Matt's $ Origin Story #461

I started to perspire a little bit. I feel like you've turned the tables, You've turned the microphone on me. Even though I do talk into the microphone every week, it does feel a little bit different here Spotlight specifically. Yeah, well, I think it's I think it's gonna be fun. We're gonna we're gonna dive into my money origin story next week,

and so the tables will be turned. I will feel the heat then, But but I think this is this is gonna be good at It's, you know, still the beginning of a new year, and there are a lot of How the Money listeners who know quite a lot about you and I at this point, we divulge a fair amount of information about how we live our own lives and how we handle our personal finances on the show, but we've never really done a deep dive into either

of our money origin stories. And anybody's been listening, some people from back in the day episode, you know, the single digit episodes, they they will find some of these things familiar, but they will also unearthed new territory about

the man, the myth, the legend, how the money. Matt. Yeah, we're gonna weave it all together because I do think that, Yeah, if you've been listening for years now, you probably have maybe a loose understanding of my past of your past as well, because we you know, we sprinkle in a little bits of our history into every single episode. We try to find ways where it relates to our listeners. But this will be fun to kind of play it all together and for folks to have a clear understating.

Will be a kind of a more conversational episode as opposed to one world word diving into specific topics are teaching something, Yeah, this is maybe truly what it's actually like if you're having a beer with us and kicked back, but dude. Okay, before we launched into this, though, I wanted to share with you Kate got me an amazing Christmas gift to spend a couple of weeks now since Christmas, and uh, you might remember back we had Marshall Allen on.

We talked about healthcare, crazy high costs of still one of my favorite interview episodes that we've done. Fantastic episode, and his splurge was coffee, specifically, he roasts his own coffee. Uh, and I kind of nerded out. I started to ask him a bunch of questions, realized that we couldn't include

all that in the episode, dialed it back. Um, but I was really interested in his ability to roast his own coffee really nice, like world class, high end coffee for a fraction of the price, and to get it, you know, for super cheap, super fresh at home. Yeah. That's the thing. Is like the best of both worlds, right, it costs less money and it's better the best stuff exactly. So I meant, you know, after that interview I mentioned

that the Kate didn't think much of it. Well, sure enough, Kate got me basically a coffee roasting kit for Christmas, and uh, the best part is one of the easiest and cheapest methods of like an easy bake oven for adults. Yes, seriously, the one of the easiest and cheapest ways to actually roast the coffee are is to use a popcorn air popper. You know. It's it's like this little appliance and you kind of got the spoon of corns, kernels or whatever. You you drop down in there. You flip the thing

on it and it starts popping popcorn. Well, you do basically you do that exact same thing with the coffee beans. You do it outside because it creates a big mess in the you know, and it's still there's a decent amount of smoke um. But you do that, you keep an eye on it. You get it to the color the roast you know that you want, whether you're looking for like a lighter medium, darker medium, or darker roast.

And dude, it was phenomenal. I was surprised at how easy it was to make really good coffee at home. I've got to get you some. Yes, I would love to try it. It's just like, like like we said, the ability to buy a pound of raw coffee. I guess that's what you call it raw. I'm still working on the kit beans that Kate Kake got me, four different samples. Basically, we're kind of cycling through them right now. But it is definitely more affordable than buying the really nice stuff

at the store. How much more affordable, I'm not totally sure. I will report back as I kind of dial in my coffee roasting escapades there we go. But but yeah, I'll definitely rist them up for you. I look forward to trying it, and yeah, I think it's cool. I was kind of fascinated by the fact that Marshall Allen revealed that he roasted his own beans. I didn't know that was a thing. As soon as he said that, I was like, Okay, this is gonna be a problem

for me. All Right, we gotta reach back out to him. Dude, we're doing it. You're doing it. But anyway, maybe i'll link to the air popper. It's just a standard like popcorn air popper that kid got me. But that plus this book she got me in, plus some sample coffees, that's all you need. But yeah, I'll keep you posted. Sounds good. Looking forward to hearing more about your coffee roasting.

It's so good actually once I'm right now, even though we're drinking beer, we should like instagram live you roasting your own coffee beans. It's it's really boring, but in there turn it on and watch it turned around. We could like turn the camera around and you're smiling like a giddy schoolboy. It's that great. Well, let's move on. Matt. Let's mentioned quickly the beer that we're having on this episode. This is Athena Paradiso with BlackBerry, black current and ambrosia.

This is my Creature Comforts, which is just an awesome brewery out of Athens, Georgia. Will give our thoughts on this beer at the end of this episode, but uh, for now, Matt, let's get onto the subject matter at hand. And the subject matter is is you, Like we're talking

about your money orgin story. It is all about you today, and so yeah, I've kind of um come up with some questions like kind of the things I want to ask you about your money history so that our listeners can learn more about you, but then also just learn more about kind of how you've grown with money, how

you've handled it. Hopefully there are not not just human interests here, but also actual money tips and takes takeaways totally, but like we said, it is I think helpful for you to get to know us better as people early on in the new year year And and Matt, January tends to be a month where how the Money gets more downloads than usual because people are like, I'm kind of new Year's resolution, I want to do better with my money, and so they're seeking out a podcast, uh,

some similar to ours or ours in particular, and they're hoping that it will help and hopefully hearing Matt's story will provide some inspiration along with yeah, some of those tactical, practical takeaways. But yeah, let's let's get to it. Matt, I want to kind of like start start young, and not like baby young, like when you came home from the hospital or anything like that. But I do want to hear about my first dollar. Is it your parents

started that allowance really early? But yeah, let's talk about maybe, um, when you the first conversations you remember about money in your household, And what always sticks out to me is and we'll get into this next week, but coming from a house where money either just wasn't talked about, or when it was, it was always in like a frustrated way or uh, there just wasn't a whole lot of like practical helpful talk when it came to the subject of money. You come from a household that has a

pretty healthy relationship with it, it seems like totally man. Yeah, I I so I credit a lot of that to my dad. He grew up in the Midwest, and I feel like he brought over, you know, from the Midwest to the South, like a lot of that Midwestern like work ethic, and I think he sort of translated a lot of that towards handling your money. Uh well. Also, but as early as I remember, always had an allowance.

