Show me the money! On this episode of The Retirement Equals Freedom Podcast we’re finding out about the world of financial planning fees. What’s totally worth it, what’s so-so and when can you save $$ by managing on your own? Host Josh Bretl, founder of FSR Wealth Strategies, breaks down the different types of fees and shares advice he gives folks who are just starting out (when the stakes are lower) as well as heading into retirement (when professional advisory services can pay off in a big way). First, though, he and Co-Host Dave Schmidt have a lot of terrain to cover in their opening chat, which ranges from the unexpected delights of iced Cometeer Coffee to unbelievable (probably true) stories about the hosts’ noble ancestral heritage. You’ll come away not only with a smile, but also a new jingle that may (full disclaimer) haunt your dreams!

And, finally, if at the end of the pod you are scratching your head and asking: Who (or what) is an ALF (?), here's the backstory.

This episode was fueled by Cometeer Coffee, both iced and hot!

Click here to learn more about or listen to previous episodes of The Retirement Equals Freedom Podcast. Don’t forget to sign up for the show’s new weekly email at this link and definitely come join the conversation at our new private Facebook group, which you can find here.

Click here to explore the services that FSR Wealth Strategies offers and schedule a discovery call with one of the team’s CPAs. When it comes to living your best life, it’s never too early to get started!

When people are young and saving for

retirement, I often tell them a couple things.

Just save, and save as efficiently as possible, like

just invest as cheap as you can and let that money grow.

But when we get to retirement, you actually can get some

value out of paying fees.

There's things that you can do, that a good advisor can do for

you, that is worth the expenses.

And if you truly are worried about fees all the time, you

could be holding yourself back.

Is it worth it to pay fees

for a financial advisor?

Well, that depends on what stage of life you're in.

If you're young and saving for retirement, just save and

invest as cheaply as you can.

But if you're retired or heading into retirement, you

can get tremendous value from paying retirement advisor fees.

In this episode of the Retirement Equals Freedom

Podcast, we take a deep dive into the three types of

advisor fees, which of those are worth paying, and how the

furry alien ALF, from the 80s sitcom, ties into all of this.

Okay, you got me, ALF has nothing to do with

paying advisor fees.

But I loved his show and we talk about him quite a bit today.

This is the Retirement Equals Freedom Podcast.

Your host, Josh Bretl, is the owner of FSR Wealth Strategies.

For the last few decades, he's been helping fine folks like

you thrive in their retirement.

Me.

I'm Dave.

Josh's longtime friend co-host and general fan of free food.

I'm here to keep the show lighthearted and to keep

Josh from going on long technical, boring, rants.

So now let me, let you, let me end this introduction

so you can enjoy the show.

FSR Wealth Management is a registered investment advisor

located in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Information and opinions contained in this audio

have been arrived at by FSR Wealth advisors.

All information herein is for informational purposes

and should not be construed as investment advice.

It does not constitute an offer, a solicitation or recommendation

to purchase any security.

FSR is not providing legal, tax, accounting, or financial

planning advice in this audio.

These views are as of the date of this publication

and are subject to change.

You are in full control, my man.

Make sure you hit record on Ecamm, and, on that...

Something has been happening a

lot recently where...

you just did it to me.

Yeah?

Where things that people don't think

I'm going to do...

Apparently I drop the ball a lot, because you just told me to

hit me record like three times.

I did.

The other day, Erin came running into my

office, and she was busy.

And she comes running in my office worried that I wasn't

going to make the nine thirty phone call that I had scheduled.

And I was like in the middle of the phone call, so I

was giving her a hard time.

Luckily the client at the end of the end of the phone

really thought it was funny, and I called her out on it.

I was like, "You didn't think I'd call her?"

She goes, "No, I thought you'd call her.

But I always give you her phone number."

Let me play therapist for a second.

Is this more of a reflection on you, or more of

reflection on your team?

I like therapy.

I've been to therapy a lot.

I like how they make you think about your own

thoughts and actions.

I was making fun of you for making fun of me, I actually

realized, oh okay, that must say something about me

if people keep doing that.

I mean, my wife always does it to me, but it's...

Sure.

Nobody makes me think my own thoughts.

That's what I say.

So.

Oh yeah.

Hi Dave.

Hey Josh.

You said we weren't going to start every episode like that.

Like what?

