I end every conversation with a question and yours was a good one. We touched on some of this already, but what is your strategy for dealing with the erratic and sporadic income streams for musicians? Hello. Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Thing We Never Talk About, a podcast about personal finance for weirdos. My name is Tim Iseler. I'm a certified financial planner and I run my own independent financial advisory business in Durham, North Carolina.
This show, like my business is for people who chose their professional paths based on following a passion or a dream, and that includes artists, musicians, like today's guest, authors, and really anyone who decided to turn a skill or a talent into a career rather than pursue more conventional and perhaps safer career paths. Before I started my business, I spent 18 years in the music industry working as an audio engineer in both recording studios and touring with bands.
And in many of those situations I was lucky enough to form those kind of quick but intense friendships that come when you spend a lot of time with someone working in a creative environment. Today's guest is one of those people.
Michael Jorgensen is best known as the keyboard player in Wilco, a position he's held down for 20 plus years at this point, but before he got called up to the big leagues, Michael and I both worked together at Soma Electronic Music Studios in Chicago, which was owned by John McEntire.
John took a chance on both Michael and me giving us our first paying studio jobs, and I loved those early days in the studio, working with Michael while learning my chops as a recording engineer, and also just learning how to be a young person in the Chicago music scene and the music industry in general. I'm really happy to share this conversation with you, and not least of which, because I got to spend a lot of time catching up with my old pal.
Michael shares stories about his dad, who was also a recording engineer about touring and releasing records with his first bands, how he got started at Soma, and how he moved from recording Wilco to being part of the band. Plus, Michael shares a ton of really, really useful information about how he manages the up and down income of a musician.
If you're self-employed and looking for actionable ways to improve your financial health, I think you'll find some really useful takeaways from this conversation. I. And even though we talked for a long time, we didn't manage to name drop either Michael's Patreon newsletter or his documentary about legendary musician Bob James. So dang, sorry, Michael, I will link to both of those in the show notes.
And before we dive into my conversation with Michael, may I please suggest that you just go ahead and like and subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice and you'll get a triple gold star for the day if you give the show an A plus, plus plus rating. One more thing: i'd love to do a listener mailbag episode in the future. If you have a question about money or personal finance, please drop a question into the form at iselerfinancial.com/podcast and I'll answer it on a future episode.
All right, let's get started.
Good to see you, man.
How you doing? Are you over in Ojai?
I am, yeah. I am my, my studio here, which is always in some state of flux.
In beautiful Ojai?
You know, my immediate reality is fine.
Oh, that sounds really good.
you know? Well, not that, not that it's just fine, but it's like given the context of the world and our politics right now,
Well, except for crushing existential dread, how are you?
I'm good, man.
Well thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Oh, no, it's great. I'm, I'm flattered and I hope I have some good things to say about all this stuff. I don't think I've ever talked about any of this kind of stuff with other musicians really.
Really?
I think it's, I think it's really daunting. I think it's really hard. I think it's a real huge challenge for people who exist in this farmer's economy. I mean, that's kind of the closest way to figure out a way to kind of talk about how, you know, you go out on tour and then you make a pile of money and then.do
yeah.
What comes next, you know? And trying to figure out like, how much do I save? You know? It's just, it's, it's not obvious. It's not easy and at first it really hurts. But then I. 10 years later, your five, $10,000 investment, like starts growing. You're like, oh, okay.
Yeah. I think a lot of times if you could just have that conversation you know, like, it doesn't have to be perfect right now, just like start doing a little something right now that you can manage and just stick with it.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
I titled the podcast in such a way, because I think it's something, money's something everybody thinks about. Even if you are a creative, everybody thinks about it every day, but you're just not supposed to talk about it.
So I wanted to be able to have people not just talking about like the nuts and bolts of like, this is what account I use or whatever, but just this is how I think about the decisions I make and, and hopefully someone else hearing these conversations will say like, okay, I can try that too.
Yeah.
Here's the first question I always ask everyone. What do you tell people you do for a living?
I'd say that I'm a professional musician.
What do you think is the most common reaction to that?
well, I mean, the one that maybe I remember due to psychological reasons is like, you know, sitting on a plane or somewhere and like, oh, what did you like, I'm a musician. Like, oh yeah, what's the band? Wilco like, oh, my brother loves you guys. Like, I never, I never find the person. I find the, the, oh, my cousin is so into you.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then it's sort of like, but you, not so much. Not so much.
But you haven't given it a chance yet.
Yeah, that's right.
So you and I met when we worked together in the early two thousands at Soma Electronic Music Studios in Chicago.
Yes.
I know that your dad was Joe Jorgensen, who is a recording engineer and worked on a lot of well-known records. So obviously you were aware of that world at a young age, but how did you find yourself doing that professionally?
Like accidents and ambition, I guess is the way to say it. Yeah, so I would go to sessions with my dad in New York City as a kid, like seven years old. And just loving the energy and, and what felt like this secret knowledge of New York City, like driving in, going through the Lincoln Tunnel, emerging in midtown Manhattan and driving north up till the studios were, they were mostly clustered in the sort of midtown area, kind of by Rockefeller Center roughly.
And then I. Parking the car and walking on the streets in like in the late seventies, early eighties, when it was still pretty raw and gnarly compared to what that part of town has developed into. But going into the studio and it's this quiet sanctuary that had that great smell of magnetic tape wafting through the air is one of the least organic but most nostalgic smells I can recall.
Yeah, that's a great way to say it. 'cause other things in the studio, like, you know, denatured alcohol or something have a very strong smell, but they're not pleasant. But magnetic tape is a very, it's a hard to describe, but totally pleasant smell.
Yeah. There's like a sweet.
Yeah.
to that smell. And I, you know, it was just, it came to symbolize a lot of things like going into the studio, being with my dad, being in New York City, like watching the greatest musicians of all time do their thing without knowing or appreciating that at the time.
Yeah.
You know, there's a lot of floundering. I'll, I'll be pretty honest about that. It was, I didn't have enough confidence as a musician to go to music school conservatory. I just figured I would be an engineer. I mean, my dad didn't graduate high school. He was an immigrant from Denmark, and I think he got his, the GED if that even was a thing back in 1960 or whenever he started. But i, I just loved sounds and just was just fascinated with music from an early age.
And started playing in bands and learning about rock and roll and my band lizard music went on tour in England in 1996. That was like one of those incredible trips that I hope that everybody has the ability to experience some version of that kind of world expanding moment in their lives at a young age because it's so, it's so important. And that was the, the trip that I first heard Tortoise.
Oh.
We were driving in the van and I remember we were just listening to the radio in this cargo van. There were five of us, four in the band, in our tour manager, Nigel. And there was a, a bench seat up front, and in the back was just like road cases, you know, rental gear and like our suitcases. And so two people would have to kind of be like rolling around in the back without windows. So like, we're driving through the countryside and you'd like, they're like, oh man, check that out.
