The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Achieve Financial Freedom, Invest, Save Money, & Understand Finances With Michael Bosstick

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

#343: On this episode Lauryn and Michael are joined by Mimi Evarts to discuss everything finance, saving, & investing. Michael answers a majority of listener questions on everything finance to help listeners take control of their financial freedom. For listeners struggling to understand and take control of their finances this episode is for you.  To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Sakara This year, turn your resolutions into reality. Whether you’re looking to try plant-based eating, build an empowered body, boost skin’s glow, or simply feel your very best, Sakara makes it easy to create rituals that last. Sakara is a wellness company rooted in the transformative power of plant-based food. Their menu of creative, chef-crafted breakfasts, lunches, and dinners changes weekly, so you’ll never get bored. And it’s delivered fresh, anywhere in the U.S. And right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to www.sakara.com/skinny and enter code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 25,000 courses. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for free. That’s right, Skillshare is offering The Skinny Confidential listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. To sign up, go to www.skillshare.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you’ll ever wear to work.  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. With so much to explore, real projects to create, and support fellow creatives, Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth. And it's incredibly affordable with annual subscriptions that are less than $10 a month. So check it out. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash TSC and get a free trial of premium membership at Skillshare.com slash TSC. Guys, today is a big day. I am so excited that you can finally pre-order my book. The book is called Get the Fuck Out of the Sun.

The foreword is by Dr. Dennis Gross, and it's routines, products, tips, and insider secrets from 100 plus of the world's best skincare gurus. We have influencers, celebrities, doctors, kind of everything. And then, of course, you can expect so many of my tips and tricks throughout the book. It is color. It is thick. It is pink. You want it on your Instagram feed.

It is so fun. It's so cheeky. And it answers every single skincare question you could ever think of. This is a book that you can take and display on your coffee table. But it's also a book that you're going to go to and you're going to bookmark the fuck out of it. You don't have to read it start to finish. You can just open it up and learn all about skincare. I have been working on this book for truly the last three years, just picking up all the secrets and all the insider tips and tricks for you. Some of the top influencers are featured in my book. Kristen Cavallari, Patrick Starr, the Summer Fridays co-founders, Shea Marie, Griselle Lim, Jillian

Michaels, Stassi Schroeder, Omni Song, The Lady Gang, Mandy Madden Kelly, Amelia Bell, Delilah Gray, Bobby Brown, Justin Anderson, and more. We also have all the top skincare doctors, Dr. Dennis Gross, Dr. Jason Diamond, Sonia Dakar, Georgia Louise, Barbara Sturm, and more. I am so excited to finally bring you this book. You can pre-order it where books are available. It's obviously on Amazon. Pre-order a copy. I'm telling you, I think you'll love it. It's very much up your alley. With that, let's get into the show. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the

ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. Welcome back, everybody, to The Skinny Confidential, him and her show. For those of you that are new to the show, my name is Michael Bostic. I'm a serial entrepreneur and brand builder, most recently the CEO of the Dear Media Podcast Network. And as always, I am joined by my co-house, probably my boss at this point on the show, Lauren Everts Bostic of The Skinny Confidential. I'm just really kind of riding her coattails. Hi, honey. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Tell everyone what we're doing today. We're going to do a long-awaited finance episode, so bear with us. This has been a topic that people have been requesting for a long time. We've kind of been touching on it, but we haven't deeply dove in.

Well, it's funny because I'm actually going to be taking notes this episode because I look to you and respect you so much when it comes to finances. You are so fucking organized, and you just understand it. You've read so many books on it and you've applied yourself in it. And today we decided also let's bring Mimi on. Mimi has been on the podcast before. She's been on multiple episodes, which we'll list below. She is a part of the Skinny Confidential team since she was 16 years old. A real fan favorite. Real fan favorite. People love her. Yes, Daya, you.

And I call her Daya. If you hear me say Daya, it means diabolical. So I call her Daya. That's another story. Anyways, Mimi is also my sister. Mimi, say hi. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me back on.

Can't wait for Michael to yell at me about my finances. No, you're pretty, you like to listen. Listen, I'm not an expert here. I think that, and I want to preface that this episode. Listen, Lauren and I are listen, I'm not an expert here. And I want to preface that this episode. Listen, Lauren and I are both, we're not fiduciaries, we're not accountants, we're not experts, we don't proclaim to be. But what I can share with you is things that her and I have done in our life, both through trial and error and through learning the hard way over the years, managing money and finance. And I think it's good that Mimi's on the show because you're so young.

A lot of this applies to young people. And I wish I would have known a lot of this stuff earlier. It would have saved me a lot of heartache and trouble. Would you have also started skincare earlier? I would have done a lot of things earlier if somebody would have just helped me and told me. So hopefully this helps some people out. So I want to start by talking about finances and money in general. I think people, it's one of the most stressful subjects, finance, right? People, it's one of the things that people worry about the most. And I think they worry about it the most primarily because they don't understand it.

And like anything else, if you don't understand money and you don't understand finance, you don't understand how to invest and all these things, it's stressful. We all know that feeling when you're struggling and you don't want to open your bank account or look at your credit card statement because you don't want to address the problem that's there. And so I really factor a lot of the problems that people face with money. I factor it because of a lack of understanding, right? Just like anything else. If you don't understand fitness, it's going to stress you out. If you don't understand how to be in a good relationship, it's going to stress you out. If you don't know how to complete a task or do a job, it'll stress you out. The more you know, the better you're prepared to deal with it. So one guy that I admire a lot, Lauren knows this, is a guy named Naval Ravikant, and he has one of my favorite quotes. And he says, money won't solve all your problems, but money will solve all your money problems, which I think is funny. So let's talk about it. Mimi, I'm going to let you ask the first question. I know Mimi compiled a whole list. We also compiled a list of your questions.

So we went on the podcast Instagram and asked you guys what your concerns were. And you guys had so many. And I feel like Michael is an amazing source, an amazing resource. But Mimi, you go for it first because your list is long. Well, my list I stole from the podcast Instagram. And also it's things that I've thought of when I was thinking about my goal in finances. The first question, let's talk about saving versus earning. I'm always confused. You tell me sometimes I should save this amount. Sometimes I should be investing this amount. And it's just confusing. Well, as a rule of thumb, I think people, it's obviously important to save. But what I would say is you can't save your way to freedom, to financial freedom. You have to figure out how you're earning. And I think to reverse engineer it, I never think about how much I'm saving. I think about how much I need

to earn to live the life that I want to live. And that's going to be different than everybody. I think everybody thinks like, oh, it'd be so great if I won the lotto or if I got $10 million or whatever your number is. But people spend very little time on actually figuring out what their real number is to live the life that they want to live. They just think this huge pie in the sky number. And I guarantee you, if you ask most people, how much money do you actually need for financial freedom? And we're going to say financial freedom means basically being able to allocate your time the way you want to allocate it. Because I think that's the biggest thing that money does is it gives you your time back. So financial freedom means you can work when you want or not work when you want. You can travel when you want or not

travel when you want. You can eat what you want. You can spend what you want. That's financial freedom. It doesn't necessarily need to be $100 million or $10 million because you may not need that much to live your version of financial freedom. So saving versus spending, I always reverse engineer it. And I think, okay, to live the life that I want to live and support the family that I want to support, how much do I need to earn before taxes? And then after that, once I figured out that number, I do everything I can to try to work to earn that. And we've talked a million times on this show, that could be a side hustle, that could be a job, that could be a business. I'm not going to spend a lot of this episode telling people how to go and earn more money. We've talked about that for so many different

