We're joined in Episode 12 of Talk Wealth To Me by Clint Proctor for a discussion on how Clint turned his freelance writing side hustle into a full-time career in just seven months! Clint shares tips on how to decide if a side hustle is right for you, as well as other lessons he's learned along the way.
About Clint:
Clint Proctor aka the Wallet Wise Guy spent 10 years as a pastor. Now, Clint blogs about personal finance topics on his blog, WalletWiseGuy.com. Clint is also a freelance writer covering personal finance topics for publications including Business Insider and Credit Karma.
Comments, questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at talkwealthpodcast@gmail.com.
To learn more about DebtWave Credit Counseling, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
To learn more about the San Diego Financial Literacy Center, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
We're joined in Episode 12 of Talk Wealth To Me by Clint Proctor for a discussion on how Clint turned his freelance writing side hustle into a full-time career in just seven months! Clint shares tips on how to decide if a side hustle is right for you, as well as other lessons he's learned along the way.
About Clint:
Clint Proctor aka the Wallet Wise Guy spent 10 years as a pastor. Now, Clint blogs about personal finance topics on his blog, WalletWiseGuy.com. Clint is also a freelance writer covering personal finance topics for publications including Business Insider and Credit Karma.
Comments, questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at talkwealthpodcast@gmail.com.
To learn more about DebtWave Credit Counseling, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
To learn more about the San Diego Financial Literacy Center, visit our website or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Welcome to Talk Wealth to Me, a safe-space podcast where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance.
Felipe Arevalo:The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal, tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:Hello and welcome to another edition of Talk Wealth to Me, where Katie and Felipe and I sit down today with Clint Proctor. He is the Wallet Wise Guy. He actually spent 10 years as a pastor and now he took his side hustle as a freelance writer, a kind of just a personal finance geek. He, he says, or a personal finance nerd as he says, uh, and took that side hustle and now that's become his career and that's what we're going to talk about today is taking side hustle and doing something with it. We talk about side hustle quite a bit and hope, um, my wife, um, has a little side hustle business that she does on aside just purely because she liked a certain product. Um, and it went along way. So, I mean side hustle these days with technology can be pretty, pretty easy to do if you just put a little effort into it.
Clint Proctor:Yeah, absolutely. No doubt, no doubt. And I think that people more and more are beginning to understand that um, there's a lot of advantages to having a side hustle tax advantage wise as well. Um, when you're a business owner. Um, and then also sometimes it's just easier to be able to get a little bit of extra money on the side than the, to try to come to completely start a whole new career and go into a completely different direction. You can get your income where you need it to be to still be able to save and reach your financial goals. Um, however, if you do love what you're doing on the side, then hey, work it in. You may be able to turn it into a full time job, which is awesome as well.
Chase Peckham:Yeah, and that's it. It happens. It happens quite a bit. Keri in her endeavors. She's got three or four friends that literally have left the corporate world. Um, and they're selling Rhodan and fields now and they have free time. They get to hang out with their kids more and they just have gotten really good at, uh, reaching out to people and not being afraid to talk on the phone, which is, which is a good thing. Communication as much as we have technology today and our kids are face down in their phones and they're texting each other. Communication now I think is more as, as important as it ever has been.
Clint Proctor:Oh yeah. I absolutely agree with you. No doubt about it. I think that when I first started my side hustle, which I know we'll probably get more into, but as a writer, um, I would not be where I'm at right now if it wasn't for the fact that I went to a conference and just got to meet people. Um, I, you know, went there and that literally had zero paid writing experience. I, but I had only written for my own blog and a, so I really had no business like sitting down with some of these editors from some of these sites. But Hey, you know, when you have a personal conversation with people, it's amazing. Sometimes what can happen. You might hit it off with someone and it's really easy. It's a lot easier to remember a face than a random email. So if you can put yourself out there and, and become a person, uh, to people, it's amazing kind of how your network can grow quickly and people will start referring you to others and things kinda snowball pretty fast.
Katie Utterback:So maybe you could actually walk us through your story and how you kind of fell into your side hustle and maybe even talk about, were you looking for a side hustle or did you just kind of fall into this opportunity?