And like, like climb up to like look out the window. And but we listened to the radio a lot and I remember hearing a Tortoise song and I was like, whoa, wait, that's, that's possible. And also full disclosure, I was not aware of the reference points that they were drawing from.
And then also Stereo Lab around that time as well was a huge, huge influence because of the, the sort of concentration and exploration of sound and studio manipulations to try to find new, new sounds and interesting ways to communicate musical ideas. And so, I left that band and then sort of had it in my head, it's like, I wanna, I think I wanna move to Chicago. 'cause that's where the music that is really kind of speaking to me is coming from.
And so I went to DeVry and took out a bunch of student loans, never paid them back. Just defaulted. Just like, I was like, what are I, you know, what are you gonna get blood from stone? You can send me letters all day long. You know, I made like in those, those years, like, I think I made like $6,000 in, in a calendar year and somehow survived. You know, like the just absolute squalid student level, you know? I guess it's not necessarily poverty, but it certainly felt like it.
I think $6,000 a year is poverty.
yeah. Even, even 1990 $6. It's not, it's not a lot. But somehow still finding a dollar 80 for cigarettes every day, uh, which is, you know, it's easy to judge in hindsight, but at the time it was like, oh no, I, I need this, this is like the first line item on the budget.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then I sent a demo tape to Thrill Jockey and a guy named Howard Greynolds, our pal, saw my tape in the bin or wherever, and I'm sure there's like a, I'm sure it's right next to the trash can where all the demo tapes get kind of collected. And he liked my handwriting and so he listened to it and he liked the music and so he put out a seven inch. And that was kind of the, the gateway to Chicago and,
a lizard music seven inch or was
oh, no, that was, uh, Movere workshop, which was my sort of, I don't wanna say it out loud, but post rock band, you know. I know it's, there's, it's not, there's not a real easy way to classify that music without having to resort to that unfortunate characterization. However, and so the, my friends that were in that band were like, let's all move to Chicago. And except for our drummer, Greg, we all moved out to Chicago and it took about a year.
'cause I was, I, I needed to finish my studies at DeVry, of course. I didn't want to do something stupid like just drop out of college again.
Yeah.
And so, some of the guys moved in 97, and then I moved in the summer of 98, moved to uh. logan Square before it was Logan Square. But I didn't, you know, it was just like, oh, this is a, my friends have an apartment. There's four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a seven headed shower in one of the bathrooms and an eight foot tub. And I was like, okay, sure, sounds good. Let's, let's go live there.
And then, some months later, I met John and he was building Soma and I knew about wiring and electronics and because of my academic background, of course at dev at DeVry, knowing what Nand gates and exclusive Or gates are and all that kind of stuff, that was not helpful in the building of the studio. And then that thing that happens where like you have a, sort of a sloppy ambition. You're like, I just wanna be around this.
I don't really know what the reality of it is, but I know that I want to be a part of it. So I showed up at the now former site of Soma with some brown cloth work gloves that I bought at the gas station. Because we were doing demolition, you see? And I brought, and I brought a hammer and those gloves and some like, you know, work clothes and within an hour, like the hammer broke and my gloves were shredded, not useful. But nevertheless, you know, John bought me a pair of gloves
Generous guy.
yeah, he was a, he was a generous guy, and I think we both owe him, I dunno, we owe him, but I feel I, I owe him a debt of gratitude for, for welcoming me into the tribe. and you know, I, I, I definitely busted my ass. But after like a year and a half of like just doing construction all the time, I was really starting to burn out on just going to work and driving that van from Wicker Park to the Home Depot
Yeah.
times a day And like, at that point the studio was kind of up and running and John was doing a lot of the work. And there wasn't always a ton to do. Because in the early days, as you probably remember, the, there was only the studio and you had to go upstairs to the apartment upstairs to go to the bathroom. So there really wasn't even room to do anything when you weren't doing a session.
Had you run a session on your own prior to that
No, I mean the first, yeah, the first session that I did was Isotope 217 Who Stole The I Walkman And it was like, I love those guys so much. And it was such a, a quick education into how different making records that Soma was going to be than what the experience I had watching my dad work on music in studios in New York City. But I was down for it. And I remember some of the sort of watershed experiences or, or the ones that really stick out were.
I think it was on that isotope session, Johnny Herndon came down and brought his laptop. Maybe this is 2000, '99, somewhere in there. And he brought his laptop and some Max Patch that he had found and then was like improvising in real time with Rob Mazurek, who's in the live room. Johnny was in the control room and Rob was in the live room. And I was like, man, this is some shit, right? Like using a computer to like, to improvise in the, in the moment.
And it like in 2025, that doesn't sound so crazy. But in, you know, 25 years ago, that was kind of unprecedented, at least from my experience. And I was just like, yeah, this is like this is my scene, these are my people. And then I got to work on a stereo lab record. Jeremy Lemos and I were kind of tag teaming, recording and doing pro tools stuff and kind of going back and forth on the sound dust record.
Jim O'Rourke was gonna produce half of the songs and John was gonna produce the other half of the songs. And they had booked out like six months or something.
Jesus.
It was a really long session. John did three and Jim did three. So
of the records I worked on, like if we had two weeks for the whole record, that was amazing.
no, absolutely. Like, I mean, I worked on a lot of those sessions too, where it was like, you know, people saving up their money coming up from Florida from for spring break to like do two days, you know, and like working hard boy all day long, pulling out keyboards and setting 'em up
Yeah. So, I don't know if you would remember this or why you would remember this, but literally the second session on the books after I got hired was The Minus Five Down With Wilco, which
Oh, right. Mm-hmm.
being so brand new, I didn't really know how anything was done there. How did you come to record that record?
Well, lemme get this timeline right? Yeah. So Sound Dust happened and then I sort of knew Jim from before that 'cause like I was in the drag city nexus as well. But Jim called me up and said, Hey, I need to book some time 'cause I'm gonna mix the song by this band, Wilco. And I was like, sure. Okay. Pick the date. And then Jeff and Jim come in and, and some of the other guys, John and Glenn. And and I think this is like around just prior to the exit of Jay Bennett from Wilco.
So I think he came around once, but they were like in the control room. I was just like, I don't know these guys. Like, they're here working so I'm not gonna get in the way.
Yeah.
And so I uh got to know Jeff and Jim a little bit. They would listen to music before going to work and it was great to just ha listen to those guys talk about bands and music and, and I just, I just remember being kind of like, you know, crushed out on that whole energy of just sitting around and listening to music. I'm like, oh yeah, I used, I used to do this all the time.
I mean, it still did, but like, you know, high school era when you really had no responsibilities, just like, what are you doing? Let's go listen to records. It's great.
Yeah.
And then I heard the music and I was like, wow, this is really something. And then they finished the record there and, and then Jeff called And he's like, we're gonna do this recording with Scott McCoy, the minus five, you know, you want engineer? And I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds great. And he's like, we're gonna, we want to do it on tape. And I was like, yeah, all right. Sure. I don't really have a lot of experience like, like doing it that quickly, you know?
But I was like, yeah, this, how hard could it be?