I thought maybe you said, "We say hi too

often," but that's how we should start our episodes.

Like, Hey.

Yeah.

I mean, the end of our episodes you always end with a, "Bye."

We've talked about that now how my compliance lady, Debbie, now

ends our Zoom calls with, "Bye."

My father and my uncle now leave conversations with me like that.

My God.

Deb, if you're listening to this, "Hi."

I do love it.

I mentioned this, I think, in last episode, I'm

infiltrating every little nook and cranny of your life.

And I'm really nervous because tonight I'm

letting you give the intro to my workshop, and these workshops,

we put a lot of time and money and effort into making sure

they look good, they sound good, and I'm turning it over to you.

This is your biggest, the most important

thing that FSR Wealth does to attract new clients

are these workshops, and they're not cheap to run.

So the fact that you're letting me run an introduction, well,

I got some things planned.

That's all I got to say.

And I think maybe I'll have Brian record me so that we can

put the video up maybe on your Facebook page or something.

Oh, that'd be a great idea.

That will go on the Retirement Equals Freedom Facebook page.

Just think of it this way, at least I'm wearing a

brand new shirt that I've gotten several compliments today.

It looks good.

This is your best shirt I've seen you wear.

I appreciate that.

That's a shout out to you, Carla, because she got it.

No one's surprised by that.

No, they shouldn't be surprised.

So yeah.

I'm excited for the introduction.

I appreciate it.

I think I have a knack for warming people up, maybe

not taking things too seriously, so that's what

I'll try to do tonight.

This came to me as an idea yesterday

as we were talking and we were talking about ways to

improve these workshops.

We had our office in here and our office is very technical

and we pride ourselves in being a family-like office.

I think once you step foot in our door, you see

why we say that, and our staff always says that.

You said, "Well, let me take a step back.

I don't feel like your seminars are very family.

They don't feel like family.

They feel kind of cold."

And again, like therapy, it kind of hit me across the face.

I was like, you know what?

You're right.

We really got to warm these up.

And what better way to warm it up than letting

you give the introduction.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

Look, I'm very...

I always get it confused.

Is left brain more creative?

Oh, I get confused all the time, whatever

creative side of the brain.

Yeah.

Right.

That's me.

So I honestly do see things differently.

Yeah, your workshops are so well run, but they're just,

could use a little love.

So here, let's do little cheers first of all.

Cometeer Coffee.

Woo.

Josh, how do you feel?

I made it for you iced today.

How do you feel about it?

I like Cometeer quite a bit.

Yeah, sure.

The iced though far surpasses to me, the hot.

You like it iced better.

I like it iced better.

Wow.

And I'm not a huge iced coffee fan.

Yeah.

It's delicious.

Now, I wonder could it be...

Maybe just because you made it.

It's the love.

How much water I put in too.

It could be.

I probably put 10, 12 ounces of water.

So it's a little watered down.

Which, that's how I like it.

So maybe it's not as strong in your face.

Well, I love me this Cometeer iced coffee.

Perfect.

Well, I'm happy that I'm able to bring you joy.

So can I talk about my son, Alex, for a sec?

Depends.

How long have we been recording?

Five minutes.

Oh, yeah.

We're good.

We're good.

Alex is our number one podcast fan.

Alex is eight years old.

Alex recites parts of the podcast to my family at dinner.

It drives my wife crazy.

But Alex likes to ask me how the Cometeer Coffee is.

He wants to know when he's getting a Puddin' Cake.

Legendary.

And he's the one that gave us this soundbite

that you've been putting at the end of episodes, the...

Hashtag tax nerd.

That's Al.

That's Al.

He's my son who lays in bed at night and talks

to me about taxes and different types of taxes.

We were out for dinner, we were out somewhere and he

met somebody new and he goes, "I know all about taxes.

I know about use taxes and sales taxes."

And I was like, "Oh my God.

Stop."

that is amazing.

And you know what, little off target here, but I do say the

end of our podcast, I don't know, by that time, by the

time it airs, I've already listened to us four times

through the editing process.

But something about the last three minutes still gives me the

shivers, gives me goosebumps, how we have us talking and

then Al and then the music.

It's just fun.

Well, we're sitting at breakfast the

other day and we have a family Spotify playlist.

So whenever there's a new song I want to add, it goes

to the Bretl family playlist.

