BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 229: The 6 Money Mistakes High School/College Students MUST Avoid

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

Most college students know next to nothing about money. Even worse, many of them sign on to expensive student loans with almost no plan on how they’re going to pay it back. While this is the average, some people, like Nathan Kennedy, host of The New Money Podcast, did things differently. Although he overspent a bit going out in college, Nathan graduated with a degree and $40,000 in cash, a MASSIVE amount for any college student. Through applying for grants, working at on-campus jobs, and collecting tip money as a bartender, Nathan was able to graduate in a solid position, allowing him to invest heavily in the stock market during the 2020 crash. Now, Nathan teaches others how they can strengthen their financial position through hard work, planning, and constant content consumption. If you have children who are in high school, college, or are newly graduated, send them this episode so they can have a leg up on future finances!  In This Episode We Cover The importance of tracking your expenses and budgeting properly  Vision boards, daily logs, and other ways to plan for your success  Pursuing grants and scholarships WHILE school is in session Becoming a constant content consumer  Money mistakes that many college students make (and how to avoid them) Making time for health, fitness, and no-phone relaxation  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 229, where we interview Nathan Kennedy from the new money podcast and get some advice for our younger listeners to help put them on the right path financially straight out of high school or college. I always talk about in content that, yes, you're young and you've got a lot of time, but that's all the more reason to get started now because it'll be easier along the way versus, you know, kind of backloading it and then having to, you know, I don't know, invest like $5,000 a month just to make retirement, you know. There's a lot of scenarios where that happens. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me, as always, is my high-flying co-host, Scott Trench. Thank you, as always, for piloting these intros, Mindy. Always a new one every week.

I'll do better next time. Usually you're pretty good. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. To introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where or how young you're starting. That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big-time

investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, or maximize your potential in your early 20s. We'll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards those dreams. Scott, I am so excited to talk to Nathan today. He is a recent college grad and he has learned some lessons from his financial missteps and his financial. experiences in high school and college. So he's here today to share those with our younger listeners. So moms and dads, if you have kids who are in high school or college, this is a great

episode to encourage them to listen to or to listen to with them because we're talking about things that you can do now before you get into big bad habits financially that will help secure your financial future. Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed talking to Nathan. I think, you know, my big theme from the episode kind of really kind of gotten it going in the second half of the episode as well, where we start talking about what Nathan is doing on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis to just crush it, right? The way he sets goals, the way he works out, the way he listens and self-educates, the way he saves and automates that, the way he constructs his vision for his life, prioritize his family, all that kind of stuff. these are the habits, I think, that he's forming in his early 20s that are going to propel him

rapidly towards financial independence. And I think you're going to, I think that if you can attempt to emulate that in the first year or two out of college, for those listening, that is just going to set your whole life on a completely different trajectory than I think the normal in America. I could not agree more. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the

goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves in Edle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one

tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code pockets. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, You know what would make this more fun? Calculating quarterly estimated taxes. But somehow every small business owner ends up doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling, and growing get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott counts as a write-off.

Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals, control spending with virtual cards, and find tax write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, Sound makes everything easier, expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity.

Open a found account for free at found.com. That's F-O-U-N-D.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank. Banking services are provided by Lead Bank, member FDIC. Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck.

At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leen or Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP Money.

Nathan Kennedy, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. I'm even more excited, guys. Thank you so much for having me on. Today, we are talking about things that our younger listeners can do to set themselves up for financial brilliance or at least not financial devastation. So this episode is really aimed at our younger listeners. If you're coming out of high school, coming out of college, this is right up your alley. And mom and dad, this is a great episode to listen to when you are driving with your kids in the car and have a good. great discussion about this. So we, let's jump right into it, Nathan. Let's learn a little bit about you. Where'd you start? Well, honestly, firstly, guys, thank you so much for having me on.

Yeah, I mean, from a very young age, you know, I don't want to do the full life story thing, but money was always a topic that my mom wasn't afraid to speak about. And that's served me pretty well through my life, just kind of having an awareness of it and sort of knowing the value of a dollar. But in terms of financial literacy, you know, it took me a while to actually figure out that I was not where I would like to be. You know, I think fast forward to university, I'm going out, I'm spending money a little bit recklessly, but I'm ignorant to the fact that, you know, I think that I'm good with money just because my parents would talk about it with me and I'm like aware of it. I'm sort of like a moral humble background. But I actually didn't know the fundamentals.

I wasn't, you know, making a budget. I wasn't doing anything like that. And so what happened for me that was sort of like my aha moment was on a whim. I just was like, how much money did I spend just going out one semester and added it up? And it was like, I think it was like $2,500. Like I was floored. Like absolutely taken aback just was like, okay, this is, this is not cool. I am not who I say I am kind of moment.

And so I really had to humble myself. and I kind of just dove into, you know, every financial literacy content, like, you know, podcasts, books, audiobooks, blogs, blogs were huge, Mr. Money Mustache, all that kind of stuff, really just dove right in and never, never turned back. And so I just fell in love with it so much so that a few years later, I started the podcast and now I talk about it. And that's pretty much where I am now. I want to go back just a moment.

You said you spent money recklessly. I typed it out. I spent money recklessly in university, but I thought I was good with money. I think that's really important to focus on for a minute because if you think you're good with money, you might just put your guard down, you know, relax a little bit. And then, oh, yeah, I'm good with money. I can buy one extra beer or I can go out to dinner tonight because, like, I'm not paying attention to it, but I know I'm good with money, so I'll be okay.

And that's a really important point. Like, if you don't pay attention to it, it can get away from you rather quickly. And you said you spent $2,500 that in the context of my not being a college student current spending, I'm like, well, so what? But then I'm thinking back when I was in college, boy, $2,500 would have gone really far. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it was it was one of those things where, you know, that's what most people, you know, a lot of people who have a problem. don't know that they have a problem. You know, like that's part of it, right?

And so, you know, to kind of actually see the numbers and the math behind it was huge. And I think I always talk about in content that, yes, you're young and you've got a lot of time, but that's all the more reason to get started now because it'll be easier along the way versus, you know, kind of backloading it and then having to, you know, I don't know, invest like $5,000 a month just to make retirement, you know, and there's a lot of scenarios where that happens. Oh, preach. Preach. Yeah, when you, what was that study?

