Unlocking Financial Freedom: Smart Money Strategies with Tony Steuer

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Close Nodes, Scott Carson. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Hey, welcome to this episode of the Note Closure Show. As always, Scott Carson. Excited to be here with you today. We've got an amazing guest who is going to help you guys can kick some ass, take some names and make next year your financial. Anyway, our special guest today, he's an internationally recognized financial preparedness advocate, award winning author, podcaster and fintech advisor who is literally changing the way that we think about money. He's an advisor to insurance nerds, Paperwork and Dingo Technologies. He's an expert content reviewer for Nerd Wallet Bank Rate as well as member of the Forbes Advisory Insurance Advisory Board. So he's got some knowledge, I would tell you that. So if anybody, you want to listen to somebody about finances, this might be the guy that you want to talk to or listen to. We're honored to have him on the no Closer show podcast. He is the legendary Tony Stewart. Tony, how's it going out in the Bay Area today? Thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, it's going great, Scott. Thanks for having me.

What?

That's a great intro.

Well, you know, I'm available for bar mitzvahs, weddings and celebrations too, if you need to. All right.

If the whole podcasting thing doesn't work out.

Yeah, exactly. I could be your next Bruce Baffert. Let's get ready to rumble.

Gets paid better than I do.

That's okay, that's all right. But so let's talk about it. You, you've got a, definitely a passion for, you know, wanting to change the way we think about money. What's kind of led to that? What's that burning itch that's helped you kind of take that path that you have?

Well, it's developed over, you know, the course of my career as I started out as a life insurance agent and then about 10 years in, I became a fee based life insurance consultant, transitioned to working predominantly with wealth management advisors, financial planners, trust officers, litigation attorneys, and then I started doing some work with California Department of Insurance. And what I found was that pretty much nobody understood the insurance products they were buying and nobody understood the insurance products that they were selling. And the companies didn't really understand the insurance products that they were creating. So, you know, it seemed to me that somebody needed to help people just understand and kind of clear up the communication issues. So I really became interested in how this stuff is communicated and how people understand it, which is what led me to the whole let's change way we think about it. Because it's not a knowledge education thing, it's a, it's a mindset thing.

Yeah, I think when most people hear about insurance, they kind of, they cringe a little bit. Right.

They're like rightfully so.

I think the only thing people, especially a lot of folks, is okay, what's covered, what's the amount and the agent, how am I getting paid, how am I making commission on it in some cases.

Right, exactly. The insurance industry has done a masterful job, especially on the life insurance side, of trying to convince everybody that they need life insurance. And it's all these things that it's not. Instead of just focusing, hey, this is a great risk protection tool and you need risk protection and just keeping the message simple. But like most people, they tend to over complicate it.

Where do you see the most in the over complication of things when it comes to that?

Well, I, I think, you know, we can look at social media for that and we've all seen those things about like, hey, you know, life insurance can do this. You can be your own banker, you know, you can find your missing money, you can be an infinite banker, you know, all these different things. You know, life insurance is an investment class. Well, wait a minute, none of that is actually true. Life insurance is an insurance contract. If you open up an insurance contract, the first thing it says, this is an insurance contract. And it may happen to have an investment component, but it's not an investment.

And that's what you're getting into talking about the difference between like term insurance versus the whole life, the universal life and stuff like that. It's offered out there. Right.

That's 100% it because you know, it's all about the risk protection. And you know, people go, well, term life insurance is temporary. Well, if you get term life insurance for 30 years, it's not really temporary. Thirty years is a pretty long term commitment. And then some of these permanent life insurance policies people buy, if they don't set them up correctly and they don't monitor them, they're going to terminate well before they expect them to. So they may be a pretty short term venture if you don't set it up correctly.

Because as we do get older, we do get more expensive to insure in a lot of cases.

