Transcript of “We have 2 kids & $0 invested, but refuse to get 9-5 jobs”

I'm gonna open up a Roth I'm gonna open up a high yield savings account I'm gonna do these things and I don't want it to be my money I want it to be our money his eyes just glaze over and he looks at me in this like stone wall he's gone to another dimension I value my time over my money I'll put it that way I'm just pointing out that you're both basically making minimum wage is this the decision you both consciously are choosing yes it's a good question I only think about making enough to live and to take care of what we need in the short term I do not think about the long term the good is so good but we're losing sight of the future and that's what scares me until like I think I like woke up from a dream realize that we're missing out if we don't think bigger meet Cali and Travis Call's 36 Travis is 39 they live in Texas with an 11-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter what's important to know is that they have both intentionally chosen a different lifestyle than most people they're both entrepreneurs and they both intentionally stepped off the 9-to-5 make more money path this has made their finances very complicated they're not sure how much they earn a lot of their finances are a mystery and as we talk they realize that they are playing small now I really enjoyed my conversation with them because a lot unfolded a lot of things I did not realize when I first started talking to them especially when I heard about their parents listen closely as we meet cie and Travis Travis made a lot of changes in his business and I realized December of last year based on certain key things he was telling me he was struggling a little bit and I realized we needed to really dig into our budget and we had never done that I went to his office and I'm like let's make a budget so we sat down we looked at our budget and the one place I saw we could cut cost and maybe take stress off of Travis was his truck it was like a seven or $800 payment and he does use it for work and those kinds of things but it was um he had turned in another truck that he was a little upside down in and it was just this obscene payment with a big interest rate so we were like let's get rid of it what was the interest rate I have to ask it was closer to nine but the truck before was like 15 so we got better with this truck 15% I want to be in that business that gets 15% returns I just want to be on the other side of the table right it's predatory we definitely traded the truck in because $800 payments were crazy you knew that right when you bought the truck though right I did I did so like how did you make that decision I tried to justify it because I didn't have an office for my business so what is that I'm saving money on an office so therefore I can put some correct and I spend most of my time in the truck all right things were getting tight decided an office was a good idea no longer needed an $800 payment we just made that decision we are going to get rid of the truck we were excited about it I had a Ford Transit van so he took my car and we got rid of the truck but I put 4,000 down of my savings to lower the payment so we were going to save about $300 a month and Travis and I pay our car payments separate so this wasn't helping the family budget I was trying to I felt his stress and I wanted to help take some of that off and also help us out as a family so we got I got a a like a Nissan Rogue well then within a month or two Travis came home really excited to tell me that he had bought a rack and an awning for the van what what what is that so it's like like a a rack for the top so you can climb on the top of the van and sit on it Travis surfs so you could sit and watch the surf from the top of the van and the awning is like it protects you from the Sun yes so he was really excited to come home and tell me he bought this and he did it on payments and the payment was almost $300 a month oh wow so I took that as a personal hit because even though I viewed at the time when I spent that $4,000 I viewed it as our money and I felt bad he the you know I took the wind out of his sales but it actually took me about 24 hours to to approach him about it that was our first moment in our relationship marriage where we had to like come to head about a money decision because before that point he runs his business I run my business we put equal amounts of money into one account and that's where our bills are paid from everything outside of that him me what did you feel when he told you that he had got the rack and the awning for $300 a month I was disappointed in the in that moment I felt that this sacrifice I had made and I view my savings as like my own personal security blanket was like taken away um but I was also excited for him because I knew that's was something fun and exciting and he probably felt excited to share that with me it just made me realize in that moment that we had to have bigger conversations or we were gonna always view money so differently and I would keep saving and have this little honey pot for emergencies and if we weren't in on it together I would be alone in that saving Journey what' you say to him I said exactly that that I was disappointed because we had I had made we not I we had made that decision to help relieve some pressure off of him because I had was absorbing that stress he was feeling in his business he said I took the wind out of his sales uhhuh and I see from your face that that made you sad yeah because so we are a really great team and we are really great at communicating we have a lot of our our marriage is really based on a lot of love and we don't have a lot of turmoil so it's actually taking me a lot of like courage not courage because we I'm worried about us fighting when I talk about money or something that makes them uncomfortable his eyes just glaze over and he looks at me in this like Stonewall he's gone to another dimension he's very open to these conversations it's just their hard conversation and how did this conversation resolve itself I think we just resolved it by saying that we understood where each other were coming from and then we moved on until the next thing and so you still got the rack and the awning okay how much did that thing cost in total Travis roughly 4,500 okay so that's $300 a month payments over how long 12 months all right I'll be done in April okay all right Travis I want to hear your perspective I really wanted these accessories for the van and I saw a little bit of extra cash in the monthly budget so I went for it and I didn't talk to her first after I paid all the bills for the business and then put all of our income that we agree upon into our account M I felt like I had few hundred extra bucks that could have gone to savings but instead went to an accessory like how long did you go seeing a couple hundred extra bucks in the account oh three months for three months you saw 200 bucks extra in it roughly yes okay it was through a firm are you familiar with that oh yeah I'm familiar with that okay buy now pay later right and it was a 12 month 0% interest I picked the 12 month it was like 333 a month so maybe it could have been 15 months okay that would make more sense so when she came in and she said I'm disappointed what do you remember about that conversation oh heartbroken why uh because you don't want to disappoint anyone in your life and I definitely don't want to disappoint her so uh I knew that right away I made the wrong move okay and so what did you do at that point I could only apologize and I knew I would never make that mistake again did you tell her that yes we've talked about it many times all right what was the mistake that you made just so I can understand that not speaking to her first okay I think she could have