Why isn't money taught in school?

So to me, like, that just sounds absolutely ludicrous.

Those guys aren't much fun at parties. Let's call it what it is.

I was like, are you kidding me?

That's. That is could not be true.

And that's again, like, those numbers are staggering and I can't believe that that's actually just one bank. But yeah. All right. Welcome to another episode of Make Shit Happen. Today's guest is none other than Scott Parry, who. Who is the owner of Crown Money. He's been in the financial space for over 23 years and he's a financial coach who takes the perspective of looking at finance as if you're going to the gym and getting a personal trainer. You don't know what you don't know. So Scott and I today are going to deep dive on a lot of myths and debunk a lot of what's going on in the financial sector. And also some key takeaways for yourself, how you can pay your re your mortgage off a lot quicker and how you can just increase your finance principles all around. Scott, thank you so much for coming on today.

No worries, Sam. Thanks for having me, mate.

One of the first things that popped up for me when I was looking at your website and just initially having the chats with you was strikingly, when people have a financial coach or use someone such as yourself, they tend to pay off their mortgage quicker than what they would traditionally through what the repayments are from the bank. Bank. And one thing that you touched on that was quite striking for me was you said normally within 12 months of people using a financial coach or someone like yourself, that they end up paying three times more of their mortgage.

Yep.

So for the average earner income for the Australian household, can you just deep dive into a little bit in terms of how that works? And why should someone get a coach like yourself?

Absolutely. So, I mean, everyone's in a position where they want to get out of debt. That's one thing I've known From speaking over 6,000 Australians is every single person I've spoken to wants to be out of debt. However, no one's really wanting them to be out of debt. When I say no one, I'm talking about the banks and the brokers. And so these guys are financially incentivized to keep you in debt for as long as possible, because the longer you're in debt, the more money everybody makes it except for you. And so if you've got a home loan and you're set over 30 years, the banks want that going for the full 30 years, because you're going to pay back double what you originally borrowed. You borrow 600,000, you pay back 1.2 million as a ballpark figure. And so that 30 loan is the most profitable vehicle for the banks because you're paying back double the amount that you borrowed. But more importantly, the brokers are also getting paid every single month a percentage of your loan balance. And if you put your little broker hat on, what don't you want your client's loan balance to do? If you're getting paid a percentage of every month, go down. And so everyone in the financial services industry is financially incentivized to keep you in debt for as long as possible, but you don't want to be in debt. And so where that stems from is the average Australian, unfortunately, is refinancing every three years on average. You walk into your bank and you want to renovate, you want to try and find a cheaper rate, you want to consolidate some credit card debt. And what the bank and a broker will do is they'll reset your loan term back to the start of another 30 marathon. And if you're trying to run a 30 kilometer marathon and you keep going back to the start line every three kilometers, very, very little chance in actually paying that house off or finishing that marathon. And so, unfortunately, most Australians are retiring with a mortgage now. And what that means is they've got to cannibalize their super fund and put that money towards paying off the mortgage, so they don't have a mortgage repayment in retirement when that money should have been funding their lifestyle. And so most Australians pay about $10,000 a year off their principal. And so if you want to do the maths, you look at your statements, you can very easily see over six months, you would have paid five or six grand off, times that by two. That's how you're getting your sort of 10 grand a year in principal reduction. But you're paying 30 to 40,000 a year in repayments. And we always do these calculations for clients where we sit them down, say, okay, what's your loan? What's your rate? What's your repayment based on that? I just did one this morning. She was paying $45,000 a year after tax towards her mortgage. 35 of the 45 was going in interest, and only 10 grand a year was coming off the principal. And she never really knew those numbers. She felt it wasn't moving. But when you put it like that in front of people and they can start to see that the bank's taxing 80% of your payment in interest and only 20% of it is going towards principal. Or to say another way is that you're paying the bank and 80 cents for every dollar you're paying goes to them in interest and only 20 cents comes off the debt. So most Australians are very frustrated. They're working their guts out. They can't work any harder, but they're not feeling like they're making any progress. And I've always been a big believer in progress equals happiness. And without that, that sort of financial progress, even though they're throwing the kitchen sink in terms of repayments at that mortgage and it doesn't seem to be moving, a lot of people just sort of bury the head in the sand and think that's the way it's got to be.

So to me, like that just sounds absolutely ludicrous. Like you're, you're paying 45 grand a year as an example, and only 10, but 10, 10,000 of us going to the principal.

Yep.

Why, why are people doing this? I understand it's structured that way from the banks, but are people just oblivious to these numbers? Like do they not understand how their loan structure works? Like, why is this happening?

Everyone makes more money when people are in the dark. And so when I say people are in the dark, I mean no one's taught money in school or high school and university. And so the reality is you probably learned money from your parents. And if they were great money managers, then you sort of got a little bit of a leg up in life. But if they weren't great money managers, then you probably inherited some of those habits there. And so no one's learning how you should be structuring your income, how to get it working for you, how to get out of debt faster. Because the people who you're getting advice from don't benefit from that. I like the analogy of it's kind of getting the finance advice from the bank or the broker is very similar to getting nutrition advice from McDonald's. I mean they're not in a game of getting you fit or healthy. And banks aren't in the game of getting you debt free. They there to make money for shareholders. And the more I mean cba, prime example. This is mind blowing this year. Cost of living crisis, Huge amount of sort of pain out there with all their customers struggling to make ends meet. They, These guys made 10,000 million dollars profit after all their expenses. 10,000 million. That's $10 billion. That's just one bank. And you just got to look at the average bear out there calling it tight, like struggling just to make ends meet. And these guys are still in this environment making 10,000 million dollars a year each.

And that's again, like those numbers are staggering. And I can't believe that that's actually just one bank. But yeah, like going back to the fundamentals of money and understanding money, what do you think is the root cause for the lack of education around money? Like, is it the schooling system? Like, why are people not being educated on how to spend, invest and what banks to go with how to structure their loans? Like, why, why is there such a massive knowledge gap whereby someone needs to go and talk to someone like yourself? Where is this all stemming from?

Definitely the schooling system. I mean, I'm just perplexed as to how we could send a kid to school for 12 years and not once during that 12 years they taught about money management of money, budgeting, investments, tax, compound interest. It's one of those things where we're guaranteed to have to deal with money every single day of our life, yet we're never taught about it. However, we're teaching things like geography, which I find these days quite irrelevant when you've got Google Maps just at your fingertips. And so spending all this time teaching these outdated subjects when in actual fact I think health and wealth should be the number one focuses on for kids in school to give them the best chance of success in life.

And I totally agree with that. I think that I didn't totally start to take control of my life until I started to understand my health being number one. Because without health you have nothing. And I've been on that journey now for nearly 10 years on trying to, you know, even just down a micromanage the little things that I put into my mouth versus, you know, what you're saying of a, say a P and L loss statement within a business. Right. When it comes to some of the biggest misconceptions I guess in the industry or when it comes to money, what do you think? Like there's the old saying, a penny saved is a penny, in my opinion is still a penny.

