The Bossticks - How To Make Money & Keep Your Money, How To Save, How To Invest, & How To Create a Plan For Financial Freedom

Episode Date: November 30, 2018

#153: On this episode we Lauryn and Michael take a journey into the world of finance. What does it look like to earn a living in the digital age? How can we make extra income? How do you save what you make? How can you invest what you make to help secure a successful financial future. This episode is all about what it takes to work towards financial freedom in a smart and strategic way.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) For Detailed Show Notes click HERE

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to you by Robin Hood. Robin Hood, Robin Hood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto is all commission-free. If you're looking to get an investment space and start investing in stocks, look no further. Robin Hood is the answer for you. It's an easy-to-use platform, very intuitive, very easily digestible for new investors. So give it a try now. Go to skinny.robinhood.com. Again, that's, Skinny. Robinhood.com. Robin Hood is giving listeners a free stock like Apple Ford or Sprint to help build your portfolio today. So sign up at skinny.com. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.

Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny confidential, him and her. It's that time of the year again. Jingle in your step. Holidays are near. And it's time to start buying everybody gifts. And during this time, everybody, you know, you think it'd be a joyous time.

But it becomes stressful for a lot of us. Because out of nowhere, you've been saving all year, working your ass off. And now Christmas is here and you've got to buy everybody in the family gifts. Uncle Betty. Oh, not Uncle Betty. Aunt Betty. Sorry, guys. Mess that one up.

Aunt Betty. Uncle Jim. You know. That a relative. you haven't seen in eight years. Do you have to read this like your St. Nick by the fire? I was reading one of our negative reviews the other day because sometimes they're going to do that. It said that we do radio voices and I started cracking up because I think that review was targeted

to me and she's like, stop doing that radio voice. And I was like, all right, whatever. But obviously, it's because I do still like that. So anyways, I think some people like it. I like it. I like doing it. Yikes. Those disc jockeys from back in the day.

So anyways, guys, this is a solo episode. Lauren and I have not sat across each other on the mic together. in a hot spell in a minute. And why give me that look? I just can't with the hot spell. Whatever. My analogy is off today. And we wanted to do an episode.

I was talking to my business partner, Rana, who's been on this episode or this podcast before, and she's my partner in Dear Media. And we were talking the other day about taboo subjects. And for some reason, she says that a lot of taboo subjects exist around finance and women talking about finance and making money and how to make money and how to save and how to invest in. not a lot of women talking about money. I myself am obviously not a woman, but I found it interesting

and it triggered the idea as like, why not around the holidays during a time when people are stressed about finances and an end of year planning? Why not talk about finances? Talk about how to make money, how to save money, how to invest, how to make money online, all of the above. And I thought, who better to do it with than my lovely wife, Lauren? Why is that, Michael? Why are you not excited to do this episode with me, Michael Bostick? I never said that. I said I am excited to do with you. You are. You might learn a thing or two, Lauren. I might learn a thing or two.

So I am excited for this episode for my own selfish reasons because I have to admit, I am not the best with money. In fact, I actually find it to be a very boring subject. I always have ever since I was little. Well, let me say this. I am not the best with money either. But I've learned over the last 12, 15 years dealing with some money. I've made a 10 years, 11 years. I've learned a lot of things along the way because I've made a lot of mistakes.

and hopefully this podcast can set some other people up to not make those same mistakes or to avoid the mistakes that I've made. You are better with money than I am. Well, I've learned a few things, you know, in my travels and traverses around the financial world. Yeah, I think that this episode will be really good for everyone out there who's listening that wants any financial tips, especially around the holidays. We thought this was a good time to record it. So first, I think we'll break this up into, like, one of the things that we're passionate about

in 2018 going into 2019 is how many different ways there are to make money, right? You can be in any career, any path, have any kind of job, nine to five, you can be an entrepreneur. You are not limited based on what you're doing to just have one source of income. And I think what Lauren and I have done well over the years is open ourselves up to multiple sources of income. That being said, if you're somebody that has a nine to five, we've talked about this many times, you can have a side hustle. If you're a blogger, you can have multiple avenues. Lauren can speak on that in a minute. If you're an entrepreneur, you can be pursuing your new business or new venture while also opening yourself up to some side jobs and side hustles to supplement yourself while you are growing. So to start out,