I mean, like some of my earliest memories regarding money were receiving a bunch of dimes and then being taught how to save a portion of it, how to give a portion of it away, how to you know, have it, you know, the rest of it for spending. But that plus like a piggy bank made out of like a

two leader coke modle. That also, I will say, my dad like he taped over it so you couldn't see the money, which always like even now looking back, I'm like, well, isn't the ability to see it kind of like yeah, like kind of getting you excited about but he was just like no, no, no, like you We're gonna not

We're gonna pretend that doesn't exist. Uh. And So I don't know, maybe there's a lesson there that he was trying to teach me, But a lot of my early memories around money had to do with just not only the responsibility of handling my money well, but also doing the chores I needed to do around the house, because it wasn't just an allowance that I received, no matter what it was, because there were certain jobs that I had that I had to perform in order to receive

that money. Uh. And so in that way, it was less I guess, like an allowance that I was entitled to and more like something that I did have to earn. And you've really taken that sort of idea about money into how you teach your kids about it. We'll get to that later, but you really do you value you think? And and this is just true in the real world, right that when we work, we get money, and those

two things are just highly correlated exactly. I think that's my biggest problem with calling it an allowance, because it just feels like it's something that you get no matter what. It's like a stipend or something. As as as long as you're breathing, you get some money. It's like, well, I don't know. I really do like the idea that you receive money when you perform a job or do a job,

or you know, perform a task. I do think like a lot of folks will argue that, well, no, there should be certain chores that your kids do no matter what. And I agree, like, there are certain things that my kids will never get paid for because you're not gonna get paid for being you know, listening to mom and I are making your bed, Like yeah, like these are things that you you should be doing no matter what. But for me, you know, the allowance that was huge

another sort of lesson. And this is I guess as I got a little bit older, but I remember getting my first credit card, Like I remember showing up in the mail. I was still living at home, and this is you know, this is years ago, and I swear I was like I was either eighteen or even younger, and I may have been sixteen years old. And it was a card and it, I mean, it's a prequalified letter.

I had my name on it, and I remember showing it to dad and be like, hey, this is my credit card now, right, and he's like, yeah, it is. And I thought, wait, what it's like, Well, as long as you whatever you use it for, as long as you pay it off every month, there's no reason that

you can't use this credit card. Uh. And and so I think that stands up in my mind as well, and that might be part of my affinity towards credit cards even today, because I mean he was taking advantage of cash back bonuses and different things like that starting back in the eighties. But I think that that that also had a pretty large impact on my ability to think about finances, maybe in a different way than other

kids were. Yeah, well it sounds like to what your dad was instilling was a sense of tomomy right where we're like your sixteen and your dad's like, sure, it's

your credit card. Uh. And we've talked about how how helping your kids, allowing your kids some of that leash to make mistakes while they're still under your roof is actually the best time for them to make mistakes and to learn while you're there to protect him while the mistakes can be minor, and it seems like your dad was kind of setting you up for that that ability to Yeah, absolutely, they were all about allowing me to make the mistakes with like tens and hundreds of dollars

as opposed to like thousands and ten thousands of dollars that oftentimes those are the lessons we learned further down the road, right. But also I do want to mention my mom because even though like more the day to day you know, nuts and bolts of handling money, well came down to dad and what he taught me. But I think my one of the things my mom instilled in me. I mean, of course, like she's Asian and so like all Asian parents, she wanted me to be

a doctor or a lawyer. But one of the things that always stood out to me because I knew what a doctor was and I knew what a lawyer was. But she would also always mentioned entrepreneurship, like in your own business, and that really does as I think back, that stands out to me because at the time you didn't really know what that meant, right, Like all you knew was at there are stores and then I guess

there's a business owner and so. And specifically mom had and she still does have a lot of friends who own their own businesses, but a lot of them were like brick and mortar shops and so. But even then, I mean, I didn't necessarily want to be like the owner of a Korean food store, like, but the idea time, buddy, if you want, hey, I could man uh or your

own coffee roasting company maybe so uh. But the idea of being able to do whatever it is that I wanted to do with my time, for me to be able to set my own rules, I think, even at a very young age, that that kind of turned something onto my head, right, like it flipped the switch. Oh, I don't have to go work for somebody else, I can create my own product. Yeah. And I think that

had a lot to do with too. Just how I mean, I literally only lasted like a year and a half, two years in the corporate world right after college before I started my own business, before doing other things is that were a little less traditional. And and as I think back, I mean, there weren't many influences in my life to owning your own business except for some of those early conversations we had and thinking that I might

own a food store. Yeah, alright, So, uh so, I feel like, you know, we talked about how your your dad in particular, was such a great influence your mom in regards to pushing you towards entrepreneurship at least opening your eyes to the reality that that is a legitimate way to move forward in this world, to start your own business. But what about like maybe the biggest money fail or something like that, like our biggest money struggle early on, because you know, even today, it's not like

