so, but just explaining that to him and helping him see like there's a difference in can't and won't. Because I really remember you were talking, I think about the poncho with your dad. Is that what it was? Yeah. Like I really remember like any sports equipment. Like
Deb Meyer (14:13.315)
Yeah.
Den Murley (14:18.43)
I had to beg my dad for a new baseball bat and I'd have that bat for probably it was for T-ball like so five or six and I was I think I think he bought me the next one when I was 12. So I'd use that same bat and like there's a big difference in a six year old and 11 year old. And so yeah, yeah. Right. But he's like, yeah, just find somebody else's bat to use. But but yeah, it's just that mindset of.
Deb Meyer (14:23.213)
Uh huh.
Deb Meyer (14:27.931)
What? For all those years.
Deb Meyer (14:34.344)
I have voice that hate it. I'm like, that's a long time for that.
Den Murley (14:47.67)
save, save. And then you look at like my grandparents, they were like my grandmother, they were all my grandparents are born kind of right before the depression. Well, really about, yeah, my grandpa, one of my grandfathers were born in 1917, another one in 1921. So like they vividly remember the depression. And you go to one of my grandfather's shops and he just had, you know, his tools everywhere, just parts of tools. And it's like, man, these don't work. And he's like, yeah, but I'm gonna, I might need that part.
Deb Meyer (14:58.18)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (15:18.06)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (15:18.122)
And so my dad had carried that through in his career and his industry. Um, he was, yeah. And so now I'm, I see those things. I'm like, Oh, like I have a tendency to do some of those things. Um, and I heard a guy, he said, what, what isn't transformed is transferred. And so when I heard that it, yeah, it really resonated with me. And I thought, man, what am I, what am I transferring to my son that my dad and grandfather's transferred to me?
Deb Meyer (15:36.657)
Mm, that's interesting.
Den Murley (15:49.39)
And so I've really been doing a lot of work myself to ask the questions myself, why do you do this? Or why do you approach memories this way? Or why are you unpacking that? So I think, like I said earlier, being willing to ask yourself those questions in a compassionate way. Not in a...
Deb Meyer (16:15.389)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (16:16.118)
Beat yourself up because I'm very quick to, I did, you should have done this better. Again, you could improve this. So I think just, just having compassion when you're asking those questions or when you're having those conversations with your spouse, like ask questions from a, a sense of compassion and not contempt. And, and yeah, I think just, just being kind to yourself and, and your spouse can go a long way and your kids. My son would definitely.
Deb Meyer (16:27.785)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (16:41.815)
Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, it's we are an example for our children and it is it's a great privilege, but it's also a great responsibility. And it's scary to think about, okay, what are some of the habits I'm carrying from my childhood and teaching my kids that aren't necessarily a healthy habit, right? Or what are some of the habits that I have kind of transformed? And I said, hey, enough's enough. I'm going to
Den Murley (16:52.032)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (17:02.754)
Right.
Deb Meyer (17:11.215)
choose to act differently than my parents did? And how can I empower my kids to make those same kind of, you know, calculated risks or being willing to venture out a little bit? I mean, one of the things that even just with my own sons right now, like mine are a little older, yours is the oldest is six, mine are eight, 11 and 14. So I have a little bit, you know, different perspective than you, but.
A lot of them are getting, or the oldest two are really getting involved in investing. Like they're really excited to stock pick and stuff, which I'm not a huge stock picker fan, but I'm like, it just, at least they're excited to invest. So I have like the Coverdell education savings account set up a few years back and I just said, let's take a little portion of that and let them pick the particular investments. And I've already had both of them come back to me. You know, they're like tracking it daily.
Den Murley (17:45.567)
Mmm.
Den Murley (17:49.622)
Right.
Deb Meyer (18:10.075)
They're so excited. Like this is fantastic. I didn't even have this as like a thought process until much later in high school. So it's just fun to see like some of those habits really do get cultivated early because you are studying a good example, because you are able to transform your relationship with money and perhaps break free of past habits.
Den Murley (18:10.409)
Yeah
Den Murley (18:19.502)
Yeah, that's cool.
Den Murley (18:35.022)
Yeah, I think one thing in talking about modeling, especially with our son, so much of our finances are digital now. And so they don't see, all they see is a credit card being swiped or a debit card. They don't see the money exchanging hands. And so one thing I've tried to be very aware of is using cash to pay for things while he's there.
