← The Bossticks
The Bossticks
From Debt To Financial Freedom: Michael Bosstick’s Guide To Mastering Money At Any Stage
01:03:06
#878: Join Michael Bosstick as he sits down to share essential personal finance tips & strategies to help you take control of your money today! In this episode, Michael breaks down the key stages of building financial health, sharing advice &...
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The following podcast is a Dear Media Production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostick are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential. Him and her hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, once again, I am solo without the her of the show, which is my wife, Lauren. She's still on maternity leave, continuing this week with another solo episode. If you haven't checked out the episode I did earlier this week, all about building a business, what it takes to be an entrepreneur, what it takes to be a business owner. Mistakes to Avoid I highly suggest you check that episode out. I put a lot into it. It's getting great feedback and I share a lot more than usual when it comes to my perspective on business. So that episode went out Monday. Now we have another much requested episode that I've had the time to sit down and I've got a lot of notes in front of me. You can see many highlighted apologies in advance. I'll probably refer to them a lot in this episode because there's a good amount to keep a track of. But this episode's all about personal finance, personal financial freedom, understanding money, understanding how it works, how it doesn't work, how to make it less stressful in your life. And you know this is an important topic that many people avoid but should know more about. I know that at one point in my life I definitely avoided it and was definitely stressed out about it. So this episode is really for anyone at any stage of personal finance. If you're an expert and you've got it all figured out, maybe skip this one. But if you're someone who's ever been stressed about money, wondering how to make it work for you, wondering how to save more of it, wondering what you should do with it once you make it, want to know how to make more of it? This episode is for you. And here's the thing. Whether you like the topic of money or not, it's an important topic that everyone needs to understand. Because whether we like it or not, money is a fact of life. It is how we transact it is how we are able to buy things. It is how we're able to live. It is how we're able to feed ourselves. It is such an important topic. So this episode is for anyone that's trying to understand personal finance, money, achieve financial freedom, get a little bit less money stressed and Again, I put a lot into it and there's a lot of notes here that I will be referring to. There's also book references and resources and again, you know a lot in this episode. Full disclaimer. I am not not a financial advisor. I'm not a fiduciary. You should double check everything I say. If you have a wealth advisor or fiduciary, you should speak to them. If you have an accountant, you should speak to them as well. This is literally just advice from my perspective on things that we have done that have worked for us in our personal life. When I say us, Lauren and I, and things that have worked for me that I think can help you as well. But again, don't take any of this as strict investment advice. I again, am not a fiduciary. I'm not a financial advisor. I'm in this episode, not going to give you specific things to invest in. I'll talk about asset classes. I'll talk about, you know, ways that I've kind of structured our financial well being. But again, if you're looking for direct investment advice, this episode will not have it. I am not giving you that advice. I'm just kind of giving you structures and ideas and frameworks that I think will work for you and that have worked for us. But again, please feel free to double check all of my work with people that are experts, people that do have license, credentials. We've done episodes with those kind of folks in the past. But for those of you that are new to this episode or new to this show, I should say and are not familiar with me, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a brand builder. I have worked for myself for pretty much my entire career. I have done well financially. I've achieved what many would call financial freedom. It's taken a long time to do that. At one point in my life and in Lauren's life, we definitely were not there and definitely were money stressed and didn't have an idea of what to do with money or how to save money or even, you know, how to make money at certain points. But you know, after building businesses and working with money for close to two decades, you learn a thing or two. And mostly I learned a thing or two by making a lot of mistakes with money. I have made pretty much every mistake in the book you can with money. At one point in my life, I've made a lot, I've lost a lot. I at one point couldn't figure out how I was earning and then not having anything to show for It I couldn't figure out how I was in debt when I shouldn't have been. And I think that's a common story. So, again, this episode is taking some of my advice and some of the things that have happened in our life that have gone well and some of the things that have not gone well and kind of condensing it into an episode for every financial stage of your life. We're talking someone who's fully in debt right now and not knowing how to get out of it, to somebody who's maybe saved a little, to somebody who's achieved a little bit of financial security and wants to invest, to someone who has now gotten later in life and has financial freedom and wants a little bit more complex planning and estate planning and tax planning. And all that is really going through all the stages. Again, caveat, I am not a financial advisor, but many of these things have worked for myself. Okay, with that. Let's get into the episode and let's first talk about money in general and personal finance. Here's the problem as I see it, as it relates to money and personal finance, we are not taught nearly enough about money, saving, investing, taxes, any of these things. In school, I went through basically all, all of high school and all of college and got out and realized that I knew very little about saving, investing, doing taxes, anything. And here's the thing, unless you major in these topics, which again, I wish I if I could go back to school, I would have done something in computers or programming and I would have probably done something in finance. But thanks a lot, University of Arizona. I have a regional development degree, whatever the hell that means. Carson had a lot of fun, though. Had a lot of fun, but really, again, got out of college and had no clue how to invest, how to save. Here's the other problem, and I don't mean this to diminish any of the professors or teachers. Many of the professors and teachers that are in these schools also are not taught about finances. Many of them are in debt and struggling and in many cases also broke and living paycheck to paycheck. Again, it's not that these people aren't extremely intelligent, and it's not that they are not credentialed, and it's not that they aren't capable, but they are also victims of a system where we are just not taught about money. So imagine this. You go to school, you learn to make a living, and you get out and you start to earn an income, and you have no clue what to do with that income. You don't know how to save it, you don't know how to invest it, you don't know how much you should budget. You don't have any of these ideas. And the people that are teaching you also do not know in many cases. I'm not saying everyone. I'm sure there's plenty of professors and teachers that are good with money. But for everyone that's good, I bet there's many that aren't good. And so you know, this is a system that is failing everybody, not just the students, but the teachers and our parents. Here's the other problem. We are surrounded in many cases by people in our life that are close to us, that are also terrible with money. How many of you listening, raise your hand. I can't see any of you but or watching. Know people in your life that are in debt, bad with money, constantly stressed about money, many times going broke and have no