you're rolling in the dough. But but where where I'm sitting, from where I'm sitting, you've been just so incredibly intentional for a lot of years with your money and and that's paid off, like you we mentioned in this on the show, but you have your budget down to the penny, like what you've spent dating back fifteen years. Like so, so it's not without like a lot of effort and

intentionality that you've gotten here. But I'd love to hear what my robotic friend Matt like that you're a real human being who potentially occasionally also screws up so totally. I mean, I don't make the always make the wisest decisions, and I will say I mean I've become more methodical and responsible as I've gotten older, but especially dude, I mean in high school and college. You know, I wouldn't

say that these were struggles at the time. Like at the time, I thought I was just living my life and making great decisions. But the amount of money that I spent on cars specifically, and we've kind of hinted at this before, but early on I had this old Jeep, this old Jeep Cherokee that actually was pretty great. It was a pretty great car, was well maintained. We bought it from some folks we knew. But then I saved

up some more money, sold that Jeep. Took that money that I, you know, earned from that sale, and plus the additional money, and I bought a nicer Jeep, like a newer Grand not just regular Cherokee, a Grand Cherokee, did the upgrade and fancy and uh. And then in college I actually sold sold that, sold that one and got an older Range Rover, which was also a very sweet, sweet ride that was very expensive to maintain, terrible gas mileage.

Obviously didn't check the Consumer Reports reliability ratings before you bought that, But I mean I did this multiple times over the course of a number of years, and just every time you do that, there's just transaction costs involved, not to mention just getting it to a level of running, you know, like a level of dependability. Plus I would also put a decent stereo, and I wasn't like going around blast and music, but I liked having a you know, some base. I liked having a sub back there. But

I would do that every single time. And so it was just this money that was just essentially hemorrhaging towards transportation that just wasn't all that necessary in my life. Like I look back now in retrospect and I kind of cringe at what I could have done with that money had I invested it. Say, you know, like we give these examples all the time, how if a teenager when they are sixteen or eighteen years old, if they started investing that money early on, what that money could

turn into. And I couldn't imagine, uh, the fortune, the amount of wealth that I would have had I done that. But those are lessons though, that I learned along the way. Because after that period of time I was able to look back, I can think, oh man, that was kind of dumb, Like it was fun but it was it was very expensive fun, you know. And and again these weren't really nice, brand new, fancy sports cars or anything like that. These were old, old cars relatively not an

expensive car relatively speaking. But for you, it's still just like a misplacement of fund. Absolutely for me, it was just the most definitely was the most amount of money that was spending on anything. And so yeah, I don't know. On one hand, I see that as a massive mistake, But on the other hand, I see that as just a learning opportunity. And it's something that I've kind of carried into today. As to you know who I am now? Okay, all right, well who you are now? We're going to

get to that in just a second. But I've got some some more questions about as like you enter early adulthood, and in particular, I want to ask you about a moment that you point to at your light bulb moment, and it it's about the show down to an abbey. So we're gonna get some more questions about your origin story and what makes you who you are and how you are with money. We'll get to some more of those right after this. All right, we're back from the

break and now slow down. This is my I can take it the lead here, I get to bring it back. I got the reins. You just sit back and handle the questions. I'm just gonna kick back and you rob my feet. No, we're not doing that. But let's let's get to you all. Let's get dive more further into your origin story, mat because yeah, there's um does it feel like that the guests just welcomed the show back

from the best because you're kind of interviewing me. It felt wrong, But uh, I want to know too, Like, as you're okay, so you're in college, you're spending money on cars that you should really shouldn't be because you could be saying, you could even start to get into investing, and because your dad had taught you some important principles about how to handle money, giving you actual money as a kid to save and invest and so yeah, like as you left the nest, like, as you're out on

your own basically at college, where did you turn for help figuring out the bigger money issues that you started to face because your your dad had been such help. Would you just call him when you have questions or or yeah, what direction did you start to go in um with yeah, your your money beliefs. Yeah, I should have called my dad. So I mean my personality, I'm just prone to do things on my own and to learn on my own and make my own mistakes. And so I'm sure I could have called dad uh and

ask him some very specific and I'm sure I did. Actually. I mean, you know, you talk to your parents all the time, like when you're when you're younger, and I can't necessarily remember, like, you know, some important phone call. But I also know my personality though, and I do tend to not ask for help. I tend to try

to figure things out on my own. I make my own mistakes, which can be a good thing because once you learn a lesson, I think you learn it really well when when you've learned it the hard way, as opposed it being something that somebody else has told you. And plus at that time, I think Dad was investing a lot in single stocks, and so you may have pointed me in the wrong direction. It's still a debate that him and I have often where it's just like, so tell me about your portfolio. How much better is

it doing than the SMP which turned last year? But it wasn't until actually I graduated college and I got my first It was a post college job, but it

wasn't a job with my profession. I was just living up in North Carolina with a friend and I first learned about the roth ira A. I was a friend of mine who was a few years older, and he was telling me all about the magic of compound returns and how I needed to get investing, uh specifically within a roth ira as soon as possible, and I said, cool, done, I'll do that, and I totally like, literally, I think

I can. Also, I need you to jump off a bridge, and you're like, cool about that, Dan, But I invested my money. I opened a roth ira A. But the thing is, I have things out of order, right, and so even though you do want to get investing, you do want to make sure you've got some money in the bank, And unfortunately I didn't. Really, I wasn't well versed, I wasn't well rounded. I just didn't have that fund started. No,

