The great thing about financial planning is that you get to work with all types of people on a variety of scenarios and our podcast provides us the forum to answer many of the questions you have.

This podcast is dedicated to listener questions, and we have a couple that deals with saving from two totally points of view.

The first one came to us from someone whose parents plan to start gifting them money now rather than leaving it in an inheritance. This is happening more and more, and it can really provide a significant financial lift for the children. So where do you start with investing this money?

If college isn’t funded already, that’s a great place to begin because you can grow the money tax-free as long as it’s spent on education. After that, maybe you have some goals that can be accelerated like upgrading the house or getting a second home. Believe it or not, Joel wouldn’t say just save it all even though that’s contrary to a lot of things that we say. If they’re gifting you that money, they want to see you spend some of it.

The second question we tackle takes a completely different angle on investing and it’s a good one. Someone asked us why debt is typically considered a negative even though he’s been able to save much more money thanks to the debt he’s taken on.

The key thing here is it all depends on what the debt is being used on. We don’t like people carrying a lot of debt for things that don’t go up in value because that interest you pay, you’ll never get back. Debt can provide you with financial opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise, but it’s a delicate position to navigate.

Make sure you check out the full podcast to hear everything Joel had to say about these two questions. If you have anything you’d like us to answer, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

1:31 – Mailbag question on gifting rather than inheritance  

4:42 – Mailbag question on good debt

6:59 – Money Map review