episodes. But when it comes to saving, the mistake that people make is they pay themselves last. They pay their credit card debt first, they pay their expenses, they pay their rent, they pay their taxes. And then after with whatever's left over, they pay themselves, which is the wrong way to do it in my opinion. Again, this is all just my personal opinion and some opinions of others that I've learned from. So the best thing to do when you're thinking about saving is to set a number. So Mimi, let's talk about you. Let's say you make $1,000 a month. If I'm making $1,000 a month, I'm a little bit worried. Yeah. Hopefully we're paying you better than that. But let's just say you make $1,000 a month. If I'm making $1,000 a month, I'm a little bit worried. Yeah. Hopefully we're paying you better than that. But let's just say you make $1,000 a month. Rule of thumb for everybody, and there's a great book on this called The Richest Man in Babylon. I can't

remember the... I have the notes of who the exact author is, but it's a famous book. And the rule of thumb there is that you want to save 10% of your income. So in your case, you would say, okay, I'm going to take 10% of that $100 every month, and I'm going to either put it in a savings or an investment account, which we can talk about later. First, before you've spent anything, before you pay your rent, before you pay for groceries, before you pay your living expense, you take that and you pretend it's not even there. A really simple way to do this, especially if you're a salaried employee, is to set part of your paycheck to go into a separate account. So you can say, okay, every time I get a paycheck, 10% of it goes in this account.

I do a little game where I try to do a lot more than that. I try to say, okay, and this, you know, every time I get a paycheck, 10% of it goes in this account. I do a little game where I try to do a lot more than that. I try to say, okay, can I save 20? Can I save 30? And I think over time, once you start actually saving and seeing how your investments are stacking up or your savings account stacking up, you start to do more. But again, the mistake people make is they wait to save after they've spent. And most of the time there's nothing left. As a matter of fact, they usually go into debt and then try to figure it out. Well, I have a question and I think that this is an interesting answer, I hope. How has your relationship with money changed? And start from when you were little to now, because I think your relationship with money has totally evolved from what I've seen.

Well, because I think before I understood money and I'm not, again, I'm not an expert and this is just stuff that works for us. And for those of you that are finance wizards, a lot of this is going to sound very basic in the beginning. I didn't understand money. So I would go and make a bunch of money and then I would spend it all. And a lot of times I would spend it all and have debt. And I think that's common for a lot of people. What so many of us do, especially as we start earning more, is we raise our lifestyle. So you go and you make, say you start and you're young, you're making $45,000 a year or $40,000 a year. And all of a sudden you get a raise and maybe you're at 50, $60,000 a year. But instead of still living on that 40, we then change our living expenses to go to 60 or 50. So we actually don't end up any better. I always tell people the person who makes

$30,000 a year and only spends 20 is richer than the person who makes $50,000 a year and spends 55. Wealth is what you don't see. You see a fancy car or a fancy house. To me, right away, that says that's debt. That's a payment. That's not actual wealth. We've gotten to a place in society where so many of us do things to try to impress other people. We buy things we don't need to impress other people. Again, wealth is what't need to impress other people. So again, wealth is what you don't see, not what you see. For me, I didn't understand money and I thought it was this never-ending resource, which in some cases it can be, in some cases it can't. And I didn't have a good relationship with it. So I would constantly stress about it because I

didn't understand it. Where's the next paycheck coming in? Where's the next money? What am I going to buy next? And I think over time, as I've learned more about finances and money and capital and how to allocate it and how to invest it properly, I'm much more calm when it comes to the subject because I understand it better. You used to be, when I first started dating you, a very big spender, like you just said, and you would spend it on frivolous things. But now as you've grown up, I've noticed, and I've watched from afar, that you don't buy a lot for yourself anymore. What changed? Well, I had a midlife crisis at 25. You did have a midlife crisis. No, the baby didn't change him. It was a midlife crisis at about 25. Why don't you talk about that?

Well, I think a lot of people do that. I had some big hits early on, right? I started doing well early in my career, but I would argue that doing well was one of the worst things for me at the time because I had kind of this, it wasn't endless, but I had more money than I've ever had. And I didn't know how to manage it properly. I didn't save it. I didn't invest it properly. I just spent it, right? I would go out and- You did some stupid shit. Yeah. I'd buy cars and watches and nights out and all this stuff. And part of it was because it was new and fresh and fun, but over time it just became redundant. And the other part of it was I was probably doing it for the wrong reasons and thinking that it was because it was new and fresh and fun, but over time, it just became redundant. And the other part of it was I was probably doing it for the wrong reasons and thinking that it was a never-ending supply.

I think a lot of young people do that, especially when you start to make more money than you've seen before. And that could happen at any scale. Luckily, I had that midlife crisis early on before I had a child and before we got married because a lot of people, men and women do it later in life when they have responsibilities. So luckily I got that out of my system. But I think the biggest unlock there is one, understanding investing and saving and how you can build security into your future. And two, realizing that nobody actually gives a shit. Nobody cares what you buy. Nobody

cares what you're wearing. And the people that do, they're broken too. And that's a key there. The people that care what you're driving, what you're wearing, what you're doing, where you're traveling to, those are other broken people that probably also don't understand finance and have a good relationship with it. So I just have a better relationship now where I don't look at money as an external thing to impress other people. I look at it as a resource to build businesses, to provide for my family, to live a comfortable life, to buy back my time.

And I think that unlock came with one, understanding money more, but two, also doing really stupid things with money. Let's talk about Saqqara. I could not be more excited to let you guys know that we are partnering with them. I have been such a fan of this brand since I started blogging. I mean, I blogged about it, I think in like 2014, the girls have been on the podcast. Basically, Saqqara is a wellness company rooted in the transformative power of plant-based food. You guys, they have this organic ready to eat meal and they're all made with these beautiful, colorful,

powerful, plant-rich ingredients. Every single ingredient is hand-picked and they're all designed to boost your energy, improve digestion, and get your skin glowing. So instead of just post-mating a bunch of unhealthy food, I would recommend checking out Saqqara. I am obsessed with their delivery presentation. It is so beautiful. They have this menu of creative breakfasts, lunch, dinners. They change weekly. You never get bored. It's delivered fresh. I think it's the freshest delivery you can possibly get in the U.S. I'm not the only one that agrees. They have rave reviews from Vogue, Goop, and the New York Times. I am so into their beauty water. There are these little drops. I put them in my water, and then I love their meals. They're meals that I

even cut up and will feed to the baby. Amazing. So excited because right now, Sakara is offering all Skinny Confidential, him and her listeners, 20% off your first order. All you have to do is go to sakara.com slash skinny or enter code skinny at checkout. That's sakara, S-A-K-A-R-A dot com slash skinny to get 20% off your first order. sakara.com slash skinny to support your wellness. You're going to feel empowered, boost your skin's glow, and feel your very best with Saqqara. Let's pretend that Susie makes $100,000 a year. If Michael Bostic comes in and looks at Susie's bank account, what are you telling her to do?

Like if you, in a perfect world, and again, we know you're not an expert. We're just sharing like your opinion. People aren't going to like this answer to begin with. If I meet someone like that, say Susie, that's making $100,000 a year, and she's got $100,000 or this is before taxes? Babe, I don't know. What do you think? Okay, so let's just say this.

What's the best? Let's say before taxes? Yeah. Let's say with that $100,000 a year is really like 70, 80, because you're going to pay Uncle Sam, right? Especially depending on what stage you're living in and if you know how to deduct and all that. So let's say it's 70. I'm going to go to Susie and say, hey, Susie, instead of living on $70,000 a year, how can we live on 50, right?

