Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Finding Financial Freedom with Gabe Bult | Clutterbug Podcast # 148

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

In today's podcast, I'm talking with Financial Minimalism expert Gabe Bult about how he achieved complete financial freedom in his mid-twenties. Prepare to be super inspired!  You can watch more Gabe on his Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/GabeBult   You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're talking about something a little bit different today. We're talking about financial freedom. We're talking about financial minimalism, which is a term I had never heard of before. You are going to find this so fascinating. But I hope that you take from this something a little bit deeper, even if you're not in a place where you want to, I mean, who doesn't want more money? But maybe this isn't a huge sort of priority for you right now. But there is a message in today's podcast that I hope that you hear no matter what area of your life you want to improve the fastest way to get there the fastest way to see success is a mindset shift and a mindset shift can happen subconsciously just by consuming sort of information from other people about that specific topic whether it is finances

or organizing or anything in your home that you want to make an improvement in, anything in your life that you want to make an improvement in, listening to podcasts, reading self-help books, listening to audiobooks while you drive has a profound impact on your life. And that is undeniable. Hey, clutterbugs, welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. I am really excited to share this incredible guest with you today. I'm a huge fan. This is Gabe. Bolt. And if you have not seen his YouTube channel, I'm almost scared to share it with you because it's so good. Don't leave me, you guys. Do not leave me. Absolutely incredible, motivational, beautifully shot and the most incredible message. So welcome, Gabe. Thank you so much for being here.

Wow, that was quite the intro. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm super excited about this. I stumbled upon your YouTube channel probably six months ago. I don't know why. I hadn't seen it before, but I came across it. And the first thing I thought is, oh my gosh, this guy has a degree in film. This is so beautiful and produced incredibly well. And your message is so clear. Your timing is impeccable. So as a YouTuber, I'm just like in awe of your YouTube talent. But then I got, I got this note that said here, it says you, you didn't finish school. and you have no, so tell me, did you go to film school? No, no, I didn't finish high school even.

Like, I'd never picked up a camera until I started my YouTube channel. And even then, like, the first video I posted, I didn't know how to edit, so it's just unedited. And it's like horrible. But yeah, no, it was all self-taught, like watching YouTube videos of like Peter McKinnon and Casey Nystatt and people like that. And then just, like, copying what they did. And that's kind of how I learned everything. I'm like, see people who are successful, copy what they do, make a bunch of mistakes. and then, you know, move on to other stuff. So yeah, it's been fun. Well, you have a talent because I

also watched all of those people and didn't learn squat. You know, I'm like, oh, that sounds great. I'm going to try it. No, it's shaky and horrible and terrible. You're like, you have these pants like wrap around your head. Stop it. It's ridiculous. Your YouTube is gorgeous. But I mean, that's just the cherry on top because your message is really incredible. And I feel like we kind of actually have a lot in common. So I left home at 15, dropped out of high school. made a lot of really terrible choices, struggled financially for a really long time, I was working three jobs. I claimed bankruptcy in my mid-20s.

I'm just going to be honest because credit cards were a thing. And now I never heard of it called financial minimalism before, but I live way below my means because I never want to go back to a place where I have to worry about money. I want to be able to quit my job today and never worry about it. about money again. And I'm almost there. I am there, really. I could absolutely be there. But you're a baby. So like, I'm a old lady. I learned this from years. You are a child. So this is incredible. And I just, I would love to hear more about your story and how you got started with all of this. Yeah. So, yeah, about like seven years ago, I, I was, whatever, how old am I right now? So maybe, yeah,

When I was like 18 or 19, my mom recommended a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that's kind of like what started everything. That's my first financial book I ever read too. Oh my gosh. Okay. Sorry. No, I love that book. It is super good.

So that kind of got me down this whole path of like, oh, wait a minute. I don't have to like because that was like, do I go to college? Do I get my GED? Like go back because I didn't finish high school. And then I was like, no, there's like other ways to do this. And then that led me down reading. Like I've probably read, you know, hundred something finance books and podcasts and YouTube videos and just all this stuff.

