EP 198 From Debt to Wealth: Mastering Your Finances with Walli Miller

Welcome to the Stuck In My Mind Podcast! In today's episode, we have a very special guest joining us, Walli Miller, to talk about mastering your finances and transforming your life from debt to wealth. Walli Miller emphasizes the importance of mindset in all aspects of life, particularly when it comes to money. They discuss how our beliefs about money are formed and absorbed, and they encourage listeners to challenge any limiting beliefs they may have about wealth and prosperity. 

During our conversation, Walli Miller shares their own journey towards financial freedom and building generational wealth. They discuss the misconceptions around investing and the importance of understanding the rule of compounding interest. Walli Miller emphasizes the difference between short-term and long-term financial goals and offers practical advice on how to build a strong financial foundation for the future. 

We also delve into Walli Miller's personal experiences, from feeling trapped in a job due to financial insecurity to reframing purchases in terms of time worked. They demonstrate how cutting back on unnecessary expenses can lead to financial freedom while still enjoying the things that truly matter. 

Join us as we explore the path to financial independence with Walli Miller, and discover how to transform your mindset, master your finances, and create the wealth you deserve. Get ready to be inspired and empowered in this episode of the Stuck In My Mind Podcast!

Episode Transcript

(00:39):
And welcome to another live episode. I am your host,
Wize, and I'm excited about this interview because I
have a fellow New Yorker coming on the show. She's an
a financial coach and a money mentor, and
she's the first millionaire in her family. So

(00:59):
let's get excited because I want to hear her story and have
her share her story. So let's wait no longer.
Welcome to Stuck in My Mind, Wally Miller.
Hello. Hi, Will. How are you doing?
I'm doing great. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm so excited to get this
conversation. Really? Yeah. Let's get

(01:21):
rolling. All right. So can you share the pivotal
moment that led you to make significant changes in your financial
life? Oh, yeah. So I wish I could say that I
was always good with money, but I think for a long time I thought I
was good with money. So there were a couple different
things that happened. There wasn't like this one instance,

(01:43):
but one of the things that I realized was that
know, grew up born and raised in New York City, daughter
of an immigrant. We were talking beforehand,
born in the know. So we were a relatively
low income family. We didn't live in poverty. I always had a roof
over my head. We always had food on the table, but sometimes it was like

(02:05):
things I didn't want to eat, but we always had food. Right. So
fast forward a little bit, and I did the thing right.
I graduated high school, I went to college, and after college, I got
myself a job, a stable job. And so in
a lot of ways, it was like, okay, I think I'm doing making the right
decisions. I negotiated my salary.

(02:26):
I started making some really or what I thought was making
some really good choices. So fast forward a little
bit. I had to do the adulting thing. And
so bills started coming in, and I thought I was being really
responsible with money, because as bills came in, I paid the bills. I
didn't get into credit card debt. I was making enough money that I paid the

(02:48):
bills. And as my salary increased, once
I would finish paying my bills, I had money left over.
And so again, I thought it was good with money. I said, okay, my bills.
I don't have any debt collectors calling me. I'm okay. But I didn't
really know what to do with the money that was left over. Right. This was
the first time in my life where I had really experienced that. Usually it

(03:10):
was like, after you pay the bills, you don't have any money left over. And
so I was like, okay, I think I have to do something called save money.
So I went ahead and started saving a little bit of money, and then I
said, okay, well, I'm paying my bills. I'm saving some money. So then
what do I do with the rest of it? And I didn't really know what
to do, so I just spent it. I said, this is what people do, right?

(03:31):
Like now, all the times that I used to say, we don't have money
for that or money doesn't grow on trees, I was like, no, now I
can go and buy the things that I wanted. And so really, I
spent most of my 20s living just like that. As my salary
increased, so did my bills and so did my spending.
And it wasn't until I was like 28 maybe,

(03:54):
where I remember receiving a letter from the Social Security
Administration. And it basically had a work history
analysis, and it had a list of all the income that I had
made throughout my whole life. So this had like, summer youth programs for when I
was like 14 and 15, right? And it had every job that I had in
high school and all my jobs in my twenty s. And I remember

(04:15):
calculating all the money that I had made up until that
point. And it was at that moment that I realized, like,
holy crap, where did all that money go?
And I looked around me and I realized that I
didn't really have anything to show for the amount of money that I
had made. And that was sort of like that one awareness,

(04:38):
that one moment of realization, like something wasn't quite
right, but still I didn't know what to do about
it. I was like, okay, wow, I need to do
something a little bit better. So what I did was I started increasing a little
bit more money that went into savings. Okay? So I went from
saving maybe 2030, 40,
$5100 when I could, to really being

(05:01):
consistent with savings. I said, okay, so I feel a little bit better about that.
I'm going to start saving a little bit more and then fast forward a
little bit more. I had a really good
career, and I enjoyed the work that I was doing.
And it was sort of an ideal situation until it was an ideal some
more anymore. And what happened was that

(05:23):
we had a change in management at my job and this
ideal workplace. And this ideal job that I had really turned
into like a very toxic work environment. And it became very
unhealthy. And I realized that I was stuck
because if I missed a paycheck, maybe two
paychecks, maybe one, I would be okay, but if I missed two

(05:44):
paychecks, I was going to lose everything that I had worked so hard for.
And it was at that moment that I realized that I kind of
had these handcuffs on, right? Every dollar that I had
coming in, I was spending. I didn't really have a whole lot to show for
it, and I didn't really feel free. I felt stuck.
And so it was those two instances that really showed me

(06:07):
that I am doing something wrong. And there has to be
a better way to work with money. But that's everyone.
That's everyone. That's how it is. Anyone with a job,
it handcuffs you. This makes you

(06:27):
when you have a job, listen, everyone works, and
I understand that, but that's what a
salary does. It keeps you there because it's paying you
consistently for your hours,
but you're still just making enough to cover what you're
living. Sometimes you got to live below what you're even

(06:50):
making to save money.
It's a system. So when I started learning about finance,
I was already in my 40s.
It's not something that we're taught
anywhere. We're not taught about the rule of 72 and all these other

(07:12):
rules that there's out there that
my mom and my dad from Puerto Rico, they didn't know about savings. They
didn't know about investments. They didn't know about any of that. So it's not something
that I've taught, and obviously, it's not taught in schools in New York City.
So where did you get this knowledge?
You did you go out and seek it?

