MI Rewind: Bitcoin and Financial Independence w/ Jim Crider

9 Aug 2024 · 56 min

Ask about this episode

Ask anything about it. ChatGPT or Claude reads this page and answers with the times it was said.

Connect VO and ask about every podcast you hear, including the moments you saved. Add to ChatGPT · Add to Claude

In short

The Intrinsic Value Podcast - Episode Summary

Podcast Title The Intrinsic Value Podcast

Episode Title

MI Rewind

Bitcoin and Financial Independence w/ Jim Crider

Episode Description In this episode, host Clay Finck interviews Jim Crider, founder of Intentional Living FP, discussing various aspects of financial planning and independence, especially focusing on the millennial perspective. Topics explored include the role of financial planners, the unique challenges faced by millennials, the concept of financial independence, managing information overload, and insights on Bitcoin.

---

Key Discussions and Insights

  1. Benefits of Financial Planning
  2. Financial planners help navigate complex financial decisions.
  3. They assist in aligning financial strategies with personal values and life goals.
  1. Timing for Seeking a Financial Planner
  2. Ideally, individuals should consider a planner when their financial situation becomes complex, regardless of age.
  3. The “will, skill, and time” framework can help determine the need for professional advice.
  1. Millennials vs. Older Clients
  2. Millennials often face rapid life changes and decisions compared to older clients, who may have more static financial concerns.
  3. Young families need to juggle numerous responsibilities, including career shifts, family planning, and debt management.
  1. Financial Independence Defined
  2. It's not solely about retiring early but achieving the freedom to choose how to live life.
  3. Millennials often seek early work optionality to spend more time with family and pursue passions.
  1. Information Overload
  2. With the abundance of online financial advice, it’s essential to discern credible information.
  3. Individuals should evaluate the context of advice and relate it to personal financial situations.
  1. Debt Management Strategies
  2. High-interest debt should be prioritized for repayment, while low-interest debts (like mortgages) can be managed strategically.
  3. The approach to debt repayment should be personalized based on individual financial goals and circumstances.
  1. Balancing Present Enjoyment with Future Planning
  2. Financial planning should integrate both short-term enjoyment and long-term goals.
  3. It’s important not to sacrifice present happiness for future financial security.
  1. Bitcoin in Financial Plans
  2. Jim Crider advocates for including Bitcoin in investment portfolios, suggesting a typical allocation of 10% to 20%.
  3. He emphasizes the importance of education and conviction when investing in volatile assets like Bitcoin.
  1. Recommended Resources
  2. The Investors Podcast with Preston Pysh is highly recommended for those wanting to dive deeper into Bitcoin and investing topics.
  3. Jim encourages using educational platforms to understand Bitcoin’s role in a diversified portfolio.

---

Conclusion This episode of the Intrinsic Value Podcast provides valuable insights into the complexities of financial planning for millennials, emphasizing the importance of aligning financial strategies with personal values and lifestyles. Jim Crider's perspectives on financial independence and Bitcoin offer listeners a fresh approach to managing their finances effectively in today's fast-paced world.

---

Further Listening and Learning

  • Related Episodes:
  • MI115: Young Investor’s Getting Started w/ Kelly Lannan
  • BTC001: Bitcoin Common Misconceptions w/ Robert Breedlove
  • Join the TIP Mastermind Community for discussions on stock investing.
  • Explore TIP Finance for tools to aid in investing and portfolio management.

---

Connect with Jim Crider

  • Website: [Intentional Living FP](http://intentionalivingfp.com)
  • Twitter: [@JimKreiderTX](https://twitter.com/JimKreiderTX)

---

Disclaimer The discussions in this episode are for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always consult with a professional before making financial decisions.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
Get VO free

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00You're listening to TIP. Hey guys, on today's show, I'm resharing a favorite episode from the past. I like to do this because we get a lot of new listeners each week, and they will never have heard this excellent episode before. And even if you've been listening for a while, you may have missed it when it first came out, or you could at least benefit from reviewing some of this episode's lessons again and reinforcing your learning. If you're not interested in episodes from the past, there's no hard feelings at all, and you can pick up with us again next week for a brand new episode. Everything going forward is from the original, and I hope you guys enjoy listening to it as much as I did.

0:38Man, that's a good question. That sounds so simple. The traditional, from what I'm aware of, and you can correct me, maybe you know it's more than I do, but my views of the FIRE movement, which is financial independence, retire early. My thoughts on the traditional FIRE movement is I'm going to work really hard for X number of years, whether or not I like my job, so I can save super aggressively and then not have to work and retire by the time I'm 36. And usually, and maybe I'm putting words in everyone else's mouths, but this is my observation from the outside in.

1:11On today's show, I'm joined by Jim Kreider. Jim is a financial planner and the founder of Intentional Living FP, which helps families achieve early financial independence. Jim helps his clients navigate the obstacles around money to ensure that it's used efficiently and effectively over the long run. During the episode, we discussed the benefits of having a financial planner, how millennials differ from other clients Jim has worked with, what it really means to achieve financial independence, how to deal with information overload, Jim's thoughts on Bitcoin, and much, much more. Jim is a very intelligent guy, and I really enjoyed this conversation.

1:48All right, now without further delay, let's dive right into this week's episode with Jim Crider. You're listening to Millennial Investing by the Investors Podcast Network, where your hosts, Robert Leonard and Clay Fink, interview successful entrepreneurs, business leaders, and investors to help educate and inspire the millennial generation.

2:15Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Millennial Investing Podcast. I'm your host, Clay Fink. And on Welcome to the show, Jim. Clay, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. I'm very excited to dive into your background as well as your insights on financial independence and Bitcoin during today's show. Before we get things kicked off, tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today. I'm a dad of three boys. I have a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old husband. I've been married for coming up on 10 years here. And I own a financial planning firm called Intentional Living FP.

2:53We work with young families who want early financial independence and early work optionality. So between those three things, I'm pretty busy. Outside of that, whenever I have free time, my wife and I, we like to try to slip away and get in the mountains and go explore. So that's what we're about. So many people listening to the show might be wondering why they need a financial planner themselves or what the benefits really are. Why would a millennial want to work with someone like yourself to help manage their money? That's a fair question. And the reason I think that is often a question is because what's been done in the past?

3:27Typically, when you think of a financial planner, you think of your grandparents or maybe your parents working with someone because they've accumulated a million to$3 million or whatever, and they're about to retire. But frankly, the reason that's been said, if you think about the historic compensation model of financial planners, So if I am billing my clients 1 % or 2 % of assets under management, I'm going to be incentivized to work with people who have more assets to manage. And typically, that's going to mean I'm working with people who have worked long enough to accumulate a few million dollars.

