This 22 Year Old Needs a Complete Financial Reset | Making a Millionaire

Peter (22) is juggling three jobs to make a great income, but he is struggling to build wealth. After taking a closer look at his finances, it appears he has over $5,000 disappearing each month in expenses from horse massages to a new quad. While Peter certainly doesn't lack the hard work required to build wealth, we talk through trying to work smarter not harder to build wealth on his terms. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DRINKAG1.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 0:59Speaker 02

  There are a lot of people that are going to watch this and be like, "Holy cow, I make substantially less than Peter makes, and I'm doing a lot more with it. I'm able to build a lot more with it." You have a ton of opportunity, but you've got to get serious about it. Do I still want to be living paycheck to paycheck? Like, when I ask you, "Hey, where's this $5,500 going?" You're like, "Oh, well, I see it and then I don't see it." That is not commanding your army of dollar bills.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  What do you do for a living? What's your, what's occasionally, what's your profession?

• 1:31Speaker 03

  I've got, um, I've got three jobs, kind of on and off, especially this late in the season. I've got two of my own companies, technically, one of which is a record label for my music, which I am working on pursuing more full-time than the others.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  I have my own construction company and landscaping. And then I also work full-time as a machine operator.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Okay. Uh, when you say construction, what, what kinda construct? And you said landscaping, is this like all outdoor stuff? Are you building houses?

• 2:05Speaker 03

  I do a lot of landscaping, mowing.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  To get started. And that kinda gets my foot in the door with the clients. And builds the relationship to mention, hey, I was, you know, mowing your grass. Notice you've got some drainage issues. I'll get an excavator in there, I'll do some drainage. Like, hey, you've got some siding, you know, coming off. Let me, uh, let me get up there for you.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  And, um, just kinda build off of that.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 2:33Brian Preston?

  I, I tell you, in these neck of the woods, people love that stuff. Because I'm, I've, I have more trouble than I have time. So if somebody will take that off my plate, I'm, I'm willing to pay for that. And I bet there's a lot of homeowners that are like that.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Literally someone knocks on my door like, hey, I saw your windows look done. I'm like, done, take care of them, knock them out.

• 2:49Brian Preston?

  I was out at dinner last night for a birthday dinner for one of my neighbors and good friends. And he was talking about that him and his wife, they wanna do these landscape projects in the yard. And, um, the bid came back at like forty-five hundred. And his wife was like, we should just do this. And he goes, okay, it's gonna cost us fifteen hundred to do this. But then it's gonna take us four weekends to do this. It might cost us our marriage. Maybe it's cheaper to pay the forty-five hundred dollars to, to the landscaper for the project. And that, so that's what I think that, that there's lots of, of blue, open water for a business like that.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  And a lot of times, it's the experience that, cause I know I'm young. A lot of people look at me.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  How old are you?

• 3:30Speaker 03

  I'll be twenty-three in a week and a half.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Oh, well, first off, happy early birthday.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Thank you much.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  And most twenty-three and a half year olds don't have three different jobs. That's a, that's a unique thing, right?

• 3:40Speaker 03

  So my music, I've been performing since I was fourteen. I had my first paid gig. But I didn't really start taking it seriously until about a year or two ago. Um, this year, my music really took off.

• 3:54Brian Preston?

  What was your, what's your, what's your weapon of choice? What's your instrument?

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Guitar. I started on piano, though.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Okay. And what kind of mu- what kind of music do you do?

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Country.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Country music. Look, welcome to Nashville, right? I love it. What's the difference in not taking music seriously and taking music seriously from, from a business standpoint?

• 4:10Speaker 03

  So, just being more professional, stage presence, I've gotten so many more gigs. I used to do maybe two, three a month.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  August of this year, I had 12 or 13 gigs.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  I was doing two, three a weekend, and then one weekend I had four.

• 4:27Speaker 02

  So, you know, it's wild. So, you got these three jobs. You're taking music seriously now. When you shared your information with us, you were kind enough to send us a net worth statement, kind of give us sort of the layout. This says that you're making like 90 grand a year right now, is that right?

• 4:40Speaker 03

  That is an estimate.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  It is definitely give or take.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  But that's kind of what me and Megan had rounded off to.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Okay. So, walk me through, you have these three different jobs. Can you break them down? Like, what, what comes in from construction, what comes in from music, and then what comes in? You said, the other one was you were a machine, you say machinist?

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Machine operator.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Machine operator.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  So, for my full-time job, running machinery, um, excavators, loaders, excuse me, all that type of stuff,

• 5:13Speaker 03

  that pulls in, so I'm not, I just started that job this year, probably about six months ago.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Um, my old job, in the first six months that I started at this year, I made, year to, when I finished, was about 30, 35,000.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  Then, so far this year, I'm up to 35, 40-ish.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Um.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  So, if we say you make 35,000 in six months, realistically, could you make?

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Less than six months.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Okay. Realistically, probably 60,000 dollars a year through the, through machine operating? Does that sound accurate?

• 5:50Speaker 03

  A little more, because I am not a full-time operator, so they pay me per what I'm doing.

• 5:57Brian Preston?

  Are you going to be a full-time operator, though?

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:59Brian Preston?

  Because you've got a lot going on.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  I am fresh in this company, so I'm still making a name for myself. I'm still building up my own reputation. It's a very large company. I'm not used to nothing like it. I'm used to running a very small crew, but... Here, we've got 400 employees.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  So I'm still working up a name for myself.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  So maybe like 65, 70,000 doing that full-time?

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Probably about that, maybe a little more, because right now, I get paid for when I'm operating. But I'm also laboring and driving the tri-axles as well.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  So the pay rate varies.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Let's do, let's, let's stick with 70, we'll be conservative, right? I don't want to be overly rosy here, just I want to get sort of a lay of the land. So 70,000 from that, what about from music? How much are, how much are your gigs?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  So this year was by far my best year.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Um, this year, I cleared 13 and a half thousand.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  That's great. Is that replicable next year? If you're working full-time as a machine operator, you will be able to do as many gigs? You will be able to?

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Awesome, okay?

• 7:01Speaker 03

  So I do after-work, um, occasional Wednesdays, Thursdays.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  But most of my gigs are Fridays and Saturdays.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 7:08Brian Preston?

  So, because you said you're doing 12 to 13 gigs a month, right?

• 7:12Speaker 03

  That was my high.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  In the month of August.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  That was August, that was my high.

• 7:15Brian Preston?

