Ep 43: What Is A Bitcoin?
The X's & O's
If you tune into any financial news, you have probably heard about cryptocurrencies, the most popular one being Bitcoin. Many people are interested in this novel investment because of how well it has been doing lately and they don't want to miss out. However, as with any popular topic, it can be difficult to filter through noisy opinions and find factual information. Brent, Matthew, and Joshua discuss what Bitcoin is, how it's being used, and why it's difficult to be regulated.
The Hosts:
Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk
Transcript:
Brent Pasqua: We are back. Welcome in boys. Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook. I am so curious to see how this show’s going to go today with all the hype around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. I’m curious to see what your guys’ take is, and hopefully we’ll kind of tone it down, but I’m Brent Pasqua, founder of RPA Wealth Management, financial advisor, and I’m here with Matthew Theal, certified financial planner, and Joshua Winterswyk, certified financial planner. Before we start to dive into all this crypto hype, I have a question. Once you get your jab in your arm and it feels like it’s coming sooner than later, what’s the first thing you look most forward to doing?
Matthew Theal: I have a laundry list of things, but I think for me, the most exciting will be when I’m back in my seats at LAFC and watching the black and gold play. But a lot of the small things too, going out to dinner, just going to in public and having no fear about any of this. Oh, and taking my mask off.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, I’m the same. I really loved going to LAFC, which is our professional soccer team in downtown LA. And my wife really enjoys it too. We’ve already talked about how we’re really excited to go back. In general, we love going to sporting events too. That’s something that we miss, concerts, kind of that entertainment. So really looking forward to getting back to some of those things we love to do. What about you, Brent?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, for me, I think it’s … we were always so busy on the weekends. We always had stuff to do, whether it was Disneyland dates as a family, or the kids used to love going to Dave and Buster’s, and just some of the different places. We had outings all the time. And I can’t wait to get back to doing that stuff with them. Although, this time I think has taught everybody something, so many things. We don’t need to be doing stuff to enjoy each other as a family. We can settle down and be at home and really have fun, but I’m excited to get them back out and doing normal things once they open up.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, I think we all are. We need it.
Newspaper Boy: Extra, extra, read all about it.
Announcer: Let’s hear the latest hot takes on some recent news items.
Brent Pasqua: So let’s get into the hot take headlines. J&J has their COVID vaccine that’s basically being authorized to be used in the US. The FDA approved the single shot J&J COVID vaccine. The shot began shipping this week and it has been shown to be very effective, but not quite as good as the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine. Before I get your thoughts, the one difference between Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine and Johnson & Johnson is Pfizer and Moderna are mRNA vaccines and then the Johnson & Johnson’s a viral vector vaccine. What’s sort of your thought on the J&J’s vaccine?
Matthew Theal: I think it’s great news. More players in the market. Now as a consumer, you have three choices. Only in America would we have a deadly pandemic going on and you get three choices of what vaccine you get.
Joshua Winterswyk: There’s a menu.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So that’s great. The J&J should speed this process up. So go pick your poison and go get your jab.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. Just to piggyback on that, I think it’s awesome that we do have the menu, but also it gives us another tool in the tool bag. You get to choose, you have a couple different options now, and just another gun in the arsenal to hopefully getting rid of this awful virus and pandemic.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. It seems like to this point, you really haven’t had the choice. It’s either … if you’re going to go get your shot, you’re getting what they give you, but are we almost at the point where we can be selective on which one we want to choose?
Joshua Winterswyk: I hope so. I think that … again, it just makes it better for people to make a decision that’s best for them and their families. So I hope that is the case where we are to the point where we get to choose.
Matthew Theal: It sounds like we actually … since they redid the website, depending on where you go get stabbed at, you do get to pick now. So it lets you select from the dropdown on what shot you want. So that’s new for people, I think, who started getting vaccinated in the last couple of weeks.
Joshua Winterswyk: And I think it’s really important, only one dose. So like you said, I think just this process of getting more people vaccinated and then having an option for only a one dose vaccine is just going to put us into a better place going forward. So really excited for the Johnson & Johnson approval.
Brent Pasqua: And is Johnson & Johnson going in arms already?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, I believe so. I believe it started going in this week. They were shipping them out and then started probably yesterday or today.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s great.
