Carter Cofield is one of the co-founders of Melanin Money, a platform dedicated to empowering Aspiring 1st Generation Melanin Millionaires.
He’s a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Personal Financial Specialist (PFS), is the Lead Advisor at Cofield Advisors, LLC. He is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs to thrive by strategically navigating their taxes. Carter’s dedication to financial literacy led him to co-create Melanin Money, the #1 brand for wealth builders of color, with a mission to close the racial wealth gap by 10%.
Melanin Money was born out of the need to bridge the wealth gap for people of color. With a focus on providing trusted education, resources, and a supportive community, the platform equips individuals with the tools to start building wealth and securing financial freedom.
Through a combination of financial education, branded initiatives, and merchandise, Melanin Money is creating a movement to help individuals of color build generational wealth and leave a legacy for future generations.
During the show we discussed:
- Understand the $100B wealth gap and how to close it.
- Learn how to reach your first $1M in net worth.
- Discover legal ways to pay less in taxes.
- Use proper strategies to shelter money from the IRS.
- Turn everyday expenses into tax deductions.
- Apply income shifting to reduce taxes.
- Invest while saving on taxes using real estate and other assets.
- Know key financial principles before investing.
- Believe wealth is possible to achieve it.
- Avoid common mistakes new investors make.
- Align investments with business growth goals.
- Assess risk and diversify your portfolio.
- Invest wisely with limited time and resources.
- Choose the right assets to grow your wealth.
- Balance business reinvestment with personal investing.
- Structure finances for business and personal wealth.
- Build passive income while growing your business.
- Balance short-term and long-term investments.
- Explore overlooked wealth-building opportunities.
- Plan taxes smartly to boost investment returns.
- Leverage compound interest for long-term gains.
Resources:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business, and enjoy as we talk with
seasoned business owners, coaches, and industry leaders on
(00:22):
a variety of topics from advertising and marketing
to the nuts and bolts of running a
highly successful business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about the most important thing
(00:42):
in your life and in your business, which
is about building wealth.
And we're talking about building wealth while building
your business.
And here are your insights today from one
of really the foremost experts on this topic,
Carter Cofield.
Now, Carter Cofield is actually a co-founder
of Melanin Money, a platform dedicated to empowering
aspiring first-generation Melanin millionaires.
(01:03):
Now, Carter is a certified public accountant and
personal financial specialist, and is the lead advisor
at Cofield Advisors, LLC.
He's passionate about empowering entrepreneurs to thrive by
strategically navigating their taxes.
Now, his dedication to financial literacy led him
to co-create Melanin Money, the number one
brand for wealth builders of color, with a
(01:26):
mission to close the racial wealth gap by
10%.
Now, Melanin Money was born out of the
need to bridge the wealth gap for people
of color with a focus on providing trusted
education, resources, and a supportive community.
The platform equips individuals with the tools to
start building wealth and securing financial freedom.
So through a combination of financial education, branded
(01:47):
initiatives, and merchandise, Melanin Money is creating a
movement to help individuals of color build generational
wealth and leave a legacy for future generations.
Carter, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
So happy to be here, Todd.
Thank you for that amazing introduction and hopefully
able to provide your audience a value today.
Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
(02:08):
So your mission is to take this $100
billion wealth gap and close it.
So give me some more insight on that.
What is this wealth gap and what are
you guys doing to solve that problem?
Yeah, so I wish it was my idea,
but my business partner, George, actually came to
me with this idea because there was an
article.
So we were friends for a while and
he had this company, Melanin Money, and the
(02:29):
mission wasn't that big then, but he read
this article that said black wealth is slated
to go to zero by year 2053.
And when he read that article, that really
struck a chord in him because he was
like, not on my watch.
I have all the information, I have all
the knowledge.
We both have a platform.
We can actually change this.
So he brought to me the idea of
(02:50):
helping 100,000 people of color build their
first $1 million and that works to effectively
decrease the wealth gap by $100 billion.
And that to me was a mission I
could really get behind.
So I actually stopped everything else I was
doing.
He stopped everything else he was doing.
We came together, put all of our attention,
brought our teams together to our company now,
(03:10):
Melanin Money, which is a financial services firm
that helps aspiring entrepreneurs reach that goal because
I believe that you cannot be what you
cannot see.
So our job is to show people what
building wealth looks like and help them understand
that they can achieve it, especially people that
have been underserved or undereducated because I mean,
we all can agree that financial literacy should
(03:33):
have been taught in schools.
And if it was taught in schools, we'll
all be doing a little bit better financially,
but because it wasn't, even though it's not
our fault, it is our responsibility to do
something about it.
And that's why we are so strong behind
the mission.
I love it.
And it seems like you're really focused on
helping your clients, your students get to their
(03:55):
first seven figures of net worth.
Is that right?
Yes, yes, because there are a lot of
people out there helping people earn their first
$1 million, which is great, right?
Don't get me wrong.
But Kai, as you can attest that earning
a million dollars doesn't mean you have a
million dollars, right?
Especially in your business, you earn a million
(04:16):
dollars, you pay your team, you pay your
staff, you pay for marketing.
Depending on how busy you have, you might
have a couple hundred thousand dollars left over.
And that doesn't even mean you have invested
that money.
So helping people make their first million is
one thing, but helping people have a million
dollars in net worth is another thing because
that net worth is the true indication of
financial freedom.
(04:36):
And that's what we're trying to help people
gain here.
So what are you doing to help them
get to that first million dollars in net
worth?
I should never ask.
So I believe that it all starts with
taxes, because if you make 100,000 or
half a million or a million, you're giving
30 to 40, sometimes 50% of that
(04:58):
money away.
And taxes, whether people understand it or not,
is everyone's number one expense.
So if we can help you eliminate or
at least minimize that number one expense, you
will have so much money left over to
start investing.
So the first thing that we do when
a client's hired us is we say, how
(05:19):
do we completely eliminate or how do we
minimize your tax bill with various tax saving
strategies, right?
And then once we help you legally shelter
that money from the IRS, now you have
more money to invest.
And then that's where my partner George comes
in and implements investing strategies so that people
can build wealth faster by having more money
(05:40):
to invest.
I love it.
And your specialty is definitely on the tax
side or one of your specialties.
So that being said, what are some of
these strategies that you recommend to be able
to help people keep more of what they
make instead of giving it to the IRS?
Absolutely.
So I look at tax strategy in three
buckets or three levels, right?
(06:01):
Level one of tax strategy is tax deduction
strategies, right?
How do we turn our personal expenses, expenses
that we're already paying for and how do
we make them tax deductible business expenses?
So this is, for instance, like you pay
for your cell phone, right?
But once you have a business and you're
using your cell phone in your business, you
get to write off a portion of your
cell phone and your cell phone bill, right?
