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Winning Financially (Part 3) with Larry Elovitz
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On today's episode, we interview a gentleman that lives and breathes finances. Welcome Larry Elovitz!
Larry works for The Redwood Financial Group in Dublin, Ohio and has been apart of finances for over 20 years now! Please tune in to hear Larry discuss why it's important for you to get a hold only your finances. He provides you some tips and suggestions on how to better manage your finances to include making a budget, cutting spending where it's unnecessary, and how to create a winning mindset when it comes to your finances.
Larry also provides some great information and general tips in the finance world. If you are someone who's been wondering how much to save or invest, please listen to Larry when he talks about the 50/30/20 rule or how much money you should have saved in case of emergencies.
This is a great episode for everyone to listen too, especially if you are younger and curious about what to do with your money. Although Larry will not tell you who to invest in, he does go into detail about why making financially smart decisions when you're young is one of the best things you can do!
You can find Larry at the following website for all of your financial questions:
https://investwithredwood.com/#
Thanks and enjoy!
Welcome back to 10 to win the podcast, a podcast focusing on how to create a winning mindset in 10 minutes. This week we've been discussing why winning financially is incredibly important. And today we have a gentleman who lives in breathed finances. Kevin, who's with us today?
SPEAKER_04Jason, thank you. We have Larry Elovitz joining us today. Welcome, Larry. Larry is an independent financial advisor. He works to with his clients to create comprehensive individualized plans. He works tour words, short and long-term financial objectives. He has expertise and experience in retirement planning, wealth protection, estate planning, insurance needs, saving for college, his wealth of experience in banking. Larry, welcome to the 10 to win podcast. How are you, buddy?
SPEAKER_02Good. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Hey Larry, we have a couple million dollar questions. Oh, I just had to throw that out there. Sorry, Mary. Terrible.
SPEAKER_04So, Larry, so the podcast is called 10 to win, and it's 10 minutes devoted to creating a winning mindset. And so we're going to be talking about what we've already been talking about money all week long. Um, and and Jason and I kind of came up with like this financially winning mindset. What is what what do you think winning financially means or what should it mean to people out there?
SPEAKER_02Uh great question. I think winning can mean different things to different people. I think it goes to kind of what your goals are. You know, for some people, winning could be making sure they can retire, don't have to work forever, not gonna run out of money. You know, for someone else, it could mean retiring early. Someone else, maybe they want to travel a lot in retirement, maybe leaving a legacy to their kids, family. I think winning looks different to everyone, which is why I think it's important to you know set those financial goals and discuss them with your family, your significant other, or your financial advisor if you use one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's that's incredibly important. But just tagging along with that, Larry, don't you think that if there was a great recipe for everyone to get rich and retire early or never work, then we would all be trying to do that. So kind of how do you how do you go about trying to set those goals that you kind of talked about in trying to find out what's best for you or your family uh both in the short term and the long term in the long term?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, I think short-term goals are different from long-term goals, and I think kind of whatever those are to you, kind of setting those and then discussing them with your advisor and putting a plan in place. I think planning is super important. Um, and I think creating a budget can help in some of those areas as well, you know, especially with like short-term goals, you know, because there's different risks involved with short and long-term investing. So kind of coming up with a plan and kind of working that plan helps you kind of keep the emotional part out of it because that's where you can kind of get yourself in trouble from uh from a planning perspective.
SPEAKER_01You talked about budget and Kevin and I mentioned it this week. And even though that probably is second nature to you now, Larry, with all the work that you've done and the people that you've served, a lot of people still don't put a budget together out there. And because of that, they truly don't know what is within their means. And and then secondarily to that, they really don't know how much they can spend or they're spending more than what their capability is. It it actually adds a bunch of stress and anxiety to people. And so, how can people do better with their money to get their mindset in the right space? Because once again, there are many of us that are just constantly stressed thinking, how are we going to pay for this? You know, what's the future going to look like here? What's your thoughts on just getting folks' mindset in the right space when we're talking about money?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think mindset's tough because money can be very emotional. So I think the more you know about your situation, the better you can do, the better mindset you'll be in. You know, I always think about sports. There's two sides of the ball, offense and defense. There's a lot of different ways you can play offense, you know, whether that's contributing to 401k, you know, your retirement plan through your employer, you know, investing on your own or with an advisor. Uh but as with sports, you know, defense isn't really flashy, but it's very important. Playing defense is where you're controlling your spending. You know, it's gonna be different, obviously, based on every situation, um, but it's important, like we said, do the budget, you know, so you can see the areas where you can kind of cut expenses. Uh, there's gonna be some areas that you know are high priorities for you where you're not gonna want to cut, which is okay, but you know, there's also gonna be areas that you know you're gonna find where, yeah, I can cut here, I can cut there, it's gonna help you. I actually did a budget myself. It can be really eye-opening, you know, seeing where all the money goes, even if you have a good handle on your finances and a good idea of where everything is, it's still really helpful. Uh, and I think one other thing that uh I think from a mindset perspective is to get in the habit of putting away money when you're young. Not only does it help kind of develop those right behaviors, but the earlier you start, the better situation you're gonna be in long term, and the better mindset you're really gonna be in along the way as well.
