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The Personal Finance Podcast
10 Reasons You Need to Look Poor!
00:44:44
In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about the 10 reasons you need to look poor.
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- [00:01]
Entrepreneur Speaker
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- [01:25]
Andrew
Minimum purchase required on this episode of the personal finance podcast, 10 reasons you need to look po what's up everybody and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of MasterMoney co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast we're gonna be going over 10 reasons you need to look for. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney co/newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. Now if you want to Watch us on YouTube, just search Androgen Cola, which is my name. Now today we're going to be diving into 10 reasons that you need to look poor and the goal is to grow your bank account and not your ego. And so that's kind of the theme of what this episode is going to be about. And I'm going to show you why it's important to actually look poor now, some of the stuff that we're going to go through, I'm going to go through 10 reasons today and I'm going to explain why we are doing this episode. So the reason why we're talking through with this episode is I think there is a misconception on what building wealth actually looks like. What a lot of people think is, is that the person who drives a Ferrari or has the massive mansion is actually wealthy. We're in a lot of different situations. The person who is truly wealthy is a person who has control of their time, of their energy and everything that they do day in and day out. And what you're seeing is a huge influx of people who do not have a financial education, who once they start.
- [03:17]
Entrepreneur Speaker
To get a little bit of money.
- [03:19]
Andrew
Just a little bit of extra dollars, they spend it all on high end luxury items, which there is nothing wrong. I'm going to preface this right now. There is nothing wrong with buying luxury items. There's nothing wrong with buying a luxury car. There is nothing wrong with the finer things in life. In fact, I love that stuff. But you have to be able to afford it before you can purchase those things. And what you're going to see is there have been countless studies done that people who actually have true wealth, who have freedom over their time and energy, actually end up deciding that they want to spend less on their appearances and more on buying back their time. Two of the richest people in the entire world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, there's this famous picture of both of them standing there. They're both standing in like Hawaiian shirts. It's not a Gucci belt in sight when you look at those two guys. And the reason for that is because truly wealthy people do not need to show off. They do not need the flash. And instead they are looking for freedom with their time so they can spend their time doing what they want. This is going to be a mindset episode. I need you to shift your mindset from thinking that the Lamborghinis, the Ferraris, the massive mansions are what wealth looks like. And instead think, think about having that time freedom, having the standard normal house, having an amazing family that loves you. That is what true wealth is. And making sure that you can control what you do day in and day out. Now there are different classes of people and how they perceive money. So we just did an episode recently talking about the various classes and how much you need to have in net worth in order to be in those various classes. And the point of that episode was to kind of motivate you. Hey, if you're in the lower class, you want to move up to the lower middle. If you're in middle class, you want to move up to upper middle and just kind of taking you up level by level level. And as we go through this episode, I want you to kind of listen to how a lot of folks in those different classes spend money. Now, to say that you're in one of these classes is not a dis whatsoever. It's just the income that you're making and how you're keeping your dollars over time. So the poor typically are going to use money for survival. Bills, necessities, obviously, because they only have so much money coming in. And so all of that money coming in needs to go out in order to survive. And so what the biggest thing they want to be doing is they want to be increasing their income. Whereas the middle class uses all of their money for comfor and they utilize it for liabilities. A lot of folks in the middle class have really high car payments, thousand dollar plus car payments. A lot of people in the middle class are in credit card debt. And here is the problem, because the middle class is where most people get stuck. What I want for each and every single one of you is to get you out of the middle class so that you can achieve financial freedom. You can absolutely achieve financial freedom with a middle class wage, but you have to take a portion of that wage and put it towards your freedom. This is the motivation I want for every single person listening who is in either the lower class or poor or in the middle class, is that you can absolutely build wealth. I'm talking straight at the camera right now. You can absolutely build wealth, but you need to make sure that you keep a portion of your income. And I want to teach you exactly how to do that. So utilizing less money for comfort or for liabilities or for car loans, things that are going to reduce your net worth, you want to be growing your net worth and putting your dollars towards assets that are going to increase in value over time. This is one of the most important lessons in the bas of personal finance that you need to be learning the difference between assets and liabilities. The more dollars that you put into true assets and the less you put into liabilities, the better your financial situation is going to be. It is personal finance 101. Now, the wealthy do it very differently because what the wealthy