Hello, my dear listeners, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, where today we are interviewing Take Him, the financial tortoise, and talk about building wealth slowly and the money lessons you can learn from broke financial gurus. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my not broke master of finance co-host, Scott Trench.
Scott: Thanks, Mindy. It’s great to be here with my invests in companies that make cars without a choke co-host, Mindy Jensen.
Mindy: I do. That’s a good one. That’s a good one, Scott. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story, because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.
Scott: That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, or simply get rich slowly, like the tortoise, not the hair. We’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams.
Mindy: All right, Scott, without further ado, let’s bring in Tay. Tay Kim is a financial content creator who writes the high-value popular newsletter, The Financial Tortoise. With over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and a perfect hairdo, Tay shares his personal finance philosophies of growing wealth slowly and becoming a quiet millionaire. Tay, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today.
Guest: Thank you for having me.
Mindy: We have a mutual friend named Roger, and Roger and I were having coffee a few weeks ago, and he was talking to me about how he has this friend who decided to quit his job and then become a YouTube content creator. And I was like, oh, good luck to him. That’s going to be, you know, a bit of an undertaking. And he’s like, “Oh yeah, he’s been doing it a while. It’s Take Kim, the Financial Tortoise.” Like, I know him. So I’m super excited to have you on the show today. I love your videos because you are genuine. And I think that really is the difference between people who are successful at creating content online versus people who are uh, maybe have a little pop of success and then fizzle out. It’s because they’re not genuinely trying to educate. And I think that’s what you’re trying to do. I That’s the impression that I get. If that’s not what you’re trying to do, you’re doing a really good job. You’re an excellent actor. What made you want to quit your, I mean, I know why everybody wants to quit their job, but what made you want to quit your job and then move into financial content creation?
Guest: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people who are interested in, um, who, who kind of end up creating personal finance content, I mean, I was always interested. Given my wife and I, we had, we, we kind of went through this like financial journey. Um, when we got married, we had $105,000 of student debt. Um, that’s how we started off our marriage. And then we went through the Dave Ramsey course and, um, we spent just many years just, uh, understanding money, paying off debt, which kind of really forced us to look at our spending. Uh, so that really helped to develop a good money habits. So it was a bit of a blessing in disguise having having that debt, that’s what we talk about. Um, and then, uh, I think as we learn more about money, I saw how, you know, financial literacy was, you know, very powerful, something that I didn’t have, you know, growing up as an immigrant child and uh, in my 20s, in my professional career in my 20s. So it kind of, uh, after we went, after we paid off our debt, um, we started just kind of moving up the, you know, the financial literacy ladder and then more, more and, uh, more I learned, more I became, um, just excited about it, more I realized how empowering it could be. So um, yeah, and I saw kind of when I was, you know, starting to do some, you know, blogging on the side, just for fun, started engaging with people within the personal finance community. Um, uh, I just thought, you know, hey, YouTube seems to be this exciting place. Um, so why don’t I, you know, kind of try my luck there as a middle-aged man, even though, um, you know, I can’t compete with all of these young, hip, cool kids, but why not? There’s not many of us out there. So, you know, it’s a, what can go wrong? So that’s how I got started.
Scott: Well, let, you know, let you you’ve mentioned a word a couple of times here, learning and the financial literacy component. I see a huge bookshelf um, behind you. How important has that been to your journey, the self-education component?
Guest: Yeah, it’s been huge. So, I, uh, went to graduate school for a, for my MBA. Um, but what’s most interesting is that, uh, despite having gotten my MBA, most of the personal finance lessons that I learned has been outside of it through my personal experience and mistakes that I’ve made. So it’s huge. I mean, um, I think everything that I know, everything that I talk about in the channel is really based upon um, uh, it’s a combination of learning from all these smart individuals who distill their thoughts into these books and then me me being able to apply those into my personal life, reflecting on the mistakes that I’ve made. Um, so, yeah, I mean it’s a, I think because it’s not a, it’s not a topic that is systematically taught within our school system, I think it’s, uh, more it’s so much more important to self-educate ourselves about money.
Scott: What what was your childhood experience with money, um, if any?
