This is the accidentally intentional podcast. I'm your host, Joe. I hate small talk, and I'm ready to have meaningful conversations that build us. Let's go. Hey, guys, in today's episode, I'm joined by my new friend, Jordan Hall, who is an author, a blogger, a real estate broker and attorney. My gosh, what doesn't this guy do? He's amazing. At his website, Jordan T. hall.com. He encourages others to build their businesses build their wealth, and pursue financial independence to maximize life. I met Jordan a couple months ago at an event and I loved how he was able to break down really difficult topics such as finances and building wealth, and unpack them and make it simple. So in this episode, that's exactly what we're talking about building wealth at any age, and he has some amazing action steps that you can begin to take right after you listen to this episode, you're definitely going to want to have a notebook handy for this one, because we cover a lot of ground. In this conversation, we even without calculators. Now, don't let that scare you, we whip out the calculators and make it simple. So you don't have to. I don't know if this is even necessary to say but just in case, I do want to say that in this episode, Jordan shares his financial insight and opinions. That's for information purposes only. So if you're looking for actual investment advice, you're going to want to seek a licensed professional for that. Also, sidenote, before we started recording, I had made a comment about my car being a Honda Civic, which actually plays into this episode recording at one point, so I just wanted to catch you up to speed. Okay, I'll stop talking. Let's hit it. Here's my conversation with Jordan Hall on how to build wealth at any age. All right. What is up guys, welcome back to another accidentally intentional podcast. And I have my new friend Jordan, on the pod with me today. Jordan, say hello to everybody. What's up, everybody? Jordan, you're here today because 2020 Rector Saul, okay. And a lot more. And a lot more ways than one. And for almost everybody I know, financially, there was some sort of hit that people took. And so I wanted to bring you on today because I want to talk about this growing important subject of building wealth at any age. And I guess start by saying, if you just heard me say wealth, and you thought Lamborghinis. That's not where we're starting. Okay. But my God, yeah, we'll get there. But we'll get there. So. So you're an expert in teaching people how to do this. And don't say you're not? Because you are. Okay, I know where you're going to this you are. And so why don't we start by what you would define as wealth. So, obviously, different people might define wealth in different ways. What I would say I really like when talking about wealth, I really liked the phrase financially independent, or financial independence, like that's what I'm shooting for. And that's what I encourage a lot of people to shoot for. And what that is, is a goal, most of us aren't there yet, most people actually will never get there. But it's a really cool place to be because what financial independence is, is having the ability to live from your own resources, aka, you're not dependent on your job, your employer, your parents, like you knew not only have enough to live, but you have enough that you technically don't have to work, again, if you ever want to. And obviously that doesn't, for most people happen early in life. But you set the goal and you want to get there. So that's what I would call wealthy is being financially independent, and it doesn't take as much it takes a lot of money, but it doesn't take as much money, as you might think. So that that's how I would define wealth. And that's definitely what my wife and I are shooting for with our money into someday reach that financially independent threshold. Yeah, no, that's interesting, because I think I have thought of those synonymously with like, financial independence equals financial freedom, but financial freedom to to a lot of people. And I guess to me, now, the difference is I can just do whatever I want. But financial independence is I'm not dependent upon anything else. Like I already have my own resources there. Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's what a lot of that's what people who had already reached that threshold during 2020 felt totally different than the rest of us, because they were in control. Not to say they weren't worried or they weren't concerned about but or about things because we all were, but with their money. You know, it's just a totally different way that people get to live and having worked with a lot of people who have reached that point. I can. I haven't reached it yet. But I have observed how they get to live their life and it is a it's pretty cool to watch somebody who's that in control and has that much independence, how they get to live. So it's definitely what I'm shooting for. And that's what I encourage people Shoot for as well. Right. And this is what you this is what you do with your life is you help people move in this direction and move that needle forward for them. So why don't we start by addressing one of the major mistakes you've seen people make with their money in the past year. Pasture since the pandemic, I guess we're gonna focus on? Yes, hmm. That's a good question. That's a very good question. I mean, I would say it would be, I don't know that it's specific to the pandemic. But just to borrow a phrase not being accidentally intentional or intentionally intentional with their money. Because there's so many losing focus. That's one thing that has really been on my heart lately. Like, that's what I felt like 2020 did for a lot of people, not just in their finances, but particularly with their finances, made them lose focus, and to have success with your money, you've got to stay focused over time. Like, that's all it takes. But It absolutely takes that. So not being intentional. And what I mean by that is, if you've got a plan to pay off debt, not sticking to that plan, if you've got to plan to save money over time and build wealth, like it doesn't take a lot, it just takes a little bit consistently, and people not being consistent, I'd say would be the number one. And I mean, I'm guilty, too. Like, it's that's that's the hard part is staying consistent, and things like 2020 happen and you feel excused. But you know, life doesn't life doesn't care, like life goes on either way. And here we are getting to the other side of it. And some of us might have lost a year or more of progress, which is okay, we can still we can make that up. But it gets harder, and eventually you run out of time. So number one thing I would say is, some of us have lost focus. That's okay, we can get back on track. We've just got to stay consistent. Yeah, no, I think that's a really poignant observation, I feel like focus has been a major issue because I can barely focus for 10 seconds on my work at a time. So I can imagine other people feeling the same thing. I kind of want to know, if someone is just listening to that. And they're like, I'm, so I'm not even close. I don't even have any savings. What would you say is the first thing that someone needs to do to start moving the train? Absolutely. So the very first thing, and anybody can do this, this is really simple. Anybody can do it, but almost no one has. And it's so crazy, because it's so simple. But if you want to get to where you want to go, you got to know where you are. And the truth is, most people don't