How can we get our expenses down to live on 50? I do this game with us, Lauren, I don't think you even know what we do. Anytime we move up the income bracket, I spend at least a full year living on the income that we have the previous year. So let's just say that we made $100,000 last year and we get a raise and we get up to 200. I will spend that next year still living on the 100 and budgeting and I'll take that extra and I'll invest it and I'll put it into savings. And I think that it comes a little game because again, there's this pressure that when we earn more money, we need to spend more money. But if you really look at it, when I think about when we were in college and I were living with multiple roommates, living off very little, like we were

happy then, you'll still be happy now. You don't always need to boost up your income or your expenses. Okay. But here's where I get confused. If Susie makes $100,000 a year and you tell her to live on 50, what are you doing with the rest of the money? Explain that very, very micro, Michael. So there's different rules of thumb about an emergency fund. So most people say you want three to six months of emergency fund. So one thing we should touch on is that with inflation, you know how your grandparents say,

hey, back in my day, this was worth a nickel. Well, it actually was worth a nickel because a nickel was worth a nickel back then. And now that's it. So it's why you look at a house that someone's lived in for 30 years, like, oh, I bought that for $100,000 and now it's worth a million. It's inflation, right? So the only thing to protect your money, your cash is becoming less valuable every year that we move forward, right? So a lot of people don't realize that having cash is not a good thing. You want to keep as little cash as possible and which we can touch on. So as an emergency fund, people say three to six months. So let's say it costs Susie $10,000 a month to live on. She wants to try to save in cash in a savings account,

30 to $60,000, three to six months. If you're really conservative and really paranoid about cash, and this is not smart financial advice, but it's what we do learn, is we keep eight to nine months of cash liquid. That's just because I'm paranoid because I've burned myself in the past and I take chances on different investments now. But rule of thumb says you want to save at least three to six months of cash. The rest you want to put in an investment vehicle. And what I suggest again, actually, I'm not going to say I suggest what we do. And again, talk to a fiduciary, talk to an accountant, talk to somebody who has your best interest is right now, primarily Lauren, when we're in the market, we're only in index funds,

whether it's a Schwab index fund, Vanguard. And this is going to be super boring, Mimi. I know your eyes are glazing over. No, I'm still interested. Although I've had the spiel before, but it's useful. And a lot of financial people are going to be screaming at the mic here. Unless you're in the market every day watching stocks, and that's your job, and that's your life, and you really understand how to pick stocks and when to get in and when to get out, which is very, very... Almost nobody can beat the market. I think Warren Buffett... I shouldn't invest in GameStop? No, we can talk about that too. I think Warren Buffett talked about this, or he did a bet with a hedge fund manager and he said,

you pick any of your stocks that you want to pick. And Warren invested in just index funds. Who will beat who? And I think he's up over 30% over that hedge fund manager. So it's really difficult to beat the market index funds. And the great thing about index funds is they basically take the top 500 companies and you have unlimited upside. So to be in the S&P 500, you have to be the top 500 companies in the US. And if you're not in the top 500, you fall out of that. So in these index funds, you have unlimited upside. Unlimited upside examples like Apple, Amazon, Tesla, they keep getting more and more valuable. So they just keep going up and up and up. So if you're in the index funds, your indexes get more and more valuable. A company that falls from spot 500 to spot 510 is kicked out of the S&P. So you have

limited downside, right? Because another company will take its place. And I know that might sound confusing to some, just imagine you get to have little shares of the top performing 500 companies. And in order to have those shares, they have to continue to stay in the top 500. And if they don't, they fall out and then they're not in your fund anymore. So you're well diversified. I think we're mostly in Vanguard and Schwab index funds, Lauren. If you didn't know that, you didn't know where I'm at. If I die, Mimi, please tell Lauren where I have a will in my safe. She has to go through that. I'm listening.

I'm always paying attention. Anyways. You'll remember the names of those? Bob, Van Gogh? You want low cost index funds when it comes to saving. And when I say low cost, you don't need somebody managing it, in my opinion. You need to buy one or two funds, a money manager. I think I have, I can get into numbers later. But for the basic investor, somebody who just wants to set money aside and watch it grow. And the key here is any money you put into your investment account, you're planning on leaving there for a minimum of 10 years. Hopefully, in Lauren and I's case, we're leaving it 20, 30 years and never needing to touch it. You told me 30 minimum.

Yeah. So that's what I have in my head. I'm hoping that I never have to touch it, that it just continues to build and compound over time. Let's say like the eighth wonder of the world, was it Einstein that said this, is compound interest. And Charlie Munger said some kind of quote about never interrupting it without reason. So it's why, have you ever seen that graph of Warren Buffett's wealth? No. Okay. So if anyone's on Google and you say Google Warren Buffett's wealth, you'll look and you'll

see it kind of goes and goes and goes into 20, 30 years. And then later in his life, it gets up. And then all of a sudden, late in life, it just shoots straight up. And that's compound interest. Why doesn't everyone do this though? I don't understand because people feel that they have to take it out because they need more money. What is the problem that disrupts- Compound?

Yeah. Well, one, and it's unfortunate, I didn't learn this stuff. I knew about compounding and people told me, but I never had any application for it. And I wish, and the reason maybe it's important for you is if you can start investing like this in your 20s, that compounding kicks into effect so much faster because that 10 years earlier investing, it makes a huge level of difference. But the problem is, is most schools don't teach you this stuff. And by the time you get around to learning it, it's like most people start thinking, oh shit, I need to save and think about my future when it's too late. Like when you're in your 40s, fifties, sixties, and it's already, you're already there, you don't have enough time for compounding. So for young people that are listening,

when you're in your twenties and thirties, you have so much time to have compound interest kick into effect. And so I wish people would talk about this more and teach it to more people. I think it should be a mandatory class that they teach in schools. We learn about like Greek mythology and worthless things that have no application to our day-to-day life, but we don't learn about mortgages and finance and taxes and saving and investing. You don't care about Aphrodite? No, I do. I mean, what is she? Was she the god of love?

Or the god of- Beauty? Yeah. Who is the god of love? You don't care about Compass Rose. Remember we did Compass Rose in sixth grade? Who's Dionysus, the god of wine? You don't care about Compass Rose and the missions.

Remember we learned about the missions? I only know about Oedipus because of Boone. That's a whole different story. If you could give our audience a hot tip, like something that they could invest in, are you allowed to talk about this or is this... He just said Vanguard. No, give us another one. Give us another hot tip. Well, hold on. No. So I don't want to say just Vanguard. So I would just say index funds. And I would say talk to an accountant or a fiduciary. Again, I don't want to... I'm just saying what we do primarily. We can talk about... Lauren and I obviously do make angel investments, which is a whole nother discussion. And we can talk about that as well. But just to give you some basic math, if you took $100,000 and put it in index

funds with 20 years to grow at an average of 7% interest, in 20 years, that'll become about $386,000, almost 400K. So that's almost four times, that's 7%. If you take that same 100,000, and instead of 7%, change it to 6%, it changes to 320. So that basic 1% costs you 65,000. And the reason I mention it is most people go to a financial advisor and have them manage their money into mutual funds, which are one, I think very hard to beat the market. And two, they take fees and they'll get you and say, hey, I'll manage your money for 1% or whatever. It doesn't sound like a lot, but over a period of time, it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. What are three things that you think

someone like Warren Buffett has done differently than the rest of the world? Well, they're a different story, him and Charlie Munger. Well, one, they're the most patient people ever, right? And this is the big thing that we should touch on. Most people screw up their investments because they invest and then they take the money out too early. So you're not going to get very far investing like this in a year period or two year or five. This is for people that want- I don't think that's necessarily true though, because I only started investing last year. But you also invested in a time... So last year during the pandemic was a very good buying opportunity. So let's talk about why people buy and sell. People typically,

when a market crashes, like it just did, it went down to about 18,000 during the pandemic, they freak out because they look at their net worth and it went down by about 40%. So say you had $100,000 in your savings and all of a sudden the market crashes in a pandemic and you look at it and what you thought's 100 all of a sudden looks like 60,000. So what do most people do? They freak out, they panic, they go, oh my God, I just lost $40,000. And they sell, they sell their stocks, they sell their position and they get their cash out. This is the absolute worst thing you can do in a crash. What we did instead, and this is just our, this is my personal thing. When everyone freaked out this year in pandemic and it crashed to 18,000,