I always quote this study and I'm pretty sure it's a valid study, not like that. 95% of all small businesses failed in the first two years and then everybody, every time I say that, somebody will send me a note. That's not true. It's close to true. It's not like I'm saying 95 and it's actually only 3% of small businesses. It's really close to true. But there's a study done. If you invested a thousand dollars a month from the time you were 22 to the time you're 30 and then stopped and never invested any more money ever again,

you would have more money than if you invested $2,000 a month from the time you were 30 to the time that you're 65. It's insane. 35 years of twice as much money isn't the same amount is less than eight years of half as much money. And that's just a mind-blowing comment, but math doesn't lie. It doesn't lie. So, yeah, when you're in high school, when you're in college, now is the time to make. make really smart money decisions that, I mean, that they can affect you decades down the road or four decades down the road. So I love this. I love this. Okay. So let's look at where you were

financially when you graduated from high school and then where you were financially when you graduated from college. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have, like I maybe had a thousand dollars going into college. Like I, everything was bursaries and student loans, right? That's, that's how I was funded. I'm from Canada. So Ontario's student loan program is actually pretty solid. And about half of the funding that I got were bursaries, which I didn't have to pay back, and half were loans. And so what I would do is I would kind of live off that.

And then I would work a lot in the summer. And another thing that I also maybe, you know, made me think that I was better was I was a really good saver. Like when I would work at an internship or whatever, I would just save all my money. and then I would just kind of live off it during the semester or whatever. And so, yeah, like, I mean, I kind of came in, just kind of did that for my years in university. And then really what was the turning point was I started to work a lot more, hustle a lot more in my later years to sustain my savings and maybe grow and started investing and things like that.

And I did have a good amount of debt coming out of school, but I was able to pay off a good amount right away and feel like I'm in a pretty good position coming out of school too. Okay, let's talk actual numbers. Oh, sorry, Scott. Let's talk actual numbers. Go ahead. What were you, what sort of debt did you have when you graduated college? And how much did you pay off?

And how did you pay that off quickly? Yeah. So essentially, when I came out of school, I had $36,000 worth of student debt. But I also had around $40,000 saved up with the intention of paying a good amount. down and then sort of stretching out the sort of a later amount. But then COVID kind of happened. I was also thinking about, you know, rental property. So there's all these things that are kind of going down. And what ended up happening is I put around $20,000, I think it was $20,000 right as the moratorium period. And so you get six months worth of a interest grace fee period for your

student loans on the federal portion, the provincial portion is accruing, but it's minimal. That's kind of just an aside. So when that moratorium period ended, I put down 20 Gs, was like, okay, and that leaves me with around 16, and I'll just kind of spread it out, pay it down. The interest rates like prime. It's around like 2%. It's not too devastating. But what the Canadian government did is they actually paused federal loan interest on that portion. And because 99% of my student loans were federal, that I was just like, all right,

Well, I'll make my payments, but I'm not going to go over and above because it's 0% and really padded my investments. And they're doing pretty well right now. And that's kind of where I stand today. So what year did you graduate from college? 2020, like last year. So right, right. It's the pandemic.

Yeah, right. I graduated into the pandemic. Welcome to the world. Yeah. And so what has been your trajectory since graduating college with this? Like what's what's happening? Yeah. I mean, like I got a job right out of school.

So I work for a Fortune 500 company and I'm in a leadership program there, which is great. You know, I was able to build my, I think my portfolio now is around like 50, 60,000 ETS between work stuff and work stuff and just my own personal tax advantage accounts. I've got around $25,000 cash because I'm looking into potentially going all in with a podcast, maybe a little bit of a padded emergency fund there. And that's pretty much where I'm at. And I think I have around $11,000 outstanding on my student loans and then no credit card debt or any other kind of debt, car debt, nothing like that.

And this has all been accumulated from savings at work for the most part and just applying it to investments in a market that has probably done pretty well since you started investing seriously. You probably started right around that dip in March or April of last year. Yeah, I mean, I have been investing probably since 2017, but you're right. Like, it's just been rosy. And I mean, there was a bleak two months there. That's the only bleak two months of my entire investing career, if you want to call it that. So it's one of those things where I've just been lucky to be started in a bull market. I think a lot of investors have. But yeah, I just continue to invest for the long term. That's what we always talk about. And I just continue to do that. It also sounds like you

worked throughout college, like summers and I'm assuming winter break. Did you have a job during the school as well? Yeah, yeah. So I bartended a lot through school, through the summer. Like, that was my go-to. I think that really the tips and the money and the people and the whole vibe was what I loved. And I really thought that, you know, I got a lot of what I put into it. So if I'd work long hours, if I give great customer service, it would directly correlate to how much money I walked away at tips, et cetera, et cetera. And so, but parlaying that, I also would do like on-campus jobs. I think I researched every bursary, every student, you know, every scholarship, you know, while

you're in school. A lot of people think scholarships are before school. There's so many scholarships that you can apply for while you're studying. And so I just applied to every single one I can. And I was able to land a few there, some bursaries as well. And it's remarkable. And I, you know, I can't necessarily speak for the states, but at least in Canada. And I'd imagine the states as well.

There are so many, there's so much money up for grabs. There's so much money out there. And so, you know, kind of doing, working as hard as I could while also finding, call it, easier opportunities to apply to under, under applied to scholarships, bursaries, etc. I was able to really, you know, fund my education and, you know, come out of school pretty okay. Okay, I've got about 17 points to make on all that you just threw at us. So, first of all, I'm not familiar with the term bursary. Can you share what that is?

Is that like a Canadian thing? It's like a scholar. It's essentially like money that they give you. You don't have to pay it back. Okay. Oh, I think we call that a grant here. Grant. Would you say that's a grant?

Literally the exact same thing. Yep. Most of our listeners are in America, so I just want to translate Canadian English into American English for those listening. But I've also never heard that term before. So that's interesting. Okay. You started off saying you were a bartender to everybody listening.

If you have the opportunity to be either a bartender or a waitress or a cocktail waitress, take that opportunity because you make so much money. So much money. Oh, my goodness. I used to like easily clear $100 on a weeknight being a waitress. And then on the weekends, I would bring home $200 a night. Of course I was working Friday and Saturday night. I wanted $400 plus one more shift is $500.

Yeah. I could make so much money. And if I'm working at the bar, I'm not out spending money at the bar. So, and being a bartender, I watched the bartenders. I was a waitress and I was making $200. But the bartenders are making like $3 and $400. Oh, it's crazy. And you don't have to work at a student bar.

