Afford Anything - Philip Taylor - Top 5 Financial Lessons PT Learned in the Past Decade

Episode Date: December 26, 2016

#57: Philip Taylor, aka PT, is one of the most well-connected guys in the personal finance world. He’s spent the past half-dozen years building tight relationships with some of the most influential authors and speakers in this space. Today he shares his top five money lessons learned over the past decade. PT shared several tactical tips, including:     •    Buy term life insurance, rather than whole life.     •    Focus on low-cost investing, such as passively-managed index funds.     •    Automate your savings.     •    Focus on income growth.     •    View frugality as a discipline. It’s not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle and a core value. For a full explanation of PT’s 5 takeaways, visit http://affordanything.com/episode57 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything, but not everything. Any decision that you make, any dollar that you spend, any hour that you spend, it's all a tradeoff against something else. There's more to do, more to buy, more to experience than you have money or time for. So what choices are you going to make and how do you make better decisions? My name's Paula Pan, I'm the host of the Afford Anything podcast where we try to answer some of these questions. And today's guest is somebody that I've known for six years. His name is Philip Taylor, better known as PT, and he is the founder of the Financial Bloggers Conference, better known as FinCon. What I like about PT is that he's a bit of a serial founder.

He started many ambitious projects, some of which have grown to be wildly successful. So a dozen years ago, back in 2004, he first stumbled across the world of finance blogs, and he began reading. And a few years after that, back in, I think, 2007, he decided to start one of his own, even though he didn't. have a writing background. And that took off. It started making some money. And so about a half dozen years ago back in 2011, at that point in his life, he had attended a lot of conferences and decided, you know what, I'm going to start my own, even though he didn't have an event planning background. So there's a bit of a pattern to his story. He starts as an audience member. He starts as a reader or as a conference attendee. And later, after a few years of that,

he uplevels into producing his own. I think that's a great habit to form. throughout life. And so the first part of the interview that we have, we talk about that. We talk about starting something even when you don't know what you're doing. We talk about the power of building a world-class network, how being the social center of an event can help you meet people you otherwise wouldn't have met and why that's important and what lessons we can learn from that. And then in the second half of the interview, we change gears and we talk about the money lessons that he has learned over the years. Because remember, PT has spent the past, half dozen years being surrounded by some of the greatest minds in the world of personal finance

and media. What has he learned about money as a result of being surrounded by all of these incredible people for so many years? What are the money lessons that he can boil down? We're going to go into all of that right now. Hey, PT, what's going on? Paula, I am excited to talk with you today. This is going to be good. I am so excited to talk to you, too. There are a couple of things that I want to talk to you about. First of all, you're a super well-connected guy, and that power of having that world-class network is, I'm sure, immeasurable. So I want to go over that. I want to go over some of the money lessons that you've learned over the years. And I also want to talk about all of these projects that you've started, because you've started many ambitious projects. And some of them have grown to be

wildly successful and others have quietly kind of muddled along until you pulled the plug on them. And so I want to go over all of that in this next conversation that we have. I love it. I'm excited. So first of all, very quickly, I want to go through your bio because I know that about a dozen years ago, which was in 2004, that was when you initially started reading finance blogs. And then a few years later, you decided to start your own. Yeah. Yeah. So I graduated. graduated school with an accounting degree, got my CPA shortly after. So I worked in corporate finance

and with public accounting firms for a while there, probably 10 years of my post-college career. 2004, let's see, where was I been? I was probably about five years into that career. And just was kind of peddling around on the internet one day and found personal finance blogs. I'd been listened to a little bit of Dave Ramsey. So I was being sort of drawn in that direction about really more actively managing my money. Because my CPA, really gave me some education around taxes and investing, but really I really didn't feel like I was getting ahead with my money. And so I was starting to take it upon myself to do that. Like that was listening to Dave Ramsey, like I said, listen to these, or starting to read these

blogs. And just really exploring the intimacies of managing your money that I wasn't picking up from my surroundings. So whether I'd be my friends or my parents or the society as all. whole. I feel like there wasn't a, here's how to actually manage your money. There was a cloak over it, right? It's a taboo subject in our society. And so I just didn't know enough about it. And so this was my earlier on those years was my time to just kind of learn as much as possible and kind of get into that world and start seeing money differently. You started a finance blog in 2007. At the time, you didn't have any writing background. And you relatively new to the world of managing your money. What made you think that you could start a

blog? What gave you that gumption? Is that the word I'm looking for? That audacity. There was a little bit audacity. I guess you're right. But mostly it was free time. In my corporate life, work had really slowed down. I think during that season. And I was sitting at my office cube there and wondering what to do with my life and where to move forward. And, you know, really the consumption of any creator probably will tell you this, that the consumption of enough material information, you consume, consume, consume, enough, you know, there's a point to where stuff starts bubbling out of you, right? You start, you know, taking the ideas, putting your own spin on them, putting your own voice to them, and they just start coming out. And so, you know, I was having those conversations with my wife,

I was with friends. And those people got tired of listening to it or just weren't as interested in So I said, all right, well, there's got to be an outlet for me to do this. Oh, yeah, those blogs have been reading. I could do that too. You know, I could take, you know, my story, share it online, and allow that to be something that helps hold me accountable for future growth. It gives me just sort of a platform to associate myself with these other people who were doing this because I like them. I like what their, I think at the time I was reading Consumers and Comitory, Harlanus's site, and Jim Wang's site, bargaining. And I don't know. I just really respected those guys like what they were doing, and I wanted to be like them.