Lauren, let's bring it back a little bit. For those people that are maybe starting out as new bloggers or working in nine to five, what are some easy ways that you can suggest to make some extra bucks around the holidays or around the year online? What are some of the things you've done? Well, when I was first starting out, I was a bartender. I've told this story many times. And I was a hustler bartender. Like I, when I was working, I mean, I wasn't the best employee at all, but I was a hustler. I had dish soap one night in my martini. Michael, that was you. No one cares about you. I was focused on the other customers. Know my strengths. But I would really hustle my way. Whenever someone says, oh, I work nine to five, I can't make extra income. I'm always like, go get a bartending job.

go get a cocktailing job. I would go to school all day. I was going to school full time at San Diego State. I would teach peer bar in the mornings, Pilates in the afternoon, and then I would go to my bartending job, and I would just hustle it. And while I was doing these three jobs and going to school full time, I was also blogging. Now, I didn't make any money for three years. And we can talk about, this is where my attachment to money comes in. I did not have any attachment to money in those three years with blogging. We had to take a quick break because I had to have Lauren clear her throat to sound a little bit flemy there, right? I'm sick. What can I do? I was listening to Howard Stern the other day and Gary came in with the flammy voice and he said, clear that. You're going to do that.

All right. Anyway, we're back in business now. So anyway, what I was saying is that there's always different ways to make income. If you're just looking towards one income stream, I would, I would advise someone to find other ways to make money just because if that one income stream goes to shit, you have other things to rely on. So what are some practical? Okay, so I like to extract value and I'm going to do like a little interview here. And I think I know a lot of your answers. But for somebody that like say they are working a bartending job or they're teaching Pilates or they're working a day job or they're working a desk job or nine to five, what are some additional ways that you found in the

beginning that you were able to make some extra income. It doesn't need to be massive income, but some extra income, maybe 500 bucks here, 300 bucks there, four and like what are some of the things you did. I would sell stuff on Tradesy all the time. I still have my Tradesy account up and running. That's another way that I make income now. I also picked up catering jobs all the time, random catering jobs. And I think I did that by putting it out there that I wanted to pick up random catering jobs. So I'd get extra money through that. I also would bartend people's private parties. So that was another way. The tip. that you make bartending and cocktailing and hostessing are incredible if it's done right.

I think that you can really do pretty well, cocktailing and bartending. And I would always go above and beyond for my customers so they'd hook up the tip. Another way to make money is to do affiliate links on your blog or have an Amazon shop that you open. But if you're a blogger, I mean, and Michael, I'm going to be real here. If you're a blogger and you're just starting out, don't expect to make a ton of money. But you don't need to make a ton of money. You can make some money. You can make some money.

I didn't make any money for three years. Maybe I'm a unique case nowadays. I really did not focus on money. Well, some other ways to make money online. I mean, a lot of these platforms didn't exist when Lauren was starting out. You can start a side consulting agency, pick up a couple clients. There's a lot of different businesses and brands locally that are looking for social media advice, looking for email marketing advice, any kind of skill set.

You'd be surprised how many of these people that have been in business for a while and don't know how to use social media and don't know how to use, you know, websites and blogs and videos would be willing to pay for people that are willing to put themselves out there and teach them, right? There's a lot of old dogs out there that are looking for this type of advice. You just got to put yourself out there. I want to shout out a TSC reader that has really gotten creative with the way she makes money. Her name is at Collette Prime on Instagram. And I really respect the way she's building her brand right now in the 2008 landscape.

She only talks about Amazon Prime items of clothing. So her whole Instagram, she's micro blogging about these affordable pieces on Amazon. And she's really niched down on that. And because she's done that, she's grown really, really quickly. And from her micro blog on Instagram, she's now launching a blog. And I'm sure it's going to be incredibly successful because everyone's going to her Amazon store. She talks about a $40 blazer that looks like a Gucci blazer. someone that's doing something like that in this landscape is, in my opinion, for sure, going to make money.

