Wealth by the Decade - Messy 30s

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This is the affluent entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Welcome to this special series, wealth by the Decade. This was a special one that I think is really important. But here's the thing. At the beginning of each of these episodes, the twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties, and the sixties, I talk about what does it take for you to build build wealth, no matter the age or stage. So it's the foundational elements. What that means for you is this. If you listen to one of the episodes from the prior decades, maybe you listen to the 30s, and now you want to listen to the 40s. That beginning is going to be the same. So just skip ahead and get to the core content for your decade. But if you haven't listened to the setup, make sure you listen to setup at least once because that's the foundation of to make sure that you build wealth in the decade you're in. Enjoy the episode. Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the Affluent Entrepreneur show. This is the beginning of a special series. You know, often I get asked, you know, what do you do in your 20s, your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s? What do we do? Depending on your stage or age in life. And the reality is that you can't figure out your wealth journey, your the things you should be doing with your money. If you don't look at it from the context and the construct of where you are in your life, how much time you have left and those kinds of things. So I decided to create a special series called wealth by the Decade. And so I'm Going to walk you through some of the key elements that you need to consider as you start to look at your wealth, depending on where you are in your life now, before you go jumping ahead and saying, well, I'm not in my 20s or I'm not in my 30s, or I'm not in my 40s, and skipping those parts of the series, there's some valuable elements that build on each other going through the whole series. So I'm going to invite you to go through the absolute whole series, no matter what your age is, no matter what decade you're in. You know, it can also help that maybe you have children or grandchildren that need to hear some of this stuff. So I want you to go through all of it and take the notes. I'm going to walk you through a couple of things each decade. We're going to talk about the theme of that decade, we're going to talk about the focus for that decade, we're going to talk about the priority for that decade, we're going to talk tactically about what you need to do for that decade, and then we're going to talk about some cautions, what are the things you need to watch out for in each decade. This is going to be powerful. This is going to be incredible, I think, because it's one of the things that I get asked most often. But before we do that, I want to set up kind of the whole idea of wealth creation, at least the fundamentals, because no matter what your age or stage or whatever decade you're in, this applies. And so I want to talk about the wealth triad, the wealth drivers triad, and. And what are the stages, what I call the journey, the financial liberation journey, so you understand where you might be and what to do. So in order to do that, I'm actually jump to my iPad and walk through some of the things that I think we need to bring into bear. So here's the thing. When we start to look at this and we start to look at what drives wealth, because this is going to impact everything that you do, is that there are truly three wealth drivers that we can have that drive things. And so the first, and this is the thing that most people think that they need and that is this. It is all about money.

And I get it, we need to have money, we need to have income, we need to have money coming in to, to make that happen. But if you've watched me for any length of time or if you've seen some of the work that I've done, it's not the money that's the sole contributor to building wealth. Look, we want wealth not because we want wealth. Now, some people maybe, but not me. I want wealth. So it allows me to get behind the causes, to move my missions forward, to create a movement, to have the moments in my life and to control those moments. Maybe you're the same way. The reality is that the reason we want money, Money is a result. It is not. A purpose is to fulfill a purpose. It could be to take care of our children, our grandchildren. To get behind a movement. It could simply be to sit back and say, I just want to control my life. Whatever it is, there's something beyond the money. And so although money.

Is a necessary ingredient to building wealth, it's not the only ingredient, because we can have lots of money coming in, and if we have lots of money going out, we're not building wealth. So that's the one ingredient. First ingredient. The second ingredient that we need to consider is time.

And that is this is that. And I hear this all the time. You know, people that are younger, they're in their 20s or 30s or even their 40s and say, I got time. I got time. Or I hear people that are in their 50s and 60s and say, it's too late. I don't have time. Well, the fact of the matter is, time is what it is. It's a factor we can't control. We are either. We are at a certain age and stage in our life, period, end of story. But, and I want you to hear this really clearly, it is never too early to start, okay? It is never too early to start building wealth. Time is the greatest lever you have to creating wealth. So the earlier start, the easier it is, the less money we have to bring in. You know, it goes back to my whole Emily factor, when we talked about my granddaughter being born. And the fact is that if all I did was put away, you know, 100 bucks a month, $20,000 over 20 years, and just did that, she'll have a million six by the time she was ready to retire. And it's because time did the heavy lifting. 20,000 to a million six. If we started that at 30 or 40 or 50, it's a little bit of a heavier lift. Time is the greatest lever when it comes to your wealth building. Now, that that also means this.