do is they see money as a tool. And so when they see money as a tool, they utilize that tool to buy assets. And what these assets are going to do is generate income for them. So they buy stocks, they buy index funds, they buy ETFs, they buy real estate, they buy businesses, they go into commercial real estate, they buy strip malls. They are looking for things that are going to help them produce an income. And so they see money, every time it comes in as not a tool to go and buy more stuff. They see money as a tool and its utility is there to buy more income. They want to increase their income over time. So they're going to take these dollars and they're going to put them towards their retirement accounts. They're going to take these dollars and they're going to put them towards their real est investment that's going to produce cash flow. They're going to take these dollars and they're going to put them towards buying a small business that they can increase the income that's coming in every single month. And this is the mindset shift that every single person needs to have. Because once you start to change the frame of your mindset to buying more assets, instead of thinking about every bonus that comes in, oh, I can go buy a brand new ring or every bonus that comes in, I could buy a brand new phone or a big bonus comes in, you go buy a brand new golf cart or a boat or a brand new car. These are things that are going to keep you stuck. I want to get you out of the mud and get you onto dry land so that you can walk towards financial freedom. And eventually, when you start to invest enough, you're going to be able to sprint towards financial freedom because the money's going to be coming in so fast. And so today we're going to be talking about reasons why you need to practice stealth wealth. Because the more liabilities that you are purchasing, the further and further you will fall behind if you cannot afford those liabilities. So many Americans right now are in debt and even worldwide are in debt because they are paying for too many liabilities. And I do not want that for you. I don't want you staying stuck in the middle class. I want you to say, hey, I got F you money. I don't have to work this job if I don't want to. I have financial freedom. Let's get into the 10 reasons why next. Number one is you need to strive for stealth wealth. So the goal isn't more money. The goal is living life on your terms. And the truth here is real wealth is equal to financial freedom, not attention. So if you utilize your money to buy things to bring yourself attention, you are thinking about this in the wrong way. Instead, every dollar that you earn needs to go towards things that you truly value. So I want you to make a list. What are some of the things that you truly value in your life? And when you make that list, go through the list and say to yourself, well, hey, at the top of my list is I want my time back. I want financial freedom. For a lot of you listening right now, you want your time back, you want financial freedom. In order to achieve that, you need to make that a priority on where you allocate your money that comes in every time you get a paycheck. And every time your income comes in, you need to take a portion of that income and put it towards your freedom. We tell you always, you need to start at 20% of your income as that money comes in. And here's the big problem, and I want you to listen in on this. Most people go broke trying to look wealthy. I'm going to say it again. Most people go broke specifically if you're in the middle class or if you're in the lower class trying to look wealthier than they are. And this is a massive problem. Instead, what we want to make sure that we are doing is we are putting those dollars towards our freedom. And so stealth wealth means that even as you start to build wealth, maybe you have $100,000 portfolio, maybe you have a $500,000 portfolio, maybe you have a multimillion dollar portfolio. As soon as that money starts to grow in your portfolio, you need to practice stealth wealth. That means you can take a portion of it. You can buy nice things if you want to. But if you're going out and buying a supercar, or you're buying a really expensive SUV to haul around your kids, or you're buying expensive luxury bags and you're making 100 grand per year, then you are not practicing stealth wealth. Instead, what you're doing is you are taking a large portion of your income and you are putting it towards some liabilities that are taking you backwards. And if you have ever, ever gone into debt for buying specific liabilities, specifically if it's like a designer bag or clothes or electronics, those types of things, and you've gone into credit card debt for those things, you are thinking about money differently. So truly wealthy people practice stealth wealth. Now, what is stealth wealth? It means you are truly wealthy, but if somebody walked in and looked at you, they would not be able to tell how wealthy you are. Now, here's an example that I think I've given this example a number of times when I used to invest in real estate a lot, I used to go to this real estate meetup and it was in St. Petersburg, Florida. So if anybody knows that area, that's where it was. And we would meet in the back of a Denny's. And the first time I went, I had a bunch of people tell me about this meetup. And the first time I went, I was like, what the heck are we doing here? And I looked around the room, and when I looked around the room, every single person there either looked like a pretty normal person and or they honestly looked a little raggedy. I showed up in, you know, a nice button down and I had a nice pair of slacks on and I was ready to kind of make deals with people. And when I walked in, I was the only person in that entire room dressed like this. Now, mind you, this was on a Tuesday morning at 10am and so I walk into that room and all of a sudden people start making deals left and right for these huge, massive properties. I mean, these are apartment complexes, they're dealing with strip malls, they're dealing with a bunch of single family houses, they're dealing