Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 1: Yes he is. And this episode today, all we're talking
Speaker 1: about is Matt. We're covering Matt's money origin story. Okay,
Speaker 1: So my desire to do this episode or not, is
Speaker 1: that a reflection of my own vanity, whether I'm willing
Speaker 1: to talk about myself for anywhere between thirty and forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. Yeah, we'll see, We'll see how long this goes.
Speaker 1: But now I am looking forward to this though, because
Speaker 1: like I'm in the hot seat a little bit. Actually,
Speaker 1: I started to perspire a little bit. I feel like
Speaker 1: you've turned the tables, You've turned the microphone on me.
Speaker 1: Even though I do talk into the microphone every week,
Speaker 1: it does feel a little bit different here Spotlight specifically. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's gonna be fun. We're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna dive into my money origin story next week,
Speaker 1: and so the tables will be turned. I will feel
Speaker 1: the heat then, But but I think this is this
Speaker 1: is gonna be good at It's, you know, still the
Speaker 1: beginning of a new year, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of How the Money listeners who know quite a lot
Speaker 1: about you and I at this point, we divulge a
Speaker 1: fair amount of information about how we live our own
Speaker 1: lives and how we handle our personal finances on the show,
Speaker 1: but we've never really done a deep dive into either
Speaker 1: of our money origin stories. And anybody's been listening, some
Speaker 1: people from back in the day episode, you know, the
Speaker 1: single digit episodes, they they will find some of these
Speaker 1: things familiar, but they will also unearthed new territory about
Speaker 1: the man, the myth, the legend, how the money. Matt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna weave it all together because I do think that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've been listening for years now, you probably have
Speaker 1: maybe a loose understanding of my past of your past
Speaker 1: as well, because we you know, we sprinkle in a
Speaker 1: little bits of our history into every single episode. We
Speaker 1: try to find ways where it relates to our listeners.
Speaker 1: But this will be fun to kind of play it
Speaker 1: all together and for folks to have a clear understating.
Speaker 1: Will be a kind of a more conversational episode as
Speaker 1: opposed to one world word diving into specific topics are
Speaker 1: teaching something, Yeah, this is maybe truly what it's actually
Speaker 1: like if you're having a beer with us and kicked back,
Speaker 1: but dude. Okay, before we launched into this, though, I
Speaker 1: wanted to share with you Kate got me an amazing
Speaker 1: Christmas gift to spend a couple of weeks now since Christmas,
Speaker 1: and uh, you might remember back we had Marshall Allen on.
Speaker 1: We talked about healthcare, crazy high costs of still one
Speaker 1: of my favorite interview episodes that we've done. Fantastic episode,
Speaker 1: and his splurge was coffee, specifically, he roasts his own coffee. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I kind of nerded out. I started to ask
Speaker 1: him a bunch of questions, realized that we couldn't include
Speaker 1: all that in the episode, dialed it back. Um, but
Speaker 1: I was really interested in his ability to roast his
Speaker 1: own coffee really nice, like world class, high end coffee
Speaker 1: for a fraction of the price, and to get it,
Speaker 1: you know, for super cheap, super fresh at home. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. Is like the best of both worlds, right,
Speaker 1: it costs less money and it's better the best stuff exactly.
Speaker 1: So I meant, you know, after that interview I mentioned
Speaker 1: that the Kate didn't think much of it. Well, sure enough,
Speaker 1: Kate got me basically a coffee roasting kit for Christmas,
Speaker 1: and uh, the best part is one of the easiest
Speaker 1: and cheapest methods of like an easy bake oven for adults. Yes, seriously,
Speaker 1: the one of the easiest and cheapest ways to actually
Speaker 1: roast the coffee are is to use a popcorn air popper.
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's like this little appliance and you
Speaker 1: kind of got the spoon of corns, kernels or whatever.
Speaker 1: You you drop down in there. You flip the thing
Speaker 1: on it and it starts popping popcorn. Well, you do
Speaker 1: basically you do that exact same thing with the coffee beans.
Speaker 1: You do it outside because it creates a big mess
Speaker 1: in the you know, and it's still there's a decent
Speaker 1: amount of smoke um. But you do that, you keep
Speaker 1: an eye on it. You get it to the color
Speaker 1: the roast you know that you want, whether you're looking
Speaker 1: for like a lighter medium, darker medium, or darker roast.
Speaker 1: And dude, it was phenomenal. I was surprised at how
Speaker 1: easy it was to make really good coffee at home.
Speaker 1: I've got to get you some. Yes, I would love
Speaker 1: to try it. It's just like, like like we said, the
Speaker 1: ability to buy a pound of raw coffee. I guess
Speaker 1: that's what you call it raw. I'm still working on
Speaker 1: the kit beans that Kate Kake got me, four different samples. Basically,
Speaker 1: we're kind of cycling through them right now. But it
Speaker 1: is definitely more affordable than buying the really nice stuff
Speaker 1: at the store. How much more affordable, I'm not totally sure.
Speaker 1: I will report back as I kind of dial in
Speaker 1: my coffee roasting escapades there we go. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll definitely rist them up for you. I look forward
Speaker 1: to trying it, and yeah, I think it's cool. I
Speaker 1: was kind of fascinated by the fact that Marshall Allen
Speaker 1: revealed that he roasted his own beans. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that was a thing. As soon as he said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this is gonna be a problem
Speaker 1: for me. All Right, we gotta reach back out to him. Dude,
Speaker 1: we're doing it. You're doing it. But anyway, maybe i'll
Speaker 1: link to the air popper. It's just a standard like
Speaker 1: popcorn air popper that kid got me. But that plus
Speaker 1: this book she got me in, plus some sample coffees,
Speaker 1: that's all you need. But yeah, I'll keep you posted.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Looking forward to hearing more about your coffee roasting.
Speaker 1: It's so good actually once I'm right now, even though
Speaker 1: we're drinking beer, we should like instagram live you roasting
Speaker 1: your own coffee beans. It's it's really boring, but in
Speaker 1: there turn it on and watch it turned around. We
Speaker 1: could like turn the camera around and you're smiling like
Speaker 1: a giddy schoolboy. It's that great. Well, let's move on. Matt.
Speaker 1: Let's mentioned quickly the beer that we're having on this episode.
Speaker 1: This is Athena Paradiso with BlackBerry, black current and ambrosia.
Speaker 1: This is my Creature Comforts, which is just an awesome
Speaker 1: brewery out of Athens, Georgia. Will give our thoughts on
Speaker 1: this beer at the end of this episode, but uh,
Speaker 1: for now, Matt, let's get onto the subject matter at hand.
Speaker 1: And the subject matter is is you, Like we're talking
Speaker 1: about your money orgin story. It is all about you today,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I've kind of um come up with
Speaker 1: some questions like kind of the things I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about your money history so that our listeners
Speaker 1: can learn more about you, but then also just learn
Speaker 1: more about kind of how you've grown with money, how
Speaker 1: you've handled it. Hopefully there are not not just human
Speaker 1: interests here, but also actual money tips and takes takeaways totally,
Speaker 1: but like we said, it is I think helpful for
Speaker 1: you to get to know us better as people early
Speaker 1: on in the new year year And and Matt, January
Speaker 1: tends to be a month where how the Money gets
Speaker 1: more downloads than usual because people are like, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of new Year's resolution, I want to do better with
Speaker 1: my money, and so they're seeking out a podcast, uh,
Speaker 1: some similar to ours or ours in particular, and they're
Speaker 1: hoping that it will help and hopefully hearing Matt's story
Speaker 1: will provide some inspiration along with yeah, some of those tactical,
Speaker 1: practical takeaways. But yeah, let's let's get to it. Matt,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of like start start young, and
Speaker 1: not like baby young, like when you came home from
Speaker 1: the hospital or anything like that. But I do want
Speaker 1: to hear about my first dollar. Is it your parents
Speaker 1: started that allowance really early? But yeah, let's talk about maybe, um,
Speaker 1: when you the first conversations you remember about money in
Speaker 1: your household, And what always sticks out to me is
Speaker 1: and we'll get into this next week, but coming from
Speaker 1: a house where money either just wasn't talked about, or
Speaker 1: when it was, it was always in like a frustrated
Speaker 1: way or uh, there just wasn't a whole lot of
Speaker 1: like practical helpful talk when it came to the subject
Speaker 1: of money. You come from a household that has a
Speaker 1: pretty healthy relationship with it, it seems like totally man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I so I credit a lot of that to
Speaker 1: my dad. He grew up in the Midwest, and I
Speaker 1: feel like he brought over, you know, from the Midwest
Speaker 1: to the South, like a lot of that Midwestern like
Speaker 1: work ethic, and I think he sort of translated a
Speaker 1: lot of that towards handling your money. Uh well. Also,
Speaker 1: but as early as I remember, always had an allowance.
