Alright, and before we bring in today's guest, I wanted to issue a quick apology and say a quick thank you to one of our Facebook group members, Carly Reichart.

Carly called Mindy and me out, rightly so, for spreading misinformation on last week's episode of The Bigger Pockets Money Show podcast.

We stated that gains in a 529 plan would be forfeited if they're not used for educational purposes, and that's simply not true.

The gains in a 529 plan are simply subject to tax and or a 10% penalty when they're withdrawn and used for things outside of educational expenses or qualified educational expenses.

So they can be a powerful and flexible way to build wealth, save for college, pass money onto future generations, and be used for other educational purposes, and there's lots of other interesting tidbits about 529 plans.

They're a useful tool in the tax-advantaged investment stack for some people.

Personally, I don't use them, I may use them in the future, but I wanted to correct the misinformation that we stated last week.

Certainly, the gains are not forfeited, they're just subject to tax and or penalty if and only if they're used for non-qualified expenses.

So thank you, Carly, and thank you to the many members of our Facebook group for calling us out. I apologize, we apologize for the misinformation, we have a responsibility to share truth and the correct information on this show, and we appreciate when we do get that feedback.

So please keep it coming, and we will link to some resources on 529 plans in the show notes here at biggerpockets.com slash moneyshow308.

Thank you so much.

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast, show number 308, Finance Friday edition.

More Carly and I sit down to talk about lifestyle creep, being financially conscious, the shockingly low percentage of camp must-dash attendees who use a budget, and why tracking our spending in real time is the best choice for us.

The tracking is where the real value comes in for us, having to enter that and review it every once in a while to see where it goes, and I don't know.

Well, here's where I'm going to argue with you because having it set up the way that it is, Mr. Waffles on Wednesday set that tracking spender up for me and the Excel sheet, so that as soon as we go over whatever dollar figure we deemed was that category, the category turns red.

And that is very helpful for me to see that in real time.

Hello, hello, hello, my name is Mindy Jensen, and joining me today is my husband, Carl, to talk about what a disaster our may finances were.

Okay, before we get to the show, let's hear a word from today's show sponsors.

Wait, why were they a disaster?

Because we got lazy, we stopped tracking our spending in real time, we just stacked up receipts, and then said we were going to do it later, and then we never did it later, and then we had to like scramble to do it at the end of the month, and that didn't work for us.

Yeah, I don't like that because when you're forced to be accountable to the app on your phone and manually enter it, you really think more about all your purchases. Like, yeah, do I really need this box of Scruminyl is on Christmas grocery store?

I guess they don't make those anymore.

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