Guest: Yeah, there wasn’t, I guess a lot of discussion around money at home. So my family we emigrated from South Korea when I was nine, um, and with similar to a lot of immigrant families, we struggled with money. My both of my parents were, you know, working class, um, uh, they didn’t speak English. Um, and what uh, you know, they were telling us was just to study hard and then you’ll be set. You’ll be good. You know, just study hard, go to college, and then you’re good for the rest of your life because that’s what, you know, our neighbors, you know, the the ones that went to college look like. So, yeah, I mean, it was a a lot of, um, I guess financial struggle in a way, like not having much. And I think part of the reason why I made so many financial mistakes in my 20s, uh, really stem from the insecurities I had in my in my youth where, uh, I didn’t know the difference between real financial wealth and success versus what’s shown on the media. So, and what was seen around me. Thus, I think I grew up with this misconception that people who drive uh, luxury cars, live in these big homes once on vacations all the time were wealthy, were financially successful. And I think in my 20s, that’s what I tried to mimic without having the foundation, um, of, you know, like Morgan Hous talks about in his book, is like real wealth is made when you don’t spend the money. And then for me, like that, it it clicked in my 30s, but then in my 20s, I mean, like I was just like, I don’t know, that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Go buy a brand new car, you know, like, uh, rent your own apartment when you can’t afford it and just, you know, like eat out all the time, that’s what wealthy people do. So I try to mimic that before I actually had real wealth.
Scott: What were some of those big mistakes that you made in your 20s?
Guest: Oh, so many, so many. I mean, uh, um, I think the most, like the, I think one of the first ones right out of the gate was I coming out of college, I rented my own apartment, um, by myself, thinking that’s what, you know, like successful people do, right? Which was like 50% of my take home pay. And I didn’t have any furniture to fill with. So I went to a furniture furniture store and you know, they were very generous. They were like, hey, we have the steel going where you can rent to own your furniture. So, of course, I was like, that’s awesome. Like, you guys are doing this for me. Um, so I, I bought a bunch of furniture that I couldn’t afford, but thankfully they’re like, hey, we have this payment plan. and I had no idea at the time, like interest rate, payment plan, all these things. So I was like, this is great. I could fill my furniture. I have, I’m owning my own apartment and I could fill it with furniture right away and I look successful. So I think that’s like if I could if I could go back to when I was, I think that was like when I was 20, 22, I like to say. Yeah, I made that uh, made that dumb mistake.
Scott: I just love that quote you referenced earlier where I think Morgan Housel says like, wealth is by definition the money not spent. And it seems like this experience in your 20s really set the stage for the complete reversal in philosophy that you live today. Can you talk about this concept of the quiet millionaire and some of the quiet ways that you enjoy your wealth now that maybe more meaningful.
Guest: Yeah, so, um, so my channel is called Financial Tortoise and then um, uh, I was inspired by my wife and I were inspired by our favorite favorite, um, fable Tortoise and the hair. You know, he the tortoise didn’t do anything fancy. He wasn’t, you know, trying to, um, show his his amazing skill as as a as a racer. He was very slow and steady on his path during his race. Um, so I kind of followed that philosophy. I like to follow that philosophy with like money and life as well. Um, so, Scott, you’re mentioning like, you know, I think slow wealth coincides with like quiet wealth too. I think when we aren’t focused on um, trying to show our wealth, but then really focus on the fundamentals of like, how do we build wealth? And, yeah, like, it’s really not caring about um, what uh, you know, what people think about me or what car I drive or, um, what a big of a house I have, what a fancy, fancy things I own. But, you know, I mean, it’s not like to say you shouldn’t own nice things and you shouldn’t own, you know, have, you know, go on nice vacations if something that you enjoy. But really, um, being able to separate yourself from needing to show this wealth to the world and being be finding that self, you know, fulfillment just from within. Um, and then you enable using the wealth that you have to enable you to the life that you want to live. Um, so I think, um, of course, it’s easier said than done. We live in a very social world where, you know, um, we want to be accepted, we want to be liked, we want people to be impressed, you know, by what we do. Um, so I think it takes a lot of conscious effort to, uh, I think de couple ourselves from this need to, um, need, need to show, you know, a certain image of ourselves to the world. But, yeah, that’s kind of the philosophy that like, I think after many hard, hard lessons that, uh, I’ve, I’ve come to really, um, follow, espouse and like to promote.
