720: From $50k in Debt to Mortgage-Free Millionaire and a 3-Day Workweek

0:01Owning your time. That is a goal I'm pretty sure we all share. And today my goal is to give you some concrete steps to reclaim some of that time. What's up, what's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to The Side Hustle Show. It's the business podcast you can actually apply. And today I'm joined by a good friend of mine who went from$50 ,000 in debt to mortgage-free multimillionaire in a three-day work week. His new book is Own Your Time, 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind. From marriagekidsandmoney.com, Andy Hill. Welcome to The Side Hustle Show. Thank you for that nice introduction, Nick.

0:41Good to see you, man. It has been a long time coming. We have known each other probably the last 10 years. And what sticks out in my mind, you're one of the first people to introduce me to this interesting branch of the FIRE movement, the Financial Independence Retire Early movement, this interesting branch called Coast FIRE. And when I first saw this, I'm like, okay, I'm a West Coast kid. Maybe this is for me. But it has nothing to do with geography, does it? No, it doesn't have anything to do with geography. I mean, it'd be kind of nice to enjoy both of those things, the coast and the independence, right?

1:12So yeah, we'll talk about it a little bit. I'm sure you're familiar with financial independence. That is essentially saving and investing a certain amount of money where you can essentially live off of a 4 % withdrawal rate or a 5 % withdrawal rate of that portfolio and not have to work anymore, which is a really cool concept. The problem with that concept, at least that I found in my life, is that that's a whole lot of money to save when you can only flex that frugality muscle so much. So this concept meets the FIRE idea in sort of a halfway, where it's like, okay, what can I do to save and invest so much that at a certain point I can stop contributing and let that grow to my goal FIRE number, but maybe 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.

2:00So, for example, my wife and I saved and invested around$500 ,000 by age 40. And if we just purely left that alone for the next two decades based on past market growth, including inflation, including any investment fees, that could get us to around$2 million by the time we reach 60. And for us and our comfortable living expenses, that would be plenty to retire on. So with that realization, that Coast Fire realization, that would allow us to do things like, hey, maybe we don't need to work as much. Hey, maybe we don't need to send so much of this to our 401k or our Roth IRA or things like that because retirement, that box is checked.

2:41So that is Coast Fire. And that realization has allowed my wife and I to take on what we both like now is a three-day work week working part-time as we're raising our kids. Yeah, that's really, really cool. in a kind of a different frame. Because traditional fire, depending on where you're at, could be really daunting. Like, oh, I only need to save 25 times my annual expenses. Like, oh, it's not easier said than done in a lot of cases. We get to 2 million by 30, right? Yeah. And so Coast Fire is kind of the idea of, well, let me front load this retirement savings as much as I can, and then let compound interest work in my favor.

3:18I can kind of take my foot off the gas in terms of being as aggressive on the savings and investing. It's kind of this combination of, yes, don't rob your future self, but also a little bit of YOLO, a little bit of like, hey, I don't have to save all this money. I can enjoy life today, knowing that rule of 72, 7 % interest is going to double every decade. And like you said, okay, that$500 ,000 should double to$2 million over the course of the next two decades. So I think that's a really interesting. Absolutely. And I think it pairs well with a small business that you enjoy doing. That could be plenty for your family to live on, which is a great portion of our conversation.

3:57Hopefully we can talk about today. Yeah. So let's go. Let's go there next. So you're building this media brand on the side under the marriage, kids and money umbrella, personal finance for the family. And you've done an awesome job building that brand, podcast, YouTube, website, very similar to Side Hustle Nation in that space. and kind of scaling back from corporate work. Like as the investment balance increases, as the side hustle increases, now down the other slope, the work hours can decrease. And it sounds like it was maybe not an all or nothing, but it's like, okay, I can slowly kind of build my own escape route here.

4:33My goal was to have some sort of outlet outside of work that made me feel good. It started out as a hobby, really. And then I figured out I can make a little bit of money from it. But then the passion started to build And I said, well, how can I do this as my full-time thing, maybe replace that corporate job that I'm not really enjoying where I have to travel on nights and weekends and I've got these little kids and I feel like I'm missing their lives. So how can I transition out of that and then maybe just make the side hustle my thing? And so for me, it was a combination of validation, just making sure that I could actually make money from this side hustle, not just saying, hey, here's my idea.

5:10Let me leap and go for it. actually getting paid for it and having people give me money. Also, number two was a big pile of FU money, just saying, hey, I've got money in a bank that's liquid and available. So if I do say goodbye to my job, I have this money set aside that's going to make me feel warm and cozy when things don't feel so warm and cozy. Did you have a rule of thumb? This is going to be 12 months of expenses. As an entrepreneur, I tend to keep more cash in that quote-unquote emergency fund than a lot of experts would recommend. Oh, you only need three months. Oh, you only need six months.

