Transcription Episode #115
Hi, guys, thank you so much for joining us
tonight.
I’m super excited. I did it again bed super excited. We’re recording like on a random Tuesday, and we have one of my good friends Dave Dykstra, who is in the financial field. And we kind of wanted to bring him on to kind of talk about one of our buckets is kind of like uncomfortable conversations. Finance isn’t really uncomfortable. It shouldn’t be uncomfortable, but kind of what’s going on with GameStop and Wall Street and everything. I thought, why not bring somebody on that kind of knows what the hell he’s talking about? And well, Dave, thanks for joining us.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I know you’ve been bugging me for a while. So we found that find a topic. I think I can add some value hopefully.
So first question, do you spell advisor with ad V is our ad V is er with an O Ernie,
it’s with an O.
Was there a debate about this?
Well, I was typing up the title, and I put advisor with an E and spellcheck didn’t. It didn’t tell me it was wrong. So I don’t know. And then I googled it. And apparently, there are some who spell it with an E and but the majority of people spell it with an O.
Well, I’m hoping I am in the process right now of studying for my Certified Financial Planner designation. So then you can call me a planner, rather than an advisor, which is like way more powerful and impressive, I guess. So. So hopefully, they have that discussion.
Is that like counselor and therapist, Ben, it’s advisor and planner.
planners. The next step up, isn’t it? Right, exactly. But
isn’t a therapist to step up from a counselor?
Not necessarily. I guess it depends on your education, and whatnot.
Anyways, I didn’t mean to get that deep into it, Ben. Yeah.
Wow. So jump right in.
Yeah. So before we
start about the GameStop, what led you to become a financial professional? Like, what? What attracted you to this field?
So do you
want the whole story or just like what got me into, okay, so I wanted to be a doctor, I realized I’m not that smart. So I, halfway through my college experience, I realized I was not going to be a doctor. So I graduated with an environmental science degree. So I was going to change the planet. And then I’m basically what happened was that guidance counselor’s at college, at the time, I graduated in 1998. From Calvin, that’s how I make connections to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and my wife is from the same town that Jason grew up in, and they were friends in high school, which is how we got to know each other. But um, the guidance counselor’s that Calvin didn’t really tell us, they told us how to graduate. They said you have to have these credits, and here’s how you graduate, but they really didn’t have like a plan for you after you graduated. So I got done with my degree started looking for jobs, rent right out of graduation, and was told well, to go into this field, you need to have either a Master’s or a doctorate or an engineering degree. And I was like, Well, I don’t want to get a masters or a doctorate or an engineering degree, I kind of want to just go to work, right? So I ended up working I was working part time for a mortgage company that just paying my bills by in my beer with the the $9 an hour I was making there. And so when I graduated, I went to vandyke mortgage, actually, no vandyke mortgage offered me $10 an hour, I believe to become there closer. So I went down the street to Hartwell mortgage, which is now a building owned by Calvin, okay. And Hartwell offered me $12 an hour to be a processor. So I took the job for $12 an hour to be a loan processor. And that’s how I got involved into finance. Okay. And then I just told the story, it was in 2004. before the financial crisis in 2008. I was a mortgage loan officer, I worked my way up from processing to becoming a loan officer, I was selling loans, and I realized I was actually doing people a disservice selling loans to people to buy a house that they couldn’t afford, who, especially in the Chicagoland area, there was just some, it just got a little bit. I wanted to be in the financial field. I love finance. Actually, as I got involved in it. I wanted to not have a boss. I wanted to be in charge of my own income, but I wanted to actually help people rather than hurt people. So I switched over to the firm I work for now and went into financial advising or advisor ring, however you want to pronounce it So, so that’s kind of my path.
Before we go on Dave, I just want to say I miss your face and I miss your voice. It’s been, I don’t know, I just had a little moment where I’m like, I can’t wait till we get together again, this coat, not just COVID but all of it just sucks ass. But anyways,
I would concur. I think one thing that I’m realizing missing people,
yes. Yeah,
for sure. It’s really missing people.
I think Ben and I, we recorded Friday in the studio, but had been while at least two months, right? easily. Yeah. before the holidays. Yeah. Before even Thanksgiving. So,
yeah, I left my vest at your house. So then I didn’t have it for three months, almost.