Mindy: So how did you go from spending and putting used furniture on layaway and trying to look wealthy to flipping the switch to growing your wealth in a slow way? What was the impetus for the change?
Guest: Yeah, so I think I spent, so if I could think about like in my life to decades, like 20s was really just all about the the money mistakes that I’ve made. I think the rent to own furniture is just one, Scott. It’s just like I got the, you know, like I I went and bought a brand new car. Like I didn’t learn my lesson. At 24, I went and bought myself a brand new car and then, um, at 27, I went and got myself like 100k in student loans. It just kept going the mistakes. Um, I wasn’t, you know, uh, it took me a little while to learn those lessons. I wish I learned it sooner. Um, but I think the biggest impetus was really, um, when my wife and I got married, um, we pretty much spent all of our savings, um, and then we had a combined $105,000 student debt. She just graduate from nursing school, I just graduate from business school. And I think that’s when like, you know, now that I have a family, like I have this responsibility, and then I realized I was on this razor’s thin edge of like one major catastrophe, one major mistakes can tip us over. And I think that’s where I was like, I need to get my financial house in order. And I think there is this a lot of, especially in the, um, world of like financial, I would say literacy, but like financial media, there’s just a lot of messaging around, I think make money quickly, get rich quickly, right? Those are very seductive, very sensational. And I was, I was pulled into that. I was like, oh, like, you know, you read like, um, Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich that Poor Dad. And then, you know, he doesn’t directly say like, make money quickly, but it’s a lot of like big words of like, get rich, you know, like, and then you’re like, oh, I need to go out and, you know, do something sensational so I can make a lot of money right away. So that’s what I think the hack was I was always looking for. And then I think when I went through Dave Ramsey’s course, it kind of flipped the script in a way, be like, oh, I don’t have the fundamentals down. Like I don’t have my spending down. I don’t understand how credit works. I don’t understand like, um, how debt works. So these are the things that I need to really focus on. And then I think as I went through that process, I started to read more, you know, books that aren’t as exciting, but is, you know, filled with a lot of uh, a lot of jewels, like, you know, the bogle heads, like three fund portfolio, like it’s a very dry book, but like it’s, you know, it’s got like everything in there that you need to like master your money, you know? So those are kind of stuff that I as I started as I started as I started consuming. I was like, oh, this is what I really want. This really connects with me. Like this is what if I want to have long-term sustainable wealth, it takes time. And like anything else in life, like if you want to have, um, you know, like a happy marriage, like relationship takes time. Like it takes time to invest in each other. It doesn’t, it’s not like just, you know, roses and unicorns overnight, like the movies, right? Like nothing good in life comes overnight. Everything takes time.
Scott: Okay, when did this uh pivot happen? What year? What what year are we talking about? How old were you?
Guest: So I was uh early 30s. Yeah, just graduated from business school. It was my early 30s. Um, I would say in the first couple years of our marriage.
Scott: Awesome. And how long did it take you then from there to pay off all the student loan debt and and get ahead? Was was it was it a a process to really transition your financial position or was it a light switch that happened, you know, pretty quick where your savings rate just jumped and you’re able to race towards.
Guest: Yeah, I mean it took a a it was a process. We went through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course and then um, we it took us three and a half years to pay off 105,000. Um, so then I think that time what it really taught us was um, just managing our spending, um, just looking at our expenses, like stuff that we didn’t do before. Like I didn’t track my expenses. And that was one of the first things that I did was like, oh, let me look at like, where’s all my money going? And then let me see how I can um, like where can we plug the holes? So then, you know, like I realized how much I was spending on eating out, so we started packing packing lunch. Um, how like, uh, how much is our car costing us, you know? Um, so then we said, you know what, like, we’re gonna, like, we might have thought that we’re going to switch our cars, but we’re like, we’re going to keep this as long as possible. Um, just like, yeah, and then I think that’s those fundamental building blocks, um, I think just wasn’t there. And I think that’s what the pay down the debt really helped us to really, uh, dial in was like controlling our spending. And thankfully, um, uh, our income also increased because, you know, our, uh, our career capital increased and then, you know, we’re able to bring in more money. And so then our expenses stayed fixed while our income increased. So we were able to use more of the gap to pay off our student loan faster. And then I think that just kind of uh, after our student student loan was paid off, I think that catapulted us into like, okay, how much more can we save? How much more can we invest?
