The Mind Money Spectrum Podcast

What to think about before applying to college. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron discuss the planning that parents and students go through before applying for college. Aaron shares his experience as a high school student and how he funded all four years with scholarships. Trishul explains how he started saving two years before his daughter was born. They discuss grants, loans, and the Expected F...

ProPublica brings awareness to how the wealthy are not impacted by income taxes. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss the ProPublica article that explored the True Tax Rate of the wealthiest Americans. The article examined income taxes as a percent of growth in wealth. The findings were nothing short of remarkable. Our hosts explore the fairness of ProPublica's methodology and further u...

Investing in real estate isn't bad, but that doesn't make it good. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron explore real estate as an asset class. They discuss individual investment properties, non-traded REITs, and publicly traded REITs. Real estate investments include equity and fixed income components, and they can have a low correlation to stocks and bonds. But it is the leverage that mort...

Even if the Yale Model works for endowments, you probably shouldn't follow it. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss the Yale Model. With indefinite investment horizons, endowments typically gravitate towards illiquid investments, such as hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital. Trend following aims to take advantage of human irrationality. Long-short allows you to adjust and pe...

Commodities probably don't help your portfolio the way you think they do. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron discuss how commodities may fit into an asset allocation. In theory, gold, oil, and even corn can be a store of value and provide opportunities for speculation. And with futures and the magic of margin leverage, it's possible to amplify returns. Further, according to asset allocat...

It's easy to be pessimistic about bonds, but they are actually necessary for your portfolio. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul go in-depth on why you need bonds. Despite low rates of interest and their limited ability to outpace inflation, bonds are essential in all but the most aggressive of portfolios. By understanding the mechanics of coupons, par value, credit quality, and duration, you...

Molly breaks the the do's and don't's of student loans. In this episode, Molly Laughter joins Trishul and Aaron for an all-encompassing look at student loans. With Covid forbearance ending soon, what are some of the options you have in front of you? She explains Direct vs FFEL loans, income-driven repayment plans, and consolidation vs refinancing. Depending on your income, employer,...

Why being neutral on growth vs value may actually be speculating. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul do a deep dive on asset allocation. The percent of stocks vs the percent of bonds in an investment portfolio. They explain how an all-stock portfolio is less risky than you think, while an all-bond portfolio is even riskier than you may believe. Losing money is only one type of risk. But if you und...

Step-by-step instructions for implementing your own tax-loss harvesting strategy. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron try to design an algorithm for a do-it-yourself tax-loss harvesting program. They illustrate the benefits of harvesting with specific equity ETFs. They then debate how often to check for losses and how to maintain asset allocations after realizing a loss. They also propose how to ge...

With modern administration measures, pension plans can be an executive's dream come true. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss the other type of retirement plans, defined benefit plans AKA pensions. They start with the history of pensions and the emergence of ERISA. By calculating the benefit based on age and income, employers can fund significantly more on a pre-tax basis than defined...

Retirement plans are really complex...maybe more complex than they should be? In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss a variety of the most common retirement plans. In exchange for substantial tax benefits, investors need to navigate a myriad of rules and restrictions. Aaron and Trishul discuss small business plans, including SEPs, SIMPLEs, and Solo 401k's. They then dig into bigger busine...

All the different flavors of financial advice. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron discuss the value of financial planning beyond just investments, such as taxes saved, utilizing retirement plans, and insurance analysis. They go over the pros and cons of working with an advisor who also sells the recommended insurance and investment products. This brings up the history of financial advice and the d...

Methodology on studies on the tangible and intangible benefits of working with a financial advisor. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul examine research that tries to quantify the value of financial advice. High client retention rates imply that clients are happy. But how do you measure the value of advice? Past studies may have overstated the behavior gap. But recent studies provide additional ins...

These differences between Financial Independence and Retiring Early always get missed. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron explore the benefits of Financial Independence unrelated to Retiring Early. Some people no longer work for money, some maintain their status quo, and others enjoy increased security and control. Even so, all these perks do not necessarily require Financial Independence. And the...

Direct Indexing is the ideal combination of tax-loss harvesting and low fees. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul focus on the things you can control when it comes to investing. Asset allocation, low fees, and managing taxes. Tax-loss harvesting when an investment is down can help you grow your net worth more effectively over market cycles. But it works best when you use many securities so that whe...

Some do outperform the market, but how many, and how do you find these people? In this episode, Trishul asks Aaron "How many people actually beat the market?" By focusing on the process and methodology of how they would even try to answer this question, they go through a variety of hypotheticals. Investment horizon matters. There are also investment risks, personal risks, and career risk...

It is easy for mortgages to be confusing. Learn how to compare the many choices available. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss mortgages and refinancing. With closing costs, points, interest rates, terms, Loan-To-Value, owner-occupied vs non-owner-occupied, recourse vs non-recourse, and fixed vs. ARMs, it is difficult to make a true apples-to-apples comparison across different mortgage opti...

The median household pays more taxes in Texas than in California. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron explore different state and local tax rates across the country. In addition to state income taxes, they look at property taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes on goods such as on gas, alcohol, and tobacco. While income taxes are consistently progressive in the states that actually charge an income t...

This ain't your ordinary cost basis. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul continue discussing cost basis. Aaron explains the math behind RSU and NQSO basis and why an ISO can have two different cost basis values. Trishul examines optimal gifting strategies. They also investigate how depreciation and upgrades can affect your home's cost basis, and how the step-up in basis on death works in...

Tax-loss harvesting first requires a good understanding of cost basis. In this episode, Trishul and Aaron discuss cost basis, which is typically the purchase price from which a taxable capital gain is calculated. But it's not that simple given all the extra adjustments you might need to make on your tax return. Commissions, fees, capital gain distributions, reinvested dividends, and stock spl...

In this episode, Aaron and Trishul go through President Biden's tax plan, which could be enacted with a Democrat-controlled Congress. Increasing income, corporate, and long-term capital gains taxes; eliminating the step-up in basis; and reducing estate tax exemptions may seem monumental, but likely, these changes will only affect about 1% of us. Even so, some of Biden's other proposals c...

In this episode, Trishul and Aaron are joined by Brittany Mollica, a financial advisor from North Carolina, to discuss credit scores. She explains how your credit score is calculated from all the information in your credit report. By understanding these components, you can identify which actions will help build your credit score when you're just getting off the ground. She then relates what y...

The simplest financial advice for someone in their 20's is to Save More. In this episode, Aaron and Trishul discuss the simplest financial advice they can give someone in their 20's. It is to Save More. They go deep on all the reasons why this simple advice is so fundamental to every other financial objective. They discuss the implicit benefits of spending less, maxing out your 401k, and...

In this episode, Trishul and Aaron start by comparing value versus momentum investing. They then go down the rabbit hole of why momentum strategies work (in theory). The behavior of humans wanting more and more has been around longer than the stock market. The Fear Of Missing Out and Keeping Up With The Joneses come from how we feel when making emotion-driven comparisons. And so, if you acknowledg...

In this episode, Trishul and Aaron look back at what happened with GameStop and use this crazy, quixotic story to examine different aspects of trading equities. They explain shorting stocks, margin calls, and the impact of large trading volumes. They then highlight how hedge funds, Reddit's WallStreetBets, and Robinhood created a whirlwind of chaos, with GameStop caught in the middle. In the...