Yep.

When it comes to how people traditionally look at money versus someone like yourself and how you see things now, what do you see is like some of the biggest misconceptions within the banking system and just money in general that people aren't aware of.

Yeah. So many people seem to think that the 30 year mortgage is normal. Like of course I'm going to pay it off over 30 years because that's what everyone's doing. But there's more and more people I've seen over the last few years who are starting to search for a different way. Feeling must be there must be another way. We've been sort of perfecting that system for 23 years where when you sit with so many people over 6,000 and you're learning from their mistakes, what not to do, I think is as important as what to do financially. And the problem with it and the reason why every 23 days I get to pick up my phone and call a client, say, you paid your house off today, you're free from mortgage prison. The reason why our clients pay off their houses on average in 12 years compared to 30 is because they don't refinance. They don't refinance every three years and go back to the start of the 30 year marathon. And so when they're not refinancing, they're creating equity, they're paying down debt, they've got a plan. I think it's really important that not many of us have any sort of plan financially. And so no one's got any idea as to exactly what day they own their home. No one's got any ideas to how much of their money they save every month. I mean, we track every client's savings rate and not many people would have heard of this. What's the savings rate? It's what percentage of your income you keep. What you earn is irrelevant. And everyone's so focused on how much are you earning, how much are you earning? Not important. How much you keep of what you earn is everything. And so we've got clients, our average savings rate, just over 20%. What does that mean? For every dollar that they earn, they're saving 20 cents. The average savings rate in Australia is 3.7%. So that's the difference, 3.7% versus 20%. Just because they've got a system and a plan in place, they know their numbers. And I think that's one of the biggest factors that no one's given any tools or any sort of reference point. It's going, where am I at? Where am I going? And am I on track? Like, everyone floats around financially and is like, yeah, I'm sort of, I'm okay, I'm paying my bills, I'm paying my mortgage, I'm not drowning. But they're not moving forward and that's why they're frustrated financially.

You know, the one thing I've also found with a lot of friends and people that I know in, in my industry, especially when they start to break to a new earning threshold or bracket, even though they might have earned another 10, 20, 30 grand a month, on average, they're spending that extra 10, 20, 30 grand a Month. Like, as you said, like, I think comes down to the fundamentals and principles of how you manage your money. And like in terms of spending it, saving it, investing it, and just all around principles with money getting into that, like you just mentioned, the average Australian saves around about 3% of, of whatever they earn, which is astonishing. Like, that is just crazy. What are some general principles that people can apply today to change that around from say, that 3% to the 20%?

Yeah, it's a great question. So many people spend whatever they have direct access to. And so if your salary is being banked into your check or savings account or your offset account, your mindset is, okay, that's how much I've got to spend. And some people spend even more than what they're earning. That's called credit card debt. So whenever I sit with anyone who has a credit card debt and they say, hey, Scott, I've got 12,000 sitting on my credit card owing, that's them simply putting their hand up saying, hey, I've spent $12,000 more than what I've earned. And so when we're giving ourselves these options to be able to spend more than what we're earning, we're always going to be able to justify why we deserve it, why we're always going to be, we feel we're always going to be richer in the future. And so the average Australian's got less than $2,000 in savings, has a $3,000 credit card debt. These are the average Australians I'm talking about. And so from that perspective, you've got to look at, okay, well, there's people worse than that and there's obviously people better than that. And so it's just that lifestyle creep which you mentioned, where everyone is earning more than what they've ever earned in their life. Usually there's not too many people who are earning less now than what they were five years ago or 10 years ago. And so you're earning more money than you ever left, have ever earned in your entire life. But you're probably feeling the tightest or the poorest in your entire life. And for so many people, that just doesn't make sense. I sit with clients, say, imagine if I told you 10 years ago you're going to be earning $180,000 a year and feel tight. There's no way that wouldn't be the case. I'd have savings, I'd have surplus, I'd have this, I'd have that. And because that lifestyle creep that you mentioned is as soon as anyone gets a pay rise, instantly their lifestyle and living standards increase. And so rather than getting that $15 bottle of wine, they're getting the $30 bottle of wine. Rather than driving the $30,000 car, they're driving the $50,000 car. And everything sort of steps up. And so there's no surplus quarantined. And as a result of that, it all evaporates, and they're just continually spending what they're earning. And so the key to it is, I feel, separating your income from your living expenses, and that there is, is being one of the most successful strategies that we've given people so they can become conscious spenders. And the only way to become a conscious spender is have a set amount of money to last a set period of time. When you've got all your salary going to your account, where you're spending out of your mindset is, that's what I've got to spend before my next salary. Whereas we separate your income from your living expenses, and then all of a sudden, your psychology shifts, and you go, okay, I've got $800 this week just to cover my food, my fuel, and my fun. And now I'm consciously spending the 800, the rest of my salaries, out of sight, out of mind, working for me, sitting off my debt, invested, whatever it may be. But just separating that income from your living expenses is a really big step forward.

Yeah, no, definitely. And, like, when it comes to managing your money, like, one of the things that I try to do is, like, I find that, you know, money follows attention. And if you're keeping track of your money, looking at it daily, and looking at your expenditure, then it's very unlikely money will just start to evaporate out of thin air. But in terms of how people can best track this, like, what if I'm the average Australian and I've got, say, $2,000, my bank account, $3,000 worth of credit card debt. How can I start tracking what I'm doing every day and separate and make that change? And that shift is the first step. Is it a mindset shift, or is it I need to go down on an Excel spreadsheet and start mapping things out on what I'm spending and how. How to spend it?

