Motley Fool Answers Clears Out the Mailbag

In this episode of Motley Fool Answers, Alison Southwick, Robert Brokamp, and special guest Ross Anderson from Motley Fool Wealth Management tackle listener queries on a range of subjects such as whether it's better to buy or lease a car, how to invest in privately held companies, transferring a Coverdell account, and a bunch of 401(k) details.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Nov. 7, 2017.

Alison Southwick: This is Motley Fool Answers. I'm Alison Southwick and I'm joined, as always, by Robert Brokamp, personal finance expert here at The Motley Fool.

Robert Brokamp: Always a pleasure, Alison!

Southwick: Well, it's an especially special pleasure today because it's an all-mailbag episode, and joining us is special guest Ross Anderson from Motley Fool Wealth Management.

Ross Anderson: Thank you, guys! I appreciate you having me.

Southwick: And, of course, as always, it's a sister company of The Motley Fool that you work at.

Anderson: Yes.

Southwick: And you are a financial planner and you have some initials after your name and all that stuff, so that's why you have the credentials to be here.

Anderson: Correct. Well, something like that. But really just that you guys asked me. But, yes, I am a certified financial planner, as is Bro.

Brokamp: It's true.

Southwick: Guilty as charged. Well, today we're going to be answering your questions about buying versus leasing a car, options for investing in privately held companies, transferring Coverdell accounts, and lots of 401(k) stuff. All that and more on this week's episode of Motley Fool Answers.

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Southwick: Let's just get into it, shall we?

Brokamp: Let's do it!

Southwick: Our first question comes from Twitter, and, of course, if you are on Twitter, you can follow us @AnswersPodcast. You can also follow Bro and myself. Ross, are you on Twitter?

Anderson: Not really. I have one, but I don't really do it.

Southwick: All right, so don't follow him.

Anderson: Yeah. Mine's uninteresting.

Southwick: There you go, but that's all the advertising they needed to stay away. The first question comes from Loren. Loren writes, "If you're already meeting the max on your 401(k), can you [also] max out an IRA or Roth, [but one that] isn't through your company?"

Brokamp: Yes, Loren, you can always max out an IRA regardless of how much you contribute to your 401(k). However, your 401(k) can affect the type of IRA you choose. Basically, there is the deductible traditional IRA, the nondeductible traditional IRA, and the Roth IRA.

Whether you can deduct contributions to a traditional depends on whether you're covered by a plan at work, or if you're married, or your spouse is. Even if you're not participating, it just depends on whether you're covered. If you're covered and you make over a certain amount of money (if you have a high or modified adjusted gross income), you can't deduct a contribution. Now, for the Roth, whether you have a 401(k) at work or not doesn't affect whether you can contribute to a Roth, but the Roth also has limits based on your modified adjusted gross income.

Now what if you are close to those limits? What's one way to lower your modified adjusted gross income? Contribute to your traditional 401(k). In that way, there is a bit of an interaction, so if you're close to that limit, put more in your traditional 401(k) and you might then be able to contribute either to the Roth or a deductible traditional IRA. But the answer to your question is you can always contribute to an IRA regardless of what's going on with your 401(k). It just depends on the type you can contribute to.

Anderson: The one thing I would add for Loren is not to ignore just a regular taxable brokerage account. Sometimes I think we get so focused on trying to find these fun pathways into IRAs that you forget that you can just buy stocks and invest directly in a taxable account. That word "taxable" tends to scare people because it sounds like you're going to pay a lot of taxes but, really, you get to decide when you buy and sell things, so you get to decide when the taxes are being paid.

Brokamp: Right. If you buy a stock that doesn't pay a dividend and you hold on to it for 20 years...

Anderson: Exactly.

Brokamp: ... you don't pay any taxes until you sell it, and then you pay it at capital gains rates, which, at least according to current law, are lower than ordinary income rates.

Anderson: Exactly.

Southwick: The next question is from Austin. Oh, Austin has two questions. "I recently moved to a new company and had a decent-sized 401(k) with my last company. What are the pros and cons of consolidating that 401(k) with the one at my new company?"

Anderson: You've got a couple of options with an old 401(k), and certainly good for you for thinking about it. If you roll it into your new 401(k), the main pro to doing that is that you keep the ERISA protection. So 401(k)s are under a law called ERISA. It's a Department of Labor law. It offers you some additional benefits if there was ever a bankruptcy (which we certainly hope there won't be), but that's the benefit to ERISA. Your downside on 401(k)s is normally limited investment choices depending on the size of the company and how much purchasing power they have at the plan level. You can have costs that are little higher.

