June 21, 2023 • 50 mins
The old saying goes, "making money is easy, the hard part is to keep it." That couldn't be more true. In this episode, the Ellises talk with their long time friend and financial advisor Shaun Freeman about the cost of making money. Dead Ass.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Making money costs money.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You ain't never lie.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
And I think people see where we are today, but
nobody has any idea how hard we had to work
to get to this point, other.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Than our guest today. He knows he has some insight, y'all. Hey,
I'm Kadeen and I'm devout and where the ellis's.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Boys and reading each other publicly as a.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Form of therapy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yes, sir, we are.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Li's most taboo topics.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
is a term that we say every day.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts,
one hundred truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
We about to take pilot off to our whole new level.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
This story time is gonna take you back to I'm
gonna say two.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Thousand and eleven, twenty eleven to two thousand and fourteen
is when Jackson was born.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Those first three years. I'm going to give as visual
as I can.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
What we were going through when we were at our worst,
cause I don't think I've ever got this graphic about
how bad it was at times. Twenty eleven, we had Jackson,
we had got health insurance because Kadeen was working at MAC.
I was not making any money, like at this point
the money I had in the NFL was now an investment.
(01:56):
I was working at Parice No, I was working at
Poly Prep as a football coach and Paris Speed School,
and I was also doing color commentary. So I was
making roughly I would say seventy k at the time.
We had the apartment. We had two mortgages, and we
(02:17):
had three car notes. We had the car note for
the f one to fifty, we had the car note
for on Debbie, then we had the car note for
the Audi. I was spending roughly eighteen hundred dollars a
month traveling back and forth to Staten Island working at
Parisi's Speed school, and I was only making twelve hundred
(02:37):
dollars a month, So.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I was in the red when it came to that job.
But I was supplementing that.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
We're working at MSG varsity, also doing some commercials and
stuff like that. But we were struggling so much with
money that I had to make it a fun thing
to only eat Daddy breakfast throughout the day. So I
was watching Jackson, and I was watching Jackson to day
(03:01):
because Jackson, I mean, because kay was working at mac
and I was like, Jackson, we're gonna have for breakfast.
And he was young, he was like two two turning
on three, and he was like, daddy breakfast, and Daddy
breakfast was grits, eggs, and bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But part of the reason why we were eating so
much grits, eggs and bacon was because grits was.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Extremely cheap and it was something that I could add
sugar to to make it sweet. If I wanted to
make it savor, I wouldn't put no sugar in there.
And it was just something for us to get by,
and I chose to just eat that because I didn't
want to eat out. Kadeen was working at the mall,
so she would get Johnny rockets here and there, and
I was just kind of like, you know what, I'm
not going to get on her about eating out because
she's at the wall at the mall.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And I'm at home, so all I did was eat
grits and eggs.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And there were times where we didn't even have bacon,
and it would just be grits and eggs, grits and eggs,
and k would come home and she would make dinner.
We didn't eat out for three years. Listen to me, people,
when I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating. Kadeen and I
didn't even go to TGI Fridays.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
For three years, and that was our thing.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
We didn't go on vacations. There were no designer bags,
there were no clothes. People be making jokes on me
now because I'll wear like the same shirt four days
in a row, but that's from a scarcity mindset because
I didn't buy any clothes. I would wear gym attire
everywhere because I was always in the gym. And I'm
giving you guys that story because you see us now
(04:20):
and we're enjoying life now, but it is twenty twenty three.
For seven years of our life, there was an extreme
sacrifice to get us to here. So when people ask
me what it takes to get to a level of
comfort and financial security, it takes sacrifice, all right.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Karaoke time. We don't want to be rich? Don't we
want to be rich?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think most people I've got the question before, like
would you want to be famous or rich? If I
really had it my way, I'd just be rich and
nobody wouldn't know, and I would just tell twenty one
you do something.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Can you hear a little rich flex? Bo me listen,
that's just all for and that's just it.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
We want to hit the rich flex and we're going
to hopefully tell y'all how to be able to flex. Yes,
if you follow a couple tips that our guests have
for you. If you are a nine to five worker
just trying to build your estate, to save, to pivot
to see what that next move is going to be?
What are some of the basics that you need?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
And when we say nine to five, that's not a
knock because Kadeen and I both will work.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well. She was working retail and I was working in
the gym, and.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
We had set hours we had to work and use
that income to build future revenues.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's effect and we work twenty five eight and that
sh ain't funn all the time neither.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No, it's not all right.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Stick around y'all, will take a quack break and come
back with our guests for today. All right, so today
we're talking building your estate. What that looks like for
you know, people who are just trying to save with
a regular nine to five job. And when we say
regular nine to five, we don't want to diminish the
(06:08):
value in a nine to five job, but just say, hey,
you know you're clocking in, clocking out, whatever your profession is,
you still want to find a way to build your
state and find ways to save effectively and still live
your best life. So we brought a special guest in today,
someone who has helped us over the course of what
the last twenty something.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Years, it's been about twenty years.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
About twenty years and us trying to figure out how
we can stay afloat amidst so many ebbs and flows
in life.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
From a financial perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So do you want to take that away and do
this intro for our special guests?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Sure, I don't even know how to introduce this young man.
I've known him I was I've known him since I
was born. I don't remember a point in my life
where Sean wasn't here. He was a member of the
Junior line, which was a young men's group that my
father had a mentorship group had a sale Missionary Baptist
(07:06):
church in the late alies, early nineties, all the way
through my high school graduation.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Which was in two thousand and two.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And he is like an older I'm not gonna say
like he is my older brother.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I remember. It's a quick story.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
I remember when Brian and I wanted to go see
Alan Iverson play and Sean had a car and he
took us to see Alan Iverson play. Now, this car
was old as shit, but it also speaks. It also
speaks to who he is and what he was teaching
(07:43):
us at the time. I think he had just graduated
from college and he was working. And there were two
guys in the group that I really really looked up to.
And I'm not gonna shame anybody, but one guy in
the group at the time, he was driving a brand
new Infinity and Sean on and graduated college and was
working on Wall Street, and he drove like was it a.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
Honda cordsan CenTra red Nissan. It was a red Nissan
one side view mirror, one.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
One side few mirror. He drove us all the way.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
To Philly, and see what was coming on the right side.
You have to It was a full look over the right.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Shoulder, full body turn, Sean says to me, And Brian
was just like, yo, because you know we call shotgun.
You want to ride in the front, Sean says, Yo,
whoever's riding in the front and the passenger side, don't
roll down the window because they don't.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Roll back up.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
So I rode to Philly in the front seat and
I ain't touched the window because Sean told me what
to do. As soon as Brian got in the front seat,
he throwed the window out and all her Sean was no, no, not.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The window.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Completely disregarded and just But the funny thing is he
he picked us up. It was me, my cousin, Devaughon,
and Brian. He took us to go see Alan, obviously,
who was my favorite player at the time. And I
did have the braids at the time, and we rode
in this old Nissan CenTra. But looking back on it now,
we used to clown Sean for having this old car
(09:10):
while working on Wall Street, and you know, we used
to glorify the guys who are Sean's age who had
new cars. But now I look at life, and I
see where Sean is with his wife and his kids
in his house and he's a financial advisor, and it
all made sense why during the time he was focused
on what was important and now what was flashy. And
(09:31):
I just want to give that story to introduce Shawn
is to why Sean is my statement because that always
stuck with me. I'm not going to give Sean's title,
because Sean gives all the times. I'm gon let Sean
give his titles. But this is my brother. He's been
a mentor, Dakota's godfather, a confidant, He's been so many things.
(09:52):
That's why just saying a CPA would not even give
him credit to who he really is.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But this is my.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Brother, and Sean for me, at least, as the most
soothing voice, so like everything could be crashing around us financially,
and it has over the course of the years been
crumbling around us, and there's something about Sean's voice.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Even my mom.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Said that she's like, oh my goodness, like he just
makes me feel like everything's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you know, And I love that for me.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
But that's the key. But that's the key, though.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
The key is showing to be like everything is going
to be okay as long as you have a plan.
So without further ado, my brother, my mental my big
bro man, Sean Freeman, he appreciate you.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Did appreciate you, Kay. I mean, you know, for me
personally first just titles and all of that stuff. I'm
a certified financial planner and for me, you know, just
kind of coming up period, I've always kind of wanted more.
I've always kind of been looking at the you know,
(10:52):
a step ahead, what can I do to kind of
continue to move from our situation that we knew about
growing up there. You kind of know, know our neighborhood,
you know where we're from. Kay, you know where we're from,
you know our neighborhood, and you kind of watch all
these things that are going on in the world around you,
and you me as an individual, always wanted more. I
(11:14):
always wanted I looked at what, you know, as the
son of an immigrant, my mom coming to this country
and doing all that she did with what knowing nothing,
and me being in this country, being in New York
and seeing all of the wealth around us, our little
neighborhood and wanting that and not having you know, I
couldn't talk to my mom about it. She didn't have
(11:36):
the understanding of what was going on in the world,
and I didn't either. So I go to college and
you start taking classes. You start taking you know, you
take finance classes, and you understand, you get a better
understanding of how numbers work and how finance actually works,
compounding compound interest. So, you know, at that point is
when I kind of decided that this is what I
(11:57):
wanted to do in the world. I wanted to be
a financial advisor. I wanted to be a financial planner
because I saw the opportunity from a from a wealth
standpoint to move me from what I knew to where
I envisioned I wanted to be. And so that's been
my problem. I'm always looking at step ahead. I look
I need, you know, Nicole tells me just live in
(12:20):
the moment, and I'm doing better. I'm working on myself
to live in the moment. But it's always been hard
for me to live in the moment. I always look
a step ahead for that car, you know, I'm looking
a step ahead. I'm always looking at step ahead the
car instead of the car. You know, we put that money,
we bought a condo at twenty whatever. You know, everyone
(12:43):
does these things. You know, I'm not special in any way,
you know, but I decided that I wanted the money
to go into real estate at that time. So, you know,
it's been a long career, successful career. I'm you know,
as you know, a partner at a within at a
wealth management group within Morgan Stanley. You guys have been
working with you guys since the beginning. And the thing
(13:05):
about your situation is that it's typical of any financial individual,
financial situation. It's personal, right. You had to go through
what you guys went through in the very beginning as
you're building this thing, this empire, this you know, what
you've created for yourselves. You've had to you had to
(13:26):
go through life and kind of understand what it's going
to you know, how it's going to look, what it's
going to be, and the challenges that are going to
come about because you're pursuing moving yourselves forward. So you
had high income, you moved, you had family issues that
kind of inserted themselves that you have to address. And
(13:47):
that's typical, like we all kind of have these different
things that are going to affect our decision making process.