3:56However, I pose the fact that if you're 65, you're about to retire, yeah, you have some major considerations in play and big decisions to make. You're thinking about distribution rate of your portfolio, how do you allocate, do you pay off your mortgage and tax strategy and social security. But really, that's the extent of it for the most part. And maybe annually, you check in and make sure you're not over-under spinning your portfolio. You juxtapose that to people like me and you. Just consider the amount of decisions and opportunities that you face between your late 20s and early 40s, and the impact even the small decisions can have over a long period of time and how those decisions can compound and have a large impact on your financial life now and down the line.

4:41And that can go through the implications on your financial life. So just negotiating a salary, starting a business, doing proper tax planning, all of those fun things and how those can accumulate and compound, but also just the life impact. I've had the opportunity to work with tens of thousands of people and families over the years. And the majority of my time for a long time was spent helping physicians in their retirement planning. So these people were making$500 ,000 up to a couple million dollars a year, had good net worth. And so many of these families had massive regret, not along their money, but along their life decisions and the sacrifices they made to accumulate their wealth.

5:20So yeah, it's a dollars and cents side of things, but it's also a life planning and intentionality along making sure you're doing what's important to you in your life. I really see financial planning as a big puzzle that goes beyond the numbers of the dollars and cents, like you mentioned, working with someone like yourself just makes sense for many people in order to ensure that they're making decisions that align with their values and where they want to be years down the road. Just due to all of the complexity, it makes total sense to me why someone would want to work with someone like yourself.

5:52You spoke to it there. First, identifying the values and the goals, and then allocating your assets to make sure you're in line with that. And that's exactly what we do with our clients. So before someone becomes a client, when we first make an introduction, if they say, hey, I'm curious about learning more, the first step is not talking about mutual funds, or even talking about when you want to retire or how much money you want to have. Those are simply supporting actors in the narrative of what you want to do with your life and who you want to be. So foundationally, that's what we want to understand is truly, who are you?

6:23What do you hope to achieve in your life? Who do you want to be? What do you want? What do you want to be known for? Those that we identify as your core values, the underlying why. Once we fully understood that, and you know it about yourself, so many people don't stop to peel the layers back. Like, oh, I'd like to do this in my life. Then you press them on why. A lot of times there's not an answer there. So once we've pressed the individual on why, and usually we're working with family. So once both spouses are aware, that's really important to you. I didn't know that about you. And they're fully known as a couple.

6:52And I fully know what's going on here about the values. Then we can go into the goals. Goals change. Clay, I'd venture to say that your goals today are probably a lot different than they were five years ago. And realistically, they're going to be pretty different in five years than they are today. And that's okay. The purpose of a goal is really just to help put a stake in the sand of the best next step to take and the direction ahead, understanding that your goals will change over time. But we start with values, then we establish goals. And once we have those set, then we look at the decisions.

7:22Everything in life requires a decision. There's always trade-offs. There's always opportunity costs. So we want to make sure that those decisions you make are done intentionally and in full view of really what's important to you. And then finally, once we've looked at the decisions you're going to have to navigate, then we can actually make smart, intentional actions that actually align with who you want to be, what you want to do, and align that all the way to the actions you're taking. And that is really what we're doing. And yeah, like I said earlier, the mutual funds and the tax planning and the goals, even those, those are supporting actors in the narrative of what you're trying to achieve in your life.

7:55That is why this stuff excites me. You're right. What I do is basically working a giant puzzle where the rules constantly change. And we're also dealing with human emotions and biases and desires. And it's so exciting. I love what I get to do. Yeah. It's important you bring up human emotions. That can really complicate things when it comes to investor psychology and sticking to the plan and remembering where you want to be in the long ground. So when should someone consider working with a financial planner? Is it right when they start their first full-time job or is it possibly later in life when there's much more complexity around their finances?

8:35I'd say the moment that you recognize that your situation is more complex or requires more than you're able to put into it. And really, there's actually three things we look at. There's will, skill, and time. So one, do you have the will, the desire to manage this? So for me, for instance, changing my oil is a pretty simple thing to do. And technically, I have the time. But frankly, I don't want to wake up on Saturday morning and go lay on my driveway in 100-degree weather in July here in Texas. I'd rather hire that out so I can go and play with my kids on Saturday morning. So that's the will.

9:07Then the skill. Changing oil is easy, but doing something more complex in my car, I don't want to mess with that because I'm going to screw something up probably. So you have to look at your skill. And then finally, the time factor. Most of my clients are smarter than I am, but they're busy individuals. So if you can say, like, yeah, I have the will, the skill, and the time to do this, awesome, self-manage. But if you can't check all those boxes, I would challenge for you to consider maybe working with someone. And again, you actually brought up the point a second ago, you said, once things are more complex later on in life, again, I would venture to say that, personally, maybe I won't speak for you.

9:40My wife, her name's Kendra. I'm 31. She's 32. We have three kids. Our life, I would pose is much more complex and requires a lot more analytical thinking on a regular basis than someone who is older, someone who is 64 and has$4 million and they're just looking at retirement planning. We are constantly navigating small and big decisions that will have massive impact on my family and the generations to follow. And I want to make sure we're doing that well and intentionally for me, for my kids and my grandkids. So you mentioned that you work with a lot of millennials and younger people. How does working with millennials differ from other types of clients or maybe clients that are a little bit older?

10:20So again, if we're looking at someone who's about to retire, there's pretty normal things we're looking at as far as you've accumulated, how do we spend this down? How do we do this in a tax-efficient manner? When do we pull in? How does pensions and fixed income and social security fit into this? And all those things. It's about it. Typically, most good financial planners are serving that client base. Again, because we look at compensation models and there's historical norms of the industry. And yeah, typically that type of advisor, you're going to be working with them and checking in probably annually, maybe twice a year, because your life is not that ever changing when you're 68.

10:55There's not much that comes up. We work specifically with younger families. So our families are going to fall between, say, mid to late 20s to early 40s. And the types of decisions you're navigating, there's more breadth to those, and they happen more often. So Kendra and I, we've somehow managed to squeeze in a vast majority of the decisions that our client set faces. We squeeze that in to like three years, and it's been a wild three years. So our clients typically, we're looking at both spouses are working pre-kids maybe, and maybe one or two or both are at a large corporate job. And then you have to think about, all right, we're going to leave, we're going to go to a small business, one will stay at a corporate job.

11:33Okay, now we're having a kid. One spouse, do we stay at home? What's the impact on that? What do we need with our job? Now, maybe you want to start a business. Now we think about how do we cashflow? How do we fund this business? How do we live off of our savings? Or how do we get income from our business immediately? Do I jump right in while working in something else at the same time so we can pay for our cost of living? Or do I jump ship from my nine to five so I can fully devote myself to this business? And if we do that, what are the implications? If my spouse, like Kendra, Kendra left her job to stay at home with our kids.