So it was about being like them. And so early on, it was about emulating. You're right, I wasn't a writer. I hated really writing coming up. My mom was a writer, so she taught me some things, but I sort of always rejected that outlet just because it didn't come naturally and feel, and still writing is somewhat of a struggle. But again, going back to the consuming part of it, I was so passionate about the subject that I couldn't help, but, you know, it come out of my life in some way.

And so I chose that route. At the time, blogs were, you know, starting to come on and take over the Internet. And I don't know, there was an appeal to that being a part of the growth of the Internet. I felt, you know, I didn't invest in Yahoo early on. I didn't invest in Google early on. But, hey, I could start this blog. I could be a part of this success. And I'd always wanted something entrepreneurial to play around with.

And so I saw, you know, these other bloggers, you know, making their blogs into entrepreneurial endeavors. And so I thought there was an angle there. So there's several reasons. It just sort of all bubbled up into that. And yeah, in 2007, I started with my first post, which is about my experience comparing the cost of watching UFC fight in my home on pay-per-view or going to Hooters and watching it there. That was my first post. Oh, wow. Well, your first post was a cost comparison of whether or not you should go to Hooters.

That's right. That's amazing. Is that post still up? It is. I'm going to link to that in one. I'm going to link to that in the show notes. So, and is it cheaper to stay at home than it is to go to Hooters? It depends on how many friends you have.

And how well you tip, I guess. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I guess how many beers you're looking to drink. But yeah, that's a kind of obsession with personal finance I had, right? I was worried about how could I, you know, spend less of my dollars. If I wanted to watch this thing, you know, did I want to watch it at home or did I want to go to Hooters?

Like I was that obsessed about comparing the cost, you know? So that that tells you kind of where my mind was at and why I needed to have an outlet to kind of express some of these things. One thing that I think is kind of interesting with your story and an interesting comment that you raised is that when you consume and consume and consume, eventually you can't help but produce because you've taken in so much that now you've synthesized it in your own kind of being and you've got to then put something out there. Was that what happened with conferences as well? I mean, I assume that you'd attended many conferences, but lots of people attend conferences.

Very few of us ever decide to start our own. Yeah, in a way, I guess it was. But it was also about there not being a conference that I wanted, right? So I did go to conferences before that point. And before I started FinCon, I started FinCon in 2011. I had become a full-time blogger in 2010, just to give some context. So three years after actually starting the blog in 2007, I became a full-time blogger, quote-unquote. And I did that in part because I collaborated with the other bloggers around me. I shared ideas with them, and they were generous enough to do the same with me. So this aspect of this feeling of rising tide, float to all boat sort of mentality with us bloggers early on, it was sort of us against the bank rate of the bank rates of the world,

you know. And the act of sharing ideas and just helping each other grow, you know, led to my success. Me becoming a full-time blogger, that's what I wanted to do. And I achieved that goal. And so as part of that leap, you know, I was going to different conferences like word camps. I was going to affiliate summit. I was going to Blog World Expo at the time. And I found myself, whenever I'd go to those events,

just wanting to go hang out with the other personal finance bloggers. And literally like skip the session, skip the entertainment, just go hang out with these people and talk shop the whole time. So how to grow our blogs, how to work with advertisers, how to increase traffic. I mean, all this stuff just was what I wanted to focus on. And so, yeah, I mean, in some ways, FinCon, was as a result of being at those events and feeling the power of being face to face with the people who, you know, I had studied and partnered with for so long. And there's a real magic in face-to-face events. And I think that's only increasing as our world becomes more digital. And we can pick and choose our friends over the internet. There's more power in, you know, me and you getting to hang out face to face one day, which we have before. But in the future, when we do that, that will only further our relationship.

strengthen what we have and lead to more success for both of us. So I don't know that's a long answer to your question, but yeah, that was kind of the idea behind it. I had no event planning experience other than helping my wife with our wedding. I did. I was heavily involved in that. We paid for ourselves, so I was involved in that. But yeah, so I was nervous, but I was a student of events. So I'd studied Word camp. I had studied Affiliate Summit, how they had done things. more than that, I had confidence in our community that they wanted to be together. So one thing I always try to tell early event planners is don't try to create an event that you have to convince people to go to, create an event that you know people want to be at.

