EP 483 – Top 10 Tips For Financial Security with Keaton Munster

This is the no Closer show where.

You get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for pennies on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host, CEO of We Close Notes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Note Closure Show. Scott Carson, your host here today. Always excited to be here today. And we've got our good buddy Keaton Munster joining us from Quest Trust Company this morning live here in Austin, Texas.

Hey, guys.

Hey. Good morning, Keaton. How's it going, bud?

Morning, Scott. I'm pretty good. How about yourself?

I can't complain. Cannot complain. It's another first Monday of the month. So we got Money Mondays.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm excited about today. I'm excited about the topic we're going to discuss.

It's also too, the first day of the second half of the year, you know what I mean? You think about how fast the first half went. The second half often has a tendency to go a little bit faster, don't you think?

Always. Yeah. When you hit that backside, the back six months, man, it's always done. Christmas is here no matter what.

That is definitely the truth. And so many people we've talked to, so many people reach out to us. And I know that they reach out to you guys as well for the retirement, for their IRA accounts, to start putting stuff in, investing things, get their money working for them. And today's topic is something that you put together. You want to talk a little bit about how you kind of came up with this before we dive into the top 10 tips we're going to discuss today.

Yeah, absolutely. So basically, I mean, just looking through research, not necessarily just for everybody in general, I was looking at being a younger guy, just looking at what you need to look at as a, I mean, for lack of a better term, millennial to think about your retirement. Everybody's out here, you know, trying to live their best life, and they spend every dollar they make, but they don't think about what repercussions that's going to have down the road. Right. You always want to have a good time. You want to make sure everything's covered for you, your children, your sp, even if you don't have them, you're going to want to look into that. So when I was researching it, I was just looking to see what are the best things you want to keep in mind to make sure that your portfolio is good, that you're safe, whether you're an aggressive investor or a more of a moderate. I want to mess around a little bit here and there. I don't want to lose too much money. So I kind of just basically compiled the top 10 things that most of the experts have said from all the research and put them together in a top 10 list, really. Top 10.

So we've got Keaton's top 10 tips. Right. So we almost need like a late night, like countdown thing there.

Right? Right, right. Yeah, I need a countdown to hit them all the way down to number one. So I mean, we can either go just a straight one through 10 or I can start.

Let's start with number 10 of the top 10 tips and work our way up that way.

So number 10, working with a financial, an experienced financial planner, you don't want to sit down with somebody that maybe not necessarily that you worked with your whole life, but you want to look and do research. Because again, it's like I was saying, everybody's got a different investment strategy. Right. Whether you're going to be aggressive, you're going to be more passive, you're going to be kind of sit back and hopefully, you know, have passive income without paying attention to it too much. But you also want to make sure that you've got somebody that's an expert in their financial matters that fit your moral passage of investing. So I highly believe in that. Again, quest, we specialize in one thing, right? We deal with retirement accounts through alternative investments. And if you want to invest in that, we're the guys who pride ourselves on our education. But we're not going to help you with the, you know, the public market. We don't really know, we don't follow that, we don't pay attention to it enough to be able to educate them. So. Right. So you always want to make sure that, you know, you're picking the guys that are going to help you the most.

So true that you've got to know where you're going, your advisors, because you got to be very careful. Like you just don't want to deal with just one banker or just one financial advisor who doesn't meet the same type of goals that you have. Because as an ex financial advisor, you're trained one way as a banker to push products or to push other things. And this is really key out there for everybody is that, hey, your financial advisor has to have some experience in dealing with people who are in a spot where you want to Be. I think that's a big thing, too. You got to talk with people, get good recommendations, and then it's an interviewing process. Not every advisor is created the same, right, Keaton?

No, yeah, no, I highly agree with that. I mean, just like I said, I mean, if you called me and you asked me what's going on with the market and if the mutual funds that are out there are good to invest in, I'm not going to be able to give you a straight answer. But if you ask me how you can get a solid return in tax free money through real estate investments, I can sit down and talk to you for a few hours.

Yeah, exactly. And then it's all about structuring. Like we had Rebecca Miller on last month talking about the different employer plans and figuring out, okay, where are you at? Where are you wanting to do? How much are you wanting to put away? And kind of go that route as well too, for you, right?

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure that was a great podcast. He is top knowledge when it comes to those specialty plans.

Yeah, it was awesome out there. So, all right, so that was. Number 10 is making sure you put somebody good on your team to help you out with it. Let's talk about number nine.

Number nine, yeah. So this one is. It's not, maybe not for everybody, but for anybody that's married, your spouse, you want to consider your spouse because you're a team, right? Whether you file everything together or you do all your expenses together, vice versa, whatever it is, you want to make sure that they're either on the same page as you or they're saving for retirement as well. Because if they're not, that's something that you need to make sure that you're budgeting for, they're not working and you're the sole source of income, or if they're going to retire before you will, vice versa, whatever is involved with your partner in life, it's a partnership, right? So you want to make sure that you consider what they're looking into and their future for their savings, match it with yours. Because again, if you don't have an understanding of what's going to be going on in their mind for that future, you want to consider to be able to take advantage of the opportunity to grow it even bigger so you can supplement the income for the both of you when you retire. See, obviously, retirement's the best time, right? Everybody's trying to have a good time. But if you can't, if your spouse can't be there with you, you know, you got to make sure that everything's taken care of.

Yeah, that's the most important thing is setting goals and working towards a common goal for the most part, where they are working or not working and figuring out and being on the same plan. Whether it's because I think finances is one of the biggest causes of strife. It's also one of the biggest causes of fights and divorces. So you've got to really kind of sit down and figure that out and put some good spending habits or good saving habits in place. And it's hard if you've got a goal and you're one person is not working towards a goal.

Exactly. No, I completely agree. Yes. So it's always big. I mean, and then again, even if there is no spouse, there's no partner at this time for anybody my age younger, and you haven't sat down with that. It's still something that you need to have as like an anecdote on your financial plan. Because if and when that does happen, you're going to have to reassess your financial budget for the future because now you have another individual that you're not necessarily responsible for, but somebody that could affect your plan and your savings.