Deb Meyer (18:44.669)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (18:57.535)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (19:02.882)
get the rewards points for your credit cards, pay it off at the end of each month. But when he's with me or our daughter, I'll have them hand the cash, do the cashier, put it in the machine, whatever, for them just to begin to say, okay, this is what a business looks like, and this is what exchanging money, and this is how we use money. Just for them to have that tangible, instead of watching me move money on a computer.
Deb Meyer (19:26.255)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (19:32.898)
They have that hands-on, you know, have our daughters take the receipt from the cashier, talk to the cashier too, and so do those things just to kind of build up their awareness and introduce them into this is what it means to exchange money and do things like that.
Deb Meyer (19:51.215)
Mm-hmm. I guess I'm curious on like the generosity side, do you incorporate any of that with the kids in terms of, you know, having cash available if they wanted to put some money in at church or something in the collection basket? Like any anything there that
Den Murley (20:08.566)
Honestly, we haven't yet. And that's a good point. Yeah, I think so much of, because with tithe and things, typically we just write a check, which sounds really old, but... Yeah, just do a check. But I have thought about, we do talk about generosity with them. If we are giving away some of their toys or whatever.
Deb Meyer (20:32.759)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (20:37.418)
we'll explain to them, like, hey, here's... And our six-year-old the other day was explaining generosity to our three-year-old. So it was pretty funny to hear, not funny, like, ha ha, but funny in a cute way, to hear him explain that to her. But yeah, I probably do need to do a better job of, hey, here's what we're doing and here's why we're doing it. But yeah, that's...
Deb Meyer (20:52.585)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (21:06.018)
Probably a good point for me to take away with this.
Deb Meyer (21:08.643)
Well, they're also younger. I mean, it's hard at this age to necessarily connect the dots. Like most of my kids, when I talk about things that happened before they were five, they're just clueless that they ever happened. So it's like, I think a lot of those early childhood memories are not even gonna form into like five or six.
Den Murley (21:21.099)
Right.
Den Murley (21:27.818)
Right? But it is. But if you go back and you think about your earliest childhood memories as parents, what do we hope those are for our kids? Like is it that they saw mom and dad only spending money? Or is it they saw mom and dad spending money and, you know, being generous with what we've been given and entrusted to us? And so, no, that's a great point of, you know, being intentional.
Deb Meyer (21:37.543)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (21:47.063)
being generous with it, yeah.
Den Murley (21:56.278)
with them seeing the business side of things, but also being intentional with them, seeing the generosity and the giving side.
Deb Meyer (22:00.325)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (22:03.767)
Yeah. So I know you mentioned, again, sorry for your father's loss several years ago. Was that a point where you really said, okay, I want to go into financial planning as a career, or were you already kind of on that trajectory?
Den Murley (22:19.342)
So he died very suddenly of a heart attack. And I was working in higher ed at the time. So financial planning, it was something I had interest in, but it wasn't something that I was doing as a career. And so once he passed away, my mom came to me and she's like, here's 401k, here's what we've been doing. Like, what do I need to do?
So I started just like any good son would do, I just started reading online and reading all these articles and I was like, man, some of this stuff I don't really agree with. And then some of that thought, well, what makes that person an expert? And so then I started reading on my own. And then I found a program at Kansas State that has the blend of financial therapy and financial planning. And so I saw those two worlds were meshed and I was like, that's what I wanna look into.
Deb Meyer (23:10.934)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (23:15.822)
I was talking to a student one day in my office and I said, man, if I could start over, I would go into financial planning. And I was sitting there and I was like, I'm not that old. I could still make a move. And so that's, that's really how my dad's death kind of, kind of got that ball rolling. And so yeah, that's, that's how I got into it. Just I think my own, like his death and then paired with my own curiosity of different things was really kind of how I, how I got into financial planning.
Deb Meyer (23:25.101)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (23:29.795)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (23:39.643)
Sure.
Deb Meyer (23:44.335)
Thank you. I'm sorry if I pride too much there, but yeah, hopefully that was, yeah.
