The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Become a Stealth Wealth Millionaire (With JC Rodriguez)

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Real millionaires do not look rich. They look boring on purpose, and that is exactly how they got there. 👉 Join Andrew's FREE Masterclass The Portfolio Pyramid: https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/q05p7b65?webinar_id=24 What You'll Learn in This Episode The core mentalities that separate stealth wealth millionaires from high earners who stay broke Why the person driving the Mercedes is more likely in debt than the person driving the Toyota What real millionaires actually invest in and why it is boring on purpose The number one mistake keeping high earners from building any wealth at all How teachers and accountants are quietly hitting millionaire status while influencers go broke Why spending on experiences over stuff is the move almost every quiet millionaire makes The one shift in mindset that changes everything about how you see your money Start Here Join the community built to help you master your money, stay accountable, and reach financial freedom. 👉 Try Master Money Academy FREE for 7 days today! https://mastermoney.co/join/ 👉 Join Andrew’s FREE Investing for Beginners Masterclass https://event.webinarjam.com/q05p7/register/0o8z9io?webinar_id=21 👉 Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! https://expert-hustler-605.ck.page/6aa7bb9a79 Partner Deals Indeed → Get a $75 sponsored job credit ⁠http://Indeed.com/personalfinance⁠ Policygenius → Free life insurance quote ⁠http://policygenius.com⁠ Chime → Get more rewarding fee-free banking at ⁠https://www.chime.com/PFP⁠ Monarch Money → Up to  60% off | MEMORIAL DAY WAREHOUSE CLEAROUT ⁠http://www.monarch.com/PFP⁠ Shopify → Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at ⁠http://shopify.com/pfp⁠   Wayfair → Get 80% OFF on April 25th through the 27th ⁠http://wayfair.com⁠   DeleteMe → 20% off with code PFP ⁠https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ Tool/s Mentioned Retirement Calculator https://expert-hustler-605.kit.com/e6b8d4f8a Automate Your Entire Money System in One Weekend https://courses.mastermoney.co/automate-your-money-checklist Andrew's Favorite High-Yield Savings Accounts https://secure.money.com/pr/r453ecf4d190 Book/s Mentioned The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley Everyday Millionaires by Ramsey Solutions The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel Episode/s Mentioned How to Build Your Investment Portfolio (The Portfolio Pyramid!) https://youtu.be/Vn-NXfFWtfU How to Automate Your Finances (Money on Autopilot!) https://youtu.be/Fenu_LtdmZU Watch Next High Income Tax Strategies, Selling a House to Invest in the S&P 500, and Converting $100K to a Roth IRA (Money Q&A) https://youtu.be/NR-LlTqb7Cs How to Shave Off 7+ Working Years and Retire Early! https://youtu.be/9oZFn2lmZm4 Is the American Dream Dead? (With Freddie Smith) https://youtu.be/3Ivz8Ts9J2o How Companies Are Quietly Robbing You! With Lindsay Owens https://youtu.be/WhfXVmC2DC0 12 Financial Rules of Thumb That Let You Spend More on What You Love https://youtu.be/36HG6VHnA08 Connect with JC Rodriguez Instagram/s → https://www.instagram.com/thefrugalrich / https://www.instagram.com/jcrodriguez.co YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@thefrugalrich Connect with Andrew Instagram → https://instagram.com/mastermoneyco Website → https://mastermoney.co TikTok → https://tiktok.com/@mastermoneyco X → https://x.com/mastermoneyco LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-giancola-45027b340 YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@mastermoneyco/ Question for you: Are you building stealth wealth or spending stealth debt? Drop where you are right now in the comments and tell us the one thing you are changing as soon as possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The people who are holding the luxury designer goods or the Louis Vuitton bags, Gucci bags, they're the ones who end up being in the most debt. Social media shows us that, you know, being rich is something that's loud and obvious, but in reality, people who are actually rich, they did not turn their cash and assets into things you can just see. A lot of them actually just work nine to fives. They didn't get lucky with crypto. They did not become an influencer.

A lot of them were just skilled workers who are accountants, dentists. A lot of teachers, surprisingly, too, are in that millionaire status. Being able to reach this status of financial peace and millionaire status came from just being very grateful. Having payments that you don't need to have in your life can really steal from your future. Investing should be boring. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, how to become a stealth wealth millionaire. What's up,

everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking about how to become a stealth, wealth, millionaire. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.com slash newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player, you love listening to this podcast. on it. If you want to help out this show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review. It truly does mean the world to me when you guys leave those five-star ratings and reviews. And I read every single one of them. So it cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those

five-star ratings and reviews. It helps us spread this message so that more people can learn how to build wealth. Now, today, we're going to be talking about how to become a stealth wealth millionaire. And I was first introduced to this concept by a book called The Millionaire Next door. And if you have never read The Millionaire Next Door, it is the first book that absolutely changed my life that I read. I could not put the book down the first time I read it. And then the next year, I read it again. And this is a book that I come back to over and over and over again. And it's basically a guy named Thomas Stanley who decided to interview a bunch of millionaires and see how they really lived. Because for most people, they think that millionaires are out there

and they are driving the Lamborghini or the Ferrari or maybe millionaires have this really high income and that's how they became millionaires or they inherited their money and that's how they became millionaires but we're going to find out today exactly what it's like to be a real life millionaire in 2006 and so in this episode we're going to be going through the core mentalities that drive stealth wealth millionaires and what that really means and what they actually focus on so that you two can become millionaires but in addition we're going to dive into some of the things that you can actually do with your life. And then we're going to bring in J.C. Rodriguez into this podcast. And J.C. is someone who goes and tries to find stealth wealth millionaires out in the real

world. He calls them quiet millionaires, where he is trying to find them in the real world. And he goes and interviews them and asks them exactly what they do. So we're going to talk to J.C. about a lot of the commonalities that he is finding out there with a lot of these millionaires. And what are some of the things that they are doing? What are they investing in? What is their mentality. How do they think about spending money? So there is so much action-packed info out there from JC who has boots on the ground talking to real millionaires right now. And so I am really excited to have you hear that portion of this podcast episode as well. Because listen, I believe every single person right now listen to this podcast can become a millionaire. In fact, our initial

goal was to create a million millionaires with this podcast. And that's my goal for each and every single one of you. I want you to become a millionaire and I am going to show you that it is attainable. You may have thought, no, nobody in my family's ever been a millionaire. Nobody's ever had money. I'm not going to inherit money. I can't be a millionaire. You absolutely can. And it doesn't matter where you started. It doesn't matter how much privilege you started with or no privilege whatsoever. You can absolutely become a millionaire. And I'm going to show you step by step in this episode some of the things to do in order to get there. So if that's something you're into, let's get into it.