That's definitely true. What's the number eight goal?

Number eight is reassessing your expenses and making changes where possible. So again, same thing, just like with a spouse, but this is actually going to go through your entire lifestyle. You've got your normal income, your normal financial responsibilities that you're dealing with on a daily basis. But those things change. Whether your life's getting more complicated, more responsibilities at the work, at the job, new opportunities, different things like that. There are expenses that pop up out of nowhere and you have to treat those as a daily routine. Right. So every day everybody's got it, you know, checking their bank accounts, they know how much money they have. You've got bills to pay throughout the month. That's a normal daily routine. But reassessing your expenses, maybe one quarter every six months or, you know, once a quarter, or depending on how quick your lifestyle is or the changes of it, it's always good to reassess it with your financial planner, your cpa, if you're following your own books, make sure that you're checking them out and everything matches up. Because, I mean, let's just use 2008, 2009 as an example. When that happened, there's a lot of people that were maybe even upper middle class that lost everything and didn't have anything planned for because they weren't reassessing the opportunity or the possibility of opportunity or failure.

Yeah. And you can't always think everything's be rosy. That's the biggest thing most people think, well, hey, I'll make it up in the next sale or I'll make it up next month. I'll make this up. The end of the year market cannot keep going like this. Your business is always going to have ups and downs with things, so you have to take that in mind. And really, you said trim your expenses. You know, we all have to reassess things. I mean, that's one thing that Steph is so great about. What we do here is, okay, what's coming in, what's going out, what are these charges monthly? Are we using a product? Are we using this stuff? Cut expenses best you can.

Yeah, I mean, there's even the things. The business expenses are huge too. But I mean, even in your personal expenses, like people pay off mortgages over time, right. When that's paid off, or you have a car that's paid off or you have some other loans or anything else is a normal monthly expense. When that goes away, well, what happens to that couple thousand dollars in expenses that you had? Are you going to reassess it and put it back into savings or are you going to put it towards something else? You know, that's a bucket of money that comes in your pocket and you're like, well, now what to do with it? I got some extra cash to invest or some extra cash for my business or for my month in Italy. I'm going to take a trip with my spouse down the road.

Yep, that's is a big one. All right, what's number seven?

Reassessing your portfolio. It's definitely different than your expenses because your portfolio is what you're obviously looking at when it's your retirement account. Are you invested in the market? Are you invested in alternative assets like real estate? Are you aggressive right now as a young person? Are you going to slow down and become more passive and make sure that you're secure? Sit down with your financial advisor. This goes back to the tip number 10. Make sure that you pick one that's going to help better benefit your moral ground of investing. So you can sit back with them and say, all right, you know what, I had fun in the market. We made some good money. But I think real estate's where I want to go. Or I think, you know, there's some private startups that I want to invest in. How do we get in that? So being able to have Somebody that's willing to step back, reevaluate your portfolio to pick, you know, what eggs you want to put in what basket. Because diversification is key.

That's true. Diversification is key in a variety of reasons. Because let's face it, this goes back to number 10 and having somebody be able to evaluate what you've got, whether it's in the market. Like you said, all in bitcoin, right?

Those guys.

Yeah, those guys. I think I've seen a couple posts where one guy, Oh, I made $15 million in Bitcoin. I lost it all. People taking out lines of credit off their house to put it into bitcoin. That's the thing is you have to be very careful in what you're doing. And this is also one of the things too, leveraging your risk. We talk about this a lot, but instead of paying off your house, maybe you keep making the payments and take that lump sum that you're going to pay off your house and put that in the market and make 10, 12% versus trying to pay off some of those, that will save you 3 to 4%. So evaluating your portfolio is an important thing. And we all know your evaluations are going to change whether you're 30 or 45 or 60. It's going to be different each time you look at it.

Exactly. Things pop up, kids come in the picture, you get married, jobs change, you leave your job or start a new business. All those things. Huge factors that I personally believe that a lot of people don't think about until it slaps them in the face and they have to hurry up and scramble everything together.

The thing too is, keep in mind is revaluating portfolio. You always got to put a cushion that so many people are living hand to mouth out there, paycheck to paycheck, they're not putting anything away. That's a sad thing. You got to reevaluate what your expenses are, like you said before, revive where you're at. So you do have that six month cushion for bills in case something happens or you do get sick, Right?

Right, right. No, 100% agree with that. Yes, sir.

What's that? Bring us to number six now, is that correct?

I think, yeah. Number six. Number six, yes. And number six is going to be including your retirement savings as a budget expense. It's just as easy as that. I mean, if you put it in as a normal expense, like we were saying before, you got rent or mortgage to pay, you got your phone bill, your car insurance, your home insurance, whatever that is, those are normal expenses that everybody has on their list that they're paying on a monthly basis. But if you include your retirement savings as a budgeted expense and it's going to look like just. You already know that you're going to spend X amount of dollars in expenses that month. Right. If you just add a couple hundred or thousand, whatever you're able to budget into your retirement savings, you put that inside of your budget expense, then you're going to notice. All right, well I'm not even going to touch that money anyways. You already know that that's going to go into a savings account or into a retirement account or whatever it is because you've already budgeted for that to come out of your paycheck or whatever it is for that month. Yeah.

Just figuring it as another expense and setting up an ach of some sort or automatic deposit to make sure that it comes. The whole point of paying yourself first. Right.

And that's how I have it set up. Just automatic debit on the 1st and the 15th. Whenever the paychecks are hitting the. Hitting the account. I have a specific amount that goes into another savings account that I don't even touch outside of the savings account that I might pull money from for vacation and that just sits there. If I want to get money from that, it's almost to the point where I have to go to the bank to ask for them to give it to me because I know that I'm going to need that. That's a rainy day fund. My truck breaks down or I gotta move or something. I need something to take care of. I've got this budget expense for retirement savings and it doesn't come from my daily expenses in my normal life lifestyle.

Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. Good stuff. What's the next number?

Number five. We're at the middle now. We're considering potential expenses in your financial plan. Again, same thing that we've kind of been touching on. But, but if you're planning for retirement, you can't make the mistake of not considering things like long term healthcare. Let's see, income taxes, medical expenses. You know, as we get older, our body starts to break. Right. And then this can even bring back into considering your spouse. Number nine, if you're taking care of your spouse over time and they're not working, these are big time expenses that come out of nowhere. Everybody gets sick. My grandparents, they're pretty sick right now. I mean, but they're older, you know, they're going through medical problems right now. But our families come together to help Put it together. But that's because we're a family. But sometimes that doesn't work for everybody. Considering that these are expenses that nobody really wants to pay, but that they. More than likely this kind of thing comes up, you know, surgeries, making sure that everything's taken care of, making sure that your spouse is taken care of, making sure that, you know, if it gets to that point and you're in a bad situation, do you want to sit in a hospital or do you want to be able to pay for in home care? So these are huge expenses that people don't think about when they're planning for retirement because all they want to do is make sure that they're good to go on vacation and just enjoy the life.

Yeah, most people spend more time on planning their vacation than retirement.

Yeah, exactly. That vacation fund goes to your health expenses and then you. Okay, well, now what?

Yeah, well, it's an important thing too. Looking at what you've got and having an HSA open up a health savings account to help cover a lot of things and trying to be able to write off what you can or using it to self direct to help you pay for things. Run stuff like that.

Yeah, it's almost like a rainy day fund. Yeah. So number four will definitely help out too. So we were talking about a little bit diversifying your portfolio, not having all your eggs in one basket. We say it all the time here at Quest. Understanding that the alternative assets are great, but it doesn't mean that everything needs to be in that basket. It's very recommended by any financial advisor or planner that you're going to have public investments and private investments. Understanding that limiting your ROI is a bad thing is really something that people need to make sure that they educate themselves on. You know, it's. Asset allocation is a key part of investment management. Right. You know, you want to look at your age. We talked about risk. Right. Risk tolerance. Aggressive or passive. If you're younger, like myself, I want to invest a little bit more because I don't have as many expenses as I'm going to have when I get married and have children. You know, understanding what risk tolerance is again, this goes back to number 10, picking the best financial planner or advisor for you because they're going to ensure that if your risk is a lot smaller, then they're going to make sure that your investments are going the right way or at least bring you into the opportunities that are going to have a smaller risk. Whereas if you're like myself, where you're ready to invest A little bit more because you don't have as much expenses in the money that you're bringing in. You're willing to lose a little bit more to make a little bit more. Right. So these are really, really big things. But yeah, diversify your portfolio. It's not just one thing. It's not just saying, oh, yeah, I've got mutual funds and I've got real estate holdings. What else is going to come from this? What do you want in the long run? Investments is not a short term return. And if people look at it like that, you're really not going to make a big return.

Yeah, exactly. That's the truth. Well, that's the important thing is knowing that your expenses are gonna change over time. Your risk tolerance is gonna change over time. You not having any kids or spouse can be riskier out there than those that have a family to provide for.

Right.

A lot of, let's face it, there's a lot of surprise expenses with kids.

I know for a fact that I'm pretty sure that my parents probably had an entire medical budget named Keaton's broken bones and surgeries. Knowing that and me being that kid, I definitely want to make sure that I'm protected for that when it comes down to it. Yeah, I mean, you're right. Those things come up and they slap me in the face. You know, kids get hurt all the time, grow like crazy, and you got to buy them a whole new wardrobe over a month and different little things that people don't think about until it comes up.

Braces, eyeglasses.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it's me personally, I had to get. I've never worn glasses before and I forgot mine today. But normally I have to wear them every day at work or I get a headache. Just me getting older, 28 years old, my eyes are starting to break, but that was something I had to throw out of pocket just because Never know what happens, right? So just little things, they add up.

You're just Falling apart at 28, Keegan.

Oh, yeah.

All downhill, man.

Breaking down.

Good stuff. All right, so that takes us. Number four. Number three.

Number four, number two. We got two left, man. Two.

We didn't hit number three. Where's number three?

Oh, we do have number three. Yeah. So again, this is understanding the different types of accounts you can go into. So number three is save as much as you can in a tax deferred account. We always preach here at Quest. The Roth IRA is beautiful because it really is. Everybody should have a Roth, regardless of how old you are. How long you've been investing. But understanding the benefits of a tax deferred account, they're huge. I mean, tax deferred. Yeah. You got to pay taxes down the road. You're going to have to have those required minimum distributions taken out at the end of each year once you hit that age point, 70 and a half. But tax deferred accounts can be really beneficial as you're growing up and going through before retirement. Because as most people know, your contribution can be tax deductible depending on your income being able to take advantage of. If you're working a normal job, you're a 9 to 5, you probably got a 401k or a sponsored retirement plan. Right. You have the opportunity to contribute to that 401k at the end of the year. Whenever I do my taxes, my contributions to the 401k here at Quest, I can use that as a deduction because I made a traditional contribution. Same thing in a traditional ira. And all those different types of accounts, they definitely benefit you at a younger age or even at an older age. But I mean that's where most of America's retirement dollars are. We've got 28 trillion in retirement accounts in America. Majority of those funds are in traditional types of accounts. So those are very beneficial accounts. If you don't understand how they work. It's very highly advised to touch base with your financial advisor to talk about what kind of accounts will benefit you.

Yeah, well too. If people are working somewhere and they have a 401k, most people don't even know how a 401k works for them. And then when they're leaving that job or moving on, they don't know the advantages of a rolling into a self directed IRA transfer accounting. They're doing a taking their 401k, their old 401k and turning into a traditional IRA or doing a Roth conversion to save on the taxes long term.