Brent Pasqua: Hopefully at a vaccination site near you. So let’s get to the next headline. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, is getting into the ETF business. I mean this guy’s name just keeps coming up and I’m pretty tired of it, but I mean he’s actually very influential. So he’ll be lending his name and marketing machine to the soon to be launched VanEck Social Sentiment ETF. The ETF will track the next gen AI US sentiment leader index. Buzz will invest in the stocks that are receiving the most positive sentiment on the internet and social media. First of all, what index is this? What does this even mean? I’m trying to figure out what this means.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. So essentially what it is, it’s going to be … an algorithm uses AI learning, and whatever companies are getting mentioned a lot online, they go into this ETF. Kind of cool, I guess. But as for Portnoy, these are the things that happen at the top of the market when a guy who makes his name in sports gambling also puts his name behind an exchange traded fund.
Brent Pasqua: And I think it’s important to know that he’s just the hype man behind this ETF. And the basically, in my eyes, this ETF is just basically following and tracking social media hype of these stocks. I don’t know how you guys feel about the strategy.
Matthew Theal: Didn’t he already, or didn’t somebody already try to do this?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, there was another one just like it that had a similar algorithm that was launched in 2016. I think it was actually … the ETF was called BUZ, and the new one is BUZZ, and it folded, I think 2019.
Joshua Winterswyk: Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that.
Matthew Theal: So with VanEck, is their Bitcoin potentially going to be a part of this? Are these the Von Waco guys or what’s happening?
Joshua Winterswyk: No, no, this is completely different, I think. VanEck and the twins are different.
Matthew Theal: Got it. Yeah.
Joshua Winterswyk: So when you look at something like this, is this going to eventually create Bitcoin? Because it seems like he’s been on that kind of Bitcoin push as well?
Matthew Theal: No, it’s not. No, this is just where you … you can’t get Bitcoin in one of these.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, this is just going to be a bunch of social media hype stocks, and they’re going to track them. And I think that, what it rebalances once a month? They recalculate the highest hype stocks and they rebalance the ETF. So I guess instead of going out and buying the most hype stocks, you can buy a bunch of them in this ETF. That’s their play.
Matthew Theal: I wonder if some hedge fund is going to game the system and get long some crazy stock and then pay some Russians or Chinese to create a bunch of fake accounts and hype the stock on social media so that it gets included in this and then the stock goes higher.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. I mean, I could see, that with all the following that they have.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, that’s be kind of crazy.
Brent Pasqua: So basically as a summary, this big social media guy with Barstool Sports is creating a fund with other people that are going to invest in social media companies and they’re trying to hype it.
Matthew Theal: Companies that are getting hyped on social media, not social media companies.
Brent Pasqua: Got it.
Joshua Winterswyk: So other companies like Microsoft, Amazon, those companies can be in this ETF exchange traded fund if they’re very popular and being hyped through social media platforms.
Matthew Theal: So if everyone’s Tweeting or Instagramming or Facebooking and about Peloton, Peloton will probably get added to this.
Joshua Winterswyk: Right. So they’re building off of the GameStop situation then.
Matthew Theal: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Joshua Winterswyk: Makes sense.
Announcer: Now that we warmed up with some hot picks, let’s go to the retirement planning corner and see what’s on the docket for today.
Brent Pasqua: All right, so let’s get into the retirement planning corner. If we didn’t talk about hype enough, let’s get into another one. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. It was created in 2009 by an anonymous online personality that goes by Satoshi Nakamoto. Since it was created, it has risen in price from being worth a couple of dollars, to today’s price of 49,000. What is a cryptocurrency, just on a basic level?
Matthew Theal: Yeah. Before we get to that, let me hijack the show and just say we’re not Bitcoin experts. So I’m sure someone’s listening today who’s a big crypto bull, they know a lot about this. This isn’t that kind of show. This is more just a general introduction. And then also full disclosure, I, Matthew Theal owns some Bitcoin, and Joshua, I believe you do too. Correct?
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s correct.
Matthew Theal: Brent, do you?
Brent Pasqua: Yes.
Matthew Theal: Okay. So we all have Bitcoin that we bought years ago. Okay, so a cryptocurrency is essentially a digital currency that you create a computer program and computers mine these coins, and then you go to an exchange and you could trade these coins on an exchange.