financial security whatsoever. I would imagine most people listening and watching raise their hands or at least think about raising their hand. It's kind of strange. Imagine if you're Carson. Imagine if they're driving in the car, like raising their hand out the window, like kind of funny or whatever they're doing. Or if they're in like, you know, a class and they're raising anyway. Okay, digress. But again, we know way more people in our lives. I know I do. That are bad with money compared to being good with money. Again, victims to the system. We're just not taught. And so if our parents and the people around us. I'm not saying every parent and our teachers and our friends are bad with money. And we're also bad with money. And nobody's talking about it and nobody's teaching it. How are we expected to understand it? In my personal life, when I got out of school, I realized that I had learned and I've always been pretty decent at making and earning an income. But after every paycheck and after every month, as a young, you know, 20 year old, I was always in debt or out of money and I didn't understand how I could be making so much and not keeping as much. And again, it's because you weren't taught out of budget. We don't know how to say, we don't know how to invest. So I'm hoping that this episode, especially for young people, because you have such an advantage if you're young and you're listening to college age kids or high school age kids, there's a thing called compounding. And the earlier you start, which we'll get into this episode on the the further you can go. I didn't learn about money until I was, you know, early 30s, so I missed a full decade of investing and saving and who knows where I'd be if I would have done that? So imagine you, you learn all these things early enough and you can avoid all of the pitfalls. You can avoid going in debt, you can avoid going broke, you can avoid going bankrupt, you can avoid being stressed about money. You can just set yourself up for long term success. To me, there is no greater tragedy in life than seeing older or elderly people that have worked their whole life get to the end of their careers stressed about money, struggling with personal finances, not being able to pay their bills. And here's why. It's it upsets me so much. And this is going to rub some people maybe in a way that, especially if you're new to investing or if you're struggling with money right now. It's going to sound like a privileged thing to say, but I, I promise you it's not. It's an easy thing to avoid being in that situation. If you learn about money early enough and you start investing and saving for your future early again because of compounding. The earlier you, you start investing, the more that starts to compound, in effect, and the more it starts to grow. And if you have two, three, four, five decades to do that, you can make a shitload of money and you can save a ton later for your later years. And here's the sad thing. As you get older, you know, when we're younger, we always think, oh, I'll always be able to get a job, I'll always be able to make an income. But when you get into your 60s, 70s, and 80s, if you haven't figured this out and you're struggling, the job pool shrinks, the opportunities shrink, your energy is less. And so it just becomes really hard. So, so I'm hoping that this episode will affect people 30, 40, 50 years from now and set them up for success. Okay? We're also going to talk about things like renting versus owning and my perspective on that. We're going to talk about what kind of credit cards to get or not get. We're going to talk about debt, we're going to talk about what different asset classes to invest in. So let's get into it and hopefully this episode helps. Again, if I look, if I'm going up and down between these notes, it's because there's a lot in here and there's some details that I Want to make sure I don't miss. So let's start with stage one of most people's financial life and well being. Most people, when they start out, they start with either some kind of debt or expenses that are greater than they can typically afford. Let's talk about college and student loans for a second. Imagine taking on loans and debts for hundreds of thousands of dollars before you even know how you're going to pay it back and before you even know how to save or invest. To me, this is one of the biggest tragedies in this country that we don't teach young people what that debt means, what they're going to do to pay it back, how they're going to invest for the future. Again, it's, it's something that, you know, I was lucky enough that I didn't have to take on student loans, but many that do, I always wonder like, well, don't you think there should be some kind of lesson or some kind of course to teach these people what it means to pay it back, you know, what the interest means, how long it's going to last, all these things. So again, number one, stage one of most people's financial life and wellbeing is you need to get a hold of your finances before they get a hold of you. Many people, including myself, early, we get these nifty things called credit cards. We have a bunch of them in my wallet right now, these credit cards. And we think that these are just, you know, tools that we can use to buy anything our hearts desire based on the limit that we're provided. And what happens over time is people get comfortable and they start paying the minimum or they stop paying the debt in full and they don't realize the interest that accumulates. And this is really dangerous. So many people start to get in what is some of the worst debt that you can get in, which is high interest credit card debt. If that's you and you're listening and you're stressed about your interest rate and your in your credit card debt and you're paying the minimum each month or you're paying whatever you can afford, you're not paying it off, we've got to remedy that and we got to remedy it quick because this is one of the greatest tools to decimate wealth and keep people stressed and enslaved to debt that has ever existed. And if it were up to me, I would be very careful in offering young people or people that are struggling with cash credit because it creates this false sense of security where you're able to put all these things on credit, and if you don't pay it off, it's a tool to trap people for a long period of time. Now, I get it. If you're struggling and you need to put food on the table, and if you have a family and if you have obligations, this is a tool that many need to tap into. But what I'm saying is, if you tap into it too much, it can have the reverse effect, and it can end up costing you thousands and thousands of dollars over years and years of time. And it can keep you in a really stressed state where you're never, never able to get out of that debt. So here's what I would do. First, we got to understand your financial picture. We have to understand how much you're spending, and we need to understand if you're spending on necessities or things that you don't need. Whenever I have young people or anybody come to me and talk about the topic of money, the first thing I do is say, what are your highest interest debts, and how do we eliminate those fast as possible? So say you have two credit cards and a student loan, and one of your credit cards has 15% interest. I'm just using a random number. And one of them has eight. We need to figure out your student loan maybe has six. Whatever it is, we need to figure out how to clear that card with 15% quickly, because that is accumulating debt and compounding in the reverse way over and over and over again. So the first thing I do is say, let's get a snapshot of your financial wellbeing. There's tools like Ynab, which we've talked about on this podcast, that can help you put your dollars to work. There's tools like Mint that can help you figure out where your dollars are going. But one of the biggest problems is that people are unaware of how they're spending their money. They're unaware of where it's going. They think they need to spend more than they actually do. They think certain things are necessities when they're not. If it were me, and this has been me, and it's been Lauren for sure, and I were in a situation where I was carrying debt and unable to get ahead of that debt. This is where I would start. First, I would log into all of my financial institutions and bank