A Mission for Money Education. A Sit Down With Mark Olazagasti

Most people have a few, or a dozen, financial mistakes they look back on and really regret. For many,  becoming financial savvy is learned through trial and error and living with a few regrets from your younger years is all part of the process.

 Isn’t it ridiculous credit card companies send applications to 18 year old kids before they even graduate high school? With predatory practices everywhere you turn and lines of credit increasingly accessible - it’s all too easy to make a few blunders, right? Well, a recent Outside Insights guest is on a mission to help prevent this.

 In this episode of Outside Insights, I sit down with Mark Olazagasti, a first generation entrepreneur and lifelong Delawarean. Mark recently retired from his role of managing partner at Info Solutions, an IT infrastructure consulting and managed services company he co-founded.

 During our chat, Mark got transparent around his personal experiences with finances. He was raised by a single mother who struggled financially, started a business during the Great Recession and learned tough lessons about debt after making mistakes that many people have before, like buying furniture before being paid.

 Now, through his nonprofit YourMoney101, Mark advocates for personal finance to be taught in all Delaware high schools. He also personally provides financial mentoring and education to individuals and companies. As a father to two young people and someone who has learned from past financial mistakes, I think this mission is all too important.

 In this episode, you’ll hear:

- Mark's origin story and lessons learned from starting a business

- Why Mark was inspired to advocate for personal finance education in schools

- Common money and debt mistakes people make

- The importance of tracking income vs expenses

- Managing psychology around money decisions

- Book recommendations for learning about personal finance - include a list below as well for easy reference!

 Mark’s Budgeting Spreadsheet

Mark’s Credit Card Debt Payoff Calculator Spreadsheet

 Book Recommendations from a finance wiz:

The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated by Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Transcript

Chris Burkhard: 0:23

That music was brought to you and played by Steve Miller, my brother in law and produced by Laney Miller, my niece. In this episode of Outside Insights, we're thrilled to have Mark Olazagasti as our guest. He's had a remarkable career in IT. He recently retired as managing partner and founding member of Info Solutions. He'll talk more about what Info Solutions does, but it's infrastructure consulting, managed services, and he has played a pivotal role in building that company and then serving customers really in the Mid-Atlantic. If you're not sure what the Mid-Atlantic is, that's Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mark your first generation entrepreneur and lifelong Delawarean. Do I have that right?

Mark Olazagasti: 1:13

That is accurate.

Chris Burkhard: 1:14

I think he's very deeply committed to the local part of Delaware. And I think you'll hear that both in how he gives back his time to entrepreneurs, how he's involved in various boards and committees. And maybe as he talks a little about his Not-for-Profit which he founded in 2015, Your Money 101. Mark, we've been talking about getting you on the show for a long time. I'm really thrilled to have you here.

Mark Olazagasti: 1:45

My pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Chris Burkhard: 1:48

Appreciate it. So really big tough first question. Do you remember how we met?

Mark Olazagasti: 1:55

I thought you were going to go with favorite

Chris Burkhard: 1:57

It's very obviously orange, isn't it? color.

Mark Olazagasti: 2:02

It is orange. I'm blue.

Chris Burkhard: 2:04

So, all right. I'm color-blind. I'm not, go ahead.

Mark Olazagasti: 2:09

So, you know, you're gonna have to correct me. But so our relationship developed I know, for a fact, with the New Castle County Chamber when we joined the emerging Enterprise Center as a basically, startup company. Now, we had plenty of years of industry experience, but we were new to starting a company. So Carmen Facciolo was my first mentor when we joined. So there were three main partners and I was the first one to jump and Carmen was my mentor and that I think lasted about a year. And then you became my mentor, if you remember.

Chris Burkhard: 2:52

I do remember that.

Mark Olazagasti: 2:53

Yes, so that was where the relationship developed to where it is today, but I don't recall the first meeting, do you?

Chris Burkhard: 3:04

You know, this was really for you and I to have a little fun and kind of loosen ourselves up for the dialogue. I mean obviously, you worked in an entrepreneurial business before that in Info Systems. Good old Mark Stellini and company and I was thinking that we may have met, I know you're on that management team. And I hung around a lot like teaching Dale Carnegie of that group. So I wasn't sure if you were in that classroom but I think our first discussion was talking about marketing and talking about Info Solutions and maybe getting together in my old conference room. But I mean, I liked that story and obviously, you went on to give back to that chamber and a whole host of other things and became an anchor customer and stayed because it was the right thing. And there's a neat story there. So, ten or fifteen years ago or am I even dating myself.

Mark Olazagasti: 3:59

Well, we just turned fifteen in February so, 2009, 2010 or 2011. Somewhere around there was probably when you became our mentor.

Chris Burkhard: 4:11

Isn't that interesting about starting a business during a downturn? That's where most of them are started right? You got nothing else to do, but to go up.

Mark Olazagasti: 4:19

Yes. So it's funny, you mentioned that because that was a challenge. So, you know, what people don't realize is, it's not your good looks that get you funding. It's your own personal credit, your own credit score. And I remember I went into PNC and all the partners had been good credit scores, and PNC at the time, hopefully I'm not going to get in trouble. They're not a sponsor, but at the time they were known as a small business lender, like they were the go to people. They declined us and all we wanted was a line of credit to just have a buffer. Just because the great recession, we were in

Chris Burkhard: 5:01

Do you remember why they declined? the midst of it. Yes, it had to do with you and more to do, I perceive with they weren't lending credit anybody?

