Making money costs money.
You ain't never lie.
And I think people see where we are today, but nobody has any idea how hard we had to work to get to this point, other.
Than our guest today. He knows he has some insight, y'all. Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm devout and where the ellis's.
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Boys and reading each other publicly as a.
Form of therapy.
Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Yes, sir, we are.
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of Li's most taboo topics.
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is a term that we say every day.
So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, one hundred truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
We about to take pilot off to our whole new level.
Dead ass starts right now.
This story time is gonna take you back to I'm gonna say two.
Thousand and eleven, twenty eleven to two thousand and fourteen is when Jackson was born.
Those first three years. I'm going to give as visual as I can.
What we were going through when we were at our worst, cause I don't think I've ever got this graphic about how bad it was at times. Twenty eleven, we had Jackson, we had got health insurance because Kadeen was working at MAC. I was not making any money, like at this point the money I had in the NFL was now an investment. I was working at Parice No, I was working at Poly Prep as a football coach and Paris Speed School,
and I was also doing color commentary. So I was making roughly I would say seventy k at the time. We had the apartment. We had two mortgages, and we had three car notes. We had the car note for the f one to fifty, we had the car note for on Debbie, then we had the car note for the Audi. I was spending roughly eighteen hundred dollars a month traveling back and forth to Staten Island working at Parisi's Speed school, and I was only making twelve hundred dollars a month, So.
I was in the red when it came to that job. But I was supplementing that.
We're working at MSG varsity, also doing some commercials and stuff like that. But we were struggling so much with money that I had to make it a fun thing to only eat Daddy breakfast throughout the day. So I was watching Jackson, and I was watching Jackson to day because Jackson, I mean, because kay was working at mac and I was like, Jackson, we're gonna have for breakfast.
And he was young, he was like two two turning on three, and he was like, daddy breakfast, and Daddy breakfast was grits, eggs, and bacon.
But part of the reason why we were eating so much grits, eggs and bacon was because grits was.
Extremely cheap and it was something that I could add sugar to to make it sweet. If I wanted to make it savor, I wouldn't put no sugar in there. And it was just something for us to get by, and I chose to just eat that because I didn't want to eat out. Kadeen was working at the mall, so she would get Johnny rockets here and there, and I was just kind of like, you know what, I'm not going to get on her about eating out because she's at the wall at the mall.
And I'm at home, so all I did was eat grits and eggs.
And there were times where we didn't even have bacon, and it would just be grits and eggs, grits and eggs, and k would come home and she would make dinner. We didn't eat out for three years. Listen to me, people, when I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating. Kadeen and I didn't even go to TGI Fridays.
For three years, and that was our thing.
We didn't go on vacations. There were no designer bags, there were no clothes. People be making jokes on me now because I'll wear like the same shirt four days in a row, but that's from a scarcity mindset because I didn't buy any clothes. I would wear gym attire everywhere because I was always in the gym. And I'm giving you guys that story because you see us now and we're enjoying life now, but it is twenty twenty three. For seven years of our life, there was an extreme
sacrifice to get us to here. So when people ask me what it takes to get to a level of comfort and financial security, it takes sacrifice, all right.
Karaoke time. We don't want to be rich? Don't we want to be rich?
Yes?
I think most people I've got the question before, like would you want to be famous or rich? If I really had it my way, I'd just be rich and nobody wouldn't know, and I would just tell twenty one you do something.
Can you hear a little rich flex? Bo me listen, that's just all for and that's just it.
We want to hit the rich flex and we're going to hopefully tell y'all how to be able to flex. Yes, if you follow a couple tips that our guests have for you. If you are a nine to five worker just trying to build your estate, to save, to pivot to see what that next move is going to be? What are some of the basics that you need?
And when we say nine to five, that's not a knock because Kadeen and I both will work.
Well. She was working retail and I was working in the gym, and.
We had set hours we had to work and use that income to build future revenues.
That's effect and we work twenty five eight and that sh ain't funn all the time neither.
No, it's not all right.
Stick around y'all, will take a quack break and come back with our guests for today. All right, so today we're talking building your estate. What that looks like for you know, people who are just trying to save with
a regular nine to five job. And when we say regular nine to five, we don't want to diminish the value in a nine to five job, but just say, hey, you know you're clocking in, clocking out, whatever your profession is, you still want to find a way to build your state and find ways to save effectively and still live your best life. So we brought a special guest in today, someone who has helped us over the course of what the last twenty something.
Years, it's been about twenty years.
About twenty years and us trying to figure out how we can stay afloat amidst so many ebbs and flows in life.
From a financial perspective.
So do you want to take that away and do this intro for our special guests?
Oh?
