BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 278: Finance Friday: How to Quell Your Money Anxiety (Even as a High Earner!)

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

If you want to know how to save money, just look at your expenses. Odds are, if you’re like most people, you aren't budgeting or tracking your expenses to a tee. But there’s no need to be so hard on yourself, even our money mages themselves, Scott Trench and Mindy Jensen don’t always write down every cent spent. That being said, if you’re planning for a big trip, different expenses, or a sudden life change (like leaving your job), there is no better time than NOW to start tracking your expenses. Today’s guest, TJ, knows this all too well. TJ makes a phenomenal income and already has a multi-million dollar net worth. But, he still suffers from money anxiety and not knowing how much he’ll need to step away from full-time work. Not only that, TJ is planning to take his children on a two-year-long expedition around the globe, all while TJ and his wife aren’t bringing in their regular high incomes. But he isn’t just relying on his salary for monthly cash flow. TJ has also invested in rental properties as well as real estate syndications—both of which are providing him thousands a month in passive cash flow. But, after the globe-trotting ends, will TJ have to find himself another job or can he happily ski his way to early retirement upon re-arrival?  In This Episode We Cover Retirement accounts, private pensions, and setting your future self up for financial success Cash savings and emergency funds, plus who needs them (and who doesn’t) Rental property investing and real estate syndications for passive cash flow Reducing spending and building a “future budget” that forecasts future spending Money anxiety and how to mitigate it even if you have a high income and net worth The 4% rule and using it to easily map out your date of financial independence  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 278, Finance Friday edition, where we interview TJ and talk about asset allocation and reducing spending. We have so many dynamic things in the future, and we've been so aggressive with our investments up to this point that I feel like if we're going to go on this trip, that I should be more conservative going into it. But in the grand scheme of things, if I continue to invest in real estate over the next few years, that passive income will increase and hopefully help supplement more of the trip and make when we're gone less of a stressor. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen.

And with me, as always, is my shine bright like a diamond co-host, Scott Trench. That intro really has a nice ring to it. Thank you, Mindy. 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 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 make capital allocation decisions at the highest level.

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'm so excited for today's episode. I can't wait for our listeners to hear it. In the beginning, T.J. lists his salary and it is extremely high. But I want you to continue. continue listening because at first I was like, wow, what are we going to tell this guy? We actually have a lot to say to him. We give him a lot of things to look into and a lot of things to consider when he is contemplating, reducing his work time for the next couple of years or in a couple of years to go on a one or two year trip around the world with his kids. And there are a lot of things for him to consider, including reducing his spending,

which is not something that you would normally suggest to somebody with such a high income. Yeah, I thought this was a fascinating episode. Spoiler, you know, T.J. is worth $2 million and earns over $300,000 in household income, yet has some challenges about the basic math of early retirement and how, what kind of flexibility that position affords him and his family with that. And I think it's a really good reminder to kind of come back to basics and look at the very simple math of what is my spending, what is my net worth, how does that relate from the 4% rule of from a passive income perspective, and how do I get control on those things? Where is my lever around spend less, earn more, create, or invest? And looking at his situation, I thought for sure it was going to be on the investing front, and so did he. But I think it was

really back to the basics of spending. And there's a really important reason for that. It was a multimillion dollar decision, as we'll kind of unpack in the show, for his particular financial position. And I think it's a really, it's, it's just really fun and exciting to have these kinds of discussions with people who are really smart and really capable and really go looking for that, that key leverage point to help them achieve their life goals with this. I just had a blast on this one today. I hope it was helpful for TJ. And I hope it's helpful for everyone listening. Yep. I completely agree. This is a lot of fun. Before we bring in TJ, my attorney makes me say the contents of this podcast are informational in nature and are not legal or tax advice,

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still small. The family is going to travel around and see the world. and then come back and resume work, but in a different capacity. So T.J is looking for asset allocation advice and commentary on his general plans. T.J, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm super excited to dump into your numbers. It is surreal to be on this show with you guys. I've been following both of you for SIGA since day one.

Listen to every episode. So it's awesome to be here. Well, thanks for listening. Well, let's share your numbers. What is your salary and where's it going? Yeah, so on a given month, we bring in about 188. We have a duplex, and then we're invested in some syndications, and each of those bring in about a thousand. So just over 20 per month.

And then we spend about 12 grand a month over the last 12 months average. So housing is 2,600 taxes. I have in there for 2,300. That's the biggest item that was in there. Kids, we spend about 1,500. Thankfully, that's on its way down now that one of our oldest. list is in public schooling. We spend a lot on travel a month.

So it's like $1,400. That's probably our, are like non-negotiable. Don't touch it. Don't talk about it. We love it. And then food is 980, shopping's 950. Cars. We don't have any car payments.

That's one of the first things that we got after when we first learned about FI. So just gas and driving to work basically and fuel for travel. Bills is 500. entertainment, $350, and then just some miscellaneous stuff that gets us to that total number. What is your pre-tax income? Pre-tax, I don't have it on a monthly basis. Annualized were about $3.30. Wow.

And what general industry are you guys in? My wife is in engineering, and I started in engineering and moved into operations management. Nice. Okay. Well, awesome. That's a huge income with this. And you guys obviously bring in a lot. more than you spend even after fairly high spending in a couple of categories there.

Where does the money go? Once you bring it in. Yeah. So when we first started learning about FI, I guess to back up a little bit, my mom was actually a financial advisor growing up, which was like the basis for everything that I even know about being smart with money. So kudos to mom for that. But basically we had been maxing out both of our 401ks for, you know, the more recent time.