I took as much capital as I could scrap together and I dumped it into index funds. So what happened is we bought in when it was very low. And then when it comes back up, I think it's at what, 32 or 33,000 right now, the Dow, you basically got to ride that wave of actually earning 40% instead or more than that, actually, as opposed to losing. Most people lose their money because they sell in times of panic, but you only actually actualize a loss if you sell. You can hold on. Can you explain what happened with AMC and GameStop? Because I still don't know.

Yeah. So it's an interesting time and hopefully the Redditors don't kill me here. I'm a Redditor and I'm okay. Because remember I texted you and I said like three days into the whole thing. Yeah, I look at Reddit like every day. Daya. I don't look at the like mean ones. I look at last night I watched a bee live stream of inside of a hive. I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, BD. So to understand for layman's terms, for people that are like,

what the hell is he talking about index fund stock investing? Obviously, when you put money into the market, you are investing in shares of publicly traded companies and businesses. GameStop is an example. Amazon's an example, right? You actually buy ownership stake with outstanding shares. So say, Mimi, you bought Amazon at $1,000 and you own it and you said, you know what? Now it's worth $1,500. I want to get out. You've made $500. You sell it. You have to sell it to someone like me who's willing to buy it at that price made $500, you sell it. You have to sell it to someone like me who's willing to buy it at that price. So then I've bought it. So with all that, say I buy it at

$1,500 and it goes down to $1,200. Well, now my shares are worth $300 less than I bought it for. So that's like the basic understanding is there's always people buying and selling in the market. Speaking of finance, speaking of all things productivity, I have one of our favorite brands that I'd love to share with you again on this show, and that is Skillshare. So what is Skillshare? Skillshare is an online learning community offering thousands and thousands of classes taught by people like you and me. They have everything from graphic design, finance, productivity, management. They have something for you. And during a time when you're at home a lot more often and you're not in school, this is the platform for you. I'm going to get specific here and tell you my favorite class. I had my whole team

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or am I putting it available to be sold? You're selling it. Well, that's a complicated question. Yes, it's available to buy. Somebody, whatever outstanding shares or people can buy at the price or you can sell them. I mean, that's a whole nother discussion. But let's just say, staying on the example,

if you bought it for 1,000 and it's 1,500, you said, you know what? I want to pull my money out and get it in cash and I'm going to actualize. So in order to actualize a gain and a loss in the stock market, you either have to buy or sell. So back to my point, when people this year, when they freaked out and they looked at their portfolio and it went down by 40% and they freaked out and sold, they actually actualized a loss. Because if they bought in when their portfolio was worth $100,000 and they sold when it was worth $60,000, they actually actualized the loss of $40,000. On the reverse, if you bought in at $100,000 and now it's worth $140,000 and you sell,

you've gained $40,000. But you don't actually gain or lose unless you buy or sell. You're just holding the positions, right? So people will look at your portfolio and they say, it's considered a liquid asset because you can buy and sell it, right? So with GameStop, and this is an interesting time that we're living in because a lot of hedge funds and big money guys have controlled the market for a lot of times. They go and make a big move or sell a stock. They can actually move the whole market.

A guy like Warren Buffett, if he announces, hey, I'm selling all my Apple stock, that could indicate to everybody else, maybe the stock is worth less. And he can actually move the market, a guy with that type of money. And hedge funds and big money guys have been doing this forever. What happened to my understanding with the GameStop people is there was a huge movement on Reddit where they said, we're going to take a stock that honestly is not worth so much anymore, especially with games going digital and brick and mortar dying. And a bunch of guys said, we were going to boost this stock up. So they went and said, we're going to start buying a ton of GameStop and saying the company's worth like billions or whatever it is

even though we all know it's not but when everybody lorna you listening you're still involved when they collectively she's on her phone no i'm not unless when they collectively start lauren's looking at the b live stream i was talking about no i'm not listening i'm taking notes i'm taking notes you're on instagram when people started collectively making stories buying she's ordering a humidifier off amazon this is how i know lauren's i know on this subject this is hard the subject is hard for me i'm not gonna lie i'm not gonna pretend like this is my favorite subject in the world it's not i get it there's probably a lot of people it's not but again it goes back to understanding instagram

stories you can you can zone out lauren it's okay i do it for you anyway our money our money's hidden somewhere you'll never find it i'm just kidding but you can tell me i'll find it for you anyway. Our money is hidden somewhere. You'll never find it. I'm just kidding. You can tell me. I'll find it for you. Yeah. So when everyone started buying, it inflated the stock and on paper, it showed that it was worth so much more than it actually was. So all these people, a lot of people gained a lot. Then I think Robinhood or somebody stepped in because some hedge fund guys were getting in trouble and they stopped the trading, stopped the selling. That's a whole story of what happened there. You can Google it. A lot of people got pissed. But I would be careful buying like that because for all the success stories you've heard about these guys that made

millions of dollars buying GameStop, there's the other side where a majority of people lost millions or thousands. And the problem is that a lot of people that were investing speculatively like that didn't have that type of money to invest, right? So all of a sudden they think they're buying something that's going to go way, way up. And then it completely crashed back down to nothing and they lose all that money. Don't you feel like when everyone's doing something, you need to question it? Whenever some everyone's doing it, I feel like, wait a minute, I need to think about this. If you learn about something that's a hot trend, you've missed the trend. If you as a general consumer are looking on Twitter and you see something trending, whether it's Bitcoin or GameStop, as soon as it gets to you, if you're not in that world paying

attention and on the ground floor, if it's gotten to you, that means you're too late. That goes with anything though. It's like, if you're somebody that's like, I'm going to get into the podcast business, I'm going to do that. And because you've heard podcasts are hot, you missed it. That wave was four or five years ago. It's still obviously flourishing and going, but I would never try to start a Dear Media today. I did it years ago before people were talking about it, right? Because it was not a thing. Same thing with real estate, same thing with anything else. I want to go back to the Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger conversation. You said one of the things that they had that other people don't have

is patience. Is there anything else that you see? Well, so the patience goes back to like, Mimi, you asked me a game stuff. A lot of people that were day trading, which is a different thing in my opinion than investing. Day trading is like, I'm going to go and buy Amazon today and I hope it's at a thousand and I hope by the end of the day, it goes up to 1400 and I'm going to make a quick 400 bucks. That's day trading. I consider that different than long-term investing. What Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger do is very long-term investing. They hope that when they put money into something that they're never going to have to sell it. So they buy into Coca-Cola or Apple or any of the insurance company, Geico or whatever. They wait and sit on the sidelines,

wait and wait and wait. the sidelines, wait and wait and wait. And when they see a good buying opportunity, like when the stock market crashes and the stock is priced low, which we should talk about, is when they see a buying opportunity. What most people do is they buy high and sell low. What you want to do is buy low, sell high. So when you see the market crash for young people that's never been in it, that's a great time to get in.

