Four Finance Lessons I Wish I'd Learned Earlier

All right, man, welcome back. Today we're going to be talking about the four financial lessons that I think all men should learn in their 20s. Recently, I had a friend of mine ask me what I was going to teach my son about finances because my. My boy is almost two years old. And we've just been having a lot of conversations with the men in my life because a couple of them have kids. You know, what do we need to teach them about drugs and women and finances and the world? And how do we impart some of the knowledge and the wisdom that we've gained throughout our lives? How do we teach them these things? And so this question about finances came up, and I realized that I had been taught almost nothing as a child about financial independence. And I've learned a lot over the years. I've learned a tremendous amount. I, at one point, was very broke and very, very in debt, like 100k worth of debt. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to earn a good amount of money, whether that was at my time working for Apple or in my own company, in my own business now that employs a number of people and pays salaries and et cetera, et cetera. And so it got me thinking about what do we as men need to know and how do we create a sense of financial independence? And the first thing that I. That I sort of realized is that. And this is more of a comment, and it's not the four pillars, the first thing I sort of realized is that our structure, our system isn't really designed to teach you as a man how to be financially successful. You know, if you look at the education system, it teaches you almost nothing about economics, about personal finances, about taxes, outside of the fact that they just exist. They don't teach you how to be successful with them in any way, shape or form. And so I realized that in many different ways, it is our responsibility to learn these things, you know, if we haven't been taught them. Myself, this was really something that I struggled with because I didn't feel proficient with finances. I just avoided them altogether. Right? I was the type of guy that, like, if I didn't really feel proficient at something, I generally tended to avoid it for a number of reasons. But maybe you're one of those guys. And so what I would just say immediately is, don't hesitate to learn about how to become competent and proficient at something, especially around finances. Okay? So, number one, the first pillar that I found to be really, really helpful and powerful was this notion of understanding your own financial stories and the Narratives that you carry about money and freeing your mind from those concepts and trying to create as much of a blank slate as possible. So understanding your financial stories and freeing your mind from those narratives. Now why do I say that? Because if you were like me and you grew up in a lower to middle class family where, you know, money was always tight, they, it was, it's not that we were super poor by any means, it's simply that things were generally tight. And so the, the, the commentary about money was, you know, money doesn't grow on trees. You can't just get money anywhere. You would ask for something as a kid and you know, my parents would laugh and be like, where do you think the money's going to come from for that? And I think the big thing that when I started to do this work, I really started to see where my story about money resided. And I'm going to share this story with you because I think it's very important. I remember writing down the question when I started to do some of this work. What are some of the main stories that I heard about money growing up? What are some of the main stories I heard about money growing up? And I remember back to when I was 16 years old and my mom works for the bank. She worked for one of the biggest banks in Canada. And so, you know, I went to her when I was 16. I got a credit card, opened up a bank account. I bought my first car from my next door neighbor for like 500 bucks. 1979 Ford Mustang. Sounds sexier than it is though, because it was a four banger. It was a four cylinder with like tan exterior and this shitty silver door on the driver's side door because it had been in an accident. But anyway, so my mom helped me open up my first checking account and, and I applied for my first Visa and I got my first credit card and I had a $500 limit. And I remember for months after that the thing was just maxed out constantly, right? Because I had never, you know, I was making money at the job that I was working. I started working a part time job and I was like 14, pumping gas outside in the Alberta winters, which was freezing cold, to pay for my car so I could attract girls. And for months my credit card statement was just maxed out every single month. And so I went to my mom and I said, hey, I just can't seem to pay this thing down. And it just seems to be maxed out all the time. And my mom's response, who worked for the bank, my mom knows about money. My mom knows about the financial systems. My mom knows what to do with money, right? That's sort of my train of thought at that age. Cause I don't know any better. She says to me, don't worry, son. That's just a part of life. And so immediately. And this is no fault to her own right, it's just. That's maybe her belief or what she grew up thinking, or maybe there was more context that she wanted me to know about that. But immediately I just said, okay, debt must just be a part of life. It just