Brent Pasqua: So instead of a dollar bill, it’s basically a file on your computer.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, it’s a file or kind of like a long serial number.
Brent Pasqua: Perfect. So why … a lot of this hype has happened throughout 2009 and since then. And then it feels like it comes and goes and it gets hyped up again, and it goes up. And then what was it, in 2017 or ’18, it got really high and then it completely collapsed for two years and you really didn’t hear much about it, but then it’s making this resurgence again. What’s creating that?
Matthew Theal: Well, I’ll take the first stab at it. There’s just a lot of money out there. There’s a lot of money in people’s accounts. We’ve talked about on a few shows, and they need places to put it. And Bitcoin is an asset that is highly volatile and it goes up and down a lot, so it’s a good spot to gamble with your stimulus check.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, and I think the appeal for it now … we’ve talked about it in a couple of episodes before, but savings rates are up. The stimulus are being handed out. Money is very easy and people are looking for another speculative investment, and the price of Bitcoin is driven by supply and demand. So there’s more demand for Bitcoin now with this easy money and it’s driving the price up. And I think it has just the allure of making a bunch of money by buying Bitcoin because it is so volatile. So we all want to be a part of this rapid increase in value to make a quick buck.
Brent Pasqua: Are people going to be able to eventually purchase products online or in other capacities with Bitcoin?
Joshua Winterswyk: It’s already being used in certain industries to be used as an actual currency, but I don’t think it’s adapting as fast as a lot of people imagined it to be.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, so from understanding … and again, it’d be great to have a cryptocurrency expert on here, but the Bitcoin payment Network is a little slow. I know they’ve tried to change that, but they introduced some lightning network on top of Bitcoin. There’s other cryptocurrencies that have been created since Bitcoin was created in 2009 that are much better at doing payments than Bitcoin is.
Joshua Winterswyk: And essentially what I’ve seen is it’s less of an actual currency for payment and more just a store of value.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, it’s digital gold. And that’s what a lot of people say, it’s the digital, virtual gold in your investment portfolio.
Brent Pasqua: So why hasn’t the FCC approved this yet?
Matthew Theal: I’m not sure. My guess is it has to do a little bit with politics, it probably has to do a little bit with criminal activity, but then it also probably has to do with volatility. They’re trying to protect investors.
Joshua Winterswyk: And also just that it’s decentralized. I mean how are they going to get around that? There’s not just one hub that’s holding all of the ledger for Bitcoin. I mean that’s one of the selling points of Bitcoin, is that the users own the platform. So there’s not one ownership of this currency. And so I think that’s probably another speed bump of the FCC actually approving it.
Brent Pasqua: Is the IRS having challenges on how people pay taxes on crypto, or has that already been figured out?
Matthew Theal: I think it depends what kind of exchange you’re at. For instance, if you’re at a U.S. onshore exchange, like a Coinbase or a Robinhood or a CashApp, I believe that you will be getting tax forms if you buy and sell Bitcoin. But if you go to a different exchange overseas, and you kind of just move it on your computer and then move it off, I don’t really see how they can track that. I don’t know. Could I be wrong, Josh?
Joshua Winterswyk: No, I think you’re right there. I think it is becoming some of the bigger exchanges. And when Matt says exchanges, just like we have our stocks and we exchange them on the sock exchange, there’s exchanges for the Bitcoin that make it easier for the user to actually buy and sell the Bitcoin. So from these bigger institutions that are providing that service for the exchange of Bitcoin, those tax forms are now being generated and you can report your earnings and losses to them. But then like Matt had also mentioned, if you’re storing them in your own wallet, you’re having to track all of that data. And now that’s up to you whether you’re going to actually report that increase and decrease of value.
Brent Pasqua: I understand that people have all the extra money and they’re wanting to do something with it, and cryptocurrencies seem like a new fad for people to put their money. But I’m curious to see … we have a lot of just normal people reaching out about cryptocurrency, and my question is what is creating it? Is it the Elon Musk Tweeting about it? Is it the mainstream news media talking about it more? Where is really the hype also coming from that’s creating people to just inquire more about it?
