BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 141: How to Graduate College Debt-Free and Pursue FI Before 40 with 4 kids!

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

Blake Nielson is a college professor whose wife stays home to raise their four children. Despite having only one income - and six mouths to feed - they have paid off their home and are on the path to early financial freedom. Blake currently loves his job and has no plans to stop working - but still wants the freedom that financial independence gives. So how did he do it? He started off debt free from college, a HUGE leg up in life in general. Blake details just how he accomplished this feat, from college selection to funds available, scholarships and even working during the school year and especially during the summers between. Blake even shares a Solid Gold tip for finding out about scholarships that aren’t well publicized! Blake also strategically chose where he lived during his college years. He specifically chose a rental that was priced significantly lower than the “college” rentals in town - but still close enough to walk to school. There is no secret to Blake’s success. He put in the work at an early age and is on track to hit lean FI by age 40 and Fat FI by 45. Spend less than you earn, invest wisely. Blake shows you can live the FI life with four kids and one income. In This Episode We Cover: Blake's money story Simple principles of frugality 4 keys that any person can go to college debt free Talking about school selection How he budget his money House hacking Talking about scholarships His experience after getting a PhD Blake's job The problem that most people have with negotiation And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Money Podcast 80 with Rich & Regular BiggerPockets Money Podcast 32 with Mr. & Mrs. PoP BiggerPockets Money Podcast 64 with Zach Gautier Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/moneyshow141 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, show number 141, where we interview Blake Nielsen, a college professor on the path to financial independence with four kids and a stay-at-home wife. You can be completely happy with doing things your own way and not having the newest phone, the highest plan, eating out non-stop, spending money on everything in college, right? There's, I mean, you know, colleges can be expensive. You can spend your money everywhere. Or you can, can choose not to. It's just that simple. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my I think raising kids is going to be so easy. Co-host Scott Trench. Thank you, Mindy. I always do enjoy kidding. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for

somebody else and show you that by following the proven steps, you can put yourself on the road to early financial freedom and get money out of the way so you can lead your best life. That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world as a college professor, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or start your own business. We'll help you build a position capable of launching yourself towards those dreams. Today's guest is Blake Nielsen. Blake has a great story, a highly repeatable journey. I mean, he started young with the idea of just making the most of the best financial decisions he could.

He doesn't have any crazy income or asset or entrepreneurial journeys. He just kind of did it right, I think, over the last 10, 15 years here and is now sitting pretty with, as a college professor, with a paid off house, a pretty clear coasting path to buy over the next couple of years. And I think you're really going to admire his approach to financing college, working in the summers, financing a master's degree, financing a PhD, and then setting himself up for life at an early age. Yeah, you know, he did the work. And that's kind of the theme of this whole episode is Blake did the work. He didn't shy away from doing the work.

And when you put in the effort, you will reap the rewards. And his entire story is, I did this, I did this, I did this. And he didn't, you know, try and get by by pushing that easy button. I can't even remember what company that's for, the easy button. But the easy button doesn't work on the way to financial independence. You have to do the work. But when you do the work, when you do the work early, you can see. it pay off in spades. That's right. You know, you love the picture of his life that he's painted

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Blake Nielsen, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm super excited to have you on the show today because you are, not a blogger. You are not a podcaster. You are a, I don't want to say regular old person, because that sounds kind of like down. But that's awesome that you are a person on the path to financial independence with nothing to sell. Yeah. And that's funny because I'm actually in sales, right? Or I teach sales for a living. But yeah, I love getting all the content I can, but I'm not interested in starting my own platform. That's not my focus in life. Well, there you go.

What do we start from the beginning? And can you tell us where your muddy story begins? Yeah, so we'll go back. Both my wife and I, and, you know, throughout this theme, you'll hear that we're a married couple with four kids on our way to FI. And we both grew up very humble, I would say. Always had everything we needed, but blue-collar families. I grew up on a farm in central Utah, worked chores before and after school from the time I was

in kindergarten. probably. And my wife, through her high school, you know, she did some cleaning. And by the time she was in high school, she ended up in Idaho. And she actually was what's known as a fieldroger. Have you guys ever heard of a field roger before? No. Yeah. Her job, and good for her for doing this, literally in Idaho, she would just walk through fields all summer, finding the weeds to document to, you know, help with the integrity of the plants. I would say it's even harder than my farm life growing.

up, right? So we were not accustomed or worried about not having a hard day's work in our life, just from our upbringing. So that was that. And then, you know, that took us to the college years. Yeah. So what was your kind of your position coming out going into college? What was the, yeah. The position going into college was amazing. I had about $5,000 stayed by the time I went to college and my own car paid for that I had purchased myself. I just, you know, in high school, couple of Auden Ed's job, the car wash. I was a janitor. I did some different things. And so, yeah, I was a thousandaire by the time I went into college, right? Just from those jobs growing up. That's pretty good. A thousand there with the car paid off. Yeah, a car paid off. That's fine.

A college kid. Yeah. I mean, it was a very inexpensive car. I got a car when I first was 16 for like $800. My brother wrecked it. So I negotiated with the insurance company to get about $12 or $1,300 out of that. And so from there, I use that to get about a $2,500 car. So it worked great. Sounds like Craig. Yeah. So how did the college years go then? How did you finance it? What was that like? Yeah. So college years, interesting time. So part of my story is that 5,000 that I had saved up, I used that for a two-year service mission from 19 to 21. So even though I had that big savings account, that was basically blown over those two years by my own choosing. So I paid, that cost about $10,000. I paid for half and my parents and grand paid for the other half.

So then the key was just like anyone else, just making sure that I was very intentional with money and work. So, you know, part of the story is we went through, I went through a bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D., all debt-free, 100%. And there was definitely some principal. And there was definitely some principles to take away from that journey. Okay. Yeah, let's rewind a little bit. You went for a bachelor's, a master's, and a PhD, debt-free. Debt-free, 100% all the way.

Okay. Let's start with the bachelors. Yeah, so two caveats there, okay? So one, I did take out student loans at one point to invest the money into a money market, right? So never spent them, but I had such a bad feeling about it, about six months. I just paid them right back. So it was never for the income. I thought, look, if they'll give me free money, why not just throw it in? I think that the money markets at this time was paying close to 4%. We're talking

about 2006, 7, so before the big downturn, the big crash. So that's the caveat. And then the other caveat was I had a grandpa who helped with tuition, but not as much as you would think. It ended up being about $10,000 he gave. And I always had more. in my savings account when I graduated than he pitched in. So those are the two caveats. So definitely not a spoiled, you know, not that there's anything wrong with that, but no, not a ton of help from the parents, but was able to get through just by simple principles of frugality. Wow. And it sounds like hard work as well. Yeah. So if you don't mind, let's talk about the number one key to that process. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I think there's four keys.