Speaker 1: I mean, like some of my earliest memories regarding money
Speaker 1: were receiving a bunch of dimes and then being taught
Speaker 1: how to save a portion of it, how to give
Speaker 1: a portion of it away, how to you know, have it,
Speaker 1: you know, the rest of it for spending. But that
Speaker 1: plus like a piggy bank made out of like a
Speaker 1: two leader coke modle. That also, I will say, my
Speaker 1: dad like he taped over it so you couldn't see
Speaker 1: the money, which always like even now looking back, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: isn't the ability to see it kind of like yeah,
Speaker 1: like kind of getting you excited about but he was
Speaker 1: just like no, no, no, like you We're gonna not
Speaker 1: We're gonna pretend that doesn't exist. Uh. And So I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe there's a lesson there that he was
Speaker 1: trying to teach me, But a lot of my early
Speaker 1: memories around money had to do with just not only
Speaker 1: the responsibility of handling my money well, but also doing
Speaker 1: the chores I needed to do around the house, because
Speaker 1: it wasn't just an allowance that I received, no matter
Speaker 1: what it was, because there were certain jobs that I
Speaker 1: had that I had to perform in order to receive
Speaker 1: that money. Uh. And so in that way, it was
Speaker 1: less I guess, like an allowance that I was entitled
Speaker 1: to and more like something that I did have to earn.
Speaker 1: And you've really taken that sort of idea about money
Speaker 1: into how you teach your kids about it. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that later, but you really do you value you think?
Speaker 1: And and this is just true in the real world,
Speaker 1: right that when we work, we get money, and those
Speaker 1: two things are just highly correlated exactly. I think that's
Speaker 1: my biggest problem with calling it an allowance, because it
Speaker 1: just feels like it's something that you get no matter what.
Speaker 1: It's like a stipend or something. As as as long as
Speaker 1: you're breathing, you get some money. It's like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I really do like the idea that you
Speaker 1: receive money when you perform a job or do a job,
Speaker 1: or you know, perform a task. I do think like
Speaker 1: a lot of folks will argue that, well, no, there
Speaker 1: should be certain chores that your kids do no matter what.
Speaker 1: And I agree, like, there are certain things that my
Speaker 1: kids will never get paid for because you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get paid for being you know, listening to mom and
Speaker 1: I are making your bed, Like yeah, like these are
Speaker 1: things that you you should be doing no matter what.
Speaker 1: But for me, you know, the allowance that was huge
Speaker 1: another sort of lesson. And this is I guess as
Speaker 1: I got a little bit older, but I remember getting
Speaker 1: my first credit card, Like I remember showing up in
Speaker 1: the mail. I was still living at home, and this
Speaker 1: is you know, this is years ago, and I swear
Speaker 1: I was like I was either eighteen or even younger,
Speaker 1: and I may have been sixteen years old. And it
Speaker 1: was a card and it, I mean, it's a prequalified letter.
Speaker 1: I had my name on it, and I remember showing
Speaker 1: it to dad and be like, hey, this is my
Speaker 1: credit card now, right, and he's like, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And I thought, wait, what it's like, Well, as long
Speaker 1: as you whatever you use it for, as long as
Speaker 1: you pay it off every month, there's no reason that
Speaker 1: you can't use this credit card. Uh. And and so
Speaker 1: I think that stands up in my mind as well,
Speaker 1: and that might be part of my affinity towards credit
Speaker 1: cards even today, because I mean he was taking advantage
Speaker 1: of cash back bonuses and different things like that starting
Speaker 1: back in the eighties. But I think that that that
Speaker 1: also had a pretty large impact on my ability to
Speaker 1: think about finances, maybe in a different way than other
Speaker 1: kids were. Yeah, well it sounds like to what your
Speaker 1: dad was instilling was a sense of tomomy right where
Speaker 1: we're like your sixteen and your dad's like, sure, it's
Speaker 1: your credit card. Uh. And we've talked about how how
Speaker 1: helping your kids, allowing your kids some of that leash
Speaker 1: to make mistakes while they're still under your roof is
Speaker 1: actually the best time for them to make mistakes and
Speaker 1: to learn while you're there to protect him while the
Speaker 1: mistakes can be minor, and it seems like your dad
Speaker 1: was kind of setting you up for that that ability
Speaker 1: to Yeah, absolutely, they were all about allowing me to
Speaker 1: make the mistakes with like tens and hundreds of dollars
Speaker 1: as opposed to like thousands and ten thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: that oftentimes those are the lessons we learned further down
Speaker 1: the road, right. But also I do want to mention
Speaker 1: my mom because even though like more the day to
Speaker 1: day you know, nuts and bolts of handling money, well
Speaker 1: came down to dad and what he taught me. But
Speaker 1: I think my one of the things my mom instilled
Speaker 1: in me. I mean, of course, like she's Asian and
Speaker 1: so like all Asian parents, she wanted me to be
Speaker 1: a doctor or a lawyer. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that always stood out to me because I knew what
Speaker 1: a doctor was and I knew what a lawyer was.