Scott: Fast forward, you know, five, six, seven years and now we’re here and you’ve transitioned from your full-time job to uh, YouTube full-time. Can you walk us through that transition and the interplay between your the strength of your personal financial position and the influence that had on your choice to leave your job and and pursue this new, new venture that you’re very passionate about clearly?
Guest: So after Dave Ramsey, we kind of graduated into the uh, the FI world. We got hooked into like Choose FI and went to a lot of the events. Um, and then our goal now became save as much as possible, invest as much of as much as possible while we’re in our peak earning years. And then, um, in back of our mind, I think both of us, we didn’t have a concrete goal of like where do we want to go? Um, is it, you know, like, I think the the pursuit of financial independence in a way is, I think, um, process of, I think, rediscovery, transformation in a way. I think the money plays a role of just enabling you to pursue that, pursue that journey. So as our you know, as we were able to save a lot more, um, uh, into the market and then as we had a lot more cushion, which gave us a lot more options that we could take with our career. I think we were we were just kind of playing out different ideas of, hey, if we could wave a magic wand and try something crazy, what would that look like? Um, and then I think the being able to save, being able to one, being good with our finances which started with Dave Ramsey and being able to save a lot more, really gave us the permission to dream. Because I think that’s where, um, you know, if we didn’t have that, like we would be like, this is the route that we have to take. I mean, I, I worked in my job for 10 years before I started even thinking about, oh, this, what else could be possible? So, uh, Scott, to your question earlier, like how, like what what triggered it was, I guess uh, to be bluntly, I might had a midlife crisis in my late 30s. And I was like, I don’t know if I could see myself doing this 10 years from now. Um, and to be frank, like I, I enjoyed, I think coming out of business school, getting my MBA, moving, you know, up the ladder in the FPA route was a very traditional like and uh, I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed the team that I was working with. But then I could forecast where my next 10 years would exactly where what where that would take me. I saw exactly, I’m moving to that corner office right there. I’m going to get this kind of a salary bump. I’m just moving my seat at the board meeting from where I’m sitting over to like two seats over. Like where I created the slides, but now I’m going to read the slides. Like I saw it exactly, like I saw it all playing out in my mind. And I was like, is that where I want to be? And I think that’s where I was like, okay, then if not then where do I want to go? And I think and this happened like several years before I left my day job where my wife and I would start, um, and this sounds really nerdy, but we actually got a whiteboard out. We started kind of vision planning out, like what would that look like? If you could say five years from now, this is something you crazy you want to do, like what would that look like? And then, I think for each one of the kind of the vision we started listing out like, what would that financially cost us? Like, what would be our overhead? Do we have enough? What’s our runway? And I think in the FI world, there’s always this kind of um, dilemma of one more year. And then I think we got to a point we’re like, you just got to put a stake in the ground and then uh, make it happen. Um, YouTube was always something that I was, you know, somewhat interested in, but I didn’t know what that landscape looked like. So, yeah, um, interestingly, I didn’t, uh, I left my job a couple years ago, uh, in 2021, and then, um, uh, started, bought a camera and then started recording myself and launching videos. And here we are.
Scott: It’s super helpful. And my the big question I have here is, look, I I love it, right? I I I had a similar experience at my my first job, also in FPNA, FPNA and finance, what you did, financial planning and analysis, you forecast the future. Sounds like that’s exactly what you did uh coming up on this this crisis, this midlife crisis as you refer to it. My big question though is, how do you think that that crisis, your ability to then go and transition to being a YouTuber and putting out this content, would have been possible if you hadn’t put in the six, seven, eight years previous in building your financial position? Was there an interplay between the actual ability to execute it and the work you put in for the last eight years?