The first one I would take away or give out is school selection, right? And this is a big, big. I'm all over the place still. Because the problem is you have 17-year-old kids deciding where they want to go to college without good advice from counselors, parents, or just the world at large at where they should go and what they should pay for. So, you know, Scott, I know you went to Vanderbilt, but you probably did undergrad somewhere else because Vanderbilt's just business school for MBAs. right? No, no. Vanderpilt is a private undergraduate university as well. So I went there for undergraduate and I do not have an advanced degree. Okay. And Mindy, we talked about your journey.

You kind of went to a school, just kind of a cool school. Was it Chicago? It was in Chicago. It's called the International Academy of Merchandising and Design where they teach fashion design. It's not an accredited school or it wasn't when I went, which I didn't know about. I thought that if you went to college, it was an accredited school. I had no idea that that was an option to not be accredited. And I didn't discover that until I lost my job and I applied to be a substitute teacher. And they're like, your college isn't accredited. You can't be a substitute teacher.

I was like, wait a second. What? Right. Yeah. I mean, kids just, it's hard to make that decision when you're 17, 18 year olds. Now, some kids are blessed with great parents to help them along the way. And I would probably fall into that category. But what I found, and as I stated, my grandpa was willing to help with our college tuition.

But he also said, look, if you get a scholarship to a university, I'll kick in to help with books. And so I could have went to the top tier university in our state, I'm sure. I didn't even apply. But I found that by going by to the state school and not the flagship state school, I was able to get that scholarship, right? And so a lot of people, and I hear this debate all the time, should I go to a private school or a public school? And a lot of times people say, well, if you don't have the money, you should just go to a public school. But it's a lot deeper than that, right? Because if you look at some of the top public schools in the nation, they can be three or four X more than a regional university that has a quality education as well.

Well, you know, you mentioned several times that it's difficult for a 17 or 18 year to make this decision. You were 20, 21 when you made the decision. Is that correct? No, so I went to college for one year and then took a two-year break. Got it. Okay. Sorry, I missed that. Yeah.

Yeah. And what's interesting, my GPA went up from a B average to an A average after that two-year break. You know, and it just goes to show sometimes 18-year-olds aren't the most mature and ready to jump into something like that, right? I think it's really asking a lot for, to ask kids just coming out of high school to make this life choice. What are you going to do with your life? Where are you going to go to school? How are you going to pay for it? Oh, I'll just take out student loans. I mean, how hard is it to get a

student loan? I think anybody, I am showing my ignorance here, but anybody can get a student loan, right? Or a grant. No, a loan is money that they give you and you have to pay back. A grant is money that they give you and you don't have to pay back. Yes. Right. Okay. Mindy, you hit it on the head there. And in fact, some students, many students don't know the difference. And unfortunately, Unfortunately, I'll throw my industry under the bus here. Sometimes the counselors do not do an adequate job showing students the difference of what they need to pay back versus which grant. That is a big issue. In fact, I've looked at certain things with different offer letters, and it's very hard to tell the grant part versus the loan part.

Because you literally have students, and as I said, I told you the story. I did take out a loan once, but it was not for income. it was literally I thought I was just going to invest it. But most students, when the time they graduate, they don't even understand or know their true number. They're graduates, right? Because it's just so easy to go to that bursor's office or whatever it is at your university

and they'll just write you a check to an 18-year-old. And I tell everybody like, look, college really is. If you look at the stats, it can be one of the best decisions for your life, but it has to be done with a plan and a purpose. Don't just go into it blindly because, I mean, how many people have you all interviewed that taught all about their student loan payoff story, right? Just because they didn't know the process.

Yeah. So, sorry, can we go back to the four keys? You have school selection. Maybe we list them out and we can go through them and get your framework. Yeah, so school selection, that's number one. We talked about, you know, regional maybe even community college. Number two is definitely budgeting and recognizing which assets you have. have based on your unique situation. Is their parents help? Is there not? Okay, I'll just list out the third.

The third would definitely be scholarships. We can hit that more here in a second. And then the fourth is working. I recognize that's an interesting thing. And some people think, oh, college students can't, shouldn't work. But the statistics actually show that a little bit of work for college students part time, and they'll do better than those that don't work at all. So a lot to unpack there. But yeah, four keys that I found that any person can go to college debt-free. Suppose if you're busy, you can stay out of trouble. Yeah, that's right. Less beer pong, right?

That's right. I think the school selection has to be one of the top ways to avoid massive student debt. Right. And just going back to that, just to talk about some of the practices in the industry, I'm not going to bash private versus non-private schools. but I know different schools that might charge a tuition of $40,000 a year. They give every student at least a $5,000 scholarship. Why do they do that?

Because if they do it, they know that a 17-year-old's going to be so excited about paying them $35,000 a year just because they got a scholarship and they get to tell that to their friends and parents, right? Where if they'll look, they could get the same education as a state community college or regional school for maybe $5,000. a year. You know, we interviewed Julian and Kirsten from Rich and Regular on show 80, and Julian said, oh yeah, once I was working at this college, I got school for $25 or something like that. I can't

remember the way he phrased it. And I'm like, oh, wait a second, Julian, you mean $25 a credit hour. He's like, no, no, $25. Yeah. Whoa, you gave them a $20 bill and a $5 bill and they gave you school. He's like, yep. So going back to your number four working, try to get a job at the school. I don't know. I'm sure that there's different levels of financial help for full time versus part time, but there's got to be some sort of benefit to working at the school from a college tuition standpoint. Yeah. Well, going back to the school selection piece here, you know, look, when you're in 17, 18 years old, you're graduating high school. And let's pretend that you're listening to the money show that means you're a top student at,

at this point in your career. So, you know, when I was in that position, I was a pretty good student. And so my philosophy was, you know, in my parents' philosophy, we all shared it. There was a lot of alignment was go to basically the best school you get into, give or take, you know, not necessarily the best school you get into, but like within that, a very narrow range of those best schools that you've applied to, the one that you like the best out of those, you know, who cares if it's number 10 versus number 15, but, you know, which that experience. So how does how do we like that assumption was completely unchallenged for me

until a decade after graduation basically, you know. And so what do you have to say about that framework that parents and kids are going into the college selection process? So Scott, yeah, I'm happy to address that. So the research shows, and I've looked into this, right, a student that gets into a top school versus a mediocre school, they lose no earning power throughout their career by choosing a less, whatever you call it, higher-tiered school. Now, higher-tiered schools do do better the students from them, perhaps than all students from a different school, right? But on an individual level, if you get into School A and School B, School A is known as the

top school. School B is not, but School B offers you a full tuition scholarship. the research shows you're actually better off and you're not going to lose your income power by choosing the lesser school. So it's your SAT grades and curriculars, the credentials that they're using to select you in the college prudential process

that contribute to your earning power, not the education at these universities. That's right. Is that what the research is saying? Yes, so every school, just think about this, every school has amazing success stories, right? It doesn't matter because people are successful from everywhere. And so there's people from companies,

he's a recruit back. So if you're a big fish in a small pond, let's say, you're just brilliant. And you decide, okay, I'm not going to spend money at the top school. I'm going to take a scholarship at a lesser. They're going to find you and you are going to be successful. Okay. I have a question about the networking. Oh, you're a Harvard guy. I went to Harvard too. I like you more than this Vandy guy over here. So how does that fall into place with regard to school selection because there are people who are more apt to hire you because you went to the same school that they did. Yeah. Now that is very true as well, right? I call them degree snobs. Okay. And that's fine. But I've learned that networking, there's still a network from every single

institution. And once you get to a certain level, it might help you get your foot in the door somewhere. but, I mean, Mindy, you've had two kids. Tell me where the doctor that delivered your two children went to school. I have no idea where either one of them went. Right? So at some point, there's a leveling factor. And look, networking is very important. Do not get me wrong.

