The Passion Project FT. Joey Casolaro

Unlock the secrets to financial empowerment with Joey Casolaro, an Associate Advisor at Highland Financial Advisors LLC, as he shares practical insights and strategies designed to elevate your financial journey. Discover why budgeting isn't about limiting yourself, but rather a crucial tool for gaining control over your cash flow and setting the groundwork for a stable financial future. Joey walks us through the essential steps for building a robust financial foundation, including the critical role of establishing an emergency fund to buffer against life's uncertainties.

Tackle the thorny issue of debt with confidence as Joey provides a roadmap for managing overspending and prioritizing debt repayment. Learn how to navigate the complexities of high-interest credit card debt and student loans, with actionable advice on structuring debt repayment to minimize interest and stress. Gain insights into managing multiple debts and the importance of understanding your debt-to-income ratio as a measure of financial health and risk assessment.

Explore the path to wealth-building with Joey's expert advice on strategic investments and effective cash flow management. From high-yield savings accounts to the nuances of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, understand the steps to making your money work for you. Get clarity on the often-confusing world of insurance, with a focus on why term life insurance tends to be a more suitable option for most individuals. Tune in to equip yourself with the knowledge and tools necessary for a successful financial journey, no matter your starting point.

Episode Transcript

Jonny Strahl (00:09):
Welcome to the Bender Continues podcast
Introducing our guest fortoday's episode of the Passion
Project.
Under the Financial Pillar, wehave Joey Casalera.
Joey is an Associate.

Ryan Selimos (00:22):
Advisor at Highland.

Jonny Strahl (00:23):
Financial Advisors LLC.
He is a graduate from theUniversity of South Florida and
received a certified financialplanner designation Go Bulls.
With five years of experienceas an associate wealth advisor,
joey and his firm serve high networth families and individuals
to reach their financial goalspersonalized financial planning,

(00:46):
tax planning and overallinvestment management.
Welcome.

Ryan Selimos (00:50):
Joey.
Today we're going to discussavoiding financial mistakes.
Joey brings a lot of knowledgeto the table, but where we think
he is the most relatable andimpactful in today's discussion
is the fact that he is at thebeginning of his own financial
journey.
Everyone has to start somewhere, but not everyone has to be

(01:12):
confused on how to start.
So tune in to receive keyinsights to get your financial
journey off the ground or to thenext level.

James LaGamma (01:23):
All right, joey, thanks for joining us today.
Welcome to the Bender Continues.
We're really excited to haveyou.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, we're really excitedabout today's discussion,
feeling like I'm a young personin my now 30 era.
People that are younger usuallyoften face a bunch of financial

(01:45):
challenges due to inexperiences, lack of education or one of my
problems, impulsive behavior.
So, to kick us off, we brokethis down to where the first
topic is going to be the basics.
A lot of people they go throughschooling and stuff but they
don't really get taught thebasics of financial wealth and

(02:07):
health and just trying to buildfor their lifetime.
And one of the very firstthings that kind of kicked off
here is with budgeting.
There's plenty of differentbudgeting methodologies out
there, but we're curious to kindof hear what you think is some
of the best that work.

Joey Casolaro (02:25):
But we're curious to kind of hear what you think
is some of the best that work.
Yeah, and I am so happy withbudgeting to start off this
conversation, because it reallyis the most important concept
when it comes to financialplanning.
Knowing what your income andexpenses are is so important.
It doesn't matter if you have$10 to your name or $10 million.
You have to know that, and sothe best method that I think
when it comes to knowing yourbudget is the one that you could

(02:47):
stick with, and I know itsounds cliche, but I like to use
the analogy.
If you're setting up a workoutplan, you have all the sets
you're going to do, all the repsevery day, what you're going to
do, but then after three days,you don't follow the plan.
What was the whole point?
So it's the plan you can stickwith.
I'm a big proponent of keepingthings simple, and so what I do

(03:08):
personally, and what I recommendeveryone do, is you go through
your cash flow.
I don't like to use the wordbudget because budget sounds you
know you're limiting yourselfto spending somewhere.
It sounds scary when you saycash flow, it's all what it
sounds like.
You're going to go through.
What are your income sources,whether it's through work,
bonuses, commission.

(03:29):
Then you're going to go through, you know, write down the
annual number or the monthlynumber, and then you're going to
go through expenses.
So start off with your personalexpenses.
You know, dining out, groceries, your phone bill, go through
all those categories and you cango online and find different
types of cash flow sheets outthere that have all the
categories.

(03:49):
Then you go over your homeexpenses.
You know if you have a mortgage, if you pay rent, what's that
look like, what's the monthlycost, any car expenses and
things like that, any, anycontributions you're making to
any savings accounts orinvestment accounts, and then
what you're going to be leftwith at the bottom is either a
surplus or a deficit.
So you're going to see, basedon your income expenses, do I

(04:12):
have money left over at the endof each month?
If you do, that's great.
Now you can decide where thatmoney goes.
But if it's a negative number,meaning that you have a
shortfall every month, you know,okay, I need to cut back
somewhere because I can't beoperating at a shortfall or else
I'm going to accumulate debt.
So going through that cash flowand figuring out where you are
in a surplus or deficit.

(04:33):
I think is the best methodologyto track your expenses.

James LaGamma (04:39):
That's good.
That's good.
It kind of reminds me of when Iwas going through some medical
stuff.
They told me track your bloodpressure and see where you're up
and downs and all that kind ofstuff, and it's a similar
concept.
You got to track all of yourins and outs, your credits and
debits essentially money comingin, money coming out and in
order to figure out where do youactually stand, to start at

(05:01):
square one to now go.
Okay, this is where I want to gofrom here, and one of those
things that, once you find outwhen you have that surplus and
what to do with your money, somepeople try to say you should
save an X amount.
So, to be fair, I don't evenknow.
Do people even still save moneythese days?
I know I do.

(05:21):
I feel like I am more of an oldsoul when it comes to how I
handle my money.
I don't put it under a mattress, but I still try to save a
healthy amount of money.
But when it comes to trying tosave, or what strategies you
should have when trying to save,what do you think is the best

(05:42):
advice, especially for peoplethat are struggling?

Joey Casolaro (05:45):
Yeah, Another two great questions.
The first question do peoplestill save money?
The answer is yes and no.
It really depends, and whatI've seen is that people that
have an emergency fund set inplace which an emergency fund,
as a general rule of thumb,should be six to 12 months of
your living expenses, whichyou'll figure out by doing your

(06:05):
cash flow but those are Peoplethat have that in place usually
are able to save.
People that don't have anemergency fund usually are not
able to save and accumulate debt, and the reason for that is
because they'll have a suddenexpense come up.
Let's say they own a house andtheir water is in the grates
that's now money.