I knew I wanted to be there and I knew the 10 or 15 people that I was really hanging out with online wanted to be there. And so that's just what I focused on. I focused on trying to serve up something that there was a need for. And like I said, there just wasn't, you know, that event out there. So I decided to create it. And how did you know that people wanted that? That there would be that enthusiasm.

Well, some signals I was getting was that, you know, whenever I would meet people to other events, they seemed to enjoy meeting me as well. And there were other sort of meetups going around associated with our community. And so personal finance bloggers were meeting in L.A. or they were meeting in New York or they were just sort of these smaller sort of hub meetups. So I knew they were happening. I knew people wanted to be together. I also created this map of personal finance. bloggers and people wanted to put their stuff on there to show people where they were located

for the sake of potentially meeting others who were talking about money online. So it was becoming apparent to me that this online thing was becoming more and more real life every day. But then on a tactical level, what I said was, okay, I'm not going to create this event unless there's real demand for it. So the first thing I did was create a web page and open up an email list. And I shared it in the forum that was a part of at the time and said, okay, here it is, guys, I'm doing a conference for us. Do you want to come? Are you interested in helping me plan it, grow it, create it, make it awesome.

Put your email address over here. Another thing I did on that landing page was to put a, I think, Facebook like box with the faces so that all my friends could see the other people, their friends liking it. And so there was a real social proof going on around that page. But also I was getting confidence that, okay, these people are at least interested in the idea of it. So I took that email list and then I emailed everyone and said, okay, when is a good date for us to do this? When is, what kind of

content would you like to have at the conference? Who do you want to speak? Where do you want to have it? You know, I really sort of open source the idea of the event with the community. And so I was getting their buy-in, gauging their level of interest as it went along. And so my confidence grew as their excitement for it and their, you know, their ideas started pouring in. So let's talk about what's happened as a result of all of that because now, six years down the road, FinCon has grown quite a bit and you as the founder and the social hub of this event, you have developed a very strong network as a result. You probably, I assume, know a lot more people or have access to a lot more people. And as a result, as a result,

of planning this event for others. Absolutely. Yeah. It's an awesome group of people, and it's only grown. There's two evolutions happening, if I could talk a little inside baseball real quick. Yeah, yeah. There's two evolutions happening in our space that's helped the conference to grow. One is that media is coming online. So the more and more traditional print radio is just moving digital.

So what we're doing, expressing our ideas, our content digitally, there's only more and more people coming into that space. The second piece of it is financial advice has become more democratized. So there's an evolution in that, you know, I think people are just more or less taking more ownership of their financial life and less reliant on single institutions or financial, quote, unquote, experts to kind of manage those things. So our event is seeing those two groups come in. People are DIYing their finances more? Yeah, yeah, I think so.

And so our event, you know, is a recipient of sort of those two evolutions. But yeah, it's a awesome group of people. It continues to grow. You know, I started the event off to help myself. I created the event I wanted to go to so that I could learn. And so that I could help the people around me learn more and let us all grow. And like I said, you know, rising tide floats all boats. So I really wanted us to kind of take over the world.

And that's what we're continuing to do. It's less about taking over the world and more about that evolution, I mentioned. But this network has helped me grow and learn a tremendous amount over this past six or seven years. So I'm so thankful for that. But the network also gave me, you know, a platform to serve them, right? So everyone was kind enough to come to my event and entrust me that I would throw a successful event. And, you know, they've allowed me to serve them. And so there's a delicate balance between being a business owner and being someone who's sort of helping a community out that already existed before me.

And so I try to treat that with respect and you see it always as an opportunity to serve this group of people who, you know, kind of wants to go through this thing with me. So that's what a network does is it allows you to open up and do greater things together than you could do individually. So I'm so thankful for that. And then, you know, the network that I've built through this, I certainly wasn't a quote, unquote A-List blogger when I started FinCon, but I've certainly got to know a lot more people, and hopefully they've gotten value from me serving them with the event and connecting them and connecting them. And then that's a network that will always be with me. So whatever I'm doing, whether it's starting my podcast I'm doing in a few weeks or starting another project down

the road, this network will always be with me. And so I don't regret in any point starting that event. So what's the value of that? I mean, for the people listening, and perhaps in particular, particular for the people who are listening who are introverts who might be wondering like, do I really need to meet people? Do I really have to, you know, isn't networking sleazy? I mean, what is the value of knowing so many people in who are all doing roughly the same or same-ish things professionally? I'm big on face-to-face. I mean, like I said earlier, the more digital we become as a society, the more there is a need for the face-to-face time happening in our lives. You know, our world's becoming more digital. I'm having a hard time articulating this, but,

you know, I just think it's powerful. I think the more the internet rules our life, the more being face-to-face has more of an impact. I don't know why. I guess it's just, we're still human at the end of the day. You know, we need to like shake hands and have the beer and laugh and see facial expressions and have those sort of non-verbal communications that really help to form like real relationships. And what's the result of that impact? You know, once you have those relationships, how is your life better as a result? Your life or your business?