Sure, I don't even know how to introduce this young man. I've known him I was I've known him since I was born. I don't remember a point in my life where Sean wasn't here. He was a member of the Junior line, which was a young men's group that my father had a mentorship group had a sale Missionary Baptist church in the late alies, early nineties, all the way through my high school graduation.
Which was in two thousand and two.
And he is like an older I'm not gonna say like he is my older brother.
I remember. It's a quick story.
I remember when Brian and I wanted to go see Alan Iverson play and Sean had a car and he took us to see Alan Iverson play. Now, this car was old as shit, but it also speaks. It also speaks to who he is and what he was teaching us at the time. I think he had just graduated from college and he was working. And there were two guys in the group that I really really looked up to.
And I'm not gonna shame anybody, but one guy in the group at the time, he was driving a brand new Infinity and Sean on and graduated college and was working on Wall Street, and he drove like was it a.
Honda cordsan CenTra red Nissan. It was a red Nissan one side view mirror, one.
One side few mirror. He drove us all the way.
To Philly, and see what was coming on the right side. You have to It was a full look over the right.
Shoulder, full body turn, Sean says to me, And Brian was just like, yo, because you know we call shotgun. You want to ride in the front, Sean says, Yo, whoever's riding in the front and the passenger side, don't roll down the window because they don't.
Roll back up.
So I rode to Philly in the front seat and I ain't touched the window because Sean told me what to do. As soon as Brian got in the front seat, he throwed the window out and all her Sean was no, no, not.
The window.
Completely disregarded and just But the funny thing is he he picked us up. It was me, my cousin, Devaughon, and Brian. He took us to go see Alan, obviously, who was my favorite player at the time. And I did have the braids at the time, and we rode in this old Nissan CenTra. But looking back on it now, we used to clown Sean for having this old car while working on Wall Street, and you know, we used to glorify the guys who are Sean's age who had
new cars. But now I look at life, and I see where Sean is with his wife and his kids in his house and he's a financial advisor, and it all made sense why during the time he was focused on what was important and now what was flashy. And I just want to give that story to introduce Shawn is to why Sean is my statement because that always stuck with me. I'm not going to give Sean's title, because Sean gives all the times. I'm gon let Sean
give his titles. But this is my brother. He's been a mentor, Dakota's godfather, a confidant, He's been so many things. That's why just saying a CPA would not even give him credit to who he really is.
But this is my.
Brother, and Sean for me, at least, as the most soothing voice, so like everything could be crashing around us financially, and it has over the course of the years been crumbling around us, and there's something about Sean's voice.
Even my mom.
Said that she's like, oh my goodness, like he just makes me feel like everything's gonna be okay.
Yeah, you know, And I love that for me.
But that's the key. But that's the key, though.
The key is showing to be like everything is going to be okay as long as you have a plan. So without further ado, my brother, my mental my big bro man, Sean Freeman, he appreciate you.
Did appreciate you, Kay. I mean, you know, for me personally first just titles and all of that stuff. I'm a certified financial planner and for me, you know, just kind of coming up period, I've always kind of wanted more. I've always kind of been looking at the you know, a step ahead, what can I do to kind of continue to move from our situation that we knew about growing up there. You kind of know, know our neighborhood,
you know where we're from. Kay, you know where we're from, you know our neighborhood, and you kind of watch all these things that are going on in the world around you,
and you me as an individual, always wanted more. I always wanted I looked at what, you know, as the son of an immigrant, my mom coming to this country and doing all that she did with what knowing nothing, and me being in this country, being in New York and seeing all of the wealth around us, our little neighborhood and wanting that and not having you know, I couldn't talk to my mom about it. She didn't have the understanding of what was going on in the world,
and I didn't either. So I go to college and you start taking classes. You start taking you know, you take finance classes, and you understand, you get a better understanding of how numbers work and how finance actually works, compounding compound interest. So, you know, at that point is when I kind of decided that this is what I wanted to do in the world. I wanted to be
a financial advisor. I wanted to be a financial planner because I saw the opportunity from a from a wealth standpoint to move me from what I knew to where I envisioned I wanted to be. And so that's been my problem. I'm always looking at step ahead. I look I need, you know, Nicole tells me just live in the moment, and I'm doing better. I'm working on myself to live in the moment. But it's always been hard for me to live in the moment. I always look a step ahead for that car, you know, I'm looking
a step ahead. I'm always looking at step ahead the car instead of the car. You know, we put that money, we bought a condo at twenty whatever. You know, everyone does these things. You know, I'm not special in any way, you know, but I decided that I wanted the money to go into real estate at that time. So, you know, it's been a long career, successful career. I'm you know, as you know, a partner at a within at a wealth management group within Morgan Stanley. You guys have been
working with you guys since the beginning. And the thing about your situation is that it's typical of any financial individual, financial situation. It's personal, right. You had to go through what you guys went through in the very beginning as you're building this thing, this empire, this you know, what
you've created for yourselves. You've had to you had to go through life and kind of understand what it's going to you know, how it's going to look, what it's going to be, and the challenges that are going to come about because you're pursuing moving yourselves forward. So you had high income, you moved, you had family issues that
kind of inserted themselves that you have to address. And that's typical, like we all kind of have these different things that are going to affect our decision making process. But for me, it's also it's also about kind of taking a step back and assessing your own personal situation and making decisions within this environment that we're in every day, this economic environment.