(06:25):
That's say, they own a houseand they're water-duty rates
that's now money that they needto go pay for that they don't
have.
So they're going to use acredit card the next month.
Let's say they have kids.
Kids want to go to daycare,school or whatever they get, to
shop money for that.
Then something happens to thecar it's another expense, and
their debt just starts tosnowball.
And it's nothing that they didwrong.
It's just that these expensescame out of nowhere and they

(06:47):
didn't have the emergency fund.
So when it comes to time tosaving money they can't.
Now they're in this debt trapPeople that had that emergency
fund they rolled a, dish out themoney for that and stay on
track every month with thosecontributions to those
investment accounts that they'redealing with saving accounts.

(07:08):
So, yes, people still save money.
If they have an emergency fund,usually they are able to.
If they don't, usually peopledon't save money.
And then the second part ofyour question was what's the
best strategy to do that?
And it really comes down to Ilike to use a bucket approach.
So if you think about yourpaycheck at work, when you get
your paycheck, what's the firstthing that gets taken out of
your paycheck?
Taxes, Exactly, Uncle Sam needshis taxes.

(07:31):
There's nothing you can doabout that.

Ryan Selimos (07:32):
Fucking Uncle Sam.

James LaGamma (07:34):
Uncle Sam.

Joey Casolaro (07:35):
He's a pain in the you know what, but he's got
to do what he's got to do.

Ryan Selimos (07:38):
Ass, you can say ass.

Joey Casolaro (07:39):
Okay.
So taxes come out.
So after that comes out, whatyou want to do is then pay all
of your fixed expenses.
So those are expenses that youhave to pay.
Those are, for example, yourmortgage If you own a house or
rent your apartment your grocerybills.
Those are your needs.
You have to pay those.

(08:04):
Then what you want to do beforeyou spend money on your wants
which are discretionary expenses, things like restaurants, going
out to dinner before you dothat, you want to pay yourself
first, and what that means isyou're going to start allocating
money towards savings andinvestments with paying on your
goals, and how I like to look atthat is.
First thing you want to do isget that emergency fund in place
.
If you don't have it, get thatthree to six months of expenses

(08:27):
more.
If you want, put that in ahigh-yield savings account,
which right now they're paying45% interest 45% of interest.
There's no fees usually andthat's a safe place to put your
money.
Then think about any goals youhave in the next one to two
years.
Those goals in the short termyou want to start putting money

(08:51):
towards in a savings account aswell.
Or you can use a treasury bill,or you make a loan to the
government or a CD, or you makea loan to the bank, but you want
to put money where it's safeand the reason for that is any
short term money that you havecoming up for, any goals let's
say you want to go on a vacationnext year Any short-term money
that you have coming up or anygoals let's say you want to go
on a vacation next year or youwant to buy a wedding ring next
year.
Your biggest risk withshort-term money is that it
won't be the same value when youneed it, so it's called

(09:13):
volatility risk.
So figure out what yourshort-term goals are.
Start putting money towardsthose buckets, thinking five
years plus.
You want to put that money inthe markets because your biggest
risk in the long-term money isinflation, losing your
purchasing power.
So any long-term money you wantto put that and you want to
invest in the market because youhave the time to withstand any

(09:35):
ups and downs in the market.
Once you've had that moneyallocated, you pay yourself
first with those buckets.
Then you can spend what's leftover on discretionary expenses
like dining out and things likethat.

James LaGamma (09:52):
That's good advice.
I've actually tried to put thatinto my own financial strategy
and when you pay yourself first,it doesn't feel like you don't
feel that money coming out allthe time.
It's not like the same thing aswhen you're doing your
discretionary spending, you buysomething.

(10:13):
It's very it does feel likeokay, well, this is my normal
strategy, this is my normalstate.
I'm only working with the Xamount of money.
You get very comfortableunderstanding that.
That's where you're at, but notall the time does comfortability
actually work out for you,because things come up or
changes in your life.

(10:34):
You accumulate more debt, youhave other things come up, like
you said, they need to pay for.
But also there's one of thethings that we're dealing with
right now and that's inflation.
Dealing with right now andthat's inflation.
Um, I feel like it's probably anot so much talked about
strategy to reevaluatefrequently where your uh your
cash flow essentially or I can'tremember what you call it not

(10:55):
budgeting, don't want to use the, the bad word cash flow, you're
right, but do you, yeah, do youuh advise people to kind of
reevaluate or have likesituations when you think, when
you say that they should bereevaluating, when they're
starting to feel like, okay,maybe I'm a little bit more
constrained so that they don'tgo down that path of getting
into the debt trap.

Joey Casolaro (11:12):
Definitely, and the best thing to do for that is
look at your credit cardexpenses from the past couple
months.
You'll be able to see whereyou're spending your money and
see okay, this month I went alittle overboard on maybe going
out with friends and drinking.
This month I went a littleoverboard on food, and it's okay
.
Just reevaluate, reassess andsay okay, I'm going to pull back
a little bit here and start tomake a better decision with my

(11:34):
money going forward.

James LaGamma (11:36):
Yeah, that's smart, definitely looking at
those credit card expenses, kindof seeing where you're actually
spending your money and you'rejust discretionarily spending,
and then from there you can kindof have to look at yourself in
the mirror and determine whetheror not you're actually living
within your means.
Do you have any advice forpeople that kind of struggle?
It just seems like they justcontinue to spend and spend and

(12:00):
it's just not really working outfor them.

Joey Casolaro (12:03):
Yeah, I mean you have two options If you're
spending too much.
It's either decrease yourspending or increase your income
.
So if you don't want todecrease your spending, then you
better figure out Kenny likesthat.
Yeah, you better figure out aside hustle.

Kenny Massa (12:15):
I like the later.

Joey Casolaro (12:17):
So you know, and one thing to mention is, you
know there's no right or wrongcash flow of where you should be
spending your money.
Everyone is.
You know there's no right orwrong cash flow.
Where you should be spendingyour money, everyone's cash flow
is gonna look different.
For instance, you know my cashflow if you looked at mine, my
expenses, I'm spending three gymmemberships right now
paintboards, because I just likeworking out once for jiu-jitsu.
I do in another gym just forthe sauna.

(12:39):
See, the brother pula might becrazy, okay, but for me I get
joy out of that, so I think it'sworth it.
But then if you look at myother expenses, for instance,
like dining out, I only eat outtwice a week, so that's where I
cut back to make up for that.
So you want to spend moneywhere you find the most joy and
happiness and value, but youalso don't want to go overboard.

(12:59):
So see, you know, if you'respending more money in one area,
see where you can cut backwhere you're not getting as much
joy out of.
Maybe that's subscriptions,maybe that's, you know, a
membership you're not using.
Just reevaluate and then youcan see, you know, there'll be a
way to increase your expenses.

Kenny Massa (13:16):
Let's lean into that for another couple minutes.
If you just look at the exampleof what you just gave, which is
you only have two options,which is either to cut back a
little bit more or to increaseyour top line and increase
income, which will then allowyou to be able to manage your
expenses more effectively,because basically, you'll have
more money, but let's say you'respending at a faster rate than

(13:38):
you're bringing in.
I guess the most simplifiedterm that everyone most commonly
hears is that would be calledas debt.
Right, because it's money thatyou owe for.
It could be anything.
It could be debt in a loan, itcould be debt in owing credit
card bills or debt in studentloans.
I mean, there are so manydifferent forms of debt.

