How to Manage Your Money (and Still Enjoy Life)

23:07And so at this point in time, if you're in your 20s or your 30s or your 40s, you have plenty of time for compound interest to get to work. And so I want you to, as much as you possibly can, get those dollars working by following this. Then ultimately, as you start to split off, some money's going towards your emergency fund, some of it's going towards your investments. Ultimately, we wanna build it all the way up to six months. Now, you may be saying to yourself, six months? How am I ever gonna save that amount? It takes time. It takes time to get to six months in your emergency fund, but it is the only way to protect your finances against life.

23:37And life is gonna come at you hard, and it's gonna come at you all at once. Some of you may have been experiencing this before, and you're nodding your head right now as you're listening to this podcast. Life will hit you hard. And the only way to combat against it is to have a little cash on hand. Now, where do you keep the emergency fund? In a high yield savings account is the best place to do this. We have an entire episode. It's one of our most popular ones on emergency funds. If you wanna check it out, we'll link it up in the show notes. It walks you through step-by-step the 136 method. So the next thing we wanna do is we started our progress of building up the emergency fund.

24:09We started to crush off that high interest debt and we're starting to invest our dollars. Now we're trying to think through, well, where do I invest these dollars? Where do I put my money after I get the ball rolling on this? Well, I'm so glad you asked because we're looking at maxing out our tax advantage accounts. And so we can look at things like a 401k or a Roth IRA or an HSA and get a number of different things that can help us here. Now, I think even before you start building your emergency fund, you should be getting that 401k match. The 401k match allows you to get free money. What does that mean?

24:40Well, every single time you contribute money into your 401k, If your employer has a match program, they will match a certain percentage. Sometimes it's 50%. Sometimes it's 100%. I just heard somebody the other day tell me they get a 100 % match all the way up to the max, which is the craziest thing I've ever heard. But this perk is absolutely fantastic. So whatever that match is, if it's up to 6%, then you just contribute 6%. Then you go through the 1-3-6 method. Or if it's 8%, try to contribute 8%. Then go through the 1-3-6 method. This is going to allow you to get that free money. I don't know about you, but I love free money.

25:13This is going to allow you to get that free money that allows you to build wealth even faster. And so for folks out there who are trying to think through, well, which retirement accounts should I look at first? I like the order of something like the HSA. If you have a high deductible health plan, if you don't have a high deductible health plan, you will not qualify for an HSA. But the HSA allows you to put dollars in tax-free, grows tax-free, and you can pull the money out tax-free. I also like the idea of the Roth IRA. And the Roth IRA allows you to grow money tax-free and pull it out tax-free.

25:40but the money that you put in has already been taxed through your paycheck. So those two are great starting points for most people. Now, if you make too much to contribute to a Roth IRA, you could do what is called a backdoor Roth IRA, where you contribute money to a traditional IRA, then convert it to a Roth IRA. That's something I do every single year and still get dollars into a Roth. Then you can look at a 401k. Now, there is an argument to be made that if you are a high earner or someone out there who is making over$150 ,000 per year, the 401k may be one that you want to put at the top of your list.

26:08But if not, the 401k can come a little later on down the line after you get your match. Then you go through the Roth and the HSA. Then you can come back to the well at the 401k if you want to go that route. But also another consideration here is the taxable brokerage account. Because the taxable brokerage account gives you that flexibility and allows you to bridge your way from maybe your 50s to your 60s if you decide to retire early. A lot of you listening are part of the FIRE movement or the early retirement movement. And so you are considering retiring early. Well, if that's the case, a taxable brokerage account is a wonderful account for early retirees.

26:42So this is something to consider when you're looking at all of these different accounts to make sure that you understand which one could be the best one for you. I love using the taxable account when I think about this. Now, you may be getting to this point in time where you're saying, okay, Andrew, I'm looking at some of these investment accounts. I'm looking at some of these retirement accounts, and these are some great options here. But how do I invest our dollars? Well, that's where our portfolio pyramid comes in. So we just did an entire episode on the portfolio pyramid. We talk through how to think about the portfolio pyramid in a way where you invest your dollars.