Guest: Yeah, so yes. and I think it’s different for every people. I would say my wife and I were a little bit more on the conservative side. So I think having, um, we I wouldn’t personally have felt comfortable, um, not having a certain level of financial cushion that we had at the time and we have now, uh, in order to make that leap. So a lot of scenarios that we kind of played out was like, okay, let’s say we start out in this journey and then we’re not generating, you know, enough to cover the overhead, then what are um, what are some of the resources we can pull from? So we built up almost two years worth of savings in cash. Like that if we brought no income, it’s okay. That like that’s that was that’s what we started like planning on. Like if we want to try all these crazy things, what’s one of the first things we want is like, even if zero income came in, we’re totally fine for two years. So that’s one of the first layers. and then we started looking at, okay, if that runs out and then, you know, your my wife would be like, yeah, if your dream of YouTuber just flops and then you bring in no money, like then what? I’m like, well, okay, then I think the second scenario is I can start doing some consulting work, I could start, you know, we can start tapping into our taxable accounts, uh, we have a rental, like, so we had all these different, I think levers that we can pull. Um, and then I think Mindy, you mentioned a lot in this, uh, in your podcast before, um, was the worst case scenario is we just go back to what the heck we were doing before. That’s it, right? Like that’s the worst case scenario, and that wasn’t too bad. It’s just we got to give ourselves permission to try something. let’s swing for the fences and then see we would regret never having tried, um, than having having tried and failed.
Mindy: Yeah, that’s a quote from Joel from FI 180. Scott and I were at Camp F in January of 2018 and he threw that out. He’s like, what’s the worst that could happen? I have to go and get a job. My worst case scenario is everybody else’s everyday life. So taking that leap can be really freeing when that’s like your worst case scenario. Um, however, you were smart about it. You had not just, you know, a month of savings. Oh, I better make it big in a month because otherwise I’ll be broke. You had two years of savings so that you didn’t have to worry about hitting it big as soon as you possibly could. And then on top of that, you had other lovers to pull and then on top of that, your worst case scenario was going back to get a job. and I think that that’s really, really important. I hear a lot of people say, oh, I just quit my job. Now I’m going to start investing in real estate. And I’m like, oh, can you get your job back? Because you need to have a foundation first. You have a really great video right now where um, you’re talking about the lessons you’ve learned from broke financial gurus. You talk about the danger of leverage, whichch just like leverage is great and horrible all at the same time. Can you tell us more about the uh dangers of leverage and and the lessons you learned from these these broke guys?
Guest: Yeah, yeah, that was a fun video I made. Um, so the premise of the video was, you know, there’s a lot of financial gurus in the market, you know, like um, Robert Kiyosaki, like, uh, Robert Allen, like all these people who wrote books, and then we hear just the superficial stories of what they, you know, want to portray or what they market, but then when we start unpililing the layers, you know, it’s a little bit more complex. A lot of them went through, um, uh, financial difficulties and bankruptcies. But one of the a topic, one of the points I talk about specifically is the danger of leverage, how a lot of them, the reason why they got into financial trouble, their companies or they themselves went bankrupt, um, was the primary the common theme across all them was leverage, was debt. Um, so I talk about examples of like Dave Ramsey specifically, you know, he, he was able to build a 4 million dollar real estate portfolio by the time he was 26 26. However, he went, he had to clear bankruptcy because he was overleveraged. And that’s what, you know, I think most other financial groups out there. So, yeah, I mean, that’s another component, my wife and I we um, we were very cognizant about when we decided to take the leap was outside of our home mortgage, which we thankfully also refinanced right before we all left we both left our jobs um, into the lower interest rates, um, locked those in, and then we paid off all of we we we paid off pretty much every other debt that we had. So we then didn’t have any other obligations. So I mean once again Scott like to your point earlier like I think it depends on each person on the what’s your decision uh, how you make those decisions and what you feel comfortable, but for my wife and I, I think like when we ran the scenarios we’re like there there’s some absolutes that we we wouldn’t feel comfortable emotionally until, you know, we um able to, you know, mitigate a lot of these risks, um with them in our lives before we can, you know, think about even taking risk in other avenues.