And if you can afford or your family can afford for you to go to that top school, by all means, go for it. I am here to say it's not worth taking on loans. there's a better path. Okay. Okay, good. I know somebody's listening and saying, well, there's the networking aspect.

Oh, yeah. And that's true. So if you can afford it, great. You know, we talk about that all the time. People can choose how they want to spend their money. But I do not think with the statistics we have in our country, it's worth going to massive a debt based on an unresponsible decision. Okay.

Let's move on. We've jumped all over these. Let's move on to budget and unique assets. how do you take into account what's going, like, do you just write out, okay, school A is going to be 40,000, school B is going to be 25,000, and I've got 25,000 in unique assets? Or like, how do you think about that? Yeah, so you've got to take the whole picture, right? And this is very hard for a 17, 18, 18 year old to do, but you've got to be realistic with yourself. So, for example, in my summers, I tried to work as much as possible. and a lot of people do this, not to spend money in the summer,

but to save up for the entire next year, knowing I was probably going to be working part-time instead of full-time. And so you've got to look, okay, the budget is where you pull in everything. Do I have extra help somewhere? What can I do to make sure I don't run out of money this school year before May hits and I can go back to a more focused, harder-working situation? And does part-time work play into that?

I know that's another step, but what income am I bringing in during the school year? And so this is where, look, and this is where frugality comes into place, the different types of housing you can hack while you're in college, you know, just going where the university tells you to stay versus finding some friends, sharing a house or an apartment, being willing to live at a lesser standard than you might for the rest of your life comes in key here, right? You're choosing these decisions. What car am I driving? Am I even going to have a car? Is that necessary at a lot of universities today, right? It might not be. So it's just taking a true, realistic approach to all of your own personal budget,

not getting mad because your friends, parents gave them a 529 and you don't have one. Just being realistic and say, okay, I can do this. This is my situation. I'm going to make it work. So can you walk through very quickly? Maybe there's a lot in there. But what do you think the two most important points are, or what a couple most important points are.

And I would love specifically to get some interest in what the house hacking or how to whatever, however you phrased that, how you can live affordably. Yeah. So let's start with house hacking because I'd say that's probably number one, right? House hacking is big. And look, I wasn't buying a house and renting it out. There's nothing like that. But what I found is we went down to, I went, did my undergrad in St. George, Utah by Zion National Park,

kind of in the Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas. area, right? And when my friends and I went down to find a house, we saw that there was, you know, some places that were double as much as other places. Like seriously, twice as much for apartments about the same distance from campus. And we were fine, like going, and it's not like we were living in slums or anything. These might just not have, I mean, college students now have granite countertops, right? Is that really necessary? No. Central area here. Yeah. There you didn't. You Central Air, but yeah. Listen, Central Air is important, and I will pay more for that.

But what if you could walk another block every day to save $300 a semester? That's a no-brainer to me, right? That's a no-brainer to me, too. But I wonder, I just think there's so much out there. It's so overwhelming to people. Oh, I need to apply to get into school. And then once I get into that school, I still need to find housing. the school said, here's a dorm, so I'm just going to go with that.

Yeah, and you can't think that way, right? You have to hack all the way through. Just because you get a good deal on a house doesn't mean you don't need to shop your loan, right? Exactly. Yeah, and so it's the whole process. So, yeah, we found for sure that's key number one is housing. We found it literally as inexpensive as we could. I'm talking about me and my wife as well as my friends as we went to college.

But then key number two, you're going to have friends in college or any season of life that live at a higher standard than you, right? Especially if you're in the FI community, you can be completely happy with doing things your own way and not having the newest phone, the highest plan, eating out nonstop, spending money on everything in college, right? There's, I mean, you know, colleges can be expensive. You can spend your money everywhere. choose not to. It's just that simple. Yeah, rum it's 10 cents a packet, isn't it? Or maybe it's 15 cents a packet now. Back when I was buying it, it was 10 cents a packet. Yeah, and I mean, you know how many free dinners we got during college just because we went to a little meeting on the way home from something and our other friends might go into Applebee's, not slamming Applebee's here,

but that's another 20 bucks we just got a free dinner on, right? It's just simple process. I mean, And luckily for me, my friends and I came from the small town. We all came from frugal families. And so, sure, we had some that were outlandish from time to time, but we all kind of had the same core values of, you know what? It didn't even make sense to us. We were going to take out debt to go through school. Love it.

Well, let's move on to scholarships. How do you think through kind of helping using those to pay for college? Yeah, so scholarships, it's definitely, there's books and blogs. just about college scholarships. I'm not going to go that deep. What I will say is I would definitely look into the different institutions. So let's break it down into two different levels. There's institutional or state scholarships,

and then there's personal scholarships through the school. And I guess the third one would even be private scholarships just out there that are floating around, right? So my biggest key to start is what institutional scholarships can I get at X, Y, and Z school, and that's going to help my college selection process, right? And then after that, and I tell students this, once you choose your program,

your best friend needs to be the department administrative assistant. You need to go and talk to that person because they know about scholarships that students don't even apply for from time to time. It's unbelievable. So there's donors everywhere. So every school is a little different, Every program's a little different, but you at least need to ask the question.

So I teach in a high demand field now, and we have donors, and we have to beg students to apply for these scholarship. Like literally send them email after email. This is how easy it is. We have this extra $50,000 a year. We're giving out to students from XYZ donor. Please apply. And they don't check their email or talk to our admin. It's unbelievable.

