November 25, 2025 • 44 mins
REWIND // Carter Cofield and George Acheampong are financial experts behind Melanin Money, dedicated to helping Black entrepreneurs and professionals build lasting wealth. Together, they're building the #1 Financial Education Community Designed to serve aspiring Melanin Millionaires.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Lucas and this is Black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Carter Cofield and George Ashen Pong are financial experts dedicated
to helping black entrepreneurs and professionals build lastly wealth.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Carter Cofield is the.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Owner and the lead advisor of Cofield Advisors, where he
helps creative entrepreneurs take control of their finances so they
can focus on his own A genius, he's a CPA
and personal financial specialists, providing a one stop shop for
tax strategy, wealth building, and financial freedom. George Orson Pong
is founder of capital Wise and The Melon A Millionaire's Club,
a financial education platform helping one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
People of color achieve the first million in network.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
As a Forest contributor and award winning wealth manager, he's
revolutionizing traditional financial advice to accelerate wealth building for black
professionals and entrepreneurs. Together with Melon The Money, Carter and
Georgia building the number one financial education community design to
serve aspiring Melon A millionaires.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So I for the first one.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To George, but I'd like to get both of you
guys as inputs on this is Do you believe first
of all, that traditional financial advice for even high income
earners in marginalized communities, black communities, minority communities, that traditional
advice still doesn't work for us. If so, why doesn't
it work for people in our communities?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The reason why I don't think that it works is
because for starters, a lot of the traditional advice in
the community or in the financial advice industry is centered
around assets under management.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's like, you can't.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Start the conversation until you have a quarter million dollars
to invest, right, And not to say that people don't
have cash on the sidelines. What we found to be
true is that our clients were starting businesses, they were
becoming successful, they did have great cash flow, but they
were very much in the beginning phases of building wealth
or didn't even know about that.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
They should be focused on the relation of wealth, right.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
And so if we're saying that I got a client
that's you know, making you know, a quarter million, half million,
or even a million plus a year, But we can't
start the conversation by wealth building because you don't have
a quarter million dollars to invest. I think that's kind
of backwards and it's kew because even when we look
at our investment philosophy. As a company, we are preaching
that cash flow is king right. The industry at large
(02:23):
is saying, hey, invest for forty years and if you
do everything right, you have a million dollars at retirement.
But we grew to understand and realize that money is
not a pool. It's a tool, right, and it's something
that needs to be used and not something that we
accumulate and look at in awe of. So that's why
I don't think it works for really beyond just marginalized communities,
but specifically for our communities because we don't inherit money.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Typically.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
We are a lot of us are first generation unwealth builders,
and most of our wealth is tied up into our
high income skill set or the business that we have,
which is a great leverage mechanism. But we just need
to not be excluded from the conversation simply because we
don't have a quarter million dollars sit on the sidelines.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, And Karl, I'm I'm gonna give you the same question,
but I'm gonna ask it in a different way because
I love that response from George, and so I think
about there are a lot of friends I have and
friends I'm sure that you have that make really good money,
but we still can't seem to catch up with counterparts,
non millenated counterparts, And like, what are they doing differently
with the same amount of money to make sure they're
(03:25):
accelerating a lot faster.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
Yeah, this is a This is a great question because
when I worked in corporate America, I worked at one
of the big poor accounting firms, and what I noticed
from a company standpoint and from helping you know, small
business owners, is that taxes is everyone's number one expense.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
So if two people both earn one hundred thousand dollars,
but one of them has, you know, has to pay
five thousand dollar taxes, but the other one has to
pay thirty thousand dollars taxes, that other person has twenty
five thousand dollars more in income every.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Single year to invest.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Right.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
So I think that one thing we appreciate our clients
is that it's not just about how much money you make,
it's about how much money you keep.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
And I think one of the.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
Easiest ways to increase your earning potential is to minimize
how much money you have to give to the to
the irs. And I think as a community we are
so you know, where we're in the beginning phases and
are so happy about just having money that we don't
think about taxes because like, to even have disposable income
(04:26):
is like, yo, we made it. Okay, cool, you made
to level one. You solve the income problem. But now
that you solve the income problem, you're going to be
walking into a tax problem. So I think, at least
from my standpoint, helping people minimize their taxes so that
they can have more money to invest is a step
in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, and I'll stick with you Carter on this.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think about people who are transitioning from employment W
two to maybe ten ninety nine or even K one,
Like they're doing something different, you know, with their revenue,
they're in their household income. They may not see that
tax refund like no normal W two employee. So what
are some what do you find is hurdles that people
(05:08):
who traditionally would get a W two and get a
refund at the beginning of the year, middle of the year,
what are hurdles they have to get over to change
how they think about taxes fundamentally, like not super complex,
but just the fundamental stuff.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah, So I think that one of the best
lessons I learned, at least when I was in college,
our professor in our, in our, in our and our,
when our classes came in the room, he said, what's
the best tax refund.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
You can get?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
And then everybody's writing down different numbers, and I'm like, yo,
ten twenty dollars, the higher the better, and he let
everybody write the answer down and then he was like,
the best tax refund you can get is zero, because
all the tax refund is is you've given the irs
an interest free loan for twelve months that they got
to use and invest in whatever.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Then they gave it back to you with no interest.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
So I think the first thing I people to understand
that the best tax rEFInd you can get is zero,
because that way it gets people to stop being excited
right about getting fifteen twenty thousand dollars back that that
was your money to begin with, right, So that's number one.
I think Number two is once you move from W
two to employee, the responsibility for taxes shifts from your
(06:19):
employer's responsibility to your responsibility, right, what some people think
is a bad thing, But with responsibility also comes control
because now that you're responsible for your allwn taxes. You
now have control over your tax situation, how much you
need to pay any given year. So I think once
we can adopt those two mindset shifts, we'll be better
(06:40):
off and yours.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You know, when you go and start something like melon
the money, first, I want you to talk about what
it is. But then when you talk about it, talk
about what gaps you saw in the marketplace that said,
you know what, there's still a need here that you know,
me and Car to going fulfill this.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So I remember back in twenty seventeen, there's an article
that will was released that black wealth was going to
zero by twenty fifty two. And so here I was,
you know, at the time, working with a small pool
of clients who you know, I guess I had created
this echo chamber for thinking that well, surely you know,
people get it, and a lot more people are marching towards,
(07:18):
you know, this journey for building wealth, not realizing that
at large, right people.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Still did not have an understanding of what it took.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
So I knew that we had to do something that
was broader, something that was bigger, something that was more impactful.
Me and Carter actually met at a conference in twenty nineteen,
and at that conference, one of the speakers was like, hey,
you know, if you can just get your firm to
one hundred clients like lifetime, right, like, you'll be good,
You'll be coasting forever. And then like I kind of
(07:48):
heard it, I was just like, that seems a little
bit lost, Like we got a lot more people to help, right,
and then law and behold, you know me and Carter.
You know, again, we didn't know each other at the time.
We're walking to lunch and you know, getting a financial
advisor conference, or wasn't many of us that looked like us, right,
and so you know, we just connected and he kind
of felt the same way as either the year what
I just heard. And then you know, we realized that
(08:10):
it was gonna be somebody.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Had to do it.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Somebody had to say, how can we serve and reach
and impact more people? And so I do understand that
some of the limitations of a traditional advisory environment is
you know, staff and people and maybe you know you
don't have the infrastructure to help you know, a thousand
people or ten thousand people. So we had to get
really creative and what that looks like, So, while we
do still have an advisory firm where we are able
(08:34):
to help a decent amount of folks, right, we know
that that's not enough, and so that's why we decided
to create this hybrid educational model where every other month
we're basically doing a virtual conference where people who may
meet not in a position to hire an advisor or
are curious of an advisor's right for them, they get
to learn our top strategies over the course.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Of five days.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
And what's beautiful about that is whether they get the
chance to work with us or not, and Carter can
get the specific stat I know last year between our
master classes and our virtual conferences, I think I was
it was north of the Cardio's the number.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Over twenty twenty thousand people last year.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Over twenty thousand people that we were that we were
able to reach, right, And so we know we didn't
have to do that. We could continue just to serve
the clients who are making multi six figures, seven figures
and continue to build our business because we still are
certain people of color, but we knew that somebody had
with credentials had to step up and say, hey, look,
everybody deserves access to quality financial information, right, because the
(09:31):
gap that we saw in the marketplace was there was,
you know, the person who was super relatable, right, who
was a financial educator, can teach you about budgeting and
saving and those are all great things, but that just
scratching the surface for someone who baby is a little
bit further along. Then on the other end of the spectrum,
we saw the person who was credible, who had all
the credentials, but was very unrelatable.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Right. Maybe it was a middle aged white man trying
to reach you know, a woman.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Of color, And so we found a sweet spot between
the balance of relatability incredibility, right, So we have the
credentials of you know, the best in class advisor, but
we have the relatability.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Of someone who you know, you can connect with.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
And that was kind of the boyd that we filled
in the marketplace, and it's allowed us to serve people
at scale while still building our firm behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I want to go level deeper on this. You know, Carter,
there's the there's this book The Color of Money Mercer
Barradaan who in the book, she there's this line that
kind of just changed my whole perspective on black people
and money, and she said, we have not so long
ago been capital and now we're trying to learn how
(10:37):
to manage capital. And but yeah, it's crazy, like right,
And it just blew everything up about how I thought,
because you know, you walk around, you judge people for
the things that they do, and you like all this
stuff that you're like, why are we buying cars? We
can't afford jewelry, And it said, like, we can't afford
But then again, we have not so long ago been capital,
and we're being asked to treat it, you know, with
(10:59):
it due respect. And so I think about some of
the financial norms that have come from our community. Can
you talk about how we break free from those ways
of thinking? And so actually maybe talk about some of
the norms that we've had, you know, when we come
up in the black household and maybe you don't have
financial conversations at the dinner table.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
That's that's an issue.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But how do we break free from some of these
things and actually make progress?
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Man, that's a loaded question, my brother, but a phenomenal
question at that. I think the first step is opening
up the conversation, right, because I think awareness is one
of the greatest things that we can achieve in our life.