Yeah, it's. No one's doing the Excel spreadsheet. I mean, probably 2% of us, those guys aren't much fun at parties. Let's call it what it is. So those things don't work, just like budgets don't work, you know, like most of us are busy with life. The last thing we want to be doing on a Sunday afternoon is, no worries, kids, I don't want to play with you. I want to jump in my Excel spreadsheet, just see exactly where the week shaped up. And so the, the key is automation, automating everything. And when it comes to finances, it's automating your bills, automating your expenses, automating the tracking. And when I say the tracking is everything is dialed in. So it reads all the data from your bank account and then it categorizes it and gives it to in a really nice clean format. And so that's what. One thing which we've worked really hard on is getting this software we call our Wealth Portal. And I want to give it to all the listeners here so they can actually have a trial of the Wealth Portal. So we'll go through that at the end. This Wealth Portal puts your whole financial life on one screen. It tracks your net worth, it tracks your cash flow, what your income is versus your expenses, how that was compared to what you budgeted, attracts your property price, tells you exactly what your property has done in terms of capital growth of last 3 months, 12 months, 3 years, 10 years, tracks your superannuation fund, it tracks the value of your car, it sets goals. Okay, number one goal, we want to pay the mortgage down by $30,000 this year. And then gives you a graph of where you are live versus where you should be on the sort of goal so you can see am I above or below the line? And just having that report come through to you automatically. There's an app on your phone so you can see what my net worth is at any one day. It's crazy how many people know their body weight, but no one knows their financial weight. And I ask people, like I'm a weirdo, I asked, what's your financial weight? What are you talking about? And so everyone's so focused on their body weight, and I think as important is your financial weight, what's your net worth? What is the net worth? If I sold everything, what would I be left with in cash? And so it's all your assets minus all your liabilities that equals your net worth. And just have that tracked and we map it and, and graph it. And so you can see every month, as long as that net worth is moving north, we're moving forward financially. And so a really good goal is for someone to have a net worth of 100,000, then 500,000, and then a million dollars net worth. And so that's obviously the value of your super. It's the equity in your properties, it's your savings, it's your share portfolio, crypto, whatever it may be. But if you sold all your assets and paid off the loans or liabilities, what would you be left with? And that's your net worth. And just tracking that in itself, I think is phenomenal because like you just said, is attention goes where, or energy flows where attention goes. And so that is the number one thing just getting that wealth portal set up, you've got it on your phone, you can jump on onto your laptop and you can actually see your whole financial world, from your cash flow to your property prices, your super, the works sit there and automated. You don't have to be data entering into Excel every week.

Yeah, no, that, that's, that's very true. And I think, like, if you can definitely automate these types of things and, and have it into definitely a software that can just show it in one easy format for you to read. It's, it's easy to just go, okay, well, last week I was here and I've kind of slightly gone up, and now I'm here and I'm forecasted to be here in the next 60, 90 days, whatever it may be. So, yeah, everyone that's listening, we will give you free access to that. Scott's writing that at the end, which we'll touch on. Now, the other big thing, you mentioned this before is credit cards. Now you're not for credit cards. Is that, is that correct? You're against it?

That's is. Could not be true. I am Australia's leading plastic surgeon, and what I mean by that is I've chopped up more credit cards than anyone else in Australia. I have a whole wall in my office of every person's credit card chopped up. It's a bit of a fetish, to be honest. And so I just feel it's the number one thing I can do for any family is to take away that temptation to spend more than what they earn. And how I do that is putting them onto a Visa debit card. If any of you guys are rolling with Visa debit cards out there, one of the greatest Visa Debit cards or MasterCard debit cards is with bank west at the moment, where bank west give you frequent flyer points for all the cash spending on your Visa debit card. It's called a platinum debit card. So if you're looking for a new debit card, have a look at Bank West Platinum debit card. Phenomenal. I use it myself and just get Qantas frequent flower points for just spending cash. I thought that was just used to be reserved for the credit cards of the world, but now to get those benefits, it's been really, really beneficial. A lot of clients are liking that.

What's the psychology behind why you think credit cards are bad? I mean, I understand that people just have this money sitting here, but yeah, in terms of why the credit card companies do this and to begin with, why do people fall into the trap of credit cards and how come they put themselves into such big holes?

Yeah, it's such a great question. So this becomes down to behavioral psychology, which I absolutely love. The. The way people think, why they think the way they think. And so when, where it comes from, I mean, if you had a product that made 16% returns, 18% returns, you'd throw that down everyone's throat. That's what the banks have. They have a product that pays them 18%. It's phenomenal. And so with a credit card, everyone starts out with the best intentions. I'm only going to get a small limit just when I travel overseas. You never know what may happen, will pop up, an emergency happens. They hit the credit card with the best intentions to pay it off at the end of the month. That doesn't happen because of one or two other things cascaded. They then get sent limit increases. They increase, their limit starts at two grand, may go to five, eventually goes to ten. And they're always sort of just below their limit. And their mindset is, I'm not at my limit, I can afford this. And so it's the psychology of spending. And there's been some studies done on credit cards. I just read one out of nature, which is phenomenal article where they measured people's brain waves when they go shopping. And when you go shopping with a credit card, there isn't any pain or very little pain registered in your brain. And the reason for that is you don't feel like you've lost anything. And when I say that is you go, let's say looking for a pair of shoes, you go to the counter with a pair of shoes, you tap this phone or card or now they're doing rings and then you receive the pair of shoes. And so at no point in your brain have you felt like you've paid for something or like given away or lost something. In terms of money, there's been no sort of at all financial loss there. And you've just got this pair of shoes. And so as a result, there's no pain. That was fine. I have to pay for it. I didn't feel it. And so that's why the banks have bought these credit cards to service. Like back in the day, if anyone can remember, if you're as old as I am, you used to have to sign for a credit card. So when you paid by credit card, you used to have to sign. It's like, okay, well that was those days. Then it went to a pin and now it's to the pay wave or the pay and go where you just touch it. And it's just trying to delink that feeling of spending money from the actual purchase. And so because people don't feel like they're spending money, they spend more. I think the stats coming out at the moment, you know, you're spending 14% more on every purchase when you use credit versus cash. So if you walk into Coles or Woolworths on the weekend to do your grocery shopping and you do that with a credit card, you will be spending 14% more on your groceries every single week because you're using credit as opposed to cash. And so when we hand over cash, we hand over $50 notes, we feel pain, we've paid for this. And so it also allows you to become conscious spending when using cash. If you go into, let's say you budget 300 for grocery shopping, for example, for the family, if you go into coleslaw with just 300 cash, that's it. You don't take any cards. You take 300 cash. You watch how you shop. You're conscious. I can't go over 300. I can't. There's no emergency. Like, I've got to keep this under 300. And so you're consciously shopping. It's a great experiment to do. Just with yourself is, okay, just take the amount of cash that you want to budget for that and then go shopping with the cash. And you watch how differently you shop versus you. You know, you got the credit card in the wallet and you're tapping that no matter what it comes in at. Could come in at 3:30, 3:50. It's irrelevant. I know I'm not at my limit and I can afford this. So from that perspective, people are spending more because using credit. And I'm speaking with clients and they say, oh, but I'm not paying any interest. I'm like, it's not My point, I'm not saying you're paying interest. I'm saying you're spending more because your psychology is different, because you're not mentioning any pain when you're purchasing. And as a result of that, you compound 14% more on your shopping bill every week of every month of every year for 10, 15 years. That's when it starts to add up, when you're compounding those sort of numbers.

Yeah, and so I can, I can understand that there's been a couple of times where, you know, even I, I can understand what you're just saying in terms of there's no pain associated with the transaction. Like, I've felt that multiple times when I got to pay something. I'm like, I'll just put up a credit card, no big deal. What about the people with, with businesses or new businesses that are trying to expand themselves and don't necessarily have the available capital to get certain things going? Or whether it's they run an online business with ads or an E Commerce, or if they're trying to say They've got a $5,000 credit card that runs, say, advertisement spend for them because they don't want to blow their own money on the ad spend. They want to go and use the credit card to try and get ahead and hopefully make money back to pay for the credit card bill without it necessarily coming out of their own pocket. What's your view on that?