But for me, it's also it's also about kind of
taking a step back and assessing your own personal situation
and making decisions within this environment that we're in every day,
this economic environment.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
So you know, as far as.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Real quick, I just want to I want to ask
you because you're speaking directly to our listeners, and a
lot of the things you always hear from from the
listeners is how do how do I take my family
to where you and coadeen to your family because they've
been following us from the very beginning, and they remember
us in the apartment, and you remember those times I
took a page out of your book. I had an
(14:30):
Audi A six, I got ridly out in six. We
downsized in cars. We you know, we partner with other
people to split rent. And I try to tell people
there are a lot of sacrifices that go into wealth,
wealth management and wealth building.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But then they say, once.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
You make the sacrifices and you have the capital, what
do you do? You know, they always say, well, what
are you investing? They always ask me, Devoute, what are
you invest in? You wear Nike? Do you invest in Nike?
And I try to explain to them it's not always
about just finding an investment to invest in.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's about having.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Multiple streams of income number one, but finding ways to
develop compound interest, like you always tell me.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
With the revenue.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
So can you speak a little bit about how you've
helped us build our financial plan? You know, I know
it's going to be different for us than this for
other people because everyone isn't going.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
To do seven jobs like we were doing.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
But if you had to speak to a group of
people who all work nine to five and looking for
a way to help build their wealth, what would you
say will be the first key steps?
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So I'm very I'm very careful about giving broad based
guidance right because it is specific. So I'm thinking about
a general nine to five person, right living in this
in this economy. You have bills, you have your mortgage,
I'm assuming your your rent. But if you have a
nine to five job, obviously you have something. You have
(15:53):
a four to one K, so you should put money
into that four one K. You could look to start
a business with some of that additional income. All of
both of those things build wealth, and I think people
sometimes kind of forget that the basics of just saving
money and setting money aside is wealth. Building. You know
(16:16):
you are. You know, if you consistently put money into
a four to one K or younger person in their
thirties and they do it till they're sixty, and you
take advantage of the maximum contribution levels that are available
to you in this country, you will have over a
million dollars in assets in one account. That's you know,
(16:40):
and I think people forget about. Everyone is looking for
this magic pill of building wealth. Wealth is the increase
of assets over time. And if you're working a nine
to five, you have at your disposal a retirement account
that you can put money into save, get compound interest,
and if you do that consistently, you will have over
(17:02):
a million dollars. A million dollars is a is a
real number. That's a real part of your net worth.
And in addition to that, owning a home, set of
paying rent. And again this is general, we're talking about
broad strokes, but if you own a home, you're paying
down the debt, you're building equity. Whatever you purchase that
(17:25):
home for nine times out of ten is going to
appreciate in value. And as you're paying down the debt,
you're increasing your wealth. So now you have a retirement asset.
You have a piece of real estate that at a baseline,
someone with a nine to five job that's working can
do those things, and that's a wealth building. That's wealth building.
(17:46):
And when we talk about wealth building, I don't always
only look at it from an individual standpoint. You also
got to look at what the impact is to your
family generationally. You know, today's economy is going to look
a lot different than the economy thirty years, you know,
twenty years from now. For your kids as an example,
(18:09):
you know, what we're doing today on an individual basis
for your family is going to allow you to give
your children opportunities that you didn't have to Instead of
them renting, instead of them potentially paying for school, they're
going to not have that sort of financial obligation. So
you're passing the wealth that you have created for yourselves
(18:32):
to them to make their path a lot easier. So
that's the thing. So those are two basic things that
can happen. Just paying attention to what's being offered to
you through the workforce, through real estate and just owning
and starting there. And if you have additional capital after that,
that's where we start talking about additional You know, you're
(18:52):
taking risks. But you guys have done all this. We
know you have your full one ks, you have your home,
you have you've done these things, these basic things I'm
saying everybody should do. But now you're also taking advantage
of smart planning as far as management and free cash flow,
and you're building out a business for yourself. That's it's
(19:15):
a risk though you're paying. You're putting a lot of
capital into the things that you're doing, and you're and
it's paying off. But it also could have gone the
other way, right, but it's paying and actually in the
beginning it did. You had your bumps.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Those and flows.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
They're definitely exactly the true, the true uh in the
terms of more money, more problems. It's like the more
you started to make, it's like, shoot, more things that
were coming up, and the more money coming in, there
was still more money going out, you know. And Sean,
we tell the story all the time about Deval retiring
from the league and then the recession hitting and him
taking the money that he had in the league and
(19:53):
trying to do all of the right things with it.
And we say all of the right things, meaning investing
in property, and then eventually he put some money in
some stock market, you know, investments and stuff like that,
and then ended up losing that when the market crashed
back in two thousand.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
What was that eight? That's eight?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
So what advice do you have for people who think
about having that extra money and then wanting to play
a little bit right, they want to invest in certain things?
What are some I don't want to say sure routes
for investment, but some that are going to be more
advantageous for people looking to gain.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
So that's a question about risk. Kadane, Right, So you
have a little extra You've done the basics, you have
your own or some you know, you're building equity in something,
you're saving money in a four to one k Now
you do have extra money for yourself. Now it's risk
in today's environment. And I said, you know, economy has changed,
but in today's environment, you can get guaranteed returns on
(20:52):
assets that are less risky than they were a year ago,
so you can buy I've had a lot of questions
about these eye bonds. Eyebonds at different times are paying
you over six and a half percent today, I think
it last time I checked, it was like six point
eight seven five. That's a guaranteed rate of return by
the government. Right, So you're talking about risk if two
(21:15):
years ago that same risk free investment was not paying
you that. So with extra money, you start you look
at how you can put that money to work you
and you rate that decision based on the risk you're taking. Today,
someone with free cash flow can get good returns four
or five six percent returns without taking a lot of
(21:38):
principal risk. Principal risk is you putting your money into something.
Your boy asked you to go invest in whatever it is,
and you put that money in. You could get that
money back with return or you could not. Today because
of where we are in the economy and with interest rates,
you're getting guaranteed returns that you weren't seeing before. So
(22:00):
you look at that and you make your decisions. And
number one, you take whatever little free cash flow that
you have and you say, you know what, I'm going
to set aside X amount of dollars and get guaranteed
six percent rates of return on this portion of the money.
I know that that's going to be there no matter
what building equity. Once that's done, see you gauge how
(22:21):
much additional money you have, and now maybe you want
to take some risk by investing in stocks. Stocks have
corrected significantly over the last year, so you're down twenty
percent in some cases, double digits on average in a
lot of cases. Put money into some stocks that that
you know, companies that you know that have depreciated in value,
(22:44):
and you plan on holding those for the long run.
That's another level of risk. So you have bonds that
are low risks, you have stocks that are going to
give you more return potentially over time, but carry additional risk.
And then you kind of continue to go up the ladder.
Maybe you want to start a business again risk that's
more risks than stocks and cash. But now you're kind
(23:06):
of figuring out what it is you have left for
yourself to do all of these things. And that's where
an individual has to kind of assess their own situation
and say, you know what I make out of one
hundred percent overall money that I make, I'm setting aside
fifty percent in my retirement. I'm putting money into my home.
I have fifty percent left over. You know, I'm gonna
(23:29):
I want to make sure that I have about a
year's worth of expenses set aside. I'm going to put
that into bonds. And then the difference is you talk
as a family, as a group, as a community and
say what am I going to put the rest of
the money in to kind of get these returns that
can push my wealth building. I'll go forward even faster.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
The thing I love about you, Sean was years ago
when I was in the NFL, I was always looking
for you. You know me, I'm always looking for ways
to make money. How can I do this money? And
all you kept saying to me was time. All you
kept saying to me was the now. This takes time.
Like this is a life investment. This isn't an investment
where you put something in for two years and you
(24:11):
expect a huge return. And I'll give the listeners who
are listening some insight. When I first made it to
the NFL, my salary was two hundred and seventy five K.
And when you hear that, I was and this is
coming from a kid from Brooklyn, I was like, oh,
I'm rich. And Sean was like, you're not rich. Like
you're making good money, but you're not making.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Terrell Owens money. You know, you're not making Tom Brady money.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
You're not making millions of dollars a year and I
had the only income at the house. So this is
a two person income and I'm making two seventy five.
That's like two people making a buck thirty a piece.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
So when I was making that money, Sean was like,
you want to buy some property, you want to make
some investments, but you also need to start thinking about
what businesses you want to start. But it doesn't need
something that's not something that those businesses are going to
turn around value in the next five years. Immediately you're
trying to build something long term. And I kid you
guys not I bought two property. My brother and I
(25:09):
started some property and it took Kadeen and I ten
years to build to a point where we felt comfortable
saying we can make a move or pivot in a
different direction. And the reason why I want to tell
that story is because that was a ten year investment
and that was with an NFL salary. So if you
have people here who are working nine to five, who
are making six figures, and you have two salaries, it's
(25:31):
going to take time, but you can wealth build. But
don't expect the wealth building process to be a year.