Right, exactly. But our need for insurance goes down. There's associate of mine, Professor Larry Kotlikoff that you may or may not be familiar with, but he came up with this theory called the economic planning theory. And basically, as your other assets grow, your need for insurance declines. Because that's the whole point of buying insurance. Let's say you're 30 years old, starting out with family, you decide you need a million dollars of life insurance because you don't have anything in your retirement plan. You're starting out well, you get to be 60, hopefully you have that million dollars in your retirement plan. So guess what? You may not need that life insurance anymore. So that's, that's the thing is the insurance industry hasn't helped people adjust to that to go back and review and monitor and make sure that's still the right coverage for someone. Mm.

So I know that a lot of folks have talked about, oh, you know, you know, your insurance policy can be an investment as well, about that growing in cash value, or the minute you put $50,000 in, you can take a big chunk of it out. Can we talk about how that's not always the case and some of the things that they leave out in a lot of cases when it comes to some of those insurance products.

Yeah, 100%. So, you know, the first thing is, you know, go back to what I said earlier. When you open up the policy, it says this is an insurance contract. So that means no matter what type of life insurance policy you buy, you know, whether it's got an investment component or not, you are paying for the insurance. And as you get older, life insurance gets more expensive and that's not going to go away. So if you have this so called investment contract, you're paying for insurance. So if you go out and buy a mutual fund, mutual fund isn't going to charge you for insurance. So, so that's fact one. The other big thing like you said with that 50,000, what they don't tell you is, oh, you can borrow out all your money and everything. Well, insurance company is going to charge you interest on that money that you're borrowing. You're not borrowing your own money. You're taking cash value out of the policy, which is reserve account that the insurance company is using to offset your future mortality costs so that your cost of insurance doesn't go crazy when you get to the age 80. So it's not a free lunch. So that's a big thing that, that's Missed. The other big thing is that these policies have huge surrender charges for the first seven to 10 years and surrender charges for up to 16 years on a lot of these contracts. So, you know, is it your money? I don't think so if you can't get access to it for 10 or 15 years.

But can you explain what a surrender charge is?

Yeah. So surrender charge is basically what the company charges you for surrendering the policy or taking out your money. So it's similar to an early withdrawal penalty that you might have on a certificate of deposit.

Okay, so what you're saying, if I remember, is I'm a little educated on the whole insurance aspect of things. And I love that you're bringing this up because for a lot of folks it's the other way around. They're. You're exactly right. They're just screaming the benefits of it, but they don't share the fact that a, you're paying monthly. And if you, you get an insurance policy, like it's not a term policy, because your term policy should stay about the same for 30 years or whenever you take it out. Right. Same per month. But these investment policies, you do get more expensive to cover. And while you're. You're paying, starting off paying one amount, the older you get, the more expensive you get. Your payment may not change monthly, right, Tony?

Well, your premium doesn't, but your internal costs may increase.

Exactly. And where do they get that? If you're not paying that money, they're.

Going to charge you. Or it's coming out of your cash value. Exactly, it's coming out of your value.

So your investment vehicle is actually depreciating as you get older. And we've broken up. I've actually broken. I used to be an old guy with the oh, Primerica back in the day and had to break a bunch of these.

Oh, boy.

So would you say you're a bigger advocate of buying term and investing the difference OR no?

Yeah, 100%. Because I believe that you need to address each part of your financial life with the right solution. Now, that isn't to say that for some people, whole life insurance policy or universal life policy doesn't make sense. Of course it makes sense. There are certain situations where you may have an estate planning need or you have a special needs child, you have some need that doesn't go away. Let's say, you know, and this is very apt for your audience, let's say 90% of your investments are in real estate. If you pass away, that money is completely illiquid. And you don't want your spouse to have to sell everything in a fire sale. So life insurance for somebody who's heavily invested in real estate, then permanent life insurance makes sense. But then I would recommend, and this is what I always recommended, is to get the cheapest permanent life insurance you can. And that's a guaranteed universal life policy that acts effectively as a term policy so you can get it to age 120, which should take care of it for most of us. And you pay a level premium and it works just like a term policy. You don't build a cash value because you don't need a cash value because you're buying it to get a death benefit. So that's, that's a long answer to that.