I know, what were you gonna do? So let’s jump into the GameStop. fiasco. We all have a like, somewhat. I mean, you hear the talking points, right about what’s going on. And I can only put together what I hear because obviously, I don’t know. And I think Ben’s right around the same thing. Like he kind of knows what’s going on. But maybe he knows more. I don’t know, I shouldn’t be speaking for him. But why don’t you explain in layman’s terms, what you kind of kind of what, what is going What happened? What’s going on and, and etc. That was so
for my kids. So I want to first be very clear, there’s a difference between investing and speculating. Yep. So hedge funds, and then what the the Reddit users did, it’s really more speculation than investing. So I want to be very clear that I know about it because I’m in the field, but it’s not something that I do. Okay, so right. When I work with clients, I want them to we’re not trying to get rich quick. We’re just trying to put money away for our futures inside 401, K’s, IRAs, things like that. But by being in the industry, you get exposed. So my kids were asking, because, you know, that’s how much this has gone. I mean, it really is getting like blown up to where, you know, my kids are asking about it. You know, my I have three daughters two, one of them’s a freshman in high school, one of them’s a junior, and the other one is actually going to Calvin right now. But think about what short selling is, if I’m a hedge fund manager, I don’t really invest for the long term, people just give me money. And then I just trade however I see fit. So if I make a name for myself, and I make a lot of money, I attract all these dollars, the more dollars I have, the more I can influence the market. So what short selling is, is you actually borrow shares from somebody else, and then you sell them right away. And in order to borrow, you need to have a lot of money because you have to be able to borrow against what you own. And there’s margin requirements by by financial institutions, so so you have to have a lot of money, so you can borrow a lot of money, so they actually borrow the shares. I used a Doritos as an example for my kids. So hopefully this makes sense. But let’s just say I had a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, and I could sell them to you for $3 a bag right now. But I knew Doritos was coming out with a new brand, which is going to cause Cool Ranch Doritos to go down in value. So they’re gonna come up with this really cool new flavor. So I would sell the bags of Doritos, borrow them from someone else’s sell them to you for $3 a share. Because once that new new flavor came out, I could turn around and buy the bags back for $1 and then pay back my loan. Does that make sense? Yeah, I bought I borrow the bag from someone else. I make $3 I have to pay interest to the person I borrowed it from. But then once that once that little piece of information comes out, I turn back around, buy my bag back the cool restaurants for $1 a share, give them back to the people I borrowed them from and I make $2 back.
So are they actually exchanging money when they do that? Or is this just like an X’s and O’s kind of thing? I mean, I know they’re not literally giving them cash. Like you know greenbacks, but I mean, are they actually literally like, or is it just like, Hey, this is a piece of paper, I want to borrow these Doritos or whatever, and I’ll pay you back when I sell them. I mean, kind of thing. Yeah,
in general. I mean, there was a time in my business where I actually saw a stock certificate. I have not seen the stock certificate in a very long time. Okay, so I have some of them hanging up on a frame. But they really don’t in my office, but they really don’t exist. Everything’s electronic. So it’s all it’s real money. Yeah, but it’s not actual money changing hands. It’s all electronic. Huh.
That gets a little. I don’t know, I know what happens. It doesn’t I mean, it’s kind of like how they use you know, use your debit card. I guess it’s kind of the same principle. Right.
And, and the other thing I wanted to point out when I was thinking of what to say is there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with short selling what I just described, it’s not illegal or immoral or unethical. It can become put in the gray or become illegal immoral, unethical if I start fabricating information to push the shares down. Yeah, yes. Yeah. And that’s where I don’t think a line was crossed in this situation because I don’t think anyone was fabricating anything. Okay. What happened was the Reddit band came together the Reddit I don’t even remember what they call themselves that though Reddit wallers, or
something like that.
I don’t, I’m totally butchering it. So I apologize for anyone who’s in that group. But what they did is they saw that these hedge fund managers were doing this. And what can happen now think of it the opposite is, let’s just say, even though I think that Cool Ranch Doritos are going to go down in value, let’s just start buying up all the Cool Ranch Doritos. Yeah, so let’s just start buying them up. And then economics, law of supply and demand, when there’s a lot of demand for something, the price doesn’t go down. Even if it’s artificial, they drove the price way up. Yeah. So now, I have all these positions where I sold a bag at $3 and other trading at $10. And then I start panicking going, Man, I’m losing a lot of money here. Because I got to repay back that loan. So I thought about buying bags of Doritos, too. So you have the route of people doing it. And I have the hedge fund covering their positions and buying Yeah, and this is causing this frenzy where all of a sudden, bags of Doritos are worth $120, a bag, which we know is not sustainable. But that’s what they’re going for. Same thing has happened with GameStop. And you’re actually starting to see and that’s another rabbit hole we can go down a little bit is once they halted trading, you’re seeing the shares coming. There’s the ultimate issue is whoever owns GameStop at the end, its musical chairs, they are not a very good company. It’s a bag of Doritos. Really, it’s about what its value is. So if you bought paid $400 a share for it. It’s really not worth that. In the end, we don’t think it can continue. We don’t know. But I don’t think that that trend can continue forever. Ultimately, it’s a bad company that’s losing money, which is probably going to be back worth four or five $6 a share and you paid $400 for it. You’re going to lose a lot of money. So someone’s gonna pay, huh?