27:15So 80 % goes towards that foundation, meaning index funds, ETFs, target date funds, those types of things, whatever works best for you. Then we have 15 % going towards individual stocks if you want to later on down the line after you hit your foundation. You still have to do 100 % of your foundation at the beginning. Then once you hit the numbers for your foundation, then you can move up to some of these other areas like the growth. And then also, if you want to consider speculation, doing five to 10 % of your portfolio and speculation is going to be the next thing to do. Now we have a webinar that we just did on the portfolio pyramid as well.

27:46If you're interested in that, it's free. We can link it up down in the show notes below so that you could check out that portfolio pyramid webinar. That just shows you exactly how to think about investing your dollars and how to build out your portfolio in a way that fits your specific risk tolerance. Now, the next thing I want you to do is step eight. You've got the system in place now. So we just thought about this for a second, okay? You know your numbers. You started to budget out those numbers and put them in places that you know that you actually value. You started to automate your money into the correct location so you could spend less time in the weeds and less time budgeting.

28:17You started to build up your emergency fund with the 136 method. And you were paying off high interest debt. You got started investing. You're getting your employer match. And now you're moving the ball down where you're building out your portfolio and deciding what you want your asset allocation to be. If you're doing all that stuff, if you're really knocking the ball out of the park here and you're really crushing it when it comes to all that stuff, you can't help but start to fund some of these lifestyle expenses, some of these things that you actually wanna do. And so you can take some of those extra dollars once you get the ball rolling on these and you can put them towards a vacation fund.

28:48Almost every single person here loves a good vacation. We wanna go and there's two types of people on a vacation. There's the folks who wanna sit on a beach and lay around all day and not move a muscle and just absolutely relax. And then there's the adventure seekers, the folks that love to go on excursions. They love to see every single site in the area. And depending on which one you are is gonna dictate how you operate your vacation, how expensive it's gonna be, how you're gonna think about that vacation. But no matter what, you all love a vacation, no matter what type of vacation person that you are.

29:17And so maybe you wanna travel more. Maybe you wanna dine out more. You really love eating out. You really enjoy your time spent eating out. Maybe you have hobbies or you want to go buy a boat, for example. A boat is obviously not a good financial decision, but it may be a great lifestyle decision for you and your family. Maybe you want to go out and buy an RV where you can travel the country or you can travel to different locations with it and have the ability to be able to just drive around and have a hotel room on the road, baby. All of those are great options that you could think through if you want to do something like that.

29:46But building wealth on the front end and making sure that you get started and get the ball rolling allows you to do all these other things where your life can really be run by some of the activities you absolutely enjoy, but it starts with your finances. It starts with money. And in fact, money is the tool that allows you to get there. And then what I want you to do is because you know where your dollars are going now, I want you to start to increase the amount that you're contributing to these lifestyle blocks. I want you to start increasing the amount that you're sending to these accounts so that you can spend more on those things that you love.

30:18Spend more. Maybe you're into watches. Maybe you're into jewelry. Maybe you're into all, spend more on that stuff. if you love it, you should be spending more on that stuff. But it's all about getting the foundations right first so you can do it. Otherwise, it's going to be in the wrong order. And if you do this in the wrong order, if you buy the stuff you like first and then start to build up your wealth and your finances, you'll never catch up in time. You'll never be able to do it in time. And so if you reverse the order, all of a sudden you're gonna see this get, the amount that you can send to those accounts grow more and more and more.

30:53but you gotta do it right. Now, when you are thinking about this and you're thinking about your lifestyle block, I recommend using savings buckets, especially for the bigger purchases. So let's say you're saving up for a boat or you're saving up for an RV. If you wanna go out and buy that boat and you wanna get the perfect motor for that boat that you want at the perfect horsepower and you wanna go out and get all the nice customizations to that boat, maybe you want a nice fish finder in there, maybe you wanna have a nice center console, maybe you want all this extra stuff in place and you're trying to buy a boat of your dreams.