  So what do you get paid for a gig? Because if you're making 13 grand a year, and, and, you know, in doing 12, is that like they throw a few hundred bucks at you? What, what is it?

• 7:24Speaker 03

  So it depends on the venue, depends on how far it is. Um, I typically charge 100 an hour for my gigs.

• 7:31Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  I usually do three hours. But if it's a real small place, like a little dive bar, I will kind of do 200 for three hours.

• 7:41Brian Preston?

  And how long does it take you to drive to these places?

• 7:43Speaker 03

  It, well, that's kind of what goes into the price. Um, usually, most of my gigs are within an hour.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Some of them are further, which I charge, you know, maybe 350.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  So you got 70,000 coming from machine operating, you got about 13,000 coming in from music? And then what about from the construction landscape? How much money do we make doing that?

• 8:00Speaker 03

  So from my own company, this year was my first year, um, February, we'll mark a year, February 2nd.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Um, the only thing that I've paid myself so far from that was about 2,500.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Just what I've put into the business personally. So I've just been paying myself back. I have made no profit technically.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  On the business yet, but.

• 8:24Brian Preston?

  But I need to, from an accounting standpoint, does that mean you have a business account that's sitting out there with like 30, 40 grand in it?

• 8:31Speaker 03

  No, I wish.

• 8:32Brian Preston?

  Okay, so help me understand, because you said you haven't paid yourself, but you've done this work. What, what's come in and what's come out?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  I think in total, I've made 30 grand.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Year to date.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  It's like in gross revenue.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, about thirty to forty grand, somewhere between there.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  But all of that went out in expenses, is what you're saying.

• 8:53Brian Preston?

  Like, equipment and people.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  A good bit, yeah. So, and I've had, um, just last month, actually, I had a few major things break that I had to come out of pocket for.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So, most, it's not uncommon, most businesses, right, when you begin to operate, you don't immediately start profitable. So, that's a pretty standard thing. As you think about looking into 2026, because what I'm recognizing, a lot of this stuff is brand new, right? So, brand new to taking music seriously, this machine operating job with this new company is a brand new thing. And even the construction thing is brand new. So, you're kind of starting at ground level one, right? Which is, it's awesome, uh, but you've got some unique stuff you gotta navigate, right? So, when we think about 2026, realistically from construction, what would be a conservative, like, not the dream plan, not even maybe the down-to-earth plan, but what's kind of like, worst case, I think I can probably make this much in 2026, doing the construction and landscaping.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Worst case, probably, I feel like seventy-five is a solid number.

• 9:53Brian Preston?

  Okay, seventy-five thousand for everything. That's being a full-time employee, that's doing the gigs and doing, okay, that seems reasonable to me.

• 10:03Brian Preston?

  But that's got you, I mean, that's humping it, that's busting it. I mean, you gotta be out there, really. I mean, because it is, I mean, because that's, you're working hard, which, by the way, at twenty-two, I think you can do it. I mean, I think that this is the time of your life to kind of do, normally, if you came to me and you were thirty-eight years old and you had your guitar and you're doing all these three gigs, and I would be like, what are you doing? You've got to figure out what you want to be in life.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:30Brian Preston?

  You're twenty-two.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  It's kind of the time to do it.

• 10:32Brian Preston?

  You have the energy, you have the time, you should do all of, all of this to kind of be exploratory, to see what really hits and takes traction. Now, what I'm concerned about is while you're doing, going on these adventures, because you're limitless on, it sounds like, talents and going down these things, but I'm not seeing it turn into fruit. Yeah, on, on, like, on your net worth statement.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  And let's look at the net worth statement because it is, it is interesting. Right now, your total net worth that you were kind enough to provide to us just to touch over thirteen thousand dollars. We have one thousand dollars in emergency fund. We're gonna talk about that. We got about twenty-five hundred dollars in investments. And then we have a lot of transportation things, right? We've got a car, we've got a truck, we've got a motorcycle, and we've got a quad. We have lots of means of transportation.

• 11:25Brian Preston?

  I'm trying to see where in the financial order operations the toys were. Because they, they, they don't, I don't see them in one, two, or three. And there's definitely a quad, a motorcycle, a truck, a car.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  But, but again, I wanna, I wanna have some gray.

• 11:38Brian Preston?

  By the way, if I was twenty-two and I made seventy-five thousand, I would probably have a quad, a motorcycle, and a boat. I'd probably have a jet ski. That's what I'd have.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  I'd love to know.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  We were looking at boats a while back.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  So as, as you sit here, right, again, you're at the, you're at the very beginning of this journey, just starting out. You have your net worth statement. I do see some debt on here.

• 12:00Brian Preston?

  Yes.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  You've got a personal loan. What is that guy?

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Okay, so I actually started with the truck note. I need a truck for my business. I need a truck to do truck stuff.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  So I had to get that loan, which I really did not want to do at that time. The market for vehicles was not great at all. But I didn't have many other options at the, at that point. I wasn't making much money. And I needed, I needed a vehicle. So I bit the bullet. I got the truck. And then, next year, I started making decent money.

• 12:33Brian Preston?

  So when did that truck loan happen? What year?

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Twenty-three, I believe. This was before, you know, I found you guys. This was before I, you know, really thought about money the way I do now.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  And my whole family started getting quads. And I've, I've ridden quads and dirt bikes since I was little, but. Everyone else was riding every weekend. They put me in the group chat.

• 12:54Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  I didn't even have a quad.

• 12:55Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  I'm like, you're just teasing me.

• 12:57Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  So I got one. I shouldn't have, but I did. So I got a loan for that, which was 8,000.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Is that what the personal loan is?

• 13:04Speaker 03

  No.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  We haven't got a personal loan.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Not yet.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  So I got the truck loan. Then I got the quad, which was about 8, 9,000.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Then my transmission on my truck went about six, seven months after I bought it. So I got a bigger loan, paid for the transmission and paid off the quad loan.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  So that personal loan is like a consolidation loan to cover the quad, to cover the work on the truck, to cover the original truck loan.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 13:32Brian Preston?

  So I, I mean, I have to ask Peter, cause we're, we're all bouncing around it.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:36Brian Preston?

  Where's your money gone? Because you, you, you, for 22, it sounds like you've been in the money game since you were in your 20, like 20.

• 13:47Brian Preston?

  And I don't look, you could have a quad, um, because you make enough money, but it's just that you shouldn't have any debt though. I mean, I, I don't understand where, where, where your money's gone.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  So I actually had about seven, 8,000 in my emergency fund.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  I put probably 85% of my emergency fund back into my loans. So my truck is almost paid off. Then everything kind of broke down a month or two ago and I've been putting money into that. And just other bills and I got a hard time saying no to my girlfriend. We got a horse. He's expensive.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  You have a horse?