So that's kind of what got it started. I got my first rental when I was 22. I was going to ask if you took the rental because that's like such a core rich dad, poor dad message. Exactly. Yeah. No, and it just made so much sense that if you can buy a multifamily, live in one unit, rent the

other two out, now you have no housing expenses and you can just save everything you make because like that's 30% of your income that you're saving. and then we did that again a year later and now we're on our third one now. And mostly just from doing that, I was able to leave my job. My wife was able to leave her job. She doesn't work right now. So just in like three to five years of doing real estate investing, I think like anybody can leave their job.

So it's, I really love that and got excited about that. And right after we got married, I started my YouTube channel because I was all into the fire movement, which is financial independence, retire early movement. And I was so excited. And I told everybody that I knew about like all the stuff I was learning. And then I like ran out of people. So I started making YouTube videos about it. And then a couple did well.

And that's kind of how that all worked. But yeah. I love that. And you have a really beautiful like self help message. I also read a lot of rich dad poured in all those books and was terrified by the idea of buying rental property. Because I didn't know anything about it. And it just scared me. And so I took the save 10% like pay yourself first approach, which was.

arguably much slower like three years you're you're amazing it was it was much slower but I'm such an impulsive person I have ADHD and I know you were diagnosed with ADHD too and so it went like generally I'm generalizing but people who have ADHD are impulsive and it's like I get paid $100 today I'm spending $100 tomorrow it's like it's hard to think about long term it's it's very much like in the moment and so that's very admirable that you did that but for me I I had to take the different approach of I got my paycheck. I immediately put things into a savings account that I couldn't touch unless I got my lazy butt to the bank and manually transferred things over, which is never going to happen because

I'll forget about that before I get in the car. And I was able to save my way to financial freedom and independence. You took a shortcut. I'm very impressed. But are you in a place now? Like, are you a big saver too? Did you take that part from all of those books as well? Yeah.

So I was in the top most frugal person you'll like meet for the most part. So we lived in this apartment for free. You know, we had like an old beater car, went out to dinner like three times a year, like cooked everything at home, the cheapest stuff that we could find. All my clothes were from the thrift store. Like everything was extremely money saving because when I was younger, like at a certain point, like around 2008, my dad like lost all his income. and we were like we had no money. So I think I still have that where I have some money now and I still, I'm extremely frugal because I'm like, I never want to get in a place where if YouTube goes away, if the rentals

burned down, if whatever happens, I don't want to ever have to worry about this with my family or whatever or ever have to like go back and get a job. So I think frugal living, especially when you're not making much money, it helped me like so much. That's how I got enough to actually buy the first rental. And then the second and the third, if I had instead bought a new car, I'd probably still have a job. So like, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I drive used vehicles too. We've never owned a brand new vehicle in our lives. And we're living in a 1,400 square foot house. That's way too small.

That's been paid for for years and years and years. And I'm like, we're working out of here. We have employees. I'm like, I need a bigger house. My husband had a very similar experience to you where at 16, his parents, his dad lost his job. They lived in a huge gorgeous, like I'm like a mansion house. They had boats and Cadillac. They went bankrupt and lost everything. And so my husband wouldn't spend anything at all. Like, he's so through golden frifty, whereas I was like, woo, yolo, let's spend every penny. I know I'm working three jobs like a sucker, but I'm going to spend every dime. And he's the one who introduced me to all these amazing financial books. And it was a mindset shift that came from

just having that message repeatedly beat into my head. But for some of the same, who's listening right now who is of like the traditional mindset, which is money is made to be spent and happiness comes from the more you have. You're kind of making it in life. And you know, you've really made it when you have a hot tub sort of mentality. How can we make a shift? What are some little things, I guess, that people listening can do to sort of start creating that nest egg and make that shift from I want to have the stuff to I want to have the money? well first off when we bought this house it had a hot tub so I do have a hot tub now but I have a hot tub too I'm terrible terrible do you go in your hot tub do you use it oh yeah yeah we use