Mark Olazagasti: 5:14

Correct. Maybe they wanted our house, to sign away our house type of thing. But I mean, quite frankly even then and I had just moved in, I probably had no equity because the market had turned upside down. So it was a challenge and we ended up Rich my business partner had a relationship at WSFS and that's where we ended up getting our line of credit. And you know, they extended us and we've had that relationship going on until to this day.

Chris Burkhard: 5:43

You know, it may not be obvious to everybody, but you start a business, why do you need a line of credit?Because reality is, expenses creep in, you start to grow, your customers pay you later than when you need cash. It's about making things a little easier on the business. And you know, it just helps you get between tough spots. And it's very common, no different than having a credit card at home but you need it until you get that receivables coming in to pay it off. So all of us need it. That was a very interesting time because I mean obviously, I was in business a bit before that but I can remember paying down a credit line and thinking that would satisfy the bank and them saying, Well, thank you for paying it off, but we're going to freeze it too. So you can't use it right now. And that was just the way it was at those times, which is always kind of interesting. Obviously, I announced that you've recently retired. What are you up to these days? How are you spending your time.

Mark Olazagasti: 6:59

do anything related to personal finance, I'm actually on the Board of Directors, or Board of Trustees at Goldey Beacom College as vice chair recently as chair. So you know, I keep busy that way. But to do list, that's what I've been driven by. The neat thing about it is I get to pick and choose my to do's, more so then before. So I have less must do's which is it's actually pretty liberatiing. what's ever want

Chris Burkhard: 7:41

More things you want to do. You know to the average person listening, that sounds like a dreamy Saturday, right? To get a few hours to do what you want but that's pretty cool. It's obviously earned. Now, basically you retired from your day job but you're still a shareholder in the firm, correct?

Mark Olazagasti: 8:06

Correct and I've helped out a little bit

Chris Burkhard: 8:06

How do those stories kind of all blend here and there. You know, it might be eight hours in a month together? You've got a new to do list. You accomplished what you type of thing or anywhere from zero to sixteen hours in a month. I helped out more at year end to close out the year. wanted with the business, you have the not for profit. So are you going for it with a Not for Profit? Are you spending more time on that? Talk a bit about it.

Mark Olazagasti: 8:47

So it's neat how it evolved. I incorporated it in 2015. But I kind of started oddly enough, doing Q & A's at Goldey Beacom for Pat Buhler and it was mostly around business. So I would just do a Q& A around starting a business and talking to her students. And I developed a relationship with Pat and just somehow the topic got on to what my passions were and I said, my passions for various reasons, have always been personal finance. And you know, I talked about wanting to get back to it. And it just kind of ended up being a little bit of a perfect storm where I just, you know, kind of evolved into it where I said, Okay, well how do I change the business presentations to personal finance presentations, and then it morphed into what do I really want to do with the nonprofit? I love mentoring people. I had liked doing Q and A's lunch and learns, things like that were you know, passing along knowledge. And you know, the interesting thing, the IT industry, I was the business end of it. I wasn't the technical end of it so I'd go into a meeting and I would listen because people would talk about the technology. And I enjoyed being able to help the client with the business aspect of the technology. But I wasn't teaching, I wasn't mentoring in that regard on a day to day basis. And I kind of gravitated towards that, so very early on and actually right now, the tagline for Your Money 101 is advocate, educate and mentor. Educate mentor piece I've been doing for years and I'll continue doing that. And obviously do some education and mentoring for the folks at Placers.

Chris Burkhard: 10:41

We appreciate it and the truth is, it's nice to be able to get your advice from somebody who is neutral.

Mark Olazagasti: 10:50

Yes and my advice is based on life experience. I'm not selling product, I won't tell anybody if I haven't experienced something. You know, I've been around for a while so I've experienced a lot of different things, including the Great Recession. You know, ups and downs in the market and just budgeting and the importance of really understanding debt and things like that. So it evolved. The thing that I've kind of focused on especially in retirement, is what does the advocate piece mean?

Chris Burkhard: 11:22

Yes, what does it mean?

Mark Olazagasti: 11:24

So for the longest time, it meant Goldey Beacom and trying to get them to have personal finances as a required course. As far as I was able to get was the influence and you figure board chairs should be able to wave a magic wand.

Chris Burkhard: 11:41

Should be should be easy, right?

Mark Olazagasti: 11:43

Does not work that way, doesn't work that way but I did have influence. Well, what ended up happening was it ended up being an elective and it's actually one of the most attended electives that the college offers. Because I think students realize, hey, I have to learn this at some point in

Chris Burkhard: 12:02

So, Jeff was working on this idea, separate time. So once it kind of crossed that off my list, I said okay, advocate, what can I do? So I retired, had some extra time, I'm like well, what does Delaware do as far as the advocacy piece? And the thing that started driving me towards this was, whenever I would talk to employees or people in the workforce already the common theme I kept on hearing was, I wish I had learned this in blank and blank was either high school college or before I was thousands of dollars in debt. Right. So I'm like okay, well I enjoy mentoring people that are in the workforce but how can I try and make a difference a little bit more upstream? So I started doing a little bit of research of what Delaware offers in their high schools and I ended up meeting several different people. Come to find out that it is not a required course and I ended up connecting with the folks at the Center for Economic Education, Entrepreneurship at University of Delaware. I connected with a gentleman at Next Gen Personal Finance and the long story short is, I was like it needs to be a requirement to graduate high school. And in my early understanding, I'm like, well, if that's going to happen, you need a legislative person that's passionate about it. And fortunately, they would sponsor it and fortunately a rep Jeff Hilovsky in Sussex County is all over it. I remember when I first got introduced him and someone said he's tirelessly working on it. And I was like oh yeah, from your impetus, right? tirelessly, what does that mean? Well, he is, he's very passionate about it. So anyway this past June, it got introduced to the house, it's House Bill 203. It was presented to the Education Committee. And we had a pretty short runway and it was voted out of the Education Committee with the caveat that we wouldn't go for this past June 30th. That we basically have until June 30th of 2024 to have this legislation passed. So what we're going to start doing is working with people that either want it tweaked or maybe even are opposed to it, and try and get something that's a compromise and still meets the requirement that you need this in order to graduate because it is a critical life skill.