must be a part of money and finances that you're just always in debt. Fast forward to the years ahead of that, right? Or after that, into my late teens, into my twenties, into my late twenties, I carried around so much debt. My credit card, the limit kept going up and up and up and up, until one point it was at like $15,000. And my credit card was just always maxed out. Always. No matter what, it was just always maxed out. Partially because I didn't know how to save, partially because I held this story and narrative that debt was just a part of life, and partly because I wasn't making very good money. But the main piece that I started to realize was that. And that wasn't the only debt that I had, right? I had student loan debts. I had taken out a line of credit to sort of fund my life. And so I started to realize that I'd been carrying around this narrative that debt was just a part of life. And it had infiltrated and affected the way that I viewed money. Because I always was stressed about the debt that I had constantly stressed about the debt that I have. And I know that some people use debt in a very specific way and that there's way to. Ways to leverage it. So I'm not saying that debt is like this horrendous thing. I simply saying that for me, my story about money was that debt was a part of life. And it became the primary story around money. And so I wasn't free financially. I wasn't free in my mind financially, because one of the first things that I thought about money was, well, money just equals debt. And so I had to start to challenge that narrative and see some of their stories. So my encouragement for you is, is to write down the same question. What are some of the stories that I was told about money growing up? What did my mom say? What did my dad say? What did people that I trust say? And what was I taught about money? And then what would it take for me to free myself from those narratives if they aren't functional, if they're not serving me or serving my financial literacy and independence. So that's the first thing is challenging your narratives. The second thing is prioritizing getting out of debt. Now, again, like I said, debt isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on what you're using it for and how you're leveraging it, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There are some cases where it can be a very helpful thing depending on what you're using it for. But I have found that for the majority of people, they're carrying debt that is creating a net negative impact on their ability to be financially independent. They don't feel financially free. They feel financially constricted because they've got tens of thousands of dollars of debt, right? They have more debt than savings. They have more debt than they know how to pay off. So prioritizing getting out of debt for a period of time, very intentionally. And I remember when I first got my job at Apple, I came across a little bit of money where I got a bonus. And then I found out that my grandparents had left me a little bit of money. Not really, really not much, a few thousand dollars. And I needed to decide what to do with it. And I was going to put the money into savings or invest it. And I said, you know, I don't actually know what it's like to be debt free. I don't even know what that experience is like. And so if I want to be financially independent, if I want to feel good about money, then I'm going to prioritize getting out of debt. And a lot of the things that I had read, a lot of people that I respected, a lot of them, the men that I had learned from that were very financially savvy, said get out of debt so you know what it feels like. And then you can determine whether or not you want to carry any debt strategically in your life. And so prioritize getting out of debt. The third thing is invest while you're becoming debt free. So one of the best decisions that I made was as soon as I started working and I had a decent job and I was making money even though I was carrying a good amount of debt, I prioritized investing as much as I was comfortable with while getting out of debt. One of the biggest mistakes that I see young men making in today's economy, in today's society, is that they think that they need to be out of debt before they save and So a lot of guys will come out of college or university or maybe they, maybe they don't go to college or university, they just have some debt and they stop themselves from investing or saving until they're debt free. And that can mean that that man doesn't start investing until he's in his mid-30s or late-30s at some point. And because of compounding interest and the way that investments work and the way that interest works and the way that savings works, you want to start investing as soon as possible. And so even if you're paying off $100,000 of debt you're paying, if you can take some money and invest it into an etf, invest it into something that is, you know, going to be yielding something that's meaningful. And again, that part's not financial advice, just to be clear, but if you can invest it into something while you're paying off any debt that you have, you're going to be doing yourself a service because that's going to have compounding effects over time. So getting out of the notion that I need to be debt free in order to invest, and then finally twofold, creating an emergency fund and investing all of your access savings. So one of the best pieces of advice that I got from a former mentor of mine was