Right, right, right, exactly. I actually spoke with a guy right before we jumped on this. He was wanting to move a 401k from an old employer to a Roth IRA with us. And he had no understanding of the tax responsibility of something like that and he had to step back and look at it. So we discussed a little bit about Roth conversions and what to consider. And that's always a big thing because yes, tax deferred accounts are great, but the idea is to not have to pay taxes when you retire. Right. So make sure you touch base on understanding what the tax deferred account is with your financial planner. Your advisor and see what opportunities you have. I mean, you made a good point about health savings accounts too. That's a really big account that you can use.

It's a badass hybrid account, I like to say. Right.

It's pretty.

Yeah.

We call it the best of both worlds for a reason.

Yep, exactly. Number two.

Number two again, we're going to go back to treating your savings as an expense. You have a retirement account and you're saving that for the future, but you are also saving at the time for your normal bills rainy day fund. Right. Treating that as an expense. I mean, you're just adding on these things that you're going to need money for. Right. Like I just said, at a rainy day fund, if something happens, I had to pay almost thousand dollars, you know, a couple weeks ago for my truck, something happened on my truck, I had to pay for it. But I tapped into that savings account as opposed to the one that I'm already just putting money away and don't even touch. Right. So having your budgets, treating them as expenses, I think I personally believe that that's a great thing. And that's honestly from, like I said, my research, from everything I looked into, a lot of financial experts think the same thing. Understanding how to budget for any type of expense is huge. And just adding that in on a monthly expense makes it a lot easier.

Yeah, that makes sense. Budgets are great. You know, the thing is, I like the pocket aspect of things. You know, Dave Ramsey's good about talking about putting things in buckets. You get a bucket for this, a bucket for that. And like you said earlier on, just adding another bucket for your emergency rainy day fund, bucket for your retirement, putting those things away, it's going to build habits. But it's also a difference on you is if you going to Starbucks every day, maybe you make coffee from home or you make sure the office, you got some coffee there at Quest. So you're not paying $5 lattes, right?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't even have to be. I mean, I feel like sometimes when that's said, people think that, oh man, I've got to put 25% of my average paycheck in there. It really doesn't have to be that, honestly. I mean, if it's something as small as 50 bucks, 100 bucks, whatever it is for the month, if you're not touching it and you're doing what you're supposed to and budgeting for these expenses for rainy day fund or for the future, next time you look at it you're like, oh, my God. You know, it's a huge account. Every time I check my HSA balance, it's always a lot larger than I expected it to be. But I never use my HSA because it's for health expenses. But it's something that money keeps going into on a bi monthly basis. And when I need it, I can come into it. I mean, just simple things like that. You know, I got a personal example. I had my appendix two years ago. I mean, I had to pay that off. I mean, the HSA only goes to cover so much, but I didn't want to pull all the money from that, so I paid it out of pocket. But I have an HSA that I can reimburse myself from down the road because I'm not wasting money out of hsa. I'm putting money in a savings bucket because it's going to be needed in the future.

Mm. That's the truth. That's the truth. So that was number two, right?

Yes, sir. Down to number one.

Hang on a second. We got to have an appropriate drum roll.

Yes.

What's the number? Number one tip on Keaton's top 10.

List here for starting as soon as you can. Everybody thinks we here at Get Quest as a specialist, we always get that call from, you know, somebody that's looking into retirement or just retired, and they say, you know, I never had an ira. I've never saved for retirement. I've always been self employed. But that doesn't mean that you're not doing it right. That just means that maybe you weren't educated and you didn't look into it yourself. And that's not your fault. Starting as soon as you can is the best thing to do, whether you're my age or you're coming into retirement or you're even, you know, in retirement and you're looking to figure out other ways savings, right? So people nowadays, I mean, they're going back to work after retirement because they didn't save any money, right? The new bill that that may become law event they're changing ages on required minimum distributions for a reason, because people are going back to work a lot later because they either have to or they don't have any savings, so they've got to have some source of income, right? So if you're looking at, you know, put $200 away for 40 years at 5% interest, think about the compound interest on that. And that's just going from my age. But even then, you can be a little bit more aggressive at an Older age. If you haven't started saving for retirement because interest is a big thing. Whether you're earning interest on your alternative investments as a lender or, you know, investments through cash flow and real estate, or you're investing into the stock market, understanding how to completely take advantage of the opportunities that are at hand are huge. So I mean starting now, starting later, no, it doesn't matter what your age is or where you're at. You need to get started as soon as possible for your retirement savings.

Well, our good buddy Aaron Young is always known for saying, hey, if you're going to start with the end in mind, where do you want to be when you're starting a business? It's the same thing doing retirement. What does that look like? And being as crystal clear on what that end game is will help you on the front end game. You know, if you wanted to raise a million bucks, Great, start saving $50 a month if you can. You're starting off, every little bit grows as you can get that final number. Because that number, the sooner you have an idea for it and a number is always arbitrage. What do I need to retire? Is it 4 million, 5 million, what I need to put away monthly or quarterly to hit those goals. But the whole point comes into taking action and starting doing something sitting down with you guys over at Quest, sitting down and opening an account and starting to figure out whether it's starting early. Maybe you got kids, you want to help them out with an ESA or an HSA for yourself or starting just a simple Roth or if you're self employed, starting up a SEP or a simple, it all begins with that first thing and opening an account, Right, right, right.

And I mean, yeah, I mean just think about what a lot of people think. Like I said, before your age, right? So I mean if you're thinking about, go back to my example about compound interest, right? 200 bucks a month over 40 years my age, that's a huge, huge growth in compound interest. Right? But you might want to put a little bit less because you have a short amount of time, right? The interest and the gain and the future growth. Like you said, pick a number, what you want retirement and understand how you're going to budget for that. All these tips will definitely help you with that. And in summary, discuss that the top 10 factors, I mean, begin now, if you haven't, if you've already started, reassess your portfolio, talk to your financial advisor, understand that there are other individuals that you might be saving for. Again, we got spouses and children if you're in that spot. And it's going to definitely make your future easy if you follow these 10 steps. And I don't have a slide for my information, but Scott's got my info if anybody wants it, email me@keaton munsteruestrust.com and I'd be more than happy to sit down with anyone to schedule a phone call and discuss, you know, what we can offer here at Quest, the services we provide in the education that we have. Top notch. So.