accounts. I would check all my balances. I would get a tool like Mint and Ynab, and I'd figure out where exactly I'm spending, and then I would figure out where I could drastically Cut on those expenses. This may mean you, you know, you have to go and get home cooked meals and you have to really skimp on groceries. And it may mean that you need to stop going out with friends. And it may mean that you really, you need to take on a second job, a third job even. I know this is like this, this for most people is the hardest and worst part because you have to make a ton of sacrifices. But it's so important because we have to clear that debt. Many listening may say, easy for you, Michael, but I promise you this has been us. And it's, and it's definitely, you know, we've had to work through this in the past. What we've. Most people do is they turn a blind eye. They don't look at their expenses, they don't open their bank accounts, they don't look at their credit card debt and they just continue on and on, on this hamster wheel and this endless cycle. And again, it keeps you trapped, it keeps you in a position where you're never going to achieve financial security or financial freedom. And you're essentially just a slave to bad debt, which I use that word because I want to be very illustrative of. Like what that debt can do to someone. It causes stress, it causes turmoil, it ruins relationships, it ruins families, and it creates a situation where you feel like you can't breath, like you just can't live. So we have to do that first. So again, in the early days when we were trying to clear debt, you know, what is selling on ebay look like? What is, you know, going to the grocery store and doing home cooked meals? What is eliminating night outs with friends look like? Ask yourself on every single purchase. Do I absolutely, surely, for absolute certain need this? Most cases, no, you don't need that material good. You don't need that extra clothing, you don't need that handbag. Can you sleep on a couch or a futon? Can you live especially when you're in your 20s? I remember, you know, can you get four or five roommates, have probably a lot of fun doing that too for a period of time. Can you, can you do things that you're not doing right now? That may seem hard, but will, you know, eliminate this short term issue of debt, so give you long term success? That's number one. You have to get hold of your debt, you have to clear it again. I would go through all of your different payments, whether it's a car payment or a credit card payment. I would look and see which one carries the highest Interest and I would focus on that one. You can also call all your credit card companies and see if they would consolidate your debt. There's many things you can do. I'm sure if you Google how to consolidate credit card debt or how to eliminate credit card debt, there's a million different places you can look. But again, get rid of those. And then I would really think about using only debit and cash moving forward. Credit cards are a trap, especially if you don't have savings and emergency funds. So that's. Step one is just look at all your finances. Use a tool like ynab, use mint. Understand your financial picture, understand where your money's going to, and clear that debt as soon as possible. A good book, and it's a basic book, but for anyone that's like, hey, Michael, where do I start with this? How do I understand budgeting, how to understand money? If you go and you, and you look at the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, he should come on the show, by the way. He's got a lot of good advice and this is very basic stuff for budgeting and debt and all these things. So that's where I would start. That's phase one. Okay, Maybe you're somebody who no longer has debt and you're starting to earn a little bit of a wage or an income and you're feeling good. You're not, you know, you're not in this trap of debt all the time, and you're at that next stage. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place, all on your own terms. Lauren and I could not be greater fans of Squarespace, and that is because we remember the days when it was an absolute nightmare to build anything online. You had to get 18 different developers and designers and different hosting sites and you could never figure anything out. And it was not cost effective and it was just a total mess. Now with Squarespace, you can do it all cost effectively, all in one place, efficiently and right on time when you need it. So many of us rely on third party platforms or their social accounts or whatever it may be online, and we really don't control these platforms. We're at the mercy of their algorithms, we're at the mercy of their regulations, we're at the mercy of the way they allow us to conduct business and what we sell. With Squarespace, you don't have to worry about that because you are in control and it is your asset. So whether you want to build courses online and sell content to products to time, if you want to accept payments, if you need SEO tools, if you need a platform to manage your social media accounts, if you want to build your own newsletter, whatever it may be, your side hustle, your main business, or just your art project, you can do it all at Squarespace, cost effectively. Of course we have a special offer. All you have to do is go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're Ready to launch squarespace.com skinny to save 10% off off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's squarespace.com skinny let's take a quick break to talk about Symbiotica. We love Symbiotica so much. We love the people at Symbiotica, but most importantly, we love the products that Symbiotica has to offer. There are so many that we take now that it's hard to recommend just one. We've had the founders of Symbiotica on this podcast five or six times. They're some of our greatest recurring guests and that is because we love the mission, we love the company, and we love what they're putting out there. And like I said, they have such a strong assortment of products. But some of the standout favorites that we take all the time. I think they make the best liposomal glutathione out there. Quick note on liposomal supplements what I love about these kind of supplements is you eat them like food instead of just ingesting them in pill form. Here are some of the benefits that you can expect from the glutathione Glowing skin anti aging properties Gut health, which can support bloating and digestion and faster nutrient absorption. It also tastes great. One of my other favorites is their magnesium L Threonate. Many of us don't have nearly enough magnesium in our diets. Some of those key benefits are it's going to enhance focus, reduce brain fog, balance mood. It's going to calm you. Help support stress management, help support restful sleep. We all need better, more restful sleep. I like to take it at night and in the morning. Sometimes I like to put it in my coffee and stir it around. It adds like a nice little sweetener with those great benefits. And taking Symbiotica supplements is one of the easiest ways I found to stay consistent with my goals even during a busy summer. Of course we have an offer. All you have to do is go to symbiotica.com to get 20 off plus free shipping. That's C-Y-M-B-I-O-T-I-K-A.com TSC to get 20 off plus free shipping. Let's talk about Bond Charge. Bond Charge is a holistic wellness brand with a huge range of evidence based products to optimize your life in every way. Founded on science and inspired by nature, all Bon Charge products adopt ancestral ways of living in our modern day world. Their extensive range of premium wellness products help you sleep better, perform better, have more energy, recover faster, balance hormones, reduce inflammation. The list is endless. From blue light glasses and infrared saunas to red light therapy to EMF management and circadian friendly lighting, Bon Charge products help you naturally address the issues of our modern day way of life effortlessly and with maximum impact. One of my favorite products from Bon Charge is their red light face mask. I absolutely love red light. As I get older I'm noticing a little bit more wrinkles, a little bit more fine lines. As many of you know, I've also suffered from migraines and occasional scars, unfortunately from poor decisions in the past. Their red light therapy masks are