So is there precedents for this? Has this ever happened with anything else? Or is this just one that we’ve heard about because of Reddit? And because of the beauty of social media?
I am actually glad you asked and I don’t deny print might not have printed that page. I’m sorry, I had. But one thing one precedence that I could point to is Bitcoin. So same thing happened with Bitcoin, where it really doesn’t have much of a value, but the value is in the eyes of the beholder. But the same thing where that can go on while trading things. So this is not the first time it’s news because it became news. But this stuff happens quite frequently more often than what we want to know where we don’t think and I guess where I wanted to go. And maybe I don’t know if I’m answering your question, Ben. But the same thing happened in 2008. With the financial crisis, if you’ve ever watched The Big Short, there was a hedge fund manager shorting these, these mortgage backed securities. So he saw that there was a problem here. And he went and started shorting them. And he actually lost money for a long period of time before it finally played out. In that case, the problem was the security they were shorting was actually in every one of our banks. So once they start shorting that and driving those values down, it caused a problem where our financial system became illiquid. And which caused the crisis which took us 10 years to recover from. So in this case, they’re shorting GameStop. I Well, I No offense to people that work for GameStop or own GameStop. I don’t think it’s going to bring our financial system down. Sure. So I think the fear that people are feeling is this going to create the next bubble? I think is probably overblown.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So basically, what Reddit users are doing, they’re just basically gambling.
They’re gambling. Yeah, it’s kind of funny to be. I mean, from my side of it. I’m a free market guy. And this is I guess, what I wanted to say is I think we often want to regulate and say this stuff shouldn’t happen. Yeah. What hedge fund managers have crossed into the gray in terms of advertising, what they’re gonna do ganging up on companies, and they just got caught. Yeah. And what I love is instead of a regulator coming in and fixing it because they never want to fix the actual problems, they just want to create more paperwork for the common person. Instead of regulators. This group of Reddit people from a free market perspective just made them pay for their behavior. Hmm, yeah. And for my side, I think that’s worth it. markets are pretty beautiful. Now I don’t think we can have on check free markets because then people get taken advantage of if you read the jungle by Upton Sinclair and things like that, sure, ultimately, greed and fear are going to take over and cause bad conditions. But it’s nice to see the free market stuff in where regulators have failed.
Yeah. So that leads me to my next question. How do you feel about the app Robin Hood restricting access to GameStop stock? To me that flies in the face of a free market. That was I think, probably the headline that was most alarming to me. And maybe I’m not understanding it correctly. But based on what I heard, the app, Robin Hood or whatever, these people were using these redditors, limited access to that stock.
So and Jason and I talked about this beforehand, this is where I want to be careful, I want to get my opinion, but I also don’t work for Robin Hood. And I’m not privy to what the reason was behind those decisions. And what I was telling Jason is my firm actually restricted sales of those stocks. But it comes back to what is our purpose, we want people to invest for the long term put money in 401k. And IRAs, we don’t want our clients gambling, not at our firm. So I would say we’re Robin Hood, when I look at that go, but that’s not part of their their whole thing is giving you access to options and all these other things, which are more on the gambling side. So I would question the decision. But I don’t want to go down the conspiracy route of we could. But I don’t want to because i don’t i i’m not privy to that. So I think some firms restricted for good reasons. other firms, maybe regulators told them they had to nose. Or maybe there was some funny business going on? I don’t know.
Yeah, I’m sure we’ll find out. I mean, I heard rumors from 35% owner and Robin Hood is as a hedge fund guy out there. So I mean, that’s they’re just trying to save face. I was really frustrated as a as a consumer, because I use stash. And it’s just fun. Like, I have like, ups, I have Tesla, I have, I have point seven, five shares of Tesla, and it’s worth like, 600 bucks. It’s not at all. So I play around with it just for fun. Like, it’s five bucks a week. It’s like, what do I want to invest in, you know, those kind of things. So I feel like that’s what Robin Hood was, and for them to say, like, if stashed. If I was a robin hood customer, I would pull my all my money out. And I would go to another app. And I’m like, or I would, you know, send it to my financial advisor or whatever. And, and so I was really disappointed to see on the customer side that they just were like, Oh, yeah, by the way, you can’t do this anymore. I’m like, What the heck? And then again, you know, there could be many reasons.