No, that is. But that's, that's an accurate answer to that because that's. A lot of people don't think about that now. Of course, it's always about the fact, you know, the whole buy term investor difference you got to do, if you do A, you definitely got to do B, and go out 100 and put things to work. And that's one thing I think that you do a little bit different than a lot of other folks are. Can you, can you dive into that, some of the things that you're doing with that second part aspect of things helping people with their money?

Yeah. So what I've created is I call it the Get Ready System. And it's featured in my most recent book, the Get Ready Blueprint. And if it's okay, I'll give a shout out. People can sign up for my newsletter. They get a weekly action item. So what I've done is I've created a financial calendar that goes through every area of someone's financial life on a week by week basis with simple weekly action items. But the idea is that you review each of these areas and you see what fits and what does, what doesn't fit. Because so often what I found in working with different advisors is things would fall through the cracks. They think another advisor was taking care of it, or they just wouldn't bring it up because it wasn't their thing. And a lot of stuff doesn't get reviewed. Like I can't tell you how many times I'd review a life insurance policy or retirement plan and there's an ex spouse as a beneficiary that's not high on most people's planning lists. So you know, but that, that happens, you know, they'll been forced for 10, 15 years and that ex spouse is still there. On the insurance policy. So, you know, what I wanted to do was create a system that helps people sort of catch all these things. But also like you said is say, okay, well somebody says buy term and invest the difference. That's great. But what we found is that people don't invest the difference. They forget. So, you know, that's what the system does is one week it'll say, hey, let's think about life insurance. And the next week it'll say, why are you putting money aside into savings? Because that's what I think is helpful to people, hopefully.

Yeah, it totally. Is it helping to find a way. What are, besides the ex spouse or in a divorce thing, what are some of the other more common things that fall through the cracks with people? I know there's a whole, you've got a. Probably a whole list, but what are some of the most common ones?

One of the most common ones is leaving a 401k with a former employer, you know, and having it maybe be on autopilot and the investment selection not being great or you know, being invested in some high expense funds, you know, because that's just what it, that 401k defaults to. So that's one of the most common things. I think another one is just not knowing which debt to pay off and not paying off your debt efficiently and prioritizing, you know, there's nothing wrong with debt. Debt is not bad. Not managing your debt properly is bad. And that's, that's one of the big things. And I'm sure I share that one with you.

Yeah, exactly. I keep hearing Dave Ramsey talk about all bats. All debt is bad. I'm like, man, not necessarily. You know what I mean? We, and with us buying debt, you know, primarily mortgage debt, it's not so bad to buy a house and stuff like that where it's more affordable. It's. Obviously the market has changed a little bit and depending on where you live, stuff like that, but it's. Yeah, I mean if you've got low interest rate stuff, it's not so bad if, if you look at buying it versus, you know, cashing out something to make some things happen. You know, we had a friend recently who paid off $70,000 in credit card debt by cashing out their 401k. And I was just like, what are you doing? That's not a smart, smart action to do because their credit card debt was all pretty low interest rate stuff. It wasn't the high like 28, 29 like we see these days.

Yeah, and, and that's just it. But, you know, and that's why I try to cover in the book, because that's not the conversation, you know, that most people are having. You know, it's like, okay, well, you know, just like you said, is how does somebody know unless they can perform an analysis? Does it make sense to take money out of my 401k to pay off my credit card? I don't know, because they don't teach that in school. You know, you may know Hamlet, but you don't know, you know, whether it makes sense to pay off your debt and how to pay off your debt. And that's. That's the key word for me is how do you do it?

Now, one of the things I think we. You mentioned that we don't learn about it in school, our parents don't teach it because they're probably financially illiterate in a lot of cases there for you. I mean, you mentioned how you got started there for it. Did you get started at an earlier age of being. Trying to be financially savvy or things that you found interesting as a kid that helped kind of guide the way?

Not really. And I made some really stupid mistakes along the way. Biggest one was I was in college, and this is. I think what really got me focused was I took out a couple credit cards and I thought it was great, you know, went out with all my buddies, you know, and ran up some pretty good credit card bills and took a few years to pay that off after I got out of college. But, you know, those are lessons that you learn along the way and that hopefully, you know, we can help teach other people so they don't fall into the same kind of traps. Because, you know, when you're 22 and a guy with a credit card, that's not good.

No, I think we've all been there. But. But the thing, I'm so glad you brought that up is because we all. I think so many people have a negative stigma. Oh, I did something stupid financially, and they're embarrassed about it, or they think they're, you know, their value is based on what their FICO score is, you know, and that's not the case. And I think the biggest. One of the biggest decisions we. We made earlier, I was like, listen, well, no matter what we've done, we're here where we're at. Let's solve the issue and move forward. Whether it's getting a policy or paying down the credit card debt and just making an app, you know, a little bit comes in daily activities to make things happen. That's what I love so much about your weekly weekend out calendar. It's a full year of action items, right?

Yeah. And it gets into everything because that's the thing is, you know, there's so much focus on investing. Everybody talks about their investments all the time, but nobody talks about their insurance. And you pay more money for insurance and insurance premiums when you calculate health insurance, homeowners insurance, disability insurance, the whole gamut. Sometimes you're paying more than you are for your house, you know, but nobody talks about it. But there you can save a lot of money if, you know, if you take care of it and you can make sure you have the right insurance that you need.

What's your thoughts about insurance? It's, and you may have, you may not about homeowners insurance and the cost to insure homes across the country skyrocketing. You have any ideas on ways for people to reduce that or thought somewhere that's going to go in the next 12 to 24 months?

Well, I, I think for anybody that doubts global warming, check out what the insurance companies are doing because they sure as heck believe in global warming. So I'm not saying I know enough about global warming to, to say whether it's true or not. I think it is. It's not my specialty. But what I do know is that insurance companies are talking a lot about climate risk and we can see that in them. Non renewing homeowners insurance policies in Florida and things like that in California, in the San Francisco Bay area. I was nervous about getting our homeowners insurance renewed. I was glad to see it was renewed because the insurance companies are saying, wait a minute. And people miss this. At the end of the day, insurance companies are for profit businesses and if they don't think they can make money insuring things, they are not going to insure them. They're not, they're not non profits, they're not giving their money away. So you know, if you want to see what's really going on, and that's why I talk about global warming in this way, check out the insurance companies. They believe in it and they're, they're the ones who are putting their money up and they, they're saying that's what's going on with homeowners insurance. They're saying we think these areas are becoming more risky. And that's, that's all homeowners insurance is, is. They're taking a look and they're saying, okay, well we think this place is risky or we don't think this place is risky. And you have to think about it. You know, in California, people keep rebuilding in areas that have been burned by wildfires. Insurance companies are like, oh wait a minute, we've already rebuilt this property twice because it's burned down by a fire. Well, guess what, we're not going to insure it anymore for a fight. So that's one of the things you can do is you can think about before you buy a property. Like, okay, is, am I in a risky area? If you are in a risky area, like for example, if you're in a flood zone, regular homeowners insurance doesn't cover floods that you need to tack on a flood insurance policy. So you need to think about those things. And like in California, I have an earthquake insurance policy which is almost twice the premium for my regular insurance policy. And again, that gets into, okay, the insurance company is charging that much. So the insurance company is telling me that they think that is a risky activity. So the only thing you can do as a policyholder, find out what discounts the insurance companies offer. Because sometimes, you know, they'll offer homeowners a discount if you clear brush from around your home. You know, different mitigation things that you can do. Mitigation is just taking care of lowering the risk to the insurance company. Because the one thing the insurance companies don't want to do is they don't want to pay a claim.