You can go off campus and work at like a real bar. Yeah. Sorry, apologies to all of you who have student. bars, but students aren't rich. So they don't have tons of money to tip. But like employed people are rich and or they want to appear rich. So they will tip better. So yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Learn how to make drinks. It is such a good skill. It's so fun too. And it's fun. It's all. It's hard to be in a bad mood when you're waiting tables on people that are happy all over the place. Yep. Okay. So second, I just learned. I,

was today years old when I learned that you had, you could still apply for scholarships while you're in college. I didn't know that. That's awesome. Yeah, there was a, there was an article a thousand years ago. This woman sat her daughter down and said, I don't have any money for college. So if you want to go to college, you have to apply for grants and scholarships and things like that. And she applied. And she got something like $300,000 in student in scholarships. She didn't even apply for student loan. She got all this money simply because she applied. And in many cases, she's the only applicant. Oh, what was the episode with Zach Gautier?

Was it episode 41 or was that Kyle Mast? I usually have these right on the tip of my tongue. 64? Maybe it was 64. Anyway, our episode with, sorry while I find this, people. Take your time. You can listen to me. Fart around.

64, episode 64 was Zach Gautier. he has 900,000 ways to pay for college, and one of them is applying for scholarships. But there are so many ways to fund college outside of student loans. If you take your junior and senior year of high school and sit down and apply for everything, write a really great letter, write that you tailor to every single application. I mean, it's a process. It's not just, you know, send it out to everybody. It's a process.

But write the letter, get great letters of recommendation from people who, know how to write a great letter. Ask everybody to write you a letter of recommendation so that you can have them at the ready and, you know, submit them. But, yeah, there's so much money available. It's crazy. If you just put in the time to find it and talk to your high school, talk to the colleges. And, you know, talk to everybody.

Yeah. Sometimes if you work at the college, you can get discounted tuition. Absolutely. The grants and the scholarships that are out there. you can do it in the middle of school too. I didn't even know that. I'm so excited. Yeah.

You know, you know, and something you said that that's so crucial is every single student that's like reach out to your financial like department because they will help you. Like they want you to win. Like they have an interest in your success. Like they want to make sure that you're getting everything you can. And so I had connections with several of them.

They knew me like on a first name basis. Like, oh Nate, like we don't have anything for you this month. Like check back next month. Like no joke. And so like they, you know, You don't have to just do it yourself. You don't have to just, you know, definitely you can find a ton online. But, you know, these are professionals that want to see you win.

Like, reach out to them. And most college and university, even community colleges, have some sort of department that, you know, specializes in student funding and things like that. And so, like, leverage the heck out of them because they are, that is what they are there for. I love it. So, so besides from, you know, getting these great jobs and these scholarships or bursaries, if that's the plural of those. Did you do it? Did you do, did you make any mistakes or were you successful?

Do you think you kind of navigated it all pretty perfectly? No, he was perfect. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect. No, no mistakes. No, you know what? I think really the biggest thing was, you know, spending. It was spending still being, you know, I'm not a very detail-oriented person. I really have to work hard to front load and set up systems.

Detourientation is a struggle in mine, honestly. And so obviously, budgeting requires being in the weeds a little bit. And so that was tough when I even first started to getting into this. And even today, like I really do have more of a flexible approach. But just because I have that in mind, but, you know, I would struggle to stay on budget for certain categories. Maybe if it was food eating out still, like, you know, stuff like that. In general, I feel like my spending is very much under control.

but I'd say that that's probably the biggest struggle that I have. Maybe if it's, I set up a regular cadence of checking in with my budget of like, let's call it every week, it would be like every other week or something like that. So definitely there was trips and falls along the way. And it wasn't as smooth as maybe I'm making it sound. But I think that's been one thing that just in my life in general is making sure that I'm nailed on the smaller details. but still sort of like keeping in mind who I am my personality and things like that and trying

to set up a system around that as well. I really like what you said. You set up a regular cadence of checking in on your finances. That is so crucial, especially when you're starting because it's the little things that add up so quickly. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so it would slip through the crack sometimes.

And so does part of me think I could have been like way further along if I were to be a little bit more nailed on that stuff earlier? Like, of course, but I'm, I can't beat myself up over that, right? And nobody can. And so, you know, that's, that's, that's one thing though. And yeah, it's, but I even, I always think, I always tell people too is, is if, if I honestly think if, if I, I don't like little small details. But if I'm able to do, make it work and do that, I think so many other people can as well. So let's talk about some of those flexible jobs that you had on campus. Yeah. So I, so my school had what's called a work study program. So essentially, I think the Ontario government would give a boatload of money to the school. And it's, it's intended for students to

sort of work for it. And so I had a job at a, at our local gym. And it was like, it was not a very hard job. I'll be honest, you kind of just walk around the gym and you make sure that weights are put away and you make sure that people are behaving. But you're really not doing all, all, all that that much more than that. You're just like a supervisor. And so I did that for, I think, three years. And it was, it was awesome because, you know, I like to work out a lot. I work, I would work out in the morning and then I do a shift and then it's on campus. So I just go to class afterward. And so I think that's money. If you can find a shift on campus, if it's not there, if it's at like a local restaurant, you work at the Starbucks or you work at, you know, the McDonald's that's that's on

campus or whatever it is, it's just so convenient for your life. And you can just go to work. and then go to school and then go to work or whatever it is. So, yeah, no, that was, that was, that was the only job really I had. Were you able to do homework at that job? Or was it, was it kind of demanding your full attention while you're- You couldn't have your phone? Like, that's the one thing. So like, you keep that in mind, but they were really strict.

Like, you couldn't do anything but that, right? So you couldn't, you weren't, you know, upstairs, doing homework, things like that. And even though there would be times where I'm like, shoot, like, I need to be studying. I got a midterm after this. But yeah, no, that was the one thing that you couldn't do. You had to be fully engaged on walking around. Okay. Well, that's still, you're getting your steps in.

And, you know, you're, I'm sure you can, as you're putting the weights away, ooh, let me just. Get a little pump. Yep. Put him down. Get yourself a little workout as you go through. Here, let me show you the proper stance for that and then do your 10 squat. My husband got a job at the computer lab.

And we're older. This was a long time ago. but there was not a lot to be done. Sometimes the printer would jam or somebody would need help with a program. But for the most part, he just kind of sat there. And he didn't make a lot of money, but he was getting paid while he was able to work on his homework. Yeah, that's awesome. And if you can find something like that where it's cool, like that's, it's permissible to do that, then do that because then you're killing two birds with one stone.