I think it would be worth trying to find out the reason. I just, I mean, I’ll tell you myself, I am fatigued by GameStop. So I love talking with you. But at least I’m not talking to clients explaining to them why we’re not engaging in that or why I didn’t know about it, which is my lovely. I love that question. So so I’m more particular. So I’d care to do the work. But I understand your question and agree. And, and actually, some Ted Cruz and AOC actually agree with you as well, that, that the Reddit users should have allowed it. I think they have different reasons for why they agree. But yeah, from us from a free market perspective, I think that absolutely. People should be allowed to do what they want to do.
Well, I look at it like this, they are a business so they can do what they want. But I’m wondering if it’s actually i don’t i don’t think it’s illegal, what they did. But I do feel like, you know, it’s just like a business not serving a customer. Right. If they don’t want to serve them, they don’t have to. So I don’t know if that’s, you know, if I’m on the right path with that, or if I’m just way off? I don’t know.
I guess I’m gonna save you. You. You pointed to it before, if you were a robin hood customer, you’d pull your money. Yeah. So hopefully, whatever reasons they had, hopefully they can explain it to their customers. And if they can explain it in a way that makes sense. They’ll keep their clients if there’s not a good explanation. Hopefully people pull their money and that will take care of the problem versus someone coming in, because I would agree with you. I don’t think that they did something morally wrong or, or but there’s a there’s an issue here. Well, I
think I think I would disagree. I think morally it’s kind of shady. I don’t think I don’t know if it’s illegal though. That’s right. Like what they did. I think they had a right to do it. But why? Right, I guess.
Yeah. Well, we could go on and on about GameStop. But as you said it’s I’m sure it’s something that you’ve talk through many times, clients, and I feel you’re on the fatigue there. But one of the things that we hinted that before I think Jason mentioned it sometimes, for whatever reason, conversations about money, finances, they just feel awkward. And it’s uncomfortable to have those conversations. So with that, my question for you is why, from your perspective, do you think it’s so difficult for individuals, husband and wife, siblings, parents? Why is it so hard to talk about money? I know, there’s been some times in my life where I’d rather have a tooth pulled, then talk with somebody about money and financial goals and all that good stuff.
That’s a, there’s so many answers to that. And I don’t think I have all the answers, but I could start, I think it starts with in your marriage, that right away, you both come at money from a different perspective. So I came at money from I guess it’s a little ironic, or my parents were a little bit really loose with their spending, where they had credit card debt, and all this other kind of stuff. And if you needed something, you just went and got it. And so why wouldn’t you just continue down that path, where Jana grew up in conservative Dutch Christian reformed, you know, hudsonville area where they actually use layaway, she remembers her parents using layaway. So I saw if you if you know us, Jan is really really, she don’t like to spend money at all, which I’m grateful for actually, because I’ve seen the other token, the other side of it of people having a spouse that can’t control their spending. And I think that’s more problematic. But um, but right away, you have two people coming together with different perspectives. So right away, you have tension, and in rather than in living in the tension, and we could talk a little bit about that, because that’s, that’s some of the things I wanted to bring up, sort of living in the tension, you tend to try to avoid that, like, avoid the tension. The analogy that I use is if the story I use it when I was like 23 years old, I tried to teach myself how to play guitar. So I bought a guitar a really cheap one. And I bought a how to play guitar book. And I tried to tune the strings. And when I tuned the strings, I broke the strings, like literally within 15 minutes of trying to play the guitar. Because I because I made him too tight. And I never touched the dang thing ever again. So I fell off my guitar. But my point being is, if I’d never tuned the strings, there was not enough tension in the strings. So why not there not being enough tension, it doesn’t play. But once you make the tension too tight, all hell breaks loose. And the thing just busted. I mean, it was it was scary how those I break, strum the thing and awesome going on all over the place. So and I think we’re living in that world right now. We don’t want to come to politics when it comes to money when it comes to religion when it comes to all these different things is we don’t know how to live in tension right now. We either try to avoid it, which is why people or when we get into it, we start storming the Capitol and doing really crazy stuff. And and I say that I don’t know what happened with the serving the Capitol, but I know we as a country need to address the anger as to why that happened. And and really address like, there’s people feeling left behind. Yeah. Which, which is I guess the second point to the money issue is, I think right away, we get jealous. So there’s, there’s you go, that person has theirs, and I don’t have mine. And we tend to go there. It’s us versus them. Were the have nots. They’re the haves. Yeah, we’re gonna start on the Capitol, you know, or we’re the haves, they’re the have nots. So we’re gonna I mean, you could go that in so many different directions. politicians do it right away. I can hear them talking about those greedy Wall Street people taking advantage of all these people. I go well, that’s, I think that’s, you know, it’s along the lines of, we’re gonna make them pay their fair share. They have all these buzzwords, which just really, really get at me because it’s just not accurate. Hmm.
Yeah, I mean, they’re all they’re all trying to get reelected. So I mean, the buzzwords is what gets them reelected.