Don't listen to your parents or people that don't understand finance and tell them, oh, the market's down. When the market's down, that's when you buy. And then you hold because to the point when we bought in during the crash of 2020, when it was at 18,000, it's at 32,000 right now. So you actualize all those gains if you sell. So long-term investing is the number one thing. And two, obviously setting money aside, like we talked about in the beginning to invest. But the third part is you don't want to disrupt that investment by pulling it out. That's why you set up an emergency fund, which we also talked about. So if you lose your job or you get tight on money, if you have that three to six months, or in our case, nine month emergency fund, instead of tapping into your investments and

selling your investments, you use your emergency fund until you get back on your feet. We have a lot of audience questions. One of them, which I find rather interesting, is how do you view family and friends asking for money? Yeah, I've been meaning to ask for a while. I'm really eyeing this Bottega Veneta bag. Oh, it is cute. You should ask Michael for money on air so he can't say no. Well, I think it's a difficult thing because you want to help your family and friends, especially as you do better and better. But you don't just want to throw your hard-earned money around to what I call money pits. We all know that family member or friend that if you give

them the loan or you give them the investment, that's- I'm looking for more sort of just a gift. Yeah. That's money going down. That's not coming back. Daya, your birthday's coming up. And gifting is great, obviously, if you're feeling generous. But if somebody in your family comes and says, I need to borrow money, or a friend comes to you and says, I need to borrow money or an investment, my personal way of viewing it is that if I grant it, I'm acting as if that money is never coming back.

And I think people get in trouble here because they hold people that they love and care about so accountable. It's like, hey, you didn't give me back that thousand dollars a hundred. I look at it this way. I look at my whole life like this. I like to be pleasantly surprised in people than constantly disappointed in people. So I give them the money. I take full accountability and I tell myself, okay, that was my choice to give them the money. I'm probably never going to see it again. If a year goes by and they give me the money back, I'm like, wow, that was great. But I go into it thinking I'll never see it again. And I just want to, I do it to help. What do you do when your wife steals a hundred dollar bill out of your wallet? Pretend I don't notice it and get off. That's your hundred

dollar bill, Lauren. I always love to steal a hundred. Every time I leave the house, I'm like, can I have some cash? Can I have some money? Another thing about family and friends is if you're at a stage where maybe they're starting a new venture or something and they're asking for a little bit of money, let's say a little bit. Say somebody comes and says, I want $1,000 for my startup or I want $5,000, whatever the number is. It's if you give it to them and then they don't make something happen and they don't pay you back the next time they come for

the big ask, they want the big money. You could say, well, remember the last time uncle Jim or whoever, I don't have an uncle Jim. So I just had to think of a name. Thank God. You could say the last time I did this didn't end up so well for me. You didn't pay me back. And so you have an out. So I sometimes look at that stuff as like, okay, this is a cheap way to get off in the long run. And I'd rather give it to them low before it gets too high. Buying versus renting. You are so smart when it comes to this subject. Talk to us about this. Buying versus renting when it comes to what? Houses or cars. Well, cars, I think, again, understanding the market, I think nine times out of 10, it's better to lease a car. And I'll tell you why. You might be able to buy a car and it might be

appreciated and you could get investment, but it's a headache. You got to deal with selling. I like leasing cars primarily. I just bought this truck because I think it'll appreciate it. You did? Yes. But I like this. I'm so worried about it. I like typically leasing cars because most people don't want to deal with the headache of selling a car and dealing with it. You know you're going to...

Buying and leasing. So buying versus renting. One thing to point out is renting is the max you're going to pay. Buying is the minimum you're going to pay. So let me explain. If you go to rent a condo and they say the rent is $2,500, that's your rent. You know that. That's the most you're going to pay with utilities. So you factor in utilities. So you know, okay, that's my max is $2,500. If you buy into a house and they say your mortgage

is going to be $2,500, well, what you also got to factor in is the down payment. And in my personal opinion, you shouldn't be buying a house until you can comfortably make a down payment. Your pool heater breaking like ours did. Your house was basically useless to me now. Maintenance costs, right? We just had this storm out here in Texas, pool heater broke, a lot of people lost their water pipes, landscaping fees because the plants get ruined from the storm. There's a million things that people don't factor into their cost. There's a little rust on my door too. We need to fix that. Little things like that. Wife nitpicking about little things.

No, there's a little rest. Yeah. So when you're renting, obviously it's somebody else's problem. It's the landlord. So you've made it to agreement there. It's the most you're going to pay is that $2,500. If you have a mortgage at 25, it's the least you're going to pay. So I think as soon as people flip that on their head and they go, okay, buying versus renting. Also, when it comes to buying and renting, I think if you're a young person or a young couple that doesn't have children or obligations yet, I think it's an extremely smart move to rent. Lauren and I did this for a very long time. And here's the reason. A lot of people are going to be screaming saying, oh, well, houses, you can make a lot of money on a house and appreciate. That's true. Again, if you're

going to stay there for a while, and if you're in a hot market all of those things but when you're renting you get the flexibility of being able to move to other places quickly you know your fixed cost we're all working from home right now speak to an accountant you can probably deduct some of it you are not obligated to any of the maintenance fees that are going to hit you out of nowhere you are not stuck you can get up and leave and go somewhere without worrying about the place so for for young people and people without children that like flexibility, I think it's an extremely smart move in the beginning to rent until you decide to settle down a little bit more. Like for Lauren and I, obviously we had a child, one-year-old. We got to a position where the down payment wasn't going to be very stressful for us. And we knew we're going to sit

tight for a long time and want to be situated in one place for a while. So I think buying makes sense and hopefully the place appreciates. But if it doesn't, I'm not doing it as... I don't think anyone should look at their primary home as an investment. If it turns out to be later, because it appreciates, great. But I think people should look at it as just the cost of living. And if it makes you comfortable and makes you feel good and it doesn't stress you out and break the bank, then buy. But if you are stressed about the down payment and you're looking for flexibility and you want to move around and you want to know your exact costs every month, then rent. Because I can tell you this storm cost us way more of this month than what I would have thought it would have. And that's just an

expense that most people don't factor in when they're buying. How's the view in Austin? Couldn't be better. Why? Got that dress pant yoga pant. You sure love those. I brought my beta brand dress pant yoga pants to Austin. Duh. It is what I am wearing when I am on Zoom. They are so comfortable. I took Zaza out for a walk in the stroller yesterday. I was doing Zoom calls, walking along, feeling like my ass was so tight. You could really crack a walnut on that ass in those beta brand dress pant yoga pants. And even if you couldn't, the dress pant yoga pants make it look like you could. Michael is popping things left and right for these pants. I am telling you guys, you have to check them out.