(06:24):
And if you work from home, like 65
% of small business owners do today, you
get to write off a portion of your
rent or mortgage via the home office deduction
or taking advantage of a strategy called the
Augusta Rule.
So at the base level is, Ty, how
do you turn expenses that you're already paying
for into tax deductible business expenses so you
don't have to pay all your bills but
(06:45):
the IRS can step in and help pay
some of these bills for you, right?
That's level one of tax strategy.
Level two of tax strategy is what we
call income shifting strategies, right?
This is how do I move money off
of my tax return and put it somewhere
else at a lower tax rate?
So for instance, paying your children from your
(07:07):
business is what allows you to move the
money from your 30% tax bracket to
their 0% tax bracket.
So we can income shift through paying your
children.
We can income shift through strategies like setting
up a management company.
We can take advantage of things called private
family foundations.
How do we get money off of our
tax return and put it somewhere with a
lower tax rate?
That's level two.
Level three, which I consider to be the
(07:29):
highest level of tax strategy is how do
we invest and still save on taxes simultaneously,
right?
And one of the main ways to do
this is to invest in things like real
estate where you can make money in cashflow
but you actually lose money on your tax
return via depreciation.
And you can also take advantage of something
called accelerated depreciation where not only will the
(07:52):
depreciation offset the income in the real estate
portfolio but it can also offset income in
your active businesses.
So when I sit clients down, these are
the three buckets that we get to play
in to maximize their tax return.
So the very first thing you're really doing
then is taking normal things that people are
paying and then using them as tax connections.
(08:12):
Can you give some other examples of that?
I mean, I think you said cell phone
is one example.
Yeah, I'll probably give the examples that can
move the needle the most, right?
So at least one of my favorites.
So one of my favorite is travel, right?
So a lot of people take personal trips
and I love to travel more than anybody
but none of my trips are personal because
I understand that the IRS clearly states that
(08:34):
you could turn any personal trip to a
tax deductible business trip by finding business activity
in that location, right?
So three ways to find business activity in
any location that you're traveling to.
Number one, do you have any clients there?
If you have any clients there, take them
to lunch.
That lunch counts as business activity.
If you don't have any clients there, okay,
do you have any business partners there, right
Ty?
So if I were to come to Tampa,
(08:54):
I would say, yeah, like you wanna go
to dinner?
Let's talk mastermind, let's talk podcast strategies.
We will sit down and go to dinner.
I will cover the bill, keep the bill
for receipt.
That gives that day business activity.
Now, if you're traveling somewhere where you don't
know anybody, use a website called eventbrite.com
or meetup.com where you can go to
a networking event, buy a ticket, shake hands,
kiss babies, network, exchange cards, keep your receipt.
(09:17):
That counts as business activity.
If you do that for the days that
you're traveling, then that personal trip, whether you
go sip margaritas at night, that makes that
personal trip a tax deductible business trip.
And we've been able to implement this to
help clients be able to take advantage of
$15,000, $20,000, $30,000 worth of
business travel that would have been personal travel,
but now we were able to write it
off with a new business.
(09:38):
I love that.
And the other part that you mentioned was
income shifting strategy.
So what do you mean by that?
I mean, what are you doing to shift
income where it actually helps your clients and
your students pay less in taxes?
Oh, I love this.
So Ty, you have any children?
I have two children, yeah.
Okay, great.
So when our clients come to us, we
(09:59):
say, hey, all right, great, you have a
business.
Does your child do work in your business?
And every business owner with a child, you
make your child do some type of work
whether it's shredding the paper, cleaning the office,
they do some type of work in your
business.
And every time I ask business owners do
they pay their children, they say no.
I'm like, why not?
They're like, their payment is the roof over
their head.
What do you mean?
I'm not paying them anything.
And I'm like, I get that, but the
(10:21):
IRS states that you can pay your children
from your business and get a tax deduction
for the money that you pay them as
if you were paying any other employee, right?
The difference though, is if you pay your
child $15,000 or less, which is the
standard deduction for 2025, they don't have to
(10:41):
pay any taxes on that money if they're
under the age of 17.
So if you pay each child $15,000
from your business and say you have two
children, that's $30,000.
And you, the business owner, with a $30
,000 tax deduction, taking that money off of
your tax return and your kids would have
to report that $30,000 on their taxes.
(11:01):
But the thing about that is, the standard
deduction wipes out that income.
So that income is not taxable at all.
So we just took $30,000 from your
30% tax bracket, which is a $9
,000 tax bill.
And we moved it to your children's tax
return, which is a $0 tax bill.
So we just saved $9,000 in taxes
(11:21):
by shifting income off of your tax return
to theirs.
And you're gonna spend the $15,000 on
your kids anyway, between tuition, clothes, games.
So why not spend money that hasn't been
taxed yet?
Does that make sense?
That makes a ton of sense.
And then you're saving, you're doing these things,
you're saving them a ton of money.
And then I think George leads the way,
(11:43):
your partner George leads the way on helping
them invest.
So how are some of the ways that
you're doing that?
I mean, how are they investing the money
the right way and then using it with
the strategy of saving and taxes at the
same time?
Yeah, so a few strategies, right?
And so one of the strategies we take
advantage of is by, as a small business
(12:05):
owner, you can set up your own retirement
accounts.
Most people don't know this.
Actually, I think I saw a study that
said like 70% of business of W2
employees stay at their W2 job to keep
the benefits, not knowing they can just get
their own.
So with our small business owner clients, we
have them set up the proper retirement account
that will allow them to maximize their retirement
contribution.
(12:26):
So a solo 401k is one of my
favorite retirement plans.
And in 2025, you're able to invest over
$70,000 per year into this account, right?
So now we're able to set up, most
people only investing $7,000, $20,000 into
their retirement account.
Our clients are putting $70,000 a year
away, right?
And what George steps in is, we have
(12:46):
a firm belief with our clients that it's
okay to be a copycat if you copy
the right cat, right?
So most people invest their money in index
funds or ETFs, which is great because these
companies like Vanguard spend billions of dollars on
analysts to pick the best stocks to put
(13:08):
in these index funds or ETFs.
What we do with our clients is we
say, hey, we look at these ETFs and
say, all right, we're gonna invest a portion
of our money there, but let's look inside
and see what stocks are the heaviest weighted
in these ETFs, right?
Because these companies spend billions of dollars picking
the top companies in these ETFs.
(13:28):
And if we increase our exposure to those
best companies slightly by 10%, 20%, 30%, we
are actually able to get the stabilization of
having an index fund where you own literally
every stock in the United States, but having
a little bit more exposure to the best
companies in that portfolio.
And when we do this, we see that
our clients are able to consistently beat the
(13:50):
returns of some of these index funds because
we're weighted properly in the best companies, right?