In the car we will...

There's got to be 75 songs, a hundred songs

on this thing by now.

And we'll just play it, and then we play it in random.

And one of the songs, one of the original songs on

the list was Ex's & Oh's.

Ex's & Oh's.

By Elle King.

Oh Rob Schneider's daughter.

Yeah.

The actor Rob Schneider.

That's his daughter?

Yeah.

Do you know who Rob Schneider is?

Yeah, And so we haven't listened

to it in a while.

The list has gotten bigger.

We don't listen to it very often.

And we're sitting at breakfast and all of a sudden, I told

him that you were coming in the office and he goes, "Are

you going to record a podcast?

You know, about taxes and oh, oh, oh's."

what?

And he really thought it was.

And so here for those of you that don't know

what I'm talking about.

Here's the song.

So, we're listening to it and he starts singing it.

And Missy and I are dying of laughter.

And I'm one who never really listens to the lyrics of

songs, and she goes, "Let me look up the actual lyrics

to show this to Alex."

They actually kind of make sense like taxes and oh's they

haunt me and all that stuff.

Right.

And the ghosts that come and want me.

Yeah.

So, I've been trying to get him to sing it for us,

so I could have it as another...

Hashtag tax nerd.

Sound effect.

And he refuses to do it.

So Dave, maybe you can beg Alex to sing that as a sound effect.

Alex, listen to me, if I can get your

dad to record you singing that in your version, the

correct version, which is taxes and oh's they haunt me,

and the ghosts, which can be the IRS, come and they want

you, I will put it to music.

Al, if you can do that, you will love it.

But that's my...

That's so

I told you I had a good story.

I texted Dave immediately.

That's great.

I was like, I have a great story.

Man, Al is...

Man, I'm telling you, kids are just amazing.

There is hope for this world.

There is.

Just got to let our kids take control sooner.

So today topic wise.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Topics, man.

Actual content, actual things that people

might listen to the podcast for besides my cute son.

It's hog wash.

What I'd like to follow up on is an episode

we had two weeks ago in regards to what to look

for in a financial advisor.

In that, one of the questions that I get a lot

is, " Aren't they expensive?"

Oh, like aren't advisors expensive?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aren't they expensive?

Yeah.

I want to talk about fees today.

I want to talk about, I mean, I'm not a nonprofit.

We do this to make a living.

Yeah.

So I want to spend some time talking about fees.

Now, before we do that...

Yeah.

You did something yesterday that

scared the snot out of me.

I do that often.

Uh-huh [affirmative].

You said I recorded a new jingle, because it was a

new part of our podcast that you wanted to play.

So let me set the scene here.

Now, I assume everybody listening to this episode,

listening to episode 15, "When can I retire?"

If you haven't please go back and listen to our entire

catalog, it's just going to make you feel better about yourself.

But I did post production put in the jingle.

Oh you did?

I did.

So you can hear it.

And I heard it in the car right over here.

I haven't listened to it yet.

Yeah.

And I'll preface this by saying this is not a final version

that Josh is going to play.

I do have some edits I may make to it.

But yeah, this is Josh is going to play our introduction

to our new segment called, Get to Know Josh and Dave.

Oh God.

[Singing].

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Good God.

Okay.

First of all, I've had 17 studios call me after that.

They heard it somehow and they want me to record

an album for them now.

People who don't know you...

You're a relatively introverted guy.

Totally.

And you don't like being in crowds and schmoozing

with people, and yet you record stuff like this to put it out.

It's so impressive about you.

Well, I appreciate that.

And I thought about the same thing, because tonight I'm like,

I should be really nervous about this introduction, yet I'm not.

And it's because I can spin that any way I want.

They don't know me from the other person at the table.

They don't know who I am.

They don't know my flaws.

I'm going to get out there and be like, I'm the most

confident dude in the world.

Plus this definitely is a throwback to the '90s,

which I am obsessed with.

So Josh, all right.

So we each picked a random card today.

Random card.

We're going to mix this up a little bit.

You're going to read me the question and I'll answer

it, or actually I'm going to read you the question first.

You'll answer it.

I'll answer the same question.

And then you read the card to me.

Is that how this works?

It's how it's going to work.

Okay.

Okay.

Go ahead.

All right.

So my question I picked, what is one interesting

fact about your ancestors?

One interesting fact of my ancestors.