That's definitely the case in Florida and South Texas too with all the hurricanes coming through and billions and billions in losses. That's why they, a lot of these insurance companies pulled out their stop covering those areas. And that's one thing I like looked at too. Like we used to buy a lot of distressed debt down in, as I call it, God's waiting room, Florida. I love like the Fort Myers, Cape Coral area down there. It just doesn't make any sense when you start looking at insurance premiums like, well, that's not going to, you know, that's going to add take a huge chunk of my potential profit margin. Now it's not, not profitable because of insurance costs. I have to adapt and go somewhere that's less risky to invest in. It's just, it's kind of like, you know, it's just an act of knowing what's going on in the market. You can't fight that, think change is going to happen, but you got to be flexible in where you're looking at, right?

100%. And you know, when you think about it from an insurance company, standpoint so let's say you have a million dollar home and it's fully insured for a million dollars. I just like round numbers. And you're paying $1,000 a year in premium. You know, if something happens to you, that means the insurance company is coming up with $999,000 out of their pocket. Well, they're not coming out of their pocket for that. That's coming out from other policyholders. So, you know, that's how the insurance company is looking at. And so like you're talking about, if an insurance company looks at an area and go, we're going to have to pay out more claims, more in claims than we can charge in premiums. It's not worth it to them, which means it may not be worth it to you. You have to decide if you want that trade off.

Yeah. And it may make more sense just to visit an area versus buy a property that area these days.

Right, Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Do an Airbnb.

Exactly. Or a hotel is definitely something to think about there. And that's sometimes it's a harder aspect of things because people have lived in an area, they've grown up in an area, they've got a lot of emotional roots to it and it's just, it's a cost of living in those areas. I mean, I like sunny Florida, but it just doesn't make sense for me to look at retiring there. It makes sense to visit, but I've got to change where we invest at to other parts of the country. And where do you find kind of the sneak peek to what the insurance companies are doing when they looking at global warming and floodplains or flood zones or hurricane stuff. Is there any type of public information that people can track to kind of see what, what's on the insurance company's minds?

Yeah. You know, Bloomberg has a free newsletter. You know, you have to pay if you want to read most of the articles, but they have really good headlines that you can get in their newsletter. Free Wall Street Journal, you know, they have, you know, the overviews of the stories so you can keep an idea, you know, of what's going on. Because insurance companies are pretty open about what they're thinking. But you know, just things like, you know, if you hear all your neighbors saying like, hey, I don't know if my homeowner's insurance is going to get renewed. I know here San Francisco Chronicle, you know, their newsletter had a huge series about what to do if your insurance company won't renew you. I would say this information is usually Pretty much out there that you don't have to be an insurance expert, you just have to tune in, you know, and as I mentioned, both Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal, you know, they're business newsletters, but they're accessible for anyone, you.

Know, and doesn't hurt to shop around too, right?

Oh, you always want to shop around. But you know, be careful when you're shopping is, you know, if something is a lot cheaper in the insurance world, there's usually a reason for it because insurance companies have a lot of the same data. A lot of them have been doing this for 150, 200 years, you know, so they're, they can't be too different in how they treat something. So you know, if you're getting a much cheaper quote, you have to make sure you're getting the same coverage.

Right. Apples to apples is apples to oranges.

Exactly, exactly. And you know, that's not the insurance company's fault. It's just that, as you know, and that's why I started the whole Get Ready project. It's that you have to know which questions to ask and you have to ask the right questions because it's not that the insurance companies are hiding the information, they just don't bring it out.

Now what would you recommend for folks out there that are looking at their life insurance that we're talking about, whether it's a term or a variety of things, not going to your sales rep to ask them the difference. But is there maybe a non, a neutral party who's non commission based to give you a straight answer in some cases?

Well, of course, I'd say my book questions and answers on Life Insurance, that's the slam dunk here, you know, but there are some really good resources. You know, as you mentioned, a expert content reviewer for NerdWallet and Bankrate and both of them have very talented, hard working staffs and editors. That's, that's why they work not only with me in the life insurance content area, but in other content areas with experts to make sure that they're getting their information correct. So, you know, those are good places. There are a few fee based life insurance advisors. I'm retired as a fee based insurance advisor, but there are a few across the state. But you know, I'd say, you know, most CFPs, certified financial planners can speak generally about insurance. They don't have a lot of specialized insurance knowledge, but they can help you figure out what type of life insurance you need and how much you need.