So we still get the stock exposure of
the companies we want, but still with the
diversified basket for exposure to the wide market.
And by maximizing our retirement accounts and increasing
your investment earnings, you see a huge, huge
shift in how much money your money is
(14:11):
able to make for you.
Yeah, it's very Warren Buffett-ish, if that
was a word.
Maybe we just made it up.
Like, if you look at his investment strategy,
it's kind of crazy.
Like he doesn't, I mean, he invested very,
very small amount of companies throughout his entire
career.
He just focuses on the moneymakers, but then
still diversifies a smart way, just super smart
strategy.
(14:32):
It's not our strategy.
We just, we look at the goat and
like, all right, this is what Warren Buffett
does, right?
Copy that.
Yeah.
Well, it's cool that you teach that because
I think people can hear about that concept,
but not know how to actually execute.
You're the first guest in a long, we've
had 900 and something plus guests that's ever
even really talked about that.
So I just think it's a brilliant strategy
(14:52):
to help people set themselves up the right
way financially.
Yeah, we just love to give our clients
new ways to look at money and investing.
And another strategy that we leverage for our
clients, I think is super interesting because a
lot of people don't understand that.
I didn't fully understand this until my partner
(15:12):
George explained it to me.
When you're investing your money in a non
-retirement account, right?
Let's call it a traditional brokerage account, right?
You are able to borrow against the value
of your portfolio.
So let me, I just want to let
your audience know the difference between borrowing from
(15:34):
your portfolio and borrowing against your portfolio.
So let's say you have $100,000 in
your portfolio.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
Many of our subscribers want to get the
most money to grow their business at the
best terms.
Whether you're looking for startup capital, low interest
credit lines and loans, or business credit, we
(15:54):
can definitely help you.
So give us a call at 877-600
-2487 or schedule your free consultation at creditsuite
.com forward slash consult to see how much
money you can get approved for today.
Right?
If you borrow from your portfolio, you borrow
$50,000, your portfolio has 50,000 left
and you borrow 50,000.
(16:14):
So you've taken away $50,000 from your
portfolio.
But if you borrow against your portfolio, you
take that $50,000 loan against your portfolio,
but you still have $100,000 invested because
you borrow from, I'm sorry, you borrow against,
not from.
So this whole concept of borrowing against allows
your full amount of money to stay invested
(16:37):
while you still able to leverage your own
portfolio to get more cash, which you can
then use that cash for another investment.
So I'll give you all an example of
something that I did that was able to
help me make more money and save more
taxes.
So let's say I had a portfolio, you
know, $100,000.
If I borrow $30,000 from that portfolio,
I still have $100,000 invested, but that
(17:00):
money is going at 10, 20, 30%.
That money is still gonna grow.
But now I can take this $30,000
and use it as a down payment for
a real estate property.
And then now I use that as a
down payment for a real estate property.
That real estate property is cash flowing.
I can use the cash flow from that
real estate property to pay back the loan
that I took against my portfolio to make
(17:22):
sure I'm making my payments on time.
But now I've basically borrowed against an asset,
which again, loans are not taxable.
So that $30,000 loan I borrowed from
my portfolio, I didn't get taxed on that.
And now I'm buying a real estate property
and the cash flow from the real estate
property is paying off the loan, not to
mention I'm not paying taxes on the cash
(17:44):
flow from the real estate property because of
this thing called depreciation.
The IRS is gonna let me depreciate the
property against the income the property makes.
So I'm able to like use my money
two or three times without having to take
it away from my investment portfolio.
Does that make sense?
I know that was a longer.
It's brilliant.
I mean, like you're turning me on in
a non-sexual way.
(18:07):
Because I oftentimes teach us like securities financing
is insane.
Like it's double dipping.
I don't even understand how it makes sense
that you can have money invested in the
stock market and have the exact same money
pulled out and used for another investment purpose.
Then you are talking about taking it to
a whole other level with investing in real
(18:29):
estate, which I've never heard it explained that
way, of investing in real estate and then
basically using your returns there to pay the
payments on it.
And then you're bringing in depreciation.
Like I said, it was one thing that
you're double dipping.
Now you're like quadruple dipping.
I mean, it's brilliant.
Thank you, thank you.
So this is what we do with our
clients and like full transparency, my head was
(18:50):
blown off.
When George told me you can do this,
I did a literal lap around the restaurant
because I had to come back and say,
wait, wait, wait, you mean to tell me?
And he told me and then I said,
well, you do realize that we could add
tax strategy.
And that's when we started shaking our hands
and said, we can buy a real estate
property and try not to get beside myself,
I'm a tax nerd.
But it can get deeper because depending on
(19:11):
what type of real estate property we buy,
if we take advantage of a cost segregation
study on that real estate property, which is
just a fancy word, a fancy word for
accelerating the depreciation, right?
With a good cost seg study, we can
write off 30% of the value of
the property against our business income, right?
(19:31):
So now if I buy a half a
million dollar building and I do a cost
seg study, which I just did, that's $150
,000 deduction.
And I could take that $150,000 deduction
against the income that I made in my
business.
That's crazy.
It's insane.
(19:52):
I've never even heard of something like that.
Yeah, so like, now I'm borrowing my portfolio,
buying real estate, using the money for the
real estate, pay out the portfolio, using the
depreciation from the real estate to offset my
business income.
Now I'm not paying any taxes in my
business and now I have more money to
reinvest in my portfolio.
And then it just becomes a cycle of
wealth building.
It's, and if you listen, if you're watching
(20:13):
this, I honestly don't know if you know
how brilliant it is what he's saying.
I mean, like it is the wisest use
of money I've ever heard on the show.
And melaninmoney.com is where you should go
to learn more because again, this is one
strategy.
Just those of you watching, melaninmoney.com, this
is literally, this is one strategy.
And it really, it might sound complicated because
(20:33):
it is, that's why nobody's doing it, right?
And that's why you have experts like this
that are saying, if you do this and
move it here and do this and do
this, then you're literally like, there's four or
five times the benefits of what you're doing.
It's really, that's such a smart strategy.
And now I can understand why you're so
successful within helping people get to that million
dollars in that work.
(20:53):
Yeah, the more you learn, the more you
earn, right?
And I'm a very, very firm believer in
that concept.
And here's the thing, like for anybody listening,
if I know, you know, me and Ty
just did some back and forth and some
of y'all like, y'all please come
back to earth because y'all talking over
our head.
This is not something you're expected to know,
right?
Like, and I'll be fully transparent.
(21:16):
I have an undergraduate degree, a master's degree
in accounting, I have a CPA.
Like I tell people all the time, I
have more degrees than a thermometer, okay?
But when I left work and I started
my first job in the workplace, I didn't
know what an IRA was.
I didn't even know what a, I didn't
know how a 401k worked, right?
