The Savings Expert: They’re Lying To You About Building Wealth - Do THIS Instead! | Humphrey Yang

23:27No, I agree. I think, you know, I've recently been interviewing a lot of my viewers because I have like this new show where we do like, I review three viewers per episode and a lot of them are early twenties and they make 50, 60 K and they're saving 20, 25%. So it is possible, but their conditions are also really good, right? They, they maybe live with a couple of roommates. They have really low expenses. That's, that's pretty good. Or maybe they're just like still in school. So stuff like that.

23:53Jack Graham:I agree. I just think that like online, if you say that like, oh, like if you're making under$90 ,000 and you have a reason for not being paycheck to paycheck, it's an easy opinion to take because people are going to be like, oh yeah, like, you know, I making$80 ,000 a year can't save. And this guy just validated what I had to say. So like people are going to applaud you for that. But I would like, it's, it's, it's a more dislikable opinion to have to say like, oh, well like you should be saving money even at$60 ,000 a year. Granted, this is assuming you have no kids, you know, like you don't have to pay.

24:22Jack Graham:have like some debilitating, you know, heart condition. Yeah, I think I agree with good financial discipline and good habits. You can still make it. Yeah. So what is technically the number one wealth killer? Technically it's divorce, but. Is it really? Yeah. When I was like doing my research online. Yeah. It's usually divorce. Like how so? Well, divorces are expensive. The divorce lawyers are expensive on its own. So I think the average divorce lawyer costs you like between five and 10 K at least. And then, um, the splitting up of the assets, usually a little bit rough. It's going to cost you a lot in terms of opportunity costs as well.

24:59So like, let's say you had a joint investment account and now you have to split it. You're gonna have to sell those, sell those stocks, or you might have to sell those stocks and then take those gains, or you might have to restart investing. I thought now let's just say you have a joint investment account. Can't you just do an ACATS transfer and then that person gets some of them without having to sell and then you keep the cost basis? Yeah, it's assuming both people want to hold the stock. But what if one person wants to sell it, right?

25:28Jack Graham:Then you can ACATS out and then sell it probably. Yeah, then to me that would just be their decision to sell. They should have the tax burden if they want to sell. I guess I've never been through a divorce, so I can't really speak on that. But in doing my research, divorce was one of them. And what's the solution to that? Picking a better partner. I don't know, picking the right partner or maybe asking the right questions before you get married. I don't know what the right questions are, Graham. Maybe you do. I think it's just being upfront and transparent as early as possible, putting it all on the table.

25:55And then that's an easy out where, hey, if this doesn't work for the other person, you tell them early. And then they know and they could find a partner who maybe financially is more compatible. Yeah, I think that is a really big like rift for a lot of couples is the financial aspect side. Like a lot of couples just don't talk about it. And so you don't know what the other person has. You don't know what the other person's values around money is. And so that could be a big reason for financial or relationship problems. But I think the other wealth killer was cars. I mean, if that's what you want to talk about.

26:28Jack Graham:What would you say are the biggest lies that people believe on all sides of the spectrum about money? I mean, we have such some, I think both of all of us have like these similar views on money. I don't think so. Really? I think I disagree with you too. Yeah. I think I disagree with you guys. Just Graham and I? Yeah. Well, I think you guys probably agree a lot more. We do. Yeah, but I would say I disagree with you guys. What do you disagree with the most? I would say I don't think you guys are frugal. I think you guys are cheap. That's harsh. Why do you got to say you guys? Yeah. Well, this is...

27:05Well, define cheap. Like, because maybe we were doing this exercise yesterday. Like, as a percentage of your income, like how much you spend. It's funny. I don't see Humphrey as cheap at all. I splash around it sometimes. Yeah. Humphrey's balling. He brought two gold coins here. One of them's pretty hefty. We're going to talk about him later. So you think I'm cheap? I do.

27:24Jack Graham:Why? I think that you guys are both technically cheap. And it was interesting. So I asked if there is a mathematical definition to cheap versus frugal as opposed to a philosophical or psychological definition of it. And this is what I got. The mathematical definition of cheap would be minimizing costs even when the lost value exceeds the money saved. So an example would be taking a 20 minute longer flight connection to save$300 is probably frugal. Taking a 10 hour longer itinerary to save$100 when you earn$200 an hour is probably cheap. That's such an extreme example that neither one of us would do that.

28:05Jack Graham:That's an example. That's not like an example of a definition. Give us an example of something that we do. You're just trying to say like, we're just saving to save rather than saving based on anything. I mean, I would go by the definition minimizes costs, even when the lost value exceeds your own definition. That is my definition. I agree. Your definition is just I think, well, I think that there is like an actual value to money. Money is not good for the sake of it being money. Money is good for the things that money can do. and like money buys things like comfort it buys things like freedom so like there's value to money and freedom and you can assign the the unit as like a dollar to tie to it and so like if your comfort and freedom and time and stress are all worth this amount and money is worth this amount and you spend like let's say less money but all of like your stress and the stress goes up and your freedom goes down.

28:59Jack Graham:But like this unit is greater. The unit of value lost is greater than the unit of money spent. Then I think that that is being cheap. You're just saying like the ways that we think about money, perhaps me and Graham are just like a little like there are frameworks a little off. Yeah. So here's here's an actual thing that actually might this might click with you, Graham. I would say Humphrey, you spend 1 % of your withdrawal rate annually, right? That's what you're on track for right now, personally. 1 % of your withdrawal rate. Where did you get that from? Yeah. Talked to him about it yesterday.

29:33Jack Graham:Okay. Yeah. And you save 100 % of your net business income. Currently I'm saving, yeah. Well, I reinvest in the business, but other than that, yeah, like net profit. Yes. Yeah. You save 100 % of your net business income. So like you're not spending that personally. No. And you're spending 1 % of your investment portfolio. Yeah. So like, I would just say that there is no way that like, if you're only spending 1 % and from this 1%, you're able to live the life that you're living, traveling, eating the food that you want to eat, doing the things, spending the money on personal things like you want to be spending it.

30:10Jack Graham:If you bumped it up to two, realistically, the financial. Yeah. My bottom line would probably be fine. Nothing would change, but you have double the amount of options that you have right now. There's no way that that's not being cheap. That's assuming that you double the spending, you double the options. You don't. Sure, but even if you 10 % increase the options, I would say it's like you're not spending - I think Jack's saying I could live a little and spend a little bit more. That's exactly right. Yeah, but I don't think Humphrey's depriving himself of anything. I don't think he's in need of - Well, here's a great example.

30:39I'm going to Norway next week with my girlfriend, and right now we have premium economy tickets okay premium economy great value now lie flat seats are an extra twenty two hundred dollars per ticket per ticket yeah i agree for 10 hours yep and so in my head i'm thinking forty four hundred dollars i would much rather have forty four hundred dollars and we can do whatever we want in norway we can go out to the finest restaurants use that money there but jack is saying well you don't spend that much money anyway you might as well just buy the forty four hundred dollars because you could do that and do all the cool stuff you want to do in Norway and your total portfolio or total investable assets are hardly going to change so I kind of I can see his I can see his argument and personally I want the lie flat seat but but you know it's it's like I agree with you it does hurt that I agree with you the premium economy to me is it's 80 %

31:36Jack Graham:of a first class ticket I thought but what is value like how do you determine value of something like value to you is different than value to the market correct yeah because like if you have an abundance of a certain resource then adding more of that resource to your life might not actually be very valuable but if you don't have an abundance of something like a lie flat seat or comfort or like eating the food you want to eat or let's say you want to go to the gym but you don't want to hire a personal trainer or health like you don't have an abundance of those things then you can sacrifice something that you are abundant in, which is money, because it's just a resource.

32:13Jack Graham:People want to acquire money just for the sake of having more money. And this drives me at the wall. It makes no sense. You're saying, oh yeah, but I could spend$4 ,400 extra when I get to Norway on whatever I want. I'm like, dude, you are at the point right now where you're spending 1 % of your withdrawal rate and saving 100 % of your business profits. Why not both? You're not actually losing anything. If you get so excited about the optics of spending$4 ,400 in Norway, spending$4 ,400 is so exciting to you, then like that just shows me that you can be allocating this thing that you are abundant with, which is money, better.

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33:53Jack Graham:59, 60, 60. Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. I was just getting a quick little bicep workout in and technically I didn't even need to be counting my reps. This thing counts for me. Six, seven reps in. it won't forget. Great timing though, because Amp is actually sponsoring today's episode and they sent one over for our new warehouse gym. This is Amp, the smartest home gym on the market. Think of the cable setup you'd find at a commercial gym, but in your house. It counts your reps, remembers your weights, and when you walk up and hit start, it's already loaded from your last session. All the guesswork is gone.

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34:56Jack Graham:Amp handles the whole pickup, but less than 1 % of people send it back. So that should tell you something. The link is down below in the description, guys. I could not recommend this equipment more. Check it out at amp.ai or also link down below in the description. Use code iced coffee for 10 % off. It truly gets a great workout in. Thank you so much to amp for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast. Then like that just shows me that you can be allocating this thing that you are abundant with, which is money better. Yeah, I think I think you really bring up like a good mental blind spot, which is like a lot of people treat different buckets of money differently, right?

35:31Like if we were to say, let's spend$4 ,400 on a nice mattress, you might not blink an eye like, oh, that's like, that's a great investment. But then all of a sudden we're having this debate,$4 ,400 for 10 hours of flight time, like, is that worth it? And I think that is a trait that I have inherited from my parents, which is like scarcity mindset. And we've talked about this before, probably on a podcast five years ago, but it's still hard to fight those feelings because you always feel like money could be better used elsewhere if you don't feel like it's being best used for example in this lie flat seat so you're i'm always thinking about the deal am i getting a good deal is this worth the money and that's kind of how i've operated my entire life and probably gram that's how you yeah and here's the thing too premium economy you're in age right now where premium economy is fantastic but doing premium economy on a 10 hour 12 hour flight at 65 is going to be a much different experience so i say you while you still can well jack can still live with roommates we could probably say the same thing to jack jack but i could move out and you could buy a baller mansion and like do this and that and all these things and get a car with longer range instead of having to charge and drive to the ventura like all these things you could do i will defend jack a little bit here which is that if I continue to think this way in terms of this mindset that I have, like, I will not be able to switch it off.