It's old technology. It must be easy.
Yeah. And I just remember being really kind of like feeling at that moment... I didn't admit this at the, in, at the time, but I was just like, Ooh, I'm, I'm slightly outta my depth here. You know, like, I didn't, I realized, like I didn't, I don't know that I exuded the confidence that they were all looking for from their engineer, but nevertheless, it was good. And, sadly coincided the, the second day, I believe was September 11th.
That's
And then we, but we went into the studio. Jeff's like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna do something positive in the world. In the face of all this hideousness. And then that turned into, Hey, do you wanna record the next Wilco album? and then that happened. And then during that I was like, Hey, what about if I didn't record the new Wilco album and I just was in the band?
Yeah. Well talk about that because you started that record and I was the assistant engineer on a lot of that, and it's a little bit, you know, the, the demoing they did at Soma and then they finished it at Sear Sound
Mm-hmm.
It was a little bit unclear as it was happening, like what's gonna be the record and what is just these guys figuring it out. So I was there for a lot of it, but not all of it. And then I remember at some point they were playing, Wilco was playing and you were gonna like sit in, but like way over on the side of the stage or something like that. And that's how I remember it. And it's like, oh, you know, he's gonna, Mike's gonna play the show with them.
And how did it happen that, because that's, not just for like any band at any time for, but for that band at that point, that time to be like, Hey, let's just welcome another voice in. 'cause they had just had this huge turnover or whatever falling out with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It doesn't seem like an obvious thing to bring in someone else.
I agree.
Glad we got to the bottom of it.
Yeah. Um, yeah, it was, I mean, there was such a spirit of exploration and experimentation and all sort of centered around the, the experience of making music and play, right? Like that's what it was. I mean, it's one of the greatest things that as human beings we get to do. It's just like, all right, what's, what about what if this and this, what, what about this and this, what about this? And this? Like, okay, take that and put that over there and what about this? You know?
And, and that was such a contagious feeling,
Mm-hmm.
and I was just like, oh, I want, I want to, I think I want to be part of this more than just capturing what's happening. Like I wanna be part of that conversation and, I don't know, persistence, ignorance, ambition, all kind of smooshed together. And so as we went through the making of that record I guess it started at the Wilco Loft as just demos, like a, you know, cassette machine recording the band, set up around it, you know, so it was very rudimentary demo recordings.
And then came to Soma and it was also unclear to me what was going to be on the record and what wasn't, but at no point I guess maybe the better way to say it is it always felt like anything we did could be on it. Right? So if it was a good take, if it was a good recording, like maybe that's on there, you know? Every time felt, felt like swinging for the fences.
Like get a great take, make sure it sounds good and, and then make a mix as if it, this was the record and sort of, you know, it's, it's a feedback loop,
Mm-hmm.
And by the time we got to Sear I had kind of fully transitioned to a band member, and the engineer on that record was Chris Shaw, assisted by TJ Doherty at Sear, and that was great. That was sort of, to me, this kind of perfect collision of my Chicago world and the world that my dad was in, like kind of coming together But, yeah, it was, it was great. And, and always there's a part of being in a studio that's like horrible, right?
Because you sort of have to face your, the limits of your ability. And sometimes, maybe most of the time that's not fun. But it always is. It's uncomfortable I think, maybe deliberately to get you to kind of figure out a way to rise to the occasion. So.
Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say that I've had that on both sides of the glass, so to speak, where like, it's totally true when you're in your band in the rehearsal space and you think you sound awesome and then, you know, you go into the studio and you think you're doing the same thing and you're hearing, you're like, oh no. But then you can also, I don't know, I don't know if it's willpower or concentration or, or whatever, but you can also somehow if, if you let yourself get past that.
But I've had that as an engineer too, where there were things, I remember, the first record that I did start to finish, there was a song and one of the band members was really unhappy with the performance, had made a mistake and did an overdub on a second track rather than into the same track on tape. And we had to fade like basically in the middle of a note.
Hmm.
Cross fade in and cross fade out. I don't wanna like, say who it was, but it was like an, an instrument where
It was Steve V.
no, it was not, but it wasn't, it wasn't something where you, it wasn't like a drum where there's a hit and then you can cut, you know, right before the hit
Sure.
It was an instrument where like you had to like do it and I didn't know if I could do it, then I did it and I was like, my God, I'm a hero. You know? There is something about
I.
there where you're like, I don't know if I can do this. I want to do this. And that actually. that brings me to something like you've mentioned ambition a couple of times, which for a large part of the music audience or you know, musician audience, I should say ambition's kind of a dirty word, but I've come to realize looking back, like I never would've thought of myself as as ambitious, but the number of times I put myself in a situation I didn't know if I could do it just went for it.
And that's really kind of the entire story of my career in music. Like, I don't know if I can do this, I'm gonna do this.
Totally. I mean, showing up just alone, I know it, it almost sounds like a cop out, but it really isn't like, 'cause it's really easy to just cancel or not show up, you know, for situations that may exert a unique amount of stress upon you. But I think that, like when I talk about ambition, it was just more the things that I wanted to do.
And it wasn't some global conquest or like I wanted, I, I didn't have the ambition to be, you know, part of what, like the next nirvana or... I never, I never wanted to do that. I just always wanted to just be making stuff and doing things. And I wanted to get into situations and have access to facilities that would allow me to satisfy my curiosity. Right? Like, and I think that's what my ambition, and I think I'm only kind of like articulating that for the first time right now.
Oh good.
So, but yeah, I mean, I agree that ambition in the nineties in Chicago specifically was, yeah, there's like, it reminds me of when when I lost both my, my parents in 2003, 2004, I, I finally went to therapy. And just a little, I'm gonna take a little detour here.
Yeah.
But like, I remember feeling so freaked out about like, you know, having to like click on the, a page on a website that said mental health. You know, it was so stigmatized for reasons that are not really clear to me now, and now that I've done therapy for many years, I'm like, wait, wait, that's, that's all it is? You're just talking to somebody about like, shit that bothers you. And my therapist said, oh, you might be curious to learn about this.
The psychologist who did this study in, I think it's Denmark, but Scandinavia, which is where my family is from, and this person went around and interviewed people in town and asked them questions about things like ambition and how do you live your life, and kind of more like the day-to-day thoughts and ideas or about life. And the sort of prevailing sentiment was more kind of like pack animal where it wasn't ever good to stick out from the crowd, right?
Ah, yeah.
If, if you could, if you won the lottery, like chance and serendipity, if that they played a role in you becoming wealthy, that's fine.
Mm-hmm.
to be sort of driven and ambitious was very frowned upon.
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, Chicago has a bit of that... I don't mean to sound this to sound bad and it's not gonna come across great, but I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do my best and, and I don't mean to offend anybody. And I, I would imagine that it would, you know, that there is this kind of like blue collar pride slash snobbery that is infused in a kind of fabric of the culture of Chicago. It's not for, it's not everybody, but at least in the music community.
