2044: A Million Dollar Retirement By 21 (Also, Life After the CPA Steals Your Money)

If you've ever felt like the math just doesn't work anymore, you're doing everything right, still coming up short on your housing payment, groceries, student loans, this episode's for you. My guest, Freddy Smith, spent nearly 20 years acting, including nine of those years on Days of Our Lives, before a business manager, who was supposed to be handling his money, stole it and stopped filing his taxes. Then came the pandemic. He lost the show. He moved to Florida and had to rebuild his finances from zero in a brand-new career. That personal collapse turned into a mission. Freddy started sharing what he was learning about taxes, investing, inflation, and the Fed on TikTok and Instagram, not as an expert, but as someone figuring it out in real time alongside his audience, and that honesty struck a nerve. He's now built a community of two million people in three years, and it's now the subject of his new book, Generation F'd: How Millennials and Gen Z Were Robbed of the American Dream and How We Can Fix Our Futures. https://www.amazon.com/Generation-cked-Millennials-American-Futures/dp/1637748825/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mihTtWtzJ57C4EA6xLfBlfVZjP1g8I7gM7kOGLFigJTfQJst0CqTLYIL7VXNJDVk.m0gFI4NKV4ohs-jWbB9aPVl8fcZ3OzICQBgi6C0yD0A&dib_tag=se&hvadid=694230760787&hvdev=c&hvexpln=67&hvlocphy=9060562&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=7313658458373664820--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7313658458373664820&hvtargid=kwd-2473480414225&hydadcr=22535_13531279&keywords=generation+fcked&mcid=17f11c3b58323470a3ecb7aecd5af525&qid=1791217771&sr=8-1 In this conversation, Freddy and I get into why he thinks the real crisis for millennials and Gen Z is not financial illiteracy, it's wages that haven't kept pace with the actual cost of living. We talk about his big four: housing, student loans, childcare, and healthcare, why he thinks college needs a hard math test before anyone signs on the dotted line, his wild but genuinely compelling case for how a young person could retire with millions just by investing early, and why he's cautiously optimistic that his generation is about to be the one that finally changes the system. This episode first aired on July 27. How's midlife going? Fill out Farnoosh's survey https://www.jotform.com/build/262556781257063 and help shape the podcast in 2027. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  So Money, episode 2044, how to set up a million dollar retirement by your 21st birthday.

• 1:39Speaker 06

  You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

• 2:06Speaker 07

  And the worst part is she didn't file my taxes for three years. So on top of siphoning all my money out of my account, I then found out when she disappeared that I owed three years of back taxes with penalties and interest. So I had a chip on my shoulder of I just didn't understand how taxes work. I didn't understand how to invest. I didn't understand money. And so that's why I got taken. So I had a personal vendetta of like, I need to learn all this because I'm never letting this happen again.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 2:38Speaker 07

  So I started learning in 2016, but I wasn't making content about it. But that was the trigger that got me there. And then I almost was able to get out of that debt.

• 2:48Speaker 05

  Welcome to So Money, everyone. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. If you ever felt like the math just doesn't work anymore, you're doing everything right, still coming up short on your housing payment, groceries, student loans, this episode's for you. My guest Freddy Smith spent nearly 20 years acting, including nine of those years on Days of Our Lives, before a business manager who was supposed to be handling his money stole it and stopped filing his taxes. Then came the pandemic. He lost the show, he moved to Florida, and had to rebuild his finances from zero in a brand-new career. That personal collapse turned into a mission. Freddy started sharing what he was learning about taxes, investing,

• 3:28Speaker 05

  inflation, and the Fed on TikTok and Instagram, not as an expert, but as someone figuring it out in real time alongside his audience. And that honesty struck a nerve. He's now built a community of 2 million people in three years, and it's now the subject of his new book, Generation F'd: How Millennials and Gen Z Were Robbed of the American Dream and How We Can Fix Our Futures. In this conversation, Freddy and I get into why he thinks the real crisis for millennials and Gen Z is not financial illiteracy, it's wages that haven't kept pace with the actual cost of living. We talk about his big four: housing, student loans, childcare, and healthcare. Why he thinks college needs a hard math test

• 4:09Speaker 05

  before anyone signs on the dotted line. His wild but genuinely compelling case for how a young person could retire with millions just by investing early, and why he's cautiously optimistic that his generation is about to be the one that finally changes the system. Here's Freddy Smith.

• 4:30Speaker 05

  Freddy Smith, welcome to So Money.

• 4:33Speaker 07

  Well, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

• 4:36Speaker 05

  I'm so curious about your career, your current mission to educate and help so many people who are struggling in America right now. Gosh, we're going to get into so many of the things that you're learning. And they beg repeating, if people already know, times are tough. But you are really kind of in the trenches and you have, I don't know, are you still acting? Or has this, it's a complete pivot now to economic analysis?

