The 5-Phase Plan to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck | Anthony O’Neal

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Winning with money is not just about making money. People, I think, know the basics of I need to pay my bills, I should save a little bit. Outside of that, they really don't know the strategy. And so they're living paycheck to paycheck, not because really they lack information, it's because they don't have the right strategy that's Basic and simple for them to understand.

He is a personal finance expert, a top podcaster, and bestselling author who went from homeless to becoming a net worth millionaire. Please welcome Anthony O'Neal.

48% of individuals who make over $250,000 live paycheck to paycheck.

Come on.

Really?

Most common thing between everyone, someone making $60,000 a year up to a million dollars, it's just the, the amount of extra debt they brought into their life.

When you have seen yourself stretch and give more to your church or charities, do you find that more money comes to you?

You know what, Lewis, I've never said this on a, on a show before, but you're my brother. I've been on here so many times.

Um, so why do you think so many people are actually living paycheck to paycheck in America right now?

You know what, Lewis, it's a good, good question to start off. Man, again, thanks for having me back on the show. But a lot of people will say because people are living paycheck to paycheck because they don't know any better. And I actually say that's not the case. I say a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck for 2 main reasons. One, the lack of information, and then 2, the lack of systems and accountability. You see, wealth, in my opinion, winning with money is not just about making money. It's about, okay, if I give you $1 million and then I give this guy $1 million, what's the difference between you 2? It's simply the strategy that you put into place with that million dollars. Mm-hmm. So people are getting a paycheck. People, I think, know the basics of, okay, I need to pay my bills. Okay, I should save a little bit. But outside of that, they really don't know the strategy. And so they're living paycheck to paycheck, not because really they lack information, it's because they don't have the right strategy. That's basic and simple for them to understand.

This is something you talk about in your book. You have this kind of 5 Step strategy to getting out of living paycheck to paycheck. And there's a new study that found that 39% of American workers say just living paycheck to paycheck would actually be an improvement to where they are right now in their life. If they were actually living paycheck to paycheck, it would be an amazing thing for them.

Yes.

Most people are not even doing that because they're in so much debt and they're trying to borrow to constantly get out of debt. And they're and they're just trapped and they feel stuck.

Yes.

So you have this 5 phases to getting, uh, you know, getting out of this paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. And phase 1 of the plan you teach is about stabilizing your finances first and casting a clear vision, a clear money vision of where you are going. For a lot of people, this feels overwhelming.

Yeah.

Like stabilizing feels overwhelming because they don't know how to do it. Getting clear on a money vision, is hard because they can't even think far enough in the future. They don't even have enough money to think about next month. So how does someone start stabilizing their finances and cast a clear money vision for their life?

Lewis, let's go back to the word stabilizing, because I think a lot of people, when they hear that word, they get a little frustrated, a little overwhelmed, which is so confusing to me a little bit because stabilizing can save your life. One of my good friends came home one day and she's an ER doctor. And Lewis, she said something to me and to the whole room that just woke me up. She said, man, every time someone comes into the ER doctor, they want to go from whatever their issue is to fix within a matter of an hour.

Yeah, to perfect health.

Perfect health, right? So she was like, no, no, no. If you're coming in here, let's say for an example, she had a— unfortunately, this particular person had a gunshot wound. She said, they wanted me to heal them within an hour. No, my first priority is to get you stable, to get your heart beating at a stable rate on its own, to make sure that everything's good. Once I get you stable, then from there I can assess what needs to be fixed in you and how do we go from there. But it's not gonna be done within an hour.

Mm-hmm.

So the reason why I wrote phase 1 is to stabilize your finances and get clear with the vision is we need to get your finances at a point to where they're at least stable. To where you're not, you're not creating any more holes, you're not creating any more issues in your life. You know, you're just getting stable. How do you get stable? The very first thing I talk about in the book is go ahead and set aside at least 1 month of your net pay, right? I used to teach back in the days, you know this, Lewis, save $1,000, right? Well, we're in 2026. $1,000 in today's day and time is not gonna keep you stable, right? It, it, it won't even get you 4 brand new tires on a car. I want you to have at least 1 month of your net pay. Here's why. If something in life happens to you today, studies show that we tend to operate off the 2 sides of our brain, our fast brain or our slow brain, right? And so if you only have $1,000 but you have a $5,000 issue, you're gonna operate off of your fast brain. When you operate off of your fast side of your brain, you're gonna make the wrong decisions.

Mm-hmm.

So if you have at least 30 days in your account and life happens, you're gonna operate off of the slow side of your brain. It's okay, wait, I can cover this. I can pay my rent. I can pay my mortgage. I can still send my kids to school. I can still get my hair done. When we're in our slow side of our brain and we're in our comfort zone, right, with a little bit of tension, we'll make better calculated decisions. Mm-hmm. And I believe that that's where I want you to go is be stable. And then for me to get out of phase 1, it's like you said in the very beginning, is, is, is have a clear vision.

What would you say is the difference between someone who has a clear money vision?

Yeah.

And someone who doesn't have a clear money vision?

Oh, it's clear. If I walk up to you and say, hey, Where are you going within the next year with your finances? What are you doing this year? Okay, we're in this month of 2026. If you can't tell me what you're going to do for the rest of this year, you don't have a clear money vision.

What does their life typically look like compared to someone who is clear?

There's no stability. There's no consistency. We can see you all over the place with your finances. You see, with me, I can tell you right now what I'm doing for the rest of this year with my finances. I want to purchase a home. When I purchase a home, I want to remodel the home. If anything that comes into that does not align with that, it just doesn't flow into my budget. Even in this new season of me right now with certain things going on around my life, it's like, wait a minute, if it doesn't align with this vision for my money, I just can't do it. And sometimes if I'm saying no to something, I'm saying yes to something else. So if I'm saying no to this thing over here, it's not a permanent no, but I'm now giving myself even more permission to stick to my money vision.

Yes.

And I think that's very, very, very important. The reason why a lot of people are still living paycheck to paycheck is because we haven't set the time to sit down and say, you know what? I'm gonna pay off my consumer debt this, this month. I'm gonna go after this $5,000 credit card for the next 6 months. Hey, you know what? I just had a baby. I just had twins. Congratulations.

Thank you.

And I want to have a 529 set up for both of my kids. Mm-hmm. That's a vision.

Mm-hmm.

Here's what I believe. We have a lot of people who are dreaming, but they don't, they don't have vision. And the difference between a vision and a dream is, is it written down and is action behind it? So we have a lot of dreamers, but we do not have a lot of visionaries. And a lot of people who are struggling with finances are dreamers, man. One day I'm gonna have this and one day I'm gonna do this. But when you start getting right with your money, it's because you have a vision with the execution strategy and it's written down.

Yeah. And you have the systems in place where you automate things.

Yes, sir.

When it's automated, it's, it's automatic and it's more automatically going to happen.

Come on now.

Because you're not thinking about, oh, I need to put this money in here. I need to do this next month or in 6 months. You're sticking to the clear vision. You're automating it with a system.

Yeah.

And years pass and your goals just are accomplished because of the systems. But you got to get the information first. So phase 2 is actually eliminating all consumer debt. And again, 39% of American workers Today.

Yeah.

Say that just living paycheck to paycheck would actually be an improvement in their life right now. And a lot of it is because people are in a lot of consumer debt.

Yes.

And this whole, I guess, buy now, pay later for like every groceries, for like everything.

Yeah.

I get it if you're in a bind and you have to do that in an emergency.

Yeah.

If you're not stable.

Yeah. Yeah.

But that shouldn't be a regular monthly, yearly thing. That should be a once in a Once a year, maybe at the beginning of your, your season of earning money. Not, oh, I'm 5 years in my career and I've blown all my money.

Yeah.