Mark Olazagasti: 14:36

Yes.

Chris Burkhard: 14:40

And what will it create if it passes?

Mark Olazagasti: 14:45

So, it'll require a standalone semester of personal finance to be taught to every high school student in order to graduate.

Chris Burkhard: 14:54

That's extraordinary.

Mark Olazagasti: 14:55

And what we have to work out is a semester alone semester. So some high schools only have one year, their course is a year rather than two semesters. So we need to just incorporate language that covers that so it's clear.

Chris Burkhard: 15:13

So you have been busy brother, you've been very busy.

Mark Olazagasti: 15:16

Yes. I found the advocacy part of advocate, educate and mentor, no doubt about that.

Chris Burkhard: 15:24

Well, is it obvious that you can have a greater impact on more people through that if you succeed?

Mark Olazagasti: 15:31

Yes.

Chris Burkhard: 15:33

All right. Do you think you'd have an opportunity to design the curriculum or is that a whole different bag of snakes?

Mark Olazagasti: 15:47

When I first started doing my research, I was like, Okay, are we starting? And I'm totally green and I'm like, Are we starting from scratch? If this is going to happen in my lifetime, is it starting from scratch? And I was pleased to find out that there is free curriculum out there. The Center Where will it be taught? Economics, business, finance? for Economic Education Entrepreneurship uses keys to financial success. They they provide all the training to the teachers and Next Gen Personal Finance is a national organization and they provide free content. So the cool thing about it Chris, is the infrastructure is there. You just need the will to be able to have the teachers learn. Because the interesting thing is teachers are engaged. They're learning themselves and then they have zooms that are engaged because the students realize that this is applicable to life. That's a great question and to give you a kind of a flip answer, we don't care. We don't want to legislate that, right?

Chris Burkhard: 16:53

Right. You could teach it in English if you need

Mark Olazagasti: 16:56

In other words, I've met teachers that are math to. teachers that teach it, economics is a common home for it. But the key is you you just need a teacher or teachers that are passionate about it and the rest kind of happens.

Chris Burkhard: 17:10

So I'll ask the question, any sense of how the other forty nine states approach this topic?

Mark Olazagasti: 17:17

Very similar. So there's eight states that require it and have implemented it. And there are I think, another I think seventeen states in all, maybe up to twenty on in all that are in some form of implementing. So I guess it would be eight have implemented it and have it rolling and then there's a bunch of states you know, a handful of states I guess maybe, I don't know, thirteen, fourteen states that have actually passed legislation that are in the process of implementing it two or three or four years down the road.

Chris Burkhard: 17:51

So we're kind of middle of the pack.

Mark Olazagasti: 17:55

In a sense.

Chris Burkhard: 17:56

So, just a subtle kind of shift a little bit. Why has this topic been so taboo to learn to talk about, to have education around? I mean, we're talking about obviously, a lot of things going into Your Money 101, budgets, finance, debt, investments, all these things. But I know we've had a lot of really interesting lunchtime dialogues just about this. What makes this topic so hard, generally speaking?

Mark Olazagasti: 18:29

So you know, think of sex education and money. Those are two things that as families we do a horrible job generally talking about. And finally, I mean, you know, schools have been not

Chris Burkhard: 18:44

You just said it. We're done, you just covered it. We're all set, right? Interesting perspective and it's mainly because we didn't have formal education on this.

Mark Olazagasti: 18:56

Absolutely, so you also have teachers that have not been taught it maybe formally themselves.

Chris Burkhard: 19:04

That's a really interesting point. So it's just kind of shoved under the rug in a lot of cases.

Mark Olazagasti: 19:09

Yes. It almost like figure it out as you go.

Chris Burkhard: 19:15

Well, I think part of the part of this show and my blog is, Outside Insights is really about helping people close gaps personally or professionally. I think Mark, a lot of times, I've had lots of employees, we've had lots of dialogues not always know what's going on of course, but it seems as if you stumble into these gaps, you make a mistake, you end up with some credit card debt or something or you you make a bad purchase or a bad decision. But I'm not really sure people know that there's ways to do this stuff right. Like, there are good choices around this to do this and maybe it comes back to not being taught, but it seems like people are learning this through their mistakes as opposed to get a good proactive gameplan with any of it.

Mark Olazagasti: 20:07

Yes and really, if you think about it, it's math, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and figuring out how to apply that to life. To personal finances, that's the foundation of it. It's not about crypto, it's about investing to some degree, but really you can't invest in yourself or in your future without understanding where you are financially. So it's more about you know, I call it keeping score rather than budgeting because people kind of freak out when they hear the word budgeting because they think depriving themselves. It's really about keeping score, I have income, I have expenses at the end of the day, is it in the black or is it in the red? And making the right decisions on major components of of your life?