Don't expect it to be. I invested it this in
six months and now I'm filthy rich. It takes time,
and as long as you have invested in the time
it will take to see returns on your investment, you'll
be doing well and doing yourself for a service. So
I just want our listeners to know that everything that
(25:53):
Sean is saying, we've already put in place. When I
was in the NFL, I put my money in my
four to one K, I bought property, we invest in stocks,
we invested in bonds, and throughout the course of the
ten years, when we went to make the pivot and
move to LA I ended up selling those properties and
using that money as a way for us to move.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
But that was a wealth building move.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
We was in the apartment for nine years, and as
we got equity in those properties, we were able to
take out the capital and build. So I really want
to put that on people's hearts to let them know
that this takes time.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You can't rush this process.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I was just going to say, you're absolutely right, and
it's also work like. It's not easy. It's not in
the basic things that we're talking about with the four
one K, It's not easy. To give up twenty to
thirty thousand dollars out of someone's income. Everything about it.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Talk about it, right.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
It's not easy to set It's not easy to commit
to owning a home and paying a thirty year mortgage
on time every single month. It's not easy building you know,
a business out like you know, people look at their
everyone else's situation and kind of make judgments about that's
what success looks like, That's what wealth looks like. But
(27:05):
I you know, working with wealthy people when they're wealthy,
when they're relatively wealthy to others, it doesn't feel it
doesn't seem well, it's hard. It's hard maintaining the things
that you're committed to. It's hard to build it. You know,
you look at all of the work specific to you
guys that it took to kind of move forward. And
(27:28):
I'm not saying the journey is not over. It's just
you're just moving forward. And you can speak to how
hard daily it is to maintain where your move the
wealth building, you know, and that's what people when I
talk about, you know, when people talk about retirement, retirement
is just not working anymore. And work is a real thing.
(27:50):
Work is how you are building these these This work
is what's going to build the wealth that you envision
for yourself. But while you're in the middle of it,
I can't say unless you were given something, If you
were given millions of dollars by your family, maybe it's easier.
But we're talking about people that get up every day
(28:11):
and make hard and tough decisions and commit to those
decisions and navigate those decisions every day until they can
take a break.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
So you know, that's that's why I wanted to cut
you off, not to cut you off. That's why I
told a story about you driving that car, because that
was a credit to the sacrifice you were making in
your twenties to say, you know what, I'm not going
to go get me an expensive car just because I
work on Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I'm going to get a condo.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And then, to me, that's what people don't want to hear.
Every time someone asked me, how did you do it?
They expect me to give them like a three step
method to make a million dollars in six months. And
then when you tell them, well, I had an Audi
and I didn't drive an AUTI for four years, me
and Case shared a car. I took the train. We
didn't go on vacation for four years. I didn't buy
(28:58):
any clothes, we didn't eat out, we didn't yoh. Then
they'd be like, oh, that's not really a plan. It's like, no,
that's exactly what the plan plan.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
The plan is to sacrifice, you.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Know, yes, yes, And it's just like living in the
society we live in. Everything is about instant gratification. You know,
this generation things that things are just super super easy,
and then they're also contending with this aspirational lifestyle that
so many people are trying to live up to.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We did an episode which we already told the listeners
that we were going to be speaking with you on
an episode about wedding culture and how it's literally trash
now because the average cost for a wedding in the
United States right now is thirty grand. Where people are
aspiring to have these one hundred thousand dollars weddings just
to keep up with the viral moments on Instagram. And
(29:42):
we spoke about you know, taking that money and making
it more of an investment move versus a one day thing.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
I mean, and it's happening across the economy. K it's weddings,
it's the cost of education, it's the cost of homes,
all of these decisions, like everything that we are committing
to costs money, and it's and it's a sacrifice. And
people cannot appreciate your how hard it is to be
(30:09):
in one situation. Looking at you, guys, the world may
think it's easy. I damn, I know it's not easy.
I know it's not easy. I know how heavy that
load is. I don't know whoever may be looking at
me on the outs, I may think it's easy. Oh
how you know what? It is so specific to the individual,
(30:30):
and there is no quick and easy fix. We want
to make it easier for our children though, Yeah, that's
for sure. We want to give them a little bit
of a leg up, just like my mom did. My
mom moved. My mom literally left Jamaica as a single
black woman in her twenties to come here. Everything I'm
doing is easy. This is not this is that's that
(30:53):
was hard.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
That'spective.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Some of the stories Shawn Sean from Shawn's family from Jamaica.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
My mom.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
My mom came up here at seventeen by herself, looking
to become a nurse, started working at Burger King, you know,
and worked her way up, so we share some of
those stories.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, and your family d came from this, I guess
you know. My family came from the people man. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, But I think the biggest thing that I want
to implore with people is stop looking for quick fixes.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Instagram and social media is not a real place, right.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
It takes time, it takes discipline, it takes strategy, you know.
And if and if there were three things that someone
is what does it take to build wealth? I would
say time, discipline, and strategy. If you have those things,
and if you remain consistent over the course of time,
you can build wealth. But most of the wealth you see,
the most of the wealth you gain you won't even
be able to see.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Your children will see it. And that to me is
the biggest aid.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Yeah, you're you are, You're not. The goal should never
be to spend the money that we made. We're living,
We're up every single day, we're working hard, we are maintaining,
we're making good decisions. We're trying to grow this wealth.
But at the end of the day, we're not trying
to leave this earth with zero and have these kids.
(32:15):
The things that are really important families starting from zero, right, right,
So we're not spending or we're not going to have
the luxury of all of this wealth building that we're
talking about to use for ourselves. It's just not how
it works. Anything I do for clients, all of the
projections that I run, it's to maintain what they've built
(32:37):
for themselves. So for you guys, it's going to be
to maintain when you're when you finally decide that somehow
you're going to slow down, both of you, we're going
to want to have the assets that you that have
worked hard to set aside working for you, so you
can take a step back. But the kids, the boys,
they're going to get that money and they're going to
(32:59):
figure out how to grow it for their kids. It's
not I'll go back. I'll just say it's not easy.
Those three things that you mentioned, time, discipline, I think
you said strategy.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Is that the strategy. You have to have a strategy.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Yeah, you have to have a strategy and kind of
be willing to work at that strategy. I don't know
how many people out there and kind of you know,
visualizing what you guys have and do, but it takes
work and it takes the time to kind of execute
on it so that it becomes something that's real, something
that's helping you to build wealth. There's no easy there's
(33:37):
no quick fix, there's no easy answer. It's an individual decision.
But going back to kind of the original questions, there
are some basic things that you can do and that's
and those things, those basic things are not easy either.
Like I said, you're giving up money that you're working
for to achieve, retire you know, four one K, owning
a home, and then anything you do after that is
(34:00):
in order for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So how about those are the three things we're going
to give them if it takes time, discipline, strategy, but ultimately,
if you want to start now, if you work a
traditional nine to five, look into a four on one k,
look into purchasing a home, and if that means you
have to save x amount of dollars per month for
two years, this is what me and k have. We
worked on another another podcast talking about saving for the wedding.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Kadeen and I was like.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
If you if each couple saves a thousand dollars, each
person in the couple saves one thousand dollars a month,
that'll give you two thousand dollars a month, that'll give
you twenty four thousand dollars for the year.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
If you do like.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Kadeena and I did, and you say, you know what
we're gonna do four years of just straight sacrifice. That's
ninety six thousand dollars you can save over the course
of four years. That is a down payment. If you're
putting down twenty percent on a home, that is a
down payment on ninety thousand dollars. Dude, at least a
(35:01):
half a million dollar home. I think that's a nice
start for a family who's looking to buy a home
in America. Have so many dollars from home, and you
could put down ninety k that.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Metropolis like a New York or LA trying to find property.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
But you know, oh yeah, yeah, if you're in New
York or LA, it's extremely different. But also where you
live is also a decision you have to make.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
But another thing you said, de Val is also working together,
because Sean, we get a lot of couples who write
in just for our listener letters, and you know such
and they are asking advice because one person in the
couple tends to be a little bit more financially savvy,
or may have more business acumen than the other, or
one tends to be more of a spender than the
other and doesn't understand the sacrifice involved. And we've been
there too, Sean, you know that for sure, where Deval
(35:44):
and I have had our moments where you know, if
he's had to school me on certain things, or Shawn's
had to call me and say, hey, you know, what's
the budget, what's the plan? So being on the same page,
I think is also very important if you're trying to
legacy and wealth build with somebody that's a relationship for sure.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I think we might have lost se On. We were
on our way to closing out anyway, but I think
we might have lost se On. Yeah, we lost on
there his internet. We might be able to get him back.
He's sacrificing on the internet as well. That's part of
his wealth building plans.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Now he's trying to sabotage us, giving all the secrets,
the tips and tricks to be wealthy black people be aware.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
But no, but that's actually a key. When people asked
me how I was able to do certain things. I
bought property early and it was time for us to
make some moves. I cashed in on those properties to be.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Able to pivot because at the time I remember too
Sean saying, like certain investments that you wanted to make,
for example, buying your grandparents' house is not necessarily the
best financially sound investment because it didn't really do much
for you.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
But I mean, I think you had to write off
in it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, I used it as a couple of write offs.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
I use it appreciation to write off my taxes and
stuff like that. But also the property over time, because
I held on to the property for I think twelve
thirteen years, built a small amount of equity, so when
I sold it, I was able to get about thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Dollars and also build credit too.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
It helped me build my credit, help you building credits
and the Michigan property.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
And this is also to tell y'all the truth.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Part of the reason why when we had the topic
about the house of the wedding, Coadem picked the wedding
is because we already owned two properties, so we were
thinking about buying our dream house, but we still already
owned two properties, so we were still very fiscally responsible
with that decision. Even though hindsight it wasn't the best
decision both when we were ready to move to LA,
I sold the Michigan property and now had access to
(37:30):
seventy K.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So you figured the thirty K to seventy K.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
They gave us one hundred thousand dollars, which gave us
a next day to pivot and start rebuilding our life
in la and.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Taking the risks the risk for sure, So thank you, Sean.
I'm not sure if we're going to be able to
get him back.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Okay, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Sorry guy, that's my cord and drove.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Oh, no, worry about, no where about. So actually no,
we were actually going to get ready to close out anyway.
I don't know if you hear your gods in the
background screaming like the lunatic. Yeah, we were getting ready
to close out.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
During that time when you were going we were just
talking about how purchasing the homes early on in our
career actually helped us when we were getting ready to move.
But at the time we were like, we didn't see
the purpose of the investment, you know, and you and
I know we did it to help my family. But
over time, over those twelve or thirteen years, I was
able to use it as some write offs and get
(38:26):
some equity, so that when we were ready to pivot
in LA, it was like, Wow, this is actually an
okay long term investment. That's why it's always okay to
buy property and get.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Involved, to be aware of what's long term and short term.