Okay. So who is that person again? That's my new best friend? Yeah, the department secretary. administrative assistant. Faculty sometimes will know, but when you choose your major, I would definitely go and have a conversation with that. And look, this is not a conversation. Like, what can you do for me? This is a persuasion like, hey, it's good to meet you. Thank you for all your work. I'm just wondering if you know about any other scholarship

deadlines coming up within the department. So were you able to do this personally? As I went through school, yes, once I got to my master's degree. I actually messed up on my undergrad and did not know these tricks yet. Fair enough. So I absolutely aced the institutional scholarships for undergrad, right? I did not maximize this other thing I found out as a master's level student. Got it. Okay. Well, fair enough. That's a really good framework for attacking the problem. Even if you're already in college, obviously, there's a lot more you can probably do before you, you know, in the school selection process and as you apply for scholarships. But yeah, I didn't know there's even things you can do afterwards. Yeah. And then I'd say, you know, just as you're

going through school. I was not the best at this either, but there's many students and there's blogs and writers out there apply to as many as possibly even private ones. Because I do not remember the tops, the stat now, but between a third and a fifth of private scholarships go unfilled because there's not applicants who apply for them or meet the merit. So, yeah. Okay. Well, after I'm sure after all of this work you did and the scholarships and the budgeting and all that kind of stuff, you still had some expenses. And so that brings us to kind of the last point here around working. How did you manage that? What did you find to be the right balance? And it sounds like you had some research around that shows that working is actually a little bit is pretty healthy. Yeah, it is very healthy. And let me tell you,

so this is kind of where you find your career. The other advantage of working during college, especially if you go, look, this goes, when you ask the question a minute ago, what if you go to Harvard, you have a network? That network probably will get you a job. If you go to a regional school, work may be even more important because you have job experience coming out of college, right? Which a lot of employers definitely like. So when I started at college, first job was Walmart. I'm just with a company out there because I was coming from a small town. I didn't know where else to apply, to be honest.

It was a great job, but I was only there for four months. And then I went into reffing, just local youth soccer, basketball, umpiring. It was a great job. It was after school hours. But let me tell you the... Did you ever make any bad calls and get some feedback from the parents? Luckily, you guys, I'm a pretty even-kill person. So, you know, getting yelled at over second-grade soccer didn't ruin my day.

I can't wait to be that dead. Yeah, I'm not that dad. It's a real thing, though, man. For some reason, second-grade soccer is some people's highlight of their day from a parent standpoint where I just think kids need to have fun but yeah. Fair enough. Okay, well, so after roughing, what was the? Here's the job I found that I got paid to sleep, okay, in college, which is kind of an interesting concept. You hear about, and Mindy or Scott, I don't remember who mentioned it, working for the university can be great. Sometimes you might get a

discount, but a lot of work study students don't get the discount, but they can study while they're at work at the university. Well, I had a friend talking about network. He was from my small town. Not a close friend, but I ran into him. And I said, hey, so what are you doing? What's going on in your life? And he told me about a job he had where he was getting paid to sleep. I'm like, okay, what is this a clinical trial? Like, this sounds weird, right? But the more questions I asked, I found out he was working at a local youth rehabilitation center, right? And so the job was you'd show up at 5 p.m. at night, work until about 10 with the kids, have dinner with them. They paid your dinner, once again, not paying for your own dinner. You got to eat with the kids on the company. You did like a little family night activity with them. And then you slept from about 10 o'clock to 7 o'clock. You put a mattress in front of the door so they couldn't get out of the room.

These are teenage boys. And then you'd wake up, have breakfast with them and then go back to your day. So you would literally do that three or four times in a week, right? I thought I'd hit the jackpot, absolutely. Because what am I doing? I'm getting my food taken care of. I'm sleeping while I'm getting paid. And I'm not really losing out.

This was in every other night deal. So I wasn't losing out on full social life. It was a beautiful thing. Absolutely beautiful. And you're doing good work. Yeah, doing good work. And what's interesting, we found a way to optimize this more. This went on for a few months.

I don't remember how long it was. But that's when I started to go into sales rather than other jobs that they had in the past. And I found, I guess, would be my. calling of persuasion in cells. So that was kind of the transition out of the normal job. I've either been in sales or teaching cells ever since. So. Awesome. So what was your position that you graduated college with? What was the relative general financial position? So when I graduated from college in sales, I believe I was right around 50 grand or so. Working part time while I was working on an MBA pretty quick. And then that jumped up to

about 80 pretty quick right after that. And this is all with no debt. Yeah, no debt. And commission goes pretty quick, right? The first year might not be as good, but as you get better and better, you start to do better. And if you don't mind while I was in college, when I started my first sales position, it was an insurance company. And this was where I left getting paid to sleep to go do, which my friends told me I was crazy. Like, why would give that gig in college, right? They're feeding you. but I said, you know what? I negotiated with a company I was going to and said, look, how much do you need me to produce each day?

What will you pay me for that amount? If I can do that in two hours, rather than it takes someone else to do five hours, can I just go home and be done for the day? So that was kind of the, you know, the optimization of my time in college when I found that, I could still make the money in less time based on my production. So that was key.

That's awesome. Okay, so you got married at some point. Yeah, so after college, in between the bachelor's and master's degree, got married. And obviously, reading my story or going through this, my wife was very fiscally responsible as well, still is. She probably likes to spend more than I do, but she's not outlandish in any way, right? So we got married and, you know, we had to finance part of our own wedding. That was just kind of the situation we were in those years with our parents and what they had going on. and we went about the whole marriage thing.

We were about 24 when that happened, both me and my wife. So, veritively young compared to the world, but it was the right time for us. And did you talk about money before you got married? Oh, yeah, right? You know, Scott, I know you're getting married this year, right? We've all been on that date when we have FI tendencies and they say, oh, I took out a student loan and bought a car. It's like, okay, never calling this one again, right?

or um oh jeez yeah so uh we did we had those conversations we knew exactly where we were at and we we were basically as i said we we had about as much money as my grandpa had funded me to get through college in our savings when we got married so poor didn't seem like the right thing but at the same time we just financed our own way through school and my wife is a pharmacy tech so all the time this was going on for me she was kind of growing at a pharmacy through her own career. And by the time we got, she was managing the bubble packing for the retirement homes in the area I lived in for the pharmacy she worked for. So she had grown in her career as well. Awesome. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually

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I'm not an astronaut. I don't need an astronaut. Audiences have spoken. Project Hail Mary is an awe-inspiring. masterpiece. So I met an alien. If you've fallen out of love with going to the movies, this one will bring you back. Ryan Gosling, in the first must-see movie of 2026. Project Hail Mary. Only theaters March 20th. So can you walk us through kind of a general framework of your, you know, of your financial journey following graduation, going into master's, it sounds like a PhD.

and those types of things, can you kind of just walk us through chronologically the rest of your story here? Yeah, so master's degree, I told you I was able to, same decision. I got into the top, or I guess I didn't officially got in, but the counselor told me I was into the top school in Utah. I chose not to go there because this other school was less expensive and they offered me a working tuition scholarship slash assistantship. So to me, it was a no-brainer, right? So I was working through those years while she was working. It was 2009. So you all remember 2009. This was the year that most of our friends were calling us, hey, do you have any know any job opportunities? What's going on? You're doing well. How can what's out there for me, right? And so 2009, we peaked out. It was our first year in six

digits between us, about 115 or so. So we were doing really well. I'd just barely finish my master's degree. And this is kind of where we made a decision like, look, our future. sure we could ride this out. We didn't know what FI was at that point, right? But we can definitely be on that journey pretty quick. But we decided to totally throw a curb on life and say, you know what? No, this isn't the way we're going to go. So that was an interesting year.