• 14:24Speaker 03

  We've got a horse.

• 14:24Brian Preston?

  Why is that not on here?

• 14:26Speaker 02

  I didn't see a horse on the, on the, where's that go on the balance? What do you put on the balance sheet?

• 14:30Brian Preston?

  No, no, look, I, I mean, I was just talking to, cause I have a friend in Georgia. God bless him. He loves his daughters and they're, I think he's on his third horse now. And, but you can, his first one, he got taken to the bank. Second one made great money on, I didn't even know you could make money on horses, but he says he's learned the game a little bit. So he's, so you can make money on horses. They are assets.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  So we rescued him.

• 14:54Brian Preston?

  Okay. So this is probably not a horse that's out there doing, doing.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  He's in good shape now. He's in fantastic shape compared to when we got him, but he's not going to be making us any money. He's, uh, starting to get older. He's a little arthritic.

• 15:08Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  And we just.

• 15:09Brian Preston?

  This definitely doesn't sound like it. You, you, you're probably smart. It's more of a pet. This is a pet, not an asset.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  That's our boy.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  You have a pet horse.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  We love him.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  You have a quad and a pet horse.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  I am working on getting rid of the quad. I'm working on getting rid of my truck.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  I don't want to say it doesn't matter a whole lot what you've done up to this point because that's not true. It certainly matters, but you were so early in the journey. What really matters is what you do next, right? You do have debt, so you got a little bit of like a hole to climb out of. I'd love to know what's your plan? And as you think about, you got all these jobs, you got all this money coming in. You found our show. You're beginning to like educate yourself on how money works. What? I'd love to know as we go, as we start into a new year, as you think about going into 2026, what's your plan moving forward?

• 15:55Speaker 03

  So my biggest goal, like next step right now is to completely eradicate my debt by, I think I said July.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Before July.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  That gives us about seven months to wipe out some debt.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  I'd like to get it gone before then. I, I feel like I make enough money. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do that. I, I realize that that probably wasn't one of my smarter moments in life, but it's been fun. I had a good time. It costs money, but money is nothing but a tool and I use that to have some fun.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Been listening. He's like, look, I heard Bo say it's a tool, so I'm going to get the horse and I'm going to get the quad.

• 16:35Brian Preston?

  I've got something.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Motorcycle.

• 16:37Brian Preston?

  I have to do for myself and I want you to talk to him about the, what his expenses and budget. But before I have a little, little rabbit chasing I want to do that. I'll bring you the results in a minute. So, but I have to ask Peter a few quick questions.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 16:49Brian Preston?

  What was the purchase price of the quad? Not what, what you think it's worth right now. What was the quad purchase price?

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Out the door, it was just under nine.

• 16:57Brian Preston?

  Nine thousand and what age were you when you bought the quad? Was that 22 or 21?

• 17:03Speaker 03

  I was 20. 20.

• 17:04Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  What you're about to do.

• 17:06Brian Preston?

  Motorcycle, what, how much, how much did you pay for that motorcycle?

• 17:09Speaker 02

  This is mean what you're about to, because I can see.

• 17:10Brian Preston?

  No, I know. You know, but I'm going to let you work while I do the rabbit. So what did the motorcycle cost?

• 17:15Speaker 03

  500.

• 17:16Brian Preston?

  Now you say it's worth fifteen hundred. These things appreciate.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  You tripped.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  I bought it. It didn't run. I fixed it.

• 17:22Brian Preston?

  Okay, so how much, how much did you pay? Plus, how much you put into it?

• 17:26Speaker 03

  I paid five hundred for it. And then I only put in two fifty.

• 17:30Brian Preston?

  Okay, so you got seven hundred and fifty. And how old were you when you bought that?

• 17:34Speaker 03

  This was like six, seven months ago.

• 17:37Brian Preston?

  Okay, so twenty-two.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Twenty-two.

• 17:38Brian Preston?

  Truck, how much did it cost?

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Twelve-five before interest.

• 17:44Brian Preston?

  Okay. And then how old were you when you bought that?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Twenty-two? Twenty-one.

• 17:49Brian Preston?

  Twenty-one.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Twenty-one.

• 17:50Brian Preston?

  Okay, what, what, we didn't even ask you about it. What, what the heck's a car doing on there? You need multiple? You got, you got your?

• 17:55Speaker 03

  I got the car because with my new job, I travel. I travel quite far. Um, at the job that I started at, so I travel with my personal vehicle to whatever job site they need me at.

• 18:07Brian Preston?

  Okay.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  The first job site that they put me at was an hour and a half away in the morning without traffic.

• 18:13Brian Preston?

  So what this car cost you first?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Seventeen hundred.

• 18:17Brian Preston?

  You say it's worth six thousand. So how much you put in it?

• 18:19Speaker 03

  Because I fixed it.

• 18:20Brian Preston?

  Well, how much you put in it though?

• 18:22Speaker 03

  About a grand fifteen hundred.

• 18:25Brian Preston?

  Okay, so you've got.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  That's what Kelly Blue Book said.

• 18:27Brian Preston?

  So three thousand dollars in it total, you think?

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd say about that.

• 18:31Brian Preston?

  And how old were you when you did this?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  This was about same time as the bike, motorcycle.

• 18:37Brian Preston?

  So twenty-two. So this is just a few months ago.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:40Brian Preston?

  So you actually have four jobs. Because you're actually out there, you're out there repairing vehicles.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Shave tree mechanic.

• 18:46Brian Preston?

  Shave tree mechanic. Okay, y'all continue on with budgeting and all the other stuff. I'll come back to you to tell you some things.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  So your biggest goal is to wipe out this debt.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  And I, I love hearing that. Um, and obviously I'm gonna ask you this question, but it's gonna be hard for you to like really like nail it down. But on an average month, how much money do you have coming in on average monthly that you could do something with?