And I suppose even in, in New Jersey when I was growing up, there was a bit of that, you know, like, success is failure,
Yeah.
Nineties, like, indie damage. And I think a lot of that came from Kurt Cobain.
Yeah.
Have you read the, Come As You Are
I read the reissue that Azerrad put out, I, I can't remember what he calls it, The Annotated Come As You A you a you are or
Oh yeah, yeah. No, I haven't. That one's a lot. There's a, there's.
brutal.
Yeah,
it's so hard core 'cause it's like you're reading the book and then you're reading his 30 years later commentary on how how he realized he's being lied to and manipulated and, you know, it's, it's really hard. It's like, it's kind of like if you had to go back and read your journal from high school and then write a commentary, a side commentary to everything you were wrong about.
that's sounds I would, I would watch that show.
Oh, brother.
I'm all about like, just like being, you know, I've been starting to write more lately. And sort of memoir kind of stuff, and just sort of telling stories and writing stories from my past. And it's really, it's really great. And I took this writing course that gave me some new tools to utilize and, and again, I had that experience of like, wait, that's all this, that's all it is? That's, that's all you gotta do?
I mean, not you, you still gotta do the work and there's effort and exertion, but it's not this sort of like, oh look, there's a massive ocean of spaghetti. Which one do I, you know, pull at first? This is just like, whatever the first one that comes to your mind, do that one. You know? And like, don't worry, like anxiety is so unhelpful and uncreative. But anyway, but yeah, ambition was not was not a, like a financial or like power ambition.
It was just like, my ambition is creativity, I think is what it was. Like, I want to just consistently be in a position or in a place in a group of people where we can make stuff that didn't exist earlier that day.
It's funny when you mentioned that Scandinavian study of like if someone wins the lottery or if it's
Yeah,
I really felt like it was similar in Chicago where if like if you refused to play by the rules and somehow you had success, that was totally fine.
yeah,
But if you conceded in any way, if you were like, well, they want us to make the record in LA like wrong. You failed. You're terrible.
just I also feel like there's that, that kind of personality type that kind of sits in my brain, that sort of contrarian who says like, well, you can have the appearance of having principles if you just say that everything sucks.
Yeah,
You know what I mean?
yeah,
sort of like naysayer. You know, troll Oscar, the grouch kind of voice, you know, like, oh yeah. And then it's, then it's like this shortcut to having an opinion. Yeah. Like, oh no, I've, I've thought about this a lot. You know, you don't
sucks and that
Yeah. No. Kraftwerk sucks. Yeah,
their first, their first seven inch was good, but everything after that
I know. It's so ridiculous.
So you mentioned earlier pre Chicago that you were making, you know, student poverty level income. So then when you moved to Chicago, I assume you didn't need all that much to get by.
no, I mean, and I don't know if like, if this, we should give, put numbers on this, but like, I think I made like 30 grand a year at Soma in those early days, which like is SI simultaneously a lot, but still not really a lot. But that's also 2001 30 grand, you know,
don't remember what it was when I got hired, but I know at some point I was getting 1600 a month, and which doesn't work out to be a tremendous amount of money.
No, but yeah, I feel like I was like, it was like $12 an hour, if I remember.
I don't even remember. I, I am sure when I got hired, there was some rate quoted, but like when, I know when I came to Chicago, I was fresh outta school. I started at Soma like two months after I graduated college. So it was, I had I think two temp jobs before I got hired there. And I think in my memory, I was interning for like two weeks and John was like, what if you just work here? And I was like, okay, great. I,
Yeah. He was never, he was never comfortable with the whole intern unpaid situation. But, and you, you kind of arrived at Chicago via Bob Weston. Right?
Yeah, Bob Weston... so I had struck up kind of a pen pal relationship with Bob. and you, boy, you wanna talk about ambition. This was like, I went to school at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I played in a band, and you could book shows pretty easily as a local band, but if you wanted, and you know, if you wanted more than a hundred people, you kind of needed an out of town band.
And so my buddy and I, who was in another band, we made a list of bands and literally like you reached out to that one, back and forth and back and forth, and Shellac was on my list. so I reached out to the, whatever the email address that touch and go had for Shellac. And Bob wrote back and was like, no, thank you. We we're not co we're not coming to Kalamazoo, michigan to play a show. No, thank you.
right. For $45.
yeah. And then, uh, you know, I wouldn't have articulated it as ambition at the time, but I knew who Bob was and I had just started learning how to record, you know, in those late nineties it was, you know, recording your own band was not, it was still a novel concept, but it was like, it was a known quantity, you
Yeah.
you could do that.
Mm-hmm.
I was doing that and I started recording other people's bands and I was learning how to do it. And so I just, I replied to him. I was like, okay, also doing this, would you mind critiquing some mixes for me? And we kind of struck up this pen pal relationship where I would either make cassettes or burn CDs and mail them to him, and then he'd email me back with a bunch of notes like, you know, this guitar sounds good, this kick drum sounds bad, or whatever.
Or like, this is how I'm mic a drum set or whatever. So we
That's a, that's, that's very cool.
Yeah, it is, it's amazing. And it's one of the best parts of that scene of the spirit of like, not hoarding my knowledge, or I'm not like a gatekeeper to this knowledge. You know, like I'll give the knowledge away because then we're all better. But at some point, Bob wrote me and was like, my friend's Bill and Jessica are building a studio in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and if you wanna see what a studio looks like, you should go, should reach out to them.
And so I did a little bit of like your Soma thing, but for Bill and Jessica where I went and met them and they had, they were doing the demo on what became Key Club Recording Company and I went and just, said hi, and don't even know what I expected, but I was like, I can just help you do this. And so then, once or twice a week for the rest of the time I was in school, I would go help them the demo and with the early construction.
When I was finishing up with school, I had planned to move to Chicago and Bill who helped with electrical, but also helped with
Mm-hmm.
he was like, I think John's looking for someone you should reach out. So that's through Bill, through Bob, how I got connected with John. And actually I was talking to someone else a few days ago and she was like, how did you get hired at Soma? And I was like, honestly, I think it was just that like Bill said, I worked hard and didn't complain. I like, I I don't think there was any qualification beyond that.
The other thing that Bill said was that, he was like, Tim's great because he'll say, I can work today and tomorrow, but I can't work the day after that. He was like, these boundaries were so clear where, you know, we were just like, I would just like, I guess I should just go in every day and work all the time.
yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny thinking back on like how great I felt be, well, you know, for example, like I knew who the band band Wilco was, and there I was like, you know, I hadn't been in Chicago for two months and there's Wilco in the studio. I'm like, oh my God, I made it. But I also, through Bob Weston, I got a job at NPR, so I was working two
Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.
I was two days a week at NPR and I was five days a week at Soma, and I was like, I got it made,
Can you tell the, listen, can you tell the Listen with your Ears story? I.
Oh God, what was that? I, I don't know if I remember that.
