Ep. 228 - 8 Strategies for a Better Work-Life Balance

  📍 📍 Good day. This is Gabriel Shahin certified financial planner and your host more knowledge more wealth here on every weekend Talking about all important topics of personal finance. My job is to go over the knowledge you need to increase your wealth. Now to the listener, you can always reach out to myself or any one of my colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning.

Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon. Like the bird or visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com. That's Falcon WP. com for short, where you can get this episodes or any one of our previous episodes as well. And you get those through podcasts, Spotify, and I heart radio. Now we have this knowledge center on our website, by the way.

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Now, folks, I'm the president of Falkland Wealth Planning. We're a fee only, non commissioned, true fiduciary, folks, and we talk about all important topics of personal finance. And that talks about something as simple as should you start a business, should you lease a car versus renting a car, should you buy, should you rent out your old house, should you invest in the stock market, should you save that money for a future down payment.

Folks, you name it, anything that involves a dollar sign, we can help you with. And folks, if you just Give us a call. We are offering a free financial assessment where we can give you one to two meetings, one to two hours of our time folks at no cost. We call that a free financial assessment. We got offices all over.

Doesn't matter where you're located at folks. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon like the bird. Or you can just submit an inquiry on our website right on the front page there at. FalconWealthPlanning. com. That's FalconWP. com for short. Folks, a lot to go over today. And you know, I like to always pivot because I've been a little bit more active on social media.

Um, mostly Twitter, Twitter and LinkedIn are probably my main two. I'm not an Instagram person. I'm not a, I'm not a Facebook person. I would say in picture, big picture, I'd probably say LinkedIn is my number one and X, uh, old Twitter is number two. And just the, something's just been. Just been going crazy with me, uh, recently.

And that's just certain people out there. This is insane to me, uh, that are just giving financial advice. And it's just, it's complete stupidity on some of the things that I'm hearing. And I'm just going to go over a few of them. Um, because some of these people have hundreds of thousands of followers and I'm a number one borderline jealous on my answer.

They started earlier and much more active, but some of it is pure stupidity on what I'm hearing. Get this from devoted dividend investor. I am currently holding north of 250, 000 in cash waiting to invest in another huge opportunity. Um, whatever the hell that means, shoot, like, what is that? Like, Oh no, this 10 percent return.

That's not huge enough. I am earning 5 percent currently, so I'm not in a rush. Where would you invest as of now? So I'm like, you know what, dude, or dudette, whoever this devoted dividend investor that wants quote unquote huge investors, like, and I'm just going to tell you how many followers this person have.

Okay. This person only has 8, 600. So he goes, so this is what I said. Well, it depends on if you need liquidity, your stability of income, what are your goals, how much you have invested in total, are there any income? It's frankly a stupid question because a stupid answer that most will say is right is the S& P 500.

Like, what if this person needs money here in the next 12 to 18 months? I can't guarantee your money is not going to lose in 12 to 18 months. You get what I'm saying? All for what? To go from 5 percent to potentially a 10 percent rate of return? Assuming that even abuses his huge return response. I mean, just complete stupidity.

So here's another one. Uh, this one is, uh, yet again, just, these are just commentaries here. Um, I have, uh, somebody that goes, the dividend breeder. He goes, you can't go to McDonald's without using the app anymore. Crazy deals on the app every day, 2 breakfast sandwich, blah, blah, blah. So he goes, uh, this is from Bespoke, um, 7.

29 for a McDonald's Egg McMuffin. What has the world come to? They were 2. 49. 2 pretty recently. And I just said, listen, great example of fiscal policy. These are laws that are in place. For example, when you have minimum wages now, 15 to 20, the impact gets hit here on the bottom line of the actual. Price of meals.

I'm not against people making more money, but people need to know and the monetary side of it as well as higher interest rates as higher cost as multiple companies do lending. It's just interesting that some people don't even think this way. I'll take it a step further. The car wash guy. Maybe I won't even talk about the car wash guy.

Let's go to check this out. Mr. Budget Bill. I gotta see how many followers this guy has. Okay, he only has 1, 200. I don't even know why this is popping up in my feed with so little followers. He goes, I have a 2. 75 percent rate on my personal mortgage. Should I pay it off? This is free advice for you, bud. I wrote, ha ha ha, you don't know savings, uh, you do know saving rates are paying north of 4%.