• 5:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I acted for nearly 20 years. And once the pandemic happened, I just moved to Florida to kind of take a break. And my intention was to just go back and act. And this whole new thing kind of fell in my lap. And I just started to become very passionate about it. And I was going through a tough time myself. So I was able to really relate to the people coming out of college, even though I was 10 years older than them, because we ended up going broke and had to rebuild from scratch after the pandemic. And it's way harder after the pandemic to start from scratch than it was when I was 19 in LA, the most, one of the most expensive cities. So this is, it was supposed to be just a temporary thing, and I became super passionate about it. I've always created

• 5:55Speaker 07

  content. I've been creating content for 12 years, and I just shared my life. And it just so happened, this is what was going on. And I was able to diagnose a few things and paint a picture of why the economy is hard for typical American workers. And we just built this community of like, 2 million people in a three-year period. And I've just been so passionate about it because I wanted to learn myself. So it wasn't like I was an expert, coming in like an economist from Harvard for 30 years and telling people how it is. I was learning and sharing every day on TikTok and Instagram what I was learning about stock buybacks and super PACs, and how inflation works, and Federal Reserve. And so it was passion of me learning that day and being like, hey, did you guys know this? And it just started taking off, and we were just all learning together. And it turned

• 6:40Speaker 07

  into a book. So I'm pumped about that.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're going to talk about Generation F'd, I'll say, on this, on this pod. Well, was there a moment in your own personal life, you mentioned briefly, you know, you were kind of going through some things. What was it that, for you, was a very personal draw to this, to this area of learning?

• 7:01Speaker 07

  I mean, the long story short is, I had a few setbacks during my acting career, one of those being I had a business manager who stole my money.

• 7:10Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 7:11Speaker 07

  Yeah. And the worst part is she didn't file my taxes for three years. So on top of siphoning all my money out of my account, I then found out when she disappeared that I owed three years of back taxes with penalties and interest. So I had a chip on my shoulder of I just didn't understand how taxes work. I didn't understand how to invest. I didn't understand money. And so that's why I got taken. So I had a personal vendetta of like, I need to learn all this because I'm never letting this happen again.

• 7:43Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 7:43Speaker 07

  So I started learning in 2016, but I wasn't making content about it. But that was the trigger that got me there. And then I almost was able to get out of that debt. I was working for another three years on a television show. I worked on a soap opera for many years. And so I was making good enough money to try and catch up. And just as I was getting close, I got let go of the show after nine years. Three weeks later, the global pandemic struck.

• 8:09Speaker 05

  Oh, man, Freddie.

• 8:10Speaker 07

  So I was like, ah. So I ended up moving to Florida in debt, and then had to rebuild in debt in a new career, in a new place. But I had that knowledge of taxes and how things worked. I was like, I need to teach people about this. I got into real estate, became a real estate agent, and started learning real estate, started teaching that because I wish I would have invested in real estate. So it all just came from personal successes and failures that got me interested in this.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  Wow. Well, and not just any soap opera. My favorite, growing up, Days of Our Lives, okay?

• 8:40Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 05

  Can you indulge me for just a little bit? What was it like to be on a soap opera? And I'm going to ask the money question. Was the pay good?

• 8:48Speaker 07

  The pay, I'll give you a range. It's, if you're there for a while, especially now, it's about $200,000 to $300,000 a year. But the reason that that's, in my mind, a lot more than what people think in acting, is because we only worked three weeks out of every month. And you worked only about, on average, two to three days a week.

• 9:11Speaker 07

  So I was averaging 10 or 12 days a month working and making that kind of money. Now granted, it's in California, you have managers, agents, taxes.

• 9:19Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:20Speaker 07

  You know, you're making decent money, like 150 in your pocket.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 9:24Speaker 07

  But you're living in an expensive city.

• 9:26Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:26Speaker 07

  So it was enough to like not feel stressed at all, but I didn't do the right things with it. But yeah, that's, that's what you would make on, on days. And it was, it was cool because it's a show that everyone knows.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:37Speaker 07

  You know, these days, if you meet someone who's on a Netflix show, someone might not even know it exists. But on days of our lives, everyone knows it. So it's, it's always a good conversation starter.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  Yes. And would you be allowed to have other opportunity gigs? You know, if you're only working, you know, a couple of weeks out of, a few weeks out of the month or a couple of weeks out of the month, could you do endorsements? Was that also part of your pie?

• 10:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, I was able, I did commercials when I went the first handful of years because you only really had to go to one or two auditions and then film for one day.

• 10:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 07

  So you could sneak that in. But to do a 10 day guest star or to do a recurring role, it would always, you know, not work out. So the last four or five years, I kind of stopped auditioning because I was tired of going in, getting close or even booking it and then not being able to film it. So I said, this is a waste of time. What else can I do that I can control? And so I got into sales and marketing, social media in 2014 so that I could build something else while working on the show. And I had control over it. So I was acting, but not auditioning the past five years before I left in 2020.

• 10:45Speaker 05

  Incredible. I mean, I'm not surprised that you have found success. I feel like you'd be successful at whatever you do because there is an innate hustle and entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship that's required of you when you're in LA trying to become an actor. I mean, you are an entrepreneur in a sense. I mean, you get to work someplace more or less full time, but that is, oh my gosh, tell it, there's so much to it that you can now apply to, I mean, you're a creator. You have to always be kind of like thinking about your next thing. And so I'm not surprised. But, but what an audience you have built. And I want to get to your book, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you're hearing from people right now.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  What are the biggest pain points? You're doing so many videos on YouTube. Which ones are the ones that are really resonating? And what is that telling you about where your, this audience? And for the most part, it's the millennials and Gen Z. Where is their headspace right now when it comes to their feeling of financial independence, success and reaching that?

• 11:55Speaker 07

  Well, to tie it into two things. One is we started off, all of us in 2021, 2022, with the cost of living being the issue. Because everything got so much more expensive that we were hoping the cost of living would come down. And I was even hopeful three years ago, four years ago, I'm like, oh, this is temporary because of the pandemic. Prices will come down. They never came down and they probably never will. So it shifted over to, well, what's the balance of that? It's a wage problem. The wages are now the issue. Like when we talk about a livable wage and we talk about salary, when we talk about living paycheck to paycheck, this is the pain point. It's not that our generation is financially illiterate. We are really educated because of the internet these days.