Den Murley (23:47.35)
No, no, it's, no, it's, that was, that was, that was, so he was the best man in our wedding. So when, yeah, when he died, that was, I'd never experienced a, I didn't realize your heart could physically hurt like that. And so that was, yeah, that was a, that was a really hard, hard thing to process and to work through. But yeah, I mean, it was, yeah, he and I were really close. So.
Deb Meyer (23:53.488)
Aww.
Deb Meyer (24:12.302)
Yeah.
Deb Meyer (24:15.631)
Same with me and my mom. But mine is a little more fresh, but I'm doing much better this year.
Den Murley (24:22.902)
Yeah, that was, yeah, the death of a parent is, yeah, regardless of what your relationship looks like with them, they're still, when they die, there's still a part that, a view that I don't wanna say goes with them, but is kind of made more aware of various aspects of your childhood or adulthood with them.
Deb Meyer (24:41.369)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (24:50.418)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (24:53.055)
And so yeah, those deaths are.
this are a lot to challenge or a lot to process.
Deb Meyer (25:02.411)
All right, let's switch gears. We'll move on to a happier or not happier, but taxes about taxes. So, you know, a lot of people think, okay, you always have to defer taxes. If you're in a position where you could use some strategies, especially like entrepreneurs, for example, let's always defer taxes. Do you think that is a true statement or if not, could you describe a scenario where it would make sense to maybe accelerate taxes?
Den Murley (25:06.355)
Yeah. Right, yeah.
Den Murley (25:30.218)
Yeah, so one thing that we have learned about taxes are they're very specific to you and your finances, and they're also very, very emotional. So I am in East Texas where you mentioned taxes and that can trigger a lot of people very quickly. And so when we look at an individual's tax situation, we always compare it to...
Deb Meyer (25:37.293)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Deb Meyer (25:49.851)
Mmm.
Den Murley (26:00.29)
The truth is we know it today. So you think about the tax environment we are in America right now. So the Tax Cutting Jobs Act is set to sunset at the end of 25. And so if you look at that tax environment today, and obviously we can't predict what politicians are gonna do or what the tax environment's gonna look like in 2026 or 2036 or 56 or 66, but what we do know is that the tax environment's highly favorable today.
Deb Meyer (26:02.319)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (26:06.121)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (26:30.43)
And so when we look at an individual's taxes, we weigh that against, you know, what do we anticipate they may pay in retirement? But then also, we also look at, we like to have different options and different levers for our clients to pull when they get to retirement in terms of their income. So you've got, you know, traditional tax deferred, you've got Roth, you've got just the regular tax pool.
Deb Meyer (26:49.145)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (26:56.85)
investment accounts, you've got social security, you've got all these, you may have a pension, you've got all these different levers you can pull. So when, at what point, and it gives you more control. And so when you, when you think about taxes, I mean, we'll have people come in and, you know, they may be on the lower end of the 22% bracket, and they'll say, I'm just getting hammered with taxes, just taxes, just the government's taking all my money. And so, once we, one thing I've also noticed is in explaining
progressive how the tax system is progressive to people a Lot of people they're not familiar with that and they like they kind of beat themselves up I said you like don't beat yourself up about this because you interact with taxes Typically once a year you understand stales tax because you do it on a daily basis You buy something you understand that concept because you're doing it every single day almost but your income taxes There's so much. I mean you even go back to back to the biblical times Who did they dislike?
Deb Meyer (27:28.275)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (27:38.136)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (27:54.434)
slightly less than Jesus, right? And so it's been ingrained, I always tell people that, and it kind of disarms them, like, okay, yeah, don't beat yourself up over this, that's been ingrained in you for many generations. And so when you think about the taxes, if you can, I don't wanna say set your emotions aside, but if you can process your emotions and say, okay, let's...
Deb Meyer (27:55.052)
The tax collector.
Den Murley (28:23.042)
Just look at it from a numbers standpoint and look at it from a, what kind of options and what kind of control do we wanna have in retirement? Especially with the backdrop of if the Tax Cutting Jobs Act does sunset. Because you look at what that did to the tax code for individuals, yes, it is insane. And so when you look at that, we always tell our clients like,
Deb Meyer (28:43.099)
change it tremendously.