And then we automatically invest at least for a while after tax. brokerage accounts. So, you know, we've been 100% in index funds, total stock market, basically from the time that we started working. You know, I basically started right in the beginning of the housing crisis, so 2007, 2008. And my mom basically forced me to max out my 401k, like very early on. And obviously, we've been marching pretty high ever since then. And then the COVID dip obviously happened. And we kept marching forward. So I think the hard thing for us was we got a pretty high net worth in stocks. And I think it was like 2017. I started listening to BP, actually the, you know, the regular real estate podcast before yours came out. And that kind of got me interested in real

estate, both for diversification. And I get a little nervous when you talk about FI and selling the principle of your investments. And so one thing that I'm really interested in from a real estate perspective is just the passive income that comes in and not having to worry about selling the, selling the assets basically to, to get the income to cover it. So over the last four years, we've been focused on diversifying away from just 100% stocks. So we bought a duplex in 2019, did, I'd say a pretty poor job of burying it. I probably could have, but I didn't know what it meant at the time. So bought it, renovated one side, started leasing both sides out, and it's done super well since then,

appreciated a ton. In that time frame was also when I had two kids. So I've got a six-year-old and a four-year-old and actively managing a dukeye. Duplex was not something that my wife would advise ever again, but she was a trooper and it's bringing in income. So that's awesome. So that's what got me into syndications. I think on BP was looking around trying to figure out other options, note investing, land, all these different things. And syndications came up. And I pretty much dove in the deep end to try and learn as much as I could about it. So ever since then, we've continued to max our 401ks in index funds.

and then all of our after-tax money has gone into syndications. So we've been investing in those, and I've been, you know, over the last few years, basically trying to figure out how to get as much money diversified into real estate compared to what I had in stock. So I refied our house and did a cash out refy with rates being as low as they are, and then I refied our duplex to take out the cash that we had into it to continue invest that equity back into real estate. So I've been trying to figure out how to get roughly 50% of our,

income passively or 50% of our spending covered with passive income. And then basically, for the most part, been keeping our equity investments fairly aggressive with a small like transition to some alternatives like gold, just with some of the things that are going on, but trying to stay away from bonds with how, how scary the market is right now. So can you walk us through the numbers here in your net worth statement? Yeah. So our cash holding, so I, I, I'm not a huge believer in emergency funds. I basically save up whatever I can in cash in our checking account to throw into our next investment, whether it's a syndication or whatever.

So we've got about $67 grand in cash, and that's about $50,000 in our checking account. And then I have a $15,000, like, safe account for our duplex in case something crazy happens with maintenance. In taxable accounts, we've got about 240, Roth IRA, $100, traditional IRA, $150, 401K,000. 760, HSA, we've got 60. We've got about 815 in real estate, and that's equity between or assets like our primer in the duplex, and then we have 370 in syndication. So on the asset side, we've got like 2.5.

That doesn't include our kids' 529 accounts or my pension, but I don't really know how to include those, nor I guess do I want to consider them available to me. So I left them out. And then for liabilities, we've got roughly five grand in credit cards. And then basically the two mortgages on our property and our duplex, which totals about $620. So we're roughly right about $2 million for a net worth. Awesome. And you pay off that credit card debt every month.

It's just like the balance you carry. Yeah. We try to charge absolutely everything we can to our chase cards to do some transitions for points and get three to one back on like the CSR rewards and stuff like that. Okay. Well, awesome. It looks like what I'm hearing you say is when you said 800 in real estate, was that the equity or asset value of the primary? Good question. That was the asset value of the primaries and the duplex.

So what's the equity value of your real estate? Just a sec. Because I was going to say, you're at 50-50 already if that's the equity, but it's not. Yeah. So in my primary, I have 75. And then in our duplex, we have 125. So we're about 200 in equity. Um, aside from, uh, having 50% of your cash covered or your expenses covered from passive cash flow, what, what are your goals? How come, what's the best way we can help you today? Yeah. So, you know, I've got a trip planned here in like two and a half years. So unfortunately, my dad passed away when I was pretty young. And so I have this like deep perspective that

FI is the only way you can buy back time. That's like legitimately how I view FI. And so I've been marching as hard as you. humanly possible to maximize my income, as has my wife, so that we can enjoy our kids' lives and the time we can get with them before they turn into teenagers and become little monsters, like everyone tells us. So we are planning a year abroad or two years abroad where we're going to travel around the globe to hopefully just have this outstanding experience. And so we're trying to figure out both from an asset allocation perspective and when we come back and transition hopefully to like more of a file lifestyle where we work what we want. I'm looking for advice from

you guys on asset allocation, and if you have any advice on basically what I should do with my after tax spending. So after tax today, I have basically 100% equities and real estate. And, you know, there's things like eye bonds out there where you can buy up to 10 grand per Social Security number, and those are fairly conservative. But I don't really have a conservative after tax position other than, you know, the cash flow that I get from real estate. So I think we've, We've got a fairly big nest egg after tax, but say we pulled the plug in two years in the market tanks, the only thing I've got is the cash flow from the real estate. So looking for your guys' advice on what you'd recommend for where to invest the savings

that we have over the next couple of years to put us into the best position. I'm not fully understanding the question. The question for the next two years is to put yourself in the best position from what perspective along like wealth building, stable patterns. passive cash flow. Like, what is the, what is the, are you going to take a year or two off and then go back to work when your kids hit the monster years in 1516? If we get a little bit more detail, I think we can, we can help a little bit more with

that. Yeah. So our plan is to file when we get back. So my hope is that we're in a good enough financial position that we can afford the year and the two years away. And then when we come back, you know, I want to be a, I want to be a mountain town guy that works as a ski patroller. and does local search and rescue stuff.

Like that would be my dream. So looking for, I guess, your financial advice for us to turn FI when we come back after that two years. But really the next two years, I've got 150K a year that I can save. And I don't really, you know, I can keep marching away at syndications, but I feel like I'm pretty aggressive. So I guess do you think I'm too aggressive going into FI, knowing that I'm probably going to work a little bit when I get back or what would you recommend?

Well, let's start with this. Your spending right now is 12,500 per month. Is that right? So 12,000 per month, that's going to be about $150,000 per year in spending, right, with what you're currently spending. So if we extrapolate that out, 150 times 25 is, one second. That's 3.75 million. So you're not five, and you're not, you're still about a million and 1.7 million away. from FI if you are thinking about the 4% rule as a basic as a basic rule of thumb, right?

And I think I there's a lot of reasons to like the 4% rule, which can include your pre-tax and post-tax net worth in order, you know, because there's that the 50% I'm sorry, it's 6040 debts to debt, equity to debt, balanced portfolio. It's proven or it's it has made it through 98% of, of historical situations, and it's a pretty conservative rule of thumb there. So the first question I think we should start with is, what's your spending going to be while you're doing this year or two abroad, and what do you think it's going to level out to long-term post-fi?

Yeah, so I looked at the expenses that we would be able to reduce once my kids come back and they're not in daycare. And it gets down to like $8,500 a month. So our housing price per month is somewhat inflated because we've done a fair amount of renovations to our primary. So between our refi and getting our mortgage down and then having kids out of daycare, which is 30 grand a year, we get down to like 8,500 a month as a retirement spend. So that's kind of what I'm targeting from a from a spend when we get back. And then we've basically budgeted for like $5,000 a month for the two years abroad.