• 12:39Speaker 07

  But when you make 52,000 and you're spending an enormous amount of money on healthcare, taxes, you're trying to basically live on $2,900 a month.

• 12:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 12:48Speaker 07

  So there's just not enough money at the end of the paycheck. So what I've been fighting for is a way to talk about increasing wages. Or my like die on a hill kind of thing. I even have one of the, the options in the book is I think we're eventually going to have to eliminate some sort of tax on the first hundred thousand of people's income. Because I just don't see how any other way the middle class would be, would be saved. People need more money in their pocket and that's not a handout. You know, a lot of the older generations and a lot of old school people are like, we can't give handouts. But if you just keep the money you're actually earning and not being taxed on the first 100K or something, but people just need more money in their pocket.

• 13:32Speaker 07

  And the second part of it though, is that we focus a lot in the media on egg prices, for example. Where people are like, oh, egg prices are down 20%. And it's like, that's a dollar. A dollar a month that we're like celebrating. The real problem is what I call the big four, which is housing. Buying a house or renting, your college monthly loan, your payment. Daycare is insane. And healthcare is the biggest hidden cost that we have. Because people only see it through their employer, like when it comes out of your paycheck. But if you don't look into how much your employer is paying, that's the real cost of your, of your health insurance. Like my wife and I don't have children.

• 14:17Speaker 07

  It's just me and my wife. And she's in a W2 job and so our health insurance is through her. She pays about $6,000 a year for just her and I, but her, her company pays 19,000 a year on her behalf. So that's in her compensation that she's not getting. So our healthcare is $25,000. And that is the problem, not eggs, not, you know what I mean? That's just salt in the wound.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 07

  So I think those are the two, two biggest issues.

• 14:47Speaker 05

  You have drilled down a lot on this K economy that we're in, this idea that the, you know, the rich are getting richer. The gap between upper rich people and working class is growing. And I'm sure you read it, there was this, there was this New York, I think it was New York Times Magazine. They kind of looked at how over the last, I would say, five or 10 years, companies and from, you know, luxury to people who are selling baseball tickets to, I mean, there's always, I feel like the focus is on how can we get the rich to pay more? Create more luxuries, create more levels of VIP, more status.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  And then they've sort of abandoned how to make things affordable for the middle class and even upper middle class, let's just say. That if you look at like going to a baseball game with your family 30 years ago, it's what you did because it was the most Americana thing. You did it, it was affordable. Now ticket prices are, you know, forget it. Who can go to a basketball game or, you know, World Cup's coming? I feel, so I guess my question is, you, your book is very much a rallying cry for systems and institutions and politicians possibly. But like, what is the, what is the message that they really need to hear to care enough? Like they don't care enough is at the, at the end of the day, right? Because you can always make more money with the people that have the money.

• 16:12Speaker 05

  They, there's this desire in our society to sort of always have more. We're very ambitious. People want to say, like, always want to get the VIP next sort of status. And so I, I want to understand what is the missing link? What is, because money talks too. Why is it important for leadership to care about the majority, let's just say, of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck?

• 16:39Speaker 07

  I, I think, I think it boils down to the millennials reaching the age to be in leadership that truly understand the boots on the ground. I think a lot of the older generation who were in leadership positions grew up during the three decades of the greatest economic prosperity of all time. Their cost of living and wages, like you said about the baseball game. So even when they see we're going to a baseball game, I don't even think they know how much it actually costs to go if they haven't gone. And they're the ones making all the rules and they're making them for themselves because they're the ones that have the money.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 17:14Speaker 07

  And their family understands it. They're, they're in those circles and, and the system is doing exactly what the system's designed to do. Like I say, the system's broken because that's, it's broken in the sense that it's not fair. But it's doing exactly what the system was designed to do, to siphon the money out, create the K economy. And they've been getting away with it because they put the shareholder value above people. And that's, I think, the thing that bothers me the most when you hear politicians, not all of them, but politicians, media talking head, kind of like the, the narrative. They always talk about our country, our country. And I tell people to replace our country with our capitalistic system.

• 17:56Speaker 07

  And everything will make sense because what they're really talking about is the GDP, the stock market, inflation and unemployment.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 07

  Those are the four things they're talking about. As long as those are good, they say we have a good economy. Even though our birth rate is down, mental health is not doing well, people are living paycheck to paycheck. They just kind of let this thing go. So the reason they're getting away with it is that enough of us haven't put our foot down yet, but we're getting there. Because we don't have anything left at this point. And, and we don't want to get to a revolution. What a waste of, of energy and chaos when all you have to do is pay more. And so that's what we have to fight for are the wages or people just have to protest and eventually just say, well, we're not going to show up anymore. Until you do. And I think it's just a race between, are we going to put our foot down and all stop going to work and, and really make a change? Or will they have AI before we're able to do that?

• 18:48Speaker 07

  And say, oh, well, fine, don't come in, we, we'll, we'll replace you.

