The Iced Coffee Hour - Meet the Millionaire Who Lives In His Car | Confronting Nate O'Brien

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

Lock in your best rate today and get your family covered with Ladder at https://ladderlife.com/icedcoffee This week on The Iced Coffee Hour we are joined by Nate O'Brien. Nate is a finance YouTuber with over 1 millions subscribers who has recently decided to start enjoying Van Life - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan https://www.instagram.com/alex_nava_photography Subscribe to Nate: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3tlaeZ6Z0ZN5frMZI3-uQ Thanks to Black Forest Wood Co for the amazing podcast table!! https://blackforestwood.com Clips Channel Exclusive: https://youtu.be/S2tBFZwhRIA GET YOUR FREE STOCK WORTH UP TO $1000 ON PUBLIC & SEE MY STOCK TRADES: http://www.public.com/graham  MY NEW COFFEE IS NOW FOR SALE: http://www.bankrollcoffee.com/ Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w Join the 2x weekly mentorship group: https://tinyurl.com/yaexko4o The Equipment used: https://tinyurl.com/y78py5g2 Audio Equipment Used In Podcast: Rode NT1, Rodecaster Pro The YouTube Creator Academy:   Learn EXACTLY how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube, rank videos on the front page of searches, grow your following, and turn that into another income source: https://bit.ly/2STxofv $100 OFF WITH CODE 100OFF  For Podcast Inquiries, please contact [e-mail] van life tour *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour. My name's Nate. And so far on this podcast, I believe you guys have made $94,34,36. And 98 cents. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's exactly. Wow.

I'm not good remembering these numbers. What a good intro. That was great. It's the best one yet. Hey, I think we should address the elephant in the room here. There's already an elephant? Yeah. You have a tall mic stand and we both have small ones.

I don't know what to say, guys. I mean, yeah, I wasn't the one who set up the room. This was not. So we wanted to order three of them from Amazon and you could get two of them delivered the next day. Just fine. But you threw on a third one and then all of a sudden it was delivered on Monday. So, sorry. Okay, no, the actual edge. Okay, we should talk about the actual elephants in the room. It's this, uh, the studio. We got a new studio. Check out the behind the scenes on the clips channel. But, uh, yeah, thanks for coming, Nate. This is huge. We've been trying to do this for a very, very long time. Yeah, I feel like I'm in Vegas for some reason, like every couple of months for one reason or another.

The last couple times, it didn't work out because we just had different schedules, but this time it worked out. It's exciting. Yeah, it's exciting to have you on because you're the millionaire who sold everything and now lives in a van. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's a truck. But, yeah, it's a dream. Yeah. So many people, I think, just had that fantasy of just like, you know, I'm just going to sell everything and just be on the road.

Yeah, it's like a short, like, probably a short term thing. Like, I need to get it out of my system and just do it in my life now. I'm 23 and I feel like it's going to be a lot tougher to do that if I have a bunch of kids and I'm 35 and it's like you know I got to take them to school and stuff can't can't move into a van then right so it just felt like the right time to do it for me so how long are you thinking about doing that though I started it in May um I really don't know probably for like a year and then after that I'm just going to keep it and then use it like for random vacations yeah like when I want to go somewhere just get in the truck and just drive and and go camping in it but you're planning on stopping. Like stopping the full time living in it? Yes. In one calendar year? Yeah, probably like in the next 12 to 18 months.

Because like you couldn't do it forever. You know, like living in a tight space like that, like it is nice having a kitchen and, you know, like all those other amenities. But it's definitely a fun life experience. But this isn't something that you just decided. You woke up one morning. You're like, I'm going to do this. How long was the planning process?

Like what was involved? When did you first start to get this idea that you wanted to just get rid of your apartment? You know, okay, okay, it was maybe sixth grade, seventh grade, had a really good friend, and we would just talk about, yeah, I'm going to go live in a van one day. And then he did that, like, two years ago. And so I watched him convert his van. He did like a full conversion. He's living out in Colorado.

Now he's in Utah right now. He's been doing it for a couple years. And I was like, hell, he did it. I should do it too. There wasn't a lot holding me back on it. So it was just like, you know, it's a good time to do it. How did you find the van? It's actually a truck.

So it's a Ford F-250. I mean, I mean, I don't know. Stop, stop calling you the van. I mean, like. It's a truck. It's like van life,

but it's a Ford F-250. Okay. Yeah, I bought it for like 19 grand right before, I think there was right before like the used car market really came to like a real, so it was actually a decent deal,

I think, on it. And then I just put it like a truck cap on it, pretty tight space. I should have driven it over here so you guys could see it. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen that. Seriously.

Yeah. Graham Steffen reacts to my truck It's pretty tight quarters Not gonna lie I don't think you could fit You know much in there It's a I have to be very selective About what I bring into it

I'm like all right I can't buy this item because it's just There's no room like I need to Tell every square Did you have to get rid of all of your possessions Or did you get like a temporary storage locker or something No so my brother just bought a house So I kind of you know

It's like hey Mike Like there's obvious things that you're not going to get rid of you know, like certain sentimental things. And I kind of gave him my furniture because when I broke my lease from my apartment, it was the perfect timing where he just moved into his house. I was like, hey, you want my couch? Do you want my, like, other like carpets and everything? So it worked out perfectly.

So that's kind of where I put some of my stuff. What do you take with you? On the road? Yeah. Just the basics. I mean, you know, I have my laptop. I was going to bring my IMA and I was going to put that in the truck. And it's like a huge IMA.

But two problems with that. I didn't want to get stolen, but also it just didn't fit. Like, it did not fit in the back of the truck because I can sit back there. I can, like, edit videos. Yeah. On top of that, you know, just some clothes. You know, have to do laundry like once a week because I don't have a ton of clothes. I have a cooler.

I didn't put a fridge in there yet. I want to build a fridge and like a whole version two of the truck maybe in like a few more months. Yeah. Now, why a truck? Why not just go like kind of glamping, get like an RV, get one of these like professional, the big things where you look at that. You're like, wow. They do all the vacation movies and the big, you know, the camper.

I mean, okay, first of all, like, I feel like I don't really need that. It's more fun to be more stealth when you're doing it. So I can just pull up and park anywhere and just sleep in it because nobody expects somebody to be sleeping in the back of a truck. Like, it looks very normal. And also, I want to just be able to use the truck. You know, after I'm done with this whole time in my life, I'll probably just take the cap off the truck,

use it as a regular truck for work and for hauling stuff around. So that was kind of the reasoning behind that. Do you think that you're saving money by living in the truck or do you think that you're like going out to eat all the time? Because I can imagine it'd probably be difficult like making breakfast, lunch and dinner in a truck. It depends because there's times I'm in the truck and I'm out on government land and it's like, you know, there's nothing around.

And I'll be out there for a week or two at a time and there's like absolutely nothing. You couldn't possibly spend money. So those are the times when I save money. But then also, of course, yeah, like if I'm, example, I'm in Vegas right now and I got a hotel because I'm not going to sleep in it in Vegas and I was coming from L.A. Got a hotel there too. So overall, I would say the lifestyle probably is actually more expensive. It guzzles gas. It gets like not good gas miles. It's more expensive to live in a car than it is in an apartment. I would actually say yes. If you're moving

around a lot, I would probably say it's pretty close. I mean, it doesn't have to be, but it usually ends up being that. If you're like, oh, I'm going to go to Colorado this week and that's going to cost you $200 in gas or something. You're not necessarily living in the truck to save money. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. You're right. If someone could do that if they wanted to.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the question we're all, you know, dying to ask here. You two, Graham. Me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alex, too. Say you meet a girl you fancy.

Okay. What do you do? You know, because I'm in a struggle right now. I can't really, you know, a girl that I may like, I can't bring her here because it's someone else's house, you know? Well, I told Jack, he can't bring, bring, bring randoms home. That's not even the type of guy I am.

So you were putting that assumption out there in the first place. But I'm not saying. Even if you meet her on a first date, come back to the house, you don't know somebody really until like a few dates in. I told you, I just go on a few dates, and then after a few dates,

you kind of feel the situation out, then you could bring her back here. You're bringing her out on the first date? Are you bringing her back on the first date? No, I'm not. He's just saying that I would. I'm not saying you would. That's the first thing you told me.

I just said the condition was, You know, go to date or do feel them out. Just don't meet someone. I'm not going to feel them out, man. That's weird. Don't feel them out. Yeah, you got. Yeah, you might be thinking I'm like, you, man.

I'm not. But, yeah, so what do you do when you, you know? I built the truck for one person. Not going to lie. There's, there's no room for anybody else in the truck. Has there been? No. No, it's cool, man.

No, no, there's actually, I really, I really regret not bringing it over because you guys would see, like, The bed is like this wide. Right. And there's no room for... But what if you... There's barely room for me. Yeah, but what if you met the perfect person? You guys hit it off?