Yeah, it was, it was an NPR story. Tell me if I'm wrong. 'cause I didn't, I didn't use this software and I don't have experience with it, but it was kind of color coded for whatever the sort of dominant frequency was. So like, I don't know, maybe red was bass and blue was treble. And so there was some I don't know what it was that was being edited, but they're like, well no, this one is like, this one is, this one's red and this one's blue. And you can see that it doesn't make sense.
And you, the way you told it to me, you're like, well, we could look with our ears or something to that effect where it's like, let's just hear it instead of looking at a computer screen, you know? And I was just like, oh yeah, there's Tim.
there. Yeah. Oh my God. Uh.
But that's, you know, that's, you gotta run that's the gauntlet you have to run, like deal with when you're young and
Yeah.
know,
know everything.
and you know everything and everyone else is really fucking it up.
Yeah. was funny when at some point there was a decision to be made. too many part-time
I.
and someone had to be let go. And my boss, Lorna White, who was an amazing boss, she pulled me into the voiceover booth and she was like, you know, I, I have to let you go. And for a second I was kind of like, could feel it in my mind being like, that's the logical choice. Like I'm, I'm totally the one here that doesn't take this seriously.
Right. Right. Well, that's, that's, that's a, that's an admirable amount of self-awareness in that moment, you know? 'cause I don't, I don't know. I would probably get like, really sad and, and mopey and
No, I
self-loathing.
I was the youngest one and was clearly much more interested in working five days a week for a fraction of the hourly wage. I think I, I think I started at NPR at 25 an hour, so it was like
Wow.
was making really good money, but it wasn't as cool as the, as the hip studio in Wicker Park, so
Well, we were happy to have you.
Oh, thanks.
But I, I'm getting really tired of all this talk about money.
Yeah, going to take, I was gonna take you there, and we got on a little meandering trail. so you weren't, I wasn't making much money. You weren't making much money. So it probably didn't feel like a big financial risk to start being in the band Wilco. I think maybe for people outside the music industry, it's like, oh, wow, now you got it made. But that's not an immediately obvious thing. Like nobody knew that Wilco would survive as long as they have.
And a lot of people who are in prominent bands don't actually make very much money. Was there ever a part of you that was like, am I taking too big of a risk? Or was it just like that, what am I risking? Like my, my low paying job versus another potentially higher paying job?
Yeah, so one of the things that was great about working for and with John was that he was a musician himself and understood the ephemeral nature of the scheduling. And so when, when construction of the, the control room was done, which was kind of, you know, that was like the big first push, once that was done, i, you know, I, I told John, I was like, I would really love to work here after it's a, like, once it's a studio. Like that's really what I want. I don't really like construction.
I don't want to, I don't wanna do this anymore. I've spent a year and a half like in Red Wings, you know, and jumpsuit, sort of modeled after the Electrical Audio scene. And, and I was like, but I'm, I also do want to like, play music and tour. And he's like, okay, well, like, let's do this. We'll figure out what your, what your weekly salary is. And so he's like, well, let's take off three weeks of that. So we have like a, a 49 week schedule. Or, or, or a pay schedule, right?
And so then so they take, he took, they took the 49 week thing, figure out what that was, and then stretch that out so that even if I was on tour, I was still making money, but just less than my hourly wage. That was like kind of the initial that way to handle what do I do when I'm not on tour, or what do I do when I'm on tour? And so like, you know, fucking amazing, right? That, like, that conversation could happen and we figured out how to do it, you know?
But yeah, no, it was not a lot of money, but it was enough to like live in an apartment with some roommates. But yeah. So that, that moment of is this gonna be my main thing? Is there going to be enough work to quit and get a bigger apartment? And I just sort of rolled the dice. I moved into like, you know, a really nice apartment in kinda Ukrainian village. But it was a beautiful apartment, like wonderful woodwork.
And it was like, it was the first time I was like, oh, wait, shit, am I gonna pay? Am I gonna pay a thousand dollars a month for rent? And I was like, I was like, I'm gonna try it. And, you know, and if it doesn't work, I mean, I don't even think, I thought to myself, if it doesn't work, I was just like, well, it, this would just be, this is just what ha how it is now. Like the
were you already in Wilco at that point
Yeah, yeah. Uhhuh. So that was like, I think that was 2004 ish. you know, there's so much, there's so much like, hold your breath, okay, let's try this and see what happens and, okay, it seems to be working out here. And then like, you know, the band just got so busy and I just was away on tour a lot.
And it was incredible and exciting, but I was also like going through like hideous personal, like my parents passing away and, you know, and like, my, my mom died in June of 2004 and Wilco had a European tour to support A Ghost Is Born. And I went back to New Jersey and spent like, I don't know, two, three weeks cleaning and just getting stuff out and figuring out what I'm gonna take and what my sister's gonna take.
And uh, we go through this whole sort of, you know, without realizing it, grieving process by getting rid of stuff and, you know, people coming and helping. And it was really, it was really great, but it was really hard. And like after all of that, we spent one last night in the house, like sleeping on the floor. Like there was no furniture left, it was just all pretty much empty except for the, like some, you know, suitcases and stuff we were gonna travel home with.
And that morning, a car showed up, I got in and took me to JFK and then I flew to London. I took the train down to Portsmouth and met up with the band. We had a photo shoot that day, and then, and then played the pyramid stage at Glastonbury.
Oh my God. Oh man.
And so like there, there was that level of like, this is just what has to happen. Right? It wasn't like, like, oh, I don't really feel like it. I was like, I kind of can't wait to get out on tour.
Oh yeah.
And that was like some of the most, like, that was a, there was a lot of alcohol, there was a lot of weed, there was a lot of like self-soothing, self-medicating,
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
At that time. But like financially it was all making sense. Like that was pre streaming. And so I got my first publishing check for the songs that I co-wrote on, on A Ghost Is Born. And I was like, whoa, you know, this is, this is the biggest check that I've ever gotten for something. And I was like I did not have a good sense of how to be smart with my money until I met my wife like two or three years later.
Her mother is a financial planner and was instrumental in sort of righting the ship of how our, our finances were. You know, we were just on tour so much and like making a decent amount of money, but not really knowing how to preserve it. 'Cause if you just save, it's almost like losing money if you just save. If you only save,
only
you should. You should. Yeah. If, if you should definitely save, but you should also invest
Did you have a feeling like, okay, now the money, like it's real money. I'm doing all right, I ought to be able or, or I should start thinking about being more serious about this stuff? Or, or is it just kind of like you know, you just happened to meet someone whose mother was an advisor. I.
I did buy some Apple stock on whatever, I don't remember the, what's the, what was the stock trading app back then?
E-Trade was
It was probably, yeah, it was probably E-Trade. Like I remember buying a thousand dollars of Apple stock in 2004 or something like that. And then when I was getting ready to move to Brooklyn in 2005... 2006, that stock had doubled or tripled. And so I was like, oh, now I have $3,000. And I was like, I'm gonna use that to, you know, that's my security deposit. And you know, like that was, that was good, that was money well, well spent. But like, I've done the math,
yeah.
like if I still, if I had held onto that, I probably would've had like, probably like a hundred to $150,000 just from a thousand dollars in 2004. But, you know, it afforded me the, the ability to move to Brooklyn and then see my family more often. My cousins in, in New Jersey for holidays and things, and I met my wife and we had our first child there.