(13:59):
But when you look at debt, youhear sometimes that there's good
debt, there's bad debt.
Let's consider overspending asbad debt.
In whatever it is, most likelyit's credit card debt.
But how?

Joey Casolaro (14:15):
do you manage getting out of debt as a whole?
You manage getting out of debtby not getting in debt.
Yeah, that's a simple answer.
I know that's not alwayspossible.
It ought to be one way.

James LaGamma (14:26):
Who's the guy that hates debt that's always
ranting about just pay off allyour debt immediately.

Joey Casolaro (14:30):
Dave Ramsey, ramsey yeah.

James LaGamma (14:32):
Ramsey yeah, that's good.

Joey Casolaro (14:34):
That's good.
But yeah, no, debt is a trickysituation because, like I said
before, no one wants to get intodebt.
But if you find yourself inthat situation where you don't
have an emergency fund andexpenses are coming out of
nowhere, there's nothing you cando.
So you really have to take alook and say okay, if you're in

(14:54):
debt, look at your cashflow.
Where can I cut back onexpenses, get that cashflow to a
positive surplus and then startpaying down that debt.
And when I'm talking about debt, I want to be specific.
The worst debt you can have iscredit card debt because of how
high the rates are.
Those rates are north of 20%.
So people always ask I have$20,000 of credit card debt.

(15:17):
I want to start investing.
Should I start investing first?
And the answer is no.
You should start paying downthat debt as fast as you can,
because if your interest rate onthat debt is 20%, by paying
that off, that's a 20% returnyou're getting.
If someone tells you in thestock market if they can get you
a 20% return every year run,because it's not possible.

(15:39):
So you're better paying offthat debt and getting rid of
that, because that snowballeffect of that 20% is just going
to keep compounding year afteryear, and compounding is crazy.
It would be a great thing ifit's on your side with investing
, but if it's on the other sidewith debt, it really can destroy
you and you get stuck in thetrap.
So really try to pay that debtas fast as you can.

Kenny Massa (16:00):
And that was my second question If you had, just
from a basic level, $1,000 indebt and you were prioritizing
where you were budgetingfinances and where you were
spending money and you had anexcess or you had a surplus of,
let's say, $300 or $400, do youchoose to prioritize paying that
debt or putting some intosavings or in an investment

(16:24):
portfolio, based off of yourrecommendation just a few
seconds ago?
It would be to prioritize thedebt because of the largest,
basically, form of interest ratethat you're paying within, and
we're assuming it's credit carddebt, not something smaller, but
in most cases and in many cases, it's credit card debt, and is

(16:45):
that the most common thing thatyou see?
Credit card debt is what'sholding people back.

Joey Casolaro (16:49):
Credit card debt one.
And then number two is everyoneknows student loans.

Ryan Selimos (16:53):
That was my next question.
I'm surprised you said thatcredit card debt was worse than
student loans, because I feellike you're going to find
yourself in a lot ofconversations about that,
especially with the youngerclientele, potentially.
What's the mindset there Is thegeneral mindset not really
worrying about it with the hopesit gets paid off Because that's

(17:16):
out there.
It feels like it's dangerouswhen we start talking about that
.
But you came out and saidcredit card debt.
So that was at least surprisingfor me.
So I'm interested in your takeon the comparison between the
two.
Not surprising, it's one andtwo.
I just thought it would beflipped.

Joey Casolaro (17:30):
personally, yeah, I think it's because the rate
on student loans is much lowerthan credit card debt.
That's why it's not that big ofan issue.
But yeah, many people havestopped making payments to their
student loans because of thatpossible plan where they might
get it all wiped out.
Who knows if that's going tohappen?
And also, you know thegovernment's doing those
deferments where they're havingyou stop paying, you don't have

(17:53):
to pay anymore for a certainamount of time.
That's been going on.
So you know there's differenttypes of debt.
If you have student loans thatare private loans, the interest
rates are much higher than,let's say, you've got a federal
loan.
So, loans, the interest ratesare much higher than, let's say,
you've got a federal loan.
So if that's the case, youdefinitely want to start paying
off those loans and maybe payless towards the federal loans
because it's a lower rate.
But again, definitely studentloans is a huge part of that as

(18:16):
well.

Kenny Massa (18:17):
So I have another question on top of that.
If you have multiple forms ofdebt let's say you have three
different credit cards that youowe $500 a piece to.
You have student loans that youhave to pay off If you're
trying to pay off debt and thisis how I've looked at it but if
you're trying to pay off debtand choose which one, how I've

(18:38):
looked at this in the pastpersonally, from my perspective
is I would pay the minimum onall four of those pieces of debt
right, so that you're notaccruing any type of credit
issues or anything of thatnature.
But then you take any surplusthat you have and you put it on
the highest interest rate loanor interest rate form of debt,
so that you're paying off thehigher interest rate ones,

(19:01):
correct?
Would that be the best?

Joey Casolaro (19:02):
approach.
Personally, I would agree thatis the best approach.
However, some people may feellike they're not making any
progress when they're payingtowards all four debts at once
and they're seeing the balancesgo down very slow.
They can get discouraged.
So another recommendation thatI think Dave Ramsey recommends
is paying off the lowest debtfirst, so you can actually see

(19:25):
the improvement.
You're making reverse but froma financial standpoint I think
the best is paying off thehigher interest interesting what
about um, I know, not everyloan is the same.

James LaGamma (19:38):
What about trying to chip away at your like loan
term?
Essentially so like trying toalso focus on loading on a
longer-term debt vehicle thatyou may have?
Your student loan is usually upat 15 years, but then your
mortgage is 30.
And mortgage is yourfront-loaded, your interest rate
payments.
So if you pay higher earlier,you actually don't have, you

(20:03):
don't pay as much a lump sumover time of the term of the
loan.
Is that part of the strategytoo, when you're considering how
to load, how to load up allthese different?
Because you're trying to pay iton principle?
That's the goal.
So then, interest can't getlevied on the principle right.

Joey Casolaro (20:19):
Yes, it really depends on the rate of that loan
.
Some people will ask does itmake sense to make extra
payments towards my mortgage?
If your mortgage rate is northof 70%, then yeah, it might make
sense because you can't getthat in the market on an annual
basis.
But if your mortgage rate yougot lucky, you got it when it

(20:40):
was back to 2%, 3% then it maymake sense to not make anything
in this case in mortgage.
So it really depends.
You get a higher return on thebond the cost of debt.

Kenny Massa (20:51):
Yeah, yeah, and there's definitely forms of debt
that I would say is good debtcompared to bad debt and things
like that.
There are forms that leveragedebt and things of that nature,
contrary to what Dave Ramseybelieves.
But yeah, I mean, how do youevaluate your debt threshold?

