Defeating Investment Anxiety: Bruce Weinstein’s Secrets to Financial Stability

Discover the secrets to financial resilience with Bruce Weinstein, the Plan Man, as we explore how to navigate today’s unpredictable markets. With nearly four decades of financial expertise, Bruce enlightens us on the emotional rollercoaster of investing and the critical importance of personalized financial strategies. Learn how to manage your risk tolerance while making informed decisions for both long-term security and short-term challenges.

In this episode, Bruce demystifies the difference between investing and speculation, offering invaluable advice on balancing high-risk cryptocurrencies with stable investments like blue-chip stocks, bonds, and gold. We'll delve into the psychological traps that can derail your investment plans and the importance of sticking to a well-crafted financial strategy. Discover how often you should review your financial progress to minimize anxiety and stay on track toward your financial aspirations.

Finally, we emphasize the importance of proactive investment management and the dangers of emotional decision-making during market downturns. Bruce shares his insights on the benefits of disciplined investment strategies and collaborating with a knowledgeable advisor. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is packed with practical steps and motivational advice to help you take immediate action towards securing your financial future. Remember, the best time to start is now—Just do it!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello there, I'm David A Specht and I want to be your coach. If there's anything that I've learned in my 30 plus years of leadership and coaching, I have learned that mindset is everything. Join me and my guests as we explore the positives and negatives of that thing between our ears. This is Keep this In Mind, all right, welcome to Keep this In Mind, brought to you by davidaspectcom. And, of course, I am David A Spect and it's not often that I have repeat guests on the show. But can I tell you that our world's acting a little bit crazy right now. We have elections coming up, we have all the things you know. The market doesn't know what it wants to do, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what do we do with our wealth? Or what if we don't have wealth? Or what if we don't have money? Or we need in the future, what's going to happen in the future? And there's well, that's the whole problem, right? Is that we have things hitting us from all different sides, and today I'm bringing back Bruce Weinstein of Weinstein Wealth Insurance Solutions, but he's better known as the Plan man.

Speaker 1 1:14

Host of the Ask the Plan man podcast. Host of Ask the Plan man YouTube. Ask the Plan man group. If you're in any kind of group in any major city across the nation, you probably have seen this guy come through your group. If you're in any kind of group in any major city across the nation, you probably have seen this guy come through your group. Bruce, welcome back to the show. Thank you, david.

Speaker 1 1:32

I think it's extremely important that we have you on right now and let me kind of frame our discussion and then I'm going to let you fly with what you do because you are the expert in the plan man, with what you do because you are the expert in the plan man. So over the last let's say, three to four weeks, stock market has plummeted. It's hit highs and highs. There's questions about cryptocurrency right now. There's questions about what's going to happen if we default as a nation on our loans, what happens if X guy gets elected or Y girl gets elected, and there's this whole batch of uncertainty revolving around the economic forecast, both personal economics and global economics. And so my question for you to start our discussion is how do you make sense of it all and what happens when my emotions get the best of me?

Speaker 2 2:34

Oh man, let's start it slow then. Why don't we? You know, I'm listening to you and the first thing pop in my head is the more things change, the more they remain the same. I am fast approaching what will be my 39th year in the financial services industry.

Speaker 1 2:50

You started when you were 12?.

Speaker 2 2:52

Yeah, I was six. Thank you, Where's the bell? I started in the fall of 86,. Within a year, the market crashed October of 87, along the lines of the crash of 1929. And my feet were put to the fire way back then. And I've experienced numerous economic cycles and downturns and corrections and crashes, and so I could look back now, 38 years later, and say the more things change, the more they remain the same. The markets always have come back, but in the moment the emotions take over, the uncertainty and the fog and the smoke is blinding. Fog and the smoke is blinding. And so we have to make decisions constantly, investing or otherwise. Right, how did we know to wear red shirts today? Right, Like everything we do, from the moment we open our eyes till we close them is a constant necessity of making decisions, and you could only go by what you know, what your guiding light and voice is, and then make for the best decision accordingly.

Speaker 2 4:16

You can't live in regret. You can't live in hindsight. You certainly can't tell me oh, I knew I should have sold three weeks ago. You know it never seems to work, but you threw a lot out there, so I don't know if you want to break. You know a little bit of pieces at a time and you know I always like to say I'm not here to give specific investment advice except to talk conceptually and proactively. As far as planning goes and having a plan, and so the plan man is all about understanding all of these dynamics, how they fit together and what's best for David and Tina, Because that's all you can do is what's best for David and Tina. And if you don't have a plan, you don't have timelines, you don't have a strategy. Getting in is a strategy, Getting out is a strategy. When am I getting out and why? What's changed? So you have to break the tree down into a lot of little components if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 5:18

So as you say, you have to have a plan, which I 100% agree with. I believe that it's a long tail game, but that's easy for me because you know I'm of the generation that you know I'm not looking for. I'm looking for security at 70, as you and I have talked off camera before. So the idea of making a long-term investment that pays dividends 10, 15 years from now is okay for me. But what about somebody who's maybe in their 20s, 30s or 40s? They're looking at life like, okay, I could be let go at any moment because the world is just jacked up. All my buddies are day trading and making all this money. You know, supposedly. You know how, how. How can somebody get clarity of mindset with regard to building wealth, boy?