Clint Proctor:Sure. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I was looking for an opportunity because I had grown. I'm grown up. My Dad's a pastor here in Daytona Beach, Florida, and I loved, uh, growing up under my dad and my dad's home. And love this church that we were a part of. And I really was kind of coming out of high school. That was my goal, was to follow that same path. And um, so I went to college at a local, a university in Orlando. Actually, I, that's a different story, but I worked full time and then I commuted to Orlando and did classes from six to 10 at night. And that's how I was able to pay for my college debt free. Um, but, uh, anyway, so full time job, um, as well as going to a university, I've got a business degree from Palm Beach, Atlantic University. They have an extension campus in Orlando. And then I went straight into, uh, being a pastor myself. And I did that for about 10 years and I've enjoyed it. It's been an amazing being part of the, just kind of these people that I had grown up with and been able to serve with them. But I came to a point that I realized that I didn't want to be that person who would take over after my dad. Uh, and you know, there's enough pressure in life of whether or not you're gonna succeed or fail, much less having to worry about blowing up your dad's legacy.[crosstalk] Uh, and, uh, it's, so I'm like, you know, that I'm not going to be the one to take over. Um, and it's going to be kind of awkward if I'm hanging around whenever he's, you know, he's gone and I'm like, I'm the ex senior pastor's son, you know, uh, on staff. So I'm like, I can kind of see an end to this tunnel. Um, and do I want to be on? He's, you know, he's still fairly young. He may have another 10 or 15 years left, um, in his career as well. But I'm like, do I really want to be picking a new career, having to find a new career, my mid forties, or would I rather be looking at that, uh, trying to make that move closer to 30. So, um, I had to have a real time of soul searching. I had no idea kind of what else I really would want to do for a living. Um, I had never thought about it before. Uh, but I, I, if there was anything else that I was passionate about, it was personal finance because I had become kind of a nerd about it when I was young. Um, my passion in life has always been money. Um, I didn't want it to ever keep me from being able to follow my passions and my, the time, my passion was ministry and, um, I didn't want down the road from my wife to be like, you know, resentful of making that choice. And it'd like, well, we've never been able to go on a vacation. We've never been able to have. Um, you know, we never were able to buy a home, never be able to go out to have a, you know, a, a meal out out at night to go get dinner together. I never wanted her to feel that way. So I'm like, well, I'm never going to probably be bring it down the big bucks. So I'd better be pretty smart about money and I better figure out some hacks and figure out a way to be able to do this stuff that'll allow us to still be able to have the freedom that we want without necessarily maybe a huge paycheck. So I got passionate about that and then I would just kind of start to talk to my friends, talk to my peers, and they would get excited about it. And um, kind of became a little bit known as like the personal finance guy in this among my community. And so I was like, well, I've already kind of started following this passion on my own just for fun. Um, if I'm going to try to pursue anything else as a career, maybe I should try with that first. And so I didn't know how in the world I could make money teaching people about personal finance. I tried at first taken a coaching course. It didn't really work out. I was just kind of just trying things to be honest with you. I told my dad last May, I was like, Hey, by a year from now. Um, I'm going to be in a new career somewhere in personal finance. I just don't know what it's going to be yet. So, uh, so anyway, I tried coaching that didn't really, that wasn't looking like it was gonna work out. And then I went to, um, a conference and I was planning on it being an opportunity for me to grow my own blog. And um, I met some guy named Lance at the conference and I was like, man, I'm just so passionate about writing. I just want to be able to help people learn how to get out of debt, learn how to save, learn how to be able to reach their goals. And he's like, well, listen man. He's like, I'm glad. I mean, I'm excited about your blog. He said that could maybe be a long- term goal for you. He said, but if you really want to make money now writing about personal finance and helping people, he said, you may want to consider freelance writing. And literally up to that moment, I had never even considered freelance writing. It literally was not on my radar. I wasn't even at the conference to be a free a freelance writer. Um, I was like, Rusty, can you make money doing that? And he's like, well man, I made$2,000 last month with my blog and I made$7,000 freelance writing. And I said, holy Moly, I need to talk to you. Uh, so, uh, anyway, uh, Lance Cothern was his name. He kind of took me under his wing, which I, I'll never be able to thank him enough for all that he did that week, um, introduced me to people. It was just really good to me. And, um, and I sent out, you know, follow up emails to all the editors that I talked to that week and I didn't necessarily hear back from a ton. Uh, but I did hear back from a couple that were influential that I was able to get on my resume. And then things just kind of went from there.
Katie Utterback:Well, I think that's key to what you were saying. You don't have to hear back from everyone in order to have a successful side hustle or even a career as a freelance writer. You just need one or two, I guess that are promising to start. Yeah,
Clint Proctor:correct. Correct. Absolutely. I mean, I only heard back from two, and here's the crazy thing about it is that, um, they couldn't have been more opposite ends the spectrum. Um, my one client that got back to me, um, is still my highest paying client to this day. Um, the other one that got back to me, uh, said, hey, we're kind of a new site. We're willing to pay$50 per a thousand article for a thousand word article, which is about 5 cents a word. Um, and those were the only, I don't, I send out a ton of follow- up emails and those were the only ones that got back to me at the time. But you know, what I always did was I always tried to write for the 5 cent word article, um, as hard as I did for the other website, which is Credit Karma, you know, I always try to give them the same amount of quality. And you know what's interesting is, is although they didn't pay me well necessarily at the time, this other, uh, client, it led to three other higher paying, um, clients that I still have to this day. So you know what, always do your best no matter what your pay is. And I think I really believe that doors will end up opening up for you later on.
Chase Peckham:So when you talk about personal finance in your writing, you know, to listeners, and that's a pretty broad stroke that you just brushed there because sure, if you know the whole term financial literacy, which is, um, obviously that's what people will put in Google because that's what, when they're looking for it. But yet that's kind of like asking somebody what they're going to do with their communications degree, right? I mean, it's, there's, there's so many different ways you can go. What is the area of personal finance where your heart really, really ticks?
Clint Proctor:Yeah, I would say that my heart, um, where I would probably love to be 24 seven is I really enjoy helping people on the front end. So the younger, uh, collegiate, um, young professional, um, millennial type of a, of a audience as when I really get passionate about the most. And here's why. It's because I had a few opportunities to talk to some young people, some college students and I would love to see their eyes open. I'm in kind of like get it in. I and I, and you know, it hit me that these people are going to be literally changing their entire future cause they don't have any baggage yet. They don't have any debt yet. They haven't made any dumb mistakes. Um, and so if you can catch people on the front end instead of trying to clean up the mess later on, I kind of get excited about that. And other people, they get excited about being able to help people clean up the mess. And, and I do too. I've helped people on both sides, but I really get excited about young people cause I was 18 when somebody got ahold of me and really kind of changed my whole financial future. I mean, I opened my first Roth when I was 18 and started putting money in it. And so those kinds of things are exciting, but when it comes to freelance writing, you don't necessarily always get to pick the topics. Sometimes you got to suck it up and write as long as it's not something that's against your values. You know what I'm saying? If somebody was to ever be like, hey, write about, you know, some kind of, you know, ridiculously expensive and dumb, uh, insurance product that I don't believe in, um, I wouldn't do it, but I've never had that happen yet. All my, there has been some boring stuff. I mean I've had to write about where to find fax machines and Notary Service, all kinds of stuff like that.