And so I think there's this imposter syndrome,
(21:38):
which I know, cause I went through it,
of we're just expected to know this stuff
and then we're scared to ask questions because
we don't want to look stupid and we
don't want to look ignorant.
And I believe the only ignorant question is
an unasked question.
And so I would rather look ignorant than
actually be ignorant.
So I think that anybody who like doesn't
(21:58):
know this, I want to give them the
grace that it's not your fault you don't
know it, but that's why you surround yourself
with experts like you.
Yeah, I love it.
It makes me think something.
Why did you guys choose the company named
Melanin Money?
Yeah, so Melanin is actually a skin tone,
right?
That's what I thought.
It just actually just occurred to me if
(22:19):
that's where that came from.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And people ask us all the time, like
why we picked that name?
We just believe in super serving people of
color.
Now, do we have clients in all other
races?
Yes, but like, I know that people of
color are behind the eight ball when it
comes to financial literacy, are behind the eight
ball when it comes to understanding how money
(22:39):
works.
So we want to super serve people of
color, but we have clients in every race,
physical shape or form.
But the name is ringy, isn't it?
Yeah, I just realized I was sitting here.
I was like, man, I think that's what
it stands for.
But what's interesting is why is this wealth
gap that exists like in the business loan
space and credit space I'm in, overwhelmingly, there's
(23:00):
this massive disparity of people of color and
not being able to get money.
I mean, it is significant.
Then you add like women on top of
that, like women of color, like it's astonishing
how much of an uphill battle they face
to be able to get business capital over
anybody else.
The statistics are just disgusting.
(23:20):
It's just disgusting.
So why does this wealth gap, what creates
this wealth gap, do you think?
I will try to summarize my thoughts in
the best way I can.
I believe that there obviously were a lot
of things that were out of our control
that put us behind the race of wealth.
But from a person that has, by the
(23:44):
grace of God, been able to overcome that,
I believe that one, it starts with knowledge
and two, it starts with thinking that it's
possible.
I think it actually starts with thinking that
it's possible.
So as a kid that grew up on
the South side of Chicago, nine of us
in a two, three bedroom home, I could
not believe that wealth was possible.
And if you can't believe that wealth is
possible, you won't be able to achieve wealth.
(24:06):
So I think that, as I mentioned earlier,
it is really hard to be what you
cannot see.
So I think exposure is the greatest gift
that we can give ourselves to see that
there is more to attain.
So I used to like drive through some
like nice neighborhoods as a kid just to
like show myself that more is available.
(24:29):
And I believe that as a people, as
a group, we really have to try to
do our best to put ourselves in environments
to where like we can see that wealth
is attainable.
Because once you set your mind to something,
once you like knock down the limiting beliefs
that wealth is attainable, you can start to
move in the right direction, which is to
get informed on how to build wealth.
(24:50):
And I don't want to undermine anybody's circumstance
by saying that it's not hard, because it
was really, really hard.
Shifting my mind and my perspective to think
that wealth was possible was probably one of
the hardest things I had to do.
But once you do that, then the rest
of your energy just goes to learning and
executing, right?
And that's where reading became my mentor.
(25:10):
Rich Dad, Poor Dad was one of the
amazing books.
So I read a lot of books by
Warren Buffett.
And then when you start to get the
knowledge, you can just start to execute properly.
There are other things in the system that's
gonna make it a little bit harder for
you.
Of course, let's focus on the thing that
we can control.
We can't control that.
We can't control what we know.
We can't control what we execute on.
We can't control who we surround ourselves with.
And money doesn't have a race color.
(25:32):
So investments don't care if you're green, white,
yellow, blue, orange.
If you invest your money in the same
investment somebody else does, it doesn't look like
you.
Y'all get the same returns, right?
So I hope that's a summarized way of
putting it.
I believe it starts with exposure, then it
goes to education, and then it comes to
your environment, and then it's execution after that.
I love it, and I appreciate that.
(25:52):
I want to do my part to help.
So I think having that knowledge helps me.
And I really love the way that you
put it because it's right.
If you don't believe it's possible, like it's
no way you're gonna achieve it.
And that little bit helps me quite a
bit because I've got a lot of people
of color that are in our tribe, and
it helps me to know that we have
to start there with a belief that it's
(26:13):
possible, and then laying out the path to
be able to get there.
When you're talking to students and bringing them
in and your clients, what do you find
that they're making the mistakes?
What are the common mistakes that they're making
that you see that you turn around and
correct pretty quickly?
Well, yeah, I'll start with people that we
might speak to at school as a student,
(26:33):
but then our client base right now and
the students is a little bit different, but
I want to make sure that my answer
helps everybody.
So I think the most common mistake that
most people make with their money is they
don't understand how much life they're trading for
the things they're purchasing.
And this is one of the best concepts
that, and this is George's concept, I'm just
(26:54):
doing my best at explaining it.
If you make, let's say you make $100
an hour at your job, so let's say
you make $25 an hour at your job,
so you work eight hours a day, that
is $200 a day, right?
It's $200 a day, if my math is
correct.
And so if your car payment is $600
(27:15):
a month, you're exchanging three days of your
life for a month to have that car,
right?
Or essentially 24 hours of your life for
a month to have that car.
Is that something you want to, is that
okay trade?
Because that's what you're doing.
And I think at the surface level, the
people are spending more than they're saving.
(27:37):
So, but the frame is that when you
stop buying, if you start looking at something
before you purchase it and say, oh, this
cost me 36 hours of my life, do
I want to make that trade?
Probably not, right?
And that helps young people get a hold
of their spending because it's as simple as
this, Todd.
If you invest more than you spend, you're
(27:57):
going to be fine.
You have a compound interest, but most people
just don't have that extra to start investing.
Now with our clients, our client base is
usually entrepreneurs making $200,000 or more.
Their biggest mistake is not understanding all the
tax deduction that they can take within their
business to stop giving the money to the
IRS to start having more money to invest.
(28:19):
So I think the first thing it starts
with, how do we increase the gap between
how much we make and how much we
spend?
Because the bigger that gap is, the more
we can invest.
And the more we can invest, the faster
you'll hit your financial freedom goal.
Powerful stuff today.
Carter, where can everybody go that's listening and
watching where we just dove into a few
strategies and you have a lot of them.
(28:39):
Where can they go?
What should they do to be able to
learn more?
Yeah, so I think our YouTube channel would
probably be the best resource.
If you type in Melanin Money on YouTube,
we put out two videos per week on
different investing strategies, tax strategies between me and
George.
And that's the best place to go for
education because we wanna reach the masses.
Like we want to be able to reach
(29:01):
and touch as many people as we possibly
can in a positive way.
So that would probably be the best place
to find us.
Carter, thanks for coming on with us today.
Hi, thank you so much.
I appreciate your time today.