Scott: Yeah, so I mean, look, scenario planning, and I’ll just say it, is way easier and way more comfortable when part of the scenario plan is two years in cash before you even have to touch any investment returns or generated any other income. So, I think that that’s an absolutely critical thing for a lot of uh, entrepreneurs. I think there’s a very high correlation. It’s not perfect, um, but there’s a very high correlation between successful entrepreneurs and that cash position when they start out on that entrepreneurial journey. And what’s really impressive is you and your wife built it after paying off a ton of debt, um, working two full-time W2 jobs, paying taxes, um, and and clearlyy as a result of discipline on a day- in day- out basis for years to get to that point and it’s really paid off wonderfully for you. But but I want to keep going and diving into this this concept of financial gurus going broke basically and because you know, I that is not like that’s not over, right? There’s a lot of folks out there right now on Instagram on YouTube on Facebook uh with their courses, their very high priced programs and some of them will go broke, right? Some of them are probably struggling very badly right now if you know, they’re in certain asset classes that have been hammered. What what how do how do we how do you how do you use lessons from that video to think about who you follow and which lessons you take uh with a grain of salt and which which folks to to follow in building your position.
Guest: Yeah, and it’s hard. I mean, I think because it’s a, like myself, I think, um, the reason I made so many money mistakes in my 20s was because I couldn’t discern between good advice and bad advice because I didn’t have a foundation of financial knowledge. And I think, um, you could only really discern when you have a level of financial literacy, and I think that really begins with self-education and reading, you know, it’s boring, but it’s like reading, you know, classic personal finance books, like go read JL Collins, like simple Path to well, that’s going to give you a basic foundation on investing. Go read Dave Ramsey’s, you know, total money makeover. That’s going to give you some basic foundation on over spending. And I think when you have these building blocks in your mind, and then when and then you start to see these, um, financial groups in social media, then you can kind of discern between, okay, that’s that’s a little shady versus like, oh, this is really good content. This is like real, you know, this is based on sound foundation. Um, and at and the other part too is that there is no financial group that’s going to be perfect for everybody. Um, uh, I think there’s elements in which, you know, um, it’s going to resonate a component of what this person says resonates with you, but other components that’s not going to resonate with you. And then I think that responsibility really resides with the um, with ourselves and knowing how to, uh, knowing how to discern and then being able to pick the best and then apply that into our own lives.
Scott: You know, what one of the things I’ve observed about you is I think that the word enough, um, you know, like that I think has a has a profound word in terms of the world of personal finance and planning is, you know, have you have you observed that to be one of these things that influences who you follow? Um, this concept of folks who never seem to have enough, um, and folks who who do.
Guest: I think so. I mean, I think that’s just that’s not just the financial influencers but all of us, right? Being able to identify, um, what enough is. I mean, I I I talk about this in my video a lot about the, um, that uh, story between these two writers, they were at the, um, at, you know, this this billionaire’s party. and then one author tells the other like, hey, how do you feel that this billionaire is making more money than the royalty from your book throughout your whole life. And then the author says, you know, this billionaire has something that doesn’t have something that I will always have, which is enough. I have enough, so I’ll always be wealthy. So I think that idea of enough is, is crucial as being able to because then, you know, you’ll never be satisfied and then it doesn’t matter how much money you have. You know, like wealth, a living a rich life, having a wealthy life, you know, it’s, uh, it’s very personal. Uh, you know, knowing like what is that I want and, um, do I have it in my life? And then if you’re constantly seeking to have more and more, then you’ll always be poor regardless of how much money you have.
Mindy: That’s a really great point and being able to define what enough means to you can be difficult. I mean, you see, it goes back to that, you know, the TV and the media telling you, you need to have all of these things. Well, if I need to have all of these things, then I don’t have enough yet because I still need to buy all of these things. So, you know, what makes you happy? What is it that you want to do? The, uh, who was it? Scott Rickens in, uh, playing with FIRE, the the documentary, he said, I asked my wife to make a list of her top 10 things that she loves the most and they weren’t, they weren’t uh, really material things. It was like a good bottle of wine, good chocolate, spending time with my friends, spending time with my kids, spending time with my husband. It was it was a lot of non material or non-expensive things. So they changed up their life uh, so that they could live this better life.