So yeah, back to your question. Why is it so tense? I think part of it is we bring those these things to our marriage. Part of it is jealousy in terms of we feel and then I think this is a man issue maybe more so than a woman should I find this in my practice that women want to plan? Men are embarrassed in terms of they know they should have done better or they know they should know these things. I’m embarrassed when I don’t know how to work my car. It’s the same thing. Yeah, well, when I open up my my hood and look and go, I really don’t even know what that thing is. I feel less manly.
Yeah.
I think part of the reason I’ll go here with masks reason why I think if we all admit it, the mask is not there. that big of a deal. But when you wear the mask in public, you feel kind of emasculated. Oh really, if you actually think about it, you probably feel kind of dumb and feel a little bit like not, not whole. So and maybe I’m thinking too much into it. But so back to money is, I think when men see their finances are a mask. The last thing they want to do is admit to someone else, that they really didn’t have what it took. Yeah,
I mean, I I feel I feel I don’t I don’t I wouldn’t say it. You know, it’s a masculine thing. I just feel guilty. Like I you should have been better. You know what I mean? That’s, that’s kind of how I look at it. But I’ve been doing good ish.
Jan has helped Jason with his budget at times. It’s very humorous. What I can overhear. Yeah. Going back and forth. Yeah,
yeah. So I know, you got a heart out at 945. So one of the other questions we had was, you know, what would you say the most missed misconception about money is for adults in their 30s and 40s. Like, what they think they’re doing is right. And I know, this could be your opinion, too. So I always want to throw that out there. These are all our opinions. It doesn’t mean it’s a right or wrong answer. But I’m just curious what, what you’re seeing right now with people in their 30s and 40s.
So I think one misconception, I think is that people realize, and I think this is true, as people want to get rich, quick. Yes. So when you look at gamestop, that’s really what it’s all about is I want to make my buck, where the truth is, you’ll become financially independent. And this is the Dave Ramsey, which we’ve talked about, you know, through hard work through putting it’s not so in other words, it’s not what I do as a financial adviser, I will help you make a good return with your money. But so can all these other firms. There’s there’s a lot of different places that can do it. But it’s your work, you’ll make yourself a millionaire, not your financial adviser. And yeah, certainly not a scheme that you find. So I think the first misconception is that I need to just invest better, where you just need to invest more. So I guess that leads to the second thing is I and maybe this sounds self serving, but I think it’s part of the reason why I have a job is I think people’s eyes need to be opened up that we don’t have our father’s pensions, we’ll probably get social security, but we probably won’t be able to collect till we’re in our 70s. So that’s kind of how they’re gonna fix that problem. Is your watch it just keep moving the age back full retirement age used to be here. And so by the time we get there, it’ll probably be well, you can’t start collecting till 72. Because y’all live in 100. Now, well, that’s the main problem, right? Is that when they set up Social Security, people don’t live to 90 people don’t live the 100 years old, they live to a ripe old age of 69. Yeah. So start paying them at 62. Seven years out, we’re good. Well, what happens when people start living to 8085 90? Also, we have a problem. There’s no money in the system. So so we won’t have as much Social Security, we won’t have those pensions. So we got to do the savings. Yeah. And I think when you actually look at it, I think most people don’t realize how much they actually have to be putting aside to get where they want to go, they think I can retire at 60. If I just take my 401k and my match, I think it can be eye opening. So those would be my two.
Yeah,
I guess answers,
I got a follow up to them and noticing a trend on Tick tock, where all these financial, I don’t know, these guys, they’re like, there’s this one where the guy’s like, Oh, I got this huge down payment, and then the mortgage guys like, Oh, you might not want to do that you should take this money. Instead of putting it down on your house, you should invest it in the market. And like I’ve always been told, like, you know, low debt, low debt, low debt, you know, and get your house paid off as quick as you can, because that will be your biggest value. So I kind of know where you’re going to answer. But I just be curious, your thought on that. That’s, I’m
glad you brought that up. Because this is where I differ from a lot of people in the financial world. A lot of people in the financial world they tell you a mortgage is good debt. And I go, I don’t think it’s terrible debt. It’s not like credit cards, right? Which we’re basically you’re paying 25% you’re not gonna make that in the market. But I don’t think any debts really good debt, right? Because you have to compare what you make in the bank versus what you’re paying on the mortgage if you want to be fair, so you have to use a risk adjusted return. And the example I can use is, and I actually wrote this on my Facebook page the other day, was if I suggested you take a big mortgage out of your house, fly to Vegas and spend it all on your lap. would you do it? No. But you could double your money like you could literally one spin double your money. Why wouldn’t you do that?
Because I could lose it all.