Well, I think you feel connected. You feel a sense of ownership. You feel a sense of community, you know? I think that's value. You have people who you can bounce your ideas off of. You have people who can validate you. You have people who can, you know, lift you up when you're down. or be there to celebrate your successes.

So I think we all need that in life. And yeah, to me, that's what it's about. Nice. So, yeah, true community. I guess it goes beyond networking and turns into a genuine support system. You said it better not good, follow. That's the word. Yep, it's community.

And we certainly have that with FinCon. We had it really before, you know, I started the event. But once I started the event and it became a real in-person community as well, it kind of took on more power, I think, and it's super valuable for people to tap into. All right. I've got one more FinCon question, and then we'll move to some of the money lessons that you've learned as a result of being around all of these sharp minds. But the final FinCon question that I have, this dates back to the very first one. That first FinCon, you had some very influential people, Pat Flynn, Ramit Seathy, J.D. Roth. I think Trent Ham was supposed to be there, but then he ended up not being able to.

to make it. You had these influencers all boarding an airplane and taking many days out of their schedule to come speak to a conference that was attended by 225 people. How did you do that? I just asked. I just asked. J.D. Roth was kind of, who's the first person I asked? And he was super kind enough to to join me in that pursuit. I think I took the approach of partnership versus the ask. So I looked for ways to make it valuable for JD. How? Well, I just tried to find out what he wanted out of the event, you know, what he wanted to do there. And he wanted to speak. And so, you know, I said, you know, I'd love for you to be a part of it and be my first keynote speaker and for me to promote the event that way and for me to promote you that way. But J.D.

at the time really just was in love with our community, just like I was. And so at the time, it's an event he wanted to come to as well. And so I had created, I think the real reason JD came was because I created something he wanted to be at, regardless of whether I was going to make him the first keynote speaker or not. So I say that and I offered that value for him. I my guess. He was generous enough to bring that value to me, but really what at the end of the day was, I knew this is something that he wanted to be a part of. And it was. And so, yeah, that's how JD came. With Pat Flynn, it was catching him at the right time. At the time he hadn't done any public speaking, and little did I know that that was something who was on his radar. And so I just gave him the

opportunity to do that. Rameet Setti, actually, I don't know if I asked Rameet or if he just at some point heard about it and said, okay, I've got to be at this thing and I need to be one of your keynote speakers, PT. So I can't remember if I actually asked him or if he asked me or not, but I was so thankful because that guy's been so influential in my personal finance life as well as what I'm doing online. So, so yeah, that's kind of how it all went down. I mean, I was, I didn't make any promises with anybody because I didn't, you know, have much money to necessarily pay people or give, but I think I just focused on making sure. I was, you know, sure that community was happy by creating the event they wanted. And so I think the people

who eventually were attracted to it and wanted to be a part of it could tell that. Yeah. And so they were generous enough to come along and they've been great partners ever since. So the theme that I keep hearing is create the thing that they want. You know, don't create something and then convince people that they should want it. Figure out what it is that people want and then create that. Yeah. And if what you're serving up is not what they're wanting and they're not going to be there anyway, you may have to get creative in fine ways.

I mean, certainly I've invited speakers to come who didn't necessarily see the power of our community, but I've found ways to make it valuable for them, whether that be helping them promote a book or helping them, you know, paying them or some other aspect of value that can exchange. But yeah, it's been a learning experience. I love doing this event, and what started as just me creating this thing for me became something that now is the biggest piece of my business portfolio. So how do you figure out what people want? Because as you mentioned, everybody is motivated by something different.

Some people might want to get paid a fee. Some people might want to promote a book. Some people might want to practice a new skill set. Some people might just want that to connect with the community. How is it that, particularly over an email exchange, how do you get through and figure out the motivation of the person at the other end? What I try to do is I take a guesstimation, but I also just show them the suite of things that I can offer, right? So I know my value. I think you have to be very clear about what you can offer.

And for me, it's not just I can offer you a ticket to the conference. or, you know, I mean, there's a many things I can offer as the event planner. So I list all, I have all those things listed out, and I essentially give them an option, you know, to pick from, a suite of things to pick from. And then they, they tell me what's going to be a value. I mean, I could offer a booth to someone. But for, you know, some people that would make no, that would only be an expense for them. So they were like, no, that doesn't add value. For other people, that would be a tremendous win. So I just offer a laundry list of things that I can offer them. And I'm real good, I think, at knowing what those things are and then allowing them to kind of pick and choose.

And there's some back and forth. Obviously, I can't offer. It's like afford anything, Paula. I can offer anything, but I can't offer everything. So you start by presenting a list of options. And then you see what it is people want and you kind of run with that. And you create a thing. And it seems as though you continually iterate that.