All right, let's talk about the core mentalities driving people who become stealth wealth millionaires. The number one core mentality for most people is freedom over status. Now, one thing you're going to realize is very quickly, a lot of stealth wealth millionaires do not drive the Ferraris.

They do not drive the Lamborghinis. Instead, they show their wealth very quietly. In fact, for most of them, they live in a normal house, in a normal neighborhood. some of them have upper class houses and they drive normal cars. The reason why they do this is because they are prioritizing where they are putting their dollars and they are prioritizing freedom over status symbols. See, a lot of people out there who are broke or people with high incomes who can't

keep any of their dollars and the statistics right now of high income earners who are living paycheck to paycheck are crazy high. The reason why that is happening is because a lot of high earners are I'm not going to be in getting a goodchie or Prada or you're getting the Birken bag or you are getting the designer watches the designer clothes or you're driving the brand new car and taking on that huge car payment, but you are not taking care of your retirement and you are not taking care of your financial freedom, then you are prioritizing status over freedom. And what I want you to realize right now is that freedom is the number one thing that you can

go out and buy. In my personal life, the number one thing that I prioritize. is freedom, and I want to buy more freedom every single week. This is one of the one things that if you start to prioritize freedom, it will change the way you see your wealth grow over time. What does that mean? Investing more of your dollars, putting more into your emergency fund, and allowing this wealth to grow over time. Number two is a lot of stealth wealth millionaires think in decades and not just months. So flashy spenders optimize for the right now. They are trying to spend more so they can enjoy life right now. But people who are stealth wealth

millionaires build wealth slowly. And guess what? For most people out there, getting rich quick is not the answer. It is not the answer whatsoever no matter what TikTok tells you, no matter what Instagram tells you, no matter what people on YouTube tell you. Yeah, it's nice to get rich quick. Sure, that'd be absolutely fantastic. But this doesn't happen for the majority of millionaires. The majority of millionaires do this slowly over time. So consistently making your investment, every single month, consistently contributing to your 401ks or your Roth IRAs or your taxable brokerage accounts or your HSAs and allowing compound interest to do the work. You need to think in decades and not days. And for those of you out there who are short-term investors, who think

that if you can day trade your way up to becoming really wealthy over the course of a year, or if you can just buy that option so you can become wealthy off this one specific trader, if you could just find the next Nvidia where over the course of the next 10 years, you're going to have $10 million. My friends, this is not the way to build wealth. Warren Buffett says it best. If you're not willing to buy a stock for 10 years, don't even think about buying it for 10 minutes. And I want every single one of you to take that mentality into the way that you build wealth. People who have stealth wealth millions, they build that wealth. They play a different game. And they do it in a different way. Number three, is a lot of stealth wealth millioners have seen

behind the curtain. What do I mean by they've seen behind the curtain? Well, this can be one of two things. A lot of them have either seen someone in their life fail. Maybe their parents struggled and went out of business. Or maybe their parents had a day job and they just did not do well and they did not manage their money well. Maybe they've seen a friend invest all of their dollars in some risky asset and it went all the way down to zero. Maybe they had an uncle who just made a huge mistake. They won the lottery and they spent every single dime. They've seen behind the curtains of people who have made mistakes.

And this is the thing I want you to note about people who make mistakes. A lot of times you can learn from mistakes, but they don't have to be your mistakes. This is one of the most powerful lessons and the most wise things that you can do as a wealth builder is learning from other people's mistakes. This is why reading is so important. The more you read, the more you learn, but you're also going to see so many different situations. And why I have been prioritizing as of late reading more biographies, because I want to see stories of other people and some of the mistakes that they have made, and I am going

to learn from the mistakes. But the second way that they feel as though they have seen behind the curtain is if they have seen people who have achieved success because they mirror exactly what those successful traits are. If you go out and see someone who is building a business and maybe it's not the same business as yours, but you see that they have really tight operating procedures or they are doing things in a way where they are managing employees and being a true leader. This is a great way to think about building wealth and to think about how you want to live your life. or maybe they go to other people who have really advanced in their career. And they say to them, what are some of the things that you can do? And how can I take some things away from this in order to learn from your successes? And so you need to be learning from mistakes and successes in this life.

And the more that you can do that, the more that you can monitor what other people are doing and pull out the key takeaways, you will be so much more successful. I cannot tell you how much that has impacted my life once I learn that skill. And it's a skill to do this. It's a skill to identify what some of those things are, and I really think it is important. Workplace chaos. You know the feeling. Deadlines are stacking up, emails are flying, and then someone on your team gives notice. That's when you think this is a job for sponsor jobs. When you need the right hire fast, Indeed, sponsor jobs helps your post stand out and reach quality candidates.

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are going to be building wealth. And then beyond that, then you are taking on a little bit of additional risk as time goes on. So what does that mean? Well, one, it's obviously having your emergency fund in place, having cash on hand so that nothing can derail your wealth building. We've talked about that a ton of times in this podcast. But in addition, they also have backup plans. They have plans in place that helps protect their wealth over time.