36:55Like, I'm already 38, so, like, by the time I'm 65, will I switch this off? Realistically, I don't think we would switch this off. Yeah, I think it's a slow trickle. Yeah, and it's, like, it's hard to spend once you have, if you're wired like that. Like, I did that basically going to Europe. I took premium economy there, but did the first class going back.

37:15Jack Graham:But he didn't want to. Like, this was something that we had multiple conversations. Oh, yeah, I really didn't want to, but I justified it because I could plan out an entire video. You justified it as a business expense. Yeah, that was the only way I was able to get out that video is if I had my own space where I could, like, zone in, headphones in, and just focus nonstop without any distraction for, like, 10 hours straight. But again, that's like a justification, right? I don't even think that you would need to justify it. I wouldn't have done it without it. I agree that you wouldn't have done it, but just because that doesn't necessarily make you right because you did it and you were successful in that way.

37:52Jack Graham:I think that as your friend, I would encourage you to value your comfort just a little bit more than you do. But the problem is I am comfortable in premium economy. I'm not uncomfortable. What about Macy? It seemed like Macy posted a couple of pictures on her Instagram. Macy is personally fine with premium economy. And she was very excited about it. I've never seen her post premium economy on her story, but she posted the life flats. She posted the life flats on her story. She did when we went to Japan. The premium economy is a fantastic seat. She is just fine with premium economy. But this is all to say that I think that money for the sake of money is it's it's a trap.

38:27Jack Graham:I would say that is a lie about money that everyone believes, like whether you're wealthy or whether you're poor. It's like if someone who's broke wants to get more money, I would love to ask them, why do you want more money? Like, what is it that you would like that you don't have right now? And if they say, oh, well, I want to go and eat at a steakhouse and I want to have a nicer car and I want to like move into this house. I'd be like, okay, which car, like which steakhouse, which house do you want to move into? And I'm like, great. Like, let's figure out, I agree with all this. Like, let's figure out a way that you could do that.

38:55Jack Graham:And I want that for you. But if I ask Graham, why does he want more money? Like he can't come up, like try to answer, what do you want? That house I want. And you can't afford that right now. Couldn't. I would be, I would be completely stressed out of my mind. That's yeah, but you're going to be stressed out of your mind in any environment. Whether you had twice the amount of money, you'd still be as I would not. I would not. There's a price point right now where if I bought in that price point and I found a good deal in that range, I wouldn't be stressing about it at all. But I think that your perspective on it is a little bit too far pushed out of the norm.

39:30Jack Graham:Like if you ask everybody else that is aware of your financials, Jason Oppenay, you said, oh, I wouldn't even think about it. I'd buy it. That dude is spending$500 ,000 on a jersey. But it looks like he's living an amazing life. It looks like he's loving life and he's making a ton of money. It would be different if one day he didn't want a family. He is just Jason. He is just chilling. It's just him. He doesn't have to worry about taking care of anyone. He is just living life. And everything he has is just a bonus. Well, you guys have interviewed a lot of guests and some of the guests are reckless with their spending.

40:00I think I watched that Togi one or maybe some other.

40:02Jack Graham:Togi for sure. Yeah, Togi. So is there a balance here? 100%. I'm just saying that I think Togi's extreme in the same way that I think you and Graham are extreme. Graham spends 0.5 % of his portfolio and saves 100 % of his net business income. That's insane. To me, that makes no sense. Maybe it's more than that. I don't know what the percentage is. Yeah. So how do we change, Jack? How do we do it? I don't know how to change. For me, I think my entire life, I always ask myself the question of why am I doing something? And if I can't come up with a good answer, then I have zero motivation. Maybe it's an ADHD thing.

40:37Jack Graham:ADHD is essentially your dopamine receptors are bad. Dopamine is motivation. It's not necessarily happiness, although they sometimes feel like the same thing. So like if I can't motivate myself to do something, the only way I can get motivation is if I have a good answer of why I'm doing it, I'm not going to do it. And the same thing applies to everything I do. Like if I want to make more money, even if it's like doing consulting and maybe the rate is like something incredible that like, oh, I could go buy this and I could buy this and I've wanted this. Like if I just don't want to do it, I don't know.

41:06Jack Graham:I can't motivate myself to do something just for the sake of doing it. Like I want to have a reason for everything that I do. It's like being intentional about things. Also, math. Like, math is a very, very easy justificator or just justifier for me spending money on things. It's very easy. Like, I will spend$100 to save an hour of my time. Yeah. Yeah. You're putting math, though, above behavior. And as Dave Ramsey would say, I think behavior always trumps math every single time. People default to their behavior. Yeah. But like, what if your behavior is rooted in math? Well, that's you. Then there you go, Jack.

41:39There's your answer. But if you talk to most people, it's going to be a behavior. It's going to be something emotional. And I think that is inherited from your parents. I think that's just how it is, with money at least.

41:50Jack Graham:I think that if you were talking to a loved one, the rules that you would give to them are different than the rules that you apply for yourself. But I think that's true with a lot of things, right? Like we're always good at giving advice but not taking our own. What were your parents like in terms of spending money? Very frugal. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So like we grew up in a, you know, middle class family and then I got older and I realized, okay, we were probably upper middle class, not upper class, but upper middle class. But we never went on any vacations. And the few vacations that we did go on were paid for by other people.

42:20Jack Graham:And the only vacations we did were camping trips. Oh. So like I never had I didn't get an iphone until super super super late in life I never had like the newest gaming console Like I always like was far behind the curve And so like growing up with very frugal parents. I realized okay Like I need to figure out how to make money so I can afford the things I want to afford And I grew up very frugally because of them I like I repeated that but then I asked my dad on this drive We're gonna go play pickleball and I asked him. Hey dad Like if you could go back in time and change anything, what would you have done?

42:47Jack Graham:He said well, maybe I would have started living a little bit earlier Living a little was money a big topic for you guys growing up No, we wouldn't really talk about it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was just very frugal. You had to formulate your own thoughts about money probably when you're - Yeah, but I think that I realized that I can't just continue saving money for the sake of money. I don't like looking at a bank account and just seeing it go up. That's not exciting for me. Meanwhile, Jack, you're showing me your numbers. Be like, yo, I just did this. Yeah, that's cool. But it's cool because it's not cool when the S &P 500 goes up and I own S &P 500.

43:18Jack Graham:I like it if I'm like, I want to start selling options on this stock. and then I see that that strategy worked out. It's like, yeah, it's like, it's growth. It's something that's experimental. That's fun. Well, see, I would, I want, okay. So now I want to ask the same question to Graham, which is that, did your parents stress money growing up? Because maybe this is where we are very similar. My dad was always talking about money. Like he would not, like that was his favorite time. No, my parents never talked about money. And I didn't, I was just always inherently a saver of everything. Like my parents did go through money problems, but I was not aware of it.

43:51Like you would have no idea as like a five or six. So when you wanted like a video game or something when you were 10, what would you do? Did you say, mom, I want this? Usually they would say you have to like wait for Christmas or like, oh, your birthday's in a few months and you'll have to wait for then. But it was all like I never wanted anything expensive. It was maybe like a Game Boy or like a like a new Nintendo 64 game. They were like 60 bucks. And it was always like, oh, we'll wait for Christmas or maybe your grandma will buy that for you like so you kind of learned delayed gratification at a young age yeah i like that yeah certainly but by the time i figured out they had you know some money problems i was like 15 16 17 and by then my habits were already like very frugal i was just naturally just wired i think to like accumulate and save yeah i find that some people are like i was a squirrel in a past life just like finding the nuts and just burying them away he loves nuts he really loves wrapping about You got to edit a squirrel on your face right now.

44:51It'd be funny. But I was always a savior. I remember just getting birthday money, Christmas money, just things like this. I wouldn't spend it. I would keep it in an envelope on a dresser cabinet, and I would just keep adding. I like adding to it. I think some people are wired to save, and some people are wired to spend. I don't know what you are. You're kind of like in the middle. You're a weird hybrid. You're a mutant.

45:14Jack Graham:I would say I felt like I was wired to like to save, but then I just sort of changed because I realized I wasn't very happy doing that. And yes, I still save and I say very aggressively, but I'm not going to ever hesitate at something that would like make my life a little bit more comfortable when the math makes sense. Okay. And you? Oh, I'm definitely wired as a saver. And are you happy with that? So far, I've lived a pretty happy life. But yeah, I think to your point, I could live a little bit more for sure. Like I was talking to my girlfriend about what you said last night and she was like, you do whatever you want to do.

45:45But still, it's like, you know, I just want to be responsible with the money because it's like, I don't know. She's like, you do whatever you want to, but those lie flat seats. It sounds awesome.

45:54Jack Graham:That sounds great. As like a philosophical argument, I think that being a good steward of money is to like be intentional about it. And I think that it's unconscious behavior. I think it lacks intentionality to just say every dollar that I get, I'm immediately going to throw into this index fund past a certain point. Obviously, this conversation does not apply to many people. It's like if you are a crazy spender, then you should be more intentional about your money. If you are a crazy saver, you should be more intentional about your money. It's interesting. In the index group, there's a link down below in the description.

46:29It's a group of like 30 high-level entrepreneurs, business owners. someone provided, I'll do a shout out here, his spending fun sheet. Oh, yeah, I like that. It was really interesting. And it was almost a tax bracket of how much you could spend guilt-free guaranteed. And the money comes off the top into an account that's purposely meant to spend. And obviously, if you don't spend it all, it rolls over to the next year. But it's money specifically just earmarked for whatever. And it was interesting, but like up to the first$150 ,000, it was like 5%. And then from$150 ,000 to$500 ,000 of income, it went to like 10%.