31:22Well, if you're doing that, I want you to make sure you're sending it over somewhere, sending it over to a high yield savings account. And even if you have a long enough time horizon, let's say you want to buy a boat in 20 years, you can even send it to a taxable brokerage account if you want to, because that time horizon is so long. But if it's five years or less, starting to send it to a high yield savings account is the best place to do that. It keeps your money safe and it keeps it where it's supposed to go. And if you have a location that has savings buckets, SoFi has savings buckets. There's a ton of places that have them where you can go and look and see which one is the best option for you.

31:53I'll leave a link down below to my favorite high yield savings accounts so that you can check those out. But if you're looking for a place to park this money, that's the best thing to do. And just start small, even if it's 20 bucks a month and you're starting to save for this boat that's$50 ,000 or$100 ,000. Trust me, over time, as you start to make more money and as you start to get your finances right, this is gonna grow more where you can start to throw extra dollars out there, but you've already got this headstart on the savings plan. So I highly recommend that you set up these savings buckets so that you can look deeper into saving more dollars for your financial future.

32:23And the last thing I'll say for these steps is I want you to review this quarterly. So making sure that every quarter or at least every year, you're on track for exactly what you need to be doing with your finances is really, really important. If you review this plan so that you could spend more on the things that you love and less on the things that you hate, and you do this more frequently, because we all get out of whack all the time. And I feel as though every quarter or so, I start to drift away a little bit and I gotta recenter myself. And every single time I do that, I feel so much better when I do it.

32:49So I would recommend setting up a quarterly meeting with you, yourself, if you're single, if you're married, setting it up with your spouse and having a conversation about, hey, how do we recenter when you have your 15-minute money meetings every month? That's going to be very helpful to think through exactly what you want to be doing with your dollars and your finances because I want you to spend more on what you love and obviously less on what you hate. Listen, I hope this was helpful. So let's dive in next to some of your questions as we get into this Q &A. Again, if you take action on this, shoot me an email, shoot me a DM, Let me know some of the things that you're going to take action on with this episode, or leave a comment down below on Spotify or YouTube.

33:24Would love to hear from each and every single one of you on some of the things that you are going to be doing. And again, we read all of those. So we'd love, love, love to hear from you. Now let's jump into a few questions. If you've ever felt like your bank is working against you instead of for you, you're not alone. Between overdraft fees, monthly fees, and just trying to access your own money, it all adds up fast. That's why Chime is changing the way people think. Chime offers fee-free banking built for you, not the bank. That means no monthly fees, no overdraft fees with SpotMe, and access to thousands of fee-free ATMs, so you're not paying just to get your own money.

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37:53All right, so now we're jumping into our Q &A segment. If you guys have questions, you just join the MasterMoney newsletter and you can respond there, or you can DM us on the personal finance podcast on Instagram. And we check those DMS as well for your questions, but we get questions from all over the place. You can even leave them down below in Spotify if you want to. Um, and we will check out your question there as well. So this one is from Shannon and she's got a great question here. Hi, Andrew, I'm middle-aged and have never been financially set. I don't have a strong understanding of budgeting or finance in general, which makes concepts like financial independence, confusing or far-fetched to me.

38:25I'd like to learn more about managing money, saving and investing so I can make smarter financial decisions now for my future. Thank you in advance. So Shannon, first off, great question. And thank you so much for writing in. I want you to hear this loud and clear. You are not behind. And I think a lot of people feel as though they are behind when they are thinking through their money. But if you start today with the concept that intention beats perfect planning, you're never going to have a perfect month when it comes to your money. I've never had a perfect month in my entire life. Every single person I know has never had a perfect month in their entire life.

38:56And if you go into it thinking through, okay, I need to be intentional about this. And listen, the average multimillionaire does not hit their first million until their 50s. So the idea that you're too late is not something that is going to be the case. So here's the good news for you. Okay. This entire episode that we just talked about today is going to help you step by step walk through your question. Everything I walked through the seven reasons to getting good with your money and actually making it more enjoyable is going to help you step by step with this. So here's what I recommend. If you feel as though you're starting late, there's a couple of things I want you to focus on.