with real estate notes, and they are trading these things back and forth in the back of a Denny's. And so one guy I started to have a conversation with, and he goes, oh, how many units do you have? And I kind of went through the conversation and told them and kind of told them a little bit of my backstory. And I looked at him and he kind of looked like a homeless guy. That's just, hey, no judgment here, but he looked like a homeless guy. And I asked him, oh, how many units do you have? Or what are you doing here? And he said to me, oh, I have 2,000 doors. That means he has 2,000 units is what he owns. And he looked like a regular old guy with scraggly hair, a scraggly beard, was wearing flip flops, was wearing shorts, was wearing a T shirt with a hole in it. And he had 2,000 units. Now, am I saying you need to look like that guy in order to be wealthy? Absolutely not. But what I'm saying is there are a lot of very wealthy people in this country who you would have no idea that they are actually wealthy. Now, the thing about stealth wealth is it's simply cheaper. You avoid unnecessary purchases of things that you really don't need. So a great example of this, of a person who practices stealth wealth is that every time a brand new iPhone comes out, you don't need to buy the iPhone. Every single time. Instead, what you do is you wait every couple of years until your phone starts to get run down a little bit more. Like, for example, the main reason why I always upgrade my iPhone is when it doesn't hold a charge much anymore. So I'll hold my iPhone for four, five, six years because that doesn't bring a ton of value to me. They don't upgrade them fast enough for the technology to be advanced enough for me to want to upgrade it. And so there's not a ton of value for me in exchanging my phone. Sure, I can write it off as a business expense. I could do all these different things, but I don't need to because I am completely fine with the phone that I have now. There's something called the Diderot effect. And the Diderot effect is something that actually speaks to your money psychology. It states that acquiring one luxury item leads to a cycle of unnecessary spending. So have you ever done this before where you went out and you bought something and you started to buy a couple of things that you didn't need, or a few unnecessary items, and all of a sudden you start to spiral and you slowly start to spend more and more and more money. This is an effect that actually happens. And if you're aware that this actually happens with money psychology, a lot of people struggle with this. This is how they get into credit card debt. But if you're aware that this actually happens, it's going to help you practice more stealth wealth. In fact, 65% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And this is one of the biggest problems is that if you're living paycheck to paycheck, and you know, part of this is spending too much on things that you do not need, then we need to get that in check. So lifestyle inflation is going to factor into this as well. Every single time you get a raise or your income increases, if your lifestyle increases by the same amount of as the raise that you got, then you have yourself a problem. Instead, practice that 5050 rule, meaning every time you get a raise, 50% goes towards spending on things that you love and 50% goes towards your financial freedom or wealth building activities, is what we like to say. And so this is going to be one of those things that could be incredibly powerful. And so overall stealth wealth is going to help you live a cheaper life so that you can pursue and achieve financial freedom faster. For a lot of you listening, if you really value luxury goods and you really value luxury items, and you're listening to this Podcast, you're like, I keep spiraling more and more and more, or I just overspend at Target all the time or I just overspent on Amazon and I can't stop. Let's sit back and let's think about what we're doing here. Think about practicing stealth wealth and we'll get deeper into some of these different things on why. But stealth wealth, I promise you, is going to be one of those factors that if you start to change the way that you are trying to appear to other people, I promise you it'll be incredibly cheaper and you will get that much more wealthy. Number two, the second reason is flashy wealth actually has been shown to reduce credibility. So there is something called the anti signal effect. This states that flashy displays of wealth make people seem less trustworthy. So have you ever been on social media before and you are watching someone tell you that they can make you a ton of money online and when you are watching a video, the guy is leaning against a Lamborghini and he's got a fancy gold watch and he's got a button down shirt buttoned halfway down, he's got a tiger in the background or whatever else. Are you going to trust that person because they are showing flashy displays of wealth or are you going to trust the person that says, hey, I went through all of this. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I was completely broke. I didn't know what to do, I went into death. But I clawed my way back out of this and I was able to achieve financial freedom because I took it it step by step. And here's exactly what I did. Which one are you going to trust? Because flashy wealth reduces credibility. The Journal of Consumer Research did a study and people with luxury goods who were flashy were perceived as less credible than people who were just regular old folks. And a great example of this is Warren Buffett. So Warren Buffett is my favorite investor of all time. He's probably my favorite financial mind of all time. He's by far the greatest investor of all time. If you want to argue that with me, we can get a real nice debate on that. But Warren Buffett is a, you know, he's worth well over a hundred billion. Warren Buffett still lives in the same exact home that he bought in 1958. He drives a modest car and he does this because this is the lifestyle he wants to live. He wants to live a modest lifestyle. And in fact, if