And so if money is a taboo topic and nobody
wants to talk about it, how can we be educated.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
On something we're unwilling to talk about, right?
Speaker 6 (11:46):
So, I think, you know, for me, it was don't
bring money up at the dinner table, like you know,
put the money under your mattress. Because we can't trust
these banks and all these things, and sometimes we have.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
To question our parents' philosophies and our money.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Again, they did the best that they could with the
information that they had because not too long ago they
weren't allowed to even learn about money. So I think
number one, it comes with just open conversations about money.
And number two, I think it needs to come with
a new level of vulnerability because I think people don't
(12:21):
talk about money because they're ashamed. And if you don't know,
if you are ashamed about not knowing about something about money,
if you if you if you vocalize your lack of
knowledge around.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
It, it can make you feel ashamed. I think we
need to just be vulnerable about our lack.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Of understanding, and once we know more, we can have more.
One thing is that we tell our clients is the
more that you learn the more that you earn, but
you have to be willing to learn first. So I
think those two things really help push the narrative forward.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, I want to stink with your card on
this because I think about, you know, I've been following
you on Instagram for some time and you know this,
this is one of those I'm gonna ask for a
friend question were doing those? And so you know, I
got a friend who ows a business, you know, and
I think about how you take these remarkable trips and
(13:08):
you know, you can go out, have great food either
the best restaurants and some of the stuff that I've
seen on your ig And I'm like, then at the end,
you're talking about like this trip you know was a
write off or this trip was you know whatever, Like
how like kind of break down some of these scenarios
and how you manage them.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
So the first thing I want people to understand is
that the tax code is a rule book that allows
us to win the tax game if we're willing to
learn about the tax game.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Right.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
The tax cold was created to help entrepreneurs and investors
avoid paying taxes.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
That's what that's why I was created. So when it
comes to trips.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
The IRS has a very important code section that's Code
section one sixty two A, and it says, any expense
that is both ordinary and necessary for you to operate
your business, that trip can be tax deductible in your business.
And if you think about these big corporate companies, they
have they have company retreats where they take their whole
company out somewhere and have a big event to improve
(14:05):
company morale. And if these big companies can do it.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
So can small business owners.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Right.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
So, if you take a trip and you decide to
bring some of your team members with you. We just
had a retreat with our team members in Turks and Kkos.
We brought our team members to this retreat in Turks
and we gained plan and strategized betweenty twenty five right.
We made sure we worked at least four hours a
day each day, we met with the entire team, We
documented the process, we took notes, we took meeting minutes,
(14:33):
we added the documents to our company book. And if
you do those things, the IRS says that trip was
ordinary and necessary to help your business grow. Due to
that fact, the flights are to that location is tax deductible.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
The lodging.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
The airbnbwid was some one hundred percent taxuductible, and the
meals that we got catered with fifty percent tax deductible.
So it just strategically thinking how can I turn something
about to already pay for anyway into a taxi doubt
stable expense. And one thing we train our clients on
is before you spend any money, ask yourself, is there
a way I can make this expense both ordinary and
necessary for my business? If so, we're gonna use that
(15:09):
business car. We're going to document the process that we're
gonna save on taxes.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So I think I was on Georgia's site doing research
for this, and there was this beautiful presidential rolex, and
I wonder, like, can can my presidential they they be
tax deductible.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Well, you know, I'm gonna try to make Carter proud
and answer this question the right way, right you got, Car.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I am a watch I'm a watch guy. Actually I've
got Carter to watch this now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And one of the things that he told me, you know,
early on, he was like, well, you know, I know
we have the content that we focused on when it
comes to you know, helping people build wealth.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
He's like but you're a watch collector.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
He's like, if you want to kind of make these
things deductible, if you started creating content from the lens
of a collector and how your watches are an investment, right.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
There could be a world where it could be a
tax deduction.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So I again will defer to the resident expert on
the nuanced and details on that, but cart, if you
want to share a little bit more context on if
the role league.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Can truly be task deductible.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I'm gonna ask something else onto that too, because
I've heard people Carter talk about I'm gonna I'm gonna
ask something because I want you to answer that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But there's more.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And so I've heard people talk about, hey, you know,
maybe the Louis Vatan bag is not maybe you know,
the Cardier or the Chanel whatever is not. But I
think about because I'm a schemer, I'm up here scheming, like, okay,
but what if.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
That's what they suggested?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Hear me.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So I'm like, I'm like, what if I'm doing I'm
just doing content and it's a part of my you know,
be I gotta i gotta be presentable for the camera
or if I'm like shooting like fictional shorts for YouTube
before Instagram. Like, but I'm playing character now can I
go by that Louis va time?
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Okay, so yeah, I'll ask her. Well if I answer
Georgias question, now circle back to yours.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
So Ira says, if if something is in the pursuit
of income, you can rationalize that expense being ordinary necessary.
So if Rolex was to sponsor our podcast, right, and
then we were to talk about watches, the more we
talk about watches, the bigger the Rolex sponsorship is.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Going to be.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
Right, So that is a direct correlation with how we
can make money from advertising our watches, so that there
therefore that could make our Rolex is tax deductible because
showing them in our content can help roll Lex stroke
a bigger check when it comes to sponsoring our show.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
So would that's how you.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
Would write off a Rolex the easiest, the easiest way
I can explain it.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Now. When it comes to clothing, the IRS is.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Very very very very strict and clear about THEIRS your
ability to write off clothes. They say, if you are
going to try to write off clothes, it has to
be a costume, to the point where if you were
out in public again, people would stare, or you just
can't wear it out of public again. So if you
were shooting a scene with a firefighter costume on for
(17:53):
your short blog blogged and cool.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Because if you wore that in public, you would be
laughed at.
Speaker 6 (17:59):
Right, But the Louis Vuitton, the chanelle, like, that's that's
not gonna because there's nothing ordinary about that, right, There's
nothing ordinary about a two thousand dollars jacket.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But my scene HiT's hard. This scene I'm shooting, it
just won't hit this hard.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, it looks like it might.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
But like, yeah, so I just tell people, like trying
to validate the cost of a designer purchase as a
tax deduction, there are easier ways to save on taxes
that will cost less red flax.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I like that, you know, so I want you to
go one more step in this direction. I want to
talk about vehicles for a second. Like, you know, if
I'm talking about the you know, maybe there's this range
rover and I've heard like this six thousand pounds or
nine thousand pounds rule. I'll let you touch on that
or what if it's not six thousand pounds? But I
(18:48):
want there's this really nice car, but I'm using it
for business purposes. Majority for the major point.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Yeah, So with business vehicles, a major point I like
to communicate when I'll talk about vehicle to business owners
is that there's a common misconception that the vehicle has
to be in your business name in order for you
to deduct it on your taxes, and that that's just
not true the irs.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
What the IRS cares.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
About is do you plan on using this vehicle for
business use or not. So, if the vehicle's in your
personal name, but you plan to use it for business, okay, great,
we can still use it for business up to the
percentage of business use that we use.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
So if you have one vehicle.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
It's valid that you can use a eighty percent business
in twenty percent personal.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Cool.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
That means that eighty percent of the expenses related to
that vehicle interest in your car, no car insurance, gas repairs, maintenance,
all changes, all the expenses associated with that vehicle, eighty
percent of those expenses is tax deductible.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
But you also get.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
An expense for money you didn't spend, which is called depreciation,
which is basically saying, hey that because we know a
car is a depreciating asset. We're gonna give you a
tax deduction today for your car losing value tomorrow, and
if the vehicle weighs less than six thousand pound, the
IRS will let you write right up up to twenty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
In depreciation the first year that you rented out.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
So you can have twenty thousand dollars of depreciation plus
another four thousand dollars in car expenses. You can have
a twenty four thousand dollars tax deduction that year for
your vehicle. Now with the six thousand pound rule, what
makes that robust and something that business ownership seek to
have is because instead of having that twenty thousand dollars
cap for depreciation, you actually get to write off a
(20:27):
percentage of the vehicle's value. So if you were to
get one hundred thousand dollars catalyt escalate, which weighs over
six thousand pounds, you would be able in twenty twenty five,
unless Donald Trump changes something at the moment, you'll be
able to write out forty thousand dollars or forty percent
of that vehicle's cost in the first year you receive it.
Even if you didn't like even if you finance to
(20:47):
put no money down. So in this case, we went
from having a twenty thousand dollars deduction to a forty
thousand dollars deduction by getting a vehicle that weighs a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
More like that.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Like that, So we talked, you know, which I love
talking about spending money in this way and how to
save on spending money. Let's talk about making some money.
How do we make more money? So we can start
with investing here, So people who are listening to this
and are new to investing, let's say, hey, George, you know,
you've got somebody who's got you know, five thousand dollars
(21:17):
and they don't need to touch it to live. But
it's sitting in a savings account right now, or it's
sitting under the you know, pillow to you know, Carter's
earlier point, like.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What should I be doing? Let's start. Let's start with
five thousand dollars. What should I be doing with that money?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Yeah, you don't have a financial advisor, so my mind defaulses,
I want more context, but I'll make I'll make some
I'll make some assumption. So assuming you got your emergency fund,
assuming that this is truly money that you can allocate
towards investing. The way I would approach it is very straightforward.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
We teach our clients this philosophy called the Burger King
investment strategy, right.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
And essentially what that means is you have to learn
how to copy the cat.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
McDonald spends millions of dollars a year determining where they
want to put the next McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Bur King, however, says, well, shoot, McDonald's did out the
heavy lifting. I'm just going to put my burn King
in proximity to mcdonald'sause fast food is fast food, right.