That's a little different because you're using that as a funding line or a small business loan, in my eyes, where you've got $1 going out, you're hoping you get $2 back. And so that's the whole premise. Now, we all know that not every time the $2 comes back and people get stuck with, with the debts, but their intention is, I'm using this for a business or investment purposes. So the, the actual type of that, I mean, that then becomes deductible debt because the interest that you're being charged you can claim a tax deduction on because the, the use of those funds were for business or investment purposes. So now we're talking tax deductible debt versus consumer debt or bad debt, which is totally different. So any of those businesses who are using it for those exact purposes, running their ad spend, et cetera, et cetera, I don't have any problem with that. That's deductible debt. If you are, you don't want to be paying interest, but if you were, then it would at least be deductible interest. Whereas if you're buying shoes, clothes, TVs, those sort of things, things I call stuff. If you're buying stuff on your credit card then you will eventually end up with stuff or.

Yeah. That brings me to my next topic I want to talk to you about which is tax. Something that everybody loves to complain about. Nobody wants to pay but everyone wants to get money back.

Yeah.

So when it comes to tax, like what are you finding the average Australian is paying that you're coaching and helping with on average?

Wow. Percentages. Yeah, it's a really good question. I'd probably say our average client is closer to sort of the 30% mark where they're earning 150, 180 and then from there they're losing around about 30% ballpark figure in tax. So yeah, every single person doesn't like tax, thinks they're paying too much of it and as a result of that they're always looking for ways to get out of it. Now just from my experience, I think that anything sold to you as a tax deduction for me rings alarm bells. And what are some examples of this with if anyone can remember the agri business with Timber Corp. I think we're doing some like we plant these trees and then all of a sudden you get all these tax deductions and anyway never worked out. I think when people are selling nervated leases for cars, a lot of you guys are out there and girls have got the Nevada leases, I call them Nevada fleece. It's sold to you on a tax auction. You're buying a liability that goes down in value and that's getting your pre tax money to go towards a liability when I'd much rather you take that pre tax money and put it into your super or into an investment which is going to grow. And so we never want to take pre tax money, put it into a liability when we take pre tax money and put it into an asset. And so anything that you're sort of, I mean a lot of these property spruce out there say oh well, depreciation plus the deductible interest, et cetera which is all well and good but you've got to look at the merits of a property based on okay, what are the key demand supply drivers and if it's out the back of nowhere and it's got no services around it but you're going to get depreciation and deductible interest and it's going to help you reduce your tax, that means you're losing money and the government feels sorry for you. And so they're giving you some money back. And the easy way I say to clients is think of it this way. For I always like to talk about property because everyone understands it. For a property, I would much rather a positive cash flow property because I'm making a dollar, but I'm losing 30 cents in tax, I'm 70 cents up versus a negatively geared property where I'm losing a dollar and I'm getting 30 cents back in tax, I'm still 70 cents down. Now, I understand that not every investment property is positive cash flow, But I'm talking about the name of the game, like the absolute end game is you want that property to be paying you. And if that means you're paying tax on that dollar, you're still 70 cents up, you're still making money, you're still being paid to own property, which in my eyes is the dream.

Yeah. And that brings me to my next point. Like, and it's a topic that I always argue about with people, where people want to own where they live versus renting or buying a property to rent as an investment and then rent where they live.

Yep.

What side of the fence do you sit on?

Wow, I've jumped. I've jumped. I used to be a rent vester. I bought 10 investment properties and rented where I lived, and then I had a family. And then all of a sudden I felt like, okay, I've made enough money with my investments, I've got the portfolio there. Now I really just want to have a home. And so I sort of did the rent vesting. And that is the smartest thing to do financially. I don't think anyone can argue it is smarter to rent where you live and continue to build your investment property so you have no bad debt, you, borrowing capacity is as high as it possibly can be. The minute you get a home loan, your borrowing capacity crashes. You got no deductible interest, you got no rental income, you can't borrow as much, you can't move forward financially as fast. But it's a lifestyle choice. And so I just chose, I said, okay, now I've got enough money, I'm financially free, I don't need to be continuing to invest. I just want to buy something for a lifestyle. And so I made that decision a few years ago, bought my first home to live in. Really? Like, it still got the investment. So I think the answer is both. I, I don't think there's just one set track for the rest of your life. I think there's seasons in life and for for that season, I was investing aggressively. I bought one investment probably every year for 10 years. And so that was a different season. So now I'm a bit older, a bit more settled, and not sort of grinding as. As hard. And as a result of that, I want to enjoy the benefits of those early investments. You know, I think that's what life's about. And it's so sad. I see so many people retire and this will probably cover this a little bit later. But they, they retire and they've got this scarcity mindset of, okay, this is all the money I've got for the rest of my life. And they don't spend it because they're scared they're going to run out. Yeah. And so I've got to do these interventions with people. I just did one with my dad. It was crazy. So he's always complaining about how he's got no money. I don't have this. We can't afford this, can't afford that. And I was like, well, let's just sit down. Let's just break this down together. Let's talk numbers. How much do you have in the bank? He said, I sold. Sold everything up. I've got $300,000 in life saving super in the bank, whatever. Okay, so 300,000, you're 75. So how much you getting for the pension? It's like, oh, 500 a week. Okay, and how much do you spend on average every week over and above the pension? Oh, some weeks might be 700. Okay, so you're spending 700 a week. Your income is $500 per week from the government who. And you've got $300,000 in cash sitting there, invested at 5% in a term deposit, spinning off 15 grand per year. So you're actually not even getting into the principle of the 300,000. And my question to you, dad, is, what are you saving this for? Like, what are you not wanting to chew into that 300,000 for? And he said, oh, well, you know, just never know. I said, mate, I've just done the numbers. You're not even getting into the 300,000. You literally, the interest from the 300,000 plus your pension is equal to your living expenses. And, yeah, I'm sure you can do a trip or two. Obviously, the older they get, the less trips they do every year. But I just don't think you're going to get anywhere near getting through the 300. And it all goes back in the box. Whatever you don't spend goes back in the box. And I Think personally, this is. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I believe my model. In my mind, the name of the game is to spend every single dollar you have before you die. And when my clients pay the house off, I give them a call and say, congratulations, you paid your house off. They then retire debt free. And then they meet this other Scott who's like, okay, now you finish the first challenge, which is to pay the house off. Now the game is to spend every single dollar we've accumulated before we die. And that's where it gets fun. Because so many people go into this scarcity mindset, scared of spending money and as a result of that die with all this money that they could have just had this incredible life with all the experiences with their family and friends, they could have spent that money on experiences and everyone would have been so much happier. But they were sort of saving it for no reason, just because that was how they wired their whole life. Save, save, save, save, save, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate. And then you've got to flick this switch when you retire to say, okay, now my job is to spend everything before I die. And that there is. Where I think a lot of people go wrong, is they don't flick that switch when they get out of accumulation mode and then into retirement, they, they really need to start saying, okay, I'm going to be fine. Like, because as I said, once they retire at say 60, 67, they spend a lot more than what they do between 70 and 80, and then 80 onwards. It's really, I mean, they're not even spending the pension. So I think a lot of people work for too long when they already have enough money to retire. I spoke to a client two weeks ago. She had a million dollars in superannuation. She's 60, she hates her job. And she said, I hate my job. I said, why are you still working? Why are you still trading your time for money? She said, well, because I'm setting myself up for time. I said, let's do the numbers. You got a million dollars, let's talk about the interest off that. That's going to spin off $1,000 per week just in interest. You're not spending 1,000 a week. How are you going to get into the million? How are you going to get into the principal? And they need to this sort of intervention to shake them, to like tell them. And my favorite thing in life is to say to someone, you're never ever going to be able to spend all the money you've accumulated before you die. And when Someone hears that, you can see that instantly, everything relaxes. It's just the most amazing thing for someone to hear because it gives them this peace financially that okay, yeah, I have permission to try and buy experiences with family and friends and spend this before I die on making me and everyone else I love and care about happy.

Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the things that fascinates me the most is kind of, I guess the wealth trends that we've transitioned through now through, you know, the different generations. Like in my parents day it was, you know, very industrial and you know, go and become a tradie. Like it's more for Australian talking was go, go become a tradie. Then it started to then push the whole university, getting an op and you know, going into a corporate job or becoming a lawyer or a doctor. And that was considered like at the, the tier one kind of jobs in commercial real estate, accountant, lawyer, doctor, whatever, and be a specialist in your field. And if you're lucky, one day you might earn a million dollars now and this is something that, you know, I follow religiously every day. I'll probably spend two, three hours at night watching videos on, trying to make sure that I'm on top of the education of this is we're now getting into this social media AI/personal branding era where you have guys like Logan and Jake Paul who have that sports drink brand called Prime. You have the Rock, who's got his tequila brand, you got Conor McGregor who's got his whiskey brand. These guys are all billionaires. And it all came down to one simple thing, which was that they built themselves a personal brand online. And with the tools that we have access to, be it Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, all these social platforms, it's become a lot easier now more than ever. And what I am seeing now and it, it really does blow my mind that you know, I'm seeing kids and when I say kids, like I'm talking 17, 15, 18, 19 years of age. These, these kids are earning anywhere from 50 to some of them, like in the most extreme cases, half a million dollars a month from running things like called faceless YouTube channels or running shops on TikTok or just doing all these crazy things that people just would never have really heard of in their life. And, and this is what to me is, is I'm becoming a lot more passionate about and talking about with especially the younger generation is to stop trying to push heavily on the old school education and wealth model that we were taught in school, which is, and look, I'm not saying that it's, it's, it's outdated in the sense of it can't be done in that, in that manner. It definitely can. But when I went to school everybody was taught and pushed that, you know, you need to get the best OP possible, you need to go to the best university possible and you need to get the best job you possibly can that, that can come out of that university. But really all they're doing is pushing debt onto more people. Go to university, the government will put you and basically take care of your student debt. And that debt you can't wipe away, you can't get rid of, it's with you for life. And a lot of people don't know this. You can't, you know, declare bankruptcy and get rid of student debt that follows you around until you pay it off. And try, you must believe they will follow you to the ends of earth to make sure that they get that money back. And you know, I had a very odd experience in university going, I went to tafe, you know, I went through, I got my builder certificate, I went to my trade because that's what I thought I wanted to do because that's what my father did, he was a builder. When he did that, got my certificate, didn't like it, went out, went into tafe, did a diploma in it, finished that, didn't like it. Then I went into real estate and studied property economics. And it was okay, it was interesting. But one day that I'll never forget was when I went into my tutorial and this is when I knew that university for the most part is just complete bullshit. Was that when I went into my tutorial, I went into a class and we all sat down and I went onto my desk and there was a board game sitting on the desk and in. And keep in mind this is a second year tutorial. And I sat down and it was a board game and there was Monopoly sitting on my desk and I was like, what the fuck is this doing sitting on my desk? And I said, I said miss, why are we playing with Monopoly? And she goes, oh, today we're going to understand how to buy and trade properties. And I was like, are you kidding me? And like, keep in mind like I'm working part time at a Ray White firm in the city, you know, selling second hand apartments and houses to everyday people. So like I had a bit of firsthand experience while I was studying, but I just got up and I'm like, I'm paying $8,000 a term for this class and I'm sitting down playing fucking Monopoly and I'm giving my hard earned money and I'm also paying the money back to the government on top of that. So literally, this is no joke. After that, I got up, I walked out of the classroom, I said this, I'm not spending my money on this anymore. I got out, I left and I quit uni on the spot. That was it. I was done. I walked out and I was like, I'm not going back here. Because I just knew, I knew that I wasn't going to get the experience that I needed from university. Now keep in mind, at that time, when I'm talking, I would have been 22 at the time. I'm now 31. I was 22 at the time. And back then, for you to get a commercial real estate job, you got you 95% of the time, you had to have a degree or you had to have a family member that was already part of a commercial firm that could potentially get you in as like an analyst. And I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go residential or commercial. And so I made the decision. I was like, nope, don't want to do it. If this is what this is about and this is how they push you and they're just teaching you absolute rubbish, then I was like, I don't want to go down the university pathway. And I found other means and I went into residential development and thank God that I did, and I'm grateful that I did to this very day. Now, I'm not saying that if you want to become a doctor or a lawyer that you have to go down this path. Yes, you do, and yes, you absolutely should, because there are standards and, you know, there are things in line before you can get into that profession to make sure that it's done in a safe manner. Now, in terms of learning and managing money in today's society, where would you recommend that people go and get current and up to date information and what sources should they be looking at in terms of is their mindset the right way? Are they looking at things the right way? How? What is the best way for people to learn management of their money and also investing.