Felipe Arevalo:That's great that you mentioned youth. Uh, we do a lot of presentations here in the community and um, a large portion of our presentations are to youth 18, early twenties. Yeah. Community college students kind of figuring out money on their own for the first time. Uh, wondering if you see a lot of the similarities that we see here. What are some of the things that they struggle with the most?
Clint Proctor:When I talk to people, I think one of the things that I think you, I think you see, I want to say two things. Number one, I feel like education, and this is more for college students or high school students going into college. This isn't necessarily something that affects the younger children, but especially when they get into that phase, I feel like education has become almost like an ins instead of a means to an end and some of their minds and like as long as I get into x college, I'll be set. And um, and it's like, that's not necessarily always the case. Um, you know, you're going to have to work your tail off in whatever career you want to pursue and if you can maybe get into a different college that's less expensive and be able to be set up more, uh, financially and not have$50,000 of student loans and you know, almost have like a mortgage when you graduate college. Um, and then you, you know, three or four years down the road, you want to get married and you don't have that hanging over your head. I can guarantee you, unless you're maybe going to go into law, it's not going to make a difference on your, um, on your attractiveness to someone that you put, you know, you put that degree on your resume and you're sending out your resume to different places. You're going to still be able to get those jobs. You're just not going to have$50,000 of student loans over your head. And, um, and I think also they, many students nowadays, young people, they look at like the college experience as like an something that they're entitled to. And I'm like, you know, it's cool. I'll think it's awesome that you want to have the college experience, but at the same time, um, you know, putting your foot up, you know, feet up on a hammock necessarily, you know, and talking about philosophical musings that you're having is, that's fine, but are you gonna are you gonna also end up not being able to take a job? Uh, working at night just because you're enjoying the experience. Because in my opinion, that's not a good move. Um, it's supposed to prepare you for the next phase, which is to be a responsible adult and be able to take care of yourself. And I'm never gonna, you know, beat up on anybody who ends up not being able to get a job right out of college and ended up having to move back with their parents. Man, things happen and the job market's tough sometimes, but do everything that you possibly can to be able to make the most of your college experience and um, and try to cut down on as many expenses as possible because there are so many amazing ways, whether it be via scholarship, whether it be via, um, uh, grants, whether it be through working or just finding a more affordable school that you can really, really cut 50, 75% of your costs down, uh, during college and then get the same exact degree, the same exact piece of paper. Just be set up a whole lot better financially. Because for someone like me who was going into a, uh, a job that was more about my passion, it wasn't about the money. If I would've had a huge amount of student loans hanging over me when I graduated, um, it would have been such a weight I'd of been dragging that ball and chain around for until today probably. But thankfully I kinda had that clean slate and my wife and I were able to buy our own home. We've never had to go into debt for cars cause it's amazing how many, how quickly you can reach goals when you don't have debt isn't enough, isn't it? Fantastic. Um, so anyway, those are some of my, that's my little soap box. But I know a lot of students aren't in that place. And so a lot of my side is focused on how do you get out of student loans once you're in them.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. Well you're not even just talking about the students themselves. It's parents that put themselves into even more debt to get their kids that college experience that can be backbreaking at certain points in their lives.
Clint Proctor:Oh, exactly. And you like the whole, the whole kind of game has resulted in, you know, the whole college admissions scandal that happened recently. It's like, it's so important to people that my, my child has to get into this school that I'm really, I'm literally even to paid, I'm willing to pay 250,000,$500,000 to fake an SAT score just so I can get them in. And it's like, it's really not that important unless you make it that important to you. It's just are you going to be able to learn? Are you going to be able to get your degree? Are you going to be able to go out and become a productive, um, worker in the workforce because that's what people are looking for. And um, I think that's a little bit getting lost, uh, among the young people today. And so for me, I try to tell them as much as possible, hey, listen, if you can go to that school on a scholarship, great man, go do it. Cause that's a cool school. But if you can't, you're now going to have to begin thinking about things very pragmatically starting today because now you have to take care of your own finances or maybe your parents do. But do you really want that? So anyway, I talked pretty harshly with, uh, with them sometimes and try to get real because I think people need to have someone who speaks truth into their life because I want them 10, 15 years down the road being like, Oh man, I wish I never would've done that and have so many regrets.
Katie Utterback:And you know, you're so passionate about that. Um, and you mentioned too earlier on that, uh, personal finance was something that you were passionate about since you were young. Was there something that happened to you growing up or were your parents just very open about money with you that you kind of were maybe more aware of some-[inaudible]
Clint Proctor:Yeah, a little bit of both. My parents were very open, were very, uh, they were very simple. They live very simple lives and always, always did things that were fun together. I always did, always spent their money in a way that allowed us to have experiences, um, together rather than necessarily themes. And that kind of impacted me. We always took family vacations together and I loved that, but never, never dealt with any debt. They always believe that if you don't have the money, you need to save up until you do to be able to buy something. And they kind of passed that along to me. But I also had some friends that would come to me. I was a pastor for like 10 years and they'd be like, man, I love what you do. I would love to do that. And I'd be like, well, that's great. We'll go for it. And they'd be like, oh, I can't because man, I wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be able to handle the pay cut or I'm in so much debt right now that I just can't do it. But once I get out of debt, I'm going to be able to do that. And they would be in jobs that they literally hated. And, um, and I would be, so I'd be frustrated for them on their account because I knew they were so upset with where they were at, but they literally felt locked in by, um, by their finances. So like I said, when I would see that, I would be like, man, I want to help people be able to chase whatever. Cause sometimes your passion is something like me, I wanted to help people with personal finance in it. Honestly for me, it's ended up resulting in a pay increase. That wasn't the main reason why I chased it though. But for other people, they want to maybe quit a high paying job and pursue something that's going to be lower paying because it's going to be more satisfying to them on a personal level. And you want to be able to do that as well. Honestly, finances to me, it's not about building wealth, it's about building freedom and, um, and if you have freedom, um, that's a sad place to be in. And so I just try to tell people that all the time. I say, you know, finances, you may wonder why did I go into this field? Because it's the number one cause of divorce, number one. And number two, marriages that don't talk about money, they probably don't talk about any goals because literally every goal you can come up with in your life is going to involve a budget. It's going to involve some kind of financial component. So when people are on the same page about finances, it's amazing how it affects the emotional, the marital relationship and everything all together.