Bur King knows that somebody's gonna be running late for
work and they want that. Even though they want that mcgriddoll,
they're gonna settle for the French sticks at bur King
because the line ain't is long. Right. So when you
think about that from an investing lens, right like Vanguard, Fidelity,
(22:27):
Charles Swap, all these big investment institutions, they spend tens
of millions right, arguably hundreds of millions of dollars a
year on analyst and research to determine what investments.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Should go into.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
These particular funds, also known as ETFs or indexes, right,
And I always like to explain it from the vantage
point of looking at it like a mall. Right, if
you go to your favorite mall, it has hundreds of stores,
and if one, two, five, or ten of those stores
you know don't do well, is the mall going to
close down? We know the mall is not going to
close down. We can understand that rationally. And it's the
same thing for the investing world. If you invest in
(22:58):
a Vanguard ETF has five hundred different companies in it
and three, four, or five or ten of them are underperforming,
the overall fund is still.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Gonna be okay.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Right, And so if you just copy the right cat, ie,
hit the buy button on Vanguard's website, and you just
close your laptop and don't do anything else for the
next twelve months on average, right, well, let's just speak
to the last twelve months, your money would have made
you nearly twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Five percent, right, And so that's step one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Just not trying to be a world of investing expert
and look at the charts like, just copy the right cat.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You need to focus.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
If you are going to focus some time on something,
focus your time on figuring out how you can invest
more in five thousand dollars, I e. How can I
become more valuable to the marketplace to have more disposable
income to invest versus me trying to become a world
class investor.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Once you do that, there's other other levers you.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Can pull, like looking inside of the ETF and looking
at some of the top investments that are there, and say,
you know what, if I have five thousand dollars to invest,
maybe three thousand I invest in the ETF, maybe two thousand.
I pick out some of the top winners. Maybe I'm
investing in Apple and video. Now, if you're watching this
in real time, you might.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Say, maybe not in video, but it just got hit.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
But which is actually a great time. I was about
to say, like, yeah, I'm thinking.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Of how they're thinking, right, Yeah, which actually is a
great exactly, But more of the story is picking some
of those uh, you know, bigger, bigger winners, right, they
could potentially give you greater returns.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Than just picking the index.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
But if that's if you have five thousand dollars to invest,
that's exactly what I would advise. And then from there
as your investment grows, there's other strategies that you can
take advantage of that can make more sense as you
have more disposed income to invest.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, at the risk of having you say I need
more context again, I'm going to give you a statement
that my financial advisor has said to me and again
changed the way I look at money. You know, I
was talking to her about my my financial portfolio and
things like that, and I was we were talking about
the money that was in my bank account, and she
was like, true, wealth is not in the bank accounts,
(24:56):
and I would without giving you more context, I just
want you to speak on what that really means. We'll
start with George and then we'll have my card to
jump in on this tool.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Well, because of how our economy is set up, right,
of our money loses its purchasing power year over year, right,
And so even though it seems safe and you can
look at it, you can touch it, and it doesn't
decrease unless you withdraw every year, the money that you
have in your bank account is going to have less
purchasing power in the following year, and so you're losing
(25:28):
the ability. It's costing you more to live as time
goes on.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
So the reason why wealth is not created in the
bank is because you're literally, quite literally losing wealth due
to inflation right when your money is in the bank. Right,
And so the way that we hedge inflation is we
put our money in investments that we believe are going
to outpace inflation, so that at minimum we're keeping up
with that our purchasing power is in decreasing. In a
perfect world scenario, if your investments are really out pacing inflation,
(25:55):
it actually becomes cheaper to live as time goes on,
right because if inflation is going up at a rate
of two percent two point five percent, but your investment
account is going up a rate of ten percent and
your money's part there, that means all things remaining constant,
it costs you less to live as long as you
are investing your money over time versus leaving into bank account.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I love that card. Anything you want to add to that.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
Well, yeah, I mean, just like, think about what helped
me conceptualize why take my money out of a bank account,
out of a saving's account. If you really understand the
banking system like they're robbing you day by day, and
I think this is important for the audience to understand.
So you go to a bank. You give them ten
thousand dollars. They put it in your savings account, right,
they give you less than one percent. You open your
(26:42):
you go you to your online banking. You see it's
ten thousand dollars in your account, but the ten thousand
dollars is not actually in the bank. Right, they go
and lend your money out to somebody or betty. Yet
they lend it back to you because then you go
to the bank the next day and say, hey, can
I get a credit card? They're like, of course, we'll
give you a ten thousand dollars credit card line. And
you're like, oh my god, I got a credit car
ten thousand dollars limit. But they're gonna charge your twenty
(27:04):
four percent interest rate on that credit card, right, so
you use that card. So basically they just gave you
your ten thousand dollars back at twenty four percent interest,
where they're holding your money in a bank account at
less than one percent interest, and they're making a twenty
three percent arbitrage on you ever seen every time you
use the card. So like, once you understand that the
banks are getting rich off of having your money there,
(27:25):
like you're like, well, instead of you getting rich off
my money? Why don't I get rich off my money?
And that's when we take our money out of bank
accounts and we put them in investing accounts.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I want to take this a little bit of a
detour here and start with card Or on this. It's
like for those with an irregular or entrepreneurial income, it
doesn't necessarily hit every Friday. How do we create solid
financial plans when you have that irregular It may be
a decent, you know, income, but it's not regular.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
So one of the best books I can have any
entrepreneur read see When to learn how to be a
good store over their finances is a book called profit
First by Mike account.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm actually reading that right now, dude.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
You read it every year, okay, So that book would
change the game for every entrepreneur. And basically the philosophy
that the book teaches is if you don't give your
money a destination, it will run wild, right fact. And
so what the profit first method is You set up
separate accounts and you give these accounts different purposes. So
you have an account for income, you have an account
(28:29):
for expenses, have an account for payroll, have an account
for your own your own self as an officer's compensation.
You have an account for taxes definitely, and as money
comes into these accounts, you separated based off of percentage.
So again in our example, if you if you have
a ten thousand dollars a month, cool, Well, a portion
of that is going to go towards taxes, a portion
of that is going to go towards paying yourself, A
(28:50):
portion of that is going to go for expenses of
the business. And then you have these different buckets of
money in your business.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
And if you have a low.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Month and you see like, okay, well my expense account
is running low, well guess what is time for you
to stop spending money right now right? And having these
different accounts set up and breaking your money and allocating
it by percentages based off versus just having all your
money hitting one account.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
This is the best way that entrepreneurs.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
Can own their money and create a system where even
though it's going to be highs and lows in the business,
you still know how to onet how your business is doing,
and how to move your finances going forward.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, you know, George, so many of us, specifically in
our community, you know, we grew up thinking or hearing
debt is you know, you do as much as you
can and get out of debt.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
We see it purely as a negative thing, too many
of us, do you know. I want you to.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Talk about how how debt is a tool and how
you can be how you can leverage debt to you know,
find your way to wealth.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
That's a phenomenal question.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
So, I think when most people think about debt, they
think about it in terms of purchasing liabilities.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
You buy a car and five years from now, that
car is worth less than you originally purchased it for.
And you when you look at all the payments that
you made, you paid more than you originally borrow.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Right, So when you look at different that lens, it's.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
Like, why would I ever borrow?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Like the systems rated?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
But when you look at that from the lens of
leverage and say, hey, look, I'm gonna borrow this money,
but I'm gonna borrow to buy an investment that I
believe the interest that I'm gonna earn it's gonna be greater.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Than the interest that I'm gonna own.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Simply put, if I borrow money at six percent, I
use that money to buy house or I use that
money as a downpayment to buy a business, or I
use that money to invest in a stock market, and
then my returns significantly outpaced the interest that I owe.
Then it's just a game of arbitrage, similar to the bank. Right,
So it's like, Okay, well I borrowed it a six
I got twelve percent right after even I paid the
(30:48):
bank back, right, there's still a six percent spread on
money that wasn't mine, right, which is naturally going to
speed up your ability to build well because it's like
you have more money to play with that you didn't
originally have. When you get on the right side of
the equation and you use borrow money to build wealth
and use borrow money to invest, then it can be
a tool, and that is a tool that we can
(31:09):
use to catch up, right, because it's like, quite literally,
I'm using if I make one hundred thousand dollars a year,
I borrowed another fifty thousand dollars a year, meaning I've
increased my productivity. Is if I made fifty thousand on
the other fifty thousand, I got.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
To pay it the six percent.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
But however, now I've identified it, that's been opportunities that
are going to be maybe double that percentage, right, And
now that's how I'm able to compound my wealth a
lot faster. So yeah, it can one hundred percent be
a tool. Obviously you want to do the math. I
think most people are afraid of debt. They just don't
do the math right. It's like they look at it
as a liability, like, oh, I'm gonna pay interest.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I don't want to pay interest.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But does it matter if what you got in return
outpaces the interest that you paid, right? And I think
once you just do the math, and that's a beautiful
thing about personal finance, you'll be able to see that
debt can be an amazing tool and accelerating your wealth building.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
So what's interesting As I am reading profit for and
it led me to this question, and I'm about to
ask for I got to tea this up first. So, George,
I was reading profit first, you know, as Carter talked about.
And so I set up all these five accounts, and
during that process, I was just looking through my statements
for my AMEX, you know, in a couple of other cards,
and I found seven hundred dollars of things that I
(32:19):
was spending every month that I had no use for
seven hundred dollars a month thing subscriptions on iTunes, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Whatever, like just stupid stuff, stuff that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't even use anymore. And I'm like, I can't
believe I've been paying seven hundred dollars a month and
stuff that I haven't even opened up. And as a
financial advisor, George, I want you to talk about like
this concept of money leagues, like these expenses or inefficiencies
that we have that we just are not even aware of.
(32:54):
You on this car, I'm let you cook on this
car to too, let you go yeah, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
One thing that we have all of our clients do
is we call it a finding money exercise.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
It's like because what happens is, you know, you accumulate
these expenses over time, right, And if you don't have awareness,
if you're not having a money date with your money
every week where you're looking at it, you forget about
you forget about the gym membership from the gym you
no long ago to. You, forget about the Apple iTunes
subscription that was annual and you forgot to cancel and
you still getting hit with it.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Right, those are things that's just over time you start to.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Accumulate all this extra baggage if you will, right, and
so I think awareness is the greatest lever that you
have when it comes to building wealth. We recommend our
clients every week have a money date, whether you actually
have somebody view it with or if it's just you
and your online banking, you have a money date where
you sit down and you review, Hey, this is what
(33:47):
I got coming up this week, and this is how
it should go based upon how the week went.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Do I need to make any adjustments?