• 19:10Speaker 03

  So I actually looked at my statements and ran up in average of the last five or six months.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  And it came out to about eight thousand.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  All right, so.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  A little under.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  So that's exciting, right? Because you were kind enough to share a budget with us, right? And when we look at your budget. It looks pretty reasonable. You say you've got 550 a month going to rent. You got car insurance. Uh, you've got the minimums you're paying on the debt. There's that horse again you're boarding. And you got phones. So you got about like, I'm gonna say 2,500 in fixed expenses, right? And so 8,000 gross coming in, 2,500 in fixed expenses. Uh, check my math on this team. That's $5,500, right? That we have to work with. Where's that 5,500 going? Cause like, I don't see truck insurance on here. I just see car insurance. Is that included in that? Motorcycle insurance?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  I paid my insurance premium upfront for six months.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  And it came up to about 2,500, a little more.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  So I, I kinda just broke that down. It was about 416 a month.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  I mean, that, does that cover all the insurance for everything? Like truck, motorcycle? Okay, great. Awesome.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  A little more. Uh, the, the bike is on a separate plan.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  It's, it was only like 250 for the year.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Okay. So you got eight, 8,000 coming in. You got 2,500 going out. That gives us $5,500. Where's the $5,500 going?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  So there is a bunch of other stuff that I couldn't, not find, but there's a bunch of other stuff that's missing. Like with the horse, we also do, um, every other month, he gets a massage. Cause he's old and arthritic.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Are you, did you hear?

• 20:58Brian Preston?

  I'm over here knee deep in math and I hear the horse gets a massage.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  I don't mean to be laughing, cause I, like, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's a horse massage. How much, how much are horse massages going for these days?

• 21:11Speaker 03

  About a hundred bucks.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  A hundred bucks every two months?

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Every two months, okay.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Like I said, she's hard to say no to.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Okay. So a hundred bucks every, so that's fif- okay, we count, so from 5,500, we're at $50. Keep going.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Um, I do put significantly more than my debt minimums into my debts.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  So I am really focused on chipping that away.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  How much is significantly more?

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Probably an additional. Five hundred a month.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  We're at $550, so now we're at $4,950 left over.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Don't see it on there, but putting money away for saving and investing and stuff.

• 21:52Brian Preston?

  No, that's what's gonna be left over. We wanna, that's what we're trying to figure out. That ain't, that ain't in here so far.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Cause you've been making money for a while. And what, what you're telling me is, hey, I have this desire. My number one biggest goal is to wipe out debt in the next seven months. If I go back to your net worth statement, I can see that right now, your total debt load is about $15,000. What this tells me is if your fixed expenses are 2,500 and you have $5,500 extra coming in, if you actually got serious about it and you really put your mind to it, you could knock out this debt in the next three months.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  What I'm trying to figure out is, is that realistic or is there more money flying out than we're talking about?

• 22:35Speaker 03

  There's definitely more money flying out. I see it and then I don't.

• 22:39Brian Preston?

  Peter, we gotta, we gotta get you, we gotta get, uh, cause you know,

• 22:42Speaker 03

  That's why I'm here.

• 22:43Brian Preston?

  behaviorally, we need to have a reset because.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Do you do any, do you do any tracking? Do you use a Monarch? Do you use any?

• 22:50Speaker 03

  One of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about. I used to be pretty good with money, but it was hard to be good with money that you didn't have. Now I have money and I, I don't know where it, I don't know where it went.

• 23:02Brian Preston?

  You don't have money. You have income coming in.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  I have income.

• 23:05Brian Preston?

  But it's, but it's quickly turning into expenses. And I just wanna give you, and, and the Monarch would be a great start. You know, just so, cause you need to gamify your life. I think you're very goal driven or you like to hustle and make stuff happen. But I need you to kind of have perspective of what the potential is that you're, you're dealing with here. So, and I'm not picking on everything, cause there's, we could put the horse, and the horse is probably a multimillion dollar decision just upon itself. But we'll, we'll come back to that. Um, and I'm not trying to hurt, cause I love pets.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 23:33Brian Preston?

  My, my wife's dog, I think the, I think my wife loves the dog more than me, but potentially. So, I mean, I'm not gonna make you, we're not, we're not telling you to go take and do something, you know, to make the horse go away. But it, but it is something you need to have some perspective on, cause let's go through each of these. The quad, you are 20 years old, you spent $9,000, your wealth multiplier was 88.3. That one decision alone. Against your future self is $795,000.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Three quarters of a million dollars.

• 24:04Brian Preston?

  So, and look, I want you to make memories with your family, but this ought to be one of those things where I, I, I used to do shows called Financial Mistakes You Hope Your Friends Make.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:13Brian Preston?

  You want to have the, you want to find out that a cousin or somebody can't use their quad because they're going to do something that weekend and then they let Peter ride their quad. That would have been a much better use than you going and, and taking $795,000 from your future self. The motorcycle, now look, this one, I'm not going to pick on you too much because it was $750. It's worth supposedly more than that, but just if I'm staying with the drill here, you bought that when you were 22, the wealth multiplier on that is 66 and a half. That's $50,000.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  I'm going to argue that should not even be on your net worth statement because that's a hobby.

• 24:48Brian Preston?

  Yeah, right.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  If you bought, you spent 500 bucks on a hobby, you put 250 dollars in the hobby and now you get to ride the hobby around. That's not a vehicle. That's just a hobby thing.

• 24:57Brian Preston?

  I'm running an, an educational exercise here. And then truck. Now, look, trucks generate money if you're going out and getting jobs. So this one, but it's still to finish the drill, you bought that when you were 21, your wealth multiplier was 76.56. So that decision is $957,000 from your future. The car, your wealth multiplier when you're 22 is 66 and a half. That car costs you $200,000 from your future self. If you add all those up, it's right at $2 million. So every time you make a consumption decision, now look, it can have a purpose, like a truck who's taking you to your job because I had, we all, that's why we have 238, is sometimes you have to take on debt. You have to do things to get

• 25:37Brian Preston?

  to your first wealth builder, which is your income provider. But that's not built into the quad. That's not built in. So you need to get serious while you're, because you're in the perfect stage where you just do something with this level of income and your drive and your hustle. It's going to turn into magical stuff. Instead of this stuff working against you of what you cost yourself, this could turn into what your wealth multiplier is actually built for your future. We just got to change your perspective so that you don't look back and Go, man, I made great income when I was in my twenties, but it never manifested or turned into a traction and turned into actually wealth for me. Because there's a big difference between having good income, which I think in the

• 26:21Brian Preston?

  world, we consider that rich versus becoming truly wealthy. And it's much better to actually have assets or to be rich than to look rich. And I think we got to get you working on that because your time is so valuable right now and you're in your work, you combine your time, because you're a billionaire of time, with your work ethic. Man, oh, man, I think you, you know, you could go buy quads, you could buy boats, you could do, you could do anything you want, but you got to do it, put the work in first. There's a time and a place.