Well, can I ask you a question? You know, you get graduate college and then you go into sales and then you get a master's degree. What was your education in? And how did that, you know, what was the kind of thought process there if you're going on a sales path and getting advanced degrees? that seems unusual. Yeah, so it was an MBA, right? So I got an MBA.

That makes sense. Yeah, right. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. And so the key was, okay, I was in sales leadership at that point, so I had done very well in sales. So I was managing a team. I was considering, okay, is the next move to the corporate office in our company,

which would have us leaving Utah anyway going over to Georgia. And so this was kind of the decision point. Like, what do I want? And what I found when I was managing a sales team was. was I really love teaching others how to improve their life, right? Like I had already learned in college, I can work two hours when most people take four. But what if as a sales manager,

I can help someone go from $30,000 a year to $60,000 a year and completely change their family's income or even more drastically than that, right? 2009, it's when we were going to start our family and that happened. Our first child was born in 2010. So we decided,

do you know what, let's throw this up in the air, let's go get a PhD. I kind of want to teach the university for a living and teach students in sales and sales management. That's exactly what's happened. Awesome. So how would you kind of describe your overall financial journey and net worth at a high level? We don't have to go on too much in the specifics, but just, you know, at a high level, how did that kind of evolve coming out of undergrad going into the MBA program and then in the years following your PhD? Yeah.

So those years through the PhD, we were pretty stagnant. It was not growing by any stretch, right? Your PhD is pretty intense, but we also weren't going into debt. So through those years, I was selling door to door in the summer, actually, to maximize whatever. Go to school for nine months. The day I'd get done at school, we would go somewhere for the summer, and I'd work full time in the summer, 70 hours a week, give or take, and then go right back to school. So that's kind of how we financed our way through the PhD program.

We decided, I guess we didn't really decide, but when that first child was born because of this lifestyle. It's like the most on-brand way for you to finance your sales PhD. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, right? Doesn't that make sense? Yes. Yeah.

And it's funny because, you know, the whole door-to-door thing, people will be like, what do you do and know how successful and how good someone could do with that? I mean, not revenue, but income those two. years. The second year was closer to 75 grand, I believe I made in the summer. That's revenue after all expenses, right? And the first year was less than that, probably about half of that. So you made, you made $75,000 in three months? Yeah. And what's interesting, I'm going to give you the exact numbers because I want to be up front. Yeah, $73,000. And that's what I reported in taxes. So I brought in that second year, about $120,000 in revenue. But it's obviously an expensive thing to

move across the country, drive around nonstop all summer, had some other business expenses. So yeah, 73 was the income that year in the summer. Man, so, so. What are you selling? Yeah. Sorry, Scott. No, yeah. Do we need to call the police, right? Were you in Colorado? No, yeah. This was about the Colorado changes. He reported on his taxes, Mindy, so, you know, it's not, it's not what you're thinking. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So this. Just goes back. So the first year, so I was selling, I sold a few different things through the years. The key to me these years, the fastest amount of money, the quickest, right? And so for me, those years,

it was home security systems. I did other things I tinkered with. But what I found, I didn't sell that many more accounts the second summer. But what these companies do, they recruit so many college students that they want top performers on their teams. So after I had proven myself first summer, the negotiation I could take back to the company and kind of, you know, play my services for a couple different companies made me almost double my income just because I said, look, now you can say to new reps, we're going to have Blake on the team, who's this big of a performer, just to be able to be around him is like adding extra accounts to you because he's going to do some of the trainings on the way to area or whatever, right? So I found, and I was lucky enough to, you know, I did a couple of flights.

in the off year just to negotiate with those companies to pay me more. So that's what the key was. Yeah, because the first summer, pretty regular, I looked at the income here. It was low 30s. And then it jumped all the way up to 73 second. And I was a better salesperson in that space at that point, but the key was the negotiation for sure. Awesome. So that's amazing. So it seems like you're probably able to save that year and build your wealth. Yeah, we did. I mean, we had enough to put money down on our first home because of that summer. And then the next summer, I couldn't work because I was working on my dissertation. So we had enough savings to get through the program. That's awesome. One other thing with PhDs is often I've heard that PhD students will also be

working during that period teaching those types of things. What was your experience like? Full disclosure, $1,200 a month. So we made $1,200 a month for the nine months during the school year. And my tuition was covered through that. Now, if you're thinking about getting a PhD that maybe some of the listeners are, let me be very frank. Make sure it's in a field where jobs are given at the end of your degree. This is more crucial. I have so many friends who chose a PhD in a field that's not in high demand.

They can't get a job where the program I went to has a 100% placement. they've never, and it's a business field, right? The business fields are much in more demand than perhaps other fields. And so that's very important. Do not waste four years of your life if you're not going to get a job. So what was your experience like after completing your dissertation or getting a PhD? Yeah, so that's where we started going to, you know, that was finally, you know, were we 29 years old at that point?

So we basically just spent a decade in college and having kids. We had two kids at that point. And so from there, it was just, okay, let's go through the process. It's time to really rack up some savings. We want to pay off our house pretty quick. And that's what's brought us to where we're at today. And where are you at today? So today, we paid off our home last year.

So we were 35 when that happened. So that took us, you know, we actually moved. So we started in Missouri and then we moved back to Utah where we're from or where I'm from anyway. And so that happened when we were 30. 31. So we bought a home here and it took us about four years to pay it off. Awesome. Yeah. And let me tell you, the budget being through these years, we found this the other day. Our PhD budget for me, my wife and one child was $24,000 a year. That's amazing. Yeah. So and it's funny, she literally found that in an email the other day. It was lost to me, but she's like, remember this?

I'm like, oh, yeah. And it doesn't mean we were perfect on that number, but that was the plan. I mean, you cover that in your bad year. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I remember I only had two summers, though, for three years of living. But yeah, it was, yeah, we were good. So what is your job now?

So currently now I'm a what's known as an associate professor, which means I've been through the tenure process. I now have tenure. So I teach sales and sales management. And then I'm also currently a department chair that will probably drive. up over the next couple of years. As I get closer to FI, it's not something I want to do forever. Got it. What university are you yet? So Weaver State University, Ogden, Utah, great school. It's one of those regional ones I was talking about right from the beginning. Awesome. Do you still go over the summers and sell home security systems?