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Because oftentimes people get scared about budgeting because they think
about it being restricted.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
But remember this is your life. So if you know
you got friends.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Coming in town the end of the month, you want
to buy bottles, you want to go all out, well cool, Well,
then you need to in the beginning of the month, right,
make sure that you're not allocating the money towards door
dash and getting nickeled in. Don I think what happens
is people don't zoom out quickly enough to figure out, like.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
What do I want my life to actually look like?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
This is a story I always tell When I first
got in the financial services industry, it was one of
my first conferences I went to, and the young lady
was like, in twenty eleven, one billion drill bits were sold.
And for those who don't know what the drill bits are,
because you're not too handy, it's a little thing you
put into a drill to maybe hang up artwork and
different things in your house.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
She said.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Of the billion drill bits that were sold, nobody wanted
a drill bit.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
She said, Now, what if I told you that they
used the drill bits to hang artwork in office parks
and residential homes all across the country. But they didn't
necessarily want the artwork either. What they cared about is
the feeling that they got when they walked in the
room where the artwork was hung. So how does that
translate to your money? When you look at your BA account,
do you care if it's a million dollars or one
(35:02):
hundred thousand or ten thousand?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Not really right?
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Do you care if it's in what type of account
it is? Is it a roth ira, is a brokerage account?
You don't really care about that. That will be the
equivalent of me walking into your house looking at a
beautiful picture and saying, man, I'm really curious of the
oak wood handle that you use on the hammer to
hang that in the nails where they steal.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Or what they nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
What you care about is where you're going to be
able to go, what you're going to be able to
do other people, that you're going to be able to
help in the lifestyle that you're going to be able
to live. So once you can line your financial resources
to that, north Star budgeting and money management seems a
lot more realistic because it's not I'm just doing the
adult thing that everybody should do, which is saved and
(35:43):
invest my money. You're anchoring it in your values. I
like to call it value based spending. So when you're
looking at your expenses right you ask yourself two questions.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Does this spending align with what I say I value
Number one?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And number two? Is there cost effective, more cost effective alternative?
Sometimes there might not be a cost effective alternative, but
at least asking the question put you in the right
frame of mind, because if you look at your online
banking you.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
See food, food, food, food, food.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Any responses, well, it's okay, because I'm going out to
bunch with the homies and we get the fellowship, we
get to have a good time. I said, well, hold on,
what you're saying is you value the fellowship, not necessarily
the food. So maybe we can come up with more
creative ways to extract what you really want from this scenario.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
That's still quote unquote budget friendly. So that's the way
I think about it, hopefully answers your question.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, and card I want you to cook on this too,
because I think about that seven hundred dollars that I
already had and was spending by now clawing that back,
I just made seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like and let me just because
I wanted to have a relatability moment. We are not
above reproach here, like we still forget like I did.
I did act as my assistant last year. Let's see
where I spent some money last year because it was
a fast it was a fast year. I spent seventeen
thousand dollars in ubers last year, and I I didn't
(37:00):
realize it because you know, Nicko Lndam, you don't see
it at the end of the year. And I have
to set myself down and say, Okay, Carter is riding
in Uber seven is like that is at worth seventeen
thousand dollars feet seventeen thousand dollars, So you know, if not,
you can use that money to buy a car and
just drive more, or give up the car you already
have and just.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Go all in on uber. What we can't do is
have both.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
Right, So I just want to let people know we're
not above reproach.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Here.
Speaker 6 (37:22):
We have to take our own device at Lotts and
it's just understanding what do you want your money to
do for you and how do you want it to
be the tool that it can be to help you
grow and get towards your dreams. Because what I did
to make it more more, to make it hit home
for me is I put that seventeen thousand dollars in
(37:43):
a retirement calculator at ten percent for fifty years, and
I saw how much money it could have made me
if I didn't spend it. So that going in twenty
twenty five is going to make sure I don't make
the same mistake again.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So I want you to talk a little bit about
melon and money, but I want you to first start it,
just talk about some tools you know, technologies or et
ceter Both of you guys. I want you to do
this on things that you would advise, you know, people
add you know on their phone or you know other
you know when you talk about that, you know, financial
date George like things people should be doing. What are
(38:14):
tools resources we should use to help us both manage
our money better and grow our money? You know early capacity.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Do you want me to start first and part go ahead?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Go ahead or cool?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
One?
Speaker 4 (38:28):
One tool I think is great to weal we were
talking about money management is Rocket Money, right?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Rocket Money? But now y'all need to be sponsoring us
at this point, y'all.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
But Rocket Money is a great app. Right, There's just
gonna give you that visibility to know where your money's going.
Do you have a subscription that's coming up that you
should be canceling? And it's really gonna give you that
awareness to be able to claw back some of that
money that you can use to invest and build well.
So from a money management perspective, I think Rocket Money
is an amazing app. From an investing standpoint, I really
love an app called in one Finance because one of
(39:00):
the things we talked about was how do I leverage right?
You know, Debta is a tool to build well. In
one Finance is one of the most easy platforms that
exists where you can invest your money and they will
give you a.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Lot of credit based upon the value your portfolio value. Right,
So if you have.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Fifty thousand invested, you'll give you a lot of credit
for twenty five thousand, right and for all intentsive purposes.
Sometimes it depends upon what your investments are. But conceptually
speaking about fifty percent, and so once you have a
handle of your finances and you're investing, it's like, wow, okay, Now,
just by investing my money instead of having the money
in the bank, if I would have drawn twenty five thousand,
I'm leaving twenty five thousand dollars in there, this eroding
(39:37):
right to inflation. And then when I take it out, right,
I got twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
To play with. I can have my full fifty thousand, remain.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Invested, and still get access to twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
So I strongly recommend having an app like in One
finance and investing following the Burking investment strategy that I
shared earlier in the podcast.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
That's for money.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
That's a money maximizing standpoint.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Now, from a money making standpoint, if you're an entrepreneur,
is make sure you have your like quick Books or
whatever accounting app on your phone and just on a
regular basis, make sure that you're reviewing the P and L.
I think one thing that a lot of entrepreneurs shy
away from is like money making activity. Right, It's like,
what makes all of this easier? Just to world on
the same page, what makes building wealth easier? What makes
(40:18):
money management easier? Like is making more money?
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Now?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Obviously you still got to be a good steward over
your money. But one of the things that helped a
lot of my early clients out is I looked at
their expens It's like, what can I cut?
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I'm like, you're honestly not doing too bad. I was like,
you need to make more money.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Right, And so the same level of awareness we need
to have when it comes to spending is the same
level of whereas we need to have.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
When it comes to making money.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
What was the target revenue goal for this month? Where
am I at in the first seven days? Where am
I at at a mid month?
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
And we do something in our company called halftime report, right, Like,
we know what our goal is for the month. We're
not waiting til the end of the game to figure
out we lost the game, right, so, and halftime where
are we relative to the goal, which.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Obviously are You've logging into your quick books and it's
up to day. You can see that right and you'll.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Be able to make game time or halftime adjustments if
you will to be able to make those adjustments. So
those are least three things I would do because I
like to look at things and buckets of make managing
maximize and so those are three tools that you can use.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
It could be beneficial.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
CARDI you can do the same thing, but also talk
about mailing and money on this please.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Yeah, So I'll give one and I'll go to the
mallon money conversation. I love doing an exercise with our
clients having them go to the National Registry of Unclaimed
Retirement Benefits because when you start a business right you
most likely left your retirement plan and your previous employer.
So this website will allow you to go find any
(41:38):
other retirement plans that you might have left behind in
previous employees that you forgot about or that you can't
find an XYZ, and then we're able to take those
old retirement plans roll them over into your small business
retirement plan, and we can even set it up in
a way we can use some of that money to
borrow we can borrow from our retirement plan, use some
of that money to jump start our business. Finding all
(42:01):
the money that we left in previous employers, moving it
over to our own self employed retirement plan that we own,
that we control and that we can help grow faster.
So that's the exercise that we do all of our
entrepreneur clients to make sure we're not leaving any money
in the past. And I think from a million and
money standpoint, we have so many tools in our in
(42:21):
our community to help our clients get to the next level.
And I think one of the best things that we
can do that we do for our clients is that
we give them one accountability to advisors that they can
work with to really help them maximize their money. But
also just giving them all the tools and resources and
things that we use for ourselves over the years to
(42:41):
really help them maximize their money and minimize their taxes.
And that's why you know, all of our clients are
part of our Mail and a Millionaire club. Not only
are we helping them with the saving and investing part,
but helping them achieve net worth milestones.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I don't think we.