And so this is ensuring that, A, I am prioritizing putting my dollars into assets first so that they can grow over time so that my family can be protected. But in addition, my family can have financial freedom. And I can have the freedom to do what I want with whom I want when I want. In addition, number two, is they are prioritizing these dollars so that they can be protected. If anything were to happen to them in life, they have cash on here. to be able to take care of some of this stuff. I think that is more and more important as the age of AI continues to grow and as we start to think about how we want to spend our dollars, you need to create a personal finance protection plan. And so I highly encourage each and every single person

to do that. Next, is they are playing offense and defense simultaneously. What does that mean? Okay, well, let's think about this for a second. First, is they are protecting their finances, like we just talked about. They are putting protection plans in place so that they can ensure that nothing can derail them. So protection plans include your emergency fund, but in addition, they are buying key insurances to make sure that their wealth is protected. What's a key insurance? Well, first, we want to make sure we have our basics, the car insurance, the home insurance,

the renters insurance, all of those are really, really important. Secondarily, though, is we want to make sure that we protect our income. So maybe you want some term life insurance through policy genius, which is a sponsor of this podcast. maybe you want to have a liability insurance because you do have a high net worth or you are a high earner. Well, liability insurance is a great thing to have. If somebody falls on your property or something happens to you, you want to make sure that you have that in place. Third, maybe you want to ensure your income and get some disability insurance to make sure that if anything

were to ever happen to you, you've got to make sure that you have that in place. All my doctors and lawyers, physicians, you all need to make sure that you have disability insurance. It's very, very important to protect that income. And so that is how they play defense. But in addition, they play offense. They get after it. They invest their money in their 401ks, their Roth IRAs, their taxable brokerage accounts to make that money grow over time and ensure that they can build wealth over time. The next thing, they distrust the default script. What's the default script? Well, we've been told a lie. We've been led to believe that the American dream is to go buy a house and get a huge mortgage by as much house as you can possibly afford, that you need to buy

the nicest car that you can possibly afford and take on big payments every single month. month, $500, $700, $1,000 per month so that you can look the part. Then, once you get to that point in time, there's nothing wrong with going into a little credit card debt. Everybody does it here and there sometimes. Maybe you want to take on some additional debt with personal loans, or maybe you want to take on some buy now, pay later loans. Why not? And so this debt snowball begins to grow. And let's make sure that we look the part. We're going to buy the Gucci, we're going to buy Versace, we're going to buy the Louis Vuitton. And we're going to look the part. to look wealthy. Even though we're walking around stressed, we have so much anxiety because everything

around us is just huge, massive consumption. We look in our garage, it is full of junk, and it's storing stuff all over the place. We look at our closets. They're filled up to the brim. All of those things in your house used to be money. And when you realize that every single item in your house used to be money and it could be something that you put towards your financial freedom, but now it sits in a closet or a garage and is complete junk, you will rethink the way that you spend your dollars and you will re-prioritize the way that you spend money. I want you to hear this and I want you to feel this deep in your core because if you change the way that you think about money, it will change the way that you behave. And if you change the way that you behave,

you will be able to do anything you want in life. And I want you to remember this as we go through this step by step today. So distrust the default script. You don't have to do it that way. Instead, you have choices. A, you can retire early if you want to. One default script is you can decide, actually, I want to retire in my 40s, or actually, I want to retire at 55. And I want to retire earlier than every single person around me so I can have freedom to do what I want, when I want, with whom I want. Well, you can absolutely do that. And you can do the math backwards. By the way, if you want to do that, check out our retirement calculator. If you go to mastermody.com slash resources, we have a retirement calculator and that's completely free that I

think you would absolutely love and you can go through the steps and it takes you through how to figure out how much you need in order to retire because retirement is not an age. Retirement is a number. And once you hit that number, you could be able to retire earlier than you ever thought you could before. How freeing is that to know? So don't trust the default script. Instead, do what you know is best for your specific life. Another thing they do is they made peace with being misunderstood. What you're going to realize is once you start to build wealth, and even when people know that you have some money on hand, even though they're not showing it,

you're going to be misunderstood. A lot of people are going to say, well, why don't you just go out and buy a boat? Or why don't you just go out and buy some more liabilities? Or why don't you just go out and spend more of your dollars on things and trinkets and trash? And you're going to have to figure out how to respond, and you're going to be misunderstood. And I promise you, at first, it's going to be a little uncomfortable. People are going to look at you funny.

but then at some point in time, they're going to get used to it. And a lot of times you can think of it this way. Have you ever had a friend who maybe they would go out and party with you all the time and they were a big drinker and they would be a big partier and just do all these different things? And then you see them down the line. And all of a sudden they go sober. Well, a lot of their old friends are going to say to them, well, why don't you come out

and party with us? Why don't you come out and spend more time with us? You're no fun anymore. But what is that person's best interest in reality? Their best interest is to make sure that they stay sober, that they don't drink anymore, because why it was bringing their life down. In their core, they knew it wasn't right. They knew what they were doing was not right for them.

And so specifically, the same thing goes for the way that you manage your money. If people try to dictate the way that you manage your dollars, you need to get some new friends. You need to get new people in your life who are not going to criticize you for the financial choices that you decide to make. Now, for most of you, I want you to have a balanced approach, meaning the way that you manage your dollars, I want you to do the things you want. in life and I want you to enjoy this life and I want you to spend lavishly on the things that you love, but cut out everything else that you hate. And the cool thing is you're going to see J.C.

and I are going to talk about this on how to prioritize your spending as we get going on this episode. And here's the core psychology behind all of this. Is that true stealth wealth millionaires get more satisfaction from watching their net worth grow and spending more on their priorities than they do watching someone else notice their stuff. Watching someone else think they look cool in that car, watching someone else think they look amazing in that Rolex or they look amazing in that Cartier. And this, my friends, is the mentality that once you make this shift, it will change your life forever. So these are the core mentalities of a stealth wealth millionaire. Now, let's dive into some of the core principles so that you know some things that you can take

away and start doing now. So let's dive deeper into some of the core principles that we see with a lot of stealth wealth millionaires. Now, there's a lot of millionaire stats out there that I want you to know. And some of them are stats that we have dove into a number of different times in this podcast. But as we go through this, I'm going to give you some of the core principles of the way a lot of stealth wealth millionaires live so that you understand and can take away some of these for your own life specifically. So number one is to live below your means permanently, not temporarily. The only way to build wealth is to spend less than you make and invest the difference. So this means that you have your income and you have your expenses.

And the difference between your income and expenses is what is called the gap. The gap, my friends, is where wealth is built. And the larger you can grow that gap means the more dollars that you can put towards your financial freedom. So let's say, for example, you decide, okay, well, I've got some expenses that I know I don't really care about. I make target runs all the time. And honestly, every single time I go to Target, I feel like I walk out of there spending $200. Or I know I overspend on groceries and a lot of this stuff we end up throwing away anyway. I need to get that under control.