That’s That’s exactly it. So when we say don’t put that down payment on your house, put it in the market. While the markets not like Vegas, there still is extra risk. They’re Yeah, in 2008 was a big example where people lost their homes because they were leveraged to death on their homes. So you have to look at is, so there’s nothing wrong with having a mortgage. But I would look at it go if I’m paying 3% for my mortgage payment, interest to my mortgage, and I’m only making point one at the bank, I should pay my mortgage down. Yeah, yeah. So and when we look at the market, really, when you’re looking at long term returns, I know we’ve been making much better than this. But because of the growth of the market, we think you should anticipate lesser returns over the next several years. The other thing is that the tax benefits are almost gone down in your mortgage. So that’s gone, too. If you have real estate taxes that are $10,000 a year. I don’t know if you have that in Michigan, but we certainly have that in Illinois. You don’t get to write off your interest anyways. Yeah, I don’t know what advantages of a mortgage aren’t, are really as high as they used to be either.
Yeah, I just I just send all my stuff to my account. And he just does it. I don’t know.
So I come back to it. And then the standard deduction went up to so I come back to I think people should work hard. I think paying off your mortgage coincides really well with having a happy retirement.
Yeah. That’s a good Yeah, it’s good. And are you familiar with Grant Cardone? Not so much, okay. Well, he’s, uh, he really He’s like, he started out as a car salesman, and then eventually kind of made a kingdom for himself of sales training. And that’s the field of work that I’m in. One of his latest soapboxes is, you don’t need a mortgage, you don’t need a house, just rent a house that’s affordable, and use the rest of the money to invest. So he’s, like, going totally against the traditional idea of a mortgage is a good thing to have. And it’s okay debt to have. He’s like, just skip that. Get a house that is maintained for you rent live there. So my follow up to that is, I’ve always been told that when you do that you’re just shelling out money for somebody else to get rich. But from your perspective, is renting ever a good idea?
It’s a great question. So I guess financially, I could probably agree with him. Because I look at the first house I bought, we bought our first house for 135,000. We sold it three years later for about 175,000. So in three years, we made 40 grand, but we put a new furnace in it, we put new carpet in it, we paid probably $5,000 a year in real estate taxes, we paid a realtor commissions to buy it, we paid a realtor commissions to sell it, we were paid all this interest on our mortgage. So actually, when you add it all up, it’s very possible that we just broke even, even though it felt like we made 40,000. So you could probably make that work. Where I would counter that though is is building up equity in your house does help you enjoy retire, eventually your payment is going to go away. Yeah, in a house versus rent, it’s going to be perpetually, so and I still think you’ll still make more money by owning a house than renting. Plus, you better find a good landlord. So talking about quality of life. If your landlord is garbage. I mean, I moved out of a building that I was at for 15 years. And he didn’t work half the time the the it was just this isn’t the house I live in but where I was renting for my office space. And we were I didn’t realize how unhappy I was there until we moved to the new office and our landlords are awesome.
What do you guys need like stopping
and all the time? Do you guys need more salt for the sidewalk? Do you know all these different things where I pull into the driveway and half the time that wasn’t even plowed at the old place? So so add on top, you better have a good landlord. Where I will tell you for sure, though, is where I will talk to young people say don’t buy until you can afford it. Yeah, I think people think I should buy a house and they lock themselves into a big payment become house rich and poor in every other area. And they can’t fund their Roth IRAs. They can’t fund their 401 K’s they can’t because they’re locked into this house. And then the other thing is life has a way to really do funky things where you think you want to live here. But then six months later you lose your job or so I think waiting to buy a house until you feel more settled in where you want to be and know more about your direction is going to be I can I think Jen and I buying a house at 22 I think we were 22 or 23 when we bought it probably a little too young. I think we would have been better off renting and checking out some places and we might have made different decisions for our lives. So that does that answer your question or it does.
Yeah, that’s some good input. Let’s see. One of the buckets that we fill quite a bit on our show is mental health and I know from experience that finances can certainly have a pretty big interplay with mental health, whether it’s being anxious about your bank balance or being anxious about your retirement accounts, it seems like there’s a whole lot to be anxious about when it comes to money. And from your perspective, as somebody who works with individuals, what connections Do you see between money and mental health?