I don't know. Has it happened? I would cross that bridge when I get to it. So, yeah. Tell us about your first night, though. Your first night living in the truck. Yeah, the first night I was in... Where did you go? I slept in a Walmart parking lot in Tennessee.

So you got out of your posh apartment? Yeah, it was a Walmart parking lot in Tennessee. And I... It was probably a bad spot to sleep over because it was like, it was definitely sketchy. And then somebody who lived in Tennessee who like, it was in the area, DM me. And they're like, oh, like, welcome to my town or something because I posted something on my Instagram story. And I said, yeah, I slept at the Walmart last night. And they're like, oh, my God, like, that's the worst part of town.

Like, you don't want to be. So, yeah, that was the first night. But, you know, usually it's pretty safe. I guess. I mean, I'm still here. Did you ever reevaluate, like, what am I doing, doing this? This, this, maybe I got in over my head. No, no, I don't think so.

First, I want to thank our sponsor, Ladder. I want to talk for a minute about the things that have fundamentally changed the way that we live. These are disruptors. These are things like smartphones, streaming services, and whiter than white paint that actually cools down buildings, and even things like commission-free trading. Another one I heard of recently is a company called Ladder, who basically took the life insurance industry, flipped it upside down and shook out all of the inefficiencies. Before Ladder, if you wanted to get life insurance, you had to drive across town,

sit through a sales pitch, fill out a ton of paperwork, and then wait six to eight weeks to find out if you're approved. Alex, can you wait six to eight weeks for that? Six to eight weeks, no one has time for that. Oh man, Alex, your voice sounds great, dude. Anyway, you'd also receive a zillion phone calls from agents trying to bundle your life insurance with things like car insurance. Now with Ladder, you can get fast and affordable term life insurance without leaving home. It is 100% digital when you apply for $3 million or less in coverage. No doctors, no needles, no paperwork.

So if you're between the ages of 20 and 60, you need coverage and want to team up with a company that's redeeming life insurance, choose Ladder. When I went to ladder to get my quotes, they were so easy. I was able to do it right for my phone in just minutes. Quit wasting time and check out Ladder today to see if you're instantly approved. Go to ladderlife.com slash iced coffee. That's Ladder, L-A-D-D-R-L-L-L-E-R-Lar-Chyed coffee. Ladderlife.com slash iced coffee. Thank you so much, Ladder, for sponsoring this episode and back to the show.

So let's talk about your financials. How do you make money? Oh. Doing this entire process. Yeah. So, I mean, I still do have YouTube videos. I mean, I make maybe one a month now, right? But the videos, like, I have videos from three or four years ago that are still getting views.

So it's kind of weird. I mean, that my personal brand YouTube channel is still, you know, like covers all the bills that I might need. What does it make in these days? Um, the ad revenue on it, it definitely went down a lot because I, I don't post anymore. Um, so I think it's like 17 or 18 grand in, that's, wow. That's, I mean, that's incredible. Really? I thought you guys are going to know that. No, gosh, to post once a month.

Yeah. That's a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, I can show you if you want. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, I mean, it's just like old videos that, that. Last time I remember, we had you on about a year ago, maybe. I think you were doing like 40, 50 a month on your channel back then.

And you were posted like every other week, I think, or every like third week. And you're also making like totally different content, like not money content. Yeah, it doesn't make as much because I just kind of wanted to go for the lifestyle content that I wanted to make. And I kind of just do the channel for fun now. Yeah, I mean, you're making content like the top books that I want to. Yeah, it's just what I want to do. I live in my truck or whatever. Yeah.

All that content. I feel like I would get bored with it if I was making the same. content that I was making two or three years ago. This is awesome. I mean, you're living by the saying, like, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, the way I look at it is, like, as long as I'm in the green every month, and as long as revenues growing every month, then I'm cool. Is it still growing every month? Not my personal brand necessarily, but in total, you know, just from any other stuff that's

going on. Any other stuff? Well, yeah, tell us about this other stuff that's going on. Yeah, there's just always projects, you know? I have some other channels I've been working on. Really? Yeah, outsourcing.

Wait a second. What other channels? I thought you only had one channel. It's the Nate O'Brien show, right? Oh, yeah. Or the other one? I do have that one, yeah. And then don't you have one with your brother?

Yeah, I had that one too, yeah. And then I would, yeah. That's all of them? No, tell us about the other channel. You're holding something back. No, I'm not holding anything back. I'm just, you know, there's definitely like, I'm always working on something, right?

So, like, I'm not going to just sit around and do nothing. So there's always, like, investments and things. I've been spending a lot more time doing, like, active investments. Right. Just other ways to make money, you know. Yeah. I know you went in on the AMC Blackberry Nokia thing, right? You comfortable talking about that?

Yeah, I can talk about that, yeah. Yeah, that's fun. I don't know about this. Yeah. And Buildabair, too. Build a bear, wait a second. Yeah. Yeah, that was probably one of my better trains that I've made.

So tell us a little bit about what happened there. Yeah. Walk is through the very beginning, how you found it, where you saw it. Let's hear this. So it started with Brian Jung called me up one day. It was January, like early January. And he's like, Nate, there's something brewing. Look at GameStop.

It's like going up, you know, 10% every day. And he was like still, I don't know what the price of GameStop was at the moment, but it was just brewing on Wall Street bets. It was picking up Steam. And then we started to look at it and we realized AMC was next. Why? How do you realize AMCC was nice? You could just see it brewing.

Like it's so hard to, okay, first of all, first of all, I'm not just like a degenerate gambler. I have two, like, portfolios. I have my real, like, investment portfolio. And then I have my sort of like swing trade, sort of, you know, gambling, gambling portfolio, I guess you could say. It's like a lot smaller. Speculative.

Yeah, speculative. That's the word for it. Yeah. And so we saw it brewing with AMC and it was like $3 a share. This was like, so. early on and we just were like I can't believe we found this like it's it's gonna pop so what happened is I then put in like I was so confident on it I put in an order for 60,000 shares so what 180,000 round it up to 200 grand yeah so I put in an order for 60,000

shares of AMC went to bed and I think it was a market order but then like I woke up in a panic at like five in the morning and I was like I cannot do this This is like too much, too much speculation here. So I canceled the order, change it to 6,000 shares. Yeah, I know. And so I think if those 60,000 shares, if I would have actually bought those at $3, that would have been, went from 3 to peak to like $60 a share, right?

So it would have been, what, like $4 million? Yeah, it would have been like a few million. Yeah, but you can never look at it like that because you wouldn't have sold it necessarily. You're lucky you still got in. Yeah, I got in so early. I got lucky with that. Yeah, Nokia. and Blackberry, I think.

I think I post those on, like, my close friend story sometimes. Yeah. I don't publicize it to, like, my followers because I don't want to, like... Influence people? Yeah, I don't want to influence people. And it's because it's my speculative portfolio. It's really, like, yeah, I'm not going to publicize that. I think also Chris Camillo, right, he made, like, a million or two off of that trade as well.

Like, he did the same thing. You bought AMC, like, so early on. And then it, like, you can see it coming up, you know? So what did you sell? the AMC at. I used to hold it. This was after the little, you know, fiasco with the brokerage companies, you know,

saying, oh, we're, like, outbound only. We're only allowed to sell. Yeah. So I kind of, like, got hurt by that. But I don't know exactly how much I made. I mean, it was, I probably sold it for, like, $10, $12, maybe a share. Definitely profit, just because I got in so early. Right.

So many people lost so much money. And I think, just like as a side note, If you got like as a good indicator too of when to get out of any type of like swing trade or meme trade just whenever Dave Portnoy buys That's when you sell. That's when you're at the top like with safe moon remember he was like yeah, I'm going all in on safe moon next day down like 70% Yeah, that that's a good indicator by the time it ends up on CNBC. It's too late. Yeah, yeah, yeah Always CNBC was the the front page headline everywhere when Robin Hood went up to like $70 a share That was the peak of the market right there. Yeah, and it's like really tough.

That's why it's my speculative portfolio because there's definitely like a certain amount of like you can have a good hunch, you can have a good understanding of it you think, but it's still like you've got to be on the right side of the momentum. Yeah, what did that portfolio start at? Like what was the amount that you put in?

You're like, this is how much I'm going to risk? It was probably like a couple hundred thousand. Okay. It was both, yeah, like most of that portfolio when I started, it was like, I'm dedicating this. It was like, that 180 that was going to do frames. So it's like about what it started with, probably 200. And then now what's it worth?

Okay, so interesting. So it definitely, it went up to like a few hundred thousand after the whole thing. Like, he still ended up in the green. Not as much as I was at like peak. I was up what like, I think I doubled my money on Nokia in like five minutes. It went from $4 to $8 a share. And it made like $136 grand on that. And then it came down.

But okay, so then eventually I was up maybe like $100,000. thousand or so just estimated. And then the meme stuff died down. I sold before, like, you know, didn't get left holding the bag on that. And then you could see it brewing again. In like April and May, like, I remember I was on the subway in New York and I just overheard these transit workers talking about AMC coming back. And so I then went back and bought 12,000 shares of AMC at like $9 a share in May.