And she can also work nine to five and maybe pick up a bartending gig four nights a week. Yeah, I think also if you have an existing business or you have something you're working on and maybe you're doing it locally, understand the power of the internet. Understand if you put yourself out there a little bit, maybe create a website, maybe build a social page, maybe create some videos. understand that when you open yourself up from a local market to a world market, you have the ability to scale on a much more, a massive level. If you have a product business, don't be scared to start working with Amazon and selling online. Don't be scared to start selling on Etsy,

on Tradesy, on eBay. All of these platforms exist with a little bit of research. And I think where people get into trouble is they start putting themselves in a box and they start looking at what they've been doing for a long time and they're scared to say, okay, wait a minute, I can maybe do this and expand it into a bigger reach or a bigger circle. And so with whatever you're doing right now, look and say, okay, is this absolutely the most I can be doing to reach the maximum amount of people? That being said, make sure when you're reaching that maximum amount of people, that you're also staying targeted with the type of people you want to reach.

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I also think you can always use eBay. eBay is a great tool. I used to put my seven jeans on there. I mean, you can really, really do well on eBay. I think you have to constantly be finding ways to get creative. And like Michael said, never get too comfortable with where you're at. Just because you're working nine to five doesn't mean, you know, you can't do other things. Team up with all your girlfriends and do like a jeans sale.

I mean, get 10 girlfriends together and do it. a jean sale and put it all over social media. There's so many different ways that you can utilize social to get people's attention and make money. Yeah, if you're, listen, even little things, like if you're a stylist or you have really good style and you're doing that for yourself, start hitting people up, start hitting people, maybe influencers or prominent people online and saying, hey, can I be your stylist for free? Can you start dressing people? If you're creating graphics, are there people that need graphics that you can reach out to and start offering graphics for free? because here's what's going to happen.

A lot of the graphic designers that we've worked with, a lot of the photographers, we worked with the web developers, people see those designs, people see those assets, people see those sites, and they say, where did you get that? And Lauren and I are always happy to refer, right? And so don't be scared to put yourself out there in the short term for free or little money

in order to get publicity. A lot of people, they feel like they need to get paid right away up front. And I think that, you know, if your strategies to go around and ask people for money all the time, that's difficult. But if your strategy is saying, hey, can I offer this service to you and then get promotion? Like, think of creative ways to market yourself.

I want to say to a lot of the people that work with me are freelancers, like Michael was saying. And how I found them was through Instagram. So what a lot of them did was I saw their graphics on their page. You know, they had like 5,000, 10,000 followers. And they had a really beautiful laid out Instagram, which they probably weren't making money off of. And I messaged them and said, yo, you want to do some graphics? and now a lot of them have ended up working for me. Freelance is such a powerful way to make money.

There's so many girls that I know and guys that are out there making money through doing odd jobs here and there. Gary Vaynerchuk's a big fan of the flip, right? You see him running around to garage sales or encouraging people to go on eBay. And I agree with him when he says, think of all the different items that are laying around in your house, in your basement, in your attic, in the back of your closet, all of these items that you're not touching that you haven't looked at. in years that you can potentially put on eBay and sell, right? Like, it may not add to a lot of money,

but another three, 400 bucks here and there every month adds up. You know what else I used to do? I love organizing and I felt like that was a free thing that I loved. Like, you could do it for free. It's a service. And so I used to ask my friends' moms if they needed their closets organized or their cupboards and I would go organize it. So finding creative avenues like that, that doesn't cost you anything to do. Someone can just hire you to do. Someone can just hire you to do that. That's a service. I would focus on that. Yeah. And for anybody that wants to make this extra money and put themselves out there, I'm a firm believer that you can do it. Lauren's a perfect example of that. I'm an example of that. The people we work with their examples of that, many of the entrepreneurs that we've

interviewed on this podcast are examples of that. But if you say, you know what, I'm busy right now. I have a full workload. I want to clock into my job or do what I'm doing. And then I want to go home and relax. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. Do that. But then don't complain later when you can't get ahead and you can't make that extra money because there's people out there, people that are listening to this podcast that are willing to put in that work and do it. And so as long as you are willing to put in that work, you have every opportunity to make money. But if you're not going to put in that work, don't sit around and complain that you're not because like I said, people are working 24-7 now and platforms that exist. I don't mean to say that they're working all day and all night, but there's

businesses online that are running day and night because they've put in the time to do that. And you cannot complain if you're not willing to put in the same amount of time of work. that those people have put in. I also want to talk about Michael, just throwing a little bomb into your episode. I want to talk about when you start making money, what to do with it. Because I think a lot of people who are listening don't know what to do with their finances. Me being one of them. When I started making money after three years of blogging, I had no fucking idea what to do.

