Joe, have you ever made a financial mistake and then just brooded over it?

I thought you were asking me if I ever made a financial mistake. No. I've never made a mistake, ever.

Well, we are going to answer a question from a caller who is wondering, how do you stop ruminating

and self-flagellating over these financial mistakes?

Hmm.

We're also going to answer questions about short-term capital gains, about mid and small-cap exposure, about all of the financial questions that keep us up at night that hopefully won't become mistakes.

Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything,

but not everything. Every choice carries a trade-off, and that applies to your time, money,

focus, and energy to all limited resources you need to manage. This show covers five pillars,

financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship.

It's double-eye fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant,

every other episode. We answer questions that come from you, and I do so with my buddy,

the former financial planner, Joe Sal C-high. What's up, Joe? Hey, Paula, what's happening?

I'm so excited to answer three fantastic questions, the first of which comes from Anonymous.

Hi, Paula and Joe. Thanks for a great podcast. I love listening to it, especially the Q&A episodes.

My name's Anonymous. I wanted to call in because I've been listening with really great interest the last few weeks when you've been discussing this Roth versus pre-tax decision that people have to make in various forms.

And I think personally, I just made a mistake. After I listened to the discussion, I went back and I

looked at what I had done in 2023 and 2024. And I think I just made a categorical error.

You know, I'm sure I'll make many more errors in the future, and it'd be great to know how to

just shrug it off and move on if you have any personal takes us to the best way to do that.

So the categorical error that I think I made here is in 2023, I maxed out my 401k in Roth

dollars at the 32% tax bracket, even though I knew in the next year I would be in the

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