Okay. So the $5,000, if you're saying $5,000 per month for the two years, broad. And are you still going to have your home, your mortgage payment and stuff from here? Are you going to rent it out? I'm planning on renting it out. Okay. So you're, you're five, at $5,000 a month. You're way past FI at $5,000 a month in spending. But, but if, again, doing the same basic math, if we're looking at $8,500 per month in expenses, that that translates to $2.5 million, right? 8,500 times 12 is 100 and some odd thousand times 25 is going to be $2,500. or 2.5 million. So you're still a few hundred thousand dollars short, something that you could potentially come up with over the next two years from this. But just kind of looking at the

very broad picture of basic, basic back of the napkin math, I think that there's, that that spending number is your biggest variable in this journey, right? I mean, if you can get that number down, then the rest of this becomes that much easier. And you have that much better of a shot at, you know, being able to spend just your passive income to cover those expenses. What are your thoughts on how to include real estate income into your, into your net worth statement or your, you know, what your fine number is? Well, I think, I think that I don't include real estate income in my net worth statement. I include the equity in that.

And one of the great things about real estate is that it typically delivers a bigger yield than an equivalent investment in stocks or bonds. So, for example, I think most real estate investors would be very disappointed with anything lower than a 6 to 10 percent cash and cash return from their assets with that. And so that's a mechanism here. In prior, in the preview to the show, while we were talking about this before getting started here, I think you had mentioned that you were uncomfortable with spending the principal, you know, literally selling off portions of your equity position.

Real estate's a popular alternative because you don't have to make that choice, and you can't make that choice. You can't sell off properties one by one to fund retirement. You have to spend just the income. So in a lot of ways, a well-managed real estate portfolio is more conservative than a stock and bond portfolio because you're only spending a minority of the cash, you know, or only spending a portion of the cash proceeds that the real estate deals are kicking off. And that's, I guess, when you talk about like the, the FI number, that's, you know, one of the things that I've been struggling with is, you know, I get to like the roughly 2.5 number. And then I take, you know, I took our $1,000 syndication income or $1,000 duplex income, multiply that by 12 and then multiply that by 25 to basically get a reduction in my FI number.

At least that's how I'm roughly thinking about it. So part of me in my mind was, you know, you can either look at it at a monthly level and get to that, you know, 50 to 75 percent passive income coverage or I was trying to figure out, you know, what does the net worth total need to be to try and get to that point? So the hard part for me is I'm trying to really focus on the time of when my kids are a certain age as the point that we transition so that I can essentially have the time with them before their lives get crazy. And if that means that we do our two-year trip and come back and need to go back to work, we're a-okay with that. Ideally, I would not want to, just because I've been grinding pretty hard for the last 15 years. But that's kind of the method behind why I was trying to drive to this three-year-out mark,

just so we can get them out and teach them as much as we can before they hit their teenage time frame. I think it's a fantastic goal. And I think there's no reason you can't achieve that. And most likely have plenty. I think even at this point, right, let's look about the 4%. rule. In most scenarios in history, if you started out with a portfolio and started withdrawing at a 4% threshold, you end up with more wealth at the end of the 30-year period than you began with. So even if you didn't, even if you left right now with your current portfolio and stopped

working for several years, odds are that you'd actually end up exiting that several-year period work hiatus with more wealth, you know, or it'd be closer because you're probably at like a 5% rule with $8,500 a month in spending. But it'd be pretty close and you'd probably be break-even or substantially better over that period with this. So I'm still dancing around your primary question here, which is how should you allocate your capital? But I'm trying to think about your overall situation and your goals to kind of come up,

come up with that approach. And I think it's going to be way more art. in science in your case, because it's going to depend on your risk tolerance and how you want to play some certain probabilities with this. Do you want to come in, you know, leave and have a perfectly stable forever financial position? Well, that's where, you know, de-leverage, you pay off some properties and you, you, you, you, shoot past that number or you're willing to, or you're willing to have that part-time work to help supplement some of that. Do you want to play the best long-term game, that might work out where you have way more wealth at the end of the

period. It also could mean that you're going to have to go back to work after a four or five-year hiatus with that. So I think those are the philosophical questions you've probably grappled with many, many times, and that we're not going to have, I don't think, a silver bullet for on the show today, but it's fun to think about and we can maybe begin zeroing in a little bit. Well, I have a lot of questions, and Scott, you've been doing all the talking. So now it's my turn. You said you said you don't want to sell your assets in retirement. So I'm wondering why you don't want to sell your assets in retirement. And are there any dividends in your after-tax stock holdings?

Yeah, I'm okay, I guess, selling assets. I just, you know, when you look at like the stock market, I never really understood how real estate and passive income actually worked. And now that I have the repeatable income, ideally for me, I'm like, If I can let that ride and have my real estate income be the conservative part of my portfolio, I like having the upside with the stocks. So, you know, I don't have anything heavy into dividends. VTSAX gives you, what, a quarterly dividend of whatever that is, but I have that kicking out

to my taxable account right now so I can do more real estate with it. So for me, you know, I'm mostly interested or driven right now about the syndication space, but I think that's because it's new and fresh to me, and I've been passively investing in the stock market for however long. So I'm a little nervous about continuing to run down the syndication space just because it is still pretty new to me, but I do like the diversification opportunities that it provides. Okay. So some of the issues that I have had personally with syndications is that it can be kind of hard to find a deal. They, the syndicators, present this really great picture, but then sometimes when you dive a little bit deeper, what they're saying

actually isn't all that good or what they're promising isn't actually realistic. So I have actually had a hard time finding some syndications. Are you able to easily find syndications that look really good when you start doing research in them? And have you said you've listened to all the episodes, have you listened to the Jay Scott Epic Two-Hour All About Syndications episodes? You needed to do that like a year earlier because I had to like self-educate on everything. And then he did this super eloquent podcast with you guys and basically walked through it in perfect detail.

So yeah, I did listen to that one. I saved it. It's one of my favorites. So I do have some fairly reliable performing, I would say like syndicators right now. They've been very trustworthy and they've delivered on their expectations so far. but that's taken, you know, three years of research and interviewing people that they've invested in and reviewing all their past deals. And they are still performing well. So I have, I have no reason to doubt them other than I just, it's a small group of people so far that I'm trusting enough to invest in.