Money market's over 5%. Do you need me to elaborate on what you should do? Like, seriously? I saw this one like multiple times. The stock market is at an all time high. You have a million dollars to invest. You can only pick one stock. And it can't be an ETF? What should you do? I literally saw the exact same post nine times on social media.

It's just crazy. Obviously they know I'm a finance person. Okay. I'm going to do the second segment. I'm going to go over my favorite piece, which was from back. I want to say it was in 2018 or 19 from financial samurai. I love this piece. I haven't done this one in a while, but I'm going to say, uh, go over a couple of ones from a decade investor.

Check this out. Now this one I believe has a lot. Yeah. 183, 000 viewers, uh, followers. I drive a 2015 car. My insurance used to be 60 a month. I was just told they're upping my insurance to 150 a month. He goes, no claims, no changes, no reasons. Luckily I can afford it, but this is mild. And I just highlighted the fact that crime might be not the same in your area.

Most places in urban America, it's gone much, much, much higher. And so, uh, in fairness, also that car that should be depreciating in value is going up, uh, also in value that, uh, because the prices of cars go up, uh, especially with the supply and demand issues that we currently faced and so on and vandalism and so on.

But let me go over some of his other posts. This one's interesting. He's bragging that his net worth is finally over 400, 000 at age 25 year old, by the way, if he bought a house a year or two ago, that could be. 300, 000 of that. Okay. I just thought that was interesting. Here's another one. Uh, uh, just interesting ones that I continue to see because they're just bragging about, Oh, I made 127 today.

What did you do? Like, I don't understand. Like, did it, was he selling shirts? On the corner. Or is that just a dividend from a portfolio that's kicking out? This is, I, it's just, it just doesn't make sense that we have hundreds of thousands of people that are, that are reaching out and getting advice from these types of people.

Here's an interesting one. Same people, decade investor. If you invest a thousand dollars every day for 20 years, assuming an 8 percent annual return, how much money will you have? No looking up. You have to guess. Okay. He said, I'm going to actually double check this right now. And I hope he's wrong. 1, 000 a month for 20 years at an 8 percent return.

Let's just see if he's in fact correct. So 1, 000 a month over 20 years at 8 percent it is, and he is correct. It is 589, 000. So he at least got the math right, but it's crazy to me that you see some of these people out on social media. Given this advice of the total amount that people and they break down their assets like they're proud of it.

No debt as mortgage is accounted for. They're talking about their net worth of 1. 7 million, a 401k of a million dollars still needs to work for another 15 years. This is investment dad with 3700 views and it's like they're not saying how much money and the sacrifice and the savings that they had to get to a million dollars.

A lot of people when they see something like this are getting rich. They're trying to get rich as fast as they can. And it's just, it's so unfortunate when you look at some of these people and then the returns that they're posting online saying they are unhappy with 20 percent returns. I wrote, this is, this is from the better path.

I hope, let's see, this person has almost a hundred thousand views. A salary will never make you rich. Based on the previous person, it does based on everybody else, uh, that we've ever talked to. And it's like, and they do get rich off working. They said, if you want to become your own boss, do this and you'll make your monthly salary in 24 hours.

The picture they show is a person with a mail bun, uh, with his feet up with a dual screen with something to his left and notepad and pen. And then has his, uh, two lap screens. Uh, and it looks like they're. Trading, I guess, or on YouTube or whatever. It's just quite frankly, it's bizarre. And they're trying to imply that all you need is two hours a day and you can make your salary.

I mean, some of these things that I'm reading is insanity and people are following them, commenting on them, having hundreds of thousands of views on something that's a facade. It's easy to make money when the market's going up, but when the market's going down, these people get smashed and lose it all.

Are they trying to imply they have a crystal ball and they know what's going to happen? Because you can't just get something right once, you have to get it right twice. You can't just know when to buy, but you have to know when to sell. And if you sell first, you have to know when to get back in. These people are crazy.