Guest: Yeah, and Morgan Howes all talks about this in his book too, the psychology of money, how like happiness is really, um, the gap between like the expectation and like, you know, what we want or what the reality. So then really if you want to increase your happiness, lower the expectation, and then your happiness shoots up because you have what you expect.
Scott: I mean like that, like this concept scares the heck out of me with some investors who just keep piling more, like it’s like, oh, you have 100 properties and you got there in three years. Mmm, what’s going to happen there? You know, how you talk about leverage. That’s the only way, there’s only one way to get there that quickly. It’s with leverage, right? With using other people’s money, raising it from various sources, combining those things. And then what’s enough? You know, who needs 100 properties to achieve their goals? Give me 10 paid off ones and I’m good to go, way past where I need to be, right? Um, with that. Anyways, I love that concept. This concept of enough, I think is absolutely critical to understanding everything you’re about with the financial tortoise uh in a lot of ways. At least that’s what I’ve observed. How does it influence the way you invest? What do you invest in? What’s your philosophy and approach?
Guest: Yeah, it’s very simple. So I don’t, uh, the other kind of element that I, um, really embrace is just the idea of simplicity. Um, that’s the tortoise, right? He didn’t he didn’t have any fancy tricks up his bag. He just put one foot in front of the other and just kept walking, stayed on the same path, then gets distracted. So, I’m a big follower of JL Collins, the Simple Path to wealth. Um, so most of my, um, yeah, most of my investment is all within broad market index fund. If they’re with Vanguard is with VTIAX, if they happen to be with Fidelity because of my previous one and K, then they’re with um, see I don’t I don’t even know. I think I I I picked it once. It was either the S&P 500 or the total market, one of those and then it just set and forget it. Yeah, so a very simple philosophy and um, in investing and I think kind of, uh, Scott going back to the idea of enough, right? Like I think there is always uh, this lore to want to eek out better returns and more returns than what I’m getting, but then I think, um, that always comes with a cost too, right? Cost of energy, cost of risk, um, cost of just complexity. Um, so then, uh, if you have defined your enough as like, hey, this is like a VTX fund serves my purpose, it does the job, then we find contentment in that and that’s okay, and not want more. And then you and then at the end of the day for me, it’s like, well, then I don’t need to I I can spend my time on more important things in life instead of looking at the stock market.
Scott: What about this investment in clearly in books? Yes. And fitness that we can see right behind you on screen here?
Guest: Yes, yes. I have my squat rack right here and my books right here. So yeah, I mean, um, I do believe in spending on things that um bring a lot of value in life. Um, so, uh, I invested in a, I think at the time was like 2,500 or $3,000 squat rack that I have placed right behind my desk, so I have no excuse never to work out. And then, um, when I was growing up, uh, uh, one of the one of my dreams I had was one day if I could buy all the books that I want. Like I spent a lot of time in the library. and then it was very particular. I was like, I don’t want to get the paperback. I want to get the hardcover when it comes out at full price. So that was kind of like my dream. So, um, when of uh, yeah, the other day I just I I got I kicked up this book, how to win friends and influence people. And I have a paper copy, but I was like, there’s a hard cover? like, I got to get that. Yeah, $22, you know what? It’s an investment. So it’s going back to the idea of like, yeah, like, I think, um, we should uh, uh, you know, the money is there. It’s a tool at the end of the day. And the the end of the day it’s enable, it’s a, it’s a tool to enable us to live the life that we want. Um, identifying what’s enough for us and then being able to invest, uh, you know, guiltless in those areas. So for me, like working out and education are two of those big things.
Mindy: I love it. Uh, what advice do you have for somebody who is just starting out, either on their investment journey or their uh, content creation journey?