47:10And then like above, you know, a million dollars a year, it was 25%. And just kept going up all the way to 95%. So everything earned above X amount, 95 % of that is meant for fun. It's like a bonus. Like we don't need that much more, so we may as well just enjoy it. I thought that was quite interesting. And that might be a good way to go about it is just to say, hey, based on a percentage, 3%, no matter what, I'm putting it aside or 5%, 10%, whatever it might be. I got to find a way to spend that. Yeah. I talked to a lot of people that have the same saver gene that we do. And that's kind of what I tell them, too, is like set aside 5 % of your paycheck every month and just be like, that's the money you can spend.

47:50And so maybe I should do that. I should tell all of them. Maybe I save aside 0%. I should do that. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sorry. It's just it's unconscious. So what do you think is the best way to save money? Tracking, automating, tracking and automating. That's what I would do. How do you track and automate? So I track everything manually because I'm OCD about it. But every expense, I log in an app, especially discretionary expenses. So that goes into my spending tracker app, but I've had it since 2014. I've tracked every expense since 2014. And then at the end of every month, I put that into a spreadsheet and I do all my categories.

48:26and I just kind of see how the trends go in terms of discretionary spending. And I have a sheet for every year. So 2026, 2025, all the way to 20, like 14. And so that's how I track my expenses. And that's what got me in a great place of saving initially in 2014. I just haven't stopped because it's now a habit.

48:43Jack Graham:May I provide a piece of unsolicited advice? You have already done a lot of that today, but yes. I found a way for you to spend some money, a bookkeeper. I have a bookkeeper. Oh, but they don't do that for you? Not my personal expenses. Some of this, though, is important psychologically that you go through your own expenses. Yeah. It's like trying to outsource tracking your meals throughout the day. It's something that you need to be made aware of to make the decisions that help you long term. I would argue I've probably overdone it at this point. 2014 until now is 12 years. I probably had overdone it after four years, to be honest.

49:21But at that point, I was like, well, I'm just I'm so addicted to this or not really addicted. It's such an ingrained habit that I'm just doing it. And I like seeing my spreadsheet. So that's also part of it. What do you get from it? What does it tell you? What do you perspective? I love perspective. So like anytime I'm feeling bad about my financial situation or where I'm at, where I'm at in life, I look at the sheet and I'm like, oh, like five years ago, me would have been really happy with where I am today. And sometimes that gives you some perspective and some pause is like, oh, you're actually you're doing good.

49:48You're doing well. You're like progressing. and you know i even do that with my youtube stats so like i have a spreadsheet from like 2021 of like all the videos we posted how many views they got after 30 days seven days 24 hours i'm looking at this i'm like okay well the floor of views is going up so back in 2021 maybe i got 10 000 views after 30 days and now it's like 130 000 i'm like oh this looks great so every time i think i'm failing at something i can look at this sheet and it's like oh you know you're not doing too bad Why do you think that you're failing at things? I don't know. I have this constant stress cloud above my head thinking like I'm not doing enough or like doing well enough or I kind of really like working too.

50:29I have this work. I think I've always, I have like this desire to keep going. Probably comparison too, like comparisons of Thief of Joy. but sometimes I look at what other creators are doing or what other successful people are doing or stuff like that. And I'm like, dang, why can that be me? But I already have a great life. So it's like, ah, I could use some more of Jack. Jack, I need more Jack in my life.

50:54Jack Graham:Would you say that you were wealthy? No, half the time, maybe. Half. So you don't have a resolute answer. No, I don't have a resolute answer. I don't think I'm wealthy. If someone else had your exact financials, would you call them wealthy? income i'd say they're wealthy you're doing very well yeah sure but i do not feel wealthy and graham do you feel wealthy no the answer is always the answer to for feeling wealthy is always double from what you currently have is technically right when people say they feel wealthy and it's always double but shouldn't that tell you something like isn't there something to be drawn from that you know what it is I think it's just humility.

51:37I think as soon as you say, yeah, I feel wealthy, it's just an ego thing. It's not about expressing this to a million people,

51:45Jack Graham:but it's about feeling happy and comfortable. I don't know, man. I just think there's so much value in a dollar that you just got to be part of three. I feel wealthy in time right now, which I think is good, which is like in the flexibility of my time and the choices that I make with my time. And I think that's the ultimate goal anyway. So in terms of that, yeah, I think I've already kind of won the game there but in terms of like monetary value I feel like maybe not as wealthy as other people but maybe their time isn't as free do you have any tips or like secrets for saving money that have worked really well for you I used to uh put like cash in an envelope like on a monthly basis and just like you know like extra cash that I would have I just put in an envelope and just kind of put it away and just out of sight out of mind and then at the end of like you know six months you look at this envelope and it's got like 800 or 10 you know a thousand dollars it's really nice where do you get cash like i just don't see cash i got six hundred dollars on me right now i love cash why do you keep cash i don't know i've i was always taught that like a gentleman should have cash just for like opportunity you know like random opportunities opportunities i thought you were gonna say like oh for like tipping people out or yeah yeah yeah that's what i mean by opportunities like tipping people out or like Oh, it's not like cutting a deal somewhere?

53:05Jack Graham:No, no. Or like, you know, sometimes you're in Chinatown and they take cash only. Or like last night, we went to a taqueria, cash only, right? And debit. And debit. But still, like I had cash, even if we were screwed. So if someone's dissatisfied with where they're at financially, and maybe it's their spending problem, let's say realistically, if you're listening and you're dissatisfied with where you're at financially, let's all agree, it's probably a spending problem. 80 % of the time, it's a spending problem, 20 % an income problem. Sure. So if you're one of these 80%, what would you recommend they use for payments?

53:34Jack Graham:Should they pay for everything with a credit card, debit card, cash, buy now, pay later? What would you recommend them to pay for things? Well, as a blanket statement, yeah, debit or cash. That's a blanket statement for everybody. Obviously, everyone's different. I'm not going to say everyone should use a credit card and get that 2 % cash back because really, if you have a spending problem, that 2 % is going to make a big difference, right? Is this a good strategy? Should people employ actually going back and paying in cash? I mean, if it physically pains you to give that cash up, then yeah. Or debit at least so that you can't overspend.

54:06Yeah.

54:06Jack Graham:I tend to agree with that. The studies show that people are more willing to spend money if it's on a credit card than they will be if it's actually with like physical cash or on a debit card. Or these days it's tap to pay. So it's even worse. Oh, yeah. Because it doesn't even feel like you're spending money. And I've spent, you know, a day's worth of transactions once. I'm like, I don't even remember these because you just kind of - You know what's pretty soon? It's all going to be AI for spending. You're just going to be able to walk in, take something off the shelf, put it in a cart, walk out.

54:34There's going to be no tap to pay, no credit card. That's what Amazon tried to do. But remember, it was just like people watching the groceries, the grocery shoppers from like another country. For now. For now. But eventually it's going to get good enough. I believe it where they're going to make it so seamless. You're just going to look at your statement and be like, how did I spend$800 today? But you're just like picking things and walking around with them. and then that's it.

54:58Jack Graham:The obstacle to spend has drastically decreased. Of course. I was in a Uniqlo in Japan. You go and you get this basket, throw a bunch of clothes in and at checkout, you literally just plop the basket on this thing, like on the saucer and it reads all of the tags in the basket and it's just like, here you go, tap, the ding, and then you pay. And I spent like$100. I didn't even need to like get the thing scanned. I didn't need to talk to an attendant. I didn't need to do any of that. I just dropped my basket in the thing. It scanned it immediately, just tapped, walked out. Yeah, that's great. It takes like a minute to leave this store after you've picked out your things before you've paid.

55:30Jack Graham:It's crazy. So yeah, I would say that. Cash. Spend with cash. If people were to walk away from this podcast with one idea, what would it be? They could categorize every single thing they want to spend money on and add 20 % to what they are currently spending on those things. So let's say you put in an Excel spreadsheet. You write down rent, food, transportation, recreation, whatever it is. You have that in column. add 20 % or even up to 50 % and just total how much you would need. It's usually a lot less than you would think. And so like, that's an experiment that I challenge a lot of people to do, which is like, Oh, give me an idea of your annual expenses for your, like not your dream life, but like your target life, like where you would like to be.

56:15And then give me a, a basically the same column of, of your dream life. You know, I want to spend from$3 ,000 a month in rent to$5 ,000 a month in rent or$8 ,000 a month in rent and do that for every single category, it's usually a lot less than you would think. And I think that helps a lot of people understand like they don't have to swing for the fences or like do the yellow sports betting in order to get there. They can do it with discipline and investing. And maybe I could take some of that own medicine myself. How often do you see people trying to look rich? In San Francisco, not often. In fact, it's the opposite there.

56:50You want to look poor. The poorer you look in San Francisco, the richer you are, which is so messed up, but it's absolutely true. Like I've seen some people looking like slobs and they've got like$20 billion. You know, I saw this funny chart. It was a bell curve. And it said at the left side was just someone looking homeless. And then it was the guy with the Lambo in the suit. And then it went down to the billionaires and it was like the homeless again. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's a famous tweet. It's like the five levels of wealth. And then, you know, it's like level one, you have a Timex.

57:19Level two, you have, I don't know what it is, It's like an Omega, level three Rolex, level four Patek Philippe, level five Apple Watch. You know, it's like, yeah, it's just like that. So I agree. I think it's such a power move to people to walk in anywhere with sweatpants and a just kind of raggedy T-shirt. Yeah. Sometimes the sweatpants with the raggedy T-shirt and holes, those guys have a lot.

57:39Jack Graham:Why don't you have a raggedy? Do you feel like you're not there yet? What do you mean? A raggedy T-shirt? Yeah. The thing that you just said. You should see. Dude, you should see me when I'm not going and filming a podcast. Usually when I'm coming in here, we're filming. Dude, I've seen you. I've seen you. I've seen you before. Like when I lived with you, I saw it when you're, I feel like, okay, you do have that one. That's pretty. You know, it's hilarious actually. Oh man, you're probably not gonna be okay with me doing this, but I, to me, I wouldn't, you're not gonna be okay with me saying we're doing this, but we were in LA for an index meeting and you were reaching to the back of the car to grab something and your shirt was kind of cropped and it, and it came up a little bit and, and, and your underwear was peeking out from your pants and your underwear had a, gaping hole about this big on it.