Or maybe you say to yourself, well, I'm spending way too much on some of these luxury items that I like or I'm spending way too much on my hobbies. And in reality, I have plenty of golf clubs or I have plenty of, you know, whatever it could be, you know, you know where you're overspending and where you're not. Well, if there are areas in your life that you can cut back and for some of you out there, there's no areas you can cut back because you're not making enough, which we'll talk about here in a second, then that means that you're not. you can reduce your overall expenses in some of those specific areas.

Now, how do you reduce those expenses? I would highly recommend picking one or two at a time and slowly reducing those expenses. Personal finance is a game of making sure that you master your psychology, in addition to mastering some of the things that you need to be doing. Well, psychologically, if you rip the Band-Aid off on every single expense, the likelihood of you sticking to that long term is not very high because we want to live below our means permanently, not temporarily. And so reducing your expenses slowly over time can really help.

Let's say you spend $1,000 a month on groceries, reducing it to $900, then $800, then $700 over the course of three months can help you save that $300. But if you do it all at once, it may be a little more painful than you want it to be. So when you gradually slowly do it, it makes it a lot easier to stick to. And so that's what I want you to do when it comes to reducing expenses. is pick a couple of those, reduce a couple expenses at a time, until you get to exactly where you need to be. But secondarily, let's look at the most important component of this equation, which is your income, because it's a lot easier to keep your expenses exactly where they are, and then increase your income instead. And if you can increase your income, that gap is going to

grow exponentially. In fact, that gap can grow as large as you possibly can imagine because your income can grow infinitely, whereas you can only cut back so much. And so for most of you out there thinking through this is very, very important. Number two is that stealth wealth millionaires focus a lot of their time and energy on automating their money. And so making sure that you automate your dollars is one of the most important and powerful lessons in this entire world when it comes to your money. Because if you're someone out there who says, I hate budgeting, I'm not going to ever budget my dollars. And I think you should budget, especially when you're first getting started. But if you do not want to budget your

and you need to at least learn how to automate your money. We have a free automation checklist if you go to mastermoney.com slash resources. I will also link it up below in the show notes so that you can check it out. But I highly recommend that you check out our automation checklist and it will take you step by step on exactly what you need to do and how to automate your money. Okay. So that is a great one if you want to look deeper into figuring out how to automate your finances because it takes you through those exact steps.

You want to make sure that you're automating your bills. You want to make sure that you're automating your investments. your debt payments, and anything else that you have surrounding this area. But in addition, the last thing I want you to automate your savings. And so your savings can be something where you automate into a high-yield savings account that has different savings buckets. I have a list of my favorite high-yield savings accounts. If you are interested in that, I will link it also up in the show notes down below.

Another resource that you can check out for sure. Now, number three is a lot of millionaires, and this is a big one for you out there. A lot of millionaires drive boring cars. I hate to break it to you, but a lot of these stealth wealth millionaires, a lot of the folks who actually are millionaires, got there because they didn't have massive car payments their entire life. And so instead, they decided to drive the Toyota and the Honda. In fact, consumer reports just came back with statistics

on the number one cars that millionaires drive, and Toyota and Honda were the top two. It's unbelievable how many of them drive Toyotas and Hondas. And why? Well, first, if you look at some of those vehicles, they last a very long time. They are always at the top of the list of cars that last for the longest time. Two, is their maintenance costs are very low.

If you drive a Mercedes, you drive a BMW, you drive an Audi, a Lexus, or any luxury vehicle whatsoever, your maintenance costs are going to be significantly higher than someone who drives a Toyota, a Chevy, a Ford, a Honda. Those cars' maintenance costs are going to be way lower. And so this is something that I think a lot of you need to factor in when you are thinking through car buying tips. when you're thinking through your car buying. And so we have a rule here that we call the 24-12-10 rule, meaning 20% down,

four years or less on your car payment, 12% or less of your expenses should be spent on the car payment plus the car maintenance. And then lastly, drive that car 10 years or longer. So for me specifically, I like to drive my cars over 10 years, and I like to buy slightly used cars. So I'll buy cars that are two or three years old, and I will let those cars already take that initial depreciation hit of 20,

20 to 30 percent. And then I'm getting that car at a discount. Somebody else paid the hefty depreciation hit. And then I'm just going to have to deal with the long-term depreciation over time. That helps tremendously if you want to save money on cars. Secondly, is I've made the mistake of owning a luxury vehicle and paying those maintenance costs. Now, if you love cars and that's your thing and you want to own a luxury vehicle, because that's what you like to do and you want to ball out and do whatever you want, more power to you. But making sure it fits into your budget and making sure you can afford it is the number one thing I want you to focus on first. I know a lot of millionaires who, they love cars. They love buying, you know, classic cars or things like that. But they waited until

they got their wealth to a certain point in time before they bought multiple different cars that they have on hand. And so making sure that you are driving boring cars during your accumulation phase is a very wise decision if you want to become a stealth wealth millionaire. Number four, this is a big takeaway that I want everybody to make sure that they are focusing on. is boring investing is key. When you are thinking about building wealth, I want you to go back and listen to our episode when it comes to the portfolio pyramid, if you have not listened to that episode yet. In the portfolio pyramid episode, we tell you how to build up your portfolio based on exactly where you stay in currently. So you may be saying to yourself, well, I am at the point

in time where I don't have my first $200, $250,000 invested yet. Well, you need to make sure that you have that financial foundation first before you move up to some of the other levels if you are actually interested in that. Or maybe you are at a certain point in time where you're thinking through, well, how do I get my dollars invested first? You go boring. Boring investing always wins. What's boring investing? This is looking at things like blue chip stocks or index funds at ETFs or target date retirement funds. It's the stuff that's not sexy. It's the stuff that's not enjoyable, but it gets you wealthy. And I think your ultimate goal is to become a wealthy individual. If I'm not mistaken, I think that's all of our goals who are listening to this podcast. The reason

And why we are talking about this is because we all want to get wealthy. And if you look at the historic returns of something like the S&P 500 or the total stock market index fund, you can see, on average, it gets that 9, 10% rate of return. And we love a juicy 9 to 10% rate of return. In fact, the last couple of decades, it's been a little bit higher. And so we love that because this is going to help us long term be able to build wealth. And I want each and every single one of you to be able to learn how to build wealth. And so low-cost index funds are a great start.