I like the ones. I've told you this a million times, but they are my favorite. They're black. They're the skinny ones. They're my favorite. They're most flattering. I gained 55 pounds after I gave birth and to have a pant that pulls me in and is flattering is just everything I could want more in quarantine. You know what I'm saying? Another thing you got to know is that the dress pant yoga pant is made of wrinkle resistant stretch knit fabric. And this is amazing because if you're like me, you like to wear the same pants 500 days in a row without washing them. So this is important. This pant doesn't dig into your skin, which is so annoying. They need to fix that. And you don't have the urge to unbutton your pants

while you're stuck in traffic. You know, we've all been there. I never have to do that. So they're comfortable. They're stylish. They hold you in. They make your butt look great. I'm telling you, they have boot cuts, straight legs, skinny cropped, eight pocket and more. They launch styles weekly. And right now our listeners can get 25% off their first order when you go to betabrand.com slash skinny. That's 25% off your first order for a limited time at betabrand.com slash skinny. Find out why women are ditching typical work pants for Betabrand's dress pant yoga pants. Go to betabrand.com slash skinny, and you're going to get 25% off. Next, people want to know about credit card debt, like good debt versus bad debt, because there's some people that say you need to have a credit card and spend X amount to establish credit. And then there's other people who say, oh, no, you never need a credit card. I years ago. I never had a credit card. Now,

was that a good thing? Because I feel like I would have spent a bunch of shit on it. Or was that a bad thing? Because I feel like I've heard both things because you want to build your credit, but I had my car that I was building credit in. Sure. I'm going to say something controversial. I think people put way more importance on credit than is actually practical and necessary. And let me elaborate. If you're somebody that needs to be financing, if you're in the real estate market, you need to have good credit because you're constantly working with banks to finance. If you are looking to finance cars, if you're in an industry that requires you to have good credit, it's really important. If you're like most people, you have time to build your credit. What I say by that is this, say you had perfect credit, it's really important. If you're like most people, you have time to build your credit. What I say by that is this, say you had perfect credit, but you don't have the money to come up

with a down payment on a house. It's probably better for you to rent. You have time to build it. So yes, credit's important, but I think people look at it as like, if you have bad credit, your life's over. You can declare bankruptcy and work seven years to build your credit. It's not going to be perfect. You're going to have to disclose it, but you can build back up. Or you could take a financial hit and be late on some payments and build yourself back up. I've taken dings on my credit before and build back up. I'm in the 800s now again. Credit's important, but only when you actually need to tap in and use credit. I was telling you when we first started dating that I didn't put such an emphasis on credit. And you were very nervous about it.

People do put an emphasis. For example, obviously you need good credit to buy a house or to buy income properties or to finance a car, all these things. So credit is important. I don't want to say it's not important, but it's only important if you actually need to tap into use credit. And so that brings me to my credit card statement. If you have bad credit and you're somebody that's irresponsible with money, I don't think credit cards are good. It's a really bad strategy to max out credit cards. It's an even worse strategy to max credit cards and then pay the minimum. So you're saying how me not having a credit card was actually a good thing. Yeah, because it probably saved you from overspending when you were young. And I think

a lot of young people overspend and put things on credit. And then what they do is they pay the minimums and they compound that interest at a really, really high rate. And then they never get out of debt. Student loans. Well, let me stand the credit up. I'll talk about both. So if you have bad credit card debt and you're like, how do I get out of this? Again, stop making them do anything you can to pay down anything with the highest interest rate. So say you have three credit cards. I would line up all three. I would go into your statements and your paperwork and see which one has the highest interest rate. So say you have three credit cards. I would line up all three. I would go into your statements, into your paperwork and see which one has the highest compounding interest. And I would take as much of your funds as that and pay as much of that

credit card as possible to get them down to nothing. If you don't yet have credit card debt, I would do everything you can to avoid it. I look at a credit card to build credit as like, if I have a credit card that I can spend $1,000 on and I spend 1,000, I want to pay that balance in absolute full every month. If I can't pay it in full, I try everything I can to not spend that. It's not obviously realistic for everybody and debt is useful, especially if you need to live and buy groceries, but I would do everything possible to avoid compounding interest on credit card debt. I have a question. So if you have credit card debt, but you're also looking to make your savings, how would you factor that in? Would that come out of the 10% you're saving? No. Well, so here's the thing. If you

are trying to save, understand that that compounding interest is going to cost you way more. It's the reverse, right? If compounding interest is working for you, like in an index fund in the stock account, that's building your savings, right? If it's working against you and compounding interest is working for you, like in an index fund in the stock account, that's building your savings. If it's working against you and compounding interest is taking away and costing you, then it's actually doing the reverse and costing you more and more everyone to have the debt. So let's say you have $1,000 in credit card debt and you can save $100 a month. That's what you took to your saving. I would take that and put as much of that possible to get that debt gone before you invest because it's going to continue to compound and cost you money over time. I'm going to ask a question that may sound stupid, but I'm totally willing to look like a stupid asshole to ask this question. And

this is a question that I actually really have. When it comes to student loans, I had a student loan and I was paying, I think, $80 a month to pay it off. And I think just recently I finally paid it off. I personally, like me, would rather pay $80 a month and not even notice it than pay it all up front. Is that not smart or is it not either? No. Well, the key is the interest rate. So for your particular case, you had an extremely low interest rate that wasn't going to cost you a bunch of money, right? Where most credit card companies have really high interest rates that can be compounding. So in your case, it was actually, and this is where, again, speak to a fiduciary or accountant and actually have them map out what the interest costs you. So in your case, the interest costs you very little. And it was,

you had a better use of your capital. Your better use was putting it into your business, I think a lot of people, like I said earlier, you can't save your way to financial freedom. In your case, you took the money that you were saving, invested into your business. Your business started earning you way more income than what your debt was, and all of a sudden you came out of it. What most people do is they say, shit, I'm in debt. I need to just save, save, save, and stop spending. But like I said in the beginning, the real key and the unlock is, yes, you can save and that is a rule when you bring in income. But the bigger thing is how do you earn more, right?

And if you're like, okay, my expenses are $10,000 a month. Well, instead of taking your savings and paying your debts after that, let's figure out how do we make $20,000 a month so that we can pay that 10 no problem and put in the savings. Listen, it's not an easy thing. I don't want to say making money is easy, but I think people, if they flip the equation on their head and they reverse engineer and realize these are just numbers, right? They're numbers and you can work to figure out, okay, if my debt is X and I earn Y, I'm going to get out in this amount of time.

Whereas if you're saving and you're just like, okay, you're just going to save and save and save. You need to figure out how to get out of the debt and earn more. In your personal opinion, what's the difference between wealth and being rich? Rich is what you see. Wealth is what you don't see. So someone will look at someone in a fancy house and a fancy car and say, that person's rich. But again, if you read, there's a book called The Millionaire Next Door. Most wealthy people, I'm sure you see rich, flashy people and celebrities, and sometimes the wealth is so extreme that those flashy things, for someone like a Jay-Z to buy a couple of Ferraris, it's like buying a bag of Skittles for him. It doesn't mean anything. So that is wealth and rich. But for the high majority of people

in the world, it's mostly flaunting. It's like, I'm going to go and finance that house that I can't afford. I'm going to go and finance that car that I can't afford in order to look rich in front of people that don't actually care. The wealthy people, there's no doubt they could go and afford those things. They can afford that house. They can afford that car, but they don't. They invest it and they save it. And it's about, again, what you don't see. And so you may look at someone on the street that just looks like a normal plainclothes person that could be extremely wealthy and you never know it. We're like, we all know that flashy person. And listen, I've been guilty of this in the past. And I'd say the majority of the time that rich, flashy person is not actually wealthy.