All right, so listen, make sure that you
go to melaninmoney.com.
Okay, that's M-E-L-A-N-I
-N money.com.
If you go to melaninmoney.com, you go
all the way to the bottom, you're able
to access their social media channels.
(29:22):
So you're able to access their Insta, you're
able to get their Facebook, you're able to
access that YouTube that Carter just talked about
as well.
Listen, I wanna tell you before you go
here, this is literally the best site I've
ever seen of any guest we've had on
the show.
I think we're approaching a thousand guests on
the show.
And I was blown away by the quality
of this website.
It's just phenomenal the way that they've done
it.
And so if you really wanna look at
(29:42):
the right way to set up a website,
just design purposes, look at this.
But there's so much information on here as
well.
You're even able to take a quiz to
see where you are right now.
And then they're able to break down the
steps that you need to take to kind
of move forward.
You're able to join the club, you're able
to do so many cool things.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business, and enjoy as we talk with
seasoned business owners, coaches, and industry leaders on
(00:22):
a variety of topics from advertising and marketing
to the nuts and bolts of running a
highly successful business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about the most important thing
(00:42):
in your life and in your business, which
is about building wealth.
And we're talking about building wealth while building
your business.
And here are your insights today from one
of really the foremost experts on this topic,
Carter Cofield.
Now, Carter Cofield is actually a co-founder
of Melanin Money, a platform dedicated to empowering
aspiring first-generation Melanin millionaires.
(01:03):
Now, Carter is a certified public accountant and
personal financial specialist, and is the lead advisor
at Cofield Advisors, LLC.
He's passionate about empowering entrepreneurs to thrive by
strategically navigating their taxes.
Now, his dedication to financial literacy led him
to co-create Melanin Money, the number one
brand for wealth builders of color, with a
(01:26):
mission to close the racial wealth gap by
10%.
Now, Melanin Money was born out of the
need to bridge the wealth gap for people
of color with a focus on providing trusted
education, resources, and a supportive community.
The platform equips individuals with the tools to
start building wealth and securing financial freedom.
So through a combination of financial education, branded
(01:47):
initiatives, and merchandise, Melanin Money is creating a
movement to help individuals of color build generational
wealth and leave a legacy for future generations.
Carter, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
So happy to be here, Todd.
Thank you for that amazing introduction and hopefully
able to provide your audience a value today.
Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
(02:08):
So your mission is to take this $100
billion wealth gap and close it.
So give me some more insight on that.
What is this wealth gap and what are
you guys doing to solve that problem?
Yeah, so I wish it was my idea,
but my business partner, George, actually came to
me with this idea because there was an
article.
So we were friends for a while and
he had this company, Melanin Money, and the
(02:29):
mission wasn't that big then, but he read
this article that said black wealth is slated
to go to zero by year 2053.
And when he read that article, that really
struck a chord in him because he was
like, not on my watch.
I have all the information, I have all
the knowledge.
We both have a platform.
We can actually change this.
So he brought to me the idea of
(02:50):
helping 100,000 people of color build their
first $1 million and that works to effectively
decrease the wealth gap by $100 billion.
And that to me was a mission I
could really get behind.
So I actually stopped everything else I was
doing.
He stopped everything else he was doing.
We came together, put all of our attention,
brought our teams together to our company now,
(03:10):
Melanin Money, which is a financial services firm
that helps aspiring entrepreneurs reach that goal because
I believe that you cannot be what you
cannot see.
So our job is to show people what
building wealth looks like and help them understand
that they can achieve it, especially people that
have been underserved or undereducated because I mean,
we all can agree that financial literacy should
(03:33):
have been taught in schools.
And if it was taught in schools, we'll
all be doing a little bit better financially,
but because it wasn't, even though it's not
our fault, it is our responsibility to do
something about it.
And that's why we are so strong behind
the mission.
I love it.
And it seems like you're really focused on
helping your clients, your students get to their
(03:55):
first seven figures of net worth.
Is that right?
Yes, yes, because there are a lot of
people out there helping people earn their first
$1 million, which is great, right?
Don't get me wrong.
But Kai, as you can attest that earning
a million dollars doesn't mean you have a
million dollars, right?
Especially in your business, you earn a million
(04:16):
dollars, you pay your team, you pay your
staff, you pay for marketing.
Depending on how busy you have, you might
have a couple hundred thousand dollars left over.
And that doesn't even mean you have invested
that money.
So helping people make their first million is
one thing, but helping people have a million
dollars in net worth is another thing because
that net worth is the true indication of
financial freedom.
(04:36):
And that's what we're trying to help people
gain here.
So what are you doing to help them
get to that first million dollars in net
worth?
I should never ask.
So I believe that it all starts with
taxes, because if you make 100,000 or
half a million or a million, you're giving
30 to 40, sometimes 50% of that
(04:58):
money away.
And taxes, whether people understand it or not,
is everyone's number one expense.
So if we can help you eliminate or
at least minimize that number one expense, you
will have so much money left over to
start investing.
So the first thing that we do when
a client's hired us is we say, how
(05:19):
do we completely eliminate or how do we
minimize your tax bill with various tax saving
strategies, right?
And then once we help you legally shelter
that money from the IRS, now you have
more money to invest.
And then that's where my partner George comes
in and implements investing strategies so that people
can build wealth faster by having more money
(05:40):
to invest.
I love it.
And your specialty is definitely on the tax
side or one of your specialties.
So that being said, what are some of
these strategies that you recommend to be able
to help people keep more of what they
make instead of giving it to the IRS?
Absolutely.
So I look at tax strategy in three
buckets or three levels, right?
(06:01):
Level one of tax strategy is tax deduction
strategies, right?
How do we turn our personal expenses, expenses
that we're already paying for and how do
we make them tax deductible business expenses?
So this is, for instance, like you pay
for your cell phone, right?
But once you have a business and you're
using your cell phone in your business, you
get to write off a portion of your
cell phone and your cell phone bill, right?
(06:24):
And if you work from home, like 65
% of small business owners do today, you
get to write off a portion of your
rent or mortgage via the home office deduction
or taking advantage of a strategy called the
Augusta Rule.
So at the base level is, Ty, how
do you turn expenses that you're already paying
for into tax deductible business expenses so you
don't have to pay all your bills but
(06:45):
the IRS can step in and help pay
some of these bills for you, right?
That's level one of tax strategy.
Level two of tax strategy is what we
call income shifting strategies, right?
This is how do I move money off
of my tax return and put it somewhere
else at a lower tax rate?
So for instance, paying your children from your
(07:07):
business is what allows you to move the
money from your 30% tax bracket to
their 0% tax bracket.
So we can income shift through paying your
children.
We can income shift through strategies like setting
up a management company.
We can take advantage of things called private
family foundations.
How do we get money off of our
tax return and put it somewhere with a
lower tax rate?
That's level two.
Level three, which I consider to be the
(07:29):
highest level of tax strategy is how do
we invest and still save on taxes simultaneously,
right?
And one of the main ways to do
this is to invest in things like real
estate where you can make money in cashflow
but you actually lose money on your tax
return via depreciation.
And you can also take advantage of something
called accelerated depreciation where not only will the
(07:52):
depreciation offset the income in the real estate
portfolio but it can also offset income in
your active businesses.
So when I sit clients down, these are
the three buckets that we get to play
in to maximize their tax return.
So the very first thing you're really doing
then is taking normal things that people are
paying and then using them as tax connections.
(08:12):
Can you give some other examples of that?
I mean, I think you said cell phone
is one example.
Yeah, I'll probably give the examples that can
move the needle the most, right?
So at least one of my favorites.
So one of my favorite is travel, right?
So a lot of people take personal trips
and I love to travel more than anybody
but none of my trips are personal because
I understand that the IRS clearly states that
(08:34):
you could turn any personal trip to a
tax deductible business trip by finding business activity
in that location, right?
So three ways to find business activity in
any location that you're traveling to.
Number one, do you have any clients there?
If you have any clients there, take them
to lunch.
That lunch counts as business activity.
If you don't have any clients there, okay,
do you have any business partners there, right
Ty?
So if I were to come to Tampa,
(08:54):
I would say, yeah, like you wanna go
to dinner?
Let's talk mastermind, let's talk podcast strategies.
We will sit down and go to dinner.
I will cover the bill, keep the bill
for receipt.
That gives that day business activity.
Now, if you're traveling somewhere where you don't
know anybody, use a website called eventbrite.com
or meetup.com where you can go to
a networking event, buy a ticket, shake hands,
kiss babies, network, exchange cards, keep your receipt.
(09:17):
That counts as business activity.
If you do that for the days that
you're traveling, then that personal trip, whether you
go sip margaritas at night, that makes that
personal trip a tax deductible business trip.
And we've been able to implement this to
help clients be able to take advantage of
$15,000, $20,000, $30,000 worth of
business travel that would have been personal travel,
but now we were able to write it
off with a new business.
(09:38):
I love that.
And the other part that you mentioned was
income shifting strategy.
So what do you mean by that?
I mean, what are you doing to shift
income where it actually helps your clients and
your students pay less in taxes?
Oh, I love this.
So Ty, you have any children?
I have two children, yeah.
Okay, great.
So when our clients come to us, we
(09:59):
say, hey, all right, great, you have a
business.
Does your child do work in your business?
And every business owner with a child, you
make your child do some type of work
whether it's shredding the paper, cleaning the office,
they do some type of work in your
business.
And every time I ask business owners do
they pay their children, they say no.
I'm like, why not?
They're like, their payment is the roof over
their head.
What do you mean?
I'm not paying them anything.
And I'm like, I get that, but the
(10:21):
IRS states that you can pay your children
from your business and get a tax deduction
for the money that you pay them as
if you were paying any other employee, right?
The difference though, is if you pay your
child $15,000 or less, which is the
standard deduction for 2025, they don't have to
(10:41):
pay any taxes on that money if they're
under the age of 17.
So if you pay each child $15,000
from your business and say you have two
children, that's $30,000.
And you, the business owner, with a $30
,000 tax deduction, taking that money off of
your tax return and your kids would have
to report that $30,000 on their taxes.
(11:01):
But the thing about that is, the standard
deduction wipes out that income.
So that income is not taxable at all.
So we just took $30,000 from your
30% tax bracket, which is a $9
,000 tax bill.
And we moved it to your children's tax
return, which is a $0 tax bill.
So we just saved $9,000 in taxes
(11:21):
by shifting income off of your tax return
to theirs.
And you're gonna spend the $15,000 on
your kids anyway, between tuition, clothes, games.
So why not spend money that hasn't been
taxed yet?
Does that make sense?
That makes a ton of sense.
And then you're saving, you're doing these things,
you're saving them a ton of money.
And then I think George leads the way,
(11:43):
your partner George leads the way on helping
them invest.
So how are some of the ways that
you're doing that?
I mean, how are they investing the money
the right way and then using it with
the strategy of saving and taxes at the
same time?
Yeah, so a few strategies, right?
And so one of the strategies we take
advantage of is by, as a small business
(12:05):
owner, you can set up your own retirement
accounts.
Most people don't know this.
Actually, I think I saw a study that
said like 70% of business of W2
employees stay at their W2 job to keep
the benefits, not knowing they can just get
their own.
So with our small business owner clients, we
have them set up the proper retirement account
that will allow them to maximize their retirement
contribution.
(12:26):
So a solo 401k is one of my
favorite retirement plans.
And in 2025, you're able to invest over
$70,000 per year into this account, right?
So now we're able to set up, most
people only investing $7,000, $20,000 into
their retirement account.
Our clients are putting $70,000 a year
away, right?
And what George steps in is, we have
(12:46):
a firm belief with our clients that it's
okay to be a copycat if you copy
the right cat, right?
So most people invest their money in index
funds or ETFs, which is great because these
companies like Vanguard spend billions of dollars on
analysts to pick the best stocks to put
(13:08):
in these index funds or ETFs.
What we do with our clients is we
say, hey, we look at these ETFs and
say, all right, we're gonna invest a portion
of our money there, but let's look inside
and see what stocks are the heaviest weighted
in these ETFs, right?
Because these companies spend billions of dollars picking
the top companies in these ETFs.
(13:28):
And if we increase our exposure to those
best companies slightly by 10%, 20%, 30%, we
are actually able to get the stabilization of
having an index fund where you own literally
every stock in the United States, but having
a little bit more exposure to the best
companies in that portfolio.
And when we do this, we see that
our clients are able to consistently beat the
(13:50):
returns of some of these index funds because
we're weighted properly in the best companies, right?
So we still get the stock exposure of
the companies we want, but still with the
diversified basket for exposure to the wide market.
And by maximizing our retirement accounts and increasing
your investment earnings, you see a huge, huge
shift in how much money your money is
(14:11):
able to make for you.
Yeah, it's very Warren Buffett-ish, if that
was a word.
Maybe we just made it up.
Like, if you look at his investment strategy,
it's kind of crazy.
Like he doesn't, I mean, he invested very,
very small amount of companies throughout his entire
career.
He just focuses on the moneymakers, but then
still diversifies a smart way, just super smart
strategy.
(14:32):
It's not our strategy.
We just, we look at the goat and
like, all right, this is what Warren Buffett
does, right?
Copy that.
Yeah.
Well, it's cool that you teach that because
I think people can hear about that concept,
but not know how to actually execute.
You're the first guest in a long, we've
had 900 and something plus guests that's ever
even really talked about that.