The best time to get into the investing game, the best time to get into the wealth creation game is now. If we didn't do it yesterday, then. Now. Because here's the thing. If we don't get into it now, then it's just going to shorten the Runway and it's going to make it a bit more difficult as we get older. Now, it doesn't mean it's impossible, okay? It just means it's more difficult. So why do the heavy lifting? Let time do the heavy lifting for you. So money, time. And number three. Number three.

That nasty word, discipline.

Let me tell you this, this is the place where I think a lot of people fall off, is the discipline. You know, there's a study that was done, 10,000 millionaires was done. And literally the majority of those millionaires, they weren't like entrepreneurs. They weren't, you know, mega entrepreneurs that sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. They were wage earners that consistently and persistently put money away over time in their 401k, in their investment accounts, everything, and they ended up becoming millionaires over time. Discipline is one of the greatest catalysts to building wealth. Here's the thing. Remember I say wealth is not about the money. It is a behavioral issue. Well, discipline is about your behaviors. If we don't get in the game early, or if we don't get in the game now, whatever the age or stage you're at, and stay disciplined in the game of wealth creation, then what happens is you make money, you lose money, you make money, you build wealth, you lose wealth, you build wealth. But what happens is it's an up and down and you don't necessarily get ahead. So when you have the three key ingredients of money, time and discipline, things shift for you. Now let's look at what happens when you have these things in place. Because if we truly have.

Money and time, what it gives us is leverage.

It gives us leverage. The time does the heavy lifting. Now, I don't have to be feel the burden of putting so much away. Time will do it. I'm going to give you some numbers as we go through each of the decades here, okay? Now, when we have money and discipline, in other words, the discipline of our spending, the discipline of our earnings, and the discipline of our investing, we have money coming in, we have money going out, and we have money staying home, hopefully. And it's the money that's staying home, what we do with that, that starts to create the wealth building, the money machine, that's going to give you the freedom, the wealth machine that gives you the freedom to choose to have the option to work because you want to, not because you need to. To be able to decide whether you're going to take a project on or not to Decide that you're going to take a month off, like, like my son and his wife are doing, and go to. Going to Portugal. We're going to join them, you know, so those kinds of things. And what that means is that when you manage your income, your inflows and your outflows effectively and what's staying at home, you're creating margin in your life, but you're doing it from a financial standpoint also. And so this starts to really drive things. Now, when you have discipline and time.

What happens is you start to create habits, and those habits give you consistency.

And this, this, my friends, this is the key. These are the three wealth drivers. When we start to understand how to manage all of these. And time is always going to be defined as now. It's never too early, it's never too late, it's now. Okay, so hopefully this makes sense to you now. There is, there are stages to go through, and I've had so many people that say, you know what, you know, what's my financial freedom number? Okay, what's my phi number, my fire number, all that stuff. And sometimes those numbers can get really large, which means that they feel so far away. And so you're in many cases sitting back saying, I, I don't think I never get there, but I want to, I want to, I want to bring something to you. I want to give you kind of this, the four stages, the four steps you have to go through. Because let's face it.

Whether you're in debt or whether you have hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars.

If we need to get to $1,000, we pass through $100. If we need to get to 10,000, we pass through $100, then that thousand dollars, then $5,000, and we get to 10,000. If we need to get to a million, we have to pass through the hundred, the thousand, the 10,0001-000005-00000 to get there. Realize that it's a journey, it's not destination. And there are, there are milestones in this journey that I call the financial liberation journey. And I think that when you start to understand that all I'm trying to do is get to the next milestone, then I'll worry about the next milestone. And then the next. When we turn around and say, I got to get to 5 million, if that's the number, it feels lofty and unreachable and impossible. And so, too often, we stop. We stop. But what we need to do is put little milestones that say, oh, I'm on track I'm doing well. And then before you know it, your discipline, your money and your time get you to the 5 million and you go, gosh, how did I get here? Well, you got there by moving through the four stages of the financial liberation journey. So let's look at them, because here's the thing, when we talk about the financial liberation journey. And this is, this is.