Supposedly, here's an interesting fact, this is up

the rumor mill, but I have some sort of proof of this.

When my dad's ancestors came over from...

From...

Do you remember where?

Europe?

I want to say it was Austria.

We always thought we were German, but now it turns

out we're actually Austrian.

I don't know.

But they settled in Northern Wisconsin and apparently

they settled in Door County.

And apparently somewhere along the lines, a

great-great-great-great grandfather lost the land

rights to the majority of Door County in a poker match.

Stop that.

Mm-hmm.

Supposedly.

Now there's not a lot of Bretls here in Chicagoland.

You open the phone book, there's not that many of us.

I probably know most of them from Christmas dinner.

You go up to Wisconsin, you go up to Door County, there are

Bretls galore in the phone book.

What?

I don't can't prove it to be true, but supposedly

we, in a poker match many, many, many, many decades ago lost

the land rights to Door County.

The fact that there are more Bretls up north

though, that does kind of tell you that you're onto something.

Mm-hmm.

I know.

Could this be our first true crime...

It's not a crime...

Podcast about how the Bretls lost Door County.

You know what?

You want to get my dad involved in the podcast, he'd love to.

Dad, Dave would like to do an ancestry podcast with you.

That would be amazing.

That's a really good one because we've visited Door County every

year up until maybe high school.

It was our spot.

So I have you to thank.

Supposedly.

Wow.

That's cool.

We're really eating into time here

today, but my question is going to be simple for you.

Oh, I have to answer the same question though.

Oh, you do?

I do.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Mine's easy.

All right.

Well, go ahead.

My dad's grandpa, my great-grandpa,

who I've never met, I never met my grandpa on my dad's

side, worked for Al Capone.

Really?

Yes.

And specifically my dad remembers him working

like on the docks.

Wow.

So near Lake Michigan.

And so again, stories are hazy there, but my dad remember

growing up dirt poor, of course, but every once in a

while, grandpa would bring just like the best meats

and veggies and everything.

So that is how cool I am.

Don't mess with me.

My family lost a large valuable piece of

land in a poker match, and yours committed many crimes.

My family probably took that land from you.

That's true.

That's true.

I love it.

All right, my question's real simple and I

actually, I can already bet I already know your answer.

Okay.

Let's hear it.

Would you stop talking to all of your

friends for a million dollars?

Absolutely.

I knew you would.

I knew it.

Dave Schmidt:

Unequivocally, yes.

I pulled that card, I went, "Oh

God, I know this answer."

because I could buy the friends back then right?

Now, what's what's great is, I know, I know your answer.

No, not a chance.

Yeah, exactly.

My favorite thing in the world is talking to people.

I know.

Well, okay, so now how far along are we now?

15 minutes.

Okay.

Hold on.

Okay.

So fees, like you get what you pay for.

Yeah.

Okay.

Totally.

And I said it in that episode about what

to look for in an advisor.

When people are young and saving for retirement, I often

tell them a couple things.

Do it, like just save, and save as most efficiently as possible,

like just invest as cheap as you can and let that money grow.

Yeah.

I remember that.

Okay.

Do it as cheap as you can.

But when we get to retirement, you actually can get some

value out of paying fees.

There's things that you can do, that a good advisor can do for

you that is worth the expenses.

Now there are people, if you look at the talking heads on

TV, you're going to look at the Suze Ormans and the Dave Ramseys

of the world, and they're going to tell you, "Just save and

don't pay fees, never pay fees."

And people are going to think I'm saying this because I

make money by charging fees, but there are certain things

you can't do on your own.

I mean, it's just plain impossible.

So, you truly are worried about fees all the time, you

could be holding yourself back.

I mean, I once had someone described to me a fee where

if you're going to go buy a new car and someone just said,

"Hey, this car is $40,000."

Now, if you're looking at a real tiny Chevy, you're

going to be mad that you just spent $40,000 on a car.

But if you're looking at a giant Tesla SUV, you're

going to think, "Oh my God, I got a steal," for

paying $40,000 bucks.

But it's kind of an advantage of what are you

getting for those fees.

Does that make sense?

Totally.

So to put fees in perspective, in fact, Erin

likes to talk about the fact that there's a difference

between fines and fees.

A fine is something you paid because you're

penalized to do it.

A fee is getting you something.