Your other choice, really, is to roll that into an IRA. Normally, that opens up your investment choices. A lot of the folks that we work with at Motley Fool Wealth Management are moving 401(k)s into IRAs. That's really a lot of the transactions that we see, which would give you a lot more flexibility on how you invest moving forward.

Southwick: The next question is, "I have a Roth IRA and another account, but I'm wondering if there is some rule about when to stop contributing to a Roth and start contributing to a traditional IRA. I'm 29 and last year my wife and I jointly fell into the 25% tax bracket."

Anderson: I think this is a tougher question because to answer this accurately you have to make a couple of different predictions. If you knew what your tax rate was going to be in the future vs. what it is today, you could very accurately figure out which one is the best bucket. But tax rates move, and then the other thing that's going to change a lot over time is your personal income.

At 29, most of the time you're still in an accelerating income phase. Social Security data says that income accelerates until mid- to late 40s in many cases. I would expect that you're still in a lower tax bracket today than you will be over the next, let's call it, 15 to 20 years. [This] would have me show a little bit of preference toward the Roth, at least currently, just thinking that your income is going to go up and you'll appreciate the deduction for pretax contributions later down the line.

Brokamp: The only other thing I'd say is that if there's any chance that you'll want the money before retirement age, 59 1/2, the Roth offers more flexibility, but I'm always hesitant to say that because ideally you should just leave it alone until you retire.

Anderson: Correct.

Southwick: The next question comes from Jerry. "For many years I've been consistently contributing to Coverdell accounts for each of my kids. The good news is that all three accounts have made money; however, the fact that the holdings in the accounts are not identical has led to three accounts with wildly different values. I understand that money left over in a Coverdell can be reassigned to another family member. My question is can that transfer happen before one has finished or started withdrawing on it?"

Brokamp: A good question, Jerry, and good for you for saving for college. Just so we all know, the Coverdell is an education account. If used for qualified higher education expenses or elementary and secondary school expenses, the money comes out tax free, so it's a great account to cover those expenses. Also, unlike the 529 account, you can buy individual stocks, so they tend to be more attractive to the typical Motley Fool listener or reader. That said, the contribution limits are pretty low [just $2,000], but certainly something to consider for some of that money.

The good news, Jerry, is you can move the money between the accounts of relatives [like siblings or spouses] at any point as long as the person receiving the money is not yet 30 years old. If you want to equal out the accounts now, you can do that.

There are technically two ways to do it: one is a rollover and one is a transfer. Go with the transfer because you can do unlimited transfers. You can only do one rollover a year, but you can start doing that now if you want to do that.

Southwick: But as a 529, though, there's no age limit on getting those benefits, right? But with a Coverdell, it has to be younger than 30. Is that correct? Am I understanding you correctly?

Brokamp: Yes, in fact you normally have to open and contribute to the account before you're 18, I think, and you have to use the money by age 30.

Anderson: It sounds ageist.

Brokamp: Yes, but the transferring part you can do to someone who is not yet 30. The 529 doesn't have the age limits, it has much higher contribution limits, and the good news is you can do both, actually, if you can save that much for college.

Southwick: The next question comes from Matt. Matt writes: "I'm getting married in March of 2018." Aw! Congratulations!

Brokamp: That's nice.

Southwick: "While I have no real room for other expenses, my car's A/C unit broke down. Just my luck. It will cost $1,000 to fix. Instead of getting it fixed, I'm looking for a new car. The trade-in value of my car is about $8,500. I have a deal in place where I put $4,500 of that down on a lease of a new car and then get $4,000 cash back. My monthly payments would be $195 a month. I'm thinking of taking this deal due to the fact that I'm getting $4,000 cash back which I could use toward my wedding.

"I'm also thinking of investing a portion of this cash in some stocks [probably about $1,000]. However, I'm worried about leasing vs. buying. Help! Is leasing a dumb idea?"

Brokamp: A lot going on in that question, Ross.

Anderson: There's a lot of moving parts. I actually like that there's a lot of moving parts, because I think that's what's making this a harder decision for Matt. (Let's isolate his questions and take a look at them.)