changed my mind and do you see why that might not be the best way to think about it absolutely what what is a better way to think about it uh we should have replenished her savings account before I did anything you know I've recently become obsessed with this question can you afford it on Twitter I posted about a couple who had a $2,000 mattress and a ton of angry commenters just started lashing out at me of course a mattress is a good investment RIT it's all about your health that's not an answer to know if you can afford something an answer to know if you can afford something involves numbers it's not just a feeling I feel like I want a private jet so I can that's not how it works you can go on Twitter and search for REM mattress and you'll see tons of comments I realized that almost nobody knows how to decide if they can afford something they literally see something they want they decide to buy it and then they make up a bunch of reasons later anyway I noticed the same thing here with Travis he saved a bunch of money on his truck and because he saw some extra money in his account he basically said oh okay I want that awning I can afford it this is very common and most people genuinely have no idea how to decide if they can afford something I'm going to be talking more about this topic in the future but I just wanted to flag it for you now back to Travis and C so both of you are entrepreneurs so you both have your own businesses you make your own money then from that business each of you contributes an amount to your joint house account which is used to pay your bills subscriptions car all that stuff our vehicles are separate but everything else how do you decide how much money comes from your business to the house account every month we went through and did all of our bills uh got our fixed costs and then split it down the middle to give ourselves a little wiggle room okay and said all right we both need to put in 2500 bucks a month like if you go out to a restaurant where does that come from that account that account vacation same thing yeah vacation we we still sweat down the middle but we have to figure it out separately but we still 5050 that in most cases we do love to travel that's a big part of where this conversation started last year we put a trip to Barbados on a credit card what you went to Barbados how long did you go for a week tell me about this trip I have to know the details we went with friends our stay was actually paid for if we could just get ourselves there MH which sounds great but the tickets are like $1,200 a piece and the rental car and eating at the resort and all that stuff so we maxed out a $5,000 credit card um pretty easily do both of your businesses make the same amount of money that's the mystery huh why don't we just figure it out right now here I'll start KY how much does your business make so like last year I made about 880,000 gross right so some months you know I'm billing 13,000 some months I'm billing three so I on the conscious spending plan I put 6,000 gross because that's F that's the way you should do it that's great perfect six and then like you have a number you pick that you are certain you can hit 100% And then anything above that you can distribute accordingly okay great and then Travis like how much did your business do last year uh yeah what's that mystery uh there's a lot of variable numbers in there that make it confusing what hold on what is your business first of all it's mostly a housekeeping business okay made service okay uh property management and so from January is my slowest month and then June can be my busiest month it's a vacation rental okay but just how much did it make Revenue Maybe 80 including what I pay myself yeah uh but Revenue no Revenue I would say five to 10 um five to 10 what thousand no can't you mean per month no I write a very thin line when it comes to the end of the year I don't profit much okay at all how much salary do you take 1,00 bucks a month where' the rest of the money go I pay myself $2500 a month it goes straight into our house count but then to keep myself on payroll and pay payroll taxes on I have an extra $1,200 in payroll you both pay yourselves 2500 a month we talk about this a lot because the pros I say always say the pros outweigh the cons uhhuh because it's a tradeoff but there has to be a breaking point I guess what we talking about so we've both chose to not like climb the corporate ladder you know I I was making when I quit my job four years ago I was at about 80,000 and it's taken me about four years to get back there and that's not having writeoffs you know so it's like I don't really make 880,000 I'm paying for a lot of things so I if I had stayed on that trajectory right now I'd be making way more the choice to work for myself was a conscious decision to have a flexible schedule grow the life we want but now we're at this point where I you know you you have that tug-of-war inside if that's the right choice um but we both with us working for ourselves we have this flexibility together but we both work really hard so the point I've gotten to is we're in this hustle loop it's exciting that we have this freedom but we're never going to stop hustling and working non-stop all right so you two are Hustlers would you describe yourselves as that yeah I think that I could hustle more that's what Hustler would say I value my time over my money I'll put it that way so I'm just pointing out that you're both basically making minimum wage right you could get a job at any minimum wage place and you'd have health insurance and right there's nothing wrong with working at a minimum wage job just point I'm asking is this the decision you both consciously are choosing yes it's a good question what I keep saying to Travis when we have these money convers is it's not that I want more necessarily it's that I want to work smarter not harder whatever money we are making whether it's 2500 a month or 10,000 a month I want it to be so intentional that our lives are better because of it I have to jump in here because I like what they said they intentionally decided to jump off the hamster wheel and design their own Rich lives that didn't involve working for somebody else I totally approve remember a rich life is not simply about making more money a rich life certainly is not only about buying expensive Trinkets and traveling to the fanciest hotels and vehicles like so many people automatically assume a rich life is something that you intentionally design around the life that you want please remember your rich life is yours and nobody else's I knew that in order to live the kind of rich life I want I would need to make a certain amount of money I want want you to do the same no matter what your vision is be clear about what your rich life is and then make decisions that will support that rich life okay now we can't have everything we want but we can start to make very clear decisions that line up with our vision of a rich life and that's the catch in order to design your rich life you have to know your numbers in fact the more alternative your rich life is the more dialed in you have to be on your numbers and on your communication otherwise you might find yourself making minimum wage working tons of hours hustling but never getting ahead the good is so good but we're losing sight of the future and that's what scares me where it's really easy to be like we've got everything we need and we live this life and it's free and it's awesome until you stop for one second and you're like holy we don't have retirement we don't have savings if our roof right now it's raining our roof goes out tomorrow there's six seven eight 10 grand we don't have for me I'm a photographer I break my leg I'm out I can have one train of thought where I'm on Travis is like really chill and go with the flow and I've been on that train and I love him for that that's like why I'm in love with him but sometimes and this has been my year of trying to snap him out of that a little to get on my page and we're getting there but sometimes I feel bad because I'll come at him with so much energy because I'm trying to fix these problems but they're not problems where I'm like you need to make more we need you need to be different or I need to be different it's just let's go ahead and see what we have and figure out our Baseline and be smarter with what we have I only think about making enough to live and to take care of what we need in the short term so correct I do not think about the long term okay now when tell me what you mean by that when you say just to to cover what we need what do you mean by that I want to make sure our family is taken care of and our monthly expenses are done uh we live within our means family taken care of can you explain that for me uh we have two kids daycare health insurance all those bills are paid for okay I never want to let those go unpaid okay but I'm also not picking up extra clients so that we can increase our retirement savings tell me about that why tell me more that's great great question I I just don't think that far down the road I like a small business I like to keep it that way um and I have a lot of time off in certain parts of the year and that's also really nice what do you do with the time off take our kids to school go surfing cool have lunch all right did you grow up nearby uh South Texas South Texas all right how would you describe your family socioeconomically when you grew up yeah middle class oh okay lower middle what's the difference uh I think maybe we were just in a very po neighborhood but we were middle class until you go to a middle class neighborhood in another city and then you realize oh you're not that middle class I came from a poor town so I knew that we weren't poor what was the family structure in life two parents three little sisters all right so four kids and um what do you remember your parents saying about money nothing nothing not a lot they kept their conversations to themselves and made sure all the kids were taken care of it's not like we ever had to worry about getting new shoes for school or any school clothes I got a brand new truck when I graduated high school whoa I think they went into debt for their kids just never talked to us about it what did your parents do for work dad was a restaurant manager uh mom worked for a her brother's family business okay um you remember seeing them ever like paying the bills uh sitting at the dining room table paying bills on like a Sunday morning or something yeah yeah who was it I think my mom kept the books uhhuh I feel like that was pretty common what about your dad what'd he do I don't recall okay but you you didn't see your dad at those like Sunday table things it was your mom kind of going over the books that's what I remember was it clear who was going to pay for college I believe my parents didn't have a lot of college savings for us uhhuh yeah if you wanted to go you're either gonna have to take out a lot of loans or get as many as scholarships as possible pravis was Val Victorian oh wow that's cool congratulations think it's cool he he he doesn't ever brag about he's a very I like that you brag for him that's cool all right I like it oh hold on Round of Applause we have had a couple of other valorian on this show but I love it and I love a partner bragging for their own partner about them being a valorian great job what was your GPA 4.1 I guess you can get extra credit no need to explain to me I understand trust me so um you were going to go on scholarship to whichever School where'd you end up uh deciding what area gon oh okay so you stayed in uh South Texas so it's still about a six hour drive ah from where I grew up far enough far enough you can come back when you need to still on the water great and it was free and was that important to you at the time being on the water was important how about the free part that was a huge bonus they gave you a truck but they didn't pay for your car College they didn't decide on the truck until the new College was paid for I don't think that would have happened if I wasn't going to college uh but I don't think that there was a bulk sum of money towards the truck great our son chose a place he's going to get a scholarship for we don't have money to buy a truck but we're going to go put it on payment plans for the next five years did I get that right sounds right does this sound familiar to anybody on this call right now I don't have the money for it so I'm going to go put it on payments anybody yes what would the example be from Modern Day y theack the accessories and on and on and on right Travis what do you say what do you make of this I know where it's coming from where back home growing up with our parents when I can see my parents get vehicles and make payments I think we can do that too it's only a few hundred bucks a month that fits right in the budget all right is your parents save for retirement no so what are they doing now uh my dad has inheritance from his dad they're divorced okay uh my mom is living on Social Security barely barely that's tough I would love to see an opportunity to find income to take care of our parents I love that okay thank you for adding that and Cali I see you nodding as well yeah that's a goal like when we have many conversations whenever Travis gets like discouraged I try to put that positive spin that if we can get a hold of this we can do more and we can help our parents we can be more generous money doesn't have to be so taboo Travis tell me more about this concept I find it very compelling that you would love to find a way to be able to help your parents probably sounds like specifically your mom uh part-time employment at my company um she loves being here because all the grandkids are in this town and so we don't want to see her go work 40 hours a week for minimum wage somewhere and not fulfill her dreams as grandparent you send her money right now no not unless she um she helps me with some budgeting and she helps us with the kids every now and then uh so when we specifically ask for something that is out of her way then yes we do give her some money she barely makes rent and bills and a little bit of grocery she ever talk to you about money now as an adult a little bit more now what she say it's not about the ACT ual numbers but about the lack thereof how does she say it I'm GNA have some uh spaghetti tonight because that's the cheapest meal wow that's tough to hear how do you reconcile this beautiful dream you have of wanting to help your parents specifically your mom because she's just barely getting by and then you know making purchases like the rack and the awning I don't uh it's it's hard to put them together a lot of compartmentalization going on up there that last exchange was shocking but in a different way than you might expect Travis said that his mom sometimes calls and quietly mentions that she's eating spaghetti because quote that's the cheapest meal she's basically out of money and he claims that he wants to help his mom financially but meanwhile he's spending $300 a month on random truck accessories but that's not the shocking part to me what's really shocking is how common this compartmentalization is you do this I do this every single person claims they want to do something but their actual spending reflects something totally different if you're listening to this or you're watching this right now ask yourself what do I claim is important but my spending does not reflected we'll be right back let's get back to the show you said I don't really think far ahead head I want to make sure that the kids are taken care of aside from that I'm good right we can often see what happens as time goes on we see the predictable path of where you will end up at this point I could just be 65 and our kids will be happy but they won't realize that I have nothing in savings and they're going to look over one day and uh not going to tell them how poor I am you might not say I'm broke but you might say something else instead right right like uh guess what we're having for dinner tonight that would be a tragedy it would be a tragedy because you have the chance to change the trajectory of your family you have the ability to live a richer life than you ever thought possible and you have something on your side that your parents cannot buy which is time our parents all live in the same town which is kind of we're we neither of us grew up here so we have our futures staring at us in a unique way the age we are and the age they are yeah um they've all just hit their early to mid 60s this year especially um we've really been trying to figure out these like generational things that are holding us back I'm curious about your family what do you remember about money when you were a little kid it was a roller coaster um we moved around a lot my parents are both also entrepreneurs oh wow okay so there's a little bit of a mirror happening so they reinvented themselves even within my childhood a few times okay when I was 17 their business took a turn for the worst and I witnessed them lose cars lose our house which was also their business we lived like within the business like a warehouse um so I kind of watched everything crumble at 17 what I saw was lose everything so the way I always explained it to myself was that they went bankrupt I'm not sure if they did but in a matter of a few months where we lived the car was all gone my stepdad left at that time to live at a town over and me and my mom moved into like a little rent house and like the poor part of town the car that I had saved up for that I've been working since I was like 15 became the family car and I don't blame my mom for it now but I held a lot of resentment at the time I got upset because the car that I had worked so hard to buy was now being used by me her my brother everybody I remember complaining about it and she said you're either with this family or against it wow well at the time I was really pissed off and I was mad I was a 17-year-old you know and I didn't have any perspective but now being a mom and a business owner I I empathize now I can only imagine what they were going through I took that as like it's me against the world from that point on I was brought up a little bit differently where my parents almost I think to a fault put this hustle culture in my head I had to buy my own car I've had a job since I was 15 my stepdad loves Rich Dad Poor Dad that kind of stuff know I know you never want to have to work a nine to5 the worst thing in America the worst is to have to trade your time for money sound familiar exactly oh he called people in uh Jack monkey suits if they had it yeah it was like demonized my parents were more proud of me when I quit my job yeah and I had a good job too I appreciate this I know I know exactly kind of right the Dynamics in which you raised you seem to be very perceptive about how you were raised right you are an entrepreneur what if on this call we decided that you should actually get a full-time job would you be able to do that I think so uh I'm glad I asked all right so it really got into you this idea like I'm I must be an entrepreneur I am an entrepreneur if I'm not an entrepreneur I'm not successful right how'd you pay for college I had some pale grants and student loans amazing all right job and how do you feel now looking back that 17-year-old C how do you feel about what she did over the next few years of her life good but I also think I have a chip on my shoulder that's like what I think I'm trying to shed this year because I I went to college and then I was only out of college for about a year or so I had this degree and I would moved to Austin and I was going to be all these things and within a year of being there I accidentally got pregnant so then I then was a single mom with a chip on her shoulder paying for everything by myself I never got child support or anything so I think I've always had this like shell of like I can do it and I think I'm ready to get rid of that it's almost like it's taken me till 36 to be like that's actually holding me back tell me about that I think I just put so much pride in like you know that being my personality I paid for my own car and I paid for college and I paid for I I don't need child support like it was so empowering but then I have nothing to show for it just a lot of work wow extremely perceptive getting ready for this call I typed out some thoughts came out my head and one of them was my worth is really tied up in my ability to produce oh yeah that's I think what's made me successful in some ways in other ways it's really what cripples me yeah because my personal selfworth is really tied up in those achievements and those goals being met when you had your daughter I assume you had to take some time off work what did that feel like for you to not be producing I worked really hard and I saved about $30,000 in order to take a break but I started working again in about five weeks did you need the money no why' you do it it was a good opportunity can I ask again why'd you do it I don't know you know I do why'd you do it I think it just is my way of like proving to myself that I'm worthy and I know that and it's a struggle even I've had a slow month this month which isn't like me and I've been spir what you just said is so revealing right right now I assume you you live in Texas you drive pretty far at times right yeah I mean I drive into Houston probably once a week how long does it take you to get there like an hour that's funny when you drive an hour do you think only one mile at a time where am I going to go the next mile what's G to happen what if the car stops what if I run out of gas no what do you think like I put on a podcast and I just cruised that's right I I crank up that I will teach you to be Rich Podcast I crank up the I will teach you to be rich audio book and we're cruising right yeah you you set an ambitious goal where you want to end up and you make your plan whether it's you use your map or whatever and you go and you know that if the car breaks down or something happens you'll you'll navigate your way right but you're thinking on a much bigger basis right what would that look like if you did that with your money I think it would be freeing I'm of the bigger picture people okay one of the things I've pulled a lot from your podcast is I'm worried that I'm um playing small when I could be playing big I think I I get like paralyzed and figuring out how to play bigger because I'm so in the weeds of hustling like I just take the next job next job give it you know like this last year when I felt Travis's like stress not that he ever asked me to cover him he never did I increased my I did my yearly review I increased my Revenue by 54% and I didn't even realize I did it because I just kept saying yes until I burn myself out the clue is that cie said I've had a slow MTH that single phrase tells me so much about someone especially entrepreneurs it tells me that you're focused on your money on a month-to-month basis it tells me that you're playing small it tells me that you don't necessarily have the healthiest relationship with money because you're focused so much on the short term and it tells me that this pattern probably exists in other parts of your life okay the real magic here is if they can connect the thing they're good at with money you have the skills to be really good at money it's not this mystical thing that only some priests know how to do everybody can get good with money and honestly to live a rich life that's really all you need to get you need to get good you don't even need to be excellent you're learning it here get my book use the material automate lowcost long-term investing all that stuff and you will be good even very good now in Call's case this toxic culture of hustling all this Robert kosaki scam the messages that you need to be hustling and grinding working endless hours in order to be successful it's all about passive income don't trade your time for money that will make it very hard for C to change but I will say she's very receptive and I do have a lot of confidence in her that's why I wanted to pull Travis in on this journey because until this year I've viewed my money Journey as separate from his one of the things when we first started dating he would complement my strength and ability to do it you know and I think that was his way of complimenting me but I really it it just it gave me my gold star in my ability to provide for myself so he saw me as a strong single mom so I think you know we've now been together eight years I realize that I can lean on him but in order for me to lean on him I need him to like drink a little bit of my crazy juice and start being excited about money okay well number one it's not crazy juice to want to be excited about money what is that I don't know whenever I bring it up he it well and we've gotten better but like you know he's like whoa who W chill let me ask you I assume you've tried to engage him ask him like what are your dreams what's your rich life all that stuff right right get the you don't get much back we came back from a date night and I had brought up this conversation and he's like I just want to have a good time I don't want to talk about money I don't really care about money and I said you want to go on a sailing trip in Indonesia you want to go to Barbados you want to do all these things you do care about money and that's uh okay that's aggressive but I like it and uh Travis what did you say back to that uh I agreed she's right I do want all those things and they do require money but why do you say I don't care about money what is that I didn't care about the long-term conversation about money or the fact that I didn't have a lot of money to contribute any any savings or any new topic that might be coming up I would only save money for short-term goals Cy what if Travis never cares about the long term when it comes to finances I was worried about that another thing I said to him which maybe turned a corner was I'm gonna do this with or without you and I want to do it with you wow and I don't mean that with that we'd ever be a part but like I'm going to save I'm going to open up a Roth I'm going to open up a high yield savings account I'm going to do these things and I don't want it to be my money I want it to be our money I don't want to hoard my money I want to share our money and dream big I don't want to do it alone because I also Travis is really a very intelligent guy he likes to like undersell himself which is why I constantly try to brag for him I want his opinion and I want his Insight I trust him I'm a creative I have to like fight harder to understand some of these more complex things and I will I'm not I'm not putting it out to pasture that I'm not capable I definitely am but I'd love to do it with him yeah financially it was only about the monthly expectations do you all know why you did that why did you focus so much on the month easier to break down variable incomes sort of I was this think about me driving to Houston and only looking a mile ahead yeah at the month that is yeah what kind of conversation you think I like to have what are our goals for the year yeah and I the way I would term is like what is our rich life what gets us excited this year what do we want to do more of what do we want to do less of right what want to change in our lifestyle where do you want to go babe love it next week next month this year because some things you can't just get up and go next week you got to book it and plan it I think I said in my um application Travis and I are like the blind leading the blind yeah why do you think that up until we we hit this point in our relationship where we decided to start talking about money it's been which is actually a great thing where it's like rainbows and sunshine in the best way like we live life very positively and like loving what we have until like I think I like woke up from a dream realized that we're missing out if we don't think bigger we'll get into their numbers after this quick break okay let's get into their numbers I'm going to give you a quick summary of what I see remember you can download this conscious spending plan template for free at iwtc CSP their assets $300,000 Investments zero savings $4,500 debt $175,000 their net worth is $120,500 and their combined income $132,450 did you both know that that's what you make per year it sounds larger when you say it like that and no I don't think they did I've never really known what Travis makes if it wasn't 2024 and inflation and all these things it's like it's okay but in the world we're living in today um blah I am not sure actually what that should represent for us right so it's just a number you're like I don't know what that means right Callie how do you not know what Travis means it's a mystery he's very vague um he does have he has you know he play he pays a lot of people so I know there's a lot of money in and a lot of money out Travis you have a bookkeeper no uhuh I can tell working on that trying to make sure I have the money to pay them I'm confused how much you made in Revenue last year uh let's say 331 so probably close to 180 all right you made 180,000 top line you had to pay yourself 30,000 so that's 150 you had to pay your people probably your biggest expense yeah there's a lot of supplies and writeoffs um expenses okay you run your vehicle through there as well correct yes all right and so and then in the end you end up with like a very very small amount of profit correct all right how many hours a day are you working that varies on average 20 to 30 hours a week why are you working 30 hours a week to make $30,000 a year well the 30 hours a week is when it's really busy today I worked one hour okay I increased prices so the year 2024 will look much different on my financial statement than the last what's it going to look like uh I would say 30% more all right so you make $132,000 living in small town in Texas I would say like low cost of living would that be fair to say we have a low cost of living because we bought um before the spike and I was amazed I had to double check my math I said is this really their you have a mortgage so we got really lucky we bought it it was a fixer upper we bought it like 2017 or 2018 for $116,000 it's on a half acre wow okay all right you each send 2500 net to your house account n so what is the gross amount based on your taxes that you make in order to have 2500 net do you know I haven't done my taxes for this year with my write offs but I'm guessing probably in the 60s yeah that sounds about right all right so I'm just going to make we're going to be a little bit approximate here I'm gonna assume that you're all making 3200 a month in order to have 2500 net okay now we need to take your cars out okay because that's throwing everything off as you can see your fixed costs are currently 99% which is insane that's not right whose card needs to get dropped out of here both both yeah both and then also the $150 debt payment on bu side because I pay for that separately also the clothes that's me clothes fine you don't have any clothes for kids I pay for that out of my own money why I don't know I just always have no that's coming back into the house what the hell