Then Ramsey Solutions did a study, and they did the largest study of millionaires ever. It had 10,000 millionaires in there. And guess what? 79% of those millionaires, guess what they did? They became a millionaire in their 401K first. Incredible stuff and an incredible statistic, because a 401K allows you to force your way to save dollars in your investment account. And so when you automatically contribute to a 401k, this is a very powerful place to be. but there's other tax advantage accounts as well.

We got our Roth 401K, one of my favorite accounts overall. We got our Roth IRA. We have our HSA, and if you want to retire early a taxable brokerage account is another great place to look at this. See, Boring is going to beat brilliant over 30 years every single time. There's a reason why 90% of professional money managers do not beat the S&P 500, even though they're all trying to do so. They have a team of Harvard graduates. They have a team of Yale graduates. and they still cannot beat the S&P 500.

They have the most genius minds in finance sitting on Wall Street in a high rise. But they can't beat the market. But you can by just invest in boring. It's unbelievable how that over and over and over again, you can look at the historical data, and it shows that boring always wins. Number five, income is your shovel. Investing is the machine.

Boring millionaires focus their time and energy on growing their income, and they take that income, and the larger that income gets, the larger the shovel they have to pull out. And they start shoveling that income into their investments. What do those investments do? They catch on fire. They catch this flame.

And the more income you are throwing into those investments, the larger that fire grows. Until at some point in time, that fire grows so large that you don't have to work anymore. You're at the point in time where you don't have to work that day job anymore. And instead, you have the option to continue working if you enjoy it, or if you don't enjoy it, you've got FU money. And you can leave that cubicle.

You can leave that job that you dislike because you made the choice today to decide to build wealth. You made the choice to prioritize freedom over everything else. And imagine what that can feel like for someone who feels trapped, it feels anxious, who feels like they cannot get ahead with their money. Well, if you make this change and you decide right now to make this adjustment, it'll change your life forever. Number six, you got to stop signaling wealth to people who don't matter.

Morgan Housel said it best, where he said, a lot of people out there are buying stuff they don't need to impress other people they don't even like. Let me say that again. A lot of people out there are buying stuff they don't need to impress other people they don't even like. How many people are in your circle and you know they're spending extra dollars on some things just so they can impress certain people that they don't even really care about? those people don't care about the stuff that you have.

In fact, it's just going to make them resent you even more. It's going to make them even more jealous of the stuff that you have. You may think that they are thinking about, wow, look how cool they are. They've got that designer handbag or they just got that brand new Rolex or they just got that brand new BMW. They are really, really cool. You know what they're thinking? What would I look like with that brand new Rolex? What would I look like driving that brand new car?

What would I look like with that designer handbag? That's the difference and the mentality that you need to understand. There's no reason to signal wealth to other people. The Joneses, the folks next door on either side, they're broke. They've got a $1,000 car payment sitting in their driveway, and they're living in a middle-class house. Every single time, that is the first indicator that tells you that someone is broke. If they live in a middle-class house, but they drive the fancy car.

Most people out there are living paycheck to paycheck even when they make good money because they are not making sound investment decisions, and they are trying to signal wealth to people that they don't even care about. Number seven, the last one I want you to note is net worth is the number. Income is just the input. A lot of people think they're rich because they have a high income. That's not the case. It depends on what you do with that income and how you invest those dollars is what's going to change everything for you.

So you need to make sure that you're taking your extra dollars and putting it towards wealth-building activities. And then you want to be growing that net worth number. because the faster you grow that net worth number, that's your scorecard. That's the place you want to be, and that's the scoreboard. So I want every single one of you to make sure you're focusing on net worth and not only just your income. Take your income, shovel it into those investments, grow that fuel, grow that fire, so that you can become financially independent one day.

This is how stealth wealth millionaires act. This is the things that they do. These are the things that they prioritize. And they also prioritize things that they actually value. If you want to spend more time going on vacation with your family, If you want to spend more time on your specific values, then you absolutely should be doing that. And you just find a plan and build a plan to make that happen. J.C. and I are going to be talking a lot more about that and what he sees with boots on the ground

millionaires. So I'm really excited to dive into this interview. So let's welcome J.C. Rodriguez, the personal finance podcast. If you've ever felt like your bank is working against you instead of for you, you're not alone. Between overdraft fees, monthly fees, and just trying to access your own money, it all adds up fast. That's why Chime is changing the way people think. Chime offers fee-free banking built for you, not the bank. That means no monthly fees, no overdraft fees with SpotMe and access to thousands of fee-free ATMs so you're not paying just to get your own money.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash pfp. Go to Shopify.com slash pfp. That's Shopify.com slash pfp. So, J.C., welcome to the personal finance podcast. Happy to be here. No, this is exciting. We are really excited to have you here because in this episode, we're talking about stealth wealth. We're talking about the millionaire next door. And the millionaire next door, the first time I read that book was a book that absolutely changed my life. It changed the way I saw money. It changed the way that I think about money now. And it was really one of the first personal finance books that I read. that just honestly completely changed my perspective on how money works.

And the cool thing about what you do is that you have boots on the ground and you weren't talking to a lot of folks, especially stealth wealth millionaires or millionaires next door that most people would not even suspect were actually millionaires. See, most people out there think that millionaires drive the Ferraris. They think they have the designer handbags. They think they do all these different things. But what most people find out is that the majority of millionaires are just regular folks who live regular lives, maybe they own businesses or they do various things that I think are really, really powerful for most people to understand.

So what does the average stealth wealth millionaire actually look like when you have boots on the ground? Walk me through kind of what you do to identify people. Are you just looking at a bunch of different people when you start to interview them? And or can you kind of figure out if somebody else has a little more money than they actually put off? Yeah, just has a little behind the scenes on this series where we interview the quiet millionaires of America. we're probably given around two to three hours to try to get six to seven good interviews. And so over the years of doing this, I've been having to get more efficient with, like, who I pick out of the crowd to try to cold approach and convince to get on this video. Typically, this is the combo I tell people, these quiet millionaires. It looks like they bought their clothes from Costco, but they typically have very nice running shoes.