You got these 20 and 30 year olds. Living in their mother's basement. Pumping up these conversations that have no relevance. Quite frankly, bragging about making money. And asking and bragging about how they're paying off their home at 2. 75%. You should do the same. One of them is asking and comparing Grant Cardone.

Which I don't even know if that person is legitimate. Of saying you should borrow, borrow, borrow, borrow, borrow. Versus Dave Ramsey that says pay off, pay off, pay off. I mean, it's just crazy to me that these people are giving contrasting recommendations that, oh, by the way, both of them are kind of right.

Want to know the catch? Depends. This is why we're offering a free financial assessment for someone who actually gets to know you and give you a recommendation based on your specific situation, goals, length of working, because what you're reading on social media has makes no sense. For all we know, they're getting paid by their parents on a monthly basis.

They have no worry in the world. They can take unlimited risk. They lose it all. Who cares? They're living in their mom's basement. It doesn't matter. They're going to inherit millions of dollars from their parents. It doesn't matter if they lose their 37, 000 invested happy with their 127 a day of a market appreciation.

What did you do today? I did nothing and made 127. This is what our people are hearing and reading. This is what the youth thinks is normal. Folks, it bothers me and I don't want you to fall into that trap and feel like a sucker because you could never get rich working. Garbage. I know a lot of rich people.

We help them every day. And what do they do? They get up every day and they go to work. And quite frankly, define work. Like do nothing and get paid? That is crazy. That is stupidity. It's insanity. It's what we're seeing on social media and what young people think they should be doing. It's why Robinhood last year had over 20 million users.

That is insane. Average account size under five grand. So just be careful what you're listening. When you come back, I'm going to go over a scenario of one of my favorite things to go over. And that is someone who makes 500, 000 a year and how they still feel broke folks. We're going to be right back.

After a few words, if you want to reach out to us, help to make sure you're not following some idiots on social media. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96VALCAN. Like the bird. Folks, we're going to be right back after a few 📍 📍 words.

Welcome back folks. This is Gabriel Sheen certified financial planner and your host of more knowledge, more wealth here on every week and talking about all important topics of personal finance. And today I just wanted to go over with you somebody who makes half a million dollars. I want to go over with this married couple, how they still feel broke because it's not how much you make rule number one.

It's not how much you make, it's how much you save. Quite frankly, you should save first and spend second. That's what a lot of us do with our paychecks. That's why a lot of us are able to have a successful retirement by blindly saving into a 401k. You make 1, 000 a paycheck, net of taxes, well that could also be net of your 401k savings.

So you could spend what is ever there, assuming you have an emergency fund and so on. So it's so important to get yourself in a system and a process to be able to put yourself in a position to succeed. Because here what I'm about to go over is a family making 500, 000 a year, how they still feel like average.

Now this is the thing. Now first and foremost, they have 36, 000, 18, 000 each they're saving into their 401k. between the spouse and spouse. I just want to acknowledge that. Excuse me real quick. I wanted to, I wanted to, uh, I wanted to acknowledge that real quick. Cause if you're saving 36, 000 a year and you do that over 30 years, earning a 10 percent on your money, you're going to be having 6 million.

To be able to maintain your lifestyle after that net of taxes is not difficult. Especially when they'll eventually get social security and they will not have a mortgage forever. So it's like nobody should be crying that much over these people because it also shows that they're not getting any matches from their employer.

Not to digress, but that 500, 000 saving 36, 000 drops their income down to 464, 000. Assuming an effective tax rate between federal, state, potentially, and paying into social security and Medicare, let's just call it 40%. So they now have 278, 000 to play with. That's, oh by the way, almost 25, 000 a month. They have daycare for two kids though.

Okay, that's 42, 000 a year. That's about 3, 500 a month. Divide that in half. That's about, what, 1, 750 a month per kid. Something along those lines. Food for four, 2, 000 a month. I quite frankly think that's low, but 23, 000 a year. They have their mortgage payment, just their principal and interest, which is 5, 000 a month.

Obviously, you make half a million dollars a year, you probably have a million dollar home. Their home maintenance is 5, 000 a year. That's only like 400 a month. I quite frankly think that's low too. Property taxes on a 1. 5 million house is 18, 000 a year. Depending on where you live, that could be more, it could be less.