you have flashy wealth, you're going to attract the wrong people. Around you. In fact, living modestly attracts genuine relationships. That means that if everybody around you doesn't know how wealthy you are, you can attract genuine relationships of people who will value you for you instead of what you own. Now, this is the big key, because flashy spinning is going to invite the wrong crowd. And if you've ever seen this before, look at a lottery winner, for example, when someone wins the lottery. Or you can look at an NFL player or an NBA player, Or you can look at an MLB player, a professional athlete. When folks who do not have a lot of money come into a lot of money, all of a sudden it attracts the wrong crowd. How many people have you heard of who have come into a lot of money, get scammed by people who try to steal their money? Or get scammed by family members who are asking for more and more money, and they're people around them actually make them bankrupt? This is because flash attracts the wrong people. You do not want to have flashy spending. You want to make sure that you keep it as quiet as possible. And so that's why the wealthiest individuals, they practice that stealth wealth, and they focus on accumulating assets rather than displays of status symbols. You want to accumulate assets rather than displays of status symbols. So true credibility comes from financial discipline, which I think most of us are starting to get right now. Now, number three is you need to get off the hedonic treadmill, because at a certain point, more money is not going to make you happier. Now, a long time ago, there was a study that came out that said, oh, anything above $70,000 per year, it does not increase your happiness. I think that is completely, completely wrong. That is the biggest load of crap that I have ever heard. $70,000, especially in today's day and age, is not a stopping point for you to increase your happiness. I could tell you this right now. When I first started in my career, I was making $30,000 per year. And as my income started to increase, it increased my happiness significantly. Why? Because it reduced my stress and it reduced my anxiety. But there is a point in time where making more money does not have the same emotional utility, and it doesn't have the same overall utility as it once did. So people quickly will adapt to luxuries and stop appreciating them as their income increases over time. Let's give an example of this. Say, for example, you're working your way up your career ladder, and so you get your first big job, and you finally land that big job. You're making $60,000 per year. So you go out and you buy yourself a brand new Honda Accord. Well, then you get another promotion, and now you're making a hundred thousand dollars per year. And since you're making $100,000 per year, you're now going to upgrade to the Audi. And so now you have the audi, you're making $100,000 per year, and then you get another raise and you make $150,000 per year, and you're going to now upgrade to the Mercedes. And so now that you have the Mercedes, you're making 150 grand per year. Now you're making 200 grand per year. And you're like, well, I got to upgrade this Mercedes. I'm going to upgrade to a BMW 7 Series, okay? And you just continue to upgrade your vehicles over and over and over again. But really you're just adapting to these luxuries and you're forgetting about the days when you bought that first Honda Accord. Modesty, I think, brings more happiness than what most people realize. I've had the fancy car before. It did not increase happiness whatsoever. In fact, when that new car smell wears off, you could care less. And over the course of the next two or three years, if you are keeping that car and over the course of next two or three years, it's just another car to you, and it doesn't make a huge, huge difference. It's not going to increase your happiness. I can tell you that right now. Albert Einstein actually had a quote about this, and he said, a common modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness. So the hedonic treadmill, meaning you want to make sure that you are trying to gain more and more money. This treadmill is going to get you on a path where you are constantly restless. You always, always, always want to continue to accomplish. Now, high achievers, let's talk for a second. Because your boy always wants to keep pushing. He always wants to take it to the next level. So I am someone who gets joy out of that in terms of trying to push, trying to accomplish things. I really like challenges. And so I like to pursue those challenges, accomplish those challenges, and move on to the next one that brings me happiness. So if that's you, more power to you, keep it moving. But if you're someone who is trying to get to the next level or take the next step so that you can buy the fancy car, I can tell you right now, the fancy car is not going to make you happy. What is going to make you happy is having more time in your day. So if you're spending all that time doing that grinding and you absolutely hate your job, you're going to be stuck in that job even longer if you're buying more liabilities instead of buying more assets. So research shows that happiness levels plateau after earning about $500,000 per year. So a lot of us are saying to ourselves, I mean, that does not pertain to me. And that might be true, but increasing your income to a certain extent, it is not going to increase your happiness. And avoiding materialism prevents financial stress and keeps life focused on true happiness drivers, which is relationships, health and freedom. Those are the things that are going to make you so much more happy than spending time and energy in the middle of your office so that you can buy the next thing. So you can buy the next Rolex or the fancy purse or the fancy thing that you are doing. Nothing wrong with that stuff. But if you're spending all your time working so that you can achieve those things, it's a tough position to be in. So real joy, in my opinion, comes from financial security, not expensive purchases. Let's get into number four next New.