So you know, as far as.
Real quick, I just want to I want to ask you because you're speaking directly to our listeners, and a lot of the things you always hear from from the listeners is how do how do I take my family to where you and coadeen to your family because they've been following us from the very beginning, and they remember us in the apartment, and you remember those times I took a page out of your book. I had an Audi A six, I got ridly out in six. We downsized in cars. We you know, we partner with other
people to split rent. And I try to tell people there are a lot of sacrifices that go into wealth, wealth management and wealth building.
But then they say, once.
You make the sacrifices and you have the capital, what do you do? You know, they always say, well, what are you investing? They always ask me, Devoute, what are you invest in? You wear Nike? Do you invest in Nike? And I try to explain to them it's not always about just finding an investment to invest in.
It's about having.
Multiple streams of income number one, but finding ways to develop compound interest, like you always tell me.
With the revenue.
So can you speak a little bit about how you've helped us build our financial plan? You know, I know it's going to be different for us than this for other people because everyone isn't going.
To do seven jobs like we were doing.
But if you had to speak to a group of people who all work nine to five and looking for a way to help build their wealth, what would you say will be the first key steps?
So I'm very I'm very careful about giving broad based guidance right because it is specific. So I'm thinking about a general nine to five person, right living in this in this economy. You have bills, you have your mortgage, I'm assuming your your rent. But if you have a nine to five job, obviously you have something. You have a four to one K, so you should put money into that four one K. You could look to start
a business with some of that additional income. All of both of those things build wealth, and I think people sometimes kind of forget that the basics of just saving money and setting money aside is wealth. Building. You know you are. You know, if you consistently put money into a four to one K or younger person in their thirties and they do it till they're sixty, and you take advantage of the maximum contribution levels that are available to you in this country, you will have over a
million dollars in assets in one account. That's you know, and I think people forget about. Everyone is looking for this magic pill of building wealth. Wealth is the increase of assets over time. And if you're working a nine to five, you have at your disposal a retirement account that you can put money into save, get compound interest, and if you do that consistently, you will have over a million dollars. A million dollars is a is a real number. That's a real part of your net worth.
And in addition to that, owning a home, set of paying rent. And again this is general, we're talking about broad strokes, but if you own a home, you're paying down the debt, you're building equity. Whatever you purchase that home for nine times out of ten is going to appreciate in value. And as you're paying down the debt, you're increasing your wealth. So now you have a retirement asset. You have a piece of real estate that at a baseline, someone with a nine to five job that's working can
do those things, and that's a wealth building. That's wealth building. And when we talk about wealth building, I don't always only look at it from an individual standpoint. You also got to look at what the impact is to your family generationally. You know, today's economy is going to look a lot different than the economy thirty years, you know,
twenty years from now. For your kids as an example, you know, what we're doing today on an individual basis for your family is going to allow you to give your children opportunities that you didn't have to Instead of them renting, instead of them potentially paying for school, they're going to not have that sort of financial obligation. So you're passing the wealth that you have created for yourselves to them to make their path a lot easier. So
that's the thing. So those are two basic things that can happen. Just paying attention to what's being offered to you through the workforce, through real estate and just owning and starting there. And if you have additional capital after that, that's where we start talking about additional You know, you're taking risks. But you guys have done all this. We know you have your full one ks, you have your home, you have you've done these things, these basic things I'm
saying everybody should do. But now you're also taking advantage of smart planning as far as management and free cash flow, and you're building out a business for yourself. That's it's a risk though you're paying. You're putting a lot of capital into the things that you're doing, and you're and it's paying off. But it also could have gone the other way, right, but it's paying and actually in the beginning it did. You had your bumps.
Those and flows.
They're definitely exactly the true, the true uh in the terms of more money, more problems. It's like the more you started to make, it's like, shoot, more things that were coming up, and the more money coming in, there was still more money going out, you know. And Sean, we tell the story all the time about Deval retiring from the league and then the recession hitting and him taking the money that he had in the league and trying to do all of the right things with it.
And we say all of the right things, meaning investing in property, and then eventually he put some money in some stock market, you know, investments and stuff like that, and then ended up losing that when the market crashed back in two thousand.
What was that eight? That's eight?