incredible and they have been reviewed in over 4000 peer reviewed studies with 400 plus being double blind placebo trials of course. My wife Lauren introduced me to the red light face mask from Bon Charge and ever since she did I have not been able to stop using it. Typically what I do is I'll wear it for 10 to 20 minutes each day, barely even notice it. It's nice and easy to use. Use it while you're watching tv, reading a book, whatever it may be, putting your kids to bed as long as you don't scare them too much. Both near infrared and red light. It boosts collagen and elastin and it's super lightweight on the face and doesn't get hot. We've talked about the benefits of red light on this podcast for years now and now we can happily recommend a great red light face mask. So check it out. Go to boncharge.com and use coupon code skinny to save 15%. That's B O N C-H-A-R-G-E.com and use coupon code skinny to save 15% off. Now we need to talk about how to build an emergency fund. And again, this is basic information. Especially some of you may be more advanced when it comes to financial well, being a lot of this is going to sound basic to you for the early stuff, but for many, and I know this was me at one point, I had no idea what the hell an emergency fund even was. I just kind of rolled with it, paycheck to paycheck. And whatever I had, I spent. And whatever I didn't have, I stressed about. Here's the, here's the thing. Say you're somebody and you're, you know, you have a solid job and you're making an income. Now we need to build what is called an emergency fund. An emergency fund is exactly what it sounds like. It is a pool of money. It is a pool of savings or money that you can use in emergency situations. Sad statistic. Most Americans, most people don't have an emergency fund whatsoever. If they lose their job, if they get laid off, if they spend too much, one month, they're out of money, they're gone. And that causes a ton of stress and a ton of bad decisions, which we'll talk about. What an emergency fund does for me and what I think it will do for you is it creates peace of mind. It creates an opportunity for you. If you lose that job or if you have an unexpected medical bill, or if a family member needs help, or if a kid needs to go to school, or if, you know, a pipe bursts in the house, it creates an opportunity for you to have the ability in that emergency to pay. Without stressing about it. Now I will say I do have friends that have emergency funds that get into emergencies and never touch those funds and continue to stress this. That's not how those should work, in my opinion. These should work for the situation where something goes wrong, something happens, you need to tap into it. You know, you have it laid off again, pipe broke, something, medical bill, whatever, and you don't have to worry because you know, you have a fundamental. So if you need to again, sleep on futons or live with roommates or eat in more or take less, you know, not go to that concert or not buy that piece of clothing or not buy that bag or whatever it may be in order to build this fund, do. So, you know, you can just open a basic, you know, what we do is we have checking and savings account. In the savings account goes the emergency funds, and we look at it as like we don't even think about it unless, again, there's an emergency. Most financial advisors I've heard will suggest with starting to build at least one month. So let's, let's think about that. If you are somebody that makes $5,000 a month, maybe you make $60,000 a year, $5,000 a month. Your emergency fund should be $5,000, at least one month. So that's your first goal. Build at least one month of an emergency fund. Then two months, which is 10, and then three. I think most advisors suggest having having three months. I think that's good advice for single people, for young people, you know, if you can't figure something out in three months, there's maybe, you know, a greater issue. You know, there's a million ways to make money, which we've talked about in a thousand other episodes. A million ways to get jobs, a million million things that you can do. But, you know, everybody sometimes falls down. And three months sounds like a reasonable time to figure it out. If you have maybe a wife or a family or children. I personally, and I know this is not easy, it's a very hard thing to do. Suggest getting six months. Here's the reason why. Obviously it makes sense. Not just taking care of yourself. You have other people that are dependent on you. So having six months set aside so that if something happens to you and your family, that you guys can stay stable, you can stay in the house, you could pay the bills, you could put food on the table. I think six months is what's recommended for me because I've been paranoid and I've had issues in the past where I've lost a lot of money. I keep one year of living expense in cash all the time. It's not the best use of investment. There's a lot of financial advisors out there that are pulling their hat and screaming. I talked about this Morgan Housel when he came on the show, because it's a terrible use of cash with inflation. I know that money is losing every year. Again, another thing, if you just keep a lot of cash, inflation is kicking your ass. The dollar loses power, historically, year after year after year. So we'll talk about that later. But yes, I know keeping a year's worth of cash is a terrible use of cash in investments for me. I sleep better knowing that it's there. Because in the past, when I haven't had it, I stress. And again, I also have a family and a lot of kids and obligations. Here's the other thing that an emergency fund is going to do for you. And I think this is what is the most important part about an emergency fund. When an emergency happens, if you get laid off, if you have a medical bill, if something happens where you all of a sudden don't have an income without that emergency fund, you get on this hamster wheel of stress where you start doing, doing anything to just replace that money, which is understandable. The problem with that is a lot of times now you are making short term decisions that are poor decisions in order to replace an income you once had. So maybe you take a job you know, you don't like, maybe you start, you know, a side hustle you're never going to see through. Maybe you start selling things you don't want to sell, maybe. And next thing you know, because you're on this hamster wheel, you're in a situation where you're not happy with your profession, you're not happy with where you're living, you're not happy with what you're doing. And you're doing these things because you have no choice. Because without the emergency fund, obviously you're forced to replace that income. So I highly suggest, if you're able, if you're somebody now that's got your debt under control and you're making an income to figure out how to slowly start saving for that emergency fund. You know, if we use the $5,000 example, maybe you make $5,000 a month. Is there a way that, that you can put $1,000 away or $500 away or whatever it is away for a period of time? Here's another piece of advice. If you're somebody that's working in a job and you get a raise, what most people do when they get that raise is they increase their lifestyle, they get a better condo, they buy nicer clothes, they lease a better car, they buy whatever. My suggestion always to people when they get that raise is to continue to live for at least one year the same way on the same amount of money that you were working on. So say you made $60,000 thousand dollars a year and now you got to raise to 70, take that 10,000 and pretend you never got it, put it in your emergency fund, put in your investment account and just live again for one more year. You'll be surprised after that year how fast that starts to stack up. And this is kind of a stress free way for you to invest in your future and set up these funds without really impacting the way that you've already been living again. You've already been living on that 60 or whatever it is you got the raise. Wait one year before you spend that raise, take the difference, set it aside for yourself, write me in in a year and thank me later. Because it's, it's a smart thing to Do. All right, so now you are at stage three, which is where you want to grow into financial security. You've cleared your debt, you have an emergency