• 26:54Speaker 00

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• 27:54Speaker 03

  So one of my biggest things that kind of happened, not happened, but that was going through my head when I was younger and kind of made all these rash decisions was that Like up until a few years ago, my biggest focus was just surviving and getting through day to day. And once I started making money, I'm torn between you only live once, I'm only gonna be 22 years old once, while simultaneously planning for my future. But like I said, I just sort of kind of snapped into this mindset. Once I found your guys' show and I feel like as a person, I've grown a lot and just matured a lot since I have started listening to your guys' show.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  I want to fix this because I know I could be in a much better position if I put myself in it.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Well, and I think that's the realization right there. Uh, because there are a lot of people that are gonna watch this and be like, holy cow, I make substantially less than Peter makes and I'm doing a lot more with it and I'm able to build a lot more with it. You have a ton of opportunity, but you gotta get serious about it. You gotta think, okay, and you'd have to think about what I want my future financial independent self look like. You're close enough, you can say, what do I want my 30 year old self to look like?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  At 30, do I still want to be living paycheck to paycheck? Do I still want to be saying, oh, man, like when I ask you, hey, where's this $5,500 going, like, oh, well, I see it and then I don't see it. That is not commanding your army of dollar bills. That's not, you've done one of the hardest things in the world, which is creating a big shovel. The hard part's making the income. Now you gotta finish the drill and figure out, how do I actually turn that income into wealth? But I can already tell you, there's gonna have to be some consumption changes.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  There's gonna be some discipline changes because while you have, when we think about the three ingredients of wealth creation, you have time in spades, right? Like you get so much of that. You have to increase how much discipline you have in your life. And I don't even mean around like not buying stuff. I'm really, hey, I'm actually gonna get serious about understanding where my money's going. I'm gonna go use, I'm gonna download the Monarch Money app and I'm gonna go sync up my credit cards, I'm gonna sync up my check account and every single month, I'm gonna be meticulous about where is my money going? What, I'm gonna go use YNAB, you need a budget. Like there are tons of free resources out there where you, in today's day and age, there is no excuse for us not to know where our dollars go.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  And if you're gonna meaningfully change the way your financial situation looks, you have to understand where these dollars are going so that you can appropriately redirect them into the places where they should be going. And it's not, it's not quads and horses.

• 30:35Brian Preston?

  Yes.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Right? It should be, at your income, you need more than a thousand dollar emergency fund.

• 30:41Brian Preston?

  Yeah.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Like, you said that-

• 30:42Brian Preston?

  Do you have health insurance, by the way?

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:45Brian Preston?

  Alright, I'm proud of you. Cause you are dealing with some dangerous activities. I just wanna make sure that you're not sitting out there uncovered on that.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  I have a very, very good plan offered by my employer, as well as a pension.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  I love that, and I think that's awesome, and that's gonna be super exciting. And we hardly ever say this. But even I think that is, is a few steps down the road from where you are right now. I think before I can even start thinking about, okay, well, how's the pension work and what's going on there? You were at like the very base level of personal finance. You were at the very, very beginning. And the very, very beginning of personal finance is understanding what's coming in and what's going out. And if we start at the very beginning, a thousand dollar emergency fund, that's not it.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Right?

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Like I said, I had that up to probably seven grand realistically, but I've put most of that into my debts.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  You know what that means? It means you have a thousand dollars in your emergency. I understand what you did with it, right? And that, and I totally get that. But when I think about, man, okay, if I got this, I have twenty-five hundred dollars of fixed expenses, I have this other five thousand. My immediate first priority is like, okay, what happens if that unknown, unknown thing happens and that's all I've got?

• 32:05Brian Preston?

  Okay, what's your deductible on your vehicles?

• 32:07Speaker 03

  I believe fifteen hundred.

• 32:08Brian Preston?

  Okay, so there's fifteen hundred. So I mean, that's-

• 32:12Speaker 02

  That's probably the one.

• 32:13Brian Preston?

  That's the least, that's, that's potentially your step number one is your vehicle deductible.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  So at the moment, I do have two thousand in my emergency fund, but what I've, what I've been doing is I've been putting away one fifty. Automatically out of every check into a high yield savings account.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Great.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  And letting that build up to 2,000.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Then I put that thousand into a loan. And then I keep that thousand and then build up to 2,000 again. That's kind of where I was at. That's what I thought made sense so that I still had a little bit of cushion, but still focusing on that high interest debt.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  This company that you work for, you said there's a pension to you before. They also have like a defined contribution plan, like a 401k.

• 32:55Brian Preston?

  Are you sure it's a pension or are you sure it's not a 401k?

• 32:57Speaker 03

  It's just a 401k, it's not a 401k, it's just a pension.

• 33:00Brian Preston?

  That's so unique.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  So if we're thinking about the financial world of operations and we just decided that, okay, 1,500 is your highest deductible is what it seems like. There's no employer sponsored retirement plan. Well, then we do get to step three, high interest debt. And that is where I, I do think that you are likely doing the right thing, but a thousand probably is not it. It probably is 1,500 or, you know, whatever the deductible would be. But I think if I were in your situation, I would get militant about my spending. Because when I look at these two loans that you have sitting out there, one at 11.2% and the other at 9.5%.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  Those I think count as high interest. This truck loan you said has been sitting around for the last three years.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Almost three years now.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  So we're like outside of 238 at this point.

• 33:47Brian Preston?

  Well, but and also I heard you say earlier that you have this whole FOMO feeling of you're only going to be 22 once. The cool thing with your income, there ain't much FOMO to leave on the table. If you make the level of income you have with only $15,000 of debt. I mean, you can buckle up for two months and extinguish this and then move on to the next thing. And that's what, that's the biggest thing that we want for you is that we want you to kind of have a set it and forget it. So then you can go spend recklessly and not feel guilty about it because you will have already done what you need to for yourself. But you're kind of. If you don't do that, I think you're, you're gonna have the worst part of what I see on the

• 34:29Brian Preston?

  other side of somebody who's got FOMO or feeling like they're only gonna be 22. Cause you're doing hard work. And look, I know the machines do a lot of it, but you're still getting out there and getting with it. I mean, and that's, when you get to be my age in your 50s, you're not gonna, you're not just not gonna have, I hate to put it out there, but you're not gonna have the same hustle.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:49Brian Preston?