12:03if you do that, and then you go start a business, how do you get healthcare? Healthcare for family when you're self-employed? How do you navigate these decisions? All the while you're thinking about the more traditional things as far as retirement savings and paying down debt or utilizing debt properly. And now that you have those kids, what do you do for college funding? And what about, have you bought your first house yet? If you own a house, are you buying a second house and you build a real estate empire? Or are you looking at Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies or traditional investments? And what about my 401k plan and my stock compensation?

12:35I'm sure right now I'm just naming off a handful of examples, but these come up very regularly. Because of that, our firm, we meet with our clients when we have macro big picture meetings twice per year. But also we're looking at the remaining 10 months of the year, we're doing deep dives on micro topics that have an impact on your life. So next month, for instance, November, Remember, we're doing a deep dive on tax planning for our clients to make sure we're wrapping things up for the year for tax strategy before it's too late. It requires a lot more hands-on. I couldn't serve my clients in the way that we should if we're only touching base once a year.

13:12One, we overlook a lot of things. And two, that one per year meeting would be probably like seven hours long. So you touched on how there's just so much to juggle for some millennial families. You have two jobs to manage potentially, maybe there's additional jobs outside of that. You got who's going to handle the health insurance, how are we going to pay for the kids, how are we going to plan for college and retirement and all this. So whatever the case may be, how can millennials stay on top of everything when it comes to their finances and keep everything organized? You can go the old-fashioned way and get an Excel spreadsheet or a Word doc or a Google doc and just try to manage it.

13:49But for our clients, I recognize that there's, again, because of the ever-changing landscape, you're not hiring a financial planner to give you a one-time map. A map or a plan is going to be dead the moment that your life and your situation changes. So you need something that's going to be able to track dynamically and be more agile for you. So if you're planning on your own, again, you need some sort of resource that's going to be able to be agile with your life. You can't have something that's going to just, hey, here's what we're doing and we'll reference this once per year. So our client base, we use a software, just a phone app that allows me and my clients to communicate on a regular basis on specific points of their financial life.

14:27So I can, at an instant, see what's your savings rate, what's your spending rate, what's your tax rate, what's your equity rate in your investment accounts, what's your debt rate, all of these things. So we can real-time check in on these pieces of your financial life to see how they're fitting together. How are you going to do that on your own? Again, you probably default back to good old fashioned Excel and try to keep track of these touch points. And again, you want to make sure you're not getting buried in the weeds as far as like, oh gosh, there's so many people I think who put so much time into managing a dozen credit cards so they can optimize their points or something, which I guess that's sort of cool.

15:04But my concern there is if you're so myopic on this little piece, chances are you're letting them, something else is slipping that has a lot more impact on your life. So zoom out, remind yourself, why am I doing this? What is of premier value to what we're trying to achieve? And what are the big things that we can accomplish first? And then what are the supporting characters in that? Yeah. Focusing on getting the maximum number of credit card points that the intentions are well, but maybe the focus isn't in the right spot when it comes to your finances. You touched a little bit on debt. So part of managing your finances, it's determining how you're going to manage your debt as you approach retirement.

15:42And debt is part of many millennials' lives today, especially in the low interest rate environment today, and just how expensive some things are, such as college and healthcare and such. Do you encourage your clients to get debt paid off early by making extra payments, or do you prefer that they focus more on investing if they have all of their high interest debt paid off? So I don't want to be cliche for a financial planner, but it depends. Now, you asked about high interest debt. Yeah, obviously, if you're serving your credit card debt at 28%. That's a guaranteed negative 28 % rate of return.

16:15I can't guarantee that on an investment. The no brainers pay that thing off. The question comes up on the other end of the pendulum is looking at if you have a mortgage at 2.65 % for a 30 year, my personal conviction and what I advise clients is hang on to that bad boy, frankly, with right now the CPI. If you even trust that CPI is a true gauge of inflation, which I certainly don't, but let's be generous and say CPI is real. CPI itself right now is at what, five and a half roughly. So if your mortgage is two and a half and CPI is at five and a half, you're actually achieving a 3 % arbitrage by carrying that debt.

16:49Now, the question really comes in, if you're looking at debt, that's typically between like six to 9 % roughly, that's where you're going to say like, what are your thoughts? And really, we have to look at what are your convictions as an individual? How is this going to impact your cashflow? What's the opportunity cost for you guys? when we look at how do we pay this off versus where else we could deploy assets. So there's certainly good rules of thumb, but rules of thumb are meant to be general indicators. And then from there, we dive in specifically to figure out how this is going to impact you.

17:20Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Even Einstein had blind spots. That's why modern science is built on the idea of peer review. Investing may be more art than science, but that doesn't make peer feedback any less valuable. The tricky thing is finding qualified people who are interested and willing to help vet your investment ideas. That's why we built the Intrinsic Value Community. It's a place to connect, share ideas, learn, and get feedback. Nobody ever wishes they'd spent more time buried in spreadsheets, but connecting and building relationships with others who may be smarter on a topic than you, but who are also schooled in value investing, that's valuable.

17:57We make spots in this exclusive community available in cohorts every few months. And last time around, our 30 available spots filled up pretty quickly. If you're interested in our next cohort, which will be even smaller, you can join the waitlist at theinvestorspodcast.com slash intrinsic value community. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash intrinsic value community. Support for the show comes from public.com. You're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got your core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic option plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and public gets that.

18:35That's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can put together a multi-asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto, it's all there. Plus, industry-leading yields on your cash with no fees or minimums. Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.com slash CIVP and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash T-I-V-P. Paid for by public investing, full disclosures in podcast description. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor, and I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on.

19:20But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investors Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors, and now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with. With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more.

19:59To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. And for a limited time, you can use code STOCKS15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. All right, back to the show. I agree that there is no one size fits all solution to this issue. Higher interest debt, you obviously want to pay off as soon as possible. It can really just eat away your financial situation if you let it get out of hand. But I can see that for many people, they might be fine with holding lower interest debt, especially something like a mortgage that is backed by an asset that generally goes up over time.

20:43And like you mentioned, when the interest is very low, it's even lower than the inflation rate today. So you're actually coming out ahead just by carrying that debt and exploiting that arbitrage? I have a client that they're making really good money. They're in their early 30s, making well over half a million dollars a year annual income, and they live well below their means. They're living as if they made 60 grand a year. This family, we've been working together for a couple of years now, and they came to us, they're big Dave Ramsey people. So they're very big on, hey, we want to pay off all of our debt, including our mortgage.

21:16I talked to them about the opportunity cost and, hey, if we just refi down to this interest rate from your current. You'll have the savings and blah, blah, blah. But their thought is, we just want to pay it off. That's what we're comfortable with. And I told them, frankly, your savings rate and your income and where you're at right now, this is not going to make or break your plan. So what's going to help you sleep at night is going to be paying off the debts. Awesome. Let's do that. There's no reason for you not to. Yeah, we could argue that we would achieve better. The Monte Carlo simulation would better if we didn't pay off your house.