And now I got to use this buy now, pay later method. Like, for me, that doesn't make sense.

Now let's go deeper, Lewis. 48% of individuals who make over $250,000 live paycheck to paycheck.

Come on. Come on. No way.

Really? Yeah.

Wow.

I think it was, uh, and don't quote me on this one, it's not in the book, but I was just reading a study just the other day, uh, nearly 30% of millionaires are living paycheck to paycheck.

That's crazy to me.

And to me, what, what I'm seeing here is when I really do all this research and I, and I'm studying, okay, what's happening? The most common thing between everyone, someone making $60,000 a year up to $1 million, it's just the, the amount of extra debt they brought into their life. Now listen, I, I, I believe that 95% of the people in America today cannot handle consumer debt. Let's, let's be real.

What does that mean they can't handle it?

I think that there's 5% of people who can take debt, leverage that debt to build wealth.

Yeah. To buy assets.

To buy assets.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Anthony O'Neal, I do well financially. I still don't borrow consumer debt. I, I, I won't borrow money. I, I won't do things. I do have an American Express now. Yeah. That I pay off every single Monday.

Yep.

But I do believe that the majority of American people cannot borrow money and use it to seriously buy assets. And those assets are paying off the consumer debt. And so what we're seeing here is that people, we are borrowing money. There's 2 types of people in, in this year. And, and I have to be honest, there are certain people who unfortunately last year we had over 300,000 people lose their jobs.

Wow.

So I do believe those, there are certain people out there who are borrowing money because they needed to survive. I have sympathy for them, but let's also be honest. There's a lot of people who are buying things that they do not need.

Why do you think so many people overspend and overconsume when they don't have the money?

I, I just think because it's like, man, we, we are impatient people. And, and I'm gonna put on myself when I was that guy here in LA, you know, I'm sitting here borrowing money, man. I was driving a 1987 Nissan Maxima that could not go in reverse, and I borrowed money to put 2 12s in the back of the trunk with a 1,000-watt amp. I didn't need that, Lewis. No.

Sounded cool though.

Yeah, exactly.

It sounded cool.

It sounded cool. Everyone was doing it. I remember, man, I went viral. It was a few years ago. I was living in Nashville and man, I had the money, right? I went out there and bought me a $3,000 Gucci backpack during COVID And I got the backpack, came home. I was like, Why did you buy this backpack? You ain't going nowhere.

Like you hanging up in your home.

Yeah.

It's like, you're not, you, you're not traveling. Airports are shut down. And I'm like, why did I buy it? And I had to be honest with myself. I bought it because everyone else had one. Everyone had a Gucci bag or a Louis Vuitton bag. And so my philosophy now is, man, if I can't afford to pay for it twice and pay for it cash, I just won't buy it. And if it's over $500, I think about it for 48 hours. Period. And at the end of the 48 hours, if I have not committed to, I'm going to get that for me, not for so Lewis can see me in it, not so I can post it on social media. I mean, did you know, Lewis, and tell me to be quiet, man, this is your show. I just love to talk. But did you know that 58% of vacations are purchased on the quality of the Instagram pictures that people can post online?

Wow.

So they'll swipe their credit card to go to a destination that they really don't want to go to. They just want to go there because it looks good on the gram.

To get the photo.

Just to get the photo, just to get the TikTok reels. So we're financing a lifestyle, but we're not disciplined to change our finances around so our life can be different. Mm-hmm. And so for me, man, I, I, I want people to get outta consumer debt because I really do believe that if we really are honest with ourselves, We're getting up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, sometimes even Sunday. The majority of people are working 2 jobs to get their paycheck on Friday to pay back this particular bank, to pay back that particular company. Check this out, come back home Monday and the families get the leftovers of their paycheck.

Hmm.

And then it goes back to the 39%. By the end of that week, they're broke and they're trying to figure out how do we get to the next Friday for payday? And for me, you gotta get sick and tired of where you currently are.

Yes.

Because that is frustrating. Get up every single day to go pay back someone else. And let's just be honest, if you're really, I don't wanna name the banks on your, on your show, but there are several banks that are named after families. So you're, you're borrowing money from this particular family, you're paying them back interest so that their great-great-grandchildren can go to school debt-free and build wealth while your children at home are struggling trying to figure out Mom, dad, I need some new school shoes. Mom, dad, I wanna go and be a part of this soccer camp, but you pay somebody else's family to do it and we haven't done anything for our family.

What do you think the psychological wound is that causes so many people to overspend then when they don't have the money? Is it just, oh, I wanna feel like I fit in or belong, or I look good, or certain, you know, why overspend when we don't have the money psychologically?

Man, I was talking to a guy and I asked him that same question and, uh, he's a little bit older than me. And he grew up more so specifically in an African American space. He grew up right around when slavery— not slavery, when racism was a little bit more live out there. And he said, Anthony, the reason why I finance things and the reason why I'll go out there and spend my check is because I've earned it. He was like, back then I couldn't do certain things. Now I want to go buy a suit. I want to go step out here and have a good time because I've earned it. And I said, I agree that you've earned it, but at what cost to you have you earned it?

What's the price you have to pay?

Exactly. So you're not leaving your kids any income. You're not leaving your kids any wealth. There was a study, and I forgot the numbers, but it says this particular number leaves their children's bills and benefits, and the benefits, as far as insurance benefits, are only enough to take care of partial of the bills, not all of it. But we'll leave, we'll leave behind a Mercedes-Benz, a Chanel purse, a Louboutin purse, a Gucci backpack, some shoes. But none of that is transferable. None of that is gonna really help set the next generation up to win. And that is why that book is so important to me, because if we can really get control of our consumer debt, if we can stop financing someone else's lifestyle, and I firmly do believe That before you even get another credit card, you need to be consumer debt-free for at least 24 months. Build the habit of using your, your cash, build the discipline.

Mm-hmm.

So that when you get back into it, yes, if you have an Amex card, okay, now you're paying it off every month. You're not paying any interest. It's your money. And now you're getting the rewards of the points and stuff like that, which is absolutely amazing. But I still would not go for points. Just so I can have a credit card, just so I could buy things that I can't afford to buy.

You're pretty deep in the spiritual faith world as well.

Yes, sir.

From your experience in the communities that you're in, yeah, do people who have a faith-based practice, are they more prone to getting out of consumer debt earlier and investing in their future by, by saving and spending less? Or do you also see people in faith and spiritual communities getting in extreme consumer debt, living paycheck to paycheck as well, whether they're financially less off or financially more off?

You know, man, I think in the faith world, they're still human beings. So with me being a strong Christian, I can say this respectfully. No, they're not trying to get out of consumer debt quickly.

Really?

They're still human beings. I mean, not they, we are still human beings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So we still have our personal desires. What I do see more prevalent within the Christian world is we are strong in the faith and giving. And so—

Tithing and giving.

Yes, tithing and giving and generosity. So I do believe that the spiritual element, that what I believe in is that because we are generous, because we are tithing, and because we do operate off of faith, there is a level of blessing that comes with that. But then too, also, I can say this as well, I do feel as if sometimes within the Christian world we go a little bit too far into that and we get away from the practical. So we'll give our church, you know, our light money. I totally disagree with that. No, give your tithes and offerings, but go pay your light bill, right? Give your tithes and offerings, but go pay your rent, go pay your mortgage. But do not—

Don't do it at the expense of putting yourself more into the hole.

Right. And there are certain organizations and leaders within all organizations of the spiritual realm that will say, hey, Trust God, give him your last. And I will sit there on the front row and be like, yeah, I'm not giving you my last. I'll give you what I can give you and even stretch a little bit, but my first ministry, my responsibility is to make sure that my home is good.

Yeah, put your mask on first.

Got to.

Oxygen mask.

Got to.

Don't starve of oxygen.

No.

You know, and then say, someone help me.