After it came all the way back down. Yeah. and then I bought Bill the Bear with the money that I used for AMC. Wow. So you're just browsing Wall Street bets all day, yeah. Yeah, but like I said, this is really just like, this is like the fun portfolio that like, you know. Be reasonable, everyone. Yeah, yeah.

But also, like, there are certain times when you just like, you have such high conviction on something. And I've really watched a lot of the dumb money guys videos. I think it's really great. And Chris has some great points. And there's times when you just have like such. like strong conviction on something, like with Buildabar, which sounded crazy at the moment before they released their earnings

back in May. But I think it's good to go in pretty heavy when you're, when you have like really strong confidence on something. Do you think the whole momentum thing is starting to like fizzle down a little bit? Yeah, right now. Seems like it is. I see no reason why

it wouldn't be back at some point in the future. Like there's no catalyst to like stop it from being back. I think the thing that'll stop like the whole meme stuff where just like some random stock goes up to hundreds of dollars is some type of regulation. And I know the SEC was talking about that. I think it was the SEC or whoever's in charge of that was talking about potentially, like, how do we prevent securities from getting totally manipulated by just like people?

It's like a collective, like people just pumping something up. What are your thoughts about that? Because you do have these big people with these huge platforms. They're like, you know what, I like this stock a lot. I'm all in on it. And they could very easily manipulate the price. without actually manipulating the price. It's just sharing their opinion.

But at what point does that become price manipulation? Like when you have a million followers, 10 million, 20 million? And that's why, because I don't have the answer to that, that's why I don't talk about my trades ever, like, publicly. Because I don't even want to have, like, anything, like any problem. You know, I don't want to have even, like, the slight doubt that, like, oh, I move to stock, right? Because I think I, like, not bragging, but, like, I'm pretty sure if I start posting stuff about, hey, I'm buying this small cap stock.

It's going to move, especially if it's like a $200 million company. Like it doesn't take a lot. If it's really low volume, usually, it doesn't take a lot to move that stock. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out eventually because if your uncle Jimbo is on Facebook with like three followers is like, I'm going all in on. Yeah, it's definitely a great area. The Fisker hurts because it's going up 50X. Nobody cares. You're like, oh, Uncle Jimbo, that's just fun.

But meanwhile, let's say Logan Paul says the same thing, and it's like, wait a second. And it's just the difference of how many people are listening. But who's to say you don't say something? And that goes viral. And then are you on the hook for that? Yeah. And I think it also depends on, like, if you actually believe in the company and you're actually holding long term, or if you strategically, like, are planning on, like, people

do this with crypto all the time. It's really unfortunate. You know, I see so many influencers just, like, pumping something up. They're like, buy this, buy this, buy this. like, and it's, yeah, I just wouldn't want to be in that. Right. But here's where it gets iffy, too. Let's just save a price target of like $20 and it's a $5 stock and you say,

hey, guys, I love this $5 stock. I'm going to hold it until it hits like 20 down the line. Imagine if it hits 20 the next day and they're like, wait a second, I already hit my price start. I'm going to sell. Yeah. I mean, yeah, like I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really know what the laws are on that, so I just avoid.

That's smart. What's in your other portfolio? It's mostly just like index funds, you know, Voo, the simple ones like that. I bought Jets index fund. It probably should have unloaded that like a couple months ago because that's actually down since I went into it last year. You know, it was up quite a bit. Like it was just like the airline ETF. But they've been having some trouble lately.

Yeah, it's a lot of those companies, you know, Walmart, Penn National Gaming, you know, a couple of things. but I'm trying to really like consolidate things so that I don't have to actively, you know, listening on the earnings call from like 20 different companies because I just feel like I don't have the time for that now. And I think it would be foolish to sort of blindly invest in like random companies. Like Apple, for example, I'm probably not going to sit down and listen to their earnings, so I'm not going to go buy their stock. Are you not focusing so much anymore on the financials of your life?

Because I remember last time we met you was interesting meeting a personal finance YouTuber that didn't care so much about like saving like a little bit of money here or like spending money here or raising your income so much. And it was that was fascinating for me to see because I'm not used to it. Are you still kind of similar to that? And Graham was baffled at that because it's like the opposite of Graham, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a saying that's like you never see like a U-Haul being towed by a hearse or something, right? Like, like you can't really bring your stuff with you and like in terms of money, you know, uh, I feel like I, I feel like I I'm at a good spot. I'm pretty content with it. And as long as I have more money next year than I have

this year, then I'm happy. And it doesn't have to be, you know, 10x growth every year for the next 20 years. Like I don't need to be a billionaire. Pretty content where I am. Do you have any like money goal or anything? Like a net worth goal or anything that once you hit that, you'll definitely like chill out or not not really. I did set those goals like when I was when I was younger when I was like 17. When I was in college, just like, all right, I need to make a million dollars by town of 21. And then I think once you get to a certain threshold, everybody is a different threshold. For me, I think you only really need, I shouldn't say only, but like, that's the wrong way to put it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it much.

But like, I think you really only need like a million to be set for life. Depends on the area. Yeah. A million in California, first of all, they're going to take like 30% in tax. Yeah. Cost of living is atrocious. Gas now, by the way, in California, started reaching $6. I paid $5.40 on my way here.

I just drove in from the hour. Wow. Yeah. Was it in Bishop? It was on the border between Nevada and California, and I was, I had like 10 miles left. Like, I was like, I need to get gas. Yeah. Yeah.

They get you. Yeah. I saw a picture. I think it was on CNN at the Beverly Center in L.A. It was like $6.19 for premium. Wow. $6 for gas for a gallon. In inflation.

It's, wow. I mean, you know, supply or what, I don't know what, but yeah, definitely, everything's going up. Yeah. But a million could take you pretty far in a lot of states. Yeah. It's just, I think, if you're a coastal state, New York, California, maybe, maybe some more expensive cities. It doesn't, yeah. But I guess, like, kind of just the way I viewed it is like, yeah, like, if I had a million, I could just live, and I don't have to do crazy things. Like, I don't need to spend a lot of money, and I'll still be pretty content. So, yeah. So what are you spending your time doing these days, aside from traveling in the car?

Like, there's got to be some... Yeah, just a lot of thinking, I guess, meditating, thinking more. What do you think about? And also just like socializing too. You know, like a lot of networking, actually. I feel like I go out to dinners quite a bit with YouTubers. Because because I travel a lot, there's always like other YouTubers or business people in any city that I go to.

So it's always, I love meeting people, making connections with people, and just making more friends. What do you think about, mostly? Just life. Sometimes I don't even think. I don't know if I should say that.

It makes me sound stupid, but like just like really clearing your mind and just being able to like really relax and just like enjoy the world. Just existing. Yeah, just like existing. Some people probably don't understand what I'm saying there, but like, yeah, just existing, just living life.

What's the biggest thing you've learned from that experience so far? Probably that, I mean, you can be content, like, anywhere that you are. Like, when I'm in my truck, in the mountain somewhere, I don't really need, like, items and stuff. I don't really need a lot and just, like, just live in life, yeah. Have you ever had any dangerous situations or anything that kind of freaked you out? there were times yeah where like you know like I can lock my truck from the inside and everything

but yeah there's times where you don't have cell service and you're in the middle of nowhere nobody can hear you scream so yeah but otherwise I mean I'm still here so I feel pretty mostly safe yeah yeah shouldn't there be something where if you are in a position like that

like no cell service like if your car broke down or something like that shouldn't there be something like where you could press a button in it like it sends a GPS signal. That's a good idea. I should definitely get one of those. Should get a few flares. Yeah, some flares.

Yeah. Couldn't light those in this area. Wildfires. Yeah, I should probably get one of those. I mean, I guess, like, oh, I don't even have a spare tire. I have to get one of those because if I break that, like, if I get a flash, I'm screwed. I'd have to hitchhike somewhere. Have you ever had to hitchhike?

Only in the Yosemite. And that's, like, a really safe place to hitchhike, you know. I think. Yeah, like you're not going to get killed in Yosemite. Hitchhiking can be a little bit weird, though. I kind of want to do it, but it's, I feel like you need to do it with somebody else. I feel like it used to be safer. Yeah.

And now it's a little dangerous. And you also have to think about the type of person that would pick up a hitchhiker. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, have you never picked up a hitchhiker? No. I've wanted to. But I was usually in the car with my parents.

And, you know, you don't really want to bring a random person into a close quarter with your child, you know? Yeah. I would pick up Dan. Duncan. You see him on the side. He hitched. Yeah. Didn't he do that from Florida to California? Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody got recognized a lot. People are like, oh, that's Danny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I picked somebody up once when I was in Colorado like two months ago. I think it was two months. It was in May. Just like, yeah, you can hop in the back of the truck. So, you know, not going to kill you. Well, that's good. Yeah. You want to have some space between.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they're just trying to get like 20 miles down the road. Yeah. So what about loneliness? If you're, if you're kind of in the middle of nowhere, no one's around for like a week on end? Yeah, I think a week is like a good time. Over a week, yeah, I'm sure you could get lonely, but I feel like I just have friends, like, in most places. So I'm always hanging out with people. In a lot of cases, too, I'll, like, meet up with people who are also doing van life and living in their cars and stuff and camping. So, and also, I'm pretty introverted. So I'm, like, I get a lot of energy by being by myself. So I've never really had any problems with that.