  So you gotta have an army of dollars that you did something while you're at, at the hustle age that you're at, because you'll get to my age and be like, yeah, life's kicking my butt if I, if I don't figure out another way to, to make this work. Now hopefully, if you've done this right, you'll have crews, you'll have everything working for you, but I just don't want you to have regrets in the future.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  So I, like I said before, I did have a significant amount of stuff break down within my company, which really hurt my, me financially, but I realized it's a part of it. I'm prepared to make those sacrifices. And then I also had some issues with my truck that I also had to fix. So the, the truck was about a thousand that I had to fix.

• 35:33Brian Preston?

  Well, you're, you're getting right into the, once again brilliantly built into the financial order of operations. Once we get that $15,000 of debt paid off, now we get into the true emergency reserves.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:44Brian Preston?

  And that's where we get three to six months.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  So that emergencies don't hurt.

• 35:48Brian Preston?

  Exactly. So you have the margin in your life to cover all the truck repairs, the horse vet massage bills and all the other stuff. But, you know, but the problem is, is because you're, and that's what, I still think that there's consumption going on beyond even horse massages.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 36:06Brian Preston?

  I mean, that's why I'd be curious, cause look, I've had friends like you, I think I've mentioned one of my best friends in the world, I can't, I graduated from an accounting degree and I was making $28,000 a year. He was making already six figures selling tractors.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:20Brian Preston?

  I mean, I was shocked because he was. The greatest talker I had ever met in my life and that personality translated perfectly into selling tractor sales in his early twenties. And he was always the most, he's the loudest personality in the room. He's buying drinks for everybody. He's doing. So I think sometimes when you're young and you're, you got it coming in, are you, do you find yourself doing a lot for, for everybody? Because you, you feel like, hey, it's coming in, why not?

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Sometimes, but I don't do it from the standpoint of not boasting.

• 36:51Brian Preston?

  Oh, he wasn't boasting. I'm still good friends with him. I love him to death. He was, he's just a good time.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  That's not what I mean. I just like, not that I'm like flaunting it to my people, but like I do want to take care of everyone. And you know, sometimes I, I probably do put myself out there more than I should.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  But you have to put on your oxygen mask before you can put on somebody else's. And I would argue that right now you have the ability to put on your oxygen, oxygen mask, but you're not there yet. You're not in the position where you can be able to do that for other folks because you haven't shored up your financial foundation just yet.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I, I want to get it under control.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  I realize the possibilities that I've already lost out on. I don't want to lose that anymore.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  But again, at 2022, it's a, I mean, at 22, not 20, at 22, it's okay. All the stuff before doesn't matter a ton because you have so much time ahead.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Right. What do you guys recommend for splitting the 25% savings rate? I just kinda, I don't really have a set number that I put into investments or any mutual funds or anything like that. I just kinda, if I have it, I move it.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  I think, honest opinion right now, I think you're completely out of whack.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Meaning let the financial order of operations be your guide. Uh, you shouldn't split up your 25% at all yet on investments because you ought to be knocking out the debt. And I mean, like relentlessly and aggressively, every extra dollar you can put together should go towards that debt. And the sooner you do that, the sooner then you can increase the 150 that's going into the emergency fund. The sooner then you can get the emergency fund fully built up and then you can get to the 25%. But you, you're thinking about step seven really, when you aren't even done with step three. You're just, you might not be done with step one.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  So you gotta do that first.

• 38:43Brian Preston?

  That's why we designed the financial order of operations, what to do with your next dollar.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:47Brian Preston?

  And we've got enough for you that the next six months ought to be you just going. What's, what's next on the list?

• 38:54Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 38:54Brian Preston?

  And we could get you there. And then I think this is going to get some muscle memory and it's going to become automatic for the people for you. Once you set up these automatic investment account builders. And then you're going to be like, what was I thinking? Then you can fill, you can go spend money on your, on your girlfriend. You can spend money on the horses and, and, and the weekends with the family.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Not horses, just one horse, one horse.

• 39:14Brian Preston?

  But you, but you will completely be freed because it won't, you won't be faking it until you make it. Cause right now you have this income, but you're, tomorrow is not promised.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:23Brian Preston?

  That you're going, cause that's the thing. When people tell me I'm only going to be 22 once, I'm like, yeah, but you're probably only going to be 22 once making this type of money. If you don't have a fear about that, you, you, you know, cause that's the part that, that I feel like needs a lot of love, just from a personal behavior standpoint.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like I said, I do plan on selling the truck and the quad. My hope for next year is that I do need a 2500 for my company, but I'm not worrying about that just yet. I want to get rid of my debt. I want to get myself situated. Cause once I sell the quad and I sell the truck, I'll be able to get pretty much all of that debt gone.

• 40:08Brian Preston?

  Can I give you some tough love on this, on this, about the 2500 though? Is your biggest provider of income is this job though? Do they require 2500?

• 40:17Speaker 03

  No.

• 40:17Brian Preston?

  So it's, it's you doing the side hustles and other things. And if you, so.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  I would like to lean away from the landscaping portion and do more excavation on my own and kind of focus more on that. Cause that's where the money is. It's not in doing $50 lawns. It's getting the drainage jobs and the trenching and all that.

• 40:43Brian Preston?

  But I don't want you to aspirationally go buy the biggest truck you potentially could ever need for something that doesn't turn into the money producer you think it is. It's, it's more of a dream.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:55Brian Preston?

  Than a reality, because your biggest producer is at J O B right now.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 40:58Brian Preston?

  And that's the thing. So I, I worry, because we can do some false mental accounting where we think, hey, I can go buy this 2500 and that's going to cost me, I mean, what does that even cost? 85, 100,000? What is it, was it?

• 41:11Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm definitely not doing brand new.

• 41:12Brian Preston?

  Okay. So what, even in your, in your mindset, what, what would this 2500 cost?

• 41:18Speaker 03

  If I were to do this, like I said, this is all just kinda thoughts getting thrown around. Um, I'd probably be looking at about 20. On a realistic, fair number, I'd probably be looking at about 20.

• 41:31Brian Preston?

  See, I would, I would challenge you if it's knowing it's that reasonable. This just needs to be after you're funding your Roth IRA and, and those type of things. You can set up and expand when we have your emergency reserves and we say, we want you to have three to six months. You could push that emergency reserves bigger to have an earmark and maybe a monthly budget for that you're going to start having a, a sinking fund for saving for this 2,500. And at that price, you could, I mean, that could be something that's six months in the future, you, you would have it.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Cause does your current truck work right now? Does it work for the construction job? Is it suitable for the construction job you're doing?

• 42:08Speaker 03

  It's suitable for what I'm doing at the moment and the type of equipment I have and need to trailer. But the truck has issues.