58:24Jack Graham:I remember that, yeah. And I couldn't believe it. And I actually took a picture. So like, it's like he was trying to flaunt it because he was, I don't know why he was reaching in the back of the car for as long as he was, but he was. And I was able to get my phone out and take a picture because he had a huge hole in it. And I'm like, dude, and this is what I said. I literally said, hey, Graham, like, let's be honest, cheap, not frugal, but you are wearing underwear with huge holes in it, dude. What are you? Because it's functional. it still works it's not functional bro it's you're like your naked butt is touching your it was a whole like it's not well let's refer to the picture dude yeah it's maybe this big on an iphone like yeah so like realistic and you know what i said i was like dude i'm gonna buy you some new underwear and so i texted i texted i know i texted our contractor i was like hey can you run out to like costco to get some new underwear they didn't have like extra small or whatever i thought your size so i swear no it's not messed up because he is but i i did ask I was like, can you?

59:19Jack Graham:And I was like, I'll pay for it. Because I was trying to buy you underwear to show you, like, dude, you should not be wearing underwear with huge holes in it at this point. I still don't have underwear. So he's talking a big game. I never got the underwear. They didn't have an extra small. Somebody send Graham some underwear. There's a very specific underwear I like. It's the Kirkland Signature Premium, whatever it is. I don't want the same one you have, though. It's not the ones that I personally, you know, took off my body, you know, but. I used to wear holes with, shirts with holes in them, too.

59:44Like, undershirts, like, when I was in high school. and uh yeah i had a close girl friend of mine tell me like that's not cool like you you can't do that and how did that feel i was like thank you so you were receptive yeah i needed that

59:58Jack Graham:yeah would you wear underwear with holes in it no

1:00:07No holes. It's functional. Dude, I stopped wearing shirts if they get a little shrunk.

1:00:13Jack Graham:How many holes does your underwear need until you determine it is not functional? When it's unusable. When it's more than 50 % holes than actual fabric? Yeah, I would say it's a good... Probably 35. You gotta cut it off. So if it's a tiny hole, you're okay with it. Do you think there's a good way for people to look rich for cheap? Maybe just the way they carry themselves. I mean, you can get away with a lot of stuff. You just carry yourself like you look rich. Yeah. So that's the cheapest way. You just look like you belong there. I love these videos. I see them all the time of like five cars to get under$30 ,000 that make you look rich.

1:00:53You get served those videos? All the time. And it's like an old Mercedes 500 SL. Yeah. uh or you could get like a maserati used oh yeah those depreciate like crazy older aston martins good prices older bmws yeah great and then uh in terms of like clothing a lot of it's just like getting cheap clothes that you could tailor a little bit yeah well-tailored clothes yeah sometimes like someone's wearing a well-tailored shirt i can't tell if it's laurel piana or whatever the you know just like a really cheap brand that's looks good yeah that's funny mercedes s-classes too they depreciate pretty well part of me is so tempted just to buy one yeah because i see them on facebook marketplace and some of them i see 18 to 22 000 but no one that's watching this podcast wants to look rich they just want to be rich it's tempting for me to want that s-class mercedes because i like 20 grand and these cars were like 150 000 new yeah and they look pretty good and It's like you're driving around an S-Class.

1:01:55That's pretty cool. For 20 grand. How many cars do you have? Do you want people to know that you are rich though? How many cars do you have? If I get rid of the Tesla.

1:02:04Jack Graham:He thinks that because the market says something is worth 20 grand, that it's worth 20 grand to him. But I'm like, dude, you don't touch 75 % of your cars. For 20 grand, it's a lot of cars. You would not have a place to park it. You'd be asking if you could park it in MySpace. Graham's a car guy. Why space? You've always been a car guy. Yeah, I like cars. He has been a car guy. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So if you say that people tune into this episode, not because they want to look rich, but because they want to be rich. Yes, they do. Let's talk about the ways that people can actually be rich in 2026.

1:02:37Jack Graham:What are the best things that someone can do? If you're talking to someone 18 to 35, they got some time on their hands. Maybe they're working a job part-time. Between the podcast and all of the different businesses we run, I was seeing a lot of very sensitive personal information of me being leaked online to websites I have never even heard of. It's honestly scary how much data these companies have on you without you even knowing it until it's too late. That is why we are so excited to partner with their sponsor Incogni. Because for those unaware, Incogni is the ultimate fix for protecting yourself and your privacy online.

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1:04:45Jack Graham:Call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777. Visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. Visit mdgamblinghelp.org Maryland. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org. Call 800-327-5050 Massachusetts. Call 1-877-8HOPENY. Text HOPENY New York. Call 1-877-770-7867 Louisiana? What are the best things that someone can do if you're talking to someone 18 to 35, they got some time on their hands, maybe they're working a job part-time. I've always thought that content creation is a great way to get, you make one copy of something and it can be viewed, you know, a million times. So zero cost of marginal replication, right?

1:05:26Like just like software. So I'd say like, if you're young and you're like looking for something to look to do on the side. You want to build some sort of skill that can pay you well in the marketplace, coding. You could do podcasts or content, but that's a lot harder that, you know, we've acknowledged that that's a lot harder these days because of saturation. But you need some sort of skill that commands a lot of money in the market, which means that it has to make a lot of money somewhere down the line in the whole life cycle of whatever you're doing, right? What do you think of becoming an AI consultant?

1:05:56We've had a few people on the podcast who say you could make$8 ,000 to$10 ,000 a month, becoming an AI consultant, setting up processes and systems for businesses. I agree. I think that's a, that's like a huge asymmetry right now, right? Just like if you were joining TikTok in 2019, there were no, there were hardly any creators on there, right? So there's this mismatch in the market. You have all these people wanting to watch TikTok in 2019, not a lot of creators. So immediately you just get all this demand. Same thing with small businesses. They're not on AI. Like these, these are mom and pop shops.

1:06:28So if you're like the AI consultant and you can AI-ify their business, then great. Like property management companies could probably use an AI-ify person. And a lot of that stuff can be automated or agentic. How often are side hustles worth it? If they pay you more than your hourly rate, I think they are worth it. So let's say you make 25 bucks an hour and you can do a side hustle that pays you 35. I think it's worth it. Right. Or you're flipping stuff on Facebook marketplace and maybe you make a hundred bucks for three hours work, 33 bucks. I still think that's worth it because it's maybe fun for you too, right?

1:07:03So it also depends on how fun it is. What do you think? Generally not worth it. Okay, why? I think you get way more value doing what you're already doing, but to a better degree. And that's even if you can pick up extra hours at the job you already have, I think that would yield probably a better result. And I think even if you were to work harder without compensation, early on, I think you'll see a better long-term outlook. Okay, what if you're a server at like Applebee's? And you can either pick up more hours for$20 an hour or you can do a side hustle. I would say the side hustle needs to then be a hobby or something that you would be doing regardless that hopefully makes money.

1:07:47Or something that you're uniquely good at. Okay, I understand. I think most people have something that they're just better than average at. Like Jack, for instance, would do really well as a side hustle charging for pickleball lessons. Like that's one of the things like if he was just like just a random guy or whatever, I think you would do really well. And all these like 70 year olds who want to play pickleball hire Jack at like 50 bucks an hour to teach them how to play in strategy. I think he would do really well.

1:08:15Jack Graham:If you want pickleball lessons in Las Vegas, you know where to find me. Instagram link down below JLSSELBY. Which side hustles are not worth it? Dropshipping. Is that a side hustle? Drop shipping, day trading. Drop shipping, day trading. Forex. Anything where you can lose money, I think. But you would say something like Turo might be worth it or Uber might be worth it. I would argue in a lot of those times, it's probably not worth it when you account for depreciation, some of the work involved. Yeah, Uber's tough because you have to figure out what your effective hours, dollars per hour are after depreciation and gas and all that stuff.

1:08:49So yeah, I think maybe Uber's not worth it. But anything that's not scalable. Yeah, anything that's not scalable or like doesn't or like makes you more tired for your main hustle where you're not performing as good. So like an example would be in Vegas, it's 100 degrees out. If you're power washing sidewalks, you're going to be tired for your job later. It's just it's it's 100 degrees out. How are you not going to be tired? I think that would affect your main job. Right. So at that point, probably not something like that. now speaking of cars with car payments hitting a record high why do you think so many people are willing to go broke for their car well median prices of cars have gone up by a lot so like that's that's definitely number one number two probably just social social status and looks i'm guessing it's probably a look smaxing thing like if you want to show up to your office and you're driving a beater like that doesn't look optically as good but if you're showing up in the newest Subaru, which could run you 50K these days, MSRP, that car payments can be high.

1:09:51So it also depends on their interest rate, right? Interest rates are really high right now and their term. I have a theory that housing has gotten so unaffordable that a lot of people have just said, I'm never going to be able to afford a house, but I could buy this really cool car. I agree. And now that's within reach. Or I could buy this really cool card or this collectible or this thing or this watch. I could afford all these things, but not the house. So I may as well just kind of get what's in reach. You think it's status or you think it's within reach stuff? I think it's within reach, but I also think it's a status thing.

1:10:22Yeah. But I think mostly because lending standards for cars are like just, it's wild. Yeah. What they can just approve you for. And they don't have as strict underwriting requirements as a house does. That's right. With a house, they have very strict underwriting requirements, right? You need to have like a certain debt to income ratio. But with a car, it's like, whatever. It's like, oh, you got good credit? Here, here's a loan. I love these videos. I also get these on Instagram of the car dealer. Oh, yeah, when they go and they're like, what's your car payment? No, no, it's a dealer.