The first one we'll look at is the car. It never is fun to have $1,000 unexpected expense, but it certainly does happen. So on the car loan, what you're talking about doing is taking an asset of yours that has about $8,500 of value. You're going to give half of that away, or a little more than half of that away as a down payment. Then you're going to take on a payment of $195 a month (which I'm assuming is like a 36-month lease) so you're going to put out another $7,000 of cash on driving your vehicle.

It sounds like you're doing that to get over a relatively short-term fix. Five months of payments is the same $1,000 that you're facing on the air conditioner right now, so to me that feels like you're robbing Peter to pay Paul in this case, and it kind of scares me.

The other component of that, though, is [whether] in general leasing is a bad idea and I don't think that it is, because a car is a depreciating asset. You're kind of treating it like an expense and you're just renting it for a longer period of time. In general, I don't think leasing is a dumb idea, but with this situation, Matt, [dealing with] the short-term pain you're looking at this way I think is going to lead you to a lot longer cash flow drain.

It sounds like dealing with a cash flow situation. Getting yourself to a spot where you can put together an emergency fund and absorb that $1,000 fix, or the future things like that that come up, is going to be most important. I would try to look for some other places to skimp and not give away the $8,500 asset that you have, and try and get the car fixed.

Brokamp: It sounds like he's just pressed for cash -- he's got this wedding coming up -- but to put a $1,000 repair on the car, as opposed to doing this other thing where he gets some money back [is] a short-term fix. If he can find some other way to cover those costs, that's his better bet.

Anderson: Even if he invests $1,000 of it you're taking an asset, now, of $8,500. You're going to spend all of that except for $1,000. A thousand dollars invested is a great thing, but it's not going to make back the money that you have today in value very quickly.

Southwick: The next question comes from Francis. "My question is in regard to market corrections. I remember Bro mentioned that on average we see corrections of X% every X years. What were those percentages, again? 10%, 20%? Something like that? I'm a long-term investor and I mostly buy index ETFs. The reason I ask is that I'd like to take those opportunities to add on to my positions as they come. I'm thinking of coding up a simple Python script that would email me if [there are] any dips of X% below recent highs on any of the stocks' ETFs on my watchlist."

Brokamp: First, let me give out some of the stats, and who knows which stats you listen to, because I use these stats all the time. I'll pull some from our good friend Morgan Housel, who has been on some recent episodes. He looked at the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1928 to 2013 and found out that you can expect a 10% decline about once a year, a 20% decline on average every four years, and then something more than 30% every 10 years.

The problem is, it's not very consistent. In fact, we just got through a period. Oct. 23rd was the longest streak that the S&P 500 went through without even a 3% decline. In terms of you trying to create a program -- by the way, that's clever. I love the idea. But if you are trying to create a program where you are going to try to buy on the dip, that says to me that you're going to have cash on the side waiting for that dip, and that dip may not come once a year. It might take three years. You're waiting for that 10% dip, but you've missed out on a 20% run-up. I don't think that's generally a good idea. I think if you've got the money and you don't need it in the next three to five years, just invest it.

Anderson: Because you probably have been accumulating cash since February of 2016, at this point.

Brokamp: If you've been waiting for a dip.

Anderson: And you've missed out on a lot of gains waiting for that. The president of Motley Fool Wealth Management, Nick Crow, says he thinks a lot more money has been lost waiting for corrections than actually in them. I would generally just try and get invested and hang on.

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Southwick: The next question comes from PT. "I am a 30-year-old investor and I contribute to an IRA and a retirement plan at work. Because of a life crisis incident, I have $14,000 in credit card debt. Should I reduce the contributions to my retirement accounts in order to pay down the debt? I should add I've been savvy about swirling around the credit card debt, keeping APR pretty low."

Anderson: All right, PT. First of all, good job trying to keep that APR pretty low. Pretty low is always relative on credit cards. It could be anywhere from let's call it 6-7% to 13-14% [as the] low range. I think I would reduce your contributions in order to do that. I wouldn't give up a match, because if you're getting a 50% match on your 401(k) contributions...

Brokamp: I agree.

Anderson: ... it's unlikely that you're paying more than 50% in terms of the interest on your debt, but I think getting through that period and then going back to your full contribution is important, so I would see you reduce it to a level that you're not giving up the match, at least in the short term.

Brokamp: And I hope whatever the life crisis incident was has resolved itself and everything's going well.

Anderson: Correct.