Wow, that's so many options these days, aren't there? I mean, I remember back in the day where there was literally you had to buy CDs or tape cassettes and play them in the car because that was the only access to those sort of minds, where these days we've got so much access. I mean, you can follow some of the greatest minds on the planet, on Twitter or YouTube and just hear directly from them and learn from them and be part of their, the community. And they're so generous with their knowledge because that's, that's really where the power is. I mean, just back to your Monopoly story at. That's classic. So how. This is how most people live their life. Imagine playing Monopoly and never buying any assets or investments that generate income. Imagine you just went around collecting $200, giving your money to the rich and trying to stay out of jail. That is how most people live their life. And unfortunately, as, as basic as that game is like, we need to be doing something at all times to be moving forward. And so that could be saving, could be investing, could be paying down debt, but all those three things increase their net worth. And if you don't measure your net worth, you don't care. And back to our point, at the very, very start here is tracking everything, is making sure that you know exactly what your numbers are. And as long as you're competing against yourself, I think is pivotal. Everyone's trying to compare themselves, oh well, Johnny next door is earning more money or Mary's got this new car. Like, you just need to stop comparing yourself to other people. Compare yourself to yourself and are you in a better position than you were last year? And as long as you're in a better position than what you were last year, then make sure that trend continues. And every year you're getting stronger and more financially f fit because I sort of see it as fitness. You talked about that. That financial coach is just like a personal train at the gym where we all perform better. When we've got a coach, when we've got someone keeping us accountable, we've got someone weighing us in, we've got someone consciously that we're sort of like not reporting into, but trying to get down to the fittest version of ourselves that we possibly can, whether it be financially or physically. And so having that, that coach by your side, weighing you in, telling you what you can be doing to increase your income, what you can be doing to reduce your expenses, what strategies you could be doing to, to grow your wealth, start investing, saving, tax dollar cost averaging, salary, sacrificing, all these strategies which you just never taught. And so obviously a financial planner in its own right should be doing all those things. I don't do all of them. Most financial planners really focus and specialize in superannuation and insurance. Now there's a lot of debate about how much value they add for superannuation because most Retail funds that your employer is giving, you are performing as well as any financial planner recommended. Super. So there's not a huge amount of value that they can stand on. Say, hey, well, we're outperforming the market because we're the financial planner. They're just recommending funds which probably compete on, on par with all the industry funds there. The insurance side of things is, well, yeah, everyone does need insurance. It buys peace of mind. But people want more. Today, how can you help me today, Mr. Financial Planner? How can you help me pay off my house, reduce my tax, grow my investments, save, set my kids up financially? And so that's where I sort of just developed this, I call it the financially set for life plan, where the strategy really is unbelievably simple. It's embarrassingly simple and just sort of from 20 years of working as to what has worked for people and what has given them a chance of never being able to spend all the money before they die. And that is very simply pay your house off before you retire and acquire one investment property for each child you've got. And so the mindset around that is, I always wish that my dad bought me a property 40 years ago. He didn't and most of our dads didn't. But there's nothing more that I think would be the biggest gift to my kids if and when I do die that day where they are inheriting a property each. And so that can help you now, today retire a lot earlier and a lot more comfortably because you're going to get the cash flow off that property. I think where most people go wrong is that they're selling the properties, they're trying to trade properties and they've got transaction costs like stamp duty, agents fees. I'm just the buy whole boring, pay my house off, acquire an investment property for each of the kids. Don't have to pay the investment property off, just acquire that. So it could be buy one in 2029 and then the next one you have the borrowing capacity to do it again in 2036, like there's no rush. And just acquire them before you stop work because obviously you've got borrowing capacity then and just let them compound out. And over six to seven years it takes for the rent to cover the mortgage. And then from that point on it's neutral, it's washing its own face. And you're being paid to own a property. By the time you get to retirement, you can have this nice maybe $100 a week, could be $500 per week, passive Income the difference between the rent and the mortgage. The earlier you've bought that property, the more time you've allowed it to compound. And so if you just do nothing but that, pay house off, acquire one investment pro, feature your kids, very basic, very simple, it's going to be pretty tough to sort of say that you're going to be struggling and, and not have enough money to retire on.

Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the biggest things too is people so don't understand why they do what they do. Whether it's why do they save so much and spend nothing or why do they spend so much and save nothing. And I've found even for myself that once I've really tried to strip away at all the levels of why I do what I do, what my behavioral patterns are and my spending. But it all came down to my upbringing that I had through my family and seeing the behavioral patterns of my parents. Whether it was, you know, and again whether money discussions were have at the dinner, were had at the dinner table, whether or not your mom or your dad said listen, that 800 bucks that you're earning every week or every two weeks, put away a quarter of that or half of that into this term deposit account and don't touch it for the next five, 10 years and then that'll be a deposit fee for a house or whatever the nature of the game is for you as an individual. Growing up, I know I didn't necessarily have a lot of financial chats in my house and one of the things that I had to do was definitely self educate and I found one of the biggest. It kind of, look, it kind of helped that I've been in the property development industry and I deal with a lot of financial companies and those discussions get have pretty regularly. But I think one of the best things I've ever done was go onto platform like YouTube and Go and pick, you know, somebody or, or a mentor per se that I wanted to emulate in some way. And I would go and start watching their content and, and you know, start taking key takeaways from them on how they live their life, their lifestyle and their choices. But also having realistic goals around your situation and your, your earning capacity and what your bills are and things of that nature. Like you know, I made the mistake when I was early of going and buying a nice car when I was younger and although look, I don't at this one and one in one of the spectrum I don't see it as a mistake and then one I do and the reason I see it as a mistake on one side is because I could have used that money or saved it for better things in terms of an earlier investment. But on the flip sides of that coin, I also know that having that car both gave me an appreciation for money and also wanted me to work harder to earn more money to pay for the bills. So there's, there's kind of two sides to that.

But, yeah, but I think it's, it wasn't really a mistake, it was a lesson. Right, and so correct that, that your lesson was, I, I want to earn more money and I want, I like nice things and I appreciate money, which is great. And yeah, the opportunity costs, obviously, no matter what you do in life, there's going to be an opportunity cost of what you could have, should have, would have done. And in hindsight, we're all multi millionaires, don't worry about that. But what you're saying there about the parents and the upbringing, the family is really important because there's usually two sorts of people. There's savers and then there's spenders. Savers have the mindset of, okay, stash away money, rainy day emergency fund buffers, like they're just about security. And then there's a spenders who have the different mindset of, like, you only live once, let's live in an hour, tomorrow might never come, etc. Etc. And so where we have big, big issues. And of the 50% of marriages that do break up, I think it's close to 70% of the ones that do break up because of money. And that's because most of the time the partners, financial blueprints are a clash. A spender has married a saver. Where things go really well is where two savers marry each other. That's called early retirement. Where things go really bad is where two spenders marry each other. Where obviously you just spent that, so now I'm gonna go spend that. And all, you know, it just goes, escalates, escalates, escalates. And so where spenders marry savers, then that's really a tough situation for everyone in the family because I've just got different blueprints from their upbringing. This is their wiring. That's a blueprint. It's not that. That's just what they've come up with over the last week. Like, this is their blueprint. This is how they have grown up. And so you, you have. Some people have come from a really poor family where everything was a struggle, like they couldn't even afford the shoes to put on their kids feet to go to school. Then you've got other kids whose dads were just throwing like brand new Nikes at him. Like they sort of were just going out of fashion. It's something where when those two people sit down, and I say this to a lot of people, have that conversation, ask your partner, are you a spender or a saver? And why you're going to find out a lot about your partner is probably going to extend the length of your relationship. Because it's something where if you can get the money right, And I think that's probably one of my superpowers, is I just take the money stress out of relationships. I become the family cfo. I worry about all the money they do what they're best at, which is earning money and spending it and everything else is automated and they have to worry about or think about it. And so when you take the money stress out of relationships, all of a sudden everyone can go back to doing what they do best. I had a funny story, actually. One client I was sitting down with, husband and wife sitting down. I had credit cards, car loans, personal loans, big, big mess. We consolidated everything, got one debt, one repayment, streamlined the whole money management system. And then all of a sudden the wife said to the husband when we were sitting there how I think they were saving about 2,300amonth is what they were saving just because of the consolidation. So then the wife said to the husband, oh, Nathan, how, how long have you had Scott's number for? He's like, oh, oh, three years. Wife has picked up this glass of water, thrown it at Nathan because obviously their marriage on the rocks, it was super cold. There was no sort of, they were just stressed financially. Anyway, fast forward two weeks later, I get a phone call from Nathan and say, hey man, how you doing? I said, yeah, great, Nathan, what's up? He said, oh, I just want to give you a call. I'm not too sure what you've done with my wife. I was like, mate, I haven't touched her. Like, what are you talking about? He goes, having sex again? I said, what? He goes, yeah, we're having sex again. Ever since you left, we've, we're start having sex again. I was like, that's cool, good on you. And so just, that was just a big realization for me of what happens when you take the stress out of the relationship financially and everyone's on the same page, heading towards the same goal. And, and as a result of that, it brings this calmness and peace to the Family unit.