Chris Burkhard: 20:57

Mark, you would think that with the whole world being captured digitally now, we have watches that tell us all this stuff about our heart rates and did we sleep well and what's our energy level. You would think the keeping score would be right in line with everybody's desire to have more data on everything. Unless you don't really like this score.

Mark Olazagasti: 21:21

Exactly and you can certainly do it via an app. I'm old school in the sense of I do spreadsheets. It's funny because I know plenty of millennials and Gen Z's that like my spreadsheet that I use and they tailor it to themselves.

Chris Burkhard: 21:39

I'm going to tell my audience, his spreadsheet for keeping score is legendary and I think I have like eleven family members that use that spreadsheet. So in fact, if you don't mind, we'll put that spreadsheet in show notes. Is that okay and then people could if you'd like we could download it and we can figure that out? If you're okay with it.

Mark Olazagasti: 22:00

Chris, I'll give you an updated version probably. I'm sure you might have an older one.

Chris Burkhard: 22:06

Okay, that would be great. So, anything more on Your Money 101 because it might be interesting to actually talk a little bit about personal finance and maybe trends you see or stories you'd like to share even suggestions? You said you want to be in a mentoring spot. Thoughts in that area?

Mark Olazagasti: 22:34

So an interesting thing when I started looking at the curriculum that is being taught by Next Gen Personal Finance and the folks at CEEE was when I when I looked at their outline, the word debt was not mentioned. Now, it was covered under credit. And, you know, obtaining credit and all that, but debt itself was not mentioned as a line item. And to me debt is the most important thing that you need to understand because it's going to help you purchase a house, a car, your household needs, things like that, and understanding how to manage that debt, it ends up being critical. So you hear a common term, your home is good debt, your mortgage is good debt. Well, it can turn into bad debt pretty quickly if you overbuy. In other words, if you buy what you qualify for versus what you can afford. And the only way you can really figure out what you can afford, is by understanding what's your income, what's your expenses. And you know, to your point, sometimes people don't want to know the answer. But the the interesting thing is that even if you don't like the answer, you end up getting a sense of control. Because what I find is that people end up on a couple of different spectrums. They worry about stuff that they don't know, so understanding what the numbers are helps them say, oh, it's not as bad as I thought. Or it's as bad as I thought but at least I know what the number is. Now my worry is justified. So it's just interesting and you're almost trying to navigate life because money is not the most important thing, right? But it can bide you time, it can buy a lot of different things and it could also get you into trouble, right? So there is a tie to happiness in the sense that I've seen many people stressed in debt and it's impacting their life. It's impacting the way they interact with their co workers or productivity at work and that's actually kind of how it all started. When I started working with my own employees, understanding that they were stressed. And you know, because it's a small company, I was able to say, you know, hey, Bob, we don't have any Bob's so I can use Bob's name. But you know, Bob, is there something bothering you because it just seems like you perform at such a high level, but you seem a little distracted? And again, it's not in a bad way, but I'm just like, what's wrong? Because there's work and there's life, right? And how do you balance the two? And sometimes the life impacts the work.

Chris Burkhard: 25:19

What a very integrated life. So if finance is stressed or health is stressed, it's a whole circle that's all connected. You're right on.

Mark Olazagasti: 25:28

So, working with my own employees, I was like, Hey, wait a minute, like this. And so between Pat Buhler, working with my employees and figuring okay, I started to figure out what I'm going to do when I retire. And the nonprofit came about because I'm like, Well, I don't want to do it for profit because I don't want to sell product. I don't want it to be about money and I also had business partners. So to me, the nonprofit just kind of like came out of thinking about how do I make this happen? And it kind of just all started coming together and it was neat. It was neat watching the process develop and kind of enjoying the process with something fun that wasn't career defining such as starting a business.

Chris Burkhard: 26:17

So, it sounds like it's nothing but joy.

Mark Olazagasti: 26:20

Yes, I really enjoy doing it. So, in retirement, I tried to have a different mindset. And I try and ask myself almost on a daily basis, did I do something of value for myself? Because I'm a big believer in, you have to take the oxygen first, before you can help the person next to you on the plane, right? So, did I do something of value for myself? Did I do value for someone I know? Did I do something of value for someone I don't know or something? And I kind of constantly asked myself that all the time.

Chris Burkhard: 26:54

So there's no surprise, I write down most days, am I being the person I want to be right now? So I think that's very interesting that we both have affirmations or statements of how we want to live our lives and give back, but also make a difference. You know, it's really interesting to me about how this topic is taboo And that people would, in some cases rather live with the pain than talk about it. But it does sound like you're making a difference in that regard. And if you could just help a handful of people, then that's a strong beginning.

Mark Olazagasti: 27:36

You know, it's funny because in retirement, making a difference or adding value to the person I don't know, has been the biggest challenge. It's almost like, you know, random acts of kindness, right? That takes effort, but what I came to feel is that this legislation is going to help a lot of people I don't know.

Chris Burkhard: 28:03

I also think, you know, conversation like this, if someone doesn't know, it's an interesting story to be for profit, and then start a not for profit. You know, our careers are going to be defined by those kinds of lattice kinds of moves. I think it's great for people to hear that. Do you want to scale the not for profit? Might not even be the right question, but what would you say your goals are with Your Money 101?

Mark Olazagasti: 28:36

The answer is still to be determined. And so I thought on the big end, it's like score. But for personal finance, where it's a volunteer organization and there's a centralized operations.