Speaker 2 6:20

I know questions today, cause it's no, these are good and and and. Look I'm, I'm up for the conversation and the ideology of it all. So you know again, know thyself. Everybody has a different risk tolerance. Potential new clients were do you like to eat better or do you like to sleep better? Because that 20-year-old, 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old has to understand what risk really means.

Speaker 2 6:55

You mentioned Bitcoin and cryptocurrency before. Is that an investment or is that speculation? Is going to Las Vegas an investment or speculation? It's fun. Okay, I'll throw a couple bucks at something, I'll put it in a slot, I'll play the roulette. Statistically you're not going to win, but on occasion you do. Is that how you're treating your investment? Sometimes I'll win and sometimes I'll lose. Warren Buffett doesn't feel that way. He doesn't want to lose.

Speaker 2 7:26

So the younger person and I just did an episode on this that we just released at Ask the Plan man, talking about the importance of starting as early as possible and what compounding of money does. And so it's not just necessarily the vehicle you choose for the journey real estate, stocks, crypto, whatever but it's the discipline and it's the approach of investing and it's allowing your money to compound over time that the true wealth is created. That $1,000 40 years ago is worth over $20,000 today. Well, how did that happen? It wasn't crazy risk, it was modest returns. Maybe that's a 7% rate of return. The money doubles every 10 years. Probably need to do 10% every seven years, probably the reverse of that. But the historical rate of return on stocks, on equities, is around 10% to 12%. Some are faster, some are slower, some are steady eddy, some pay dividends, some don't. That's growth and that's value. So if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, how much of your money belongs there? Oh well, the last few years the conversation has been crypto.

Speaker 2 8:41

Grant Cardone's big on pushing real estate. Don't buy your first home to live in. Buy your first home to rent it out and create cash flow. You look at housing starts at recent lows. They're not building new homes but yet the inventory for sale across the country is down. Well, part of it is higher mortgage rates and my kids and your kids not having the capital to be able to afford to buy these places and to handle a 7% mortgage interest rate.

Speaker 2 9:14

My first house in 1986, I paid $118,000 for a townhouse. It was 11% mortgage and I sold it 12 years later for a loss a loss in 1998. So I owned this thing for all those years at a high interest rate. Eventually, interest rates came down, but the real estate market didn't do very much. Now, from 1998 to today, what I sold for $100,000 is worth over $500,000. So what did I do wrong or what could I have done better?

Speaker 2 10:07

So when we say time is your friend, well, if you're looking at it from a short window that 10 to 12 years Bruce is like I suck at investing in real estate. I never make money in real estate. Why do I want to buy real estate? Conversely, if I bought it instead of selling it in 1998 and I bought five of them I'd have two, $3 million worth of real estate now. And I bought five of them, I'd have two, three million dollars worth of real estate now. But how do you know? And so that's where education comes in finding guidance, advisors, people to help you in those things.

Speaker 2 10:41

But I'll go back to again your opening statement emotions, mm-hmm. When your feet are put to the fire, people make bad emotional decisions. They panic, and I say this often, I've said it on my own show, I've said it to clients a thousand times you don't pay me to get you in or put you in. You pay me to keep you in, because you're going to call me on a very bad emotional day and you're going to make me on a very bad emotional day and you're going to make a very bad, irrational emotional decision, and I'm going to keep you from making that mistake. What I mean by that is when the market's down 25% and you want to sell in a panic mode. That's not the time to sell. That's the time to buy.

Speaker 2 11:20

Warren Buffett's buying. When the market crashed in 2008, warren Buffett was the biggest buyer. He put money into Goldman Sachs, he put money in the Bank of America, he made private deals with GE, he bought major major corporations because he had liquidity, he had money and he knew this, too, shall pass. And he made all these private deals. He got 10% dividends and preferred stock and he made boatloads of money because he was the one that ran to instead of ran from, and so that's how you have to treat. Economic. Swoons will always be there. That's what I've learned in my 38 years is it comes back. Now's not the time to sell. I educate my clients on asset allocation and being properly diversified, and so they have money to take advantage of the next swoon in an area that is appropriate for them to be putting their money, whether it's real estate or crypto.