No. That was the plan. But then as I got into, you know, department chair stuff, stuff like that that's just kind of dried up. Okay. Got it. Well, so what's what's the kind of rest of the journey to FI looking like for you? Do you have like a timeline? Do you kind of know what you're moving targets or anything like that? Yeah. So I've said in the story, we now have four kids, right? So that our family has grown for sure. And we love that process. So we run the numbers like everyone in the FI community. We'll hit a lean FI, perhaps 40, 41 years old, more of a fat, maybe 44, 46. in that range. But we're not changing our lives. What we are changing, look, I know a lot's in the Phi community, perhaps switch work at some point. The RE is always questionable, right? I've got the job

I want for the next 20 years. So I'm going to do it differently through that time as I step out of leadership roles, but we're where we want to be. So our numbers, sure, we're saving over 50%, maybe closer to two-thirds, depending on Azure it. But once again, we have no how. payment payments in the world so that's pretty easy to max out all of our retirement accounts awesome you know yeah it does seem like like i've thought about this and i don't know how i would ever go about it but like it does seem like hey rather than completely outright retire being a college professor seem like a like a pretty reasonable thing one day to do if that opportunity ever arises so i always had a an inkling of that as a one-day issue if i could figure out that decades down the road but yeah and so i i love it

That's a one situation it sounds like. Yeah. And Scott, you know it alone. I get those emails every week from people. Hey, can I, what do I need to do? Yep. Teaching has got to be one of the best thing you can do, especially if you're teaching something you know when you're good at

and you're not just doing it to fill a paycheck, right? Yep, absolutely. Scott, do you want to be a fifth grade professor? No, I want to do it. He's doing it with business. I don't know sales, but that would be a fun, fun way to conclude their career at some point. I can make your dreams come true right now, Scott,

if you want to be a fifth grade professor. Yeah, if I go get on my kids to bring them in on the Zoom call, it's their home day at school. Yeah, all right, what are we doing? Statistics, applied statistics? No math. Yeah. Yeah, and let me just state this.

You know, I would say for us at this point, the whole retire early for us, it just doesn't make sense because, one, I love my job. Two, my kids are going to get even a bad. better deal on college because they get a discount because their dad's a professor, right? And there's four of them. I mean, we're not talking a little expensive, right? So that's going to happen someday. And then, too, I get the HSA still. How awesome is that, right? I get the retirement account. So back to the paying off the mortgage story, we were a lot more aggressive on that than most

people in the FI community probably would be because my employer was putting in 14.2% of my salary into retirement, right? So I had that start without anything I did. So we said, look, if we buckle down for four years, sure, the math might still be better to max out retirement counts and take longer, but let's just attack our mortgage, get rid of it and just have that stress out of our life, knowing that our employer is doing so much for us already. So just, I mean, everything I make now, I get another 14.2% they put in. Plus I max out my 457, 403B, Roth IRAs, right? So it's a great thing and it's a beautiful wife for us, balance-wise.

Awesome. So wait, say that again. Your employer puts an additional 14% on top. They pay you 100% of your salary plus 14%. Yeah. So look, going through a PhD program, you kind of find, all different states have different retirement programs. Even though I'm from Utah, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming had the most attractive retirement plans to me.

And so we really targeted those states when we were looking for jobs. So, yeah, if you make $100,000, they're putting $14,200 in your retirement account. And then you can still max out your 403B, 457. And we're lucky enough, unlike normal school teachers, elementary school teachers, our 403B and 57s typically through a company called TIA. And so our fees are much less and we can still do the low cost funds. So just to throw that out, a school teacher in elementary school, their 403B might be closer to 1% in fees where we're only at eight basis points, right? So much, much different. So, like, we've talked about your four ideas here around school selection, budget, scholarships, and working throughout college, you know, but right now, I think we're getting a real system shock that that could potentially have lasting consequences to the college education system here in the United States. You know, if you're putting yourself in the position of a college student right now or going through that process that you went through all those years ago and college, been applying for colleges and those types of things, how do you think the discussion changes now,

in the context of coronavirus in 2020 and maybe 2021. Yeah, so I'm not a strategist in this area, but let me give just a couple thoughts. There's going to be some schools and there already have been schools. We haven't been hit by this, but you've heard of furloughs throughout the country, right? You've heard about there might be some institutions that don't survive this. So this may be even more crucial for students to shop around their education a little bit because schools may need you there more than others. I'm lucky enough the institution where I teach,

we're in kind of a metro area that's mostly fed from students from the local area. But this fall, a lot of the schools that are destination schools, we might call them, are small town schools where kids come from all over the country. How are they surviving? I have no idea. I'm not in that institution, but I do know that from friends I have around the country, some are very worried, some states are very worried. They won't be able to fund this.

So I would say for the student, be very selective and look at your options when choosing school because schools may even be looking at extra accommodations to get you there. Is that fair? I think that makes sense. Do you think that the, like, basically you're saying that negotiation power for students may be that much higher in selecting colleges and those types of things. You think that applies to thoughts around transfers or those types of things if you're not having those opportunities.

You always want to be careful. You want to make sure those credits are looking good as you go over. But yeah, I would say I've heard from parents around the country that we're not sending our kids across the country this fall to some private school. We're just going to keep them here at the local state regional school and save a bunch of money and we're just going to go about it that way. So yeah, it's definitely an individual decision still, but my biggest advice would be to still shop around and some schools may be changing their processes even more as we speak.

Yeah, it just seems like it's a good time for people going into college or currently in college to just like acknowledge the fact that all of a sudden you're in a dramatically different position of power relative to the dynamic of you versus the institution you are attending or going to attend. And it would be a shame not to leverage that and take advantage of that moment in time. Yeah, and recognize too, depending on the school you want to go to, believe it or not, you can negotiate your way into school and negotiate a scholarship package, perhaps, if you're willing to go and try to have that conversation with the scholarship office. There you go. Okay, I'm going to go off script a little bit here and say, you keep saying negotiate, negotiate, and you seem to have a really good sense of what you're worth and what you can do for people, for employers specifically. how did you learn the art of negotiation?

How did you learn how to figure out how much you're worth? Oh, you want me to sell X number of insurance units? If I can do that in two hours, can I go home? I would never have the encourage, oh, I need to, I need to rephrase this because I was going to say something rude. Don't hold it back. Just go with whatever you're going to say. Well, I would say I would never have the balls to ask that question.

I knew it. I knew it. That's exactly what you're going to say. I would never because I'm a girl. But like what's, we can't. More directly, how do you pick up the balls? How do you get the balls together to go after asking for what you're worth in these negotiations? You know, so let me give this advice to the entire community who might get to hear this.

The problem that most people have with negotiation is they just make it weird. If you'll just go and talk to someone you're negotiating with, like you're a person and they're a person, and not make it awkward, you can get through the process. I don't think we have time here to go into negotiation 101 and all the techniques I use, but I would just say the biggest key is just have confidence and don't make things weird. You know, I learned a lot. Let me tell you a quick story. When I was in my MBA program, one of my best friends to this day, he actually is also now a college professor.

He said, what are you doing tonight? And I said, oh, I have an MBA class. He's like, oh, man, I've been thinking about getting an MBA program. I'm like, okay, he's like, I'm coming to class with you tonight. I'm like, what? And sure enough, he went to college, he went to school with me that night, and they're calling Role and, you know, the professor, who was the dean of the college of the business school, said, I don't know who you are.

He's like, oh, I'm Isaac. I'm going to talk to you after class about admitting me into the program. And he got into the program that night, right? And this is a school that turns people down. But he negotiated his way into class. That night because we called and had a phone call at 4 o'clock. And I actually, ironically, this was a class on negotiation. I was an MBA.