• 42:16Brian Preston?

  Don't go squeeze or fake it if you don't necessarily, don't, don't turn a want into a need artificially is really what I'm trying to get your mind set up.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And then there's also been the other idea because since, you know, this job has been so good to me. I have been throwing the idea around of liquidating and just kind of absolving my business and.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Putting everything into the current day job.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Yes. Cause if I could get, you know, Saturday or Sunday work at my full-time job, that would be an insane difference in pay.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  You're gonna make a lot more work on Saturdays with your day job than you are doing your side gig.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  It would be unreal.

• 43:03Brian Preston?

  See, and this is something, I'm gonna sound like an old man on the front porch here a little bit. Cause I'm, I'm an entrepreneur. I've got multiple businesses. Bo and I have built multiple businesses now. And I feel like there's so much hustle culture out there that they tell people, go out there and start your business ASAP. But the problem is, is, and I'm all for it. I mean, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't. But if you don't, the biggest problem I see with businesses, small businesses, they are underfunded. They don't have enough cash reserves. They don't have enough money in the bank to give them an actual viable option to be successful. They're more passion, they're more dream than they are reality. I feel like as a 22-year-old.

• 43:45Brian Preston?

  You're trying to make this stuff happen, but all you're probably doing is working against your day job to some degree, and you're not giving the dream of the entrepreneurship, even an opportunity to take root because it's so poorly funded.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:59Brian Preston?

  That it never, it's all aspirational. It probably is cool at the bar with your friends when you get to say, hey, I've got another gig, I've got this and that, but it's not actually getting traction. Whereas if you actually threw your heart into the job, making as much money as possible, but still enjoying life. Don't mishear me. I'm not trying to turn you into this miserable person that only works. But if that money caught traction, built up in the background, then if you ever said, you know what, I think I want to be my own boss, but maybe you're 27, 28, 29, somewhere in there, you still can be a young person doing this. But if you have enough money behind you, now this dream actually

• 44:40Brian Preston?

  is not aspirational anymore. It actually might pop because you can go buy a full, you know, the 2500, you can buy the reliable, you know, trailer, you can put the equipment on it, you can do everything. But right now, this is more of a dream or a mirage than it is of a reality of life.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  And on top of that, I 100% take my music, I 100% prioritize my music over my landscaping excavation company.

• 45:14Brian Preston?

  Well, that's the other thing. You're cannibalizing this other thing, this passion, this hobby that potentially could, you never, I never, I never take, living in this town, I don't steal anybody's dreams. If you want to, you've got the energy, you're 22 years old, go out there and let's see if we hit a lick with, you know, something pops with the music career. That's one more reason not to do this fake entrepreneurship that's taken away from a lot of stuff.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  I do really enjoy, not so much the fact that I'm my own boss. I mean, obviously, who doesn't want to be their own boss? But I do really enjoy making those connections and being able to help out and, you know, provide good work. I take a lot of pride in the work that I do.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Just because it might be no to being a small business owner, operating your own thing right now, doesn't mean it's no forever.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  We have to think about what's the best use of my time, what's the best use of my resources, what's going to put me in the best place long-term? Being your own boss today might not be that, but at 30, it might be. And so that's something, I'll be honest, I think we've got a lot of stuff to work with here. What I'm hearing is you're malleable. So as we put together a plan and hey, I would consider this and maybe think about this and maybe move this over here. I think that we could put together a strategy that likely a year from now would have you in a completely different situation.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  And that's, that's why I'm here, you know, like I said, ever since I found your guys' show, like, I feel like I'm a different person, but I realize I still got a long way to go. You know, even working seven days a week, you know, 70 hours a week, I, I feel like there's still more I could be doing, but I'd rather spend less time and be more efficient with it. So I have more time for myself and, you know, I don't want to work like this forever.

• 47:01Brian Preston?

  Yeah, you will be able to.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  I've been working full-time since I was 14.

• 47:05Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  So it's, I mean,

• 47:07Brian Preston?

  You've got time, you've got a work ethic. I mean, you've got all the, the right pieces. It's just making sure that it's turning into fruit and not getting busy doing nothing.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  I know you've let us know what your biggest goals are. Hey, I want to wipe out the debt in seven months. I want to feel in control of my financial situation. I'd like to be more efficient, more effective with the effort that I'm putting into my financial life. Have we heard you correctly on that?

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Yes, and my time.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  And your time. Awesome. All right. I'm excited to get to work. Brian, what an awesome conversation with Peter, sort of. I mean, it, it's awesome in the sense that there is a lot of opportunity, but in my opinion, I don't think he's quite there just yet.

• 47:47Brian Preston?

  Well, I'm gonna be honest, this is one that I found myself driving home from that recording day, and I felt like I failed Peter.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  Tell me more. Why?

• 47:58Brian Preston?

  Let me tell you why I say this is that, because Peter is working, he's doing a lot of things right in the fact that he's got a big shovel. He's got a good income. But man, oh, man, he's going down a dark path that if he's not careful, it reminded me of, you know, years ago, when I used to work with professional athletes, you know, a lot of these football players, basketball players and baseball players I worked with, they just assume that they're spending and building their life, assuming they'll have this big shovel of income for years to come. And what I think Peter is not catching on to is that he's got a limited window that he can hustle and go at it like he is right

• 48:37Brian Preston?

  now. And if he doesn't start turning that human capital and his youth and time that he has in abundance right now into actual working capital, meaning assets that show up on his net worth statement, it just is, he's going to end up being a person that's a cautionary wofull tale of great income, great opportunity, all the resources and things that could come his way, but he never actually turned it into something. And maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but that's the way, when I was driving home, I was like, I need to tell Peter, get on ASAP, start turning your good income into assets on your net worth statement, because owning stuff is what's going to get him through this.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  I agree with you there. I think, but here's the thing, Peter's young, and he's a hustler. What I worry about with Peter is, he's putting all of his effort and attention in the wrong area, and he's not focusing on the right things. I agree with you. He needs to figure out how to turn his income into assets. But I think he's just getting distracted at the stuff that he doesn't need to be getting distracted with.

• 49:42Brian Preston?

  He's doing, I think he's following prey too. He's doing what he thinks successful.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:47Brian Preston?

  Because think about, he's got the work truck, he's got, you know, he's trying to run three different companies, it feels like, he's buying equipment and doing all these things. And in a lot of ways, I think he's trying to pretend to be successful without really seeing that the engine of his success is probably that high paying job that doesn't even require the trucks and all the other things. And I was also troubled, Peter doesn't know where his money's going.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Well, that was the, I feel like that was the biggest gaping hole. We've already said, you know, Peter had a great income. He said he's making about $8,000 a month coming in, which is unbelievable.