(07:35):
Yeah. So one of the things that happened was that,
again, so I had these two sort of moments in my life where I was
just like, okay, I really need to do something else, but I didn't know what
to do. And you really bring up a great point, right? Like, financial literacy
is one component, right? For sure. If your
parents don't really sit down and talk to you about money, everything

(07:57):
from how to open up a checking account. What is a checking account?
What is a savings account? What's the difference? Right? Balancing a
checkbook. Yeah, balancing a checkbook. Unless your parents or
the people who raised you really sit down and talk with you. What we learn
about money is really just observed, right? Like, what we see
people around us do around money and their relationship with

(08:19):
money. And research shows that our money relationship,
our money habits, and our money mindset is all
formed when we're really young. We're not talking about 1516,
1718. No. We're talking between the ages of seven and
ten is when you start to form that relationship with money. And
so when we think about what was going on from

(08:41):
the viewpoint of a seven, 8910 year old, right,
what were the conversations that were happening? What was the feeling
that was happening? What was the financial security? Was there financial security
in your home? So all of that stuff really
carries on with us. And so when we think about it, when we start making
money and when you start making money,

(09:03):
particularly in your 20s, you have this seven year old, eight year
old version of yourself building a relationship with
money just with grown up dollars, right? So you have a seven,
eight year old mindset building money or
not building money, but really earning money with that
seven, eight year old money mindset. And so one of the

(09:25):
things that happened was that I didn't even
know the terms to search, right? So everybody's like, go to Google. But I didn't
even know what to search for because when I did look for
personal finance advice, it was a lot about get out of debt.
Get out of debt. And I am so grateful that I
didn't get down that debt hole, right? So I didn't

(09:47):
get stuck with credit card debt. I did have like a car note and I
did have student loans, but I didn't get stuck with a credit card
debt. I was renting. So I didn't really
understand, like, I couldn't relate to the information that was out
there. So I still didn't know what to even, like,
Google for. And I remember one day I was on

(10:09):
the Internet and there was like this clickbaity article,
and the headline was, couple in their
40s retires early to Travel the World.
And that was where my eyes opened, right? Because I read
this article with incredible skepticism. But I was
incredibly curious, like, how in the

(10:31):
world did this couple retire in
their forty s to travel the world? And that's something that I always love to
do, was travel. Like when I talked about how I used to spend my
money, yes, I used to buy clothes, shoes,
travel. That was my thing. So I was like, wait a
minute, how did they do this? And as I read the article and

(10:53):
read their story, essentially the component that I was
missing was wealth building, right? I couldn't even
relate to that word. When I thought of the word wealth, I thought of like
an old man smoking a cigar with a velvet
robe. I just couldn't even connect to that term
wealth. And I was like, look, I'm not an athlete, I'm not an

(11:14):
actor. I don't have wealth building money.
And what I realized from this couple is that they were a couple
who they had a six figure income as
a couple, but I think he was earning like 60,000 and she was earning
like 50,000. So I was like, wait a minute,
what are they doing? What is this wealth building piece? And

(11:38):
that led me to their blog. And as I read their blog, I just
sort of got enamored at some of the things that they
were doing when it came to wealth building. And the first piece
was just investing, which also sounded like gambling
to me because I didn't know the difference. I didn't know the difference. I was
like, all I know is that when people go to the casinos, they leave crying.

(11:59):
And when people put money in the stock market, they also cry. So
I really didn't understand what the difference was, but I was
curious, and that's when I started trying to figure it
out. So, of
course, being
the child of immigrants and everything,

(12:22):
like I said, my parents from Puerto Rico, it's
a different
dynamic make, especially for us.
What did you get from your parents. As far as you
being, you

(12:44):
had both parents in your household, mom and dad.
How was that? Yeah, so I grew up with both of my parents. My
mom was a stay at home mom. I was the oldest, or I am the
oldest of five kids. And then my dad was the sole
provider for our house. And my dad doesn't speak English,
right. He was born and raised in Ecuador. He came to this

(13:07):
country when he was 20 to make a better life for himself. He met my
mom, who's also Puerto Rican, or who's Puerto Rican, and
they really tried to do the best that they could. And I
remember helping my dad pass his immigration
test, studying for his citizenship test.