Facts.

You know what I mean? You got to take care of yourself.

Yeah, you know, I'm taking care of myself, I'm taking care of home. But I'm also going to take care of my church, man. You know, and I, I— one of my goals is, is to be within the top 1% of the givers within my local church. I love what my church and what my pastor is doing, and I'm very strong on that in my church. I do believe that generosity and tithing is a secret, is a secret investment that a lot of people do not invest in. So I teach give, and that's in one of my phases. I teach the whole invest, um, but I really do believe the number one investment you can make is in tithing offerings.

Really?

For sure.

When you have seen yourself stretch and give more to your church or charities or causes you believe in, do you find that more money comes to you?

You know what, Lewis, I've never said this on a, on a, on a show before, but you my brother, I've been on here so many times. Um, I had to be very unique with how I maneuvered the first 3 years of starting my business. I had to be very unique. Hopefully I can say— hopefully I'm saying that correctly. Hopefully you're picking up what I'm saying.

Sure.

And I told God, I said, God, I'm still gonna give you my tithe and beyond. I gave him 12%, spiritually speaking. I should have gave him 10% per the Bible, but I gave him 12%. I said, because, because God, I need you to figure out a way to get me through these next 3 years.

Wow.

And Lewis, I, I gave 12%. tithe and offerings. I was even within my organization, every, every time someone gave us money on our YouTube channel, like as a, um, Super Chat.

Yeah, yeah.

Or something like that, we gave all that money to single mothers. So Anthony O'Neal nor my company profited that money. So I think within my first year of business, man, we probably gave away a little over $100,000. Second year we gave away a little over a quarter million. Lewis, I've never gone down a year.

Wow.

I've always gone up. And I do believe that it's because God knows that, hey, in this area of life, I can trust you. You're going to be a good steward of your finances. And it's not even just spiritually. It's like, man, I give to, uh, my, my fraternity. I give to other nonprofits. I've given to other churches. I've given to people just because I just felt need. Like, I had a friend went through something with his particular family. Gave that particular friend $10,000.

Yeah.

Hey, here you go. I know, what's this for? No, no, no, I just wanna be a blessing because I firmly do believe that while God asks for 10% back, the other 90% of the money he's allowing me to keep is still not mine. He just calls me to steward it well. So if I wanna make $20 million a year, I need to show God that, yo, if you give me $20 million, I'm not gonna be selfish. I'm gonna be a blessing to others. I'm gonna be a blessing to my church and to my community. If, if Lewis is doing something that's a great cause, man, I'm gonna want to sow into Lewis's great cause that's impacting the world, because I want to make sure that I'm not a selfish guy with my money and that God can trust me a little more.

Why do you think God allows bad people to have a lot of money? Some bad people.

I mean, I believe that God gives us a choice, you know. He, he gives us free will. Um, I do believe that just because God allows you to have a lot of money doesn't mean internally You are prosperous.

Yeah, you're not rich.

You're not rich.

Yeah.

Right. And so I would rather have $5 million and be rich internally than have $20 million and be miserable and just literally going through, you know what, internally. Right. And so I used to always ask myself that, well, God, why is he out there doing A, B, C, D, E, F, G and he making way more money than me? He said, yeah, but you're sleeping at peace. You know, you're— you can walk down the street and not have to have 10 people watching your back.

Right.

You know, he was like, just because you see someone living well within quote unquote your version of well in my permissive will, Anthony, you're living perfect within my perfect will for your life. And so I'm really, I'm always just saying, okay, what, stop looking at other people's platforms and what they have. Just focus on where God has you.

Yes.

And I have to be okay with that. And trust me, I, I'm human. I wake up every single day, I get on Instagram every single day like, God, I could do, I could do that much better, right? And then God convicts me. It was like, it's not about better. It's not about more. It's about who are you called to? Who are you helping? Focus on that.

Yeah.

And Lewis, man, I mean, when I really sit back and think about it, there is nothing that I want right now that I don't have.

Mm-hmm.

I bought my estate home. I got real estate. I have an amazing portfolio. I'm driving my dream car. I'm on the Lewis Howes Show. You know what I'm saying? Like, I have an amazing company with an amazing staff and team. There's nothing that I want. Like, for my birthday this year, man, I'm, I'm, I'm going to Greece on a private yacht. So it's like, yeah, I'm not, I may not make as much money as them, but I'm living the life that I want. Man, my dad told me this years ago, Lewis, and I try not to get emotional when I say it because as I'm getting older, I've noticed that, man, things in my life change.

Mm-hmm.

And now I get even more what my dad said. We were playing golf on a Tuesday afternoon at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. My dad's in his 60s and he stops. We just hit off the tee box And in the middle of us going to our balls, he stops. I was like, Dad, you all right? And he said, son, I'm wealthy. I looked at my dad. I said, Dad, I know how much money you made, man. You ain't wealthy. You got a good retirement check from the Army. Thank you for your service. But I started thinking in my head, I said, why you say that, Pops? He was like, it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

Mm-hmm.

I'm playing golf. with my son, and I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

Wow.

I don't have to clock in, and I don't have to be worried about how I'm gonna pay my bills. Like, I could do what I want to do, when I want to do it, with whomever I want. When I leave you, he was like, boy, go out and see a movie so I can, you know, have a conversation with your mama tonight. Like, it just felt good. And I was like, huh. He said, so yeah, I may not have as much money as you, but I'm wealthy.

Wow.

And that stood out to me, that wealth is not just about money, but it's also about freedom. And I think a lot of people get it confused that you need to make a million dollars to have freedom. No, no, no, no, no. You can have freedom off of $50,000. You just gotta know the right strategy and the right system to put into place. And from $50,000 to $60,000 to whatever that is, you can have freedom. And that's, that's where I'm at is I have freedom.

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Facts.

They have all the money in the world, but they are struggling. Now, there are also wealthy people who are free.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

You know what I mean? That can— they do what they want to do. They say what they want to say. They're around the people they want to do. So I'm not saying having money makes you trapped, but there are a lot of people that have a lot of money and they have a lot more stress or responsibilities that they don't know how to navigate emotionally or mentally. And therefore, it just causes more problems for them. I'm not saying everyone, but I'm saying there are people. And, if you don't understand how to navigate money and how much expense things cost having money, like when you have money, things cost more.

Yes, sir.

Even if you don't buy a lot more stuff, there's just fees and expenses and taxes and You know, you know, you put your hand on your head because you know the pain of paying taxes on the money, the hard-earned money you make, and just seeing multiple 6 figures, 7 figures gone.

Gone.

And you're like, I just spent 6 months of my life to give this much money to the government or to the state or to whoever.

Yes.

And you have to navigate that in your mind.

You have to.

I spent how much Sleepless nights, how much effort, how much work building something where almost half of it goes to a government that I don't know where the money's going to. And if they're putting— if they're stewarding it, there's 100% chance that they're not stewarding it 100% well.

Facts.

And so you have to live with that.

Yep.

Or you get to live— it's a blessing to live with that. But if you don't know how to navigate that, first few years for me, I was angry.

Oh yeah.

When I started making more money and I was like, man, half of my year just goes towards paying the government.

Yes.

And then paying for this fee and then paying for this tax and then just housing the money somewhere costs money. You're just like, what?

Yes.

Where's all my money going?

There's a cost to everything.

Everything, man. It's like, where'd all the money go?

Right, right. No, man.

And so, it's learning how to navigate the levels of money that come to you. And listen, it's hard when I was broke on my sister's couch. That was hard.

Yeah, yeah.

It was hard having no money and not being able to mentally, emotionally, spiritually pay for things and navigating that.

That's it.

It was hard paying my first rent.

Yeah.

$400 a month. Oh, I was like, where am I gonna get the money to pay for this rent month after month? That was hard.