So what advice do you have for people who think about having that extra money and then wanting to play a little bit right, they want to invest in certain things? What are some I don't want to say sure routes for investment, but some that are going to be more advantageous for people looking to gain.
So that's a question about risk. Kadane, Right, So you have a little extra You've done the basics, you have your own or some you know, you're building equity in something, you're saving money in a four to one k Now you do have extra money for yourself. Now it's risk in today's environment. And I said, you know, economy has changed, but in today's environment, you can get guaranteed returns on assets that are less risky than they were a year ago, so you can buy I've had a lot of questions
about these eye bonds. Eyebonds at different times are paying you over six and a half percent today, I think it last time I checked, it was like six point eight seven five. That's a guaranteed rate of return by the government. Right, So you're talking about risk if two years ago that same risk free investment was not paying you that. So with extra money, you start you look at how you can put that money to work you
and you rate that decision based on the risk you're taking. Today, someone with free cash flow can get good returns four or five six percent returns without taking a lot of principal risk. Principal risk is you putting your money into something. Your boy asked you to go invest in whatever it is, and you put that money in. You could get that money back with return or you could not. Today because of where we are in the economy and with interest rates,
you're getting guaranteed returns that you weren't seeing before. So you look at that and you make your decisions. And number one, you take whatever little free cash flow that you have and you say, you know what, I'm going to set aside X amount of dollars and get guaranteed six percent rates of return on this portion of the money. I know that that's going to be there no matter what building equity. Once that's done, see you gauge how much additional money you have, and now maybe you want
to take some risk by investing in stocks. Stocks have corrected significantly over the last year, so you're down twenty percent in some cases, double digits on average in a lot of cases. Put money into some stocks that that you know, companies that you know that have depreciated in value, and you plan on holding those for the long run.
That's another level of risk. So you have bonds that are low risks, you have stocks that are going to give you more return potentially over time, but carry additional risk. And then you kind of continue to go up the ladder. Maybe you want to start a business again risk that's more risks than stocks and cash. But now you're kind of figuring out what it is you have left for
yourself to do all of these things. And that's where an individual has to kind of assess their own situation and say, you know what I make out of one hundred percent overall money that I make, I'm setting aside fifty percent in my retirement. I'm putting money into my home. I have fifty percent left over. You know, I'm gonna I want to make sure that I have about a year's worth of expenses set aside. I'm going to put
that into bonds. And then the difference is you talk as a family, as a group, as a community and say what am I going to put the rest of the money in to kind of get these returns that can push my wealth building. I'll go forward even faster.
You know what.
The thing I love about you, Sean was years ago when I was in the NFL, I was always looking for you. You know me, I'm always looking for ways to make money. How can I do this money? And all you kept saying to me was time. All you kept saying to me was the now. This takes time. Like this is a life investment. This isn't an investment where you put something in for two years and you expect a huge return. And I'll give the listeners who
are listening some insight. When I first made it to the NFL, my salary was two hundred and seventy five K. And when you hear that, I was and this is coming from a kid from Brooklyn, I was like, oh, I'm rich. And Sean was like, you're not rich. Like you're making good money, but you're not making.
Terrell Owens money. You know, you're not making Tom Brady money.
You're not making millions of dollars a year and I had the only income at the house. So this is a two person income and I'm making two seventy five. That's like two people making a buck thirty a piece.
Right.
So when I was making that money, Sean was like, you want to buy some property, you want to make some investments, but you also need to start thinking about what businesses you want to start. But it doesn't need something that's not something that those businesses are going to turn around value in the next five years. Immediately you're trying to build something long term. And I kid you
guys not I bought two property. My brother and I started some property and it took Kadeen and I ten years to build to a point where we felt comfortable saying we can make a move or pivot in a different direction. And the reason why I want to tell that story is because that was a ten year investment and that was with an NFL salary. So if you have people here who are working nine to five, who are making six figures, and you have two salaries, it's
going to take time, but you can wealth build. But don't expect the wealth building process to be a year. Don't expect it to be. I invested it this in six months and now I'm filthy rich. It takes time, and as long as you have invested in the time it will take to see returns on your investment, you'll be doing well and doing yourself for a service. So I just want our listeners to know that everything that
Sean is saying, we've already put in place. When I was in the NFL, I put my money in my four to one K, I bought property, we invest in stocks, we invested in bonds, and throughout the course of the ten years, when we went to make the pivot and move to LA I ended up selling those properties and using that money as a way for us to move.
But that was a wealth building move.
You know.
We was in the apartment for nine years, and as we got equity in those properties, we were able to take out the capital and build. So I really want to put that on people's hearts to let them know that this takes time.
You can't rush this process.
Absolutely.
I was just going to say, you're absolutely right, and it's also work like. It's not easy. It's not in the basic things that we're talking about with the four one K, It's not easy. To give up twenty to thirty thousand dollars out of someone's income. Everything about it.