This is financial liberation. This is the journey, the path. And.

And so here's the thing, we have to move through each of the stages, and you might find yourself in one of these stages, and none of them are good, bad, or indifferent. It just allows you to understand where you are, what your focus is, and what to do next. And so hopefully that this will start to make sense to you and give you some ways to look at it. The very first stage that we have to pass through that hundred dollars, if you will, is what we call what I call.

Financial stability.

What is financial stability? Financial stability is when you have enough assets generating enough income that it actually covers your necessities. I mean, and I mean necessities. That means the roof over your head, the food that you're eating, your medical, your transportation, your shelter, your clothing, the necessities, the bottom rung of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Once we have that, that's the stability. Those are the things that we need to take care of. Now all of a sudden you say, I'm stable, my necessities, my survival covered. Okay. And if we have our survival covered, it gives a level of peace of mind. We know that we're okay now. It may not be the lifestyle we want, it may not be the lifestyle we, we have currently, but at least we're not on the street. At least we're not in debt. At least we're not struggling to just survive. So we need to get to that stability line first. And so if you're in debt or you're struggling, you're living. Check, check. There's some things that we need to do to get some things dialed in. We'll talk about those decade by decade. And then, because then once we get to the stability stage, we can move to the next stage. And that next stage is what I call.

Financial.

Security.

And financial security, if financial stability is your necessities, financial security.

Is your current expenses, your current lifestyle expenses, if you will. And so if I look at it and let me just throw some numbers to it, if my survival, my rent or my mortgage, my medical, my, you know, my food, my clothing, transportation, let's say that that was $2,000. Okay. So I would need to generate enough income, $2,000. If I did that, then I am at the financial stability line. But.

That'S just the necessities. What about things like Netflix and mani pedis and other luxuries and, you know, and the gym membership and all those things? Those are lifestyle expenses. Those are lifestyle expenses. They're not necessity. Now I get it. You might say to me, mel, it's necessary, I get it. All right, but the reality is they're not. But those are lifestyle expenses. This is where we have to get to for financial security, where we can support our current lifestyle. Hopefully this makes sense. So our current lifestyle is then supported. Now we have financial security because now we sit back and say, I can keep living this lifestyle without having to worry. And so if our necessities were $2,000, and let's say that in order to continue our lifestyle, including the necessities, it's $5,000. That means that I need $3,000 more. So financial, your financial security is a total of $5,000, which is the 3,000 for lifestyle and the 2,000 for financial stability. Now we're doing well. Now we're at the security line. Now we know that our current lifestyle is safe. That leads us to stage number three.

Stage number three is financial.

Independence.

So stage number three, financial independence is where we have enough income being generated to replace 100% of the income that we currently have. So let's keep with the numbers. $2,000 for necessities, another 3,000 for.

Security. So that's a total of 5,000. But let's say you're earning $7,000 a month. Well, financial independence replaces the income that you have, which is $7,000, which allows you to pay for the expenses that are necessities and lifestyle. And have money left over. Okay. And have money left over. So financial independence here is replacing the income. And let's say that that is $7,000. Okay? So that is the financial independence line, which then leads us to this last place, which is what I call.

Financial freedom.

The financial freedom is when we have the opportunity and the ability to fund are what we call an affluence vision. When I work with people in the affluence blueprint or with my one on one clients, we create the vision for their life, the ultimate vision. So this is the, the lofty goals that allow you to do the things you want to do, get behind the missions, the movements, and do things without concern. This is the big, the big kahuna, the big number that you're looking for. So it supports everything. So you're completely free. You can live life on your terms, the way you want. Okay, that number could be anything, but we have to figure it out. Too often we don't know what our target is, so we just keep running. I did that. And so the idea here is this, is that to understand.

That this is a journey that requires you to go through stages.