Den Murley (28:52.758)
Like we're going in all likelihood, we're going to raise your tax bill this year, next year, possibly the year after. And it's always like a moment for everybody because like, how are they going to respond? And so it's just, it's one of those things where as a planner, if you're having the conversation with people and you're explaining it well, and you know, you can kind of navigate the emotions behind the taxes, the conversation goes much smoother.
And it also helps the client understand better like hey like All my life I've been hearing deferred defer And I think I think so one thing was hard clients deferring taxes does not mean you avoid taxes Because all everything is going to pass your tax filter at some point is going to and So when even if you die with a tax deferred account as you know if somebody inherits …
Den Murley (29:49.91)
that's going to impact their taxes. And so, yeah, we always just try to explain and educate our clients, like here's, and even prospective clients. Because one thing we don't want people thinking we're doing are just picking stocks and we're not stock jocks. We do a lot of tax planning. We have people come in and say, what kind of returns do you get? It's like, ah, it's different for everybody, but if we don't, like we just, yeah, we don't like to have.
Deb Meyer (29:51.836)
only.
Den Murley (30:19.598)
that be their mindset, right?
Deb Meyer (30:19.843)
Not everyone's in the same portfolio. They're not all going to, yeah. I mean, there's probably a model portfolio of similar positions, but not everyone has the same asset mix, and that's going to affect performance, yeah.
Den Murley (30:29.866)
Right. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think when you're deferring taxes, there's a season in your life to defer taxes. And then there's also a time to invest in your taxes. And that's what I always tell people. They hear my financial planner and they say, what should I invest in? What stocks? I'm like, you need to invest in your taxes. And they're just, you can just see their body weight. Their shoulders drop. And it's like, oh, that's not what I was hoping to hear. I'm like, yeah, you want to know what the next Tesla is, right? I'm like, yeah, what's that? I don't know.
Deb Meyer (30:37.275)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (30:49.015)
Yeah, it's the wrong question. Yeah.
Den Murley (31:00.086)
But I know that the tax environment right now is very favorable to you. Um, or in all likelihood it is, you know, obviously you're whatever your tax rate is, that's going to impact, um, if it's favorable or not to you. But I would bet for the vast majority of Americans and of the listeners, it's probably, um, a favorable and tax environment right now.
Deb Meyer (31:24.748)
Well and it's interesting too because you know a lot of people they know perhaps what their marginal tax rate is but maybe not the effective tax rate or vice versa those are two different numbers so you might be in the 22% income tax bracket but when you're talking about one extra dollar of income it might only be 15% from an effective rate so it really does depend and a lot of you know the
Den Murley (31:42.051)
Right.
Deb Meyer (31:46.843)
tools we have at our disposal as advisors is we can run tax projections. We can see what that tax liability is going to look like, you know, maybe by end of November, early December, and then make year end adjustments based on that information. That's something that's extremely hard for you as a, you know, just individual, if you don't have an advisor to run those illustrations on your own and come up with accurate estimates, unless you have a trusted CPA, that's, that's automatically preparing your own projection.
Den Murley (31:52.302)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (32:10.518)
Yeah, because...
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and when you look at that, people say, I want to stay in the 22% bracket. Well, if you're trying to stay in that bracket and you do a Roth conversion and you spill over into the 24% bracket, it's not the end of the world.
Deb Meyer (32:29.422)
No.
It could have been done a little bit better, but like it's not, yeah, not catastrophic, right?
Den Murley (32:32.546)
If you-
Right. And so, you know, if you spill into it by a thousand dollars, it's not, it's not all of a sudden you're being taxed at the right. And that's right. Yeah. And so that's what that's one thing we've really been explaining to people is, you know, if you if you bump into the next bracket, it's like you bumped into it by 50,000 or 100,000. It's, you know, a thousand. So here's I think just people understanding like here's how that actually impacts your taxes, because they all hear the horror stories of.
Deb Meyer (32:40.907)
The whole yeah, you're only being taxed on that extra thousand in the higher bracket. Yeah.
Deb Meyer (32:56.184)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (33:05.582)
the IRS coming and throw you an IRS prison and all that, but there's not much context. There's a lot of fear-mongering around taxes. And it's like, man, just take a breath, let's think through this, and here's what it's actually going to look like. I think once people understand that picture, they become much more open to having a conversation of doing Roth conversions or doing Roth IRAs.