Texas is very high, for example. Now, you also have property insurance. This is what we'll call it, uh, What do they say here? Property insurance here is about 9, 600 a month. So, uh, excuse me, 2, 500 a year. I said a month. 2, 500 a year. Three vacations a year. Each vacation about 6, 000. That's 18, 000 a year on vacation.

You have car payments. Okay. Now check this out. BMW, five series and a Toyota Land Cruiser. It's only 9, 600. That's 800 a month. I feel like one of those is 800 a month. So, but whatever, I'm not going to argue. I think the car payments are obscenely low. In addition to that 5, 000 year in gas, I think that's low 400 a month.

It must be lived near work. They're definitely not in Southern California. Car insurance, 2, 000 a year life insurance on 500. That seems about right for term insurance. Uh, clothes for four. No fancy bags, shoes or threads. 9, 500. Okay. Seems reasonable. Children's lessons, sports, piano, violin, 12, 000 a year, about a thousand a month.

And all of that stuff. I don't know. I don't spend that much, but whatever. Uh, charity. 18, 000 a year, not 10%. 10 percent would be 500, 000. So this is much less than that. 18, 000. Undergrad and graduate student loans, 10 to 20 years, 32, 000 a year. Okay. So it's about 2, 600 a month or so. Uh, then you have miscellaneous, just something always comes up of about another 10, 000.

Could be new tires, could be water heater, whatever the case is. Total cost 271, remember they came, got in 278 after what they saved to their 401k and taxes. That leaves them with 7.

That's how somebody making half a million dollars a year stays broke. Now here's the thing. I've noticed this with clients. I've even noticed it to myself a little bit. People, as they continue to succeed, I think Oprah Winfrey says it well, she gauges the success of people and your spending habits based on On your towel racks, she said he used to get cheap ones, whether it's at the Dollar Tree, then it would go to Target, then it would go to Macy's, and then all of a sudden you get the super fancy ones that I don't know what they are.

Let's just call them a really nice one that could be hundreds of dollars. Engage success and the tiers of success based on the hand towels in your guest's bathroom. So. Interesting because that is so true. People just get used to spending what they get used to spending. You spend 10, 000 a month and you pay off your house, you're still going to pay 10, 000 a month.

You're not going to save that money from what I see. It just doesn't happen. What you'll probably end up doing is now flying first class instead of economy. You're just comfortable doing the same thing. If you like going to sporting events, you used to be in the nosebleeds, now you're going to be in the mid tier or even closer.

You're just used to spending a certain amount. It's a psychological thing. And this is why it's so important too, even when people are living off their retirement account and they take social security, they're supposed to reduce the amount they're getting. They don't fully reduce it. They're double dipping, which quite frankly, now they're spending more than they originally planned on.

I've seen this a lot, especially for people that do not put plans in place. It is extremely crucial that you put a plan in place to understand your situation. Now we understand it's fluid, we understand things come up. You should understand your situation, what can make sure to maintain your lifestyle.

You don't want to make sure your money only lasts until 70 or 75. You're probably, if you're going to be around until maybe 10 years from now, let's call it 20, 35, you're going to most likely live until a hundred years old. Do you understand the amount of advancements that's happened in the past 10 years, let alone the speed that we're moving for the next 10 years, let alone the next few decades?

Like give me a break. You cannot outlive. Your money. Folks, this is why we're offering a free financial assessment where we can help relate this show to your specific situation and make sure you are on track to make sure you can get those questions answered to quite frankly, make sure you can not outlive your money.

But wouldn't it be great if you can bounce the last check to the mortuary to make sure you're in a position where you can enjoy every last bit of it. Give us a call. We can help. Doesn't matter where you're located. Our phone number is 855. Bye. 963 2526. That's 855 96Falcon. Like the bird. We can help answer those questions.

We'll give you one to two hours, one to two meetings of our time at no cost. By the way, folks, if you're just joining me, you're listening to Gabriel Sheen certified financial planner, your host of more knowledge, more wealth here. And every weekend talking about all important topics in personal finance.