So can you give us like three tips that you would recommend to like, your first cousin. Sure. There's, and I've learned this the hard way, and I've talked about this before on this podcast, when I first started making a little bit of income, I was young and I was excited and I didn't know what to do. And basically all of the money I made went right out the door. Boy, were you ever excited. I had to go through that time with you. And you go into credit card debt. And here's the biggest thing I could say. I would say get in the habit if you can of not carrying debt on any cards. I know a lot of people can't do that and you have to, but that becomes a dangerous cycle of paying minimums and you get into a habit. It's like, oh, well, if I only have to

pay the minimum this month, I can extend it a little bit further next month, and you get into this vicious cycle of adding a little bit more to that outstanding credit line, adding a little bit more. And before you know it, you're underwater and you can't get out of it. So I would carry as little debt as possible if you can. There's a great book called The Richest Man in Babylon. I've also recommended that, check that out. But one of the main concepts in that book is to, every time you make a payment, say you get paid, say you get $1,000, set 10% of that aside in a separate savings account or checking account, whatever, that you don't touch every single time you get paid. Over time, setting that 10% aside is going to add up.

If you can do more, great. If you can do it 20% better. Basically, every time you make money, set something aside if you can. I know there's going to be cases where people say, listen, I just can't afford that. do whatever you can to start setting something aside if you can it's it's just really important it's a good habit to be in next every time you go to make a purchase and this is where i got in trouble is ask yourself do you absolutely 100% really need this right like do you really need that shirt do you really need that item do you really need that premium liquor do you maybe you need that do you really need to go out that

night to that expensive place life is meant to be enjoyed and you and you want to do that but not at the expensive making your life miserable in other areas, right? You don't want to be stressed about finances. So use practical judgment and good habits to start building up some type of savings that's going to go a long way. Just to throw this in there too, because it's kind of going off what you're saying. Justin Anderson came on the podcast and I loved what he said. He said, when you start making money, don't feel like you have to upgrade every area of your life. It's a great advice. Like what I did is every time I hit a next milestone, like, oh, cool. So now that I've hit this milestone, I can can start living this way, living better and better.

And over the years, I've actually scaled that back and said, okay, wait a minute. A lot of people forget this. When you start making a little bit of money or you start setting some aside or you finally get out of debt, you start to think, oh, wow, like I'm doing really well now. So now I need to upgrade my lifestyle. And so something, so you do, and next thing you know, you're there, but you start to get debt again. So you've got to go back down.

And that's what causes when people feel like they're regressing, that's what causes depression. So I will say, like, if you're happy right now living the way you are, even if you start to make that extra money, like, do you really need to upgrade the lifestyle that much? If you can stay consistently at a certain lifestyle capacity for X amount of time, and even when you're making more money, that's the best strategy because then you're making that extra money, but you're living the same exact way as you weren't. And that's how you set money aside. My dad always tells me that when he was young, he'd always be like, when I get to this amount, everything will be okay. And then you would get to that amount.

And then he would say, wait, when I get to this amount of money, everything will really be okay. And he said at each step, you realize not everything is always going to be okay. Life comes in. So I would also say I think this is an important point for me, is that money doesn't, just because you hit a certain point, doesn't completely clear up all your problems. In fact, it can sometimes add more. I found that in life with more success financially comes more burden. I don't want to say problems because whenever people say more money more problems,

I don't really relate to that. I could say that there's more burdens, right? There's more stresses. There's more things to think about. There's more things to do. There's more planning to do. I don't, you know, but I do agree with the point that's, you know, money makes you happy to a certain point, right?