Yeah.

There's different levels.

Yes.

Right. And learning how to navigate it. That's why I wanted to talk about what does it mean to be a good steward of money?

Mm-hmm.

And how do we know we've graduated spiritually, emotionally, psychologically with the amount of money we have that we're ready for next levels of wealth?

If I was to sit down with someone and someone asked me, am I a good steward with money? My answers will be based around this. Can you tell me where you are financially? That lets me know you're a good steward because if you don't know where you are financially, then you can never get better. So do you know I suck with money in this area, or do you know I actually do pretty good with money in this area? So I know my strengths when it comes to money, and I know my my weaknesses when it comes to money. But I also, Lewis, can tell you the last time I spent $1.50 because I'm tracking every single thing that I spend. Now that's just me because I'm in the money space. I don't know if someone needs to track every single dollar the way that I do.

Yeah.

But it's like, for me, I can tell you if I spent 55 cents because that's just how I am. Because I'm very anal about getting to my goal and I know every dollar, every penny that It can get me closer or it can take me away. So for me, how you know you're getting really good with finances is number one, do you have a, a solid, clear vision that is aligned with a good budget? Then from there is what is the system and strategy that you are following?

Mm-hmm.

I've never met a millionaire who said, I woke up the next day and I made a million dollars. And then I just, I have no system and strategy. I just, I just, I just make money. Every person, and, and when I say this, Every net worth millionaire, when I say net worth, I'm talking about someone who may make $80,000 a year, but they have a portfolio of $1 million. They follow some strategy to get there, whether that's the 401 strategy combined with the IRA strategy combined with a couple of index fund strategy combined with real estate strategy. No matter what it is, everyone follows a strategy. And then you know you need to upgrade is when you can look at your income and feel like Hey, you know what? This is too much for me to manage. So for an example, when it comes to me, man, I, I, I still— you've graduated. I, I haven't graduated yet. I still get upset when I have to cut.

I get upset for a couple days, but then I'm like, okay.

Yeah.

It's not— but it used to be months.

Months.

I'd hold onto like, I can't believe I just— all the money I had saved in my bank gone.

Gone.

Down to zero. Yeah. It's like, how is that even possible?

But you know what I did? You know what I started doing about 5 years ago? It was I hired a CPA firm that in the first 3 months of the year, they go through a tax strategy. So now I'm only upset like you for a week because I know what's coming. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Right?

And I think that's also good stewardship because we also know that the tax laws are not written for the average person. It's written for the person who are making, the entrepreneur, the small business owner. So it was like, now that's also a level of good stewardship.

Yes.

Do you have a tax strategist who can sit down with you and help you come up with a game plan?

Yep.

On how to pay the IRS less legally, ethically, morally, and for me spiritually to where I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm doing it all 4 of those correctly to where my tax bill may go from 48% down to maybe, maybe 32, 28%, but legally, ethically, morally, and spiritually. And so I love that because now When I have my tax strategy meetings, are you hiring anybody? Are you buying any real estate? Are you buying any new equipment? How much do you project to make this year? Or they ask me so many different questions and then we sit down and say, okay, this is the strategy. Mm-hmm. On how to move forward for the rest of 2026. That's good stewardship because if I can keep some of that money from the IRS and maybe donate that to other single mothers, we're starting a brand new, um, school in Ghana, in, in Accra, Ghana.

Uh-huh.

So we was able to save some of that money and use that money. To go towards school.

I've been to Accra.

Oh, you have?

I built a school in Ghana as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's cool there. It's cool. It's a different world, man.

It is.

It is. I mean, I stood out for sure. Great, great place. Yes, I loved it. Good energy there. Yeah. And so phase 3, we're talking about in the book, you talk about building a savings cushion of at least 3 to 6 months of take-home pay, which is something you've already mentioned before. And a lot of people think that that is impossible. On the amount of income that they currently make. I'm like, how am I going to get 3 to 6 months? But what is the mindset shift that someone has to take or make before that can, that can follow, or the habit they have to change before that can follow?

No, it's not difficult at all. When people tell me it's difficult to set aside 3 to 6 months of your income, let me see your lifestyle. How much car do you have?

Yeah, you don't need 2 cars. Yeah. Get rid of one of them.

And you don't need a bike for a year. You don't need the $50,000 car that you purchased.

Right. No, get a used car. When I moved to LA, I had— I kid you not, man, and I was a millionaire when I moved to LA. When I moved to LA, I bought a $5,000 used car.

Facts.

And I rode it for 5 years.

Wow.

I did not need— I didn't have radio. Now, this was probably too extreme. I didn't have radio. I didn't have Bluetooth.

Too extreme.

Yeah, but I was comfortable in it. It got me from A to B.

Yeah.

It was reliable. It just didn't need— it wasn't new, and it was okay, and I was fine with it. It was a 19— was 1997 Cadillac Eldorado Berets, 2 2-door. And it was cool, man. I was like, all right, this is nice. Like, it felt like grandpa car, you know, the, the bucket seats. And I was like, all right, cool. No radio, no— the AC stopped working after 6 months, so I'm like windows down. Yes, you know, I'm rolling windows down, all these things. But the engine worked.

It works.

It got me around. And I didn't need to be in something so nice or brand new for those first 5 years. I was more I, I cared more about investing my money, saving my money, reinvesting in my business to help my money work for me.

Yes.

And so now I have a new car and it's fine, but it's— it was more for a tax write-off.

Yes.

It was like, okay, what can I do to buy a car to benefit my business as a tax write-off? But 5 years, I didn't need anything fancy, and I paid it off right away, $5,000, and I rode it for 5 years. $1,000 a year. Yeah, except for gas.

But how much money did you save yourself?

That's the question. How much money did I save? Yeah. Oh yeah, I don't know. If I would have bought a new car for $50,000 to $100,000, I saved a lot of money and the insurance was cheaper and all these different things. So I saved a lot of money.

I believe that the greatest enemy to our financial success is our excuses. That if we keep saying, I can't, I can't, I can't, what you're saying you can't to, you're doing it somewhere else. That is not valuable.

Mm-hmm.

And so I, I'm the same way as you, man. My friends, they used to crack jokes on me cuz, you know, they'll come over to my house like, man, this is not a house that AO should be living in. I'm like, well, what's the house I should be living in? Like, I literally just moved into probably the house, quote unquote, they say I should have been living in just a few weeks ago. But the average house I, I was living in a, a normal family home. And I'm like, man, I have goals. I have dreams. I don't want to be 50 years old and I still have to be on YouTube teaching. I don't want to do that. I want to be in a position to where my money is creating more time for me to do the things that I love to do with the people I love to do. So when I do get married, when I do settle down and have kids, my money is paying all our bills, not my time. And so if I don't come up with the right system in place and live way below my means—

Yes.

Right. And I think this is where a lot of people get confused. People think they'll stop living paycheck to paycheck if they make more money. You will stop living paycheck to paycheck and make more money when you have margin.

Yes.

Margin is your number one wealth-building tool. Margin is your number one tool of getting out of paycheck to paycheck. If your income is up here, your expenses need to be down here. In between, that's your margin. And that's what you play with to pay off your consumer debt. That's what you play with to invest more, to put money into real estate, to invest into your future, to buy businesses, to buy stocks, whatever you want to do. But if you have no margin, you'll never get out of the trap.