39:29One is focusing on investing as much money as you possibly can. And if you can increase your income to do that, I think it's really important. So your income is going to be the catalyst to getting you to your goals, especially if you are starting a little later. And so when you think about your income, look at your income sources and say to yourself, okay, how much do I need to save in order to hit my retirement goal? Well, if you go to mastermoney.co slash resources, we have something called the retirement calculator that will give you your retirement number so that you can figure out exactly where you need to go and how much you need to say.

39:59And so when you think about this, I would definitely recommend using that so that you can go step by step to get started planning and having conversations about this. Secondly, though, is let's look at our income. If we are not making enough income to really get by, we need to increase that as much as we possibly can. And so if you can negotiate the salary at your job, or if you can do things that'll help you increase that income, that's going to be a huge starting point because if we have a larger income, especially during our peak income earning years, which is usually in your thirties, your forties, and then your early fifties, that's going to help you really start to take those extra dollars and put them towards financial independence.

40:32Okay. Then two is we need to get those dollars invested. We need to get them invested so that we can pack in some of these retirement accounts that we can pack in our taxable brokerage. So if you can get as much as you possibly can into some of those accounts, it'd be very helpful. Honestly, if you can find a way to say to yourself, I'm going to do whatever it takes to max out these accounts every single year, that'll set you up in a great position to get started. Another big thing is understanding that you don't need to understand every advanced concept day one. This is not something where you have to overcomplicate everything.

41:02You don't have to overcomplicate the way that you're doing this. It really comes down to spending less than you make, avoiding debt, and investing the difference. That's truthfully what it comes down to. And so this is something that I think can, for a lot of folks out there who feel like they're starting a little late, be helpful, is focus on your income, focus on how much you're saving and investing, because your savings rate can absolutely change your life. We have a listener who wrote in a couple of years ago, and she was in her 40s when she started listening. And by her early 50s, already had enough money to become financially independent because she was listening to the podcast, learned exactly the steps to take, and actually took action.

41:37And so the key here is you can listen to me all day long, but the folks who take action are the ones who are the world changers. They're the ones who are the life changers. They change their entire life because they decide I am not going to do this anymore. I am not going to take this anymore. And instead, I am going to pick myself up and change my life. Sure, I missed out on a couple of years. Sure, I missed out on some compounding years. And I'm going to regret that, but that's okay. I need to accept the fact that I made a mistake and I am okay missing out on some of those years. And Shannon, I know you can do this.

42:05I think this is something that I think most people feel as though, well, I don't know if I can do this. I know you can. And it's just taking the right steps and moving forward. Listen, I hope that helps. And if you have any questions, please reach out and let me know because I know that you can do this. The next question is about money psychology. Let's get into it. So the next question is from David. So good morning, Andrew, and thank you for your time and energy you put into your personal finance tools. Personally, I struggle with the psychology of money and with trying to take the emotion out of money and look at it more like a tool.

42:34My relationship with money has been up and down, and my emotional connection to money based off of past and present circumstances may be impacting the way I approach it. Thanks again for the time, and hope you enjoy your day. Well, Dave, thank you so much for writing this in. And honestly, it is so great that you sent in this question, because I think this is one of the most helpful things for most people to learn, is to master money psychology. So the first thing I want you to know is that money psychology is the majority of finances. when it comes down to it, 80 to 90 % of managing money actually comes down to your psychology.

43:07Doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are. And it has a lot to do with how you behave. The majority of it is how you behave. And the fact that you're even asking this question puts you ahead of 90 % of people because you have self-awareness. This is the first move for most people is to have that self-awareness. So here's what I want you to think about first is I want you to identify your money story. Okay. So every one of us has these money stories that we have grown up with. Did your parents fight about money? Well, if your parents fought about money all the time, this may have ingrained some things about money in your brain.