SPEAKER_01You know, we've talked about so many times writing things down on this podcast. And and you just gave the example that Kevin and I even talked about earlier this week was when you write things down and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm paying five dollars here for this app and and and seven dollars here for this game, and nine dollars here for this, and eleven doll here, like all of a sudden 150 bucks is just rolling out of your bank account or you know, being added to your credit card every month because your kids wanted to do this or that. And it's like when you actually put it down on paper, it's like, my gosh, I do need to just regulate this a little bit more. So it's a great point, Larry. I love that. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04Well, I think what I'm hearing is there's like big strategy and little strategy, right? Like, yes, you're trying to do all the things you mentioned early in the podcast, Larry, like you know, save for college or leave something for your family or whatever it is, right? Save to buy a house. But then there's like this little stuff where you know, I guess what what other sorts of things you mentioned um young people. You know, I think we have a lot of young listeners who are thinking, you know, for the first time, like, wow, like maybe I should be thinking about my money. We're seeing this. I've seen tons and tons of research uh that suggests you know, the higher the salary is getting paid, the young college graduates, they're getting paid more money than they've ever been paid before, right when they're out of college and they don't they don't understand a lot of this stuff. And so they're they're like, oh, like I'm making sixty-five thousand dollars a year. Like, of course I can get a brand new Infinity, and I can get this luxury 2,000 square foot apartment that costs three $3,500 a month, and it's like and they make it, like they make all the payments, right? But they're not saving any money for the future. I mean, like, what are some little things that young people can do to uh I guess set themselves up for the big things later that they're that they're not thinking about? That's kind of a hard thing, like shiny new object syndrome, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like you said, it's kind of similar to that first question, uh, you know, based on like what's important to them and what goals they have and what they want to get out of life. Um, and whether it's short term, like you said, you know, they're saving for you know a house or or something like that, or long term for retirement. But there's general rules of thumb with like investing where you know someone's young, you know, could be helpful. Like, for example, you want to invest about 10 to 15% of your income, whether that's putting it towards you know 401k, a retirement plan, you know, an IRA, whatever. Um, so that's something that when they're young they can do to help. There's also the 50-30-20 rule, um, which I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with, but 50% goes to your needs, 30% goes to your wants, and then 20% goes towards savings. So those are just like a couple of yeah, those are just a couple of like general rules of thumb that can help with like goal setting and things like that. But but every situation is going to be different based on the individual as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, what that's going to do.
SPEAKER_01No, no, it really is. I'd never heard of that 50, 30, 20. That's that's really good stuff. And and I think even if you could cut the 30 down to 20, you know, and and maybe even move that extra 10% somewhere else, um, that's that's good advice. I think it's just that's that's a good rule of thumb there.
SPEAKER_04I know when I w when I was young, you list those goals, and I I didn't have any of those goals. I I don't I wasn't like anti-goals, but I just didn't that's just not what I thought about. I didn't I never thought like, oh yeah, I'm gonna put 10% of my paycheck away because someday I'm gonna want to buy a house. Like I just didn't think like that. I don't when I was 22, 23, 24, even 25, like I just didn't really think like that. Um I and it was hard for me, and I had friends that thought that way, and I even remember being like, man, like how can you think like that? Like that's that's so far in the future, you know. Like it can be really, really hard, you know, but I but I was good with my money then too, right? I didn't just because I didn't have those goals, I I knew I wanted to save money, I knew saving money was the right thing to do. Um, so I didn't blow money, but I also didn't really know what I was saving for. So it was wasn't like I wrote it down on it, you know, like Jason said, we write a lot of stuff down, and so many of our episodes have culminated with like make a list and set your set action items on the list and do it. Like I didn't have that, but it's tough.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's tough to think about like when you're a kid and you graduate from school and you know you're 20-something years old, thinking 40 years in the future towards retirement, you know, thinking about that kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's a great point and something that you know hopefully more kids and more people kind of think about, whether it's you know, like you did, just saving, know you should be saving, but necessarily don't have necessarily a goal in mind. But if you have a goal in mind, even better.