Yeah, my friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now. And you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now let's get back to the conversation. At work, greatness sometimes starts with a pile of meeting notes here, follow-up questions there, but that's okay because ChatGPT Work, a new way to work in ChatGPT, can organize multi-step projects and help you make progress while staying in control. ChatGPT Work can use your apps, connected tools, and files to create things like landing pages, trackers, internal tools, even web apps. Say your team has a new product concept. Use ChatGPT Work to review customer feedback, pull themes, and draft a prototype. Maybe there's a planning doc that ChatGPT Work can organize into owners, next steps, and a shareable status update. Make it even more specialized by installing specific plugins like Google Drive or Microsoft Teams. The big picture? ChatGPT Work helps you get unstuck between thinking about your work and actually making progress on it. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. How many days does it take to go from total beginner to reasonably proficient at a new skill? Well, if you practice for a focused hour a day, then about 250, which also happens to be the number of reasons to choose T-Mobile. Here's an excellent reason. They have the fastest 5G home internet according to Ookla speed test, which you can test for yourself worry-free with their 15-day money-back guarantee. Another great reason, it's fast and easy to set up too. Plug it in and you're online in practically no time. With no appointment or technician needed. Those are just a few reasons. Find yours at t-mobile.com/homeinternet, where you can check availability and try it for yourself. They're so sure you'll love it, you get your money back if you don't. Fastest according to Ookla Speed Test Intelligence data, second half of 2025. All rights reserved. Redeem money-back guarantee within 30 days of cancellation. When I was my first— when I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and I had my first apartment, when I was on my sister's couch for a year and a half living rent-free, then I paid $250 a month for a room in my brother's house.

Wow.

For about 6 to 7 months. And then I finally moved out and I think it was paying, I can't remember if it was $400 or $495, but it was in the $400 range for an apartment. And after the business that I had, a business partner at that time, We did over $1 million in sales maybe a year and a half after this, right?

Okay.

And I was still living in this apartment, was under $500 a month at that time. I had no car, so I was walking around everywhere.

Okay.

I had no TV and I was just focused and I was just stacking and saving and investing the money.

Yeah.

And this is what you talk about in phase 4, is investing with confidence so your money starts working harder than you do. And a lot of people feel like investing is for people that are rich or that are wealthy or that they are, you know, at a different level of financial success and people who already have it figured out, or they know money better than me. What does someone who is just getting started actually need to know to invest without feeling fear?

Man, the very first thing is that you can invest with $5 into a fractional share. Do not focus on the amount. Focus on starting the habit.

Let's go.

That's it.

Consistency, man. The system, the habit.

The system and the habit. That's what I tell everybody. Oh, I don't have a whole lot of money to invest. That's not the problem. The problem is you haven't even created the habit. You, you, you, you haven't even just started. Just put $5 into a brokerage account, and then when you get paid again, put $5 into a brokerage account. And I promise you, by this time next year, you will be putting more than $5 in.

Oh yeah. He'd be like, oh, that make me money.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Yeah. And so that's what I tell everyone. It's like, man, investing is not for the rich. Investing is for people who have access.

Mm-hmm.

And for me, man, I think there's, there's, in my book I talk about, man, you gotta invest anywhere between 15 to 25% of your income every single The first 10% is if you are in a Christian faith community. I think that is the best investment we can ever make, 10% into the local church. A lot of people say, well, why would I want to give to the church so the pastor can go buy a car, so the pastor can go buy a house? And I don't care about none of that. I believe that my word of God says, hey, give, right? I'm, I'm just going to give. Now, if I know for a fact that it's going to the wrong place, then I'm leaving the church.

Yeah, go somewhere else.

And go somewhere else. But until then, I'm gonna do— that's my very first investment. Because now what I'm saying, God, is I trust you more than I trust myself. Then after that, I'm putting 15% into an investment portfolio that me and a financial advisor, or me, or in 2026, an app or AI has come up with, whether that's 401s, mutual funds, index funds, ETFs, brokerage accounts, whatever you wanna do, 529s. Boom, I'm investing into that. And let's say, let's say you don't have 25%. Okay, cool. I need you to start wherever you do have. Like, not wherever, with whatever you do have.

$5, $10, buy fractional shares, get into the habit and automate it and make it come out of your account every month.

Yes. And what I'm telling people right now, we're living in this AI boom and tech boom. You need to be looking into companies and ETFs and index funds that have a lot of AI and tech companies inside of it. Because what I'm seeing right now, these companies, I know we all went after, let's say for an example, Nvidia, but what companies are helping Nvidia make their chips? Start looking at the companies everyone's not talking about because those are the companies that are secretly just blowing up behind closed doors, right? And so that's what I'm telling people, just buy a $5 fractional share of that company that creates the power plant for the chips. Or invest $5 into this ETF that creates, um, uh, memory for AI. Because when you—

You can even do an, a fund of AI stocks. You don't have to think about individual ones as well.

For sure.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, and I think that's the main thing too. And then also within that, I'm very big, um, Lewis, on we gotta start investing into our children's future. Have to. Whether you're just doing 1% of your income, 5% of your income a month, we got to start investing into our children's future so we can change, um, the future and to change the future generations. Yeah.

Well, phase 5 is something you talk about, playing the long game, which is paying off your home, updating your estate plan, and creating generational wealth.

Yeah.

And hopefully paying, you know, supporting your children, leaving your children with something as well. And I'm of the mind of like, you know, now that I have kids, I don't know if I want to give them everything because then are they going to be resourceful? Are they going to be creative and imaginative? And, you know, are they going to develop their own talents to be able to steward things in life? But it's figuring out, you know, what will I give them? I don't know. You know, so we'll see. I'm still kind of figuring this out.

Well, whatever you don't give them, give it to me and I'll—

I'm going to give them something for sure, but I don't know if it's like—

Yeah.

And, it's also like— and, I think in this process, what I'm learning as I'm developing with my wife, our trust and our estate plan currently because we just got married a year, a little over a year ago.

Yeah.

So, we have been building this together and educating myself. And, I think that phase 5 is really educating yourself on these things as well.

Yeah.

And, I'm asking these questions with my you know, my tax attorneys, with my financial team and things like that, and asking them like, what do other wealthy families do that you've seen that have done well by investing in their kids or where you've seen hasn't really done well after one generation, two generations? So it's thinking long term and kind of creating caveats. You know, if they're like getting into drugs and going to jail, maybe you don't get access to certain things.

Yeah.

Or you get a certain amount to like support you on a, you know, a down payment for a home. But, you know, not getting the whole pot, you know. It's like, and it's creating these different layers, yeah, of kind of passing down to your children. So I'm still learning about all this right now.

No, I, and I think, I think all of us are still learning. One of the things that I talk about in the book that I've learned from, uh, 5 of the wealthiest families that are in my life, um, one of them is a billionaire, the other ones are worth at least a half, half a billion dollars or more. All 5 of them do one thing that is that is totally in common. Every Christmas, after Christmas, they all leave.

All of them leave.

I think 2 of them go up to Denver, Colorado, and they have a family board meeting.

Hmm.

And when I was talking to each one of them, I was like, man, why is this so important? And to come back with you, my children will not get everything because Preferably I leave before my wife leaves. So my wife would get the bulk of everything and then my children will get the rest. But then within my estate with my wife, whenever we get married, wife will be first, children will be next. My church would get a bulk as well of the money. And then my business would get a bulk of the money because I still want my business to still operate and move forward and bless people. And so one of the things that I've learned within this meeting is they're very strategic on making sure that their family is up to date on everything that's happening in the family. So they don't just go up there and just talk about what's in the what's in the the trust, the trust.

Yeah, yeah. No, there's how much money we have.

Yeah, they don't do that. I was shocked. Every family member has to sign an NDA, and they go up there and they talk about hey. Hey, we're struggling in our marriage and this is what we're struggling in. And now all the family is helping them get through that family struggle, man. If they have kids, the kids are talking about, they're asking questions. So the family comes together and they talk about the family business because the last name is what's carrying everybody. And so they're like, hey, we want to make sure that when we leave, And they get our businesses, they get, you know, these millions and millions of dollars that we're going to be passing down to them, that not only do we know that we talk to them about finances, but we talk to them about their spiritual walk. We talk to them about their family, husband and wife issues. We've asked any health questions. So they ask, hey, how was your checkup this year? How are you doing from a medical perspective? Well, I just found out I had colon cancer. Okay, so what are we doing about that as a family? Well, if something was to happen to me, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna have this date. So everyone in the family is fully abreast of everything that's going on, even down to the 10-year-old. The 10-year-old knows what's going on with the family. And I asked him, I said, well, 10-year-old don't know nothing. But that's a problem.