And it's not just you jump up to financial freedom. So when we do this and when we look at the stages and the decades of our life, we start to look at it through these eyes to understand that I'm going to be. Whether I'm at the stability stage or security stage, or independent stage or freedom stage, we're at different stages. Totally fine. The fact that you know what stage you're at allows you to know what the next milestone is. Okay, so that's the financial liberation journey. And I think when you look at the three wealth drivers and the journey now, you understand some of the elements that come into play with building wealth. All right, so with that, let's jump to the decades. All right, let's jump to the 30s. This decade is a fun one. This one is affectionately called the messy middle, because there's all kinds of messy stuff going on in our lives in our 30s. You know, we're building families, we're. We're having kids, we're trying to figure out directions we might be moving, buying a home. All kinds of changes financially are coming about during this decade of life. Hence the messy middle. All right, so as we did in the. In. In the last decade, going to talk about it in different components of the theme, the focus, the priorities, the tactics, the cautions, and the things that you need to do next. All right, so the theme for the messy middle for the 30s is stability. You know, with all the changes that are going on with the fact that, you know, many might get married or have just gotten married, they may be having kids, you might be having kids, looking at buying your first home. All those things create and can create havoc, not only financially, but personally in our lives. And so our theme is to find stability, to make decisions that ground us and stabilize our financial foundation, our life foundation, and our ability to move forward. Okay, so as I look at things in the messy middle in the 30s, I'm always looking at it with a perspective as, does this make my stability stronger or does it weaken it? All right, with that, let's talk about the focus. Now, some of these are going to be consistent throughout the decades because I think they never stop. For instance, the first focus is your why. See, in the 30s, because we might be starting a family, because we might be buying a home or moving and starting to develop in our careers or our, our path to progress in our businesses. If we're entrepreneurs, our why may be shifting. And so therefore we need to start rethinking and re looking at our why as to what it is we're considering. So focus number one is always going to be on the why. We just need to bring that to bear. So the theme.

Is stability.

And focus is always going to start with the why and it's always going to have some component of education. Because, look, as things shift, as things change, so does your knowledge need change. So again, keeping consistent, keep staying in the game. With your education, growing a little more with your financial acumen, growing a little more with understanding investments, growing a little more with your money management skills, growing a little more by listening to podcasts, by watching shows. Hint, hint, hint mine. Stay with me, stay with me. I'm with you all the way. All right? Reading books, getting in courses, taking control of your financial future. So you are in control. Now the other focus here that I think starts to come into play and this is something we need to be mindful of and that's actually family, especially if you're building a family.

And I, and I say this because the tendency now is to say, I'm going to work like crazy.

And that's great and you should, but if it is at the cost of your relationships and your family, I want you to re look at it and say, not whether you can or can't, but how can you. You know, I went through this as a single full time dad. Okay? Single full time dad. I was in my 30s. This is when it happened, you know, So I was 30, 35, effectively when this happened. And when Jeremy drew that picture of me where he saw me just constantly working, it would have been easy for me to just say, hey, dude, I got to do this. I got to do this because I got to pay the bills, I got to do that. But it wasn't. And that's a true statement. I had to do it.

But the question I needed to ask myself was this. Do I have to do it this, this way? And the answer was no.

There was a better way for me to create.

Wealth, to create income, and to build my relationship with my son to be a good dad. At the same time, they can coexist. It's what gave rise to the affluence blueprint and the things that I do today, it's the way I learned to build my business. I started looking and say, what do I need to do differently to make sure that I have the family that I want to have, to be the dad I want to be? But to create the wealth, the financial freedom, and the income that I need. And it is possible, and it's based on priorities, it's based on processes, it's based on principles. The same things that I teach in the show and I teach in the affluence blueprint and work with my clients.

Because forsaking the family for the sake of. Of income.

Will cost you more in the long run than I think that you're willing to bear, because we don't realize the cost of losing family. Okay? And this is a guy who is in his 60s now looking back and saying, I'm so glad that I did it the way I did it. I'm so glad that I went through the trials, the challenges, and found a way. And it's what drives me now is because I have this. I have this great relationship with my son today and built it over time. I want you all to have a strong family, a strong income, a strong wealth, a strong generosity, strong all of it. It's possible. Okay, now, so that's focus number three. Another focus that I think happens here is this is a time when we start to redefine some things.