5:48I feel more comfortable with a couple of years. You never know what the future holds. We had saved around$100 ,000 of money in our FU money. So that was a little bit more than 12 months of expenses for us at the time where you can say, oh my gosh, even if I completely mess this up for a whole year. I'll have money to figure it out. And worst case scenario, I, you know, come clawing back and say, Hey, can I have my job back? Or I go to a different place, which is not too much different from the position I was in in the first place. Yeah, you said, you said a couple things. One was, well, it started as a hobby.

6:22It started as something fun to do. And I became passionate about it over time, which is something we've over. Don't start a business around your passion, but start a business around something you're good at. And the passion follows. So I experienced the same thing, painting houses. It's hard to be passionate about painting houses. But after doing it for a couple summers, you almost can't notice, oh, look at that up under the eaves. Peel and scrape that off. Let me come back and give these guys an estimate. It is really interesting that you say that. And then there's a chapter in Own Your Time where you're talking about, well, as a kid, I loved making videos.

6:56I wanted to be a filmmaker. And now the YouTube channel, Marriage, Kids and Money YouTube channel, closing in on 50 ,000 subscribers. It's like, it's kind of come full circle. I think that's, it's really interesting because we've had some guests kind of go through that exercise. Well, what did you love doing as a kid? That's probably a hint that that might make an interesting side project. It is. And I think I suppressed those dreams for a while, Nick, where I'm like, okay, no, it's time to be an adult, go make money, get that insurance, like go get the thing. And then I let the kid back out. and he was like, go make those videos again.

7:28That's fun. Here's people making money making those videos. Why don't you see what they're doing? That's where I became pretty passionate about it. Yeah, super fun. So today the brand is monetized with brand sponsorships, with affiliate marketing, with YouTube revenue, with financial coaching. What came first? Talk to me about the early traction and trying to step away from corporate and like, well, I got to build up some extra income stream before I'm fully comfortable making that leap. Yeah, the first way that I made money was a surprise. I got approached at a conference and a company said to me, hey, we love your show.

8:02We would like to sponsor it. And I said, cool, that's awesome. I didn't even know anything about sponsorships on podcasts or anything like that. And they said, how much do you charge? What are your rates? Or what's your rate card? And I'm like, I will have to get back to you on that because I didn't have a rate card and I didn't know what rates were. I didn't know what to charge. Is$10 too little? Is$5 ,000 too much? Yeah, you're going to pay me to do this work I was going to do anyways? Exactly. I was going to do it anyway. And so that was like an epiphany moment for me. Somebody's going to pay me money to do this and keep talking?

8:31Wow. And that was a light bulb moment for me to say, okay, this is how I can make money. I've leaned into YouTube a lot more over the past five to seven years. And that has become my main way of creating income. And you mentioned those streams. The main one right now is through affiliate marketing. Secondarily is through sponsorships, and then ads through YouTube, which is the third. And then I connect with people to help them with financial coaching. I have that AFC accreditation to help families with their financial situations. Let's talk about the YouTube channel for a little bit. And if there are any particular videos that come to mind that have driven affiliate revenue, or that have kind of popped off on some of the strategy behind that.

9:15I try to follow an evergreen SEO based video creation strategy. So when there are opportunities for people who are looking for information online and they type in the right words, I want to be the guy that's there to serve them up that information around my family finance niche. Holy crap, a million views on this Telo video from just a year ago. Absolutely. So there's a story around that. I don't even know what Telo is. It is a low cost MVNO cell phone provider that my family's been using for past three or four years. I created a review on it maybe three or four years ago. The company liked it so much that said, hey, can we send people to this?

9:58And so they're buying ads on my video, essentially. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. That's why that one is up there. I get revenue from that, but I don't think YouTube gives you as much because it is paid. So I still have made some money from it. Sure. You're not making the YouTube AdSense ad revenue, but you're still getting your affiliate cut if people sign up. Exactly. So that's been a big one for me. Interviewing experts in our field and then trying to bring them on to talk about engaging interesting stuff around the topics that we've talked about. Coast Fire, growing your net worth, financial independence.

10:33Okay. Here's another affiliate example, like Best Free, Budget Apps, YNAB Review, Rocket Money Review. So kind of like review content on YouTube. And some of these, you know, are evergreen topics and they look like they're doing really well. Yeah, those are the big topics. So I like to dive into fintech stuff and to talk about reviews, maybe versus content, pitting this one versus this one, which one would I suggest? I like the affiliate model because I don't feel beholden to these companies. And I can be really honest, like my Rocket Money review, I don't want to talk too bad about Rocket Money.