Yeah, that's, you know, a little bit of think outside the boxness is. so beneficial and can just really propel you. He didn't have to go to work and then come home and study, which is very different than your bartending gig. You're probably not going to be able to sit there and study unless there's a big snowstorm, in which case you don't want to do that anyway because you just would rather be home than sitting around. But yeah, there was not a lot of times to study when I was waiting tables, but that's okay too.

I made a lot more money than I think my husband was like $5 an hour or something at the computer lab. So again, it was a while ago. Early 90s. That's easy money though. That's easy money. Yeah. It's very easy money. What were some mistakes that you were making while you were in university?

And what were some of the mistakes that you saw your friends making? So I think, like I said, the biggest mistake was even just because I don't necessarily want to say it's a mistake to go out and spend money and enjoy yourself because you're young and that's what those years are for. But I think there's definitely a way to have the best of both. worlds where you're making sure that you're allocating money and you're being responsible because like I still had fun. I still went out. I still had the whole student experience, but I was definitely more calculated about it. And so yeah, like that was that was the first half of university like that

that I was just kind of mindless. Like I was I was doing reckless like to me the reason I'm, I say that is because I would go to the ATM with my credit card and take out money. And like that is like a whack load of fees plus cash advance plus just a disaster. Like the last thing you should do financially is to do something like that. And so that's what I'm talking about when like I just wouldn't really care. And so that was the biggest thing for me. And that's why I always talk about it so much is you can you can have just you can have even an even better time and save like 75% of the money you would otherwise spend. I think in terms of like maybe stuff that I saw, maybe reasons why I started the podcast is because no student is talking about money or rather

they're joking around about how little they know. I would find that so much in conversation that it would be like, how do I money? Like it's very accepted that it's just like, ah, like it's, we all don't know what we're doing. And that would like be like, dang, like I kind of, I kind of don't like that. Like I don't want to do something about that. But I found that I would devour financial content and things like that. But I totally was like, yeah, like this just doesn't land for a lot of a lot of folks that are around my age because it's just, you could just fall sleep if you're not completely like invested in it. So that's why I started the podcast is because I'm very candid on my podcast. I'm just me just kind of talking about the concepts. And I think,

I think I'd like to think that it lands a lot better because it's just as if me and you, I always say, it's always just me. It sounds like me and you are just having a drink together. And I'm just telling you like it is or whatever the case is. And that sits a lot better. It's more relatable for folks versus kind of listening to an audio book that's, to me, is like the most fascinating thing in the world. But maybe to most, you know, 20-somethings, it probably put them to sleep. Well, and you said you had the best of both worlds. You would work and you would be conscious of your money and you would still go out and have a good time. It isn't black and white. It isn't you can either have a good time or save your money. You can do a little bit of both.

what are some free things you can do? You can go on a picnic or go on a hike or go on a bike rider. You know, do things outdoors where there's not a lot of money being spent or any money being spent. You can pregame it at home. Buy a stick pack for your house and then still go out and have, you know, one drink at $5 instead of five drinks of $5. Absolutely. And I don't want to just surround it on drinking, but let's be honest.

That's what it is. Got, did you ever have alcohol? In college? Never. Never. Never. It was not the... I thought about money in terms of the amount of cases of natural light it would purchase.

The craft beer lover in me cringes. But my dad drinks that. You got to be economical. Like you said, like, you know, little tactics like that where you, you know, you go to a house party a little bit more often. Or you, you know, you pregame at home more like, it's funny. It's like joking around. But like, you know, dead serious. Like if you just go out straight out, like you're going to spend.

much more money. You know, splitting, splitting an Uber, like little things like that, like they really, really add up. They do. Splitting an Uber, you should have a bicycle at college. If you're going away to college, you should have a bicycle. Or maybe a car if it's convenient to park it. Or maybe just walk everywhere because it's a college town. It's not that big. True. True. Transit systems, you know, a lot of, a lot of universities, yeah, a lot of universities subsidized, you know, the transit pass for a lot of students. You know, that's, that's all I. I, you know, that's all I did. Like, I would ride the bus a ton. I got a car in my last year, but, like, for most of university, like, that's what I would do. And it's usually really reliable. Tax season is one of

the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward. It's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season

and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at monarch.com code pockets. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsor jobs

helps you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it's It works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part? No monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to Indeed.com slash Bigger Pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need.

When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. With over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is automatic.

They never sell your data. And all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge. to all customers. Visit northwest registeredagent.com and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registered Agent.com slash money free. The game begins in three, two, one. Ready or not too, here I come.

Only in theaters March 20th. After surviving one deadly game, Grace and her sister Faith must now face off against four rival families in a fresh round of blood and games, filled with more action, scares, laughs, and combustions. Starring Samara Weaving, Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Elijah Wood. Ready or not, too, here I come. Only in theaters March 20th.

Get tickets now. Going out to your post-graduate life here, now that you're graduated with this, you have an interesting, I think, philosophy with money, or at least that's what your thing says to me here. One, you're saving a ton. So you must be earning a pretty good income and saving a saving. a huge chunk of that income right now. And you're applying that money in, you know, what seems to be all stocks and then a cash emergency fund on top of that. Can you talk about your philosophy with money as it as it kind of stands after college graduation and why you're, why you're thinking

that? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, with with kind of what I'm doing now, a lot, initially I was saving a lot of cash because I was looking to get into a property. But I think, and that's still, you know, the goal over the next maybe two to three years. But right now, I'm really like this whole social media thing, the podcast, it's like a business. And it's a budding business. And now I'm starting to generate income. And I'm really starting to like really invest myself in that. And so I want to have a good amount of cash.

So I've started to reallocate a little bit more of my savings towards. that. But as it pertains to to my investments, yes, it's like 100% stocks, mostly ETFs, some individual stocks, and that's just long-term money for decades down the road, right? The whole compound interest over the long term, sort of similar to the example we talked about. And I'm just, I'm just a big index fund guy, an exchange trade fund guy. And so that's why my money is where it is. If, you know, why is my money in more balanced portfolio of like maybe 50-50 bonds or things like that. I just think, you know, given my time horizon, you know, I'm quite young.

I've got a lot of time to write out the volatility and just go after, you know, the appreciation of the equity. So that's why my allocation is as aggressive as it is. And then the cash is just sort of on hand for if maybe just a rainy day with, you know, the business or something like that. How old are you? 24. 24, yeah.

So what I want to point out is that, You know, I believe that people in their early 20s who accumulate $25, $50,000 in cash the way you have with your thought approach. I just want to completely agree with your approach and how you're thinking about this, because the ROI on that $25 grand is going to be infinitely higher, I think, in a risk-adjusted sense, if you bet on yourself, if you pursue a house hack, if you take a chance. on a side hustle, and then betting on yourself, the first point being launching a business or doing that kind of stuff, you're going to either learn so much more or have a shot at having 100% ownership of that type of business, not having to go out and raise capital and all that kind of good stuff. If you, you know, to start a business idea or whatever, do it completely your way.

That's just such a much better use of money, I think, than putting it into the index fund or into a retirement account, in my opinion. So I just wanted to commend that approach and the way you're thinking about it because I think that's absolutely right. And that is very specific to, I think, a certain situation in life where that applies. I think, you know, if you're 10 years into a career and have a family and all that kind of stuff, maybe it's a little different of a choice and your time rise is different. But at this point, I just, I think it's the logical approach. I think it can be hard to articulate or hard to define exactly why it's the right approach. for a lot of folks, but I think more and more people should consider that. How do I get off to

the races in the first year or two out of college, build up a huge chunk of cash, and then use that to exploit the opportunities that are coming up around. That's 300% right. And I mean, I'd like to say, like, when we spoke, Scott, when I was, when I had a chance to speak with you on the podcast, like, that's one thing I really took away is like, you got a bet on yourself, man. Like you really do. When you're young, like, if you've got something and you think you have a shot, like take the shot because you've got time to see it through and no matter what you're going to learn something from it. And so like super, super inspirational from that point of view. And so yeah, like that's definitely it. Like to me, it's money that I'm going to invest or going to have to go through the more if I decide to leave my job in a few months or whatever it is. And I want to just boom, give it a year. Go all in. Whatever. Like, I've got, I'm able to do that. You know what I mean? So that's kind of where I'm, uh, my, my head is sort of out right now.

I think we have a dramatically improved world. I'll go that far. If more people did exactly what you're doing with this, you don't have to take the option. You can get the promotion at work and they can keep you. Um, but you can, you, to have the option, I think is what compounds the, the probability of you maximizing your potential. And so as we, that's, that's fundamentally what you're doing with this. Let me ask another question. How often do you work out?

Six days a week, six days a week. Awesome. How long do you work out for each months? Like maybe depends, but like maybe on average like 40, 45 minutes. Love it. How often do you, how much do you read? I'm a big audiobook guy. That counts. Okay, probably like honestly like probably listen to like around four hours, four point five hours like between reading and and, and audiobooks per week.

Per week? Awesome. And how much other self-education do you do? I mean, that's probably the biggest one, but I would say a lot of articles, a lot of research, a lot of online stuff. But most of the education comes from either

podcasts or audiobooks or reading. But there's like I'm like a self-improvement junkie. Like I live off that stuff. Like I really like, yeah, like just as much as personal finance. I think personal finance is here and then the self-improvement stuff is like right there too. Four hours a week is is an average, if each audiobook is an average eight hours, that's

25 books per year is the pace that you're going at just on the audiobooks, the four or five hours front with that. So you're working out six days a week. You're reading four to five, you're reading 20 to 30 book equivalence a year with, with audio with this kind of stuff. you've saved up $25,000 to $50,000 and you've already got accumulated a $50,000 portfolio one year after graduation, right? Like, this is the path. I don't know what is going to happen.

Here's the mistake you can make in your situation is modeling it out and believing the model because it will just not come true. You're just setting up so many synergistic things together that they will compound if you play your cards, right, and are reasonably opportunistic to go your way. in excess of whatever financial model, you know, if you're listening to this and like, I'm doing all that. Yeah, like, you have to then bet on yourself with this kind of stuff. Your mental models, you know, you compete. You think about like, hey, I'm competing in the business world with somebody with 10 years of experience, right?

Well, 10 years of experience is great, but I'll take the guy who's read 25 books by different authors on that topic all day over the guy with 10 years of experience on that, right? I mean, there's things experience can't teach and there's things that books can't teach, right? So there's puts and takes. But one is, is, anyways, I just, I just can't commend you enough and I knew that after talking to you. You didn't set us up with that information ahead of time. But I could tell coming into the call that there's other pieces were in place in addition to the finances, which I think is really cool. I really appreciate it.

Scott, that's very, like, incredibly humbling coming, you know, from you in terms of like the best way possible. Like, that's just, like, crazy that you just spoke of me in that light. So thank you for that. Oh, I just think, I think it's just, it's just fact, right? Yeah. I, you know, it's, it's, it's, it isn't, it is crazy though. Like, you know, I, I literally didn't think about it like that until you said it like that. And you're right.

Like, I try to focus on the, the inputs as much as I can in terms of, okay, like, let me hit it week after week. But I haven't like, like you said, like thought, you know, I don't have a crazy goal in mind of terms of like, let me read. like 30, 40 books, even though that is like a really great goal. But I think it, when you, when you set up the inputs and you set up the, the, the, the, the leads rather, to really set yourself up there. Like, yeah. And then like, yeah, when you were saying, I was like, I guess, I guess, yeah. Reading, reading 30 books is kind of silly.

Like, it's just, it's like, I'm just being completion. It's supposed to like it. But read, self educating the equivalent of 20, 30 books on whatever it is either interesting or well, let me ask you, are you reading just in time? learning or are you are you just kind of consuming out of habit as part of it but are you also kind of selecting materials that are relevant to what you're working on it's probably like 90% like stuff that's like relevant to like where I'm trying to go with my life and then I'd say like there's a small percentage like maybe like some sports stuff in terms of like podcasts I listen to just purely

entertainment but most of it is for some sort of end purpose awesome now are you doing any type of goal setting on top of this. Yeah. So in my room, like I have this big like white sort of, it's like a rollout whiteboards thing. It's actually pretty cool. Like I don't know if anybody's interested in. It's on Amazon. Like it's one of those. But I write out like my goals for the for the for the month, for the quarter and for the year. And then I kind of just have it. And to me it's just like, I love just visually seeing it every morning. It becomes like one of those things that's just like in the background. But I try to like look at it. and kind of I have like a little checklist at the top and to me it's just inspiring to kind of see some of the

the numbers or some of the legs that I kind of want to hit over the over the next few months and years. I don't do anything further than like I think I have like and this is from like Brandon Turner like the vivid vision like when he told me about that like well he didn't tell me he told everybody but but when I heard about that I went and read that book and that that was crazy like that and so I you know, have a little three-year vision at the bottom and then sort of everything that ladders up. And, you know, that's definitely where I like to, that's the word my planning is and stuff like that. And the one thing that I've learned is that like you're not going to nail every single one. Like you're just, you're going to miss sometimes.