21:47But you're a person with emotions and convictions. You're not a Monte Carlo simulation. We're not trying to solve for the optimal financial situation. We're trying to solve for the way that, how do you live the life you want to live? And it's not about the numbers. It's not about the money. Your money is simply a tool and a resource that is there to help you do what's important to you in life. It's not about the money. It's about what the money is there for. We have to keep that in mind. That is a really good point. So like anything in life, there are opportunity costs and trade-offs when it comes to how you allocate your money.

22:19For example, say you have an extra few thousand dollars from a tax refund. You could use that to take a vacation, go buy new furniture, or even choose to fund your investment accounts and buy more investments. How can millennials plan for and invest in their future while still living for today? How can they find the right balance between the two? I love that because really that's what we're here. There's value in planning for the future, but there's wisdom in planning for the future while living in the present. We don't want to overlook that. Again, that's a big influence on how I work with clients is the stories I heard from so many people at previous firms.

22:57So again, I alluded to this earlier, I worked with retirement planning for years. So I heard a lot of stories about, hey, your success and all that stuff. But here's how those conversations went a lot of times. Was you're a physician, you're making$900 ,000 a year, and you've got a really good nest egg saved up. And so we talk like, hey, this is great. Congratulations. You've done really well. You can retire and continue doing well. And you've achieved it. I want to hear your story. Why did you get into medicine? How did you get here? And here's the story I hear very often from these types of people is, well, when I was a kid, we didn't have much.

Read the full transcript

23:32And I always heard my parents fight about money. And we didn't know when the lights were going to get turned off. We didn't know we were going to eat. Our clothes were tattered. I got made fun of because I couldn't get my hair cut. My mom would do it with a bowl. So when I was 9, 10, 11 years old, I decided I want to make sure that my kids have a better childhood than I had. And then I went into medicine and we've made a lot of money and we did it. Wow, that's awesome. So you made all this money, but you said you want to do this so your kids could have a better childhood than you had. How was that?

23:59How was having a family? How were your kids' childhood? And man, right now I want to get tears. So often, these families sit back and think about that for their first time. It's like they realize for the first time in decades why they set out on this. and they think, they tell me, I don't know how my kid's childhood was. I was so busy working and saving that I don't know, maybe they had a good childhood, but I was never present. Yeah, they had lots of nice stuff, but frankly, I don't know them. And that's really, really sad. That's why I do what I do. We're here to help you do what's important to you.

24:36That's like Stephen Covey talks about climbing a ladder that's leaned against the wrong wall. There are so many people who are successful financially. They climbed the ladder. They reached the upper rings of the ladder just to realize, my gosh, I worked really hard and I climbed really fast and I beat everyone else. That's not what I wanted. And we have to make sure you're not doing that. So yeah, I have a client right now. I have a few clients. They're in the military. They're stationed overseas. And one comes to mind. I love this family. They're living in Germany right now. They're stationed overseas for three years.

25:03And they have two girls, two young girls. They got an 11-year-old and I think 11 and 9. I might be be mistaken on the ages. But yeah, let's say 11 to 9. They went over there and they said, Jim, we've never been to Europe. We want to explore while we're here, but can we do this? Is that smart for our plan? I told them, we got some of their top destinations. I said, hey, you better go to these places before this year or else you're going to be in trouble. That's a homework and assignment for you. You'll never get these moments back with your kids. There's going to be plenty of time to save. There's going to be plenty of time to invest, but invest in your family.

25:38Let's not be goofy and go and blow money. It's all about being intentional. It's all about assessing the opportunity cost. And is the opportunity cost of letting moments and memories slip by with my kids so I can have a little bit bigger 401k? Man, I wouldn't take that trade off any day of the week. So again, there's opportunity costs in everything. We're not just looking at comparing rates of return, but really your life. And what are we giving up? So what can we go big for. You hit on a few points that I just love. The one that hit home for me was your ladder analogy where someone works so hard to climb up a ladder just to realize that they climbed up the wrong ladder.

26:14It's an important reminder to stay grounded in what you truly value and recognize if your actions are aligned with those values and determine if you're climbing up the right ladder. Exactly. That's why we don't start in goals. We peel it back. For instance, Again, my client base want early financial independence. So typically, the families I work with want the option to not have to work by the time they're mid to late 40s. It's very typical. Ironically, pretty much all my clients love what they do. They just don't want to have to do it per se. They want the freedom to not have to. So we're working with families who want early work optionality.

26:48And typically, the reason they want that is because they want to have more time with the people they love. So the goal is early work optionality. If we stop right there, I would say, awesome, work more hours, save more, and you can do it better. I'd pull that string back. Hey, why do you want to be able to be off work early? For me, I want to be able to not have to work by the time I'm 45. The reason there is because when I'm 45, my kids will be in their late teens. So they'll be before they go off the call and get married. And we love, like I mentioned earlier, we love getting in the mountains.

27:18I would love to be able to go and do the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail and the PCT, all these big trails with my kids while they still have time. So that's the reason why. But being informed of the underlying why, because I want more time with my kids, it would be foolish to say, hey, I'm going to work really hard so I have more time with my kids, yet neglect the time with my kids while they're under my roof because I'm working so hard. So that informs the decisions I make for long-term planning, but also the decisions I make right now. If I'm doing this so I can spend more time with my kids, yeah, save aggressively so I can retire early, but also be there to read to my kids at night.

27:54You've got to find this balance. And you're not going to be able to do that if you're running simply off of goals. You have to pull that thread further to see like, why do I want this? And you keep asking why until you actually have the thing that makes you go, huh, yeah, that's it. Then you know you're there. So you mentioned financial independence and that work optionality. Phrases like financial independence and financial freedom are really thrown around a lot. And I think it'd be good just to touch on, especially for those that just aren't too familiar, what exactly does it mean to be financially independent?

28:29That's a good question. That sounds so simple. The traditional, from what I'm aware of, and you can correct me, maybe you know this more than I do, but my views of the FIRE movement, which is financial independence, retire early. My thoughts on the traditional FIRE movement is I'm going to work really hard for X number of years, whether or not I like my job, so I can save super aggressively and then not have to work and retire by the time I'm 36. And usually, and maybe I'm putting words in everyone else's mouths, but this is my observation from the outside in. I'm going to work really hard doing this job I don't like.

29:03I'm going to live really below my means, missing out on lots of opportunities so I can save aggressive right now. So when I'm 36, I can retire and go backpack in Southeast Asia. And here's the problem with that. And again, maybe I'm really mischaracterizing this, but my thought, if that is what you're looking for, one, what are you missing out on today? What's the opportunity cost? Two, if you are thinking that you're going to be satisfied whenever you're done working at 36 and you're in Southeast Asia backpacking, you're going to get there and realize real quick that one, you're empty because you don't have community.