Chase Peckham:That is so funny you say that. We talk about the idea that, that goals and uh, anything that you want to come up with all costs money, no matter what it is. And people, they'll be like, that's so morbid. These kids, you know, these idealistic kids sitting in a, in a classroom and you go, but really honestly try to come up with it. And we would sit like literally we'll have on there and they'll come up with crazy stuff. And this one kid, one lady goes, well, love's free. And I just about lost my mind. I started laughing uncontrollably.[crosstalk] She's like, what's so funny? I said, with all due respect, love is like the most expensive thing on the planet in many different ways. But there, but that's, there really isn't anything free. They talk, oh well we can go to the beach for free. How did you get there? Are you wearing clothes on your body that you have to wear while there? Is there sunscreen that you had to buy to go? So realistically
Felipe Arevalo:the one I always get is Costco samples and it's like you pay membership just to get into Costco. How's that even free,
Chase Peckham:right, exactly. Costco samples.
Felipe Arevalo:I get that a lot at the high schools
Chase Peckham:Do you really? That's funny. But it's absolutely true. And I love to hear, hear you say that because it's, it's not romantic. It's not what people, you know, and that's I think where we see a lot of millennials. And you tell me, I mean, I saw a couple of articles that you'd written talk about college side Hustle and, and talking about fire and the different, uh, things that are out there. And, and it is interesting how idealistic that some millennials and even I guess, um, are our next generation beyond that in doing a career that really means something to them, having a, having a footprint on the, the, the earth and, and leaving an impression more than say my generation where, which is the generation x where we were, you know, we were young when Reagan was going, but Reaganomics was big and we were, you know, we liked to drive the fancy red car and we were up more about things and uh, I really believe as my wife will always say that you're, you're 100% right. That experiences over things is always the right course of action. But where do you see, because there is a, there is a fine line, right, of where you go as, as a person professionally and then living free as you say.
Clint Protctor:Where do you go with
Chase Peckham:go with you financially and making that decision? How is it that you decided, okay, I have the opportunity and the background to make this paycheck, but it's not really what I want to do. And what I really want to do is underwater basket weaving. And you can make a little bit of a of a[crosstalk] yeah, but the idea is where, where is that fine line and say, let's, and let's put it to you this way. You can, you have that conversation with your wife to say, Look Hun, I really want to do underwater basket weaving for a living. It would make me very, very happy, which in case might not bring in as large of a paycheck, but ultimately we as a family could be happier. How do you sell that?
Clint Proctor:Well, I mean it depends on how strong the marriage is at the time, but if you have a strong marriage that's still going to be a hard sell. Um, and it, let's just go from that point of view. If your marriage is strong, you have pretty good car, you know, you have pretty good communication but you go when you say, Hey, I think I'm going to chase after this new career. Um, I, I mean for me the way I sold it cause I, I mean I don't have, I didn't have any idea how I was going to be able to bring money in. So what I told her was this, I was, I said, I told her I'm not going to quit my job, um, until I have got a, hopefully if they get the side hustle with writing, if it takes off, I'm not going to quit my job until I'm bringing in at least over 50% of my day job and preferably having, um, my entire day job income replaced. And then I had a, I had kind of a plan B and I told her, I said, but if it doesn't pay, it doesn't take off that fast. Like next May. And I'm like, Hey, you know what, it's, I'm only at 25%. This isn't going as well as I had hoped I had a plan B and actually has a lot to do with financial literacy. I love, um, again, I love young people. I love teaching people about, uh, finances that are young. And I was willing to go take a job as a teacher. Um, I say willing. It's not like it would have been to me. I told her, honestly, it would not have been like a, Oh, poor me. I had to go become a teacher. I would've literally loved it. Um, it would've been a blast to be able to go and teach kids about like economics and then throw as much of my own opinion about personal finances as I could. Uh, but you know, I, um, was willing to do that and I knew what steps I needed to take. I have a few different friends and family that are in education, so I knew around like march or April, what steps I would need to need to take to get certified and begin putting my resume out over the summer. Um, so I just, I don't think you should be too idealistic and be like, well, I'm just going to quit my job and I'm just gonna hope for the best. Um, because you can really blow yourself up. But at the same time, if I knew that I wanted to write because I def, that's my ultimate passion. I never would have stopped doing it on the side. I would have continued to try to grow it and then maybe I have to wait one more year to launch out full time. But you've got to balance idealism with also reality and that's how I balanced it was that way. It ended up being in about two months before my kind of target date. I ended up just barely eking out a little bit more money, freelance Friday as I was making from my day job. And I just did that by writing from five to eight in the morning and then writing again from, you know, working eight to five and then writing again sometimes at night from like 10 to midnight and a on my day off writing as well. And it just worked. And it was, it was a, it was a grueling year. Um, but sometimes you know, you not going to have a, a side hustle that you can do that. Thankfully with writing I could, I could get up early and whenever I had my laptop I could work. So it worked for me that way. I don't know if I have a perfect answer for that question, but that's just kinda how it worked for us.