I didn't. And that was the problem. That was money that I actually had to take out of that accounts um a number of months later because I didn't. I didn't have any margin in my life, and I was looking for some money to help me with my move to at once I got my first what I called my first big boy job. But nor was I actually

invested in a low cost index fund either. I was invested in a fund that he had recommended and he had seen good results over the you know, a few years that he was invested, But it was a really expensive mutual fund that was managed by like this rock star fund manager. And so what that meant was that as soon as I started investing in it, it didn't do so great. Uh. And then on top of that, any returns that I was receiving was getting eaten away

my fees. And so that's why not because of that one lesson, but since that was my first lesson, the first time I learned that low cost in next funds were the way to go. But we have just seen over years and decades that widely diversified funds that cost virtually nothing is what you and I are currently invested in. It's what we recommend for everybody who's in the wealth building stage of their life. But that was that was

a lesson I learned. Yeah, maybe the hard way. Well that's a that's a couple of lessons which funds you are are are smart to invest in you. You also learned about timing of things. Order of operations is important, and we talk about that in our seven money Gears and how there is there is a weight route in which you should go and investing before you have any savings on hand is a bad idea because yeah, you might need to pull that money out and that is

not an ideal situation. You gotta have that margin. Uh. Something else I mentioned too, that same friend who had told me about opening my first you know, opening my wrath Ira. Interestingly, he had purchased a home that my friend and I were renting from, and so this was my first introduction to investment properties. Uh. And he made it look so fun and so great because he owned the place that we're friends with them anyway, right, and so he would come by and hang out. This is

up in North Carolina. It's kind of cold up there, so we'd have like like guys chili nights, and uh, we'd have some friends over. That's actually coincidentally, that's when I first started drinking nicer craft beer. So that was a very formational period of my life when I learned a lot. But looking back, I I realized that was my first introduction into understanding the fact that oh, you could invest in real estate. You can you can buy a property, uh that can generate income for you, and

you can do that like with a good conscience. It's not like this evil landlord who is trying to extract as much value out of the tenant as possible. It's not like this massive imbalance of power. You can do it in a way that provides good for a lot of people. And I think that was really important when it came to sort of planning those initial seeds of

real estate investing. So it's interesting, Uh, my eight year old Selma, she got Monopoly Junior for Christmas, and so we've been playing the one with the with the with the cards or is it actually the game board? Is actually the game board? And it is. It's a lot of fun. And she's getting understanding real estate investing more where she's like, I buy this thing and then when people land on it, they have to pay me money. And it's like she's like this is this sounds like

a lot of the way. Yeah, And so yeah, trying to expound on the nuance behind a brental property or even just starting a business with her. And it's interesting how something as small as Monopoly Junior has been kind of a way to do that. And yeah, I real estate investing, you know. You know, I've talked about it a bunch on the show. It's been great for you

and I overall. And and yeah, I think do think of it as a service in a capitalistic economy, where you can offer something good to somebody that they need, uh and at the same time make money. But talk to me about your Downtown Abbey epiphany, because this is one of those things. Actually on the about us page on how the Money dot com, you and I both have written just a little bit about our personal lives, and this is one of the things that you mentioned

in there. It's this conversation with your wife Kate back in the day. Have we ever talked about it on the show? I don't think so. Okay, so I know I've talked about it on other shows. I guess, Yeah, this is a great time, I guess to share it now when you're on the Today Show or uh r, so before I mean, that was a great moment because it was a time when Kate and I were getting on the same page, uh, specifically about like a higher level goal. But that wasn't always the case. And even

before before the Downtown story. I want to I'll mention Dave Ramsey because Kate and I like when we were dating, uh and and even when we were engaged that entire period of time, Kate was still in school, was in college. She was a full time student, taking a full load. She was graduating early, so she was taking so many hours. She was ready to, you know, to move to Atlanta live with me. But I was a little bit concerned

because we had never essentially earned money. We hadn't lived lives together while we had careers while we had earned money where we're spending real amounts of money, and there's no sort of set path on how to talk about that. And so before we we got married, actually I wanted us to have more conversations around that. And actually, so I got his tickets to Dave Ramsey. He had one by I guess he still doesn't. I don't I've heard of this. Yeah, yeah, you've heard of this guy, this

this hill billy from from Tennessee. But he had these live events and it's where he you know, he covers the basics of personal finance basically, and he kind of takes you through his brand of personal finance, a lot of which we disagree with here on how the money we've talked a good start for a lot of great start, especially if you have a lot of debts. Uh, And so I mean anybody who is looking for some motivation to get out of debt, I think that's a great

place to start. Sometimes it's not even the principles that we didn't disagree with that it's the approach, although some of the some of the principles we definitely disagree with, but yeah, and just his attitude, his approach. But regardless, that was I didn't know if anybody else, anybody else to turn to any other sort of way for us to get on the same page. And so we went to this thing and it was great because it allowed