They need to be learning. I feel like as the youngest of 4, no one ever told me anything.

Exactly.

You know, it was like, maybe, maybe they did, but that was my interpretation, you know? But I, I would— I'll hear stuff over the last 10 years and I'd be like, That really happened at this time? Like, no one ever told me this. They always kept me like secret because I was too young.

Yeah.

And maybe you don't tell people ever all the like, oh, you know, this happened with your dad or your mom or whatever, but you got to inform people, hey, we're going through something as a family. Have to, you know, maybe don't give the exact details. Have to.

Um, and it will help the child though too.

Yeah.

Because if my family would have told me they, they were struggling, if my parents would have told me, hey, We're struggling right now. I would not have been as disappointed back then because they made me feel like we weren't struggling. They just didn't want me to do this and go do that and go do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if my family would've been honest and said, hey, you know, I just wanna be honest with you, man. I mean, being an adult, which you will be one day, you're gonna live and have to pay bills, and you're gonna live and have to do this. And son, right now, me and your dad, me and your mom, we just can't do it. And 78% of the people in America do not have a trust and/or will. The number one way to pay for funerals right now is not through an insurance policy, it's through GoFundMe. And it bothers me because when we really look at the people who are raising GoFundMe accounts, I guarantee you, not all, but a lot of them, we can find some type of name brand item. A lot of them we can find something that they should not have purchased. So we choose feeling good over protecting the ones who we love. We choose making sure that we look good and we smell good and we have the right hair, the right haircut, the right car, and make sure our pull-up game is good rather than having a hard conversation and getting an insurance policy and getting a trust and getting a will, getting your health. policy put together, getting your power of attorney put together. Man, I'm 42, and I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning when I was like 36, and I had this strong conviction that you're teaching all this stuff, but you're not practicing what you're preaching. I said, what do you— what, huh? I'm debt-free. I'm good. So no, no, no. If you died today, your family will argue over what Anthony wanted with this stuff.

Hmm.

They wouldn't know what you wanted to do with the business, with your homes, with your portfolio. So you're going to come home, you're going to be in heaven, you're going to be looking down, and your family's going to be arguing because you were selfish. And I try not to get emotional because it really hit me. I think a lot of people are just selfish and we don't care because when we're gone, that's their problem.

Mm-hmm.

But one of the greatest ways we can say we love our families Is by while we're living, planning for our death.

Yeah. And when we're gone, making it more comfortable for them than more stressful for them.

The only thing I want my family to cry over is just me being gone.

Yeah. Not, I get this and you get that and, huh, you didn't show up, whatever it is. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the only thing. And man, that was probably the hardest thing. One of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Because here's why, and this, this is something we got to get out of, and it just bothers me. When I told my family I was doing my will and my trust, you know what the very first question they asked me? What's wrong?

Yeah, yeah, are you sick?

So we automatically attached a negative to the right thing to do.

I think that's normal for a lot of people though. They think that way because they're not thinking about, you know, phase 5. They're not thinking about— they're thinking of survival mode. They're thinking paycheck to paycheck still. And, they're not thinking creating financial freedom and peace for themselves and a sense of clarity for others now and later.

Yes.

And, I bought life insurance for myself in my 20s.

Yes, sir.

Because one, I wanted to lock in a rate that was guaranteed for life.

Yeah.

And two, I was thinking about my future wife and my future kids.

Yes, sir.

And I didn't know when I was going to get married. You know, I got 15, 18 years after I got my first insurance policy.

Wow.

I got married and have kids.

Wow.

But when I bought the life insurance, I was like, this is not for me.

Yes.

I'm spending money every month and every year.

Yeah.

Not for my benefit.

Facts.

For a future person that I don't know.

Facts.

And future kids that are not existing.

Facts.

For them to benefit. And I've been doing that for over a decade and a half, almost 2 decades. I've been— maybe it was almost 2 decades. I've been paying a payment monthly.

Yes.

For people that I didn't know.

Lewis, I say the same thing, man. I have a 529 account right now. 529 account, for the people who don't know, is a college savings account.

For kids that are not born.

That are not born.

It's crazy.

Right. And, and, and, and maybe, maybe I have Maybe I have not, you know, but I haven't even met their mother yet.

Uh-huh.

But for me it was, if I wanna change the narrative, I went to school, I graduated with student loan debt. I, my parents couldn't give me a check. If I wanna change the narrative in the O'Neal family, it starts with me.

Let's go.

And it doesn't start with me when I have kids. It starts with me today with the current mindset. So I sat down, I, what's the strategy? And then when I talked to my financial advisor, she was like, well, hey, here's a strategy. If you wanna start planning for your kids, you can open up a 529 in the state of Maryland. You can write off up to, I think it's what, $1,500 to $2,000.

Before they're born?

Before they're born.

Shut up.

I didn't know that.

But the 529 is going to my trust so that way if something happened to me now, the money goes to my trust. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. But because now it's like, do I wanna pay the IRS that money or do I wanna pay my future kids that money?

Yeah, exactly.

And then now just think about it. Just think about it, man. Just think about it. When they turn 18 and they go to school, I get to look at my kids in the face and say, you know what? Here's a check for $150,000, $200,000 that I only put maybe $20,000, $25,000 into it. I was thinking about you.

Wow.

Before I even met your mama.

Yes.

Before you was even in your mother's womb. Now what happens, Lewis? My kids are gonna be like, what? Dad, how do I do that now?

Mm-hmm.

At 18, at 20. So now we've changed the whole dynamic in the O'Neal family to where we went to having to take out student loans and thinking after the fact, to where now the generation behind me is now thinking way ahead of the fact.

Mm-hmm.

So now they can tell their kids the same thing. Yo, I started thinking about you at 18 years old. Now you got half a million dollars for college because I thought about you 15 years before I even had you.

Yeah.

And so I think when we can start changing that narrative, which I love what you said by getting that, I wish somebody at 22 would've told me to get an insurance policy. My own parents didn't even tell me to get an insurance policy on me. But watch this, they had insurance policy on me though.

Yeah. Yeah.

They was like, well, we gotta get one on this boy. We don't know. But no one sat down with me And gave me the proven path on how to win with money.

Yeah.

On any income. Yeah. And I think, man, you can get an insurance policy on any income. Yep. At any season of your life. You just gotta know how to do it.

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Man, it's joyful. Man, it is. It brings tears to my eyes. Financial freedom Feels like you can say yes when you want to say yes and say no when you want to say no. Financial freedom makes me smile real hard knowing that when I find my wife, I can give her the ring of her dreams and a wedding within my budget of her dreams and not be stressed about Mm-hmm. Freedom feels good when you walk to your mailbox and any envelope that's in there, you know, it's not a bill collector. Freedom makes you sleep better at night. But also, man, freedom puts you in position to take advantage of opportunity. That if you didn't have freedom, you could not take advantage of. And for me, freedom is the goal. Being rich is not the goal. Being wealthy is not the goal. Being free is the goal.

Mm-hmm.

And everyone says, Anthony, one of my friends said, man, Anthony, you can make double the amount of income. I said, yeah, but I won't have freedom. Because if I chase more money, that requires more of my time. And if I give more of my time, then it means I don't have freedom to do the things that I want to do. Like, I'm an HBCU professor right now. I'm not making any money doing that, but I have the freedom to drive up to Richmond, Virginia once a week, every single Wednesday, to talk to 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds. About what we talked about today. I'm using my freedom to be a blessing to this younger generation so when they graduate college, they have the basic information on what they need to do with their jobs and with the income from their jobs. That makes me feel so good. I enjoy teaching at an HBCU more than I actually enjoy teaching on YouTube.