Chris Burkhard: 28:50

So basically run by volunteers.

Mark Olazagasti: 28:54

So I thought about it from that perspective. I just don't know if I want to go there and make that commitment. But that would be on the scale end, right? I'm doing what I'm doing at the individual level. And quite honestly, I don't know if I want to have five clients, ten clients, fifteen clients that I work with. Do I want ten Placers or five Placers or do I just want two Placers? So you know, in addition to doing the monthly recurring type of engagement that you and I are involved in, I do like ninety days where it's like, I introduce myself and I work with people and do one on ones, lunch and learns, things like that. And then after ninety days the organization, the employer donates to the nonprofit. If they value it as being five dollars worth of my time and value or five hundred, it doesn't matter. I leave it up to the employer to decide what they want to do.

Chris Burkhard: 29:48

So I think it's worth doing the employer kind of reference here. What did say, five years Mark, we've been doing this?

Mark Olazagasti: 29:56

You know, Covid kind of messed up timing with things, but I would say it's probably five, six, seven years even if I look back.

Chris Burkhard: 30:04

Okay, thank you. So you have a couple of weird Covid years. But you know, Mark and I have been friends, we've talked business, we've talked about all aspects of life over time. And when he started Your Money 101, I think you came to me just say, What do you think? And I was like, I'll buy, right away. I think there is something to the fact that, you know, I want to be a company and a leader that understands that there's a lot to life than my people. And it starts with my fridges bad, I don't have a nest egg saved, or my kids are a few years away from college, how do I think that through? Or 401k, or goes on and on with all the thinking that I would hear people say, and not really be in a spot to help them because they didn't really want to talk to me about it. You know, they really don't want to, it's like sitting with mom or dad, right? It's kind of painful but given a neutral place where Mark could provide education, have office hours, spend time with people that want to come on volunteer. I know I hear once a month, that someone has less stress and has achieved a financial goal because of something that Your Money 101 has done. I just think it's a it's a great program. It's why I wanted you to be here, so more people could hear about it. You know, and maybe it's just as important to hear somebody finding something they love and giving back and doing something great too. That's certainly a big part of it.

Mark Olazagasti: 31:40

You know, if it goes well, it's a win win for everybody. I definitely get a satisfaction enjoyment out of helping people. I grew up seeing people struggle with money. So, you know, it's kind of like, I get a lot of enjoyment out of trying to help people, not just deal with the numbers but the psychology of it. And that's hard. So you can learn all the things you should do. Just like a diet, right? I know I shouldn't eat that dessert, but I do anyway. Well, I know I shouldn't spend that money, but I did anyway. And it's the same very similar side to the psychology part of it.

Chris Burkhard: 32:31

It's not much more than discipline, you know, it's not knowing sometimes. Alright, so you get to be adjunct here. I know people are excited about Your Money 101, but I'd be foolish not to let you just address some. If someone is listening to this and they're not really sure how to start on this journey of personal finance, what steps do you recommend people take? You want to impact people you don't know today, this is the opportunity to do so.

Mark Olazagasti: 33:04

I don't care if it is a piece of paper, an online app, a spreadsheet or rock and chisel, I don't care. It's understanding your income versus your expenses, that is the starting point. You know, in IT we call it a current state assessment. That's the foundation of it, right? Start today, right? You know, just put everything down on paper, see where you stand and keep track of it on a regular basis so that you can understand. The thing I hear over and over again is, I work hard, I spend a lot of time work, effort and sometimes it takes away from family, that's how taxing work can be sometimes. But at the end of the month, I don't have anything to show for it. Where did my money go? Well, you need the answer to that question and that is really the foundation of it. It's about keeping score and then everything else kind of goes from there. Then you're like, Okay, I have some money left over, what do I do with it? I build an emergency fund because guess what, life happens.

Chris Burkhard: 34:11

Any advice on what if I don't have an emergency fund, how do I think about that? I know if I've got ten dollars left at the end of a paycheck, put it away. But what do I want to work up to?

Mark Olazagasti: 34:27

The first dollar. Again, we know because if you hear a little thumb, it's like oh, you know, you want to have at least three to six months worth of expenses or income or whatever. Just start with the first dollar, don't don't make any more complex than what it is. At the end of the month, I have that ten dollars leftover, right? Let's use that as an example. Okay, I don't have any emergency fund so I want to put five dollars of that into the emergency fund and maybe it's a high yield savings account, maybe even ideally automate it and you have it taken out of your paycheck into it your emergency fund account. Let's say you just said I have ten dollars in my hand, I'm gonna put five in this account. And then five dollars, I'm going to do whatever and have some fun. Don't deprive yourself because the thing is, is it's not about the mocha latte, it isn't. You enjoy the mocha latte, enjoy the mocha latte. Now, if you have to pay your electric bill, or get your mocha latte, then you've got to give up that and you've got to pay your electric bill. But if you make the right decisions around housing, transportation, debt, and out of pocket spending, which is a lot of things people don't really kind of do a good job tracking, if you really know those four things. And again, understanding the debt before you enter into it, that's the foundational stuff that's going to get you or keep you out of trouble so that you end up being able put, now I have twenty dollars and then now the next month, I maybe have ten again, but I know why. And then the month after that, maybe I have forty dollars.

Chris Burkhard: 36:06

It seems mindset slows people down, right? Oh, that seems like a lot of work to have to come up with my income and my expenses. Or Mark, it's really frustrating I only have five dollars left. It's not even worth it. I might as well get another latte. But your point is to start, keep score and start making some progress.