So I just think it's a brilliant strategy
(14:52):
to help people set themselves up the right
way financially.
Yeah, we just love to give our clients
new ways to look at money and investing.
And another strategy that we leverage for our
clients, I think is super interesting because a
lot of people don't understand that.
I didn't fully understand this until my partner
(15:12):
George explained it to me.
When you're investing your money in a non
-retirement account, right?
Let's call it a traditional brokerage account, right?
You are able to borrow against the value
of your portfolio.
So let me, I just want to let
your audience know the difference between borrowing from
(15:34):
your portfolio and borrowing against your portfolio.
So let's say you have $100,000 in
your portfolio.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
Many of our subscribers want to get the
most money to grow their business at the
best terms.
Whether you're looking for startup capital, low interest
credit lines and loans, or business credit, we
(15:54):
can definitely help you.
So give us a call at 877-600
-2487 or schedule your free consultation at creditsuite
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money you can get approved for today.
Right?
If you borrow from your portfolio, you borrow
$50,000, your portfolio has 50,000 left
and you borrow 50,000.
(16:14):
So you've taken away $50,000 from your
portfolio.
But if you borrow against your portfolio, you
take that $50,000 loan against your portfolio,
but you still have $100,000 invested because
you borrow from, I'm sorry, you borrow against,
not from.
So this whole concept of borrowing against allows
your full amount of money to stay invested
(16:37):
while you still able to leverage your own
portfolio to get more cash, which you can
then use that cash for another investment.
So I'll give you all an example of
something that I did that was able to
help me make more money and save more
taxes.
So let's say I had a portfolio, you
know, $100,000.
If I borrow $30,000 from that portfolio,
I still have $100,000 invested, but that
(17:00):
money is going at 10, 20, 30%.
That money is still gonna grow.
But now I can take this $30,000
and use it as a down payment for
a real estate property.
And then now I use that as a
down payment for a real estate property.
That real estate property is cash flowing.
I can use the cash flow from that
real estate property to pay back the loan
that I took against my portfolio to make
(17:22):
sure I'm making my payments on time.
But now I've basically borrowed against an asset,
which again, loans are not taxable.
So that $30,000 loan I borrowed from
my portfolio, I didn't get taxed on that.
And now I'm buying a real estate property
and the cash flow from the real estate
property is paying off the loan, not to
mention I'm not paying taxes on the cash
(17:44):
flow from the real estate property because of
this thing called depreciation.
The IRS is gonna let me depreciate the
property against the income the property makes.
So I'm able to like use my money
two or three times without having to take
it away from my investment portfolio.
Does that make sense?
I know that was a longer.
It's brilliant.
I mean, like you're turning me on in
a non-sexual way.
(18:07):
Because I oftentimes teach us like securities financing
is insane.
Like it's double dipping.
I don't even understand how it makes sense
that you can have money invested in the
stock market and have the exact same money
pulled out and used for another investment purpose.
Then you are talking about taking it to
a whole other level with investing in real
(18:29):
estate, which I've never heard it explained that
way, of investing in real estate and then
basically using your returns there to pay the
payments on it.
And then you're bringing in depreciation.
Like I said, it was one thing that
you're double dipping.
Now you're like quadruple dipping.
I mean, it's brilliant.
Thank you, thank you.
So this is what we do with our
clients and like full transparency, my head was
(18:50):
blown off.
When George told me you can do this,
I did a literal lap around the restaurant
because I had to come back and say,
wait, wait, wait, you mean to tell me?
And he told me and then I said,
well, you do realize that we could add
tax strategy.
And that's when we started shaking our hands
and said, we can buy a real estate
property and try not to get beside myself,
I'm a tax nerd.
But it can get deeper because depending on
(19:11):
what type of real estate property we buy,
if we take advantage of a cost segregation
study on that real estate property, which is
just a fancy word, a fancy word for
accelerating the depreciation, right?
With a good cost seg study, we can
write off 30% of the value of
the property against our business income, right?
(19:31):
So now if I buy a half a
million dollar building and I do a cost
seg study, which I just did, that's $150
,000 deduction.
And I could take that $150,000 deduction
against the income that I made in my
business.
That's crazy.
It's insane.
(19:52):
I've never even heard of something like that.
Yeah, so like, now I'm borrowing my portfolio,
buying real estate, using the money for the
real estate, pay out the portfolio, using the
depreciation from the real estate to offset my
business income.
Now I'm not paying any taxes in my
business and now I have more money to
reinvest in my portfolio.
And then it just becomes a cycle of
wealth building.
It's, and if you listen, if you're watching
(20:13):
this, I honestly don't know if you know
how brilliant it is what he's saying.
I mean, like it is the wisest use
of money I've ever heard on the show.
And melaninmoney.com is where you should go
to learn more because again, this is one
strategy.
Just those of you watching, melaninmoney.com, this
is literally, this is one strategy.
And it really, it might sound complicated because
(20:33):
it is, that's why nobody's doing it, right?
And that's why you have experts like this
that are saying, if you do this and
move it here and do this and do
this, then you're literally like, there's four or
five times the benefits of what you're doing.
It's really, that's such a smart strategy.
And now I can understand why you're so
successful within helping people get to that million
dollars in that work.
(20:53):
Yeah, the more you learn, the more you
earn, right?
And I'm a very, very firm believer in
that concept.
And here's the thing, like for anybody listening,
if I know, you know, me and Ty
just did some back and forth and some
of y'all like, y'all please come
back to earth because y'all talking over
our head.
This is not something you're expected to know,
right?
Like, and I'll be fully transparent.
(21:16):
I have an undergraduate degree, a master's degree
in accounting, I have a CPA.
Like I tell people all the time, I
have more degrees than a thermometer, okay?
But when I left work and I started
my first job in the workplace, I didn't
know what an IRA was.
I didn't even know what a, I didn't
know how a 401k worked, right?
And so I think there's this imposter syndrome,
(21:38):
which I know, cause I went through it,
of we're just expected to know this stuff
and then we're scared to ask questions because
we don't want to look stupid and we
don't want to look ignorant.
And I believe the only ignorant question is
an unasked question.
And so I would rather look ignorant than
actually be ignorant.
So I think that anybody who like doesn't
(21:58):
know this, I want to give them the
grace that it's not your fault you don't
know it, but that's why you surround yourself
with experts like you.
Yeah, I love it.
It makes me think something.
Why did you guys choose the company named
Melanin Money?
Yeah, so Melanin is actually a skin tone,
right?
That's what I thought.
It just actually just occurred to me if
(22:19):
that's where that came from.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And people ask us all the time, like
why we picked that name?
We just believe in super serving people of
color.
Now, do we have clients in all other
races?
