On this episode of The Retirement Huddle podcast, we’re heading to Mayberry to show you how quotes from the famous show relate to financial planning.

“Time heals everything. You know who said that? My Latin teacher in barber college.” – Floyd

It’s unclear why Floyd had a Latin teacher at barber school, but the idea that time heals everything definitely makes sense if you’re cutting hair. You can make a mistake, but the hair will grow back eventually.

This concept also works with the stock market. Over a long enough period of time, the market is essentially guaranteed to go up, but there’s no guarantee of that in the short term.

If your money is exposed to high levels of market risk, make sure that you’re in a position to be able to walk around with a bad financial haircut for a while if the market crashes.

“Well I ain’t followin’ you too good, but it sounds like I cain’t borrow the money until I prove I don’t need none.” – Goober

Despite his general lack of sophistication, Goober exhibits a great understanding of how borrowing money works. Lenders are much more motivated to lend money to people who could get by without the loan, because those are the people least likely to default on the loan.

Keep this principle in mind when you’re in the position of borrowing money. As an example, suppose you’re looking at a car and trying to decide if you want to get a loan or just pay cash for it. If you have the cash to pay for it, but believe that financing it is a better way to manage your money, you might be right.

But if there’s no way that you could possibly buy the car without financing it, it might be a sign that you should be looking at a cheaper car.

Listen to the full episode or use the timestamps to jump to a specific section. Thanks for listening! We’ll be back for another show every other Thursday.

Today’s Rundown:

1:25 – Floyd

2:27 – Goober

6:07 – Sheriff Andy

7:29 – Otis