I think also you can see it in terms of divorce. And oftentimes, I think that you’ll see money’s very entwined with that. So lots of lots of deep connections between people that are struggling with finances and struggling in a lot of other areas. And I think it’s, it’s biblical to where there’s, there’s this going back to the tension is, you know, I always wonder if there’s probably not a place for me to do what I do and haven’t, because I’m helping people plan for the future. And, and I think happens more about living for today,
right? So like,
I’ve joked and said, I’m going to be a goat farmer and happen because I really like goats. And I love goat cheese. And I just don’t think there’s a need for a financial planner and heaven, I just, I have a hard time seeing where that rule fits. And sometimes I struggle with, what am I,
you know,
what I try to tell my clients is, if we’re planning too much for the future, and not living for today, we’re missing the point, right? So the one thing I can answer about anxiety is whether you use an app or whether whatever you use is just get a handle on it, tell your money, Dave Ramsey is a great place to start, by the way, if you want to get rid of the anxiety is tell your money, where to go. It’s freedom, even if you’re not rich, if you at least know where your money’s going, it makes such a big difference in terms of how you live your life. And then the other thing you realize is you’re in control. So maybe we all can’t retire at the ripe old age of 62. Maybe we’re all gonna have to work until we’re 7879. So how do you counter that growth? Well, hopefully we grow up, but also make sure you enjoy doing what you’re doing.
Yeah, but I don’t want i said i’m done at 60. So
you might have to find something. But But I also know I think you’re still ride sharing.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’m not doing people. But yeah, definitely gig work.
You’re done with people?
Yeah. Well, with COVID.
You know it. So yeah. So it could be just a lot of us are doing some kind of work. You know, and kitchen. And that’s not a bad thing. I’m finding making some kind of living doing something else. Yeah, even if our bodies can’t keep doing what we’re doing before our brains give out on us. Hopefully, we can find some type of productive work to give back to society. That might be our answer. So and so if that’s your answer, then you don’t have to worry so much about the future. You there’s trade offs,
right? You know, suddenly, okay, I
can’t afford to say I need to save 10,000 hours a year for the future. I have this anxiety over it? Well, maybe you can only do four. And that just means you have to work longer. But that’s okay. You’re in control.
Right?
Yeah. And I think as soon as we start this being honest, the anxiety will start to go away. How do we get people to do it? I guess I’ll do you guys. Maybe that’s more your area? How do you get people to actually be honest and say, this is where I’m at? And? Yeah,
I think, go ahead, Ben.
I was just gonna say for Jason and I, one of the reasons we started threads is because we had this relationship where we felt comfortable talking with each other about things. And as we got closer, the desire to do a podcast kind of came about. And that’s kind of the whole idea behind this. We want threads to be a space where we talk about real things that can be difficult to talk about, where it’s okay to have those conversations, and it’s okay to, to come to the table and say, I don’t know what I’m doing. But this is where I’m at. Our hope in doing that is that we encourage our listeners to do likewise. That’s really the I mean, that’s the reason we do a show on finances with you. And and, you know, going back to so many of our shows is we just want to create that space where it’s okay to talk about. And I know for a lot of people, including myself, finances, has been one of those things that is has not been easy to discuss with my wife because of where we each came from into our marriage. So yeah, I think really, it comes down to that. It’s just creating the space here so that listeners can go and do likewise. I love
Google hunting just saw that because it’s COVID and so just watching all kinds of old And one thing that I’ve realized for myself, so I happen to be good at money, you know, I wasn’t good at money in college. I mean, literally going back to the irony of my life is my wife, then my girlfriend was depositing money in my bank account to make sure that bounced checks, because I’m a financial advisors probably kind of scary if you knew me back when I was 20 years old,
hey, we all grow up.
So, but I happened to be good at finance and good at money. And what my point to Goodwill hunting is that he talks about how if he sits at a piano, he can’t play anything. So we’re all given gifts. Yeah. So but when he does these math problems, he’s really he just sits in place. Like that’s how he can play a concerto because you can do these math problems. So I have the beauty of us in community is I happen to be good at finance. Someone else is good at fixing my car. Someone else is good at baking bread. This is how an economy works. We have to eventually stop thinking we have to be good at everything. But the other thing we have to be okay is paying somebody to do something we’re not good at it. And because I find this all the time, I watched the non sound and like I’m on my soapbox, but I watch TV. So you’re talking about people have anxiety over money. But every commercial on TV basically tells you you’re an idiot. A baby can do this. Yeah. You know, look at this, the baby can do this. And you can’t you’re a dummy here. So that the subliminal message keeps coming at us. And so it makes it so we’re afraid to get help. And there’s so many people out there willing to help you in an area to say and to think I think it just starts about hey, you know if I’m banned I don’t know what your your marriage, but I’m just not good at this. Let’s get someone help us. Yeah, just like, you know, I’m not good at fixing my house. And sometimes I feel like a dumb ask is I try to cut something in it just looks terrible. Alright, call a carpenter, because I suck at this. And I feel bad. But I suck at it. So I hope I hope that’s what I can bring, I guess is just people to admit I’m just not good at this. And it’s okay.