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Well, Sean, I'm sure we could talk with you so
many different things when it comes to finance, wealth building
and all that good stuff. But just a little bit
of insight I think would be so helpful to our listeners.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
So thank you for joining us to Dana.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
You're a busy, busy man over there helping people juggle
all this money. Yeah, but we appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
We love you.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
We thank you for everything that you love you bro,
and you continue to do for the culture of educating
us because you know, as a culture and as a community,
these are the things that we don't necessarily always share
with each other. So having platforms and forums like this
are so important.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
And let me jump in real quick.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
When I was fifteen, Sean had a He started doing
this wealth building stuff with us when I was fifteen.
I remember you came to Uncle Charles's house. It was me,
Jonathan DeVaughn, and it was about seven boy Scouts. And
it's funny when someone takes initiative into helping the youth
or helping people in the community, you don't know if
(39:38):
you're affecting everybody a one person, but I know at
that meeting, I was the one person that was listening
and now look, and it started from that. I was like, wow,
wealth building. And I was fifteen, and I remember, you know,
some of the kids just like, oh my gosh, so
what is this. I don't want to listen. And he
came with pamphlets, he had folders, and I remember looking
at this.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Stuff and thinking like that I can have more.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Ultimately, that's what we want our listeners to understand, that
you can have more, but it takes time.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So I love you, bro. I'm gonna give.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
You your flowers because you've been on this and you've
been on me about this since I was young.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
So I guess I could technically thank Sean because that's
one thing that's found very attractive about the Vale, y'all.
I'll tell y'all, he had business acumen and financial acumen
that I did not know about.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
But I found it very, very, very sexy.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
When he was telling me out all the plants he
had to buy a brownstone, leave in the bottom level,
rent out the top, make money, have passive income.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I was like, ooh, eighteen, Sean was telling me.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
You Sean with you.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Yeah, look, you gotta have you gotta have dream. You
gotta dream. You gotta dream. You gotta latch onto your
dreams and and and and latch onto them and work,
work your butt off to to achieve them. You know,
if you if you come up short, if you come
up short, that's fine. You're still you're still knocking the
go off the ball, so you know.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But you're still in the game.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Even if you come up short, You're still in the
game as long as you don't quit. So you never fail,
you know, because you know what I went through, even
even buying properties early investing in the stock market when
the recession hit, I was down bad. I happen to
get cut during the worst time in the financial history
in America since the Great Depression. But we were able to,
with discipline and with your help, just build back.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
YEP.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I wish there was a way to really express to
your listeners how hard it was, though, Like I don't
I don't know if that. I don't know if they
can connect where you guys are today without how hard
you had to work to get to where you are
today and how hard the journey is going to be
going forward. Everybody kind of looks at these things I feel,
(41:47):
and they just see the moment and they don't really
understand what it takes. Yeah, so I just you know,
I will, I guess in part of I would just say,
nect with your dreams and just be really ready to
work your ass off to hit to hit those goals,
(42:07):
because it's not going You can talk. I mean, I
tell my kids and my family, I hear you. You know,
I understand when you talk and you say you want
to do these things and show me, you know, show
me whatever it is, whatever that goal is, wherever you
want to do, whatever you want to do in life.
(42:27):
Let's take the steps now to get you get you there.
So you know, I guess that the closing stop really,
you know, I would, I would. I would encourage your
listeners to not focus on the now, just really connect
with the work that has to be done to get
you to your individual dream, your individual goal.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Dope, dope, and appreciate, thank you. So much, Sean. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
All Right, y'all, we're going to let Sean go and
we'll take a quick break and then we'll get back
into listener letters after we pay some bills because listen,
be talking money and it's got to get paid because.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
They're definitely show up at your door step.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
I love you, guys, love you to love you too, bro.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Thanks Bro.
Speaker 6 (43:06):
We'll be back all right.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
So we're back now today. Because of the length of
the show, we're only gonna do one listener letter.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So I'm gonna start it out.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
You ready, baby, Okay, go ahead. Do you know which
one are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (43:29):
First things first, Pop, Please, First things first, I recently
started listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I'm definitely not disappointed. Well, we appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
I'm literally starting from the beginning anyway. I'm only eighteen, wow,
and I graduate in a few months. I'm going into
the military and then I'm going to my dream college.
I'm currently with someone, and people classify young relationships as
puppy love, but you guys met young as well. I'm
like I like him a lot, maybe even love. I
just have so many things going for me. He's great,
(43:59):
with supporting me and I help him as well. So
my question to you guys is should I commit to
him or should I wait and see how everything plays out.
I want that young and grow to get the type
of love, but not everybody guys specifically want to commit
so young, you.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Know, Yeah, I know, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
I think we had a Listening letter in the Listening
Letter episodes where it was similar. It was the girl
who was twenty one and she was trying to think, like,
is this my soulmate? I feel like he might be,
And I'm always conflicted because I'm like, shoot, Kadeen now
at thirty nine, wants to tell her a girl, just.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Enjoy yourself, see how things play out.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
You know, do you you know, be the individual, learn
who you are, learn.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
What you like you know.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
But then I'm also thinking about Kadeen at eighteen, who
was madly in love with this man after two weeks
and was just like, I love you, I want to
be with you.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Told my cousin I found my.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Husband, and here we are twenty something years later, literally
still together. But I will say the process was not easy.
And if you're a new listener and you're listening from
the beginning. Then you'll also learn about thou and my
struggle in so many different points of our relationship. Trying
to stay afloat is particularly in our book. We gave
(45:08):
our the story of how we met and how things
kind of played out over the course of the next
ten years after that.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
What do you think, babe?
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I think for.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
An answer like this, you can't give a generic answer
a question like this. You know, I can't say yeah,
stick together, no, speak to each other if you want to.
If you want to stick it, first of all, don't
listen to nobody else.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That part.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
If you listen to the people around you.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
I don't know if you listen to Kadeen and I
story or if you Watchatima, everybody else around you was
going to give you some messed up advice about your
life because they're not in your life.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
The only person that knows about your life, and I'm
talking about Kadeen and I as well, is you. You
speak to that young man and y'all figure out what
type of life y'all want to live. If he says
he's in it for the long hold and he wants
to do it from young age, y'all work on doing
it and have fun doing it.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
If he's telling you how, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
I want to take some time and I'm not sure,
give him his time, and you find somebody who you
want to build it with.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
But the only person who has that answer, Mama, is you.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That is a fact.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
So good luck to you, Sis. You know, it could
also be a thing where you guys just start working
together and then seeing how things go, you might end
up being great friends. Like Daval and I knew that
we didn't want to be together when we met each other.
That was like, that was like the thing.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I didn't want to be a boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I didn't want to be a girlfriend. I wanted to
be in d streets having a good time. And then
there was that undeniable connection, that vibe, that energy that
we just could not shake.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
So maybe see where things go. You know, you said you.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Like him a lot, you maybe even love You're not sure,
you know, see where it goes, see where it goes,
and just don't put too much pressure on yourself or
on him, because you got a lot of life ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
All right, Sis, that was a pretty easy one.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yeah, nice end to a great podcast episode. If you
want to be featured as one of our listener letters.
Be sure to email us at dead Ass Advice gmail
dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
That's D E A D A S S A d
V I C at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
All right, Moment of true time.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
We're talking estate building, legacy building savings with Sean Freeman
today with people who are trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Moment of truth.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Moment of truth time.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
Takes three things to build wealth, discipline, time, and a strategy.
And I'll put in this order discipline, a strategy, and time.
If you have those three things, you can definitely build wealth.
It doesn't matter what type of job you have. Give
yourself greats along the way, because it's going to be
(47:38):
ebbs and flows. But you got to have discipline, You
got to give yourself time, and you have to have
a strategy that's.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
A really good one.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Based on the conversation, I'm going to speak to people
who are possibly single, possibly in relationships, couples. I think
it's important to have conversations early on about finances, business acumen,
financial acumen goals when it comes to finances, because that
tends to be the number one stress stressor within relationships.
Absolutely so, just making sure that you're on the same
(48:06):
page about the trajectory of your finances, the investments that
you plan to make, how you're planning to pool money
together or divide money, because that tends to be an
issue sometimes for couples. Just having the conversations early on
will help to alleviate I think, some of the stress
in the long run, because if you're not on the
(48:27):
same page upfront about what your financial journey is going
to look like, it can be a real detriment to
your life and to your relationship. So having those conversations
early on, I think is super super important, and try
to learn from each other because usually, like I said,
in a relationship, one person may be a little bit
more financially savvy than the other. And in our case,
it was de Val who was as we can see,
(48:48):
because Sean was speaking to him early on, and those
are things that stuck with him that he was able
to apply to his life and then in turn to mind.
So be open minded about it and have those conversations.
Transparency is very key, especially with finances.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
By property investing your four on one K, if your
company's going to match it, you put in fifteen thousand,
they're going to put in fifteen thousand. That's fifteen thousand.
You get free and you get to write it off
on your taxes period. And oh, this is the last
thing I will say. Oh, don't be afraid to go
into your four on one K. If you have a
good financial plan that's going to use that money, you
(49:23):
do not have to wait until you sixty five. I've
done this. I've seen plenty of people done this, and
I've helped them with this. Take the penalty if did
you know the reward is going to be greater than
the penalty that you paid. And that's I had a
friend had a friend years ago who was just like
the vialle I'm thinking about opening up a subway and
(49:44):
I was just like, okay, what's toping? So I don't
have the capital, So I was like, you have four
one K. He's like, yeah, but that's for my retirement.
I said, well, list at the subway party of retirement.
So if you got money in the four on one
K and it's gaining interest, what if you took out
a part of it invested in a sub and now
that subway is making you more of.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
A return than you're four one k? And he was like, oh,
you know what that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
A lot of people are scared it for one K.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Guess how many subways he got now three?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Shut up?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Started with one, Now he got three?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
All right, good shit, so we aired.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Folks inspired, be sure to follow us on Patreon to
see exclusive dead Ass podcast video content, and follow us
on social media. You can find the podcast page dead
Ass the Podcast on Instagram and I am Kadine, I
am and.
Speaker 4 (50:26):
I am Devout And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
be sure to rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
That's it, baby, and get his money, all right.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Dead Ass.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network, and
it's produced by Donor Opinia and Triple. Follow the podcast
on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and never
miss a Thing.