So I'm basically concerned about branching out even further just because it feels risky knowing, you know, you've said it before Mindy and, and you've had some experiences. So I'm like, oh, am I going to get caught on one of these? And so the hard part is it's like the stock market's overvalued, real estate's overvalued, interest rates are increasing. So bonds are kind of a tarot place to put your money. So it's like I don't really like Bitcoin that scares me. It feels like a like a risk. So for me, it's like I've put some money in gold, but in the grand scheme of things,

there aren't that many safe places to put money right now. And so, yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. there aren't that many safe places to put money. If you want safe, we can give you safe options, but those don't come with exponential growth options too. So that's where the tradeoff is.

If you had your syndicators that you've been working with, do they have any new deals on the horizon? I would reach out to them and ask them because I'm having a hard time finding new deals that are worth doing right now. So if you have an opportunity to do that, that's, you know, that's kind of a, I don't want to say a no-brainer, but that seems like an easy way to continue with your diversification is investing with people that you trust who you have seen firsthand, they're doing great work. I would caution you to make sure that you're reading through all of the documents just as if you were joining for the first time again, because every deal is different. and you want to make sure that they aren't promising you the world. And then, you know,

oh, wow, that was really unattainable when you go back and look at it after you've lost money. You're like, what were they promising? Oh, yeah, that wouldn't have worked. So you mentioned a pension as well. Do you have a government pension or a private pension? It is a private pension. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to say that was episode 219 that we interviewed with Jay Scott on the syndications. episode 259, we talked about pensions with Grumpus Maximus. And this is a private pension. That can be a little risky. How stable is the company?

You know, is GE going to go out of businesses? Is IBM going to go out of businesses? I guess Apple doesn't have a pension. But like those old companies that have been around forever could have a pension forever. Or they could go bankrupt tomorrow. And, you know, the government pensions are more solid. And, you know, if they go out of business and there's a whole lot of problems. But can, do you have the option to buy out your pension?

Do you like your pension? Those are things that you're going to have to look into. But I think you said that kicks in at 65. Yeah, it kicks in at 65. It's a 116-year-old company. It's private. And they actually stopped offering pensions the year after I started. So, you know, when I started, I didn't even know what a pension.

was. You know, my mom, my mom, the advisor is like, this is amazing. And I had no freaking idea. I was just glad to have a job in 2007 when the market was tanking. And so they do have an estimator that you can basically run simulations as to, you know, if I quit right now and withdrew starting at age 65, what it's going to be. The pension is currently overfunded, which makes me feel somewhat good. But it's hard to know, like, if that's going to continue. I mean, they've got to obviously be obligated to those payments for a long time. But yeah, as of the last few years through COVID, we work in an environment where we've done very, very well.

And they've used a lot of that profit to put it back into ensuring that our pension is fully funded. So that makes me feel good about it. But everything I hear about non-government pensions makes me kind of think twice about it. But at age 65, that's like $39,000 a year that it's projecting back in, you know, into my pocket, which is an insane amount of money that I can't even, I don't even really believe it, but they, they don't offer a buyout option. So if I leave the company in, in two, three years, I need to remember when I turn 65 to to sign up and get it going again. So yeah, I've got a big red flag right there to make sure that I follow up on that when it's

when it's time. Yeah. If you leave the company, could you come back to the company? Would you continue to get the pension because you started when they still had a pension? Could you take, when you leave, could you take a leave of absence instead of quitting altogether? And these are just research opportunities for you. Yeah, that's a good question. Because that doesn't mean, that doesn't obligate you to come back, but you could come back. Maybe you go around the world and you spend two solid years with your kids and you're like, hmm, that was super fun.

Can't wait until later in school and I can go back to work. Like, you know, 24-7 with your kids is amazing. And then sometimes it's nice to have a little bit of a break. And I hope that doesn't make me sound like a horrible person, but it does. I've just spent two years with my kids. Yeah, we tried it out this summer. We did a two-week road trip with our kids in a camper van across Canada. And looking back on it, it was awesome.

In the moment, there was definitely some times where we needed to escape into the woods, one parent at a time to escape the craziness. That's for sure. It needs downtime. But, you know, that's just an idea if you can take a leave of absence because, I mean, you said you've worked there for 15 years. If you can take a leave of absence and then come back and decide, you know what, I do want to continue on with this job. Maybe that doesn't put a hiccup in your pension because I can see them saying, well, you left. So now you're a new hire.

So now we don't give you pensions anymore. So all you have is the 15 years of pension instead of whatever. you made a comment about an emergency fund, and I'm going to agree with you. I don't have an emergency fund, but I also have a lot of buckets I can pull from if I needed to fund an emergency. So I can fund an emergency, therefore I don't need an emergency fund. Does that make sense? I'm not explaining that, right? But yeah, I agree with you, but I do want to caution people who are listening. If you cannot easily fund an emergency, then you should.

have an emergency fund. And you even said you have $15,000 for your duplex should something big and wampy need to be replaced right away. Yeah, and I might need to revisit that once we get closer because I've also got a nice savings rate right now that allows us to float. You know, if something crazy came up, we could float, you know, just wait a month or put it on a credit card and pay it off the next month and it wouldn't destroy me. Yeah, who's managing the property right now? We just transitioned to a property manager a year ago because it was the first year, was pretty rough. We renovated one side. There was some work that wasn't done correctly, and the tenant had a fair amount of things that needed following up on. And so that was a lot for me.

And then for a modest fee, now it's easily managed in the last two years have been outstanding. It's been super seamless. Okay. So are you open to buying more real estate that way? Because with the syndication, you're making $1,000 a month, or the syndications, you're making $1,000 a month. and you will have the upside whenever they sell, but you don't really get much of a say when they sell, which is kind of my, you know, on the one hand, I'm super excited when the non-performing one sells. But on the other hand, I am kind of bummed

when the really well-performing one sells. Yeah, I just got a big influx of cash, but those monthly checks you were sending me were really nice because they were like over and above what I was expecting. So with a duplex that you own, you get to decide when you sell. You get the appreciation, the price appreciation. And in your market, is there price appreciation or is it more cash flow? It's in the area that I have one in. It's mostly appreciation. Okay. So the cash flow, like our rent increases haven't been that significant if you

look like the market rent in the area. But I've been struggling with exactly what you're mentioning, Mindy. I've got this one duplex. And, you know, I've been getting like an 11.5% return. year over year, which has been super reliable. And I have the mortgage in my name. And going through these syndications, I don't necessarily see as much control or direct influence as I can provide on the duplex. But I feel like I've done so much research in that space now that the amount of time it would be to find a good deal in the duplex space is kind of why I haven't gone that route.

I was actually considering selling my duplex to even go more passive. But it's like, I don't know what you guys think about that. It's like I'm getting an 11% return. Over the last two years, I've had zero maintenance issues. It seems like I should just set that and forget it and never really deal with it again. 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.