You continue to create things that people want. Yeah. From the broader perspective, I focus on myself. You know, I focus on creating things that I want. See, and on the surface, those two sound contradictory. Well, when I say what, okay, I think we're talking about two different things. Yeah. From a broad perspective in terms of what to offer.

in general in life. I offer things that are attractive to me. So I offered up an event in general that I wanted to be at. So here you can come participate in this thing that I'm building for myself. Here you can come read PT money, which, you know, is really a site that I'm using to, you know, hold me accountable and also as an entrepreneurial endeavor. Here is some conversations I want to have with online financial influencers that I'm putting into a podcast and you can listen to it.

Like to me, that's where I, that's what I use as my guide to create is what kind of things I'm going to want to be doing. But I guess in terms of offering individuals, you know, opportunity to partner with me, yeah, I guess it is somewhat of contradiction. You do have to get, you have to, you have to find their motivation. But I think that part of it is them. they may not realize what all you have to offer or how I could benefit them. And so I think part of that conversation is just trying to figure those two things out and marry those two things up.

That makes a lot of sense to me. With my podcast, I do the same thing. I talk to people who I want to talk to and we have the conversation that I think is interesting. And then I hit record. Yep. And if you usually act interested in something, it's going to be interesting to someone else, right? Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about What you've learned about money since the theme that ties all of these people that you know, this big support system, this community together, since that theme is money, how have your ideas about money changed over the years as a result of all these conversations that you've had with hundreds, thousands of people? Oh, man, Paul, this is a big question. Tell me your entire philosophy on money. Go. So when I was thinking through this, I broke it down in a couple of ways, somewhat on a tactical level, like strategies and specific things.

And then sort of from a theoretical perspective. So which way do you want to approach it? Let's start with theoretical and then we can go to tactical. Okay. And this dates back to when I started the blog, really. I mean, the first thing I learned was I needed to take ownership of my financial life. So regardless of where I was, what my past was. what barriers there were for me or what opportunities there were for me, I needed to be the one to say,

okay, going forward, I own my success with my money. And owning up to that versus saying I'm waiting on something, whether that be a bigger paycheck, or whether I'm waiting on my parents to bail me out or some other type of bailout in my life, or waiting to grow up, waiting to discover some new idea or something. no, like take it upon yourself and take ownership. And that's what you see in our community is is a lot of people who have put their flag down, you know, in the sand and said, okay, this is the point to where I'm going to claim this and I'm going to move forward. I'm going to own it. And so that's been big for me in my life. And you also need to own the present, meaning don't borrow from

the future. So that ties into debt, right? So I, since that point, have avoided, with the exception of my mortgage, avoided all aspects of debt in my life, paid it down as quick as possible, and moved toward owning my future as well as my present. So that's one. That's one philosophy I've got is to take ownership. And that sounds, when I hear that, I think very much about Stephen Covey's internal locus of control and just accepting responsibility for exactly where you are and where you're going. Yep. All right. Tell me more. So a second piece, which has been huge for me, is being intentional. So it's taking the ownership part to the next level,

which is saying, okay, I'm not just going to wander in my life. I'm not just going to try a few things, throw them against the wall and wonder what's going to happen. I'm not going to just get in the life preserver and start floating down the river. I'm going to get in a boat that has a motor, right, and control a rudder. And I'm going to control this thing and I'm going to go in the direction I want to go with my life. That was a terrible analogy.

Sorry. But I'm going to be intentional. So I am going to set a course for myself and I'm going to follow it as much as possible daily. So setting goals, you know, people who I've seen who have come across in our community have net worth goals or debt reduction goals or savings goals or some type of entrepreneurship goal. Their goal or any of people are people who are moving towards something and they're acting into. Intentionally in their life every little thing in their life is moving them toward that thing that they're Wanting not that they're ignoring the present but Every present action is leading them toward you know

They question whether their present actions are leading them toward something in the future and so everything has intention There's no room for mindlessness in the life of someone who wants to achieve financial success They're moving toward a goal or some type of Some type of future ground so being intentional is big part of what I try to do. And that's something that I always have to, I have to kind of stay on top of that. You can't just set that and forget it. That's more of a daily choice to make sure what you're doing is moving you toward annual goals. But we set annual goals with our savings. We set annual goals on my businesses. And then we take, you know, steps every quarter, every month, every day to move

toward those things. All right. So number one is to take ownership and number two is to be intentional. I got a third, which is the power of talking money and the power of writing about money and exploring the topic. So money is a taboo. It is probably arguably the last taboo in our society. You and I are comfortable talking about it, even the details of our finances. You're not going to find that conversation typically with your neighbor, your family member, and sometimes not even your spouse. The way our culture is set up is we just don't talk about the subject. And so the more I've explored it through my writing, through my reading, through my podcasting,

face-to-face conversations, the more success I've had with my finances. It challenges me. It helps me discover new things. It allows you to have a real conversation about money versus putting together in your head what you think is happening. When you look at your neighbor, you see their house, you see their car, you see their stuff, their kids with their clothes, and you can only take a guess as to what is happening financially over there. But when you have real conversations about money and you get tangible and you get specific and intimate about it, it has an impact. And so what I've seen from our community is, you know, we're the ones online talking about money. We're the ones not afraid to have those conversations.