SPEAKER_01But but let's take those kids and and maybe it's teenagers, and I think this is this is a great transition to to another question here, Larry, which is that 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 17-year-old isn't thinking the way that we just talked about. Okay, Kevin gave examples of when he was younger, he wasn't thinking that way, I wasn't thinking that way, but I did have parents when I was 15 or 16 years old that allowed me to get a credit card, but they educated me dramatically, okay, on the pros and cons of a credit card and why paying that credit card off was so important, why credit in itself is so important. And we have a lot of listeners that have kids that tune into this podcast. So, what would be your biggest piece of advice to those parents who have kids that are growing up that are maybe getting into their teenage years? What should they try and tell their kids or educate their kids about money, credit cards, saving for the future, why that's important? Or do you have any strategies that that parents could use in assisting their kids to understand this stuff better or or you know, just think long-term on these things?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I mean strategies is more specific to each situation, it's going to be different. Um, but you know, as far as the kids go and you know, in high school or you know, however old, I think the biggest thing is just education, you know, whether it comes from their parents or even if their parents have you know friends or know people in you know the financial industry, you know, getting them to talk to someone of kind of learning like like we talked about earlier with those behaviors and kind of getting into those good habits of starting to put away towards savings, towards investments, things like that, that's really going to help them from a long-term standpoint because there's so many, so much information out there, and you know, you could Google as far as everything goes how when you start younger, it compounds so drastically that it can help you over the long run so much more effectively, so that the earlier they start, the better it's going to be from a long-term standpoint. And then, you know, as far as some of the other things, like you know, I'm not an expert in credit, you know, I worked in the banking industry for a while, but some of those things, it's the same thing with the education, kind of learning how to use a credit card, you know, why it's important to build the credit, you know, how to use it too. You're not you know running up debt, which can get you into trouble later or spending outside your means, things like that. Um, I think education is kind of the biggest thing, you know, whether it comes from the parents or whoever is helping them.
SPEAKER_04I agree with you a hundred percent, Larry. And I think, but I think the problem that I see is where do you get the education? Because you just mentioned, like, oh, it could come from your parents. Well, that's great. If your parents are rich and you want to be rich, like then that's a great person to take financial advice from. Unfortunately, like I meet a lot of young college students in my line of work, and they will make comments like, I came to college, so you know, my my parents said, if I want to be rich, I have to get a good job. And if I want to get a good job, I gotta go to college. And I'm like, Are your parents rich? And they're like, no. And I'm like, Do your parents have good jobs? And like, no. And I'm like, you know, maybe we could be taking advice from somebody else, right? Like, if I want to be rich, I'm gonna take financial advice from someone who's really rich, much richer than me. You know, like that makes a lot of sense to me, but that's not easily accessible. So, I mean, where is where are good places to learn about this stuff? What should people be reading or watching? Because there's a lot of stuff out there, man. And you're you're a really smart, savvy guy who I've known for a long time and I trust. And you've been doing this for a long time, and so clearly you read, you've been educating yourself daily for 20 plus years in this matter. I mean, where are you getting your information? Where should we be getting our information?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, obviously a lot of mine came from you know, studying for licensing and things like that. But there, you know, there's college financial planning that has courses and things like that you can take, you know, from an individual standpoint. But I think, you know, most advisors, like we have some in our office who have interns that help with you know their kids of clients or whoever that just kind of want to learn about the business and want to learn about finances. I think if you're interested in it, even if your parents aren't expert, you know, and even if they don't know someone, you know, if you've called up or kind of checked out local advisors in your area, I'm not saying all of them would be happy to help, but I know I would be happy to help or sit down with someone to kind of have those conversations. Um but yeah, I think there's so many different areas now as far as like where you can learn. But you know, I think there's also different paths to learning. Like you can also learn from people that have made mistakes too. You know, they you know maybe did some things when they were younger, as far as you know, things they shouldn't have that got them in trouble that they learned from that you know, by talking to them, they can kind of help you so you don't make those mistakes. So maybe it's not someone that didn't have like the perfect perfect path, maybe to you know being rich, so to speak. Um there they're still great resources to help with you know advice and things like that.