Katie Utterback:Then maybe you could talk a little bit about the motivation to keep going with this side hustle cause you're talking about getting up really early and staying up later and working on your day off. How did your wife I guess handle that or like that? And then, um, I think you mentioned you have children, so how did that all work?
:Yeah, it was, it was not a, it, thankfully my wife wasn't, she was always behind me every step of the way. So that part wasn't a problem. She was really supportive. Um, I tried my best to not have to work on my day off and, and, and not do my writing on those days. But sometimes it happened, but I really never wrote when the kids were awake except for maybe, like I said, maybe I'd take a couple of hours on a day off. I'd wake up at like six and then, you know, come home around 10 about the time the family was ready to go do something. But I fairly well protected my days off and I just really tried to be efficient early in the morning and then late at night after the kids were in bed, it did kind of get a little bit in the way of like my, me and my wife like to stay up late together. Usually we'll, that's kind of our time between nine to midnight. So that was something that sometimes we had to sacrifice, but she understood that it was short term. It wasn't just like an indefinite date and I kept telling her, hey, hang with me on this because it's coming, you know, the, the freedom is coming and now, now that we're at finally at that place of the payoff, it's been amazing because we can go on a day trip whenever we want. I just basically have my due dates on my articles and as long as I get my work done beforehand, I mean I have pretty much ultimate freedom. That's the thing that's a danger by the way, when you're, when you're your own boss that can be a problem. Uh, but you have to still have good time management skills. But it is very nice to have that flexibility.
Katie Utterback:And do you think that that balance or I guess striving to maintain a balance between ensuring the success of your side hustle into something that was going to pay off for you one day and then also having your family life. Do you think that that, I guess trying to balance the two is why you found success through this side hustle?
Clint Proctor:Yeah, I do think that's a good point that you make. If I were to have ended up, you know, completely basically for taking my family and having no balance in my life, I probably would have got burned out because I would have felt guilty every time I saw my kids, you know, tugging on my, you know, t- shirt and my wanting to hop in my lap and I would have to, you know, tell them, hey, get away, I'm working. I probably would've ended up really feeling like a bad person and then ended up being like, well, this is bad. All around this was a bad idea. Um, but being able to kind of separate the two, I mean, my son really didn't need, well he's only four, but he didn't really even understand that I was even pursuing this obviously. I just Kinda just did it with me and my wife and then I put him on the swing, the porch swing the other day, and I had to explain to him that daddy has a new job and kind of how that works. And he's a, he doesn't quite understand what an article is, but I'm working on it. I told him the other day, I was like, but buddy, I said, I try to help people so that they can be able to save money and be able to buy things that they, you know, that they need. Like being able to have a home like we have and a car. And he said like toys from the dollar store. And I said, well yeah, I said, or like, you know, like to be able to get, you know, furniture. And he said like in like toys from the dollar store. He was zoned in on that. He wasn't gonna move. I'm like, yeah, that's what I help people do I guess. But so anyway, it was funny story.
Katie Utterback:He's pitching you your next article idea toys from the dollar store.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. That's funny. How do you just have the one child?
Clint Proctor:I have two. I have a four year old and a one year old, so I have two boys.
Chase Peckham:So you just wait to find out when, because they could have two completely different financial personalities and you know, we, cause we as parents can teach them the same thing. And My, my son born saver, like he could go to target if you, if you told him you had to spend his own money, he'd be like, oh no, no, no, no. My daughter would just did not care. That money would come in and it would go out so fast. And I'm like, I teach them the same things and yet they are completely different. And Avery did not care if she had money in her bank account and my son would sit there and freak out if he didn't have any money in his bank account. So it's fun to see those personalities.
Clint Proctor:Uh, no doubt. Yeah. I, I'm afraid of my oldest son is going to be like, he's going to be the spender that boy, every time we go to the store, he's the one that he's wanting us to buy a toy to bring a, to bring home. And I keep telling him no, no. And as soon as he gets money from any grandma or Grandpa or anybody, he wants to immediately take a shopping trip. So I'm gonna have to start doing, I don't know, one of the, one of the jar, I guess a little, uh, strategies that they talk about, you know, or yet like the spending and the saving and giving jar or something like that. Do you do that?
Chase Peckham:Yes. And we tried that. We did that with my kids until they're now 11 and nine and they're, in fact, they're still on their dressers, but they just, we opened bank accounts for them. Um, just a little while back. Now they're getting into the where it's great for carrying an eye too, because we can pay them for their chores, kind of like we get paid. So it automatically just, instead of us having to remember to give them cash and then it goes in, they can see their bank account get larger. Um, when we go through that process. Uh, and, but, and it's funny cause it's changed a bit in the fact that we give them chores. There's certain things that they need to do around the house that they essentially get paid for. So like for instance, I'm not gonna pay them to make their bed and all that stuff, but they will get penalized, so to speak if they don't make their bed. And they'll say, well, why? And I said, well, essentially what you've done is you've said, I don't want to take the time to make my bed, so I'm going to hire somebody to do it. And so if mom and dad do it, you've hired us, that'll cost you, that'll cost you a dollar. And it's the same thing as in the real world when Mommy and daddy don't want to go fix our own toilet, we have to hire somebody to do that, right? And it's a lot, you know, we can't have a broken toilet, so we have to have it fixed. And I can do it much cheaper if dad does it. But I can also say, you know, I'm not really good at that. And I could actually make things a lot more expensive by trying to do that. So it might be better if I just hire somebody. So if you don't want to make your bed that day, that's fine. But you hired somebody out. And so if they get paid, and I keep track. So like if they get paid$29, you know, cause they get$40 is what they will each get. And they take out the trash and they do all this stuff. Um, but then there's just household things that you need to do around the house that you help with family. And yet they'll, Avery, the other day was like$29 dad, how come I only get$29 and I gave her the list. I said, bed wasn't made on this date, this date, this date, your clothes were on the floor on this date. So essentially you hired a maid to pick them up off the floor. And so you'll, you'll, I've never, I, I thought this is a shot in the dark, but I'm telling you, their rooms are phenomenal for the most part, phenomenally clean nowadays. And they don't leave things around, but they're also taking ownership of, okay, for every thing, one thing I do or don't do, there's gonna be repercussions for it. Right. Which is in the real world. So we're trying to give them the idea that, you know, you do a job for a wage and that life is going to cost you things. Not Everything is, you know, you want to pay for because there's lots of things in this world that as adults don't wanna pay for. But we have to.