Talk about it, right.
It's not easy to set It's not easy to commit to owning a home and paying a thirty year mortgage on time every single month. It's not easy building you know, a business out like you know, people look at their everyone else's situation and kind of make judgments about that's what success looks like, That's what wealth looks like. But I you know, working with wealthy people when they're wealthy, when they're relatively wealthy to others, it doesn't feel it
doesn't seem well, it's hard. It's hard maintaining the things that you're committed to. It's hard to build it. You know, you look at all of the work specific to you guys that it took to kind of move forward. And I'm not saying the journey is not over. It's just you're just moving forward. And you can speak to how hard daily it is to maintain where your move the wealth building, you know, and that's what people when I talk about, you know, when people talk about retirement, retirement
is just not working anymore. And work is a real thing. Work is how you are building these these This work is what's going to build the wealth that you envision for yourself. But while you're in the middle of it, I can't say unless you were given something, If you were given millions of dollars by your family, maybe it's easier.
But we're talking about people that get up every day and make hard and tough decisions and commit to those decisions and navigate those decisions every day until they can take a break.
So you know, that's that's why I wanted to cut you off, not to cut you off. That's why I told a story about you driving that car, because that was a credit to the sacrifice you were making in your twenties to say, you know what, I'm not going to go get me an expensive car just because I work on Wall Street.
I'm going to get a condo.
Yeah.
And then, to me, that's what people don't want to hear. Every time someone asked me, how did you do it? They expect me to give them like a three step method to make a million dollars in six months. And then when you tell them, well, I had an Audi and I didn't drive an AUTI for four years, me and Case shared a car. I took the train. We didn't go on vacation for four years. I didn't buy any clothes, we didn't eat out, we didn't yoh. Then
they'd be like, oh, that's not really a plan. It's like, no, that's exactly what the plan plan.
The plan is to sacrifice, you.
Know, yes, yes, And it's just like living in the society we live in. Everything is about instant gratification. You know, this generation things that things are just super super easy, and then they're also contending with this aspirational lifestyle that so many people are trying to live up to.
You know.
We did an episode which we already told the listeners that we were going to be speaking with you on an episode about wedding culture and how it's literally trash now because the average cost for a wedding in the United States right now is thirty grand. Where people are aspiring to have these one hundred thousand dollars weddings just to keep up with the viral moments on Instagram. And we spoke about you know, taking that money and making it more of an investment move versus a one day thing.
I mean, and it's happening across the economy. K it's weddings, it's the cost of education, it's the cost of homes, all of these decisions, like everything that we are committing to costs money, and it's and it's a sacrifice. And people cannot appreciate your how hard it is to be in one situation. Looking at you, guys, the world may think it's easy. I damn, I know it's not easy. I know it's not easy. I know how heavy that load is. I don't know whoever may be looking at
me on the outs, I may think it's easy. Oh how you know what? It is so specific to the individual, and there is no quick and easy fix. We want to make it easier for our children though, Yeah, that's for sure. We want to give them a little bit of a leg up, just like my mom did. My mom moved. My mom literally left Jamaica as a single black woman in her twenties to come here. Everything I'm doing is easy. This is not this is that's that was hard.
That'spective.
Some of the stories Shawn Sean from Shawn's family from Jamaica.
My mom.
My mom came up here at seventeen by herself, looking to become a nurse, started working at Burger King, you know, and worked her way up, so we share some of those stories.
Yeah, and your family d came from this, I guess you know. My family came from the people man. Yeah.
Yeah, But I think the biggest thing that I want to implore with people is stop looking for quick fixes.
Right.
Instagram and social media is not a real place, right.
Yeah.
It takes time, it takes discipline, it takes strategy, you know. And if and if there were three things that someone is what does it take to build wealth? I would say time, discipline, and strategy. If you have those things, and if you remain consistent over the course of time, you can build wealth. But most of the wealth you see, the most of the wealth you gain you won't even be able to see.
Your children will see it. And that to me is the biggest aid.
Yeah, you're you are, You're not. The goal should never be to spend the money that we made. We're living, We're up every single day, we're working hard, we are maintaining, we're making good decisions. We're trying to grow this wealth. But at the end of the day, we're not trying to leave this earth with zero and have these kids.
The things that are really important families starting from zero, right, right, So we're not spending or we're not going to have the luxury of all of this wealth building that we're talking about to use for ourselves. It's just not how it works. Anything I do for clients, all of the projections that I run, it's to maintain what they've built
for themselves. So for you guys, it's going to be to maintain when you're when you finally decide that somehow you're going to slow down, both of you, we're going to want to have the assets that you that have worked hard to set aside working for you, so you can take a step back. But the kids, the boys, they're going to get that money and they're going to figure out how to grow it for their kids. It's not I'll go back. I'll just say it's not easy.