Joey Casolaro (21:14):
So there's a rule of thumb they use.
It's if you take your totalmonthly debt payments and then
times it by your gross monthlyincome, or divide it, I should
say, by your gross monthlyincome.
So you have your total monthlydebt payments divided by your
total gross monthly income.
Times that by 100.
If it's less than 30%, that'susually low risk.
30% to 43% is moderate andanything above 43% is high risk.

(21:38):
But that's just a general ruleof thumb.
Of course really depends on thesituation.

Kenny Massa (21:45):
Got it and I was actually just looking at this
because we've been going throughthe home purchasing.
Basically, they evaluate yourdebt-to-equity ratio, which is
the similar aspect here.
That's what mortgage companiesor I would say probably anybody
that's doing anything on a largeform of lending would evaluate
right your debt-to-equity, whichwould be your likeliness of

(22:05):
being able to repay that loanexactly that's equity, that's
income or yeah, that's income.

Jonny Strahl (22:11):
Sorry, same thing yeah hey, joey, you you
mentioned obviously just thebasics of of budgeting, right,
and you mentioned something.
Let's just keep it simple.
Um, I know we've talkedmentioned something.
Let's just keep it simple.
I know we've talked about debt.
So let's just say,hypothetically, we're living in
our means, the way we'rebudgeting.

(22:37):
We're not in a place maybewhere we're paying off debt
ideally.
I'm just curious, like with thevarious ways we can invest the
simplicity sometimes of going onyour phone and being able to
invest in the market.
Where do you start and what'sthe steps just to grow in wealth
if you're someone who is 21years old, or maybe someone

(22:58):
who's 50 years old?

Joey Casolaro (23:00):
Another great question.
It was back to the cash flow.
You know you're at that surplus.
It's like I got this money,what do I do with it now?
And the best thing you could dois give each dollar a job.
So let's say you already haveyour emergency fund set up.
You don't got to worry aboutthat.
Goals will have coming up andyou're going to start putting

(23:26):
money towards those, allocatingthose dollars towards a
high-yield savings account or alow-risk investment for
short-term and then anylong-term goals you're going to
put in the stock market.
And the best thing you can dois set up automatic reoccurring
contributions.
That way you don't have tothink about it.
It gets directly deducted fromyour paycheck, straight to those

(23:46):
accounts and then what you'releft over after that is what
you're left over for yourdiscretionary expenses and you
don't have to think about it.
And it makes it really simpleto start building wealth because
there's no thought involved.
The money is automaticallygoing to those accounts and it's
growing over time.
You also want to make sure thatwhen you do begin investing,
that you're cognizant of whatinvestment fees you're paying

(24:10):
Any investment funds you buy.
If you buy a fund which is abasket of companies in a wrapper
, let's call it a basket.
There's something called anexpense ratio.
So you want to make sure thatexpense ratio is on the low end,
which I'd say on the low end isbelow 0.50%.
Anything above that is a littlehigh and you want to be

(24:33):
constant of the fees you'repaying for those investments.
But setting up the automaticrecurring contributions to those
investment accounts and savingaccounts is the best step to
start growing your wealth.

Jonny Strahl (24:44):
I love that and that's that's really good.
I love that.
That's really good feedbackideas.
I guess would you suggest oneor the other.
When it comes to just investing, Would you prioritize, maybe
focusing on one area versusmaybe another?
Just curious.

Joey Casolaro (25:03):
When you say area , do you mean like short-term
versus long-term?
Yeah, short-term versuslong-term and just types of
investments give or take.
Yeah For short-term versuslong-term.
Obviously something's coming upin the short-term.
That's the main focus.
So you got to start puttingmoney towards that Long-term,
which is five plus years.
I would definitely takeadvantage of any retirement

(25:26):
accounts you have through work,which is usually called a 401k
or a 403b.
At the minimum, you want to beputting enough in to where you
receive the full match.
So usually companies will offeran incentive that if you put an
X amount they'll match it andthat's free money.
So I would make sure at theminimum you're doing that to get
that free money and thenallocating the extra surplus to

(25:49):
that short-term bucket.

Jonny Strahl (25:52):
I love that.
So when do you feel, or do youfeel, a person should seek out a
wealth management firm?
And what age would that looklike?

Joey Casolaro (26:05):
Yeah.
So it really depends on thecomplexity of your situation.
If you're someone that justgraduated college, maybe just
got a job and starting to buildtheir wealth, you may not need a
full wealth management firm todo that.
You know you can watch videosonline and kind of just start
putting money towards, you know,investments and savings
yourself.
Once you start making some moreincome, your situation gets

(26:28):
more complex.
Let's say you have stock offersto work.
That's a great example.
If you're a business owner,that's when you really want to
talk with a firm, because theycan really help with tax
planning, investment management,retirement planning and help
you start to protect thoseassets.
So for age-wise, there reallyis no age on it.
It just really depends on ifyou need the help, then

(26:50):
definitely go get it.
And you know there's differentsources out there you can go to.
Vanguard is a very low costfund provider and they provide
help at a very low cost fee.
So if you're just starting out,I would recommend looking at
Vanguard.
Another good one is there'ssomething called XY Planning
Network, which is a group thatis only fee-only advisors.

(27:12):
So when you work with anadvisor there's two different
ways they can get paid.
They can either get paidthrough commission or through a
fee, and I personally think thatworking with an advisor that
only charges a flat fee or feeon the assets instead of a
commission is a better way to go, because they're not going to

(27:35):
recommend you buy something justfor a commission, because they
don't make a commission off ofit.
So you want to be sure thatwhoever you work with you
understand how they'recompensated and that xy playing
network is only fee-onlyadvisors, so you'll know that
they get charged a flat fee, nocommission.
And you also want to make surethat whoever you work with is a
fiduciary, which that just meansthat they have to act in the

(27:57):
best interest of the client atall times.
If not, they could be sued.
Some advisors don't have to dothat at times.
They have to do what's suitablefor the client.
They don't have to act in thebest interest, which means that
if there's two funds that theywant to recommend to someone
fund A and fund B and fund Apays the advisor a certain

(28:19):
commission higher than fund B,but both are suitable for the
client, they can recommend fundA just because they get that
higher commission.
So whoever you work withunderstand how they're getting
paid and have them put inwriting that they are a
fiduciary at all times when theywork with you.

Jonny Strahl (28:34):
No, it's great, that's really good.
It's really good intel,especially when it comes to just
picking and choosing it andreally evaluating where and what
makes the most sense.
Just to be clear, you know wehave a lot of millennials and
Gen Zs who tune into this.
You know podcast.
I just want to make it clearSports betting is not a type of
investment, right, johnny?

(28:56):
You stole my point, great point.

Joey Casolaro (28:59):
It depends how well you're doing.
If you're doing good, that'sgood to know.

Jonny Strahl (29:03):
That could be your income, yeah, your main source
of income joey, have you seenthe articles around like the
increasing amount of individualsthat are actually leveraging
investment sports betting versusthe actual stock market?