And definitely, I hate to say this, but definitely Open up your policy and read your policy.

100%. 100%, you know, and ask questions, you know, and if you've had it sitting in a drawer for a year, five years, 20 years, open up and take a look at it. You know, that's. That's what I'm doing with the whole get ready project is just saying, hey, go in. You don't necessarily have to change anything, but go in and take a look. You've got a million dollars of coverage. You still need a million dollars of coverage.

Yes, no, exactly, exactly. Because things change, assets change, and going from there. What's your thoughts about, though? Was it Yahoo News or Bloomberg read an article a few weeks ago about how I think 44 of Americans have given up on the idea of retirement, with the idea being too much. What's your thoughts and suggestions for folks that may be feeling discouraged about that?

Well, you know, I mean, you can be discouraged about it, but, you know, these are like any other statistics you read in a paper. I mean, it's like, you know, I read something where, like, the average American thinks that they need this much. Well, that's a whole problem. They think they need that much. They don't know they need that much. So what I would say is to take a deep breath and do an assessment of where you're at, is really figure out where you're at, think about what your goals are. Is like, you know, everybody goes, okay, well, I'm going to retire at age 65. Almost no one I know retires exactly when on their 65th birthday. You know, they retire early, they kind of work late, they take a second job, you know, have a second career. So think about, you know, what your goals are, what you're trying to accomplish. Then assess your resources. You know, what have you set saved aside. Do you own a home? Check out your property, check out your assets, and then make a plan. You know, it's like, today is the best day to, you know, make a change. And I would say don't worry about averages and what other people think you need. All that matters is knowing what you need.

Mm. Now, you also talk about legacy, and people leave having a legacy and reviewing that. What are some of the things that you see that are the most common things that people are looking to do with their legacy?

I think most people want to make sure that their kids are okay. I would say that's pretty much 99 of people are like, you know, I want to leave something for my kids, and I want to make sure that my kids are better. Off than I am. You know, I think that's every parent's goals, you know, for their kids to be okay. And so that's, you know, when you're thinking about it. But I would say the biggest challenge that I see in the estate planning area is that parents are not communicating with their adult kids about their wishes. And I think that if you have an aging parent or if you are an aging parent, you need to have these conversations and come up with what your plan on is and express your wishes. Because let's say you've created a will, you've created a trust, you have power of attorney, you lock it away, you know, under your house, no one knows it exists. Well, guess what? Those things aren't going to be followed. So you have to talk about it and be willing to have the conversation about what your plans are, what you want to have happen.

Totally makes sense now as folks are getting older, I think we're seeing a lot more, especially since we have a lot more folks growing older than we're having new kids in some cases there. And health for folks, what importance is like long term care insurance and that stuff and when should people start looking at that and how should you know when should be that big bell that goes off? Hey, you really need to start considering this. Is it because you've got sick parents or you've got medical issues, hereditary? What are your thoughts on that, Tony?

Well, I think it's part of any financial plan. Is putting in place a component for an aging plan. That's one week I wish I'd put into my get ready blueprint. I don't have an aging week because I think that would be a good focus week for people. But yeah, is you need to think about your aging plan. You know, what is your plan for aging? You know, where are you going to live when you age? Can you stay in your house? The majority of people want to stay in their house, which is totally cool. That's my plan. How are you going to pay for it? What are your resources? You know, you can't count on your kids to take care of you. And I know a lot of people are going, oh well, my kids will help out. Well, they may or may not. If they have jobs, they may not be able to or they just may not have that desire because caregiving is a lot of work. So you know, thinking about what you want to do. Yeah. So long term care insurance is a great way to pre fund that need. It's just like any other risk protection, you know, if you're buying insurance for, you know, driving your car, there's certain percent chance you're going to get in a car crash. Same thing with long term care insurance. Because some people go, well, what if I don't need long term care? Well, then you're pretty darn happy. You know, if you have homeowners insurance in your home, doesn't burn down, nobody complains to go, oh my, oops, sorry.