Southwick: Our next question comes from Tony. "I'm in my late 50s and have lived most of my working life as a W-2 employee. As I begin to think about retirement, I was wondering how the government would take their cut. How do you go about paying taxes on the distribution from an IRA? Do you pay it all the following April, or does the IRS want their money quarterly? And what about the portion of Social Security that is taxable? Do they take it out of the money they send you or are you left to pay it with your tax return?"

Brokamp: This is one of those things that you have to get used to once you go from working to being a retiree, because if you're working (by a W-2 employee, he means he's working for somebody else), you're used to the taxes being taken out of your paycheck, and then you just hope it all squares up on April 15 of the following year. As a retiree, you are now responsible for paying your taxes quarterly, and if you don't pay enough, you'll have to pay a penalty once you file your taxes come the following April.

So, it's a little different depending on how you do it. With a traditional IRA, the custodian is required to withhold 10% and send it to the government. Now you can tell the custodian [that you] want more held out or I want nothing withheld, but they're going to take that 10%. Social Security won't automatically keep anything. You could ask them to withhold a certain amount, but it's only certain percentages, so you can only request 7%, 10%, 15%, or 25% and it can't be like $1 amount, but that's how they do it with Social Security.

And if you are selling stuff in your regular taxable account and getting dividends, interest, and capital gains those aren't withheld, so you have to do that calculating on your own. It is something you have to get used to as a retiree. I definitely think that for the first couple of years of retirement -- if you're not used to doing quarterly taxes -- you get the help of an accountant just to keep you set up.

Anderson: [There's definitely a tendency to not want] to take more out of the IRAs, because you get the full amount, [and to take] the lowest amount of withholding. I think that's a mistake. I would try and withhold directly on the withdrawals so you're not getting a huge cash flow crunch later [than you were] expecting.

Southwick: The next question comes from Ben. "I'm 24 years old and have decided to make a career change to financial planning. My question is in the 12 months before I make the switch what can I do to set myself up for success in my new career? Three things I'm already doing. One, reading lots of books on investing, personal finance, sales and marketing; two, starting a blog that delivers financial advice to a niche..." Do you say "neesh" or "nitch"?

Brokamp: I say "nitch." "Neesh" just sounds so pretentious, but you go right ahead. You be you.

Southwick: Starting a blog that delivers financial advice to the exact people I would like to serve [which are people in advertising].

Anderson: Is that a "neesh"?

Southwick: Or is it a "nitch"?

Brokamp: Or is it a "nitch"?

Southwick: Aargh! And finally, the smartest thing Ben is doing is listening to podcasts like Motley Fool Answers. What else can he do to get ahead of the game?

Anderson: It really depends on how he's going to enter the business. Part of Ben's note talks about wanting to enter a training program at an independent broker/dealer, which is great. If you're going directly into production (you're going to try and find clients and help them with their investments directly), the No. 1 thing that you need to do to be successful is figure out where those clients are going to come from, so the sales and marketing books are going to help you a lot.

The reality is that you can't help anybody until somebody is willing to accept that help. That's really the thing that I think a lot of folks miss when they're getting into financial advising is that they are passionate about investing, they're passionate about the technician side of what they do, but not prepared to go find their own clients.

Whether that's your natural market, folks that you know, or if you're just going to find some other way of generating those folks to talk to, if you've been moving [to other] cities and things like that, that may be a little bit of a challenge. So being social, getting out in the community, making sure you've got folks to talk to.

The other way to get in, of course, is to go join an existing practice. Work with somebody that needs some assisting on, whether it's development of the financial plans, data entry, or some sort of a paraplanning role, and then move up into more of a production capacity. That's not necessarily as fast of a path in terms of the income potential, but those would be the things I'm really thinking about there.

Southwick: What was your path?

Brokamp: I went straight into production. I joined the industry in 2008 and it was horrible.

Southwick: Oh, you must have had a lot of angry phone calls.

Anderson: It wasn't even angry calls. I didn't have anybody that was angry with me. I didn't have any clients yet.

Southwick: Oh, OK.

Anderson: I was just getting kicked in the teeth. I was like 22, fresh out of college, just as dumb as I looked, and I was like, "I'd like to help you in the middle of this major market correction." What could you know?

Brokamp: Given my vast experience.

Anderson: Yeah, exactly. The folks in many cases told me "No thanks," and they were probably correct at the time.

Southwick: And then what happened?

Anderson: I did almost exactly what I just described. I ended up joining a team as more of a paraplanner developing somebody else's financial plans. Working with an established practice and then worked back up onto being on my own two feet.