Joey Casolaro (29:20):
I have not, no, but I'll send you the article.
I believe it.
Yeah, I would love to read it,I believe it's scary, it's very
addicting and you could fallinto a bad article.
I believe it.
Yeah, I would love to read it.
I believe it.
It's scary, it's very addictingand you could fall into a bad
trap.

Jonny Strahl (29:35):
I believe it.

Ryan Selimos (29:36):
Not to point out anybody, but we'll go ahead and
flip the script over to Ryan.
You remember at the beginningearlier, joey, it was like when
you get that high rate of returnrun away from it in the stock
market, johnny, that's you and Iseeing that 12-legger,
beautiful parlay, and it's justlike this is going to hit for
sure.
Of course not.
No.
What I'm hearing from Joey isI'm hearing that you got to
assign your money jobs.
I did not hear sports bettingon there.

(30:01):
So, might have to reevaluatethat.
However, what I wish I had withsports betting was some
insurance you know maybe someway to manage that risk.
What I wish I had with sportsbetting was some insurance.
You know, maybe some way tomanage that risk.
What these young people andtheir sports betting but really
in general, joey, allseriousness, you know, maybe
they're not thinking about theirfuture.
How should they be protectingtheir future?
You know, how do you get intothat conversation?

(30:22):
How do you get into thatmindset?
Because, especially now,everything is now instantaneous.
We're all focused on now, we'renot looking at tomorrow.
So what are those conversationslike and, in your opinion,
what's the best method thatyoung people should be
protecting their future?

Joey Casolaro (30:36):
Yeah, and the first thing to make people aware
of is what they are protected,because a lot of people don't
know what they have to protect,and so what you have to
understand is there's risks outthere that can be protected
through insurance, and the mostcommon that everyone thinks of
is life insurance, and I'll gointo this one first, because
this is probably the most commonand most talked about.

(30:59):
But life insurance is somethingthat I believe you do not need
if you do not have a spouse orkids, and some people think that
life insurance is a great toolto use for investing, which is
why they would recommend it tosomeone without a spouse and
kids, and I don't think that'sthe case.
I truly believe you only needlife insurance if you have a

(31:20):
spouse and kids, because you'reprotecting them.
If you were to pass away andthey needed that loss of income,
you're providing them income.
You were to pass away and theyneeded that loss of that loss of
income, you're providing themincome to support that need with
hold.
With life insurance, there'sthere's three things you're
protecting.
The first is the loss of income.
Like I said, when thebreadwinner passes away, you
want to keep that income comingso they can afford their

(31:41):
expenses.
The second is any educationcost that they may have the kids
.
You want to make sure that youhave that covered.
And then the third you want tobe able to stay in the home.
So the mortgage, any largeliabilities you have you want to
have that covered and throughlife insurance you can do that.
Now when you buy life insurance,there's two types of main life
insurance old life and term.

(32:04):
Old life is exactly what itsounds like.
It lasts your entire life term,lasts for a certain number of
years.
So if you know that lifeinsurance is just to protect
your loved ones, it's to protectthe mortgage costs and it's to
protect education costs, thosethings have a finite time, which

(32:24):
means at some point your workis gonna be paid off.
You want to cover it anymore.
At some point kids are gonna bedone with school once.
Cover that and at some pointyou're gonna have enough assets
to self-insure in retirement.
So if you know that, why wouldyou get something the last your
whole life if you don't need it?
Your whole life?
Which is why I think the terminsurance is much better and it

(32:46):
is 100 times cheaper than whatwhole life is.
So you're saving extra money bybuying that.
With that extra money, you canstart throwing it into your
savings account or investmentaccounts or start paying off
debt With the whole life.
You know it's much moreexpensive and it's just
something that you really don'tneed Unless you have a lot of

(33:12):
money.
There's some estate planningtechniques you can use with that
, but that's really not reallythe case the majority of time.

Ryan Selimos (33:16):
So I'd really recommend term insurance for
anyone that needs it, that hasspouse and kids love that well.
I'd be honest, I never eventhought about term insurance
until right now.

James LaGamma (33:21):
Just what's up, james can I just say a quick
question.
I had heard with life insurancethere's the ability to kind of
lend from it essentially.
Is that something you evenrecommend, or should people even
know about that?

Joey Casolaro (33:36):
Yeah, Well, that's great.
I should have brought that up.
So with whole life, there'sdifferent routes.
You can go down whole life.
It gets very complex, Somethingcalled universal life and then
variable life.
With universal life you canchange how much you're paying in
premiums, which is the cost ofthe insurance, every year.
You can change different partsof the policy.
And with variable life, you canactually buy investments in the

(33:57):
policy.
But with whole life, in generalwhat you're paying for is term
insurance.
You get part of term insurancein that whole life, which is the
insurance part, and then you'realso putting money towards
something called the cash value.
So that's money like a savingsaccount you're putting into your
life insurance that you canborrow when needed.
The issue is those rates onthat cash value part are very

(34:20):
low less than 1% to 2% and thosepolicies are very expensive.
So I would stay away fromgetting a whole life and
borrowing any types.
If you do borrow from thatwhole life, also it reduces your
death benefit, which is theamount that your beneficiary
would receive.
So it really is just a trap togo down.
I would stay away.

James LaGamma (34:41):
Okay, that's good advice.

Ryan Selimos (34:43):
I like Joey.
Joey's a straight shooter, heyhere's what's necessary.
Here's what you shooter.
Hey, here's what's necessary,here's what you want.
So let's stay in the necessary,the essentials, right?
You've talked about life.
We've talked about time.
Are there any types ofinsurance out there for young
investors that truly isessential, like, if you don't
know about it, you need to knowabout it, you need to be looking
into it.

Joey Casolaro (35:02):
Yes, the number two insurance I would say is
disability insurance, which alot of people don't think of.
But you know, if you're workingand you get disabled and you
can't go back to work, how areyou going to afford your
expenses?
So disability insurance is agreat way where you can transfer
that risk to the insurancecompany and if you get disabled,
they'll usually pay up to 60%of what you were earning and

(35:27):
that can be a great way tosupplement what you're making.
And there's different types ofdisability insurance own-off,
any-off.
These are different types that,depending on how you're injured
and what you do for work, willkick in.
So make sure you're clear onthat when you go through that.
But I would say disabilityinsurance is definitely
something that anyone shouldhave and it's very cheap as well
at our age.
Usually through work, youremployer will offer it for free.

(35:50):
You might even have it If yougo through a statement.
You'll see that they're givingyou a benefit for that.
And then, other than that, ifyou own a home, property and
casualty insurance is a must.
If you own a car, autoinsurance is a must and if
you're a business owner, eosinsurance, air and emissions is
a must protect yourself, I wouldsay those are the most common.

Ryan Selimos (36:10):
You answered a part two to that question
because, right, for those thatdo have careers right now, some
of those are offered throughyour employers right Life
disability.
So your recommendations are ontop of through your employer,
correct?
Just to keep it simple for thelisteners.