And so kind of navigating that and being, you know, kind to myself for maybe not hitting some sort of figure number that I hoped for for the quarter. Like, it's all good. We'll just get after it next quarter. kind of thing. But just having that sort of process has been really helpful over this past. I think I started there about a year ago. Love it. What else are you doing that you think is, if you kind of sit back and zoom out and peer at your life as a third party observer, what else are you doing that you think is conducive to success? You have goal setting. We have six days a week working out. We have 25 book equivalency year. We've got huge savings rate. We've got an entrepreneurial venture on the

side. What else? family, man. Like family, family, family, like making time for it. Like, I don't, I don't do any work on Saturday, half of Sunday. Like, I just relax with my, like, family and my girlfriend. And that has just, like, been money in terms of just feeling, like, refreshed and things like that. And it's something that, like, I had a really serious conversation with, with my, my girlfriend about it, because I'm, like, I'm very dirty. Like, I've always got these thoughts coming in and out of my head or let me go do this or that or this or that. Did you say darty?

Because it sounded like dirty. Oh, no, darty, darty. Like, like, all of them. Yes, not dirty, not dirty. Not dirty. I just want to clarify for people who didn't quite get dirty. Darty, right. I've got all these like ambitions and things that are kind of coming all over the place.

And when I kind of, but that would lead to burnout all the time throughout school even. Like I, there was, there was times, you know, I guess I could talk about this too. Like there would be some summers where I'd be working like literally like, literally like, between internships and bartending and whatever like 85 90 hours a week just like grinding right obviously not sustainable and so i remember talking with her and then we kind of set that up like hey let me just take like let's just take one day where we just don't do anything like you're not on your phone whatever and it was just it's just been amazing and so now i like really look forward to that it's a nice sort of break from everything work and the podcast and life and even working out

I just chill, like just take a full day. And it really helps me out from a sustainability perspective to kind of just be recharged to go after the week the next week. That is yet another really important point to hammer home because especially during COVID when people were working from home, it's so easy to be like, oh, I just got to finish up this one thing. And after dinner, go back to your computer because it's already there. And it's so easy to work a whole lot more than 40 hours a week.

And when you're not working, you're thinking about it or you've got your phone up and you've got slack open just in case somebody reaches out because they need something. They can wait till tomorrow unless you're a doctor, in which case, don't take my advice. But unless there's life-threatening things going on, they can wait till later and taking a moment away from your phone. Like what's the worst that happens when you don't have your phone next to you? You missed somebody's Facebook update. Who cares? Not a big deal, yeah. You miss somebody tweeting something funny.

Well, you can go back and read it later. You can laugh. Ha, ha, ha, L-O-L. You can post that anytime. It's very rarely something life-threatening that you're going to miss. Now, of course, if somebody's in the hospital, maybe keep your phone with you, but don't, you know, look at it all the time. Yeah. But yet, it's so easy to be glued to your phone all the time.

Yeah, it just, you know, it never stops. But, like, you can, you know, there's part of it where it's just like there's always going to be on your brain and things, you know, businesses never stopped kind of thing, whatever. But like, realistically, like, yeah, you're right. You take yourself out for just five, like, even if it was like five, 10 seconds, like nothing's going to happen. Oh, it's like a minute, an hour, a day. Like, world's not going to, you know, go up in flames just because you don't look at

your phone, right? So that's, and it's so funny because I tell myself that rationally, but sometimes I'll catch myself like on my phone. I'm like, yeah, just put it away. Like, you know, like just relax, man. Nathan, what, you know, I think that some folks listening will find, you know, this, I think, is what a lot of people should aspire to in their early 20s. It's something like the schedule and the habits that you set yourself to with that.

That's conducive to success. Unfortunately, we're only getting the top half of you, but I imagine you're looking very strong and buff with the six days a week with all this kind of stuff. But every part of your life is going together with this kind of thing. that you're doing with what you're doing with all this kind of stuff. What is the one thing that you think you should start with? Someone else is like, hey, right now, I kind of like, I'm drained from my work. I don't have goals. Last thing I want to do after a long day of work is go listen to like an audio book on success or some crap like that. And, you know, I don't want to go and like, I don't

know what a vision board is. That sounds kind of cheesy. I don't know. I'm not going to work out six times a week. God knows I can only find, you know, time for two workouts a week, maybe with that kind of stuff. So I'm putting myself in the shoes of somebody like that and they're like, there's no way I can replicate what Nathan's doing. What's the one first step that you think someone should take to begin going down that path, and maybe having more of the habits that you've built for yourself falling in mind? Honestly, I honestly think it's like just consuming content. Like I think that is just such an easy thing to start doing is just consuming content around some of these strategies. There's so many like beautiful, awesome, fantastic, interesting, engaging content creators on YouTube, like shows like this, like where you can just listen to and just be on your way to work or whatever.

And if you don't like, if it's boring to you, then go find another one because I guarantee you there's so many out there on so many different topics that you'll find one that you'll find one that you like. And it'll teach you a lot. And it's sort of like an easy or stepping stone. Now obviously eventually you're going to have to take action. You're going to have to go out and start building the budget. You're going to have to go sign up for the gym membership and actually go. You're going to have to take the action. But I think if you can just start watching content, like I used to always say, you know,

there's this one thing that you could do is measure your wants and needs or this or that. Or I'd always give like a more like action oriented one. But I think like literally, like, I've, and I've told this to people and seen it through. They're like, yeah, I just started watching YouTube videos of this guy, Ali Abdal. And then he talked about this productivity thing that I started doing. And then it led to this and it led to that. And so I think that's just, just there's so many awesome creators out there that

literally takes a zero effort to watch and maybe learn from. And that'll be a great stepping stone to you taking that first step, that action, in whatever area of your life you're trying to improve. I couldn't agree more. I think if you put, I think that if you have to figure out one first step to begin moving towards some of these things, it's listen to audio content, right? And yes, we're a podcast and no, that's not self-sert. But like, that's what I did, right? I just, like, you were the average of the five people you associate with most closely, right? And so if you spend most of your time that you're spending intently listening or attempting to learn, and, the car, for example, or at the gym or whatever it is, listening to people who are talking about how to improve yourself with that kind of stuff, you're going, that's going to be your normal world. Nathan's normal world is listening to successful people talk about what they're doing