Brokamp: As mentioned in a previous podcast when I talked about my story, I did the exact same thing, and that's certainly how I would recommend that most people get into the industry.

Anderson: You can get too comfortable in that role, I think. If you ultimately want to be a producer, one day you're going to have to go do it. You're going to have to go ask for the business. You're going to hear a lot of nos. You're going to hear more nos than yeses. But having the confidence in your own ability to help people is important. I think that's what you gather from being in that assisting role.

Southwick: The next question comes from Jason on Twitter. Jason writes, "Is it foolish to mentally ignore any savings and only think of my investment dividends as the only money I have to live on?"

Brokamp: Whenever you use the word foolish around here, I'm not sure if you mean whether it's bad or it's good.

Anderson: It needs an uppercase F.

Brokamp: That's right, and this is a lowercase one. I assume, Jason, what you're asking is if you are retired, is it fine to just live off the interest and dividends and not touch the principal. And I would say if you can do that, more power to you. I mean, the S&P 500 yield is now 1.9%. If you focus on some higher-yielding stocks (maybe some bond funds), you could maybe get 3.0-3.5% of a portfolio. If you can live off that, great!

But most retirement plans assume that you will sell some of your assets gradually throughout your retirement. Ideally it's not too much more than the income you get, 1-2% or so, but hopefully the growth of those will compensate for it.

But certainly people, particularly people who want to leave a legacy (they want to leave a large inheritance for their kids or maybe to charities), those folks tend to focus on just getting the income from the portfolio and leave the principal alone.

Anderson: I want to throw a stat out for this because I think this is interesting. Generally 4% is considered a safe withdrawal rate. And if you were withdrawing 4% of your portfolio over a 30-year retirement, only 10% of the time do you end up with less money than you started with.

And that's a really powerful statistic. That means that if you're withdrawing 3% and just living off the dividend yield, for example, you're materially underspending what you could. You're probably going to end up with a pretty large account balance, so it would be very safe to do that, but it means that you're probably living a little bit more conservatively than you need to.

Brokamp: But the 4% safe withdrawal rate really is a worst-case scenario. Historically, you could withdraw more. Now the counterpoint to that today is interest rates are low. Dividend yields are low. Valuations are high. Maybe 3-4% actually makes more sense. But certainly, historically, people could have spent more than 4% and been fine.

Anderson: The math I get into on this is let's say, just for example, we're using a $1 million portfolio and you're going to take 4% out of it, so $40,000 a year. If we were going to take five years of that up front and just set it aside, we're going to take... I can't do basic math now.

Brokamp: $200,000.

Anderson: $200,000 out of that portfolio. What does the $800,000 have to do to get back to a $1 million after five years? And it's like 5.5%. It's a pretty low return threshold that you should be able to achieve. So even if you've removed all of the risk on the money that you need in the first five years, it's not that hard to make it back up.

Southwick: And our last question comes from Yuri. "I would like to invest in, or be exposed to, a company called Impossible Foods." And when I first got this email, I was like, "He's just making this up. Is this a pretend company?" But, no, it's a real company.

Brokamp: It's a real company.

Southwick: And they make Impossible... Did you look them up, too?

Brokamp: Oh, yeah.

Southwick: Am I remembering correctly that they make protein? They make meat?

Brokamp: They developed a new generation of meats and cheeses made entirely from plants. For example, the Impossible Burger is made completely from plants.

Anderson: I've got to be honest. I'm not a believer, yet.

Brokamp: I think this is a company that uses red beet juice so that the hamburger is actually juicy.

Anderson: I appreciate the effort, but I'll stick with the burger.

Brokamp: Yeah.

Southwick: I mean, I was raised somewhat vegetarian and I'm always of the mind to eat vegetarian food because it's delicious. Black bean burgers can be delicious. You don't have to kid yourself and be like, "Oh, this is exactly like eating a cheeseburger." It's never going to be exactly like eating a cheeseburger. Just learn to love vegetarian food if you care. And if you don't care, who cares? Although there is also the economic argument about how wasteful it is to raise a cow, and then slaughter the cow.

Brokamp: That's one of the foundations of the company. They definitely have an environmental concern.

Southwick: Just learn to love black bean burgers. That's all I'm saying. They're delicious.

Rick Engdahl: Why do you all hate progress?