it all the time because I'm like well I'm never going to buy another hot tub and this one's already here so I might as well use it so we get our use out of that but yeah small shifts I mean for me it is like reading like I obsessed about that I listened to books and podcasts like all that like constantly had it going in my head and that really gave me so much motivation. I think like you can, there are like saving money tips and stuff, but there's also, if you see by, you know, studying the fire movement or reading a book like Set for Life or Rich Dad Poor Dad or a couple others like that, that you can reach freedom and leave your job and have the life of your dreams and we're going to be traveling for three months in a couple months here and like just be able to

do stuff like that, then that gives you the motivation. That shifts your mind to that to like, I'm not sacrificing anything. I am totally happy whether I cook at home or I go out to dinner, whether I have a $5 shirt or a $300 shirt. That doesn't really matter. What matters to me is freedom. So if that's what matters to you, it makes every decision for you by saying,

you know, like what's the best use of this money? Is this going to buy me freedom or will I have to work another day because I'm making this purchase? And when it's like that and you see how close the finish line is, for me, I just get excited about it. And I just don't want to spend money because I'm like, but it slows me down on my journey.

And the journey is like super fun. So yeah. I love, I mean, I'm a high school dropout as well. And for me, it was self-help books. Is this, does this make sense? Like constantly just hearing other people's message of who've had success, it like leaked in there or something. It stuck.

It was like a tool for my toolbox just rattling around in my, in my noggin. And as someone who, I. I never went to post secondary education, but I'm learning all the time from others. So I'm constantly looking to self-improve by looking to these gurus. Like I listen to Mel Robbins all the time and her podcast. And Tony Robbins, he's old school, man, but nothing fires me up like some good old Tony Robbins. And Dave Ramsey, I listen to his podcast all the time when just doing things. And then I notice subconsciously I'm making these more positive, healthy choices because of this mindset shift.

So, and you are the same. And you know what's so bizarre. All the most successful people that I know in my life are people who consume self-help books, podcasts, watch it on YouTube. What the deuce? Is this the secret? Gabe, is this the secret? It might be. It's so weird because I keep meeting people like I went to Vid Summit this year and met like a bunch of other finance YouTubers. We're all like the same people. It's like we watch the same stuff. Like even what you're saying. like we watch all the same stuff, listen to the same stuff, have the same mindset, similar background. We probably spend our days similarly. We have ADHD, like all this stuff. And I think that is like having a growth mindset is really like you could reach any one of the levels that probably we've reached and be like, okay, this is cool.

I'm going to chill now. I deserve a car. I deserve whatever. But if you do that, like after a couple months, you're bored. Like when I left my job and, you know, I didn't work and you're like, you just play video games. So like, okay, you're like a month later, you're like, I'm not for. filled anymore. I might have stuff or time or whatever, but unless you're building something and

growing, like, I get depressed, like honestly. So I think that is one of the keys is like to brainwash yourself in a positive way. Subscribe to all those people on Instagram and YouTube that you see them every single day. You're reminded of it. And you'll just, your life will transform just because that's what you're consuming. Like what goes into your brain like kind of, it changes you. At least it, you know, it did for me. I don't know. It did for me too. And honestly, all the people who I'm friends with, all the people I talk to who are successful, it's the same thing. It isn't through people think it's hard work and determination and self-discipline. I have zero self-discipline. I'm the most impulsive. I mean, I almost like when I grow up, the one life skill I want is self-discipline. I don't think

I'll ever have that. And yet, despite that, I've had tremendous success financially and in my career and in my personal life. And I'm like, what is the secret? I really think it's this, it's consuming this amazing content that's so positive, that's so uplifting, that has this great message that I'm doing these acts without even realizing that I'm doing it. And when I first started my journey on YouTube, I was a slob. I couldn't get my dishes done on a daily basis. Like I had so much clutter. And I started consuming a lot of books on decluttering and getting organized. And I trained my brain. I learned. I think education doesn't stop at high school.

And it doesn't have to be like us crushing books and studying. It can be literally us just driving while listening to a podcast. Exactly. Yeah, that's what I used to do when I had at one point I had a full-time job. I was part-time real estate. I started my YouTube channel and then I was also like doing the rentals. And at my job, I would drive for like eight hours a day and I would just listen to it like a book a day. And it, yeah, it was so much motivation.