have any idea where they are financially. So number one is I tell people, you gotta track and you start by tracking your net worth. So I'll ask you, I'll put you on the spot. Do you know what your net worth is? I do, you do? Wow, that's impressive to know, you're ahead of the curve. But the reality is, most people have no idea. They don't know whether they might know that they're in debt. Or they might know I've got this pile of money in this bank account. But most people have never taken the real takes, I mean, shouldn't take about 10 or 15 minutes, if you're in front of a computer to get a handle on your net worth. So that's number one is figure out where you are by figuring out what your net worth is. And that's simply what you own minus what you owe. And that subtraction equals your net worth assets minus liabilities equals net net worth. So that's number one. And you might owe, you know, $200,000 on student loans. And you might have a mortgage for a couple $100,000. But you might also have something like it might be a negative number. That's one of the reasons a lot of people don't do it. Because it ends up they don't, they don't want to see what it is. But like I said, in order to know where you are, in order to get where you want to go, you got to know where you are. So that's number one, figure out your net worth. And then from there, you can devise a plan on how to get to where you ultimately want to be, which is financial independence. So once you once you identify what your number is to make you financially independent, then you identify what your net worth is, then it's just a matter of charting a course between those two points. Yeah, that's really interesting. I never thought of the fact that fear could be one of the barriers to entry for people not even addressing the problem first, because they they don't actually want to have to see what's there. So wow, that's a that's pretty crazy. And I will say that I didn't realize what net worth was until more recently, like the past couple years of my life, because I was like Bill Gates is worth how much it was like How much am I were that it was like $5. I was like, Cool, good stuff. So is that really what prompted you to calculate your net worth? I think so. Yeah. Awesome. I like it. I like it. Well, like I said, I mean, that would say 95% of people never ever go through that calculation. How long do you think it took you to win? Like, did you sit down one day and just do it? Or how did like how long did it take you to do it? Yeah, it didn't take me long at all. I remember. I remember I was just like, Wait, so you're just adding up like everything that you own? And I was like Okay, well, I don't have a house. So that helps. I don't have like a family or anything like that. So that helps. And you know, I'm blessed. I don't have student loans at this point. So it was, it was easier, I guess that it may be in other situations to be able to figure it out. But I was just like, Okay, well, this is cool. And it was it was, it was really a hilariously small number compared to like, what you see other people's net worth big so. So I would say that, as you're saying, You need to just know it, do it afraid, like, who cares? Who cares? If you look and you're just like, I'm worth$500, okay, great, even if it is a small number, or if it's a negative number, like it makes it that much easier. Let's say you calculate it as$500. First of all, you're on the plus side. So that's cool. But it's really easy to double your net worth, if your net worth is $500, go get another$500 And you've doubled it, if you continue that that rate of change, you're gonna you're gonna get to financial independence very quickly. So that's what's cool about when you calculate it, even if it's small. And that's what that's why you calculate it, because it ends up giving you motivation to say, hey, here's what the number is this month, I want to see it go up next month, and then next month. And really, I think you should calculate your net worth on a monthly basis, like that's what my goal is, I try to observe, and then see how much I'm able to move the needle each month. And then that helps me to gauge like, Hey, this is working, this isn't man, I spent too much, I really need to dial that back. Once you start observing it over time, then that's what ends up driving your daily decisions. And that's ultimately what what changes your net worth, and get you to financial independence. So budgeting something that's really important for you then it is, and it's not a bad word, even though a lot of people think it is. I mean, really, the cool thing about budgeting is, once you do it, the first few months, it gets a lot easier. And it's definitely it's definitely necessary. And it's really just another form of tracking like you need to you need to know what you're spending each month. So you can know how much you can save or how much you need to dial things back. And on the months, I will tell you, it gives you an incredible this whole thing gives you an incredible sense of control. Like if you are if you know your net worth. And then you are budgeting each month and you know what you're spending, like all of a sudden, you you feel so empowered, like, Hey, I'm in control of me, I can I can do with my money, what I wanted to do, I can make the decision at the beginning of the month, we're going to go on vacation, we're going to spend some money, or we're going to not and we're going to put some back like it's totally about empowering you. And that is probably one of the greatest benefits of tracking in general, but particularly your net worth and then doing your budget. I like that reverse in the mindset there. And the budget can actually make you feel more free. Oh, yeah, for sure. Otherwise, it's just like you're wandering around. Like, I don't know how much I spent this month, probably too much. But you always convince yourself like it's not as much as you thought. Which is why most people don't make any progress, though. Yeah, yeah. So I kind of want to address being being Millennials ourselves. Because I don't think I mean, I'm for sure making a generalization right now. But I don't think we have been taught as a generation how to handle money very well. And you would be right. And I kind of want to talk about some like hot button issues, and pitfalls that we are encountering as we're going through life and what to do when you find yourself in one. I cannot wait to discuss these hot button issues. Perfect. Okay, so let's first talk about buying a car. We'll start there, because it's not a house, we'll get to the house later. Right, right. But buying a car, I have heard the following happen. Where they say, oh my gosh, got this. It's a sick car. It's like a $40,000 car. I was like, Where do you work? And they're like, no, no, it's all good. Because I got a seven year. You know, I'm doing payments for seven years. And it's like $450 a month for the payments. So it's affordable, and I can do it. And I'm just like, what? So? So what issues are people actually running into, if they say are looking at a nicer car for themselves, because they like it's great. It's brand new, it's gonna last for a while. But then when you run calculations, there's certain things that happen that they weren't aware of. So let's let's unpack that, Jordan. Sure. All right. Well, let's take your example of a $40,000 car because I certainly have plenty of I mean, it really blew my mind. Like when I was like 18 like kids in high school. Other kids in high school are