fund. You have a little bit of cash in the bank that you can play with. You are starting to feel good about yourself. You're starting to feel less money stress. I know that there's this period in my life when I knew I had a little bit of savings, that emergency fund, when I had a stable income. This is where I started to kind of feel a little bit better before that. And again, I empathize with people so much on this because I've been there. You're treading water. You're stressed. You're wondering where that next paycheck's coming from. You're wondering how you're going to forge your bills. But now for the people that have, you know, you've taken the time, you've disciplined yourself, maybe you're coming back to this episode after doing it a year from now or whatever. And you're like, okay, I've got got my emergency fund, whether that's one month or three months or six months or a year, whatever it may be. And you're like, well, now I've got the emergency fund and I'm able to pay my bills and I don't have the debt. What do you do next? We're going to create a system that automates your savings and investments. So what most people do, again, they've got their emergency fund now they're making an income. They spend every single dollar, every single month. Month. And they're stressed about money, right? They have the emergency fund, but every time they get a paycheck, they realize that after every paycheck, they spend it all and they're left with nothing again. This is a really stressful way to live. I've done it. I know what it's like. I know looking at that credit card bill at the end of month, saying, oh, shit, I didn't get ahead. But it's really important that we create some financial discipline now around your income. So we will use again that $60,000 a year of income. Let's call it $5,000 a month. Month. We need to create an automated system that takes a portion of that income and sets it aside. I'm assuming that your payroll company or your accountant is already telling you to set some money aside for taxes or they're automatically debiting it from your paycheck. So let's assume that that's all done. We have to start looking at Taking a percentage of this income every single month and setting it aside for investing. Not just saving, but investing. You want your money to grow for you. You wonder why the rich get richer and why they. They pay so little in taxes is because they invest in assets that produce them money, and they are never touching their principal. And they're able to pull that money out and use it for other things. They're able to borrow against it a million different things. Again, I didn't set the system, but this is just how it works. So the minimum that most advisors would recommend and that I would also recommend is taking at least 10% of your income. Let's say it's $5,000 a month. Let's take 500 of that and have it automatically go into an account that you never think about, that you never look at. There are accounts or companies like Fidelity or Schwab, I think, like maybe Robinhood or these kind of places. Again, I don't have a dog in the fight with any of them. I'm not promoting any of them. But brokerage accounts that allow you to either have a portion of your paycheck or, you know, write a check to these things and have it either automatically taken, which I recommend, or write yourself every single month. You know, we have our. Our younger sister, Mimi Lauren, sister, who I've been telling to do this since she was in her early 20s. Mimi, I hope you've been listening to me and still doing it. I catch you every time when you're not. But this is a great way to start investing and saving. The way that I set it up is that money automatically, whatever percentage you choose. Again, if you can do 10%, great. That should be. You know, that's the recommendation. If you can't do 10, you got to do at least five. Really what I try to recommend to people is, can you do 20? Can you do 30? Whatever, however much you can. Again, if you get that raise, take that whole raise, put it in stuff like this and do it for as long as you can. Because the earlier that you can do this from a monthly basis, the more it's going to compound. If you Google right now how compound interest works, or you go to something like a money chimp and say compound, compound interest calculator, and you put in, say, $5,000 into your current principal and have a contribution of $5,000 per year and put 30 or 40 years in the time. Look at that and tell me how much money that is in 30 or 40 years, your mind will be blown. It'll be in the millions. Again, this is something that I wish all young people would do and even old people. The earlier you can do it, the better. I've told every young person in my life to do this. I make all my siblings do it. I make, you know, my friends do it. We've done it and it makes all the difference. Now, again, I'm not going to tell you specifically what kind of assets to invest in, what kind of stocks to buy, but most people have, especially beginner investors or early investors or people that don't really understand much about investing. Most people, people will do very well with index funds, just basic index funds. Again, you can search these, you can YouTube these. Our friend Ramit Sethi's book, I Will Teach youh How To Be Rich. I think that's what it's called. Yeah, I think it's called I Will Teach youh To Be Rich. I think that's what it's called. Sorry, Ramit, if it's not. His book is a great place for beginners to learn about index investing and saving. And many of the things I'm saying in this episode he has talked about for years and he's been on this podcast. But that's where most people would have good luck. Again, I'm not going to tell you specific ones, but if you do that and you start doing that early, it's a set it and forget it thing. Caveat. I would not ever. I would, I would look at these stocks as. Almost as if you don't have them. I would look at these, these investments as something you're not going to touch. Don't neurotically go logging in and out every single week, every single month. The idea is that you set it, you forget it, you leave it to grow. As things grow later in life, you can pull them out, you can borrow against them. There's all sorts of complex things that you can do. But in the early stages, as you're starting to save and invest, you want to do it there. Here's the other thing. Banks will look at these assets as liquid assets. So if you later go for a mortgage or you go for a loan or, you know, or you need money, they're going to look and count that towards your creditworthiness. So it's also not a bad thing to do, to just have that piling in and they grow and they grow whether the market's up or down. What Lauren and I do, we invest every single month, every single pay period. We don't, we don't check if it's Up. We don't check if it's down. It just continued over and over again. Again, that's what we do. I'm not saying that's what everyone should do, but, you know, many people say that index fund investing is a great place for people that are just getting their financial footing now. There's probably some people out there that are screaming about real estate. There's also REITs in and real estate index funds you can invest in. My personal perspective on owning real estate and using it as a tool is it can be great for people that are active professionals, for people that are passive and not paying attention. It could be a total headache. I personally don't want to be a landlord. I don't want to deal with maintenance. I don't want to deal with tenants. I think that it could be stressful. Real estate is not as liquid as people think. We're going to talk about houses in a second. People think that, you know, know they're always going to appreciate that's not the case. Right now in Austin, there's a market downturn that's happening a lot of places. Interest rates are high. So for me, it's just. It's a headache. You're dealing with a bunch of banks. You're not as liquid. You can't get out of it as quickly as you'd like. If the market's down, if interest rates are up, it's a problem. So, again, I know there's a lot of people that have done very well in real estate and will continue to do well. That would not be my first line of investment or defense as I'm starting to build my future. We do invest in real estate. We are in syndicates, and we do have properties. But again, this has been