Joey Casolaro (36:29):
Yes, usually through your employer, through
life insurance.
They're only going to give youone times your salary, or
$50,000, most common I've seenand when it comes to how much
life insurance you need, youreally got to have enough life
insurance where you can pay offthe mortgage, pay off what the
kids' education expenses aregoing to be in the future and

(36:49):
then have a lump sum availableto draw from each year pay your
actual expenses.

James LaGamma (36:54):
So in most cases I don't even want to I don't
even want to imagine what thefuture kids' education cost is
going to be.

Ryan Selimos (37:02):
Yeah, that's scary .
Public school free baby.

James LaGamma (37:07):
Didn't mean to cut you off there, joe, no
problem.

Joey Casolaro (37:10):
Most cases, most people have one, two to three
million of insurance per person.
But if you buy term, you coulddo something called a ladder
approach, which I highlyrecommend.
That's where you're buying apolicy.
Let's say you know that kidswill be done with college in 10
years and the mortgage will bepaid off in 20 years.
Instead of buying one 20-yearpolicy let's say $3 million to

(37:34):
cover both of that, you buy a10-year policy for a million to
cover kids' college and then youbuy, let's say, a $500,000
policy for 20 years to cover themortgage.
So that first policy is goingto drop off when the kids are
done with college.
All you have left is the otherpolicy for the mortgage, the
much cheaper way to do it.

Ryan Selimos (37:56):
Okay, all right, I like that.
We've got one last questionjust because I said he's a
fucking asshole.
Uncle Sam, I'm not telling you.
I'm not telling you to talkabout tax evasion, right?
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying what are somecommon tax mistakes or missteps
that people do make that ends upbiting them in the butt down

(38:18):
the road Because TurboTax tellme what it is boom, whatever,
right, there's probably a betterway to go about that.
So you know, what should thepeople, what should the
listeners be?

Joey Casolaro (38:31):
aware of when it comes to doing their taxes every
favorite time of year.
Yeah, the first would be if youdo have stock investments or
bond investments, you'reinvesting in the markets make
sure that you're not sellinginvestments within one year.
If you do that, you triggersomething called short-term
capital gains and you have topay at a much higher tax rate
than if you were to hold it forat least a year, which then you

(38:52):
pay a long-term capital gains,which for most people is at 15%,
compared to the short-termcapital gains, which could be up
to 37%.
So definitely be aware of that.
The second is if you're makinga lot of money, make sure that
you're taking advantage oftax-deferred accounts, and what

(39:12):
that means is, if you have a401k through work, any money you
put into that account, you'regetting a tax deduction for it.
So let's say you're making$100,000 through work.
If you put in $20,000 into that401k, uncle Sam only sees you
making $80,000.
So that's $20,000 that you justthrew in an investment account

(39:32):
that wasn't taxed.
Granted, you do have to paytaxes when that comes out in the
future, which $59.5 is when youcan start taking that out, but
hopefully it'll be in a muchlower tax bracket back in the
future, it won't be as high.
So definitely making sureyou're taking advantage of
tax-free accounts and then alsotaking advantage of tax-free
accounts.

(39:53):
So my favorite investmentaccount is the Roth IRA.
That's where any money you putin grows tax-free and when you
take it out it's tax-free.
So that could be huge.
And right now the limit, Ibelieve, changes every year.
I believe it's $7,000 perperson.
If you're under $50,000, youcan put it into the account and

(40:13):
as long as your income is belowa certain amount, you can
contribute directly into thataccount.
And then, once you put themoney in the account, just know
that you have to buy investmentsin it.
Some people think you just putthe money in the account and it
grows.
You just put the money in theaccount and it grows.
No, it's just sitting in cash.
You buy investments, but that'sgoing to grow tax-free and then
when you take it out inretirement you don't have to pay
Uncle Sam $1 on that.

(40:33):
That money was already taxed onyour paycheck when you already
put it in.

James LaGamma (40:38):
But you do pay on the gains, correct?

Joey Casolaro (40:40):
Nope, you pay no gains.
It's all tax-free.
That's why it's such a greataccount.
That's why Uncle Sam actuallylimits you Once your income is
too high.
They actually don't let youcontribute directly to that Roth
IRA and there's a little taxloophole you can go around to
actually still contribute to itonce your income gets too high.
On the backdoor contribution, Iwon't get into that right now,
but there are ways around it.

Jonny Strahl (41:01):
But yeah, hey Joey , that's really good.
I'm curious, hey Joey, that'sreally good.
I'm curious.
Do you know?
What is that income?
What does that look like?

Joey Casolaro (41:18):
I know if you're married it's $198,000, I believe
, of modified adjusted grossincome, and then if you're
single I have to look it up it'sprobably between, if I had to
guess, $130,000 around there.

Jonny Strahl (41:28):
So if you're someone who is out of college in
the workforce, you're making,let's just say, a couple of
years out, starting at $100K.
You're making $100K a year,bonuses, etc.
If you're making under $100Kfor the next, or you're making

(41:52):
$100K for the next 30 years, ifyou were to put $7,000 in your
Roth IRA, you do 7,000 times 30,that's $210,000.
Is that right?
Yeah, yep, that is all tax-free, correct?

Joey Casolaro (41:59):
That's all tax-free and you're not
accounting the growth that it'sgoing to have.
So all tax-free, yeah, hmm,because that's something when do
you there we go, going to haveAll tax-free.
When do you Go ahead?
I was going to say, once you'rein retirement, you want to make
sure that, if you plancorrectly, you have money in the

(42:21):
three different types ofaccounts.
They are the tax deferred,which is the one where you get
the tax deduction for putting itin, but then you've got to pay
taxes when it comes out.
You want money in the tax-freebucket, which is the Roth,
what's tax-free.
And then you want money in thetaxable brokerage account.
That's an account where you putmoney in whenever you want,
take it out whenever you want.
The only caveat is you have topay taxes when you sell

(42:43):
something at a gain and anyinterest or dividends is taxable
to you in the year that itcomes.
But the benefit of having thosethree accounts in retirement is
then you can start to pull fromdifferent accounts money and
not push yourself into a highertax bracket, because there are
times where people come to usthey have all their money in a
tax deferred account.

(43:04):
So now if their annual expensesfor the year, let's say, are
120,000, they had to pull out120,000 from that tax, deferred
account, pay taxes in that120,000, all of it.
And then if they want to, youknow, give their son a gift for
10,000, they put another 10,000.
That's all taxable income forthem.
No-transcript.

James LaGamma (43:38):
Awesome.
So what would be the strategyon how to know when to use each
one throughout your life cycle?

Joey Casolaro (43:45):
That really only comes into account when you're
withdrawing the assets inretirement.
So that's when you'd want tolook at your income and compare
it to the different phase outsand thresholds.
When you're our age.
You really don't want to touchyour retirement accounts.
Those are meant to grow.
The plus thing about the RothIRA is any money you put in you

(44:06):
can always take out free ofpenalty With the 401ks that if
you took it out, would be apenalty and you would be hit
with a.
You're going to pay income onit.
So you really don't want totouch the retirement accounts.
You really just want to touchthe taxable birth account, which
that you have full control overputting money in and putting
money out while you run yourassets.
That's awesome.