Exactly. So let's do a recap on a couple of things. Let's do number 10 through number 6. So what were the 10, 9, 8.

7, 6 ones working with an experienced financial planner? Number 10, number 9 is going to be considering your spouse. Eight, reassessing your expenses and making changes where possible. Number 7, periodically reassessing your portfolio with your financial planner. And number six is going to be including retirement savings as a budget expense. So I mean those are pretty big things. Those all can be done at the same time when you sit down with your financial planner or when you sit down with your spouse and looking at your expenses. I mean not something that you need to do, one here, one there. You know, you need to wait for a certain period of time to do this. You know, these are all tips that can be done in one conversation or one meeting with your financial planner.

Yeah, exactly. That's true. So then what's the top five once again, slow it down a little bit though, bit for recap for our listeners out there.

So number five, number five, considering all your potential expenses in your financial plan in your future, again, when you're planning for retirement, you got to think about the things that are going to be coming up and you don't know what other expenses might pop up out of nowhere when you're in the retirement time. And you need to make sure that you've got a good cushion to take care of those things. Number four, diversifying your portfolio. Again, you're going to be looking at your age. How aggressive do you want to be in investing your risk tolerance? How much are you looking to risk here and there in your investments, whether you need to have assets grow or produce income immediately or over time? I mean just assessing your asset allocation is a really big thing. That's one term that I'd say bring to your bring to the table in the conversation. Asset allocation. Where am I at, what am I looking for and how do I get to where I need to be? Number three, tax deferred accounts, traditional IRAs. Okay, this is One of my favorite things to say, think about if you're working a 9 to 5 job and you've got a retirement plan, that's free money, man. If you have, if you have a 401K, a 403B tsp, whatever that plan is, that is free money that the company is giving you. And if you're not taking advantage of it, you need to reassess your retirement savings. Because again, free money. Why? I mean, everybody wants free money, right? And if you're putting money in their matching as a tax account and they have huge benefits. Huge benefits.

Mm.

So number two, we're treat your savings as an expense. Again, same thing, kind of similar to the end, but savings and retirement, two different savings accounts.

Right.

You got retirement savings bucket, a savings account bucket for, you know, rainy day funds. Right. Understanding that just making it a normal monthly thing you got to deal with makes it a lot easier for you. And then number one, starting as soon as you can again, if you don't have an account, you don't have a retirement savings plan, you don't have an idea of what you're planning. Your retirement map is going to be start now. You're never too old to do it. Everybody can get it done. You just have to talk to the right people, find the best financial planner that's on your moral path of investing and understanding what your risk tolerance is and how you can get to that set number that we discussed as quick as possible and as safe as possible.

Those are all really great 10 tips out there and things that people need to consider when they think about it. You guys have the Quest Expo coming up which are going to cover some of these topics, correct, Keaton?

Absolutely, yeah. No Quest Expo coming up. Yeah, these topics are going to be covered by Quest speakers as well as all the other speakers we have from across the nation. We're going to have real estate gurus, everything from buying and holding property. I know investors like Scott, these guys know their stuff. And then CPAs, accountants, attorneys, discussing everything there is to know about investing in alternative assets. Whether it's just real estate, it's trust, it's LLCs, it's notes, it's anything on the alternative and non public market. These guys are going to use their strategies as experts to help out. We've got 30 plus speakers, some of them are given only individual presentations, but we've got panels as well for like minded individuals discussing topics that they all cover. And it's August 23rd through 25th here in Houston. The Royal Sonesta you can get that info@thequestpo.com page. You can go on questrust.com and see that. If you want to get 25% off your tickets, let me know. Use my promo code. Munster.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got Scott's promo use discount code Carson19.

Carson19. Yeah, 25% on that one, too.

That's off your general admission or VIP tickets as well, too, for you, right?

We are. We're running real low on VIP tickets. I think we're like less than 10 now. So general admission, those are. I mean, we're gonna have as many of those until we can cap it out. So I know we have the most on those, but, yeah, VIPs are running low, so if you want to get that VIP ticket, make sure that you get it or two, because I guarantee you those are gonna be gone.

So you have the thing kicking off Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You know what time in the. It's at 9 to 5 each day. Or 9.

It's 9 to 5 Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday is 9 to 12. It's a half day, but it's gonna be more of a fun day for the VIP members. We're gonna. On Friday, we're gonna go to the Astros game. So, VIP ticket, and you didn't know that or you're looking to get one and decide what ticket it is. The difference mainly is, you know, general admission. You get in the door, you get to get the education, you get to network, meet the vendors, you get a tote bag of some stuff, and that's pretty much it. Not because it's an amazing event, but the VIPs, you're paying a little bit more, but you get to meet the speakers, you get a special lounge. We have casino night entry for free. You're going to the Astros game, front row seating. The list goes on and on. So, I mean, they're definitely worth the tickets, which is why they sold a lot quicker than we expected.

So they get to see the Detroit Tigers come to town then, huh?

Yeah, they get to see the Troy Tigers lose the Houston Astros.

Well, that's what I mean. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. There for it. Now, you guys. Also, here's another big thing for those that are listening, because we got note nation across that country. Do you guys are going to be live streaming online by any chance? Do you know.

Not the Expo, I don't believe, but if you purchase a VIP ticket, I know that you'll get a free recording of the event. Once we get it all edited. And then there's going to be an opportunity to buy that recording as well. Even if you if you didn't attend or if you're a general admission ticket holder, we are going to offer it for sale once we get it edited. So keep an eye out for any emails that if you're on our email list, if not, give us a call. If you wanted to attend or you least want to buy the recording afterwards, I can definitely make sure that we get you on a list for that.

Yeah, that's good stuff there. And then one of the great things to guys is you've got trillion dollar investment mixers all across this Lone Star State in Dallas, Houston, in here in Austin, you want to talk about those day, what days of the month of those fall on.