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A syndication investing will general, and there's a myriad of options out there, so you can go in a bunch of different directions. But on the one hand, you might get a preferred return of like 6 to 8 to 10%, depending on which syndicator you go with, and that's going to get you a certain yield, that you can predictably spend each month with the duration of that investment. And the second is you're going to be more like an equity partner where you're going to get very small yields in the initial years while the property is getting stabilized and turned around

and then a big payday when the property is sold for that. And so with one of those, you're going to need a cash flow situation or a big savings account to be able to weather those periods in between. And with the other, you're going to need a much greater net worth. Right? You're still going to need, you know, 1.5 million in syndication equity at 10% yield to get you that passive cash flow. And so that's where I kind of keep zwing back to the fundamentals with this is, I think what your question is, is am I close to being done? And can I, what's a conservative way to reposition my portfolio to cover my expenses with that? And I think my heart, maybe harsh or blunt reaction to that is it, you're not.

that close to being done with your current situation with this unless you can change that spending profile to something that is going to make more sense is going to make that math a lot easier right you have a tremendous net worth but you earn you said three hundred and thirty thousand dollars per year in income and i bet that that might be understating it to a certain degree if there's upside from 401k matches and your rental properties and and appreciation and and maybe other other things that are going on and me it I'll stop there for a second. Am I painting a reasonably close to accurate picture with the situation, TJ?

Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. If that's the case, then I think we come right back and say, I think it's back to that as fundamentals and saying, what is my spending truly going to be post-retirement when I come back from this trip? And how do I put that in a position that's at this level? And from there, okay, if I wanted to be $8,500 or $10,000 a month, then I need to figure out how or what I can do when I come back, that's conducive to my goal of being with my family,

but it might not be being a ski instructor in the winter. It might be, I'm going to start a small business that has the capacity to generate. I'm going to buy a small business for $200,000, that has a capacity to generate $150, $200,000 in income and gives me that lifestyle flexibility with that, right? So there's a lot of really good options. The world is your oyster. You're crushing it on the income front, you've got a fantastic net worth, you've got it in all the right places from all these different types of things. It's just not quite at that threshold to fund $150,000 in spending or even $100,000 super duper conservatively, so you'd never have to shut off the worry switch ever again.

How's that for try it on the situation versus in the overall situation? I love it. I think the hard part is we have so many dynamic things in the future. And we've been so aggressive with our investments up to this point that I feel like if we're, if we're going to go on this trip, that I should be more conservative going into it. But in the grand scheme of things, if I, if I continue to invest in real estate over the next few years, that passive income will increase and hopefully help supplement more of the trip and make when we're gone less of a stressor. Well, I think also the conservative side of thing is your plan after retirement is probably,

almost certainly within one spouse's income generation threshold. Sure. With this, you've built a net worth of $2 million already with this. So your position is, whatever you're doing is working to a tremendous degree. So I don't think you've taken undue risk with your investments, but that they just mean, they're not going to, if you've repositioned everything into a hyper-conservative portfolio, right? You'd have a two million, you have your two million bucks invested in something that might generate. a two or three percent safe yield. And at that point, two or three percent safe yield is just not going to come anywhere close to covering the expenses that you've outlined for your family or for your

long-term situation. So I don't think that would be a good option. That's a good option for, we had somebody on the show a few weeks ago, Mindy, who wanted to move to the Midwest and was super clear about that. They were on the East Coast, and they wanted to move to the Midwest, buy a home in cash and be done and live in a small town where they grew up and and raise their family with that. And like $2 million conservatively managed with a couple of paid off properties is perfect for that. They're absolutely.

You're done. Game over. Never have to worry again with that. Probably not for Park City, Utah or whatever, wherever you ought to retire as a ski bum. Yeah. And I think the hard part for me is I'm, uh, it's been so easy to invest aggressively. because I believe so much in the market going up. And as we even remotely come close to this transition,

I get terrified of what it actually means and if the market dropped 40% tomorrow. So I just need to continue to focus on the plan that's going, that's working and just be confident in the fact that I've got three more years. And when we do our trip, if we come back and I need to do another job that is also supplemented with some fun time in the mountains, that it'll all work out. I just, I'm a very, like, nitpicky person at all of my decisions that I've made with personal finance. So it's hard for me to make a change because everything's just been going well. And I'm anxious about making a mistake or going down the wrong path and undoing, you know, the last 15 years of, of acceptable or

successful performance. You know what I mean? Well, let me, let me try to, to psychoanalyze you here on the show. one extra degree here with this, right? I also think you generate such a tremendously high income that it's just like that's, that's always the ace in the hole in your financial situation is you, at any point, you can generate this $330,000 per year income, perhaps too, I don't know, whatever you're, whatever you're earning personally with that, but you can generate, because you can generate this extraordinarily high income, it just lets everything else kind of fall into place. You can have this nice bucket to spend.

And why shouldn't you? Your spending is not unhealthy relative to your income, right? And you do a great job on that front. And you're able to still max out your 401k, max out a bunch of after-tax buckets, invest in syndications, and fund your travel that you like with you and your family. And with that ace in the whole, why would you invest conservatively? Right? I mean, you've got, you know, I don't know exactly how old you are with this. 50 more years of prime production capability in you with this. So that, I think, is the challenge

with FI to a certain degree for someone like yourself is because that income generation is not effortless, but something that's so clearly within your capability set, and probably you're not even approaching what you would peak at if you were to stay at the job for another five to 10 years. It just makes that investment situation so difficult or not so difficult. It makes it so easy to comfortably invest in really aggressive alternatives versus when you leave the job, that's terrifying because what is the equivalent of a, I don't know, what's, what 25 times 330,000? That's a lot of money. Eight million bucks in income generation over the next 25 years, right? That's going to evaporate. That's what's terrifying.

and that should that is scary and that should be scary. So that's what that's the tradeoff or the the challenge of five for someone like yourself is you've won most of the most of the game. But the tradeoff is you're not going to generate that eight eight and a half million bucks from your income. And you're going to have to instead get comfortable with living off of a minority of the the cash flows from your investment portfolio with it. That's the philosophical challenge I think you're going to have to grapple with on this. And game is not over at $12,000 and a half thousand dollars in spending. It may be over $8,000 in spending, but it'll be fairly close. It's definitely over at less spending.