Ryan Selimos (44:31):
Makes sense.
Hey, jonathan, yeah, the, youknow, joey didn't talk about
this.
I understand why Remember thejobs, but when we do hit that
12-legger parlay for big money,we will have to pay taxes on the
winnings.
Whenever that day comes.
Hasn't happened yet, but just Iwant to add that in for our guy
.

Kenny Massa (44:49):
Until then, it's just all loss.

Ryan Selimos (44:54):
Which I'm not getting a tax benefit for.

Jonny Strahl (44:57):
Fucking idiots.
If only you could claim yourlosses.

Ryan Selimos (44:59):
Eh which I will add when we do get the 12-legger
.

Jonny Strahl (45:04):
You'll be our first call just to figure out
how we can do this, we will.

Joey Casolaro (45:09):
That sounds good to me.
But also one other thing I'llthrow in is with the taxable
brokerage account that you have.
If you do take a loss in thataccount, which means that you
sold something while you weredown, you can capture that loss
and hold it and offset it withany gains you take.
So if you took a $5,000 lossthis year and next year you took

(45:30):
a $5,000 gain, it's a loss.
You don't pay any tax, capitalgains, and you can also write
off $3,000 of loss against yourincome each year.
So losses aren't good but that'sa benefit that you have with a
loss.

Kenny Massa (45:47):
Yeah, I mean there's ways for people to
position that.
I mean you've seen it at higherlevels.
Larger sums with people thatare, I would say, large
entrepreneurs or people that arefamous.
You've seen, at larger levels,people using those large losses
to benefit them in some way,shape or form, and it most
likely comes in a fashion wherethey have massive incomes that

(46:08):
they have to kind of likesegment from not paying as much
tax as the next year.

James LaGamma (46:17):
All right.
So we talked about tax missteps, talked about insurance.
We're talking about riskmanagement, protecting ourselves
, but the ultimate goal is toplan for building a prosperous
future, right?
Most people, I think theaverage lifespan is 70s, 80s.

(46:39):
We all probably want to aspireto get to 100.
I don't know.
Some people feel some type ofway about getting that old.
They don't really want to getthat old.
But throughout your life, whatare some of those financial
milestones that people should belooking out for and
continuously planning to buildthat future for longevity in

(47:00):
financial health?

Joey Casolaro (47:02):
Yes, when you're just starting out, you're not
making a lot of income, mostlikely.
So you want to just focus onwhat you can control, and that's
establishing a cash flow andthen getting that emergency fund
in place.
Once that's done, you want tostart establishing good credit
so that you can borrow when youneed it in the future.
So start using a credit card,make sure that you're paying it

(47:22):
off every time, you're notaccumulating debt, and then, if
you do have debt, you want tomake sure you're paying that off
first.
Once you're into your I'd saymid-20s, early 30s, you want to
focus on putting money towardsretirement, and I know it sounds
like it's so far away, but theearlier you start, the less you
have to put in, and that habityou just want to make set in

(47:44):
stone right away.
You start saving for retirement, and then, early 30s usually
when people start having kidsyou want to start saving for
their education expenses.
You don't want to getblindsided with that, though.
Especially with a couple kids,you know that's really a dent in
the pocket.
So start using, you know,education tools like 529 plans
to save for college and thingslike that.

(48:04):
If you you are married and havekids, life insurance.
You want to have that If you'reworking disability insurance.
You also want to have yourestate documents in order, which
is something we didn't talkabout, and the most important
thing is, with that, you want tohave a guardian in place which
is just God forbid.
You pass away your spouse.
Pass away, you assign someonethat's going to take care of

(48:24):
your kids and then after that,as you're getting older, you're
just building up your wealth.
You want to make sure thatyou're saving as much as you can
.
Your highest earning years areusually in your 40s and 50s, so
you want to make sure thatyou're maximizing your savings
there and then, when you retire,it really comes down.
You worked all your liferelying on your human capital,

(48:48):
which is your ability to makemoney.
Now you're at a point where youcan transition from relying on
your human capital to yourinvestment capital, so you have
enough assets to live off of.
So, trying to go into thattransition live off that money
to be the next step.
And there actually is a greatbook that I recommend called
Decades and Decisions, thatexplains, in each decade of your

(49:08):
life, what you should bethinking about.
I forgot the author's name, butit's called Decades and
Decisions.
It's a good book on that.

James LaGamma (49:17):
Cool, nice, nice.
And some people they usuallylike to kind of work with a
financial advisor to plan thesefuture goals and stuff.
Is there just any advice thatyou have for people when they're
starting to work with afinancial advisor to plan these
future goals and stuff?
Is there just any advice thatyou have for people when they're
starting to engage with afinancial advisor Like what,
what things?
I mean, obviously the financialadvisor is there to try to help
them find those goals.
But any advice that you havefor someone that's maybe

(49:38):
starting out with that?

Joey Casolaro (49:40):
Yeah, you want to work with a financial advisor
that doesn't just do investments.
That's kind of the old waywhere you're working with
stockbroker, all you're doinginvestments.
If you're working with anadvisor, at the very minimum
they should be doing investments, tax planning, retirement
planning, cashflow and debtplanning, insurance planning and

(50:00):
estate planning at the minimum,and you should be able to come
to them with any question youcould think of Should I buy,
should I lease?
Can I afford to buy this housein the future?
Things like that.
Every day, I believe, humansmake about 35,000 decisions, and

(50:21):
where we are today is theculmination of all those
decisions we've made in the past, whether good or bad.
So having guidance on financialdecisions early in your life
can really set you up for thefuture.
So I would make sure thatyou're asking as many questions
as you can and ensure thatthey're doing more than just
investment planning.

James LaGamma (50:42):
Any good recommendations on finding a
good financial advisor?
Is it usually just word ofmouth or Google?

Joey Casolaro (50:48):
searches.
Word of mouth is great.
Also, xy planning network is agreat resource for fee only
planners.
And then you want to make surethat they're a CFP that stands
for Certified Financial Planner.
That's about two years ofcoursework you have to go
through before you take a sixhour exam on all those topics
like insurance, estateinvestments.
So make sure they're a CFP andthen make sure that you

(51:11):
understand how they'recompensated, that they're
fiduciary and, yeah, I'd saythat's a great place to start.

Ryan Selimos (51:21):
Keep it simple.
Guys Work with a financialadvisor named Joey.

Kenny Massa (51:25):
Oh, you can do that one question I have which could
be helpful for the viewers isif there's any recommended
resources like books, websites,apps, programs or anything that
you use or that you typicallyprovide to anybody that you work
with or that you speak with tohelp them become more educated

(51:46):
in this space, whether it'sabout debt or any of the topics
that we talked about investingin any sense, roth IRAs or
general IRAs or anything of thatnature.