Speaker 1: But she would also always mentioned entrepreneurship, like in your
Speaker 1: own business, and that really does as I think back,
Speaker 1: that stands out to me because at the time you
Speaker 1: didn't really know what that meant, right, Like all you
Speaker 1: knew was at there are stores and then I guess
Speaker 1: there's a business owner and so. And specifically mom had
Speaker 1: and she still does have a lot of friends who
Speaker 1: own their own businesses, but a lot of them were
Speaker 1: like brick and mortar shops and so. But even then,
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't necessarily want to be like the
Speaker 1: owner of a Korean food store, like, but the idea time, buddy,
Speaker 1: if you want, hey, I could man uh or your
Speaker 1: own coffee roasting company maybe so uh. But the idea
Speaker 1: of being able to do whatever it is that I
Speaker 1: wanted to do with my time, for me to be
Speaker 1: able to set my own rules, I think, even at
Speaker 1: a very young age, that that kind of turned something
Speaker 1: onto my head, right, like it flipped the switch. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't have to go work for somebody else, I
Speaker 1: can create my own product. Yeah. And I think that
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with too. Just how I mean,
Speaker 1: I literally only lasted like a year and a half,
Speaker 1: two years in the corporate world right after college before
Speaker 1: I started my own business, before doing other things is
Speaker 1: that were a little less traditional. And and as I
Speaker 1: think back, I mean, there weren't many influences in my
Speaker 1: life to owning your own business except for some of
Speaker 1: those early conversations we had and thinking that I might
Speaker 1: own a food store. Yeah, alright, So, uh so, I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, we talked about how your your
Speaker 1: dad in particular, was such a great influence your mom
Speaker 1: in regards to pushing you towards entrepreneurship at least opening
Speaker 1: your eyes to the reality that that is a legitimate
Speaker 1: way to move forward in this world, to start your
Speaker 1: own business. But what about like maybe the biggest money
Speaker 1: fail or something like that, like our biggest money struggle
Speaker 1: early on, because you know, even today, it's not like
Speaker 1: you're rolling in the dough. But but where where I'm sitting,
Speaker 1: from where I'm sitting, you've been just so incredibly intentional
Speaker 1: for a lot of years with your money and and
Speaker 1: that's paid off, like you we mentioned in this on
Speaker 1: the show, but you have your budget down to the penny,
Speaker 1: like what you've spent dating back fifteen years. Like so,
Speaker 1: so it's not without like a lot of effort and
Speaker 1: intentionality that you've gotten here. But I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what my robotic friend Matt like that you're a real
Speaker 1: human being who potentially occasionally also screws up so totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't make the always make the wisest decisions,
Speaker 1: and I will say I mean I've become more methodical
Speaker 1: and responsible as I've gotten older, but especially dude, I
Speaker 1: mean in high school and college. You know, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that these were struggles at the time. Like at
Speaker 1: the time, I thought I was just living my life
Speaker 1: and making great decisions. But the amount of money that
Speaker 1: I spent on cars specifically, and we've kind of hinted
Speaker 1: at this before, but early on I had this old Jeep,
Speaker 1: this old Jeep Cherokee that actually was pretty great. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty great car, was well maintained. We bought
Speaker 1: it from some folks we knew. But then I saved
Speaker 1: up some more money, sold that Jeep. Took that money
Speaker 1: that I, you know, earned from that sale, and plus
Speaker 1: the additional money, and I bought a nicer Jeep, like
Speaker 1: a newer Grand not just regular Cherokee, a Grand Cherokee,
Speaker 1: did the upgrade and fancy and uh. And then in
Speaker 1: college I actually sold sold that, sold that one and
Speaker 1: got an older Range Rover, which was also a very sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet ride that was very expensive to maintain, terrible gas mileage.
Speaker 1: Obviously didn't check the Consumer Reports reliability ratings before you
Speaker 1: bought that, But I mean I did this multiple times
Speaker 1: over the course of a number of years, and just
Speaker 1: every time you do that, there's just transaction costs involved,
Speaker 1: not to mention just getting it to a level of running,
Speaker 1: you know, like a level of dependability. Plus I would
Speaker 1: also put a decent stereo, and I wasn't like going
Speaker 1: around blast and music, but I liked having a you know,
Speaker 1: some base. I liked having a sub back there. But
Speaker 1: I would do that every single time. And so it
Speaker 1: was just this money that was just essentially hemorrhaging towards
Speaker 1: transportation that just wasn't all that necessary in my life.
Speaker 1: Like I look back now in retrospect and I kind
Speaker 1: of cringe at what I could have done with that
Speaker 1: money had I invested it. Say, you know, like we
Speaker 1: give these examples all the time, how if a teenager
Speaker 1: when they are sixteen or eighteen years old, if they
Speaker 1: started investing that money early on, what that money could
Speaker 1: turn into. And I couldn't imagine, uh, the fortune, the
Speaker 1: amount of wealth that I would have had I done that.
Speaker 1: But those are lessons though, that I learned along the way.
Speaker 1: Because after that period of time I was able to
Speaker 1: look back, I can think, oh man, that was kind
Speaker 1: of dumb, Like it was fun but it was it
Speaker 1: was very expensive fun, you know. And and again these
Speaker 1: weren't really nice, brand new, fancy sports cars or anything
Speaker 1: like that. These were old, old cars relatively not an
Speaker 1: expensive car relatively speaking. But for you, it's still just
Speaker 1: like a misplacement of fund. Absolutely for me, it was
Speaker 1: just the most definitely was the most amount of money
Speaker 1: that was spending on anything. And so yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: On one hand, I see that as a massive mistake,
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I see that as just
Speaker 1: a learning opportunity. And it's something that I've kind of
Speaker 1: carried into today. As to you know who I am now? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, well who you are now? We're going to
Speaker 1: get to that in just a second. But I've got
Speaker 1: some some more questions about as like you enter early adulthood,
Speaker 1: and in particular, I want to ask you about a
Speaker 1: moment that you point to at your light bulb moment,
Speaker 1: and it it's about the show down to an abbey.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna get some more questions about your origin
Speaker 1: story and what makes you who you are and how
Speaker 1: you are with money. We'll get to some more of
Speaker 1: those right after this. All right, we're back from the
Speaker 1: break and now slow down. This is my I can
Speaker 1: take it the lead here, I get to bring it back.
Speaker 1: I got the reins. You just sit back and handle
Speaker 1: the questions. I'm just gonna kick back and you rob
Speaker 1: my feet. No, we're not doing that. But let's let's
Speaker 1: get to you all. Let's get dive more further into
Speaker 1: your origin story, mat because yeah, there's um does it
Speaker 1: feel like that the guests just welcomed the show back
Speaker 1: from the best because you're kind of interviewing me. It
Speaker 1: felt wrong, But uh, I want to know too, Like,
Speaker 1: as you're okay, so you're in college, you're spending money
Speaker 1: on cars that you should really shouldn't be because you
Speaker 1: could be saying, you could even start to get into investing,
Speaker 1: and because your dad had taught you some important principles
Speaker 1: about how to handle money, giving you actual money as
Speaker 1: a kid to save and invest and so yeah, like
Speaker 1: as you left the nest, like, as you're out on
Speaker 1: your own basically at college, where did you turn for
Speaker 1: help figuring out the bigger money issues that you started
Speaker 1: to face because your your dad had been such help.
Speaker 1: Would you just call him when you have questions or
Speaker 1: or yeah, what direction did you start to go in
Speaker 1: um with yeah, your your money beliefs. Yeah, I should
Speaker 1: have called my dad. So I mean my personality, I'm
Speaker 1: just prone to do things on my own and to
Speaker 1: learn on my own and make my own mistakes. And
Speaker 1: so I'm sure I could have called dad uh and
Speaker 1: ask him some very specific and I'm sure I did. Actually.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you talk to your parents all
Speaker 1: the time, like when you're when you're younger, and I
Speaker 1: can't necessarily remember, like, you know, some important phone call.
Speaker 1: But I also know my personality though, and I do
Speaker 1: tend to not ask for help. I tend to try
Speaker 1: to figure things out on my own. I make my
Speaker 1: own mistakes, which can be a good thing because once
Speaker 1: you learn a lesson, I think you learn it really
Speaker 1: well when when you've learned it the hard way, as
Speaker 1: opposed it being something that somebody else has told you.