So Houston they are on the second Wednesday I believe. I'll have to double check that. They're all at 6:30 central time by the way, guys. But Houston, 6:30 on the second Wednesday I believe. And then Dallas is the fourth Wednesday and Austin is the fourth Tuesday. These are our monthly mixers. In each office we bring in guest speakers for every one of them. Scott was one of our more recent speakers in Austin, coming in with their own investment or their investment strategies, their education, their knowledge of a specific topic. But this is a free event and if you can't make it from across the nation, you can attend live. Just jump on our website, grab that Zoom link and you can attend live. You can ask questions live. Myself and in Austin with Katie, we moderated. Derek and Juan moderate the speakers in Houston. And then Sarah Haley and Becca moderated Dallas. So I mean it doesn't matter where you're at, you can always get this original content or original content from speakers like Scott as well.

Now you also have regular live streams besides the trillion dollar mixers. At 6:30, 7:00 clock at night you've got stuff that goes on throughout the week. What times does that take place on the Facebook page or request that they can log in and watch while either Quincy Nathan or somebody's providing content.

Right. So yeah, all of our original classes that we teach in Houston, it's every Tuesday at 9:30, 9:30 to 10:30, about an hour long original content. Usually it's one of us speaking here at Quest or sometimes they bring in guest speakers again on the website or Facebook. You can watch it live or get the Zoom link. In Dallas it is every Wednesday at noon. They do lunch and learns. So again Dallas events check out those links. And then in Austin we're every Thursday at noon as well. Yeah, this is all original content, guys. Whether it's things like Basics, a self directed IRAS 101, understanding the accounts and what you can do with them, all the way to Roth conversions or investing through commercial property and you know, things like UBIT come into play. So we touch it all. And again, it's all original. It's all written by Quest employees and we take pride in it.

Yeah, that's the beautiful thing. You guys aren't not. I mean, yes, you're employees, but you're also very vested in the company's success and really driving business. Unlike a lot of other pseudo companies out there. We won't name anybody. But that's the thing. That's why we love promoting you guys, why we love having you guys here on the Note Closer show along with promoting you across every Note night or every time we're speaking somewhere publicly like I did this weekend on the Multifamily Investor Nation. I know Nathan spoke on there as well. Or other places that we're headed to. Whether it's the magnify your wealth segment with Laufen Associates or any other thing I'm being asked, you guys take pride. It's easy to get somebody on the phone there or to answer an email real quickly and go from there, right, Keaton?

Absolutely. I know outside of taking pride in the education that we provide, our customer service is top notch. We believe in world famous customer service for a reason. You're not going to get an automated message. You're going to get an email response within at least 30 minutes of you sending it out, if not sooner. And you're always going to talk to a live individual. And if they can't help you, it's guaranteed that they're going to escalate you to somebody that can assist you if they can't answer your questions.

Now, if somebody is not, I've gotten this question before and I throw it back at you there. If somebody's not a Quest client, can they attend the Quest Expo?

Absolutely. Yeah. Anybody and everybody's welcome to come to our events, including the Expo. You don't have to be a client to attend the live events in Houston, Dallas and Austin or the monthly mixers. Like I said, those links are online. Anybody can literally go to our website or to our Facebook and watch it live. And I think that's pretty cool because I've talked to individuals across the nation at the different events events we've gone to and when I've told them that I'll get a quick email Saying, hey, I registered for the event. I'm gonna check it out. It's just being able to reach everybody and give them the opportunity to decide how they want to save for retirement is huge. And I know that you're really big about reaching. Your podcast and your Internet presence is huge. And I think that's great because you're reaching people that have no idea about note investing, and you're giving them an opportunity to change their lives almost. Well.

And you guys are starting something too over there too, aren't you, Keaton?

Yeah, no. We keep an eye out for the upcoming. We've got a few things that we're gonna be doing. I'm gonna start this little short series. It's gonna be called Fireside Chats with Kiwi and Kwesty. My nickname here Quest is Kiwi. So myself and Questy are gonna sit down and we're gonna release some episodes, you know, five to six minute episodes on YouTube about things like this. We just cover the top 10 tips. I've got about eight episodes written out, so we're gonna be doing that. So keep an eye out for that. I know that Nate and Juan are looking into set up a short podcast for short little episodes about different things. So we're trying to reach out and change our online presence as well as just having our normal classes, but giving you the opportunity to watch these things if you don't have time to jump in live. Stepping it up, learning from the best. Right?

Well, but aren't you guys taking your video? Are you taking your live streams? Throwing on YouTube right now for everybo?

Yeah, we're revamping that as well. I know Ingrid's been working with that, making sure that our YouTube is cleaned up for all of our live streams. Because right now, if you missed the class, you can always go to our Facebook page and hit the video link and then you can see all the ones that we've done. But we're making it a lot easier for you to be able to go directly to our YouTube page. You can subscribe to that page or also just go through. I mean, these are pre recorded classes that we teach live, but also they're just good videos to have. I know that I send those links out a lot to anybody that's new or trying to figure out something, a new strategy. They're all there, man. They're on the website under our education tab. Or if you go to Quest Trust Co. On YouTube, you can find our profile.

That's the truth. Now question for you here, big question. Okay. Big question here for you. Out of your top 10 that you mentioned, what do you think you see People making the biggest mistakes focused on.

Not reassessing their portfolio. You know, they think that they're safe, they're getting solid returns. But, I mean, your ROI is what you make it. If you're not assessing the different ups and downs in the market or when it comes to real estate, the things that affect real estate, simply one thing right now, we've got a solid seller's market right now, but what's going to happen in November? It's political, political races. Those things affect real estate, and some people don't think about that. So seeing what's going on in the world, especially in the market of what you invest in and you know how to make money in, making sure that you're assessing those things and touching base with your financial planner, making sure that you know what's going on, you know what the income's being, you know, what's losing money. So you can take that away and, you know, bring in something that's going to be cash flow for you.