They're just, they're debt rich. When we first got back together in our 20s, you were flashy and now you're completely different. What changed? I got my face slammed in and lost a bunch of money and didn't understand it and look like an idiot and also had a midlife crisis. And then also realized that the people that I was- Just a few things. Trying to impress didn't really matter in my, not that they don't matter as people, but didn't matter in my life and weren't important to my family and so again like this is a personal journey people are going to go through i'm not going to tell some young person that's starting

to make a lot of money not to go spend it and have fun what do you love about your wife and money well you just don't you don't care you don't put an emphasis on it but i think like you're a perfect example and candidate accidentally of somebody who manages finance well, because- I don't think so. That's so nice that you think that. I don't think so. Well, I'll tell you why. You make a certain level of income and you don't take that whole income and blow it on things that are going to cost you a bunch of money in debt, right? Let's just say you make $10,000. You're somebody that goes and spends five or six of it. And also the rest, if you are spending, goes into your business. And so it's like, it's going to help. I spend my money on

my business. Yeah. I think that you're an example of someone who can make an income, reinvest it, and also not live flashy and invest for future. You're going to like people that can, once you start, it's weird. Once you get away from this materialistic, like consumerism where you need to just consume, consume, consume. And that's a lot of what not just the world, but this country is about. It's like, I made a bunch of money. I'm going to go buy a bag, a purse, a car, a watch. I'm going to do... You think these things are going to make you happy. But if somebody were to just give you all these things and give you all the money in the world, it's like, is that... This is a question for everybody. If you had all the money in the world and you can never spend it, would you continue to just buy these things over

and over? Probably not. What happens is most of the time we buy these things that we can't afford because it stimulates something in our brain. That's like this feedback loop. But when you start saving and investing and seeing your money grow, like everything I look at now, like if I'm like, oh, that's going to cost me $1,000, I look at it and say, well, that $1,000 is going to be worth $3,000 in X amount of years. And so I look at it as like I'm actually spending three, not one. That makes sense. I think that when it comes to your relationship with money, it's important to look at your childhood and how you grew up. And I think that even sitting

down and journaling on that is important. I look at the way I grew up, and I don't know if this has to do with my relationship with money, but I grew up in a very, very, and Mimi, it's your same story as me. We grew up in a very, very wealthy, affluential area where there was so much money and people were getting Ferraris and BMWs for their 16th birthday, whereas our family was, I would say, just more normal. Middle class. Middle class, yeah. And so I was able to see all these people with so much money, and there were so many of them that were unhappy.

And I realized at a very young age that money doesn't make you happy, and no matter how flashy you are, there's always problems going on behind the scenes. Obviously not talking about everyone, just 90% of the people that we grew up with. So I think that maybe that's shaped our relationship around money. Yeah. I think like if I could wish anything for anyone in the world is that they get all the money they want and realize, and this is a quote from someone, and they realize that it's not the thing that's going to make them happy. We know tons of wealthy people that are absolutely miserable. And they're just like, who said more money, more problems? Was that Puff Daddy or Jay-Z or was that Notorious B.I.G.? One of those. But it's true. You have more things to worry about, more people asking for more responsibilities. And so again, back to that

quote I said in the beginning, money doesn't solve all your problems. It solves all your money problems, but you have to find other things that make you happy and fulfilled. I think the unlock for me was when I realized that why I'm making money, like personally, I'm not talking about it from a business purpose perspective. Why I'm making money is for autonomy. And when I realized that that's what's so important

is to be able to do what I want when I want, the materialistic thing went away. Convenience too. Convenience is amazing. Like a Postmate and Uber. When I'm tired and I want to order food and I can afford it, it's just, it's great. You know why I make a buck? I make a buck to go to a foot spa whenever the fuck I want. There's that other quote that says, money won't make you happy, but it'll keep you very comfortable in your misery, right? Like that's the truth. Like if you can get Postmates or Uber, and that's the thing I think most people are actually looking for in life is they're looking

for that financial freedom where they can support their family. They can do what they want when they want. They can afford, like once your basic bills are met, like your rent is paid, your mortgage is paid, your utility bills, your car payment, like you can afford groceries. You can afford to go out once in a while. That's about as happy as you're ever going to get with money. Below that, and I understand we're fortunate enough to now be above that, but it took some time. But below that certain level, when you can't afford groceries, and listen, this has been a tough last year for a lot of people. When you can't afford your rent, your groceries, or a mortgage, obviously the happiness gap there without money is going to be drastic, right? Because then you're really struggling. And for

those people, again, it's looking in and understanding the relationship with money. If you're like, okay, how can I earn more? How can I save more? It's not an overnight solution. And I don't have the exact answer to that right away. I empathize with that situation, but this is for people that once they start to get a little bit above water, how do you manage your finances a little bit better? And I think that if you can do that, and you can understand it a little bit more, you can live a life with a little bit more of a calm energy, I would say. Because it's not something that's like this big monster living under your bed that you don't understand that you're constantly stressed out about.

If we were to do a part two of this and we were to get more in depth with you and ask questions that were maybe higher level, what would some of those topics be? Well, I think that's the big, I mean, I think people probably want to know about like 401ks and profit sharings and investment vehicles and IRAs and all that stuff. And my short answer, and I know we're on time here, my short answer to that is do everything you can if you have access to that to max those as soon as possible. And my short answer, and I know we're on time here, my short answer to that is do everything you can if you have access to that to max those as soon as possible. And again, don't touch them, especially if your employer matches them. That's important. Another person wrote into me the other day about a 529, which is an investment account for college fund for children. My short answer

to that is if you're going to try to put money into that, don't do that until you've got your emergency fund, your IRA, your profit sharing, your Roth, all of those things maxed first. And if there's still money left over to invest, you can put in that. Hopefully, maybe grandparents put in that too, but I think that should be one of the last things. I know there's a big topic on renting versus buying. I don't want to get so deep into that, but I think we answered that a little bit. What about trusts?

Trusts. Well, then you're getting really in-depth, And I think that's going to apply to not as wide of a group of people, but obviously irrevocable and revocable trusts are important for certain situations. So we have to do a part two. Well, if people are interested. But didn't we have a couple other questions? Yeah. People especially really wanted to know your top books on finance.

I wrote them down here. Okay. So the first one is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It's not necessarily a finance book, but I think it's a book to kind of help you find your purpose, earn financial freedom, kind of help you get to that next level of money. And great on Audible if you don't have time to read it. Yeah, it's a great book. I think anyone should read it, even if you're not interested in finance.

Another one that I've talked about on this show, and I know it sounds strange coming from Tony Robbins, but he did write a really amazing book called Money Master the Game. I recommend that to everyone. It's a very in-depth look at basically finances, investing. It does a much better job than I could ever do of explaining all this. And when Michael read that, I saw an unlock in you. Yeah. Honestly, if you were going to only read one finance book, it's a little dry. He wrote a condensed version called Unshakeable, but I do think you should read Money Master the Game. The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins is an incredible book. The Psychology of Money, which I just read by Morgan Housel, who I want to have on the show. Morgan, please come on the show. It is great because

that one's all about our relationships and how we view money. He has this great line in the book or this great segment where he talks about looking at history as a past indicator to understand what's going to happen in the future with money. But he points out that that's completely infallible because what happened in the past and the circumstances that exist there don't exist now. And so trying to measure money and map out money then versus now doesn't work. And then the other one that I would look into is Financial Freedom by Grant Saboteur. Saboteur, I think is saying his name right. And then some quick ones, The Path by Peter Malouk, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, Richest Man in Babylon with George S. Clayson.

And I know a lot of people on the show have asked about Ramit Sethi, who is great. He talks about a lot too, and he should also come on the show. Ramit, come on the show. And he has a book called I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Last one, that's not a finance book. I know I went... If you are somebody that's constantly stressed about money and nervous, this is not a finance book, but it's a book that I recommend to anyone that's just anxious and worrying in general. And it's called How To Stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie. That's a great book. Didn't he write How To Make Friends and Influence Others? Yeah.