Those three things that you mentioned, time, discipline, I think you said strategy.
Is that the strategy. You have to have a strategy.
Yeah, you have to have a strategy and kind of be willing to work at that strategy. I don't know how many people out there and kind of you know, visualizing what you guys have and do, but it takes work and it takes the time to kind of execute on it so that it becomes something that's real, something that's helping you to build wealth. There's no easy there's no quick fix, there's no easy answer. It's an individual decision.
But going back to kind of the original questions, there are some basic things that you can do and that's and those things, those basic things are not easy either. Like I said, you're giving up money that you're working for to achieve, retire you know, four one K, owning a home, and then anything you do after that is in order for sure.
So how about those are the three things we're going to give them if it takes time, discipline, strategy, but ultimately, if you want to start now, if you work a traditional nine to five, look into a four on one k, look into purchasing a home, and if that means you have to save x amount of dollars per month for two years, this is what me and k have. We worked on another another podcast talking about saving for the wedding.
Kadeen and I was like.
If you if each couple saves a thousand dollars, each person in the couple saves one thousand dollars a month, that'll give you two thousand dollars a month, that'll give you twenty four thousand dollars for the year.
If you do like.
Kadeena and I did, and you say, you know what we're gonna do four years of just straight sacrifice. That's ninety six thousand dollars you can save over the course of four years. That is a down payment. If you're putting down twenty percent on a home, that is a down payment on ninety thousand dollars. Dude, at least a half a million dollar home. I think that's a nice start for a family who's looking to buy a home in America. Have so many dollars from home, and you could put down ninety k that.
Metropolis like a New York or LA trying to find property.
But you know, oh yeah, yeah, if you're in New York or LA, it's extremely different. But also where you live is also a decision you have to make.
But another thing you said, de Val is also working together, because Sean, we get a lot of couples who write in just for our listener letters, and you know such and they are asking advice because one person in the couple tends to be a little bit more financially savvy, or may have more business acumen than the other, or one tends to be more of a spender than the
other and doesn't understand the sacrifice involved. And we've been there too, Sean, you know that for sure, where Deval and I have had our moments where you know, if he's had to school me on certain things, or Shawn's had to call me and say, hey, you know, what's the budget, what's the plan? So being on the same page, I think is also very important if you're trying to legacy and wealth build with somebody that's a relationship for sure.
I think we might have lost se On. We were on our way to closing out anyway, but I think we might have lost se On. Yeah, we lost on there his internet. We might be able to get him back. He's sacrificing on the internet as well. That's part of his wealth building plans.
Now he's trying to sabotage us, giving all the secrets, the tips and tricks to be wealthy black people be aware.
But no, but that's actually a key. When people asked me how I was able to do certain things. I bought property early and it was time for us to make some moves. I cashed in on those properties to be.
Able to pivot because at the time I remember too Sean saying, like certain investments that you wanted to make, for example, buying your grandparents' house is not necessarily the best financially sound investment because it didn't really do much for you.
But I mean, I think you had to write off in it.
Yeah, I used it as a couple of write offs.
I use it appreciation to write off my taxes and stuff like that. But also the property over time, because I held on to the property for I think twelve thirteen years, built a small amount of equity, so when I sold it, I was able to get about thirty thousand.
Dollars and also build credit too.
It helped me build my credit, help you building credits and the Michigan property.
And this is also to tell y'all the truth.
Part of the reason why when we had the topic about the house of the wedding, Coadem picked the wedding is because we already owned two properties, so we were thinking about buying our dream house, but we still already owned two properties, so we were still very fiscally responsible with that decision. Even though hindsight it wasn't the best decision both when we were ready to move to LA, I sold the Michigan property and now had access to seventy K.
So you figured the thirty K to seventy K.
They gave us one hundred thousand dollars, which gave us a next day to pivot and start rebuilding our life in la and.
Taking the risks the risk for sure, So thank you, Sean. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get him back.
Okay, what's going on?
Sorry guy, that's my cord and drove.
Oh, no, worry about, no where about. So actually no, we were actually going to get ready to close out anyway. I don't know if you hear your gods in the background screaming like the lunatic. Yeah, we were getting ready to close out.
And thank you.
During that time when you were going we were just talking about how purchasing the homes early on in our career actually helped us when we were getting ready to move. But at the time we were like, we didn't see the purpose of the investment, you know, and you and I know we did it to help my family. But over time, over those twelve or thirteen years, I was able to use it as some write offs and get some equity, so that when we were ready to pivot in LA, it was like, Wow, this is actually an
okay long term investment. That's why it's always okay to buy property and get.
Involved, to be aware of what's long term and short term. Yeah for sure.