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Entrepreneur Speaker
Year's resolutions are tough to stick to, right? Take saving money for example.
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Andrew
We all want to make progress, but.
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Entrepreneur Speaker
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- [23:11]
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- [23:59]
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- [24:28]
Andrew
Edu so now that we are talking about trying to practice stealth wealth, what do we need to do with our money every time it comes in first? Maybe in the past you have been spending your money every single time it comes in. You're just looking for the next thing to buy. You were never taught anything else. You were never taught how to invest and you want to know what to do next. Well, the number one thing you need to learn is number four, which is invest before you spend. So one thing that we talk about a ton in this podcast is to pay yourself first. In fact, it's the most important thing that you can do we've talked about. Even if you don't want a budget, like if you absolutely hate that word budget, you can do something called the reverse budget, which means you take off the top what you want to save for yourself and you spend what is left over. And the beautiful thing about this is you are paying yourself first, which is the number one thing that every single person needs to do for every single dollar they earn. So if you want to save 20% of your income for every dollar that you earn, you want to put 20 cents towards wealth building activities. That means your emergency fund. That means your stock investments, savings for a down payment on a rental property. Those types of things are wealth building activities. But you got to change your mindset. Money is not a tool to go buy more stuff. Money is a tool to be utilized to buy your freedom. You're going to hear me say that over and over in this episode, because I want it ingrained in your head. So shifting your mindset, instead of saying, how can I spend this? You say, how can I invest this? Change that one word from spend to invest and watch how your psychology changes over time. So Sam Walton, who was the founder of Walmart, believed that every wasted dollar hurt the customer. So he reinvested all of his money into growth rather than luxuries for himself. And that is why Walmart grew so fast, because he believed in growing the company overall. And I want you to take that mindset when it comes to your own finances. Here's another thing I want you to think about, is that spending benefits you once every time you spend money on something that benefits you once every time you invest your money, that can benefit you forever. And what do I mean by that? So if you've never heard of the 4% rule before, this is something we talk about a lot in this podcast. And the 4% rule states that you can draw down 4% of your portfolio and preserve your wealth and make sure that you never run out of money in retirement. Now, this can be debated in a number of different ways and some nuances here that we can talk through, but the 4% rule is stating basically that once you achieve enough money to be able to draw down 4% every single year, and that 4% covers your living expenses, you in essence, are retired. Now, this money needs to be invested. So what that means is that if you invest your money over time and you hit that freedom number, you hit that number that you need to hit in order to be able to retire, you have a benefit forever because you bought back your time. And so those dollars are going towards your financial freedom. Now, a lot of people have the misconception that true wealth is income. True wealth is an income. It's ownership of appreciating assets. And that's what I want you to understand. This means stocks, this means real estate, this means businesses. Those types of things are what you want to own. It is not your income. Increasing your income is going to save you in a bunch of various ways. In fact, it's going to make your life so much easier because you can take a portion of that income and put it towards your investments. For a lot of you, if you're making a low income, then you're going to have to increase your income over time. It's a very important, important skill that you need to learn. But as you start to learn that skill, always remember to keep a portion of that income. Which leads me into Number five, saving alone won't make you rich, but investing will. So the S&P 500, go ahead and Google average returns of the S&P 500 annually. The S&P 500 has returned 10% to investors over the course of the last 50 years on average. And one big thing that you need to understand is if you save your money in cash and you keep it all in cash, maybe you have a massive savings account. Because I've seen people like this where they have a huge savings account, they don't know what to do with it. If you have a huge savings account, every single year that you keep that money into a savings account, it is losing value. Why? Because of inflation. So inflation erodes away at your cash every single year. And so you want to make sure that instead you are investing your dollars because investing allows you to outpace inflation. It is the only way to build lasting wealth. You will never be able to retire if you do not invest your dollars. And so this is why saving won't make you instead investing well. So if you have a safe in your house and you're hoarding a bunch of cash, or you have a savings account at your local bank and you just have a bunch of cash in there because you don't know what else to do with it, and that's the only thing you know to do, you need to learn how to invest. Now, if you don't