29:34And two, you're empty because you don't have a means of accomplishment and doing and serving and building and growing. So work optionality and financial independence to me is not retirement. My goodness, Most people who retire at a traditional age at 66 or whatever, realize after two months of playing golf with their buddies that I really don't like spending that much time with these guys and I'm tired of golf. It's getting my blood pressure up. How much more so if you do that when you're in your 30s? So it's not about, again, we're not talking about early retirement. We're talking about early optionality and independence.

30:05And again, I've had a ton of these conversations. There's three big things that come up with the reasons I want financial dependence. So I can spend more time with those I love. So I can focus on my health and wellness. And so I can pursue passion projects. That can be nonprofit or hobby or business. So it's not about stopping working. It's about, I just want to be able to do these things if I choose to. That's really important to focus on here. Yes. I really like how you brought up the reasons why someone would want to become financially independent. It's not so you can say you just retired at 40 years old and you're never going to work again in your life.

30:39We're not wired to just sit around all day doing nothing. You want to do things you enjoy, whether that be, like you said, passion projects or just lines of work that you enjoy doing, that might require some sort of pay cut, or just having that flexibility to spend more time with your family. It's something we do here. So whenever we go through a process of building a plan and talking about this stuff, we go through, we start off talking about digging into the values. We define goals. We assess where you're at current financial situation, and we discuss how we can get from here to there and the decisions and the things that are possibly going to come up along the way, the things that are lurking around the corner that we want to plan for and account for.

31:18But we always circle back before we go and create a solid plan. We define for all of our clients what we call a statement of financial purpose. And what we ask them to do is, I desire early financial independence so that... And I have them answer the question. And if it is so I can spend more time with the people I love and give more generously to the causes we care about, I'm going to press you to do that now as well. How can we make sure we're integrating those things today while being able to go bigger on them later on? That's what it's about. The independence part is not about one day I'm going to hopefully be able to do that.

31:50It's like, I don't know. I want to be able to go bigger if I can. That's what we're looking for. If someone were to ask me, what does it take to be financially independent? Two ways that come to my mind are by one, withdrawing from a portfolio of assets, such as a stock portfolio, or two, building the cash flow to pay for your lifestyle, such as through a real estate or a dividend paying stocks portfolio. Are those scenarios that you talk through with your clients? I like that definition. Not to get too meta or anything, but you could also maybe challenge that independence is simply a state of being satisfied with your situation, whatever it looks like.

32:32I had a client I work with that she was an executive at a major corporation. And in one of our meetings, one of our first meetings, she just started crying. What's going on? I mean, we were here for a long time. Found out, she said, and the last time I was actually happy, I feel like I'm a slave with golden handcuffs to this job. And the last time I was actually happy was when I was in college and I was pouring drinks at Starbucks for 20 hours a week. So we set up, all right, your definition of independence is by 45, be able to quit your nine to five, your much more hours than that. To be able to quit your corporate handcuff, massive cash cow job, have enough money to basically live off what you need, go sling lattes a few hours a week.

33:11You'll like that stuff. So is she financially independent because technically she needs to work a few hours a week at Starbucks or a local coffee shop? We could argue the technicalities there, but in her mind, she made it. She's doing something she likes. That's what we're looking for. I talk a lot of the more out there types of things. I certainly don't want to discount the technical side. So yeah, we're looking at cashflow and distribution of assets and all those fun things. So what that looks like for our client, for instance, net worth is great to track. It's a really good metric to see how am I doing?

33:40How am I progressing? But net worth is flawed in some senses. For instance, if let's say your net worth is 3 million, but you have a$2.5 million house, Like, whoop-de-doo, what are you going to do? You can't retire. You're really creative on maybe tapping into equity on your house. But besides that, you're sort of stuck. So we go beyond net worth and we look at, we call it your financial independence number. So for instance, let's say, Clay, that you desire to have$100 ,000 of annual income at retirement. That's your financial independence number. I can do whatever I want at that point. Then we look at what's your current investment assets plus savings accounts, whatever that is.

34:19So if you're currently sitting at, let's say a million dollars, and we're going to assume for a safe withdrawal rate of 4%, just for fun. So 4 % distribution rate. So that's 40 grand that we could assume that you can pull from your investments. Your goal is 100. From your investment assets, we're looking at 40 grand. So we need another 60. We have a 4 % distribution of investments. Then we look at fixed income assets during retirement. So if you also have maybe a small real estate portfolio that's pulling in 30 grand a year from real estate. So now we're at 70. And then let's say you said, Jim, I truly want to go work at a French bistro.

34:54I want to go work at a winery for 10 hours a week. That would be amazing. Say, do you really want to do that? Say, yeah. Okay. Let's say you'll make 15 grand a year. So you're getting, again, 40 grand from your portfolio, 15 grand now from the winery. And what did I say? 35 from... So now we're at 90 grand. So we look at that, your fixed income distribution from your investments, you're at$90 ,000. Your goal is$100 ,000. So you're 90 % away to your financial independence number. So now we look at, well, we can define financial independence by either saying, I really only want$90 ,000. I'm there.

35:28Or we can look at increasing your investment assets, buying more cash flowing assets, or saying, I'm fine to work a fun job a few more hours a week. And hey, we made it. Very interesting perspective. I think the topics that you're bringing up are topics that I don't believe many people understand the mechanics around it and how it's possible to retire in your 30s or 40s. You're actually working with the real people that are doing this, and it's not like they're hitting the lottery to make it happen. They're putting in the work and the time and being intentional with what they want out of life.

36:04A lot of people out there just believe that working until you're 65 is just the way life is and there aren't really other options to explore. Have you found that to be a part of your job as well? Just explaining that to people and opening their minds up to what's possible for them? Our generation is starting to become more familiar with the concept of early retirement and those sorts of things. And I think we're really drawn away from the traditional retirement scenario of like you work at a big company, you get a pension, then you're out at 65 and you watch Jeopardy most of the days and go play golf once a week and then head to Florida for a few months a year.

36:44I think that's a huge disconnect from that in our generation. But yeah, despite the fact that most people I work with don't want that, there's still a disconnect of bridging. Well, if I don't want that, really, what do I want and how do I get from here to there? A lot of this, again, you mentioned earlier, it's what I do is like working a big puzzle, but it's fun because it's not just these set in stone math pieces. The math is actually the easiest part of my job. It's the creativity of what do you want and what are other ways of getting here? That's the fun part. And opening people's mind to what's possible if we just consider other things besides you work, you save, you retire.

37:22What else can we do? Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Hey, it's Sean O'Malley, just popping in with a quick message. If you like this podcast, well, I've got great news for you. We've got a handful of other shows for you to explore, from learning about Bitcoin to embracing a richer, wiser, happier lifestyle. Just go into your podcast app and type in We Study Billionaires to find our collection of shows. We Study Billionaires is our flagship podcast, and we've made a name for ourselves over the years by interviewing the best investors in the world, including Ray Dalio, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, and many, many more.