• 18:53Speaker 05

  Huh. All right. Well, you brought up the buzzword AI and I'm wondering how you're seeing that fast, rapidly moving technology impacting some of these pain points, these insufferable pain points, right? Housing, healthcare, childcare, living, cost of living, having a livable wage. Is there any positive to AI as far as making these areas of our lives more accessible, affordable? Forget the employment situation because we know that's going to get harder before it gets better. But at least for these.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  These rights that we all should have, like we should all have the right to affordable healthcare, affordable childcare, and yet this AI, are you, is anyone working on a solution that includes AI for this?

• 19:42Speaker 07

  I mean, I think, I think the, the utopian world, uh, where I hear where people aren't doomsday about AI is that it's going to be so efficient that everything's going to become incredibly affordable. That's what they're kind of pitching, you know? It's like if we have self-driving cars and you don't have to have a driver, then we should be able just to get in a car for five bucks and go anywhere we want rather than $60 because you have a worker to pay. But then you're losing all of those jobs, but we get more affordable, you know, we can get rid of our car payment, our insurance maybe, and just take these $5, you know, rides everywhere. So that's the utopian world, or they can 3D print houses or apartments and make them super cheap. But the only thing that, that scares me is that that sounds very productive, but over

• 20:26Speaker 07

  the past 50 years, as productivity went up, as the GDP went up, the wages did not. So what makes us think this time that they're going to go, oh, like even if they replaced like a McDonald's and they got all the machines in there, invested the money, and they had just one worker, one human, and everything else is AI and robotics, you would think, oh, we're saving 300,000 on all of the workers we fired, let's pay the one human 120,000, 150,000 to work there, we're still saving money, they live a great life. No, they're going to say, who will work here for 40,000? And someone's going to go, well, I don't want to be homeless or hungry, I'll do it. And that's, you know, so it just, if, if, if the past 50 years is the next 20 years,

• 21:10Speaker 07

  I don't have faith that the people in charge are going to share the wealth. And that's what we have to kind of, you know, figure out of how that's good. But that's the race. Because before, 30 years ago, 30, 35 years ago, was, you know, the threat of, well, if you don't like it, we'll just ship your job overseas.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:30Speaker 07

  Now it's going to be, if you don't like it, we'll just replace you with a robot.

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  Sign up for a free Walmart Business account today at business.walmart.com. This podcast is brought to you by Giving Done Right. Here on So Money, we talk a lot about how to build wealth, take agency over your money, and live a rich life on your own terms. But a really rich life isn't just about the accumulation in your bank account, it's also about how you use your money to drive real change in the world. And if you've ever tried to figure out how to donate effectively, you know, it can be daunting and it can feel like a black box. Where's your money actually going? How do you know if an organization is making a real impact? That's why I want to share a podcast I've been using for guidance. It's called Giving Done Right, hosted by Phil Buchanan from the Center for Effective

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• 25:21Speaker 07

  So it's just, when you, when you start to see the patterns, people always say history repeats itself, but I was never engaged in anything that detailed. But now that I've seen and studied the past 50 years so well, you just start to see the same patterns happen, and you hope it's different this time. But with AI, I just don't know. That's a fingers crossed moment. We just don't know enough to make a prediction on it, in my opinion.

• 25:47Speaker 05

  Just as we were, you were talking, a headline crosses that more than a dozen colleges will quietly cross the six-figure mark this year, tuition, $100,000. Let's talk about college. This is, for many Americans, has been sold as a, you know, like it's a rite of passage, and it's the American dream, and everyone should get a college education, everyone's entitled to it. But when you see these price tags, and of course, not everyone is paying this, there are merit scholarships, but a lot of people are taking out crazy amounts of loans, which is, I say, it's like the financial, you're behind the financial eight ball immediately

• 26:32Speaker 05

  when you graduate. Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on even going to college and any signs of hope that, that for future generations, they will have more options, better options than just having to in debt themselves to get an education, which they do deserve?

• 26:51Speaker 07

  Yeah. I think, number one, college has changed because back in the day, it was really, really affordable. And you could go. And if you never used your degree, if you only had to pay a couple grand, that was worth the experience, it was worth the education if you never ended up in the field. And in a lot of cases, if you, even when it got more expensive, if you paid 30,000, you were going to start off at 30, 40,000 and soon be making 60, 70,000, so it was, it was cake. Today, everyone's going, so it's becoming a little less valuable. So you have to just be very picky and if you're going to go to college. And so I, my advice to people is, I, I am for college, but you have to run the math to go to college.

• 27:34Speaker 07

  Unfortunately, unless your parents are rich or you have a scholarship, then hey, if you want to go and enjoy that experience, it's not going to cost you anything, it's probably really cool to do. But you get 50 or $100,000 in debt without a guaranteed job, I think is very risky. Because that's going to, that's going to stay with you, that $500, $600, $700 a month payment for the next 10 to 20 years. And that's 10 to 20 years of that money not going into the stock market, not going into a house savings account. And also, I think the, the statistic might have changed in the past year, but roughly 50% of people that go to college don't end up graduating. Not their fault, a 17-year-old, how do they know what they want to do? Even what I'm doing for a living didn't even exist when I was graduating, you know, things change.

• 28:18Speaker 07

  And then of the people who graduate, 10 years after graduation, only 20 to 30% of those folks are in the job field that their degree is in. So if you really think about 100 kids signing up for school, maybe 30 of them 10 years from now will be in that job, and that's a statistic before AI.