Like, interesting. Brooks or like on clouds. It's something, they take care of their feet, which is really important, but they don't care about what brand they're wearing. And typically their clothes are brandless. And I found actually the people who are holding the luxury designer goods or the Louis Vuitton bags, Gucci bags, they're the ones who end up being in the most debt or having the highest payments that I come across. And that almost has been one of the things, even as I've read the millionaire next door, is every time I see someone who is driving like a Mercedes or they're driving like a fancy BMW, a lot of times I'll look at those cars. to be like, that person is most likely in debt. They most likely went into debt for that situation and probably aren't the best with their money.

Even if it's true or not, that's kind of where my brain goes to now, which I think is kind of funny how it's always flipped because before when I was younger, I thought the opposite. And I think that's the fun part of this. What is the biggest misconception people have about what a millionaire actually looks like? Is there any misconception that you see over and over again when you talk to other people based on, you know,

hey, maybe somebody, you know, your peer group or people around you that kind of say certain things about millionaires, but then you are talking to some real millionaires out there. Do you see a big misconception out there? I think social media is creating a bigger misconception about what being rich actually looks like. Obviously, what gets clicks and what gets views are these outlier entrepreneurs.

I just put up a video with the guy who hosts the school of hard knocks and his whole job is approaching these millionaires, billionaires who have the flashy luxury lifestyle and they're actually rich. but that's not the majority. Like, these are very small outliers. And like you, I was a big fan of the millionaire next door, big fan of everyday millionaires by Ramsey.

And most of America's millionaires are actually low-key. And so social media shows us that, you know, being rich is something that's loud and obvious. But in reality, people who are actually rich have not, they did not turn their cash and assets into things you can just, see like they've just they've kept their cash and they've kept their assets and you know those are things that aren't tangible um and so talking to these millionaires on the street you know i've realized that a lot of them actually just work nine to fives you know they're not they don't they didn't get

lucky with crypto they did not become an influencer a lot of them were just skilled workers who are accountants dentists um a lot of teachers surprisingly too um are in uh that millionaire status So there's definitely a commonality that I'm seeing between all of them. And a lot of people say to me, because the teacher thing is a big one, I've noticed it was in the Millionaire Next Door study, and it was also in Ramsey Studies decades later where he looked at the top five careers of millionaires and teachers were one of those, which is absolutely fascinating. And I think it's one of the cool things that we have seen over time.

It is a great example of folks, even if you don't make a lot, maybe you're not making the multi-six-figure salary. But if you are at the point in time where you just figure out some of these good habits, you can still become a millionaire. And I think that's one of the most powerful things. Have you seen or come across, you know, some first generation millionaires and have you seen a difference

between those first generation millionaires and people who have actually inherited well? Most of the millionaires I actually have met were first generation. The first millionaires I really met and got to interview and learn more about were my own parents. They came from the Philippines in the 90s.

They were both physical therapists. And it's funny, now that they're 55 plus, a lot of people will look at them and, you know, they'll say, oh, like, you guys, you got lucky. Of course, you both are working. That's why you're both like millionaire status. But I'll tell you what, I've grown up with people who were nurses, doctors, physical therapists as well, and they are not at that point of financial peace that my, my parents are enjoying. And that's because I, I saw growing up that we lived a pretty frugal childhood. Like, we did not have the latest game consoles. I didn't grow up.

with the nicest clothes or keeping up with all the trends. We did go on nice family vacations. I would say that. That was their splurge. But ultimately, you know, being able to reach this status of financial peace and millionaire status came from just being very grateful for like what you were doing at your job, finding joy in your work, and then also being content and not having to buy things to try to make up for a part of your life that you're lacking.

And so I think that first generation mindset is very helpful. because you don't take things for granted, especially your job, your income, as well as, you know, places you could be spending your money. Like, you find out there's a lot of things to be grateful for. And you pretty much have everything you need, especially if you're in this country. And what I love about that, what you just said was,

basically your parents had a number of different things that they spent less on, and then there were things that they valued that they spend more on, like traveling or vacations or those types of things. And I've seen this across the board with a lot of millionaires, where most of them have figured out how to, the skill of spending. And to me, the skill of spending is figuring out what your values is

and spending more on those values and less on everything else that you could care less about. I think that is one of the things that we've seen over and over again, because a lot of millionaires out there and people who have built up wealth have taken those extra dollars and prioritize their freedom and prioritize the time that they get back if they actually take those dollars and put them somewhere that they can invest them and or grow their money over time. So I think that's a really, really cool way to kind of look at this. And when it comes to an inheritance, I've seen all the studies show, hey, 79% of millionaires out there for the majority of time are first generation. And a lot of times people think that millionaires inherit

this money. But over and over again, the studies come back and show that most millionaires are self-made. And I think that's really cool. Have you seen a lot of common careers or businesses that have been started? I know we talk about teachers and some of these other careers that are out there, but have you seen like a commonality between what the professions are of a lot of these millionaires? Typically the millionaires I run into are married couples. There are a few indicators. Like I ask some like soft opening questions to get people warmed up to the final question where I ask if they're a net worth millionaire. One of them being how long have you been married and how long have you been investing for?

So those are like some of the two qualifying questions. And ultimately when it comes to their careers too, of course we dive into that in these interviews. there's always some, a nerd within this, these, these, these, uh, these couples, right? There's, there's, there's usually like an engineer. Maybe there's like a, uh, a lawyer attorney, um, a accountant. And amongst the top five careers of millionaires, I believe it is engineer, accountant, teacher, management, and, uh, something else. But I've realized throughout these, these careers and these millionaires, most of their careers rely on some type of system, that they follow through each and every day.

So for example, a teacher, they follow a curriculum throughout the school year that they need to stick to. They create a plan and they execute on that plan. Engineers, of course, stick to a set of rules and guidelines and plans that they also created. And I think all those things within their career transfer very well into personal finances, where, of course, we know you have to create a plan and you have to execute on a plan. And that's what a lot of Americans are lacking.