That's right. So, yeah, I think the biggest key is people, when you negotiate and you're asking for something more, be a likable person because people, if they like you, they want to negotiate. Don't be a jerk. The whole negotiating where you're like screaming at someone, no, you've got to become a likable person. and just turn that mold and just don't make it weird. Okay. Yeah, that's, I don't know.

I just, I would feel awkward. Yeah. Yeah, I remember the whole thing when Rameet was on the show and he did a roleplay with Scott negotiating a salary increase. You know, if you want to just practice, I don't know what bill you could do because most of us are on the prepay cell phones anyway, right? you have an internet bill or something, just call and practice negotiating it down. And you'll be amazed how it works.

Oh, that's good advice. It also probably, we should also acknowledge that it is difficult for some people and everyone has different strengths. And Blake, you are so clearly strong in this area and so clearly an area of passion and interest for you that you majored in it, got an MBA, got a PhD, and now teach it at a college for living. So we should acknowledge that you're particularly skilled in that. but also that it is a skill that can be learned and applied by anybody,

you know, to better their lives to a certain degree. Yeah, and the biggest thing is practice. Look, in college, I negotiated at Walmart. That's a true story. I knew if I got an assistant manager and there was something I wanted to buy, I could get a discount. I don't have to do that anymore. But the big things do I still negotiate on?

Of course. When I got the home loan for this house, you go to Zillow mortgages or bank rate, you find the three cheapest online mortgages, and then you call them all and you have them start playing off each other to get the best deal. People think that, look, that's the bigger pockets, right? Some real estate here. Yeah, people think that the house is important to get the deal on. The loan is just as important, right?

And the way loans work, they make money on the closing cost type fees, but they also make money when they sell it. So those closing cost fees, those are so easily negotiable because they don't need it to keep their business open, especially if they're an online mortgage company. So just be willing to say, hey, this other company is offering me this. I do like you because of these reviews. What else can you do to earn my business? Something as easy as that will get the ball rolling.

I'm getting wildly different quotes from lenders right now. Just dramatically, you know, a difference between $12,000 in closing costs and none, you know, by shopping around the loads. So on a $350,000 refinance. Yeah. So it's like, it's amazing. Yeah. So just be willing, just be willing to practice.

It's a skill to learn, to grow with. But, you know, as I said, I don't do the ward anymore. That would be kind of petty at this point of my life. But I still find opportunities. And the other thing I've learned is I don't ever want to make someone feel uncomfortable on the other end. So don't negotiate if you're going through a drive-thru for fast food or something like that. That's just taking it way too far, right? Like a bigger chicken select, please?

Yeah. All right. What if I only pay you this much for the fries upgrade? No, you don't go down that road because that makes you a non-likable person. And they don't have the power to make that decision anyway. So you just be a likable person. And there's tons of books. I don't even know when I'd recommend off the top of my head.

But if you start learning what a bat is, best alternative to negotiate an agreement, the negotiation range, as you start to learn those terms, you can easily Google that, you can kind of learn how to get better deals. Okay, well, shall we move on? Yeah, it's been great. I appreciate you guys having me on. It's been fun. This has been a lot of fun, but we're not done yet.

We've added a new segment to the show called the Financial Scan because we want to know what you're investing in. And our listeners want to know, too, where are you planting your money so that it grows for retirement? And we know there's no one right answer, but we also know that it will take forever to become a millionaire based on your W-2 job. So Blake, where are you planting your funds to grow?

Yeah. So just to go kind of a bigger view, we're very close to that number. We'll definitely hit the net worth over a million before we're 40 pretty easily. But the way we've broken it down, and I only say that to preface this, a big percentage of our net worth is still in real estate, right? Because we were very aggressively paid off our personal residence. And I'm not the guy that, like, loves rentals, like managing rentals. It's not the way I've gone. And so all the rest is in

index funds. You know, we have some cash on hand, emergency slash maybe one to two years, savings, one year normal expenses, two years, you know, crazy back to college days expenses type deal. But yeah, I literally drink the Kool-Aid. I do not understand if you're investing why you would not just do those low-cost mutual funds, or sorry, index funds, not mutual. Do you have any bonds or anything like that or just kind of all index stock market investments? So look, remember back to the story. I'm 36 now.

Probably plan on retiring maybe at 60. But look, it all depends. If I'm still loving what we're doing, we have summers off and Christmas off for a month at that point. Are we really going? I have no idea. So, yeah, we will probably go to a 10% allocation about 50, 55, maybe 20% closer to 60 type deal.

But now it's 100% equivalent. with ease. Awesome. Okay. And you did touch on this. I just want to ask this anyway. In terms of annual spending, how much do you have on cash normally? And did you increase that for coronavirus? Yeah. So we had a lower amount of cash all those years we were paying off our house. I say all those years it was four. So pretty quick. But yeah. Yeah. So now we have increased that. That was not because of the coronavirus, I would say. It was just so we paid off our home a year ago, July. And so that was just kind of the time that we wanted more of a cash cushion.

So the way we break it down, I told you $24,000 was kind of the budget in college. While we were paying off our house, we were probably closer to mid-40s on our budget for our family. And now we've jumped it up to maybe mid-50s. So we definitely keep that much in a savings account, give or take. And look, maybe the FI community is saying, uh-oh, marginal proportion. Pence you can assume more. They're spending more each year, but the family has grown through those years as well.

We still like to go to Disneyland from time to time. Guess what? Those extra tickets do cost money. So it's just the way it rolls. A lot of money. Yeah. So, and you know, traveling with four kids, boy, travel hacking,

that changes things just a little bit. That's awesome. But still, I know a lot of people who are single and spend more than $50,000 a year. Yeah, they do. and we don't feel, we're not deprived, right? That's what's amazing. And it's just the small things.

We track it and we make sure we don't overspend and we spend the money where we want to spend it. I mean, we had an epic Alaska trip last summer. That's where my wife was raised for 13 years. And we went back and, man, it was the most epic trick ever. And we travel hack that a little bit for our family and it was awesome. Yeah, you can still travel hack hotels, but, I mean, can you even get six people in one hotel room?

Yeah, we do. But that goes back to the negotiation. You call a hotel. Their price for one bed might be this amount. Okay, we need the two-bed plus the pull-out couch. And can you just match the same price? So you get a better deal than price line just by making that phone call, right? When we went to Alaska, I would use the Alaska card.

My wife's from Alaska, and boy, it's expensive to come back. So I would always negotiate a better price than you could get on price line. Yeah. And let me tell you real quick, I mean, for us, the travel hacking with a family of six, six tickets on a flight can get rather expensive, right? And so for us, we just made it a funner trip. We drove to our friends in Seattle and got to stay with them for a couple days because we found a flight for our whole family round trip from Seattle to Anchorage. It was $750 with taxes and fees included. So that whole family, right? For six people? Yeah, and so we got to drive to Washington, go right by Mount Rainier. So disclosure, our baby at that point was still a lap child, so it was five. But yeah, it was still an incredible deal. That's awesome.