Mm-hmm.

Because I have the freedom to do it.

Mm-hmm.

And it's my choice. And I'm not going there to get a check. I don't have to go there to pay bills. I, when I walk in there, man, and see those kids' eyes light up when I talk about, hey man, this is, this is what compound interest is. You'll be surprised, Lewis, of how many young people do not even know what compound interest is. They, they have this mindset that nothing is free in this world. And nothing is. But you're trying to tell me, Anthony, if I put $5 in this account, they're going to give me $0.25? May not be $0.25, you can get something. But the longer I keep it in there, you mean the more money I will make? And when I show them that, hey, eventually if you keep it over there for a long period of time, you'll see that the majority of your income in your account wasn't even your money.

Crazy, right?

They're like, what? That's, that's what freedom brings me. Like that, I get so excited knowing that in the beginning of the semester, because my class is called Consumer Economics, that is not a sexy subject. But by the end of the semester, man, my students are like, Professor Neal, yours is my favorite class. My students to this day, when they graduate, they still email me. They still ask me questions about this. And that's what freedom puts you in position to do. And I want people to think about this. What could freedom put you in a position to do for your own family, for your own community, for your own kids, for your own spouse, for yourself? Yeah. Freedom, and I'll say this, I'll be quiet. I'm a preacher man, so you got to tell me to shut up. Last time I was on your show, I weighed 196 pounds. I think it was right about a year after I left your show, I woke up in the middle of the night, went to the ER, thought I was having a stroke. Wow.

Really? I didn't know that.

To only find out I had gas.

Oh my gosh.

So I paid $5,000.

Wow.

To find out that I had gas.

Wow.

And my doctor, she said, hey, Anthony, you need to change your health. And I had freedom to where I was able to hire certain things and certain help and change. And today I weigh right about 160 pounds.

Wow.

And I haven't had any heartburns. My blood levels are so, so much better. Still got, still got some work to do. That's what freedom is to me.

Wow. That's cool. Well, speaking of things that a lot of people struggle feeling free around, which is when they get married, merging their money and their assets. Some people, some people get a lot of stress around that, or they feel like it's hard because they've built their own assets, their own financial life, and now they're merging it with a spouse.

Yeah.

I think on the previous episode we were talking about this at the end that we would talk about this. And I know you're not married yet.

Yeah.

But what is the, what is the value when 2 people get married of merging their money, their assets into one unit rather than staying separate? What have you seen or heard from wealthy people that works?

Yeah.

And what have you seen that has been destructive from those who have maybe been married and gotten divorced because of money constraints or the sense of money constraints? What have you noticed or observed?

Yeah, man, I think it's very important to combine. You can't be married and have 2 separate visions for your money. It needs to be one combined vision, one combined strategy, and we both are working that strategy to get to that vision, right? And so I do believe that you should have one main family account that all income and assets are coming into. Then from there, you have an account that pays all of your bills, and from there, you'll have a savings account. But I do believe that Anthony and my wife should have our own spending account.

Mm-hmm.

That we don't have to be accountable to each other about what we're spending in that. Uh, I, uh, look forward to getting married and having a, uh, husband and wife conversation every single month. I'm gonna be smart with it. I'm gonna make sure that I buy her a nice little dress every single month, and we're gonna go to her favorite restaurant or one of her favorite restaurants every single month, and we're gonna have a conversation. Hey, what worked this month? What didn't work this month? What do we need to be prepared for next month? I know we want to go on vacation in July. I know, I know we want to do Christmas, and I know birthday and anniversaries and stuff is coming up. But hey, you know, maybe you want to do something with your girls, or maybe there's something you want to do with the kids. What do we need to prepare for next month? How do we work the vision? Because here's the truth, man. Take away people like yourself and I who have done financially well within our businesses. Let's talk about the average everyday person. The average everyday person cannot afford to, he pay this bill, she pays that bill, and they keep their money separate. No. The quickest way to get out of living paycheck to paycheck and the quickest way to building wealth is to bring y'all income together. Live off of one of y'all salary.

And invest the rest.

And invest the rest. But if you're living off yours and you're living off of yours, you can't do that together. So if you're, if you are a, the average middle-class individual, hey man, no, come together and then come up with a strategy. Hey, I know we make a combined household income of $88,000, but we gonna live off of my $50,000. So whatever apartment or whatever house we can get with this $50,000, that's what we gonna do, bae. With your income, man, we're going to tithe for sure, but man, we're going to invest heavily and we're going to even use some of your income for vacation for the family. But for the bulk of your income, man, we cannot be 80, 90 years old still working because we didn't invest wisely. So we're going to start investing your income into a mutual fund, into index funds, sit down with a financial advisor and invest your income, not just invest it for our retirement, but invest it for our kids too.

Yes.

But if you have 2 separate visions, you'll never get to an end goal quickly. And for me, even at this stage of my life, when I do get married, yeah, we're gonna have some documentation documenting like, hey, this is gonna work. But just in case it doesn't, what I came in with and what you came in with, we can, we can go out that way.

Yeah.

But when we in this thing, nah, it's, it's all one pot.

Yeah.

Let's get to the end goal. Let's put our kids in position to win. How do we bless our church even better? How do we build a dynasty and a legacy together? Man, I get excited about getting married and not doing this on my own. I don't want to keep all my money and all my success to myself because the truth of the fact, as a Christian man, God gave me everything not to be good for the world, but to be a husband and to be a father to my— and a priest at home. I can't do that if I'm coming here saying, oh, all this is mine.

Yeah.

Wait, I did all this for you. Yeah, I did all this for us. Now we gonna be hold— we gonna hold each other accountable. Make sure you good with your money.

Exactly.

You know, but I mean, no, let's, let's do this thing together and we gonna meet every month about the funds. That's good.

That's good. What are the biggest money lies that people have been taught that are quietly keeping them broke?

Oh, manage your credit score is the number one thing that you need. That's bogus. Yeah. That's bogus.

I don't even know what my credit score is.

Yeah, Lewis, it bothers me. Oh man, you know, um, cash ain't king, credit is king. No, it's not. I think that credit and cash are equally important because— and here's the truth, I lived that world. Anyone who knows me, you know. If you don't know, God bless you, my name is Anthony O'Neal. But I lived that world, man, and I didn't have an active score. And my car insurance for my 3 cars was right around $1,300 a month.

3 cars?

3 cars.

Dang, man.

$1,300 a month.

You can only drive one.

Facts.

At a time.

I got rid of one. I'm down to 2 now. I got my dream car and my daily car.

Okay.

Um, and so—

I thought you made your 3 cars like back in the day or something.

I did. I had too much cars.

Wow.

See, I'm human, right?

Now it's different. If you got the, the funds, it's different.

Definitely got the funds. But even still though, with the funds, I was like, like you said, I only can drive one.

Exactly.

So that means one of them gonna be sitting all week.

Exactly.

That's a waste of money. So I went down to 2, and, um, and even with those 2, I went down to $1,130 a month. Well, I did, I did my own thing. I said, you know, let me go car shopping. Went car shopping. My first quote came back at $510.

Whoa.

I was like, wait, what's the difference? So I called my rep at at a particular company I was with, she said, oh, your credit score. When you first signed up with us, you had a non-credit score 'cause you had no open trade lines. Now that you have a house and, you know, actually just real estate on my credit report now, she was like, your score is in the high 7s and even the low 8s. So now you qualify for a cheaper rate.

Wow.