not to hoard cash. Now I'm just going to tell you a funny story because I think this might resonate with some of you, but just gives you some insight into how I grew up and how financially illiterate I actually was. When I was 19, I went to buy my motorcycle and I wanted to buy this beautiful crotch rocket. It was a 98 Honda VTR 1002 cylinder, dual exhaust, super fast, really loud, bright yellow, beautiful, beautiful bike. And so I started saving for it. And how did I save for it? I put money into a Ziploc bag and put it under my mattress because again, no one had taught me how to save. No one taught me that I could open up a savings account that would have, you know, a low interest yield that would help to accrue more, more savings. On top of that, no one told me I could invest it. All of those things were foreign concepts. And so I literally took cash and put that cash into a Ziploc bag underneath my mattress. Now, I don't do that anymore, obviously, but no one taught me that I could take the excess savings that I had and, and invested into something that would accrue interest, that would actually make money while I was saving up to purchase the thing that I wanted to buy. And Then and then create an emergency fund. Now this was really important because I never had any real savings, but I also had no real money set aside when I was younger for anything that would go wrong. So anytime that anything went wrong, you know, my vehicle would break down, the carburetor would go, it would need new tires or you know, some emergency would happen in my life and I would have to pay for something, you know, for healthcare or something like that. I didn't have any emergency funds set aside to pay for those things. And so all of those things turned out being debt oriented expenses, right? They'd go on my credit card and then I'd have to scramble to try and pay that off. So try and create an emergency fund that over time you eventually get it to the place where if you weren't working or making any money for six months that you could still fund your life, you know, even if you had to cut down on a few things. But save put away on an emergency fund. So you have that there in case something happens and in case you need to go into it and then invest all of the excess savings that you have. And again, this takes time, right? I remember when I first started working and I started to read financial advice and I was like, why have tens of thousands of dollars of debt? I'm not making a lot of money, right? I'm making like 20 bucks an hour. How the hell am I supposed to pay off my debt and eat and pay my rent and pay my car insurance and pay for gas and pay for all these things? And it really was overwhelming. So the last piece that I'm going to say that I found to be very helpful is automation. Automation can be a beautiful gift and it's something that I really resisted for a very, very, very long time. But, but as soon as I set up automation and what I mean by this was a few things. Number one, I automated a certain amount of my paycheck being taken off immediately and allocated towards certain stocks. That helped a lot because it was immediate investment. It was a small percentage at first, but it actually helped me to invest very quickly. Second, I automated a monthly payment on my credit card so it would automatically get taken off. I automated money going into a savings account, I automated money going into a tax free savings account and I automated money going into an rrsp which in the United States would be considered like a 401k. And so just those basic things that I had resisted for a very long time to set up just those basic things, doing those things immediately started to show progress. And just like anything, know if you're going to lose weight. If you want to build muscle, it takes time and repetition for you to start to view the progress, to start to see the things that are actually working and happening. And so the automation and setting up these automated tools, and there's a ton of them that are out there now, right? Your bank probably has them. There's platforms like wealth simple that are very, very good at setting up automation. Your employer, depending on who you work for, probably has some form of automation. So finding ways to automate your savings, your expenses, your investments, your debt payments, if you can automate those things so that you release yourself from the sometimes overwhelming nature of having to remember every single month to pay all those bills and to put the money in the savings account and to put the money in the investments and to put the money on the credit card, you're going to save yourself a lot of decisions in those moments, a lot of actions that you have to take. And that automation is going to free you up to hopefully and ideally learn more about elevating your financial acumen, your financial intelligence, but also freeing you up to maybe use some of your creativity and imagination on how you can earn more money, create more, generate more, and also save and invest more intelligently. So comment on this. You know, what did you find useful? What have you really done? Share your best practices, not as financial advice, obviously, but share your best practices of what helped you to elevate your financial mindset and to create financial independence. Feel free to DM me @mantalks on Instagram and feel free to share this episode with somebody that you know will enjoy it. Until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.