37:59My colleagues Stig Brodersen, Clay Fink, Kyle Greve, Preston Pysh, and William Green each host their own We Study Billionaires episodes and bring their own unique perspectives. A whole new world of insights awaits you. Just go ahead and type in We Study Billionaires into your podcast app and see what you've been missing out on. Seriously, go ahead. I promise you'll like what you find. Bonus points if you show your support for our work by clicking follow. If something piques your interest, just start listening. No hard feelings. I'll be waiting for you back here. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor.

38:32And I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on. But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investor's Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors. And now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with. With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros.

39:02The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more. To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. And for a limited time, you can use code STOCKS15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. Not to be cliche, but building a market-beating portfolio really doesn't have to be a mystery, at least with the right tools.

39:43If you've listened to our podcast for a while, then you know we spend a lot of time learning from savvy investors. So why not use the same tools we do? With TIP Finance, you can. Screening for great companies, calculating intrinsic value, keeping up with legendary investors' portfolios, and more are all not just possible, but easy to do. TIP Finance was created by investors for investors. It's quite literally the tools we wanted to use ourselves when researching investments in a simple to use interface. You can get started by creating an account for free. Who knows, maybe TIP Finance will help you find your next 100 to 1 investment.

40:22Between the screener and Legend Investment Portfolios to reference, I've gotten a ton of ideas from TIP Finance. What are you waiting for? Take the next step in your investment journey today with the right tools at your fingertips. Grab your device and type into your browser, theinvestorspodcast.com slash tip-finance to get started. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash tip-finance. All right, back to the show. I think a lot of people struggle with their finances due to information overload. With the internet today, information is free and everywhere. So you'll read one thing on the internet today And the next day, you'll read an article on the same topic that tells you to do the exact opposite of what the previous article told you to do.

41:11So how can people sort through all of the conflicting information and know how to use it and how to apply it to their lives properly? A perfect example of this is the pay off your debts versus investing the extra cash debate. Okay, perfect. So let's say for fun, you run into that and you read an article. One, how does that actually apply to you? not just the dollars and cents, but yourself and where you're at and the opportunity cost again. If you have 100 grand set aside and you have$100 ,000 of low interest debt for a mortgage, and you're wanting to start a business next month and you need that money, paying off your house is probably a really bad idea considering you're needing to cash flow your lifestyle next month.

41:51So take your situation into consideration. Two, I guess, again, besides the soft, fluffy stuff, also the more analytical, actually, how do I weigh these conflicting articles? This article says X is good. This article says X is bad, and you need to go with Y. How do I actually know which one's true? That's tough. There's a lot of people out there who are, one, paid to just put out content despite the quality of it, or two, they're paid to sell a product. And it's really important. If you're reading an article, or even if you're going to a local financial advisor, you need to understand there's a difference between a financial planner and a salesman who just happens to sell a financial product.

42:30You've got to consider that. And yeah, if you're reading an article that talks about, hey, buying this whole life insurance policy, because it's going to be tax-free and infinite banking, and you're going to be super duper rich. Yeah, I think why would they say this? And are they also offering the alternatives to juxtapose to what they're saying and to justify why this is good? And that's a lot of information. Gosh, I can present these conflicting things about a million topics. So to take in all of these and then weigh the differences, that is heavy. Honestly, I forget if you're really involved with whatever your job is, if you work on cars, you forget that most people get nervous just thinking about a transmission because you're around them all day.

43:10I'm sort of in the business, but it's a fair question. It's tough to do. I can relate to that. There are definitely a lot of nuances when it comes of finance. And I see it with people contacting me on how they should be handling certain things, whether it be their investment strategy, retirement planning, or whatever. It can be daunting having to figure all that out yourself. So I'm curious, what are the most common goals you see from millennials you've worked with? Kinder and I are pretty prototypical of our client base. So that makes it really easy. I typically understand where are these people coming from, what they want to achieve.

43:48I don't know everybody, but I have a general understanding. Again, I've had about 30 ,000 of these conversations now. So I have a pretty good base case for what we're looking at. And then again, because my wife and I and our family are pretty, we're in the same situation. I understand what you're talking about. I understand the conversations that are happening behind closed doors too. Can I answer that question with a story real quick? Because I think we'll paint a clear picture of what this looks like. If you haven't picked on it by now, I really like what I do. I'm a workaholic because one, one, this is my job, but two, it's also just my hobby.

44:17I fall asleep every night reading about tax strategies and estate planning opportunities and investments and stuff. This is what I like. And Kendra, when she was working, she didn't get that. She was working at a... Actually had a great corporate job, but at that point, we had one kid and we were about to have a second. She really wanted to be able to leave her job and be at home with our boys. And poor Kendra had to hear me every night talk about this new client story or this new tax planning strategy that's coming around the corner. And one night, kids were down, we're having dinner, and she stopped me.

44:48I was telling her a story. She said, Jim, I just don't get it. Why do you like your job so much? It doesn't make sense. I can't stand what I do, and I can't imagine you loving what you do either. I said, well, what do you think that I do? When you picture a financial planner, what actually comes to mind? What do you think's going on at the office? When I think about a financial planner, I guess I picture an old guy in a big pinstripe suit and one of those white collared shirt and he's got cuff links on. I walk into this office and it's, yeah, it's all mahogany and a really big table. And I'm sitting in this massive leatherback chair.

45:20And yeah, I've got this guy on the other side of the table wearing this nice suit. And then we sit down for two hours and he interrogates me for why am I spending so much money on clothes and makeup? And how much money do I think I'm going to need for utilities when I'm 73? And what type of mutual funds do I want? My rate of return. And we talk about all these things. And then he gives me, after two hours of this interrogation, he slides across the table, a two-inch booklet of charts and graphs and rate of returns on investments. And I sit there and nod my head, pretending I know what he's talking about, because otherwise, I'm afraid I'll look dumb because everyone should know this, I guess.

45:54And then he tells me that, hey, you may or may not be able to retire in 35 years. Come back next year and we'll do this again. She said, that sounds like a really bad experience. One, it sounds bad for me. I wouldn't like that. But also, as you as the old man in the office, that sounds like a pretty boring job. I don't get it. Okay, if that's what you picture and it sounds so bad, what would actually be a good experience for you? What would you want if you could talk to someone about this? She sat back and she just thought for a minute. She said, I wish that you and I had someone that we could go and talk to together, that we could talk about what we want in our life and they can guide us, help us getting there.

46:35Is it possible for me to leave my job and actually be at home with the boys? What would it look like for you to actually leave your nine to five and go start your own firm? And do we need to work till we're 65? Or what does early retirement look like? Could we get a house in Jackson Hole or Telluride one day? Or is that only for the mega rich? Do we pay for college? Do they pay for it? Do we homeschool or private school or public school? All the things that we want in our life. And then also, I want someone to bounce ideas off of so I can get peace of mind for the things I'm afraid are going to happen.