Kate and I to have a shared vocabulary. It allowed us to talk about our money in a way that was constructive as opposed to only talking about it when when when we had arguments. He's like, he's like the unbiased third party that entered into your relationship to give you some advice that you sorely needed and to give me the ability to then talk about it while exactly yeah, And so I wanted to mention that because that was

helpful for us early on. It was good for us as we started to basically build our life together, and so that was sort of like the initial sort of building block. And then you mentioned the Downton Abbey story, and that was another sort of moment where it felt like that we were becoming even more aligned with our goals. And we'd been kind of watching it Downton Abbey earlier that week We're driving to usn't at that point in time,

it was a hot show. It he was like the squid Game of its time, especially, Like I mean, they were just living this life of leisure and they're just in this you know this gi and English countryside castle and Kate ash She's like, well, how how do they

do that? Like was that actually real life? And we got to talking about wealth and the ability for your money to you know, do the heavy lifting for you, Like when you have enough wealth, uh, that money is when you put it to use uh in certain ways, when you invested that that money is able to then grow uh and then you have options. And that was essentially our first conversation about financial independence, which is something that was in the back of my mind. Like I

remember my dad literally telling me that story. He's like, there's this it's like picture that's sort of like a roller coaster and like once you kind of reach that peak and your money starts making more money than you do, well, then if you want to, you can just kick back and you'll be cruising. Then then then you two can be become a member of the British Aristotle exactly. Uh, just avoid cruises on brain new ships. Uh that might sink in the freezing ocean. But anyway, that like that's

what got us talking about financial independence. And for us that was really cool because it helped us to realize that there might be these high, these sort of longer term goals that we're working towards as opposed to us continuing to trade our time for money, uh, instead putting our money to use in ways that would allow our

money to grow. And and that is I think as people start to kind of wrestle with different personal finance topics, as you start to learn more, when you find out what compounding returns do, how they work, and how much how much your money can work for you over over

the long haul, over decades. It's kind of one of those like epiphany moments, and then you realize the concept of financial independence and that it can be broken down even into a simple math problem, but the reality that you can all they are all these steps along the way that provide different amounts of financial independence in your life. And then that ultimate reality where you have enough money in the bank account that you don't have to work

if you don't want to, is is pretty incredible. But they are all these little mind blowing things along the way, these dominoes at fall I think in your personal finance education, but that is one of them, right, and and that is one of the biggest ones. I remember I was already like investing, well, I knew a lot of the

basics of personal finance. But then when I kind of start to get into and read some of the smarter folks in the financial independence movement, and I was like, oh, I didn't know money could do that, and like that is that is mind blowing? Right? It's it's pretty life changing. Yeah, yeah, no, it truly is. Another funny note too, is that we had that conversation while we were in this crazy, old,

crusty Honda. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, had you at that point like you said, yeah, you're right about your your in this like nasty car at this point prioritize vehicles before, because I mean, honest, I think did I think you did? So? So is is this? Is this? This look back at that car with so much respect, like I almost wish we still got it was amazing. It was an amazing car. And so we

didn't have to do that. And what's interesting is like that was one of the first more quote unquote extreme steps that we had taken in order to save money faster, in order to to minimize our expenses. At that point in time, we weren't driving a ton. We were working from home because we had we'd started our business, and so we realized at that point in time we could

why not just try just having one car? And so for us that was like four years ago fi years ago where we have only had one vehicle in our family. But the reason we were doing that, though, is because we had the goal to be able to put down on the first house that we're saving up for. We're saving up our first down payment. And the thing is too, like I had a nicer, newer grand Cherokee, and we

sold that vehicle because we were being smart. You downgraded the purpose we did because we knew we could get more for that vehicle. Let's get that off to somebody else, and we're going to continue to drive the car that gave us the best gas mileage, that old Honda Accord. It was a fantastic car. When you you and I we still share that same philosophy about cars. You have one car minivan. I have one car minivan, and they're both pretty inexpensive. Mind was literally five thousand dollars. That

is the only car that our family owns. And it's not because we can't afford to buy a nicer car.

It is a purposeful choice. And I think like once that epiphany hits you, uh, you become willing almost to make more oddball choices that most people aren't willing to make, because it's propelling you more in that direction that you want to go, Like you realize what financial independence can do for you, that you can kind of get to the top of that roller coaster through by making a few smaller choices that to most people they're unwilling to make.

But in in your new reality, it's not that big of a deal because it allows you to get where you want to go a whole lot quicker. Absolutely, Yeah, And a lot of folks will say, well, this car, it's paid off. It's like, well, first of all, you shouldn't have had a payment on that car anyway. But then secondly they're like insurance, it's not all that much money.

But yeah, sure, maybe for you know, one year, it's not that big of a deal, but over multiple years, after ten, fifteen years, like that money really does add up and it can have a big impact appreciation. You got that general car, think about how much it is going to appreciate in the next three to five years. And absolutely we're not telling everyone they have to live the way we live, but it is it's interesting when

we go back to some similar patterns. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, obviously we'll get to your story next week. But I mean there's some there's definitely some over like we're very different in a lot of ways, but there's a lot of core fundamentals that are the same. Because to a certain extent, there's a certain formula that you can easily follow that's going to allow you to achieve

financial freedom and financial independence. A lot faster. I wanted to mention the car thing too, because you're asking about like my money struggles and how that's sort of essentially my my biggest mistake that I think of when I look back, and I wonder if if I've essentially overcompensated

for those past errors. But you know, like I've got all these SUVs, these expensive to maintain, terrible gas mileage suv is haunting me from my past, and so I'm only driving very fuel efficient Honda's economical choice aside from like Toyota and Lexus or whatever. I get it, I get it. All right, Well, we got we got. I got a few more questions to get to me. I want to talk about your formation of your first small business.