And today I just wanted to talk about the. person making half a million dollars a year who feels broke. My comment to everybody is what I would recommend is to get to a goal for yourself where you can position yourself where you can retire five years earlier than when you originally anticipated. Worst case scenario, you're going to have more money, but the idea is you should be maxing out your retirement accounts.

Okay. Now let's just say you are not making half a million dollars a year and it's hard for you to do that. You should at least be saving 15 percent of your pay by saving 15 percent of your pay, whether it's in cash reserves. Once you have maybe three to maybe as much as nine months of cash reserve, you should then start to look to take advantage of your 401k.

Now to determine if you should be saving a traditional 401k versus a Roth 401k, I would talk to a professional, which is yet again, why we offer our services here. If I'm planning would be more than happy to help you and point you in the right direction there by doing that. That's a tax question, quite frankly.

And somebody has to be able to look at your taxes. Most advisors. are not, we are. And so by being able to identify what you should be doing and saving that 15%, seeing if your company matches as well, does a profit sharing or anything like that, it is crucial in the success of your plan. I would heavily recommend that you do that.

Once you do that and you're saving and you know you're on track for retirement, I would take it a step further. Try maxing it out every raise you get half of your race. I would put it into the 401k You never lived with that money. You never had that money So at least being able to take advantage of 50 percent you still get a raise It's just 50 percent is going to the 401k You are able in a short period of time able to max out the account if you start at a 50 percent savings rate For savings and then once you max that out and here's my point of how you can shed five years off your retirement yet again Depending on your situation how much you spend so on and so forth start maxing Roth accounts not just for you, but your spouse I don't care if they are not working as long as one of you are working you can submit for the both of you I heavily recommend that as an option as well This could be important ways to continue to save.

And then by doing that in a surplus of that, depending on your situation of available, you can start looking at health savings accounts. You can start looking at five 29. You could start looking at other mechanisms to save my point to you is simple. I would look at brokerage accounts through liquid. It's like a savings account, except it's on steroids.

Sure you can lose because you're invested in the money, but if it's for a longterm point of view, it could add value to your situation. I would recommend it because the one thing of this, uh, financial samurai did not go over is the simple fact that those people are going to retire with multi multi multi multi multi six multis 6 million to their name, and that's only saving for 30 years.

Last I check, people work more than 30 years. Last I check, you don't have over a 30 year mortgage. It's a 30 year mortgage. Last I check, you don't have student loans forever. Last I check, you don't take care of kids forever. So there are a lot of ways that value can be added to your situation. If you are alive, which obviously you are because you're listening to this, if you are making money, which means you're working, and you're not retiring, let's say next week.

There's opportunity available because time is on your side, and if you don't feel like you have a lot of time on your side Or maybe you feel you have so much time on your side where you have one little adjustment can have a compounding effect. That's substantial Well, that's why I recommend you take a look at and see the priorities in your life And prior to the financial side and the goals that you have to achieve and talk to a professional and help make sure they are Aligned and making sure the probability of success is high yet again.

This is why we're offering a free financial assessment folks We would love to help Give us a call. We've got offices all over. Our phone number is 855 963 2526. That's 855 96 Falcon, like the bird. Visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com. That's Falcon, WP. com for short, where we can help. So, answer the questions that you have, put in an inquiry on our website, we'll reach out to you.

And we do even work on Sundays as well, just a kind reminder of that, and we can help answer those questions. And if you want me to answer a question on air, just go ahead and send it to radio at falconwp. com. That is radio at falconwp. com. Folks, that was a fast, fast show. I want to thank you for tuning in with us this weekend.

You can always reach out to myself or any one of my colleagues here at Falcon Wealth Planning. Our phone number is 855 963 8255. That's 855 96 Falcon, like the bird, or visit our website at falconwealthplanning. com. That's falcon, WP. com for short, where we can help answer those questions that you have and help relate the show to your specific situation.

And you could always visit our knowledge center that's on YouTube and you get that through our website, direct link where we can able to. Find out some cool strategies that can save you some money and just help in your journey of finance. And if you want this episode or any one of our previous episodes, go to our website and you can go to podcasts, get this episode and all the previous ones prior to that.

Folks, fast, fast show. I want to thank you for tuning in. I want you to have a fantastic weekend and God bless.