And then after that, you get a little bit of a diminishing effect. Like say right now everybody listening got, they won the lotto and they can go and buy everything that they wanted. So you do that, right? You do that for a year. You buy a big house. Maybe you buy a plane. You buy a boat. You run around. You can take care of all your friends. You do all that stuff. Then what? Then what do you do? Right? And that becomes, you know, not so fulfilling over time. So you have to find a way to make money relative to your life. Right? You don't want it to determine how you live your life. You want to use it as a tool to build your life and enhance the way you like to live. Speaking of investing, let's talk all about Robin Hood. If you're looking for a smart way to invest,

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Again, that's skinny.robinhood.com. So I want to go back to your tips. You gave us one, but can you give us two more? Someone who is listening that has money but doesn't know what to do with it. Sure. So like besides setting it aside, right, find things that you can invest in. And the number one thing that I would suggest investing is yourself, right? If you're creating that new business, maybe you need a new employee or somebody to help you run that business.

It's always a good idea to invest in what you're doing, right? invest in your health, invest in learning, right? I spend a lot of my money on books and courses and stuff like that because I'm constantly looking to improve. And I feel like whenever you spend money on yourself or self-improvement, it's going to enable you to be in a position to perform better in every area, right? Like either you're going to get better performance in your business. You're going to get better performance in your life.

You're going to get maybe if you hire that person, you're going to be a little bit more suited to take on more responsibilities to grow. grow the business. Where I think people make the most mistakes is they make a little bit of coin and then they go and spend it on dumb things, right? Like, do you really need a Gucci bag? Do you really need to go and buy that watch? Do you need to go and take that crazy vacation? And I've definitely done all of those things and I'm somebody that can say it was a mistake, right? If I would have taken those dollars and invested in myself, invested in my team, invested in the business, I think I'd be much better suited to go and do those things without the stress. So that would be number

two is to constantly whenever you have outside of savings whenever you have a little bit of coin to invest in something invest in yourself and then third thing touching on investments a little bit i think it's important for people to understand how to invest and i'm definitely not an expert um i've done a lot of different investments in my life some of them been good some of them have been disastrous and i would say most of the things that have been disastrous is when i invest in things that I have little understanding in, or I have little control in, or where it's this pie in the sky idea where you're investing in maybe an idea and not the person running it.

So if you have a little bit of money and you're thinking about investing, really use kind of the Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger model and take their model of, do you, like, basically if you were a batter playing professional baseball, take your time with the pitches that you swing at. Michael, I feel like we need to talk about my least favorite subject in the whole world. It's actually my least favorite. What do you think that is? Well, I feel like money is your least favorite in general. Taxes. Whenever Michael talks about money, I go, just like a side note, I go, I can't talk about this now. I can't talk about this. I'm going to talk about this now. I'm crazy day. But then it'll be a Friday at like 10 at night. And I'll be like, I can't talk about this right now. I'm winding down. Well, this is a good subject to dive into. I hate talking about money. taxes. Before we talk about taxes, this is actually a better subject is a lot of people have that

mentality. Right? We're like, I don't like talking about money. I don't like looking at finance. Listen, I don't like it either, right? I just do it because. I feel like you kind of like it, though. I like it when you, I like it when I can look at it and understand that I'm making an impact on our lives or on our businesses or when it comes to tax savings. Good thing I married you. So here's the, so here's the kicker. A lot of people take that mentality. I have a lot of friends and a lot of colleagues that take that mentality, right? It's like, I'm not going to look at my fan, better out of sight, out of mind. I think the number one thing out of everything that you can do is get your, when you're starting out, right? Maybe pick one bank. A lot of times people have

multiple banks and they're putting like a savings account here and a checking account here. But get one bank. I think Wells Fargo Chase are good starter banks because when you're starting out. And they have great online banking where you can set up all of your accounts in one place. Also, Wells Fargo lets you design your credit card and mine's pink and cute and has a picture on it. Yes. So set up an account at the basic banks to start and get an online access where you can view everything in one place, right? I think it's really important either daily, every three days, once a week, to go in and watch what's happening in your checking account, right? Like watch your fees, watch what you're spending on. Look at your credit card transactions. Start actually auditing what you're spending on. At the end of every month, maybe you print out your credit card transactions and you say like, okay, let's break it. down by, and a lot of these credit card companies, I know American Express does this, I know Chase says it, break it down by what you're spending on it. See, like, is it necessary to actually spend it? Lauren, I see a lot of Amazon charges. I was just going to say my weaknesses are Amazon