Making money costs money.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You ain't never lie.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
And I think people see where we are today, but
nobody has any idea how hard we had to work
to get to this point, other.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Than our guest today. He knows he has some insight, y'all. Hey,
I'm Kadeen and I'm devout and where the ellis's.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Boys and reading each other publicly as a.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Form of therapy.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yes, sir, we are.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Li's most taboo topics.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass
is a term that we say every day.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts,
one hundred truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
We about to take pilot off to our whole new level.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
This story time is gonna take you back to I'm
gonna say two.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Thousand and eleven, twenty eleven to two thousand and fourteen
is when Jackson was born.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Those first three years. I'm going to give as visual
as I can.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
What we were going through when we were at our worst,
cause I don't think I've ever got this graphic about
how bad it was at times. Twenty eleven, we had Jackson,
we had got health insurance because Kadeen was working at MAC.
I was not making any money, like at this point
the money I had in the NFL was now an investment.
(01:56):
I was working at Parice No, I was working at
Poly Prep as a football coach and Paris Speed School,
and I was also doing color commentary. So I was
making roughly I would say seventy k at the time.
We had the apartment. We had two mortgages, and we
(02:17):
had three car notes. We had the car note for
the f one to fifty, we had the car note
for on Debbie, then we had the car note for
the Audi. I was spending roughly eighteen hundred dollars a
month traveling back and forth to Staten Island working at
Parisi's Speed school, and I was only making twelve hundred
(02:37):
dollars a month, So.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I was in the red when it came to that job.
But I was supplementing that.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
We're working at MSG varsity, also doing some commercials and
stuff like that. But we were struggling so much with
money that I had to make it a fun thing
to only eat Daddy breakfast throughout the day. So I
was watching Jackson, and I was watching Jackson to day
(03:01):
because Jackson, I mean, because kay was working at mac
and I was like, Jackson, we're gonna have for breakfast.
And he was young, he was like two two turning
on three, and he was like, daddy breakfast, and Daddy
breakfast was grits, eggs, and bacon.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But part of the reason why we were eating so
much grits, eggs and bacon was because grits was.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Extremely cheap and it was something that I could add
sugar to to make it sweet. If I wanted to
make it savor, I wouldn't put no sugar in there.
And it was just something for us to get by,
and I chose to just eat that because I didn't
want to eat out. Kadeen was working at the mall,
so she would get Johnny rockets here and there, and
I was just kind of like, you know what, I'm
not going to get on her about eating out because
she's at the wall at the mall.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And I'm at home, so all I did was eat
grits and eggs.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And there were times where we didn't even have bacon,
and it would just be grits and eggs, grits and eggs,
and k would come home and she would make dinner.
We didn't eat out for three years. Listen to me, people,
when I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating. Kadeen and I
didn't even go to TGI Fridays.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
For three years, and that was our thing.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
We didn't go on vacations. There were no designer bags,
there were no clothes. People be making jokes on me
now because I'll wear like the same shirt four days
in a row, but that's from a scarcity mindset because
I didn't buy any clothes. I would wear gym attire
everywhere because I was always in the gym. And I'm
giving you guys that story because you see us now
(04:20):
and we're enjoying life now, but it is twenty twenty three.
For seven years of our life, there was an extreme
sacrifice to get us to here. So when people ask
me what it takes to get to a level of
comfort and financial security, it takes sacrifice, all right.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Karaoke time. We don't want to be rich? Don't we
want to be rich?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think most people I've got the question before, like
would you want to be famous or rich? If I
really had it my way, I'd just be rich and
nobody wouldn't know, and I would just tell twenty one
you do something.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Can you hear a little rich flex? Bo me listen,
that's just all for and that's just it.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
We want to hit the rich flex and we're going
to hopefully tell y'all how to be able to flex. Yes,
if you follow a couple tips that our guests have
for you. If you are a nine to five worker
just trying to build your estate, to save, to pivot
to see what that next move is going to be?
What are some of the basics that you need?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
And when we say nine to five, that's not a
knock because Kadeen and I both will work.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well. She was working retail and I was working in
the gym, and.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
We had set hours we had to work and use
that income to build future revenues.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's effect and we work twenty five eight and that
sh ain't funn all the time neither.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
No, it's not all right.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Stick around y'all, will take a quack break and come
back with our guests for today. All right, so today
we're talking building your estate. What that looks like for
you know, people who are just trying to save with
a regular nine to five job. And when we say
regular nine to five, we don't want to diminish the
(06:08):
value in a nine to five job, but just say, hey,
you know you're clocking in, clocking out, whatever your profession is,
you still want to find a way to build your
state and find ways to save effectively and still live
your best life. So we brought a special guest in today,
someone who has helped us over the course of what
the last twenty something.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Years, it's been about twenty years.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
About twenty years and us trying to figure out how
we can stay afloat amidst so many ebbs and flows
in life.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
From a financial perspective.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
So do you want to take that away and do
this intro for our special guests?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Sure, I don't even know how to introduce this young man.
I've known him I was I've known him since I
was born. I don't remember a point in my life
where Sean wasn't here. He was a member of the
Junior line, which was a young men's group that my
father had a mentorship group had a sale Missionary Baptist
(07:06):
church in the late alies, early nineties, all the way
through my high school graduation.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Which was in two thousand and two.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And he is like an older I'm not gonna say
like he is my older brother.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I remember. It's a quick story.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
I remember when Brian and I wanted to go see
Alan Iverson play and Sean had a car and he
took us to see Alan Iverson play. Now, this car
was old as shit, but it also speaks. It also
speaks to who he is and what he was teaching
(07:43):
us at the time. I think he had just graduated
from college and he was working. And there were two
guys in the group that I really really looked up to.
And I'm not gonna shame anybody, but one guy in
the group at the time, he was driving a brand
new Infinity and Sean on and graduated college and was
working on Wall Street, and he drove like was it a.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
Honda cordsan CenTra red Nissan. It was a red Nissan
one side view mirror, one.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
One side few mirror. He drove us all the way.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
To Philly, and see what was coming on the right side.
You have to It was a full look over the right.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Shoulder, full body turn, Sean says to me, And Brian
was just like, yo, because you know we call shotgun.
You want to ride in the front, Sean says, Yo,
whoever's riding in the front and the passenger side, don't
roll down the window because they don't.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Roll back up.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
So I rode to Philly in the front seat and
I ain't touched the window because Sean told me what
to do. As soon as Brian got in the front seat,
he throwed the window out and all her Sean was no, no, not.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The window.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Completely disregarded and just But the funny thing is he
he picked us up. It was me, my cousin, Devaughon,
and Brian. He took us to go see Alan, obviously,
who was my favorite player at the time. And I
did have the braids at the time, and we rode
in this old Nissan CenTra. But looking back on it now,
we used to clown Sean for having this old car
(09:10):
while working on Wall Street, and you know, we used
to glorify the guys who are Sean's age who had
new cars. But now I look at life, and I
see where Sean is with his wife and his kids
in his house and he's a financial advisor, and it
all made sense why during the time he was focused
on what was important and now what was flashy. And
(09:31):
I just want to give that story to introduce Shawn
is to why Sean is my statement because that always
stuck with me. I'm not going to give Sean's title,
because Sean gives all the times. I'm gon let Sean
give his titles. But this is my brother. He's been
a mentor, Dakota's godfather, a confidant, He's been so many things.
(09:52):
That's why just saying a CPA would not even give
him credit to who he really is.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
But this is my.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Brother, and Sean for me, at least, as the most
soothing voice, so like everything could be crashing around us financially,
and it has over the course of the years been
crumbling around us, and there's something about Sean's voice.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Even my mom.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Said that she's like, oh my goodness, like he just
makes me feel like everything's gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you know, And I love that for me.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
But that's the key. But that's the key, though.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
The key is showing to be like everything is going
to be okay as long as you have a plan.
So without further ado, my brother, my mental my big
bro man, Sean Freeman, he appreciate you.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
Did appreciate you, Kay. I mean, you know, for me
personally first just titles and all of that stuff. I'm
a certified financial planner and for me, you know, just
kind of coming up period, I've always kind of wanted more.
I've always kind of been looking at the you know,
(10:52):
a step ahead, what can I do to kind of
continue to move from our situation that we knew about
growing up there. You kind of know, know our neighborhood,
you know where we're from. Kay, you know where we're from,
you know our neighborhood, and you kind of watch all
these things that are going on in the world around you,
and you me as an individual, always wanted more. I
(11:14):
always wanted I looked at what, you know, as the
son of an immigrant, my mom coming to this country
and doing all that she did with what knowing nothing,
and me being in this country, being in New York
and seeing all of the wealth around us, our little
neighborhood and wanting that and not having you know, I
couldn't talk to my mom about it. She didn't have
(11:36):
the understanding of what was going on in the world,
and I didn't either. So I go to college and
you start taking classes. You start taking you know, you
take finance classes, and you understand, you get a better
understanding of how numbers work and how finance actually works,
compounding compound interest. So, you know, at that point is
when I kind of decided that this is what I
(11:57):
wanted to do in the world. I wanted to be
a financial advisor. I wanted to be a financial planner
because I saw the opportunity from a from a wealth
standpoint to move me from what I knew to where
I envisioned I wanted to be. And so that's been
my problem. I'm always looking at step ahead. I look
I need, you know, Nicole tells me just live in
(12:20):
the moment, and I'm doing better. I'm working on myself
to live in the moment. But it's always been hard
for me to live in the moment. I always look
a step ahead for that car, you know, I'm looking
a step ahead. I'm always looking at step ahead the
car instead of the car. You know, we put that money,
we bought a condo at twenty whatever. You know, everyone
(12:43):
does these things. You know, I'm not special in any way,
you know, but I decided that I wanted the money
to go into real estate at that time. So, you know,
it's been a long career, successful career. I'm you know,
as you know, a partner at a within at a
wealth management group within Morgan Stanley. You guys have been
working with you guys since the beginning. And the thing
(13:05):
about your situation is that it's typical of any financial individual,
financial situation. It's personal, right. You had to go through
what you guys went through in the very beginning as
you're building this thing, this empire, this you know, what
you've created for yourselves. You've had to you had to
(13:26):
go through life and kind of understand what it's going
to you know, how it's going to look, what it's
going to be, and the challenges that are going to
come about because you're pursuing moving yourselves forward. So you
had high income, you moved, you had family issues that
kind of inserted themselves that you have to address. And
(13:47):
that's typical, like we all kind of have these different
things that are going to affect our decision making process.