Deb Meyer (33:14.435)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (33:34.51)
things like that. So I think just understanding the context for the tax environment and understanding how it's going to impact you on the individual level is so critical to your long-term financial plan. Because a lot of people always make the comment, when we talk about investments, they understand like how should you manage your investments?
And they'll say, oh, just put them in, think about it long term, put them in, put your money in, put them in investment and don't touch it. Think long term, long term, long term. But when it comes to taxes, deferred for beat the IRS this year. It's all about this year. It's like, no, look at it. Look at it over the course of your, your life. It is a long term game. Like it is, it is a thing to navigate over the long term, not the short term. And so.
Deb Meyer (34:11.817)
Short term, yeah.
Deb Meyer (34:16.451)
Mm-hmm. Over the long game.
Deb Meyer (34:23.561)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (34:30.434)
Like, yeah, there'll be years where, hey, like you think about the whole deduction for your taxes, tax deferred. My perspective is that really benefits younger families. So if you're an empty nester and all of a sudden, hopefully some of those expenses are gone or your income is higher, now it may not be the most advantageous thing to just defer. Like maybe it's you leaning in, some of you do.
Deb Meyer (34:49.824)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (34:57.634)
Mm.
Den Murley (34:59.17)
do some of that tax investing. And so yeah, I just think, I think knowing your specific and unique situation can go a long way with the taxes and navigating the IRS.
Deb Meyer (35:14.963)
Well especially too if you think about just long-term appreciation of those investments it's not always the wisest move especially if you're in a lower income tax bracket now if you're a young family starting out maybe you do want to put in the Roth 401k instead of the pre-tax 401k in your employer plan. Like running through those scenarios because eventually you won't with the Roth 401k it can grow you're not subject to the bigger leeway or maybe it's a combination of the two, but it's at least kind of thinking strategically about taxes instead of just always thinking, okay, pre-tax 401k, always the way to go, right?
Den Murley (35:53.834)
Yeah, and that's and then also you think about like when the Ross came around like Ross are relatively new in terms of the working career of America. And so there's a lot of people that they just Ross word an option weren't available to them when they started working. And so, like that generation like if they raised up us then they kind of that like oh that's the only option available to use tax deferred well know there's different vehicles now.
Deb Meyer (36:00.364)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (36:21.843)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (36:22.93)
And so yeah, we, one of our clients, she, it's always funny because she, she came in, they came in that with us and she was kind of frustrated with what they had in Roth and didn't have. And it was when they were onboarding with us, they'd been with another advisor. And so she, like we, we started explaining the whole Roth conversion and everything without look like. And she was kind of.
She's beating herself up about it. And I said, look, the goal is not to be perfect in the end. The goal is to be better today than you were yesterday. And so I think that, I think I heard that from, I want to say it was Simon Sinek that made that comment. And, but it's applicable to so many things and especially with finances. Like you look back and you can just beat yourself up over, I did this in my 20s, I did this in my...
Deb Meyer (37:01.572)
Mm-hmm.
Den Murley (37:20.262)
You know, I did all these things over the years and it's like, okay, well, now you're aware of those things. You're processing them. Like, just be kind to yourself of, hey, here's where I can make our situation better today than it was yesterday. Here's how I can make my kid's situation better than my situation. Here's how I can educate them more than what I have. And so, like, my parents, like, they were very diligent with teaching us about finances and...
Den Murley (37:48.758)
you know, putting ownership on us with finances, but like, yeah, I look back and I'm like, ah, I wonder what it would look like if we had done it a little bit differently here or worded it differently. And so there's just like, there's things to be built on from your past, whether they're good experiences or bad experiences, there's still things that you can build on to make it better today than it was yesterday.
Deb Meyer (38:13.595)
Awesome. Well, I think that's actually a good stopping point. Thank you so much for being on. Could you tell me a little bit more about where people can find you online if they want to get in touch after the episode releases?
Den Murley (38:26.198)
Yeah, you can find us on the website. It's just belongingwealth.com. Or you can, I'm on LinkedIn, it's just Dan Murley. You can find me there. But yeah, those two places.
Deb Meyer (38:39.803)
Great. Okay. Well, again, thanks so much for joining us and, uh, yeah, this has been a really helpful, um, helpful episode for sure.
Den Murley (38:48.546)
It's been a blast, thanks for having me.