Matthew Theal: Well, it’s gone up, so it’s FOMO. You have FOMO, you have fear of missing out. You see it, you go on CNN, you go on CNBC. Oh, Bitcoin’s at 50,000 today. Let’s bring on this Bitcoin hedge fund manager who’s made billions trading Bitcoin. You’re like, “Ah, that could have been me.” And it’s the same thing going on with vaccines right now. Your buddy gets a vaccine and he’s at the bar with no mask on having a good time and then you’re like, “Dude, I want my vaccine.”
Joshua Winterswyk: Me too.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So it’s just FOMO. Everyone has a fear of missing out.
Joshua Winterswyk: And I think it’s a combination of all of those variables. I mean, you’re on social media, it’s there. Your buddy’s posting that he made a bunch of money buying Bitcoin, it’s there. Like Matt said, CNBC, you turn it on, and now it’s the S&P 500 flashing at the bottom, the Dow Jones Industrial flashing at the bottom, and now Bitcoin’s price is flashing at the bottom. So it’s almost like, “Why am I missing out on this?”
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. I bought Bitcoin a while back, and I don’t even remember what my password is. I don’t even know if I can’t even log into it. The question also that I have is though, why is there so many cryptos? Why don’t they just narrow it down to a couple, versus having … how many are there?
Matthew Theal: Because it’s open source and anybody can create them. You could go online right now and get the code base for Bitcoin, and if you know how to code and understand the language, which I don’t, I don’t think any of you guys do either, you could create your own cryptocurrency. And that’s what a lot of people have done, like that Dogecoin or the Doggycoin or whatever the one that Elon Musk was Tweeting about, well literally that thing was started as a joke. Those people copied the code base of another cryptocurrency and put a dog logo on it, and then all these people started buying it.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, and they’re trying to create the idea of cryptocurrency with other applications too. So using … not to get too detailed, but smart contracts and other applications for the coin. So creating a new coin and tying it to a different, more specific or niche application. So again, there’s more demand for it and people blow up the price. So that’s kind of to answer your question.
Matthew Theal: We could probably pay a developer overseas to take the code base for Bitcoin or for Ethereum or any of the other popular cryptocurrencies, duplicate it for us, rename it, and we could have RPA crypto, and we could have our clients only pay us in our RPA coins. So then they’d have to go to some exchange and buy it. That’s how easy it is.
Brent Pasqua: So is it fair to say that if Bitcoin is like gold, all these other cryptos are like other precious metals from back in the day? You have silver and you had all different types of precious metals. Is that how this is kind of developing?
Matthew Theal: Kind of, but I think it’s more like the dot com days where there’s maybe one or two Amazons and then everything else is a pets.com or a … what was the grocery store delivery thing that never got started? All those failed dot coms.
Joshua Winterswyk: Was it Jet? What that what it was?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, Jets, and all that stuff that failed in the late nineties, early two thousands.
Joshua Winterswyk: There’s only going to be a couple of winners.
Brent Pasqua: So what makes Bitcoin unique?
Joshua Winterswyk: First to market.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, first to market. From a global perspective, why people like it, it’s the technology underneath it. So it has that blockchain that you hear a lot about, which is actually really interesting. And the way you actually get Bitcoin is you have a computer mine it so the computers race to solve problems, and that’s what they call proof of work. So both of those are pretty unique.
Joshua Winterswyk: And I think that the blockchain technology is something that is very interesting, that idea. And if you haven’t researched it, just the idea of having a digital database that’s user driven, I think is probably here to stay and can provide a lot of solutions in a lot of different industries, especially for business. So I do believe that that’s probably here to stay.
Brent Pasqua: So you think cryptocurrency is here to stay though?
Matthew Theal: I don’t know. I mean there’s going to be a lot of them that fail, there’s going to be probably a couple of winners, but I think that Bitcoin is kind of becoming the digital gold and I think there’s a lot of people who have different reasons is why they like Bitcoin. And I think a lot of them are going to end up being wrong on those reasons.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, and I do believe the background of it, so the blockchain technology is here to say. I agree with Matt that there’s probably going to just be a few winners. And right now, as an investment or storage of value, it is completely speculative. And that price is driven only by supply and demand.
Brent Pasqua: So for the people who are really bullish on Bitcoin, what are they excited about?
Matthew Theal: So they like this whole decentralization aspect that Josh was talking about. There’s no central authority, they could be less reliant on the government or the US government, and they’re mad about fed money printing. And that’s the thing with Bitcoin, I think that … I feel like there’s supposed to be 24,000 Bitcoins. I don’t know how … do you remember, Josh, how many are in circulation?