SPEAKER_04I think the one of the prevailing opinions out there and the thoughts of this industry, this financial planning industry, is that you you have to be rich. That's for rich people, right? I I don't have a lot of money, so I don't I can't have a financial advisor, or I don't have I'm living, I'm out here living paycheck to paycheck. How like I can't even I can barely keep the lights and the electric on. How am I supposed to take 10% of my paycheck and invest it, let alone 20%? I mean, what do you say to them, the people that really, really struggle with this and and don't have great parents, they don't have great, they didn't have great role models, they don't have a lot of money. What do you say?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, you know, for the people that live paycheck to paycheck day to day, you know, it's definitely harder when you're living that way. You know, I think the budget, like we talked about, is a much bigger piece in those situations. You know, there's usually you dig into it, there's places you can kind of trim some of the fat. You know, earlier we mentioned, you know, maybe you would need to cut in some areas if you didn't want if they're you know priorities of yours. But you know, when you're living paycheck to paycheck, I think it's different. You might have to cut some expenses of stuff you really don't want to, uh, regardless, you know, just because it it's something you kind of need to do. Um and I think you know, when the budget is that tight, you know, anything you can do to survive or help where you can is it's just kind of the mindset you have to have. You know, we also talked about setting goals earlier. You know, another rule of thumb, kind of one of those general rules of thumb, is to keep about three to six months worth of expenses liquid, you know, any checking savings or whatever. And you know, you always want to have that if you can, but it's even more important when you're living day to day because you know any unexpected expense has a big impact on you when you're living paycheck to paycheck. You know, so once you build that up to where you're comfortable with it, you know, then you can start adding to investing for long term, even if it's only you know $25 a week or $25 a month, whatever you can do is going to help you towards the future. So I know it can be tough, but uh another way would be if your employer give offers a match, you know, that's something I would definitely try and take advantage of. At least do that in your retirement plan, the employer offered plan, because that's just an added bonus that they're giving you that you can take advantage of as tough as it might be.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, free money. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then as far as like you know, the people that say it's only for the rich, I hear that a lot. Um, and I don't think that way. And if I had to guess, I wouldn't think the majority of clients who invest think they're rich. You know, it was probably just that you know, they thought it was a good idea. Um, Kevin, like you said, you know, you you knew you needed to save when you were younger, so you know, you thought it was a good idea, or someone advised them to do it. You know, I don't know if there's any specific statistics or anything like that, but I would guess most investors are considered middle class. Also, I wonder if people think like when they invest in their 401k of work, if they think you know that's only for the rich. I'm guessing not, because you know, most employers offer that to all employees, usually, you know, even if they're making minimum wage, um, but that's that's investing. You know, when they're putting in their 401k, they're investing. So, you know, you can obviously do more, but you know, you don't have to be rich, you just have to want to get started.
SPEAKER_01It's great advice. And um so as we kind of wrap up this episode, Larry, I'd like to just kind of bring it on home here with your your summarization for for any listener out there who's just stressed and anxious about money. What is your biggest piece of advice for someone who just is constantly thinking about money, stressed, anxious? What do you say to them?
SPEAKER_02I'd say get as much control of the situation as you can, do a budget, see you know how tight things are. If there's areas you can cut, great. That's gonna help you feel a little bit better, that you can start putting away towards you know, savings, whether it's liquid or long term, towards investments. But I think getting control and kind of knowing your situation the best that you can, it's gonna help you for the future. Um, and you know, obviously, like there's different ways to make money nowadays as far as like side hustles and things like that you can add, but I think the budget is one area that people don't think about and don't do as often that is really underutilized.
SPEAKER_01I would agree to that for sure, yes. Kevin, anything else to add before we wrap this thing up, man?
SPEAKER_04No, no, Larry. Um, where can everyone find you at if they uh are looking for an independent financial advisor?
SPEAKER_02I'm with Redwood Financial Group in Dublin, Ohio.
SPEAKER_01We'll have it in the show notes for sure. If you need some financial advice, please reach out to Larry. And that's going to be it for winning financially part three. We want to thank Larry Elvitz again for coming on and giving us his insight on why finances matter, along with some ways in which you can think differently about your finances. Check them out again. Uh in the show notes, if you want to get in touch with Larry about uh any questions or concerns that you have, please make sure you rate and review our podcast as it helps get the podcast out to more listeners. We will be back, and better than ever on Monday for a brand new episode. And next week will be our last topic before we break for the remainder of the summer. So please join us on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week. And as always, if you are impacting or influencing one person a day, it is worth it. Everyone has 10 minutes to learn a winning mindset. Thank you very much, Larry.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Larry. Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for taking the time to create a winning mindset. Remember, we'll release a new episode every Monday. So be sure to start your week off right by listening to 10 to win. Please subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast. And remember, if you're impacting or influencing one person a day, it's worth it. Everyone has 10 minutes to create a winning mindset.