43:38Did you grow up with a scarcity or abundance mindset? Did you have people yelling at you saying, hey, money doesn't grow on trees, turn off the light, make sure your fan is off all the time. We don't have any money for that. We can't afford that. All that different type of language is going to really impact the way that you think about money. Did money feel safe or stressful in your household growing up? That's another question you want to ask yourself. If it felt safe or if it felt like something that was healthy, that could be a starting point. But if it felt like the main point of stress in your household, that could be something where it could be causing a ton of different emotional reactions.

44:09And so your current money reactions to money almost always are a direct echo of what you witnessed as a kid. And ironically, that is something that not enough people talk about. But if you name it, you can start to diffuse it. So if you figure out what those things are, and I would even take out a sheet of paper or take out your phone and their notes app and write out what you think some of those things are. How do you think about money? How do you feel about money? How did you grow up with money? What are some of the things that you remembered about money when you were growing up? And start to go through that list and say to yourself, okay, well, I'm identifying some areas that may not have been optimal for me.

44:42That's going to be the starting point. Next, I want you to separate your identity from your bank account. Too many people feel as though they are less than because of their net worth, or they feel as though they are less than because of their income. Just because you've made past money mistakes or because you were never taught how to handle this stuff does not mean that you are less than. In fact, society is gonna tell you that you are. I'm here to tell you that you're not. As the guy who talks about money all day long, I'm here to tell you that you're not less than. Why? Because your past mistakes are not gonna be indicative of what your future results are gonna be.

45:15And in fact, when we think about this, if you can detach money, and if everything is about money, and if every market dip makes you even more stressed out or if every single thing that goes wrong, maybe you have an unexpected bill or maybe something breaks in the house and everything comes back to money, this is going to be the thing that you want to work on. You want to separate the two. You are your own individual person and money is just a tool that gets you what you want in life. Just separate money out as a tool. Next is figuring out what enough looks like for you. A lot of people who have a problem detaching the emotional side of money, they also don't know what their enough number is.

45:51And so figuring out what that number is, maybe it's 2 million, maybe it's 5 million, maybe it's 50 million. But figuring out what that number is, if you have this amount of money, everything else will be a lot easier. I want you to figure out that number and I want you to define what that number is. Step five is I want you to automate every single decision that you can because this is gonna remove the emotion out of the equation. If you automate your finances totally, you don't have to worry about emotions as much. Instead, all you have to worry about is how you react to things. And so when we think about this, if you can automate your finances to the right places, this allows your emotions to be removed.

46:24And then stop chasing your portfolio every day. One of the things that I've noticed, people who are always worried about money or they're always stressed about money is they're looking at their portfolio on a daily basis. And for some people, this can be a okay move. Like if you're an investor and you understand where the market's going and you don't mind if the market takes a dip, you can look at your portfolio every day if you wanna stay on top of it. But if you're the type of person who gets stressed out every single time you see the market down 1%, please, for the love of all things that are green, stop looking at your portfolio every single day, because that's just going to stress you out and bring anxiety that you want nothing to do with.

46:59And so really important that you don't check your portfolio every day, especially if it stresses you out. I check my portfolio on a monthly to quarterly basis. And there are times where I check it once a year, depending on what the portfolio is. And the only reason why I check it is to make sure my automations are moving correctly. Everything else is already going into the right places or I'll dive in there if I wanna buy some individual stocks or things like that. But I am not the type of person that checks it every single day. And I don't think most people should be. I don't think it's healthy to check your portfolio every day, especially if you're a long-term investor.

47:30Next is I want you to reframe your spending. Spending is values. Every time you spend a dollar, that means you are putting a dollar towards something that you value. So if you value a pantry full of groceries, then you're gonna spend more on groceries. If you value a huge, massive portfolio, then you're going to put more dollars in your portfolio. If you value the feeling of making random purchases at a random store, then you're going to make more random purchases at a random store. This is how money is used as a tool and it's a vote for what you value. Every single time you spend a dollar, you are voting with your values.