That's fascinating. You think you could do that, Graham? I think for a few days. I could definitely do a few days at a time. I don't think I could do a full week. I could definitely do probably three to four days. Yeah. Yeah, I would actually agree with that.

Like three to four is a good number. I mean, I've done a week or more, but that's like a good number. And then you go back into a city somewhere, socialize, you know. Yeah. How do you know where to park and sleep? So you kind of just get to know places and, like, you find a good spot. And, like, this is the spot that, like, you know. But there's an app, actually.

I think it's called I Overlander that I use. And you can see, it has, like, a map of everything that you can use. Like, places to sleep, like places to park, places to take showers, do laundry, like, all kinds of stuff like that. Internet. So it's really, really nice. Like, it's like a communal. Everybody contributes to it. And, like, hey, this is a good spot right here.

So I look at that all. the time. That's how I figure out where I'm going. Yeah, I was about to say, how do you figure out showers and stuff like that? That's also never really been a problem. I mean, so I do like, I'll stay in like Airbnb sometimes, hotels sometimes. So like what I was saying was like how it's not cheaper just to like, you know, clean up and everything. And also friends

and then using that app, like you can find places to shower. I think I need to get a gym membership of like Planet Fitness or one of those. I think that would really help like kind of give more options for that. Yeah. I remember we did something last time you here where we talked about the cost of your outfit. Okay, okay.

You want to run us through? Yeah, I mean, let's see. I actually don't remember how much this was. I just bought this the other day. I liked Zara, so it was like $30 or $40. Yeah. Just because, you know, I got to look a little fresher on the, you know, coming out of the woods or desert or whatever.

So didn't want to walk around like a dirty t-shirt or something. You guys should have seen me last week. And then I'm just wearing black pants, probably also, you know, $30 maybe. And then some socks that I borrowed for my friend. Jack, what about your outfit? Wait, is this, that's not the new shirt, is it? Is it? No, this is a different shirt.

Oh, you know what we did? We gave Jack a makeover. Oh, really? A $100 makeover. H&M. Yeah. Good stuff there. Yeah.

I got like five outfits. The problem with H-NM is the stuff falls up. part pretty quick. I would disagree. All of my clothes are H&M and almost everything I've had for years. I do like their T-shirts. That's where I get my T-shirts from. Yeah, my whole outfit's really cheap.

I think this shirt was like $10. And I think these shorts were 12. Wow. Yeah, I've never really understood the like designer clothes. No, no. Yeah, but I've seen massive lines outside of them. Like I'll go to malls a lot and I don't buy stuff. Like I hate shopping.

It just like is annoying. but I just walk around and just like observe like things like how many people are going like I'm not counting how many people are walking into a store but just like observe things it also helps with investing too like you know looking at build a bear and it's like hey there's a decent amount of people coming in and out of there but yeah there's always so many people outside of the Gucci store Louis Vuitton always has a massive line for the past really since the first stimulus check came out and not to say there's a correlation there but it's Around that time, like when malls opened back up and like, yeah, I definitely noticed something there.

Did you watch Meet Kevin's explanation on that? Yeah, I saw a lot of people disagree with it too, right? On what are you talking about here? So what Kevin said was when he was in Las Vegas, he went into, was it a Gucci or a Louis Vuitton or a Dior? It was one of those designer stores. He walked in and he was talking to the people about how busy they were. and he said the people who worked at the store said that they would purposely price their handbags or their items around what the stimulus check is. And knowing that people would go into the store and be like, wow, this is kind of free because I got the stimulus check and this bag is like exactly $1,200.

Or they would just try to upsell them a little bit. So like this one is $13.50. So technically it's only costing me an extra $150. Yeah, I think Walmart did that as well for the maybe the first one. Was the first one $600? 12. I think it was 12. Okay. So whatever like the first one was, or there was a second one that was 600, right? Yeah.

Okay. So that one, I remember seeing in the news like are people posting. There's like the Walmart aisles. There's just like you'd see like $600 TV, $600 like items. So yeah, probably I mean, I guess that's just smart business to kind of, you know, realize that like I don't know how many people got a stimulus check, but you know, over $100 million probably. So yeah, it's smart business. What about minimalism? Because I remember last time we spoke as well, you were like very, very into minimalism. And obviously, like, living in a truck, it's hard to have, like, quite a few things. Yeah, yeah.

So have you gotten more minimalist than the last time we spoke? I guess so, yeah. And how would you say, like, the whole minimalism thing affects your lifestyle and your overall happiness? Like, I remember I heard this one thing where I think it was like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates only has black shirts. because like it's fewer decisions to be made in a day. Zuckerberg too. Was it Zuckerberg? Yeah, it's the same thing.

Exactly. So you wear the same thing every day. You remove a decision from your day so you can focus elsewhere, which is kind of smart. Like how would you say your minimalism affects your life? And would you say generally it makes you happier? It definitely makes things a lot easier. You know, like there's so many benefits to it. Like if you have an apartment or a house and you're a minimalist, instead of decluttering every week

and putting stuff back into their cabinets, back into the closets, you can just get rid of it and you save so much time cleaning um you know like even with my truck too by like having not a lot in it i can have more space less time cleaning um and you also save money too i don't really do it for the money side of it but that definitely is a benefit for people like if you find yourself living a paycheck to paycheck especially and you want to cut something just like start really thinking about do i actually need this because there's always like you know i go to people's houses and they have like three different types of blenders um i I don't know.

I feel like you can get away with just one. So, yeah. Wow. Sorry, I'm not coming out of anybody. If they have to be, don't, don't. I think we have two blenders. Do we really? We have two.

Yeah, we have a magic bullet and we have something else. Yeah. But they're each for a different purpose. The blender is like, you need a big blender for stuff. But the magic bullets are like, you know, just on the go, just, you know, a few things. It's easy. How much do you spend it a week? We got to bring that back, the what I spend.

in a week's it's it's so hard to gauge because there's there's weeks where I will literally spend zero dollars I mean you know if there's probably like subscriptions or something that'll like kick in or whatever but um when I'm off the grid zero dollars and then there's other times where I'm traveling a lot like in the past week I definitely spent you know a decent amount of money because I went out to dinner last night and the night before uh business meals um and you know hotel tonight that was like a hundred-sum dollars so there could be weeks where you know I'll spend like a thousand in a week when you add everything in. Like, I was just over in Europe in Airbnb's for like a month.

So that probably costs at least a few thousand dollars. What do you think the average week, though, like a thousand bucks a week? If you're including business expenses, then probably about $1,000. Yeah. Yeah, like just like business dinners or like, you know, other things. Business golfing, business recreation. No, I'm really concerned. Business Chapotle.

Yeah, no, no, no. I, like, not to get into taxes, but I'm really conservative with, like, what I, you know, like, I don't write off that much because I'm just, you know, want to steer clear of any problems with that. Now, for your taxes, do you have to worry about being in a location for too long and, like, oh, I, technically, I filmed a video in Montana, so now I got to file a tax return to Montana. Yeah, I talk to my accountant about that kind of stuff a lot. It does definitely, like, if I am in a place for, a really long time, then I would start thinking about that.

And I think there's certain places, too, where, like, you have to pay tax based off of how many days you were there, which is crazy. But, yeah, I mean, I'm a Pennsylvania resident for now. And I think I would only worry about that if I was spending, like, a lot of time somewhere. Yeah. What's the state tax in Pennsylvania? It's 3.07%.

That's the top tax rate? Yes, for personal. So it's not terrible, really. That's insane. 3%. Is that a lot or a little? No, a little. Yeah.

So that's why I haven't changed my residency yet because, like, you know, if I was paying 10% or 13.3 in the top bracket in California, I definitely would move. Yeah. Especially because I move around so much that it's like, why not establish residency somewhere else, you know. Got it. Yeah. Let me ask you this. I'm just curious because I think the last time we talked, you were getting close to a million in a year, right? A million subscribers?

No, no, a million dollars. making a man. Yeah. Were you able to cross that? With like my, like, with my YouTube channel. No, no, just with everything. Everything combined? Did we do that?

Yeah, maybe. You did? Yeah. Wow. Congratulations. With the sale of stock, right? Like that included, it was pretty significant, I can imagine. Yeah, you could include that, yeah.

Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. I don't really call myself like a millionaire. It feels weird, like saying that, but I guess, I guess you could say that. It's weird because, you could say that.