Yeah, that’s so good. Well, as we start wrapping this up. You can do that a little bit before but your previous self in college wasn’t necessarily financially fiscal. If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice. What would it be? And that question
the second question that you think it would be, don’t drink and drive.
What every time I drive it down, I
96 going towards the east belt line. There’s that little circular jail. I got to spend a night in there. So so but then I also go back and say, if I hadn’t done that, I probably don’t end up dating Jana. So yeah, my what I was just, I was you talk about anxiety, man. I I definitely treated or medicated my anxiety with alcohol. I’m now on meds and I’m much happier. But it took me until my 30s to realize that I needed to be on meds. So I guess coming back, I’m gonna come back and answer re answer. Your question is I think everything happens for a reason. And without the bad things in your life, you don’t turn into who you become. Yeah, I don’t want to I don’t want to look at the bad things. I wish they never happened. Because if they didn’t happen, then maybe I’m not where I’m at today. I didn’t grow as a result. But certainly when I look back at my person in college, I just wish I was more confident. You know, I wish I believed in myself. I wish I I wish I just accepted who I was, rather than trying to be cool.
Yeah,
that’s such a good advice.
That’s such good advice series.
The journey of my my 30s has been letting go of this idea that I have to be somebody else, you know, somebody else’s idea of who I should be.
Right. Jason Jason labeled me the intellectual rebel.
Yeah, I love
because I I still have that little streak in me where I just pay for COVID in the in our area in our towns right here down in Illinois. There’s like this total. Everyone’s given the finger to the governor, where he said you can’t meet you can’t be in restaurants and every restaurants open really. And my high school person is so proud of everyone like
really? Yeah, let him know you can’t stop me
Oh, and I just love that. I love the whole rebellious side. But I think that’s that’s cool. But I I look back I go I hurt people trying to I hurt people trying to to prove that I belonged Yeah, yeah. And Wish I could go back and change that.
Well, that’s good advice. Well, Dave, I, man, I think we could talk forever. I feel like we were being under the gun. At some point I’d like you to come back on and be that intellectual rebel that you that is trying to come out of your your skin there. Well, I appreciate it. Anything else that you know any closing thoughts? Damn it. I did it again, Ben.
I hope that your podcast is doing well. It is fun to listen to I I am a listener. I mean, I’m kind of off and on. Yeah. But I’ve enjoyed some of the candidates arrived. I’ve texted Jason at times, like I gotta get you on. And yeah, I’m afraid to come on, because I’m afraid I’m gonna say something. It’s easy to talk about something that I’m good at, right? Or something good. What do you guys go into some of those other areas? I’m like, I might say something and get myself in trouble.
I get it. You know, being a business owner, you do have to be careful. I mean, even with us on threads. You know, one of the one of the podcasts, we recently recorded about the Capitol and I’m like, ended up being a Trump bashing session. And I’m like, we’re gonna alienate half the listening audience. I mean, there’s just no other way to look at it. It’s just going to happen. So that just, it’s just kind of part of the territory.
I’m gonna go back and listen to that one, though. I think I’ll enjoy it.
You will? You will. It was a good one. Just a little
little an open. One of my clients suggested I be on what was that app again? Or that that talking app?
Oh, sorry, telegram. Okay.
Go ahead and download this. I
downloaded it awesome. I’m getting a message. Jason, they
get off
a board.
Yeah, like I said, Today, we you know, Ben and I have been on it for years and years, and we just love it. But somehow it’s become associated with the right wing. And I’m just like, man, if anyone in your context knows you, they’re gonna know that you download it. I’m like, delete, delete,
delete. I deleted it. And it’s not and that’s what they don’t want to have people on the right. I love people on the left. Oh, yeah. I like to make fun of a bowl. That I think that’s why you want me on, right?
Because it’s funny, cuz when we talk politics, they everything. It’s like a big old horseshoe. They all bend back together.
Yep. You know, it’s
amazing how the far left and the far right are so close.
Yeah, you know, you were saying Ted Cruz and AOC were agreeing on
exactly and I think if they just stopped and look you go you know, we’re most of us are down at the bottom of the horseshoe trying to figure out what’s going on.
Man when when I get Dave a few beers. And I’m him and I have had some talks, man, let me tell you, I can’t
imagine. I don’t
know you.
Well. Yeah, life drove me home the one time when? A couple years ago and you didn’t have the beard, right. We went out to work with at one place up and down one. Beer place beer and pizza place. Yeah,
the mitten mitten brewing.
Yeah. there then his wife had to drive me home.
Alright, Dave, I’ll let you go. Thanks
a lot, so much. Have a good night. Hey, let’s find another topic. I’d
love to join you again.
All right, let’s do it.
Sounds good. See ya.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai