How to Start Investing After Becoming Debt-Free

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast Finance Friday edition where we interview Steven Phan and talk about having a baby and setting up your financial runway before starting to invest.

Steven:
I grew up kind of poor. I talked to my grandma about the other day because I remember there was a point where we couldn’t afford $29 marching shoes. And so I’ve never had more than 50, maybe even a hundred bucks to my name ever in my life. So I get to college and they gave me a $2,000 refund. And so I believe there’s two types of people in this world that didn’t grow up with money, either you didn’t grow up with money and you save every penny, or you didn’t grow up with money and you spend it. I spent all my money. Oh my gosh.

Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and joining me today is the inimitable J Scott, master of everything.

J Scott:
Mindy, I have absolutely no idea what that word means, but I’m going to assume you didn’t just insult me there. I am thrilled to be here.

Mindy:
It means you’re okay.

J Scott:
I’ll take it.

Mindy:
J and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you are starting.

J Scott:
And whether you want to retire early and travel the world, whether you want to go on to make big time investments and assets like real estate, or maybe you just want to start your own business, we’re going to help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself toward your dreams.

Mindy:
J, I am super excited to talk to Steven today. He has an interesting set of circumstances where his investment portfolio is on the low side, but the reason for that is because he has $100,000 in debt that he and his wife just got finished paying off. That is something that we need to celebrate. Hooray, because that is, yay, that’s a big deal. $100,000, that’s like a whole salary. Or let’s be honest, that’s like two or three salaries that they paid off in two years and now they can start their investing journey, their financial independence journey. This is their story.

J Scott:
It’s a great story, but here’s the thing, they paid off $100,000 but now Steven’s in a position where he’s getting ready to move on to the next job and he’s got some hard decisions to make and hopefully we’ve been able to help him make those decisions or make that decision and put him on the right path.

Mindy:
I think that’s a really great point. Episode 157 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast is Scott Trench and I talking about how to have a money date with your spouse. And that is something that I recommend not only Steven and his wife do, but anybody who is in a position where they’re not quite sure where they want to go or what path they need to choose. I think having a money date with your spouse to figure out what path you want is a really great opportunity to just get a read on what your spouse is thinking, what is their opportunities that they’re looking at. Episode 157 is a good thing to listen to, help guide you down your money journey path.

J Scott:
My wife and I like to do this and a lot of Friday nights we’ll open up a bottle of wine, we’ll talk about our financial situation, where we want to be in the next six months or 12 months or 24 months. And it’s really, it’s not a formal sit down, have a serious conversation, it’s really just a let’s get to know each other from a financial perspective and what we’re thinking because financial perspectives change over time. And if you’re not staying up to date with what your spouse or significant other is thinking, you’re really, you’re running the risk of diverging and falling behind each other.

Mindy:
I heard this quote from somebody I can’t remember, but I love it so much. “It isn’t you against me, it is us against the world.” The two of you need to be on the same page and having a money date or a money check in is the best way to make sure that you’re on the same page, so it’s the two of you against everybody else.

J Scott:
Teamwork makes the dream work.

Mindy:
Teamwork makes the dream work. Before we bring in Steven, I am compelled by my attorneys to say the contents of this podcast are informational in nature and are not legal with tax advice. And neither J nor I nor BiggerPockets is engaged in the provision of legal tax or any other advice. You should seek your own advice from professional advisors, including lawyers and accountants regarding the legal, tax and financial implications of any financial decision you contemplate. Steven Phan is 29 years old and fantastically, happily married with a baby on the way. Yay, babies. They have just paid off a whopping $100,000 in debt. Hooray. That is something we should celebrate. Nice job Steven and your wife and are fantastically debt free. Now they’ve got a journey ahead of them. Steven, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast.

Steven:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I actually can’t believe I’m talking to you. I watch you almost every day. So it’s like you know of my existence.

Mindy:
Now we’re best friends.

Steven:
BFFs.

Mindy:
Okay Steven, we are BFFs and as your best friend I have some things I’d like to talk to you about. Let’s talk about money.

Steven:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
I’m going to show your financial situation to the world. I’m going to share it with my friend J Scott who is here joining us today. And we’re going to look at what you have coming in, where it’s going and what we think you could do a little bit differently to improve your financial situation. First of all, let’s celebrate that $100,000 in debt that you paid off.

Steven:
Let’s go.

Mindy:
Okay. What did that consist of?

Steven:
It consisted of $50,000 in student loans, $40,000 in cars and $10,000 in credit cards.

Mindy:
And you still have the cars, you still have the education, but now you don’t have the debt. Hooray, hooray, hooray.

Steven:
I only have one of the cars now.

Mindy:
Okay, well still the debt’s gone and that’s what matters. Let’s look at salaries. Right now we have a salary of $5,600 a month, with a side gig of $810 a month and another side gig of $650 a month. And we’ll get into that in a little bit because I think that’s very interesting. But right now it’s just the really quick personal financial situation. Monthly expenses, this is where I’m going to focus a little bit more attention on Steven. And the reason is I think we can tighten some of these up. We have rent of $1,200 a month, which I think is great. I mean where can you rent a property for less than $1,200 a month? You’re really getting into some snatchy.

Steven:
We got lucky because of my wife, with that rent.

Mindy:
That really seems like a great thing. That’s not what I’m going to focus on. We have approximately $800 a month in bills, which are $430 in utilities, $270 in subscriptions. And those subscriptions is where I’m going to focus on. We’ve got YouTube TV at $70, HBO Max at $16, YouTube premium at $20, Disney plus at $15, netflix at $20, Experian $43. The gym at $27. Microsoft 365 at $10.81. I don’t have a problem with the gym membership. I’m wondering why you need YouTube TV, HBO Max, YouTube premium, Disney plus, Netflix, that’s a lot of TV.

J Scott:
And here’s the thing, I don’t even care about the money you’re spending, that’s a hundred bucks a month. Big deal. $1,200 a year. Obviously you could save $1,200 a year. But here’s the real question, how much time are you spending watching TV and doing things when you could be doing other things that could potentially be supporting your financial growth?

Steven:
Well, personally for me, I don’t really watch a lot of the subscription stuff. The only thing I really watch is YouTube TV for all my sports. I got to watch my Cowboys, I got to watch A&M. I wish there was a TV, a YouTube TV, but only sports. So the other subscriptions, it’s mainly my wife because she works nights and so she only works three days a week. So she’s at home four days a week. At night she can’t really go anywhere, so really it’s to entertain her throughout the night.

Mindy:
I will put a pin in this and she’s not here so-

Steven:
She’s sleeping. She works nights.

Mindy:
That’s a research opportunity to say maybe you remove one of those over the course of a month and see if you really miss it or you remove two or three of them. But that’s an opportunity.

Steven:
One thing I was thinking about doing is a carousel where she’ll watch just two of them for one month and then cancel it. Then the next month she’ll watch the other two or three and then just do a ping pong thing to save money.

Mindy:
Or like J said, is there something she could be doing? There’s a baby coming, so maybe there isn’t. Those first few months there’s a whole lot of nothing that you’re doing, you’re just taking care of the baby who’s like, hey, no schedule whatsoever. Then we’ve got normal weekly spending as $600 a week. That seems reasonable. $2,400 a month. And then when we look into this, we see personal spending of 2250 for you, personal spending of 1750 for your wife. Fun money for $10. Gas, 105. $25 for household expenses. $15 for cats. $100 for groceries. This all seems fine and good. And then a whopping $330 for restaurants. I am going to call you out right now and say we can cut that down to $0 a week for restaurants, maybe you will increase your groceries a little bit. That is J, do the math really quickly. What’s 330 times four?

J Scott:
1320.

Mindy:
1320 that you could be saving every month just not going out to a lot of, that’s a lot of restaurants, $300 a week, not a month. That is also a research opportunity. You do have $14,000 in savings, which is awesome. Savings for the baby. And your investments, your wife has a 403(b) with just under $2,000 in it. Again, they did just pay off a whopping $100,000 in debt, and your wife’s pension plan has $12,000 in it. So overall I think you are sitting fairly well. I think you don’t need to do anything. If I was in your position, I would look at my expenses and see what I could cut out and still live a happy, fun life.

J Scott:
Here’s something to consider. I’m a big fan of projecting into the future and doing the math. And if you do the math, if you can literally just cut out $100 a month and whether that’s in eating out, whether that’s in your subscriptions, whether that’s a combination of those or other things, literally just $100 a month, and you take that money and you put it in a typical real estate investment that returns 10% a year. We can talk about what investments you should be in. But let’s say you’re in an investment that returns 10% a year and you can take out $100 in expenses right now, every month. When your child turns 18, you’re have over $60,000 in savings. That’s right now two years of public college. So you can literally, just by cutting out $100 in expenses per month, you can literally save up two years of college expenses for that child.

Steven:
Oh yeah, I’m having a baby. I forgot about college. Oh man. That’s another thing I got to worry about.

Mindy:
That’s another thing to add to the growing list of things to think about when that baby is born.

J Scott:
But I did want to ask, your expenses, do those factor in the changes that you’re going to be seeing when the baby comes?

Steven:
I love making spreadsheets. The only thing I really accounted for was that in the budget we were just going to probably add about an extra $125 a week to all of her, our daughter’s needs. Most of the things we’re going to keep consistent, but I think for now, initially, because we’ll probably adjust as she gets older or depending on how it goes. We’re just going to add about $125 extra to our weekly spend for her, that includes diapers and formula and any other things that the baby needs.

Mindy:
If that’s diapers and formula, that’s going to get eaten up really fast with that $125.

Steven:
Oh yeah. Luckily though we had our baby shower on Saturday so we’re good on at least a little bit of the diapers right now. And then I think my wife is planning on breastfeeding for a little bit.

Mindy:
Okay. Well let’s look at your money story. How did you get to this point in time?

Steven:
Okay. My money journey actually started when I was a junior in high school. So when I was a junior in high school, I was able to go to this program called the TAMS program here in Texas where it allows you to skip junior and senior year and you start your freshman and sophomore year in college. And so by doing that I was eligible to get the Pell Grant at 16. And so I’m going to back up a little bit. I grew up kind of poor. I talked to my grandma about it the other day because I remember there was a point where we couldn’t afford $29 marching shoes. And so I’ve never had more than 50, maybe even a hundred bucks to my name ever in my life. I get to college and they gave me a $2,000 refund.
And so I believe there’s two types of people in this world that didn’t grow up with money, either you didn’t grow up with money and you save every penny or you didn’t grow up with money and you spend it. I spent all my money. Oh my gosh. And so got to A&M, and this time I had a full ride and I ended up getting a five, $6,000 refund. And throughout college I didn’t spend my money wisely, I spent it on women, which is a big regret of mine. That happened. After I left college I met my wife, and I remember in the beginning of our marriage we were living minimum. We worked minimum wage jobs, maybe 10, 12 bucks an hour. We had apartment, we had savings. I mean it was a good life. But nothing changed really until she passed her nursing board exam.
That was the first time any of us had made serious money. I’ll never forget her first paycheck as a nurse, $1,722.14. We had never made more than 800 bucks in a paycheck. And that was more than double. We worked in the same hospital. I worked on the corporate side and so I made a little bit of money as well. And oh my gosh, we thought we were balling. We tried living the normal American life getting two new cars. We had a house, we got a cat who’s sleeping behind me right now. And so on the outside everything looked great, but on the inside we were hemorrhaging, because we were in just so much debt.
And so one day you’re probably going to think I’m a nerd because sometimes I’ll do things because I’ll do the pythagorean theorem because I remembered it from high school or I’ll do derivatives and intervals. One day I did a TVM calculation on our day, because I just remembered that was my favorite thing to do back in economics class. And I did an-

J Scott:
What is this TVM?

Steven:
Time value of money. I did an amortization schedule where I put like, hey, we pay this much month, but this much goes to principle, this much goes at interest. And man, that was the most eyeopening experience of my life. And I was like, why is this bank getting five, $6,000 from me? Why is Sallie Mae getting this much money from me? I realized my credit card interest was like 26.99%. So they were getting a lot of money from me. I know it’s pretty high. And so that was an eye opening experience for me. And this is before I even, I’m a big Dave Ramsey guy, but this is before I even found Dave Ramsey. I didn’t even tell my wife. I just said, we’re paying off all this debt.
That’s what I love about my wife. She’s a very easygoing, I have a plan, she just goes with it. March of 2019, that’s when we started our debt free journey and we’ve just been on a journey ever since and finally paid off $100,000 worth of debt.

Mindy:
That is awesome that you paid off $100,000 in debt. That is absolutely fantastic.

J Scott:
I love that because I remember I started my financial journey, I awoken like you did. When I was your age, when I was 29 years old and I had $30,000 in college loans and other debt. I was right around the place where you were and it basically started the same way it did with you. It’s like I’m running some numbers and I’m looking and I’m thinking like, wow, how much money am I spending? And one of the things I thought that was really interesting that you said was when people grow up without money they fall into one of two buckets, they either end up spending lots of money or saving lots of money. I was like you, I spend money, I am a spender. Money burns a hole in my pocket.
But what I’ve learned over the years is that as long as I’m focused on spending on things that add to my financial value, cash flowing assets and other investments, that’s a good thing to be spending on. So for anybody out there that’s listening to this and you empathize and feel like, yeah, I’m in the same spot, I like to spend money, I can’t hold onto money, I grew without money. Just remember there are lots of people like us out there. But focusing on spending that money on investments and cash flowing assets, that’s a great way to be in both camps. You can be somebody that’s a spender, you don’t have to change your personality, but you can still be doing right for your financial future.

Steven:
Investments over women. Wait, did you spend your money on women as well?

J Scott:
I didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped.

Mindy:
Okay. So Steven, what is your greatest money pain point? How can we help you today?

Steven:
Well, so over the years I feel like I’ve slayed the personal finance dragon. I’ve slayed the credit card dragon and I’ve slayed the debt dragon. I think the only dragon left to slay is the investment dragon. So investments, investing is really new to me. So that’s pretty much one of the pain points that I have. And also I would like to be part of the FIRE movement. I don’t have a lot of friends or family that are aware of it. There’s certain things I can’t talk to them about. I’ve mentioned the FIRE movement to my sister and how I wanted to retire in 10 years and she thought I was the craziest person on the planet.

Mindy:
I have to continually remind myself when I’m talking to people who don’t live by me, I live in a five bubble. I live in this like fine Mecca. I live in Longmont, Colorado, which is where everybody comes. I am constantly surrounded by people who are in this space. Honestly it’s really great to be able to have these conversations with people, we nerd out a lot. But I’m not the only person who lives by people who are in this space. Have you been on Facebook? Do you have a Facebook account?

Steven:
Oh yeah, I’m a millennial.

Mindy:
Okay, well listen, listen, some people, my kid is like, oh my god mom, Facebook’s for old people.

J Scott:
Mindy’s still in MySpace.

Steven:
I tried logging into MySpace, I’m surprised it’s still active.

Mindy:
I don’t know how to use that. Anyway, BiggerPockets Money has a Facebook group. And there’s also the podcast, ChooseFI, has done a really good job of creating local ChooseFI Facebook groups. So where you are at, I know there’s a local ChooseFI Facebook group. There are people in my Facebook group who are local to you. Have you ever thought about starting a local meet up group?

Steven:
I actually have started it. Not started it, but I have started thinking about it. But sometimes I’ll have a thought but then I don’t go through with the thought. I think you’re going to give me the push that I need, because it would be nice to have a FIRE group here in Dallas with me.

J Scott:
Also keep in mind that you don’t need to have a local group of friends. We’re in a digitally connected age where you can have friends from all over the world. My core group of mentors has grown through BiggerPockets. I jumped on BiggerPockets in 2008 when I wanted to learn how to invest in real estate. And many of the people that I met back in 2008, nine, 10, 11, 12, I’m still in communication with. Some of them. I’ve literally only met once or twice at BiggerPockets conferences or other BiggerPockets events. But these are people that we share a WhatsApp group or a text messaging group and we talk as if we’ve been best friends forever. And we in a way are, but we’re each other’s mentors. But we do it digitally. We don’t live near each other. Some of my friends are literally the other side of the world, but we can still communicate. I can ask them advice, they can ask me advice.
One of the things I would recommend is in addition to trying to build a local community of people that you can see in real life, also use the internet, build up relationships with people that you can have a digital relationship with. And again, start a WhatsApp group, go on BiggerPockets and make friends on BiggerPockets. Start a Facebook group, start a text message group, whatever it is. Because these days that’s just as powerful as meeting people in-person a couple times a week.

Steven:
That’s true. But it would be nice to have local people around too, because I did spend a few years pretty lonely. The past year was the first time I’ve reconnected with the old friends and this has probably been the best year of my life. So it would be nice to have local people and the digital people as well.

Mindy:
I think both approaches are absolutely valid. But having a support system, having a local support system so you can go out to a park and have a nice little picnic with a bunch of different people and have these conversations. Here’s the thing, my local groups don’t get together and talk about Roth IRAs and 401(k) contribution. I mean we do. Of course we do.

Steven:
That sounds like a great party.

Mindy:
But the conversation flows in other directions and we talk about a great beer that we had or a movie that we saw or what our kids are doing. It’s not just all this money nerd stuff, it’s this giant flowing conversation. It almost feels like, because I know we’ve got this huge frugality or financial independence mindset in common, that’s taken care of and now I know we’re instantly friends, like you and I, Steven are best friends now.

Steven:
BFFs.

Mindy:
BFFs. I know that we already can talk about a ton of other things. We don’t just have to talk about money. Today we’re just going to talk about money, but we can go out and do these things. That is a research opportunity for you, is to figure out how to start a local financial independence minded meetup group. You mentioned that you’re in the Dallas area, that’s an enormous area. That’s like half of Texas, is the Dallas-Fort Worth area. There are going to be a lot of meetups where it’s like in the southwestern corner, but you live in the northeastern corner, it’s going to take you three hours to get there. Start one by you because there are people who are just like you everywhere across America, across the world, there are frugal people, people who are into financial independence who may feel isolated like you and just want to connect with somebody else.

Steven:
I’ve never given that a try. Because I think I just realized I’m actually on the BiggerPockets Money Facebook page. I think that’s where you posted about being on this show. That’s where we first talked.

Mindy:
Well, welcome and go in there, and if you are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we’ll start a conversation in that group. Let’s make a note about that. We’ll start a conversation in that group. Let’s start a meetup in that area so you can have conversations about financial independence and not feel so alone. Because it can feel really lonely when it feels like you’re just you and you talk to other people, they’re like retire early. What you mean like 62? And you’re like, no, way earlier.

Steven:
I’m talking 40.

Mindy:
Are you going to win the lottery?

Steven:
No, I’m going to invest.

Mindy:
Invest in real estate. No, you’re going to be a slum lord. You want to invest in real estate? Oh let me tell you, all these horror stories, those are not the people that you talk to about investing in real estate, the people who tell you how bad of an idea it is. You talk to people like me and J Scott, Hey J, do you like real estate as an investment class?

J Scott:
Let’s talk about it. I love real estate. What are you doing in real estate?

Mindy:
I love real estate too. It’s my favorite investment class.

J Scott:
It’s so important to have the right people around you. And as somebody who’s a good bit older than you are, what I’ve found is that over the years you’re naturally going to be attracted to people that think the way you do, that have the same goals as you do. I know when I was younger it was really tough for me to say there are certain friends in my life that probably aren’t good for me, because they didn’t think the same way. And didn’t mean we couldn’t stay friends, it just meant that they weren’t going to be my core set of advisors and mentors and people that I really grow with financially. And so in a lot of ways I have separate groups of friends where some are in the same boat I am financially speaking and thinking and other people that aren’t.
And so you just have to make sure that you surround yourself with enough people who are in the same boat and who do think the same way so that you’re not demotivated and you’re not constantly trying to fight to have these thoughts that nobody’s supporting.

Mindy:
Absolutely. I can’t stress what J just said enough. You don’t have to dump your old friends, but if they’re not supportive in what you want to do, you need to find somebody who is. Let’s look back at your financial situation. Let’s go to the income part of your financial situation. We have a salary of 5,600 and this we talked before we started recording, this is your wife’s salary, you don’t currently have a job, but you do have two on the horizon. Let’s talk about what they are and which one you’re going to accept.

Steven:
Okay. So that’s like, I’ve been asking a lot of people because I’m really torn between the middle, between these two jobs. And so I want to get y’all’s opinion and whoever wants to comment in the section as well. So job one is with an investment bank and it pays about $50,000 a year. However, it’s a hybrid schedule, so I have to be one week on campus, one week at home. But there’s so much growth opportunity with this position. Job B is with an insurance company. The first job involves talking to customers all day. And so we would have to take our daughter to daycare. Something about taking our daughter to daycare makes me a little nervous or I wanted to spend as much time with our daughter as I can.
But the second job I get to be, it’s a work from home, fully remote, no talking to customers and me and my grandmother will get to watch our daughter, well, my daughter full-time. And so there wasn’t a lot of growth opportunity with that job though, but I believe it pays about 60 a year. I have to also mention for 401(k) nerds out there, the job with the investment bank has a 17% match. And so that’s why do I take the 17% match or do I get to stay at home and watch the baby full time while working?

J Scott:
The job that would allow you to stay with the baby also pays more. Did I hear that correctly? 60,000 versus 50,000?

Steven:
Right. But pretty much I think I’d just be at 60 for like, assuming I stay at that job it would just pay 60 pretty much but no growth. But I could take the 50 kind of I wouldn’t say be miserable, but it’d be very tough because that’s, customer service is like I’ve done that for pretty much throughout my whole career, wanted to get a job more productivity based. But at least they pretty much said after a year if you wanted to go to another department, you can. It’s more of just to get your foot in the door. There’s so much growth to where I’m pretty sure I can make 80 in five. I have a spreadsheet of a plan of how I would invest and what I would do if I started making 80 in five years. But 17% match I need to emphasize the 17% match. That’s ridiculous.

J Scott:
Okay. How much would you estimate your daycare expenses would be if you took the job that’s paying less at the beginning?

Steven:
We found a daycare near us and it was the cheapest one, it was about $800 a month.

J Scott:
So on day one, your options are basically the $50,000 job with the 17% match, which gets you to like 58, $59,000 a year. But you also would have to pay about $10,000 per year in daycare costs. That job would grow somewhere around 48, $49,000 a year. Safe to say?

Steven:
Safe to, yeah.

J Scott:
Okay. So 48, 49,000. The other job is $60,000 a year. You don’t have the match, but you don’t pay daycare and you get to stay home with your child. So on day one, that first job is paying $12,000 less and you don’t get to stay home with your child. That to me, even though the first job might have growth potential, do you think that, let’s say a year out, you could still go back to that job that had growth potential if you chose?

Steven:
I was thinking about that. I’m pretty sure I would still have an opportunity to do something a little bit better than the original offer that was offered if I got back. That’s something to think about I guess. But I think I’d still have an opportunity.

J Scott:
So for $12,000 in additional income plus, and again this isn’t always just about the money, being able to stay with your child for the first year of your child’s life is huge. And so certainly I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I would seriously consider the job that will net you an extra $12,000 a year and allow you to stay with your child for that first year and then reevaluate after that year and say, hey, maybe I now want something that has higher growth potential, maybe I have another option with childcare or daycare. But basically take the opportunity to be with your child for that first year because you’ll never get that back. Plus you get an extra $12,000 that first year.

Steven:
That is true. I don’t know if this helps with the decision too, but job A has a three months of paternity leave, but the job B doesn’t offer any paternity leave. Does that factor in at all?

J Scott:
Certainly it does if you plan to only stay at that job for a year, if it’s going to be short term. Long term, again, there’s a lot of personal decisions that go into this. When it comes to family and raising children it’s not always just about the money. That certainly could factor in. But again, I would seriously consider that job that pays more and reevaluate after a year.

Steven:
I’m even more to torn now.

Mindy:
Well I have something to throw at you, your side gig is taking care of your grandmother to the tune of $810 a month. So that tells me that she does need help.

Steven:
She does. Yeah.

Mindy:
You are taking job number two so that you can watch your baby at your grandmother’s house while you’re working. How much opportunity is your grandmother going to have to help out with the baby if she herself needs help from you for care? And how much opportunity are you going to have to actually take care of your baby when you’re working? When the baby first comes, they just lay there like a lump and sleep until they wake up and then they’re hungry and they need fed now. Thank you very much. And grandma most likely could sit in a chair and hold a sleeping three day old infant and feed her. But can grandma wrestle a nine month old baby to hold her if she’s super active and moving all over the place while you’re on a phone call?
I don’t know all the ins and outs of this job, but I don’t know a lot of employers who are like, take off all the time you need during the day to take care of your baby and we’ll still pay you for a full-time job.

Steven:
That’s a plot too. I didn’t think about that. I’m only thinking short term.

Mindy:
And is this a couple of days a week while your wife is working nights and then she’ll take the baby on days that she’s not working? Or is she sleeping during the day? There’s a lot of things to think about. The first couple of months are real easy, but also your wife’s on maternity leave. The first couple of months are pretty easy because the baby really doesn’t do anything, they’re not mobile. But once they can flip over, once they can start crawling and really start moving around, is your grandmother’s house baby proofed? What is the real reality of this baby being at your grandma’s house?

Steven:
You’re right, that is tough. Because the first six months she’ll be able to watch the baby no problem. But once that baby starts getting energy and running around and crawling around, yeah, I don’t think she’s going to be really equipped to handle that. My grandma, the only main thing with my grandma is more of medication management and just taking her to places that she needs. So she’s still really high functioning, but I think with her being 80, taking care of a nine month old might be a tall order for her. And another plan that we were trying to have is mainly my wife working on the weekends and then I’d work on the weekdays. So at least a parent would be with her at all times. So that’s another. Having a baby is a struggle, a joy but a struggle.

Mindy:
There’s a lot of things to think about that you know may not think about at the beginning. So your wife would work on the weekends and you’re working during the week?

Steven:
Pretty much. Yeah. I would work Monday through Friday. She’d probably work Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That’s one of our plans. But she has to talk to the boss, see if that’s a possible schedule.

Mindy:
And how much of your side gig is still doable if you’re working full time, you have to take your grandma to places she needs to go, is that doctor’s appointments and they’re only open when you’re working?

Steven:
Well mainly though she gets rides through a Medicaid hotline. I take her to the doctors when I can, but sometimes if I can’t then I have a backup. Medicaid has a ride program. I think mainly though, just be like before I get to work, it’s just medication management for about an hour and a half and then after work another hour and a half of medication management. At least with her it workout, it’s just trying to figure out how does a baby play in all this.

J Scott:
And so you’re making $810 a month by watching your grandmother-

Steven:
Pretty much.

J Scott:
Does that go away with either of these two jobs or is that going to be consistent regardless of which choice you make?

Steven:
It’ll be consistent. The clocking in is through remote system too. So if I take the remote job, I’ll pretty much just double dip for three hours while I’m at the remote job. Or if I’m taking the other job where I have to physically go to the office, I’ll just be there for an hour and a half before work, hour and a half after work.

J Scott:
There’s a lot to be said for having the flexibility of being able to work from home. Even if you do have daycare, there’s going to be, child might get sick or your grandmother might be sick or just holidays and days when the daycare might not be open. And so there’s a lot of things to think about. And I’m a big fan of when you have children if you can be in a situation that’s more flexible, it’s probably better than a situation that’s less flexible. Especially if you’re making more money at the same time.

Steven:
I should just be a stay at home husband then now. Right?

Mindy:
I tend to agree with J that while I love the 17% 401(k) match, I like job number two a little bit better. Here’s the plot twist. How do you work from home? Are you somebody who can sit down in your home office and get work done or are you somebody who is a little distracted? And the reason that I ask this is my husband was working, he’s retired now, but when he was working they were all in the office and then the office decided to remodel. So everybody got sent home and some people really thrived in the environment of working from home. And some people were like, I’m going to go on a walk and I’ll just do it a little bit later and I’ll do it in a little bit later. Not everybody thrived in that environment and some people were fired because of it, which wasn’t really fair, they took away their office and then fired them when they couldn’t work from home.

Steven:
I know that struggle. Because it actually happened to me.

Mindy:
It is a struggle to work from home sometimes, you’re like, I could just do laundry really quick. Well yeah, if you’re throwing laundry into the washing machine and then coming right back down to the computer, that’s one thing. But doing laundry and then cleaning the bathroom and doing all of these things that require a lot of time, that’s not what you’re getting paid for at your job.

Steven:
That’s true. Because when I was working from home, I actually ended up being more efficient, more productive, and so I ended up doing more extracurricular things around the house and they found out about that. I ended up getting let go. You’re right, probably taking care of a baby while working probably won’t fly with them.

Mindy:
So something to think about. Do you have offers in hand from both of these jobs?

Steven:
I only have the one offer from company A, the investment bank. Waiting. It’s been three weeks for offer number two and I think my recruiter left. So there’s that.

Mindy:
You think your recruiter left?

Steven:
Yeah, because I tried emailing him, because you know how sometimes after interview you send a thank you email? Well, it’s like it got blocked so I assume the guy left.

Mindy:
He left from the company?

Steven:
Probably. I can’t reach this guy. It’s been three weeks.

Mindy:
Well then I vote for job number one because if-

Steven:
If that’s the only one.

Mindy:
… that’s the only one. That right now is the only job that is on the market.

Steven:
The job number two could come available.

Mindy:
And baby goes to daycare, which is not ideal. I wonder if there is a hybrid daycare solution. I don’t think there is though. I know that there are people listening saying, you only have to pay for daycare when the baby’s there. I don’t think that’s true. You pay for daycare the whole time even if the baby isn’t there.

Steven:
We called about doing part-time, they said no, you still have to pay $200 a week whether she’s here or not. So well there was option number three, which actually was our original option before I decided to apply for these jobs. Originally we were going to move back to Houston and have an unlimited babysitter with my mother-in-law, my wife’s mother. And then my wife was just going to work as a nurse in Houston. But mainly we were just staying here now because of job offer number one.

Mindy:
Well, I don’t know if you know this, but there was a little bit of a pandemic going on and there’s healthcare opportunities everywhere.

Steven:
Oh yeah.

Mindy:
What are the options in Houston?

Steven:
Well, because originally we met in Houston, so she still has a lot of connections in Houston, there’s a lot of hospitals, they’re always in need of nurses. And so she was also considering case management too as well. She could work fully remote as a case manager. Originally that was what we were going to do, we were just going to move to Houston, she was just going to find a job there and then we were just going to live in Houston and have an unlimited babysitter because my mother-in-law is retiring once this baby’s born.

Mindy:
Okay. I think one big research opportunity for you and your wife is to sit down right now before the baby comes and list out the different opportunities that you each have. If there’s nothing really holding you in Dallas and Houston has a different opportunity in the healthcare or the baby care, look into that. Now that would take you away from working with your grandmother.

Steven:
The hard part too, it’s a lot of moving parts, just life is fantastic. We got to figure out how we’re going to make it fantastic.

Mindy:
Is your grandmother willing to move to Houston?

Steven:
Absolutely not. I tried asking her. Because we’ve actually lived in, well, I grew up in the same apartment, she’s lived in that apartment pretty much my whole life, all pretty much 30 years. So she’s like, yeah, I’m not leaving. She’s pretty hard headed that way.

Mindy:
Okay. I think that makes sense.

Steven:
Let’s ask America what y’all would do in my shoes.

Mindy:
Yes. In the Facebook group, which can be found at facebook.com/groups/vpmoney. Please let us know which job you think Steven should take, and well, I’m going to go with the first job because there’s not really another job right now. But should he stay in Dallas or should he move back to Houston?

Steven:
I prefer to stay in Dallas, but free babysit. I don’t know, life is just hard right now, so I got to make a decision.

Mindy:
Sitting down. Well, you don’t have to make a decision, you singular, you plural have to sit down and make a decision. So right out you, like making spreadsheets, you self described nerd, make a big spreadsheet on staying versus going and what are the pros and the cons of all these different things. And maybe moving for a year is a good idea or maybe not moving is a good idea. Your mother-in-law is going to retire when the baby’s born, maybe she moves to you, and then you still get to work with your grandmother.

Steven:
Both women in my life are hardheaded, they’re going to stay where they are. They’re both hardheaded.

Mindy:
Welcome to lady. But you’re having a baby girl, she’s going to be hardheaded too. You’re welcome.

Steven:
Oh gosh. Yeah.

J Scott:
The takeaway here I think is that you have some good options. A lot of people would love to be in the situation that you’re in, whether you take job number one or you have an opportunity to take job number two. And maybe even if you move back to Houston, it sounds like your income is likely to be in the six figure range, which is fantastic for a small family. You do have a lot of options. That’s the income side. Let’s talk a little bit about the expense side. We’ve already talked about the fact that you may have daycare or you may have that expense. And we’ve talked about your subscriptions. Let’s talk about your discretionary budget. How much you’re spending for things like food and having fun and eating out and things like that. Do you want to give us an overview of what your budget looks like for those sorts of things?

Steven:
When we started our debt free journey, we had to sit down, we compiled all the bills and see what we can cut, and pretty much the current bills, which is $800 a month, which is about $400 per paycheck, this is stuff that we’ve just been paying for the past two years. And so pretty much, and mainly it’s just nothing but subscriptions, car insurance you can’t avoid, cell phone you can’t avoid. The only thing that’s variable with our budget is just the electricity bill. I like it cold. I like at a 68, even in the summers when it’s 110 degrees here in Texas. That’s when our bills are the highest. But it’s pretty much just an overview. I think the main thing is cutting out a lot or some of the subscriptions, which I don’t know which one to cut out.

J Scott:
Well I noticed here on your expenses, on a weekly basis you have 22.50. $22.50 allocated. For your personal money. $17.50 allocated to your wife’s personal money, $10 for fun, $25 for house budget. Are those realistic? What are you doing with $22 a week? What’s your wife doing with $17 a week? What’s the $10 a week in fund budget?

Steven:
Okay. I’m glad you brought that up. Again, we had to sit down and we talked about our budgeting and stuff like that. Pretty much one of the pain points when we started our budgeting was, she’s like, well how am I going to get my nails done? How am I going to get my haircuts? Well really what we do is we budget on a monthly, biweekly, weekly categories. And so my, her personal is more of on a biweekly schedule. So she gets about 35 bucks every paycheck for her nails, and I get about 45 bucks to get my haircut. The reason why there’s a discrepancy, and I’m glad you brought that up. I’m begging my wife to be involved in the finances. Most people don’t even let their spouses involved with the finances. I’m begging her to come in.
And so I just gave myself an extra 10 bucks to see if she’ll ever notice and she hasn’t noticed yet. So nobody tell her that I’m taking $10 more for my own personal money. And so the day she notices, that’s when I’ll give her 45 bucks every two weeks for her nails instead of 35.

Mindy:
Okay, well I’m going to call her up when we’re done.

Steven:
Little small-

Mindy:
Now that we’re best friends.

Steven:
… financial infidelity. And then $10 for fun. Because during the pandemic, even before the pandemic, we pretty much cut out all friends, all family, we just stayed home and just like every dollar went towards our debt. And so ever since we got debt free, that’s when I reconnected with a lot of my old friends. And so this year has just been amazing. We could get about 40 bucks a month to have fun. We don’t drink, we mainly just go karaoke once a month. It’s pretty much our karaoke money. Or if we don’t go karaoke with our friends, we’ll go to a movie. It’s just 40 bucks a month. It’s just for us to have a little bit of fun, because I don’t believe in the whole Dave Ramsey rice and beans, beans and rice thing. We got to have a little bit of fun.

Mindy:
Okay, you just said you cut out all friends and all family when you started your debt free journey. And that makes me a little sad because you can still have a lot of fun without spending a ton of money. Sarah Wilson is YouTube’s budget girl or go budget girl, I should look that up. Sarah Wilson’s been on the show several times. She has a fantastic story. I want to say she was on episode number six, she shared how she paid off $30,000 in debt over the course of three years while making $30,000. And one of the things she would do, this is my favorite story, is she would have people over to her house and she would have a big potluck. We’re going to have baked potato night, I’ll bring the baked potatoes. How much is a 10 pound bag of potatoes? It’s like $5, or maybe it’s even $10 now with inflation, but that’s $10 and you’re feeding your whole family, all of your friends.
10 pounds of potatoes goes a really long way. So you bake the potatoes and J will bring the butter and the cheese and I’ll bring the sour cream and the broccoli and somebody else will bring bacon bits and somebody else will bring chili and somebody else brings, all these little things and then nobody is spending a lot of money. Everybody’s having a good time because it isn’t about what you’re doing, it’s about spending time together. So you don’t have to cut out all your friends and all your family, you just have to cut out all of the expensive stuff that you’re doing. You don’t need to go out to restaurants and have a super expensive meal to have a good time. Which brings me to my next comment about food. I think you’re doing great with $100 a week on grocery budget. I think that’s a great grocery budget.
Your restaurant budget, as I already said at the beginning of the show, I really don’t like that in regards to your financial situation. You don’t have a huge investment portfolio and that is because you just paid off a ton of debt, which is awesome. But I would rather see you go out to restaurants once a week or maybe once every other week and take that money and put it into an investment. J had talked about how you can take $100 a month and put it into a cash flowing investment and by the time your baby’s 18, you’ve got $60,000. Here’s a way to take $200 a week, maybe even more and put that into cash flowing investments. I’m what, 200 a week is 8Xing J’s amount. So do your math, J. Eight times 60,000 is?

J Scott:
Almost $500,000.

Mindy:
So that’s more fun than going out to restaurants multiple times a week, in my opinion.

Steven:
That’s True. Yeah.

Mindy:
Something that I have really enjoyed doing lately is going on Pinterest and finding authentic recipes for, I’m really on a big Mexican food kick right now, so I will find authentic Mexican food recipes and make them, and yeah, you have to go out and buy bunch of ingredients, but you buy those and then you only use a bit of these fun specialty ingredients, but you can use them again and again and again because Mexican food is the same 87 ingredients in different packaging all the time. It’s all the same thing, just wrapped in different ways. And if you focus on one type of food, you can buy the specialty ingredients and then just continue to make these recipes over and over again and get really, really good at it. I’m now a really great Mexican chef. Come over for dinner, Steven.

Steven:
I will make a trip to Colorado right now.

Mindy:
Now that we’re best friends.

J Scott:
He doesn’t seem very excited about cutting back on the eating out.

Steven:
Well my doctor would be excited that I cut out Whataburger and Chick-fil-A.

Mindy:
Steven, is there anything else that we can help you with today?

Steven:
There’s a lot of things y’all could help with me today. So many things. Let’s start with investing because as I said, the one thing I do regret was I did drink the Dave Ramsey Kool-Aid and didn’t invest during the debt free journey while I was working. And so I feel like we’re a little bit behind since I’m almost 30. All of it is kind of new to me, and so I think when I was helping my wife picking her asset allocations for her 403(b), I just did target date funds. I don’t know, are there any principles to investing? I think I’ve heard people, they’re like 25% total stock market, 25% total bond, 25 international, 25 something else. What are some rule of thumbs that y’all would follow or some people are like 100% in S&P 500 index. What rules of thumbs do y’all follow?

J Scott:
I’m a big fan, especially when you’re young, you’re going to go one of two directions and you have to decide at some point over the next 10 years which way you want to go. For some people they really get excited about a certain type of investing and they can become what we call specialists. So somebody might become a specialist investing in real estate and decide I really want to spend time learning about real estate investing, studying real estate investing, understanding how the numbers work, in which case if you are really knowledgeable about some area of investing, and I’m using real estate as an example, but obviously there are plenty. But if you are willing to spend the time and the effort and the energy to become really proficient in one area of investing, it’s less important to diversify because you have more control over your investments based on the knowledge and the experience that you have.
That said, if you would rather spend that time not learning a specific area of investing, you don’t want to study real estate, you’d rather spend that time with your child or doing whatever other stuff you want to do, in that case, I would recommend going with a diversified model. And the more diversified the better. Now you can be aggressive diversified, you can be conservative diversified, as somebody who’s young like you are, I would say you can be more aggressive but still be diversified. And when we talk about diversified, we’re talking about different asset classes. So the stock market is an asset class, real estate is an asset class. Precious metals is a reasonable asset class. There are a lot of different asset classes.
And then you can even be diversified within each asset class. So like you said, in the stock market, you can be diversified across large cap or very large companies and mid-cap, mid-sized companies and small caps, smaller companies, you can be diversified across companies, in different regions and different countries and emerging markets. In real estate you can diversify using passive investments in different asset classes like multifamily or self storage. There’s lots of different ways to diversify, but the first question you need to ask yourself is, do I want to become a specialist in some area of investing? Do I want to spend time learning some area of investing or I’d rather use that time for something else and then just diversify my investments across different asset classes. I guess I’ll turn it over to you. Which of those two seems more appealing over the next few years?

Steven:
Why not both?

J Scott:
Well, certainly both. There’s no reason you can’t do both. The nice thing about getting knowledgeable and spending time is that typically that effort, that energy, that expertise translates into higher returns. With the diversified portfolio, you may be making six, seven, eight, 9% per year, which is fantastic. It’s more than a lot of people make relatively safely. With an expertise in some area of investing, and again, I’ll use real estate as an example, just because it’s the area I know the best, you may be able to boost those six, seven, eight, 9% returns to 10, 11, 12, 13% returns based on the knowledge and experience. So when we’re working hard to learn about some type of investing class, when we’re learning hard to gain an expertise, the value of that hard work or the benefit of that hard work is that we get to raise our returns.
And so I guess the question is, are you comfortable with those lower returns diversifying not spending a lot of time focused on learning and building an expertise, or are you excited about some type of investing where you can learn the area you can really become an expert and you can boost your returns? That’s the benefit.

Steven:
I think knowing me, I really want to get into real estate, but I think I’m just debt reverse after getting out of debt. That’s always been one of those, do I want to get into real estate? But knowing me I would want to really learn to get into real estate, but at the same time I think practically or realistically, I’m going to end up just being conservative with it and being more passive, just putting my money in the stock market. That’s it. And just diversifying.

Mindy:
Okay. You said that you really want to get into real estate. We are maybe, maybe not on the verge of a recession. The Fed keeps raising interest rates. Right now is a great time to start learning about real estate even if you’re not quite sure you want to get into real estate. There’s a lot of properties on the market. There isn’t the frantic spring selling season that we had this past spring where everybody was like, you couldn’t even get into houses to see them. Now is a great time to start learning. And it just so happens that episode 70 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast featured J Scott, the man you see right here, talking about preparing for a recession, and he’s talking to people who aren’t quite ready to start investing in real estate, giving you advice on all the things you can do in preparation for it.
You can start doing your research, learning your market, deciding which market, all while saving up so that when you do decide, yes, I want to be investing in real estate, you’re investing from a position of not only financial strength but also educational strength. You’re not just jumping in with both feet on a whim and deciding I’ll figure it out as I go. That doesn’t seem like the person you are. Being debt averse means you don’t want to be staying up late at night thinking, how am I going to handle this? Be prepared, know what you’re getting yourself into and then you’ll have a more comfortable position when you finally get into it. If in fact you decide you want to, you could decide after doing some research, you know what, this is not for me. That’s the best time to know that real estate is not for you is when you don’t own properties.

J Scott:
And along with those two things, Mindy mentioned use this time to research, use this time to become financially prepared. There’s also a third thing I really like to do during these times of transition in the economy and transition in ourselves, is building relationships. This is a great time, we talked earlier about going out and building a local community of investors that you can become friends with and that you can learn from. But specifically if real estate is something that you’re interested in investing in, now’s a great time to go start getting involved in the local real estate communities. Go start getting involved in the local BiggerPockets meetups or the local real estate investor association meetings or the local meetup groups that are focused on real estate.
It’s a great time to build your network, build your relationships, because once it’s time to actually start investing, you’re not going to be doing it alone. Nobody invests by themselves. We invest with teams and now’s a great time to start building that team and building those relationships so that when the time comes, you’re ready to hit the ground running.

Mindy:
Do you have a BiggerPockets account, Steven?

Steven:
No, I think the only thing is I’m just like, I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t.

Mindy:
That’s okay. I am going to give you a free pro upgrade, but first you have to make an account. So make an account at biggerpockets.com and then send me an email, [email protected] and I will go and upgrade you to a pro account so you can have access to our calculators, almost said calendars, they’re calculators. Access to our calculators, access to the different parts of the site that you don’t get with a free account. And then you can really start doing research, because once that baby comes, you’re going to have a lot of downtime where the baby is sleeping on you and you don’t want to move because then they’ll wake up.
Another research opportunity I’m going to give you is to check out the new BiggerPockets and Fundrise collaboration podcast called On the Market. They are giving you weekly updates about the state of the real estate market. They talk to economists, they talk to different people who are in the market right now, to discuss the just what’s going on and where it’s going. That’s a great podcast to listen to start your educational journey. I’m going to send you a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth by J L Collins. He recommends in the book Investing in VTSAX, that’s the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. This is something that, J L Collins is even older than I am and he’s been investing since God was a boy.
Shut up Jay. You’re older than me. Finally somebody’s older than me on this show. He recommends the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, set it and forget it. You don’t have to do research. You put your money in there. This is every stock that is out there.

Steven:
I’m actually getting fired up about real estate now too.

Mindy:
Awesome. Awesome. Let’s get you all of this stuff. Make an account, send me a note and I will upgrade you and then you can really get started educating yourself to decide if this is really what you want to do.

Steven:
All right, sounds good. Thank you so much.

Mindy:
Okay. Awesome. Well, Steven, I really appreciate your time today. This was a lot of fun. I am super excited for your baby. You better send me pictures as soon as she comes.

Steven:
Absolutely, BFF, you’re going to get the whole shebang.

Mindy:
Okay, Steven, thank you so much. And where can people find out more about you?

Steven:
So me and my wife, we do have a YouTube channel where we did talk about our weight loss journey and our debt free journey. So you can follow us on Instagram and on YouTube at Our Phantastic Life. Phantastic with a ph instead of an F.

Mindy:
I love it. Okay. Playing off your last name, fantastic is my favorite word. Okay. Steven Phantastic. Thank you so much for your time today and we’ll talk to you soon.

Steven:
Cool. Thank you all so much.

J Scott:
Thanks Steven.

Mindy:
J, that was Steven Phan. I think you had some excellent advice for him and I appreciate you joining me today and stepping into Scott Trench’s shoes. Thank you so much. What are you up to, J?

J Scott:
Well, first of all, I am thrilled that you had me here. This was so much fun. Hopefully we’ll get to do this again soon. In terms of what I’m up to, we just released, BiggerPockets just released my fifth book Real Estate by the Numbers. I’m excited about getting that out. High five. I hope everybody will check it out. And now I’m just relaxing and figuring out what the next book I’m going to write is. We’re you going to write a book together, Mindy?

Mindy:
I would love to write a book with you, J. Name the topic and I am there.

J Scott:
Excellent. Let’s do it.

Mindy:
Who did you write that book with?

J Scott:
I wrote that book with the amazing Dave Meyer, who is VP of Analytics at BiggerPockets. Probably one of the most brilliant analytical minds that I know and it’s just, he made that book worth reading.

Mindy:
You know J, you’re okay too, but you are right, Dave is wonderful and I am going to give a little plug again for Dave’s podcast called On the Market. It is a BiggerPockets and Fundrise Collaboration and Dave is the host of that show. And if you love numbers, if you’re a huge number nerd, that is the show for you because holy cow is Dave big nerd and he talks about real estate and numbers and the economy and it is great, big fun.

J Scott:
My second favorite podcast behind this one.

Mindy:
I’ll send you a check in a minute. Okay, that brings an end to this episode of The BiggerPockets Money Podcast. J, thank you so much for your time. He is J Scott, and I am Mindy Jensen saying, I hope you get everything you need centipede.