And that's leading to a ton of growth. Not only with us, but with the people who are listening, who are reading and are coming along, they're participating in that conversation as well. And hopefully it's, you know, I believe it is having an impact. Yeah, there is something extremely powerful. I mean, as you said, when you see the surface level of everything, it's so easy to assume that somebody's doing very well or doing very poorly based on their physical possessions. But when you get below the surface, you find out that the truth could be anywhere. Sure. Yeah, they could be the millionaire next door or they could be in tons of debt. You know, you never know.

So you're not going to get your cues from society as it's currently set up. And that's not necessarily good or bad, but you need to. take it upon yourself to expose yourself to reality when it comes to finances. So you need to take ownership and seek out those conversations, seek out that education in the space where you can get real about money because you're not going to get it from, you know, your coworkers or your daily life, your daily cultural setup. This is not part of how we're set up right now. Good or bad. Yeah, absolutely. Is there a risk of becoming all talk and no action? Yeah, sure, yeah.

How do you manage that? That's a good question. I don't know if I have a good. I mean, I think, I don't know if I have an answer for that, Paula. He stumped me with that. That's actually really good. I think there's a lot of power in saying, you know, yes, that is a risk. And I don't have an answer.

And we're just going to have to sit with that. Yeah, I mean, at some point, you do have to take action. And I think that probably leads me to, my next point. And tell me your next point. My next point is that you need to become your own financial expert. Life is all, okay, two points here. Okay.

I'm a CPA. You heard me tell my story earlier about not being able to, you know, have success with my money just by being a CPA. That wasn't the magic bullet for me. It helped me with a few things, but it didn't solve all my problems. And so I needed to become my own financial expert. I'm not an expert in every aspect of finances because, life in the situations and the money issues that are going to come at you are always changing.

And my situation is always different than someone else. So, you know, you can have people in your life who are professional, who hold themselves out with degrees or with certifications. I'm not anti those things. I'm glad we have CFPs. I'm glad we have CPAs and people who are held to higher standards. I'm glad we have those things. But you as an individual need to become your own financial expert. You need to take it upon yourself to say, okay, you know, again, I'm going to own my issues going

forward and I'm going to do what it takes to learn what I need to learn about, understand the moves that I'm making, especially at those big moments in life where you're facing down difficult life situations like buying your first home, getting married, dealing with the loss of a loved one or facing down retirement. I mean, those are the moments in life where you really need to own those situations and become, you know, your own expert. I think oftentimes we put this financial topic upon a pedestal and say, okay, that's for the experts. That's for the people who manage money.

No, we all need to take ownership of that and become a person who can accomplish what we need to accomplish in life through our money. It's only going to serve you. And like I said, your life's only going to continue to change. And so you're going to need those skills. And it sounds like becoming your own expert is the art of developing. judgment and critically thinking about the decisions that you make? Yeah, I think so. I think that's part of it. It's not just about steps one and two and three. It's about being able to discern in this particular situation for me what's the best step to take. So yeah, it can be difficult,

but there's advantages to being able to have those conversations with people around you or listen to other, look at other stories from other people who have done similar things and kind of bounce those ideas off them or take bits and pieces of other people's stories and apply them to your life. One thing that you mentioned when you said, there's so many people who might say, like, oh, that's for the experts. It reminded me of your first principle, taking ownership, because if you are delegating your judgment to somebody else, like, yeah, that's for the experts.

I'll see what the expert says. You are in some ways kind of abdicating that responsibility. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I don't know that I have much to add to that, but yeah, I agree. Is there a fifth money lesson or are these the four? I don't know how many we're working with here. I have one more, Paula. All right.

And that's what I've seen in our community especially is that success, financial success, can come quicker if you choose to be radical, if you choose to be different. So, you know, some of the biggest successes we've had in our financial life are because you know, we've taken more radical steps to achieve success quicker. You know, a simple example for us has been saving, it doesn't sound, maybe not sound terribly radical, especially amongst our community, but for us saving 20% or more of our income, specifically for retirement over the last 10 years, which was in our 30s that we did, has set us up tremendously, so successfully for the future with our retirement savings.