She's turning around and giving him more because she now feels safe, that's why.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, women just love financial security and they want to feel safe in their nest. And so having that nest paid off is a huge plus. But not having like $2,300 a month in interest payments, hemorrhaging them, made a big difference.

I should put that on a slogan. You make more money, feel better and have more sex.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's. That'll sell.

Yes, excels.

That was. Sell. So, yeah, that was a prime example of the stress relationships are under. I mean, I, A lot of people have sort of said to me, why do you still do this, man? Like, you don't really need to be working. You've sort of been doing this for 23 years, you got a few things set up financially. Why do you keep coming to work? And my answer to that is, if I can save one family from having their kids growing up in a broken home because the money was a reason for the relationship to break down, man. If I keep one family together and one kid or kids grow up with a mum and dad still together because I helped out, that's all I want. I mean, if you can do that for one family in your life, you can go along thinking that you made a reasonable dent. And so I just know that there might be that family that I can keep together and for the kids sake, to grow up in a, a family with a mum and dad, I think is the ultimate gift.

But that ultimately to you, I can just tell by talking to you, doesn't seem like work like to you, it's. You obviously enjoy doing it and you know, you get a kick out of seeing people's heads click and seeing their life change and all of a sudden they, you get that relief of that, that big breath in they relief and they go, oh, actually it's not that bad and this isn't that hard. The game of finance isn't actually. It's not rocket science. It's just once you can understand basic, you know, understanding of money and, you know, this is what you're earning, this is what you should be spending and this is how we're going to split it and divide it. And then once you start walking down that line, all of a sudden things start falling into place.

No, it's not work. I mean, I, I don't see it as work. I don't wake up every day thinking, oh shit, another day. I like speaking to people. I Like helping people. And I love seeing the transformations. You know, I mean, I'm talking about a client where before they met me with the same income and same debt level was paying $9,971 off their mortgage. And 12 months later with the exact same income and exact same debt level, pay $61,000 off their mortgage. That spins my mind. And when I'm sitting with them and just seeing their faces, like, I mean, we thought this was going to be good, but we actually, you know, I hear every day, oh, it sounds too good to be true. Like, yeah, I know it sounds too good to be true, but try this for 12 months and you'll see that the numbers don't lie. And I mean, we just get so many, so many case studies, so many transformations. Obviously on Google reviews, the clients saying, yeah, man, this was my situation before, this is my situation afterwards. And there's not like you've got to go get a second job or know you got to eat Maggie noodles, put an egg in it if it's a really extra lucky Friday. It's just about, like you said, doing the simple things really well, tracking everything, because that means you care, that means you're paying attention, automating everything to save you from yourself. And that also means taking the credit card out of the equation. So you're not basically in temptation to start spending more than what you're earning. And as long as you're not spending more than what you're earning, you're moving forward and making progress, which equals happiness.

Absolutely. And I, and I think that it's like you said, so many people have issues with money just because they don't, they don't have a basic understanding of finance and, and just how to tackle that because they're more focused on the fact that their, their wife is, is stressed out and they're having arguments and fights or they're going to work and they're just working a shit and job that they're not happy with. But I wanted to end on, on one more quick question. When it comes to investing, are you a big believer in a diversified portfolio versus like say crypto shares, stocks, property, gold, silver? Or do you prefer your clients to funnel down one particular avenue?