and Postmates and my skin. Normally those all have to do with time. Uber too. Well, listen, I think what you can do, I use all those services as well, but what you can do is audited and say how much of your spending per month is actually going to those things. I'm trying to cook more at home because of the postmates. So I've been going to the farmer's market on Sunday and buying all fresh food and cooking it. And for Uber, I feel like I have a downgraded, like, you know how you can get different kinds. Do you need to take a black car every time? No, I don't. I take, not the pool, the one above the pool. Select. I mean, you do get some interesting characters, though. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Especially like, but no, I think auditing, actually going through

and auditing what you're doing and looking, because a lot of people say, okay, I'm in dead or I'm scared. I don't want to look at my money situation. This gives me anxiety, so I'm not going to look at it. But I think it's like, okay, face your fear, face that source of anxiety, face the hard reality of what's going on with your finances. Take a hard look at it because as soon as you start doing that, that's when you're going to be able to start making. It's the same thing in a relationship, right?

Like a lot of people, they stay in relationships. It's not going well. And they're like, oh, I think it'll fix itself. It's like take a hard look at what you're doing in any regard of your life and any aspect of your life and figure out where you can make improvements, right? can you cut out some of those postmate expenses? Can you cut down on some of that skincare stuff? Can you cut down on shopping? And then make a goal each month say, okay, this month I spent a thousand dollars unnecessarily on shopping. I don't need to do that. Maybe you don't cut it all at once,

even though that's probably the better strategy, but say, okay, next month I'm only going to do 500 and set yourself up where you're watching every day. You're ticking it off. Like, okay, you know, it's the 15th of this month and I've already spent 450 bucks. I'm stopping myself now. No more shopping this month. That's when you can start to make changes. I also noticed that I was spending a shit ton of money in Venmo because it's so easy, right? It becomes so accessible to be able to go on Venmo and just send money. So I actually just deleted my Venmo app because it was absurd. So I think you need to really, like Michael said, examine the areas where you're spending money sometimes unnecessarily.

And really look at the value. It's funny, there's a book by, you know, Sam Walton was the richest man in the world, the founder of Walmart when he was alive. And I think when he broke up his fortune. That's a great book. It's a great book. He split up his fortune like four or five ways and gave each of his kids like $25 billion. So the guy was worth over $100 billion, I think, in 87 when he died. I could be wrong about those dates, but I believe those.

And he was the richest man in the world. He'd be walking around and see a nickel on the ground and still bend over and pick it up. Right. Would you pick up a nickel? No, but I probably should. I would. I'd pick up a nickel. So that's the thing.

It's like it's basically understanding and respecting money so that you can use that money, not to run your life, but so that you can use it as a tool to build your life. Has anyone ever seen the Warren Buffett documentary where he gets his breakfast? Yeah, at McDonald's, which. So Warren Buffett is the richest man in the world? One of the rich men. He's one of them. He's up there.

And he still gets breakfast every day at McDonald's. So he's actually subscribed or prescribed. What is the word? Subscribe, subscribe. Subscribe to the Justin Anderson theory of just as you grow. He still lives. in the same house that he bought, I believe, in like 1950 something for like 30K. I mean, he's probably upgraded it at a time and enhanced it and probably got some security there. But it's still same,

same place, same house. He's never changed it. Warren B. Warren B. And him and his partner, Charlie Munger have some really, really good books. Anything by them, anything like poor Charlie's Almanac, any of the essays by Warren Buffett. If you watch the way that they've, in talking about investing, if you watch the way they've invested is they've basically just, when they invest, they go in really heavy and they sit on it for a very, very long time. If you look at the, there's a chart that shows that, and if anyone is on the computer, a chart that shows Warren Buffett's financial gains over the years. And at one point, you just see it skyrocketed and just like kind of stays the same, stays the same. And then 30 years later, all of a sudden skyrockets. But they really, they're very selective