after years of kind of getting the other stuff stable. So I just want to caveat that because I know there's people there that are screaming about real estate. For me, if I was advising a younger sibling or friend, that's not where I would start. So, okay, I mentioned Ramit's book. We mentioned index fund investing. We mentioned setting up, you know, a system where you're taking a percentage of your income and setting it aside. Again, again, this is so important, getting into the discipline. You know, if you make $5,000, how could you live on 4 or 4, 500 and just set it and forget it and not think about it? I promise if you look back in a year or two years, you're going to say, holy, I can't believe how much money I have. I can't believe how well this worked. Most people never do this. I remember being shocked in my life speaking to older people around me that I thought were successful and well set up, that have never done this, never understood, understood this, never knew how to do it, never taught about it. And they're at the end of their careers and lives and they have no savings and no investments. And for me, what I just told you, look how, you know, this could be taught in school in a day or two. You know, this is, this is not complex stuff. This is, you know, I have no finance background, I had no financial degree. I read a few books, which I'll talk about later, and figured a lot of this stuff out. And I can 100% say it's made a huge difference in my financial well being and stress around my money. Okay, let's talk about other investments. Maybe you're somebody now that you're saying, hey, Michael, I've been doing this, I have some savings, I have some investments, you know, and I am doing well enough where I want to kind of take my investments to the next level and I want to start diversifying a different way. Another thing, if you go into index funds, you're immediately diversified because you get a percentage of the s and P500 and a lot of the great US companies or, you know, if you go into US equities or whatever. So you're immediately diversified if you go into index funds. But say you want to start getting into other asset classes. Well, we've already talked about real estate. For me, if you're going to go down that path, my suggestion before you become an active landlord or an active purchaser is like, do you want to mess around with REITs? Do you want to start thinking about syndicates for people that are already professionals, that are already doing this, you can Google all these things. I'm sure there's some great books on this on Amazon. You can find everything in books. Do you want to, you know, start getting into private equity? Here's my perspective on private equity. And I don't just mean private equity funds. I mean angel investing in startups. Many people read stories about things like Poppy or, you know, something that just sold for hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars. And those are great. In my experience, for every one of those kinds of angel investments, there's about a hundred that didn't do that. Lauren and I are angel investors in, I don't know, 40 or 50 companies at this point. This is a joke, but also serious. Where the hell are my checks? I'm still waiting on many of them. Carson. Just kidding. I hope none of the founders see this and get upset. But also kind of not kidding. Here's the problem with angel investing. It's not a liquid investment. You can't just pull your money whenever you want it. You're. You're waiting and hoping that these companies go to the moon and have a transaction or do some kind of distribution. In, in many cases we've done well. Also I would say in more cases those investments have gone to zero. So I would only do angel checks and angel invest if you are confident that you would be okay losing 100% of that money. If you're doing it because you really believe in the founder. If you want to be part of the mission, if. But I would not do it if you think you're just going to have some massive return. This is especially important for family and friends. Friends. I've seen a lot of scenarios where people write their family or friends checks and it can ruin friendships. So again, the way that I write angel checks is we write them to the companies because we believe in the founders and the missions and we're excited about the business. But I write them fully knowing and expecting that it could go to 0 100% of the time. And if I'm okay with that, then I do it. So again, this should be a very, very small portion of your net worth if you're writing those kind of checks. Stocks. Let's talk about crypto. This is a huge topic. You know, it's getting a ton of buzz. I personally, we invest in crypto and we invest in those kind of assets. And again it's, it can be very good. It can also be very bad. Same thought process as it comes to angel investing completely being okay if it went to zero. I don't recommend people go and throw all their eggs in the basket. A lot of the crypto bros and gals out there are screaming at me saying you're wrong and it's going to be the asset of the future. Listen guys, I'm in. I get it. I'm orange pilled all the things. But if I'm giving general advice for people that are trying to get their financial footing under them, I would say you got to be very careful and be okay going to zero. You also have to be really careful with where and how you buy crypto and how you store it and how you save it. A lot of tragedies and stories of people losing, being irresponsible, getting hacked, not going to plug any Crypto companies, sorry guys, but if you're going to look at that asset class, I would do it again with money that you're okay to lose after you've got your financial well being, after you've got your emergency fund, don't do it with the family farm or the family mortgage. Do it with something that you feel confident that if you lost, you'd be okay again. I think for me it's, if I was starting out, it goes in the order of get some cash in the bank for yourself with emergency funds up to, you know, one to three to six months. Then I would start for the basic investor getting into some index fund investing to kind of secure yourself and have a liquid asset that banks recognize that you can, that you know will continue to grow, that's also easily accessible. Then if you wanted to maybe get into some kind of real estate, maybe you want to go into some syndicates, maybe you want to go into some real estate investment funds, maybe you want to start purchasing properties, again, not such a liquid asset dependent on appreciation, dependent on market swings, tax implications, all sorts of things. So unless you're an active real estate investor, I typically tell people to like, hold a beat for a second. And then if you wanted to get into angel investing or private equity or crypto, you do that later with the ability that you know you've already got your kind of financial well being. When it comes to supplements that I take on the regular, I want to make sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck and that they're the most effective that they can be. 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Let's also now talk quickly about owning versus renting because this is a huge topic that many debate online. My personal perspective and also my personal experience is when you're young or when you're earlier on in your financial journey you should be doing everything you can to know exactly what your costs are going to be every month. The problem with ownership and having a mortgage is the mortgage is the least amount that you're going to pay every single month. So if you have a five thousand dollar mortgage, that is the least you're going to pay. If something breaks in the house, if a pipe bursts, if there's a maintenance issue, you're on the hook for that. If insurance drops you, if there's an insurance issue, you're on the hook for that. If you know you're in, if you're in a situation where you know the house is needs to be repainted or something happens, you're on the hook for that. The great thing about renting is you know exactly what the most you're going to pay is. So if you're in a situation where you're really managing a tight budget, knowing that you have a $3,000 a month rent payment or 2,000 or whatever it is, and knowing that that's the maximum is great peace of mind. The other thing that renting offers is flexibility