47:06Someone else like, is this going to be okay? So I just wish we had someone to talk to us about what we don't have to look like. Someone else to help guide us along the way. I just got this massive grin. She said, that just doesn't sound like a financial planner. It sounds more like a life planner. I was like, babe, what you just described is exactly what I do. It's about your life. Your money is just a way of supporting that. And that's why I get excited. Frankly, I don't love numbers per se. I get excited when I look at someone's situation, say, hey, if we do X, you'll save$80 ,000 in taxes over the next five years.

47:37I don't get excited about$80 ,000. I get excited about the fact that that is all the more times you can go to Disney with your family. And that's a down payment on that cabin in the woods that y 'all can make memories at for generations to come. That pumps me up. That's why I get excited about this. So I tell you that, like that, in there is sminkered around some things. So typically, yeah, my clients, they're like us. Like, hey, can one spouse maybe leave work to be with our kids more? Or maybe we want to leave our nine to five job and start doing this fun passion project that, hey, maybe snowball into a big business one day, but that's not our goal.

48:12And again, what would it look like to not have to work forever? And typically, a lot of families want to possibly have a beach house or a mountain house one day. And typically, we want to be more generous with the causes and the people we care about, the people around us want to make sure we're supporting. It's a lot of those things. They just want to figure out there's an easier way to do it if it's possible. All these things sound so big. We don't know if it's even within reach and reasonable to do. That's a big problem, I think, with a lot of people desire this stuff. That's, I think, a reason that money is really the last taboo.

48:44It's not really talked about. Recently, a guy went around in New York, actually, before all this COVID shutdown. The guy went around New York asking people, when was the last time you had sex? And pretty much everyone answered that question. And then he asked, hey, how much do you have in your bank account? And people were telling him to get out of here. People don't talk about this stuff. And I think the reason is you show me your spending habits. You show me your credit card statement or whatever, and you show me your calendar, and I'll be able to tell you what you're valuing in your life. And the problem is one, most people have a disconnect between what they say is important to them and the way they're actually living their life.

49:17And I think a big reason for that is because if you say that you want something, but you don't think it's actually within reach, you're not going to actually live in line with that. That would be cool, but it's not possible. So I'm not going to make the sacrifices even to be able to do that. I don't remember who said it, but you can have anything you want in life. You just can't have everything you want. Most people don't realize that. So I'll just keep going and doing what I'm doing because really, is it possible to do that? I don't know. So whatever. I'm just going to keep living it. Robert Leonard After doing some research on you, I saw that you are a fan of Bitcoin, which is a topic I would love to dive into.

49:51So millennials today are faced with a very expensive stock market when analyzing traditional measures. And it makes Bitcoin potentially something that's attractive to investors to enhance returns on your portfolio. What is your take on Bitcoin and should millennials consider it as a part of their financial plan? Clay, you're going to get me in trouble with all the other financial planners out there. I take a lot of flack for this. So I'm a big fan of Bitcoin. Kendra and I, pretty much almost all of our net worth is in Bitcoin. I don't know if you have the disclosure before I have to show, but don't take this as investment advice.

50:27This is just anecdotal. But yeah, my family, about 95 % of our net worth is in Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining companies, just the way things fell and our convictions. Our clients, we're very big on Bitcoin. Last week, we hosted a seminar for our clients about buying, holding, custodying, securing your Bitcoin. This is something we're actively bringing up. I'm not waiting for my clients to ask me and I'm hiding from it because I want them to be in traditional assets. No, we're proactively talking about this. Our average client has 10 % to 20 % of their total investable assets in Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related companies.

51:00This is something we're definitely pursuing, we believe we have high conviction on. We make sure we educate our clients as to why we're doing this, what the opportunity cost and what the opportunity is here. Yeah, certainly the risk and the volatility. But yeah, this is something we're all over. You touched on asset allocation there. When you have a new client that would like to gain exposure to Bitcoin, what advice do you give them as far as an allocation towards Bitcoin? Robert Leonard Again, not to be cliche, but it depends. But again, going back, typically our clients are 10 % to 20 % of total investable assets in this space.

51:36And when I say total investable assets, a lot of my clients, like most of your listeners, I'm assuming have money tied up in a 401k. So let's just make it easy. Let's say you have$400 ,000 tied up in a 401k and you have$100 ,000 outside of your 401k to invest, and you want 20 % of this in Bitcoin or Bitcoin companies, well, then we've got to take 100 % of what we're able to manage and put that into it considering your outside assets. So that's where we're at. Technically, we could go in and do a smaller allocation and I wouldn't fight you on that per se, but we manage this with pretty high conviction.

52:08And again, we certainly make sure our clients are educated and aware of the volatility. But also I let them know there's a massive difference between volatility and risk and talking through that. One of the biggest compliments I got earlier this year was when, remember Bitcoin went from in the 60s to 29 ,000. I didn't have a single client reach out, not a single client texted or called or emailed or whatever, freaking out, no one. And why was that? Well, it's because there's two things. One, they had conviction. We talked to them about why this is part of their portfolio. And two, they knew where it fit in their plan.

52:39They weren't sitting there sweating it because we just haphazardly put it in there. Like, no, this is part of what we're doing. We're informed. It's a purposeful, intentional thing we're doing here. We're in our portfolio sizing in our overall plan. That alone goes to show how well you do at educating your clients as this asset can be extremely volatile and really test your temperament. With that, how do you recommend your clients purchase Bitcoin? This is a question I get all the time. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this and what you tell people, because I suspect that you get this question a lot as well.

53:16There's a few ways that we can handle it. If you have taxable assets, so after tax money, typically I'm going to advise to self-custody. So then we'll talk about the tax implications, but also the options and the flexibility with custody on your own and all of that stuff. I think that obviously purely owning Bitcoin directly is the purest way of owning Bitcoin. And that's what I advocate for. So if someone says, perfect, let's go ahead and put X into Bitcoin itself. Then we'll talk about what exchange to use. We're going either to swan or strike depending on their needs and how quickly we want to get money in and how much and all that fun stuff.

53:50But then also we look at other means as well. So if a lot of my clients, again, have money in retirement accounts, or even Kendra and I, we have a lot of our assets wrapped up in retirement accounts. So if we're in that, yeah, we can look at self-directed IRAs. But an alternative is what we look at generally is going to have an account that's allocated to Bitcoin mining companies. So we have a discretionary portfolio that we've built that currently is allocated between Bate, Marathon, and Riot. So that's how we're also getting exposure inside of a Roth IRA is going to be through those mining companies.