And this one's a lesser known of his books, but I actually think it's a better book for most people. I mean, they're both... I mean, listen, How to Win Friends and Influence People is obviously... You can't walk into a bookstore without getting smacked in the face with that thing. But this book for people, especially after the year we had, is a great book. I am going to have Daya ask you one more question before we go. And then we're going to have Daya ask you one more question before we go,

and then we're going to do a part two of this. So if you have any questions, let us know on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic. Shout out to the handle change. How many people did I put to sleep on this episode? No, you didn't put me to sleep. I actually was taking notes and listening, Michael. I'll give you a shot of adrenaline to keep you up here. People wanted to know about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, but that might be too heavy. It's not too heavy. I personally do very little with Bitcoin primarily because... And listen, I'm going to get eaten alive here because I know a lot of people... Obviously, we've seen it. Hindsight's 2020. Taylor O'Connor, our producer, the dummy, he sent me a screenshot of how he bought four Bitcoins back in the day for $2,000.

And he's mad that he sold it. I think he sold it. He bought it for $2,000, then it went to $2,200 and he sold it. And I'm like, listen, man, yes, it's at $50,000. Love a Taylor story. But he would have never been somebody that held on to Bitcoin this long and sold at $50,000. So I think hindsight is 20-20 and people like to go back and say, well, if I held this, I would have done this. But that to me is pointless. Yesterday's gone down the river. It ain't coming back. I typically, I have invested in companies that use that type of technology because I think there's an application for it. And I know NFTs are super big right now. Mimi, I just sent you an article

on that. But personally, I don't do a lot with Bitcoin. One thing I would say speaking on investments, because we didn't touch on it, and I know people want to know about making investments, not just stock. I think if you're thinking about doing an angel investment, let's say your friend Susie has an idea for a new beverage company, and she wants you to make an investment. Or somebody sends you a deck to a great new company that's a startup, which Lauren and I invest in startups all the time. I look at all of that angel money as money that I'm throwing into the trash and never getting back.

And I know that sounds crazy, but I do not look at that money as money that I rely on to live. Again, it's like this thing, I'm taking a huge gamble on a startup. Most startups fail. Most never make it to even a million dollars. If they hit, usually, especially if you're in on an angel round, you can make a big hit. That's why a lot of these VC funds, they'll go and they'll invest in 10 companies. They factor that five of them are going to go to complete zero, three of them are going to break even, one of them is going to be a double, and one of them is going to be the Airbnb unicorn. But they're factoring in that the majority of their investments are going to go to nothing. I think you should view angel investments as the same thing. Give someone a check. Probably you'll never see that money again. If you do,

some of it's skill, some of it's luck, some of it's the right founder, always bet on the founder, but don't count on that money as your savings. Last and final question to just finish up this finance episode. People are curious about how you would manage your finances as a single woman who is now married. That's a tough question. I'm going to get in a lot of trouble here. What's that old saying, Lauren? It's like what's yours is yours and what's mine is yours. Is that the- Everything's mine. But we don't have a lot of turmoil when it comes to our finances. So I think that's a good question

to end this with. We've talked about it on this show. I can't remember which episode, how we manage. I think, remember that episode we did together, Mimi? If you look at Mimi Evers on the podcast. We've done a finance episode. I think the previous one I was on. Yeah. So our answer, and this, again, I want to end this with saying that everything I've said here is basically just advice that, you know, take it as just advice. Don't take it as gospel. It's what Lauren and I do. I am not a financial expert. I'm not a fiduciary. I'm not an accountant. You have to do your own research and figure out what works for you and talk to people that are smart with money outside of me. But for Lauren and I personally, we look

at everything that we do together as a collective pot. So if she makes a hundred dollars, we make a hundred dollars. If I make a hundred dollars, we make a hundred dollars. We don't say this is yours. This is mine. That's just a choice we made with finances, no matter who's earning what. Some years she's done better than me. Some years I've done better than her, but we look at it collectively as like, this is the pot for our family. I don't want to say that everybody should do that. That works for some people. It doesn't work for others. I also think that Lauren and I are in a situation where we both work on other things and then work together. So we're earning incomes together. I don't want to come in and say, maybe you're getting into a marriage with somebody who's

been working for a long time and earned a lot of money. I don't know how you divvy that up. But I do think that when couples make an issue of money in their marriage, it always rears its ugly head in some way. And what Lauren and I have tried to do is not make money an issue between us, meaning I'm not looking at what she's spending. She's not like, oh, we're looking at saying, okay, how are we doing this together? How are we saving for our future, for our child? And it has, luckily, has not been an issue for us because we haven't made it a huge issue. I think what I'm getting from this episode is that there's still time to start investing or saving your money. And there's still time to be repairing your old debts and planning for your future. It kind of reminds me this morning, the Daily Stoic.

I don't know if you guys read it, but it said the present moment is a gift. And that's why it's called the present. And it kind of reminds me like right now I want to go and I want to look at my finances and see what I should be doing differently and what I'm doing right. You know what I love about Deedee? She's always finding- She didn't fall asleep in the episode? I didn't fall asleep. She's always finding a good moral. And that was so cute to wrap it

around to the Daily Stoic. The number one thing I could tell people to wrap this up is to, if your finances are stressed, like maybe you got a good hold on this, you don't need to worry about it. But if your finances are something that are stressing you out and you want to either learn how to save more, invest more, earn more, start paying attention to it. Now, I look at our accounts, all of our accounts, at least three times a week. I know it's, I don't look at it for vanity. I look at it to see where we're at, where we're going, what we're doing. I look at our taxes.

I talk to our accountant every month. Like I pay attention to it. And what I found is when I pay attention to it and I address it head on, just like any other problem in life, I'm able to deal with it much easier and not be as stressed about it. And understand that there's time for everything, right? You might be in a bad situation now, but you can turn it around easily. You just can't sweep it under the rug. You have to pay attention and proactively go after it, just like anything else. Michael Bostic, thank you for not putting us to sleep about finances. I did not fall asleep. You can't make that statement. I literally saw you drooling with

your eyes closed. I was engaged the whole time. Yeah, I was engaged too. Remember that Bottega Veneta bag I said? Yep. Follow at Michael Bostic on Instagram and at Mimi Everett's, but with an extra S, right? DDS. Instagram won't let me change my name to Mimi Everett's with one S. Yeah. Go hang out with Mimi. Go hang out with Michael. DM them, ask them any questions. And then if you want to win some pink, cheeky, skinny, confidential swag, all you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode and what you want to see next on a part two with Michael on finances on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. We will see you next time. And do yourself a favor and literally question every single thing I said and talk to a fiduciary and accountant because what works for us may not work for you.

Yep. Got to do your own research. Hopefully it does. Be your own guru. Just look at Reddit. Peace out. Don't forget to pre-order a copy of my new book, Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. There is so many insider tips and tricks on skincare.

You guys are going to be obsessed. You can expect routines, products, tips, and insider secrets from 100 plus of the world's best skincare gurus. Of course, peppered in with lots of happy hour conversations with moi, pre-order on Amazon or where books are available. To get the scoop on the book, there's also a whole website called getthefuckoutofthesun.com. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare, one of our favorite partners, one of our favorite brands, one of the most productive businesses we can talk about on this show. Want to learn a new skill around pretty much anything taught to you by

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