Speaker 1: And plus at that time, I think Dad was investing
Speaker 1: a lot in single stocks, and so you may have
Speaker 1: pointed me in the wrong direction. It's still a debate
Speaker 1: that him and I have often where it's just like,
Speaker 1: so tell me about your portfolio. How much better is
Speaker 1: it doing than the SMP which turned last year? But
Speaker 1: it wasn't until actually I graduated college and I got
Speaker 1: my first It was a post college job, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a job with my profession. I was just living
Speaker 1: up in North Carolina with a friend and I first
Speaker 1: learned about the roth ira A. I was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who was a few years older, and he
Speaker 1: was telling me all about the magic of compound returns
Speaker 1: and how I needed to get investing, uh specifically within
Speaker 1: a roth ira as soon as possible, and I said, cool, done,
Speaker 1: I'll do that, and I totally like, literally, I think
Speaker 1: I can. Also, I need you to jump off a bridge,
Speaker 1: and you're like, cool about that, Dan, But I invested
Speaker 1: my money. I opened a roth ira A. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, I have things out of order, right, and
Speaker 1: so even though you do want to get investing, you
Speaker 1: do want to make sure you've got some money in
Speaker 1: the bank, And unfortunately I didn't. Really, I wasn't well versed,
Speaker 1: I wasn't well rounded. I just didn't have that fund started. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. And that was the problem. That was money
Speaker 1: that I actually had to take out of that accounts
Speaker 1: um a number of months later because I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any margin in my life, and I was
Speaker 1: looking for some money to help me with my move
Speaker 1: to at once I got my first what I called
Speaker 1: my first big boy job. But nor was I actually
Speaker 1: invested in a low cost index fund either. I was
Speaker 1: invested in a fund that he had recommended and he
Speaker 1: had seen good results over the you know, a few
Speaker 1: years that he was invested, But it was a really
Speaker 1: expensive mutual fund that was managed by like this rock
Speaker 1: star fund manager. And so what that meant was that
Speaker 1: as soon as I started investing in it, it didn't
Speaker 1: do so great. Uh. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: any returns that I was receiving was getting eaten away
Speaker 1: my fees. And so that's why not because of that
Speaker 1: one lesson, but since that was my first lesson, the
Speaker 1: first time I learned that low cost in next funds
Speaker 1: were the way to go. But we have just seen
Speaker 1: over years and decades that widely diversified funds that cost
Speaker 1: virtually nothing is what you and I are currently invested in.
Speaker 1: It's what we recommend for everybody who's in the wealth
Speaker 1: building stage of their life. But that was that was
Speaker 1: a lesson I learned. Yeah, maybe the hard way. Well
Speaker 1: that's a that's a couple of lessons which funds you
Speaker 1: are are are smart to invest in you. You also
Speaker 1: learned about timing of things. Order of operations is important,
Speaker 1: and we talk about that in our seven money Gears
Speaker 1: and how there is there is a weight route in
Speaker 1: which you should go and investing before you have any
Speaker 1: savings on hand is a bad idea because yeah, you
Speaker 1: might need to pull that money out and that is
Speaker 1: not an ideal situation. You gotta have that margin. Uh.
Speaker 1: Something else I mentioned too, that same friend who had
Speaker 1: told me about opening my first you know, opening my
Speaker 1: wrath Ira. Interestingly, he had purchased a home that my
Speaker 1: friend and I were renting from, and so this was
Speaker 1: my first introduction to investment properties. Uh. And he made
Speaker 1: it look so fun and so great because he owned
Speaker 1: the place that we're friends with them anyway, right, and
Speaker 1: so he would come by and hang out. This is
Speaker 1: up in North Carolina. It's kind of cold up there,
Speaker 1: so we'd have like like guys chili nights, and uh,
Speaker 1: we'd have some friends over. That's actually coincidentally, that's when
Speaker 1: I first started drinking nicer craft beer. So that was
Speaker 1: a very formational period of my life when I learned
Speaker 1: a lot. But looking back, I I realized that was
Speaker 1: my first introduction into understanding the fact that oh, you
Speaker 1: could invest in real estate. You can you can buy
Speaker 1: a property, uh that can generate income for you, and
Speaker 1: you can do that like with a good conscience. It's
Speaker 1: not like this evil landlord who is trying to extract
Speaker 1: as much value out of the tenant as possible. It's
Speaker 1: not like this massive imbalance of power. You can do
Speaker 1: it in a way that provides good for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. And I think that was really important when
Speaker 1: it came to sort of planning those initial seeds of
Speaker 1: real estate investing. So it's interesting, Uh, my eight year
Speaker 1: old Selma, she got Monopoly Junior for Christmas, and so
Speaker 1: we've been playing the one with the with the with
Speaker 1: the cards or is it actually the game board? Is
Speaker 1: actually the game board? And it is. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And she's getting understanding real estate investing more
Speaker 1: where she's like, I buy this thing and then when
Speaker 1: people land on it, they have to pay me money.
Speaker 1: And it's like she's like this is this sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of the way. Yeah, And so yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to expound on the nuance behind a brental property or
Speaker 1: even just starting a business with her. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: how something as small as Monopoly Junior has been kind
Speaker 1: of a way to do that. And yeah, I real
Speaker 1: estate investing, you know. You know, I've talked about it
Speaker 1: a bunch on the show. It's been great for you
Speaker 1: and I overall. And and yeah, I think do think
Speaker 1: of it as a service in a capitalistic economy, where
Speaker 1: you can offer something good to somebody that they need,
Speaker 1: uh and at the same time make money. But talk
Speaker 1: to me about your Downtown Abbey epiphany, because this is
Speaker 1: one of those things. Actually on the about us page
Speaker 1: on how the Money dot com, you and I both
Speaker 1: have written just a little bit about our personal lives,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the things that you mentioned
Speaker 1: in there. It's this conversation with your wife Kate back
Speaker 1: in the day. Have we ever talked about it on
Speaker 1: the show? I don't think so. Okay, so I know
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on other shows. I guess, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a great time, I guess to share it
Speaker 1: now when you're on the Today Show or uh r,
Speaker 1: so before I mean, that was a great moment because
Speaker 1: it was a time when Kate and I were getting
Speaker 1: on the same page, uh, specifically about like a higher
Speaker 1: level goal. But that wasn't always the case. And even
Speaker 1: before before the Downtown story. I want to I'll mention
Speaker 1: Dave Ramsey because Kate and I like when we were dating,
Speaker 1: uh and and even when we were engaged that entire
Speaker 1: period of time, Kate was still in school, was in college.
Speaker 1: She was a full time student, taking a full load.
Speaker 1: She was graduating early, so she was taking so many hours.
Speaker 1: She was ready to, you know, to move to Atlanta
Speaker 1: live with me. But I was a little bit concerned
Speaker 1: because we had never essentially earned money. We hadn't lived
Speaker 1: lives together while we had careers while we had earned
Speaker 1: money where we're spending real amounts of money, and there's
Speaker 1: no sort of set path on how to talk about that.
Speaker 1: And so before we we got married, actually I wanted
Speaker 1: us to have more conversations around that. And actually, so
Speaker 1: I got his tickets to Dave Ramsey. He had one
Speaker 1: by I guess he still doesn't. I don't I've heard
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, yeah, you've heard of this guy, this
Speaker 1: this hill billy from from Tennessee. But he had these
Speaker 1: live events and it's where he you know, he covers
Speaker 1: the basics of personal finance basically, and he kind of
Speaker 1: takes you through his brand of personal finance, a lot
Speaker 1: of which we disagree with here on how the money
Speaker 1: we've talked a good start for a lot of great start,
Speaker 1: especially if you have a lot of debts. Uh, And
Speaker 1: so I mean anybody who is looking for some motivation
Speaker 1: to get out of debt, I think that's a great
Speaker 1: place to start. Sometimes it's not even the principles that
Speaker 1: we didn't disagree with that it's the approach, although some
Speaker 1: of the some of the principles we definitely disagree with,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and just his attitude, his approach. But regardless,
Speaker 1: that was I didn't know if anybody else, anybody else
Speaker 1: to turn to any other sort of way for us
Speaker 1: to get on the same page. And so we went
Speaker 1: to this thing and it was great because it allowed
Speaker 1: Kate and I to have a shared vocabulary. It allowed
Speaker 1: us to talk about our money in a way that
Speaker 1: was constructive as opposed to only talking about it when
Speaker 1: when when we had arguments. He's like, he's like the
Speaker 1: unbiased third party that entered into your relationship to give
Speaker 1: you some advice that you sorely needed and to give
Speaker 1: me the ability to then talk about it while exactly yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to mention that because that was
Speaker 1: helpful for us early on. It was good for us
Speaker 1: as we started to basically build our life together, and
Speaker 1: so that was sort of like the initial sort of
Speaker 1: building block. And then you mentioned the Downton Abbey story,
Speaker 1: and that was another sort of moment where it felt
Speaker 1: like that we were becoming even more aligned with our goals.