• 50:23Brian Preston?

  Especially at his age, 22.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Exactly. But we could only account for about $2,500. That leaves a big gap, like $5,500 that is completely unaccounted for. And if you want to be able to command your army of dollar bills, you have to know where it's going and know what cracks your money's falling through. And I feel like Peter just didn't recognize that. And so when I think about the one thing he's got to figure out, he's got to figure out where his money is actually going on a month over month basis.

• 50:51Brian Preston?

  Well, that's why I think what I love is now we get to say just a reasonable portion of this unidentified amount of money. He doesn't know where it's going. If we just put some of that to work, I think amazing things will happen.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the very first thing I would tell him to do is he's got to figure out, and it's so easy. Technology's made it super, super easy. Go get some sort of budget tracker, some sort of app, download that and start tracking where your money's going. And then he would at least know where it's going. Cause we said, okay, if Peter knows that he's got $2,500 of fixed expenses, let's just go ahead and be very, very generous and say that he had another $2,500 of variable expenses.

• 51:27Brian Preston?

  Sure.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Going somewhere. Well, if that were the case, 25 and fixed, 25 variable, that still gives him $3,000 of margin on a monthly basis to be able to fund some of these other goals. Well, if he had that money, he knew he could like put it in the places that it needs to go. There are some exciting things he'd be able to do with those.

• 51:46Brian Preston?

  So I think we're on the same page is that he's, he's probably go wrap up the construction business or at least put a pin in it, deposit right now. Sell the truck. I mean, what are we doing with this? And then knock out all the additional debt that he has going on. And then don't just take for granted that he doesn't need an emergency fund. I mean, he probably should lean into the emergency fund a little bit more too.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  He were to do these things and he were to move in this timeline, we think that it would probably have taken about six months to completely right his ship. And get into like a fantastic financial situation to where then he could start building for the future. Cause we said, all right, what if, what if Peter did this? He took the next six months, really got serious about it. And we just assumed, okay, based off of his gross pay, what if he saved 25% like we said, what if he saved $2,000 a month for the future?

• 52:33Brian Preston?

  Right.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  What's interesting is if Peter were to just do that because he's so young. It does not take a lot, even though $2,000 a month is a lot, it does not take a lot. Peter doesn't have to think about being like a millionaire or a two millionaire, a five millionaire. His picture actually gets unbelievable because if he can save at that clip, starting at this age, he'll cross over into millionaire status by the time he hits 40. And then if he can save at that clip from now, all the way until he gets out to actual retirement age, actual age 65, he could be looking at a portfolio of like 14 million dollars of assets actually working for him.

• 53:13Brian Preston?

  It's kind of hard to believe that he can become a deck of millionaire, still afford all the horse massages that him and his significant other have decided is important for him. But the big thing, he's got to do something because he's got shovel, he's got time on his side, but if he doesn't actually start turning that into assets that are showing up on his annual net worth statement, this is all just made up stuff.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Again, I think, I think he's got the right ingredients. He has the time, he has the hustle, he has the work ethic, he has those sorts of things. But what he's not figured out is how to put those ingredients together in a really good recipe. And to be true to himself that, man, I don't want to say lazy, that's too aggressive of a word.

• 53:53Brian Preston?

  No, he's definitely not lazy.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  But I've got, I need to be more intentional. He's just kind of, he's just kind of out there floating. And I think with some intentionality, he can turn his financial life around and really set himself up well. So if I'm thinking about next steps, sort of homework items for him, number one, I think starting to budget is like the very first starting point. He can go out and use Monarch, he can use YNAB, he can download, he can do a spreadsheet, he can track receipts, whatever his thing is. If he can start budgeting and understanding where his money is going, that's going to be the first step in the right direction of doing what he needs to do.

• 54:27Brian Preston?

  Well, also paying off the debt. I mean, he's paying 11.2%. That's turning compounding interest completely upside down. So if he could get ahead of that, I think it's going to help him out tremendously too.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  And then again, we've already acknowledged this over and over. He's such a hard worker, but I don't think he recognizes the value of his time. He's trying to make this like side construction business work. When in reality, it's really just kind of sucking resources away. Away from him. I would think maybe shutter that business for now, focus on the day job. Understand that if you're passionate about music, that's something you can pursue, but you can't have all these passions at once, especially when you have this opportunity in your day job to make really, really good money, be able to put that money to work and not have your hobbies pulling away from you.

• 55:08Brian Preston?

  Well, what I think is interesting is that hopefully Peter will hear this well. He has, he's doing all this hustling and nothing's showing up really on the net worth statement like it should, but yet he wanted to make sure when he left, he was like, hey, can I play a song for you guys? So he's obviously, obviously very passionate about the music because I thought it was pretty, and Bo, here we are in Nashville and he plays Johnny Cash.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Play some Johnny Cash. That's right.

• 55:32Brian Preston?

  And right out of the box with that. But this plan that we just put together with the homework is going to let him focus on keeping the day job, saving and investing, and probably because he's not running around doing all this, this wannabe entrepreneurship stuff, he can now do more of the music and see where that goes as well and pursue that passion. I think that's a win-win. So get to stacking, Peter.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  I think one of the huge things that young people have is they have all this time at their disposal. And that's the most valuable resource, but so often that time just gets sucked away with distractions. And I think that he is going to have to be very mindful to not let himself get distracted and just like you said, get really, really busy doing a whole lot of nothing.

• 56:10Brian Preston?

  So my hope for Peter is either he becomes a famous country musician, but if that doesn't work out, hopefully we've given him enough groundwork in the background that if he can just be disciplined with his young age, he's going to have all of his financial needs met and he's going to live the best life ever.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  I love that he found us now. I love that he was able to come on Making a Millionaire right now. If you would like to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you would like to tell your story, we would love for you to go to moneyguy.com slash apply. Or if you want to check out any of our resources, any of our tools, you can go to moneyguy.com slash resources.

• 56:44Brian Preston?

  This was a lot of fun. I'm hoping that Peter will listen to us. Guys, I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy team, out.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Making a Millionaire is hosted by Brian Preston and Beau Hanson. Brian and Beau are partners at Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through Making a Millionaire. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss. The guests featured on Making a Millionaire are not clients of Abound Wealth Management at the time of recording. Their participation should not be considered a testimonial or endorsement of Abound Wealth Management.