(13:27):
The conversations around money really didn't happen
between us and our parents. Right. It was about the
conversations that the two of them were having. Right? So, like, when the lights would
get cut off, or when the cable was turned off, or
when I needed money for a school trip or something like
that. So there wasn't a whole lot of conversation around

(13:49):
money. And this is what sort of affected me as
I got into my twenty s and I started making a little bit of
money that I didn't know how to handle it. I was like, okay, I know
that I got to pay my bills because I remember Mommy sitting at the table
writing coned bill, electricity, all these
things. So I knew to do that. But it was like, what do

(14:11):
I do with the rest? Because what I experienced growing up was there
was no rest. Right? Yes. That was it. That was it.
Right? Like, maybe we got lucky and we got
breakfast at McDonald's, so there wasn't really
any money left. So I had to figure that out. Now, I will say
when it wasn't until my 30s where I realized, okay,

(14:34):
there's something called building wealth and there's people doing it through investing that
I really got curious as to what that really meant. And
so one of the things, even now, I have a lot of people who
will reach out to me on Instagram, or even friends and family, they'll
be like, tell me about investing. What should I invest in? How do I get
started? And really the question that they're asking me is, what

(14:56):
companies is going to grow? Right? Which one is going to make
me money? How can I turn $100 into a million? Right? That's the question that
they're asking. And really, that's not the question to be asking. Because
if I knew which company is going to turn $100 into a million, we
would be in a very different situation. Right? But there
are some basic rules. And one of them that you've

(15:18):
mentioned was, for example, just understanding the
rule of compounding interest, right? We hear
that saying, like, let your money make money. That is one of the
simplest ways to do it. Right now, we're in really unique
times that even a savings account, you put money in a savings account
and you just let it sit there and guess what, it's going to grow. Like,

(15:40):
for a long time, interest rates on a savings account was 1% or
less, right? Now, you put $100 at the start of
the year and it grows at a 5% interest, you've done
made $5, right? And so when you think about that, it's like, oh, well, that's
only $5, right? But when you think of it on a bigger scale, what about
if you have 300 or 1000 or 10,000 or

(16:02):
20,000? That is one of the ways that you can
use compounding interest to grow your money. Now, there's
a difference between growing money for the short term and growing money
for the long term, right? We don't want to be growing our money at 5%.
I mean, that's not bad. I'll take that.
We rather the 1012 percent be nice.

(16:24):
Yes, exactly. So the question is, where do you
get 1012, maybe even more percent,
right? And it's like, okay, well, if my savings account and again,
at that time it was earning like 1% to 2%, I was like, okay, that's
not going to help me build wealth. And
at a time it was even below 1%, you wasn't really making much off your

(16:46):
savings account. Seriously. And it's, okay,
I'll take 1% and there's a place for a
savings account, right? The money that we want to put in a savings account is
money that we want and need immediate access to, right. That is
going to be money that is there just to provide yes,
that's there to provide that cushion, that safety net.

(17:08):
That money is not there to help us build wealth. It's there to help us
build confidence, right? So when we're talking about
what type of money to put into a savings account, using
a savings account for an emergency fund, right? For travel,
for birthdays, for vacations, for holidays that we know
can get expensive, right? This is money that we know we're going to need in

(17:31):
the next three months, six months, twelve months, right.
We really want to have that money easily accessible. A savings
account is great. And we're in a lucky situation
right now that the interest rates on a savings account is
getting 4%. So it's like, okay, our
savings bucket, our emergency fund, our safety net is

(17:54):
going to make me a little bit of money. But that's not the point of
the savings account, right? The savings account is there to provide that cushion, that safety
net. So then what do we do when we want to build
wealth? It's not putting money in a savings account,
right? It is finding those accounts that are going to
help us grow our money. 1012 or higher

(18:15):
percentage. And if it's not a savings account and it's not a
checking account, it's an investing account. And
learning some of the simple steps that it takes to build
wealth through investing was one of the biggest
lessons that I learned that really changed the trajectory
of me getting started on my wealth building journey, but

(18:37):
also the safety that I felt knowing that I
was going to give myself options. Right. Remember
that I mentioned I felt like I didn't really have a choice at staying
at my job, right? Because staying at my job was consistent.
I knew that paycheck was coming. Right.
I didn't even have to do a great job, but as long as I did

(19:00):
an okay, I was going to have that income
coming and I had to be in a bad environment, but I knew the
income was going to keep coming. Now, of course, I'll put a
little caveat to that because right now we're in a time where even what
you think is a safe job, they're laying off a lot of people.
But for the most part there is

(19:22):
some security in a w two job. Right. I think
we put too much security. We think that it's almost
like 100% guarantee and it's not. But there is some
safety in like. A w two job and
that's where people stay with w two jobs is
because of that safety net. Well, if I work my

(19:45):
40 hours, I'm guaranteed to get this amount after the 40
hours. Right.
Listen, I'm
tired of working out. I want to be able to
go decide when I want to go on vacation. If me and the wife
want to go to tropical island and then lay down and enjoy the beach or

(20:07):
whatever, I want to travel the world.
Sorry, but a nine to five is just not going to get you there.
Yeah, it could spending on
but you're still selling your time. Yes. That is the
difference. You're selling your time. Whereas if you could find a
way to have your money work for

(20:30):
you instead of you working for your money,
that's the difference where you learned to
make your money work for you. Whereas
regular person nine to five, they have to work for their money and
they have to ask for time off.
And that's one of the reasons I enjoy doing the podcast, is having people come

(20:53):
on and explain like you've done
so far so that people can see, hey, listen, it could be done.
I'm girl from the Bronx.
Yeah, no, I mean it's really true, right.
There is a way to leverage your nine to five in order to

(21:13):
buy your freedom. Right. But you have to understand what you're also
exchanging for that, which is time. Right.
And at the point when I first started
going down the rabbit hole of, okay, what in the world is
investing? How do I do it? What's compounding interest? How do I make my
money work for me? Right. I was still in

(21:35):
that nine to five mentality and that was okay, right? I was like,
okay, how can I make sure that the income that
I'm bringing in through my nine to five, how can I put
that to work? Because at that time, what it was doing was just
buying me things. It was just buying me stuff, right? Like, when I looked around,
I had a lot of stuff, but I didn't have a lot of freedom. And

(21:57):
that was more of what I wanted, right? Yes. I wanted
opportunity to go and travel, and I wanted time,
freedom. But I also wanted options. And
what I was learning was there is this investment or this community
of people, and they call themselves the Fire Movement.
And fire stands for financially Independent