to improve bit by bit, day by day, one percent better every day kind of thing. And so he's getting better one percent with that kind of stuff. And I think that's what you have to do. I think that's the best first step, I would completely agree. And then everything else begins to fall into place. You're like, why, why don't I have time for a workout this week? Like, am I, like, this dude is doing a bunch of workouts. Why can't I do that, right? Where, you know, I'm not, I don't have a vision board, but like, am I where this person is and wants to be? You know, I don't know. Like, those are the types of questions that you begin asking as you start consuming these, these, these, that type of content. So I think it's a great. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I, and I, and I, and I just

think, like literally, like that's what I did. Like I, I'm no joke. Like, I think the first thing I did was like finance podcast. I literally searched up and this podcast and you guys could go listen to it. Optimal Finance Daily. It's like a fantastic podcast. It narrates, you know, bloggers like Mr. Money Mustache, Financial Samurai, all those guys. Um, you know, Camico, the budget mom.com. Like those, that was my jam. And I just started listening to it. I'm like, holy, what's fire? What's this? What's that? And it's just like, That was the first step for me. And like, and it led to kind of where I am and hopefully, you know, some some other place down the road. But we'll see. Yeah. And you know, what I like so much about Optimal Finance Daily is you can hear the voice that the author writes in. So there are some people who find Mr. Money Mustash to be fascinating and they, they want more content from him. And there are other people who think that the tone of his voice is a little too harsh. It's okay if he doesn't speak to you.

There's somebody who does. And there is content out there that makes sense to you, that speaks the language you understand, and that will help you further yourself down the path to better finances, even if you don't want financial independence, just having better finances in general. There is a voice for everyone. And, you know, there's, I was, I was just at a conference last week for podcasters. And one of the questions came up in our stacking Benjamin's meetup that happened before the show. And they said, you know, are there too many financial podcasts out there?

And Joe said, no. Dave Ramsey gets like a million listens a day or an episode. And everybody else combined gets, you know, another million listens per episode. So there's 300 million people in America. That's two million people that are listening. And there's probably a lot of overlap between Dave and the other podcasters. nobody's listening. And you need to listen to this.

And your life is so much better when you don't have to worry about money. And, you know, it doesn't, that doesn't mean that you're going to, you know, listen and then everything's going to be fixed the next day. But everybody in this space is giving you steps to take. You know, everybody has a different first step. But there's steps to take to get you to financial intelligence and financial consciousness. and, you know, when you start being conscious about it, then you can really take some big action. Regarding the vision board, the first time I heard of the concept of vision board, I'm like,

yeah, Scott called the cheesy. I'm like, yeah, that's cheesy. What am I going to do? But do you know who has a vision board? Tiffany Aliche. She's got like a billion of them. And does anybody crush it harder than Tiffany? No.

Scott doesn't do an actual vision board, but he sits down with a piece of paper every morning and writes out his goals and then keeps him in a binder and just adds it to the next so he can go back and see all the goals for how long have you been doing that scott like seven years yeah this year i've actually been or the last quarter i've been doing it weekly but it's not been working as well so i'm going to go back to doing it daily but yeah i have i have probably done that over 1,000 to 1,500 times over the last 7 8 years and then have you do you still have all of your papers a lot of trees i have almost all of them yep that's it's it's fascinating to go back in time and see where you were at, oh, look at the progress I've made.

Or, hey, there's something that is not getting done. I'm still not making progress on this. That's where you focus. And sometimes I kind of have this little thought. I'm like, you know, old Scott is one day, might like look at this. So I might put a little extra effort into today's, you know, because, you know, when I'm 50 years or now, what did I do, you know, back the back of the day when I, you know. Knowing Scott that I know that I know right now, old Scott will love looking at this stuff.

That's awesome. That's really awesome. Yeah, but I think, yeah, I think it's a tool to move you towards the goals. And it sounds like you do goals every day as well. Pretty much. Or I review them or I look at them. I don't think I write them out every, every day. That's really cool.

Maybe I should. But I think, you know, just having it constantly sort of there in front of you and or having some thought process around it. You know, and I guess I should say, mine's just words. Like, it's not, I don't, I don't draw out. I don't have pictures and stuff like that. But if that's what gets it going for you, then do it. Like, whatever it is, right, whatever it takes for you to, to stay on, on path and grow and, you know, all that, improve and all that. Like, then do it. It's going to be different for everyone. Yes. And maybe daily isn't what you want to do. Maybe weekly's better. Whatever works for you is the only thing that has to work. So yeah, I think that's awesome.

Scott, I'm going to ask you yet again for the link to your goal page, which is very simple. You can set it up, you know, take Scots and set it up however you want. But it's really, really great. So that'll be found in the show notes, which are at biggerpockets.com slash money show 229. Okay. We need to get to the famous for Nathan. Are you ready for that? ready. I'm ready. Okay. Step number one. What is your favorite finance book? It is the wealthy barber by Dave

Shelton. That's, man, I love that book. And then he has, I think he has a remake of it as well, but it's just a really easy read. It's a storytelling, just solid. And it teaches on pretty much every financial concept there is. And so really, really love that book. Have we had that recommendation before, Scott? I don't know. Maybe once before. I don't know. But I've read that book. And I think it's a nice, it's an easy, quick, relatable read, it'll be really easy to digest. And I think it's really good, got a lot of good fundamentals in it. You can guess what, you have to, you have to read it to find out who the main characters. What was your biggest money mistake? Yeah, I guess I would say it was going a little bit too hard in one of my years in university. But, hey, like it turned me who I'm today. So it's all good.

So you have no money mistakes. No, I mean, you know what? I spent frivolously. college a few times. I guess I could also think of, you know, I would say, oh, crypto. No, no, no, I know, but crypto 2017 put way too much money into it and then lost it all and then sold. That was probably a pretty big mistake. And it kind of taught me the fundamentals of like buying and holding. Now crypto is a whole different space and we could get into that. But that was definitely one where I was like, wow, like, that is a how to not invest kind of thing.

Yeah. And people right now who are into, what is it, GameStop and AMC theaters and whatever they're doing right now. Right. You can make money investing and you can lose money investing and you have a better chance of losing it if you're just following the trend and not doing your own research or not investing intelligently. Exactly.