Well, Sean, I'm sure we could talk with you so many different things when it comes to finance, wealth building and all that good stuff. But just a little bit of insight I think would be so helpful to our listeners.
So thank you for joining us to Dana.
You're a busy, busy man over there helping people juggle all this money. Yeah, but we appreciate you so much.
We love you.
We thank you for everything that you love you bro, and you continue to do for the culture of educating us because you know, as a culture and as a community, these are the things that we don't necessarily always share with each other. So having platforms and forums like this are so important.
And let me jump in real quick.
When I was fifteen, Sean had a He started doing this wealth building stuff with us when I was fifteen. I remember you came to Uncle Charles's house. It was me, Jonathan DeVaughn, and it was about seven boy Scouts. And it's funny when someone takes initiative into helping the youth or helping people in the community, you don't know if you're affecting everybody a one person, but I know at that meeting, I was the one person that was listening
and now look, and it started from that. I was like, wow, wealth building. And I was fifteen, and I remember, you know, some of the kids just like, oh my gosh, so what is this. I don't want to listen. And he came with pamphlets, he had folders, and I remember looking at this.
Stuff and thinking like that I can have more.
Ultimately, that's what we want our listeners to understand, that you can have more, but it takes time.
So I love you, bro. I'm gonna give.
You your flowers because you've been on this and you've been on me about this since I was young.
So I guess I could technically thank Sean because that's one thing that's found very attractive about the Vale, y'all. I'll tell y'all, he had business acumen and financial acumen that I did not know about.
But I found it very, very, very sexy.
When he was telling me out all the plants he had to buy a brownstone, leave in the bottom level, rent out the top, make money, have passive income.
I was like, ooh, eighteen, Sean was telling me.
You Sean with you.
Yeah, look, you gotta have you gotta have dream. You gotta dream. You gotta dream. You gotta latch onto your dreams and and and and latch onto them and work, work your butt off to to achieve them. You know, if you if you come up short, if you come up short, that's fine. You're still you're still knocking the go off the ball, so you know.
But you're still in the game.
Even if you come up short, You're still in the game as long as you don't quit. So you never fail, you know, because you know what I went through, even even buying properties early investing in the stock market when the recession hit, I was down bad. I happen to get cut during the worst time in the financial history in America since the Great Depression. But we were able to, with discipline and with your help, just build back.
YEP.
I wish there was a way to really express to your listeners how hard it was, though, Like I don't I don't know if that. I don't know if they can connect where you guys are today without how hard you had to work to get to where you are today and how hard the journey is going to be going forward. Everybody kind of looks at these things I feel, and they just see the moment and they don't really
understand what it takes. Yeah, so I just you know, I will, I guess in part of I would just say, nect with your dreams and just be really ready to work your ass off to hit to hit those goals, because it's not going You can talk. I mean, I tell my kids and my family, I hear you. You know, I understand when you talk and you say you want to do these things and show me, you know, show me whatever it is, whatever that goal is, wherever you want to do, whatever you want to do in life.
Let's take the steps now to get you get you there. So you know, I guess that the closing stop really, you know, I would, I would. I would encourage your listeners to not focus on the now, just really connect with the work that has to be done to get you to your individual dream, your individual goal.
Dope, dope, and appreciate, thank you. So much, Sean. Thank you.
All Right, y'all, we're going to let Sean go and we'll take a quick break and then we'll get back into listener letters after we pay some bills because listen, be talking money and it's got to get paid because.
They're definitely show up at your door step.
I love you, guys, love you to love you too, bro.
Thanks Bro.
We'll be back all right.
So we're back now today. Because of the length of the show, we're only gonna do one listener letter.
Mm hmmm.
So I'm gonna start it out.
You ready, baby, Okay, go ahead. Do you know which one are you gonna do?
Yes?
First things first, Pop, Please, First things first, I recently started listening to your podcast.
I'm definitely not disappointed. Well, we appreciate you.
I'm literally starting from the beginning anyway. I'm only eighteen, wow, and I graduate in a few months. I'm going into the military and then I'm going to my dream college. I'm currently with someone, and people classify young relationships as puppy love, but you guys met young as well. I'm like I like him a lot, maybe even love. I just have so many things going for me. He's great,
with supporting me and I help him as well. So my question to you guys is should I commit to him or should I wait and see how everything plays out. I want that young and grow to get the type of love, but not everybody guys specifically want to commit so young, you.
Know, Yeah, I know, yeah exactly.
I think we had a Listening letter in the Listening Letter episodes where it was similar. It was the girl who was twenty one and she was trying to think, like, is this my soulmate? I feel like he might be, And I'm always conflicted because I'm like, shoot, Kadeen now at thirty nine, wants to tell her a girl, just.
Enjoy yourself, see how things play out.
You know, do you you know, be the individual, learn who you are, learn.