Clint Proctor:It's funny you mentioning all this stuff because I had kind of, honestly, it's funny being a personal finance nerd like I am and writing about it, I kind of had been a little bit, I guess negligent and kind of had put it off thinking that my son was too young, but I felt a little convicted about it. Cause I recently I write for a, you guys probably know of Phillip Taylor from PT, from PT money. Um, but if you don't, he's a, he's got a website that I write for and he just recently did a guide on like helping your children learn personal finance, um, principles. And that was one of the things that he had mentioned was like, you can start giving them an allowance at four and start doing some of these things. And I was like four years old?! Then I felt like I was a bad parent. So I was like, I don't know how, how young did you start your kids with some of these things if you wait till they were a little bit older?
Chase Peckham:Five.
Clint Proctor:Five?
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It was right around five and I feel better about myself now. Thank you. Cause they don't really understand the full concept yet, but what the, what you're trying to teach them at that point is just the idea that that it's a tangible thing that is real money. It's not just this plastic card you put in a little machine and then all of a sudden we have our groceries. Um, we physically, you know, a lot of times we go to the grocery store, we would take cash and use it and show that when they were with us to show them, look, this is real money. And then I would open up my bank account and show them the line and say, look that money, see that don't that number right there, that number got smaller. Right? Because daddy went to Ralph's and bought whatever I bought. And they, oh, okay, where's my toy or whatever, you know, it's only going to sink in so much. But, but because of those little baby steps along the way, my 11 year old's got a really good grasp of what money is and how much money he's got. I mean, the kids got more money than I do right now on me, you know? And that's because he just flat out, you know, he's, he'll save it and he won't go. You know, there's like one video game that he has to have at the beginning of the year every year and he spends his money on that, but it's also close to it coming out around his birthday and he'll go, dad, if I buy it like just like a month earlier than my birthday, can we split it? And it'd be like half of my birthday present. And I'm like, well, he's a born negotiator. The kid's going to be successful someday. And you just work with them. And just as long as you explain it along the way, I am a firm believer. I think that, I understand that your parents were very much like that they were an open book. And I think that's, you know, I don't want this to be coming into a parenting podcast, but when it comes to finances is you just, you've got to be honest with them and open with them about all of it. And that this money does come to an end. There is a limit to what we can do. And we're trying as parents to give you the best life, but you've got to understand that that mommy and daddy only makes so much money and all these other things cost money. You know, cause they ask all the time how come our houses isn't as big as our friend's houses and we'll just say, do you want to go to Mexico in a couple months? Cause if we owned a house that big, we wouldn't be going on vacation because you have to decide just like you do Clay, you can use, you can have this year's video game or you can do next years, right. Or, or last years. And he'll go, oh well that's a lot cheaper. Okay. So as long as you explain it to them, you know, the kids are smart kids, they suck up information really, really quickly and sometimes they, they learn by you. So not just what we teach but them watching what we do.
Felipe Arevalo:And that's what we tell people all the time. It's like whether you're teaching is actually sitting and teaching your kids money or not. They're watching you. So they're learning from you regardless of whether you're formally trying to teach them or not. But they're learning from what you do, what, how you treat money, how you, um, go about spending it, saving it and doing all that.
Clint Proctor:Mmm-hmmm yeah, that's all great advice. I appreciate it cause it's definitely been on my mind a lot lately. And you want to do, yeah,[crosstalk]. I shouldn't get too much of a hurry.
Chase Peckham:So for, I guess to finish this up, if you in this became your careers, so you, you called that a side hustle, um, because it was something that you went and did on the side until it became fruitful enough for you to take it and do it full time. Right. What would you say to people that are thinking about doing that? What is the first step that you would take? And, uh, and deciding whether that's the right thing for you or not.