So we could literally stop saving at this point right now and by the time we retire, have enough to live off of based on the 4% rule. So other things I've seen in our community are certainly what's come about with the whole early retirement movement, Mr. Money Mustache and others, people who've paid off tremendous amounts of debt in short periods of time, people who have built businesses and they were able to, you know, call in those businesses because they freed themselves of debt or because they saved up, you know,

money for an emergency fund or took sort of these drastic measures with their financial life to achieve success. And so my point is that back to the sort of the neighbor analogy of what society is going to show you versus what can have a drastic impact on your life. When I was, when I was reading consumerism commentary back in 2004, 2005, Luke Lannis was doing radical things with his money. something stuff that I'd never seen anyone do and so I was attracted to that and and I don't know what it was about me or but I think when most people see radical things like that there's two reactions probably which is either reject it and say I could never possibly do something like that or you know what that's awesome that that guy's doing that and I could see myself maybe doing something like that you know

I could see myself going down that road and so I think because those radical challenges have been put out there by our community, you know, people are gravitating toward them and taking, grabbing them and saying, yeah, I want that too. And so in my life, that's been so impactful. And so that's a big, I guess, final lesson I've learned is to look for those radical things that are happening that could happen with your finances and go for them. Interesting. What were some of the radical things that Luke was doing at Consumerism Commentary back in 2003, 2004, when you first started getting into this world? He was obsessing over automation, savings, automation, maxing out his retirement accounts. So I'd always, before that point, I just thought, well, I'll just contribute to my retirement

up to the match that my company gives me. And that's good. That's good. That's, heck, that's six, seven percent, or that's 10 percent if I wanted to push it to that level. But no, Luke was saying, oh, the 401K annual allowance for contributions was something like 16,000 at the time. Right. I'm maxing that out so I can maximize the amount of deferred taxes. That's funny. I don't even think of that as radical. Yeah. I'm telling you. Yeah. It wasn't. It was not now, but it was back then.

Yeah. And it was for me. Yeah. And for the majority of Americans, that's very radical. Yeah. And we lose sight of some of this because we're in the mix here. But now we don't bat an eye unless someone's saving more than 50% of their income, right? Yeah. But it's baby steps. And so for me, back at that point, it was stuff like that that Luke was doing, the stuff that I take for granted now. Yeah.

Or just tracking your expenses. You know, for me, that was radical back then, you know, obsessing about every dollar that went out that you were spending on. Yeah, just stuff like that. You know, that's an interesting kind of follow-up corollary is that over time the radical begins to feel ordinary, in part because you get used to living that lifestyle. and in part because you develop a community of people who are also doing the same. Yeah, I love it. And success breeds success, as they say.

Yeah. You just have to keep up in the game, you know, to keep it exciting, keep moving forward. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so those are kind of my five from a high level perspective. I mean, I'm certainly on a tactical level of learned. You know, we've paid off all of our debts, except the mortgage. So I'll learn to keep debt on my life. We have term life insurance now, which, you know, we've had that for,

I guess six years since we had our first child. We participate in low-cost investing at a tax-advantage level for our retirement. We use automated savings across the board, whether that be for Christmas or for retirement. And we focus on income versus expense after a certain point. So I think focusing on expense up to a point is good. But then at a certain point, diminishing returns take over. and so you need to kind of switch your mindset to create more income in your life. And then lastly, I would say we focus on frugality as a discipline going forward.

And so even though I'm focused on income, I don't reject frugality, the idea of being efficient with your spending. And so we see it more as a discipline and as a way to have a more fulfilling, efficient life versus a way to reduce cost. So frugality is more of a like a value, like a core principle value as opposed to, tactic for a short-term gain. Exactly. Yep. So that's some of the things we've learned. Interesting.

So avoid debt, have term life insurance, not whole. Choose low-cost investments, automate your savings, focus on increasing your earnings, but maintain frugality as a principle. And invest in real estate, Paula, because I have that the one in there for you. We do have rental property, so we picked up a few things from you. Oh, thank you. You know, this has been great. I think one of the biggest takeaways that I have gotten from this is the power of taking ownership and being intentional and embracing the radical. You know, it can accelerate results in a way that is, you can just throw yourself onto an exponential curve. Yeah, it's been powerful for us. And we feel so blessed. I feel so blessed to have found this passion

in this community of people who are just as passionate. And the effects it's had on my life are tremendous. I get to call them all in shots every day, take my kids to school. If I want, pick them up at three. And we just have so much flexibility and so much peace about our future, about our current situation. It's just led to so much happiness and our ability to bless other people through charity, through our work with our church. I say it on my site, fix your finances so you can live the life you want. And I feel like we're at that point to where we are now living the life we want because we took those steps. It's been a long road, a fun road, but man, it's been worth it. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, P.T. Where can people find you if they want to know more about you? Yeah, my website is ptimony.com. and you can, I'm pretty active on Twitter, so you can hit me up there at PT Money. We've got a new podcast I'm starting called Masters of Money. I'll be interviewing you, Paula, among other Masters of Money. And we just talk about financial stories. We expose sort of the intimate details of folks' financial lives so that we can, you know, further our own progress by listening to those stories and anchoring ourselves to certain points in their lives and