Wow, that's a really interesting one. I think it really depends on the client and I'll explain that. So I just speaking to a guy last I think was, yeah, Thursday last week. He came to me, he said, mate, I bought this Property, I was 27, on the Sunshine Coast. I bought it for 500. It's now worth 1.2 million was unbelievable play. I'm thinking about obviously selling that and putting money into some shares, some crypto, etc And I said what do you do for work is I'm a builder. I said, okay, so you've got a superpower here where you can manufacture equity. And what I mean by that is you, if you were to, because you can put six on there on this big block. I said, so if you were to do that development, you're gonna make way more money than what I would if I was to do that development because I would have paid retail for all my building trades materials. Where you're doing that at cost or wholesale. So your superpower is that you can actually work on a property yourself and give it, do the build at cost price, which means you're instantly gonna have so much more equity than I would. And so for those sort of people where they've got a superpower or skill set, I think stick to your lane, like that's what you've got. You can control it. You don't know anything about crypto, you don't know anything about shares. You really just investing and punting, so to speak. So for those people who have got that sort of inside knowledge or added advantage, I think for them they should definitely stick to their lane and stick to doing what they know best, which they can control. And as a result they're going to get the best, the best outcome for those others, which is pretty much everyone else who goes, man, I just like, I don't have any sort of superpowers where I can be doing my own builds etc for those ones. I just believe it's everything in terms of that. I like leverage. So I really feel once you've maxed out your property borrowing capacities, which happens very quickly, you might be able to buy one or two properties and you've hit your ceiling. Then from there a lot of people then want to say, okay, now what I do. Well, they're investment bonds where you can put money into these every single month. And it's an index fund or a share portfolio. And at the end of 10 years there is no capital gains tax. That's a very effective vehicle to be investing in shares or index funds. And so as a result of that, I think it's once again those seasons. So this one, okay, let's focus on property. That's the sort of core pillar. Once we've maxed that out, then we start to look at the shares or the crypto. I feel with crypto it's Something where everyone's obviously heard of it, some people played around with it. Unless you're like living and breathing and you're on all the like forums, so you just like you're so immersed in it, it's quite like a lot of things go up, a lot of things come down. And I think if you're just sort of playing with the, the majority coins, like a bitcoin for example, like that's fine if you're just putting 10 of your investment, let's say get 100 to invest. You put $10 into Bitcoin, no problem with that at all. But if you're putting everything on bitcoin, it's either going to be hero or zero. But it's something where I like the diversification and I like leverage. And with property I can get a $50,000 down payment, control a half million dollar asset and get gains on a half million. And so I always say to people, imagine this, you buy half a million dollar property today, you put down $50,000 deposit and so the next year you get a 10% capital growth on a property. You've made your 50,000 back in one year. So you've got like that instant equity. Fast forward 10 years. The first 10 years of any property investment is horrific. It's the worst 10 years that's negatively geared. Usually for first six, seven years it hasn't really grown a lot. Property usually goes up for three, sideways for five, down for two. And so that second 10 years now this $5,000 property is worth 750 for example. And in that 11th year it does 10%. Now you've made 75 grand just in one year. Let's fast forward to the next decade. So you've had the probably for 20 years now this is where it gets real fun. This where it gets real magical. The cash flow is way more than what the interest costs are. So it's super positive cash flow. It's probably worth at least 1.1, maybe 1.2 million. You even if you haven't paid a cent off it, you still borrowed the full 500. So now you've got $1.2 million property in 20 years, you only owe 500 on it, you've got an extra $700,000 in retirement savings. That is a lot for an average person. You add 700 grand to your super balance, things are going to be okay. That's just with one property, you do that with two. Game, set, match. So I feel once you've maxed out your property portfolio, then you start going to other asset classes like the shares or the investment bonds, crypto, those sort of things where you can't get that leverage but you can just massively into dollar cost averaging. And so for my kids, this would be really good for your, your listeners here. How to set your kids up. We talked about buy one investment probably for the Meech. That's obviously the dream. However, in the meantime, if you're not at that point where you can do that. What I've done for my kids is I've set up two apps on my phone. One's called Raise, R A I Z and one's called Bamboo, B A M B O O rays and Bamboo. These two apps on my phone, what these two apps do is every single time I speak, spend money. I buy a coffee for $4.20, it rounds up to the nearest dollar and invests that 80 cents in spare change into the top 200 stocks in Australia, the top 500 stocks in the US. That's what raise does. And what Bamboo does is invest that $0.80 into Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold and silver. And so every day I'm spending money at Kohl's, Woolworths, coffee, lunch, whatever it may be, petroleum. I'm getting all the roundups to the nearest dollar and it's investing into those two different asset classes where I've got shares as well as a I, I call it digital gold and real gold. And then I'm also doing a top up. And what I'm doing is an extra 250amonth into each. So I put 250amonth into raise on top of the roundups, 250amonth into Bamboo on top of the roundups. On his 30th birthday, I would have invested $240,000. The balance will be 1.2 million. And obviously we'll see where he's at in 30 years whether he's a punk or not. And if he's a punk, I'm not going to tell. I'm never going to tell him that this exists, by the way. And then if he's a punk, I'm gonna say nothing. You don't deserve it yet.

Sorry, it's going to your sister.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if he's a punk, I'm saying no, no, I'll just keep it for another 10 years. If I keep it for another 10 years, on his 40th birthday, it'll be over $2 million million dollars.

Wow.

So imagine your dad tapping you on a shoulder on your 40th birthday and say, son I just want to give you this gift. Here's $2 million for your 40th birthday. And what that does is the ultimate leg up. Right. I mean it's only 500 per month. I know that's a lot of money for a lot of people, but comparative to what I earn, it's, it's manageable. And so that's what I can afford. If you can't afford that, just do 50amonth. Just do what? Just do something. And if you can just do dollar cost averaging into those and with the roundups over time compounding, it's just amazing how $240,000 can turn into a million dollars. You invest 240, you get a million in terms of the asset. So that's what I'm doing for my kids, to set them up. It's automated. I never think about it. I don't worry about it. I don't ever look at it. It's. Everything's automated, which is one of the keys for today. All automate all your money. And by that means you got too much time to spend with family and friends rather than spending on spreadsheets on a Sunday. Yeah.

And I think like when you're talking about apps like the ones you just mentioned, Raisin Bamboo, like it just takes out all the work for people to be. Not only if you're going to spend this well, then this is also going into an investment account. That's just a win win. I see. Because people don't have to worry about, they don't have to manually input, put it and look at it and see what it's doing. It's just, it just gets done. And then it's also consciously making you aware of if you're spending well, hey, this is also getting taken out. So yeah, it's like you can spend but then as a byproduct, that's all going into this investment account, which is. Mate, that's genius. That, that's, that's a really good takeaway. So I'll pop that in the show notes. Everyone listening, don't worry about trying to write it in your phone. I will make sure they're in the show notes. I'll make sure that the links are in there if you want to download those apps. But before we finish up, Scott, you're mentioning this wealth portal.

Yes.

People you're going to give away for free.

Let's, let's.

Can you explain what that is and what it's called?

Great. So it's called the Crown Wealth Portal. And so if you Want I, I give you a few months free. I'll give you three months free on that. It obviously cost me money for all your bank feeds and then from there jump onto our website or you can email me Scott at Crown Money. That's it, scottrown Money. Send me an email or jump onto our website, leave your details there. We then send you the Wealth Portal, give you the login details, give you access to it. It's going to track your whole financial life on one screen and it's going to plug in your bank accounts, your superannuation, your property prices, all your spending. It's going to categorize for you, it's going to automate everything that you need. We can then set some goals and as a result of that, just going to give you that transparency on your numbers. Then you can download the app and then from there you're away and you've got your whole financial life on one touch of a screen. I think just super powerful to really start looking at your net worth, measuring that like you measure your body weight and make sure that's heading north. And there's two ways to reduce to increase your net worth. It's pay down debt, increase investments or savings. And so yeah, those are the strategies which we'd love to be able to help you just start tracking it because if you track it, you care. And that's the number one step to moving forward is okay, I know my numbers, I now know where I'm heading, but more importantly, I know exactly where I'm at.

That's awesome enough. Thank you for giving that away to the audience, Scott. So everyone that wants to take a part of the free few months that Scott's going to offer on the Crown Money website, I will make sure that the link is down in the description below. So again, don't, don't stress, it'll be down there. And Scott is also happy to help you guys with any other future questions or even if you want to look into his services as well, I will make sure that his email as well as the website are in the link descriptions below. For anybody wanting to have a chat to Scott, I, I think this episode's been extremely insightful and I think one of the key takeaways for this episode, as Scott's mentioned countless times, is to try and automate your financial hurdles or your financial painful areas in your life that you just don't want to have to deal with, like for investment or for saving or for splitting your money aside into different accounts and such. However, not everyone is as professional and smart as Scott. So if you want to go and use these services, I strongly advise you to go at least have a conversation with the man. So for those that want to go on, his website is crownmoneymanagement.com Again, the links will be in the description below. And Scott, I thank you so much for coming on today and providing all that information.

Pleasure, Sam. Thanks again, buddy. Talk soon. No worries.

Thank you.