But for me, it's also it's also about kind of
taking a step back and assessing your own personal situation
and making decisions within this environment that we're in every day,
this economic environment.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
So you know, as far as.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Real quick, I just want to I want to ask
you because you're speaking directly to our listeners, and a
lot of the things you always hear from from the
listeners is how do how do I take my family
to where you and coadeen to your family because they've
been following us from the very beginning, and they remember
us in the apartment, and you remember those times I
took a page out of your book. I had an
(14:30):
Audi A six, I got ridly out in six. We
downsized in cars. We you know, we partner with other
people to split rent. And I try to tell people
there are a lot of sacrifices that go into wealth,
wealth management and wealth building.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But then they say, once.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
You make the sacrifices and you have the capital, what
do you do? You know, they always say, well, what
are you investing? They always ask me, Devoute, what are
you invest in? You wear Nike? Do you invest in Nike?
And I try to explain to them it's not always
about just finding an investment to invest in.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
It's about having.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Multiple streams of income number one, but finding ways to
develop compound interest, like you always tell me.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
With the revenue.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
So can you speak a little bit about how you've
helped us build our financial plan? You know, I know
it's going to be different for us than this for
other people because everyone isn't going.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
To do seven jobs like we were doing.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
But if you had to speak to a group of
people who all work nine to five and looking for
a way to help build their wealth, what would you
say will be the first key steps?
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So I'm very I'm very careful about giving broad based
guidance right because it is specific. So I'm thinking about
a general nine to five person, right living in this
in this economy. You have bills, you have your mortgage,
I'm assuming your your rent. But if you have a
nine to five job, obviously you have something. You have
(15:53):
a four to one K, so you should put money
into that four one K. You could look to start
a business with some of that additional income. All of
both of those things build wealth, and I think people
sometimes kind of forget that the basics of just saving
money and setting money aside is wealth. Building. You know
(16:16):
you are. You know, if you consistently put money into
a four to one K or younger person in their
thirties and they do it till they're sixty, and you
take advantage of the maximum contribution levels that are available
to you in this country, you will have over a
million dollars in assets in one account. That's you know,
(16:40):
and I think people forget about. Everyone is looking for
this magic pill of building wealth. Wealth is the increase
of assets over time. And if you're working a nine
to five, you have at your disposal a retirement account
that you can put money into save, get compound interest,
and if you do that consistently, you will have over
(17:02):
a million dollars. A million dollars is a is a
real number. That's a real part of your net worth.
And in addition to that, owning a home, set of
paying rent. And again this is general, we're talking about
broad strokes, but if you own a home, you're paying
down the debt, you're building equity. Whatever you purchase that
(17:25):
home for nine times out of ten is going to
appreciate in value. And as you're paying down the debt,
you're increasing your wealth. So now you have a retirement asset.
You have a piece of real estate that at a baseline,
someone with a nine to five job that's working can
do those things, and that's a wealth building. That's wealth building.
(17:46):
And when we talk about wealth building, I don't always
only look at it from an individual standpoint. You also
got to look at what the impact is to your
family generationally. You know, today's economy is going to look
a lot different than the economy thirty years, you know,
twenty years from now. For your kids as an example,
(18:09):
you know, what we're doing today on an individual basis
for your family is going to allow you to give
your children opportunities that you didn't have to Instead of
them renting, instead of them potentially paying for school, they're
going to not have that sort of financial obligation. So
you're passing the wealth that you have created for yourselves
(18:32):
to them to make their path a lot easier. So
that's the thing. So those are two basic things that
can happen. Just paying attention to what's being offered to
you through the workforce, through real estate and just owning
and starting there. And if you have additional capital after that,
that's where we start talking about additional You know, you're
(18:52):
taking risks. But you guys have done all this. We
know you have your full one ks, you have your home,
you have you've done these things, these basic things I'm
saying everybody should do. But now you're also taking advantage
of smart planning as far as management and free cash flow,
and you're building out a business for yourself. That's it's
(19:15):
a risk though you're paying. You're putting a lot of
capital into the things that you're doing, and you're and
it's paying off. But it also could have gone the
other way, right, but it's paying and actually in the
beginning it did. You had your bumps.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Those and flows.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
They're definitely exactly the true, the true uh in the
terms of more money, more problems. It's like the more
you started to make, it's like, shoot, more things that
were coming up, and the more money coming in, there
was still more money going out, you know. And Sean,
we tell the story all the time about Deval retiring
from the league and then the recession hitting and him
taking the money that he had in the league and
(19:53):
trying to do all of the right things with it.
And we say all of the right things, meaning investing
in property, and then eventually he put some money in
some stock market, you know, investments and stuff like that,
and then ended up losing that when the market crashed
back in two thousand.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
What was that eight? That's eight?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
So what advice do you have for people who think
about having that extra money and then wanting to play
a little bit right, they want to invest in certain things?
What are some I don't want to say sure routes
for investment, but some that are going to be more
advantageous for people looking to gain.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
So that's a question about risk. Kadane, Right, So you
have a little extra You've done the basics, you have
your own or some you know, you're building equity in something,
you're saving money in a four to one k Now
you do have extra money for yourself. Now it's risk
in today's environment. And I said, you know, economy has changed,
but in today's environment, you can get guaranteed returns on
(20:52):
assets that are less risky than they were a year ago,
so you can buy I've had a lot of questions
about these eye bonds. Eyebonds at different times are paying
you over six and a half percent today, I think
it last time I checked, it was like six point
eight seven five. That's a guaranteed rate of return by
the government. Right, So you're talking about risk if two
(21:15):
years ago that same risk free investment was not paying
you that. So with extra money, you start you look
at how you can put that money to work you
and you rate that decision based on the risk you're taking. Today,
someone with free cash flow can get good returns four
or five six percent returns without taking a lot of
(21:38):
principal risk. Principal risk is you putting your money into something.
Your boy asked you to go invest in whatever it is,
and you put that money in. You could get that
money back with return or you could not. Today because
of where we are in the economy and with interest rates,
you're getting guaranteed returns that you weren't seeing before. So
(22:00):
you look at that and you make your decisions. And
number one, you take whatever little free cash flow that
you have and you say, you know what, I'm going
to set aside X amount of dollars and get guaranteed
six percent rates of return on this portion of the money.
I know that that's going to be there no matter
what building equity. Once that's done, see you gauge how
(22:21):
much additional money you have, and now maybe you want
to take some risk by investing in stocks. Stocks have
corrected significantly over the last year, so you're down twenty
percent in some cases, double digits on average in a
lot of cases. Put money into some stocks that that
you know, companies that you know that have depreciated in value,
(22:44):
and you plan on holding those for the long run.
That's another level of risk. So you have bonds that
are low risks, you have stocks that are going to
give you more return potentially over time, but carry additional risk.
And then you kind of continue to go up the ladder.
Maybe you want to start a business again risk that's
more risks than stocks and cash. But now you're kind
(23:06):
of figuring out what it is you have left for
yourself to do all of these things. And that's where
an individual has to kind of assess their own situation
and say, you know what I make out of one
hundred percent overall money that I make, I'm setting aside
fifty percent in my retirement. I'm putting money into my home.
I have fifty percent left over. You know, I'm gonna
(23:29):
I want to make sure that I have about a
year's worth of expenses set aside. I'm going to put
that into bonds. And then the difference is you talk
as a family, as a group, as a community and
say what am I going to put the rest of
the money in to kind of get these returns that
can push my wealth building. I'll go forward even faster.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know what.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
The thing I love about you, Sean was years ago
when I was in the NFL, I was always looking
for you. You know me, I'm always looking for ways
to make money. How can I do this money? And
all you kept saying to me was time. All you
kept saying to me was the now. This takes time.
Like this is a life investment. This isn't an investment
where you put something in for two years and you
(24:11):
expect a huge return. And I'll give the listeners who
are listening some insight. When I first made it to
the NFL, my salary was two hundred and seventy five K.
And when you hear that, I was and this is
coming from a kid from Brooklyn, I was like, oh,
I'm rich. And Sean was like, you're not rich. Like
you're making good money, but you're not making.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Terrell Owens money. You know, you're not making Tom Brady money.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
You're not making millions of dollars a year and I
had the only income at the house. So this is
a two person income and I'm making two seventy five.
That's like two people making a buck thirty a piece.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
So when I was making that money, Sean was like,
you want to buy some property, you want to make
some investments, but you also need to start thinking about
what businesses you want to start. But it doesn't need
something that's not something that those businesses are going to
turn around value in the next five years. Immediately you're
trying to build something long term. And I kid you
guys not I bought two property. My brother and I
(25:09):
started some property and it took Kadeen and I ten
years to build to a point where we felt comfortable
saying we can make a move or pivot in a
different direction. And the reason why I want to tell
that story is because that was a ten year investment
and that was with an NFL salary. So if you
have people here who are working nine to five, who
are making six figures, and you have two salaries, it's
(25:31):
going to take time, but you can wealth build. But
don't expect the wealth building process to be a year.