54:23But again, money that's already after tax in taxable accounts, we'd like to go and see and put into a brilliant Bitcoin. So someone listening to this, and maybe after hearing your personal allocation and how much conviction do you have in this, they want to go and learn more. What resources would you recommend for them to start to dive in and learn more about Bitcoin? Not to pump it too much, but I would go to the Investor's Podcast with Preston Pysh, no doubt. I mean, Preston has had a massive impact on my life. I think he's a phenomenal resource. I heard about Bitcoin in 2012, but it was from a dude who was pretty much always high.

55:00So I'd put zero weight in what he had to say. And then I've been listening to Preston Stig since 2015, I believe. And they're just smart guys who aren't just talking about meme stocks and YOLOing into stuff. They're actually analyzing the value of what they're talking about. So when they started talking about Bitcoin, actually had some weight to it. So I'm onboarding a couple of clients right now. Today, we're setting up accounts. And this evening, we're going over, I'm going to their house and we're sitting down, we just opened up Roth IRAs. We're maxing those out. We're going to put those towards those mining companies.

55:31Then we're going to take the rest of the money. We're going to sit down. We're going to open up Swan. We're going to put a pretty hefty lump sum. Then we're going to talk about the different ways to store it. We'll probably put in a cold card. But yeah, education, these new clients, these other clients, like I said, we just did a seminar with Bitcoin itself. I brought in an expert for our clients to listen to. Yeah, gosh, I share podcasts all the time with friends and clients and families. Typically, it's going to be Preston. I know Robert Brelove's got a lot of flack over the last few months, but Preston's conversation with Robert, I don't know, what was that, like nine months ago, roughly?

56:05I think it was the first episode of the Bitcoin-specific podcast. It's like that one. I mean, that's good stuff. That's a resource I utilize all the time. Robert Leonard Yeah. For those who aren't familiar, Preston Pysh has a weekly Bitcoin-specific show. That is every Wednesday on the podcast under the Investors Podcast Network. It's called We Study Billionaires. It's released every Wednesday. He's been releasing that for just over a year now. And I am also a huge fan of that show as well, have been for quite a while. Before we wrap up the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency talk, do you only recommend Bitcoin or are you open to other digital assets as well.

56:44This is a question I get all the time. What do you think of Xcoin? What do you think of this one? So what do you tell your clients? I'm sure you get the same question too. All the time. I get it a couple times a day from people. I'm only in Bitcoin. Our clients only invest in Bitcoin. My family, we're only in Bitcoin, run other cryptocurrencies. I wouldn't say I'm not open, but man, you better present a really, really good case and bring about an attribute characteristic that Bitcoin doesn't have. And I've yet to see any other cryptocurrency that has the attributes that Bitcoin has. Because of that, we have very high conviction.

57:19You can turn on my laser eyes. I guess I would self-identify as a Bitcoin maxi. I didn't know Bitcoin culture existed. I've been doing this for a long time. And I never had a Twitter until earlier this year. I got in here, I was like, oh my gosh, there's a whole culture of people who are nuts, who love this stuff. So it's pretty fun getting on Twitter and seeing these other guys out here. I definitely am one of the guys who preaches Bitcoin, not crypto, Bitcoin, not blockchain, all that stuff you hear. Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming onto the show. I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed learning more about financial planning and diving into Bitcoin with you.

57:54Before we close out the episode, where can the audience go to connect with you and learn more about you? One, you can follow me on Twitter. My Twitter handle is Jim Kreider TX, as in Texas, Jim Kreider TX. And you can go to my website for our firm. It's Intentional Living FP, as in financial planning. So Intentional Living FP. And Clay, if you want, I can actually just make a landing page directly for all those listeners. I'll make that. So if you go to intentionallivingfp.com slash millennial investing, I'll make a landing page for you guys. I'll have my calendar right up front. So if you want to put 15 minutes on my calendar, honestly, if you have just an easy question or a stupid question, you want to ask me, hey, this on my 401k or Bitcoin or tax planning or whatever, put forth 15 minutes on there.

58:35I'll be glad to take a stab at that question for you. Or if you want to talk like, hey, things are getting a little bit more complex or whatever, and we're looking for a financial advisor, what would that look like? Or who should I talk to? I'd be more than happy to chat with you as well. So yeah, definitely open a chat if I can help out in any way. Fantastic. For those interested, we'll be sure to link all of those in the show notes. Jim, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, Clay. Thanks for having me again. I appreciate it. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please go ahead and follow us on your favorite podcast app so you can get these episodes delivered automatically.

59:08And if you haven't already done so, be sure to check out our website, theinvestorspodcast.com. There you'll find all of our episodes, some educational resources we have, as well as some tools you can use as an investor. And with that, we'll see you again next time. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by the Investors Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only.

59:47Before making any decision consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

From the publisher

Clay Finck chats with Jim Crider about the benefits of having a financial planner, how millennials differ from other clients Jim has worked with, what it really means to achieve financial independence, how to deal with information overload, Jim’s thoughts on Bitcoin, and much, much more!
Jim Crider is the founder of Intentional Living FP which helps families achieve early financial independence. Intentional Living FP helps their clients navigate the decisions, opportunities, and obstacles that they face so their money is used efficiently and effectively to serve its purpose in your life.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN
00:00 - Intro
02:33 - What the benefits are of having a financial planner.
07:36 - When someone should consider getting a financial planner themselves.
09:32 - The differences Jim has seen working with Millennials compared to other clients.
12:41 - How millennials living a busy life can stay on top of their finances.
22:36 - What millennials can do to find the right balance between preparing for your future, while still enjoying the present.
28:35 - What financial independence really means.
37:49 - Whether you should focus on paying off your debt early, or invest the extra cash.
37:49 - How to sort through and deal with information overload in a world where information is free and everywhere.
50:42 - Whether millennials should consider Bitcoin as a part of their financial plan.
50:42 - Jim's thoughts on how much Bitcoin to allocate in a portfolio.
55:29 - Jim’s recommended resources for learning about Bitcoin.
And much, much more!

*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES

Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Kyle and the other community members.

Listen to Bitcoin Fundamentals hosted by Preston Pysh.

Related Episode: Listen to MI115: Young Investor’s Getting Started w/ Kelly Lannan, or watch the video.

Related Episode: Listen to BTC001: Bitcoin Common Misconceptions w/ Robert Breedlove, or watch the video.

Check out the books mentioned in the podcast here.

Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our Premium Feed.

NEW TO THE SHOW?

Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok.

Check out our Millennial Investing Starter Packs.

Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here.

Try Kyle's favorite tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance.

Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services.

Stay up-to-date on financial markets and investing strategies through our daily newsletter, We Study Markets.

Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts.

SPONSORS
Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors:

TurboTax

Public

Airbnb

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

More from The Intrinsic Value Podcast - The Investor’s Podcast Network

All 315 episodes
MI Rewind: Bitcoin and Financial Independence w/ Jim CriderThe Intrinsic Value Podcast - The Investor’s Podcast Network · 56 min
Listen in VO