(22:19):
Retiring Early. Okay, so fire. Financially
independent, retiring early. And I was like,
what is this, fire movement? How are people, first of all, reaching financial
independence, and how are they retiring early? Because from what I
understood, you have to retire at the age of 65, right?
Yeah. And I was like, Wait a minute, but this couple did it in their

(22:41):
40s, so how was it that they did it? And look,
there's a lot of, again, advantages of having a nine
to five. And the thing is that so many people don't
understand how you can leverage that to buy your
freedom. Right? So we can talk about entrepreneurship, and I know you have done
that so many times on your podcast, but I think it's

(23:03):
really important because there might be somebody like I said, I enjoyed the job
that I was doing. I felt really fulfilled. There's some
people who aren't
entrepreneurs, they enjoy doing the nine to five, and there's nothing wrong with
that. But if we can show them a way of
that money, that little extra few dollars that

(23:25):
you got that you're trying to figure out, instead of buying yourself a new pair
of Jordans, why not invest it here? Why not
here? And that's the piece right there, right?
And I 100% agree with you. I would say, actually, for the longest
time, I was not an entrepreneur. There's some
kids from way back when.

(23:46):
They knew they wanted to be entrepreneurs. Yeah. And they just had it in their
spirit, right? They're like selling lemonade. They're selling waters of bottles, like
bottles of water. They just have it in their
DNA. And that was not the case for me at all. Right?
So I wanted more freedom, and I had to figure out how could
I use the income that I was making? Because for me, I will say there's

(24:08):
two ways to build wealth. Simple. Number
one is to decrease your expenses
and the gap you have between your income and expenses. Use that
to build wealth through investing. And then the second way to build
wealth is to increase the income. Right? You keep your expenses
exactly the same, but you increase the income. But as you

(24:31):
increase the income, the gap between your expenses and your income. You
use that to build wealth. And today I want to talk more
about the stock market, but it is not the only way to invest. I
like to tell my clients there's sort of three ways to build
wealth or there's three sort of investing vehicles. One
is the stock market. And with that I'm going to include a lot of other

(24:53):
things. For example, cryptocurrency back in what, 20
21 20. 22 20 20. People were talking about NFTs.
Right. So let's just talk about the market. Right? I like the stock
market. Then there's real estate and there's so
many different vehicles that we can talk about real estate. Right. Because you can have
commercial real estate, you can have residential, you can own an apartment building, you can

(25:15):
have a house, you can own a trailer park. Right. There's so many ways to
do real estate investing. And then the third one is
entrepreneurship, right. And that could also have a couple of different
branches. One could be an angel investor, venture
capital, or you can build your own business. So there's
different ways of investing that can build

(25:36):
you wealth. Right. And all of them have their pros and cons, right? I
have rental property. I purchased my first home before I
got married. I was single, I was like 27 years old and I purchased my
rental property when today I'm an
entrepreneur and I still say the stock market is my
favorite way because it's the Laziest way. You don't have to do

(25:59):
a whole lot to invest in the stock market. So
when I talk about investing in the stock market, people always
want to know how to get started. And again, I really want to talk to
those people who are in the nine to five. If you're in the nine to
five, the easiest way to
get started investing is by leveraging any workplace

(26:21):
benefits that you may have that include something like a
401 or a 403 b or if you're in the military,
it's called the Tsp or Thrift Savings Plan. That is one of
the most simplest ways. It's not sexy, it
doesn't sound fun, but it is one of the simplest
ways to start getting to get started when it

(26:42):
comes to investing. Yeah, I agree.
I still work a nine to five and I do my thing here.
But I do have a have a Roth
IRA. So I make sure certain
amount every week, every paycheck goes
to my four hundred and one K and to my Roth IRA because

(27:08):
I wish I would have learned about these
accounts when I was 30.
Like I said, it took me to my forty s to learn about this and
really do something and start making a difference.
But anytime, listen, it doesn't matter what age you are,
whatever you can swing whenever you can start, start. It's

(27:30):
something. But at the same time now I'm on the
entrepreneurship. Also I have a production company I'm doing different things.
I'm learning affiliate marketing and all these other different things.
So I'm leveraging a lot of the stuff that I'm learning from
podcasting into building wealth, into doing different things.
And it's a great feeling to be able

(27:54):
yeah, I still have my nine to five, but to be able to find
time to do this on the side and build this up and build it
to the point where eventually, I can probably leave the nine to five and focus
on building more into what I want to do, going into
coaching, doing whatever. There's so many different options
that are opening up for me because

(28:17):
I decided to take a chance and take a risk and jump into something
I love to do. Yeah. And I will
say there's nothing like making your 1st $100
that you created. Listen,
one of my first sales was a
logo I did using Canva, and it

(28:40):
took me probably, like, 30 minutes, and the person
paid me 250 for $250 for 30
minutes of work. I'm like what? Make money
like this, creating stuff and
selling it to people. It was an amazing feeling,
that first 250 was. I'm like

(29:02):
what? I could do this 30 minutes? Okay.
Yeah. There's nothing like learning how to create money, because I
think also your mind starts to change,
right? Because if you learn how to make that first $100, then
you know how to make 200. And when you know how to make 200, then
you know how to make 800. And when you know how to make 800, you

(29:23):
know how to make. So it's one of those things where
I always like to tell even my clients. Now, I said, there's two
ways to build wealth. You want to decrease your expenses and increase income.
If you could do both of them, you're going to be golden. Right. And my
clients will say, Well, I don't know. I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't
know. And I'm like, what do people go to you for?