• 28:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 07

  It's like, like if you're going to graduate right now into being an accountant, will an accountant exist in five to 10 years? I don't see how it will. I just don't see how it will when ChatGPT can give you an estimate pretty damn close of what your taxes are if you just give it all your information. So, um, so with kids, with parents, the biggest advice is just run the math. How much is this going to cost? What if they end up needing an extra year? It's not four years, it's usually five. Is it a subsidized or unsubsidized loan? Is the interest accruing through that entire five years? So if you get 40K, but you leave with 48K because of interest, what's that monthly payment? Where do you want to live? Oh, I want to live in Detroit, I want to live in Pittsburgh, I want to live in Miami.

• 29:22Speaker 07

  Well, what's the rent? How much is it going to be if you split with a roommate? Like you have to run the math. You can't just get a degree and then go, oh, let me run the numbers now. So that's, that's my biggest advice to people, just know what you're getting into.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  What's the return on your investment? I 100% agree. It's such an emotional chapter in anyone's life, and, and the mistake is to make a completely emotional decision. And, and along the way, you get a lot of bad advice. I was of a generation where a lot of my guidance counselors and adults in the room were saying, just take out the loan. You know, you just do it, that's what you do. And thankfully, I had an immigrant parent who was like, um, no, you know, you're going to go where we can cash flow, pay this out of cash flow, and maybe if you're going to take on debt, it's in grad school, but even then, you have to be really careful. Any accountability for these higher ed institutions?

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Because I'm also like, this feels like it's bordering a crime. You know, like just because you can charge a hundred thousand, should you be able to? I don't understand what other, besides maybe housing. But I feel like this housing is more nuanced, but college education, a college education has risen three times, four times the rate of inflation for how many years? Fifteen, last 15 years? What other, what other thing has done that? That is also so closely attached to what it means to be a successful American, right?

• 30:57Speaker 07

  Yeah. Well, I think that, I think they had to have known over the past 20 or 30 years, the higher ed. I think with, with, with parents, with guidance counselors, I don't think they were giving us bad advice. I think that was the advice that appeared to be the thing to do. I don't think they were being facetious about it at all.

• 31:15Speaker 05

  No, they weren't being like, it's malintended. Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 07

  No, no, no. Like they were like, this is what you do. Cause look how it worked for those who did it in the eighties, nineties and early 2000s. You millennials have to do it too. But on the backend, these colleges know what they're doing. They're, they're building these massive dorms. They're investing so much money into the branding, just trying to basically market and promote to get people there. And it became a business. And especially when the federal government will give people loans and they're unforgivable. That's the other thing too. Like, are you kidding me? Like they're like, it's so difficult.

• 31:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. For the lender, right?

• 31:49Speaker 07

  So, so the colleges had nothing to lose. They're like, let's just charge it because we're going to get our money.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 31:55Speaker 07

  One way or the other. And it just, again, ruined just that stepping stone in life. This all became a big business. Like being able to have healthcare, buy a house and get an education should have never been touched by big business. And that's the thing that our tax money should have protected us and the government to say, hey, these three things, people, they need to be affordable because this is going to make our nation better. We're not going to put all our, our future generations in debt. So, yeah, I mean, and they're not going to, and again, people are still going to go. That's why this, this whole conversation needs to continue to happen because you hope that parents will actually sit down with their kids and, and say, okay, what are we going to do here? And, and make an educated decision rather than just willy nilly go into school. And it's okay to go at 22.

• 32:38Speaker 07

  Like our culture makes people at 18 go. It's like, why not go work for four years, stay at home if you have a good relationship with your parents, or go live with a couple of roommates, make some money, be in the real world, try some things out. And then as a 23 year old, make the educated decision, I'm going to go get 50K in debt because I love this so much. I want to dedicate my life to it.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  That's brilliant, Freddie. I want more ideas like that. And so along those lines, this idea of an American dream, you know, how old is this statement, by the way? Like how, how many years ago was the American dream coined? When was that, was it during the depression, the great depression, post great depression?

• 33:18Speaker 07

  I would, I don't know exactly, maybe post world war two possibly. Cause that's when we were like the, you know, we were the head honcho there in the economic output and maybe the American dream started, maybe. I'll have to look at that, but that's years ago for sure.

• 33:32Speaker 05

  Nothing wrong with that expression, but I think that we have clung to these antiquated ideals of what that should represent. And if you had to rewrite the American dream for today's generation, I, to say, you know, yes, sure, get a college education, but what are the tweaks, right? Maybe you delay it, maybe you don't go at all and that's okay. You know, I feel like we need more of a, and it may not even be, like the American dream was very straightforward. It was like, go to college, get the job, buy the house, retire at 60 and retire comfortably. And now I feel like it's more of a choose your own adventure.

• 34:14Speaker 05

  What is the best adventure for someone right now to go on so that they can still, if they want, have these antiquated American dream things, but do it in a, in a way that's actually sustainable and doable?

• 34:30Speaker 07

  That is brilliant. I, you, you literally have the same mindset I do about the American dream. Like back in the day, that's kind of all there was in America in the sense of the opportunity wasn't as vast and the world wasn't changing as fast as today. So actually getting a good job, buying a house in the suburbs, getting a dog, having kids, like that's kind of all there really was. There wasn't an abundance of opportunity, resources ever changing. So the American dream today, realistically, like you said, choose your own adventure. How I put it is true freedom in the American dream is having the financial flexibility to pursue ideas and opportunities. That is where the true progress and happiness comes from.