And then also, I think it's like the habits as well. Like I read this book called The One Thing. And it just talks about having your overall goal, whatever that is for me, it's YouTube. And every day for the past four or five years, how long I've been doing it, I do one thing every day for YouTube. Today, it was shooting a video. Tomorrow it might be shooting a thumbnail. The next day reading a book to research something. And it's just doing one small thing every single day.

And you stack that for years and your life changes dramatically, whether that's going to the gym or eating healthy, whatever it is. just taking that like building systems and small things that you do for a long period of time. It's not like crazy stuff that people get intimidated by. It's like the small changes that you just become, that's what I do. That's who I am, you know? Yeah. I 100% do. Whether you're starting with your home, it's like I'm just going to never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.

Or when it comes to your finances for me, I just set up an automatic transfer that my money just gets transferred into savings. I only had to have self-discipline for five minutes to set that up with my bank online. And now it's just this consistent thing that happens. Atomic Habits is my, like, that is the book for me that just made such a huge impact on my daily life because I'm such an all or nothing person. I look at like, my weight is something I definitely struggle with. And I'm like, I got to eat vegetables and I have to like run and what the heck. And I got to, it's like, no, Cass, you just have to meal plan, right? You just have to like write down what you're going to eat for dinner and and stick to that.

It's not a big deal. I only have to have discipline a little bit and it makes a big impact. I'm still eating candy, Gabe. Listen, but it's all about those small microchanges we can make. I'd like to take a second to thank KiwiCo for sponsoring today's podcast. KiwiCo is a subscription service where every month you're going to get a different crate filled with really fun activities for kids. These are things like STEM projects. so science, technology, engineering, math, and art, really hands-on super cool activities that your

kids can do and it's delivered to your door every single month. I feel like this is a perfect holiday gift instead of getting a toy from the store that's going to be chucked to the side, why not give them something hands-on, a project that's going to teach them creativity, independence, and really a lifelong passion. We've been doing the science of cooking and my 10-year-old is now obsessed with making delicious recipes in the kitchen, and I'm so grateful to Kiwi-Co for that. Right now, you can get your first month free on any crate line at kiwi-co.com forward slash clutterbug. That's your first month free at K-I-W-I-C-O-com slash clutterbug. So, Gabe, you are very young and you've made huge, incredible sacrifices to get the life of your dreams,

but I'm curious, how does your wife feel about your extreme frugality? So I also have a daughter and she's six months old today, actually. But yeah, my wife wasn't, she hadn't like heard about any of this stuff until I, she met me. But honestly, just having like open and honest conversations about stuff and then she saw, like, we wanted to have kids and now we have a kid. And I was like, if we can sacrifice and live in this little apartment that we're renovating for like a couple of years because like you get one apartment, you renovate it, get the next apartment, you renovate it while you're living there, all this like working constantly. Like in a couple of years, you'll be able to, you know, stay home with and I'll be able to stay home and we'll never miss a soccer game. We'll be able to travel. We'll be able to do anything we want to do with these kids.

will have insane freedom if we can sacrifice for a few years. And when I kind of explain stuff to her, she's like, that totally makes sense. I don't care about going out to dinner, you know, 20 more times. If I do or don't, I won't be any happier in a year. But I will be if we don't have to work. And then, you know, you compound that, you know, I use going out to dinner. But it's 50 different things that are small that really add up to tens of thousands a year that you're saving and then investing that.

And, you know, like a lot of it's scary. And I don't know. It's a different lifestyle for sure than most people. But then also we're in our mid-20s and we're also living a very different lifestyle. It's because we did that for just a few years. Like it's not really a sacrifice. That's incredible. I'm in my mid-40s.