Don't expect it to be. I invested it this in
six months and now I'm filthy rich. It takes time,
and as long as you have invested in the time
it will take to see returns on your investment, you'll
be doing well and doing yourself for a service. So
I just want our listeners to know that everything that
(25:53):
Sean is saying, we've already put in place. When I
was in the NFL, I put my money in my
four to one K, I bought property, we invest in stocks,
we invested in bonds, and throughout the course of the
ten years, when we went to make the pivot and
move to LA I ended up selling those properties and
using that money as a way for us to move.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
But that was a wealth building move.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
You know.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
We was in the apartment for nine years, and as
we got equity in those properties, we were able to
take out the capital and build. So I really want
to put that on people's hearts to let them know
that this takes time.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You can't rush this process.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
I was just going to say, you're absolutely right, and
it's also work like. It's not easy. It's not in
the basic things that we're talking about with the four
one K, It's not easy. To give up twenty to
thirty thousand dollars out of someone's income. Everything about it.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Talk about it, right.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
It's not easy to set It's not easy to commit
to owning a home and paying a thirty year mortgage
on time every single month. It's not easy building you know,
a business out like you know, people look at their
everyone else's situation and kind of make judgments about that's
what success looks like, That's what wealth looks like. But
(27:05):
I you know, working with wealthy people when they're wealthy,
when they're relatively wealthy to others, it doesn't feel it
doesn't seem well, it's hard. It's hard maintaining the things
that you're committed to. It's hard to build it. You know,
you look at all of the work specific to you
guys that it took to kind of move forward. And
(27:28):
I'm not saying the journey is not over. It's just
you're just moving forward. And you can speak to how
hard daily it is to maintain where your move the
wealth building, you know, and that's what people when I
talk about, you know, when people talk about retirement, retirement
is just not working anymore. And work is a real thing.
(27:50):
Work is how you are building these these This work
is what's going to build the wealth that you envision
for yourself. But while you're in the middle of it,
I can't say unless you were given something, If you
were given millions of dollars by your family, maybe it's easier.
But we're talking about people that get up every day
(28:11):
and make hard and tough decisions and commit to those
decisions and navigate those decisions every day until they can
take a break.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
So you know, that's that's why I wanted to cut
you off, not to cut you off. That's why I
told a story about you driving that car, because that
was a credit to the sacrifice you were making in
your twenties to say, you know what, I'm not going
to go get me an expensive car just because I
work on Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I'm going to get a condo.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And then, to me, that's what people don't want to hear.
Every time someone asked me, how did you do it?
They expect me to give them like a three step
method to make a million dollars in six months. And
then when you tell them, well, I had an Audi
and I didn't drive an AUTI for four years, me
and Case shared a car. I took the train. We
didn't go on vacation for four years. I didn't buy
(28:58):
any clothes, we didn't eat out, we didn't yoh. Then
they'd be like, oh, that's not really a plan. It's like, no,
that's exactly what the plan plan.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
The plan is to sacrifice, you.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Know, yes, yes, And it's just like living in the
society we live in. Everything is about instant gratification. You know,
this generation things that things are just super super easy,
and then they're also contending with this aspirational lifestyle that
so many people are trying to live up to.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
We did an episode which we already told the listeners
that we were going to be speaking with you on
an episode about wedding culture and how it's literally trash
now because the average cost for a wedding in the
United States right now is thirty grand. Where people are
aspiring to have these one hundred thousand dollars weddings just
to keep up with the viral moments on Instagram. And
(29:42):
we spoke about you know, taking that money and making
it more of an investment move versus a one day thing.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
I mean, and it's happening across the economy. K it's weddings,
it's the cost of education, it's the cost of homes,
all of these decisions, like everything that we are committing
to costs money, and it's and it's a sacrifice. And
people cannot appreciate your how hard it is to be
(30:09):
in one situation. Looking at you, guys, the world may
think it's easy. I damn, I know it's not easy.
I know it's not easy. I know how heavy that
load is. I don't know whoever may be looking at
me on the outs, I may think it's easy. Oh
how you know what? It is so specific to the individual,
(30:30):
and there is no quick and easy fix. We want
to make it easier for our children though, Yeah, that's
for sure. We want to give them a little bit
of a leg up, just like my mom did. My
mom moved. My mom literally left Jamaica as a single
black woman in her twenties to come here. Everything I'm
doing is easy. This is not this is that's that
(30:53):
was hard.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
That'spective.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Some of the stories Shawn Sean from Shawn's family from Jamaica.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
My mom.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
My mom came up here at seventeen by herself, looking
to become a nurse, started working at Burger King, you know,
and worked her way up, so we share some of
those stories.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, and your family d came from this, I guess
you know. My family came from the people man. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, But I think the biggest thing that I want
to implore with people is stop looking for quick fixes.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Instagram and social media is not a real place, right.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
It takes time, it takes discipline, it takes strategy, you know.
And if and if there were three things that someone
is what does it take to build wealth? I would
say time, discipline, and strategy. If you have those things,
and if you remain consistent over the course of time,
you can build wealth. But most of the wealth you see,
the most of the wealth you gain you won't even
be able to see.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Your children will see it. And that to me is
the biggest aid.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Yeah, you're you are, You're not. The goal should never
be to spend the money that we made. We're living,
We're up every single day, we're working hard, we are maintaining,
we're making good decisions. We're trying to grow this wealth.
But at the end of the day, we're not trying
to leave this earth with zero and have these kids.
(32:15):
The things that are really important families starting from zero, right, right,
So we're not spending or we're not going to have
the luxury of all of this wealth building that we're
talking about to use for ourselves. It's just not how
it works. Anything I do for clients, all of the
projections that I run, it's to maintain what they've built
(32:37):
for themselves. So for you guys, it's going to be
to maintain when you're when you finally decide that somehow
you're going to slow down, both of you, we're going
to want to have the assets that you that have
worked hard to set aside working for you, so you
can take a step back. But the kids, the boys,
they're going to get that money and they're going to
(32:59):
figure out how to grow it for their kids. It's
not I'll go back. I'll just say it's not easy.
Those three things that you mentioned, time, discipline, I think
you said strategy.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Is that the strategy. You have to have a strategy.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
Yeah, you have to have a strategy and kind of
be willing to work at that strategy. I don't know
how many people out there and kind of you know,
visualizing what you guys have and do, but it takes
work and it takes the time to kind of execute
on it so that it becomes something that's real, something
that's helping you to build wealth. There's no easy there's
(33:37):
no quick fix, there's no easy answer. It's an individual decision.
But going back to kind of the original questions, there
are some basic things that you can do and that's
and those things, those basic things are not easy either.
Like I said, you're giving up money that you're working
for to achieve, retire you know, four one K, owning
a home, and then anything you do after that is
(34:00):
in order for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So how about those are the three things we're going
to give them if it takes time, discipline, strategy, but ultimately,
if you want to start now, if you work a
traditional nine to five, look into a four on one k,
look into purchasing a home, and if that means you
have to save x amount of dollars per month for
two years, this is what me and k have. We
worked on another another podcast talking about saving for the wedding.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Kadeen and I was like.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
If you if each couple saves a thousand dollars, each
person in the couple saves one thousand dollars a month,
that'll give you two thousand dollars a month, that'll give
you twenty four thousand dollars for the year.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
If you do like.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Kadeena and I did, and you say, you know what
we're gonna do four years of just straight sacrifice. That's
ninety six thousand dollars you can save over the course
of four years. That is a down payment. If you're
putting down twenty percent on a home, that is a
down payment on ninety thousand dollars. Dude, at least a
(35:01):
half a million dollar home. I think that's a nice
start for a family who's looking to buy a home
in America. Have so many dollars from home, and you
could put down ninety k that.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Metropolis like a New York or LA trying to find property.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
But you know, oh yeah, yeah, if you're in New
York or LA, it's extremely different. But also where you
live is also a decision you have to make.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
But another thing you said, de Val is also working together,
because Sean, we get a lot of couples who write
in just for our listener letters, and you know such
and they are asking advice because one person in the
couple tends to be a little bit more financially savvy,
or may have more business acumen than the other, or
one tends to be more of a spender than the
other and doesn't understand the sacrifice involved. And we've been
there too, Sean, you know that for sure, where Deval
(35:44):
and I have had our moments where you know, if
he's had to school me on certain things, or Shawn's
had to call me and say, hey, you know, what's
the budget, what's the plan? So being on the same page,
I think is also very important if you're trying to
legacy and wealth build with somebody that's a relationship for sure.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I think we might have lost se On. We were
on our way to closing out anyway, but I think
we might have lost se On. Yeah, we lost on
there his internet. We might be able to get him back.
He's sacrificing on the internet as well. That's part of
his wealth building plans.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Now he's trying to sabotage us, giving all the secrets,
the tips and tricks to be wealthy black people be aware.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
But no, but that's actually a key. When people asked
me how I was able to do certain things. I
bought property early and it was time for us to
make some moves. I cashed in on those properties to be.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Able to pivot because at the time I remember too
Sean saying, like certain investments that you wanted to make,
for example, buying your grandparents' house is not necessarily the
best financially sound investment because it didn't really do much
for you.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
But I mean, I think you had to write off
in it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, I used it as a couple of write offs.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
I use it appreciation to write off my taxes and
stuff like that. But also the property over time, because
I held on to the property for I think twelve
thirteen years, built a small amount of equity, so when
I sold it, I was able to get about thirty thousand.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Dollars and also build credit too.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
It helped me build my credit, help you building credits
and the Michigan property.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
And this is also to tell y'all the truth.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Part of the reason why when we had the topic
about the house of the wedding, Coadem picked the wedding
is because we already owned two properties, so we were
thinking about buying our dream house, but we still already
owned two properties, so we were still very fiscally responsible
with that decision. Even though hindsight it wasn't the best
decision both when we were ready to move to LA,
I sold the Michigan property and now had access to
(37:30):
seventy K.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So you figured the thirty K to seventy K.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
They gave us one hundred thousand dollars, which gave us
a next day to pivot and start rebuilding our life
in la and.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Taking the risks the risk for sure, So thank you, Sean.
I'm not sure if we're going to be able to
get him back.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Okay, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Sorry guy, that's my cord and drove.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
Oh, no, worry about, no where about. So actually no,
we were actually going to get ready to close out anyway.
I don't know if you hear your gods in the
background screaming like the lunatic. Yeah, we were getting ready
to close out.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
During that time when you were going we were just
talking about how purchasing the homes early on in our
career actually helped us when we were getting ready to move.
But at the time we were like, we didn't see
the purpose of the investment, you know, and you and
I know we did it to help my family. But
over time, over those twelve or thirteen years, I was
able to use it as some write offs and get
(38:26):
some equity, so that when we were ready to pivot
in LA, it was like, Wow, this is actually an
okay long term investment. That's why it's always okay to
buy property and get.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Involved, to be aware of what's long term and short term.