But just by doing that, you can become a millionaire. Absolutely. Now, when they talk about investing, because you mentioned like, you know, you asked them, you know, how long have you been investing for? Is there any commonalities you see across the board that what they're investing in? Is it their own business? Is it index funds and ETFs? Is it their 401k? Is it, are they investing in, you know, real estate? Or what do you kind of see when you were talking to people? Yeah, I'd probably break it down into the top three investments I see from most common to least common. Most common is their 401ks and their IRAs. lame so boring but that's that's the key here um from there i see real estate and then after that i'll see their own businesses and funny enough going back to the 401ks and IRAs they are not well a lot of these people they did not grow up with rough IRAs a lot of them had pensions starting off their careers which got swapped out for 401ks and they all just bought into the whole market so at the time. A lot of them don't even use the term

ETF or index funds. They just refer to it as mutual funds because that's how they were initially taught about these diversified funds. But the mutual fund index fund game is where most of these millionaires are investing within their IRAs and their 401Ks. When they invest, have you seen this across the board?

Because I think that's that I absolutely love that. I think that's a lot of things that we teach here on the personal finance podcast. We're talking a lot of times to folks who need to be investing in retirement accounts and building wealth in those retirement accounts. Have you seen for most of them, you know, have they gotten rich quick off selling a business or something like that? Or is it something where they built up this investing and it's compounded over time? Most of their energy when I ask them how they've gotten to millionaire status, it's very much of a, of course it worked.

Of course it worked for me because I did this thing just for a long time consistently. It wasn't a, they're not surprised that they became millionaires. because of like one moment in time that that led them to this point. Most of them did have like that long slog of just putting money away, not looking at it, paying themselves first. And they all will, not all. I would say the majority of them will always talk about the fact that they toggled something with their employer to start, you know,

either meeting their company match or to at least take 10, 15% of their paycheck and putting it into their 401ks. And it's as easy as that, like clicking a button to make that automation part of their wealth building and eventually driving their success. That's, I love that. And I think automation is the key for most people. Like most people out there, I always say this.

If you've ever checked your 401K before and you just, you never looked at it for a really long time, then you go look at your 401k and it's been automatically investing and the balance is in there and you say to yourself, wow, this is way larger than I ever thought it would be. That's automatic investing. And that's the cool thing about automating your money is that you can see this powerful growth without you having to rely on your willpower and just it just happens in the background.

It's one of the best ways to build wealth over time. And I think that's really, really cool. So did they ever talk through debt? Like, have you ever had conversations with people about debt? And generally, do they have debt or they aggressively pay it off? Or what does that usually look like? Yeah. So with a lot of these married couples I talk to, there is a phase. It's not uncommon for me to find people who had a lot of student loan debt. that they had to pay off. There typically was a point in time for them, maybe in their 20s or 30s,

where they had to, you know, tighten the hatches, tighten up their belt a little bit and live frugally in order to get some initial traction following college. And so most of them have experienced debt at some point in their life. And the thing is that they did not view that as like a crutch. Like they just view that as something to overcome together.

And I would say, honestly, I'm finding that there's a power in having a partner going through your financial journey as well, especially since I do focus on couples a lot. It sounds like there was always a time where someone, one partner was in school and the other partner was really working hard or they were both maybe in debt. And after college, they both like decided together that they were not going to eat out as much or they weren't going to say yes to as many vacations. and they were able to keep each other accountable. I love that. And I agree. I think for a lot of millionaires, and you can look at the studies over and over and over again, a lot of them are married. And I think that's something where they're in a relationship.

And I think that's something that drives people to kind of push forward, and it drives them to actually build wealth and be responsible with their money. And I think there's a lot of psychology behind that as well. So that's a really cool thing that I think is really powerful. Is there a common trait that you notice among a lot of these billionaires? Are they folks who have like a morning routine? Are they people who they all say, or there are certain things that they all say and believe about money?

Is there like any commonalities that you see between all these folks? They all have some idea of frugality and they've all lived frugally at some point in their life. And they continue to do that as well. I love asking people like where they decide to save their money and where they choose to spend their money. Some people will decide to save when it comes to their cars. Like they will gladly drive their Toyotos and Hondas for years and years and decades, but they will be happy to spend money on a family vacation. Or maybe there's someone who doesn't care about luxury or designer fashion,

so they'll save on that. But they will be a car person and they care about the things that they do drive. So there's always like a give and take, and they all understand that they can have anything they want, but they can't have everything that they want. I love that. And I think that's the skill again of spending. It's a skill of figuring out exactly what you value, spending more on that thing that you value, and less on everything else is the huge thing.

Now, you interview all kinds of people. It's not just millionaires. I'm sure all the time you stumble across folks who are not millionaires. And so a lot of times you're going through different financial situations, maybe a big mistake that people make across the board. What is the number one mistake you see people make that keeps them from building this kind of wealth? Man, I did a whole video on asking Americans what their car payment is. and that was very eye-opening as to how many people are paying over $500 a month towards their vehicle, not even a nice vehicle.

Like some people had vehicles nearing 10 years old and they were still paying $500 a month towards it. And I've just found after talking to people about debt that having payments that you don't need to have in your life can really steal from your future. Because, of course, you could have $500 going to your Lexus RX-3-5. $500 going to that each month, or you could be putting $500 a month into a brokerage account or into your Roth IRA. And so,

trying to avoid as many payments that you don't need to be making can be a real driver to how much more margin you have in your life for other things and for your future. When you come across folks, you see a lot of these mistakes that people are making, but then you come across people who maybe have a high income.

You know, there's these high income earners out there and a lot of high income earners, if you look at the stats right now, are living paycheck to paycheck. And I've talked to so many different people who are living paycheck to paycheck that make over $100,000 per year. Is there a mistake that you see that high earners are making over and over again? Or are there things that you see them, they just get this wrong?

Like they're just over and over again not managing their money correctly because they really have the most powerful thing available to them, which is a high income, and you can use that income to buy back your freedom. But is there anything that you see with higher earners that they get wrong? Yeah, before I dive into the people I've talked to, I'll just dive into like my my own situation because I in college, I created a system for my money. And of course, that was the zero based budget.

Like that's what worked for me. And I saw simply, I started doing that when I had an income of $2,000 a month, you know, delivering pizzas for Papa John's. As I've been able to build my business through these years and as my income has really grown and now, of course, earning over six figures and being in that high income bracket, I still. have the same system of where my money flows through every time. And so I think if the people who I've met who are earning a higher income, the reason they're living paycheck to paycheck or they still have these payments to make and they're still so stressed is because they never established a system for their money to flow through when they were not making that much. And so they are honestly the people who earn the higher incomes like the sales bros, the tech guys, you know,

they are usually the ones who have the highest payments. I think, uh, they're very confident in their ability to make money. So it's really easy to spend money that they haven't even made yet. Absolutely. And I think that's a very commonality in terms of what we see across the board with high earners is a lot of them just think they can go make more. And just because you have a high income does not mean you're good with money and it does not mean you're wealthy whatsoever.