It's weird because. you're the only personal finance YouTuber. You ask a question, you're like that. And you're a little bit reserved about giving the answer, even though, like, you got started in finance. Yeah, I'm, like, I'm a pretty private guy, I feel like, you know, and people are surprised by that, because I'm sitting here talking about my life, but I still, there's a lot of things I like to keep private, you know. Sure. Yeah. Do you, it doesn't make you uncomfortable to talk about money and stuff like that? It does feel weird. Um, like growing up, my parents never talked about money. Like, I have no idea how much money they make. Um, and they never talked about it.

and that's just kind of like the culture in my family. And I think that's like how it is in a lot of households. But also like I think, you know, it was fun to talk about it. And I would do like those income updates back in 2018, 2019. Yeah. And then it just kind of got to a point where it just felt weird, you know, because like it went from people cheering you on of like, this is so cool.

You're making like $6,000 a month in college. This is amazing. And I just kind of felt like, you know, like too much like bragging almost. And so, yeah, that's why the last one I made on income. updates was like January 2020. Yeah. I could see that. The same, something similar happened to me. I think originally when everyone started doing it, it was new. And nobody had ever done that before. And it was like, wow, they're just like revealing all this transparency. And especially for someone like you, I think people have followed you from the very beginning. And they really support,

like everything that you're doing and they're excited for you. And just you sharing that little victory is like, wow, if Nate could do it and he came from there and I watched his journey, then I could do something similar too and if I follow along like this is what's possible so that's how I originally went into it but then it did seem a while like I think the last income update

I don't know six months ago and that was a lot I was told Jack even that one I was like didn't want to do it but you know I had carried this on every year I may as well do one last hurrah video on that but then after that it's like you're right in the very beginning

it's fun it's new inside but then after a while it's like okay this is the 20th update Yeah, and like those videos always do well, too. Because people are interested. They want to know. And I think it's great. Like, it is good to be transparent because it's, like, probably thousands of people have watched your videos and then been like, I'm going to be just like Graham. And then they went out and they did it.

And now they're probably almost full time, like making thousands of dollars a month because they saw you come up like this and inspired them. So, yeah, that's great. Now, you know, it's fun too. In our last podcast, we were talking about videos that, and, uh, and, you know, it's fun. up doing really well. Told me to make a video on side hustles. And back then, I told you I hated making videos inside it. Because I feel like side hustles don't really change.

The same thing. Well, I made a video about side hustles because, you know what? You recommended it. That video is almost at a million views. Yeah, yeah. And that's what happens to. Like, I made a, like, you know, top seven businesses to start in 2021. And I make those every year.

And it's like, okay, like, people aren't going to watch this now. It's 20-21. Like, I've been making these for years. And, yeah, that video is doing, like, it gets, you know, three or four thousand views a day for the past year, you know. So those videos always do well. So what are some of the top businesses to start in 2021? Right now?

Yeah, let's talk about first side hustles. Okay, okay. Maybe the top side, top five side hustles. And then we'll do the top five ways to make $100 a day and pass a video. Oh, boy. I hope I can come up with enough for these here because I haven't made a video like this in a long time. usually I spend a lot of time Like if I'm gonna make a video like that

I'm gonna spend days like you ask like what do I think about It's that kind of stuff like I'll just like pace around all day And be like mushroom farm you know Yeah remember that Side Hustles I don't know who made this table But looks a little pricey make his table Oh you know what I do think we gotta give a huge shout out To Black Forest Woodco for this table

Believe it or not they made this entirely from from scratch Look at this Well you can't really see we'll throw some B-roll on this They included coffee inside the table, which is incredible. And then they put this cool, like, glaze through it. It almost looks like a river of coffee. So we're going to put their information down below in the description.

You know what? We'll put up like a little thing right here. But thank you so much. And for anyone else who's interested in a table like this, they have some fantastic products. Yeah. So what we're talking about? Side hustles.

Yeah. I mean, how, like, there's anything. Like, money is everywhere and you can make money in anything. Like, literally, you guys just got these, right? It's black walnut, right? Yeah. Black walnut that's worth a lot of money, okay? And so you can make these, right?

Like, I remember because when my brother and I, we had a firewood business, and sometimes we'd stumble upon, like, black walnut trees, and those are worth a lot of money. And we knew that we could sell these. If we cut them into really large pieces, really large chunks, we could sell them to somebody who made things just like this or made furniture and made tables, and you can get a premium for that.

So, like, there's money everywhere. I feel like if you look at your hobbies and you analyze like what do you love doing and then also have a lot of knowledge about and then just find a way to monetize it. Like there's always a way. Sometimes you have to be really creative with it. But yeah, that's what I suggest.

Just coming up with anything. Every side hustle is viable in your mind. Yeah, like I mean, I used to sell mealworms, right? The mushroom farm didn't work out unfortunately. Portobella mushroom farm. Why? Why that fail? I mean, I was like 13 and just it was hard to find customers.

you know, like who's going to buy bags of mushrooms? It was, it sounded like a good thing in theory because Pennsylvania produces a lot of mushrooms. But it just, you know, there was also like the shiny object syndrome thing going on when I was 13. It was like I was trying to find a business. I was trying to find something. I'd get excited about something.

I'd do it for two months and then find the next thing that looked like a better opportunity. You know what's going to take off? I guarantee this is going to blow up. You heard it here first? Growing funguses. Oh, yeah. It's going to be a huge thing. went to the

oh gosh what was the farmer's market the other week and there was a table there that was selling these kits the grow your own fungus kits I gotta say it looks so cool and all it takes is for like a few viral TikToks

would be like look at this fun and they're cool looking I mean it looks like a piece of coral that you could grow in like no light that's easy to take care of that you could kind of do on your own doesn't take a lot of work but you could give at the time it needs

they're just neat It made me want to grow fungus like that. And I think a lot of these are edible. Like you could eat it. They're not like poisonous or not. You're going to like have some crazy experience. But it's, it's just cool stuff.

And they grow in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Like, gosh, what is this? The putty stuff blew up. Like there are people making like a hundred thousand a month. You're selling slime? Slime.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Like the slimes. And it's just you see these Instagram things that they're like needing the slime. And it's just, it's cool to watch. Fungus.

I'm telling you. I think fungus could be a big one. Yeah, I should talk to my sister. She's going for botany for college. She loves fungus. She's always sending me things about mushrooms all the time. Listen, I think you make a fungus kit that sends you a new type of fungus. This new type of fungus.

Fungus subscription? Seriously. No, there's so much money in fungus, seriously, because I saw a new company that instead of packing peanuts, they use some type of fungus or like cardboard. Wow. Is it biodegradable? Yes, totally biodegradable. I forget what it's called, but there's just so many new things coming out with it that it's definitely an industry that's going to blow up in the next five, ten years.

I feel like the name fungus, though, could work against it. Like, you don't want to be like, yeah, come check on my fungus farm. I'm like, you know, eating my fungus. That just doesn't sound very appealing. There's a lot of fancier words for mushrooms. Like what? Wow, I'm blanking. Like mycelium, my, what is it?

what the hell What is it? Alex, speaking to the miccelium. It's not calvert. Okay. Yeah. It's mycelium. Yeah.

Something like that. Look at this. Look at this. Yeah. So this is, uh... I'm speaking of the mic. Yeah. So look at this.

It's called Golden Oyster Mushroom Grow kits. $28. But look how cool that looks. Yeah, you just throw some mushroom spores in there and, uh, gets a job done. That's neat. And imagine every month. We should have one of those as a, on the table. right here.

We should. That's pretty cool. That's called Lions Main. I want more side hustles. One more. Give us another side hustle. Gee, I mean, you know. 18, no money.

What do I do? Okay. You got to look at your skills, obviously. And everybody's, so many people say, I have no skills. Like, I'm totally worthless or whatever. Everybody has something that you're slightly better than the average person at. And it could be something really stupid or it could be something, like, really cool. Like, you could teach.

people how to surf. Like there's like look at all of your hobbies and you can teach somebody how to do that, right? You go with guitar. Teach somebody how to play guitar. You, you know, uh, like Spanish and, and you know people who want to learn Spanish. You can teach them that, right? So teaching people to do something, great side hustle. You definitely know something that that somebody's willing to pay money for. So and, and a great part about that is that, is that there's really no overhead for it. Right. So it's not going to cost you much money to get started with that. That's great. That's a great answer. That is a good answer. I'm a little curious, like, you're talking about all your different businesses and stuff, and you say that you spend a lot of time just kind of pacing and thinking. It seems like you have more time.

I'm trying to get like a feel for, like, where does the time go? I mean, you drive around in your car, you sit places, I'm sure, like admire views. I always see you, like you're in mountain ranges and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, there's, I don't really know, to be honest with you. I mean, it's definitely, like, there's meetings, obviously. I'm on the phone with my brother a lot because I kind of do a lot of thinking and then he does a lot of work, I guess you could say.