Guest: Yeah, so investment journey, I would say, you know, it’s it’s okay to keep things simple. I talk to a lot of people who I think very smart individuals. I think and I think a lot of and because of their intelligence, they have a hard time digesting the fact that like a simple index fund is that’s all they need. So I think when you’re when you’re investing, like I I literally have the same conversation over and over again. They’re like, I I I bought the VTIAX, but do you think I need this S&P 500 fund or what do you think? Do I need to add this like, you know, um this small cap fund. I’m like, you could, but what’s the point? Like what are you trying to achieve, right? And then um, so it’s okay to keep it simple. So that would be my kind of recommendation It’s like unless you love looking at the stock market all day long, um find one good fund, a S&P 500 or total market, and then dump as much money as possible. It’s not about eaking out the best return. It’s about how much money you put in and how long you keep it in there for. That’s going to have a bigger impact on your wealth than anything else. And then I think with the content creation part, um, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s kind of a niche topic. I would say one of the biggest lessons I learned was, um, uh, never be afraid to try something new. I think that was the biggest lesson for me was like creating YouTube videos, um, in my 40s, um, learning how to film myself, edit videos. It’s been uh, it’s been a steep learning curve and I feel like I’ve grown so much from it. Um, so I think that would be my other recommendation is that hey, if there’s an arena in your life that you never thought, you know, you could do it, but you want to try, you will regret never having tried more than having tried and failed. So don’t be afraid.
Mindy: I love it. Thank you, Tay. That was awesome. This whole entire episode has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time today. We’ve touched on you’re the financial tortoise, but when people are looking for you, where will they find you?
Guest: Yeah, so I think people can find me on um, the YouTube channel, uh Take him- financial tortoise. Um, and then, you know, if they want to connect with me directly, you can go to my website financialtortus.com and then join my email newsletter. Um, so I’m so old school. So I think I I like to interface via email. Uh not very good at um with the YouTube, you know, uh interface interacting on on YouTube, but you can find my content there. Um, so that would be the best place to find me.
Scott: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Tay. Really appreciate it. Um, hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and put up a PR on that squat rack here in the coming coming days. So, thanks for all you do.
Guest: Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Mindy: Holy cats. I should say holy tortoise, Scott. That was Take him and that was such a fabulous show. What a great philosophy and I, you know, I love that he had a little bit of a bump in the road at the beginning. I mean don’t love it. I’m not like, he was terrible with money. But it’s it seems like that really brings out the the desire to teach people when we’ve got uh guests on the show who have had this this experience with making mistakes and they’re like, hey, this is what I’ve learned, I want to share it with you too.
Scott: Nah, yeah, I mean, if if you’ve been listening to Bigger Pockets money for, you know, even a couple episodes, you instantly recognize that Tay is a kindred spirit with Mindy and I in terms of how we think about personal finance. I just love listening to his story. What a what a wonderful success story. Lots of lessons learned. Um, you know, and and look nothing, nothing crazy about his his story, right? Um and and his his 20s and 30s in the start he got really in his 30s on his personal finance journey. So, I think he’s really inspirational. I think he’s uh likely to be very, very successful with his approach going forward. and look at the doors it opened up just after five, six, seven years of really pivoting with his personal finances and allowing him to live the life of his dreams, stay fit, stay healthy, build a a YouTube channel and on and do what he loves every day.
Mindy: Yeah. What is that What is that saying? When you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life. He’s having, he’s living his best life, doing everything that he wants to do. Um, I did like the point in the show where he says, well, this might sound a little nerdy. Uh, not to us, Tay. This might sound a little nerdy, but my wife and I broke out a a whiteboard and we started to uh plan our life. and like, aha, that’s what we all do.
Scott: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that that’s that’s something that’s so rare but so common among folks who actually go on to achieve financial independence and the and reap the rewards and the benefits that come that come come with it.
Mindy: Yep, if that’s what you do too, welcome to your community. All right, Scott, should we get out of here?
Scott: Let’s do it.
Mindy: That wraps up this fantastic episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensensaying, take care. Be a tortoise, not a hair.
Scott: If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.
Mindy: Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Calen Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, copywriting by Nate Wine Troub. Lastly, a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible.