buying like 30 $40,000 cars like yeah, I'm 31 and like the cars some of the some people are buying just completely blew my mind. But this is a big one. And you're right, because it makes it so easy. The monthly payments, but let's say let's start at a$40,000 car, which anymore isn't even like a luxury car that's just like a entry level brand new car. But you put it on a seven year note that's only 600 only $600 a month. To, which is a lot but manageable. I mean, most people will come up with$600 a month. And if it means you're having an awesome new car suite, well, you're gonna end up paying back five figures in interest, probably 11, or 12k. And you're gonna have a whole bunch of fees on the front end. So at the end of the day, you're going to end up paying probably close to 60 grand for a vehicle that is worth 40 When you buy it, but by the time you pay it off, if you pay it off, it's going to be worth 20, maybe 15. So you're not so you're you're going backwards. Once again, this is back to that net worth calculation, you're, you're going backwards. In net worth, you're turning 6060 grand into 15 or so. And what will really make you sick. So that's bad enough, but will really make you sick as if you'd put that $600 a month into an investment, like a mutual fund. We'll just do that calculation real quick. So let's see over seven years, we're putting in $600 a month, seven years is how many months? 84? You're right, exactly. Right. Yes. And if you're averaging what the market has averaged to at the end of that 12. At the end of that, that's seven years, let's say you've got over 84 months, you've got $77,000. So your $40,000, over seven years goes down to 15. Or you're 40 thought you're 40, you're $600 a month, ends up going to about$80,000. And so that is ultimately what ends up separating rich people from poor people. Obviously, it's more complicated than that. But that is one of the main decisions, that ends up separating people. And that's only over seven years. If we if we play this out. Let's say you never add any more to that. So you got $77,000 At that point, let's give it another 10 years, okay, we're still young $240,000 At that point, so you're a quarter of a way to a millionaire. You all you did was made that car payment for seven years, and then you left that money alone. So this, this is just one of the inflection points like you can take this road, or you can take this road, and car and cars get a lot of people, especially in their 20s. So that's a pretty big deal. And like you said, like, you bought a civic like, it's not as sexy, it's not as cool. But huge difference in net worth, especially as you play it out over the years. I do have to disagree that I think my car is very sexy. Because nickname is HERC the Honda corrected. He has a great body to sweeps me off my feet and three is reliable and always gets me where I need to go. So you are I stand corrected on three counts. Yes, thank you. So basically, you're saying what you should do instead of looking all hot and fresh in your new car, is put it into a mutual fund and go for a lower price car, it's not really an instead, like if you can afford to do both and do both, that's fine. If you can, if you choose to do one, you should at least know what you're choosing. Like that's the problem. I think most people especially in their 20s don't know what their money could be doing. Like in economics, we call that opportunity cost. Your your money can do this, or your money can do that. But it can't do both of them. And so when you choose to buy the car, your opportunity cost is that 80 grand that it could have turned into it's not just the the$40,000 price tag on the front end. The ultimate differences we just illustrated ends up being a whole lot more than that. So if you want to make that decision, then you know it's your business, but you should at least know what you're missing out on on the front end, then the alternative is not really that bad, like so my my car I drive right now I bought for 5500 bucks a couple of years ago. And I'll probably drive it for a while longer. But it's a good it's a great car. It's Toyota Forerunner 10 It was 10 years old when I bought it, maybe 12 years old, I don't know. But in great shape, I haven't had any issues with it. Like, I'm not a huge car guy. Like some people, guys and girls struggle with this a lot more than I do. Like, there's not like I don't like sit and daydream about car. So I realize it's tougher for other people, for people in particular, but you should at least that make that decision with the knowledge of hey, I'm willing to turn what could be $100,000.15 And then if that's what you choose, and that's what you choose. No, that's very interesting. So let's so let's talk about mutual funds. Next because that's a scarier word. Because people are like retirement all this money I don't get to see till I'm 65 Girl by I'm here to party yellow up all the things you know, but what our mutual funds what do they do for us? What where should we go with them? All the things? I'm so glad you asked. So I am a little bit of a geek on this topic so you can stop me. Oh perfect. Here we go. I'll try to get technical, but so a mutual fund it and I know you already know all stuff, but so you can invest in the stock market. And when you do that, if you buy a single stock, you're buying a little tiny share little piece of a company. And that company is a huge McDonald's, that company operates and makes a profit. And so you, you get more money from to one of two places either that company goes up in value, so your stock, your little share goes up in value, or the net profits, and they pay you a dividend. And when you own a stock, you can get money from either one. But it's really risky to only own one stock, like one piece of one company goes McDonald's goes down, then your net worth is kaput. So in order to get around that what smart finance people did back in the well, I guess the first ones way back, like maybe in like the 40s, or 50s. Anyway, they said, Hey, rather than making people invest in just one company, let's buy a bunch of shares of a bunch of companies and all put our money together. And that way we diversify our risk, this company might go down, but this company might go up. So that's how they started the first mutual fund, which is a pretty nifty concept, because you're that way able to invest in by putting your money together into a bunch of different companies, and maximize your return and minimize your risk. So that's what a mutual fund is, you're just buying into a fund a collection of a bunch of different companies. And what makes it so cool is especially today, now we have what are called index funds. And an index is just you've probably heard of the s&p 500, or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, that's just a collection of a bunch of stocks, that's supposed to indicate what the what the major market is doing. So when the s&p 500 is up for the day, the market in general is up when it's down the market in general is down. What a what an s&p index fund does, it says, Hey, we're gonna buy that's the act, the way they calculate it is they have 500, the 500 biggest companies in America are part of the s&p 500 index. A s&p 500 index fund just buys those 500 stocks. So when Zhou goes online to T Rowe Price or Charles Schwab, or one of the brokerage companies that you can buy stocks, or mutual funds from and buys into the s&p 500 Index Fund, you're buying little pieces of 500 of the biggest companies in America, and really, you're buying the entire market. So when the market goes up, so it makes money when the market goes down. So it loses money. And over time, the American stock market has averaged about 11 or 12%, since back like around before 1900, like back in the 1800s. So that's not going to make you rich tomorrow, but it is going to make you rich and 20 or 30 years, if you consistently put a little bit of money in there. I tell people every month like I've got several mutual funds that debit my account every month. So I'm just buying pieces of the stock market every single month. And I've been doing that every month for about six or seven years. And I have reaped some of the benefits of that. Now, I've got not gotten rich yet. But if I continue doing that, that's what's going to get me to that financial independence, independence number that we were talking about earlier. So that's what a mutual fund is, it's way better than less risky than individual stocks. And if you do it over time, and you're consistent investing in mutual funds, then you can you can build wealth, and it's one of the most reliable ways to build wealth available to regular people like you and me. That's really interesting, because you actually explained that so well. And that's why I was I was so focused when you said it because I thought I thought your eyes were glazing over. But you know, I was zooming in. That's a great explanation of mutual funds. Let's talk about Roth, and IRAs and things like that, too, because that's where people hit that compound interest pendulum swing. But I think there's a lot of people that don't understand what that is. And quite honestly, I'm a big proponent of them, knowing very little about it. And I've been able to get away with not knowing much about it just to be like, yeah, like, look at this calculator for how much you can make by the time you're 60 if you put this much in every month until then, but yeah, what what are those? So those are, so we talked about stocks and mutual funds, which are the actual investment, that's what you would put money in, and that's what would cause it to cause you to gain money or lose money based on how it does things like an IRA, traditional IRA, Roth, Ira, 401 k, those are just the way that those investments can be treated for tax purposes. They're really the coat that wraps around the actual investment, which would be a stock or mutual fund. So if you though, and typically the 401 K, or a 403. B, are employer sponsored plans, so if you go to work, I don't know if you have a 401k where you work, but that is sponsored by your employer, you can put money into your 401 K, but the 401k itself is nothing like it's just the tax treatment. And actually, the 401 K actually stands for chapter 401, subchapter K and the IRS code Like that's super geeky. But what it is, is it's a portion of the code that says, if you put money or an investment inside this, it's protected from taxes. So when you put money inside your 401 K, it's not taxed, until you take it out. And that's, that's through typically done through your employer. And oftentimes, what's cool about a 401 K is that your employer will say, hey, so you put $1,000 in, we'll put in, you can put up to 3% of your salary. If you make $50,000 a year, you can put in $1,500, every year, and we'll match you up to 3%. So you put in 1500, we'll put in another 1500. So it's like you're putting in 3000. And it goes into the 401k, which is the protection from taxes until you take it out or until until you reach age 59 and a half. And it's the same thing with an IRA, which, which is technically stands for Individual Retirement arrangement, which is not related to your employer at all, anybody can create an IRA or a Roth IRA, put money or an investment inside of the IRA, and it's protected from taxes until you take it out. Or until you reach 59 and a half at which time it becomes not taxable. So, Ira Roth IRA, 401, k 403. B, those aren't really investments, they're just what you put an investment in to protect it from taxes or limit limit the taxes that can be charged on it. Gotcha. Okay. And so So I want to pause here for a second because people may have been like, crap, I've already made the mistake with the car. Now. I'm living paycheck to paycheck, which I think a lot more of America lives paycheck to paycheck, because as your as your salary increases, so do your spending habits. So it's like it's vicious cycle, right? So, so to the person who's hearing this, and they're just like, scared, like, crap, did this wrong, don't have any money, this dogs don't have any money, blah, blah, blah, blah. explain, explain how small of an amount you can start putting in to create a huge snowball effect down the road? I like that question. Alright, so we're gonna pull out our trusty financial calculator again. $100 a month? $100? Not very much, you would agree that's not very much money, you'd come up with $100 a month, right? So yes, totally. Of course you could. So let's say we're starting with nothing, as most people are. So that's okay. Don't feel bad. And this is how I started honestly, like, I just wanted to put some money away regularly, like remote consistency is so much important, more important than a mountain. So don't want to tell people is do not worry about how much it first, like, just get the habit started. You just want to build the habit. If you can't, even if you can't do$100, I'm gonna do $10. Or you can set up an automatic payment plan, do you have a draft have money drafted out of your account and invested in mutual fund for $10 a month. So if you can't do any more do that. Let's look at over, let's start with 10 years, if you invested $100 a month, over 10 years, at the end of that 10 years, you got$22,000 That's pretty cool. That's not gonna make anybody rich. But that's pretty cool. And it was only $100 A month like you could not eat pizza, not have coffee. I don't really like those though. Like, I like pizza. And I like coffee. So I'm just gonna, like in my mind, I just I'm gonna work a few more hours that month, and bank the$100. But anyway, however you? Yeah, so after after 10 years, that's $22,000. Let's see what it is after 20 years, which would be 240 months, you're at 91. That $92,000. So you're having almost 100,000 There. Now, let me let me pause right here, because this is where this is where it gets mind bending, okay, because over, I want to go back to that first one, you said$22,000. But if you're calculating, I put $100 in times, 12 months, times 10 years, my calculator says 12,000. So what's happening, what's happening there, every month, you're adding to your principal. And every month you do that it's growing and growing. And you're you're not really getting interest, you're getting growth, and whether you're putting it in mutual funds or stocks. So you put in$100 this month, maybe you get some dividends, maybe it goes up in value, the next month that$100 you put in is all of a sudden $105. And then the next month that's growing again, and all of a sudden that's $109, you know, well, and one thing I like to point out, like for graphs and everything, it looks cool, when the lines are straight and like just kind of goes off, your investing is gonna go up and down. Like if you look at a graph of the market, there's peaks and valleys, it goes really straight up, and then it goes really straight down. But over time it's rising. I know I'm backwards for you. So it's rising as you're going over time and slowly going up any any graph, you look at market over time, it's going up, up into the right, which is the way you want it to go. So every time you invest, your money is growing, and then the growth on that money grows as well as the principal amount. So it's getting bigger and bigger, bigger. So that's why after 12 years, you got $22,000 Even though we only put in 12 but then after 10 years I'm sorry But then after 20 years, you've only put in 24,000. But all of a sudden, it's $92,000. So let's get a bit crazy. So your money is making money for exactly. My money. That's why for me, and that's why they're so important. Exactly. And let's play this out a little bit farther. All right, so let's go 30 years now we're looking at $308,000. Wow. You know, I mean, I would call that approaching wealthy. I don't know where you come from, though. But that approach, and then let's look at 40 years. So let's say you're 29 you know, somebody happened to be 29 years old. I don't know anybody who's 29 Yes, you do. She started investing $100 a month. And by the time she was 69, she's got$979,000 Just because she started putting $100 a month away. Because come on to. I love to see it. And if you know that's, that's$100 a month, if you can somehow do $200 A month that happens twice as quick. There you go. Got $1,000 a month, it's gonna happen even quicker. Oh, baby, that's insane. $1,000 a month. We're really good. You imagine that would be in set, you probably have $10 million. By that time. You might you might just wow, that's amazing. I guess it was? Yeah. If 1000 would be 10x. Yep. Wow. So that's wild. So people are hearing and they're like, Okay, I want an IRA. Now if my money will make money for me. I know you're not giving financial advice. But there's so many IRAs. So how do people decipher which one is good for them? So super easy. You can go online to any number of brokerage brokerage companies. I don't endorse any specifically. But so I'll tell you I have money with a company called T Rowe Price. You can go and go to T Rowe price.com. You can see they have a great breakdown. And all the brokerages do have individual mutual funds, you can see literally what they invest in, like the areas that they focus on. You can see what the how how long ago they were started, some of them were started last year, some of them might be I've invested in one fund that was started in 1929. I think, wow, literally, before the Great Depression, this this, this mutual fund was opened, and it's made money after those years. Yeah. So you can do a little bit of research research online, you can literally Google mutual funds and learn all about it. But if you want to look at specific funds, you can go to some of those brokerage companies and look at them. And I recommend that you find a fund that's been open at least 10 years, because you want to know that it has a track record of good performance, you can find them that have average, you can see what it's averaged on the annual basis 1011 12%. Some of them are a little bit Wilder, those are aggressive funds, like they might have averaged 15 or 20%. But those are funds that are going to be a lot more up and down then more consistent funds, like growth stock funds that are going to be probably have smaller peaks and valleys but also have slightly smaller returns that sort of thing. But really, you can't go wrong by investing, like we said earlier in an index fund like this is what Warren Buffett is famous. He's a famous index fund advocate, you just are going to shoot to buy the s&p 500 index. And that's what you're going to do. So every day when you hear what the s&p 500 did, you will know exactly what your money did, because it's an investor's in that index. Gotcha. So that's, that's awesome. And you know, we're obviously getting extremely granular here and talking about these, these situations. So I want to go back before we talk about houses or big, big purchases, let's go to the opposite end. Because do you know the statistic, because I can't remember, I know, it was something astronomical I couldn't believe the percentage of Americans that have over$1,000 in their savings account? I know it's really small. I think it was 60 some percent of Americans have less Yeah, right. And $1,000 in their savings account. And I legitimately could not believe that. Yeah, and those statistics stay pretty consistent. Like, it's for whatever reason, most people can't figure out how to keep more than more than 1000 bucks, liquid that they could get their hands on, which, you know, makes somewhat sense because it seems very difficult this and that. Alright, so this takes me back to the number one thing that you need to do with your money is figure out a way to be consistent, and this is where things really changed for me. Now, in this day and age, we can make things automatic, like you probably have a bunch of things that hit your account automatically. Like your phone bill might do that. Some people have their rent set up that way. It's very simple. There's a great book I'll recommend now called the Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, you should get it and read it. Have you read it, though? I have not yet, but I'll put the link below for everybody. Awesome, great book. But the whole whole thesis is basically, you figure out how to automate your money you cannot like a lot of people automate bills, like there's no reason you can't automate investments. And so when I started in 2015, I said, You know what, I gotta be consistent, I just set up for my bank account to get debited every month $100. And every single month since then, that account has debited my my bank account for $100. And what's cool about this is, somehow the money is just there, like I don't even we do budget and everything. But I have never felt that $100 Come out of my account. But every month that automatically does, and it gets invested, I have to think about it. So automating this makes the being consistent, really, really easy. Because if I had to write that check every month, or if I had to go even move the money online, like let's be real, even though it takes two minutes to do that, I'm probably gonna miss a month or two. But I've not missed a month since I set that up. So that would be the number one tip, I would say if you're ready to invest, sign up with a mutual fund, and make it automatic for sure. That's awesome. No, I remember whenever I started with my traditional IRA, I was like, I am this is so confusing. There's no I'm gonna remember do this every month. It was like automatic payments. Yes. And exact same thing. I never even felt like, oh, because I knew it's in my calendar, hey, it's coming out this day, be prepared, don't spend it because it's not yours for now. And it's sort of dictating how you would live to live your life and how you spend your money otherwise, and you start arranging your finances around it, rather than trying to like figure out how to squeeze out a few dollars at the end of the month, which never happened. Absolutely. That's so good. So here's what I'd love for you to do, just because I've got to hear it first. I would like you to share with people why having a savings account is so important. From your own personal experience. Is there a particular story you would like me to use to you know, exactly which one I want you to use? Okay, all right, this is pretty wild. And so it illustrates why you need an emergency fund, which is, which is something I definitely recommend, you should have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. That's where you ultimately want to get. But anyway, because it's gonna help you achieve your financial goals and protect you from bad things that can happen. But the reason I know this from personal experience, because when I was younger, actually in another in another life as though I went to law school and got a law degree. And even though I don't, I don't practice law today. I enjoyed that experience and still use the knowledge I got. But while I was in law school, trying to live that dream I was trying to do so thanks to our mutual Hero Guy we admire Dave Ramsey. I was trying to pay for school completely debt free. And so one of the ways I had of doing that was cutting grass, like every day I would go to class. This is super weird, but I would like literally go to law school class, leave the law school, head out and cut grass in the afternoons or some mornings I would go cut grass in the morning, then I would show up at the law school like smelling of gasoline and cut grass, which is super crazy. But anyway, one afternoon, when I was newly married, I got married the year before guess no second year between first and second year of law school. My wife was out of town. And it was coming to the end of the semester when I had to make like my big payment if I wanted to stay in school. So that afternoon I got out of school, I headed off to back to the town where I had most of my lawns to cut. I was in a pretty big hurry, because that was a Thursday and the next day was Friday, and my payment was due, like I said earlier, and my wife was out of town. So and one thing about my school they would not accept since I was paying in cash, they would not accept a personal check. And they would not let me pay via my debit card. So I literally had to go to the bank, withdraw actual physical cash, take it to the school and make my payments that way. So this afternoon, I did that I was in a big rush, I wanted to get as much grass cut as I could. I got I would Drew$2,220 Because that was the amount of the payment I had to make the next day. This was probably like three, four o'clock in the afternoon trying to get as much done before dark as I could. But it would Drew$2,220 I slipped it in my pocket. And then I headed off to where I had my first lawn to mow I pulled up to that lawn. I zipped over the front yard. And then I headed to the backyard. Now in the backyard of this house, there was a bird bath and as I pulled up to the bird bath, I had to then reverse on a zero turn mower to go around. But when I reversed I heard something underneath the mower. So and that's kind of curious. I thought you know, wouldn't it be wild? If that money that I shoved in my pocket kind of fell out and wouldn't be wild if I just ran over that? I knew that couldn't be the case. But just to be sure. I slipped my hand in my pocket where the money hadn't been. And it was no longer there as well. It slowly began to dawn on me, I turned my head to the right to see on the lawn beside me a a shredded up pile of confetti, cash, confetti green and gray. There had been a massacre of American presidents and founding fathers. So all laying there on the on the lawn next to me. So I was like, wow, there's, I cannot believe this just happened like it was truly I was just in a daze. So I did the only thing I could think, dude to do, I jumped off the mower, I grabbed up as much of that as I could. And I rushed to my parents house, which is about 20 minutes away. So I got there, I burst into the door, I blurted out my story to my parents, my wonderful parents. And for the next six hours, as I nervously paced around their living room, my parents that night did everything they could to put reassemble the money that I had just made up. And so believe it or not, after, by the end of the night, like 11pm, they had on their kitchen counter reassembled successfully, every single bill, every single piece, every single bill was accounted for, the only thing I was missing was like a couple or one little corner of one $20 bill. So I was like, This is great. But I still wasn't sure exactly how it was going to resolve itself. So like I said, earlier, my wife was out of town. I had not mentioned this to her yet, because I didn't want upset her. So I was like, I'm going to see how this plays out tomorrow, we'll let her know that. So I went to bed got up early the next morning, I had a couple of early early classes I had to go to went to class. Got soon as I got out of class like 11 o'clock, I rushed straight back to the credit union with my money, which my parents had actually taped up with, like scotch tape. And I'm like, this is super janky I can't go try to pay my bill with this money. They're gonna think I don't know what they're gonna think. So I took it back to the credit union, hoping that they would like exchange it, you know, here's my money, like, can you give me legit bills, so I don't get arrested trying to pass this off. But at the credit union, they were like, No, we cannot do anything with that money. We don't know where you got that money. The only thing we can do is send it off to the Federal Reserve who handles matters like this. And we're not sure like if you're gonna get that money back, or when you would possibly get that money back. So I'm like, sure, you know what, I have nothing to lose, take the money. But that left me like it's like, at this point, afternoon on Friday, and I've got to make my payment that afternoon or I am like not able to attend law law school classes anymore, not going to graduate on time, like, really, really bad. So I realized at that point, I needed to call my wife and let her know what was up. Because that would she was my my only hope at that point. Caller I'm like, Baby, I love you. You're not going to believe this. But I just mowed over that$2,220 So that I was going to use to pay my law school bill. So fortunately, though, listen, I'm very married to a very gracious and wise woman. And her name is Meg. And after took a minute to get over the shock. But she was very reassuring. She said, Jordan, it's gonna be okay. And she reminded me of the small emergency fund that we actually did have put back that I'd forgotten about because she had brought that into our marriage, I didn't have any money when we got married, and she had a little bit. So she was like, We gotta we got enough money to cover that, withdraw that money, take it down to the school, make your payment, and we'll figure out the rest later. So I did that I got to the school in the nick of time, I made my payment, and I preserve my law school hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, it gets even better. About six weeks later, the Federal Reserve did actually send back brand new Chris bills, all $2,220. So it was all good. But the reason I tell this story is that by itself, even though I got my money back that would not have saved me. Like if I hadn't been able to get my hands on some money to make my payment that day. Like my law school career would have ended that day. So without the emergency fund, I would have been up a creek. So that's why I tell people, you've got to have an emergency fund. That's just kind of a wild example. But I've heard crazier stories, believe it or not, from from different people. So emergency fund is definitely a key element of any financial plan, which is essentially your your savings account in this. I can't meet but pays to. So that brings up a good point because I think it pays to literally have an emergency fund that's set aside separate from other savings that you say, This is my emergency fund. I don't touch this, because if you commingle it with your other money or other savings, it can easily get spent. And then when you go over your cash, then you don't have it. Which is really bad place to be. Gotcha. So one mag is the real hero of the story so true. hero of mine my life actually. There you go precious. I hope she listens this episode. Shout out to you bag. She's standing right here. Sure. Yes. never listens to anything that I record. So no shots unbelievable. As real heroes do. They don't have time for us. Exactly. She says no, that is literally the wildest story I've ever heard. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I've heard him tell the story before and I was all drawn in just like it was the first time again, because that is nuts. So okay, so you made an important delineation between emergency savings, it's like absolutely no touch zone. Okay. And then and then that's exactly exactly how I would describe it. Yeah. And then the savings account is three to six months of expenses. Now this is totaling up fast here, Jordan, like, I gotta have a no touch zone account, then savings, which is half my year, half of my years wage, how the heck am I supposed to put any money into anything else? Explain how that should work? Well, that's a good question. And it gets really scary if you look at it all at once. So that's why I point people to once again, our mutual friend Dave Ramsey's seven baby steps, he, I wish that I'd come up with this, but it's, it's a brilliant way for people to get their finances on track, because it takes little steps at a time, because you look at it all at once you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm never gonna be able to do this, I'm just not going to do anything, which is what happens for most people, but hid under his plan, he actually advises you start with baby. Step number one is $1,000 in your emergency fund, which is not enough to really protect you from any emergency emergencies, like, I've had multiple emergencies in the last year that have been more than $1,000. But what it does is it gives you one, you can check a box and say, Hey, I'm completed step one, but two, it creates some urgency like, Hey, we gotta get to the next level where we have, if you have three to six months, you're in a much better place, it takes time to accumulate that amount. So under under the seven baby steps, plan, you collect your$1,000 emergency fund, then you pay off all your consumer debt, then you work on saving your three to six months of expenses. So it's going to take time, there's no doubt about that. But you got to do it's more important to do things in the proper order than it is to do them quickly. Because ultimately, you do them in the right order. That's how they happen fastest. Totally. And it's this whole thing about you're gaining confidence along the way that you're moving in the right direction. Exactly. Yeah. Wow. This has been really good. I hope you all are taking notes out there. This is also going to be a long episode, because we're covering a lot of ground, and I'm here for it. Okay, so we talked about the car weirdness. And you mentioned baby steps and savings, and in what order to kind of take the while you say that, they'll shut up his book, The Total Money Makeover. So that's book number two, I would get? Well, let's talk about book number three right now. Then you wrote a book, Jordan, why are we shouting that out? Tell us about your book. I did good call. So my book focuses on. It's called every degree debt free. And it's thanks to Dave's inspiration. Like I mentioned earlier, I attended college and then Law School completely debt free. So my book really focuses more on me going through law school. One why I believe that everybody, even today should attempt to go to college and graduate school, if you want to go to graduate school, completely debt free, I think that's an ideal were shooting for. And then to share a little bit of my story, just like what I did, how I did it, and a lot of other people who have done it successfully at all levels, from undergraduate to doctoral programs, master's degrees, all that sort of stuff. Stories You don't really hear. I mean, you hear a lot of stories about like, oh, gosh, I can't go to school. But a lot of people are graduating at very high levels completely debt free. So my book focuses on tells a little bit of my stories and other stories of other people who have done it, and then explained make my argument as a good lawyer would for why I think it's a good idea. Why think it's worth it to if you're gonna go for another degree or your first degree, Why think you should do it debt free. Every degree debt free. That's correct. Love it. And who is this book for? Who did you have in mind? So I had in mind, I would say, I really, like I said aimed at people who are pursuing a postgraduate degree. But I think I tried to include some stories and inspiration of other people who've done even undergraduate so anybody, kid who's in high school, looking to go to college, or kid who's in college, or an adult in college, looking to go to med school or law school. I mean, I have friends who have gotten their MBAs gone to law school, gotten their PhDs debt free. So anybody if you're considering higher education, whether you're 14, looking at college going a few years or you're 54, thinking about going back to school, like this book is for you. And I tried to give as many ideas as I can on different getting scholarships and opportunities that are available for paying for school. Like there's so many more opportunities available from people realize, so anybody who's looking to pay for school, or parents of kids who are going to school, okay, perfect. Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I like how we're kind of going through like, the phases of life. Dude, like, babies first car, babies first savings account. But so and so like, as we're going through here, I also I do want to just talk about buying a house because I'm not at that point yet. So you're talking to me right now about how to prepare for a massive thing, because I will say, this is how silly I am. I wasn't, it wasn't until I was out of college that I learned that you didn't buy a house outright in one fell swoop. Like here, I was thinking, Oh, my gosh, these people had $400,000 in our savings account and just bought a house. I was just a goofball. You know, but But So now, the opposite direction, you can buy a house with 5%, Down, Right? That's the minimum. So actually, in some cases, with FHA loans, you can buy with three and a half percent down low, which, which I would not advise. And so we can jump in there. And, you know, it does seem crazy that somebody could pay cash for a house, but I know people who have done it, and it can be done. I know it seems totally wild in this housing market to even think about doing that. But I've seen, let's see. So after I got out of law school, while I was in law school, one of the things I did to pay for law school was I became a realtor. And I figured out that I really liked being a realtor. And I really didn't think I was going to like being a lawyer. So that's actually one of the things I do today is I'm a real estate broker. And so this is one of the ways I help people build wealth, because I do think that buying a house is one of the ways one of the chief ways that you can ultimately build wealth, so So I would encourage you to look into it, as I'm sure you already have. But you want to do it the right way, for sure. And in my opinion, button three or 