You should be getting some sort of value for that.

Makes sense.

Makes sense.

Now in the financial planning world, there's

different types of fees.

There's fees for planning.

All right?

And this is where the true value comes into place.

So there's fees for planning, I'm going to get back to that.

Sort of like more like a traditional

consultant fee, like you'd pay somebody to advise you.

Yeah.

It could be.

It's getting to know you as personally as

possible and to make recommendations to your plan.

Okay.

Okay.

It could be tax recommendations.

It could be estate planning recommendations.

It could be investment recommendations, but they're

making recommendations.

Okay.

Then there's allocation fees.

There's fees to run the investments.

So to build portfolios and to do those things,

there's fees for that.

And there's the investment expenses.

The investment expenses are when you buy an investment,

there's going to be a certain cost associated with it.

And you have to incorporate all of those, but where

you should look...

The investment expenses, no matter what, whatever you

are, you want to try and get those as cheap as possible.

And that is one of those scenarios where you could have

the exact same investment and that company could charge five

different fee structures for it.

So you want to make sure you're getting the

cheapest fee structure.

Mutual funds are famous for that, ETFs, Exchange Traded

Funds are famous for that.

So that is a scenario, no matter what, you want to get the

cheapest value you can there.

And who would set the fee structure for that?

The investment company.

So not you the advisor, but

the company that they're purchasing the tool from.

The investment from.

So Vanguard, American Funds, Fidelity, they all have mutual

funds or ETFs, whatever they might be, those Vanguards ETFs,

or Vanguards, American Funds, Fidelity, they set those fees.

I

I got it.

Yeah.

Those are out of your control.

Out of your control.

You just want to make sure you get the cheapest possible.

Got it.

Okay.

Got it.

Now allocation is people building

portfolios out of those.

So we're going to take a little bit of this Vanguard

portfolio and a little bit of this and a little bit of

that and mixing them together.

Okay?

Like a general contractor.

Yeah.

You're kind of mixing things together and they're just

kind of, they're building something for you that's there.

Now that is worth a little bit of a fee.

It's not worth a huge fee, but it's worth a

little bit of a fee.

If part of our industry is getting commoditized, that's it.

I see.

Okay.

People...

You shouldn't have to pay a ton for good allocations.

And when you say commoditized because

of all the FinTech software and stuff out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct.

And that is kind of where it stops for people who are saving.

You still need it as a retiree, but it kind of, for

people who are saving in the accumulation years, those

are the only two big things.

Most people don't need that top level, that planning fee.

Okay.

And that's where the magic happens.

The magic comes into play where you can combine what

you're doing with social security and with your pension

and what asset allocations you're doing and what your

IRA distributions and your taxes and all that fun stuff.

When you can find someone who can combine those for you,

that's when the fee is worth it.

That's when you're buying....

You're like, "Hey, I deserve this Tesla.

I've worked so hard for it."

That's when you're going to get what you paid for.

Yeah.

Is there like a golden ratio of, let's say an advisor's fee.

And I honestly don't know what a fee is.

Let's say a fee is 5% and then, but then-

5% would get you arrested.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's say the fee is 1%.

1%, great example.

The average number they use is about 1%.

Okay, 1%.

And then I'd assume an advisor would be like, "Look, yeah,

there's a fee at 1%, but I mean, it could potentially

increase your earnings by 2%."

Right?

Is it kind of how you...

Yeah, they call that the investment alpha.

So let's talk about how fees are charged and

who's charging a good fee.

Can I just pause you for a second there?

Yeah.

Because you say alpha, my mind right away goes

to ALF, the show from the '80s.

Josh Bretl:

Extraterrestrial Life Form?

Dave Schmidt:

Extraterrestrial Life Form.

Dave Schmidt:

ALF.

Dave Schmidt:

Oh, they need to remake that show.

Dave Schmidt:

That was so good.

Dave Schmidt:

Okay.

Dave Schmidt:

Carry on.

I was worried where you were going with that.

Yeah.

ALF made me lose my train of thought.

As he does many.

He does.

So let's talk the different ways fees are charged.

Alien Life Form, actually.

Oh, it's Alien Life Form.

It's ALF.

Yeah, ALF.

A-L-F.

Elf would be Buddy the Elf.

Buddy the Elf.

Elf on the shelf.

Poor Will Ferrell.