know how to invest, we have a free masterclass called Investing for Beginners. If you go to MasterMoney Co investing for Beginners, you can check out that masterclass. It is completely free, and it'll take you step by step and teach you how to invest for beginners. And it's a live masterclass with me, so you can actually check that out. It's pretty, pretty cool. So let's say, for example, that you had $10,000. Well, if you had $10,000 over the course of the next 40 years, if you invested that money into something like the S&P 500, that got you a 10% rate of return. And over that 40 years, you just kept that money there. You didn't put another dollar in there, you didn't add any money to that account, you would have $452,000 from doing nothing. Your money can work so much harder than you can now imagine that you started to invest $10,000 per year. How fast that could stack up over the course of 40 years. In fact, maybe, let's go find out what that would be. So if you invested $10,000 every single year over the course of 40 years, you'd have $4.87 million just by investing that money over time. This is the power of compound interest and how much wealth that you can actually build from investing your dollar. So it's really important to learn how to invest. It is a multi million dollar decision for most people and we need to make sure that we know how. Now, what are the best places to invest? There are so many different ways. I like index funds and ETFs. We have a course called Index Fund Pro that teaches you how to do it. But there's also real estate investing is an amazing way to invest your dollars. I love real estate investing. I've been investing in real estate since 2017. There's also buying businesses or investing in businesses. That is another fantastic way if you know what you're doing in order to grow your wealth over time. That is something that I started doing over the course of the last two years. And so doing all of these different things and buying these various assets is going to allow you to grow your wealth over time. You cannot save your way to wealth. You must put your money to work. And investing is what does that for you. Number six is I want you to expand your wealth circle, meaning I want you to surround yourself with high earners and I want you to surround yourself with people who are focused on building assets. One of the biggest problems that people have is that they surround themselves with the wrong people who have the wrong mindset on how wealth is built. If you surround yourself with only exclusively people from your hometown, who have never left your hometown, who are never going to leave your hometown, who have zero dreams and aspirations, then you are starting from ground zero and it's going to be harder for you to build wealth and have an understanding of how to build wealth. Mindset is one of the most powerful wealth building tools. In fact, I think Your mindset is 90% the name of the game and only 10% is head knowledge. Because if you can change your mindset, if you can change your money psychology, I promise you, you can achieve so much in this life. It is absolutely incredible what you can do if you shift that mindset. Jim Rohn, who is a famous entrepreneur, says, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And think about this for a second. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Who are the people in your life who are speaking into your life? Do you have people in your life who are talking about business, who are talking about increasing their income? Income? Do you have conversations about some of the struggles that you're going through in your career or your business and they're saying, hey, maybe you could do this or maybe you can try this or negotiate your salary this way. Do you have friends around you who are talking to you that way? Or do you have family members around you or is your spouse around you and you guys are having conversations about this or are you having conversations about partying all weekend or conversations about the latest TV shows, or conversations about all these various things that do do not matter. See, surrounding yourself with high earners or surrounding yourself with people who are interested in this kind of stuff exposes you to all different ways to invest. It exposes you to all these different opportunities. So if you look at people who are self made millionaires, many of them network with investors, they network with other business owners and wealthy mentors. This is a big focus for me this year is I want to be networking with more people because financial literacy isn't just about saving, it's about leveraging money intelligently. And some of the only ways to be able to do that is to have people around you and have relationships with people around you who can help you do that. So growth happens by expanding your financial mindset, making sure that you have people around you who are going to help you and make a huge impact in your life. Now this is easier said than done, especially in 2025. So one thing I would do is if you can go to career meetups, or if you can go to business meetups, or if you can go to real estate meetups, if you're interested in investing in real estate or joining communities online that are going to help you, you grow your income over time. So here at the Personal Finance Podcast and Master Money, we are working on a community this year that is going to be launching this year where you guys can all connect and network together and talk about some of the stuff that we were talking about, I'm going to create an online space that we can do that. And so we're going to have that available to you. You'll have access to me and be able to kind of talk to me too. So that is coming down the pipeline. I'm really excited for that as we start