Speaker 6 (42:57):
Mentioned it earlier, but every year we having a wart
show where we celebrate our clients for hitting networth goals,
whether it's the firste hundred thousand networth or first half
a million, their first million, their first five million, and
we celebrate our clients so that the set of money
being a taboo topic is actually something that they're willing
to talk about, excited to talk about because now we're
(43:19):
talking about different milestones that we're celebrating, hitting these wealth,
hitting these wealth markers. And I think in twenty twenty
four we helped our clients increase the networth by over
one hundred million dollars and we got to celebrate with
them at the award show. So I think it's just
taking money from being a taboo topic. And what melon
the Money is doing is taking it and making it something.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
That's worth talking about and something that's worth celebrating.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Black Tech Green Money is the production of Blavity, Afro Tech,
the Black Effect podcast, Networking Night Hire Media. It's produced
by Morgan Debonn and me Well Lucas, with the digital
production support by Kate McDonald, Shurgut, and Jada McGee. Special
thank you to Michael Davison, Love Beech. Learn more about
my guessing of the Techi Shop is an Innovatives and
Afro Tech com. The video version this episode will drop
(44:03):
to Black Tech.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Dream Money on YouTube, so'll tap in.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Enjoy your Black Tech Dream Money, share us to somebody,
go get your money.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Peace and love,
I'm Lucas and this is Black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Carter Cofield and George Ashen Pong are financial experts dedicated
to helping black entrepreneurs and professionals build lastly wealth.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Carter Cofield is the.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Owner and the lead advisor of Cofield Advisors, where he
helps creative entrepreneurs take control of their finances so they
can focus on his own A genius, he's a CPA
and personal financial specialists, providing a one stop shop for
tax strategy, wealth building, and financial freedom. George Orson Pong
is founder of capital Wise and The Melon A Millionaire's Club,
a financial education platform helping one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
People of color achieve the first million in network.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
As a Forest contributor and award winning wealth manager, he's
revolutionizing traditional financial advice to accelerate wealth building for black
professionals and entrepreneurs. Together with Melon The Money, Carter and
Georgia building the number one financial education community design to
serve aspiring Melon A millionaires.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So I for the first one.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
To George, but I'd like to get both of you
guys as inputs on this is Do you believe first
of all, that traditional financial advice for even high income
earners in marginalized communities, black communities, minority communities, that traditional
advice still doesn't work for us. If so, why doesn't
it work for people in our communities?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The reason why I don't think that it works is
because for starters, a lot of the traditional advice in
the community or in the financial advice industry is centered
around assets under management.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's like, you can't.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Start the conversation until you have a quarter million dollars
to invest, right, And not to say that people don't
have cash on the sidelines. What we found to be
true is that our clients were starting businesses, they were
becoming successful, they did have great cash flow, but they
were very much in the beginning phases of building wealth
or didn't even know about that.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
They should be focused on the relation of wealth, right.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
And so if we're saying that I got a client
that's you know, making you know, a quarter million, half million,
or even a million plus a year, But we can't
start the conversation by wealth building because you don't have
a quarter million dollars to invest. I think that's kind
of backwards and it's kew because even when we look
at our investment philosophy. As a company, we are preaching
that cash flow is king right. The industry at large
(02:23):
is saying, hey, invest for forty years and if you
do everything right, you have a million dollars at retirement.
But we grew to understand and realize that money is
not a pool. It's a tool, right, and it's something
that needs to be used and not something that we
accumulate and look at in awe of. So that's why
I don't think it works for really beyond just marginalized communities,
but specifically for our communities because we don't inherit money.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Typically.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
We are a lot of us are first generation unwealth builders,
and most of our wealth is tied up into our
high income skill set or the business that we have,
which is a great leverage mechanism. But we just need
to not be excluded from the conversation simply because we
don't have a quarter million dollars sit on the sidelines.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, And Karl, I'm I'm gonna give you the same question,
but I'm gonna ask it in a different way because
I love that response from George, and so I think
about there are a lot of friends I have and
friends I'm sure that you have that make really good money,
but we still can't seem to catch up with counterparts,
non millenated counterparts, And like, what are they doing differently
with the same amount of money to make sure they're
(03:25):
accelerating a lot faster.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
Yeah, this is a This is a great question because
when I worked in corporate America, I worked at one
of the big poor accounting firms, and what I noticed
from a company standpoint and from helping you know, small
business owners, is that taxes is everyone's number one expense.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
So if two people both earn one hundred thousand dollars,
but one of them has, you know, has to pay
five thousand dollar taxes, but the other one has to
pay thirty thousand dollars taxes, that other person has twenty
five thousand dollars more in income every.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Single year to invest.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Right.
Speaker 6 (03:58):
So I think that one thing we appreciate our clients
is that it's not just about how much money you make,
it's about how much money you keep.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
And I think one of the.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
Easiest ways to increase your earning potential is to minimize
how much money you have to give to the to
the irs. And I think as a community we are
so you know, where we're in the beginning phases and
are so happy about just having money that we don't
think about taxes because like, to even have disposable income
(04:26):
is like, yo, we made it. Okay, cool, you made
to level one. You solve the income problem. But now
that you solve the income problem, you're going to be
walking into a tax problem. So I think, at least
from my standpoint, helping people minimize their taxes so that
they can have more money to invest is a step
in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, and I'll stick with you Carter on this.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think about people who are transitioning from employment W
two to maybe ten ninety nine or even K one,
Like they're doing something different, you know, with their revenue,
they're in their household income. They may not see that
tax refund like no normal W two employee. So what
are some what do you find is hurdles that people
(05:08):
who traditionally would get a W two and get a
refund at the beginning of the year, middle of the year,
what are hurdles they have to get over to change
how they think about taxes fundamentally, like not super complex,
but just the fundamental stuff.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah, So I think that one of the best
lessons I learned, at least when I was in college,
our professor in our, in our, in our and our,
when our classes came in the room, he said, what's
the best tax refund.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
You can get?
Speaker 6 (05:35):
And then everybody's writing down different numbers, and I'm like, yo,
ten twenty dollars, the higher the better, and he let
everybody write the answer down and then he was like,
the best tax refund you can get is zero, because
all the tax refund is is you've given the irs
an interest free loan for twelve months that they got
to use and invest in whatever.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Then they gave it back to you with no interest.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
So I think the first thing I people to understand
that the best tax rEFInd you can get is zero,
because that way it gets people to stop being excited
right about getting fifteen twenty thousand dollars back that that
was your money to begin with, right, So that's number one.
I think Number two is once you move from W
two to employee, the responsibility for taxes shifts from your
(06:19):
employer's responsibility to your responsibility, right, what some people think
is a bad thing, But with responsibility also comes control
because now that you're responsible for your allwn taxes. You
now have control over your tax situation, how much you
need to pay any given year. So I think once
we can adopt those two mindset shifts, we'll be better
(06:40):
off and yours.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You know, when you go and start something like melon
the money, first, I want you to talk about what
it is. But then when you talk about it, talk
about what gaps you saw in the marketplace that said,
you know what, there's still a need here that you know,
me and Car to going fulfill this.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So I remember back in twenty seventeen, there's an article
that will was released that black wealth was going to
zero by twenty fifty two. And so here I was,
you know, at the time, working with a small pool
of clients who you know, I guess I had created
this echo chamber for thinking that well, surely you know,
people get it, and a lot more people are marching towards,
(07:18):
you know, this journey for building wealth, not realizing that
at large, right people.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Still did not have an understanding of what it took.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
So I knew that we had to do something that
was broader, something that was bigger, something that was more impactful.
Me and Carter actually met at a conference in twenty nineteen,
and at that conference, one of the speakers was like, hey,
you know, if you can just get your firm to
one hundred clients like lifetime, right, like, you'll be good,
You'll be coasting forever. And then like I kind of
(07:48):
heard it, I was just like, that seems a little
bit lost, Like we got a lot more people to help, right,
and then law and behold, you know me and Carter.
You know, again, we didn't know each other at the time.
We're walking to lunch and you know, getting a financial
advisor conference, or wasn't many of us that looked like us, right,
and so you know, we just connected and he kind
of felt the same way as either the year what
I just heard. And then you know, we realized that
(08:10):
it was gonna be somebody.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Had to do it.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Somebody had to say, how can we serve and reach
and impact more people? And so I do understand that
some of the limitations of a traditional advisory environment is
you know, staff and people and maybe you know you
don't have the infrastructure to help you know, a thousand
people or ten thousand people. So we had to get
really creative and what that looks like, So, while we
do still have an advisory firm where we are able
(08:34):
to help a decent amount of folks, right, we know
that that's not enough, and so that's why we decided
to create this hybrid educational model where every other month
we're basically doing a virtual conference where people who may
meet not in a position to hire an advisor or
are curious of an advisor's right for them, they get
to learn our top strategies over the course.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Of five days.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
And what's beautiful about that is whether they get the
chance to work with us or not, and Carter can
get the specific stat I know last year between our
master classes and our virtual conferences, I think I was
it was north of the Cardio's the number.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Over twenty twenty thousand people last year.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Over twenty thousand people that we were that we were
able to reach, right, And so we know we didn't
have to do that. We could continue just to serve
the clients who are making multi six figures, seven figures
and continue to build our business because we still are
certain people of color, but we knew that somebody had
with credentials had to step up and say, hey, look,
everybody deserves access to quality financial information, right, because the
(09:31):
gap that we saw in the marketplace was there was,
you know, the person who was super relatable, right, who
was a financial educator, can teach you about budgeting and
saving and those are all great things, but that just
scratching the surface for someone who baby is a little
bit further along. Then on the other end of the spectrum,
we saw the person who was credible, who had all
the credentials, but was very unrelatable.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Right. Maybe it was a middle aged white man trying
to reach you know, a woman.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Of color, And so we found a sweet spot between
the balance of relatability incredibility, right, So we have the
credentials of you know, the best in class advisor, but
we have the relatability.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Of someone who you know, you can connect with.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
And that was kind of the boyd that we filled
in the marketplace, and it's allowed us to serve people
at scale while still building our firm behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I want to go level deeper on this. You know, Carter,
there's the there's this book The Color of Money Mercer
Barradaan who in the book, she there's this line that
kind of just changed my whole perspective on black people
and money, and she said, we have not so long
ago been capital and now we're trying to learn how
(10:37):
to manage capital. And but yeah, it's crazy, like right,
And it just blew everything up about how I thought,
because you know, you walk around, you judge people for
the things that they do, and you like all this
stuff that you're like, why are we buying cars? We
can't afford jewelry, And it said, like, we can't afford
But then again, we have not so long ago been capital,
and we're being asked to treat it, you know, with
(10:59):
it due respect. And so I think about some of
the financial norms that have come from our community. Can
you talk about how we break free from those ways
of thinking? And so actually maybe talk about some of
the norms that we've had, you know, when we come
up in the black household and maybe you don't have
financial conversations at the dinner table.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
That's that's an issue.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
But how do we break free from some of these
things and actually make progress?
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Man, that's a loaded question, my brother, but a phenomenal
question at that. I think the first step is opening
up the conversation, right, because I think awareness is one
of the greatest things that we can achieve in our life.
And so if money is a taboo topic and nobody
wants to talk about it, how can we be educated.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
On something we're unwilling to talk about, right?