In my head, I was thinking of ALF but I was spelling Elf.

That is something I would do through and through.

Oh we could...

Oh man, I want to have a whole episode about our

favorite shows and movies from the '90s and '80s.

Oh man.

Okay.

Different ways fees can be charged.

You can pay a fee, there are certain advisors that will

do hourly or just by project.

They'll say, "Hey, I'll charge you X dollars."

And that could range anywhere from a couple hundred to

many thousands of dollars.

Okay.

Okay.

There are advisors that charge flat fees forever.

They'll say, "Hey, it's going to be $5,000 a year, $10,000,

$12,000, $20,000 dollars a year.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

There are...

The most common way is what they call an AUM fee or

Assets Under Management fee.

Assets Under Management.

AUM.

Okay.

I know I got that one right.

Yeah, we just said it fast.

So I wanted to just clarify.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And that is a percentage.

So if you have a million dollars and they charge you

1%, that's a $10,000 fee.

Okay.

So that's where that comes to play.

And that's the most common.

That's what you see most often.

Got it.

I'm a big advocate for trying to

move to a mixed ratio.

Because I think allocation fees, like when you get

charged for that allocation of building portfolios, that

needs to be on an AUM percentage and that should be low.

It shouldn't be that high.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

But those planning fees, those planning fees, I think

should probably be more fixed.

Meaning, it's a dollar amount per year or a

percentage per year.

It's a fixed price.

It's a fixed price because that's

what you're getting.

That's where the true value comes into play.

So how you pay them and where you get them for is different.

But most advisors, and if you think about the Edward Jones

of the world, the Chase Bank of the world, they're charging 1%

all the way up to almost 1.92%.

Mm wow.

Okay.

And all they're really doing is building the allocations.

And that's why I tell people, When you're saving, just

save as cheap as possible.

But if you want the help, find somebody, going

back to that episode, who focuses on the retirement.

If you're going to pay the fee anyways, in that car example, if

you're going to pay $40,000, you might as well get the best car

you possibly can for $40,000.

Absolutely.

If you're going to pay the fee anyways,

you might as well get the best advice from an advisor

that you possibly can.

So fees are there.

People don't like to pay them.

But when you truly see the value you get out of them, hopefully

you think it's worth it there.

And our advisory world can earn what it's worth.

I'd imagine being a fiduciary, you're

required to disclose fees.

Yeah, and if they won't, if your advisor

won't disclose fees to you, that's a huge red flag.

Yeah, like there should be no bigger

red flag than that.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

No, you should know exactly what you're paying.

And there's certain things, how you pay fees can have

tax advantages and...

Hashtag tax nerd.

There's all sorts of fun things that you can do

with how you pay fees.

But that's, again, that's good advisory work.

Yeah.

Excellent.

I'm just trying to think of something.

Oh yeah, I know what it is.

Hit that button son.

Oh man.

[Singing].

So we're sitting here talking about fees, man.

You get what-

fees, man.

Fees, man.

And nobody likes to pay fees, but you do get what you pay for.

So I'm going to go ahead, hit that button.

What are you going to...

Ain't nobody got cash for that.

Yeah, ain't nobody got cash for that.

Ain't nobody got...

Josh ain't got cash to keep being my friend, but

he thinks, "Wait a minute, all right, I could save a

whole lot of money if I stop being friends with Dave.

I stop paying for his laser tag.

Stop paying for his food.

Stop paying for meals tonight at the event.

Stop paying for his Cometeer Coffee.

Stop paying for Puddin' Cakes eventually when we get them."

But Josh is like, "You know what?

I get so much in return from this friendship.

And if I don't keep paying for Dave's stuff, he's not

going to be friends with me, because that's all the value

I bring to him as a friend."

Oh, I'm just kidding.

You bring so much more value in that.

Sometimes, I think you actually like me.

Sometimes.

I mean, I put up with you for all the free stuff.

Your mother's going to be so mad when

she hears this segment.

"David, David, why are you so mean mean to Josh?

I warned you about this.

That's it.

David, you're getting spankings."

So yeah, Josh, I'm sure you and Missy stay up late at night with

your spreadsheet of, Is It Worth Being Dave's Friend or Not?

And you put in all your numbers and you're like, "Yeah, I'm

going to continue to be Dave...

I'm going to continue to buy him lunch because he just brings

so much value to my life."