Exactly a.

Okay, you know, they're all like, my house did not burn down. I am really bummed I didn't get that insurance. Everybody's pretty happy with that situation and so we should think about that with the rest of our insurance. You know, it's like that's a good thing if you don't need your insurance, but you have it just in case.

In case it's, it's, that's what it comes down to. You may never need it. But what if you do, you know, exactly. And changes, you know, things take place, change happens, health changes. I mean, if you're a pretty healthy person, you're probably gonna be pretty healthy as long as you stay stuff. And I think that's one of the big things with America here is we've got to focus on either eating healthier or being healthier. That'll help, you know, eliminate some of these issues that we see as we get older. Diabetes being all time high and just our lack of movement in a lot of cases out there. Um, be interested to see if the insurance company spent more time on that a little bit. Huh?

Yeah, well, you know, they're aware of it, but it's hard for the insurance companies to really, you know, impact the change. There's a lot of talk, some of them have introduced programs, but the programs are only as good as people interacting with programs. You know, at the end of the day, people have to want to make these changes for themselves and insurance companies. You're just following the path, you know, what's going on.

Exactly. Exactly. Now, what's the best way for our listeners to tap into your series, your amazing 12 month program?

They can sign up for my newsletter. It's free on my website tonystewart.com hopefully you put in the show notes so people can actually spell it. You know, definitely people can reach out to me on LinkedIn or find my books on Amazon or bookshop.org yeah, I've.

Got it pulled up here, the website. And that's what I like about it. It's, it's really great. Change the way you think about money. @tonystewart.com Stuart S T E U E R.com we'll put the link in the description for you to be able to take advantage of that. And you've got access to your books, your podcast, your Money club. Can you talk about your Money club for a second?

Yeah, yeah. So the Money Club is the newsletter. So it comes with the weekly action item. It comes with podcast release notifications also include what I call the Get Ready discussion guide, which are monthly discussion prompts. So, you know, with your significant other, you know, if you have adult kids, you know, because I've talked a lot about having these conversations. Well, these are conversation starters. You know, there's no cost for that. And then what I call the Get Ready Essential Worksheets. And, and one of the most fun worksheets in there is the Unclaimed Property Checklist. I've come up with like 25, 30 different places where you can look for unclaimed property. Because you never know, states have unclaimed property for pretty much everyone.

Yeah, insurance, old insurance policies, things like that. I've seen that out there. A couple, we've claimed a couple of thousand dollars in unclaimed money sitting out there. Tax overages and things like that. There's a whole lot of stuff that we do on that. So that's awesome. Yeah, Great website, guys. Check it out. Such a great stuff. Check out his podcast as well too. And if you're struggling with your finances, part of it is that you're just probably not, you know, taking the action. You're avoiding the uncomfortable situations. This doesn't need to be uncomfortable in talking to your spouse or significant others. Tony's really made it really simple for you on that step by step process. Yes, it can be overwhelming. But you know what, just peel it back one later at a time. Like an onion, right, Tony?

Exactly. You know, it's like, think about all the other complex things you've learned how to do in your life. You know, the money is the same way as, you know, you have to one just feel like you can do it or that you want to do it. Like you talked about. It's just, you know, we talked about earlier, you know, all of us have that money story that we're really ashamed of and we felt really stupid about. But that's okay because everything, you know, no matter what we've done, we've all made mistakes. I mean, I think Michael Jordan talks about that. He says, I failed so many times and that's what's led me to succeed.

Yeah, you learn more from your failures. Than you do your wins for sure. So don't let it haunt you. Go out, take some action, buddy. Get signed up for Tony's program there for you. You will not regret it. If you want to make 20, 25 your year, financially, you got to clean up a little bit of the mistakes, the mess you've made in the past. That's okay. We've all been there. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. But go out, take some action, and we'll see at the top. Thanks for coming on, Tony, today. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Scott. This is fun.

Awesome. Good stuff.

Sam. Sa.