And so if you're listening to this and you're like, must be nice. I miss the boat. I'm older. There's never, it's never too late to start. And you definitely took a really drastic approach. But you can still dig your way. out of a financial hole and build a nest egg no matter how old you are and it starts with little tiny changes. So if somebody's listening right now, where can they start? Obviously they can start

watching your YouTube, but are there other podcast in books and things that you recommend or or something that someone can do to dip their toe in the financial minimalism water? Yeah. So I mean, financial minimalism, I don't know if like actually I kind of like stole that keyword because I think Graham Stefan used it once. And then I, he like stopped making videos about it. And then I was into minimalism at the time because like I did decluttering content on my channel for a while. I was really into minimalism. Now I'm going back to finance because that's also what I'm into right now. And I'm glad for it because your videos were so much better than mine. And I'm like, this guy with his decluttering, he's got to calm down. You're amazing. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, I like figured out,

I'm like, I'm not smarter than anybody else, but I can put in a lot more effort. So that's my general rule of thumb with you too. But yeah, so it's kind of like, but when you look at the minimalism and the fire movement, they're very similar mindsets where it's the less you spend, the less you have to earn, therefore the less you have to work. And if you just don't spend much, like, I'm lazy. That's like my general driver in life of like, if I don't spend much, I don't have to do anything. And if I buy a bunch of stuff, then I'll have to go work more and I don't want to work more. And just the simpler it is, like I get stressed out and anxious, wicked easy. So just automating my finances like you talked about and just cutting down all my expenses,

getting rid of Netflix and Hulu and all these different things that don't really add a lot. And just cutting down all my monthly expenses makes things a lot less stressful for me. So even just going through something that I've started to do over a while anyways, is look through like my last month of my credit card statement and just observe what I spent. And then you realize like, I bought 13 things on Amazon. I remember one of those things? Did they make any difference in my life? And just really starting to yeah, kind of look at your spending in not like a judgmental way, but just like observing and be like, if that was somebody else, would I say that that's a good idea? And then I also like for books

set for life is a really good book on like the fire movement by Scott Trench. He, uh, he's part of the, let's see, bigger pockets, which is like a like real estate podcast. and website and stuff. So if you're into real estate, bigger pockets is where I learned most of my real estate stuff. But then he did a very similar thing that I did, which was, you know, the multifamilies was able to leave his job in a couple of years and extremely frugal type deal. And the thing is like anybody can do that is just are you willing to make a sacrifice? Like are you willing to step from a nice single family home back to a multifamily for two years?

And then you can quit your job forever. Or do you want to stay there and you're unwilling to make a big change? and it might take 10 years longer, but it depends on what you want to do. So those were kind of some of my top ones. Well, now you're making me want to buy a multi-family unit. So, yeah, I mean, you're just like, you could do this thing that's easy and make tons of money or you could just do this thing and not make tons of money, but I guess it's up to you. It is.

No, like rentals are stressful and it's like a part-time job, but compared to what I was making, like there's nothing else I could do where if you, you know, this is, might pay me $1,000 a month for the rest of my life and I have to put in, you know, 20 hours a year. Like, what else can I do? That's going to earn me that much. You can't. So, well, it is stressful and a responsibility and I put my entire life savings into buying it and fixing it up. There's, there's no other investment that I can make besides investing into myself and my channel that's going to pay as much. So that was kind of my, my hack. you're seriously making me want to buy a multi-family unit right now this uh yeah i mean it's it's good

you're you're you're amazing you are a kid and i can say that because i'm an old lady you are a kid and you just um really have your life together and it's impressive and it's inspiring and your your youtube channel is so motivating and beautiful and i want everybody listening please to go seriously check it out but please don't leave me okay because you're going to be blown away. Blown away. So please, Gabe, tell our listeners how they can find you and where they can find out more from you. Well, thank you very much.

Yeah, I mean, like I only do stuff on YouTube. I honestly, I don't have any social medias on my phone because I end up looking at them. So I'm trying to post more on other places like Instagram, but just check out Gabe Bolt on YouTube. And that's all I do. Yeah. I love that. I need to, I feel so much pressure as a YouTuber to be everywhere. And now TikTok's a thing. And I'm just like, what? And it's so much work and so much pressure. And you, you have really good boundaries on yourself. And that's so admirable. You're like, I, I want to just, I want to stay in my lane and do what I'm good at and keep growing that. And that's really, really admirable. So congratulations for all of your six. It's well deserved and I'm I'm truly, truly inspired and motivated by you. So thank you. And I know my listeners will be too. So thank you again. I hope to chat again with you in the future. And thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you guys next time.