And it's really about what you keep when it comes to those dollars. And if you can't manage, just like J.C. is saying, if you can't manage a small amount of money, you're not going to be able to manage a large amount of money. You've got to have those systems in place and you've got to have an understanding of exactly where those dollars need to go. Now, is there something that a lot of these millioners mention that maybe be boring or unsexy that, but you hear them talk about this over and over and over again? I would say most millionaires that I speak to, they prioritize spending money on experiences over material things. Like I said, most of the millionaires I've spoken to, they

They look very low-key. I always can tell. Like, they look clean, right? Like, they look like they smell good, right? They're just very generically, though, and their shoes might be nicer. But as far as material items, that is not their big priority. Typically, you know, I talk to a lot of families and all they care for is going on trips with their children. Their idea of making it and splurging at this phase of life of being millionaires is taking their kids on vacations and having experiences that they never had growing.

up as well. So a commonality that I'm seeing is that they prioritize experience over materials. I love that. I think that's a really powerful way to think about life and something that, you know, is a huge priority. Even for me with young kids, it's a huge priority in the way I think about everything now. Your life just completely starts to shift and change once that starts to happen. Now, what is the one thing that you wish people, you know, who watch your content would actually take away and actually use practically day in and day out? When people watch some of this stuff, What do you want them to take away from that? I want people to realize that investing should be boring.

Honestly, my conversations, I think the reason why my videos won't go as viral as someone like the School of Hard Knocks who talks to like the millionaires, billionaires, is because the story of these quiet millionaires are pretty much very similar, very aligned. You know, they set up an automation. They invest into these index funds, these diversified funds already. and they're not, they're not looking for a lucky break or they're, they're not looking to hustle and grind from nine to nine. And, you know, they, they realize that, you know,

in order to build long-term wealth and to have a life of peace at the same time, it requires you to invest into the boring things. And hopefully we can make, we can normalize the boring aspect of finance in, in these videos. So that's kind of the message I, I love to share. And it's kind of the thing I like to make sure people, get to highlight when they're telling their story is like what they actually invest into and they end up being the the least interesting finance conversation with any finance bro.

I absolutely love them. So I think that's absolutely amazing. Let's jump into, I'm going to shift gears here. We're going to jump into some rapid fire questions for you because I love asking these questions to a lot of our guests and we get some really cool answers out of these. So what part of your work or life makes you come alive? I do. I love when I'm out on the streets and a hit and record. I love like the cold approaches with these people that I'm talking to gives me a rush. I'm sure. When you walk away from some great interviews, I'm sure that's a, that's a huge rush, which I think is awesome.

Oh, yeah. And then there's definitely the rejections that we got to just power through, which happen often. I'm sure. That's got to be a huge one too. What is your biggest fear when it comes to money? My biggest fear is to be caught doing something to earn money that I don't, I'm not passionate about. So I feel like I.

I feel like I'm very lucky where I can earn money doing something that I really enjoy doing. And I think that can help a lot of people, you know, accelerate that half of their financial equation, like to grow their income if they're actually doing something that they enjoy. And that's why I always talk about it. If you have an emergency fund and you have margin in your life, then you no longer have to be working for your next paycheck. You can actually take some time to find something you truly enjoy doing or can get the education to do what you want to actually do.

I love that answer. How do you plan to level up your finances this year? I got to find a good CPA. I'll tell you that. Right now I'm an S-Corp. I want to open up a solo 401K for myself so I can start maximizing my investing. But at the same time, my wife and I want to buy a house coming soon. So how can we optimize our income so that we can qualify for a good mortgage, but also still optimize for tax savings.

So a good CPA. That's what I want to do to level up my money this year. That's a huge one, and that will change everything for you. And tax strategy is a huge, huge thing for sure. What is the best money advice you've ever received? Okay, I'll talk about the most recent money advice that was like a, just a banger for me, bars to me. This was actually when I interviewed the host of the School of Hard Knocks.

His name is James. He talked about a piece of advice that a lot of the millionaires, billionaires he interviews, tells him. And it was, use concentration to grow your wealth and use diversification to keep your wealth, meaning one of your first trying to build your income or build up your nest egg, like focus on one thing and focus on learning how to do something very well, like create a high value skill so that you can earn a higher income. And in order to keep that wealth, it's good to eventually diversify those funds that you do have that you've made up. And so that can be through

those index funds, that can be through real estate investing. But concentrate to grow, diversify, to keep. That's a great tip. And the last one is my favorite one. What does wealth mean to you? Honestly, for me, wealth comes down to time freedom, the ability to, you know, use your time however you want. For me, I just want to do things and make decisions that will allow me to spend more time with the people that I love.

And, you know, I think in the end, like my wife and I are looking to have kids in the next few years. And so I'm working hard now so that, you know, I can create some systems. not only in our finances, but even for my business, so that I can have time to dedicate to other things outside of just the financial side. So honestly, the whole goal here is to create videos to help people get their money together

so they don't have to think about money anymore throughout their daily life. I love that. And I think that is the key to a lot of stuff. And it's going to pay off. Once you have kids, you're going to want to spend the most time with them. That's absolutely amazing. So, Jacey, thank you so much for coming on here.

Tell people where they can find out more about you and everything that you're doing. Yeah, so if you go on YouTube, this is where I put out my best content. Go to The Frugal Rich on YouTube. So the frugal rich. We do these street interview style videos. I try different frugal saving tips. I also share my own investing journey.

And it's all about building wealth quietly and simply. And we also have a free Facebook group as well that you can join if you go onto my YouTube channel. Every video is going to have in the description of link to the free Facebook page. And that's where people can talk. They can share their wins. They can ask their questions. And it's ultimately like a safe place for people to just talk all things wealth building.

Amazing. I absolutely love that. That is fantastic. We will link all those up down in the show notes below so you guys can check that out. And thank you, J.C. so much for coming on today. Yeah. Thank you, Andrew. This is fun.