Mm, that is definitely a big thing. There is. They just don't reassess it. They keep running things or they're running like a wild west with no target in mind and just go, I mean, that's not a good retirement plan. I'm gonna win the lottery.

Yeah, make sure. Yeah, that's good. I hope you win the lottery, but I hope you have a backup plan just in case that doesn't happen.

Well, it's funny, like, every morning I'll stop here at a convenience store right by my office. You go in. If I don't have bananas for my work, I'll go stop by, grab bananas there. And it's always. There's always some guy or a couple people and they're grabbing like $10 scratch offs, right? I mean, and if you want to look at marketing, you want to study marketing, study the lottery. And like, all these, like, scratch off tickets are all different. The big mega one, it's like a thing like a size of an iPad. Like, yay big. Sony was scratching off $10 for that thing yesterday. He's like, scratching it off. Damn it all. He, like bought like five of them, right?

And I'm like, what could you have done for 50 bucks? Yeah.

I mean, if you're doing that on a daily basis because you figure, what is it? $6,000 to is your annual contribution to a Roth IRA right now, correct?

6,000, yes, sir.

So 6,000 divided by 52 weeks is $115 a week, basically, Right. You know what I mean? And if you divide that by seven, it's less than 20 bucks a day to be putting stuff away. 15 bucks a day somewhere in there. That makes a lot of sense for you to a. That's three cups of coffee or that's making your lunch and taking it to work with you. It's choosing to buy Netflix versus going to the movie theater, staying home and watching tv.

Right.

A lot of ways that everybody's hemorrhaging cash. They could be towards a retirement account, but 6,000 bucks and like, oh, I can't afford that. Right. I don't have that.

Right. Just again, that's. That's as simple as just adding it into as a budgeted expense.

Right?

I mean, if you want to contribute and max out your contributions to your IRA, traditional, Roth, whatever it is, think about that. $115 a week. Think about that way you take that amount out of your check if you want to do a max contribution. If you just want to put money into savings. Doesn't have to be the max contribution. It can be a minimum, it can be half of it. It could be less than that. Put it into your budget. Make it a normal expense that just comes directly out of your account Once your paycheck hits anything like that, and you're looking at adding that bucket and building it up before you realize it, it's going to be something that you're like, oh man, I've got a lot of money to invest or I'm making more than I thought I was.

Now, can people go straight to the portal and make contributions each week monthly to their account? Just think about.

We're working on that. We almost got it set. It is in place. We also are just for anybody that is a client or looking into it, we're setting up the on the client portal to be able to make investments directly through your client portal. Uploading your documents going directly to our transactions team. I know that it's still being scoped out and they're working out kinks here and there, but JT and Nader definitely putting forth to getting that stuff ready to roll. So you guys keep an eye out if your clients. We are making some big changes for the online portal. If you're not and you have any questions about it, definitely call myself or any of our hiring specialists and we'll be able to walk you through it and teach you how it's done.

Yeah, it's important. It's a really cool thing because it's it works out really well, especially if you're making payments or paying rent on an investment deal. You can have your clients or other people. If you're letting money out, you can have the people that borrow the money go and make their monthly payments to you directly online.

It goes directly in our accounts receivable department. They process it accordingly.

Yeah, you guys are advanced than anybody else out there, right?

Hey, we're trying to make it as easy as possible for everybody to invest and make the most money as possible in their retirement.

Yeah. And using technology, an effective way to do it. I mean, we were able to make in middle. Get this, we're middle of the Atlantic. Instead, we actually made some payments online, straight from the portal, straight into everything. Not having to be run into a bank to send a wire. It's pretty. There's a cool. You guys are working through the bugs on that thing and making it really effective for people to take advantage of it.

Yeah, I mean, life happens, man. If you're a borrower or a tenant or you've got something you need to do as a client, making, you know, an expense, get the expense paid, something happens, you forget about it. You know, life happens, things pop up. But you can just as simple as just going on your phone. Just like you're going to the bank. You got to make a payment from the bank of bill pay. You can do it directly through the client portal. And again, if you guys haven't set it up or you haven't looked into it, we'd be glad to walk you through it. Just call one of the specialists and ask how you can access and fully take advantage of the client portal online.

Now, question for you. Do you know? Here's a little ask a little secret. Do you know if Quest is running any other specials this month for anything not immediately.

Besides for the expo, we get that 25% using Carson 19. There's little things that we pop up here and there. As of right now, I am not running any specials. Personally, I don't think any of our other specialists are. I know that in our classes. Guys. Hey. So like I said, if you can't make it live, you can be online live. This still counts for people online. Myself, Haley, I know Derek and Juan have been doing it as well. Little things here and there for either expo tickets, discounts and credited to your account. Just depends. So make sure you're in class live and you're paying attention. There's scavenger hunts I know going on with Questy that you can get some free tickets Here and there's, I mean, I know our last. I did a hundred dollar giveaway, $25 per person for the first four people that came up to me. They could have gotten 25 to their account or $25 added to their Expo tickets. So we're always doing little things like that. We don't have any ongoing promotions at the moment besides the 25% off on the Expo tickets. But if you just keep in mind on any of those email lists that you're on, you're definitely gonna know what promos we're running.

You do. Didn't you run something like last week or two weeks before they took a picture in their Quest Expo? If they attended previously and you got their Quest Expo shirt, took a picture and it counted towards something.

Right, I totally forgot about that. Yeah. So if you take a picture, Scott did it too, because I posted a video and I know that you immediately commented on it, it was a live video. But yeah, if you post a picture, a selfie with your Quest in your Quest Expo ticket for our T shirt from last year, you get a discount on your tickets for the Expo if you haven't gotten it already. So anybody out there listening? If you were at the Expo last year, find that Quest Expo shirt, wherever you put it, put it on. Post a selfie or a video with the Expo, tag us at Quest. Or you can post it to our wall and tell us what you're most excited about about the Expo.

Yeah, you've got a good, good lineup of speakers again this year like you did last year. And then the fact that you're breaking a little early on Sunday versus running till 6pm on Sunday like last year is good stuff too, for everybody, right?