But yeah, there was always this, I think the sort of, the pace of of how Wilco was booking tours and recordings, it just, it felt, like, it always felt like there was going to be enough work and money with that to survive. And it was like 2002 to, to like basically 2012, was really just, there was kind of breakneck. It was, I mean, there was not a ton of time off. There was, we would tour and record, tour and record, tour and record and maybe there'd be like, maybe like a month off.
So it was alm it wasn't exactly like a full-time job, but it was taking up a lot of, all of our time. And it was amazing. I mean, it was, I mean, it's one of the reasons that I'm starting to write. 'Cause I was like, I've fucking done all this crazy shit that I never, I didn't have ambition to be like a rock star. And I think it's arguable that I still am not, but, but I just, again, it was just like the experience of it.
And then just being able to travel, and have the incredible fortune and luxury to you, you know, have a crew to set up our stuff and knock it all down at the end of the night. And all I'm responsible for is showing up and knowing how to play the songs. Was pretty, I mean, an incr, a huge umbrella of gratitude over everything because of that. And it's, it still, it still hits me to this day like, if I'm playing a show, I'm like, this is my job.
Yeah,
It's like, this is such an unusual situation. And, and as a parent and, and meeting other parents and, you know, dare I say Normies, you know, I've, I've, I've come to really understand how unusual and special this all is. And it's so, it's so wonderful. I mean, look, it's a family, right? In all the good ways and in all the ways that can be very frustrating and challenging. But, nevertheless it's remarkable.
But had it not been for my wife and her mother-in-law or my, my, my mother-in-law, her mother, I don't think we would be in the sort of financial position that we are. I mean, I, we are still extremely thrifty. And maybe this is a good thing to talk about.
Yeah.
so we give ourselves like the way that our finances are structured without like, revealing too many details, kind of just the big picture stuff. So we have been contributing to Roth IRAs and SEP IRAs for, you know, when we have windfalls that can, we can like max out those in a year. Like that's always the goal. And then, you know, reinvest from within the Roth IRAs and we have, you know, mutual funds and and investing in company companies that we know.
That's the other sort of rule of thumb for investing, like invest in companies that you're aware of and you, you know, so we have a lot of Apple stock and formerly we had a lot of Tesla stock, but not anymore. Uh,
Why, what happened?,
And then so you know, I get W2 from Wilco for touring and then 10 99 for royalty and like bonus stuff, right? So there's two flavors of income
Yeah.
And I, at some point I was, we were talking about maybe just 'cause I can, I can get paid however I want from the band. And my accountant, my tax guy in New York was like, if you can stay on W2 as long as possible, that's, that's better because a, you know, it offsets your tax burden at the end of the year. And secondly, the money that you put into Social Security and unemployment and workman's comp kind of stuff, like the employer matches that contribution.
Yeah.
So if you don't have, if I, I mean, I could get 10 99 for everything, you know, and then, but all the tax stuff is on me. So yeah, so I still get W2 to kind of take advantage of the social security benefit.
And then so all of the income that I get from touring and royalties and, and, and licensing, so like sound sound exchange, and BMG, my publisher, and you know, I get statements from the people who sell merch, so I have some merch items and on the Wilco store and, and all of that goes into one account. And then my wife and I, we, we pay ourselves a stipend every week. And that's for basic living stuff like groceries and, I mean, it's crazy. It's, it mostly is food.
And, and beyond that, it's just like, this is a way that we can sort of like, okay, this is our, these are our expenses for the month, and we can expect that we're only gonna spend such a certain amount of money every week. And like we just, we pay ourselves, we set up this long schedule of transfers throughout the year. So every Thursday we get a deposit in a separate bank account.
And then that's sort of our daily, you know, go into the grocery store, I gotta buy a new bike helmet for our kids, or whatever sort of household stuff And then that really stems the, like, you know, puts a stop to sort of fri not frivolous spending, but like maybe not super critical spending.
I want to touch on one thing you mentioned, which is like you sort of collect your income in one account, but then you spend from a different account. And I think that's such a powerful tool that really doesn't cost you anything. And now it's so easy to automate, every week, every other week, once a month, whatever.
So even though it's all your money and whenever you wanted, you could go into the big account and pull out whatever you want, if you can just keep your excess money in a separate account, it helps people control what they spend without needing to do a budget.
You know, as long as you have a pretty good idea of what you need every week or every month, you know, if you have that within plus or minus a few hundred dollars, you can regulate your spending by just regulating how much you keep in your spending account.
Yeah, exactly.
So aside from investing in your retirement accounts and, and this cash management system, what else have you learned either on your own through trial and error or that your mother-in-law gave you?
You know, I, I like, I always get confused about like the, sort of the, the subtleties, the, the, the distinctions between the SEP and the Roth ira.
Hmm.
But basically it's, you know, that's money that you go, that you put in that you're not taxed on in the year
in the sep
in the sep, right, that's it. And then that grows tax free and you could take it out prior to retirement age, but you'd get penalized, but you get penalized less when you take it out for retirement.
If you take it out after age 59 and a half, which is sort of a dumb age, they should just make it age 60 and everybody would have a better time of it. But anyway, 59 and a half is the rule. Like if you take it out before 59 and a half, you pay a mandatory 10% penalty and you pay taxes on it. If you do it after 59 and a half, all you have to do is pay the taxes. And then just since we're talking about it, with the Roth, you don't get any current year tax benefit.
So you, it doesn't reduce your taxable income when you contribute. But then during retirement, any growth or dividends or anything you got along the way comes out tax free.
Oh yeah. You only pay tax on the original investment. Is that something.
When you contribute, it's considered to be after tax. So it's like it's a little bit easier to think about if it's, if it was like an employer account and the money's taken out before you get it, so like if with a 401k, you know, you contribute to the 401k and it comes directly out of your paycheck, so never touch that money, right? So in that sense it makes sense. It's pre-tax because you never got it yourself.
Right.
And that's, that type of account is called a traditional account. And there's a traditional IRA that works the same way. Like even though it's like your money, your take home money, when you put it in there, it's considered to be pre-tax. And so you get a tax, positive tax consequence, it reduces your taxable income. A Roth, it's considered after tax. So it's like you get your paycheck, you have to pay taxes on it, and you're choosing to contribute that money.
So as far as the government's concerned, when you put money into a Roth, you've already paid your taxes on it. And so therefore, the way they reward you for doing that, for paying your taxes like a diligent citizen putting it in the Roth, the way they reward you is then after age 59 and a half, you never need to pay taxes again on it. So like you mentioned, you had held onto that Apple stock and now it would be, let's just say a hundred times what it was then same idea with your Roth.
Like if you put in $5,000 and you wait 20 years, and now that original $5,000 is a hundred thousand dollars, now you can have a hundred thousand dollars tax free, of which five was your original investment.