Speaker 6 (11:46):
So, I think, you know, for me, it was don't
bring money up at the dinner table, like you know,
put the money under your mattress. Because we can't trust
these banks and all these things, and sometimes we have.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
To question our parents' philosophies and our money.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Again, they did the best that they could with the
information that they had because not too long ago they
weren't allowed to even learn about money. So I think
number one, it comes with just open conversations about money.
And number two, I think it needs to come with
a new level of vulnerability because I think people don't
(12:21):
talk about money because they're ashamed. And if you don't know,
if you are ashamed about not knowing about something about money,
if you if you if you vocalize your lack of
knowledge around.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
It, it can make you feel ashamed. I think we
need to just be vulnerable about our lack.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Of understanding, and once we know more, we can have more.
One thing is that we tell our clients is the
more that you learn the more that you earn, but
you have to be willing to learn first. So I
think those two things really help push the narrative forward.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You know, I want to stink with your card on
this because I think about, you know, I've been following
you on Instagram for some time and you know this,
this is one of those I'm gonna ask for a
friend question were doing those? And so you know, I
got a friend who ows a business, you know, and
I think about how you take these remarkable trips and
(13:08):
you know, you can go out, have great food either
the best restaurants and some of the stuff that I've
seen on your ig And I'm like, then at the end,
you're talking about like this trip you know was a
write off or this trip was you know whatever, Like
how like kind of break down some of these scenarios
and how you manage them.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (13:28):
So the first thing I want people to understand is
that the tax code is a rule book that allows
us to win the tax game if we're willing to
learn about the tax game.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Right.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
The tax cold was created to help entrepreneurs and investors
avoid paying taxes.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
That's what that's why I was created. So when it
comes to trips.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
The IRS has a very important code section that's Code
section one sixty two A, and it says, any expense
that is both ordinary and necessary for you to operate
your business, that trip can be tax deductible in your business.
And if you think about these big corporate companies, they
have they have company retreats where they take their whole
company out somewhere and have a big event to improve
(14:05):
company morale. And if these big companies can do it.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
So can small business owners.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Right.
Speaker 6 (14:10):
So, if you take a trip and you decide to
bring some of your team members with you. We just
had a retreat with our team members in Turks and Kkos.
We brought our team members to this retreat in Turks
and we gained plan and strategized betweenty twenty five right.
We made sure we worked at least four hours a
day each day, we met with the entire team, We
documented the process, we took notes, we took meeting minutes,
(14:33):
we added the documents to our company book. And if
you do those things, the IRS says that trip was
ordinary and necessary to help your business grow. Due to
that fact, the flights are to that location is tax deductible.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
The lodging.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
The airbnbwid was some one hundred percent taxuductible, and the
meals that we got catered with fifty percent tax deductible.
So it just strategically thinking how can I turn something
about to already pay for anyway into a taxi doubt
stable expense. And one thing we train our clients on
is before you spend any money, ask yourself, is there
a way I can make this expense both ordinary and
necessary for my business? If so, we're gonna use that
(15:09):
business car. We're going to document the process that we're
gonna save on taxes.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So I think I was on Georgia's site doing research
for this, and there was this beautiful presidential rolex, and
I wonder, like, can can my presidential they they be
tax deductible.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Well, you know, I'm gonna try to make Carter proud
and answer this question the right way, right you got, Car.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
I am a watch I'm a watch guy. Actually I've
got Carter to watch this now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And one of the things that he told me, you know,
early on, he was like, well, you know, I know
we have the content that we focused on when it
comes to you know, helping people build wealth.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
He's like but you're a watch collector.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
He's like, if you want to kind of make these
things deductible, if you started creating content from the lens
of a collector and how your watches are an investment, right.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
There could be a world where it could be a
tax deduction.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
So I again will defer to the resident expert on
the nuanced and details on that, but cart, if you
want to share a little bit more context on if
the role league.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Can truly be task deductible.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I'm gonna ask something else onto that too, because
I've heard people Carter talk about I'm gonna I'm gonna
ask something because I want you to answer that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
But there's more.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And so I've heard people talk about, hey, you know,
maybe the Louis Vatan bag is not maybe you know,
the Cardier or the Chanel whatever is not. But I
think about because I'm a schemer, I'm up here scheming, like, okay,
but what if.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
That's what they suggested?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Hear me.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So I'm like, I'm like, what if I'm doing I'm
just doing content and it's a part of my you know,
be I gotta i gotta be presentable for the camera
or if I'm like shooting like fictional shorts for YouTube
before Instagram. Like, but I'm playing character now can I
go by that Louis va time?
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Okay, so yeah, I'll ask her. Well if I answer
Georgias question, now circle back to yours.
Speaker 6 (16:53):
So Ira says, if if something is in the pursuit
of income, you can rationalize that expense being ordinary necessary.
So if Rolex was to sponsor our podcast, right, and
then we were to talk about watches, the more we
talk about watches, the bigger the Rolex sponsorship is.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Going to be.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
Right, So that is a direct correlation with how we
can make money from advertising our watches, so that there
therefore that could make our Rolex is tax deductible because
showing them in our content can help roll Lex stroke
a bigger check when it comes to sponsoring our show.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
So would that's how you.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
Would write off a Rolex the easiest, the easiest way
I can explain it.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
Now. When it comes to clothing, the IRS is.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Very very very very strict and clear about THEIRS your
ability to write off clothes. They say, if you are
going to try to write off clothes, it has to
be a costume, to the point where if you were
out in public again, people would stare, or you just
can't wear it out of public again. So if you
were shooting a scene with a firefighter costume on for
(17:53):
your short blog blogged and cool.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Because if you wore that in public, you would be
laughed at.
Speaker 6 (17:59):
Right, But the Louis Vuitton, the chanelle, like, that's that's
not gonna because there's nothing ordinary about that, right, There's
nothing ordinary about a two thousand dollars jacket.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But my scene HiT's hard. This scene I'm shooting, it
just won't hit this hard.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, it looks like it might.
Speaker 6 (18:14):
But like, yeah, so I just tell people, like trying
to validate the cost of a designer purchase as a
tax deduction, there are easier ways to save on taxes
that will cost less red flax.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
I like that, you know, so I want you to
go one more step in this direction. I want to
talk about vehicles for a second. Like, you know, if
I'm talking about the you know, maybe there's this range
rover and I've heard like this six thousand pounds or
nine thousand pounds rule. I'll let you touch on that
or what if it's not six thousand pounds? But I
(18:48):
want there's this really nice car, but I'm using it
for business purposes. Majority for the major point.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Yeah, So with business vehicles, a major point I like
to communicate when I'll talk about vehicle to business owners
is that there's a common misconception that the vehicle has
to be in your business name in order for you
to deduct it on your taxes, and that that's just
not true the irs.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
What the IRS cares.
Speaker 6 (19:11):
About is do you plan on using this vehicle for
business use or not. So, if the vehicle's in your
personal name, but you plan to use it for business, okay, great,
we can still use it for business up to the
percentage of business use that we use.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
So if you have one vehicle.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
It's valid that you can use a eighty percent business
in twenty percent personal.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Cool.
Speaker 6 (19:29):
That means that eighty percent of the expenses related to
that vehicle interest in your car, no car insurance, gas repairs, maintenance,
all changes, all the expenses associated with that vehicle, eighty
percent of those expenses is tax deductible.
Speaker 5 (19:42):
But you also get.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
An expense for money you didn't spend, which is called depreciation,
which is basically saying, hey that because we know a
car is a depreciating asset. We're gonna give you a
tax deduction today for your car losing value tomorrow, and
if the vehicle weighs less than six thousand pound, the
IRS will let you write right up up to twenty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
In depreciation the first year that you rented out.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
So you can have twenty thousand dollars of depreciation plus
another four thousand dollars in car expenses. You can have
a twenty four thousand dollars tax deduction that year for
your vehicle. Now with the six thousand pound rule, what
makes that robust and something that business ownership seek to
have is because instead of having that twenty thousand dollars
cap for depreciation, you actually get to write off a
(20:27):
percentage of the vehicle's value. So if you were to
get one hundred thousand dollars catalyt escalate, which weighs over
six thousand pounds, you would be able in twenty twenty five,
unless Donald Trump changes something at the moment, you'll be
able to write out forty thousand dollars or forty percent
of that vehicle's cost in the first year you receive it.
Even if you didn't like even if you finance to
(20:47):
put no money down. So in this case, we went
from having a twenty thousand dollars deduction to a forty
thousand dollars deduction by getting a vehicle that weighs a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
More like that.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Like that, So we talked, you know, which I love
talking about spending money in this way and how to
save on spending money. Let's talk about making some money.
How do we make more money? So we can start
with investing here, So people who are listening to this
and are new to investing, let's say, hey, George, you know,
you've got somebody who's got you know, five thousand dollars
(21:17):
and they don't need to touch it to live. But
it's sitting in a savings account right now, or it's
sitting under the you know, pillow to you know, Carter's
earlier point, like.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What should I be doing? Let's start. Let's start with
five thousand dollars. What should I be doing with that money?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Yeah, you don't have a financial advisor, so my mind defaulses,
I want more context, but I'll make I'll make some
I'll make some assumption. So assuming you got your emergency fund,
assuming that this is truly money that you can allocate
towards investing. The way I would approach it is very straightforward.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
We teach our clients this philosophy called the Burger King
investment strategy, right.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
And essentially what that means is you have to learn
how to copy the cat.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
McDonald spends millions of dollars a year determining where they
want to put the next McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Bur King, however, says, well, shoot, McDonald's did out the
heavy lifting. I'm just going to put my burn King
in proximity to mcdonald'sause fast food is fast food, right.