• 35:13Speaker 07

  And the best way to achieve that is you have to stay out of debt at all costs so that you have that extra money to pursue those opportunities and ideas. Because I don't think anyone who's graduating college, even myself at 38 years old, I'll probably have seven more careers by the time I'm 80. Like we're no longer just, I'm going to be an accountant at 23 and retire at 70 as an accountant in the same office. I, I would bet my life, like there's no way that our generation will stick to the same thing because it's going to move so fast. So being debt free, trying to get an education on your own, or trying to use different methods of like trying to get cheaper college or have, you know, do whatever you can, but keep yourself

• 35:58Speaker 07

  open and flexible because the millennials will tell you for the youngins, you cannot burden yourself with 50 to a hundred thousand of debt. It is a weight that I know all too well and it sucks. It crushes you. It's everything you think about day and night until you can get rid of it. And I'm so sad that people have to deal with that because that extra six, 700 a month that they're spending on the credit card and on the student loan every month, that's 700. You have to earn about 900 to a thousand to, after taxes to pay that. And that's the difference of them being able to pursue something new and being stuck. So just, like I said, run the math, keep yourself flexible and pursue our new American

• 36:40Speaker 07

  dream, which is pursuing opportunities and ideas with people that are, that make you excited to collaborate with.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  I will say one financial piece of advice that I think has endured, if you're interested in finishing rich, is investing in the market, the broad market, passive investing. And it's, you know, there's so much marketing now to Gen Z and the millennials, younger millennials, the trading, right? The, the apps, the, the cryptos, the, you fill in the blank, big opportunity, shiny object investment. What's your take on investing and how that should be folded into your choose your own adventure, American dream?

• 37:20Speaker 07

  Well, this one's interesting because I believe in investing so much and that is the, the key that we all need to do because it also gives you options. I think a lot of people, when they think, oh, I'm going to invest in my twenties, so I have the money when I'm 70, we might be living on Mars by then. Why do it? Even though there are penalties for 401ks, there's other options where you won't have penalties if you want to withdraw money. But if you're investing in your twenties, it gives you a sense of freedom because if you have a few hundred thousand dollars by the time you're 35 or 40, that money might be the reason you're able to quit your job and try something new, or move, or invest in a business. Like you can have access to that money, even though you're going to be taxed on it most

• 38:02Speaker 07

  likely and penalized, but when you, when you invest early, you have more time to compound. So I always want to let the young kids know, I know people say you can't touch it till you're 59 and a half or 60, and you should try to not do that. But when you're having your midlife crisis at 33 or 43 or 49, and you've got 400 grand, that's going to give you freedom if you choose to use that money. So don't think you have to wait till you're 60 or 70. Starting young, I even have this, this portion in my book about how to retire with $4 million. And this is like wild and economists kind of were back and forth with me on this. But I was saying that if you take a different path, like forget college in this scenario,

• 38:45Speaker 07

  and if you at 16 years old, talk with your parents and they get on board with this, and your first goal is to go and get like a $12,000 vehicle that you and your parents can co-sign. And over the next two years, you work a part-time job in high school and you pay that off. So you graduate high school with a paid off vehicle. Next, you stay home for three years. This is where it gets wild, but this is just a fun math problem. You stay at home for three years, you go and get a job or two, making 35,000 a year. I think it's doable. I know it's a little hard, but for 18, but 35,000. And put $25,000 a year into the stock market, keep 10K for yourself. After three years, you'll have about 75 to 80 grand on your 21st birthday invested.

• 39:28Speaker 07

  And if you never put another penny, that could grow to three to four million dollars in your lifetime. In those three years, you just set yourself up for retirement. And if you were to be my age, 38, and I go, you know what? I'm going to start investing. I would have to put in about six, $700,000 over the next 30 years to have the same amount of money that that 18 year old, and they only put in 75 because of compound interest. But I was thinking in my mind, imagine being 21, you have 75K, your retirement's done. You know that person when they see that money's going to keep adding to it. But imagine they're done, their counterparts are graduating college, 80K in debt.

• 40:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 07

  They don't have to worry about any of that. And if you want to go and live in a nice apartment, fine, because your retirement's taken care of. It's hard to go blow money on an apartment or go get a $400 car when you're 80K in debt and not investing in your retirement. That's the financially irresponsible thing to do. So if we could prioritize that, that's an extreme example, but I just like putting those out there for people to expand upon, but that's the power of compound.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  Wow. I mean, you don't have to convince me. And I think one thing that is different today versus even when I was graduating from high school, this idea that you were even going to just take a gap year, just one year to figure things out. It was so taboo. It was like, this person is confused. This person is lost. Or this person is so privileged that they can just kind of, you know, live off the fat of mom and dad's land for a little bit. You know, this idea that, you know, going to college was step, was a big step towards your independence. And I love that we're, you know, we're opening our minds to what our, at least our young adult

• 41:18Speaker 05

  life can be like. And we're so educated now, so much more educated now on investing. So I sense you're an optimistic person. And your book is called Generation F. Which doesn't sound very optimistic, but I know that, you know, you're just a clever marketer too. So what gives you most hope as you look to the future? And not, I'm not saying like, 100 years in the future, like actually, you know, in our near future, what are some signs that things are moving a little bit in the right direction? I know that the boomers need to boom. But there is also this transference of wealth, which is not going to be spread evenly. But there is at least that. I look around my neighborhood, all these homes where,

• 42:02Speaker 05

  you know, 80 year old people, nine year old people are living in there. And I'm like, someday, they're gonna have to, like, someone else is gonna have to live here. Or will they? I don't know if everybody wants to live in a, you know, a five bedroom house. But at some point, there's gonna be a change of guard.