Clint Proctor:My suggestion it'd be this is, um, number one, find out there, tried to, strive to try to find ways to do things, um, that are going to be low, the lowest obstacle to getting involved as you can and then work your way up. So for me it was starting my own blog. Um, you know, I didn't have to have anybody assign me an article for me to start writing. I could start doing it on my own. Yeah, I wasn't going to get paid doing it, but, um, it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made because it helped me hone in my skills as a writer and then also gave me some writing samples that I could use. So sometimes I think you want to go straight to like the, I want to write for, you know, the highest paying, you know, news site out there and this, I want to be a well known award winning journalist. And who doesn't want to be, that'd be great. Um, but if you don't, you know, you send out two or three random emails, I'm just using my career as an example to some editors at some huge sites and then you don't hear back and you go, oh, I guess I wasn't cut out for this. Well maybe you just tried to shoot a little bit too high beyond where you really have any credibility or any realistic chance of being able to even be successful. So start with what you can do and then see if you, without there being very much financial at this point, maybe sacrifice or investment, see if you even like it because it may not, you may hate it. Um, and if you, if you find that out without too much financial, you know, investment put into it will better for you than if you go and you plop down a lot of money and find out or quit your job and find out you don't like something. So that's why I like a side hustle. It gives you a chance to get a taste of a job before actually diving into it full time. But then if you do enjoy it and you go, man, I would love to just do this all day and I would just love to just, and that's what I said after I started riding, I'm like, I just love this. I wish I could just do it all day. I found myself thinking about it when I was at work. I want articles I wanted to write. Um, then the second step for me was like finding who are the influencers because I was a super big island type of a person. I didn't do stuff like this. I didn't talk to people outside my spectrum. I didn't connect with people on social media. I wasn't somebody who was really worried about, um, having a network. It just never had been something that I had to worry about in my previous career. But if I was gonna move into a new one, I needed to start having people that were on my contact list that I could comment on their, their articles and share it and begin to build a network of people that knew me and I knew them. And I wasn't just this random email coming through to editors. I wanted to be someone who was kind of around that community. So that way if I sent a pitch to somebody, it would be more of a warm pitch than a cold pitch. So no matter what you know, career you're wanting to go into, I don't care if it's pest control, I don't care if it's you want to be a, uh, uh, you know, personal fitness coach. I don't care if you want to be a writer or if you want to be a, um, you know, an insurance adjuster, I don't care what you want to do, but whatever it is, find the people who are already doing it and become part of that community. And then the next thing I would say is once you start getting a little bit of paid work, um, start saving the money instead of immediately spending it. Um, because what you're doing is you're saving up a nest egg for your eventual if you do want to make it your full time job for your, uh, for your eventual launch out. And so I never spent any of my side hustle income. I just kept saving it, putting it away to where that when I was finally ready to take that step, I felt very secure that I was going to be perfectly fine. I wasn't going to be putting my family in danger. So those are just some, some ideas. It's none of those are rules. You don't have to do all those things. But I would say that there are pretty universal rules that would work no matter kind of what side hustle that you're wanting to pursue.
Chase Peckham:Yeah, that sounds right up or exactly what happened with Keri. That's exactly what she did. Oh cool. And she stumbled upon it on accident. So she's got a, she's a financial blog too, so she calls time is money, money mommy. And she still writes for that quite a bit too, just on the side. But that indirectly has helped her side hustle dramatically because a lot of the people that read that blog buy skincare from her.
Clint Proctor:Huh. How, how neat is that?
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It's kind of crazy huh? That, that she's not making money on the blog, but the blog is making her money, if that makes any sense at all.
Clint Proctor:Sure. It's like part, it's part of her brain and people trust her as a person because of what they read about money. And so they why, why wouldn't I want to buy skincare products from her? That makes perfect sense.
Chase Peckham:Well, thank you very much. This has been a very, very enlightening. I'm, I'm, I'm sure that not many people would be able to go out and create a side hustle full time job in seven months, uh, like you did. But uh, that just goes to show your perseverance and the homework you did.
Clint Proctor:Well, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And I will say that it was saving up the income, was a big part of it. Um, but now that I've taken the, the jump, I mean my income has probably gone up two or three times since quitting my job. So as a personal finance person, I know it's easy to, to look at the budget and never actually take that jump. But once the numbers align, if you love it, I would say for most people go for it. And, and, and I don't regret that one bit. I'm sure most people wouldn't either
Chase Peckham:Katie's like, yeah, I'm a good writer.
Katie Utterback:Yeah, I've been to this conference that you're talking about
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And now a little follow up with myself, Phil, and Katie. And I don't know about you guys, but I found him very, very interesting.
Katie Utterback:My ears were definitely picking up as a writer because you could actually see it. You're sitting here going, I'm a good writer. I should be doing this. I mean, that's happened to me though where I, I was an award winning journalist. You've never heard of me, but I had that credential and it was still hard to get in the door and I, I found it really hard to take$5 for a thousand word piece. Kind of like what he's saying.
Felipe Arevalo:You know, he was mentioning that. I was like, wow, really? That's not a good return.
Chase Peckham:No.
Felipe Arevalo:But he, he mentioned he, put it in the full effort into that one, which then led to higher yielding articles.
:But I think what he was saying is you have to say yes to everything when you're trying to make a career change like this. I don't know of anybody, I don't think you guys watch the real housewives of Beverly Hills. I have not. But that was just on there too. There was a woman who wanted, she's in her forties almost fifties and wanted to become a pop star. And she just kept saying yes, yes, yes to everything. And now it was like she was in Kim Kardashians game or something as a character. Christina Aguilera invited her to her birthday to perform. And it was because she just kept saying, yes, yes, yes. And felt like she was just, was opening up all these doors.
Chase Peckham:That's interesting to hear. I'm not sure that's going to get me to watch that show, but uh, but noted
Katie Utterback:the music videos might really yeah. They're for like a late, late podcast kind of.
Chase Peckham:Okay. Okay. Well we'll give them a shot. I think when people talk about side hustle, it's such an interesting thing cause there's many different reasons to get into it, right? There's many different reasons like he did where he was trying to get into a new career. Um, then there's like my wife who did it because she liked the product, um, and thought, man, if I like this, I know other people are gonna like this and you can feel the passion within her. And then all of a sudden that passion is supplementing a lot of our income. So, you know, and that happened not because she didn't love her job, she loves her her day job. In fact, she said even if she started really making a lot of money, she wouldn't necessarily leave her day job. So I mean, yeah.
Katie Utterback:One of my favorite side hustle examples was actually from an SDFLC luncheon event. There was a woman talking about how she got a side hustle as a yoga instructor and it was just something to do in the evening. And she said it wasn't like she was trying to become this like, you know, new Yogi instructor or something, but becoming an instructor, she didn't have to pay the membership anymore. So she was saving that money and then it forced her to work out every day pretty much because she had to go teach a class.