1:10:52Jack Graham:Yeah, we just got this person a new Dodge Challenger. You will not believe the deal that they got. They got a purchase price of$45 ,000, 0 % down, 35 % interest with monthly payments of$1 ,000 for the next seven years. Yeah, they don't ever say the interest, but it's always like, yeah, zero down. Yeah. No money down. No credit. And the loan term is like 20 years. Yeah. And then you see this guy probably shouldn't be driving a Corvette, driving a brand new Corvette. Yeah. Like a very nice one too. Yeah. Or it's like a brand new Mercedes SUV. Sure. Yeah. And, you know. But those people can't afford a house in any market.

1:11:29Jack Graham:Like even if housing was more affordable, they would still not be able to afford a house. I would err a little bit more on the side of like, hey, it's marketing, it's consumerism. And a lot of people want things because they're told they should want it or because people that they're around also want the same thing. Yeah, I agree. And so like a lot of it's hobby hopping and yes, people may be buying cars because they can't afford the house that they would have been otherwise able to afford. But realistically, they're just overspending. What car purchase immediately tells you that someone's bad with money?

1:11:57Maybe like a Dodge Hellcat.

1:11:59Jack Graham:Don't those, those are like the number one repoed car, right? I think they're the number one repossessed car or the most stolen. It's like definitely a Challenger. It might be the most stolen. Yeah, I feel like it's a Challenger or like a Charger. It's a Dodge of some sort, usually. The thing is, here's an interesting thought-provoking thing. You say, Graham, that people are buying cars because they cannot afford houses. But the same people that are buying cars because they can't afford houses are not able to afford the cars that they're buying. But they're able to get it. They're not even able to get the house.

1:12:30That's a good point. Because otherwise they would just get the house. They're able to sneak their way into...

1:12:34Jack Graham:But also, if they were to sneak their way into the house, then they would be doomed just the same. Because they're stretching for something that they shouldn't be stretching. The house would probably retain more value than the car would. That's true. That's true. So, car would be worth a lot less. When do you think it's worth it to buy versus lease a car? Buying is almost always better than leasing, in my opinion, financially. But people have different priorities. Or people might only want the car for two years because of business reasons. Or whatever it may be. Or they can write off the lease payments.

1:13:03or they don't like maintenance. So they want the newest car so they can have maintenance covered under their warranty. Sure, I get that. But I think in terms of just financially, yeah, buying a car is the cheapest way. There was a moment I was so close to leasing a car. It was a year ago and it was a Tesla Model 3 when they had the promotional offer of like$349 a month. Sure. Zero down for like a brand new Tesla Model 3. And I was doing the math on this, thinking how on earth does this make financial sense because buying the car you would lose more value than you just pay in the lease and the reason they were able to get it down so much is that they were pushing inventory out getting rid of some of the old stock for the newer cars and throwing in that$7 ,500 tax credit that's how that as soon as that went away yes and so for a brief period of time it was cheaper to lease a Tesla Model 3 than buying one I was also taught by an ex-car dealer.

1:14:04She used to run the McLaren dealership. She just told me on the side, you should probably lease these. And I think that was just because they're super cars, they depreciate quite quickly, and you're probably not going to want to drive it for longer than five, 10 years. Just lease it.

1:14:17Jack Graham:Yeah. Does it ever make sense to get a loan on a car? Oh, like finance a car? Mm-hmm. Depending on the interest rate, yeah. If you can't purchase it outright. Yeah, I mean, that's what most people do. But does it make sense? Because what most people do does not make sense. I think as long as the monthly payment makes sense for your budget, then that's fine. But obviously, I would want you to pay off your car as quickly as you can, especially with interest rates right now being over 8%, 9 % on some certain auto loans. Yeah. But wouldn't it make more sense for them to just buy something that they can afford in cash and then invest the difference?

1:14:46Jack Graham:It would. Yeah, it would if they're willing to. But sometimes, let's say your budget's 10K, maybe you can't find a used car that you... Maybe the used car that you're probably going to get is way too old or you want something in the middle there. For 10K, you could find a 2 ,300 500SL Mercedes. Ooh, that's not what you should be buying if it's your first car. Probably not working. Yeah, you're going to have 100 ,000 miles, but you look incredible. You're going to have to replace one small sprocket and it's going to cost you$700. A what? A sprocket. What's a sprocket? It's just like a term for like a, just like - It's like a car.

1:15:22Jack Graham:Yeah. It's like a widget. It's a widget. Yeah. Car widget. I've never heard of that before. It's just like, it's - I'm sure there's some mechanic out there. A spring, a widget, a sprocket. It's like just a small part of the car and it's going to cost you - It's going to cost you up the wazoo. Yeah. You know what that is too? Yeah, it's a lawsuit. Yeah. What is the best car to buy in every income bracket? Let's say you're making$50 ,000 a year. What's the best car to buy? Probably like a Honda Civic. What about$100 ,000 a year? Oh, at that point,$100 ,000. Maybe like a Toyota RAV4. $200 ,000 a year.

1:15:52Something with a low depreciation rate. Let's think of that. Let's think about that. $200 ,000 a year. A lot of Toyota SUVs. I think Audis don't really. They do. The Toyota has the strongest resale. A lot of the Toyota RAV4, yeah.

1:16:07Jack Graham:What about Tesla? I feel like Teslas are becoming more of a budget-friendly car. They are very budget-friendly. They're electric, which is nice. And low maintenance and repair costs. That is true. And the insurance costs are very cheap if you get it through Tesla insurance. So that's an option. But they do depreciate quite quickly. Unless if you buy a used one. I bought a new Tesla. Unfortunately, it was one of the very few financial mistakes I've ever made in my life. I'm kidding. I've made so many really horrible financial mistakes. But it depreciated a lot very quickly. Yeah, and your resale value, because Tesla is such a dynamic pricing company, it could just go down overnight.

1:16:43You've seen that a lot, where they just drop the price. Or they go up. Or they go up. Which is crazy. Right, right. But you're kind of at the whim of Tesla. You know what's crazy right now? The Tesla Model X has gone up in value 30%. You should have bought that instead of Ethereum. I couldn't. Just kidding, that's a meme. It's a meme on Twitter. It's like, oh, this went up 6%. Guess you're outperforming Ethereum for the past 10 years. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. This is one of the stupid decisions, but I was tracking Tesla values for a year and I was watching because here's the thing. I don't need a new car, but I want to upgrade.

1:17:17I want to upgrade my Tesla Model 3 at some point. An S or an X. I just want longer range. No Cybertruck. For the right deal, I would. Okay. But mostly in SRNX, and I just want longer range. So I've been tracking the values, and I was doing the math of like, okay, here's how much my car is depreciating in value. Here's how much these are coming down. This is coming down more. I don't need a new car. So I'm just going to wait and sort of throwing some lowball offers on Facebook Marketplace just for fun, like local cars. Wait, just for fun?

1:17:46Jack Graham:Like you have no intention of buying these cars? No, I would buy them. No, he would buy them, yeah, but he'd rather spend 90 hours of his time across a year to try to save. I'll give you$400 on a Model X. I'll give you an example. There was a 2022 Tesla Model S. They were asking like$43 ,000 for this car. And I threw out$38 ,000. And I'll pick it up this weekend. And they said no. And they ended up probably selling at like$40 ,000. But I thought, hey, at$38 ,000, I'd buy this car. So anyway, then Elon announces that they're going to stop making the Model X and the Model S. He goes up. And they shot up in value.

1:18:19The X went up 30%. The S went up about 15%. And the Model S Plaid went up about 20%. And I remember I had an opportunity to buy a 2021 Tesla Model S Plaid, moderate miles,$47 ,000. That same car today would probably be worth$58 ,000. Live and learn. You live and learn. So what did you learn from that then? Maybe I should have just made more offers.

1:18:49Jack Graham:More offers. So it's about the offers. It's not about - Are you more mad that you lost out on the 30 %? Or did you want the car? I think you probably - I wanted, I was more mad about the 30%. Yeah. But here's the other one. Here's the other regret that I have. Do you see what I'm saying? I know, I know what I'm saying, yeah. I'm saying the loss is greater of comfort, of security, of happiness. There is value to that. And you have an abundance of money. There is no more value for an extra dollar for you. I'm also happy with my car. Here's where I am upset. Elon Musk lowered the price of the Cybertruck to$59 ,000.

1:19:23And I was so close to pulling the trigger, but I was watching the Cybertruck values continuing to go down. And I thought, well, in probably a year, I could get the non-budget version of the Cybertruck for the same price as the new lower-end one. And so I didn't do it. And then, of course, he raises the price$10 ,000, and now all of them are selling for way more. So what do you want at this exact moment? What I would love is probably a 2023 late model or 2024 Tesla Model S or X with hardware 4 for a reasonable price. What is reasonable price? Market minus 15%. Okay. So if anyone in my audience has something that matches that criteria, preferably California, Arizona, Utah, or Nevada.

1:20:14That's very neat. And you would sell me a car like that. And you have that car that you're just trying to get rid of, but you don't want to deal with the hassle of selling it, putting it up on an auction site or anything. Reach out to me with the email in the description. And the benefit with me is that, you know, it's me. I'm not going to like. You're not going to scam. I'm not going to scam you.

1:20:32Jack Graham:Yeah, he's not going to pay you like drastically under market. It's just going to be 15%. But you flip it and sell it like at market to someone else in a day. Yes. But you can sell it to him for 15 % less. A lot of people don't want to put their car in Facebook marketplace and deal with tire kickers. Deal with the process. And so at least give me the discount of just the convenience of going with me. And I am your buyer. I will take great care of the car. I'm not a wholesaler. I'm not a flipper. You'll sign a shirt too. I'll sign a shirt. We'll hang out. I think that's a great value. And on top of that, you can also buy his used Model 3 from market plus 15%.