Joshua Winterswyk: I don’t remember the number, but you’re right. I mean there’s only a certain amounts of Bitcoins.
Brent Pasqua: Just based on my elementary knowledge of decentralization though, it would seem like it would be hard to do that when you have so many different cryptos. If you had one or two, maybe, but it seems like it makes it even harder when you have a thousand cryptos and everybody could just create their own if they wanted.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. And I think that’s just kind of favoring that idea of there’s only going to be a couple winners. How many can you actually hold? And if you’re exchanging them, you probably want some uniformity to the idea and not a million different types of cryptocurrency.
Brent Pasqua: You think one of the challenges with cryptocurrencies was the way it came to market over the last 10 years? Because every time I’ve come across people, either in some sort of social media capacity I see crypto, it felt very prime America, it felt very scam-ish. It felt very … just not done correctly. Do you get that vibe also?
Joshua Winterswyk: A little bit, yeah. And think because it is decentralized and it’s user driven, so there was no organization that’s completely backing it. So it was built on the internet and through message boards. There was nothing behind it. So it does kind of feel that way, but I think there is some legitimacy that’s evolved. I mean the Coinbase platform, I think is the leader now of the exchanges. And you’re seeing even more bigger institutions kind of backing the idea. So it is becoming a little bit more legit to the consumer.
Brent Pasqua: Should listeners really start to invest their portfolio in Bitcoin? And the second part of that is what about their retirement accounts?
Matthew Theal: No, absolutely not, but let’s break this down. First of all, if you want to speculate on Bitcoin, any other cryptocurrency, take your net worth … so say you have a $2-$3 million net worth, put 1% of your money in it. So 1% of 2 million, maybe throw a couple thousand dollars at it. Sure, it’s not going to hurt you, but don’t go betting your life savings on it. As for retirement accounts, there are some self-directed IRAs that let you put Bitcoin in there, but again, I wouldn’t be doing that. Stick with the tried and trued strategies, stocks and bonds. You don’t know what’s going to happen with Bitcoin. It literally can get shut down at any time. So you want to bet your retirement on that? That’s probably not a good idea.
Joshua Winterswyk: You have to be willing for it to go to zero, if you’re going to put your money in it.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, absolutely.
Brent Pasqua: So as far as investing in it, put some money into it that you’re okay losing with the expectation that it can go up, but didn’t you kind of already miss the bus on Bitcoin if you were trying to get rich off of it?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, you did. I mean it’s over. It already happened. It went from this $10 in 2010. It’s $50,000 now. You missed it, man. It’s over. Sorry. If it goes to a hundred thousand, you doubled your money. You could probably double your money in Apple stock between now and the time it will take Bitcoin to get to a hundred thousand.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s a good point.
Matthew Theal: And here’s the other point though, too, if you’re sitting here and you’re listening to us on the podcast, I know we have users of all different ages or some that are really good on computers, there’s some that aren’t. If you struggle shooting out emails, you’re struggling with your iPhone, Bitcoin’s probably not the investment for you, because you have to do that on the computer, you have to use an app, you got to download it to your iPhone, you have to set up all these passwords. And there’s a lot of risk that if you don’t do it correctly, that little Bitcoin you bought is going to get stolen by somebody else.
Brent Pasqua: And that’s another IRS statement that has to get filed when you go get your tax returns completed.
Matthew Theal: Yes. It will be completely separate from your brokerage account statement, from your 1099R. Here’s another one, and I believe it’s taxed at the collectible tax rate.
Brent Pasqua: And what I want to know too is how much do tax advisors or CPAs charge to file that extra form? Because a lot of things are based on form, right? So how much is that increasing your tax bill?
Joshua Winterswyk: Absolutely. And factoring that into your overall rate of return. So the cost of taxes, the cost of filing it forms. To be prepared, if you are out there thinking about purchasing it, you might as well do it the right way and file the right tax forms and report it the right way so it doesn’t cause you more trouble than it’s worth.