(29:47):
What comes natural to you? That when you talk to the people
if people were to talk to your friend Circle, they'd be like, oh, yeah, I
know the exact person you should talk to about that. Right? That could be anything
from giving relationship advice. That could be anything from being,
as you mentioned, creative. Right. I struggle with creativity,
actually. I'm going to change that. I say that a lot. And I shouldn't say,

(30:09):
I struggle with good. So I like how you caught yourself. I like how you
caught yourself and you did it on air. And people like, I
can't stop saying those words. Yes. Be careful with the words you
say. One of the things just to go on the little
sidebar there, I say that I struggle creativity. I know how to
create. What I'm not good with is I'm not

(30:31):
artistic, and I'm okay. I'm okay with that. What do you mean not artistic? What
do. You mean not artistic? So I'm not artistic
in a form. That you don't paint, you don't write
poems. You're artistic with money. Well, I was going to say,
so I'm creative when it comes with money. You're
artistic with money.

(30:52):
Artistic. You're just not in the sense of the word that you're not a painter
or poet or something like that. But you are artistic.
Yeah, like I said, I used to say I'm not
creative, and I had to fix that. And I'm like, no, I'm very creative.
Because when it comes with budgeting, when it comes with saving, when it comes with
making money, when it comes with building, I know how to create money in

(31:13):
that sense. But I was equating being creative with
being artistic. And I feel you, because
I've always thought I wasn't an art. I didn't think I was a
creator either. And then I started doing my
podcast and then creator, I'm like,
wow. And then I started doing the canva

(31:35):
work and editing and all this.
It was me saying I wasn't capable. And then
when I flipped the switch and went, you know what? I can do this.
Yeah, it showed me, boy, you've been creative
your whole life. You just had that doubt, that self doubt.

(31:56):
That's something that affects a lot of us is the programming that we've
been through for so many years builds that self doubt in us, that we
like, thou can't do this, I can't do that. And
now we got to catch ourselves because self talk is very
important, 100%. It's funny
because as kids, they're like, I want to be president. I want to be an

(32:18):
astronaut. I want to be a baseball player. And they think they could do all
the things. It's not like they're going to choose one. They want to do all
the things. And it's like somewhere along the line, as we get
older, we lose that. We lose that. Which is really sad.
It is. But now
you're like, man, if I would have just kept that

(32:40):
through my whole entire life. But
we lose that sight when
people start putting their limiting beliefs on us. Yes. And
start telling us, we can't do that. No, you can't. You're hearing it
from everywhere. And so we go from that little
child that feels we can do everything in the world

(33:03):
to the adult that has been defeated, that's been like, you
can't do this. You're not capable. Yeah,
look, it sounds a little woo woo, but it's so powerful
when we talk about mindset, mindset when it comes to everything, right? And
it's because so many times we take on all of the
outside factors. And it's the same thing with money, right? We

(33:26):
didn't choose to believe certain things about
money. We observed them and absorb
them into making. That who we were. Right.
And it's not until you make a conscious effort and a conscious decision of
saying, you know what? I don't want to believe that I'm going to be broke
all the time. I don't want to believe that I don't know how to make

(33:48):
money. I don't want to believe XYZ. And when you can
change that from a scarcity mindset of like, oh, I'm
never going to have money. This isn't going to happen. I'm never going to be
wealthy. I don't know who that is. That's not me. That's
for somebody else. Until we start to challenge those
thoughts and really become aware of them,

(34:09):
that's the first thing we have to become aware of, those limiting beliefs. But and
then we have to begin to challenge them for sure.
I will say just to kind of go back to the investment
piece, people, again will come to me and they're like,
when they think of I'm an investor and their

(34:29):
idea of what an investor is, is like somebody who has like
16 screens and all these red and green graphs going
on. And I'm like, look, that is a way to invest,
right? And usually what they're thinking about is like a day trader
or swing trader, right? And that really could be a full time job,
right? Like, you really have to know what's going on. A lot of work into

(34:51):
it. That's something you got to really dive into the numbers, and you have to
be really into seeing when these you got to be all into the
graphs, all that's a lot of time.
It's a lot of work. I like the lazy way of doing it.
I like the simple approach, and I'm more of a passive
investor, right? So again, people don't like to

(35:13):
hear when they ask me, what should I do? How can I get
started investing? And I'm like, well, do you have a 401K? They're like, Get
out of here. Because it doesn't sound sexy. But it is one of the
simplest ways to start investing, right?
Before you even get your paycheck. You are putting money
aside to build wealth. You're putting money aside to do those

(35:35):
things, right? And you mentioned one of my favorite accounts, which is the Roth
IRA, right? And there's like a whole alphabet soup, right? There's like
four hundred and one k four hundred and three B. Roth IRA traditional IRA
HSA. There's all of this alphabet soup of things.
But really when we're thinking about it is people
will think about, oh, well, Robin Hood. I have a Robin Hood app and. I

(35:57):
have that was going to be one of my questions. That was going to be
one of my questions. Okay, how do you feel about all these people who
are not
at work? You got all these young cats and all these young people on
Robin Hood. And I invested, and they went crazy when they did
the AMC and this stock and that stock.

(36:20):
A lot of people made a lot of money.
And a lot of people. Lost a lot of money. Yes. Right. So
here's what I say. First of all, I remember
asking in high school, I think we had like one day session on
what investing was, and I don't remember anything about what I learned that day.
Obviously, I remember when we did it, we

(36:42):
did it for like a couple of weeks where we followed certain
stocks in the newspaper and you would pick certain stocks,
the newspaper, okay, I'm old, I'm
right,
I'm old. Okay, I'm sorry. My apologies.