Should I jingle myself out?

Jingle yourself out.

[Singing].

So in this example, I'm the retiree.

Yeah.

And your the advisor.

The advisor.

A hundred percent.

Which is, in real life, I do advise you on most

things in your life.

We discussed this already.

You do.

Yes.

All right.

I got this.

Okay, good.

I got this.

And insert the Full House music.

Back when we first became friends, and

the first time I bought you anything, I don't know if you

remember this, was at U of I.

We were there for basketball camp, I barely knew you.

And we're all out for dinner as a team, I think

we were at Burger King or somewhere, or Wendy's.

You said, "Oh no, I forgot my wallet."

Oh yeah.

It was just scam.

But yeah, I remember it.

And from that point forward, I felt like I just was

buying you food all the time.

But it wasn't just me, all of our friends have stories where

Dave would forget his wallet.

Yes.

But we also all have stories that

you have reciprocated in your own Dave way.

And like you said earlier, you're kind of infiltrating

different parts of everything.

Anyone who meets you has this instant....

They love being around you now.

Now, you may not love being around them, but you do love...

They love being around you.

Yeah.

And so kind of like I said before, there's certain

times that it's worth it to spend some money, and there's

certain times that you should save the money and not spend it.

And apparently for you, I think it's worth

spending the money on.

I don't really think I bought your friendship, but...

That's for me to know and for you to find out,

if you ever stop buying me food.

Actually I'll even put it in this way.

I love what I do.

I love being an advisor.

I love sitting and talking to people, and I can't do it for

free because I need to live.

It's true.

But I have a feeling that the same is

probably true for you.

We've talked about this before.

I had no business working at a bank for those three

or four years, but I did because people just...

I just bring this cavalier-ness and just fun attitude.

I probably have no business being on this podcast with

you, but if I weren't, you probably wouldn't be recording

a podcast, because you don't have anybody as awesome as

me to record it with you.

It would not be nearly as entertaining.

No, it wouldn't.

Oh my gosh.

People listening.

Can you imagine just Josh the whole time.

"Blah, blah, blah.

Fees, taxes."

Come on.

No.

By this point I'd have Alex with me.

Oh man.

That would be actually award winning quality.

So did I relate back that okay.

Was it okay?

No, I do, I think that's great.

I think you made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I may now take out one of the jokes I was going to tell about

you tonight at the introduction because you were nice to me.

So you just earned yourself a gold star.

Ooh.

So do you think we can maybe have ALF going

for the next episode we record?

ALF or Elf?

Either one.

I love them both.

That would be great.

What if Will Ferrell dressed up

as ALF for the next movie?

Epic.

Epic.

I'm telling you.

Thanks Josh for talking about fees and you're right

though, it just it ties great into episode 14.

I mean, whoever would've thought that this

would actually try to be an interesting podcast.

I said, "Yeah, let's talk about investment fees."

I know.

Actually it was Erin's idea.

It was Erin's idea.

Now, I don't think she accounted for the

15 minutes of mumble-jumble banter that we had, but I

mean, hey it turned out okay.

Yeah.

We're pretty good here.

Josh, you have anything else to add

before we wrap this up?

You know what?

I really would like everybody, we work really hard to put these

shows out, and if you would go to our podcast show page, which

is fsrwealth.com/podcast, again, that's fsrwealth.com/podcast,

you can sign up to get emails every week from us, every

time we launch a new show, so you will never miss them.

And we will try to make them all as entertaining as this one.

As long as I keep paying Dave.

We're going to send out the podcast club email

on Fridays, and our episodes are released on Thursdays,

but I'm doing this on Fridays just so I can add a little

extra fun to these emails.

Fun, F-U-N.

Maybe ALF we'll send the next podcast email.

Oh yeah, you know what, I'm going to try

to get ALF's voice down for the next time, or next episode

I can try to imitate it.

Top of my head, I can't picture it right now.

I have to re-watch a few episodes.

Oh, Josh.

Fees, man.

But you do have cash to pay a great advisor like Josh

for your retirement help.

Oh, David.

I know, see?

All right, Josh, let's end this episode with our very famous...

What's your compliance?

Debbie.

Deb, this is for you.

We'll give an extra big bye.

Bye.

Oh Deb.

Oh my God.

Oh.

That's going to take a big edit.