And it doesn't have to be over necessarily either. If you like what you do and do want to return to work when your kids reach the monster years, as we tell us. Well, and, you know, like that's the, that's the hard part. I feel like I'm, I'm struggling with giving up this great high side. an income opportunity as a tradeoff for the time with my kids. You know, and I see and my drive has been to try and come back from that trip and really work for a passion. So I'm trying my best to full throttle up until that point so that when I come back,

I can be lower stress and less anxiety. I think I carry a ton of mental health challenges because of my job and how much stress I put on myself. So there's a health factor to all of this that. you know, I haven't really come to grips with until, you know, lately. And, you know, it can be terrible. So it's like I, I'm in this tough spot where I've got this amazing income, but I'm scarred from all this history that I have with thinking I'm going to die at 55. So I'm like, kind of in this tough spot where I want to prioritize as much time as I can with my kids. And I can't

let go of the fact that I think when I come back, I can't go back to work. And, and that's totally a super easy option. And it's what everybody does and it's what I do every day to day. So I should be a little less hard on myself that I'm like a hundred miles an hour to this finish line when I'm arbitrarily creating it for myself. Okay. It sounds like I'm talking to my husband right now. Uh-oh. I don't own any Tesla. He did not have this level of income. And we, I still considered us to be high income. And we still consider us to be high income. And we, spent significantly less. And he was having a really hard time coming to terms with quitting this well-paying job because he grew up where financially insecure. His dad was a union

electrician in Chicago and all summer long he'd work. And then every winter, he would get laid off. I mean, late clockwork. And at one point, his parents sat him and his sister down and said, hey, dad lost his job again. And they're like, yeah, whatever. We're not going to lose the house and they're like, well, we don't think we're going to lose the house. And he was like, wait, what? I didn't even know that was a possibility that we could lose our house. So he's like, why would I quit this amazing paying job when I grew up financially insecure? Why would I, like, who am I to say, no, I don't need to work anymore? So he really struggled with that. We hit our fine number and he continued to work. And I think he worked for another year or a year

and a half, the numbers are now kind of hazy. And after I had a job and he was able to leave because I had a job. As soon as he left, like a week later, he's like, man, I should have done this so much sooner. And I have all these things I want to do. And the money has, I mean, yes, he calls himself wife, fie, which is fine. I do have a job. That's another good option for you. Yeah. Yeah, right. Only whatever you have to work. Maybe you can flip flop. But he wasn't able to, he wasn't able to leave until there was a safety net.

And you have a really good safety net. You make $330,000 a year. That's a lot of money. And it can be difficult to change your thinking to where you feel like, oh, well, I would, why do I need a budget? I make so much money. But I'm right there with Scott. I didn't get a chance to harp on you about your. spending yet, but I see that as like on the surface, you make a great income. You don't need to budget,

but you don't want to continue to work forever. I challenge you to start tracking your spending very, very carefully and see what are you spending on that you could stop spending on that doesn't have any effect on your life. How often are you going out to restaurants? Can you call that back and not have a difference in your life. I'm trying to see. You've got $1,200 for shopping. I don't know what that is. I'm judging you, but I'm not judging you, but I'm not judging you. Like, this is something you need to look at. Food and dining, 957 for four people, that's probably going to be okay. Health and fitness, you've got almost $500. What is that for? Is that for a personal trainer every single week? Do you really need that? Or is that for, like, some hoity-to-y gym membership, is there another gym membership that, you know, they still have

weights there too or whatever you're doing? Bills and utilities, that's probably not going to be able to be something you can cut back on. Entertainment, we've got $450. That's something that could be cut back on. You know, instead of going out to the movies every Friday night, maybe you have Friday night, we make pizza at home and play games. Our kids love making pizza at home because then they get to make the pizza and it's super fun for them. And they love playing the games, like board games and stuff, because they're just sitting there and we're having fun together. You said travel is non-negotiable.

Don't talk about it. Don't touch it. I even type that in because that's $1,400. How much could you cut that back and not change your life? Like what does that mean? Are you flying someplace every single month? Does that, you know, and these are all research opportunities for you. You're not responsible, you know, you don't answer to me.

There is something that you put in when you applied. You put uncategorized $2,000. That seems like a really good place to look into. And I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just giving you ways to look at this because I'm looking at my spending. I'm doing this year-long spending tracker, publicly tracking my spending. You could follow along at biggerpockets.com slash Mindy's Budget. This is my first month. We're recording this in January. This is my first month.

And one, two, three, four. I already have five categories that I am over budget in, simply because I've never, or I, not never, I haven't tracked it in a really long time. And some weird things happened. Like, I needed a new windshield washer pump. And that's why my auto is going overboard right now, but there are things that, like, is, now it's a game to me. How low can I get my spending? And it isn't because I'm in fear of running out of money. It's because I want to make sure that my FI number is actually doable. I planned for this level of spending.

And last year was this level plus, like a whole other level. And it happens when you don't try. track it, it all of a sudden just kind of goes away. So I'm wondering what sort of spending you can cut out without changing your life. I mean, you could cut out a whole lot and change your total life and, you know, peanut butter and jelly and rice and beans and you never go anywhere and you don't have any fun. And that would suck and you wouldn't want to do it. And you would get a lot of pushback from your family. But I am in agreement with Scott that I think that there are a lot of things to cut in the expenses that would help you feel better about the delta between what you're

spending and what you're bringing in and your net worth versus your fine number. And you could go be a ski bum in Park City, Utah, where it's going to cost a lot of money to buy a property. And but when that's your only expense, like you've got $3,000 in mortgage payments where you're at currently, you could get a really sweet house in Park City, Utah for $3,000 a month. At the beginning of this whole conversation for the last couple of minutes here, we said we talked about margin of safety. And your margin of safety is your job. You don't have a good margin of safety, in my opinion, in your personal financial situation outside of that. You have a four-month

emergency reserve, which is good, but it's not, it's going to keep you up at night if you're thinking about quitting your job in that context with this. Your passive income is $2,000 a month outside of your retirement accounts with that. And so that's also going to keep you up at night, I think overall with that. And there's two ways to build out that runway component of this, right? One is to spend less because that allows you to accumulate more. And the other is capital allocation, right? Actually, spending less does two things, right?

It allows you to, if you cut your spending from 12 to 8, your current emergency reserve goes from four months to six or seven months, right? Just see how you do that. And then the other way to do it is to allocate your capital and drive that passive income. And we just said that in order to cover your expenses here, $1.5 million in real estate equity, generating a 10% cash and cash yield, which is either going to take a lot of work or put you into a high risk investment category if you're going to get that in a preferred rate in a way that you can

kind of predictably rely around. That's a hard goal. That's 10 more years, you know, or six to 10 more years of kind of what you're doing with a lot of this stuff. The other component to what Minnie and directly related to what Mindy was just going through is if you can go by line through your spending, you don't have to make all of those changes today. Your situation doesn't call for it.