1:21:08Jack Graham:It does come with full self-driving. And it's the famous Graham Stephan car. He's literally willing to meet with some dude off Facebook Marketplace and hang out with him for an hour and a half to save$1 ,500. Graham is just StubHub. You're StubHub, basically. You get the 15 % premium on the sale, but you want the 15 % discount on the buy. And you make money in the spread. Yeah, that's you. You're StubHub. I would sell my Model 3 for the right price, though. For the right price? What is the right price? What do you think you're market-marchive? So describe what exactly is your Model 3. I almost sold my Model 3, and someone's going to pay$20 ,000 for it.

1:21:46How is it worth$20 ,000?

1:21:47Jack Graham:Right? So explain, what is your Model 3? What year? How many miles? It's a 2019, 55 ,000 miles on it with full self-driving. It is the premium plus, I think is what they called it. What's the market value? Like 18? Probably 18. The hard part is that it has full self-driving. Okay, got it. And so that, in and of itself, I paid$8 ,000 for it. Now, it is hard worth three, but the full self-driving, you don't get the full$8 ,000 when you sell it unless someone really values that full self-driving. And so you have other cars without the full self-driving, so maybe a little less. Some with full self-driving sell a little more.

1:22:29Gotcha. But I had a guy ready to pick it up at 20, and it was me that decided to keep the car, but he wanted to buy it.

1:22:36Jack Graham:got it yeah do you think that there are actual like tiers to wealth that you could say pass this amount like this is the line that i draw pass this amount yes before this amount no how would you draw true tiers to wealth uh i think that depends on like what you want to spend in retirement i think we talked about this a lot right but yeah tier one 100k i like that i think that's a really good number in terms of net worth yeah i think that's like the six figure net worth is a goal that everyone can aspire to and probably reasonably hit within a reasonable time frame if they're being disciplined and diligent with their finances so it's definitely tier one and what opens up at this tier uh psychological comfort of knowing you have six figures compound interest is a little bit better at the hundred thousand dollar level especially if you have a hundred thousand dollars invested right we know that um what would be what would be tier two i don't know I think also tier one, like the confidence that you got there.

1:23:34Like that's huge. I think a lot of people can't get to the five figure mark. So if you can get to the six figure mark, I think that proves that you are an exceptional accumulator of wealth, at least in some fashion, right? You can't get there accidentally and you can't get there by spending too much. So it proves to me that you have some sort of discipline. Tier two, tier two varies. I think tier two is between like 500K to a million. And I think at that level, it's like, okay, you could probably reasonably assume, let's say you have 500K and you're, let's say, before the age of 40. You can reasonably assume that this person will get to Coast Fire or something like that.

1:24:11Jack Graham:And define Coast Fire? uh coast fire is the point at which your investments are right now in which if you never touched it until you the age of full retirement age which is 67 it would grow to a full retirement so let's say a 500k right now you know with compound interest eight percent returns in the sb 500 by the time you're 67 it'll be worth you know whatever 2.4 million dollars and that would cover your retirement traditionally at a four percent withdrawal rate i think that's a reasonable goal that a lot of people can get to um with some diligence so that that's probably like the next big level like coast fire or around 500k depending i don't know 500k is a good psychological level too and then maybe like tier three like ultra like ultra tier three is like maybe like five mil and what happens there i think that that's like just financial freedom pretty much what do you think don't you agree like five mil i feel like i love what you just like I tend to agree and I think that there are some caveats, but I think that$100 ,000, yes, I think you've proven to yourself that you have the discipline that is necessary to actually achieve financial freedom.

1:25:17Jack Graham:$500 ,000, it bumps your likelihood of financial freedom. Let's say at$100 ,000, it was like 10 % or 15%. At$500 ,000, it's like, okay, you've sustained this for a long enough period of time to be at like 80%, like 85, 90%. Like that's a huge gap for like a smallish change in numbers. And then, yeah, 5 million. It's like, OK, at a 4 % withdrawal where you have 200 ,000, like$200 ,000 a year. That's very hard to spend. Yeah. If you have reasonable standards of living. Right. And and then past that, what would you say is like the next level? Dude, I haven't gotten that far. I think I've never gotten that far, but oh, yeah, no, I know what you mean.

1:25:56But like, I haven't really thought about it because it felt like 5 million was the frontier number. like once you get there it's great but if i had to give it another number maybe where like your lifestyle changes so much or like you have the freedom to spend on whatever you want without any repercussions like 25 25 yeah i feel like 25 is like a good number i don't know why i just it's

1:26:18Jack Graham:arbitrary by the way 25 so you don't you never really thought past 5 million no why not i don't know i never thought i would need more than 5 million but now that you have 5 million dollars do you think past it? Well, you don't know if I have$5 million. Oh, am I not allowed to say that? No, you can say it. Okay. So like, do you think past it? Yeah, I've like thought past it, but I'm like, how is that going to materially change my life so much? I don't really know. Lie flats? Lie flats. Probably lie flat seats. It's tough though in San Francisco because five in San Francisco, three and a half gets you a house, like a mediocre house.

1:26:52one bathroom, 1 ,100 square foot house in a decent area. Yeah, I mean, like 10, 20, anything in the double digit millions would be really nice. You could probably buy a house in cash, chill. That's probably where it's at. And then maybe the next tier is like when you can afford a private jet, which is like 150. Do you ever aspire to have that level of wealth? I think it's an aspiration, but if I don't get there, it's fine. It's an aspiration when you're sitting on the tarmac waiting for a delay. But then you're like, well, You have to make so much. It's exponential how much more money you have to make to even have the private jet load, unless you do net jets or something.

1:27:34Jack Graham:So what aspirations do you still have at your current net worth? My current aspiration is that I really like making content. I still enjoy it. I'm sure, Graham, you enjoy it too. And I like helping people with their finances. Anytime someone comes up to me and says, Oh, your video helped me invest. Or your video helped me figure out my budget better. Like, I feel like that's my purpose. So I want to see how far I can take it. So maybe my aspiration is just like reaching more people and building out more of a business around that in like a way that's not just like something, you know, snake oil.

1:28:09Jack Graham:No, no, no. So you would just say that you're very satisfied and content with where you're at right now. Yeah. But then how do we juxtapose that with what you were saying earlier this episode? How you were like, I constantly feel an urge, like I need to be working. I need to be saving more money. I need to be doing this. I'm not doing well enough. yeah I think maybe that's like me balancing my professional aspirations and career with like my overall life satisfaction and happiness like overall I'm like yeah I'm like a generally happy person so it's hard to take that away from me but I am stressed because I still have these aspirations to like build a fulfilling you know content business and what aspirations do you have Graham um

1:28:52I probably want to find something else other than the main channel to fill my time. You have this, but something else. Something in addition. I want to keep growing something, and I feel like I've capped out on that main channel to the point where it's a little repetitive for me. Yeah. The podcast I love, but it's not as intense. I think you like building things. I think you like seeing things go from zero to one. Yeah, I think so. So like you just like seeing that increase. Yeah. Like you would probably get a lot of satisfaction out of growing a channel from like zero to 10K more than you would seeing that number going from five to six million.

1:29:29I'm trying to put some of that energy right under the memberships and like really taking that over and doing a lot on that because I think there's a lot of potential to go from zero to one. Right. On the membership side of things. And so if you want to join the memberships, by the way, I'm putting all my resources behind that. And so there's a lot of extra content that you'll get with that. And I check my phone like every few hours for comments. He is. He's always on his phone.

1:29:54Jack Graham:And we'll have a post-show short conversation with Humphrey just talking about a bunch of other random stuff. So you can also watch it there. Yeah. So that's probably where I'm going to be putting focus on. Other than that, man, you know what? Like I had this, like I really like getting into art and music. and so I've always wanted to do those things but they just, I can never do them because they just don't, it sounds awful but like I can't quite monetize it and I feel like I'm just spinning wheels if I'm not like making money doing something. So if I like - Like if you're doing something for fun you're like, ah, I could be making money right now.

1:30:28Yeah, I look at the opportunity cost of like if I'm, let's just say I put together a band and I'm playing drums in a band and we're like, you know, rocking out in like a corner of the house or whatever. Then I'm like, okay, well, I spent a few hours doing this, but I could have done all these other things. Or maybe doing some artwork or something. Do you know how that feels? I don't know.

1:30:49Jack Graham:Maybe a couple years ago, I was more familiar with that. But I think I just got to the point where working for the sake of just working. What's interesting is that Graham will come into the warehouse and will work for a couple hours. And he'll be like, dude, I feel like I've been here for two hours and I haven't done anything. and I'm like okay well like what would you like to do he's like I don't know let's let's put this shelf up and then we'll put a shelf up and then after that he'll be like okay I feel good I feel like we got something done today like I'm glad I came in today because we we checked the box and I'm like that's yeah I don't feel like I feel like my happiness is tied to like putting up a shelf or like like checking a box of like oh well I got this work done today yes well I I'll feel better if I get more work done in a day as opposed to less?

1:31:37Jack Graham:Like, yeah, sure. Absolutely. But I also like there are other things that I enjoy doing aside from working and like making money. You don't want to waste time. If I sit around doing nothing for an hour, I'm like, I just wasted an hour of my life. I'm never going to get that back. But at least if I put up a shelf but I did something that I would question with that is like, don't you think at a certain point, Like if Warren Buffett, who's worth, let's say, a hundred billion dollars is near his deathbed, unfortunately, but like he's getting older. If he spends an entire day going over the financial statements of a of a company as opposed to spending time with his family, is that a wasted day?

1:32:15Jack Graham:Is that wasted time? Yeah, but I'm not spending time with my family. I'm just sitting on the couch, just like twiddling my thumbs, just trying to think of something to do. Exactly. But I think that like I think that the same rule could be effectively applied to your situation where it's like if you're not working, time is being wasted. Just like you said, if you're not like you would not enjoy jamming out, even though you love playing the drums and you've played for most of your life. You love all of these things in life, but you will not let yourself enjoy it because you feel like it's wasted time.