to grow this out. So if there's something you want in that community, by the way, please send me an email and reach out to me because we are going to do all these really, really cool things and I'm very excited for what we can do. Number seven is modesty attracts the right people. So modesty is going to prevent friendships based on financial status, which is a huge topic that I think most people don't understand until you start to increase your income over time. And flashy wealth creates fake friends. I'm going to say this again. Flashy wealth creates fake friends and people who expect you to spend and people who expect you to loan them money and people who expect you to do certain things for them. One thing you'll notice as you start to increase your income, and this is not to brag whatsoever, but as my income started to increase from my businesses and things like that, I started to notice that specific friends kind of changed the way that they approached me and changed the way that they had conversations with me. And you are going to realize pretty quickly who your true friends are and in life. This is a big lesson for a lot of people. If you're in your 20s or in your 30s and you're like, man, some of my friends, I'm just kind of fading away from. From. That's part of life. You're going to fade away from some people that you have been friends with for a very long time. That's just part of growing in life. That's part of growing as a person. Especially if you are trying to do bigger and better things and they are not. They're going to fade away. There's going to be haters that are going to hate on what you are trying to do, but you just got to continue the path. And what you're going to realize is authenticity happens when you look modest, when you look poor is the flashy headline here. But really, it's just modesty attracts the right people around you. People value authenticity over status symbols. Now, one line I love in the Psychology of Money is Morgan Housel talks about this a lot where he says, you know, there's people out there that if you see somebody in a Ferrari, you don't look at that Ferrari and say, man, that guy or gal, she's really cool because she's driving that Ferrari. What you say to yourself is, man, I would look amazing in that Ferrari. You always think about how you would look having that specific item, then how amazing it is, and that person has that specific item. And so thinking through that, that if you're trying to buy things so that you can impress other people, a lot of times you're not impressing them. In fact, they're most likely getting more and more jealous over time. So a humble lifestyle filters out the materialistic acquaintances and people that you really don't want in your life and really, the best partnerships are coming from people who have mutual values, not financial status. So people who have the same values are where some of the best friendships, the best partnerships in business happen, the breast relationships in life happen, romantic or other. And so I think that is where genuine relationships are supported by having those mutual values. And I think that's really important for a lot of people to understand. Number eight is looking rich can actually make you a target. So wealthy looking people, they're going to attract things like scammers, they're going to attract people like opportunists, and they're also going to attract thieves. There's actually a trifecta there. But if you keep a low profile, it reduces your risk of finding a fraud, it reduces your risk of getting robbed, it reduces a ton of different risks that could happen. And flashy spending makes you an easier mark for financial fraud. Because if you are getting flashy, what does that tell people? Well, this person has money or they have valuable items. I'm going to go and try to take some of those items from that person specifically. And what else does it do? Well, in a 2008 study found that people with luxury cars were quoted significantly higher prices for services than people who just had regular Hondas and Toyotas and Fords and Chevys. Those folks were quoted way higher prices for services. And simple living prevents unnecessary legal and security concerns that you really don't need or don't want to have. And that's why I love stealth wealth. It allows you to stay under the radar while you're building up your assets. And so I think it's really important to kind of practice that stealth wealth for a number of different reasons. And it really does help you in terms of financial security. Let's get into the last two. Next. Number nine is social comparison can harm your mental health. And what a lot of people do is when they start to get in this game of trying to get flashy and trying to have luxury items, they start to compare themselves to other people. Because other people, if you get a brand new car and then two years down the line somebody else gets the new version of your car, you're going to start to compare yourself to that person and people. There's something called the social comparison theory, which people feel bad when comparing their wealth to others. Obviously all of us are going to feel that way if you start to compare yourselves to others. That's why on this podcast all the time we talk about focusing on the things that you can control. And what does this do? This means it's you versus you and all you were doing is comparing yourself to where you were yesterday. Are you getting 1% better every single day? Well, if you're getting 1% better every single day, you're going to be significantly wealthier over the course of the next 10 years than you were today. And so getting 1% better every day is what you need to be focusing on. A 2023 study found that the bigger the wealth gap in a neighborhood, the worse the mental health