Speaker 1: And we'd been kind of watching it Downton Abbey earlier
Speaker 1: that week We're driving to usn't at that point in time,
Speaker 1: it was a hot show. It he was like the
Speaker 1: squid Game of its time, especially, Like I mean, they
Speaker 1: were just living this life of leisure and they're just
Speaker 1: in this you know this gi and English countryside castle
Speaker 1: and Kate ash She's like, well, how how do they
Speaker 1: do that? Like was that actually real life? And we
Speaker 1: got to talking about wealth and the ability for your
Speaker 1: money to you know, do the heavy lifting for you,
Speaker 1: Like when you have enough wealth, uh, that money is
Speaker 1: when you put it to use uh in certain ways,
Speaker 1: when you invested that that money is able to then
Speaker 1: grow uh and then you have options. And that was
Speaker 1: essentially our first conversation about financial independence, which is something
Speaker 1: that was in the back of my mind. Like I
Speaker 1: remember my dad literally telling me that story. He's like,
Speaker 1: there's this it's like picture that's sort of like a
Speaker 1: roller coaster and like once you kind of reach that
Speaker 1: peak and your money starts making more money than you do, well,
Speaker 1: then if you want to, you can just kick back
Speaker 1: and you'll be cruising. Then then then you two can
Speaker 1: be become a member of the British Aristotle exactly. Uh,
Speaker 1: just avoid cruises on brain new ships. Uh that might
Speaker 1: sink in the freezing ocean. But anyway, that like that's
Speaker 1: what got us talking about financial independence. And for us
Speaker 1: that was really cool because it helped us to realize
Speaker 1: that there might be these high, these sort of longer
Speaker 1: term goals that we're working towards as opposed to us
Speaker 1: continuing to trade our time for money, uh, instead putting
Speaker 1: our money to use in ways that would allow our
Speaker 1: money to grow. And and that is I think as
Speaker 1: people start to kind of wrestle with different personal finance topics,
Speaker 1: as you start to learn more, when you find out
Speaker 1: what compounding returns do, how they work, and how much
Speaker 1: how much your money can work for you over over
Speaker 1: the long haul, over decades. It's kind of one of
Speaker 1: those like epiphany moments, and then you realize the concept
Speaker 1: of financial independence and that it can be broken down
Speaker 1: even into a simple math problem, but the reality that
Speaker 1: you can all they are all these steps along the
Speaker 1: way that provide different amounts of financial independence in your life.
Speaker 1: And then that ultimate reality where you have enough money
Speaker 1: in the bank account that you don't have to work
Speaker 1: if you don't want to, is is pretty incredible. But
Speaker 1: they are all these little mind blowing things along the way,
Speaker 1: these dominoes at fall I think in your personal finance education,
Speaker 1: but that is one of them, right, and and that
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest ones. I remember I was
Speaker 1: already like investing, well, I knew a lot of the
Speaker 1: basics of personal finance. But then when I kind of
Speaker 1: start to get into and read some of the smarter
Speaker 1: folks in the financial independence movement, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't know money could do that, and like that
Speaker 1: is that is mind blowing? Right? It's it's pretty life changing. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it truly is. Another funny note too, is that we
Speaker 1: had that conversation while we were in this crazy, old,
Speaker 1: crusty Honda. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that,
Speaker 1: had you at that point like you said, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: right about your your in this like nasty car at
Speaker 1: this point prioritize vehicles before, because I mean, honest, I
Speaker 1: think did I think you did? So? So is is this?
Speaker 1: Is this? This look back at that car with so
Speaker 1: much respect, like I almost wish we still got it
Speaker 1: was amazing. It was an amazing car. And so we
Speaker 1: didn't have to do that. And what's interesting is like
Speaker 1: that was one of the first more quote unquote extreme
Speaker 1: steps that we had taken in order to save money faster,
Speaker 1: in order to to minimize our expenses. At that point
Speaker 1: in time, we weren't driving a ton. We were working
Speaker 1: from home because we had we'd started our business, and
Speaker 1: so we realized at that point in time we could
Speaker 1: why not just try just having one car? And so
Speaker 1: for us that was like four years ago fi years
Speaker 1: ago where we have only had one vehicle in our family.
Speaker 1: But the reason we were doing that, though, is because
Speaker 1: we had the goal to be able to put down
Speaker 1: on the first house that we're saving up for. We're
Speaker 1: saving up our first down payment. And the thing is too,
Speaker 1: like I had a nicer, newer grand Cherokee, and we
Speaker 1: sold that vehicle because we were being smart. You downgraded
Speaker 1: the purpose we did because we knew we could get
Speaker 1: more for that vehicle. Let's get that off to somebody else,
Speaker 1: and we're going to continue to drive the car that
Speaker 1: gave us the best gas mileage, that old Honda Accord.
Speaker 1: It was a fantastic car. When you you and I
Speaker 1: we still share that same philosophy about cars. You have
Speaker 1: one car minivan. I have one car minivan, and they're
Speaker 1: both pretty inexpensive. Mind was literally five thousand dollars. That
Speaker 1: is the only car that our family owns. And it's
Speaker 1: not because we can't afford to buy a nicer car.
Speaker 1: It is a purposeful choice. And I think like once
Speaker 1: that epiphany hits you, uh, you become willing almost to
Speaker 1: make more oddball choices that most people aren't willing to make,
Speaker 1: because it's propelling you more in that direction that you
Speaker 1: want to go, Like you realize what financial independence can
Speaker 1: do for you, that you can kind of get to
Speaker 1: the top of that roller coaster through by making a
Speaker 1: few smaller choices that to most people they're unwilling to make.
Speaker 1: But in in your new reality, it's not that big
Speaker 1: of a deal because it allows you to get where
Speaker 1: you want to go a whole lot quicker. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks will say, well, this car,
Speaker 1: it's paid off. It's like, well, first of all, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have had a payment on that car anyway. But
Speaker 1: then secondly they're like insurance, it's not all that much money.
Speaker 1: But yeah, sure, maybe for you know, one year, it's
Speaker 1: not that big of a deal, but over multiple years,
Speaker 1: after ten, fifteen years, like that money really does add
Speaker 1: up and it can have a big impact appreciation. You
Speaker 1: got that general car, think about how much it is
Speaker 1: going to appreciate in the next three to five years.
Speaker 1: And absolutely we're not telling everyone they have to live
Speaker 1: the way we live, but it is it's interesting when
Speaker 1: we go back to some similar patterns. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we'll get to your story next week.
Speaker 1: But I mean there's some there's definitely some over like
Speaker 1: we're very different in a lot of ways, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of core fundamentals that are the same. Because
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, there's a certain formula that you
Speaker 1: can easily follow that's going to allow you to achieve
Speaker 1: financial freedom and financial independence. A lot faster. I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention the car thing too, because you're asking about
Speaker 1: like my money struggles and how that's sort of essentially
Speaker 1: my my biggest mistake that I think of when I
Speaker 1: look back, and I wonder if if I've essentially overcompensated
Speaker 1: for those past errors. But you know, like I've got
Speaker 1: all these SUVs, these expensive to maintain, terrible gas mileage
Speaker 1: suv is haunting me from my past, and so I'm
Speaker 1: only driving very fuel efficient Honda's economical choice aside from
Speaker 1: like Toyota and Lexus or whatever. I get it, I
Speaker 1: get it. All right, Well, we got we got. I
Speaker 1: got a few more questions to get to me. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about your formation of your first small business.