about what they invest in. But when they do, they go all in and they give a lot of support. So I have a tip if there's anyone out there listening that's like me and money is a weakness. I decided as my business grew to really hire out for my weaknesses. And one of my weaknesses is looking at my bank account, you know, looking what's spent where. So I hired a bookkeeper. And that has really, really helped. The one that I hired isn't crazy expensive. And he's able to really look over my finances with me every single month. So I know what's going out, what's coming in. I've caught so many charges that I that shouldn't have been on my card like I even caught stuff like Netflix at an old house that kept that kept renewing every single month so you can catch little

things on your card when you have someone else that's sort of holding you accountable to look at your finances I also want to say something that's really helped I think is getting an Amex I actually have never ever ever I don't know if you know this Michael Bostic had a credit card before in my life until I got an Amex. I did not trust myself with a credit card, so I simply didn't give myself an option. I only had debit cards and savings account. So for my first credit card, I got an Amex. And when I first got it, I was, I thought it was like, this is probably five years ago, a gift card. I did not know how to spend on it. So once I got that book bookkeeper to hold me accountable, it was extremely helpful. But what I like about EMEX, just going back to it,

it is that you build points and you can fly on it. Yeah, you can use your points. But here's the thing with Amex. You have to pay it in full at the end of every month unless you kind of get it. I like that, though, because then you're not in debt. No, that's what I was saying is good. I actually am going to contradict you here a little bit and say that I think it's good when people, when they're starting out, don't get credit cards and they only use debit cards,

right? Because then it slows what you're able to do with credit. When you're in a position and you're trying to save, like there are going to be some circumstances where you need credit in order to live. But I'm a much bigger fan if you don't need it to live and you can squeeze by with a debit card and actually hold yourself accountable to the cash on hand to use that instead. And if you have a credit card and they give you some big limit, maybe you set a limit on that card yourself.

You know, maybe you have a card with $15,000, get a supplementary card and say, hey, I only need a $2,000 limit. Get one of those so that you can watch your spending because the biggest mistake people make is they start to use those credit lines and extend themselves. And I've seen time and time again, a lot of my money. friends, a lot of contemporaries use credit in the wrong way. So for me, going back to Warren Buffett, I still think the guy, I mean, at this point doesn't matter, but I think he never really carried credit balances. He just used cash for whenever he could. Just touching on a little tip, this is a little

TSC tip. I, Michael mentioned this earlier, but I think it's really important to mention again. Every single month, I pay myself a salary into a separate bank account. And that has really helped me build my own bank account. If you're out there and you're listening, I highly recommend pulling, like Michael said, I think you said 10% of your income out and putting it in another bank account for a rainy day. Okay, so I really, really want to get into taxes. Like, I want to get specific, honey. So without, I mean, there's so many different situations, personal taxes, business taxes, but I think it's really important. I know we've talked about taxes on this show. It's really important to understand what you can take advantage of if you have a business,

if you're an individual, the write-offs you can handle. So, for example, if you're a fashion blogger and you're buying clothing that you're going to show on your blog. There is a portion of that clothing that you should be deducting for taxes because if you're going to resell it later, you're going to be talking about it. You're working with the brand. If you're buying all that stuff personally and not reporting it as a cost of goods for your business, then you're going to pay the maximum tax penalty. But if you can go and sit down with an accountant and I'm not one, so I don't want to

give exact advice of how much people could be writing off. But if you could go down and sit down with an account and say, okay, listen, this year I had to spend $8,000 on clothing to talk about on my blog. Is there a portion of that you can write off? Maybe you can write off 50%. I don't know. All of a sudden, you have $4,000 in deductibles that's going to save you money on taxes. Meals and entertainment, right?