(37:03):
But when I went to school,
we would picture in stocks, right? And we
would follow them for like a couple of weeks and see,
we would pretend like we bought 100 shares or whatever it was,
and we would follow it and we would see the patterns.

(37:26):
But that was probably the most we've learned on what
investments were. Yeah, I didn't even
have that experience. Yeah, I didn't even have that experience. Like I said,
we had one session and I remember I was
the one who asked this question because they were talking about buying
100 shares. And so I knew that there were some

(37:49):
shares that, yes, they cost a few cents, but there were some
shares that cost a few dollars. And I'm like, well, what about if you only
have like $25? And I remember the teacher saying, well,
it's not worth investing if you only have that much money
because of the fees associated with investing. So
what I will say about the apps now and the accessibility to

(38:11):
investing is that it's better than ever and it's easier
than ever to get started as an investor. Today, you could really get
started investing with $10, with $25, with $50,
you don't have to worry about commissions and trade fees and
things like that. So I love the movement that there is right now
with making investing more accessible. Now, here's the problem.

(38:34):
Even though investing is more accessible. And there is a lot of
really great investing books out there, blogs, YouTube
channels, things like that.
If people are not learning the true application and the healthy
application on how to use what they're learning,
I do feel a little worried for the next generation

(38:56):
because I do feel that there will be people who are going to
invest 1000, $10,000,
lose their shirts, and then never want to invest again. Right.
And we know that this is true, because if we look at generations
past, people who lost money in the great depression,
right, they never got back in, or even people that

(39:19):
during the 90s, tech bust, right? They had money
in there. Their 401 KS went to caput, and they lost money,
and because they didn't know what was happening,
and that those things are cycles and normal. They
not only lost their
portfolios, lost value, but they solidified or

(39:41):
they locked in that loss by actually selling. And so
I do love that there's more accessibility to
investing, but I do worry that there's people who are
playing with fire. They don't know what they're playing with. And that if
they lose money, they're going to end up walking away from
investing forever and really lose on

(40:02):
building wealth. And that's sort of my fear.
No, it's a good fear to have
because it's been seen. It's been people who
don't know about investment, investing in some of these apps
and losing everything,
and they just can't take it. And it ends up worse than

(40:23):
that. They take their lives. So it is something
that people need to work on where, listen, if you're
going to invest in Robin Hood and whatever these accounts
are, do your research, find out,
and don't go spend the money you don't have. If you got
$25, take that $25 and find yourself on the stock.

(40:46):
That doesn't mean you have to take all your money and start
investing, investing, investing. Learn the system. Find out
what fits you, but don't go crazy.
Yeah. I think also it's one of those things like if
you are trying to build wealth
or trying to make money overnight, I'm not the financial coach

(41:08):
for you, right? I'm not here to help somebody make
turn $100 into $1,000 tomorrow.
I believe in long term wealth building because long term
approach leads to longevity when
it comes to that, right? So I'm interested in helping people
really build a strong financial foundation today

(41:31):
so that it pays off not six months from
now, not twelve months from now, but really years to come,
right? And what I was doing for myself was once
I understood the simple, passive way
of investing, I created a plan for myself to buy
my freedom, right? Rather than spending $100

(41:53):
on going out to eat. And it wasn't even like, great
experiences, right? It was like spending $10 here, $15
there, $20 there. And then I was like, Where's that $100 that I had in
my pocket? Right? So it was like, okay, how can I use this to help
me buy my freedom? And I even use this approach with my clients. I'm
like when you're thinking about buying something in the store,

(42:14):
right? The question that you should ask yourself isn't, how much
does this cost? Right? It's really, how much time do
I have to work in order to afford this? Right? Okay, this
is only going to be one hour's worth of my work, and it's worth it,
or this is going to cost 10 hours worth of my work
that I have to actually go to work for. Is it worth it? Right? And

(42:37):
sometimes the answer is yes. And sometimes it's like, nah, I got to work 10
hours at a job. I don't even like to buy this thing. No
way, right? And it's like that mindset shift, right? It's
like shifting from the, okay, I want to buy and accumulate
things, and I want that instant gratification to you know what?
I'd rather put this $10, this $25, this

(42:58):
$100 to buy one day, just one
day of freedom in the future, right? And I know that
for a lot of most of my clients are millennials and gen zers,
and they're like, but okay, Wally, you're still talking about 510,
25 years down the road. That sounds like so long. And
my point is that if you continue going at the path

(43:21):
that you're going, which is working spending,
working, spending, how long will you have to do that in order to
afford your lifestyle? Right? And the way
I sort of do a reframe is if you can buy one day
at a time, think about buying one day of
freedom, one day less that you have to work, then you know how to work

(43:43):
one week less, one month less, then it turns
into six months less, one year less. Right?
And this whole idea of that you have to work until you're 60,
65, 70 years old, and then do your retirement, it
is complete baloney.
It's straight bullshit, right? Exactly. I wasn't sure.