We can talk even about the podcast a little bit and how we got started here, but uh yeah, let's get to some more of your story right after this. All right, we're back and special guest on Today's my host, my best friend, and we started Matt we can you believe we started How the Money four years ago and it's been a whole lot of fun there. We've developed this incredible community of people who listen, who care about the show, who have learned a lot and made a

lot of changes in their lives. And so this is but this is not the first small business you started. I want to talk about the first one that you began, and it was not too long after you graduated from college. You mentioned kind of being like a beauty school dropout. Basically, you were in the corporate world for a hot minute, and then you were gone and you decided to start start your own photography business. What what made you feel like you could you could jump ship and start frown business?

Was it? Was? It really mostly the inspiration from your mom and kind of like what you learned growing up about entrepreneurship, because it always felt like unapproachable to me for a long time, right, I mean literally, it just came down to crunch in the numbers. I mean, and so I've always found I mean, this is why I have Excel spreadsheets going back to like, yeah, two thousands

and six. But when I sat down and crunched the numbers, uh and mapped out the ability for me to make a living with something else other than my standard job. Granted I wasn't making a ton back then, and so it was it's easier to make anything. Looking once you crude the numbers, but that gave me the confidence to know that, wow, okay, this is something that not only can I do and find enjoyment and satisfaction by doing, but this is something that can provide for for Kate

and I in a serious way. And so let me that coupled with the fact that neither Kate nor I had any debt, and by any, I mean like zero, Like we didn't a lucky way to start off in a lot of ways, absolute especially these days, like that is not the case and that is hard to come by. Any student loans. We both had scholarships like unicorns in today's yeah, and as as well as small enought some money that our our parents had dedicated for our college

as well. But we both also had enough basic financial knowledge to know that we weren't going to go into consumer debt. We you know, I mentioned knowing to pay off my credit cards literally at the age of like sixteen or eighteen years old, I knew that that's how you approach credit cards, at least in the same thing with Kate. And so that allowed us to take what seemed like more of a risk, to step away from jobs that were solid that we're dependable that we're paying us,

you know, the paycheck every two weeks. If you had had large amounts of debt weighing you down, whether it was school debt, credit card debt, anything, you would have probably found it a lot more difficult. It would be a bigger risk. Yeah, absolutely, And we didn't I mean, and we didn't even have a mortgage at that point. We were just renting a place. But and you're like,

we can always skip down if we can't afford. But like I wanted to mention to just again, I want to reiterate crunching the numbers and having that knowledge and the comfort that brought, because what I realized too is that by going through that process, uh and crunching the numbers, even just on the cost of healthcare, I learned that even if I was going to stay with the company I was with, it didn't make sense for me to be a part of the company healthcare plan because it

was so expensive. And so I see that almost as like this turning point from thinking that the world's gonna take care of you, or your employer is gonna take care of you, as you know, to like, Okay, no, now I'm in the driver's seats, and you got a question more to make these decisions because nobody else. Here's the thing, it doesn't matter what in its w you're in, what company you're with, Nobody's gonna care about you in your livelihood and your future as much as you are.

And so I think oftentimes we can get lulled into thinking, oh, I've got this nice, dependable wage, Oh I've got these benefits, but in the end, it comes down to us to be able to determine what's going to be best for for us and for our future. Okay. One one of the most interesting things about you starting your own photography business. I remember when I met you, like you guys were already photographers, Like we we've known each other for I

don't know, like twelve years now, been good friends. Yeah, and so you you remember you telling me early on that you've turned down a lot of people that reach out to and when did you shoot their wedding? Like you were consistently turning down business, and I was like that that would frighten me as a small business owner. I would be trying to get as much business in

as I could. And so, yeah, what was your make hay While the sunshine right, Yeah, yeah, oftentimes that is the mentality what was your ethos behind like turning down gigs? So it took so we you know, we started the photography company, and we started out with it as a side hustle and it slowly ramped up and then it eventually took over and was able to provide all of our It was the sole source of our income. But when I say like it took over, like it literally

took over our lives. And what we learned, especially being newly married, was that it was really destructive. It was really difficult for our marriage, and it took a couple of years of us living through that for us to kind of go through that storm to you know, luckily, we made it out of that and we were able to look back and we realized that, man, that sucked.

That was really difficult, and we need to make sure that we're not continuing to do that because our relationship isn't it's not going you know, in a great direction. You're valuing or putting too much, too much emphasis on the business and not enough on your relations And we I mean we enjoyed it, you know, like it was literally all we ever talked about. It's all we ever

thought about. It's all I mean a lot of what we did, especially this first couple of years after that, you know, we were able to, like you said, we we said no more often in turn down work. But as a small business owner, I mean, that was I think I think that's probably the hardest lesson for any small business owner to learn, which is that there are their things in our lives that we need to prioritize and need a value, and if you don't, the business

is going to take over, right like if not. There's this sort of default way that the world again just by default, it encourages us to go a certain direction, and if there are other things that you value more, you have to fight for those things. And so that's when it came down to us literally saying no. And we you know, we could have. We talked about going in different directions as well, bringing on additional shooters, and you know we did, you know, more of that later

on in the business. But you know, at that point in our lives, we were we had enough. We had always had enough. There are you know, there were some years that were leaner than others, there are some years that were really fat, but even still we were lucky enough to be in a position where we were never wanting, and so for us, that was an important distinction to make to to draw that line, to say no to income. Yeah, I think that's a powerful thing, to say no to

income and to say like, I have enough. And you know what, drawing some lines because you and I, like, there's no limit to the amount of things we could create or produce, or the amount the level to which we could grow the small business that you and I have started together. But to have normal functioning family lives, like, there has to be a limit, you know, we have