48:02And I want you to make sure that you think through that and change the way you think about money. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to forgive your past self if you do have financial mistakes because sometimes when people can't separate money from their emotions, it's because they haven't forgiven themselves yet. Just because you made mistakes or just because you did things that you do not agree with now does not mean that you have to beat yourself up about it. And then surrounding yourself with the right voices, making sure that you know that the folks who are around you are also doing things that you feel as though are productive in your own life.

48:34You may have heard the term, you are the average of the five people around you. And that is very true. Every person around you can dictate how you act, how you react to things. And it's very important that you make sure that the people around you are high performers or are people who are gonna encourage you in this situation. And the last thing, again, and you already know this, but I want you to treat money as a tool, not a job. So this is gonna be the area where mastering psychology is understanding that all money is, is it's just a tool. It's just the tool that allows you to get what you want in life.

49:06So listen, I hope this helps you. Really good questions, David. And the bottom line is, the goal is not to become emotionless about money. It's to become aware of your emotions so that you know how to deal with them, you know how to handle them, and you can build systems around this to make sure that you avoid the bad emotions and lean in to the good ones. Really good question. I hope this was helpful, and thank you so much for sending it in, and congrats to you on recognizing this and asking the question. That's one of the most powerful things that you can do. So the next one is from Madeline.

49:32How should new earners with advanced degrees allocate paychecks to fit the lifestyle required? Things like networking events, court clothes, et cetera, and pay necessary bills, save and manage high student loan debt. For example, I'm an attorney with two years of experience. I have a decent high paycheck, but also a very high debt and very high lifestyle demand due to the nature of my profession. So Madeline, this is a great question because when you are in a position like this, sometimes you feel as though you're expected to drive the fancier car because you're an attorney. So you want your clients to understand, hey, I'm a successful attorney and there have been studies done that show, hey, people in those types of positions who drive nicer cars tend to be more successful or to be seen as more successful by their clients than people who do not.

50:15And so this can be one of those areas where you're thinking through this, or maybe you need nicer clothes because you're in court all the time. And so you're thinking through, okay, well, how do I budget and allocate for these nicer clothes or these nicer things that I need to buy? And so this is a really good question because you really do need to get clear on this stuff because also when you are in some of these professions, whether you're a doctor, whether you're an attorney, maybe you're someone who went to graduate school or you got your doctorate, there's a lot of different things where you're going to be paying a lot more in student loans than maybe the average person who just got their four-year degree.

50:45It's more expensive to go to graduate school. And so we need to make sure that we are thinking about this. And for most, they have to get student loans to be able to afford it because it's so expensive. So really a good question here. And I would do a couple of things. First is I would get clear on my numbers first. I want you to know exactly where you stand when it comes to this stuff, because if you're thinking through, okay, I need to allocate my dollars towards the things that matter most. I want you to write down your gross income, your gross burn rate or your expenses. So how much are you spending on court clothes?

51:13How much are you spending on things like your student loans? How much are you spending on groceries and housing and food and transportation? How much are you spending in all those different areas? We need to get clear on that. We need to understand our fixed expenses. So like all those other areas, the necessities that we need, but we need to know what that burn rate is. It's very, very important. Next, I would look at the student loans because you're a high earner. I would look at this in a way where I would use the avalanche method. So the avalanche method is taking your interest rates on your student loans and attacking the highest interest rate first, and then paying the minimum on all the rest.

51:45So if you have extra capital on hand, you can look at some of those high interest debts and attack those high interest debts that way. So let's say, for example, you have four student loans. Let's say you have one that is 8%, one that is 7%, one that is 5%, and one that is 3%. Well, the 8 % one needs to get taxed first, then the 7%, then the 5%, then the 3%. Okay, that's going to help you when it comes to the avalanche method, making sure that you optimize the speed at which you get these paid off. Now, if you're like, no, I just want to make sure that I feel the progress. I feel like I'm progressing and moving forward.

52:19Then the snowball method is a great methodology for you, which is the smallest balance first instead of the highest interest rate. But the highest interest rate is going to be the fastest way for you to pay this money down, especially if you want to remove emotion out of the equation. Now, if you work in public service or you work for a qualifying nonprofit, you can explore things like the PSLF or the income driven repayment plan. If you're eligible, the likelihood of you being eligible, unless you are working in public service, probably is not a high. But if you're in a private practice now, you need to know your options when it comes to save or pay or IBR plans.