Speaker 1: We can talk even about the podcast a little bit
Speaker 1: and how we got started here, but uh yeah, let's
Speaker 1: get to some more of your story right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and special guest on Today's my host,
Speaker 1: my best friend, and we started Matt we can you
Speaker 1: believe we started How the Money four years ago and
Speaker 1: it's been a whole lot of fun there. We've developed
Speaker 1: this incredible community of people who listen, who care about
Speaker 1: the show, who have learned a lot and made a
Speaker 1: lot of changes in their lives. And so this is
Speaker 1: but this is not the first small business you started.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the first one that you began,
Speaker 1: and it was not too long after you graduated from college.
Speaker 1: You mentioned kind of being like a beauty school dropout. Basically,
Speaker 1: you were in the corporate world for a hot minute,
Speaker 1: and then you were gone and you decided to start
Speaker 1: start your own photography business. What what made you feel
Speaker 1: like you could you could jump ship and start frown business?
Speaker 1: Was it? Was? It really mostly the inspiration from your
Speaker 1: mom and kind of like what you learned growing up
Speaker 1: about entrepreneurship, because it always felt like unapproachable to me
Speaker 1: for a long time, right, I mean literally, it just
Speaker 1: came down to crunch in the numbers. I mean, and
Speaker 1: so I've always found I mean, this is why I
Speaker 1: have Excel spreadsheets going back to like, yeah, two thousands
Speaker 1: and six. But when I sat down and crunched the numbers,
Speaker 1: uh and mapped out the ability for me to make
Speaker 1: a living with something else other than my standard job.
Speaker 1: Granted I wasn't making a ton back then, and so
Speaker 1: it was it's easier to make anything. Looking once you
Speaker 1: crude the numbers, but that gave me the confidence to
Speaker 1: know that, wow, okay, this is something that not only
Speaker 1: can I do and find enjoyment and satisfaction by doing,
Speaker 1: but this is something that can provide for for Kate
Speaker 1: and I in a serious way. And so let me
Speaker 1: that coupled with the fact that neither Kate nor I
Speaker 1: had any debt, and by any, I mean like zero,
Speaker 1: Like we didn't a lucky way to start off in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, absolute especially these days, like that
Speaker 1: is not the case and that is hard to come by.
Speaker 1: Any student loans. We both had scholarships like unicorns in
Speaker 1: today's yeah, and as as well as small enought some
Speaker 1: money that our our parents had dedicated for our college
Speaker 1: as well. But we both also had enough basic financial
Speaker 1: knowledge to know that we weren't going to go into
Speaker 1: consumer debt. We you know, I mentioned knowing to pay
Speaker 1: off my credit cards literally at the age of like
Speaker 1: sixteen or eighteen years old, I knew that that's how
Speaker 1: you approach credit cards, at least in the same thing
Speaker 1: with Kate. And so that allowed us to take what
Speaker 1: seemed like more of a risk, to step away from
Speaker 1: jobs that were solid that we're dependable that we're paying us,
Speaker 1: you know, the paycheck every two weeks. If you had
Speaker 1: had large amounts of debt weighing you down, whether it
Speaker 1: was school debt, credit card debt, anything, you would have
Speaker 1: probably found it a lot more difficult. It would be
Speaker 1: a bigger risk. Yeah, absolutely, And we didn't I mean,
Speaker 1: and we didn't even have a mortgage at that point.
Speaker 1: We were just renting a place. But and you're like,
Speaker 1: we can always skip down if we can't afford. But
Speaker 1: like I wanted to mention to just again, I want
Speaker 1: to reiterate crunching the numbers and having that knowledge and
Speaker 1: the comfort that brought, because what I realized too is
Speaker 1: that by going through that process, uh and crunching the numbers,
Speaker 1: even just on the cost of healthcare, I learned that
Speaker 1: even if I was going to stay with the company
Speaker 1: I was with, it didn't make sense for me to
Speaker 1: be a part of the company healthcare plan because it
Speaker 1: was so expensive. And so I see that almost as
Speaker 1: like this turning point from thinking that the world's gonna
Speaker 1: take care of you, or your employer is gonna take
Speaker 1: care of you, as you know, to like, Okay, no,
Speaker 1: now I'm in the driver's seats, and you got a
Speaker 1: question more to make these decisions because nobody else. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, it doesn't matter what in its w you're in,
Speaker 1: what company you're with, Nobody's gonna care about you in
Speaker 1: your livelihood and your future as much as you are.
Speaker 1: And so I think oftentimes we can get lulled into thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got this nice, dependable wage, Oh I've got these benefits,
Speaker 1: but in the end, it comes down to us to
Speaker 1: be able to determine what's going to be best for
Speaker 1: for us and for our future. Okay. One one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting things about you starting your own photography business.
Speaker 1: I remember when I met you, like you guys were
Speaker 1: already photographers, Like we we've known each other for I
Speaker 1: don't know, like twelve years now, been good friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you you remember you telling me early on
Speaker 1: that you've turned down a lot of people that reach
Speaker 1: out to and when did you shoot their wedding? Like
Speaker 1: you were consistently turning down business, and I was like
Speaker 1: that that would frighten me as a small business owner.
Speaker 1: I would be trying to get as much business in
Speaker 1: as I could. And so, yeah, what was your make
Speaker 1: hay While the sunshine right, Yeah, yeah, oftentimes that is
Speaker 1: the mentality what was your ethos behind like turning down gigs?
Speaker 1: So it took so we you know, we started the
Speaker 1: photography company, and we started out with it as a
Speaker 1: side hustle and it slowly ramped up and then it
Speaker 1: eventually took over and was able to provide all of
Speaker 1: our It was the sole source of our income. But
Speaker 1: when I say like it took over, like it literally
Speaker 1: took over our lives. And what we learned, especially being
Speaker 1: newly married, was that it was really destructive. It was
Speaker 1: really difficult for our marriage, and it took a couple
Speaker 1: of years of us living through that for us to
Speaker 1: kind of go through that storm to you know, luckily,
Speaker 1: we made it out of that and we were able
Speaker 1: to look back and we realized that, man, that sucked.
Speaker 1: That was really difficult, and we need to make sure
Speaker 1: that we're not continuing to do that because our relationship
Speaker 1: isn't it's not going you know, in a great direction.