1:32:41Jack Graham:We should be saving this for the post show. Yeah. Realistically, because then we're going to go off on a long tangent. Yeah. I know what you mean, though. It's like opportunity cost of time. you don't really think about it too much jack but i think graham and i probably think about it which is like my my current hour could be used for something more productive right and productivity makes me feel good at the end of the day like when i have a really good productive day i feel really good about myself usually the days where i'm having a quote bad day is when i i'm staring at the computer trying to do something and nothing's coming out and it's been like four hours of me just sitting there i'm like oh now i feel like i wasted this time and i also wasted the opportunity to like go do something else.

1:33:19All right.

1:33:19Jack Graham:We got to get back on track here about like finances. It's very difficult because we've spent a lot of time together. It's like we always want to talk about the philosophical, psychological things. We got to get back to finances because we know that's what you guys want. What is the perfect portfolio for someone watching this right now? Moderately conservative. I'd probably say 90 % stocks, 10 % other. Other could be if they're more conservative, fixed income. Other could be if they're more aggressive, speculative assets. But yeah, I think if you're young and you're making money, 90 to 100 % equities is probably fine.

1:33:50Jack Graham:And what do you mean equities? Like how do you determine which stocks you would want to buy? Most of the time, just S &P 500 is good enough. Is that what you do personally? That is not what I do personally. So what do you do personally? Personally, I've been buying more individual stocks. And why do you do that instead of buying the S &P? I think my appetite for risk has gone up over time as I've been making financial content and I'm always paying attention to the markets. I'm investing in big companies that I know and love and I know intimate detail or not intimate, but I know them intimately.

1:34:26So my portfolio has been getting more weighted towards individual stocks. But I think, you know, I was on the Money Guy show maybe like six months ago. I think I need to diversify back into the S &P 500.

1:34:37Jack Graham:Why would you say that? Have you done well with individual stocks? I have done well with individual stocks, but I do think that the entire market has done really well with individual stocks. And I just really want to make sure that if I have the amount that I have so far, that I protect that capital. And so I should really take my own medicine there. So I think I've learned a lot on this podcast, which is I should probably spend a little bit more in my personal life. And I should probably take my own medicine and diversify back. But the tax hit on the individual stock is tough. Do you think that people should consider tax consequences when investing in stocks?

1:35:10How long are they investing for?

1:35:12Jack Graham:Let's say they're investing for retirement and they're in their 20s or 30s. Then probably not. Not as much. Especially if it's in a retirement account. Let's say it's not though. It's a taxable account. You see you made a whole bunch of money, but you're like, oh man, if I sell it right now, I'm going to have to pay all this tax. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. That's a tough balance because what is their situation going to look like when they're 65? I don't know. Is their tax bracket going to be really high for long-term capital gains? Are they going to be able to weather that tax bill depending on their other assets?

1:35:45I'm not sure. So that maybe is not a good question for me because I'm not sure. Personally, I've made more mistakes avoiding the tax than I have writing it out. There's so many positions where I was up a ton and I said, oh man, I don't want to sell it because I'm going I have to pay the tax. And then it just drops. Like I lose all the profit. Yeah, but on those positions, would you have held for 40 years? Or are these like, you know, that you're up a lot on? Some of them. Like I'll give you an example. Ethereum, I bought in at the very bottom of like 20, 20 something. And I was up like a hundred and something percent.

1:36:25And I figured instead of selling, I'm just going to let it ride. Okay. And now I'm basically break even on that. Or no, I'm down a little bit, I believe. So you would have preferred to sell it, take the tax hit, but at least have the gain. Yes. But you would have not known if it could have gone up to 10K, right? That's true. The other funny thing is, of course, the one time I do start to take profits, it was on Bloom Energy. And I started selling at like, I sold a little chunk at$250, a little chunk at like$275, a little chunk at like$285. And now it's past$300. And of course, it's the one stock where I'm like, I'm going to trim some of this.

1:37:00That's the one that just keeps going up higher.

1:37:02Jack Graham:i feel like you're you're measuring yourself up against the perfect investment though like you still what was like percent return did you get in bloom and over how long of a time period was it hundreds of percent and and but i'm paying taxes as though it's like uh ordinary income basically short-term gains i would say that's like the only real distinction that i would make obviously it's extremely nuanced and it's a case-by-case basis but if you can hold it out so you're not taxed short-term capital gains and you're taxed at long term then that's like the biggest thing and then past long term i don't think that tax consequences should make any decision like it shouldn't guide your investment decision correct and i agree too yeah what do you think are the best investments to get rich the best investments to get rich i mean that's a loaded question what do you think it's tough because like concentration does really get you rich fast if you concentrate in the right thing but it can also ruin you fast so um do you want risk of ruin then if you want risk of ruin, then yeah, you can concentrate in any individual stock that you want.

1:38:06And if it 10X is, then it 10X is. But if you want the disciplined approach where you're going to get rich slow, then index funds. What do you think about the market being at an all-time high right now? Do you think people should invest differently with the market hitting an all-time high? No, dollar cost average. DCA and chill.

1:38:24Jack Graham:Always and forever, dollar cost average. time in the market beats time what do you say to the people who feel like they should sell a little bit right now and maybe take like half off the table with the market the way it is right now i would ask them if it's out of a need like a psychological need or if it's out of like a portfolio need or like do they need the money or they're just they're just worried that it's too high yeah um i would reevaluate your time horizon like if you're going to be investing for 30 years like should you be selling half right now because in 30 years it's probably gonna be higher than it is today so do you feel any desire to sell oh yeah i do but i fight it i fight it i'm not gonna sell but yeah definitely interesting yeah i feel it like i see the market right now and it makes no sense to me whatsoever yeah the things are getting disconnected they are fundamentals and the same thing happened i remember in 2021 when people were thrown like oh i'm gonna add bitcoin to this and then it goes up in price people are doing the same thing with ai they just say oh we have this new ai division it's like i think it really depends on the type of investor you are, right?

1:39:24Like if you're investing for really long-term stuff, retirement account passively, you're not even looking at it. But if for someone like you or someone that's very active in the market, maybe you could trim a little. Sure. I wouldn't. I know myself. But you could if you wanted to, if that's what you really believe, which is like we're - Yeah. But I also know that I don't know enough to be able to beat the market. Got it. That's good. And that every time I think, okay, this is it. It's the peak. It's going to double from there. so it's not it's not worth it it's not worth it for me to say it's better for me just to keep buying and holding and that's what i just continue to do that's fair i fight the feelings yeah how often do you see bad investment advice like online yeah oh yeah all the time what's the worst advice you've seen just anything on wall street bets is usually the worst advice i've seen i mean you see a lot of success stories on there don't get me wrong but i see like zero date to expiration calls.

1:40:20Jack Graham:Is that advice though or is that just people That's just speculating. I don't think that that, I think Wall Street bets That's not advice, that's just investment. is that it's degen. Like they all know what they're doing and that it's gambling. You're talking like conventional advice, that's bad. Yeah. I don't know if this is investment advice, but like the idea that, oh, you'll just save more or invest more when you make more money, I don't think that's true. I agree with that. So like, let's say someone is not already saving and investing and they're like oh yeah once i get my raise i'll save more than no i don't think that's true either so maybe something like that but that's not really investment advice it's not telling someone to buy a certain stock or buy a certain uh thing we were talking about this yesterday dividend stocks right for someone who's young like really the only reason you would have dividend stocks if you're like 21 years old is just for psychological comfort but really it's not doing much for you in terms of growth so you know graham and i reviewed some people's portfolios yesterday and it's like well you should probably be reallocating into vti or vt or voo if we are to all pick let's say each three of us at the table two stocks that we think are going to do well over the next 10 years which two stocks would you pick i'm picking robin hood because i've been a big robin hood bull uh since like 18 15 so i really like robin hood i like the direction that they're going i liked vlad when i met him so i always liked founder-led businesses I saw that their financials were growing year over year.

1:41:46I like all the offerings that they're coming out with, right? They have credit cards. They have custodial accounts. They've got the, well, I guess they have the Trump accounts now. And I just think it's the de facto brokerage for Gen Z and younger, and maybe a big slice of millennials as well. And I think that their assets under management is only going to grow. So for me, I thought Robinhood is at least on the cutting edge of brokerages, right? Whereas the old brokerages, they might take a little bit longer to adapt. I don't like the sports betting stuff or the Polymarket stuff that's on the Robinhood app.

1:42:19That's maybe one thing morally that I can't get behind, but I just contacted them to disable it on my app. So I can't be tempted there. So that's one. The other is probably just Google. I just don't think you're going to be Google. Like, I feel like Google's like full AI capabilities are not fully realized yet. Kind of same thing with Apple. I feel like Apple's really positioned well for like the AI revolution because they haven't really done much. But you know that they're probably working on it and they're just a little bit slower to market than all the other big mega caps. But I feel like they're in a good position too.

1:42:54So those are probably my two or three. But what are yours?

1:42:59Jack Graham:You picked my exact ones. Let's go. Yeah. I would say Apple. I just think that the moat is insane. Yeah. Tell me to buy a different phone. bring me a phone that's two times better than the iPhone. I probably wouldn't change. And then on top of that, and also the way that like MacBooks are used in college, like it's kind of just like the go-to computer in education. And yeah, I would have to agree Apple. I think it's safe. I think it's like, it's a safe bet. Well, okay. So two things about that. I think one, I really like the new CEO is more hardware focused. I think that's kind of going back to the roots of like being hardware focused, which is nice.

1:43:38even though services is a large part of their business now. So that's like one more thing, great thing for Apple. But we were talking about the S &P 1 yesterday, which I thought was interesting too. Do you want to tell people about that? Yes. And then we'll get grams.

1:43:49Jack Graham:The S &P 1, and that's another argument for like NVIDIA or like any of the other like top, you know, three companies or whatever. The S &P 1, if you look at the way it's performed over the past 20 years, it is obliterated. What is the S &P 1 again? The S &P 1 is when you buy the number one largest market cap company. And then as soon as a different company takes over and becomes the largest in market cap, you immediately sell and buy that company. Yeah, but you're getting a tax consequence in that. So you're constantly trimming. What did we just talk about? We just spoke constantly selling. Dude, this doesn't happen every three months.