So we kind of work together with some business stuff. What kind of business stuff are you working with? Yeah, you're holding something back. What is it? I'm trying to figure out what it is. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to talk about it. I mean, just like a little bit. I mean, I'll just say, like, yeah, we have some YouTube channels,

some blogs. And then also, yeah, a lot of my time is spent like finding places to put money, I guess. So like I don't like pumping all of my money into the S&P 500. So I'm looking for new investments. Sometimes, you know, there's like angel investments that get pitched to us. But, you know, more so looking for cash businesses that I can invest into. So I'm probably investing into another media company in the next couple of weeks. I'm excited about that. Probably can't talk about it like here right now. And yeah, just like putting money into different projects and kind of like setting things up. Like we'll have

some random business idea and be like, all right, we want to do this, but we don't have any more time to go and try to build this business. So we'll just set up like a project, basically, like, and we'll say, okay, we'll put 25 grand into this over the next 12 months and kind of just let it run. And then it should be profitable by that end of the 12 month period. Now, you say media company and you say YouTube channels. Can you tell us the YouTube channels? I don't think I'm going to it. How about the niche? How about the niche? I don't think so.

So, okay, so if you can't tell us the channel, is it that you're running another channel or you have some sort of input on another channel that... Yeah, so like we... I'm not on the channels. I like being behind the scenes. So we'll just hire somebody to make the content, you know, script writers, editors,

and they'll just do all of that. And it's kind of just like, we'll just say, like, all right, here's what we're going to do next. Here's the next 20 videos and go ahead and go make those. Wow. And we just let them marinate for a while, like, you know, half a year or something. Have any of them taken off? Maybe.

I am so curious. Wow. Hey, you don't have to say. You don't have to say. I'll show you guys a little bit after the podcast. That's awesome, man. Congratulations on this. That's something that I wanted to do originally.

Before I even started making YouTube videos, I wanted to do exactly that. I wanted to invest in a YouTube channel and have some just oversight. I thought a lot of channels back in, like, 2013, could have done so well had they just had like a business mindset. Yeah. And these were a lot of channels that just, they had really good content, but they had no direction in terms of like how to monetize it.

They were really good at being in front of the camera. They just needed someone to take control and be like, this is how we should structure it. We're going to do this and make a lot of money, but split it. And what was holding a lot of people back was that they were still working jobs. Like the channel was not making any money. They couldn't give it 100%.

They were like, you know, working a job half the day and then like going and doing this. and it just didn't turn out the same. I wanted people to do it full time. Yeah. And I guess that's where it kicks in where it's like, if you're so confident in it, you just say, all right,

I'll, like, I'll pay you. Like, I'll make sure that you can quit your job and do this full time. That's a bigger gamble, obviously. Right. But yeah, people do that sometimes. Wow. All right.

Last question on this. Before we move on, would this have been a channel that maybe I would have stumbled across? Like, maybe I had seen a video or like... Probably not. No. No.

No, definitely not. Okay. That's awesome. Congratulations. That's so cool. That's pretty passive, I'm assuming. Yeah. I mean, it's passive for me, not really for my brother that much.

Like, we're really good business partners, and I'm really happy that we have such a good dynamic where it's like, I don't know if this is a good analogy, but like let's say if a business is a car, like I'm kind of the one steering the wheel and then he's the engine. Like he's the one doing day-to-day operations, like really like making it. I don't know, maybe I should pick up the slack a little bit. Wow. Would you say then that's like surpassed your own channel in terms of like income? Geez. Wow. That is so cool.

I am shocked that you're not just like dancing around about this and like screaming at the top of the mountain. This is incredible. I don't see why I would though. Why would I publicize? Because you're the first one that I've talked to in the entire finance niche that has managed to. build a second channel outside of their own and manage it behind the scenes.

The first person I've seen to do that. See, it's just impressive to me that you were able to do it with yourself, right? And then you go and you apply all of the knowledge that you had learned. And you weren't a part of the equation at all as far as like using your current celebrity to grow the channel. I know. I think the hardest part of being a growing channel is like understanding the algorithm. So I kind of got that part down by building my own channel. And then you know what works.

You know what doesn't work going forward. so it's easier to just kind of like, you know. I'm sure finding the right personality to be in front of the camera is very important. Yeah, very difficult. Yeah. If you guys notice, sometimes I'll post things on my story with like Google forums of like, hey, anybody looking for like freelance work. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that.

Yeah, yeah. So I just build like a big bank of like hundreds of people who can like script writers, editors, be like people on camera. See, I'm, I'm interested in just like the process, like, extremely interested in the process behind like, I don't know how much of this you want to talk about. Like this to me is the most exciting thing. that I think I've talked about all day here. But like the process, like, what gave you the idea?

Like, and you don't have to reveal too much, but like, also why you chose not to promote it through yourself, like, why you wanted to grow it organically and not, like, jumpstart it from the very beginning. How you found people, how you knew that someone was going to be good in front of the camera. Did you have to let people go in the meantime? Like, yeah, so, I mean, I'll just bring people on as, like, independent contractors, try out a couple people, right, and then see how they do.

But, I mean, so I really don't, like, I don't mind being on camera, but I'm not naturally an entertainer. I'm not naturally a speaker. So I really do prefer to work on things behind the scenes. And there's just so much opportunity with YouTube. Like, if you have the, so let's say you have 25 grand and you want to put it somewhere. You want to invest it somewhere without spending too much time on it. You can put it into the stock market, right? I feel like I'm already way over exposed to equities.

and you can put into real estate, you can put in other things, maybe grow 10% per year or something. But I just feel like with our understanding, and not to say like I have a superior understanding of YouTube and the algorithm, but I just realized that, you know, I could take 25 grand

and instead of putting in the stock market, put it into a new brand. And if that can turn 25 into, say, 250, like, you know, that's a better return than 10%. So that was kind of why we started doing that. And you're also diversifying. Like a lot out of the finance niche. Obviously still be holding to YouTube.

You know, you don't want to. Yeah, no kidding. That was why. That's why we started these. Wait, really? No, no, not like the primary reason, but it was definitely like, I was like, I don't want to have all my eggs in one basket. That's true.

I think the worst, I feel so bad for people when, like, they're an influencer, they're doing well and either like, you know, something happens, whatever. I mean, usually it's not fault anyway. But there's also times where it's like they start to slip. Like their videos are not as good. People don't watch them anymore. And you can just see, like, they're, you can just see. like they're still trying to make it.

Like, because they quit their job. They're doing YouTube full time. Two or three years later, they're not as popular. So now they're barely making enough money to make ends meet. And like they have to do it because they don't know what else to do. I feel like a lot of YouTubers get boxed in and influencers in general. And they're like, I have to keep doing this to keep my money going so I can pay my bills. And I didn't want to be in that position.

Wow. How do you know someone's going to be good in front of the camera? Do you just test things out until eventually, like, you're like, that's our person? Yeah, you just got to test out. Are you afraid, here's a weird question, are you afraid that the person you have in front of the camera is going to feel like they're irreplaceable after a certain amount of time,

and then they're going to demand an amount that really eats into the bottom line? No, that's why you put different people on the channels. Are we talking multiple channels, or one person per channel? No, like multiple people per channel. Wow, okay. Yeah, and that way it's not like, it's, yeah, because I can see how that'd be a problem.

If it was like one person and they're making all the videos, then it's like people just associate that person with the brand. Yeah, so that could be problematic. That's really smart. You know what it reminds me of? And I'm not saying this is, no, I'm not saying this is what you're doing. But right now, the Darmann style video.

What's that? Really? Darmann? I can't tell you. Maybe you're playing this. No, no, he doesn't know what Darmann is. I genuinely don't know what this is. He makes skits, basically.

Like really high production quality skits that are supposed to teach you some sort of lesson. And they're super cliche, super just like typical. And, yeah. But oh my gosh. So, Darman on Facebook was getting like over, I think it was like a billion views a month. A billion a month on Facebook. And you know on Facebook the monetization is like through the roof.

Darman's probably making like $50 million a year, I'm guessing, just from like Facebook. His YouTube channel blew up. When his YouTube channel blew up and all of his videos, by the way, are getting like Mr. Beast style views. he's posted like multiple times a week. And that inspired a whole bunch of copycats who realized that format's working. And then the copycats go in

and then their videos are plowed because it's just like these short little quick skits that are easily shareable. And the audience is like, you know, your parents, your grandparents, your uncle or whatever, they'll send you those videos. What? Boomers.

It is. But you know what the boomers are doing that millennials are not sharing? millennials rarely will send a video to one another, but meanwhile, it's like, what? Well, millennials don't share videos? Dude,

I get inundated with TikToks from people. Yeah, I guess so many TikToks. 100% TikToks. Not YouTube videos, though, but on Facebook, it's so easy to be like, you know, Jerry, come check this out.

And that's a darn video. I don't know. Young people not have the name Jerry. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just saying it seems like that content is more easily shareable. Same with TikToks, you know. No, I do agree.

Like, my mom, out of everyone, does send me the most videos. Like, out of everyone, my parents, yeah. Speaking of TikToks, Macy, I checked my phone. She just sent me a TikTok. Yeah. Multiple, there's like at least four a day. Then I was like, here's a funny TikTok. But it's easy because it's like 30 seconds.