52:48And so we did an episode actually recently with Robert Farrington talking through those student loan plans and how to think about those, because those are going to be very important to you, especially because they're changing a lot in July of this year. So we just did that episode with Robert Farrington talking about student loans. I would definitely recommend you check that one out too. It's very important. And then when it comes to long-term wealth building, obviously, since you're a higher earner, if you're making over$150 ,000 per year or$200 ,000 per year, you want to make sure that you're optimizing the way that you're thinking about the optimal order of investing.

53:20So we want to look at ways to save on taxes. So maybe doing something like a 401k all the way to the max would be a great starting point. and then you get the tax deduction on$23 ,500 per year. Then you can look at things like the mega backdoor Roth IRA if you wanted to go that route. Or you can even look at things like maxing out your contributions to other tax advantage accounts as well. But this would be the starting point for me is thinking through that kind of stuff. And then treat profession expenses like a business owner. So court close or networking events or bar association dues or any of that kind of stuff, those can all be tax deductible if you're paying out of pocket.

53:54But you need to at least have a CPA in your corner for sure to run each of those through. So if you're looking at some of this stuff and you're saying to yourself, Hey, here's my expenses for court clothes. Okay. If you're doing that, you want to send that to your CPA and say, Hey, can I deduct some of this stuff and ensure that this is something that I can write off? If you can, it depends on situations. If you can, then that's great. If you cannot, uh, then that's going to be something that you may just want to budget out for it because you're going to have to eat that expense. But anything you think could be deductible.

54:21Those networking events absolutely are, uh, obviously your bar fees and all those types of things absolutely are. Continuing education obviously is. So all of those things, I would just have a professional line item in your budget that thinks through each and every single one of those. And then you just make sure you track those receipts. You track each of those receipts so that you could send them to your CPA and see if you can write some of those off. Another thing I would look at is if you do have some high interest debt or a decent amount of high interest debt, you can refinance some of those student loans.

54:46Just make sure you're not refinancing into something private. If you have these public student loans, that does not allow you to have the flexibility that you need. But if you're thinking about refinancing, you can possibly drop some of those interest rates, especially if you graduated a couple of years ago, the interest rates might've been higher. But also another thing to consider is when you are paying off debt, you can develop a plan. So come up with a plan on how long it would take you to pay this off, reverse engineer that date of when you would pay this off. And then what I would say is from there, every extra dollar going forward would be allocated towards wealth building.

55:15So once you get that payoff date, you can decide, okay, well, do I want to pay all of this off? Do I want to pay a portion of it off and keep the low interest debt. Most likely that's what most people do. And then you can decide, okay, I'm going to take every extra dollar and put it towards wealth building. Now, the bottom line though, is that you have one of the highest leverage positions out there where you have your income in place and taking that income and putting them towards the big things that matter, especially early on in your journey right now is one of the best things that you can do so that you can get some of that debt payment pay down.

55:41You can get some of that extra stuff paid down and be able to balance life and enjoy life at the same time. So this episode today actually was probably right on par with what you're thinking through as well. But I would recommend paying off some of that high interest debt, investing all the difference there and trying to get as much of your dollars invested early because you have so much time for this money to compound. Listen, that's it for today's episode. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. If you guys want more help from me, we have Master Money Academy where we jump on weekly coaching calls with our members.

56:09We have all of our courses in there. We help you through your financial situation in addition to having the exact 25-step system on how to manage your money. So if you guys are interested, make sure you check out Master Money Academy. We'll leave a link down below to a seven-day free trial. If you did wanna check that out, you can go behind the curtain, join a couple coaching calls, check out some of the courses. If it's for you, great. If it's not, no hard feelings whatsoever. So we'd love to see you in Master Money Academy. We'd love to meet you inside. Again, thank you guys so much for being here on this episode and we will see you on the next episode.

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