for you to move and bounce around. When Lauren and I were young, you know, basically, you know, until we ended up buying out here in Texas, we loved renting. We rented these condos, we would go on vacation, we'd bounce around, we'd lock the door, we wouldn't think about it. We would stay in a place for a year. If we didn't like it, we'd bounce to another part of town. When, when we were young and dating and married before kids, this was great. We didn't have to worry about other expenses. We didn't have to worry about dealing with the bank. We didn't have to worry about anything. We just paid our landlord and it gave us ultimate flexibility and peace of mind. That's what I would suggest to the high majority of people. My personal opinion. And again, this is going to rile some people up, especially homeowners. I am a homeowner. I get it. I think a home is a liability, not an asset. I think it only becomes an asset if you turn it into an income property or if you hold it for such a long period of time that appreciation sets in and then you're able to sell it again. You're going to have a tax implication there and it's not a liquid asset. So for me this is, is a liability. I also think that you should never buy a home unless you can comfortably afford the down payment. My personal rule is I have to be able to pay the down payment twice. Again, that is not the case for most people, but for me, I'd rather rent than not being able to do that. The other rule for me is I have to be able to comfortably afford the mortgage payment or any obligations or maintenance without stressing or thinking about it. The worst thing for me, and the worst idea is thinking about living in a home where I felt. Felt like it was a trap, where I felt like it was suffocating me, where I felt like I was living just to satisfy a home I've rented. I've been in nice places, I've been in bad places, I've been in small places, I've been in big places. And I'll tell you, the only time that I was unhappy is when I was stressed about the place I was living in. I don't want that to be a trap. So, you know, many people bite off more than they can chew. They take on debt that they shouldn't take on, and then they convince themselves because some idiot in school told them that it was an asset that was going to appreciate and double in 10 years. Times have changed, interest rates have changed, the market has changed. This is not 1933 like your parents, where you're going to, you know, double your money. And also people never take into account inflation. So that's my spiel on homeownership. It should be bought because it's a lifestyle choice, it is a luxury, it is affordable, and it's not stressful. If it is not those things and it is stressing you out and you, and you're worried about the payments or the down payments, then trust me, just rent. You will be happy. You will stack more money. If you follow the advice that I mentioned earlier in this episode and invest the way that I was talking about, you will end up in a position one day where you can afford these houses easily. But what most people do is they don't save, they don't invest, they don't create a stable situation, and then they take on debt like this that they can never afford, and then they're still stressed and the market goes down. And you see all these horror stories of people either not being able to afford their mortgage or having to sell their house and it's a total mess. So for me, there's nothing wrong with renting. There's plenty of other asset classes that you can invest in to get that appreciation and to earn that investment income. And again, my perspective, house liability, not an asset. Buying a house as a rental property, completely different story. But Again, we've talked about real estate. So for me those are the different kind of like asset classes that I would think about. And that's what I would, you know, if I was going to own something, I would think about making sure that I was able to stay and afford it for at least seven years to even think about considering it being an asset. But again, people forget there's taxes, there's maintenance, there's liabilities, there's all sorts of things. Think about that way. Okay, so now we're in a position where, you know, maybe you have, you've cleared your debt, you've got your emergency fund, you've got your investments on, you know, basically automation, you're doing well, you're starting to stack up, you're starting to get in a position where you have, have financial security and maybe even financial freedom. Here are the things that I would talk to your fiduciary about. Again, I am not a financial advisor. If I was going to give advice, I would say go and find a great CPA or accountant if you're at this stage and a fiduciary. Somebody who is obligated to do right by you. Somebody who takes low fees to advise you on what to do with your now, well, accumulated wealth. Some of the things that I would say start talking to them about are things like a 529 for your kids. These are college funds. These are things that you can start investing in early, you can gift, I think the latest number was 17 or 18,000 per parent, tax free to your children that you can put into a college fund that they can use later for their education. If you don't want to go the college route, you can still gift that. That's something. Again, I would talk to your fiduciary route, get the exact numbers, get the exact ways, ways you're able to do that. I would start then thinking about term life insurance. This is usually easily affordable for young, healthy people. Say the worst were to happen and I, or Lauren or you know, one of our children, whatever, to die. You can get these policies and have them put in place usually for very little. And God forbid the worst happens, you know, the family's being taken care of. I would talk to your, your insurance broker, I would talk to your fiduciary about that. I would talk to your accountant. Turn. Term life insurance is usually pretty good. If you're somebody that is starting to have a greater nest egg and maybe you have a couple assets and you want some greater protection. I would look into umbrella policies. Again Talk to your, your advisors about this, but these are things that we have had success with. You set these things up and they give you greater peace of mind, greater insurance. If you're going to go down the home ownership route or you're going to start owning different assets, I would definitely set up a revocable trust at a minimum. Again, again, I am not an expert and I am not somebody who's credentialed, but things that we have done in our life that people usually don't talk about. And here's the thing, in the revocable trust, you can own assets, but also you can have what's called a living trust. And it's different in each state. Obviously we live in Texas, but we have seen tragedy strike family members and people that are close to us where somebody in the family dies unexpectedly or perishes and they have to. And they don't have any of this stuff set up and their family's sitting there waiting for them to go through probate in the court system to figure out who gets what assets and how. What's nice is with these trusts and revocable trust, you can set with, again, an estate planner, all of this stuff up in advance. So if something, if the worst were to happen, say you were to get sick. It outlines exactly what your medical care looks like. Say you were to pass. It outlines exactly where your assets go and how. Say you have young children. It tells you exactly who's managing those assets for those children. It outlines all of this and helps you avoid probate so that you don't have to wait on the court system and legal fees and that it's not, you know, a total mess. You know, when you see those movies, if someone dies and all the family's fighting over this outlines it all in advance. It's, again, it takes a little bit of work, but it's something that I think anyone who's got their financial footing under them should do honestly. Even if you don't, even if you're still early in your financial journey, if you have a family and you have children, I highly suggest you look into this because again, you want to outline exactly what happens to your children, what they get, who takes care of them, what happens to you. All these things without having the courts and all that step in. If you get even further than this, you know, we