It's so addicting. Yeah, like, that's why I think that's why YouTube and Snapchat and Instagram, like they're all pushing these so much, you know, Reels and YouTube shorts because they look at how much time is being spent on TikTok and they're like, wow, like, we really are dropping the ball here. We need to at least keep up with TikTok because that's the way content's going. It's scary because YouTube is slowly getting there. I think YouTube is trying to, I don't want to say they're trying to copy the algorithm,

but they're trying to create their own algorithm to compete, and they're working on it right now. Because I've got to say, when Facebook first came out, or sorry, when YouTube first came out with it, was not a fan. I thought these are silly things, and it just everything had the TikTok watermark on it. They're getting better because now I'm scrolling my homepage

and I see them come up with like it's always, you know what it is, the teeth. It's getting plaque off teeth for some reason is always the first thing and I want to watch it because it's so sad. That's why I click it and then it ends in like 10 seconds

but it automatic before you have time to click off it's like here's the next one. And they need to hit you. It's like a work hole. It's like warps time. Yeah. I've downloaded TikTok in the past. I think I made like one TikTok one time. I saw it. Yeah, and I've downloaded the past, and it's just, like, so addicting that I had to get rid of it because you're like, oh, just, you know, two minutes, whatever,

like you lay down and go to bed, you scroll, and the next thing you know, an hour and a half goes by, and you think it was 10 minutes. Like, it's just, it's insane. You know what? It's, it's, I want to see more studies on the effects of TikTok, but I could see, no, but I could see at some point that, like 10, 15 years from now, we're going to look back at the effects of what that does to the brain. It has to, because I know. I know. even for myself, I'm not a fan of TikTok. But I know if you go on there, it's so

easy, 20 minutes goes by, and I don't even like TikTok. So if that's doing it for me, imagine what it's doing for people who, like, always go on TikTok, and it's just like this dopamine hits, bam, bam, bam, every, like 20 seconds you get something new that is algorithm tested?

What effect does that have on the rest of your life? That it's like every time your mind goes blank for it, open up TikTok. It's almost like a drug, yeah. And that's something actually that I've really been focusing on the past couple of years that I've noticed my attention span is so used to be so bad. And I think, and I've explained this in my channel before, it's like if you look at movies that were made in the 1970s,

like the movie Rocky versus a movie in 2021. Like in 2021, there's a... Yeah, it has to be. The screen every three seconds is changing. But I remember watching Rocky and it's like, there's like a five minute clip of him just walking down the street, like nothing happening. And I'm like, come on, like, saw something happen.

Like I need something action or something. And it's just like, it's getting faster and faster. Like these dopamine hits are getting like shorter and shorter and shorter. So I don't know. I feel like something has to happen. What do you think that's, what impact do you think that's going to have for the next generation? I'm definitely worried. I mean, hopefully people can, and you know, this is not like me saying that there's a right

and wrong answer. If people want to go watch TikTok for 10 hours a day, they can. But I think just like realizing that it can actually be almost like an addiction, it's like, all right, I need to get rid of this. And then really just focus on. on meditating, actually, is something that I do because it really helps with that with my attention span. And I think having a good attention span,

it gives you more patience. It allows you to make decisions better. Some people say you lose your edge with it a little bit, but I think overall it has great benefits. It reminds me a little bit of the casino, like TikTok. It's a weird comparison, but when you walk into the casino, it's like they want to give you the right conditions

of like, oh, this machine is lighting up over here. Look at all the numbers. and just making, I found it interesting. I learned this from a TikTok, believe it or not. Funny. Nice. But I think it was, was it Humphrey Yang? He's a great guy, yeah.

Yeah, he was going through Las Vegas, and he pointed out why a lot of casinos don't have hard turns. You'll notice. I saw that one. Yeah, there's not like a right and a left. There's always like, you could go kind to the right, kind of the left, you can go in a circle, because they want to limit the amount of decisions that you have to make.

and the fewer decisions you make, the more likely you are to play more. They also have carpet. The carpet is always like a weird, like psychedelic design that just like, it just calms you down and makes you not think. Like the carpets are always like that. Obviously, no natural light.

They don't want you to see what time is. No clocks. And I get so lost. Like I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to go outside and like go get an Uber or something. And I'll spend 15 minutes trying, like, I'll walk a mile to try to find it. So that's also probably one of their strategies as well.

Just make it confusing. Yeah. But it reminds me of TikTok. They have this dialed in to be like, I'm going to show you this video first. And based on other users like this, if we show you this video second, you're likely to watch that. And then they just keep testing this. And they test it millions of times for every video that you see to be like perfectly tailored to you in just the right amount of time. And I bet they know, too.

Like if a video is too long or it's boring and people click out, they're not going to show that video again. they're going to show you something else that's better. Everything you see is tailored. It's like it's accumulation of how many millions of hours of testing that go into just the first few videos that you see on TikTok. This is bad. Macy sent me a TikTok of people trying. This is a Clips exclusive guys.

So you have to go and subscribe to the Clips channel to go and see this. If you're game on this, if you don't have to. Let's do it. Yeah. Well, let's do it. Okay. Oh, I know what it is. I know what it is.

We're all going to do it. together. Okay. So don't think that, like, we're going to subject just you to this. Right, right, right. It is the world's most sour candy.

I'm taking this? We all are. If you want to. If you want to. Okay. Yeah. So I'm trying to buy a house somewhere, and I'm looking at the different states that don't have income tax, right?

Just because it'd make sense. Like, I don't have anything holding me down. So might as well just go live somewhere that also I end up saving money. And the money I save in income tax will basically pay for the house in a weird way. So yeah, I'm trying to figure out that, and I know you just moved to Nevada.

What are your thoughts on that? I love it. It seems like so many people have moved here now. Okay. Yeah. There's definitely people moving here from California. I see that. Lots of my friends are just all of place.

But what about the property here? Like, I feel like it's bubbly. No, I think... It is, man. Okay, so first of all, everywhere is bubbly. There's not one place you could go. If you go, like, in the most rural parts, that's bubbly because everyone wants to get out of the city.

Every city now is bubbly because people moved out and people are like, oh, this is a good opportunity I could get in. It's going to be the same no matter where you go. I think the benefit that you have of Las Vegas is that there seems to be such a huge influx of people coming from California. And I got to say, they're the people who are bidding up prices. I bet if you go and Jack, you would know this, but I bet if you talk to most realtors out there

in like the $500 to $1.3 million price point, And you ask them, how many people are coming from California? How many offers do you have from Californians? They would say at least 30%, maybe half. And what was it? When I was looking even, and this was like a year ago, over $1.5 million, they said the majority of those buyers were from California. And New York wanting to move here.

That's the market. So I would say in terms of property, gosh, Las Vegas is fantastic. You are competing with California money. coming in and everything here is like relatively cheap compared with there. But they're doing so much development right now that I just, I can't see how over 20 years, like, you know, between now and like next year, I have no idea. But I can't see how like 10 years or not, 15 years or not, it wouldn't be more expensive than it is today. So I think over 10 years, I think it's a good investment. Yeah, I'm definitely thinking about it. I got to check out Vegas real estate.

I'm probably going to go out to Houston tomorrow. I'll look at some properties. You know, not everybody loves Houston. I've never been there, but like, I know 10 people there. And I always ask them, like, how do you like Houston? They're like, eh, it's all right. Yeah. Their houses are so cheap. It's like you can buy a mansion for a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I want to check it out. Just like see if I like the area. Because you wouldn't want to live somewhere that you don't like just for tax reasons. I think that'd be kind of like a waste. You know, because that's where you're spending your life, right? There's some other interesting options, though, like Alaska, a little bit far removed. Right. South Dakota, Wyoming, not a whole lot of like infrastructure there. You know, like, if I want to find like accountants and stuff and like, you know, banks, it's a little bit more spread out. Florida, obviously, Texas, New Hampshire. I think Tennessee doesn't really have much of an income tax now in Washington State.

So definitely some options. That's what I've been doing, exploring around with like my truck. I've been stopping through the states, looking at towns. I think there's just going to be a time where it's like, it's just right. Like, I stop in a city, I stop in a town. I'm like, this is the place. What's your favorite so far that you? you've seen.

Of those states. Yeah. I would probably have to say, obviously, I really liked Austin. I mean, I just liked how young everybody was. It seemed like it was really up and coming, you know, doing well as a city. Property taxes were really expensive, but definitely like Austin. And, you know, I like Florida because it's so close to everything else on the East Coast. I love being East Coast time, like New York time.

So, yeah. That's something I didn't consider. Is this the time zone of it? Oh, I can't stand, like, being in Pacific time. It kills me because if I wake up here at 7 o'clock in the morning, it's already 10 o'clock. Like, the market's already opened. You know, it's three hours earlier in New York.