Joey Casolaro (51:56):
Yeah, so for books, I'm a big reader, so I
read every personal financebooks out there.
I almost probably read it.
Ones I like the most therichest man in Babylon is a
great one to just explain how tolive below your means.
Another one is Psychology ofMoney by Morgan Housel.
It takes more of approach ofwhy people spend money, how they

(52:18):
spend it and the psychologyaround.
That, I think, is reallyhelpful.
Another book that I like hasnothing to do with finances but
leadership skills is ExtremeOwnership by Jocko Willink.
That is a very good book, justto be a leader.
And then the E-Myth, revisitedby Michael Gerber, is a great

(52:39):
book on running a small business, working for a small business.
I get to see what it takes andthe pros and cons of it.
So that's a really good book.
And then I would say forbuilding relationships, you know
how to win friends andinfluence people by, I believe,
is Dale Carnegie.
It's a great book.
And you know, the focus reallyshould be for young people how

(53:01):
to increase your wealth.
That's going to make thebiggest impact.
People think, oh, you know, I'mgoing to stop buying Starbucks
every day.
Great book, james got it.
Yep, in the middle of it.
People think I'm going to stopspending money on Starbucks
every day and it's going to helpme, when in reality you've got
to figure out how to increasethat income.

(53:22):
And reading books not just onpersonal finance but how to
develop your skills, I think isthe best way to do that finance.
But how?

Kenny Massa (53:26):
to develop your skills, I think is the best way
to do that.
Cool, yeah, I mean I thinkthere's a lot of resources out
there.
Books are definitely.
I've read a couple of thosethat you said.
I think books are definitely agreat resource.
There's a lot of programs outthere too, I think, for
budgeting purposes.
I know James probably uses likeevery single one of those
budgeting.
If you have an Excel templatethat's on the internet, james

(53:47):
has used it.

James LaGamma (53:50):
I built my own from scratch.

Joey Casolaro (53:51):
I use Excel.
I use Excel too.
I like keeping it simple, so Iuse Excel.

Kenny Massa (53:56):
James is good with that.
That's why he's always taskedthe budget I know every single
dollar and cents I've made.
And budgeted it accordingly.

Jonny Strahl (54:08):
Yep.

Kenny Massa (54:10):
You know.
Other than that, I would say atemplate like that is actually a
good resource or actionablestep that you could take to move
yourself forward.
But are there any other stepsthat someone can implement today
that can help them progresstowards a better financial means
, whether that be implementing atemplate into their life to
help with budgeting purposes orstart contributing to some type

(54:31):
of program that's going to helpcreate more of an investment
portfolio at a small amount?
What type of steps would yourecommend someone take?

Joey Casolaro (54:42):
today.
Yeah, the first thing would beto create that cash flow.
That's the first thing.
And you know, use chat GBT as aresource.
That is a great place to figureout.
You know where can I get a cashflow from?
Great, I don't know why Ryan'slaughing so hard.

Ryan Selimos (54:59):
How do you want to make money?
Chat GBT.
I use it all the time I mean ifyou're literally putting chat
to.

Joey Casolaro (55:07):
GBT create me a cash flow like spell spreadsheet
.
I'm sure it'll do it, you know.
Use that to your advantage.
Figure out where your money'sgoing.
If you're at a deficit, figureout where you cut back.
If you're at a surplus, startto allocate that somewhere.
If you're in credit card debt,start to tackle that first, get
that emergency fund put together.
Make sure you're takingadvantage of your 401k through

(55:27):
work, that you're getting thematch, at least if you're
already investing.
Make sure that your fees arelow.
Make sure that you know whatyou're investing in.
It's diversified if you don'talready set up automatic
contributions to your savingsinvestment accounts.
And if you have a family, startthinking about term life
insurance, disability insurance,and just try to increase your

(55:52):
income as much as you can.
I would say those are the beststeps you can take to start
building wealth over time.

James LaGamma (55:59):
Yeah, we can get this podcast to start building
us some wealth, and we're on theright track here.
Us some wealth, and we were onthe right track here.
Well, I think you just kind ofsummed up the whole discussion
pretty well, actually.
Anybody else have any otherquestions for Joey?

Kenny Massa (56:22):
I don't have any questions, but I think this
would be a fun topic to throw ateverybody right off the cuff.
If you were going to leavesomeone with one statement to
think about, that engulfed like,I would say, a mindset shift or
the way that they should thinkabout how they should manage

(56:44):
their finances or growfinancially, what would that
statement be?
If you can just provide themwith one statement and, joey,
you might be the person to askthe first for this, because
you're probably going to have agood one and then we're all
going to just kind of come downfrom there, so we'll start off
with you.

Joey Casolaro (57:00):
That's a really good question and I've got to
steal the quote from JockoWillink.
I would say discipline equalsfreedom.

Kenny Massa (57:08):
Nice, I like it.
I like it.
It's heavy James.
What about you?

James LaGamma (57:16):
I don't know why this came to mind, but this is
what Lydia and her team from afew companies back that she
worked for.
They just kept saying let's getthat bread.

Kenny Massa (57:28):
Yeah, I like that.
I think mine would followsomething like that, which would
be focus on the top line.
How I think of things is likeyou can expand your top line,
but sky's the limit.
But managing your finances canonly go so low.
I can only spend zero, right,and that's if I have completely
nothing.
But I can grow exponentially.

(57:51):
So focus on the top line, ryan.

Ryan Selimos (57:57):
Screw the Joneses.
Stop worrying about keeping upwith the Joneses.
Run your own race right.
Worry about your own finances,because everyone's journey is
different.
So screw the Joneses is whatI'm going with.

Kenny Massa (58:11):
I like it.

Jonny Strahl (58:13):
Ryan, I thought you were going to go more like
keep sports betting, orsomething like that.

Kenny Massa (58:20):
Budget in the expense for betting.

Jonny Strahl (58:23):
Hit those 12-leggers baby for betting.
Hit those 12 legers baby.
I'll go after with what yousaid, Joey.
Just to kind of keep itrelevant to some of the things
you mentioned, I would just sayprioritize your emergency
savings first.
Yeah, yeah, I think you heardthat too, it's like that whole

(58:44):
pay it yourself first.

Kenny Massa (58:46):
That's like a big methodology as well, which is, I
think, important.
Cool, that's all I got.
Hey, joey, thanks for joiningus.

Jonny Strahl (58:57):
Yeah we appreciate it.
This was great, it was awesome.

Joey Casolaro (59:00):
Yeah, I really appreciate it.
I love what you guys are doingwith the Passion Project.
I'm definitely going to be alistener, so thank you.

Jonny Strahl (59:05):
Thank you doing with the passion project I'm
definitely gonna be a listener.

Kenny Massa (59:07):
So thank you, thank you cool, all right, jolly well
.
Thank you so much for beingwith us today.
We appreciate your two centsabout how to manage your two
cents and together the vendorcontinues.