Mark Olazagasti: 36:29

So what ends up happening, here's a really good example. You know, especially someone who is just out of school, maybe has been working for five years, and they have a wedding they have to go to and guess what? I feel compelled to to buy a gift at seventy five dollars. So I do it because I feel bad if I don't spend the seventy five dollars. Spend fifty bucks or half of that. It is the thought that counts, right? So again, it's making those decisions and I'll go way back to when I was a kid in high school. My mom struggled with debt, not because she liked to live a lavish life, it's because she did not understand when she charged her son's ice hockey equipment, eight hundred dollars worth of ice hockey equipment for a kid that really couldn't skate that well, and didn't pay it in full that eight hundred dollars. Whether it's ice hockey equipment, furniture or whatever, that eight hundred dollars ended up costing her twelve hundred and that's the math that people need to kind of understand. I can talk about this forever but it's really important to understand debt and understand your current state and realize that it will take more time and energy to get you out of debt than it will to be on a monthly basis to keep score. Because once you start it then you keep a going and it ends up taking you less time each month.

Chris Burkhard: 38:05

It seems as if credit, available debt is everywhere. But there's always been this desire to keep up with your neighbor the Joneses and Smith's and what have you. Yet we still get into debt, so it's just a tough, tough one because we want our kids to have hockey equipment, we want to send our kids to school in the fall with new shoes. It's a difficult thing but it doesn't make sense to pay for it twice that is for sure. You've often referred books to me that you thought were must reads on this. You want to talk about your favorites?

Mark Olazagasti: 38:49

The Index Card is a great foundational book. Let's see Olen and Pollack are the are the authors and it is just a really good foundational book. I give it away all the time when I do lunch and learns or Q and A's. I either give away books or money, let people make that choice. And that is a great foundational book that tells you really in basic terms how to do personal finance, kind of keeping it simple. The other book I like that is a great tag team is The Psychology of Money and Housel is the author. And the reason why I liked that book is what I said earlier. The Index Card tells you what you should be doing and The Psychology of Money helps you understand why you're not doing what you should be doing.

Chris Burkhard: 39:41

That sounds like the one to start with. Let me

Mark Olazagasti: 39:47

I would say it's a good AB or BA, it doesn't read them both. matter. Both of them are very, very helpful because if you aren't figuring out why you're doing things again, money's never been an issue for me as far as like saving and things like that. Mine has been food so I'll eat that dessert that I shouldn't be eating, so that's my psychology of food. Very similar type of thing. The Psychology of Money just applies to money and it talks about wealth and not being rich, you don't see wealth. And the other thing is, you mentioned about accumulating things. At the end of the day, it's stuff and during presentations that I'll do, I'll say, when do you ever see a U haul following a hearse? The intent is to say, you can't take it with you. I said that one time and darn if some student didn't pull up a picture on the screen that showed a U-Haul following a hearse. So I guess it does happen.

Chris Burkhard: 40:53

I have this feeling that it was an old hearse converted to a passenger vehicle. Well, kids are smart. You know, there's a book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is it along the lines of some of that thinking?

Mark Olazagasti: 41:13

Yes and The Million Dollar Next Door and maybe that's not quite title, but again, it's that person you don't realize. So here's something for your listeners to do. Google Ronald Read, janitor, great story. Almost sounds like an urban legend but the gentleman retired with seven or eight million dollars and he was a general janitor. It is not about income. It's about managing your expenses. It's about managing your debt. It is not about income. Now granted, someone who's living below the poverty line, yes it's about income. You know, I'm assuming that you have a living wage so you know, so that's important. But it's not about making a One Hundred and Fifty Thousand or Fifty Thousand dollars, it's about what you do with that money and prioritizing.

Chris Burkhard: 42:08

If you like the show, Outside Insights has a lot of different guests. My book Opposite The Crowd is all about how I would say maximize your living wage too but you know, how to be an asset in business, how to manage your career, how to make decisions, how to lead and things that can influence that. But it's all connected, it's all interconnected. What else are you thinking about from what you've been talking through

Mark Olazagasti: 42:36

To keep on the personal finance theme, find that mentor. Find out whether it's myself or just again, somebody who has lived it. I think the financial services industry has a bad name, maybe sometimes deservedly so because they're so product focused and what and how we used to be in here? the industry. So real quick funny story. My first job out of college I was a car sales person that lasted three months. I hated it. I learned how not to manage people in those three months because that's how I was treated.

Chris Burkhard: 43:17

Yes. How to not to sell.

Mark Olazagasti: 43:20

So it was very interesting, I was a stockbroker back in the day and I ended up selling penny stocks. Didn't know it, you know, off of Wall Street, that type of mentality. So, I learned a couple of very valuable lessons in that whole process and I swore like one of the things I did is I had a big paycheck come in $5,000 paycheck coming. I would make $5,000 in a summer, right? So this was like a big paycheck for one month. Myself and my fiance at the time, we were sitting on a beanbag chair watching TV on a milk crate. And we both looked at each other, knowing we've got this money coming in and I'm like, let's go buy some furniture, so we did. We did ninety days same as cash probably twenty five hundred dollars worth of furniture. And within three weeks, the brokerage firm that I was working at went out of business, and guess what hadn't happened yet? I didn't get paid. So everybody touches the stove, just learn from it and I learned from it. I have never bought anything again without having the money to pay for it. No problem charging things, just make sure you pay off that bill in full.