Yeah. I feel like I've, I learn this every, every year over and over again. But it's like if you don't have any idea of how that world works, it's pretty impossible to navigate it on your own. It's not completely impossible, but it is very challenging.
it's also like kind of listening to like studio people and they're talking about gear and they're talking about microphones and it's like LA 2A and U 87 and whatever. And like if you know the jargon, you're like, of course I know what a U 87 is.
Yeah.
the most famous studio microphone there is. But if you're outside of it, you're just, it's just jargon, right? So like, I think one thing that my profession really suffers from is trying to explain things to people that it's simple if you know what it is. And if you're not, you're like, uh, you know.
Yeah.
And that's why I don't think anyone should feel bad about it if you've already been explained what the difference between a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA is, and you forget. Like no one should feel bad about that because it's the same as like, you know, if you know the jargon, then it's obvious. And if you don't, then it just sounds like nothing.
Yeah. It's like knowing the difference between a a regular H 3000 and a fully blown H 3000.
It's exactly the same. Oh my God.
Fully blown.
that's a deep cut right there. Holy shit. Do you have a few more minutes? I know we're kind of coming
Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Okay.
I'm having a good time.
So you mentioned that you toured with Tim Heidecker earlier. Outside of Wilco. How do you decide when and how you work?
Fortunately Wilco is planning sometimes as much as a year out, but about six months in advance. And so I know, I know that she sort of like the rough outline of time that our booking agent is booking a tour, you know, so they'll, on our, I cal it's like, you know, fall tour 2025, and it's like, they'll just put from beginning of August, end of September, and then it winds up being a little smaller sometimes, sometimes shorter, or maybe there's two, two separate tours in that.
And, and it's just, it's my priority. So I always, you know, whenever I've got stuff coming up or, or an opportunity comes up, like so long as it's not going to directly interfere or be in conflict schedule wise with Wilco, like, I'll just, I'll just do it.
How much do you think about money or is it just about vibe? It's, you know, it's like, I'll do it if it's fun and if it's not fun, I'm not gonna bother.
Yeah, I mean it's, it's gotta be a, a measure of both, you know? I mean, the Tim, the Tim tour was, was really fun, high on vibe. You know, it's not the same money that I I make with Wilco, but it's, you know, it's such a different scale. Like, I didn't feel insulted or anything like that. It was just like, oh, this is what this tour can afford, and i'm excited to do it and to meet these people and play music and, and, you know, to do that the week of the inauguration
Oh
for the two weeks after to get people together to sing and laugh was just, it was fucking therapeutic. And so, making connections with these musicians and Tim and some of the comedians that were, were out with us was like, it was, it was heaven. I have to say. Very different and much harder than touring with Wilco. But, you know, I knew going into it that this is not gonna be the same as a fully blown Wilco tour.
but it was so fun and, I think the other part of, of all of this conversation about creativity and collaboration, which is sort of the girding underlying part of all of this, right, is when you get the opportunity to work with somebody, whether it's a record or going out on tour, you have unprecedented amount of time with these people.
And that to me, as long as the situation is good and like everyone is, kind of understands the parameters of what it is that we're trying to do, and there's no... what am I trying to say? As long as there's no dicks. As long, as, long as everyone is cool and grateful about the situation, it's just so fun. It's like, you know, you are this little, this little sort of battalion, of you know, music and comedy to go out and, and do the thing every night.
And, you know, it was, it was such a different set of parameters to work with because the show was constantly evolving because Tim's just rewriting jokes and moving the set list around and, and adding new things to the, to the comedy section that was in the middle of the show. And, it was very much alive. Not to say that that doesn't happen in Wilco because the set lists every night are very much tailored to, I to where we are and the last time we've been there, what did we play?
You know, there's certain songs that we kind of have to play and that people are expecting to hear, and then there's, you know, the new stuff. And so it's, they are similar in that sense. But, there was like a night to night tweaking of the show that was like, oh, wow, that's a, this is so different than my experience. And, and like the, you know, the money was, the money was good. But it was just, it was such a blast.
And, and I had a conversation with my wife before I made any sort of decision. I was like, this is a possibility. Like this is what the money is, this is how much I would be away what are your thoughts? And you know, it was pretty much like, like, you should do this for sure. I've got a, an 11 and soon to be 14-year-old, and they're also part of the conversation as well, because, you know, I go away a lot and I want them to at least know and have some warning.
Like when, when they were really little, they didn't really understand.
Yeah.
I was just like, I'm gonna go away. And then I'm kind of come back like, oh, okay, cool. But now that they're more individuals than they were when they were four, you know, I want to, I just, I need to let them know that this is what's happening. And they also understand, it's like, oh, this is how we make money, how I make money. And we have to do it. And it's, it's always a trade off, you know.
The only other time that I toured, on that kind of scale was I subbed for two weeks playing with Ray Lamont
Oh.
2017, I think. I remember feeling really like nervous and sketchy about that. Like, oh, I don't know any of these people. I, and and then I went to go see them play at the Greek theater in LA and I got there just to sort of meet everybody. And I was like, oh, I know a lot of these crew guys, you know, it was like Peter Buck's old guitar tech from REM and one of the guys that was teching for Neil Young that then did my morning jacket.
You know, the sound guy was like, was the my morning jacket sound guy? I was like, oh, I, okay. Like we're, I'm, we're good. I'm, I'm this, I know a lot of these people and this is a familiar place. And so yeah, that was kind of the same thing. But it was good. That tour was only two weeks, which was kind of crazy to kind of come in as a sub. I'd never done that before. That was really stressful.
But yeah, that was another situation where, you know, it was a competitive, you know, rate, day rate or weekly rate and that money was, was fine. But like Wilco is such a sort of a anomaly in, in a lot of ways. Just like the, the, the duration that it's been around and sort of the position that it enjoys that we enjoy being America's band.
I didn't realize that. That's
That's, that's what I know. I, I was, again, it wasn't part of my ambition, but you know, here we are.
That's fantastic. So I end every conversation with a question from the person I'm speaking with, and yours was a good one. We touched on some of this already, but what is your strategy for dealing with the erratic and sporadic income streams for musicians? One thing I wanna mention is what you already articulated of when you get paid, keeping your money in a different account than whatever you use to pay your bills.
Just that little move of like, it's not right in front of me, therefore I can't spend it.
Yeah.
that's a huge, huge amount of help. This isn't just for musicians, but anybody who has an up and down income and, and you can't predict it, I think just because you can't predict it doesn't mean you can't plan for
Yeah.
it means that always maintaining kind of like a pillow full of cash in your savings account is very, very important.
I agree.
You know, most people with like, let you know, whatever salaried straight jobs, they can get away with three months worth of expenses as an emergency fund. But people with irregular incomes should aim for more like six months. I think prioritizing that, like saving up enough cash and getting used to thinking about the amount of cash you keep around and where you keep it in terms of how much money you need to spend every week or every month.
Mm-hmm.