Bur King knows that somebody's gonna be running late for
work and they want that. Even though they want that mcgriddoll,
they're gonna settle for the French sticks at bur King
because the line ain't is long. Right. So when you
think about that from an investing lens, right like Vanguard, Fidelity,
(22:27):
Charles Swap, all these big investment institutions, they spend tens
of millions right, arguably hundreds of millions of dollars a
year on analyst and research to determine what investments.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Should go into.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
These particular funds, also known as ETFs or indexes, right,
And I always like to explain it from the vantage
point of looking at it like a mall. Right, if
you go to your favorite mall, it has hundreds of stores,
and if one, two, five, or ten of those stores
you know don't do well, is the mall going to
close down? We know the mall is not going to
close down. We can understand that rationally. And it's the
same thing for the investing world. If you invest in
(22:58):
a Vanguard ETF has five hundred different companies in it
and three, four, or five or ten of them are underperforming,
the overall fund is still.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Gonna be okay.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Right, And so if you just copy the right cat, ie,
hit the buy button on Vanguard's website, and you just
close your laptop and don't do anything else for the
next twelve months on average, right, well, let's just speak
to the last twelve months, your money would have made
you nearly twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Five percent, right, And so that's step one.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Just not trying to be a world of investing expert
and look at the charts like, just copy the right cat.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
You need to focus.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
If you are going to focus some time on something,
focus your time on figuring out how you can invest
more in five thousand dollars, I e. How can I
become more valuable to the marketplace to have more disposable
income to invest versus me trying to become a world
class investor.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Once you do that, there's other other levers you.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Can pull, like looking inside of the ETF and looking
at some of the top investments that are there, and say,
you know what, if I have five thousand dollars to invest,
maybe three thousand I invest in the ETF, maybe two thousand.
I pick out some of the top winners. Maybe I'm
investing in Apple and video. Now, if you're watching this
in real time, you might.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Say, maybe not in video, but it just got hit.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
But which is actually a great time. I was about
to say, like, yeah, I'm thinking.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Of how they're thinking, right, Yeah, which actually is a
great exactly, But more of the story is picking some
of those uh, you know, bigger, bigger winners, right, they
could potentially give you greater returns.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Than just picking the index.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
But if that's if you have five thousand dollars to invest,
that's exactly what I would advise. And then from there
as your investment grows, there's other strategies that you can
take advantage of that can make more sense as you
have more disposed income to invest.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, at the risk of having you say I need
more context again, I'm going to give you a statement
that my financial advisor has said to me and again
changed the way I look at money. You know, I
was talking to her about my my financial portfolio and
things like that, and I was we were talking about
the money that was in my bank account, and she
was like, true, wealth is not in the bank accounts,
(24:56):
and I would without giving you more context, I just
want you to speak on what that really means. We'll
start with George and then we'll have my card to
jump in on this tool.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Well, because of how our economy is set up, right,
of our money loses its purchasing power year over year, right,
And so even though it seems safe and you can
look at it, you can touch it, and it doesn't
decrease unless you withdraw every year, the money that you
have in your bank account is going to have less
purchasing power in the following year, and so you're losing
(25:28):
the ability. It's costing you more to live as time
goes on.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Right.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
So the reason why wealth is not created in the
bank is because you're literally, quite literally losing wealth due
to inflation right when your money is in the bank. Right,
And so the way that we hedge inflation is we
put our money in investments that we believe are going
to outpace inflation, so that at minimum we're keeping up
with that our purchasing power is in decreasing. In a
perfect world scenario, if your investments are really out pacing inflation,
(25:55):
it actually becomes cheaper to live as time goes on,
right because if inflation is going up at a rate
of two percent two point five percent, but your investment
account is going up a rate of ten percent and
your money's part there, that means all things remaining constant,
it costs you less to live as long as you
are investing your money over time versus leaving into bank account.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I love that card. Anything you want to add to that.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
Well, yeah, I mean, just like, think about what helped
me conceptualize why take my money out of a bank account,
out of a saving's account. If you really understand the
banking system like they're robbing you day by day, and
I think this is important for the audience to understand.
So you go to a bank. You give them ten
thousand dollars. They put it in your savings account, right,
they give you less than one percent. You open your
(26:42):
you go you to your online banking. You see it's
ten thousand dollars in your account, but the ten thousand
dollars is not actually in the bank. Right, they go
and lend your money out to somebody or betty. Yet
they lend it back to you because then you go
to the bank the next day and say, hey, can
I get a credit card? They're like, of course, we'll
give you a ten thousand dollars credit card line. And
you're like, oh my god, I got a credit car
ten thousand dollars limit. But they're gonna charge your twenty
(27:04):
four percent interest rate on that credit card, right, so
you use that card. So basically they just gave you
your ten thousand dollars back at twenty four percent interest,
where they're holding your money in a bank account at
less than one percent interest, and they're making a twenty
three percent arbitrage on you ever seen every time you
use the card. So like, once you understand that the
banks are getting rich off of having your money there,
(27:25):
like you're like, well, instead of you getting rich off
my money? Why don't I get rich off my money?
And that's when we take our money out of bank
accounts and we put them in investing accounts.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
I want to take this a little bit of a
detour here and start with card Or on this. It's
like for those with an irregular or entrepreneurial income, it
doesn't necessarily hit every Friday. How do we create solid
financial plans when you have that irregular It may be
a decent, you know, income, but it's not regular.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
So one of the best books I can have any
entrepreneur read see When to learn how to be a
good store over their finances is a book called profit
First by Mike account.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I'm actually reading that right now, dude.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
You read it every year, okay, So that book would
change the game for every entrepreneur. And basically the philosophy
that the book teaches is if you don't give your
money a destination, it will run wild, right fact. And
so what the profit first method is You set up
separate accounts and you give these accounts different purposes. So
you have an account for income, you have an account
(28:29):
for expenses, have an account for payroll, have an account
for your own your own self as an officer's compensation.
You have an account for taxes definitely, and as money
comes into these accounts, you separated based off of percentage.
So again in our example, if you if you have
a ten thousand dollars a month, cool, Well, a portion
of that is going to go towards taxes, a portion
of that is going to go towards paying yourself, A
(28:50):
portion of that is going to go for expenses of
the business. And then you have these different buckets of
money in your business.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
And if you have a low.
Speaker 6 (28:59):
Month and you see like, okay, well my expense account
is running low, well guess what is time for you
to stop spending money right now right? And having these
different accounts set up and breaking your money and allocating
it by percentages based off versus just having all your
money hitting one account.
Speaker 5 (29:14):
This is the best way that entrepreneurs.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
Can own their money and create a system where even
though it's going to be highs and lows in the business,
you still know how to onet how your business is doing,
and how to move your finances going forward.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, you know, George, so many of us, specifically in
our community, you know, we grew up thinking or hearing
debt is you know, you do as much as you
can and get out of debt.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
We see it purely as a negative thing, too many
of us, do you know. I want you to.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Talk about how how debt is a tool and how
you can be how you can leverage debt to you know,
find your way to wealth.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
That's a phenomenal question.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
So, I think when most people think about debt, they
think about it in terms of purchasing liabilities.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
You buy a car and five years from now, that
car is worth less than you originally purchased it for.
And you when you look at all the payments that
you made, you paid more than you originally borrow.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Right, So when you look at different that lens, it's.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
Like, why would I ever borrow?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Like the systems rated?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
But when you look at that from the lens of
leverage and say, hey, look, I'm gonna borrow this money,
but I'm gonna borrow to buy an investment that I
believe the interest that I'm gonna earn it's gonna be greater.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Than the interest that I'm gonna own.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Simply put, if I borrow money at six percent, I
use that money to buy house or I use that
money as a downpayment to buy a business, or I
use that money to invest in a stock market, and
then my returns significantly outpaced the interest that I owe.
Then it's just a game of arbitrage, similar to the bank. Right,
So it's like, Okay, well I borrowed it a six
I got twelve percent right after even I paid the
(30:48):
bank back, right, there's still a six percent spread on
money that wasn't mine, right, which is naturally going to
speed up your ability to build well because it's like
you have more money to play with that you didn't
originally have. When you get on the right side of
the equation and you use borrow money to build wealth
and use borrow money to invest, then it can be
a tool, and that is a tool that we can
(31:09):
use to catch up, right, because it's like, quite literally,
I'm using if I make one hundred thousand dollars a year,
I borrowed another fifty thousand dollars a year, meaning I've
increased my productivity. Is if I made fifty thousand on
the other fifty thousand, I got.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
To pay it the six percent.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
But however, now I've identified it, that's been opportunities that
are going to be maybe double that percentage, right, And
now that's how I'm able to compound my wealth a
lot faster. So yeah, it can one hundred percent be
a tool. Obviously you want to do the math. I
think most people are afraid of debt. They just don't
do the math right. It's like they look at it
as a liability, like, oh, I'm gonna pay interest.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I don't want to pay interest.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
But does it matter if what you got in return
outpaces the interest that you paid, right? And I think
once you just do the math, and that's a beautiful
thing about personal finance, you'll be able to see that
debt can be an amazing tool and accelerating your wealth building.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
So what's interesting As I am reading profit for and
it led me to this question, and I'm about to
ask for I got to tea this up first. So, George,
I was reading profit first, you know, as Carter talked about.
And so I set up all these five accounts, and
during that process, I was just looking through my statements
for my AMEX, you know, in a couple of other cards,
and I found seven hundred dollars of things that I
(32:19):
was spending every month that I had no use for
seven hundred dollars a month thing subscriptions on iTunes, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Whatever, like just stupid stuff, stuff that.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't even use anymore. And I'm like, I can't
believe I've been paying seven hundred dollars a month and
stuff that I haven't even opened up. And as a
financial advisor, George, I want you to talk about like
this concept of money leagues, like these expenses or inefficiencies
that we have that we just are not even aware of.
(32:54):
You on this car, I'm let you cook on this
car to too, let you go yeah, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
One thing that we have all of our clients do
is we call it a finding money exercise.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
It's like because what happens is, you know, you accumulate
these expenses over time, right, And if you don't have awareness,
if you're not having a money date with your money
every week where you're looking at it, you forget about
you forget about the gym membership from the gym you
no long ago to. You, forget about the Apple iTunes
subscription that was annual and you forgot to cancel and
you still getting hit with it.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Right, those are things that's just over time you start to.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Accumulate all this extra baggage if you will, right, and
so I think awareness is the greatest lever that you
have when it comes to building wealth. We recommend our
clients every week have a money date, whether you actually
have somebody view it with or if it's just you
and your online banking, you have a money date where
you sit down and you review, Hey, this is what
(33:47):
I got coming up this week, and this is how
it should go based upon how the week went.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Do I need to make any adjustments?