1:44:24Jack Graham:Like the number one market cap company changes. A lot of times they'll ride out for a couple of years, a few years. So you have long-term capital gains. But yeah, if you wrote out the S &P 1 for the past 20 years, the returns are like, I don't even know. We'll put up an example right here, but like 3 or 4x the SP. Is that before or after tax? Probably before tax. I'm just saying, when you constantly trim your position, depending on your tax bracket, 20 to 23.5 % or whatever it is, you're constantly trimming that down and then reinvesting. You have to outperform by that amount. Yeah, I agree with you.

1:44:58Jack Graham:But you literally said 10 minutes ago that every single time you've made a decision based off of taxes, it is not helping. And you're giving me another hypothetical scenario. It's not a hypothetical scenario. Like you can look at the data. I don't know. Okay, well, look at the data. What are your two stocks, Graham? I would say I'd like Robinhood, Amazon, and Google. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've heard Chris Camillo talk about Amazon. So I got to look into that more. I'm an Amazon now. I'm an Amazon literally just because of Chris Camillo. So like it's, you would argue the same thing, right? Listen, I like Amazon a lot, but I stay out of individual stocks.

1:45:30It's purely because of Chris Camillo that I'm an Amazon. on okay so your portfolio is mostly etfs and maybe like a couple individual stock holdings

1:45:37Jack Graham:pretty much what percent is individual stock holdings in your portfolio like less than one percent oh that's really low oh yeah it's it's not much i mean it's is your crypto position higher yeah oh yeah crypto is like now it's maybe eight percent maybe eight to ten percent it's gone up so much uh basis or just because you dollar i just kept dollar cost averaging and i just didn't stop and then when it dropped to like 60 to 65 i just i couldn't help myself but to buy more and we'll see if that was a bad decision or not cool speaking of bitcoin yeah what are your thoughts on bitcoin uh i think it's not going anywhere i think it's obviously low right now for low relatively speaking um and it's definitely underperformed this year it's down i think you can have let's say if you wanted it in your portfolio three to five percent i mean i know you have eight but that's still i think within reason it's like an alternative asset it's kind of like if you're just diversifying into like gold or something i think if you wanted bitcoin that's fine yeah i have like one bitcoin that's it oh when did you that is a lot when did you first buy bitcoin uh 24 2013 2014 how much i bought one bitcoin for a hundred dollars back then and what'd you do with it i spent it at a cafe wow it was the most expensive coffee you've ever purchased and yeah yeah yeah it's like uh it was like a 60 i mean i think at the time i spent 60 bucks at this cafe because we didn't know how bitcoin worked and you had to like send bitcoin from one wallet to the other using using you know the um the 32 or however long the wallet character address is and so i sent this bitcoin to this cafe in Palo Alto, Coupa Cafe.

1:47:18It's like a famous cafe where entrepreneurs meet. But I sent it to them and I didn't know that Bitcoin transactions, they take like 30 minutes to confirm on the network because we didn't know anything back then. So the person behind the register was like, we didn't get it because they don't know either. Right. No one's really paying with Bitcoin. And so I sent it again. And then I said, I had to basically send it like three times. And like that equivalent was like, I don't know, 0.45 Bitcoins or whatever. So. And so they just kept the Bitcoin. I don't know where it went. Yeah.

1:47:47Jack Graham:But you held on. They could have lost it. You held on to the remaining 0.55. No. I probably sold that. And then I re-bought in 2017. Yeah. You buy at the price that you deserve. Is that what they say? Is that a Dave Ramsey thing? No, no. That's just the Bitcoin thing is you buy at the price that you deserve. Interesting. Yeah. And then, yeah, 2017. I mean, I've been in crypto for a long time. Just maybe not as like, I'm not as outspoken about it. but I definitely keep up with what's going on. And I know a lot about crypto. I just don't make stuff on the channel about crypto anymore because my audience hates it for some reason.

1:48:21They're just more into traditional retirement and growing your wealth slowly. Not that Bitcoin is not doing that. It's just like, once I say Bitcoin on the channel, people just are like, ah, that's like a scam. So it's stuff.

1:48:34Jack Graham:What is the stuff that your audience is most excited to hear about? Fire. Fire. Why do you think fire is so important to people? It's freedom. I mean, it's like when is it done? When's the job done? I think that's like a big thing. So that does really well on the channel. Psychological things do really well on the channel, like when is enough? And then other formats, affordability, cars, houses, stuff like that. What does money mean to you? You know, when I was like a kid, I always thought like money was like a really dumb concept because it's like fake. It's just value that we assign to it. But I view it as a resource that you can trade for things.

1:49:15So I like that. And I also view it as something that can bring a little bit of happiness. Sure. What do you think the best things are to spend money on? Experiences. Other people. What experiences have you spent money on that you say that's worth it? I went to, I'll just give you an example. I went to the Ares tour. I thought that was worth it. Taylor Swift? Yeah, Taylor Swift. Yeah. How much for tickets? I think it was like$1 ,200 a ticket. What? I bought two. Yeah, they were great. She was great. And by the time I got there, the tickets were like 3 ,000 apiece. But yeah. Wow. I will say like, I mean, it's just a night I remember like really well.

1:49:53Like every Taylor Swift concert I've been to because I've been to the 1989 concert and the Reputation concert, the other albums, they're always just like the craziest time of your life because the stadium is so loud. The energy is all there. It's like, it's really incredible. And you know what? I want to go to a Coldplay concert because of that too, or a BTS concert because I've noticed a stadium concert to me is like, the energy is electric and I like that. And I'm actually going to the World Cup game next Thursday. It's like Australia versus Paraguay. And, you know, I think that'll be sold out.

1:50:26So that's going to be like an experience that I'll remember too. Speaking of Taylor Swift, did you guys see this morning she's pregnant? No. Yeah. Really? I'm kidding. Oh.

1:50:39Jack Graham:Gotcha. You should have held on to that for longer. I would have believed it too. I should have. I was doing it because someone's going to clip that. Oh, that's funny. So you're a Swifty. I mean, yeah, I'd like to think so. Yeah, sure. I just like experiences. So I think to your point, spending money on experiences like that, that was worth it. Buying things for other people is nice too. Like just buying dinner, picking up dinner. What are the worst things to spend money on? I don't know. I haven't felt like I've made a bad decision in terms of purchasing something recently. So I don't really have any worse decisions to close probably.

1:51:16Sure. Especially if it just like shrinks or. I don't know. I don't think gambling. Don't don't gamble. You know what we could do right now? A hundred dollars each coin flip. You want to do that? I have a hundred dollars. So do I. You guys want to do it? Sure. I'll officiate. Okay. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do a hundred dollar coin flip. Do you want heads or tails? I'll let you pick the heads or tails for the coin flip. Uh, I would like heads. All right, I'll be tails. Do you have a coin? Just flip a coin, heads or tails. Wow, digital coin. This is how, this is how.

1:51:55Let's go. Oh, there you go. Cool. Congratulations.

1:51:59Jack Graham:Did you believe me? Yeah, I believe you. Okay. Wait, it was heads? No, yeah, it was heads. He just looked for a second like he didn't believe me. No, because you're like showing your phone. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. I got Graham Steffen's$100. How does it feel? Pretty good. $100 richer. How do you feel? A little bummed out, but that's fine. That's fine. You know, it is what it is. It's the way the cookie crumbles. It is. It is. You win some, you lose some. So this is - Would you do it again? I don't know if I would. Because I kind of hit a limit. You catch your losses there. Yeah, I kind of hit a limit where I'm like - But you could get back to where you were.

1:52:38that's a great point what if you do double or nothing two hundred dollars no i wouldn't do that i would do another hundred for the sake of content i would do another hundred that's double or nothing no it's not double or nothing it's technically double for him well actually let's save this for the post show okay we'll save if you want to see the next coin flip

1:53:01Jack Graham:post show cool all right we have some rapid fire financial questions for you humphrey let's see what you got to say all right sir rent or buy rent new car or used car used car lease or finance finance credit card or debit card credit card payoff mortgage or invest payoff mortgage roth or traditional roth bitcoin or gold

1:53:32gold i like gold lately but i've also been collecting gold so yeah index funds or individual stocks index funds real estate or stocks stocks higher income or lower cost of living higher

1:53:47Jack Graham:income concentrated portfolio or diversified portfolio depends on age younger concentrated die with zero or leave a large inheritance leave large inheritance retire early or work on something meaningful forever the latter work on something meaningful forever track every expense or automate savings track 1 million at age 25 or 5 million at age 50

1:54:23Jack Graham:1 million age 25 and then we have some multiple choice which will improve the average person's finances the most cutting expenses getting promoted changing careers starting a side hustle or starting a business probably cutting expenses are side hustles usually a legitimate path to wealth a useful source of supplemental income a distraction from advancing in a primary career or mostly internet marketing b which was a useful source of supplemental income yep what's the best side hustle for the average person freelancing and existing skill reselling content creation rideshare or delivery real estate e-commerce consulting local business services i'll go freelancing

1:55:12uh consulting so basically using the the skills you already have and then i would go like like reselling and then small business services right after that.

1:55:21Jack Graham:Someone earns$70 ,000 at a stable job. Choose the better use of 10 additional hours per week. What are the options? Working towards a promotion. That's what you'd say, bud. Learn a new skill. Build a side business. Work a second job. Or invest and research stocks. Learn a new skill, I think, is what I would say. Yeah. Especially if it helps you at work. Like let's say you're at work and you learn database management on the side. Like you could increase your income by a lot doing that. Cool. Humphrey, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. Really appreciate it. We got a post show for all the members coming up.

1:56:00So if you want to join, you'll see some extra content and me trying to win my money back. Thank you so much. We're also going to link to all of your information. Yes, please do. Down below in the description. Go and subscribe to Humphrey. Thanks again. And until next time. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.