no uh groceries um so hey something changed in a big way you all see this number up here what is it read it to me fixed costs 81% 81% now we got to start working through some stuff that's where we we're stuck like how do we decide what is the B what's my business what's his business what's ours we decided what fills the family's cup and then we don't know where to go beyond that you decided what fills the family's cup however you're actually not filling the family's Cup right now right which we talked about changing this my son has been going a counselor and I pay for that shouldn't we just put that in here don't you like to play conservative like let's put it all in here and yeah yeah let's put it in so that that would be uh $220 all right so you're currently at 85% fixed cost let's not get alarmed the good news is that you both have money in your business the bad news is that the amount you're sending it's not enough to keep the household running right let's continue working down the CSP your Investments are what's this number Travis zero zero what's up with this guys why we're here y we have a a joint past boss who's a friend and I think I had a realization a year or two ago we were having drinks with him and he mentioned he's a very successful business owner that he had his kids money in stocks and one of his kids who was like 16 had made 40 Grand and it was just it was an off-handed over drinks and I was like what teach me I can be your daughter you know I didn't realize parents were teaching their kids these things or that there was a game to be played like I literally had never had conversations about that with anybody um I did try to I asked three women their friends of ours wives whatever to have coffee with me I brought up these conversations like how do you guys invest your money and I left very overwhelmed because they we live in the Energy Corridor oil and gas shipping they all have um husbands in that world and they all just rattled off these accounts and all this money and I left being like I don't even like wait so I have to say I'm very impressed that you asked your your girlfriends to share this that's amazing what did you think that they would tell you I don't know I just wanted Insight on like the names of accounts to open I know that sounds silly but I just wanted to open the door okay let's talk Investments so your Investments are currently zero if you continue for the rest of your life with zero Investments what will happen pravis and I will be working at Home Depot that's the running joke yeah it's the running joke like truthfully you're not gonna die if you don't have Investments right right play it out for me because right now you are on track to have zero invested forever so I'm not asking factiously like really right you would have a house you have a car two cars those will be paid off at some point what would happen if you did not ever invest yeah we would end our lives with zero dollars we wouldn't have a fun retirement only because our we are watching our parents hit that age like all at once yeah it's become more motivating for me I love them and they work hard but they're still flipping houses they're still getting in sticky deals I feel they stress and I've told Travis we can't be in our 60s still doing that and Travis I know it's not a motivator to you because you you're like I'll work forever I don't mind right in a way that was my thought process but I also have a lot of dreams about doing things that don't involve work like uh sale in the Caribbean for three months out of the Year shut it didn't we did I hear that you have a boat uh yes where's that on the CSP oh it's not in there oh that's weird where is it though it's in the yard so let me just get to the end of the story here if you don't invest you'll have a house you'll have your cars you'll have social security at some point which will make a very small amount you know that better than anybody Travis kids will be off and they'll be adults and the two of you will you know perhaps be in the same house or somewhere nearby and and that will will be life you can see the crystal ball now some people are like I'm cool with that and if so I'm not going to convince him change Cali I know you're not okay with that correct correct Travis I'm not okay with that all right fine then you need to invest because the only way to build true wealth is through Investments this entire episode shows how fascinating and paradoxical are Rel ship with money is Cali and Travis both have parents whose lives did not turn out very well financially speaking those parents live nearby and yet they still have not invested you would think that people would see their parents going through hardship and invest their money wrong you would think that people who are worried about money scared about running out of money would read a single book on Personal Finance wrong you would think think that people would of course want to learn how money works because after all they spent 50 years working for it wrong most people treat money like an annoying nuisance they pay off bills they pay their taxes occasionally they go out and order some pizza they certainly do not come up with an agenda and talk about it every two weeks and put their numbers into a conscious spending plan but the thing that drives me crazy and the reason that I have been talking about money for 20 years is that with just just a little bit of work you can be so far ahead that you don't have to worry about money you don't have to play small I'm going to go through the next part of my conversation and we're going to get into a bunch of numbers I would highly recommend that you watch the next part on YouTube so you can see what I'm doing listen closely this is one of my favorite things that I've done on this podcast how would you handle the Barbados trip if it happened again map it out let's map it out right now tell me sit down with a piece of paper we're going through it again actually REM me because we have now been invited to Travis's cousins wedding in Alaska oh let's do it right now hold on I'll pop this up on screen all right I love it all right tell me so the tickets are about um let's say $ thousand dollar a person all right $2,000 we need we're going to be there what say like five days so lodging is going to be I would say minimum I never do minimum anything on a trip why are you doing that why are you setting yourself up to fail hold on look at this look at the look at their faces on screen they're like embarrassed or like going like don't set yourself up don't lie to yourself before you ever set foot on a plane and what happens when the freaking hotel has 38% tax and then the only place to eat because you're in Alaska is at the hotel which is gonna be expensive well that's what happened to Barbados and we put it on the credit card bingo so let's not do the same freaking thing again all right let's get better each time all right how much is lodging really going to be let's say 1500 what's next the car which we're going to try to share with some family members but if we don't um I don't know I think 500 what else meals $100 a day 200 a day yeah okay thousand right we're going on a whale tour that yeah let's call it excursions yeah fine that's 30 bucks a person okay so $60 yeah 60 bucks uhuh it's not 60 it's already been rented so we already know the cost per person let me just tell you how I would think okay so if I see something where you're like oh the tickets have already been booked they're 30 bucks a person like we already know that I'm putting down a 100 to 150 you're G to tip the guy that alone is going to be 20 bucks right all right what else how about just miscellaneous stuff comes up right right I will say we're pretty cons and I know a lot of people say this but we're like pretty conservative on spending we're