Southwick: I don't and Yuri doesn't, either, because he wants to invest in this company. Sorry for the tangents there. "Unfortunately," he continues, "it's a private company. It has 11 major investors including Google Ventures, Bill Gates, and UBS (UBS 0.47%). (Maybe you've heard of them.) If I buy UBS stock, will I indirectly be exposed to Impossible Foods, as well, or is this just a drop in the sea of UBS' holdings? Are there any other options I do not see? Thanks."

Anderson: In his list Google Ventures is in there, so he could certainly become an investor in Alphabet (GOOGL -1.97%) (GOOG -1.96%), as well. That's another potential option there. But to his answer, yes, it's sort of a drop in the sea for UBS. (The market cap) of UBS right now is a little north of $64 billion. Impossible Foods looks like they've raised about $300 million of all of their funding. So even if UBS was all of that $300 million (and they're not), it would be like 0.0000005% of their balance sheet. It's just exceptionally small. UBS is a monster-sized company. The outcome of Impossible Foods doing well or poorly is not really going to move the needle for them, unfortunately.

So maybe look for other VCs that have done that type of investing, and look at their portfolios and find another idea, whether it's KKR, Blackstone Group, or anything like that. You could look at some other stocks and maybe find an opportunity, but getting access to Impossible Foods is going to be tough.

Southwick: But are there any options for investors who want to invest in private companies, or do you just have to be a massively huge investor to invest in privately owned companies?

Anderson: Most of the time you have to meet a few hurdles to get those types of opportunities, whether you're a qualified investor (which is typically a $1 million portfolio not including your home), or a qualified purchaser, (which is like a $5 million portfolio). When you're investing in illiquid companies, they try and do a lot of things to protect you so that you're not losing that investment, because they tend to be higher risk. [They want to make sure] that the folks can actually absorb that risk.

Southwick: So, no.

Anderson: Not really.

Southwick: There's no good option for him.

Brokamp: There's Kickstarter. You can always try Kickstarter.

Anderson: Yeah.

Brokamp: GoFundMe.

Southwick: It's a bummer, because there's all these fun, small companies. And I assume he also wants to invest in this company because he's aligned with what they believe in.

Anderson: Totally.

Brokamp: It is a bummer. I have a lot of sympathy with his question because it's true and we briefly mentioned it before. Companies aren't coming to the public markets like they used to. They're instead going to private equity and staying private longer than they used to, so it's a little harder to find these opportunities.

Southwick: Well, maybe that will change in the future.

Brokamp: Hope so.

Anderson: The scrutiny of public markets is tough for these small companies. I think they've realized they get a little bit more flexibility if it's private money that's invested in them and a little bit more leeway to burn through cash before they become profitable and the public market demands those profits pretty quick.

Southwick: All right.

Brokamp: The public. What do they know?

Anderson: I know.

Southwick: Well, that's it. Those are all the questions. Nice job, you guys!

Brokamp: Whoo!

Anderson: Deep breath.

Southwick: Look at you, Ross. Bringing stats and numbers and math.

Anderson: I know!

Southwick: We're all about feelings here. How does it make you feel? So that's the show. I have a few postcards to shout out. We've got Tony who sent a postcard from Scotland, which is beautiful. FiftyBillionCent sent a vertigo-inducing postcard from New York City.

Brokamp: It's like 3D.

Anderson: I can't even look at it from here.

Southwick: I can't look at it. It literally makes me nauseous.

Brokamp: It's pretty cool, though.

Southwick: Yeah, it is cool. It's lenticular. Mark sent a card from the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum...

Brokamp: What?

Southwick: ... as a tourist. Not a guest. That's a lunatic asylum.

Brokamp: Is he suggesting anything for us? Like you guys should come here.

Southwick: Check it out! Finally, Renee and Brian [Brian, definitely not Stephen] sent a card from Croatia, so this is awesome. Hey, speaking of travel, the Southwicks are heading out to Malta, so if any of our listeners have any Malta travel advice, I will take it and I'll also take advice on what apps your five-year-old kid loves right now because...

Brokamp: It's a long flight.

Southwick: ... it's a long flight to Malta. A long flight to Malta. Ross, thank you for joining us on the show today. We really appreciate it!

Anderson: Thank you guys so much for having me!

Southwick: Do you want to come back again?

Anderson: Of course!

Southwick: All right. The show is edited Maltesingly by Rick Engdahl. For Robert Brokamp, I'm Alison Southwick. Stay Foolish, everybody!