to create an artificial limit. Because we could keep pounding away, we could write books, and we could be on Instagram live like three times a day, Like, there's a million things we could do to reach more people to grow the business. But we have consciously decided to say no to doing more because it's not healthy and there has to be a limit, and you have to be able to it's it's a wise thing for your own mental health,

for your own relational health. In order to to see that and to say it, yeah, and again it's you know, Kate and I we were fortunate enough back then with photography to be able to make that decision right like, we were in a solid position, and the same thing is true with you and I right now. We are lucky. We are fortunate to be in a position where we can say that, oh, well, I don't really want to do this aspect that you know of spreading, spreading the reach of how to money. A lot of other people

who are doing this thing. Do you want to do this? It's like, well maybe, maybe, maybe not. But we're in the position to where we don't have to say, oh gosh, we have to do this thing, and that might change, you know, like like later this year, we might be in a position to where it's just like, oh gosh, we we really need to do this thing now. We're not really excited about it, but when it comes. I mean,

this is how businesses work. If there's things that you aren't excited to do, you get other people to do these things and hopefully it can scale in a way that makes sense. But again, you and I are fortunate to be in a position to where we can say that, and we understand that not everybody is in that position

totally so, and I completely agree. I will say part of it is you put yourself in that position, right and you you you know, driving a krusty car and uh and and and having one car and avoiding debt uh and and you know a lot of credit goes to being raised well, having good parents too, and and and then another thing that helps too is having income coming from somewhere else, not just from an employer or from a business that you've started, but in particular for

for us and and for you is rental real estate. And so yeah, you you mentioned earlier your your story of kind of realizing by that a friend had a rental property and you're like, oh, that seems like it's pretty cool. We're paying him money every single month and he's taking that money and scooping some off the top. The rest goes to the bank. He's a cool dude. I guess, I don't know. Was that kind of what gave me the inspiration to to get into that. Yeah, yeah,

so that was my first foray. Another friend of ours up there in North Carolina's as well, Clark. He around the same time, he had purchased his first home and it was a triplex. So he was the original house hacker. He was the first house hacker that I knew because he moved in the main level and he had uh it was a lot where it dropped away and he

had two levels underneath the main floor. Pretty crazy lot, but he had to he inherited two tenants, and so I forget, you know, I can't can't remember the numbers today, but they were covering a substantial, if not all, of his mortgage. And I was like, holy crap, like like, so you're living for free, that's possible. And and so that was another one of those Yeah, and so just you know, rental real estate as an idea was introduced, and then immediately right after that was the idea of

house packing. Both of those seeds were planted. But I didn't have any money back then. Remember, like I told you how I had to take money out of my roth Ira in order to move move back down to Atlanta and to cover a deposit. That kind of stuff. That's where I was at that point. So those bigger investments, we're not on your radar. It was not a possibility at all. I mean, I was like the guy. I

was like, I helped Clark. I was something my friend move into his house, and I was just like the muscle because he was gonna pay for pizza and beers. For me, it was a free meal. That's good enough. That's where I was, uh, in my life at that point. And so I mean it wasn't for another like I think five or six years before rental real estate was a possibility, you know. So within that time Kate and I got married, we saved up money for a down payment for our first personal home, got a little to one.

But then after that we started saving up some money to invest as well, and you know, those seeds that had been planted started to germinate a little bit. And that's actually when you and I met, uh, and you had purchased your first, you know, your own primary residence, and we got to talk and found out that you were trying to be wise with your money as I was, and I think you had shared that you were thinking about buying our rental, like because you just had your

own property at that point. I think right right when we met, I think I literally was on the verge of pouncing on property number two and running out the first one. Yeah, exactly. And so we're like, oh, well, I don't want to move, but we've got this money saved up and we should put that towards our property.

So I mean our interactions us talking about it. I think certainly gave was very encouraging because it would have been a lot tougher for me because I didn't know anybody in Atlanta who was doing that at that point in time. Right, Like in my mind, I'm like, oh, maybe only people in North Carolina do this. I don't know. And so to have somebody else who was my age who was thinking that, like, oh yeah, houses right now

are really affordable. This is a really smart move that was like the final straw that allowed me to to think, yeah, like I am going to do this and yeah, I mean I think we both got our both of us got our second properties around the same time. Uh, And it's like a confidence boost. I think when a friend is doing something absolutely and if you can like this learned from them as a guinea pig, I think sometimes stuff it feels less foreign, you know, just even talking

about it with somebody else us. Uh, you listen to a podcast and hear people talk about it, but when you're talking to someone in person who you're close with or even just like That's why we encourage people to to join like an investor meetup group or something like that, like learn from the people that are doing it, and they will like they will help demystify some of those things that in your mind you have built up to be these hurdles that you can't surmount, and it is possible,

but uh and and you know, we can talk about it until we run out of air in our lungs and hopefully that will be helpful advice to you. But at the same time, meeting individuals where you live who are doing it already is like, I think the best way to go absolutely And plus I mean ten years ago, like there weren't I mean, there weren't real estate real estate podcast. Like the only podcast I've ever heard of was like this Harry Potter podcast that I gave across.