Speaker 1: You're valuing or putting too much, too much emphasis on
Speaker 1: the business and not enough on your relations And we
Speaker 1: I mean we enjoyed it, you know, like it was
Speaker 1: literally all we ever talked about. It's all we ever
Speaker 1: thought about. It's all I mean a lot of what
Speaker 1: we did, especially this first couple of years after that,
Speaker 1: you know, we were able to, like you said, we
Speaker 1: we said no more often in turn down work. But
Speaker 1: as a small business owner, I mean, that was I
Speaker 1: think I think that's probably the hardest lesson for any
Speaker 1: small business owner to learn, which is that there are
Speaker 1: their things in our lives that we need to prioritize
Speaker 1: and need a value, and if you don't, the business
Speaker 1: is going to take over, right like if not. There's
Speaker 1: this sort of default way that the world again just
Speaker 1: by default, it encourages us to go a certain direction,
Speaker 1: and if there are other things that you value more,
Speaker 1: you have to fight for those things. And so that's
Speaker 1: when it came down to us literally saying no. And
Speaker 1: we you know, we could have. We talked about going
Speaker 1: in different directions as well, bringing on additional shooters, and
Speaker 1: you know we did, you know, more of that later
Speaker 1: on in the business. But you know, at that point
Speaker 1: in our lives, we were we had enough. We had
Speaker 1: always had enough. There are you know, there were some
Speaker 1: years that were leaner than others, there are some years
Speaker 1: that were really fat, but even still we were lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be in a position where we were never wanting,
Speaker 1: and so for us, that was an important distinction to
Speaker 1: make to to draw that line, to say no to income. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a powerful thing, to say no to
Speaker 1: income and to say like, I have enough. And you
Speaker 1: know what, drawing some lines because you and I, like,
Speaker 1: there's no limit to the amount of things we could
Speaker 1: create or produce, or the amount the level to which
Speaker 1: we could grow the small business that you and I
Speaker 1: have started together. But to have normal functioning family lives, like,
Speaker 1: there has to be a limit, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to create an artificial limit. Because we could keep pounding away,
Speaker 1: we could write books, and we could be on Instagram
Speaker 1: live like three times a day, Like, there's a million
Speaker 1: things we could do to reach more people to grow
Speaker 1: the business. But we have consciously decided to say no
Speaker 1: to doing more because it's not healthy and there has
Speaker 1: to be a limit, and you have to be able
Speaker 1: to it's it's a wise thing for your own mental health,
Speaker 1: for your own relational health. In order to to see
Speaker 1: that and to say it, yeah, and again it's you know,
Speaker 1: Kate and I we were fortunate enough back then with
Speaker 1: photography to be able to make that decision right like,
Speaker 1: we were in a solid position, and the same thing
Speaker 1: is true with you and I right now. We are lucky.
Speaker 1: We are fortunate to be in a position where we
Speaker 1: can say that, oh, well, I don't really want to
Speaker 1: do this aspect that you know of spreading, spreading the
Speaker 1: reach of how to money. A lot of other people
Speaker 1: who are doing this thing. Do you want to do this?
Speaker 1: It's like, well maybe, maybe, maybe not. But we're in
Speaker 1: the position to where we don't have to say, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: we have to do this thing, and that might change,
Speaker 1: you know, like like later this year, we might be
Speaker 1: in a position to where it's just like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: we we really need to do this thing now. We're
Speaker 1: not really excited about it, but when it comes. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is how businesses work. If there's things that you
Speaker 1: aren't excited to do, you get other people to do
Speaker 1: these things and hopefully it can scale in a way
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But again, you and I are fortunate
Speaker 1: to be in a position to where we can say that,
Speaker 1: and we understand that not everybody is in that position
Speaker 1: totally so, and I completely agree. I will say part
Speaker 1: of it is you put yourself in that position, right
Speaker 1: and you you you know, driving a krusty car and
Speaker 1: uh and and and having one car and avoiding debt
Speaker 1: uh and and you know a lot of credit goes
Speaker 1: to being raised well, having good parents too, and and
Speaker 1: and then another thing that helps too is having income
Speaker 1: coming from somewhere else, not just from an employer or
Speaker 1: from a business that you've started, but in particular for
Speaker 1: for us and and for you is rental real estate.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you you mentioned earlier your your story
Speaker 1: of kind of realizing by that a friend had a
Speaker 1: rental property and you're like, oh, that seems like it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. We're paying him money every single month and
Speaker 1: he's taking that money and scooping some off the top.
Speaker 1: The rest goes to the bank. He's a cool dude.
Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know. Was that kind of what
Speaker 1: gave me the inspiration to to get into that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was my first foray. Another friend of ours
Speaker 1: up there in North Carolina's as well, Clark. He around
Speaker 1: the same time, he had purchased his first home and
Speaker 1: it was a triplex. So he was the original house hacker.
Speaker 1: He was the first house hacker that I knew because
Speaker 1: he moved in the main level and he had uh
Speaker 1: it was a lot where it dropped away and he
Speaker 1: had two levels underneath the main floor. Pretty crazy lot,
Speaker 1: but he had to he inherited two tenants, and so
Speaker 1: I forget, you know, I can't can't remember the numbers today,
Speaker 1: but they were covering a substantial, if not all, of
Speaker 1: his mortgage. And I was like, holy crap, like like,
Speaker 1: so you're living for free, that's possible. And and so
Speaker 1: that was another one of those Yeah, and so just
Speaker 1: you know, rental real estate as an idea was introduced,
Speaker 1: and then immediately right after that was the idea of
Speaker 1: house packing. Both of those seeds were planted. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have any money back then. Remember, like I told
Speaker 1: you how I had to take money out of my
Speaker 1: roth Ira in order to move move back down to
Speaker 1: Atlanta and to cover a deposit. That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's where I was at that point. So those bigger investments,
Speaker 1: we're not on your radar. It was not a possibility
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, I was like the guy. I
Speaker 1: was like, I helped Clark. I was something my friend
Speaker 1: move into his house, and I was just like the
Speaker 1: muscle because he was gonna pay for pizza and beers.
Speaker 1: For me, it was a free meal. That's good enough.
Speaker 1: That's where I was, uh, in my life at that point.
Speaker 1: And so I mean it wasn't for another like I
Speaker 1: think five or six years before rental real estate was
Speaker 1: a possibility, you know. So within that time Kate and
Speaker 1: I got married, we saved up money for a down
Speaker 1: payment for our first personal home, got a little to one.
Speaker 1: But then after that we started saving up some money
Speaker 1: to invest as well, and you know, those seeds that
Speaker 1: had been planted started to germinate a little bit. And
Speaker 1: that's actually when you and I met, uh, and you
Speaker 1: had purchased your first, you know, your own primary residence,
Speaker 1: and we got to talk and found out that you
Speaker 1: were trying to be wise with your money as I was,
Speaker 1: and I think you had shared that you were thinking
Speaker 1: about buying our rental, like because you just had your
Speaker 1: own property at that point. I think right right when
Speaker 1: we met, I think I literally was on the verge
Speaker 1: of pouncing on property number two and running out the
Speaker 1: first one. Yeah, exactly. And so we're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to move, but we've got this money
Speaker 1: saved up and we should put that towards our property.
Speaker 1: So I mean our interactions us talking about it. I
Speaker 1: think certainly gave was very encouraging because it would have
Speaker 1: been a lot tougher for me because I didn't know
Speaker 1: anybody in Atlanta who was doing that at that point
Speaker 1: in time. Right, Like in my mind, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe only people in North Carolina do this. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And so to have somebody else who was my age
Speaker 1: who was thinking that, like, oh yeah, houses right now
Speaker 1: are really affordable. This is a really smart move that
Speaker 1: was like the final straw that allowed me to to think, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I am going to do this and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think we both got our both of us
Speaker 1: got our second properties around the same time. Uh, And
Speaker 1: it's like a confidence boost. I think when a friend
Speaker 1: is doing something absolutely and if you can like this
Speaker 1: learned from them as a guinea pig, I think sometimes
Speaker 1: stuff it feels less foreign, you know, just even talking
Speaker 1: about it with somebody else us. Uh, you listen to
Speaker 1: a podcast and hear people talk about it, but when
Speaker 1: you're talking to someone in person who you're close with
Speaker 1: or even just like That's why we encourage people to
Speaker 1: to join like an investor meetup group or something like that,
Speaker 1: like learn from the people that are doing it, and
Speaker 1: they will like they will help demystify some of those
Speaker 1: things that in your mind you have built up to
Speaker 1: be these hurdles that you can't surmount, and it is possible,
Speaker 1: but uh and and you know, we can talk about
Speaker 1: it until we run out of air in our lungs
Speaker 1: and hopefully that will be helpful advice to you. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, meeting individuals where you live who
Speaker 1: are doing it already is like, I think the best
Speaker 1: way to go absolutely And plus I mean ten years ago,
Speaker 1: like there weren't I mean, there weren't real estate real
Speaker 1: estate podcast. Like the only podcast I've ever heard of
Speaker 1: was like this Harry Potter podcast that I gave across.