So I love being on the East Coast. I actually love being on Europe time even better. Like, if you're in London, because then you can, you know, wake up at, you know, 8 a.m., and it's 3 a.m. back in New York, and you're ahead of everybody, you know, so you can really get the day started there. That's interesting. Yeah, I think the benefit of Las Vegas is that you're so close to the west side in like Southern California. So if you want to go to the mountains, you want to do all that sort of stuff, go to the beach. It's really close. That's the benefit. A lot of people are also here. They're really business friendly, no state income tax. But Florida would be very tempting to, I think.

Yeah, a lot of people. Miami's a lot going on there. So it'd probably be a little bit outside of Miami up closer to like, you know, Boka or something. Yeah. You mentioned that you wanted to, like, maybe buy a mansion. I figured that that sounds kind of atypical for me. Did I say that? Well, you said you can buy a mansion for like a few hundred thousand dollars. Oh, yeah, you could, yeah. I mean, I don't want a huge house.

I'm thinking like 2,000 square feet maybe. That's not, is that average. I'm not sure what the average house is probably 1,500 square feet. Okay, yeah, so somewhere around that is what I would go for. So if I buy something in certain areas in Texas, yeah, it would be like, you know, probably $200,000. And at that point, I'm even wondering if I should just, buy it in cash. And I know you're going to disagree with that probably, right?

How much would you be looking for? Say if it was like 200,000 or 250,000. Cash. Yeah? You think it's better? I do. I do. I'm happy that you say that because I'm leaning towards it. Yeah. I just think for your income and like your position, is it worth it to get a loan? Yeah. Financially it probably is because you're going to be able to use that as a good write-off. But I also think that, you know, is it worth it then to save like an extra we'll call it like two grand a year. Maybe is how much you're going to say by having a by having a mortgage.

You're going to pay off. Maybe, you know, two grand a year. Is that worth it? I don't know. And there's time involved with that too because anytime you're self-employed, I feel like, you know, it's just more problematic with home loans and everything.

And I feel like I might just be better off just doing cash. And I kind of view it in a way of like if you look at income, if it's almost if somebody was making $50,000 a year buying a car, in cash. It's not a huge thing. Yeah, I would say for you and knowing your lifestyle and not having like a lot of overhead, I just think having a mortgage for you, I think would be like

another little checklist in your mind. A mortgage get paid this month. And the one thing I don't like with the mortgage is so silly. But they require that property insurance is sent in every year. And I had one that it's not that it lapsed, but there was like a day or two where I forgot to pay the insurance and they canceled the policy, but they have to send a notice to the mortgage company. And then they issued me like a $35 fee or something like that per day that I didn't have insurance by mistake. It's just like stuff like that is just kind of silly. I don't like that. And also, I mean, you're not going to have this issue, but when you're getting other loans, they want proof of your mortgage payments on everything else with property tax. It's just

like, I don't know. Beyond a certain point, this is not really worth it to save a small. small amount. Yeah. I'm really happy you're saying that. I've been on the fence because most people say, you know, why would you buy cash? It sounds stupid. Yeah. Yeah, but financially it's probably a little bit better.

But I think for you mentally, it'll be easier just pay cash, be done with it. Don't have any lenders to talk to, nothing like that. If you, honestly, if you put out one more video and the time it takes you to speak with lenders, shop around the rate, send them all of your information and close in the house, that one video would pay probably double what you would save by having a mortgage that year. That was my line of thinking as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not worth it. So that's my response to you. But I think you'd be happy in Florida. I think you'd be happy in Nevada. Do I like a Florida guy? Like Florida man?

You could, yeah. Oh yeah, it's the button. Yeah. Yeah, you're perfect for Miami. Oh, great. Yeah. But I could also see Texas because if you're looking to travel, I mean, that's like right in the middle of the country. You could pretty much go anywhere and be equal distance from like the east coast as you could from the west coast. Yeah. And that's why I need a big airport nearby. So that's why I was thinking Houston, maybe Dallas. Being within an hour of a major airport because I just travel so much, it's like I couldn't

be in Wyoming. That's why, you know, it's just too far off the grid. But why would you, why would you buy a house if you're planning on traveling and doing all of that so much? I want to, because I want a place that I can like have a home base at if I want to come back and work for two months straight. Like, because there are a time for I'll just go and like a grind and I'll just just work, work, work, work, right?

And I want the ability to do that. Because right now, like, you know, I had my apartment. Sometimes I'll go back to my brother's house and just, like, his bunch of rooms. So I'll just, like, stay there for a week and just crank work. But I want a place to do that. And also, like, keeping the same address and everything, it would just be nice as well. Instead of, like, imagine you've apartments and you're moving around. And you, like, change all your addresses.

Like, every year, it just seems like a big pain with, like, bills and taxes and everything. Yeah. So I want a home base. That makes sense. Yeah. You know, if for something like that, I just buy a place. It's like 200 grand. So, you know, we got one question.

It was from a woman called Sass. And she just said, when will you get a haircut? And I said, me or Nate? And she said both. When are you going to get a haircut? You know, I actually gave myself haircuts, like, most, probably more often than I don't. Well, wait, I worded that wrong, but you know what I mean? Like, I give most of my own haircuts.

But probably I'll get a haircut whenever I go back to Pennsylvania. Like back to my, when I go visit my parents, there was a barber I like there. and I only go to that barber. I'm either going to the barber or I'm cutting it myself because I don't trust anybody else. Wow, Jack, who cut your hair? I cut my hair.

Actually, for the first time ever, myself. It's honestly better. Like, it might not look as fresh and clean, but... It's quick. It saves time, saves money. Yeah, and you get better doing it like in the mirror. It's all like reversed and stuff,

but like over time you just get better with it. Why don't you just do a buzz cut? I feel like for you just on the road, you just... Yeah. Oh, like, you would look like tough. Really, really good. I'm going to save the buzz cut for when I go bald, you know, like.

Oh, just to clear it all out. I might as well just have the hair now. Yeah, that's right. Everybody in my lineage just goes bald. So it's like, all right. What age? Pretty early, like 20s. So I mean, your hair line is immaculate.

I hope I'm good. I mean. I was actually analyzing that earlier today. Your hangar lines. It's incredible. All right. Yeah, well, it's holding strong for now. So we'll see.

But yeah, the buzz cut, I feel like, I'll have plenty of time in my life where I'll end up. with buzz cut. Okay. Yeah. I feel like you would, you would look good, though, with the buzz cut and grow out the beard a little bit. Oh, yeah. Should I grow out the beard?

Because people are 50-50 on it. And, like, I hate shaving. It's just such a pain. Yeah. When's the last time you've done that? What, shaved? Yeah, no, growing it out. I've never.

Do it. 100% do it. Grow it out just to see what it looks like. Why would you not? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. I agree with that. It's like 50-50, though.

Like, it's the only negative comments I've ever gotten one time I didn't shave for like two weeks. and people like, dude, you need a razor man. You know what? Because you have a very youthful look that when you're clean shaven, it just, it takes like 10 years off. Yeah.

That's what I think it is. I think I'm going to go beard because the fall is coming up. It's like going into winter. Yeah. Right, the warmth. Sure. Yeah.

You look pretty cool like with what you got right now. Oh, okay. Thanks. I think I'm done shaving. So I won't shave until I come back on the podcast. Oh, that'll be seen. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, there we go. Five years now. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. I think we're good. Hey, Nate, thank you so much for coming.

It's been a blast. Thanks for having me, guys. It's always great meeting up, and I love this new studio you have here. This is the first episode, so congratulations. No, we're honored. But one big question. Have you got your free stock yet from public down below in the description? Because they raised it, it's all the way up to $1,000 now.

Really? Wow. I did get my free stock. I used your link. Yes. I also have a link. But you do. Wow.

Use the link in the description. below to get your free stock. That's a good endorsement. And make sure you finish, you know, creating your account. Like don't half ass it. Finish your account. You got to finish it. Connect your bank account.

Yes. Link your bank account. And add the clips channel down below in the description. Yeah. Cool. So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. Really appreciate it. Nate, thank you so much for coming out here.

I will link to your information down below in the description. Feel free to add us on Instagram. Jack, you've got to post them more often on Instagram. Yeah. Now that Jack in the Box is following you. Jack in the Box, followed me on Instagram. Is that cool?

Huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. Yeah. Jack in Box. If you're watching right now, feel free. I'll take anything.

Okay, I'll take anything. You want to give me a jumbo Jack to eat it on the podcast? I'll do it. That would be incredible for them to sponsor the podcast. Like, just an episode where we just have Jack in the Box. We'll eat Jack in the Box. It's so good. I love it.

I'd be fine of that. So Jack in the Box, we got to make that happen. Also, Black Forest Wood Company. Thank you so much for the same. table. I will link to their information down below in the description. I can't speak of this table highly enough. It's incredible. You have to truly see it in person to appreciate it.

But if you want any work done similar to this, 10 out of 10. You're absolutely incredible. So, thank you guys so much for watching and until next time. This one? Okay. Yeah. Cool. So you go? Yeah. Go.