Yeah. Half day. So everybody can at least try to make it home safe. You're not driving in the dark and you can accommodate for travel.

Well, that's the thing, is since it's in Houston, you've got two choices. You've got Bush and you got Hobby to fly into. And Southwest loves flying into Houston. And it's pretty easy to get in and out of. If you're ending at noonish on Sunday, people can catch a 3pm flight out back home just about anywhere in the country before seven, eight o' clock at night.

Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, it's really easy to go through Hobby, get on the, any Southwest flight. And the same thing for Bush, I mean any United or any of those other guys. I mean at two different airports for two different parts of the flights across the nation. So plan accordingly and Just one thing to keep in mind. If you are coming to the expo and you haven't booked a room yet, make sure you do that pretty soon. We still about two months out, but Royal Sonesta is in the gallery area in Houston. If you're familiar with it, how busy that can be, especially on a weekend and in the summer. And it can get very pricey if you wait till the last minute. So make sure that you plan accordingly so you get a good spot. And honestly, we've had clients do it in the Austin office. I know that Trish here in Houston and Dallas, splitting rooms together. If you're coming by yourself, get with another investor friend or, you know, a group of them, and maybe you can find a better deal. If you get a few rooms together and carpooling, flying together, whether you're driving around in Texas, save money everywhere around, everybody put it together and it's good. So make sure that you're talking to your friends and everybody that's come with you to try to best benefit the best way to get to the exponent back.

Yeah, we've got a student of ours, the new Mastermind member uses Airbnb to save when she travels. So she was staying at a place literally just closest to everybody else to staying in a hotel here. $47 a night. She had her own room. She's putting the difference saved into her retirement account because it was about 100 bucks more for a hotel room.

Right.

He's doing the smart things. Instead of renting a car, she's air, she's Ubering, and that's can be quite a bit cheaper, I think. Steph and I, we've looked back and we haven't rented a car very often in the last six months when we travel because it's been cheaper to Uber everywhere and saving that money and put into it. So it's you guys. There's so many different ways to be socking money away and saving that $6,000, guys. You can put it away, you can sock it away and knock it all out, right?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I know. Those are two solid tips. Airbnbs, Ubers. I mean, traveling as much as we do, as much as you guys do you know that you see the difference in it. I mean, an uber ride, that's $30 a lot cheaper than spending 150 to 250 in a rental car. Just like $47. Airbnb. It doesn't matter where you're at or how close you are to the time frame of your event, you're still probably gonna save a lot more money on Airbnb than you are a $250 a night room in a hotel.

Mm. But you do guys do have a room block that's still available, correct?

You did, I think. I want to say it might be filled up. Don't quote me on it. I'd have to double check. But I think it might be filled up because a lot of people jumped on that immediately because again, like I said, the prices out there in area, they can be pretty steep if you wait till the last minute right now.

You know how many people are signed up already for the event by chance?

323, for sure. General admission tickets. And like I said, we had about 150 VIPs, and they're almost all gone.

So we're looking at 500 number.

Then we're trying to double what we had last year, too. So we still have two months left. We're gonna knock it out, man. We're looking at anywhere from 800 to a thousand people trying to come to this Expo.

Exactly. So once again, everybody, the Quest Expo is August 23rd, 24th, 25th. You want to get there early. Supply in on 22nd or drive in early on the morning of the 23rd. You want to take advantage of. Go to questexpo.com for the event page just for the Expo, of course, you can find it@questtrustcompany.com as well. Right, Keaton?

Right, Right. And make sure you use Carson 19 to get your 25% off your general admission and VIP tickets.

Exactly. So if you're listening out there, whether it's on our radio network across the country, whether it's the podcast, whether it's YouTube on a replay, take advantage of it. Go to Quest Expo Calm. Use the code CARSON19. Reach out to Keaton as well to Keaton munsterwest trust.com Keaton loves to hear and see responses from people listening out there.

So I want to hear from you guys. So make sure you reach out to me. I'd be more than happy. Again, like I said, to set up a call, answer email, questions, whatever works for you, right?

Exactly. With it being July and Independence Day just a couple days away, everybody take advantage of work on getting your financial independence started today. All right? Important to do 223 years since we celebrate our independence for less than $200 a week, you can sit away and max out your Roth ira, traditional IRA contributions to help you on your goal to financial independence. So it doesn't take you 200 years to pay for retirement.

Right? Solid numbers. Solid breakdown there, Scott. I like that.

Numbers off the fly is my expertise, everybody.

Yeah, you know those numbers better than anybody.

Good stuff. So you've got, you're headed out on vacation for a couple days. Enjoy yourself, Keaton. Anything else you want to leave people with before we wrap it up for the day?

Just to reiterate our classes again, whether you're in the great state of Texas and you can attend in our offices in Dallas, Houston and Austin, or you're across the nation and you just want to make sure you're getting some new content, understand what you can do Tuesday, 9:30 in Houston, noon on Wednesday in Dallas and noon on Thursday in Austin. Find all that on our Facebook and on our website.

Good stuff, man. Well, hey, thanks for joining us for Money Mondays in the top 10 tips to hitting your financial independence there. All right, buddy.

Yes, sir. Thanks for having me, Scott. Look forward to seeing you soon.

Yes, sir. Keaton, have a great day.

Bye.

Alright everybody, that's gonna wrap it up for this episode. Once again, check out the questexpo.com what a great opportunity to come out and hang out with 5, 600, hopefully a thousand other investors out there doing amazing things. Whether you've got experienced people or you're brand new, there's something for everyone at the Quest Expo. And you don't have to be Quest client, I guarantee. You probably want to be though once you attend. So it's opportunity for you to come out, meet the Quest family and really put your retirement savings, your future in overdrive. So like I said, go check out questexpo.com we're very proud Quest is a sponsor of the no Closer show. But we're glad to have them on and glad to help promote them in any way we can because they just do a tremendous job. So go out, make something happen, everybody, and we'll see you all at the top, everybody.

Bye.