Joe Anderson, CFP® and Big Al Clopine, CPA discuss a two-decade study on the character traits of America’s wealthy and uncover the lessons that can be learned from the millionaire next door, on episode 65 of the YMYW podcast. Original publish date September 17, 2016 (hour 1). Note that content may be outdated as rules and regulations have changed. 

00:00 - Intro

06:41 - “Successful people often spend more time early in life focusing on bettering themselves which leads to higher income the remainder of their lives.”

06:50 - “We need to keep investing in ourselves all throughout our career – things are changing so rapidly that we have to stay ahead of the curve.”

13:23 - “The first check you write every single month should be to yourself – to your 401(k) or IRA. If you can automate it, all the better.”

16:12 - “If you’re thinking about saving money in taxes in retirement, having some of your dollars come out tax-free is key because that’s what is going to keep you out of higher brackets later.”

19:11 - “A lot of people don’t realize they can take control over their taxes and especially in retirement.”

22:00 - “If you’re not maxing out your 401(k) plans and Roth IRAs, you have to get there.”

24:52 - “A lot of you underestimate how much you are actually spending.”

31:11 - “The fee-only community is pretty small. The really good fee-only advisors have minimums of millions of dollars.”

32:07 - “Right now we have a tax system that starts at a lowest bracket of 10% and goes up to 39.6%. Hillary wants to keep that in place but an extra 4% if you have more than $5 million in income.”

32:30 - “Donald Trump wants to change the brackets to be 0%, 12%, 25% and 33%.”

34:35 - “Couple more things – for the alternative minimum tax, Donald Trump wants to eliminate it all together, and Hillary wants to expand it a little bit by having a 30% minimum rate for incomes over $1 million.”