Brent Pasqua: Was that computer challenged directed at me because I don’t know how to log into my –
Matthew Theal: No. You let me go, but I’m just saying if you’re struggling to figure out the iPhone, you’re probably not going to figure out Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. This is probably not for you. And that’s okay.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, it’s a multi-factor log-in and there’s challenges that come with it. So if people did want to purchase it, as of right now, from an advisory standpoint, advisors can not put this in client’s retirement accounts. Is that correct?
Matthew Theal: Yeah. I’m sure there’s some advisors who do it or who try to help their clients, but yeah, technically within the law, yeah, you can’t.
Brent Pasqua: So major custodians, like Schwab or Fidelity, whoever, you’re not able to purchase on those custodians?
Matthew Theal: No. So to purchase Bitcoin, you have to go to Coinbase. So that’s a US registered exchange, so they do comply with the IRS. You have to go to Robinhood, the popular stock trading app. Again, a US regulated exchange, will cooperate with the IRS. One thing on Robinhood though, too, is a lot of people say, actually when you buy Bitcoin on Robinhood, you don’t actually own Bitcoin. Another little error on Robinhood’s part. And then also the other one is … the CashApp, I’ve never played on the CashApp. I’ve seen Robinhood, I’ve seen Coinbase, but I know you can buy Bitcoin on the CashApp.
Joshua Winterswyk: I haven’t either. Have no experience with CashApp.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So that’s another one, but again, a US regulated money institution. Again, will be sending your information to the IRS.
Brent Pasqua: Any parting thoughts on Bitcoin?
Joshua Winterswyk: No, just do your research, if you are interested. Do your research and making sure that a lot of those other financial planning tips that we talk about all the time are covered first. This is going to be a speculative investment. So make sure you’re taking your correct planning tips. Do your research before you press the button to buy any Bitcoin.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, my final thought is if you want to experiment, go for it. Don’t use a ton of your money. 1-2% of your net worth is fine, but you missed it. Don’t expect the outsized returns that a lot of these other people have had. And then finally, don’t expect to get returns that look that different than the S&P500. It’s probably going to attract the S&P500. In March when the economy was collapsing last year, Bitcoin was collapsing as well. As the stock market recovered, Bitcoin’s recovery happened. So it’s basically trading kind of like a 10X S&P500. So ask yourself, if you can’t take the swings of the S&P500, you’re probably not going to be able to take the swings of Bitcoin.
Brent Pasqua: So I guess in summary for me, I think it’s you can’t buy this in your 401k plan, you’re not buying this in your normal traditional IRA, you’re not buying it through your major brokerage account that tell at a major custodian. You’re going off onto a side custodian to purchase some cryptocurrencies, and then when you sell it, you got to file other tax return documents. And so there’s a process, but you’re not accessing or investing in this 401k or major retirement accounts.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s correct.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, that’s correct. You’re basically taking a little bit of your money and most likely going to create yourself a big headache. So if you didn’t go to Vegas this summer because of the pandemic and you have that extra money sitting in your bank account and you want to invest into something and take a stab at something, I guess if you enjoy the thrill of some crypto or just wanting to be involved in it, I guess, this is an option.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Yep, that’s well put.
Announcer: It’s time for RPA recommends.
Brent Pasqua: All right, let’s get into the final segment, RPA recommends. I will start this time. Matt, you look ready to go. Let’s go.
Matthew Theal: Okay. So I will recommend a documentary. Do you guys know the singer Billie Eilish?
Joshua Winterswyk: I do.
Matthew Theal: So she has a documentary on Apple TV+. if you buy an Apple device, you get Apple TV+ for free. So I’m sure most people have new iPhones. You just basically have to go through the prompts on your iPhone and –
Joshua Winterswyk: Wait, hold on. Brent, do you know who Billie Eilish is?
Brent Pasqua: No. I just looked just completely blank.
Joshua Winterswyk: I looked at your face and I wanted to make sure you answered that question.
Matthew Theal: I don’t remember what Grammys it was, but she basically cleaned up and won every award as best new artist. When she burst on the scene, she was 17 years old. She’s a really good singer. Her brother is her songwriter. It’s a really nice family story. They have a documentary up about how her, her brother, and their family kind of came to be. And they’re a local family from Los Angeles. So really good documentary. I highly recommended if you like her.
Joshua Winterswyk: Which platform is it on?
Matthew Theal: Apple TV+.