You earn plenty of income to justify those different types of things. and, you know, like, I get it, right? You can't take a vacation. You can't go skiing on Tuesday, on Tuesday with your job, right? Like, I'm almost in a pretty similar situation to you in some ways with this. If you want to take a nice long vacation, you've got to do it over a prime three-day holiday weekend when rates for your travel are going to be through the roof, right? You're going to go visit your family for Christmas.

You've got to take the flights, you know, or Thanksgiving. you've got to take the flights around those times to make sure you can meet that that holiday expectation. Well, when you retire and become a ski bum in Park City, you can take your, that, like, that travel expense is going to change because you don't need to take that vacation on that prime three-day weekend, right? You don't need to take the flights the day of with that, the day before Thanksgiving and come back on Saturday or Sunday of that long weekend.

You can do it on your own schedule and combine another trip or something like that. So if you can really go line by line through those expenses and say, no, no, no, not what am I, it's non-negotiable for me today because I need it to preserve my sanity in the next two years. Fine. I get that 100%. I can empathize. But also, I think about what's next in two or three years where that budget may be very negotiable, right?

And if that's the cost of sleeping well at night and feeling you can have those two years or three years or five years or however long it is with your kids fully present, then maybe that's the cost of it. And I think that's a way to think through that expense category, which I think is the biggest leverage in your peace of mind category. It's certainly not the biggest leverage in your, how do I get to the maximum net worth in 25 years? But if you're trying to be done in two years, that will be the case. And then lastly, to wrap all that up, I would say that the concept of flexibility, which we've talked about a few times on the show, I think is something that you should really internalize and think through because your situation currently is not very flexible. In spite of the

great net worth you've built with this, you only have four months of runway, four or five, depending on how you want to think about that passive cash flow. And I think if you could build it out to a year or two years, you're going to feel a whole lot better looking at this the other side of it, even if it may not be the highest return use of capital. you have there. And that, that, um, flexibility can come in the form of additional cash or equivalence. Um, with that, it can come in the form of just slowly building out your passive cash flow, like you just said. And it can come in the form of reducing your expenses. A combination of all three is going to be the most powerful. You guys are awesome. So I, the spending, the spending concept,

uh, concepts or comments are awesome. I, um, I was so focused on like the big three in the beginning. So like paid off our cars and I'm driving. like a 2000. I've got like a 300,000 mile car on it because I have this like love for cheap vehicles and it still works. So why buy a new one? And I refied our house and focus on like the big things. But then that's kind of where I stopped. So over the last like four months, I, I've been focusing pretty heavily on trying to get at some of these smaller categories. And I don't know how familiar you guys are with mint, but there's that like view of your net worth and then you can swipe to the side and you actually see your monthly spending. I have never really looked

at that on the spending side. I've always been like looking at the net worth. What can I do to maximize it? And now that they've got that stupid little dotted line that says you're $113 more than last month, that's like what I look at every morning now. So I can see every transaction so I can start to challenge myself. So I've been doing really good for four months, but our 12 month average is still the 12 grand.

So we've got a couple house remodeling things that are going to fall off. And then I'm hoping that I can see some continuing. stability as we focus on being more intentional with some of these things that we're not on today. You know, we're just, we're doing whatever we want. And aside from the big housing car and I guess those are the big ones that we've done stuff on, we haven't really made a bunch of effort on the others. So it seems like an awesome two years. I need to keep, keep grinding on understanding exactly where each of those, each of those dollars are going. Yeah. And again, you don't have to have like, oh, I got to cut back tomorrow. You don't need to do that with your current situation. You just need to do it. You need to be ready to do it when you leave your job. And you're going to be trading, hey, I'm not going to earn that high income. So I need to be totally in control of my expenses when I leave the job in order to do that. So it may not be practical for you to run a super tight household ship if the hours are crazy long in the short run. I don't know. But can hurt. I have a couple more comments before we get out of here. You asked if you should sell your duplice.

to fund more syndication investments or if you should look for more duplexes. And I would say, reach out to your real estate agent and have them set you up to receive listings because if some smoking hot deal comes on the market and you're not getting these listings, you're not going to know about it. I would be prepared to act on something because you know what you paid for this property. You know what the rents come in at. I would even make it kind of a tight little circle for where you're looking and just be prepared to act if some amazing deal comes up.

And if your duplexes on a street with other duplexes, I would send a letter to all of the owners of all of those duplexes around you. Hey, if you're thinking about selling, I'm looking to buy and see what happens. I mean, if they come back and say, hey, we want $4 million for it. You'd be like, yeah, list that. Here's my agent. But if they're like, hey, we want $4 more than you paid for yours, okay, that sounds like a great deal. How can we make this?

How can we connect? But if you're not looking for a deal, you're not going to know if there's a really great deal out there. While you continue to look for syndication deals from your trusted syndicators, as well as maybe branching out into other syndicators. Because maybe somebody has a great deal. I am personally not super excited about syndications right now, but that's just because I'm not finding these. So as soon as we stop talking, as soon as we stop recording, I'm going to be like, who's your syndicator? Another thing to consider about the real estate is that when you leave your job or on sabbatical or whatever that is with this, you're no longer going to be able to as easily get mortgages in the way that you're used to.

So that would be a vote in favor of, it doesn't really change the game, syndication versus a regular real estate investing, but it might be a small vote in favor of waiting that, just a nudge higher in your overall portfolio, because that will be an option available to you now very powerfully in a way that it won't be or may not be if you carry through your plan in a few years. Yeah, we've actually been considering if we could align on the long-term location where we want to live? Do we buy that property now while our income can cover it and then rent it out for the two years while we're gone so that we can get some income and then not have to deal with

getting a mortgage on it when we move back? That's a really good point. Great. So you're already considering that whole thing. That's great. Okay, DJ, is there anything else we can talk about before we let you go today? I don't think so. This was an awesome conversation, you guys. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, I feel like we gave you a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to talk with your wife about and a lot of things to, you know, look into, which is kind of the whole purpose of the show. So this was great. This was, I think it was a great conversation. Thanks for bringing this all to the table.