not we just so I mean is that because you don't count the spending that you actually no no like it's I mean maybe so what what I want to do is I want to appreciate that you don't spend a huge amount on certain things but what I also want to do is I want to help you develop the skills of being accurate at projecting on a small thing like this because what I really want you to do is become more accurate at projecting on the big things that you want I agree and I think that's the realization I came to is like I don't want to think I don't want to play small and I feel like we are we've pigeon hold ourselves into that place exactly what's the miscellaneous number you wanted to put let's put 200 good that's a good number all right so all of this costs $537 so how many months away is that five months five all right so where's the money coming from we talked about saving for it but we have not yeah and I have an extra job uh next month that'll pay for about half of that you see the problem with that right we planned out how much it's going to cost we even left a little buffer I love it we have a pretty nice number here $ 5,375 we know exactly how many months so what I want to see is we are system atically saving every single month to get to the total amount we need what I heard was Travis going like this sort of episodic arbitrary thing over totally out of left field I got this job which is going to pay for half I don't mind that you're going to do an extra job I like that but what I want to know is where does it show up in your financial system you need a simple clean plan that we all work from Cali you get it yes I wrote down things to bring up and I put big fear we'll always spend what we make and money will literally disappear well that's exactly what's happening whatever you make it gets absorbed and it disappears and then you all come up with this arbitrary stuff like Callie's like I'll grind it out and make 30k and then that money you know does get used but also just gets spent right uh Travis is like I'll grind it out over here I got an extra job and part of it will come here and then some of it will just disappear and you'll be playing this game for the rest of your life it sucks if you don't decide where the money will go from your business it will get sucked up immediately do you agree to entrepreneurs absolutely okay the most disappointing thing is with I increase my Revenue so much but I don't feel it we can guarantee 2500 is going to come from a job that I have in February all right and it's not a surprise it's a job that I've done every year uh for the past 13 years all right so now we're left at you know 2,800 2875 let's say 2900 in four months let me tell everyone listening what I'm doing with the math the total trip is $537 I subtracted $2500 that Travis is going to be getting from a job Travis is going to contribute all of that towards this trip right Travis correct that leaves $2,875 they need to save for Alaska they've got four months left so I did 287 5 divided 4 that gives us about $720 per month let's say February March April May how do you want to do it we both contribute to our savings account $350 okay so we have to yeah we just have to commit to adding that into our family budget all right so 360 bucks a month each of you are going to send that in addition to what you already send which is 2500 a month and that's going to go flow into a savings account right by the time May comes around you're going to have your entire trip there when you travel you could you're going to have no credit card debt so you can put it on a credit card and pay that credit card off that month right that's the way you do it that's exactly what I do exactly like that beautiful job okay how do you both feel about that that feels good right again feels amazing well first of all it's just cool to do this together right you like sit down and you talk about it you really get Vivid right you're living the trip before you even go on the trip so you're already pumped then you get there you're living it for the second time which is amazing taking your photos then you come back you've got your photos you relive it for a third time and paying it off is just a it's a triviality and that is very connected you created a plan together you stick by the plan together that's how you live a more intentional life yeah that sounds really good until now they would go on trips charge up a bunch of stuff and then get surprised at how much it all costed and what I did here was I showed Cali and Travis how to plan ahead of time they started by getting the basic numbers down airfare hotel excursions food and I taught them how to be conservative by adding a lot of extra buffer don't just think about the ticket prices think about tipping the guide and think about the lunch everyone's going to stop to get on the way there I would rather you add more money to the budget and come back with a little bit of extra that you didn't spend rather than get surprised with an extra $1,800 you didn't plan for finally I taught them how to break that number down $ 5,375 into a specific number of months set that money into a separate named savings account by the time they get there they've already done the hard work they can enjoy the whale watching trip and the wine and all of it if you do this for a vacation you will feel amazing if you do it for a car even better do it for a house down payment incredible retirement absolutely Sublime this is how you live a rich life because one of the key distinctions among the rich is that they plan ahead before they need to y'all want to fix your CSP numbers because right now you have 85% fixed costs zero in Investments and you're temporarily saving some money oh and you have Z dollar left every month to spend on anything yes that's based on our our like combined pot that we haven't figured out what that number our combined pot should be bigger okay well let's do it tell me the number so if we start doing 3,000 a month each 3,000 net I'm taking it up from 2500 net to 3,000 net and just for easy math I'm going to go your gross is going to be like 3600 I don't know if I'm getting this right but it's in approximate right all right so let's see what happened your fixed cost are at 71% you do have 177% for guilt-free spending or $11,000 I think that's okay our goal for 2024 is to both open up roths and start contributing to those every month how much do you want to put in you want to Max it out which is what 7,000 a person yeah yeah that would be ideal I don't know if that's possible even if we could start off like we like 150 a month per person excuse me you can't all be investing only $150 a month it's not enough I could show you you want me to show you what it adds up to yeah all right let's take a look so right now it's going to make the math easy because you got zero as your current principle annual addition 300 a month 363,000 yeah that would last us like two years three years so if we use something called the 4% rule that 363,000 would give you about $114,000 per year youall want to live on $14,000 a year no no but do you see how you are essentially ending up where your parents did I was always afraid to have that conversation because I don't I want to commit to more but can we commit to more that's just like I guess that's a bigger conversation so maybe we just put the number down we see what it looks like well we should do that yeah and if it doesn't work we'll change it I I love that I rarely hear that so I say yes let's try that right now we need to increase our investment for the retirement savings okay tell me a number so if could we double that all right from 15 each of you per month to 300 each of you per month we're at 727 th000 little a little better you know if we just do the same math you're going to have about 28,000 or so a year that's not