should start talking about defined benefits plans. Again, if you're a business owner, you should ask your CPAs and your fiduciaries about this. You should start looking into what are called pplis. Which are private placement life insurance policies. These are for high net worth individuals that want to set even more aside and have them grow tax deferred. One thing I forgot to mention earlier, you should always take advantage of a Roth 401k or a Roth IRA if your company offers these things. If you can, if you're a business owner, you can set one up for yourself. Do that as well. That should have been earlier in the episode in investing. But again if you're still listening like that's, that's also something very important to look into. Talk to your advisors about that. Again, don't just go to a bank and get some kind of stockbroker, go and get a fiduciary. They fall under different law laws and have different regulations on how they service you. And if you have a trust, this is the last thing I would start thinking about. And then we're going to get way too complicated for everybody. If you're high net with an individual and you start having multiple assets, I would start thinking about irrevocable trusts and structures and ways that you can protect your assets. Again, these are things that you can talk to about with your teams. You can work with ChatGPT right now or someone like that to learn more about some of these things. I've mentioned this last part. The of of the episode is really for the people that have, have you know, set themselves up. They have a little bit of assets. They're doing, they're investing more, they're wondering what kind of the next level they can go to. For me, if I'm looking at asset classes, I'm always, you know, looking at things that are potentially liquid and accessible. I'm looking at things that have tax efficiency. I'm looking at cash flowing assets and growth assets. I'm doing, I'm looking at things that are not huge headaches for me. I'm a business owner. My biggest headache is my businesses. That's where I have most of my net worth and investments at any given time. Because I'm, you know, putting my whole being into running those companies. So I want my income and my, and my savings and my investments to be somewhat passive and not require me to think so much. Again, I'm not a professional investor. I don't run a fund. I, you know, that's not my living. So I want, and this for the majority of people, I just want it to be automated and easy and less stressful. That means I'm probably not getting as big a returns as some of those people that are focused on These kinds of things. But it's enough for me to feel good while I get the greatest returns running my business or, you know, in my career. Those are the different stages of wealth as I see it. You know, again, we're not getting into dollar amounts. I think, you know, there's a great book called the Psychology of Money by Morgan Houselike which, you know, really gets into how we think about money and, you know, what's enough and how much is enough for you and how much is enough for me. The biggest thing that I will say is that the way that I view money is as a tool. I look at it as a tool to build businesses. I look at it as a tool to service my lifestyle. I look at it as a tool to help others. I don't look at it as just, you know, piles of cash laying around for material goods. And, you know, it took me a while to get there. So if you look at money in that way and you look at it as a tool that can be used to enhance your life, to give you less stress, to help others, it's a really great way to, you know, and a great perspective to have around money. Again, most people get so stressed about money because they look at it as this kind of like evil thing. The fact of the matter is this is the currency that people use, at least in the world today. There's different kinds of currencies, but money in these assets are how most people measure goods being sold, measure goods being bought. So it's important to just understand. It's also important because it's how we transact, right? And there's nothing worse than feeling like you don't have enough. Or maybe you do have enough, but you just don't realize it. Or maybe you would have enough if you looked at a different way and saved in a different way. So that's my episode on Money. I told you guys that I would also include some resources for people that are much more knowledgeable than myself and in many cases have the credentials and the backgrounds to give even greater advice. But this is a good place to start. Some of my favorite books around personal finance and again, nobody taught me me this. This is really. I learned this stuff from books and then going and finding these resources in my own life. Money mastered the game. I've said it on this podcast many times by Tony Robbins. I said it to him when he came on the show as well. I think this is one of the best and most well rounded resources for understanding money and investing and personal finance. It is a dense Book, it takes a little while, but I promise if you can get through it, you are going to immediately change your financial well being. There is another great book called the Cycle of Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel which I just talked about. Again, he's also been on the podcast. Check out that episode. And this is really a book about how to think about money. And the psychology of it is exactly what it says, the psychology of money. So if you're somebody that has maybe been stressed about it and not thinking about it in a way that's productive, this is a great episode. There's also a great book called the Path by one of my favorite financial followers, which is a guy named Peter Mallouk. Peter, I would love for you to come on the show and also with Tony Robbins in the book. So the Path. Path. There is also a great short book, an old book called the Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. Funny enough, Rob Dyrdek came on this show, one of our favorite episodes of all time, and recommended that book and I dove into it and this is really a book that is going to teach you about accumulating wealth and attracting wealth and money to you. And it's a short read, but it'll completely flip the way you think about making money and earning it. Also the Algebra of Wealth by Scott Galloway. Again another one open. Invite Scott on the podcast. I think that's a great one for starting out and really, you know, kind of gives you different stages of understanding wealth. Anything by Charlie Munger. Obsessed with Charlie Munger. One of my greatest regrets in life is that we never got to interview him on this podcast. Honestly, anything by him, even just his stuff on life is, is great famous partner of Warren Buffett obviously guy knows a little bit about finance himself. And then the classic, which is not specifically about money but, but just thinking about, you know, abundance and wealth and accumulation and that is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I'm not the first person to recommend. It won't be the last. Last thing is a challenge for any of you before you know the end of this week is to run your own numbers this week. You know, get something like Ynab or Mint and get a hold of your financial well being. Open that bank account, that credit card that you've been dreading to look at, understand where your money's going, what's working, what's not working, working. Go and look into the resource I mentioned and kind of at the end of this week maybe you can say, okay, this is the time that I'm going to get my financial footing under me and at least to understand my financial picture a little bit better when I say Miami mean yours. All right, guys, hope this episode was helpful. It's been long requested, I'm sure for many of you that are further along in your financial journey, a lot of this was redundant or said by others that have much greater credentials. But even for the people that are maybe a little bit further along, maybe some of the stuff at the end is stuff you haven't thought about yet. We can get very complex with this stuff. For me, I try to keep everything simple, stupid, and keep it straight down the line, keep it easy, keep it understandable. So hopefully this is a good place to start. Hope you guys like these solo episodes with that. We'll be back next week. Thank you for listening.