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Well, Sean, I'm sure we could talk with you so
many different things when it comes to finance, wealth building
and all that good stuff. But just a little bit
of insight I think would be so helpful to our listeners.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
So thank you for joining us to Dana.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
You're a busy, busy man over there helping people juggle
all this money. Yeah, but we appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
We love you.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
We thank you for everything that you love you bro,
and you continue to do for the culture of educating
us because you know, as a culture and as a community,
these are the things that we don't necessarily always share
with each other. So having platforms and forums like this
are so important.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
And let me jump in real quick.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
When I was fifteen, Sean had a He started doing
this wealth building stuff with us when I was fifteen.
I remember you came to Uncle Charles's house. It was me,
Jonathan DeVaughn, and it was about seven boy Scouts. And
it's funny when someone takes initiative into helping the youth
or helping people in the community, you don't know if
(39:38):
you're affecting everybody a one person, but I know at
that meeting, I was the one person that was listening
and now look, and it started from that. I was like, wow,
wealth building. And I was fifteen, and I remember, you know,
some of the kids just like, oh my gosh, so
what is this. I don't want to listen. And he
came with pamphlets, he had folders, and I remember looking
at this.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Stuff and thinking like that I can have more.
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Ultimately, that's what we want our listeners to understand, that
you can have more, but it takes time.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So I love you, bro. I'm gonna give.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
You your flowers because you've been on this and you've
been on me about this since I was young.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
So I guess I could technically thank Sean because that's
one thing that's found very attractive about the Vale, y'all.
I'll tell y'all, he had business acumen and financial acumen
that I did not know about.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
But I found it very, very, very sexy.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
When he was telling me out all the plants he
had to buy a brownstone, leave in the bottom level,
rent out the top, make money, have passive income.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I was like, ooh, eighteen, Sean was telling me.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
You Sean with you.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Yeah, look, you gotta have you gotta have dream. You
gotta dream. You gotta dream. You gotta latch onto your
dreams and and and and latch onto them and work,
work your butt off to to achieve them. You know,
if you if you come up short, if you come
up short, that's fine. You're still you're still knocking the
go off the ball, so you know.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But you're still in the game.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Even if you come up short, You're still in the
game as long as you don't quit. So you never fail,
you know, because you know what I went through, even
even buying properties early investing in the stock market when
the recession hit, I was down bad. I happen to
get cut during the worst time in the financial history
in America since the Great Depression. But we were able to,
with discipline and with your help, just build back.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
YEP.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
I wish there was a way to really express to
your listeners how hard it was, though, Like I don't
I don't know if that. I don't know if they
can connect where you guys are today without how hard
you had to work to get to where you are
today and how hard the journey is going to be
going forward. Everybody kind of looks at these things I feel,
(41:47):
and they just see the moment and they don't really
understand what it takes. Yeah, so I just you know,
I will, I guess in part of I would just say,
nect with your dreams and just be really ready to
work your ass off to hit to hit those goals,
(42:07):
because it's not going You can talk. I mean, I
tell my kids and my family, I hear you. You know,
I understand when you talk and you say you want
to do these things and show me, you know, show
me whatever it is, whatever that goal is, wherever you
want to do, whatever you want to do in life.
(42:27):
Let's take the steps now to get you get you there.
So you know, I guess that the closing stop really,
you know, I would, I would. I would encourage your
listeners to not focus on the now, just really connect
with the work that has to be done to get
you to your individual dream, your individual goal.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Dope, dope, and appreciate, thank you. So much, Sean. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
All Right, y'all, we're going to let Sean go and
we'll take a quick break and then we'll get back
into listener letters after we pay some bills because listen,
be talking money and it's got to get paid because.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
They're definitely show up at your door step.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
I love you, guys, love you to love you too, bro.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Thanks Bro.
Speaker 6 (43:06):
We'll be back all right.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
So we're back now today. Because of the length of
the show, we're only gonna do one listener letter.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So I'm gonna start it out.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
You ready, baby, Okay, go ahead. Do you know which
one are you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (43:29):
First things first, Pop, Please, First things first, I recently
started listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I'm definitely not disappointed. Well, we appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
I'm literally starting from the beginning anyway. I'm only eighteen, wow,
and I graduate in a few months. I'm going into
the military and then I'm going to my dream college.
I'm currently with someone, and people classify young relationships as
puppy love, but you guys met young as well. I'm
like I like him a lot, maybe even love. I
just have so many things going for me. He's great,
(43:59):
with supporting me and I help him as well. So
my question to you guys is should I commit to
him or should I wait and see how everything plays out.
I want that young and grow to get the type
of love, but not everybody guys specifically want to commit
so young, you.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Know, Yeah, I know, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
I think we had a Listening letter in the Listening
Letter episodes where it was similar. It was the girl
who was twenty one and she was trying to think, like,
is this my soulmate? I feel like he might be,
And I'm always conflicted because I'm like, shoot, Kadeen now
at thirty nine, wants to tell her a girl, just.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Enjoy yourself, see how things play out.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
You know, do you you know, be the individual, learn
who you are, learn.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
What you like you know.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
But then I'm also thinking about Kadeen at eighteen, who
was madly in love with this man after two weeks
and was just like, I love you, I want to
be with you.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Told my cousin I found my.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Husband, and here we are twenty something years later, literally
still together. But I will say the process was not easy.
And if you're a new listener and you're listening from
the beginning. Then you'll also learn about thou and my
struggle in so many different points of our relationship. Trying
to stay afloat is particularly in our book. We gave
(45:08):
our the story of how we met and how things
kind of played out over the course of the next
ten years after that.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
What do you think, babe?
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I think for.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
An answer like this, you can't give a generic answer
a question like this. You know, I can't say yeah,
stick together, no, speak to each other if you want to.
If you want to stick it, first of all, don't
listen to nobody else.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
That part.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
If you listen to the people around you.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
I don't know if you listen to Kadeen and I
story or if you Watchatima, everybody else around you was
going to give you some messed up advice about your
life because they're not in your life.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
That's it.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
The only person that knows about your life, and I'm
talking about Kadeen and I as well, is you. You
speak to that young man and y'all figure out what
type of life y'all want to live. If he says
he's in it for the long hold and he wants
to do it from young age, y'all work on doing
it and have fun doing it.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
If he's telling you how, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
I want to take some time and I'm not sure,
give him his time, and you find somebody who you
want to build it with.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
But the only person who has that answer, Mama, is you.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
That is a fact.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
So good luck to you, Sis. You know, it could
also be a thing where you guys just start working
together and then seeing how things go, you might end
up being great friends. Like Daval and I knew that
we didn't want to be together when we met each other.
That was like, that was like the thing.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I didn't want to be a boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I didn't want to be a girlfriend. I wanted to
be in d streets having a good time. And then
there was that undeniable connection, that vibe, that energy that
we just could not shake.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
So maybe see where things go. You know, you said you.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Like him a lot, you maybe even love You're not sure,
you know, see where it goes, see where it goes,
and just don't put too much pressure on yourself or
on him, because you got a lot of life ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
All right, Sis, that was a pretty easy one.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yeah, nice end to a great podcast episode. If you
want to be featured as one of our listener letters.
Be sure to email us at dead Ass Advice gmail
dot com.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
That's D E A D A S S A d
V I C at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
All right, Moment of true time.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
We're talking estate building, legacy building savings with Sean Freeman
today with people who are trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Moment of truth.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Moment of truth time.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
Takes three things to build wealth, discipline, time, and a strategy.
And I'll put in this order discipline, a strategy, and time.
If you have those three things, you can definitely build wealth.
It doesn't matter what type of job you have. Give
yourself greats along the way, because it's going to be
(47:38):
ebbs and flows. But you got to have discipline, You
got to give yourself time, and you have to have
a strategy that's.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
A really good one.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Based on the conversation, I'm going to speak to people
who are possibly single, possibly in relationships, couples. I think
it's important to have conversations early on about finances, business acumen,
financial acumen goals when it comes to finances, because that
tends to be the number one stress stressor within relationships.
Absolutely so, just making sure that you're on the same
(48:06):
page about the trajectory of your finances, the investments that
you plan to make, how you're planning to pool money
together or divide money, because that tends to be an
issue sometimes for couples. Just having the conversations early on
will help to alleviate I think, some of the stress
in the long run, because if you're not on the
(48:27):
same page upfront about what your financial journey is going
to look like, it can be a real detriment to
your life and to your relationship. So having those conversations
early on, I think is super super important, and try
to learn from each other because usually, like I said,
in a relationship, one person may be a little bit
more financially savvy than the other. And in our case,
it was de Val who was as we can see,
(48:48):
because Sean was speaking to him early on, and those
are things that stuck with him that he was able
to apply to his life and then in turn to mind.
So be open minded about it and have those conversations.
Transparency is very key, especially with finances.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
By property investing your four on one K, if your
company's going to match it, you put in fifteen thousand,
they're going to put in fifteen thousand. That's fifteen thousand.
You get free and you get to write it off
on your taxes period. And oh, this is the last
thing I will say. Oh, don't be afraid to go
into your four on one K. If you have a
good financial plan that's going to use that money, you
(49:23):
do not have to wait until you sixty five. I've
done this. I've seen plenty of people done this, and
I've helped them with this. Take the penalty if did
you know the reward is going to be greater than
the penalty that you paid. And that's I had a
friend had a friend years ago who was just like
the vialle I'm thinking about opening up a subway and
(49:44):
I was just like, okay, what's toping? So I don't
have the capital, So I was like, you have four
one K. He's like, yeah, but that's for my retirement.
I said, well, list at the subway party of retirement.
So if you got money in the four on one
K and it's gaining interest, what if you took out
a part of it invested in a sub and now
that subway is making you more of.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
A return than you're four one k? And he was like, oh,
you know what that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
A lot of people are scared it for one K.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Guess how many subways he got now three?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Shut up?
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Started with one, Now he got three?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
All right, good shit, so we aired.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Folks inspired, be sure to follow us on Patreon to
see exclusive dead Ass podcast video content, and follow us
on social media. You can find the podcast page dead
Ass the Podcast on Instagram and I am Kadine, I
am and.
Speaker 4 (50:26):
I am Devout And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
be sure to rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
That's it, baby, and get his money, all right.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Dead Ass.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network, and
it's produced by Donor Opinia and Triple. Follow the podcast
on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and never
miss a Thing.
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