Speaker 1: It was very much in its infancy, and it was
Speaker 1: just books, you know, like I remember reading The Millionaire
Speaker 1: Real Estate Investor by like one of the Kellor Williams
Speaker 1: guys or whatever. But it's there's a big gap between
Speaker 1: reading this massive text book basically to actually pulling the
Speaker 1: trigger and doing that in your local town. And like
Speaker 1: you said, having somebody there locally who you know is
Speaker 1: also doing it. Uh, it kind of gives you the
Speaker 1: confidence it allows you to poke holes in each other's
Speaker 1: sort of plans and be like, oh what about this?
Speaker 1: Or or hey, how how are you planning to tackle this?
Speaker 1: That definitely makes it just so much more approachable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, so there's no real resolution to this
Speaker 1: podcast because your story is not complete, Like there's still
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of money moves that we're still
Speaker 1: we're still doing it. Yeah, an't we that you're making
Speaker 1: And that's part of the fun of creating this podcast
Speaker 1: is along the way we get to share the things
Speaker 1: that we are doing. You know, we're not We're not
Speaker 1: seventy year old who have like reach the end. Like
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of this with our listeners, um
Speaker 1: hopefully with wisdom to share. But yeah, is there anything
Speaker 1: else that you want to kind of relate to everybody
Speaker 1: about your story that you think is important? Matt, Before
Speaker 1: we before we kind of end this one out, I
Speaker 1: think one of the other things that comes to mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about real estate. I think for
Speaker 1: anybody out there who is thinking about going in that
Speaker 1: direction is just to know that this isn't a completely
Speaker 1: passive form of income because the rewards can be quite large,
Speaker 1: but it does require time. Uh, And so I think
Speaker 1: anybody who's thinking about doing this, they need to start
Speaker 1: thinking about it more as like a small part time job,
Speaker 1: as a side hustle, something that can potentially ramp up
Speaker 1: and consume a lot of your time, potentially the most
Speaker 1: lucrative part time job. Absolutely, yeah, especially it is You're right,
Speaker 1: it is working. We talked about that when the episode
Speaker 1: we talked about the mists of passive income and how
Speaker 1: exactly it's not a complete farce, but there is a
Speaker 1: reality to which if you want passive income, you gotta
Speaker 1: work for it in in any regard, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: just kind of you don't like, uh, snap your fingers
Speaker 1: in the passive income fairy comes along and starts stuffing
Speaker 1: money in your account every month. Yeah, exactly. And so
Speaker 1: just to think about it that way. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was talking with a friend over Christmas break. He had
Speaker 1: had a good year. He was thinking about what to
Speaker 1: do with some additional money that he had, and he
Speaker 1: had renovated his own home, and so he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got these like renovation skills. I know how to
Speaker 1: make a house look good. He was thinking about buying
Speaker 1: another property in his neighborhood, working on it, renting it out,
Speaker 1: and and this is the conversation I had with him.
Speaker 1: I was like, Hey, that's awesome, you know, like the
Speaker 1: fact that you like, everybody has their own superhero like power,
Speaker 1: you know, like, and so for him, his sort of
Speaker 1: superhero strength is the ability to make a property beautiful himself,
Speaker 1: like without having to hire anybody else. It's just the
Speaker 1: cost of his tools, the supplies, and his time. But
Speaker 1: what I wanted him to think through was what his
Speaker 1: life would look like were he to do that. And
Speaker 1: he has a full time job. I mean, he owns
Speaker 1: his own business and it's actually growing and expanding and
Speaker 1: it's going to look potentially very different this coming year.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, Okay, imagine you know, doing
Speaker 1: that from eight to six or whatever it is that
Speaker 1: you get off work, Like, are you going to have
Speaker 1: it in you to come home and then clock in
Speaker 1: another three or four hours hanging drywall at this new
Speaker 1: property that you found that you want to flip. And
Speaker 1: that's what we want folks to think through with, you know,
Speaker 1: with any decision, with any new responsibility, with any way
Speaker 1: that you're thinking about making additional income, right if it's
Speaker 1: a side hustle, think through what you want your life
Speaker 1: to look like. Yes, there are oftentimes sacrifices we need
Speaker 1: to make in the short term to achieve a goal,
Speaker 1: but do make sure that you are aware of what
Speaker 1: that's going to look like, because you want to make
Speaker 1: those decisions with your eyes open. You want to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're making those decisions informed. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: wanted to be a calculated sacrifice because if you can't
Speaker 1: actually pay the cost you're gonna you might actually lose
Speaker 1: money in their proposition, because yeah, you've got to be
Speaker 1: willing to follow through for sure. Well, dude, this is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I'm glad we got to dive
Speaker 1: into your money story. Hopefully it's just interesting and helpeful
Speaker 1: for listeners. Quickly, Matt, let's folks know Matt a little
Speaker 1: bit exactly the like I said, the man the myth legend.
Speaker 1: More on deck for next week by the most, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'll be ready. But but we had a beer on
Speaker 1: this episode. This one was athena parody so BlackBerry, Black
Speaker 1: Current and Ambrosia by of course, Creature Comforts out of Athens, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where you went to uh to college Alma monitor. That's right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: what we thought. Unfortunately that was not a brewer that
Speaker 1: was there while I was in school, I know, sadly right.
Speaker 1: If so, though, like what I've even been able to
Speaker 1: appreciate it, probably probably not. It took me actually growing
Speaker 1: up and being out in the real world and talking
Speaker 1: about real estate with my friend enjoying my first uh
Speaker 1: milk stout. I think that was one of my first
Speaker 1: craft beers where I was like, oh, this is different
Speaker 1: and all those other beers, but yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: Berlin of ice. It's a tart German wheat. It poured
Speaker 1: a dark crimson red, like a very luxurious color. It's
Speaker 1: just like a purplish hue too. It Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: beautiful and I really enjoyed this one. Like the other
Speaker 1: variations of Athena, it's got that nice wheaty backbone. But
Speaker 1: obviously with this one with the added fruit just as
Speaker 1: that they call it paradiso because it's like you're in paradise.
Speaker 1: It's like you're surrounded by just all this luxurious fruit.
Speaker 1: In this case ambrosia as as well is the ambrosia
Speaker 1: of fruit, Like I know, Ambrosia salad is like uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's where they add marshmallows to various questions.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know what what's an ambrosia?
Speaker 1: What's an ambrosia? Like I have to look that up
Speaker 1: after the episode. But I really enjoyed it. What your thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was like rich in velvety and had
Speaker 1: like this medium tartness level going on. It's the first
Speaker 1: time I've had this version. Like you said, they make variants,
Speaker 1: and I think, don't don't say variant, Joel, variation, Well,
Speaker 1: I think one of my it's a good point. I think,
Speaker 1: uh probably my favorite variation is still the one that
Speaker 1: we do with with Tart Cherry's It's delicious. But this
Speaker 1: one was really good, better than this was expected. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, again another winner from Creature Comforts because they
Speaker 1: don't lose, man, they always make good to do a
Speaker 1: very good job. Be sure to swing by Creature Comforts
Speaker 1: if you're ever in Athens, Georgia. But Joel, I feel
Speaker 1: like I did a lot of talking, but I didn't
Speaker 1: like direct the show quite as much. But you did
Speaker 1: a fantastic job. Thank you, my friend. It was fun.
Speaker 1: It was it was fun. Yeah, and uh yeah, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we can only do these, like, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: once every few years. I guess we interview each other.
Speaker 1: It has to be like a different twist on it
Speaker 1: next time we do it, that's right. But yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well yeah, well, if you are curious about hearing my
Speaker 1: money story, you'll get to hear that on next Wednesday's episode,
Speaker 1: But Matt, until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,