enough let's think bigger a lot bigger I would say any windfall since we like for me since I do work for myself like last year I got a random production job and I made an extra Seven Grand that it wasn't expecting okay so I think those things will I can't predict when they're going to come but the types of jobs I take those jobs will continue to come so their wellbe months were that 6,000 triples can I also give you one more thing to think about both of you are still thinking in terms of jobs jobs jobs jobs guys you're not going to get where you want to go if you keep thinking in terms of random one-off jobs I agree do you understand why there's no strategy consistency yeah it's there's no strategy and what was your comment Travis uh consistency see yeah it's like basically you are both setting yourselves up to have to grind for the rest of your life the thing is guys you're not going to want to grind like it might be fun right now but sometimes you are going to get sick or sometimes you're going to get tired or sometimes your kids are going to need your attention it's really hard to get out of that trap and to say no we're going to talk about annual income but you are going to need to develop the skills the business skills to say okay I need to get 15K more this year here's how many jobs I currently get per month in order to get 15K more divided by 12 this is how many jobs I need to get approximately 1.2 per month that's the way to start elevating yourself Beyond gigs and jobs right I think it sounds great and I think that I've already set this year up to do that uh we just have to wait until it actually happens what's the revenue Target uh 30% more than this year so what I am hoping for after everyone's paid out is to profit 50,000 this year that'd be pretty good it would be great how do you go from zero profit to 50,000 profit I think I'm gonna have a lot less expenses uhuh I've increased a lot of prices in different ways so how soon can you get a bookkeeper I guess I could call around tomorrow do that best money you're going to spend in your business all right um I'm G to come back to the CSP real quick I'm gonna get a little bit more directive here um you all are not saving nearly enough for your Investments so we're going to just supercharge this a little bit and see if you can actually do it 500 a month each if you truly want to prioritize building a rich life creating some wealth escaping from this gig life you've got to start putting more of a financial priority and focus towards your Investments what that means is your income definitely needs to go up what this shows me is that the two of you need to be contributing at least $3500 per month at least to your joint account can you do that I think I can yeah we're gonna have to I like that answer can you I will find a way what got you here won't get you there and so if you both decide to live a richer life whatever that means to you and you need more income for it it's going to take a different way of thinking about how you run your businesses and we actually do have those conversations um it's intimidating well maybe you don't need to have more conversations about it yeah what do you think you need to do take more action like what invest in a bookkeeper that's a great way of thinking I agree otherwise you'll just be coasting yeah right and like coasting at like 20 30 hours a week having no retirement no savings doesn't work for me you're coasting in all the wrong ways I agree yep I would like for you to have those type of discussions where you can actually model it and be like hey if we add $200 a month more each of us that's going to turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars over time I want you to talk like that but not yet yeah I want that yeah love it it is exciting in your business you both make enough to contribute the amounts you've agreed to any additional amounts that you both make you both take a beautiful trip and you have a great time and you look at those pictures and you remember like not only did we have a great time but we did it together no debt we planned for it we we strategize well now that we're not thinking on a monthly basis now that we're thinking on an annual basis basis and I feel really good about that think it's possible for us to think on a five-year basis and both of you are like what the but you go let's try it it feels reachable I'm excited to hear him talk about these things he holds a lot of it close to the vest being vulnerable and having these conversations with a third party I think is really um it's a breath of fresh air even though he well I can pull this stuff out of him yeah but I also don't always want to like push too hard so hearing him like come to these conclusions is exciting so that we can be on this road together well I really enjoyed speaking to cie and Travis today what I wanted to do in my conversation with them was number one build some connection because I noticed that cie likes to talk about money but Travis was closed off second I wanted to help them both think bigger it's this very common thing particularly among people who are raised in small towns to think small now if you choose that intentionally I'm all for it but the vast majority of the time when I encounter people thinking small they don't even realize they're thinking small and frankly thinking small is at odds with taking a sabatical and going on a boating trip around the world those two do not add up at all so I knew when I heard oh I want to take this trip that's not thinking small therefore they need to amend the way that they handle their money let's let's check in now on Travis's follow-up video hey me it's Travis uh thanks again for having us and talking with us I believe we learned a lot about how shortsighted our savings were pretty surprised at how much we could contribute to long-term Investments uh that we had available already um one of the takeaways and changes that we've made would be our savings and the Roth ir8 that we now have set up and everything is automated thanks again for all the advice I recommend everybody read your book appreciate it h okay and now Callie's following I want to start with my biggest takeaway which was when we got to the point in the call when R you pointed out that Travis and I are still viewing life even though we're business owners as gig to Gig um you're right and I think I needed a third party to really point that out I have allowed myself to give myself pats on the back for just these achievements along the way but they aren't based in strategy busy does not equal a strategic plan so my goal for this year and coming away from the call where I felt like the most excited and motivated was making a bigger plan like you you would advise this to that year out and then eventually that five years out and really set some like big goals and markers all right what surprised me was how vulnerable Travis was was willing to get you know this has been kind of like a a pain point for us is trying to talk about these things so hearing him open up and being willing to go a little deeper with you or me and with um obviously me too on the call was really exciting for me and I think we've really made some Headway there that we are going to continue with and what we have changed we have both opened up Vanguard accounts and our goal is to both contribute that 500 a month per person and start getting excited to see those numbers grow when we are saving for our future I want to thank Calli and Travis again and I want to ask for a favor if you have enjoyed this podcast please go to Apple podcast and leave a written review tell everybody what you enjoy about the podcast be specific make sure that everybody else knows what this podcast is really about that helps me and it helps my team a lot thank you very much I'll see you next week