11:06It's not like it doesn't end up being like, hey, you should definitely get Rocket Money. I still have my affiliate link in there. but i like the affiliate model because you can be honest and if it's a total sponsored video then i feel like well i gotta say all these rosy great things about them so i try to do pros there are great things about rocket money and then there's also some things that i think that they can improve on yeah yeah i know 60 000 on uh monarch review i'm a fan of monarch as well yeah monarch's great i've had it for about two about two or three years now and it's as soon as mint went away i'm like oh my gosh, I feel like a death has happened in my life.

11:41And Monarch definitely filled that void. Is there a certain keyword research process that goes into, well, what video am I going to create next? Or is it more just like, look, here's a tool that I've been using. I want to create the video about it. A little bit of both, Nick. So things that I have used or that I know, like, or trust within our industry, let me try it. Let me use it personally. Let me experience it for years or even weeks and then and then give it a shot and then keyword research based on that like what are people actually looking for when they're interested in learning more about monarch or tello or you know rocket money and things like that and then just trying to provide some content based on that working on the in-depth detail i think people appreciate with regard to the videos both the looks of hey what's great about it what's not that great about it and then being honest because I think people know when they watch a video that there's an affiliate.

12:35I don't think they're expecting everybody just to create free content online with no objective information. I try to create that transparency note in the beginning, total transparency before we go into this thing. I make money on affiliate links. Here's my affiliate link. If you want to use it, great. If you don't, don't worry about it. Here's my opinion. So they watch the video anyway, and then you can make money on ads based on the YouTube content, or you can make money on affiliate. I, you know, sometimes get both, which is great. Are you comfortable sharing like a typical month's YouTube affiliate earnings?

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15:32That's shopify.com slash side hustle. And here you're first, this new year with Shopify by your side. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Affiliate earnings right now are between five and$7 ,000. And then YouTube ads is around$2 ,000. Sponsorships are usually around like three to$4 ,000. So this is, you know, a 10k plus per month venture for me, which is great. You're like so casual about it. Like those are fantastic numbers. Thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, it took a long time. Like When I started with that first story of that podcast advertising, I think I made$500 in the first six months. So it's definitely a journey.

16:14This has been 10 years. I started in 2016, and we're talking in 2026 now. Yeah, that's really cool. I appreciate you sharing. I appreciate that transparency. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I need to make more of these evergreen review videos because it's like, yeah, they can have a really long shelf life. one of the bits of advice that I was given recently related to this type of content on YouTube was looking at the top two or three videos on these like evergreen type of review type of content videos and looking at how they have structured their information. What's their hook? Can I introduce some element of doubt or intrigue or open a loop that maybe they didn't to kind of like, you know, open a little bit of a question, right?

16:58And so maybe the algorithm starts to show this or, you know, it increases the watch time. And, you know, you're trying to unseat some of these in the search results for people looking for information on this topic. There was a guy, he was doing a lot of like incorporation services. And well, even Whitney Bonds came on and had this. She was like, oh, I made this video on like how to set up an LLC or something. And it was like 300 ,000 views. And she was like, that one video probably made$100 ,000 in commissions for this LLC formation service. I was like, dang, I got to figure this out. That's amazing.

17:32Yeah, I think the affiliate is wide open. And I hope people continue to make it an opportunity for growth because that just lifts all boats, honestly. Yeah, that's kind of cool. After you hit publish, is it just relying on the algorithm or your existing audience to kind of give it the initial nudge or anything else proactive that you're doing to market these things? Yeah, I have found, and I learned this from Dennis Truffin, who's a great creator in our industry, that some videos make sense to not publish to your audience, and some videos make sense to publish to your audience. So for example, I'll do an interview with, we'll say, J.L.

18:09Collins, who's a really incredible author that talks about financial independence, and I'll know that my audience will love that video right away, and then they'll click on it, so it should be fed up to those folks. That being said, a specific video on Rocket Money versus YNAB is very specific to YouTube search as opposed to like being fed up to my audience. My audience who follows me, what is it, almost 50 ,000 might be like, what is this? I don't care about that. But somebody who's specifically searching for that will care about it. And then this would be somewhat self-serving, but it looks like a lot of what would be traditionally audio content for the Marriage, Kids and Money podcast has been repurposed as interview content over here on YouTube.

18:54Yes. And you're doing a nice job of packaging this up and, you know, making it appear, but it's still longer form. It's not an eight minute product review. It's still like 20, 30, 40 minutes in some cases. Yeah. Some of the longer ones I was surprised with. But then I think back to SEO specifically. Like, so one of my top interviews is with JL Collins, very Google-able fella, you know? So people who are looking to learn more about his ideas, are they smart? Is this something I should follow? Would maybe find that interview. You know, Brian Preston over there in the bottom left corner, again, Money Guy Show, very popular fella.