I said, okay, so there is a science to this credit game. Okay. So because I had a decent score, I saved $600, $700 a month.

Mm. That's pretty good.

Right. But how many people do we know have an 800 credit score but don't have $800 in their savings account? So I believe that one of the biggest lies that we tell people is that, man, do not worry about cash. Just make sure you have a real good credit score. score. And that lie is such false because, okay, let's say that's true. If I had this 800 credit score and I go borrow $25,000, but I don't have the money to pay it back, now I'm screwed.

Yeah.

I'm screwed. So I think that's one of the biggest lies. I do believe that it is important, but man, I, I'm like you, Lewis. I just know my score is good because I don't borrow any money like that. So it's like, for me, it's, it's like all my cars, paid for 'em cash.

Mm-hmm.

Um, um, anything I, I'm paying for it cash.

Yeah.

Uh, except for real estate.

Yeah.

I want to get to the point to where I could pay cash for real estate, but I am kind of like, uh, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why? Why?

Pay cash, right? Like, uh, keep that cash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm like, uh, uh, uh, like I may, my primary house, I may pay it off just so I, the family is good. Right. Because I am in the, the content creation space and with AI, we don't know what's gonna happen next 5 to 10 years. So I would love to make sure that the mortgage is paid off, but even still, I'm like, I'm gonna still be making money.

Yeah.

So I don't know really what's the rush.

Right.

Exactly. So yeah.

What's the difference between looking wealthy and actually being wealthy?

You know, that depends on where you are. See, they, that question kind of gets me a little bit. You know, you have the book, The Millionaire Next Door, talking about, you know, he was a millionaire and he lived in, a very modest house and drove like a Ford truck. But let's look at the kind of vacations he was going on. He was flying first class with his family. He was probably spending $30,000, $40,000. I have a friend who's in the NFL right now, I won't say his name, drives a Yukon, drives a Yukon, but every year he'll spend $100,000 on a family vacation.

On a family trip.

Yeah. Because he believes in experiences. So I really can't say what is the difference between someone looking wealthy and being wealthy, because what I may say, oh, he's trying to flaunt. I— here's my philosophy. If you are living below your means and you decide to spend your cash that kind of way, I don't care. People will look at me, I have an expensive car. Cool, great. But I didn't have an expensive house. It did feel weird pulling up to my average house With that expensive car.

Mm-hmm.

But I paid for it cash. I, I'm consumer debt-free. I live way below my means. Right. But it's like, if I work hard, if I pay off all my consumer debt, if I got a fully funded investment portfolio and fully funded emergency fund, however I decide to spend my money, it should be okay.

Yeah.

Like I would never spend $100,000 on a vacation, but I will spend $100,000 on a car. Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

What would you say then are normal money habits that are destroying people's finances?

Yeah, man, we gotta get off of, uh, money habits. Gotta get off DoorDash, Uber Eats. That's a habit that's just destroying us right now. I said, they say on average people are spending anywhere between $4,200 to $6,000 a year.

So how much do they spend in a year?

$4,200 to $6,000 a year.

Oh, unlike, uh—

On just DoorDash.

Really?

So you're going to order McDonald's that typically would cost you about $6 to $10 if you go pick it up. You're spending $21 for a double cheeseburger value meal because DoorDash upped the meals. Oh yeah.

Then the tips.

Then the tips, then the convenience fee.

Wow.

Right? And then if you're going during busy hours, that convenience fee is even higher, right? So that is one habit that we got to stop. We have to stop doing. Here's another habit that we got to stop doing. People don't talk about this. Stop paying premiums, high-end health insurance premiums. Get off of PPO, get into the high deductible ones, and get a high deductible account that's attached to an HSA, health savings account. If you're below 40 and you're healthy and you're just going in once or twice a year to get your average yearly exams and maybe urgent care here and there, man, go get you a high deductible plan that keeps your high deductible costs at $3,000 to $5,000. Before any expenses, put that money inside of a savings account. Most jobs will give you an HSA account and match either the first $500 to $1,000. Put that money inside that account. Now, when you go to the hospital, when you go to Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target, anywhere, now you can see how you can pay tax-free dollars for that Tylenol that you were needing. So now we have to get smart. But because the world has taught us, if I go to the hospital, I only want to pay $25 out of pocket. But how often are you going to the hospital?

Right.

So I think that's another habit that we got to get out of is saying, because that's comfortable. No, man, sit down with yourself, ask yourself, can I afford that? Can I afford to go down to a high deductible plan?

Stop living paycheck to paycheck. The proven path to break free from debt, build real wealth, and Live Free.

Yes, sir.

On Any Income. Make sure you guys get a copy, get a few copies for some friends that might be struggling financially. If you're looking to really stabilize your finances, create that vision for yourself, that money vision, eliminate the debt, start investing and saving, and start feeling the freedom that you want to feel. I'm excited about you, uh, this book for you, man. So I want everyone to get this book and make sure to support our guy Anthony O'Neill. Is there any final money lesson that you've learned in the last couple years that you feel like would be helpful for anyone listening or watching right now?

Man, I put so many inside of the book, but I think one of the lessons that I've learned when it comes to money is money is a game and you're either the player Or the piece. And I think that the majority of people are the piece and they're being picked up and played around with.

They're being played.

And I think for me, when I really learned that, that I had to transition myself from the player to— not a player, from the piece to the player, man, I learned it. There's so many ways you can build credit without borrowing any money. But we're, we're just not taught that.

Mm-hmm.

And we talk about that inside the book. There's so many different ways you can invest without making $60,000, $70,000 a year. We talk about that inside the book. There's, there, money is a game, more so of a game. Money is just a strategy. And there's a strategy for everybody on any income level. The strategy change as your income changes. You go from $50,000, you're on this strategy. You're at $70,000, you're on this strategy. You're on $100,000, you're on this strategy. Watch this, from $100,000 to about $500,000, you're on that same strategy. And so that's one of the biggest things that I really learned. And I spent time, I had this book done before my last book. But I wanted to make sure that this book literally were— there's no fluff in there. It's not a lot of stories. It's here's the strategy, for the place and the season of where you're in. And if you follow that strategy, you'll be consumer debt-free within 12 to 18 months. Within the next 3 years, your whole financial situation will be changed around.

AnthonyO'Neal.com. Anthony O'Neal on YouTube, Instagram, everywhere on social media. Again, make sure you guys get the book, Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck. Um, a couple final questions for you. Yeah, I've asked you this question before a few different times. It's called the 3 Truths. But I'm going to ask you in a different way.

Okay.

If you could only leave behind the world with 3 money truths, 3 lessons that you know to be true about money that you would leave behind, but we didn't have access to any other money content that you had ever, what would those 3 money truths be for you?

Number one, give, give back 10% as far as and be generous. And activate the spiritual realm for you. Number 2, make sure that you budget and write down every single dollar. Spend every single dollar on paper first. And then number 3, invest. Position your money to make more money over a period of time because your money will work harder than you will. Invest at least 15 to 20%. That's it.

Final question, Anthony, what's your definition of greatness?

Man, you know, it's changed, man. I think my definition of greatness is what have you accomplished that no one else can see, that only you and God can see? And that means only me and God can say that I'm great. Wow.

Wow.

Lewis can't, the world can't, only me and God can say I'm great. And that's my definition of greatness is what have you done behind closed doors that contributes to who you exude outside for everyone? That's my definition. My man.

My man.

Appreciate it, brother.

Appreciate you, sir.

100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. The perpetual pen tapper. The arbitrary fridge reorganizer. The holiday party planner that starts in May. Principal knows your star employees have their work quirks. Principal also knows how much these employees mean to your business. You need them. They need benefits. Work with Principal so they can help you help your team with a retirement and benefits plan that's right for them. Principal Life Insurance Company, Des Moines, Iowa.

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