It was very much in its infancy, and it was just books, you know, like I remember reading The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by like one of the Kellor Williams guys or whatever. But it's there's a big gap between reading this massive text book basically to actually pulling the trigger and doing that in your local town. And like you said, having somebody there locally who you know is

also doing it. Uh, it kind of gives you the confidence it allows you to poke holes in each other's sort of plans and be like, oh what about this? Or or hey, how how are you planning to tackle this? That definitely makes it just so much more approachable. Yeah, all right, Well, so there's no real resolution to this podcast because your story is not complete, Like there's still there's still a lot of money moves that we're still

we're still doing it. Yeah, an't we that you're making And that's part of the fun of creating this podcast is along the way we get to share the things that we are doing. You know, we're not We're not seventy year old who have like reach the end. Like we're in the middle of this with our listeners, um hopefully with wisdom to share. But yeah, is there anything else that you want to kind of relate to everybody

about your story that you think is important? Matt, Before we before we kind of end this one out, I think one of the other things that comes to mind. I mean, we're talking about real estate. I think for anybody out there who is thinking about going in that direction is just to know that this isn't a completely passive form of income because the rewards can be quite large,

but it does require time. Uh, And so I think anybody who's thinking about doing this, they need to start thinking about it more as like a small part time job, as a side hustle, something that can potentially ramp up and consume a lot of your time, potentially the most lucrative part time job. Absolutely, yeah, especially it is You're right,

it is working. We talked about that when the episode we talked about the mists of passive income and how exactly it's not a complete farce, but there is a reality to which if you want passive income, you gotta work for it in in any regard, like it doesn't just kind of you don't like, uh, snap your fingers in the passive income fairy comes along and starts stuffing money in your account every month. Yeah, exactly. And so just to think about it that way. I mean, I

was talking with a friend over Christmas break. He had had a good year. He was thinking about what to do with some additional money that he had, and he had renovated his own home, and so he's like, you know, I've got these like renovation skills. I know how to make a house look good. He was thinking about buying another property in his neighborhood, working on it, renting it out, and and this is the conversation I had with him.

I was like, Hey, that's awesome, you know, like the fact that you like, everybody has their own superhero like power, you know, like, and so for him, his sort of superhero strength is the ability to make a property beautiful himself, like without having to hire anybody else. It's just the cost of his tools, the supplies, and his time. But what I wanted him to think through was what his life would look like were he to do that. And

he has a full time job. I mean, he owns his own business and it's actually growing and expanding and it's going to look potentially very different this coming year. And so I was like, Okay, imagine you know, doing that from eight to six or whatever it is that you get off work, Like, are you going to have it in you to come home and then clock in another three or four hours hanging drywall at this new

property that you found that you want to flip. And that's what we want folks to think through with, you know, with any decision, with any new responsibility, with any way that you're thinking about making additional income, right if it's a side hustle, think through what you want your life to look like. Yes, there are oftentimes sacrifices we need to make in the short term to achieve a goal, but do make sure that you are aware of what that's going to look like, because you want to make

those decisions with your eyes open. You want to make sure that you're making those decisions informed. Yeah, yeah, you wanted to be a calculated sacrifice because if you can't actually pay the cost you're gonna you might actually lose money in their proposition, because yeah, you've got to be willing to follow through for sure. Well, dude, this is a lot of fun. I'm glad we got to dive into your money story. Hopefully it's just interesting and helpeful

for listeners. Quickly, Matt, let's folks know Matt a little bit exactly the like I said, the man the myth legend. More on deck for next week by the most, buddy, I'll be ready. But but we had a beer on this episode. This one was athena parody so BlackBerry, Black Current and Ambrosia by of course, Creature Comforts out of Athens, Georgia, where you went to uh to college Alma monitor. That's right, So, yeah,

what we thought. Unfortunately that was not a brewer that was there while I was in school, I know, sadly right. If so, though, like what I've even been able to appreciate it, probably probably not. It took me actually growing up and being out in the real world and talking about real estate with my friend enjoying my first uh milk stout. I think that was one of my first craft beers where I was like, oh, this is different and all those other beers, but yeah, this is a

Berlin of ice. It's a tart German wheat. It poured a dark crimson red, like a very luxurious color. It's just like a purplish hue too. It Yeah, it's really beautiful and I really enjoyed this one. Like the other variations of Athena, it's got that nice wheaty backbone. But obviously with this one with the added fruit just as that they call it paradiso because it's like you're in paradise. It's like you're surrounded by just all this luxurious fruit.

In this case ambrosia as as well is the ambrosia of fruit, Like I know, Ambrosia salad is like uh, you know that's where they add marshmallows to various questions. I don't know, I don't know what what's an ambrosia? What's an ambrosia? Like I have to look that up after the episode. But I really enjoyed it. What your thoughts. Yeah, I thought it was like rich in velvety and had like this medium tartness level going on. It's the first

time I've had this version. Like you said, they make variants, and I think, don't don't say variant, Joel, variation, Well, I think one of my it's a good point. I think, uh probably my favorite variation is still the one that we do with with Tart Cherry's It's delicious. But this one was really good, better than this was expected. And so yeah, again another winner from Creature Comforts because they don't lose, man, they always make good to do a

very good job. Be sure to swing by Creature Comforts if you're ever in Athens, Georgia. But Joel, I feel like I did a lot of talking, but I didn't like direct the show quite as much. But you did a fantastic job. Thank you, my friend. It was fun. It was it was fun. Yeah, and uh yeah, Unfortunately, we can only do these, like, I don't know, like once every few years. I guess we interview each other. It has to be like a different twist on it

next time we do it, that's right. But yeah, all right, well yeah, well, if you are curious about hearing my money story, you'll get to hear that on next Wednesday's episode, But Matt, until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,