I think it was, it ended up being a tough, a tough conversation. I was optimistic coming in that there would be, oh, we just put invest here, boom, boom, done to done. But I think it ended up being a little bit more nuanced than that. But I think, I hope it was helpful. And I think it was, it was honest from from my perspective about how I think, how I'm, how I'm reading your overall situation. Yeah, it was hard.

You know, I have a lot of like internal challenges with myself and like getting to here and being successful and not letting the family down and being accountable to being successful. So great to have you guys. Give me some coaching. You're amazingly successful. You're crushing it with all this stuff. You're certainly not letting anybody down. And life is good. And you've got some fantastic options downstream here.

So you're almost have. you're actually not even that far away. If we were doing it for five more years, you'd be able to probably get to your goal of just passively funding the entire thing at $150,000. So you're doing great. And you shouldn't be worried about anything that would give you an indication to the contrary because this is a crushing it financial position. It doesn't get much better than this.

Thanks again, guys. I appreciate you so much. Thank you, T.J. We'll talk to you soon. Okay, that was T.J. and that was a lot of fun. Scott, I have to say, I am actually kind of surprised that you suggested he'd look at his spending. You were the one who brought it up first, and this isn't something that you frequently suggest, whereas it's something that I'm almost always thinking of when we're

doing these Finance Friday. So I found that very interesting. Yeah, you know, I found that it might be just a product of the guests who come on the show, right? And, you know, it has appeared to me for, you know, a couple, at least for some of the guests in the past, that, hey, before I'm going to apply to be on the BP Money Show, I'm going to really clean up my spending and really get, you know, command of that, sit on up for a few months and then apply and then come on with that. And I think that TJ is obviously not spending irresponsibly or anything, but I think he presented a more kind of honest view of his finances than maybe some of the folks, and I don't mean that anyone's being dishonest. I just mean that as like that, you know, I would probably

want to clean up my expenses before coming on the bigger pockets money. show and then talking about my expenses with that. And I'm not saying he didn't or did anything irresponsible. I just think we got a more, a picture that's more reasonable for most people who are earning TJ's income. That's probably what they're spending to a large degree. And it has major implications in his, he came in and when I was looking at the notes prior to the show recording, I was like, okay, this is, yeah, I think this is an investment case here. But when we kind of started talking about, oh, in two years, I want to be done. I want to retire forever with that. Well, then it comes back to the very simple basic math of early retirement. And it was like,

I just don't think we're that close on that front. And we could be if we were able to knock out 50% or reduce the spending by a third. We're almost there. And it makes a huge, huge difference in the amount of wealth accumulated, the amount of flexibility he might feel about his situation and the amount of passive income or wealth that he needs to sustain permanent early financial independence. Yeah, I agree. And I really, I can really see where somebody at his level of income is coming from. Well, why would I want to look at my spending? I have so much left over from my income and I still get to do whatever I want. I'm doing great with my investing. I'm doing great with, you know, everything. Why do I need to look at my spending? And that's when your spending starts to creep up.

So like I said earlier in the show, I am doing a year-long spending track, and it is very eye-opening five, not five, I'm sorry, what are we, two weeks in, three weeks into the spending tracking, and I'm already over-budget in five categories because I have no idea how much I'm spending in these categories. And the reason I don't have any idea is because I haven't been tracking it for a long time, even though I do this podcast every day for four-plus years. and I tell people all the time to track their spending. I haven't been doing it in a while. So I am a big, fat hypocrite. But now that I'm tracking it and I do, I want to do it publicly because I want people to see it's not that easy and it's okay to make mistakes. And you know, you just learn and move on.

And, you know, sometimes things come up. Like my pump in my car, my windshield wiper pump broke. Of course it broke during the spent public spending tracking. It didn't break before then. when I could have just not showed everybody that I'm going over my budget. But it just, you know, I think it just highlights that the power of tracking your spending. So I'm excited for him to do that, too. I mean, Mindy, is it work?

Not really. Oh, I thought you're going to say the opposite. What do you think I was to say? It's work tracking your spending. You got to set up a system. It's going to take you a few hours and maybe a few spins to figure out whether you like Mint or Wineab or person. capital or a spreadsheet or your notepad or whatever. And if you like one, maybe your spouse doesn't like the other one. And then you've got to actually go back and track all the expenses.

And at first, it's like you're not doing it all the time. So at the end of the month, you have to go in and be like, what the heck was that one? And what the heck was that one? And what was that? And then if you, once you set up a system and do it, you know, a few times a week and just click, click, click, click, categorize the expenses, you can look at it in 10 minutes and know where everything's going. And you've got that power. But it's, it's, it's a good. Probably it might take you 30 hours to really figure it out and get into the groove with this kind of stuff. And that's real work in your free time with this. I didn't take that much time, although I did have an ace in the hole. So Mr. Wow from Waffles on Wednesday was actually

visiting me over Christmas. And he set up my spreadsheet with all the pivot tables and all the fun things that he set up. So it was very easy for my spreadsheet to display the way that it is displaying at biggerpockets.com slash Mindy's budget. That is all Mr. Wow. Kudos to Mr. Wow. But I'm also using his mobile spending tracker. So once we sat down and did that, put it on the phone. It is with me all the time. And it's actually very easy. My husband and I are on the same page. That's a really good point, Scott, that I didn't even think of because we've always been on the same page, it didn't occur to me that other people might not get on the same page with their spouse about tracking their spending. But I just wanted to be able to track it. If I'm not really like really good

friends with one of the world's most prominent budgeting experts on this who can come over to my house and set me up with a system that is perfect from end to end with it might be a little more difficult. But we probably can solve that to a certain extent. We should probably put a invite them if they're willing to help us with a YouTube video on how to set that up. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'll reach out to him and see if he will do a YouTube video for us for how to set up the spreadsheet. Because, yeah, his site's down right now. He got hacked.

Hopefully by the time this comes out, his site is back up and running, especially since we're talking about it. So I'll include yet another link to his wedding tracker. Hopefully, a spreadsheet can't get hacked either. Yeah. Don't take that as a challenge. I don't know. Yeah, but there's, you can see. follow along and it is like it's just it's really eye-opening when you see where your money's going.

So you can make changes mid-month, mid-week. And now it's a challenge. Now it's a game. Who can spend the last, the least? How little can we spend this month? I'm actually doing great on my groceries and I'm super excited about that. But I know in future months it's not going to be so great. So follow along.

Okay, Scotch, we get out of here. Let's do it. From episode 278 of the bigger pockets money, podcast. He is Scott Trench, and I am Indy Jensen saying, see you on the slopes.