for residents, which is fascinating. Instagram and social media amplify these unrealistic expect for a lot of people. And so even high earners can feel poor when surrounded by multi millionaires. Have you ever been in a room where it's just people who are just way wealthier than you are, they have fancier cars, they have nicer watches, they have fancier clothes, and all of a sudden you can feel poor? Well, as you start to build wealth and as you start to gain wealth, the millionaire is going to feel much more poor than in a room of people who have a hundred million dollars or more. And the people who have $100 million or more are going to feel much more poor than when they are in a room of billionaires. And it just keeps, keeps on going up. If you do not get that needle to stop moving, you're going to continuously be on this cycle that never, ever ends. So focusing on personal finance progress prevents dissatisfaction and true happiness comes from financial security and not those material possessions. I want you to figure out what your number is that would make you content. How much do you need to have every single year? And I want you to think about this. Do this exercise right now. Write it down. How much money do you need in order to be happy? How much do you want to make every single year in order to be happy? How much do you need to make every single month in order to be happy? Factor all the things in. What are the extra things you want to be doing? You want to be going to the movies twice a week and spending time on your hobbies? Maybe you want to play golf or pickleball every single day? Or maybe you want to spend more time fishing, or maybe you love to go to workout classes and you want to go to a bunch of different workout classes every single week? Well, all that's going to cost money. What is that dream life for you? I want you to think about that and I want you to think, how much money would this cost? You want to give money away to your kids. You want to be able to help people in need factor all those numbers in. What is that number? Figure out what that number is, and let's work on trying to achieve that number. Social comparison is going to destroy your mental health, and that's the last thing we want. We want to reduce your stress, we want to reduce your anxiety around money. And part of that is removing social comparison from your life. The Last one, number 10, is there is something called the fake it till you make a trap. And this is something I've talked about in the past as well. But looking rich before building wealth can ruin your financial progress. If you are a fake it till you make it person, meaning you're wearing Gucci and you make $40,000 per year, you're in the fake it till you make a trap. You're in this endless cycle of buying things that you cannot afford, going deeper into debt so that you can look like you're wealthier than you are are now. When you're young, especially when you're young, you should be taking your extra dollars and putting them towards assets. How many of your friends do you see buying the luxury apartment or they get the brand new BMW or they do all of the different things that really are a financial detriment to them and they're building up this debt. And you know it. You know how much money your friends make, and you may be saying to yourself, oh, well, they can afford it. They make, you know, $20,000 per year more than me. More than likely, if your friends are living a lifestyle that is significantly greater than yours, there's a high chance they're going deeper into, deeper into debt or they're living paycheck to paycheck. If they have the luxury apartment, they have a fancy car, they go out to dinners every single night, they go out to the bars every weekend, they drop hundreds of dollars every day at the bars, they go shopping all of the time, they have the designer and luxury items. More than likely they are falling further and further behind. And when you change your mindset to see it that way, it's going to help you tremendously, A, with your mental health, but B, it's going to help you tremendously reduce your stress and anxiety around money. Looking wealthy doesn't mean being wealthy. It often means being in debt. And that's what I want a lot of you to know, is that people who look wealthy, who try to look wealthy, oftentimes they are going deeper and deeper into debt. But building assets quietly, that is the true way to build wealth. See, wealthy people focus on financial control and not social validation. And that's what I want for most of you is I don't want you to fake it until you make it. So These are my 10 points that I want to kind of talk through and 10 reasons why I think you need to practice more Stealth Wealth Wealth. But here's some final thoughts I have. Practice stealth wealth and build assets, ignore status and create financial independence. Wealth is about options, not optics, and I want you to invest for your future rather than spending for today. So if you learned a ton in this episode, please share with a family member or friend. This episode was made to try to motivate you and try to help you through this process of building wealth. Because sometimes it feels like if I'm going to make financial progress, I got to make some sacrifices. And yes, yes you absolutely do. Especially early on, until your income increases. Then as your income increases, you can take some of those extra dollars, put them towards assets, allow those assets to pay for some of your liabilities so that you can grow your wealth over time. Listen, thank you guys so much for being here and I truly, truly appreciate it. If you guys are getting value this episode again, share it with a family member or friend. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and we will see you on the next.