(44:06):
So it's complete BS, right? Like, you don't need to
do that, right? So I will say, me and my husband, our
journey started back in 2015, was
when I started really honing in and really focusing in
on where our money was going, because I was like, Well, I don't have money
to invest, right? And I was like, no. At that point, I didn't have money

(44:28):
to invest because it was going out the door. It was, like, being spent
on things that didn't matter, right? And it's not about deprivation.
I want you to spend money on the things that bring you joy and the
things that add value to your life, like, spend money on that,
but cut relentlessly. And this is a quote
by Rameet SETI, who says he's the author of the book I Will

(44:50):
Teach You to Be Rich. And, he know,
spend lavishly on the things that you care about, and then cut
relentlessly on the things that you don't care for, right?
On those things that are causing those wallet leaks, right? Where you're like, Yo,
I had $100 in my checking account. Where did it go, right?
And then all of a sudden, we don't know where it is. And so if

(45:11):
we can really sort of begin to define what is important to
me, right, how can I start buying one day of
freedom? As I mentioned, my husband and I, we started on this journey
in 2015, and my goal isn't to retire at
65 or 60 or even 55. Like, I
will be work optional by the time I'm 40. And I'm

(45:33):
like, I feel like that was pretty good. I started working summers
when I was 14 years old. That's a whole lot of work history, right? Like,
so many of us had to do anyways. Or even if you started working at
20, right? You work from 20 to 40, that's still 20 years,
right? So we can make and implement some of the simple
investing strategies. And start simply. If you don't have

(45:55):
a your job, maybe you have a job that doesn't offer one,
then open up a Roth IRA. Right.
Perhaps if you are making too much money and don't qualify to
put money into a Roth IRA, then think about like a traditional
IRA and they each have their advantages and their
tax benefits for sure. But start there.

(46:18):
Yeah. Oh man, this has been oh, this has
been good. Now this has really been good. I've really enjoyed this. This
is a conversation that needed to be had. We had a couple of
comments in there because we are live facebook
user love the discussion. This is within their wheelhouse.
Mickey Delaney says hi. Wise and Wiley from Washington State.

(46:41):
Lloyd Phillips Jr. Hello. Everyone says, I like those last
two. I guess when he was talking about the three things, he said
he likes the last two.
But it's really about
getting understanding the type of person you are. Right.
Like when we're thinking about, okay, which investment vehicle am I going to

(47:04):
use? Right? Am I going to use the stock market? Am I going to use
real estate? And I think for a lot of people, people will understand real estate
better. Right. Because it's like one of the more common type of real estate
investments. They're like, yeah, you buy a house, then you rent it out. Perfect. Right.
But one of the things with real estate investing in that way, because there is
a way to get into real estate investing that's a

(47:25):
lower barrier to entry. But when we're thinking about
buying a house or an apartment building, it's that you need a lot of upfront
money. So it really knocks a lot of people out of the game. Right.
Because it's like, dang, how am I going to come up with 25, 5100
thousand dollars to put for a down payment and make
renovations? So there is different barriers to

(47:47):
entry to each one of these. And then entrepreneurship. Right. Usually for
entrepreneurship, you mentioned you made $250 using
Canva and you can get started on Canva for free, right? Yes. And
if not, you can pay 1299. Or something a month,
1499 for the. 1499 to get
the next up. So it's really about sort of understanding

(48:10):
where you can start. Right. And entrepreneurship is not for
everybody. I will say I love entrepreneurship. One thing I really like about
entrepreneurship is there's no cap to the amount of money you can make.
Right. But it's a lot of hard work. Right. You're
going to actually work harder on being an entrepreneur. I believe
that nine to five. Yeah, you're actually

(48:32):
to going work harder. But you know what?
Yes, it's harder work. It's different work. It's
different. It is. It's much more fulfilling. Yeah, that's the
difference. That's the big difference. Because now I'm doing something for
me and it's something that I enjoy doing? I enjoy

(48:53):
being creative, like I said, like you I
didn't think I was artistic. I didn't think I was creative. Yeah.
But now here I am selling logos,
doing thumbnails, doing all these different things,
but it's so much different energy from
it. It's not like I'm working this seven, 8

(49:16):
hours and whatever, but
when you create something and you sell it,
and it's nothing more fulfilling, like, oh, man, this
is something I created. Somebody actually gave me
money for this. And like I said, I spent 30 minutes of my
time. That piece was worth $250

(49:39):
worth of my time at that moment. Yeah,
that's exactly it, right? And I will say,
particularly communities of color, we don't have an issue with knowing
how to make money, right? We all know the dude who cuts
everybody's hair. We all know the girl who we know the hustlers. Listen,
we come from hustling. We come from hustling. We know what it

(50:03):
is to hustle. We just don't know
how to invest it and where to put it at, because we'll spend it on
everything. But we know how to make money.
Listen, coming from, like you said, your dad is an
immigrant. I'm sure he was a hard worker. Your
mom Puerto Rican, stay at home mom.

(50:26):
We know how to make the money. We know how to work and make. The
money, and we know how to reduce expenses. Right?
Now, there's the whole minimalism movement, right, where people are like, oh,
reuse your old jars. I'm like, you went.
We'Ve been reusing our butter thing for years.
You're looking for butter and you open the thing, it's rice. You open the other

(50:49):
one, it's chicken. We've been recycling
our pickle jars. That has oil in it. We
recycle everything, right? This is what I'm saying,
right? So really, if we can learn, right?
I had written this article that financial independence to
me when I first started, it was about how can I be

(51:12):
good, right? I want to be good. But then I learned that I
could use the same principles that I was using to build wealth for myself, to
build generational wealth, right? Like, leaving for that next
generation. Right? And so many of us, when
we sort of try to figure out what's going on, we're
probably our parents retirement plans, right? They

(51:34):
probably don't ask and they don't consider it that way, but
so many of them didn't have access to 401 and things like
that. So now we have to realize, okay, not
only do I have to take care of myself, I have to take care of
my parents, right? And then if you have children, now, you're taking care of them
as well. And so it's like, really, okay, how can we

(51:56):
use the skills that we have and also the tools that are
available to everybody that so many other people
use that we just don't know how to use, right? How can we
use those same tools to make sure that we build ourselves,
that we build our communities, that we build and take care of our
family, right? And it doesn't end with us, right? So that we could really

(52:18):
be the family who's like, yo, my uncle left me
money, right? My thea left me money, right?
I'm like, I want to build a trust fund. I want to build
a trust fund to leave for the next generation. But it's
really just taking that step and having the awareness of saying, you know what?
I don't know what is the piece that I'm missing? Right?