• 42:16Speaker 07

  I think that, yeah, I think the most optimistic thing is the pulse of our country and our culture within the younger generations. Like, we all get it. And I think we're just gearing up to have that leadership change. And I think that we are going to, it's gonna be the most fun. Like, we're gonna look back on this time. And it's gonna be the part in the movie that we were all down. And our entire generation ends up becoming the hero and making it better for everyone. And I really think we're gonna see that in our lifetime. I think it's gonna be led by millennials. I think some Gen Xers are gonna help. But the Gen Xers, I always laugh because they're like, just so out. They're like, we don't care. We just want to retire and just, we'll help you guys. But they're not, they don't seem, as a generation, that interested. And they kind of just, I feel like it's like, here

• 43:01Speaker 07

  you go millennials, let's run with it.

• 43:04Speaker 05

  As an elder millennial, early Gen Xer, I feel like, just midlife, I call it the everything years. We're so busy, Freddie. We have so much on our plate. We don't even have time to take a nap or get in our eight hours of sleep. I think too, not to excuse us, we should always be helping all the generations to our best abilities. But I think that, you know, a day in the life of a 50 year old, you know, where you're sandwiched between helping out your own family and maybe your aging parents. And you might have lost your job last year. And there is no hope in sight for you, because now you've sort of aged out. Unfortunately, there is ageism. And AI, you're like, I learned this new thing now.

• 43:49Speaker 05

  So I feel for that generation. I often feel like they're the forgotten generation. We don't, big, uh, big secret, we don't have it all figured out. But maybe we're just really good at pretending. Because we were raised to be fiercely independent. And asking for help is very difficult for our generation. We're fiercely independent. And we're pretty good at MacGyvering our way through life. But I, but I think it's gonna, that's coming to a head, too. We're like, a lot of us are like, whoa, we are also F'd.

• 44:19Speaker 07

  A little bit. I mean, I rarely, I rarely get any sort of, like, quit complaining from the Gen X generation. Because a lot of them have teenagers, and they're facing the same concerns that we are, where they're like, what are my kids gonna do? So they're a great generation. They are kind of forgotten. But I think it's because they're just, they keep to themselves, as a generation. And, and the thing with the Gen Xers, at least, many of them did get a house prior to 2020, have a low interest rate, and they at least have that burden gone. And hopefully, I think many of them, maybe not all, I don't know the percentage, but their children are at a daycare as well. Their student loans are probably paid off. So if you have your loans paid off, if your kids are at a daycare,

• 45:04Speaker 07

  and you have a house before 2020, that's a big breathing room that you're like, okay, the big three expenses are lower than millennials and Gen Z'ers. But then you're worrying about your aging parents and things like that.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Healthcare, right.

• 45:15Speaker 07

  Healthcare is huge. But, but yeah, I would say that's my biggest hope, is that I got to be on the front lines of watching every single person in our generation start to understand that the system itself is broken. We need some massive policy changes on top of new leadership. And I, even in my book, too, I am, I decided to extend the olive branch, because I wanted boomers to enjoy the book. And I didn't, so I don't point fingers at the boomers. But I definitely point out that there are people in your generation, unfortunately, that did create policies that over the past 30, 40 years, really hurt the middle class. And I think it's important for us to look at those, potentially reverse

• 45:57Speaker 07

  those. But we need a whole new mindset. We can't have GDP and shareholder value as the number one driving force of America. We have to think about the people. And the world's becoming a different place. I know, you know, we're in this AI race and all that kind of stuff. But it's all just like, talking points, you know? And then lastly, on your point about the boomers and the money, the boomers, the interesting thing about the boomers is that they are the wealthiest generation. But they have their own wealth inequality within their group. So the top 10%, 20% of boomers are the ones with all of the money. And there's a lot of other boomers who, you know, they're gonna leave their kids maybe a little bit, and it'll help. But it's not gonna be life changing. And then you also,

• 46:40Speaker 07

  because they're living longer, a lot of the boomer generation is gonna be going into assisted living, retirement homes. And again, with families, I encourage you to research trusts and putting your assets in a trust, because they'll, they'll take that money if you need to go into a retirement home or assisted living. And that'll siphon the money. Private equity is investing heavily in assisted living and nursing homes, because they see what's coming. And when you have nearly $100 trillion of wealth, that the boomers have, the money people in the world aren't gonna sit back and go, yeah, just give that to the millennials. That's fine.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  Right. No, we want that.

• 47:18Speaker 07

  We want as much of it as possible. So it'll be, it'll be interesting. The wealth transfer will happen. But I, I think it'll just be business as usual. Like you said, you know, the, the kid that had his parents who paid for college for them, which is such a blessing, they'll probably get left 1.5 million. But they already have a house, they already paid their college. It's, that family has the financial education opportunity.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  The rich getting richer, right.

• 47:44Speaker 07

  Yeah. People who struggle, they're gonna leave, you know, 30 grand, which will help pay off bills. But it's, you know, it's not gonna be life changing for a lot of people. It's gonna be a class thing. It's just, again, moving into the haves and have nots, that if we don't make a change, I would say in the next 10 years, we will see more of a fallout on that.

• 48:05Speaker 05

  Freddie, tell me this. Did your former business manager get, get in trouble? I mean, let me, I want to be, I want to, I want to circle back to that early point. Like, was there a day of reckoning for this person?