5% down is not the best way. I think you want to put a minimum of 10% down. And the reason is, that that's achievable for most for most people, you may not be able to do it this month, but it sets a goal for having to save a certain amounts, if you're gonna buy a $200,000 house, obviously, that's $20,000. That's, that's not nothing, that takes some time to build up. So that's the minimum I would do is at least 10% down. And I know, especially if people are age and younger, I'd be like, What are you talking about. But the reason is, the housing market is not as volatile as stocks, like we were talking about earlier, but it is up and down. Like it's not unusual back in 2008, the housing market dropped substantially. So you want to put at least 10% down because that protects you. That means you you've got enough equity in your house equity is is what you once again, what you own in the house, how much your house is worth minus what you owe. So if you've got a $200,000 house, it's worth $200,000, you owe$150,000, you've got $50,000 in equity, you're protected, you never want that number, you never know want to owe more on your house than it's worth because then you're gonna have a hard time selling it, if you needed to sell it, it's just not a good place to be. So by putting 10% down, at least when you buy it, you've got some margin there, it's very unlikely very rare does the market drop 10% Especially in within, if you hold a house for four or five years, like you're almost always going to see appreciation. So that's why number one, I would make sure your personal finances in order are in order, I would get out of debt all consumer debt first, then save a good strong downpayment, at least 10%. It's great if you can do 20 or more. But then once you have that amount saved, then you're ready to go house shopping. And there's a whole nother slew of advice that we can give based, when you're actually shopping for a house and getting through that transaction and everything. You know what I like the idea of I like the idea of bringing you back for a live podcast episode where it's like, it's like HGTV show. Jordan helps XO buy her house, I think we should do it. Hunter precision definitely do it. I think this has been a very valuable conversation. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about that's nuanced that that you think would be valuable for? For us out here in this post pandemic world is a crazy world we live in. I mean, most importantly, when it comes to your finances, like we likely started with, you want to be intentional, and you want to be consistent. And if you will be most people aren't either one of those things, they don't really know where they are, they don't know where they want to go. Therefore they don't really do anything consistently that's going to move them where they want to get, you need to need to establish where you want to be. And then you need to figure out where you are. And then you need to devise a plan to get you there. And if you'll do that, like there are plenty of resources out there to guide you on that path. Yeah, I mean, we dropped three and they'll all be on the show notes for everybody as well. I love the show notes. Me too. This has been super helpful. So hey, thank you so much for the hot tips. You hear to hear first accidentally intentional Radio. I'm just getting getting again, you're like Does she know how to close the show? The answer is no. All right. Hey, thanks, man. We will talk later when it's time for me to buy my house. I can't wait. So thanks for having me on. You're welcome. Bye Are you know what time it is, it's time for some takeaways. Number one, find out what your net worth is. And essentially, you get net worth by subtracting what you owe from what you actually own. Number two, consistency across the board is so much more important than the amount we discussed starting to consistently contribute money into a mutual fund. For instance, another takeaway was Jordan made a really good point on how to invest money into a mutual fund instead of perhaps a new car. And he showed the equations to show that it is pretty crazy how your money depreciates with the car, though it appreciates and hits a massive compound interest when it's invested in a mutual fund. Instead, he also mentioned buying a used or more affordable car so that of course, you can use the money you would normally put towards a new car and allocate it elsewhere so that your money makes you more money. Number four, it's important to have money in your savings account, and perhaps even a second account for an emergency fund in your savings account. It should be no more than up to six weeks, no six months, I meant six months of your salary. Why is that because it doesn't make any money while sitting in a savings account. Whereas if it was in a mutual fund, instead, your money can make more money for you. So basically, it's important to diversify your money. The books Jordan mentioned work, one Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, to Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and three Jordan halls own book called every degree debt free, which you should definitely scoop on Amazon and I will have the links in the show notes below to all three of those books. Jordan is currently Instagram lists, much to my dismay, I really tried hard to convince him. So for now, if you want to connect with him, please go to his website, which is Jordan t hall.com. Well, guys, I hope you found that to be an incredibly rich and valuable conversation. Oh, that was plenty of me. I didn't even mean to. But I know I feel smarter just as a result of having the conversation. And I want to help every single piece of your life. So that's what I'm committed to on this podcast. We're obviously anti small tech. And we want to have meaningful conversations that build us every part of us, which means our finances as well. We have a lot more fun conversations coming up, including the next episode, which is with my own personal trainer on how to not let physical disabilities hold you back. It's going to be a riveting conversation, and also an inspiring one, for sure. So make sure you're subscribed so that you automatically get that downloaded for free to wherever you listen to podcast. You know the drill. I'm here for you guys. I love you a ton and I can't wait to talk next week on the accidentally intentional podcast. Was there someone that came to mind as you were listening to this episode? Because if so, please share it with them. We're so passionate about this message, and we want to give value to the people that would benefit from it. We drop a new episode every other Thursday, so be sure to subscribe to get the latest conversations. Oh, and one more thing. If you enjoy this episode and this podcast, I would be so honored. If you would leave a review. It helps us to better connect with the intended audience of this podcast by doing so. And I truly am so grateful for any amount of time that you choose to spend with me because trust me I know how many options are out there and I do not take it for granted. Seriously, I just wow I just really appreciate you and take I may not know your name yet, but let's change that connect with me on Instagram at XO Asher, or on Twitter at combos with xo. But hey, even if I don't know your name yet, what I do know for certain is that you're amazing. I love you. You have something that the world needs and you are always more than enough. So hey, we'll see you next time on The accidentally intentional podcast.