Joshua Winterswyk: Oh yeah, that’s what you said. Okay, I haven’t watched it. I’ll have to check that out. I imagine my wife will like that too. She likes Billie Eilish. I’ll I’ll go next. I’m going to recommend an app. So last time I was talking about spending money. This time I’m going to help clients save a little money. An app on in the app store called Flipp, and what it does is it takes all of those paper ads that grocery stores send you and it puts it into an app for you. And then what’s really cool about it is that you can search for a specific item and it’ll tell you where location wise and which grocery store has that item for the cheapest dollar amount.
Joshua Winterswyk: So I had showed Brent before our podcast, you search ground beef and it’ll search all of the grocery stores near you to showing you where’s the cheapest ground beef to go buy. So instead of digging through the ads to looking like where the savings are at, it all puts it into one app for you, and then you can also search it for the best deals. So pretty cool. I just downloaded it a few weeks ago and thought it was a pretty good tool to save some money at the grocery store.
Brent Pasqua: You know, I get a sense that the reason you’re recommending something for people to save money is because after last show’s RPA recommends, when we talked about who the listeners would enjoy better, the ones that you guys were telling to spend money, or me telling them to save money, the feedback came hands down with my recommendation, one, by saving people money –
Joshua Winterswyk: Wait, excuse me. What was your sample size though?
Brent Pasqua: We don’t need to assess the sample size. All that matters is that I won. I still want to –
Joshua Winterswyk: Maybe I piggy backed on the savings, okay? So maybe I’ll go back and forth, spend money, save money.
Brent Pasqua: There you go. Well, they appreciate saving money and I’m going to look into that, because I like saving money and I’m not really … do people even use coupons at the stores still?
Joshua Winterswyk: I don’t know. I don’t. I know a lot of them are digital, but then also I just don’t like getting all the paper in the mail and digging through. Now it’s all on your phone, which is cool. I didn’t even know that that existed.
Brent Pasqua: That’s great.
Matthew Theal: Here’s the thing about spending money, and we’re talking about Bitcoin. Instead of buying Bitcoin for a couple thousand dollars, go spend the money on something nice and go enjoy yourself. We’re coming out of a pandemic.
Joshua Winterswyk: Not everybody feels that way, man. They maybe want to buy some Bitcoin.
Matthew Theal: Your money will be better spent on an experience than buying Bitcoin.
Brent Pasqua: Just remember, Bitcoin doesn’t actually have a coin.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s true.
Brent Pasqua: It’s a digital coin.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Even though they have the little logo for the coin, there’s no actual coin. I want the coin. So my RPA recommend will be Thrive Market. Thrive Market is sort of like a Costco though for maybe healthier foods in more of a grocery store setting. So you could order on there every … they have tons and tons of grocery products, but if you’re going to the grocery store and just buying your main stuff, but also maybe you want to sprinkle in some other products that you don’t want to go through the store and just try to find, it’s a great way to have all your other stuff sort of just delivered to you.
Brent Pasqua: You could set up regular deliveries or you can order it just as a need basis. We order stuff that’s sometimes hard to find in the stores, or sometimes it just saves time when you go to the grocery store, or if we use a lot of that product a lot … we use a lot of chicken bone broth and things like that. I don’t want to put eight of those in my cart when I go to the grocery store, I’d rather just have it delivered. It’s just a very easy way to order food. So we’ve found it to be very useful.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s awesome. Is it a subscription or you could just go on there and order anytime?
Brent Pasqua: It’s kind of like Costco, where you have a yearly membership. I think it was $60. And then from there you just order everything you need for the year whenever you want it.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, they just charged me. I’ve only ordered from it once though, but yeah, it’s like a Whole Foods for kind of pre-packaged goods, but a little bit cheaper than Whole Foods. So yeah, good recommendation.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, I like doing the large quantity stuff from there. I don’t have to go look like I’m hoarding food at the grocery store. All right. So as we finish up, as advisors, we truly do love helping people and we’re so thankful for you listening. That’s why we do it. If you’d like to schedule an appointment with us, please go to RPAwealth.com. You can select your favorite advisor or podcaster in the room, schedule with them. You can also download our ebook from our website. If you’d like the show notes, please go to retirementplanplaybook.com. Thank you for listening to Retirement Plan Playbook. We’ll get back with you next time.
Matthew Theal: Thank you.
Joshua Winterswyk: Thank you.
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