• 48:20Speaker 07

  Unfortunately, no.

• 48:22Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 48:23Speaker 07

  I know. It's always disappointing. Like, the story just doesn't have a good ending. Yeah, there was like, nine of us that were all taken. We all got together. We were thinking about hiring lawyers. But the lawyers were looking at the case. And they're like, well, technically, you gave her permission to be on your accounts. And we're like, well, permission to pay the bills to do all that, not to just take it into her own account, obviously. Like, if we brought that to court, we would have won. But no, everyone wanted us to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers and all of this kind of stuff. And after many meetings and like, a year of deliberation and gathering evidence, I go, she already took too much from me. I'm not wasting any more of my time. I'm just gonna rebuild.

• 49:06Speaker 07

  And so I bowed out when I saw that it was, you know, and there was even times if she didn't have the money, that she might end up having just to pay us restitution. But it might have been like, $300 a month for like, 30 years or something. And I'm like, I'm not gonna be reminded of her every single day for 100 bucks a month, or her saying she doesn't have it. And I was the one that unfortunately, wasn't taken that much. Like, there were other people who got millions taken. Obviously, they would have been paid out first, or bigger chunks. So I just, at one point, I go, I've been through it. I'm chalking this up to a learning experience, a painful one. But luckily, I still have my job. I'm making good money. Let me just try to pay this off. But it ended up taking me 10 years.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 49:49Speaker 07

  It wasn't as quick as I thought, because of the pandemic and being, you know, fired a year too soon.

• 49:54Speaker 05

  Nothing like tax embezzlement to get you to, you know, start your life over in a, in a big way. Did you hear about Steve Harvey? He had, I think, Twenty million stolen or something. And at one point, he jokes, like, I was the, everyone would joke, Steve Harvey has more jobs than anyone in Hollywood. He's like, you want to know why?

• 50:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 05

  I have no money.

• 50:16Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  I was very wealthy and then I had to, you know, the IRS, whatever, was 10, 20 million dollars. Crazy.

• 50:23Speaker 07

  That is the exact same thing that happened to him, happened to me, where she would send the tax return.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  Right.

• 50:30Speaker 07

  And it would say, you owe this much, sign it. And I would sign it and then I would see that money leave my account.

• 50:38Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 50:39Speaker 07

  Three, six weeks, and it was going into her account. And then she was not filing the tax return. And I never thought, well, let me call with the IRS and check. You know, I was just like, oh, she's sending it. I'm signing it. I'm giving it back to her. But when I saw the money come out of my account, I go, oh, that was taxes. But she was pocketing it and then not paying the taxes.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 50:57Speaker 07

  And that's the same thing that happened to Steve Harvey. And so it happens way too often. And it was just because it's confusing. You know, she was like, you need to, you need to open up an S corp and we need to do payroll and this will save you on payroll taxes. And, and I'm like, you know, what is all this? Like, I'm 23 years old when I first got with her. I didn't know. I was a small town, Ohio kid, blue collar family. Like, I didn't know what was going on. She goes, just focus on your creative, focus on becoming a movie star. I'm going to take care of everything. Don't even have it go to your house. Have all the bills and all the checks come to me. I'll deposit everything. I'll do everything. You can keep track of it. And I kept really good track of it. Like, I would see residuals come in and I'd make sure it was being deposited. But anytime money would go out in this wire, I always just, she always goes, oh, it's taxes.

• 51:42Speaker 07

  And I go, oh, cool. Because I knew the number. And when the IRS was sending me late notices, they were going to her address because she was the person.

• 51:53Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 07

  So I never got the letters from the IRS that I was behind. And...

• 51:58Speaker 05

  I mean, she should have at least lost her license, right? I mean, that's like, that's an easy thing to...

• 52:04Speaker 07

  It's a, one day, you know, you know what's super interesting? I can actually say this now because he said it publicly. Or would you, did you watch Breaking Bad?

• 52:13Speaker 05

  Here and there, not consistently, but yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 07

  So his, so the, the main son on the show, the, the lead son of Walter White, his name's RJ Mitty, he was one of the guys that were in this. And he was on, I think, the Ice Coffee Hour with Graham Stephan. And he was explaining it and I was sitting there listening to him. Like, dude, we were all together trying to do this. But he was finally, he came out and talked about it. So I was like, okay, I can mention him now. But, um, but we could do a whole pod on the intricate, like, this went on for two years. And it's the most fascinating, like, sad story because none of us got out of it. But, um, but it's, it's an interesting story to tell over a beer one day, you know?

• 52:54Speaker 05

  My God.

• 52:55Speaker 07

  I look back on it now and I'm over it, you know? But it's, um, it was painful during it, as you can imagine.

• 53:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I cannot imagine. I give you a lot of credit for your strength and your resilience and your ability to move on and your ability to rebuild. We're, I'm grateful to have you in the community and like, in the, in the big, you know, financial education world. What you bring to it is truly a unique lens and your ability to explain very sort of, you know, entangled concepts is, is a gift. And we hope, we wish you continued success, Freddie.

• 53:31Speaker 07

  Thank you. I appreciate it. This has been a great, great chatting with you.

• 53:35Speaker 05

  Likewise.

• 53:39Speaker 05

  Thanks so much to Freddy Smith for joining us. His new book is called Generation F'd: How Millennials and Gen Z Were Robbed of the American Dream and How We Can Fix Our Futures. I'll see you back here on Wednesday and I hope your day is so money.

• 54:05Speaker 00

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