Because.

We are typically moving away from just living on our own and building for our own. We're building for others. We're creating legacy for someone else. It's our spouse, it's our significant other, it's our children. It's a movement, it's a mission. So a lot of times, we start to redefine our lives. And I want you to be open to being willing to say, hey, what worked for me in the last decade isn't maybe as important or a priority in this decade. Totally cool. And this is about expanding your foundation. You know, a focus on expanding your financial foundation. The strength of that structure to carry you forward. That means your investments, your plans and structure. We'll talk more about that in the tactics and then.

Finding margin in the money to use. This is a place in our 30s where our expenses can get away from us. If we're not careful, we start to outlive our income or we start to allow our lifestyle to creep. I want you to enjoy life, but I want you to do it with intent. In other words, it's an intentional spend. You've made the choice and it's not something that all of a sudden you find yourself in a place where you're going, wow, how am I spending all this money? I don't want it to creep up on you. I want you to be in control of it. So in that focus, if you have these focuses in place, it allows you to then have some priorities.

And so now let's look at the priorities. And there's four priorities when we get into our 30s. I think the first is this. And this goes back to family. We need to get harmony in our lives. I don't believe that there's such a thing as work life balance. Balancing insinuates that you have counterbalancing weights that are pulling against each other. That in the, in, in the end it's a balance that's like saying my feet are in the freezer, my head is in the frying pan, on average I'm warm. It doesn't work that way. I think things have to harmonize our life, our work, our hobbies, our family, they need to work in concert with each other. Otherwise we don't experience the richness of life. So our, our priority is to find that harmony and harmony will come from intentionally making choices, deliberately making decisions.

I want you to priority is now to make sure that you are shifting to a career and calling focus versus a job focus. We talked about that in the last decade, but really here, how are you developing a calling and something that is going to have a grander future you that's going to develop over time. Okay. And finding the joy in that journey. The third priority is.

Avoiding the distractions. Your income during this time is going to grow and it'll probably have a tremendous amount of growth in this decade and the next decade. And so distractions can come in where all of a sudden we spend on things we shouldn't be spending on or that we, we don't really need. So beware of those distractions. And then the last priority is to control the controllables.

Things like our spending. Things like making sure that we're taking care of ourselves health wise. Things like our relationships and spending time and everything. Control the control. There's a, plenty of stuff that's uncontrollable. I don't know what the stock market's going to do. I don't know what the economy is going to do. I can't control that. I can't control what the, some of the, some of the, the nutcase politicians will do. I don't, I don't know, you know, But I can control some things and I can control the controllables and then prepare for the things that I can't control. Those are my priorities in my, in my 30s. Okay, what are the tactics? All right, tactically, there's a couple things that, that now we're going to get a little more involved here in the tactics. First off, number one, you must @ this stage have your comfort and emergency and emergency or peace of mind, fun in place. That means that you're going to have, you're going to have. At this stage you should have 12 to 18 months.

Of expenses in a high yield cash account. I know that's a lot, but if you've got a family and a family is growing, if it's a single income household, not a two income household, all those things play into it. I want you to make sure that you have that fund in place. It must be in place. Number two, tactically, I want to make sure that you are pushing 20% of your income into investments, into a 401k, into Roth, into investment accounts, on autopilot. Now, if you are behind and you're just starting out, that 20% might need to go to 25%. If you. We do a financial plan and we detail it out, we start to see some things, we may need a little more than that to make it work. Okay? But I want you to make sure that you are making it a priority and that you're doing that on a regular basis and put it on autopilot. Out of sight, out of mind, no effort, no involved. So that's the second tactic. Number three, this is a wonderful time for you to take advantage of tax free accounts like a Roth IRA or a Roth 401K, max that out because when it comes out.

It'S going to come out tax free. Now if your tax rate is higher, say above 25, 28%, maybe you go with the taxable account and get the tax deduction because of the benefit. There's. But if you're in a low tax bracket, still.