Chris Burkhard: 44:45

Was the lesson the IOU? Was the lesson that it wasn't in hand yet? Because I mean, how many of us, I've got that raise coming and I got the end of the year bonus. Goodness grace is Chevy Chase puts a pool in before he gets his Christmas vacation, he puts a pool in before he gets the check. So we all think this way. We all feel like that's like we're making our lives better. We're making it better but it's so hard.

Mark Olazagasti: 45:14

Right, I deserve it. I made one hundred and ten cold calls a day, right? I have this big paycheck coming, I deserve it. And you do, but just do it at the right timing. I should have had the money in hand. So it ended up being a very valuable lesson in life from a personal finance standpoint, but also from a business standpoint. Because you know this, you know you high five each other because you've made this big sale. Well, that's just the beginning of the process, you've got to collect on that money months down the road type of thing.

Chris Burkhard: 45:47

You have to deliver on it, you have to collect on it, you have to have a satisfied consumer, it is not that simple.

Mark Olazagasti: 45:55

So very valuable lessons learned at an early age and I did not make that. So I can say that I've never had a credit card balance since I was twenty two, twenty three years old and I made$30,000 a year at the age of thirty. So again, it wasn't about income it was about managing my debt.

Chris Burkhard: 46:18

So people like the vulnerability of these stories and I think you know this because I think you helped me with it. But talking the bad recession of 2008, 2009 and 2010, I was running a very successful company going into 2007 and 2008 we were eight, nine million dolllars in sales and I had developed this formula. It's funny but one of the things I think I've heard people admire is not everybody on this show has only had success, it's the lessons we've learned and the mistakes we've made that helped us maybe dig in and do things differently down the line. And this is my story. I was growing great and I had this formula Mark, where as long as my growth was like seven times my debt, I was excited. So I was like using debt to grow this multiple. What I didn't realize along the lines of your commission, is that seven million in sales can become a million in ninety days during a pandemic, I'm sorry, during a recession. So here I am, I have a million dollar company with a million dollars in debt. If you know me today, I won't even carry debt on a credit card for two cents but it took me twelve, well twelve years to pay that off. And you know, it's a great lesson learned. I don't have regrets, I think it was the best learn. I was flying high as a young thirty something who had never known failure. I'm you know, Inc list guy, all this stuff and then I ran into a an important downturn. And I think all of this, maybe puts new meaning to you've got to have something aside for a rainy day. It's sort of the point of all this is be a little conservative with it but those are real lessons.

Mark Olazagasti: 48:18

Sometimes the hard way. Fortunately, now we can look back and share our lessons learned. And we are at least in that position to be able to do it rather than still dig ourselves out of our mistakes. So, you know, it's it's good stuff. I mean we all make those mistakes and the other thing is, I think people are hard on themselves, so again they may not like the number when they do their income and expenses and all that stuff but they automatically go to failure. I'm a failure. Well, no you're not. In fact, you're actually being successful because you went through the step of trying to identify where you stand. So, it's funny because I do a presentation based on fast, which is FAST and each letter means something. And I give away again, either money or a book and I do this from a business perspective or personal finance perspective. And failures, you know, I hate to give away the the answer, but failures, the first. That's what the F stands for. So we tend to beat ourselves up when we fail rather than looking at failure as an opportunity to learn from it and fix it. And the other thing about failure and I do want to talk about a couple books that I like that I've recently read. And that is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Bleep by Mark Mason.

Chris Burkhard: 49:50

Great book, wonderful book.

Mark Olazagasti: 49:53

Yes

Chris Burkhard: 49:55

The bleep of another word.

Mark Olazagasti: 49:57

You would have to bleep out if I said it, but it's a great book. And just like The Index Card and The Psychology of Money, my kind of one too is Mark Mason's book and then The Power of Now, which is Eckhart Tolle. The Power of Now, it's a pretty heavy duty spiritual book but it talks about being present, it talks about being in the moment and when I go back to failure, is failure we beat ourselves up about the past, which isn't good. And sometimes failure impacts because we're always worried about the future rather than trying to enjoy the moment and being in the moment and enjoying the process. And it's a lot harder to do than say, but that's what I've tried to do just through those two books.

Chris Burkhard: 50:51

Great recommendations, and I agree with you always daydreaming about the future, or reflecting on yesterday versus being here right now. It's a it's a great recommendation. Other things you'd like to share? You laid

Mark Olazagasti: 51:09

Yeah, so we all have our story and I just kind out alot. of want to share a little bit more of a personal story. Because I think sometimes people will say, you know, I'm a white male, that they assume I haven't experienced certain things and there's certainly true and I would be lying if I didn't leverage being a white male in the 80s and 90s. So I remember being a kid going to grocery store and this kind of also stayed with me throughout the years. My mom would be stressed, sometimes more often than not, putting stuff back, she's doing her little adding on this plastic thing. And sometimes just worrying having to buy that one thing too many. And there's some times where she was more stressed than others. And it wasn't until later, I understood that we were on food stamps and she was ashamed. So, you know, that was something that was humbling. But then it also made me appreciate the importance of the search, the social safety net that we do have. And, you know, my mom worked at times three jobs. But, you know, she had a high school education. I saw her being treated as a second class citizen, and I think this is what kind of has propelled me to want to help people. I saw it as a kid, it was sad, especially looking back because she was good person.

Chris Burkhard: 52:57

So, you knew it was wrong.