seeing ourselves move in a similar direction. And so folks can find that on iTunes, Masters of money. I'd love to have you check out that show. Absolutely. Thanks, P.T. And I will link to all of those plus your Hooters article in the show notes. Please do. It needs more use. Thanks, Paula. Wow, what a fantastic interview. Thank you so much, P.T. What are the major takeaway lessons that we got from this? Well, I think P.T. summed it up beautifully when he boiled everything down to those money lessons. Number one, take ownership over your financial. life, have a strong internal locus of control. Anytime that something happens, assume that that thing is your responsibility and ask yourself, okay, what can I do? How could I have done something

differently? What lessons can I apply to the future? Essentially, if you view the world as though you are in control, if you view the world from a strong internal locus of control, then the world responds accordingly. If you believe that you can take responsibility over your own life, then you can. And that flows really well into point number two, which is to be intentional, know that every present action leads towards something in the future. Kind of goes back to that whole, be intentional about how you spend your time and money. You can afford anything, but not everything. Number three, honor the power of talking about money, because these conversations, the reading, the writing, the thinking, the conversing, all of this is

critical into forming your own philosophy about how you allocate those limited resources. Number four, be your own financial expert. You cannot delegate thinking. You can get outside opinions. You can certainly consider and you should consider a lot of different perspectives. But ultimately, the decision making is your responsibility. And number five, embrace radical changes. Radical changes and radical action leads to radical result. And if you continue to do that, time the radical feels ordinary. I can't tell you how many people I've met who save half of their income. This sounds radical to most people in the outside world. But in this tiny little bubble of personal finance, this is such a common thing that it doesn't sound radical anymore. It just

sounds, I don't want to say ordinary, but it's certainly not out of the ordinary. It's certainly not overly extraordinary. You may have heard that popular Jim Rohn quote, you become the average of the five people that you spend the most time around. And that's largely because the ideas that you surround yourself with influence your thinking. So good for you for listening to podcasts and for reading blogs and for reading books because all of this helps influence your thinking and helps the radical start to feel more ordinary. And that can help accelerate positive changes within your life. So those are the chief takeaways that I got from this conversation. I'd love to know what you think. Head to afford anything.com slash

episode 57, where you can get the show notes from today's episode. Again, that's afford anything.com slash episode 57 to get the show notes. If you enjoyed the show, please head to iTunes, leave us a review. Those reviews are super, super helpful in giving us feedback. I want to thank a couple of the listeners who left feedback on iTunes recently, because this is super helpful. So there was one listener named Baby Tuckoo, who left a really, really helpful comment. This person said, I think the podcast is very good and I do find myself looking forward to new guests and episodes. I won't read the whole comment because it's a little bit long, but skipping ahead, this person says, I would prefer if questions were shorter with a succinct point to each one,

such as, hello, guest, you mentioned you obtained positive net worth by 2012, how did you do this? My basic advice to Paula would be to apply her mad skills at optimization to her interview format on the podcast. More cool info in a little less time. That is excellent feedback. So thank you so much, Baby Toku. That's great to hear. I am definitely going to keep that in mind moving forward. Asking succinct questions and keeping the pace and the energy up is definitely a goal of mine. So thank you so much again, Baby Taku. There's also a great review left by Michigan Christine, who says, I've listened to so many financial podcasts that literally have me yawning due to dryness. And this is not one of them. Thanks to Paula, my Mondays at the 9 to 5 are much more tolerable, and I have something to look forward to besides the hopeless end of my weekend. I look forward to your 2017 offerings.

By the way, I rank Paula right up there with Farnush Tarabi. Thank you so much, Michigan, Christine. Yeah, awesome. I am glad that I can make your Mondays at the 9 to 5 better. Sweet. And there's another one left by 568-043-190. That's the name of this iTunes reviewer, who says, Paula, thanks for putting out high quality information.

And this person also mentioned that they missed Jay Money. Jay is still a super good friend of mine. Jay is a former for those of you who are new to this show. Jay is a former co-host of the podcast. We're still excellent friends. He has some great projects that are coming out in 2017. So he's doing well. And we just emailed each other the other day, actually,

just sending each other goofy little holiday cheers. So yeah, he's a great guy. I miss him too. And maybe we'll have him back on the show from time to time to talk about some of his new projects as they start to unfold. So thank you again. I hope you all have a great rest of December. Happy holidays.

Happy 2016. And I will see you all next week. Coming up, by the way, in one of the next episodes, we've got A.J. Jacobs, the editor at large of Esquire magazine. He has written for New York Times bestsellers. He is now also the host of a new podcast called Twice Removed by Gimlet Media. I'm super excited about having him on the show. He's one of my favorite writers.

He's funny. He's self-deprecating. He's given some awesome TED talks. So that interview is coming up on an upcoming episode in the early new year in January 2017. So stay tuned. This is Paula Pant from the Afford Anything podcast. Signing off. Thank you so much for joining us.

See you next week. Thank you.