Yes, but like, I know that people of
color are behind the eight ball when it
comes to financial literacy, are behind the eight
ball when it comes to understanding how money
(22:39):
works.
So we want to super serve people of
color, but we have clients in every race,
physical shape or form.
But the name is ringy, isn't it?
Yeah, I just realized I was sitting here.
I was like, man, I think that's what
it stands for.
But what's interesting is why is this wealth
gap that exists like in the business loan
space and credit space I'm in, overwhelmingly, there's
(23:00):
this massive disparity of people of color and
not being able to get money.
I mean, it is significant.
Then you add like women on top of
that, like women of color, like it's astonishing
how much of an uphill battle they face
to be able to get business capital over
anybody else.
The statistics are just disgusting.
(23:20):
It's just disgusting.
So why does this wealth gap, what creates
this wealth gap, do you think?
I will try to summarize my thoughts in
the best way I can.
I believe that there obviously were a lot
of things that were out of our control
that put us behind the race of wealth.
But from a person that has, by the
(23:44):
grace of God, been able to overcome that,
I believe that one, it starts with knowledge
and two, it starts with thinking that it's
possible.
I think it actually starts with thinking that
it's possible.
So as a kid that grew up on
the South side of Chicago, nine of us
in a two, three bedroom home, I could
not believe that wealth was possible.
And if you can't believe that wealth is
possible, you won't be able to achieve wealth.
(24:06):
So I think that, as I mentioned earlier,
it is really hard to be what you
cannot see.
So I think exposure is the greatest gift
that we can give ourselves to see that
there is more to attain.
So I used to like drive through some
like nice neighborhoods as a kid just to
like show myself that more is available.
(24:29):
And I believe that as a people, as
a group, we really have to try to
do our best to put ourselves in environments
to where like we can see that wealth
is attainable.
Because once you set your mind to something,
once you like knock down the limiting beliefs
that wealth is attainable, you can start to
move in the right direction, which is to
get informed on how to build wealth.
(24:50):
And I don't want to undermine anybody's circumstance
by saying that it's not hard, because it
was really, really hard.
Shifting my mind and my perspective to think
that wealth was possible was probably one of
the hardest things I had to do.
But once you do that, then the rest
of your energy just goes to learning and
executing, right?
And that's where reading became my mentor.
(25:10):
Rich Dad, Poor Dad was one of the
amazing books.
So I read a lot of books by
Warren Buffett.
And then when you start to get the
knowledge, you can just start to execute properly.
There are other things in the system that's
gonna make it a little bit harder for
you.
Of course, let's focus on the thing that
we can control.
We can't control that.
We can't control what we know.
We can't control what we execute on.
We can't control who we surround ourselves with.
And money doesn't have a race color.
(25:32):
So investments don't care if you're green, white,
yellow, blue, orange.
If you invest your money in the same
investment somebody else does, it doesn't look like
you.
Y'all get the same returns, right?
So I hope that's a summarized way of
putting it.
I believe it starts with exposure, then it
goes to education, and then it comes to
your environment, and then it's execution after that.
I love it, and I appreciate that.
(25:52):
I want to do my part to help.
So I think having that knowledge helps me.
And I really love the way that you
put it because it's right.
If you don't believe it's possible, like it's
no way you're gonna achieve it.
And that little bit helps me quite a
bit because I've got a lot of people
of color that are in our tribe, and
it helps me to know that we have
to start there with a belief that it's
(26:13):
possible, and then laying out the path to
be able to get there.
When you're talking to students and bringing them
in and your clients, what do you find
that they're making the mistakes?
What are the common mistakes that they're making
that you see that you turn around and
correct pretty quickly?
Well, yeah, I'll start with people that we
might speak to at school as a student,
(26:33):
but then our client base right now and
the students is a little bit different, but
I want to make sure that my answer
helps everybody.
So I think the most common mistake that
most people make with their money is they
don't understand how much life they're trading for
the things they're purchasing.
And this is one of the best concepts
that, and this is George's concept, I'm just
(26:54):
doing my best at explaining it.
If you make, let's say you make $100
an hour at your job, so let's say
you make $25 an hour at your job,
so you work eight hours a day, that
is $200 a day, right?
It's $200 a day, if my math is
correct.
And so if your car payment is $600
(27:15):
a month, you're exchanging three days of your
life for a month to have that car,
right?
Or essentially 24 hours of your life for
a month to have that car.
Is that something you want to, is that
okay trade?
Because that's what you're doing.
And I think at the surface level, the
people are spending more than they're saving.
(27:37):
So, but the frame is that when you
stop buying, if you start looking at something
before you purchase it and say, oh, this
cost me 36 hours of my life, do
I want to make that trade?
Probably not, right?
And that helps young people get a hold
of their spending because it's as simple as
this, Todd.
If you invest more than you spend, you're
(27:57):
going to be fine.
You have a compound interest, but most people
just don't have that extra to start investing.
Now with our clients, our client base is
usually entrepreneurs making $200,000 or more.
Their biggest mistake is not understanding all the
tax deduction that they can take within their
business to stop giving the money to the
IRS to start having more money to invest.
(28:19):
So I think the first thing it starts
with, how do we increase the gap between
how much we make and how much we
spend?
Because the bigger that gap is, the more
we can invest.
And the more we can invest, the faster
you'll hit your financial freedom goal.
Powerful stuff today.
Carter, where can everybody go that's listening and
watching where we just dove into a few
strategies and you have a lot of them.
(28:39):
Where can they go?
What should they do to be able to
learn more?
Yeah, so I think our YouTube channel would
probably be the best resource.
If you type in Melanin Money on YouTube,
we put out two videos per week on
different investing strategies, tax strategies between me and
George.
And that's the best place to go for
education because we wanna reach the masses.
Like we want to be able to reach
(29:01):
and touch as many people as we possibly
can in a positive way.
So that would probably be the best place
to find us.
Carter, thanks for coming on with us today.
Hi, thank you so much.
I appreciate your time today.
All right, so listen, make sure that you
go to melaninmoney.com.
Okay, that's M-E-L-A-N-I
-N money.com.
If you go to melaninmoney.com, you go
all the way to the bottom, you're able
to access their social media channels.
(29:22):
So you're able to access their Insta, you're
able to get their Facebook, you're able to
access that YouTube that Carter just talked about
as well.
Listen, I wanna tell you before you go
here, this is literally the best site I've
ever seen of any guest we've had on
the show.
I think we're approaching a thousand guests on
the show.
And I was blown away by the quality
of this website.
It's just phenomenal the way that they've done
it.
And so if you really wanna look at
(29:42):
the right way to set up a website,
just design purposes, look at this.
But there's so much information on here as
well.
You're even able to take a quiz to
see where you are right now.
And then they're able to break down the
steps that you need to take to kind
of move forward.
You're able to join the club, you're able
to do so many cool things.
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