And 100%. Okay. What is your best piece of advice for people who are just, starting out. I would see the content. Like, just start watching content, consuming content. You know, I hate to beat a dead horse, but like that is, that is just a single easiest, most conducive thing. I think that somebody can do literally as soon as you finish this. I mean, if you're listening to this right now, you are doing that right now. So you don't even need to do anything. You're already doing it right now. But to continue to do that, continue to surround yourself with that, you know,

and it'll definitely make you more likely to take that action that will actually end up leading you down the right path. I love it. Love it. I do want to acknowledge that, well, I think I'm wired the same way as you in a lot of ways with this consuming content side of things. For those who can't tell while we're listening. I think that we listed six things there, all of which are things that you want to do. set goals, consume content, workout, save, budget, be disciplined, have a cadence, automate your, like all that kind of stuff.

But I think everybody's going to have a different starting point. And so if yours is not in the consumption of content, start with another one. Maybe working out triggers all the other good habits because while you're working out is when you're going to listen to whatever it is. But like figure out what that first trigger is and maybe start with just consuming more content in a general sense, although we're probably preaching to the choir on that one. All right. What is your favorite joke to tell it party? I knew this was coming. I literally, I couldn't. I think I honestly don't even know.

Like a knock knock joke. Like this was one where I literally sat with for so long. I was so stressed. I was like, I'm just going to tell them I don't have anything. Like I really don't. Like knock knock joke. But I got you. I got you. You know, the sun doesn't have to go to college because it's already got like 28 million degrees. There you go. There you go. That she just saved me. Is that horrible? That's a fantastic joke. It's because it's Scott's joke, right? No, I got that. I looked at them, college student puns. Who would just attribute it to unknown always means me.

Yeah. I don't know. All right. Where can people find out more about you? I'm at the New Money Pod on Instagram and TikTok. I shoot me an Instagram, DM. I respond to every single one. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all podcast places.

the new money podcast. But yeah, reach out. I'd love to chat with you guys. And thank you so much for listening to me Babelon here. And I really, really appreciate it. Nathan, this was wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have a feeling that a lot of people who are listening are going to then bring their

high school and college kids over and say, hey, we have to listen to this together. And that's what I wanted. So I'm so excited. Thank you so much for your time today. Amazing. Thank you so much. Appreciate Scott, Mindy. Thank you.

Okay. We'll talk to you soon. Okay, that was Nathan Kennedy. Scott, I think you could sum up this whole show by saying Nathan is conscious about what he's doing. He's not letting life just drag him by and going with the flow. He wants something so he has made conscious choices to help him get there. He's conscious about his goals. He's conscious about his spending. He's conscious about what he wants out of of life. And I think that this is such an inspiring show. Yeah, I thought it was, was awesome. And I think that this is the kind of person who's going to be a leader of industry or a thought leader or,

you know, already is in a lot of ways, but was going to just have a killer career with a lot of this stuff or have some sort of enormous impact on the community with this. So I'm really excited to see where it goes. I think I loved talking to that. I love seeing some folks trying to do everything in their power to maximize potential. And I'm just so optimistic about his, his future here. I am too. I am so excited for what he's got. He's in a couple of years, he's going to call back and be like, yeah, so I'm killing everything in life. I'm totally crushing it. I'm the best ever. And except he won't say that because he's humble too. I have a request of our listeners today. I want to tell your story. And somebody posted

millennials, quit whining. I paid off $150,000 in student loans and on a $400,000 home because I save. It's not that hard. I make coffee at home. I bus instead of Uber. I shop the sales. I had my parents pay off my loans and buy me a house because I'm daddy's special boy. I got Hulu with ads. It's supposed to be funny. But in the comments, there were, I asked, I said, what kind of stories do you want to hear? And he said, personally, I would love to hear more stories about people with salary ranges in the $40,000 to $75,000. The Park Ranger episode was a lot more relatable. Same for me, as Matt said, below $40 to $75,000 salary, someone that is making their way through the confusing and sometimes misleading financial world, small business owners that

haven't hit it big yet with variable income. I want to hear someone fumble through life and 180 degree shift from 30 to 40 income to high income at the age of 27 to 35, maybe not fire, but learning how to grow. So if this is you, I want to help you. I want to help you. tell your story to our listeners who will get so much value out of it, please email me, Mindy at biggerpockets.com, or fill out the form at biggerpockets.com slash guest and choose the money show. Go into details when you are filling out the form so I know what your story is about, because we want to tell the stories that you want to hear. Yeah, I just want to echo that, Mindy, because I think a lot of people we hear are like, no, I need to get through this next inflection

point before I'm ready to come on the Bigger Pockets Money Show or whatever that is. And I just want to like get that out of people's heads. No, like the best stories. Everybody's got a great story. The best story is everyone's story. But some of the part of that best, best cadre, I guess is that the, I don't know if I pronounce it that right. The best, some of the best stories are folks that have fumbled a few times, that have had, you know, challenges in the past that they've overcome and then gotten good with money and begun to get on the right track and build wealth for their family and that kind of stuff. And so we want to hear more of that. There's no like you're not ready or there's not, there's a milestone or checklist that we want you to have completed before coming

on the show. No, your story could be helping somebody right now who's struggling through something that you've already gone through or overcome. And we want to hear that on the show. And I think we want to make sure that everyone's everyone's clear on that date. Like, please come on the show if you've got something that you can share that's about something you've overcome even if you're not all the way towards your money goal quite yet no one's all the way toward their money goal except for maybe um um oh what was his name oh steve adcock yes yes so maybe Steve adcock has already completed his money goal that guy but yeah but most of us haven't right most folks folks have not completed their their journey and there's still a work in progress with

that kind of stuff. And that's, but there's still powerful lessons to be learned. So if you have an income, especially under that $75,000 mark there, maybe, and we want to hear your story and how you're moving towards financial independence or building wealth, because that will help a lot of people. Yes. And if you have a type of story that you would like to hear that you haven't heard, please email me, Mindy at biggerpockets.com. So I can ask for guests like that, too, to be a guest on the finance review, which we release on Fridays. You can go to biggerpockets.com slash finance review to apply there. Okay. We normally don't ask you very much, but I think we've asked enough today. Scott, should we get out of here? From episode 229 of the Bigger Pockets

Money podcast, he is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen saying fly high, sugar pie.