I know a lot of people don't like doing budgets. I don't like doing budgets, but I do think it's totally useful to know I need to spend about this much money every month. Therefore, I should keep about this much money in my checking account. if I have more than that much money, I should keep it in a savings account. And if I have more than, let's say, six months worth, then I can do something else with it.
So one technique that I like that I did when I was a roadie is I knew about how much I had to spend every month, and so I would just aim to keep twice that much in my checking account. So it's like I got this month covered and I have a hundred percent margin of error. So when I was still touring, my expenses were quite low and I knew that what I had to pay every month was about 2,500 bucks.
So if I kept my checking account at 5,000, I know like I got this month, I can be very wrong about a lot of things. I can overspend and I'm still cool. And so when I would get paid, you can come home from tour with really a lot of money, anything above 5,000 bucks, I would just shove it into my savings account. And again, 5,000 representing two months worth of expenses. then you do the math. At that rate, 15,000 represents three months. 30,000 represents six months.
So you have more than $30,000 then, okay, I can do something else with the rest of my money. And I think a lot of people feel like if they're sitting on a bunch of money, a bunch of cash, they feel like they ought to be doing something else with it. But when you have a really lumpy up and down income, I think the amount of freedom it buys you to keep that much cash around is kind of priceless.
Yeah.
when something goes wrong, you feel like a total genius, you know? So that's what I recommend to people.
And yeah, and the other thing that we do is like, is just put like 50 bucks into once a month, like once a month, like put that into another account. So it's like, it's sort of like paying a subscription.
Yeah.
To yourself that just, you know, maybe there's some months where you would feel, you know, 50 bucks not being there, but for the most part, like you can just fill up another savings account gradually.
totally, totally. I love that approach. I call it invisible money, where it's like if it disappeared, you wouldn't notice. And I think it's useful to tether it to something that you would buy without flinching. know, like a classic example is like that financial advisors pick on is like the $5 latte or
Yeah, right. Uhhuh
Right. So you buy as many $5 lattes as you want, but that just shows like $5 is an amount of money that if it disappeared, wouldn't even care because, you know, I'd spend $5 on whatever can of beer or whatever, you know what I mean? Like,. Who cares.
Yeah.
that, what that shows is like you can save $5 and you won't even notice it. So, you know, I know like a lot of modern platforms allow for a lot of different automation. And some of them even where like, you can automate a daily transfer to another account, so you could set up a $5 a day transfer. It's not that much money. 35 bucks a week. Right.
But like you said, you let that cook for six months and then you know, whatever you wanna go on vacation, you're like, oh wow few of the hotels are paid for already.
Yeah. I think the best analogy for dealing with finances, just gardening, right?
Hmm.
Like you just start small and you put some seed money into an investment or a, a Roth and you reinvest it and, and then you'll start to start to see it grow. And then, you know, over the course of the past 20 years, you know, like we've been I feel like it's pretty conservative. It's been just like slow, slow and like, you know, maybe between eight and 10% gains per year. This like, over time the sort of the compound interest was that Euler, Euler number.
I don't, I don't remember his number, but
oh, come on Tim. You were the math guy.
I know I, yeah, Leonard Euler. I don't re I used to know this shit.
Yeah.
a math major, but I It's all lost.
but the notion of like, just let it, you know, let it accumulate, let it grow, and just try not to pay like super granular attention to the market as well. That's the other thing. 'cause like, there are times where at some point during the pandemic there was like a mini blip crash something, and I was like, oh fuck, what do we, should we just sell now?
And my mother-in-law's like, don't, like the stock market always goes up into the right in the course of history, you know, so you can't get too upset or uptight about watching it on a daily basis
yeah. I think where a lot of people get tripped up is when they're watching their investments and they watch it go down, is thinking about something that's inherently long-term commitment in terms of very short-term priorities, right? So if you had a bank account and all of a sudden there's like, you know, 20% of your bank account is missing, like something went wrong, you know, like you better
Right.
for fraud, like something went wrong. Because your cash money is money that you might need immediately. But, even if it's not in a retirement account, you should be thinking about investments as for later. And it's okay if it goes up and down in price on the short term because you don't need it on the short term. If you, if you keep a decent amount of cash around, you don't need it right away. You need it later. And I also think it's useful to think about other things that people find valuable.
I know there's some guitar collectors in your band. And there's some people with some exceptionally valuable guitars. And if there was a way to take a, you know, whatever, a, a pre-war Martin and every minute of every day get a price update on what it's worth, I would bet it would be so stressful to own something like that.
Yeah.
even like owning your house, like nobody gets a minute by minute, second by second update of how much their house is worth. And so there's this perception that it's less risky to own real estate because you can't check the price literally every day the way you can with your stocks. So risky in the sense of like, if you need it to do what you want tomorrow, you have no control. But if you need it to do what you want 20 years from now, it's pretty reliable.
But yeah, no, the, and also like the other thing is like, it's kind of all imaginary. Until, until it's not, you know?
Yeah. I mean, it's imaginary. The, the day-to-day value is imaginary, but if you take Apple as an example, like Apple at some point will probably start to fail as a company. But in the, you know, for the most of let's say the last 20 years, it's been just like a cash machine, right?
yeah.
so the price of Apple today versus Monday versus a month from now, like that's imaginary, but it's a business that makes money. when you own a share of a business that makes money, it becomes more valuable over time. So like the day-to-day stuff is imaginary, but the thing underneath it is real,
Yeah.
if that makes sense.
Mm-hmm. Totally. But yeah, that's, you know, as, as long as you're getting good advice from financial planners and people who really study and understand the market on a day-to-day basis, but also have that broader view. It's kind of amazing to kind of forget that it's there, you know?
be aware, you know, like, don't ignore it completely, but, you know, just to sort of check in maybe once a month or every couple of months, and then you're like, oh, wow, this is really, this is all starting to add up, you know?
Yeah. And like just as an example, like if somebody looked at their account one year ago and then looked at their account today, they'd be like, oh, it's up.
Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.
if you've been paying attention for the last month, you're like, it's turmoil.
Yeah.
it's doom and gloom. But yeah, if you can stretch that out, it's kind of like, like you kind of miss all the bad news.
That's right.
Cool. Well, thanks so much, Michael. I really appreciate
Oh yeah. No, this is great. It was good to talk.
Great catching up.
likewise, man.
All right, buddy. Thank you.
thanks Tim. Bye.
That was really good. Right. What'd you think of it? It was great taking a trip down memory lane with Michael, but I think we talked enough about useful actionable tips and practices to help out anyone with an up and down income who wants to make better decisions around money. And Michael and I have never talked about any of this stuff before about money or personal finance.
So it was funny to hear about how many common habits and practices that we both developed on our own to help manage those common issues that anyone who's self-employed finds themselves running up against, right? Like you make your money on this month, but what's next month? You know, how do you make it last? How do you spread it out? I thought he had some good tips and I really enjoyed it. And again, I just really enjoyed catching up with him.
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I appreciate it and I appreciate you.