19:32Now, if I were to do a long-form video with somebody who doesn't have such a big name, those don't always do as well in the search. So that's what at least what I found from an SEO standpoint. Okay, that's helpful. And a lot of my guests maybe don't have the same level of searchability or notoriety. A lot of my video titles are like how to start a window cleaning business because people aren't going to know necessarily the entrepreneur behind it, but they may be searching for that specific topic. Yeah. But then on the opposite end, I have found with a video like that, if you use numbers, people like to see numbers.

20:05So like I went from broke to making$50 ,000 in my window cleaning business. That becomes a little bit, oh, interesting. Tell me more about that. Okay. Now, another topic that you cover quite a bit is paying off your mortgage early. Yeah. Which if there is a more hot button topic in the world of personal finance, I don't know. I don't know what it is because I don't know. Well, I'll tee that up. Why did you pay it off early? My wife and I were looking for more time freedom. We were very tight with our corporate jobs and we had two small kids. My wife wanted to be able to stay at home with our son and our daughter at the time because she was working a full-time job and said, this is just too much.

20:47By paying off our mortgage, we significantly lowered our expenses and that allowed us to live on my one single income during that time period. So that was a family decision that allowed us to grab back more of our time as opposed to is this the most mathematically designed decision for us to build the most wealth? That being said, if I had to do it all over again, I would suggest that people hit coast fire first, which is checking that box of retirement and saying, hey, my future retirement is all set. I'm going to take care of myself when I'm old and gray and then pay off the, which could potentially be a low interest mortgage.

21:26We paid off a 3 % mortgage. And right now, I know that sounds like sacrilege in this world of 6 % to 7 % mortgages if you're getting them today for people holding on to a 2 % or 3 % mortgage. So I see it as a way to lower your expenses as you get towards a life that feels more comfortable and do that in the latter portion of your financial journey as opposed to something to do right away. okay yes make sure that your future self is taken care of because there's there's like this lock up of illiquidity and it feels like you know throwing money into the ether like it's fun to watch the balance go down but it's also like until you hit zero it's like it didn't really do anything you know the payment is still the same yeah i can't spend my six hundred thousand dollar house we own six hundred thousand dollars and it's it is there's no mortgage on it and it's really nice to look at my net worth chart, but I can't touch it.

22:19I can't use it. And I'm even thinking now, this is probably not something that we're going to even utilize until we're in our maybe 80s and we decide to downsize or it's a generational wealth gift to my children with regard to the asset. At the moment, it was more around how do we lower our expenses to enjoy our life now so that my wife has the ability to stay at home with our kids and maybe I can follow her in a short order in the next five years, which I did. I moved to part-time work and she moved to part-time work when our kids went off to school. Okay. So it's like, how do we reduce our overhead?

22:55Well, look, here's one of our biggest expenses. And if we can use some of our today cashflow to eliminate that, even if the math, you know, so I could probably do better than 3%, like putting it over here, but like that doesn't help my monthly nut, you know? Exactly, exactly. And by paying off our mortgage, our financial independence number became a lot easier to hit too. Let's say, I'm not gonna mess up the specific numbers, but it was between eight or$10 ,000 cost of our life. And then by the time we paid off our mortgage, it was closer to$6 ,000. Okay, wow, that's a lot easier to save up for our future retirement needs or even just to live life today.

23:33So if we only need to make$6 ,000 or$7 ,000, sounds like both you and i could split some part-time work and be able to afford our lives yeah that's it's one of these things where like nobody ever really regrets you know oh i wish i hadn't paid off my house like you know it's kind of this weight off your shoulders kind of a thing but it's it is hard for i hear you man math analytical person to be like i know oh look i can jump ahead on the amortization table and like you know we increase the percentage that's going a principal instead of interest, but it's like, or I can make eight to 10 % over here.

24:07It's like, it's definitely something that I struggled with. So how do you reconcile that where it's like, well, maybe I could have taken the half a million dollars that went into the house and tripled it in the market over the last decade. So the tripled it part is what I am less concerned on, especially now that we've exceeded a million dollar net worth and moved up from there. I don't think I equate$10 million with Andy being happier. I equate a life of control of my time and my week with Andy being happier. I feel like I could have$10 million,$100 million, but if I have a frenetic life where I'm not enjoying myself, then the net worth means nothing.

24:50I would rather move towards a life of peace and prosperity and joy and family connection and being able to be there for my children when it matters than having more money in the bank. Yeah. Tell me about this three-day work week. And it sounds great, but there's also a lot of discipline required not to let work expand to the time available. This has come over time too. I left my corporate job and then I essentially gained those hours working in my new business because I wanted to be super successful So I probably started working, you know, 40 to 50 hours doing that when I started, you know. But over time, my goal, my North Star was to say, okay, I'm trying to be, you know, a hard worker.