You want to look at that. Now I'm not giving you specific advice because I don't know your specific circumstances, but this is part of the plan for you to start to look at what's going on. So that's number three. Number four, and you've heard it before, is I want you to make sure that you're maxing out the match. If your employer is matching your contribution to your 401k, then I want to make sure that you're getting that employer's free Money. Pick up the twenties, pick up the hundreds that they're putting down on the table because they're yours. Grab them. Okay, again, just like in the 20s, low cost ETFs, index funds, target date funds. It makes it easy.

And then now you can start looking at you've got all these things in place. I'm funding my retirement, I'm maxing the match, I've got it in place. And now you can start looking further at investing in real estate. Here's my caution here. I don't want you over buying, I don't want you chasing it. Beware of over leveraging yourself. We're going to see low rate loans, variable rate loans that maybe are affordable at the beginning, that can't be affordable when they start to adjust. Be aware of that when you go into it. Now here's a couple things that we didn't do in our 20s that I want you to do now. I want you to start tracking your net worth. There is a training around net worth that I'll make sure that we hook up at the end of this so you can get access to it, that'll talk about it. But this is the number I want you tracking for the rest of your life. This is the thing that's going to drive you understanding whether you have the level of money machine that's going to give you the financial freedom that you deserve.

So you're going to do regular net worth tracking at least once a year. I do mine monthly. You don't need to be that dogmatic about it. Once a year at a minimum. If you want to do it quarterly. Great. Okay. So net worth tracking is really something that's important now. And I'll make sure that you get the training video to understand what that is. This is a time where you might want to start looking at do I need advice? Do I need a money coach, do I need a mentor, do I need a planner? Someone, someone like myself, someone like someone else that can help you out to make sure that you have all the pieces in place properly. Because I get it, it's not your everyday thing, but at least you understand that. And then two other things that are tactics that I think we need to think about at this stage. Making sure, number one, making sure that you have the right insurances in place. Now when we talk about insurance here, I do not, I am not a proponent of getting, getting a ton of insurance because Lord knows they, they don't need me selling for them. But there are some insurances that I think you need to Start considering, especially if you're a business owner, especially if you are building a family, you're starting to collect assets, that kind of thing. And so the. So when we talk about insurance.

There'S a couple things that I want you to consider. First off is you may need life insurance.

I'm going to be really clear with you, okay? I don't want you getting sold into some crazy whole life policy where, oh, they're making this whole big, big stink about, hey, we'll invest the money for you and you have this cash value and all that stuff that's overpaying premiums so they can invest for you and you can do better on your own, I believe. And that's what's been proven out for a long time. There are some very unique circumstances where that might make sense, but highly unlikely at this stage. Simply get term life insurance. Term. That's it. It's to ensure the income streams that you have coming in and then we'll invest the difference. I don't want you overpaying premiums so you can pay someone else's commission. And they make a lot of money on those policies so you can get substandard, subpar returns and they promise you cash flow somewhere down the road. It just doesn't make sense. It truly doesn't. Okay. In most cases. Okay. So life insurance is something I would look at, you know, 10 times your annual income in life insurance at this age. If you're good health, it's going to be relatively inexpensive. Get a million dollar policy for probably 1,000 bucks or less. Okay?

An umbrella policy.

Is something you might want to consider. Umbrella policy is going to cover anything that can happen that isn't covered by your, by other, other policies like your homeowner, your car and all that stuff. It's to cover things if there's some sort of devastating impact, devastating something. Okay, so an umbrella policy and then the other one that I'd like you to consider and a lot of people don't think about is this a disability policy? Here's the thing. If you live an active life at all, the likelihood of disability versus death is much greater. Look, I herniated three discs in my back. I couldn't walk. I was disabled for a while. You know, I had the cancer, I had the bike accident. I had a disability policy that every single time that happened, they wrote me a check well into the six figures so I could pay the bills.

And then focus on my healing. So I wasn't worried about that. And too often we don't think About a disability policy. I want you to look at a disability policy that will make sure that you get paid or you get payment.