Yeah, you seem like a master at this too with the travel hacking. Just try to, yeah, look, if you can save money, why not, right? Yes, yes. You don't win any points for spending the most. No, no. It's the other way. And you can still enjoy life. Our kids are not deprived in any way. In fact, if you followed my wife's Instagram account, you would think we're living like kings and queens just because we're very intentional on how we do it. I love that. I think that's a great place to end that and go to the famous four. Are you ready for your famous four questions, Blake? Yes, we are, at least three of them. What is your favorite finance book? So I'm going to have to give a shout out to my uncle when I was in college. I'm growing up on the farm.

I love finance much more than I should have, but didn't know a ton. When I was young in college, right after I got back to my two-year trip, he gave me the millionaire next door. And it was the first time I realized, look, I can be a normal person. You guys started this podcast. We got a normal person today, right? I'm happy with that. but I can still be incredibly successful by living the way. And I already knew that.

I mean, I started doing time value money calculations as a sophomore on my TI82 or TI83 calculator. So I knew the numbers were there, but it was the first time it became real to me that, holy cow, I can still do my thing. I don't have to be in the NBA or a CEO. And I can still live a great life and become successful. So that's what the book did for me. Awesome. Love that book. Very data-driven.

Yeah. And I'm an academic now, so it makes sense, right? And, you know, the original, I just love the original, too. I don't need any of the updates. Even though the numbers are out of date, it's the principle. That's right. I read the original as well, almost once a year. So what was your biggest money mistake? So back in 2009, we told you all we had that really good year, but then we made the decision to step back. That year we did home. and I'm going to tell my mistake on buying that home. Two of them talked about negotiation thing. I did not do a good job negotiating that loan. So that's mistake one. And then when we sold it, when we moved across the country for a PhD,

I did not negotiate with the realtors. So the house had gone down in value a little bit. We did do a normal sell on it, but we had to write a somewhat big check for us at the time to get out of it. I definitely should have went back to the realtors at that point and said, hey, look, I need some help here. Let's eat up some of those commissions because they would have definitely done that. And I know I could have gotten it done.

So that was the biggest financial mistake was at home in the front end and the back end. Not negotiating a real estate commission is a first year. So what I think that speaks to is like you being very intentional about everything you're doing with your money and really thinking through and doing retros on decision making throughout your, throughout what I imagine is your entire journey with money, because that's a very sophisticated mistake to self-actualize. Well, I got to give another shout out to my friend Isaac, the one that negotiated his way into an MBA program.

He actually told me I should do that, but I was in the motive, I've got to just get across the country. I should have listened to his advice. So, yeah, it was it. That was the biggest mistake we've made. There you go. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting? out. Yeah, so I got to give mad props to my wife throughout this process. You know, all these years

that she's been stay-at-home mom with raising these kids. But with that being said, she is definitely a little bit more of a spender as I am, just naturally, which is fine. So I think the best advice I could give, and maybe this is a family's push, because I have talked about, you know, families throughout the podcast a little bit, is just be honest with you and your partner, whether or not you need a budget, whether you just need to track expenses, what you need to do based on your individual behavior. Like, look, maybe you have two super savers in the relationship. Maybe you need a budget for fun that you have to spend just so you see. We, right?

Like, whatever it is. Or maybe you're two spenders. You've got to control that money. So we have budgeted from the beginning, the two of us. We've fine-tuned it through the years. And now it's the easiest thing in the world. It's automated. We've just figured it out.

So it's really money is not as stress in our marriage. We had to work to get there, but it was worth a journey for sure. And be realistic with you, your partner, yourself. If you're not paying off your credit card every month in full, you obviously have a problem that's time to reassess your situation. Awesome. That's great advice. Yeah, that is really good advice.

I am constantly surprised at the people who have financial infidelity, where they lie to their spouse about, their finances. You will always find out, or the other, I'm sorry, your spouse will always find out if you are lying to them about money. And it just gets really ugly. Yeah. And let me say this, because some people are going to listen to like, I can't do a budget because I can't have that individual have control over me type deal. For my wife through the years, because I am a little cheaper than I should be from time to time, it's actually been good for her. Because after 10 years of marriage, I guess 12 years now, she can buy a new silverware set for the first

time in our marriage because it's in the budget. And I just have to shut my mouth, right? Like, it's there. That's a reasonable expense. So just chill out, dude. And move on. So it's actually a good thing for both, sometimes both parties and people don't see it that way. It can actually be empowering rather than restrictive. Because it's a man. Yeah, that's a good point. All right. So here's the most difficult question of famous four. But I know you're going to this one. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Let me tell you this, I think. I don't know if I was ever funny at a party where I told a joke, but for the last 10 years, every choke I have told

is just unbelievable because you have four little kids at home, right? They're a quality of a joke different than perhaps different areas. So in the lieu of back-to-school week this week, let me, my wife has a joke on the board every week upstairs just for the kids, right? So, and with coronavirus and everything that's going on, where do sharks go back to school? Ooh, I don't know. A bit finishing school maybe. Finland. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. To be honest, that was a little bit of stress. But luckily, she had the joke on the board. And it was a little different. it was vacation. I just changed it for the back to school flavor for the kids.

So, yeah. I love it. Well, thank you. That's awesome. And I know that my future children one day, because of the ease of parenting, as we've discussed, recent weeks, they're going to love my jokes. I've got them all prepared. How much you love jokes? Kids are worth it just for that because they think you are hilarious every time, at least to a certain age, right, Mindy? Yeah, to a certain age. Once they get to be 13, they're like, Mom, that's so dumb. I don't do it for the honest laughs. I do it for the eye rolls. So I will look forward to that even more.

So you have both of that with kids. If you like eye rolls, come over. Oh, my goodness. Both of my kids, I think they're going to bruise their eyes. They roll them so hard at me. All right. Well, Blake, where can people find out more about you? You know, from the beginning, I don't have a blog.

Maybe that'll be in the future. Maybe it won't. I'm not interested now. You never know how it goes. But if someone has something really interesting, good old LinkedIn. Blake Nelson, I believe it says PhD on the end. And the episode it says I taught at at Weber State University, feel free to connect

if you want to have a chat about something. Well, we will, with your permission, link to your LinkedIn in the show notes here at biggerpockets.com slash money show one-for-one. Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Blake, this is a lot of fun. Thank you so much for reaching out. And thank you for coming on the show today

and sharing your story. Yeah, no, you know, it's funny. I sit in a little silo. I'm not at FinCon. I'm not at a lot of the groups. I'm basically living in FI life with my family. So it's just kind of fun. And hopefully others in our situation can kind of see,

okay, this is, you know, some of the steps you can take through college, through marriage, through kids, FI is still very possible and should not be put down as not possible. So thank you to both of you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your story.