Mark Olazagasti: 52:59

Yes. So you know, I find myself kind of I don't know, that's a simple name Mark O. It's really hard to fighting for the underdog. And I'll share another story that goes back. So my dad, his family was from Puerto Rico, he was actually born in New York. And we moved into a white middle class, low to middle class neighborhood in New Castle and I was five years old, six years old, something like that. And there was actually a boy, that was probably eight or nine and he would walk by me and spit on the ground and call me some derogatory names that you would use for someone who was Puerto Rican, or Spanish. And you know, I didn't understand as a kid, right? I'm like, Well, what's this kid picking on me for? Two things that really, yeah, just as you get older, you understand kind of what's going on. But the thing that stuck with me that I started to realize is, and this is where the white male kind of I don't look like the stereotypical so I never had tell. took over is I saw firsthand right there, you know, prejudice, right? Racism, whatever you want to call it but that issue. So I mean again, it was a good learning experience it never happened to me again. Why? Because nobody knows what the make of my last name, right? They think it's Italian or Polish or whatever, so I never had anybody from that moment on to have to go through it and I can only imagine what the dinner do that again. table was for this kid. And what was said at the dinner table.

Chris Burkhard: 54:51

It was probably reinforced. Learned behavior.

Mark Olazagasti: 54:57

So I guess what I am getting at is there's things that happened to you early on in life, right? You know, what's that one famous thing, the book about everything you learned you learned in kindergarten, right? Well, there's truth to that, right? You know how to treat people and all that stuff. So, rather than look at things from a negative perspective, just always try and look at the past, if you're going to look at the past, and how can you learn from it? How can you become a better person? How can you not treat somebody like that, or you know, again, try and help that single mother that's struggling raising a kid, that type of thing. So again, experiences can propel you to do hopefully good things.

Chris Burkhard: 55:42

I'm really appreciative of you sharing that. And again, there's that thought that you just fell out a tree the way you are, you know? And of course not we experience life and that influences who we become. And I think it's a great story and I think we all should talk more about those things, it's healthy, right? To be able to understand because then it explains why you're doing what you're doing and wanting to help that single parent get a leg up.

Mark Olazagasti: 56:14

Tell them don't charge their hockey equipment for a kid who's never going to be a great skater.

Chris Burkhard: 56:27

You know, all those times I wanted those Nike shoes or those Levi's and I saw that look that you had of your mom, on my mom's face, not understanding that look. Maybe until you become that parent and you're faced with that same thing, it's interesting. I think you may have already answered this question but I like to ask this one. What advice would you have for your twenty one year old self? I'm not sure if you were twenty one when you ordered the furniture or not, so it may not be a loaded question.

Mark Olazagasti: 56:59

So, it's funny you asked that because when I was twenty one, twenty years old, I would commonly say to myself, when I'm forty three I won't remember this day. Because I would say that to myself you would say that when I'm 43.

Chris Burkhard: 57:16

That's pretty grown up.

Mark Olazagasti: 57:20

Yes and what I was telling myself is the problem I'm having right now is pretty minor. And I'll forget about it again. It may have been something was school or a girl or whatever. And not to minimize those problems because they're real but I tried to get out of the things will be better. And quite frankly, when I was forty three I kind of didn't remember a lot of the things that I used to worry about when I was twenty, twenty one. Although I did remember buying furniture that I didn't have the money for yet. So, there are some things you do remember, but a lot of stuff that we have going on in here gets in the way because we're worried about we're going down a rabbit hole about worrying about something, I've always been a future thinker, so I would again tell my twenty one year old self, one, it ends up pretty good. And two, don't sweat the small stuff and try and be in the moment and Enjoy the process as much as you can. And it is definitely hard to do in your twenties and thirties because you're so much trying to find yourself, accumulate things, find your position, your value and all that stuff. And it's hard, but try as best you can do enjoy the process as you go. My daughter danced professional ballet. She had been dancing since she was five years old and as she got older and was having more and more major parts, I would tell her, Andrea, enjoy the moment, enjoy the moment on the stage with the crowd and all that stuff, because I knew that it won't last forever. But then I was like, Well, I've got to live that right. I'm telling my daughter to enjoy the moment, I have to live that too. So that's what I've tried to do.

Chris Burkhard: 59:04

Yeah, did you put that on a t shirt yet? You might need to. I think it's Seneca that says events are not good or bad, we make them so. They're not good or bad, it's what we attach to them. So Mark, if someone were interested in things that we've covered, ways to connect with Your Money one 101, how do they learn more? If they're a Placers and want to get their fifty people some mentoring in this space, what do

Mark Olazagasti: 59:44

One of the best ways you know, they can even they do? text me, I don't care. I give my number out. But it's molaz@ym101.org.

Chris Burkhard: 59:59

Alright Mark, and again we'll have show notes where we could put emails and maybe that budget template and those things. You know, Mark, I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing your story. I think it serves so many purposes and I'm very proud to know you and know that the path that you're on and I look forward to hearing more about the advocacy and seeing that get into the Delaware schools. I think it seems like the right thing and you know, I do hope that it catches on on a national level because it seems like it's really missing

Mark Olazagasti: 1:00:37

Chris, I appreciate you as a mentor and as a friend and I really appreciate the opportunity to to talk to you and your your audience. Thank you.

Chris Burkhard: 1:00:50

Alright Mark. You're very welcome. I want to say something cute, but it's a lot more fun when you like the person you get to spend time with so it's mutual for us.