If, God forbid, something happens. And we're talking long term disability, typically the wait period is 90 days. So I have to be disabled for 90 days before they're going to start paying. So it's not like a short term disability. This is something that's going to be around for a while. Okay. So I would look at a disability policy that, and there's a couple of different ones. Own occupation or not an own occupation is a very narrow definition. You talk to. I don't sell insurance, but I want you to look into it because that will cover your ability to earn. If you're disabled, you'll have life insurance to cover the people you love and their lifestyle. If God forbid, something happens, you'll have an umbrella policy that if something happens and you're liable for something that will pay off. And all we're trying to do is corral any losses and limit your exposure in that process. So insurances. And one more thing. This is a time where I want you to start considering estate documents. You know, our building net worth. What happens if you've got kids, if you start acquiring property? This is a time to start looking at, do I need a trust? Okay. Many cases you ought to have a trust, but it depends on each state. Each state's very different. California happens to be a probate state, so if someone passes away, the state takes some fees to try and manage the estate. Well, if you have a trust, you avoid all those fees and those fees aren't cheap. So depending on your state, you're going to want to get advice from an estate attorney. But this may be the time where you want to make sure you have a trust in place that takes into consideration the assets, the income, and if you have kids, the guardianship and all those things. The way you can, you can create trust documents that embed your values into it for your children. So they don't get, they don't just get money for the sake of money, but they get money because of performance and all that stuff. So we did that. So those are the things that I would look at. Let me just go back through it again. Your peace of mind fund in place, investing 20, 25% minimum on autopilot. Make sure that you're, you're maxing out the match. If your tax rate is on the lower side, put it into, into a Roth. If it's on the higher side, you might want the tax, the taxable tax deduction accounts.

Low cost ETFs, index or target date funds to make it easy at this at the start and max out the retirement. Once you're maxing out that retirement, you can start looking deeper into real estate. But don't over buy net worth tracking, possibly getting a financial coach or mentor. Get your insurances in place. Make sure you have estate docs. All right, what are the cautions? What are the cautions in the messy middle? I told you, there's a lot going on in the 30s, a lot going on in the 30s. And so that's why we call it the messy middle. Here's the thing, here's two major cautions. They're kind of the same. One is avoid the keeping up with the Jones syndrome. What do I mean? You see your neighbor just bought a car and you want to buy a car. You're watching on social media and comparing and going, look what they got. I got to go do that. You start allowing.

The things that people outside of you are doing to impact your buying decisions. Avoid trying to stay up. Live life intentionally your way, by your definition. That's why clarity is so important. That's why your why is so important. And because this can get you in trouble. Because you start buying things that you probably wouldn't have otherwise bought because someone else did. Keeping up with Joneses is a syndrome that can bury you. And here's the deal. The Joneses, they're broken. Okay? I don't want you to go there. That also leads me to the second caution. Now, the second caution is lifestyle creep.

Typically, your income is going to continue to go up. And what happens if we start to expand our lifestyle for this? Because our income is going up. And I'm all for celebrating and doing that. The question is, do we overdo it? Lifestyle starts to creep and over expand beyond the income, or that our ability to create a financial freedom future is shrinking because we're taking the margin we have and using it to live today. So as long as we keep the discipline and we keep that margin going into investments and we slowly expand our lifestyle, great. But we do it intentionally. We don't allow it just to happen. Okay, so those are the two cautions there. Here's the magic million dollar number. Okay, in your 30s. Now remember in the 20s it was like 150, 170, $180 a month would get you to a million. Here at age 35, you're going to need to start putting away somewhere between 400 and $500 a month, it starts creeping up here because we're getting laid. We're shrinking down the timeline to make that happen. All right. I hope this helps. I hope this gives you some things to consider if you're in this decade. Okay? And I get it. I threw a lot at you. Come back, listen to it again, watch it again, take notes. We'll make sure that we hook you up with some additional resources and guidance as we go through. But that's the messy middle. That's the messy 30s. All right, next stop. Next stop. We're going to the fortunate 40s now. We're going to the next decade. I'll see you in the next decade. Cheers. Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine where we help you learn how to master your money and to how eliminate financial stress and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor. Go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.