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Because oftentimes people get scared about budgeting because they think
about it being restricted.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
But remember this is your life. So if you know
you got friends.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Coming in town the end of the month, you want
to buy bottles, you want to go all out, well cool, Well,
then you need to in the beginning of the month, right,
make sure that you're not allocating the money towards door
dash and getting nickeled in. Don I think what happens
is people don't zoom out quickly enough to figure out, like.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
What do I want my life to actually look like?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
This is a story I always tell When I first
got in the financial services industry, it was one of
my first conferences I went to, and the young lady
was like, in twenty eleven, one billion drill bits were sold.
And for those who don't know what the drill bits are,
because you're not too handy, it's a little thing you
put into a drill to maybe hang up artwork and
different things in your house.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
She said.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Of the billion drill bits that were sold, nobody wanted
a drill bit.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
She said, Now, what if I told you that they
used the drill bits to hang artwork in office parks
and residential homes all across the country. But they didn't
necessarily want the artwork either. What they cared about is
the feeling that they got when they walked in the
room where the artwork was hung. So how does that
translate to your money? When you look at your BA account,
do you care if it's a million dollars or one
(35:02):
hundred thousand or ten thousand?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Not really right?
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Do you care if it's in what type of account
it is? Is it a roth ira, is a brokerage account?
You don't really care about that. That will be the
equivalent of me walking into your house looking at a
beautiful picture and saying, man, I'm really curious of the
oak wood handle that you use on the hammer to
hang that in the nails where they steal.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Or what they nobody cares.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
What you care about is where you're going to be
able to go, what you're going to be able to
do other people, that you're going to be able to
help in the lifestyle that you're going to be able
to live. So once you can line your financial resources
to that, north Star budgeting and money management seems a
lot more realistic because it's not I'm just doing the
adult thing that everybody should do, which is saved and
(35:43):
invest my money. You're anchoring it in your values. I
like to call it value based spending. So when you're
looking at your expenses right you ask yourself two questions.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Does this spending align with what I say I value
Number one?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And number two? Is there cost effective, more cost effective alternative?
Sometimes there might not be a cost effective alternative, but
at least asking the question put you in the right
frame of mind, because if you look at your online
banking you.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
See food, food, food, food, food.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Any responses, well, it's okay, because I'm going out to
bunch with the homies and we get the fellowship, we
get to have a good time. I said, well, hold on,
what you're saying is you value the fellowship, not necessarily
the food. So maybe we can come up with more
creative ways to extract what you really want from this scenario.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
That's still quote unquote budget friendly. So that's the way
I think about it, hopefully answers your question.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, and card I want you to cook on this too,
because I think about that seven hundred dollars that I
already had and was spending by now clawing that back,
I just made seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like and let me just because
I wanted to have a relatability moment. We are not
above reproach here, like we still forget like I did.
I did act as my assistant last year. Let's see
where I spent some money last year because it was
a fast it was a fast year. I spent seventeen
thousand dollars in ubers last year, and I I didn't
(37:00):
realize it because you know, Nicko Lndam, you don't see
it at the end of the year. And I have
to set myself down and say, Okay, Carter is riding
in Uber seven is like that is at worth seventeen
thousand dollars feet seventeen thousand dollars, So you know, if not,
you can use that money to buy a car and
just drive more, or give up the car you already
have and just.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
Go all in on uber. What we can't do is
have both.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
Right, So I just want to let people know we're
not above reproach.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Here.
Speaker 6 (37:22):
We have to take our own device at Lotts and
it's just understanding what do you want your money to
do for you and how do you want it to
be the tool that it can be to help you
grow and get towards your dreams. Because what I did
to make it more more, to make it hit home
for me is I put that seventeen thousand dollars in
(37:43):
a retirement calculator at ten percent for fifty years, and
I saw how much money it could have made me
if I didn't spend it. So that going in twenty
twenty five is going to make sure I don't make
the same mistake again.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So I want you to talk a little bit about
melon and money, but I want you to first start it,
just talk about some tools you know, technologies or et
ceter Both of you guys. I want you to do
this on things that you would advise, you know, people
add you know on their phone or you know other
you know when you talk about that, you know, financial
date George like things people should be doing. What are
(38:14):
tools resources we should use to help us both manage
our money better and grow our money? You know early capacity.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Do you want me to start first and part go ahead?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Go ahead or cool?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
One?
Speaker 4 (38:28):
One tool I think is great to weal we were
talking about money management is Rocket Money, right?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Rocket Money? But now y'all need to be sponsoring us
at this point, y'all.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
But Rocket Money is a great app. Right, There's just
gonna give you that visibility to know where your money's going.
Do you have a subscription that's coming up that you
should be canceling? And it's really gonna give you that
awareness to be able to claw back some of that
money that you can use to invest and build well.
So from a money management perspective, I think Rocket Money
is an amazing app. From an investing standpoint, I really
love an app called in one Finance because one of
(39:00):
the things we talked about was how do I leverage right?
You know, Debta is a tool to build well. In
one Finance is one of the most easy platforms that
exists where you can invest your money and they will
give you a.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Lot of credit based upon the value your portfolio value. Right,
So if you have.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Fifty thousand invested, you'll give you a lot of credit
for twenty five thousand, right and for all intentsive purposes.
Sometimes it depends upon what your investments are. But conceptually
speaking about fifty percent, and so once you have a
handle of your finances and you're investing, it's like, wow, okay, Now,
just by investing my money instead of having the money
in the bank, if I would have drawn twenty five thousand,
I'm leaving twenty five thousand dollars in there, this eroding
(39:37):
right to inflation. And then when I take it out, right,
I got twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
To play with. I can have my full fifty thousand, remain.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Invested, and still get access to twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Right.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
So I strongly recommend having an app like in One
finance and investing following the Burking investment strategy that I
shared earlier in the podcast.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
That's for money.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
That's a money maximizing standpoint.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Now, from a money making standpoint, if you're an entrepreneur,
is make sure you have your like quick Books or
whatever accounting app on your phone and just on a
regular basis, make sure that you're reviewing the P and L.
I think one thing that a lot of entrepreneurs shy
away from is like money making activity. Right, It's like,
what makes all of this easier? Just to world on
the same page, what makes building wealth easier? What makes
(40:18):
money management easier? Like is making more money?
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Now?
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Obviously you still got to be a good steward over
your money. But one of the things that helped a
lot of my early clients out is I looked at
their expens It's like, what can I cut?
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I'm like, you're honestly not doing too bad. I was like,
you need to make more money.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Right, And so the same level of awareness we need
to have when it comes to spending is the same
level of whereas we need to have.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
When it comes to making money.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
What was the target revenue goal for this month? Where
am I at in the first seven days? Where am
I at at a mid month?
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (40:46):
And we do something in our company called halftime report, right, Like,
we know what our goal is for the month. We're
not waiting til the end of the game to figure
out we lost the game, right, so, and halftime where
are we relative to the goal, which.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Obviously are You've logging into your quick books and it's
up to day. You can see that right and you'll.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Be able to make game time or halftime adjustments if
you will to be able to make those adjustments. So
those are least three things I would do because I
like to look at things and buckets of make managing
maximize and so those are three tools that you can use.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
It could be beneficial.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
CARDI you can do the same thing, but also talk
about mailing and money on this please.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Yeah, So I'll give one and I'll go to the
mallon money conversation. I love doing an exercise with our
clients having them go to the National Registry of Unclaimed
Retirement Benefits because when you start a business right you
most likely left your retirement plan and your previous employer.
So this website will allow you to go find any
(41:38):
other retirement plans that you might have left behind in
previous employees that you forgot about or that you can't
find an XYZ, and then we're able to take those
old retirement plans roll them over into your small business
retirement plan, and we can even set it up in
a way we can use some of that money to
borrow we can borrow from our retirement plan, use some
of that money to jump start our business. Finding all
(42:01):
the money that we left in previous employers, moving it
over to our own self employed retirement plan that we own,
that we control and that we can help grow faster.
So that's the exercise that we do all of our
entrepreneur clients to make sure we're not leaving any money
in the past. And I think from a million and
money standpoint, we have so many tools in our in
(42:21):
our community to help our clients get to the next level.
And I think one of the best things that we
can do that we do for our clients is that
we give them one accountability to advisors that they can
work with to really help them maximize their money. But
also just giving them all the tools and resources and
things that we use for ourselves over the years to
(42:41):
really help them maximize their money and minimize their taxes.
And that's why you know, all of our clients are
part of our Mail and a Millionaire club. Not only
are we helping them with the saving and investing part,
but helping them achieve net worth milestones.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I don't think we.
Speaker 6 (42:57):
Mentioned it earlier, but every year we having a wart
show where we celebrate our clients for hitting networth goals,
whether it's the firste hundred thousand networth or first half
a million, their first million, their first five million, and
we celebrate our clients so that the set of money
being a taboo topic is actually something that they're willing
to talk about, excited to talk about because now we're
(43:19):
talking about different milestones that we're celebrating, hitting these wealth,
hitting these wealth markers. And I think in twenty twenty
four we helped our clients increase the networth by over
one hundred million dollars and we got to celebrate with
them at the award show. So I think it's just
taking money from being a taboo topic. And what melon
the Money is doing is taking it and making it something.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
That's worth talking about and something that's worth celebrating.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Black Tech Green Money is the production of Blavity, Afro Tech,
the Black Effect podcast, Networking Night Hire Media. It's produced
by Morgan Debonn and me Well Lucas, with the digital
production support by Kate McDonald, Shurgut, and Jada McGee. Special
thank you to Michael Davison, Love Beech. Learn more about
my guessing of the Techi Shop is an Innovatives and
Afro Tech com. The video version this episode will drop
(44:03):
to Black Tech.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
Dream Money on YouTube, so'll tap in.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Enjoy your Black Tech Dream Money, share us to somebody,
go get your money.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Peace and love,
Host
Will Lucas
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