What you like you know.
But then I'm also thinking about Kadeen at eighteen, who was madly in love with this man after two weeks and was just like, I love you, I want to be with you.
Told my cousin I found my.
Husband, and here we are twenty something years later, literally still together. But I will say the process was not easy. And if you're a new listener and you're listening from the beginning. Then you'll also learn about thou and my struggle in so many different points of our relationship. Trying to stay afloat is particularly in our book. We gave our the story of how we met and how things kind of played out over the course of the next ten years after that.
What do you think, babe?
I think for.
An answer like this, you can't give a generic answer a question like this. You know, I can't say yeah, stick together, no, speak to each other if you want to. If you want to stick it, first of all, don't listen to nobody else.
That part.
If you listen to the people around you.
I don't know if you listen to Kadeen and I story or if you Watchatima, everybody else around you was going to give you some messed up advice about your life because they're not in your life.
That's it.
The only person that knows about your life, and I'm talking about Kadeen and I as well, is you. You speak to that young man and y'all figure out what type of life y'all want to live. If he says he's in it for the long hold and he wants to do it from young age, y'all work on doing it and have fun doing it.
If he's telling you how, I don't know.
I want to take some time and I'm not sure, give him his time, and you find somebody who you want to build it with.
But the only person who has that answer, Mama, is you.
That is a fact.
So good luck to you, Sis. You know, it could also be a thing where you guys just start working together and then seeing how things go, you might end up being great friends. Like Daval and I knew that we didn't want to be together when we met each other. That was like, that was like the thing.
I didn't want to be a boyfriend.
I didn't want to be a girlfriend. I wanted to be in d streets having a good time. And then there was that undeniable connection, that vibe, that energy that we just could not shake.
So maybe see where things go. You know, you said you.
Like him a lot, you maybe even love You're not sure, you know, see where it goes, see where it goes, and just don't put too much pressure on yourself or on him, because you got a lot of life ahead of you.
All right, Sis, that was a pretty easy one.
Yeah, nice end to a great podcast episode. If you want to be featured as one of our listener letters. Be sure to email us at dead Ass Advice gmail dot com.
That's D E A D A S S A d V I C at gmail dot com.
All right, Moment of true time.
We're talking estate building, legacy building savings with Sean Freeman today with people who are trying to do that.
Moment of truth.
Moment of truth time.
Takes three things to build wealth, discipline, time, and a strategy. And I'll put in this order discipline, a strategy, and time. If you have those three things, you can definitely build wealth. It doesn't matter what type of job you have. Give yourself greats along the way, because it's going to be ebbs and flows. But you got to have discipline, You got to give yourself time, and you have to have a strategy that's.
A really good one.
Based on the conversation, I'm going to speak to people who are possibly single, possibly in relationships, couples. I think it's important to have conversations early on about finances, business acumen, financial acumen goals when it comes to finances, because that tends to be the number one stress stressor within relationships.
Absolutely so, just making sure that you're on the same page about the trajectory of your finances, the investments that you plan to make, how you're planning to pool money together or divide money, because that tends to be an issue sometimes for couples. Just having the conversations early on will help to alleviate I think, some of the stress in the long run, because if you're not on the same page upfront about what your financial journey is going to look like, it can be a real detriment to
your life and to your relationship. So having those conversations early on, I think is super super important, and try to learn from each other because usually, like I said, in a relationship, one person may be a little bit more financially savvy than the other. And in our case, it was de Val who was as we can see, because Sean was speaking to him early on, and those are things that stuck with him that he was able to apply to his life and then in turn to mind.
So be open minded about it and have those conversations. Transparency is very key, especially with finances.
By property investing your four on one K, if your company's going to match it, you put in fifteen thousand, they're going to put in fifteen thousand. That's fifteen thousand. You get free and you get to write it off on your taxes period. And oh, this is the last thing I will say. Oh, don't be afraid to go into your four on one K. If you have a good financial plan that's going to use that money, you do not have to wait until you sixty five. I've
done this. I've seen plenty of people done this, and I've helped them with this. Take the penalty if did you know the reward is going to be greater than the penalty that you paid. And that's I had a friend had a friend years ago who was just like the vialle I'm thinking about opening up a subway and I was just like, okay, what's toping? So I don't have the capital, So I was like, you have four one K. He's like, yeah, but that's for my retirement.
I said, well, list at the subway party of retirement. So if you got money in the four on one K and it's gaining interest, what if you took out a part of it invested in a sub and now that subway is making you more of.
A return than you're four one k? And he was like, oh, you know what that's right.
A lot of people are scared it for one K.
Guess how many subways he got now three?
Shut up?
Started with one, Now he got three?
All right, good shit, so we aired.
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That's it, baby, and get his money, all right.
Dead Ass.
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