Are you taking clients out? Are you going out to dinner with business partners to discuss your business? Are you going to events to work on your business? All of these things can be deductible. Travel. Are you writing your travel off hotel states? All of these things. I'm, again, like I said, I'm not a certified accountant, but I sit down with my

account in at least once a month and say, okay, where should I be spending? How should I be saving? Is there a Roth or is there a profit sharing plan that I can that I can take advantage of? If you're an employee, is there a 401k plan that's offered by the company that you can take advantage of? Do you need to open a fidelity account? All of these things. I think it's just important to start. And we don't talk about a lot on this show. It's important to start the conversation around money as a lot of you guys progress your careers and start growing and making more. It's important. Not always tell Lauren. It's one thing to make. the money it's another thing to learn how to keep the money right like that's and that's the

biggest part that I feel that young entrepreneurs fail at is a lot of people get good at making money but then they have a difficult time keeping it and the whole idea is to make it so and keep it so that in the future you're set up to live your life comfortably and you're not scrambling around as an as an elder person or as an older adult and struggling to to make ends meet like so many people we know are Are there some tools that people can use online that you would recommend? I think everybody should to start invest in QuickBooks. QuickBooks is online. It's not that expensive.

You can go and you can really start to, you can add all your credit cards in there, all your different bank accounts. You can start categorizing your expenses. You can break it down. You might have to do maybe you go on Skillshare and take a class on QuickBooks or you do a tutorial on YouTube on how to use QuickBooks. But I think definitely setting, even your personal finance up, even if it's not a business on a QuickBooks,

If you're getting ready to file taxes, we've talked about this before. Tax Act, they have a lot of information on that site to figure out how you can deduct, what you can deduct. And if you have access to a local CPA, it's always worth a conversation to go and sit down and talk to an accountant, somebody that's registered, somebody that's a legal CPA that can give you some of this advice so that you can take advantage of your tax savings and earnings. I actually used Skillshare to learn how to use QuickBooks, you guys. And QuickBooks is amazing. It's life changing. Everyone should have it. I would highly, highly recommend it. Before we go, I also want to give a little TSC tip. So if you are not the best with money and you want to learn about it, but you're so busy and you're working and you're crazy or you're a mom, I would recommend listening to podcasts about this subject. Consume as much content as you can while you're driving or while you're doing your makeup or folding laundry. Learn about what it is that you don't know. I actually listened to. Tony Robbins book on tape. He did a whole book that was completely dedicated to how to make money and how to keep the money. So I would recommend like do like Audible or do a podcast that's niche down to the subject. Yeah. And I can maybe if anybody's interested, maybe we can put a list of resources together for some books that have been good. The Tony Robbins book, Money Master

the game is a really good book. The richest man in Babylon is a good book. There's a couple essays by Warren Buffett. Charlie Munger are great. The intelligent investors great. So there's a lot of really good books. But I think the main thing here is if you're sitting there and you're overwhelmed by finances and maybe you're something like, oh, easy for you to say you're making money and I'm not, or maybe you're sitting there and saying, you don't get my situation. I think the biggest thing here is to start taking an interest in how finances work and how money can work. And you don't want to be in a position where you're letting money run your life, but you want to be in a position where you understand it so that you can use a tool to enhance your life. And I think if there's any takeaway from

this episode, it's understanding that money can be used as a tool to grow and enhance your life, not to run your life. And in order to do that and use those tools, you have to understand them. And I would say if you're listening and you're hearing Michael and I talk and you're thinking, well, I'm in a different position and I can't do this because of this. I would say to stop making excuses and start taking accountability. You know, when I was bartending, I literally had $80 in my bank account. I was stressed to the max going to school full time. Like I said, working three jobs. But I really took accountability for my situation and found unique angles and ways. on how to make money. So if this episode does anything, I would hope that it inspires you to not

wait for money to come along, but to actually go out and get it and then be strategic with how you handle it. To go back to Gary V again, and I hate to use him twice in this episode, but he did say something that resonated with me the other day. He said, if anybody that looks like you, has been brought up like you, has had it as rough as you, has ever made it, then you can too. And I agree, there's a lot of people that are in worse situations, better situations, but people make it work. It's just putting in the time, putting in the work, understanding how to use these tools, and putting yourself out there to be in a position to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. And I would say instead of sitting around comparing your situation to anyone else's use that energy towards something that's productive.

All right, with that, Michael has a meeting. So he has to run. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. Be sure that you check out our new podcast. website. It's tscpodcast.com and definitely follow us on Instagram at TSC Podcast. As always, thank you guys so much for listening and we will see you soon. This episode was brought to you by Robin Hood. Robin Hood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto is all commission free. If you're looking to get an investment space and start investing in stocks,

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