Chase Peckham:Right. That's awesome. See if you can do that. You can do something that you already love and then go get paid for it. Whether it's going to supplement your whole income and maybe it will, I mean, if you're really good at something, the rewards will come.
Katie Utterback:Oh yeah.
Chase Peckham:It's just a matter of how much you love it and how much you want to persevere to do it. And I think he's right. And I, what I really liked about his, his story is he didn't mortgage the future to do it right. He very carefully stayed, right. They didn't blow up a budget. They didn't go throwing a ton of money at things and he just, they lived a life where they weren't reaching for things. And I think that's the biggest thing when people start to get into debt, it's because they're reaching for something that may or may not they think fulfill them. Um, and sometimes people buy things because it's replacing something or adding something, um, wherein, or believe that they deserve a certain thing. Um, and we find that all the time with people that are blowing up their budgets. It's all like they deserve this cause I work hard for it[crosstalk]. Exactly. It's very, very emotional. And I think side hustle can be that too, because I mean, you could hear it in his voice that he was extraordinarily passionate about not only the topic from which he writes, but the writing itself, that he loves putting a story together and educating people. And if you get that kind of burning out of it, you know people are gonna read that and understand that this person really does love it and he's going to be successful. And obviously he's getting there. And Katie, you could probably do the exact same thing because I've read your stuff. It's very, very good.
Katie Utterback:Thank you.
Chase Peckham:You're very, very welcome
Felipe Arevalo:I always send things over before we send out the newsletter. Hey Katie, can you put a Katie touch on all this stuff
Chase Peckham:Felipe, you need a lot of Katie touch. Sorry, that was a low blow.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh you know I'm writing. It's not really my thing. I like doing it, but I'm not starting a blog.
Chase Peckham:You would think you love writing as many words as you put it
Felipe Arevalo:I know! when they give you character limits. I have been so angry at things that I'm writing. When I have a character limit,
Chase Peckham:it's like I'm getting paid 5 cents for the word? We're gonna have 5,000 words.
Katie Utterback:That's like a vogue kind of freelance rate
Felipe Arevalo:writing in high school and writing and well, minimum this many words, minimum of this me. And you're sitting there like, well I'm done. I got my point across, fill it up. Now I'm going to go the source and see how many of these words are
Chase Peckham:not doing any benefits to future young writers in high school in telling them they've got to fill up so much to tell their stories, especially in this day and age when you need to get out and get your point across quickly. because nobody's reading three pages.
Felipe Arevalo:I'd sometimes mess with the font, the margins, size, spacing between lines and you're creative, but at the same time it was like sometimes I was writing just to write more to fill up the page and you don't really want to do that when you're writing a blog because no one wants to sit there and read your blog about hiking and finances for an hour.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. My wife will say, chase, we you could get your point across in like literally a or fourth less words.
Felipe Arevalo:Well, that's why when she takes a look at some writings, you get a lot of red ink
Chase Peckham:whole lot of red ink. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt. What do you guys think? Is there anything that you've thought about Katie? We know side hustle probably would be you're a writer by nature and that's what you love to do. Is there anything else that you can think of that you would like to do that you think you could do a high side hustle out of?
Felipe Arevalo:There's been two things I saw one time like coaching youth or youth team, like a soccer team and some of them do PE. Obviously you probably want to volunteer first and figure out the year coaching, like coaching or your JV team at our high school. Um, where is that gonna be huge pay. But you go out there after work practice and then have the games. That would be pretty cool. Um, and I like to drive, I know some of the ride sharing things don't get good publicity and what whatnot, but I generally like to sit in my car and drive. So something you're doing, something along those lines would be pretty interesting. Like I could just, it's fun.
Chase Peckham:I can see you being great at Uber or Lyft. Yeah. You have a good personality for it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah I just randomly talk to whoever jumps in the car
Chase Peckham:You need some serious cleaning on that car though.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah my poor car. Lots of cleaning to do. That's one of those where you look at it and you say, you know what, I could do it myself or this point. I need to go get it cleaned somewhere because my poor car has seen cleaner days.
Chase Peckham:All right. So Felipe would be Uber, Lyft.
Katie Utterback:How about you Chase?
Chase Peckham:You know, I actually have a past career that I do side hustle on. So I do video and television production. I'm on the side for fun. I'll do it from any kind of like a wedding video for a friend or I'll do uh, art, our all star teams, um, tournament that they've done this year. I'll probably do a little like music video for it, um, and do some kinds of things like that. But so, cause my first career I was with the Padres and in production and um, that has kind of just morphed itself into my kind of side hustle in my work career, hobby, so to speak. Um, and set sometimes that can bring in some good money and sometimes it brings in nothing. But I like doing it still.
Katie Utterback:And I think that's, I guess the most important point is that even if you weren't making a ton of money from it, would you still enjoy it?
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And I think the fact that it's a hobby and I don't have pressure to do it and make my money doing that way, um, makes me like it even more because you know, like anything else, you do it over and over again and it's stressful. Um, you can sometimes lose the fun in it. Um, and you also find out that, um, the video side of it, the editing side of it, the creativity side of it is awesome, but if you don't have the right clients, you can take all that fun out of it because they think they wanted a certain way, even though you're telling them that it probably is not going to turn out that way, then you do it the way they want it and then they go, oh, this is terrible. I'm like, I told you that in the first day, but it's so, you know, there's some, like anything else, there's good and bad with it for sure. What do we got coming up, K atie?
Katie Utterback:Next week we're going to talk about how to invest in real estate rental properties in order to get to your financial independence. The last time we talked about it was about investing in your 20s, so this is any age and how to invest for the purpose of financial independence.
Chase Peckham:So, typically rental properties. Stay tuned for that.