(52:41):
Something is not adding up. The math ain't math in. But I
want to do something better. Yeah. So
Facebook user 401K is a great start, but one thing I would recommend is take
advantage of matching funds, benefits employers offer.
Be aware of this variable account that can gain and lose funds.
Well, yes, at my job,

(53:04):
they don't match a lot, but they match something. And it's free
money. In order
for me to get the max, I had to invest a certain amount, and then
they'll match a max, whatever it was, 1.7%, whatever
it is, whatever they're matching, whatever. But I took
advantage of it. I was like, okay, it's 100%. Return on your money.

(53:26):
Like, it's free money just to talk about the stock market,
right? The stock market. This is why I say I'm not going to be the
financial coach for you if you're trying to turn $100 into $1,000 by
tomorrow. Right? That is just not my thing. When we're talking about the
stock market, we're talking about long term thinking. We're talking
about what is this going to look like five years from now, ten years from

(53:48):
now? And I don't know. Nobody could tell you what the stock market is going
to do tomorrow. Right? Like, we just don't know what the stock market is going
to do. But we know over history, we know
that over history, over the long term, the stock market
always goes up. And so the thing is that people will think that
it's a straight shot up. It's not. There's a lot of ups and downs in

(54:09):
between, but even in the ups and downs in between, guess what's
happening? It's still trending upwards. Right? And so I
don't know what the stock market is going to look like tomorrow, but I can
guarantee that ten years from now, what I invested
ten years later, it's going to be way higher. Right? It could be
up 10%. It could be up 15%. Look at the stock market

(54:31):
this year alone. This year alone, the S and P
500, which stands for the top 500 companies in the United
States, is up an average of 15%.
15%. We already talked about savings account giving.
4%. That's good. That's high.
Prior to that, like we said, it was under 1%. Under

(54:53):
1%. And even today, actually, if you have a
savings account with Chase, bank of America, Wells Fargo, sort of
those three big banks, big ones, of course, under 1%.
Right. They want all that money. They ain't trying to give you none of
that money. Yeah, so just take a look at that. I feel like if I
could give something away for your listeners, like some homework is that if you do

(55:14):
have a savings account, call your savings account
wherever your bank is, right, and find out what your interest rate
is. And then just hit a Google search and say which bank
accounts, which savings accounts have the highest interest rate?
And this is not about switching back and forth. This is about looking at

(55:34):
ones. And they're called high yield savings account because they have a higher
yield they have a higher interest rate. And see like, okay, wait a minute.
Chase has been giving me 1%. Even now, when I know that their savings
accounts that have 4%. Yeah,
absolutely. Oh, man, this has been great. I
can talk about money all day long, assets to

(55:57):
it. This has been a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on the show.
This has been amazing. I definitely want to have you back on.
We're definitely going to have a part two of this because this is going to
be fun. Absolutely. Well, you let me know for
sure. But now you get the solo screen
and you get to plug away and let everybody know where they can find you,

(56:17):
your website, where they want to hire you as a
coach. Let them know. Yeah. Well, again, Will, thank you so
much for having me. This has been such a blast. I get so
passionate about talking about finances because this was something that I really knew
nothing about. And now I just want to shout it to the world that it
doesn't have to be hard and complicated. So I am most active on

(56:39):
Instagram, so you can find me there, but you can also go to my
website, which is financially thriving.com, and you'll find my
socials and again, my Instagram is financially
thriving. You can find me there and reach out. I
do provide one on one coaching, so if you're like, OK.
I feel like I want to do something. I don't know really where to

(57:00):
start. I know that there's books out there, I know there's YouTube
channels and things like that, but I feel like I need that one on one
support and that one on one accountability. Or maybe you have a unique situation,
like hit me up for.
And listen, this is how much of a hustler you are
that I hit you up on Instagram and as

(57:23):
soon as I hit you up, I followed you.
Oh, are you interested in finding out about finances? I
said, no, actually, you're going to be a guest on my podcast this coming
week. Yeah. Although I will
say what is it? There are those
duplicate, what's that called?

(57:45):
Those spoof accounts. Oh, you got
a fake account? I report them
to Facebook or to Meta and Instagram all the time. It's
so no, no, I did
see you, that you followed me, so you did follow me at Financially Thriving.
But if you message me for the first time, there's

(58:08):
like an automated system that will pop up
automatically that'll say, hey, are you interested in one on one
financial coaching?
But thank you so much, it's been great. I greatly appreciate you being on the
show. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. But
don't leave just yet. Let me close out the show and we'll chat a little

(58:30):
bit off air. But this was great, man. Listen, people
enjoyed it. You had my boy Leon, he
said you dropped some
love. I love doing the lives because of the
interaction, because people get to comment and enjoy, they
get to be a part of the show and they can actually drop a comment

(58:53):
or even if. They have a yes, yes, absolutely.
But let me close out all leave yet. OK.
All right, so now it is time for shout outs. Big
shout out to Facebook user. I don't know who it is. It's probably
Obama or somebody. I know I'm Carrado one of

(59:13):
them. Shout out to Mickey Delaney, shout out to Lloyd Phillips for
coming through. Shout out to my boy Leon
Jones. Big shout out to my man Ben, because I know he's one of the
people that showed love, as always. Big shout out to
my real wise fan, Poppy J, brandy J. Big shout out to the
boss lady. Love you and appreciate you, baby. And as a

(59:35):
big shout out to my guests, Wally Miller, for coming through and showing some
love. And as always, a big, big shout out to all the essential workers
out there. God bless y'all. Be safe. You know your boy Wise does
it. Peace out.