Speaker 2 12:30

Look, I've documented, going back to 2021, a screenshot announcing that I think it was Goldman Sachs at the time was finally allowing public access to Bitcoin. Up until that point, you couldn't get Bitcoin, and Bitcoin was around $58,000 or $59,000 a coin. At $10,000, you couldn't get it. At $20,000, you couldn't get it At $30,000, you couldn't get it At $40,000, you couldn't get it, but almost at $60,000, david, hey, how much you want now, buddy, and I you know and I'm being cynical because that was an alarm that went off and I made a very public statement that day. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I'm calling a top and eventually it went a little bit higher it wasn't the exact day, because the herd was coming in and it went from 58 to maybe 64. And then it crashed. It went down to like 18. It had a major correction.

Speaker 2 13:37

So what happened there? The suckers got let in the game, right? Pt boredom, there's a sucker born every moment. So at that point in time, dave, bitcoin was a closed market. Only the insiders had access to it and they made gazillions of dollars. And now they need an exit they need. How are they going to liquidate? How do they convert some of that capital? Well, if it's only the seven of us and obviously there's more than seven people and we all know what's going on well, we're not going to buy it from each other. So we need to let the sucker in, because the sucker is now the audience. The sucker is Wall Street. It's the consumer. You need the herd.

Speaker 2 14:21

So now something that maybe 500 or a thousand people participated in. Now there's millions, and so these guys could offload and take their capital out and do something with that money. And unloaded it $60,000 a coin and then the selling came in and the selling came in and the selling came in and it went down. Whatever. The math is 70%. Well, somebody paid 65 and somebody paid 18. Now, eventually, some people obviously maybe they bought it back, dollar cost averaged in, but somebody got the shit kicked out of them. Excuse my language, somebody got their teeth kicked in. You can beep that one. They got their teeth kicked in. So now it's back. Now it's bouncing between the high 50s and the 60s again and there's talk of more regulation on it and the presidential candidates talk about it and it's picked up some life again.

Speaker 2 15:17

And I'm not saying it's not a viable category for investing. It's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying you need to understand what you're buying where does it fit into your portfolio? And understand that at least in today's environment it's still speculative. There's a big difference of buying cryptocurrency versus Merck or Exxon you know more established companies with dividends and earnings.

Investment Strategies and Risk Management

Speaker 2 15:52

And you know again, buffett will say like I don't buy what I don't understand, and he won't buy crypto, like Charlie Munger just passed away at 99. Like he's like I'll never buy that kind of stuff because it's not tangible. It's not a company. Well, what is it? And it's still formulating. And I'm not saying five and 10 years from now it'll be the new currency of the world. I have no idea. But somebody bought it for $100 a coin, somebody bought it for $10 a coin. And what does that tell you if it's now 60,000 and what's behind it?

Speaker 2 16:26

And then, if Dave's coming along today and Dave has money to invest, whether Dave's in his 50s or Dave's in his 20s, the question starts with how much money of yours belongs in that particular investment vehicle. And don't tell me you're diversified because you're buying Ethereum and Bitcoin and 97 others. You're in the crypto space. It's all speculation. How much of your money is in blue chip stocks? How much of your money is in bonds? How much money is in gold? Gold hit an all-new time high all-time high today and, from what I heard on the news, the 32nd time this year gold's made a new high. So what's driving up gold? What are the gold bugs believing in? Is it civil unrest? Is it Gaza war? Is it high inflation? Is it the amount of money we're printing? The gold bugs gold's over $2,500 an ounce. But again, I'm not saying don't buy gold and I'm not saying to buy gold. Question is, how much of your money should be in gold?

Speaker 1 17:38

So let me interject here just for a moment and give you a chance to catch your breath. Just for a moment and give you a chance to catch your breath. So, from what you're telling me that there is a investment mindset and there's a speculation mindset, and while there may be a little bit of crossover, they're two very differently defined mindsets Talk to me about who might benefit more from a speculative mindset versus who may need to be in the more conservative investment mindset.

Speaker 2 18:23

I think, at its core, everybody needs to understand the balance between the two. You're not going to take your rent money and put it on the Bulldogs home opener, are you? You're not going to say let me take my kids' college money and put it on the Kansas City Chiefs to win the over. That's fun, that's speculation. That is a certain amount of dollars that you might want to play with or go to Vegas for the weekend. They say bet with your head, not without it. They really mean bet with your wallet, not without it. They want you to spend as much money as you can.

Speaker 2 19:03

But if somebody were setting out, begin with the end in mind. Right, stephen Covey, begin with the end in mind. What are you trying to get to? Again, this is another line I've used for years. If I'm standing at the lake and I take a stone and I want to skim the rock out into the pond, I see the ripples of where the stone goes and the direction it lands. And so you think of yourself, dave, as you're on your own journey. You're in motion in that direction.

Speaker 2 19:45

Whatever that direction is, the financial plan is going to say whether or not you're on course to where you had hoped to be going. If you're driving from Tennessee to Louisiana and you've never made that drive before and you don't have a GPS, are you going to wing it or are you going to get a map? So if I'm a 25-year-old, a 35-year-old, a 45-year-old and I want to retire at 55, 60, 65, 70, well, what's my path, what's my journey, what do I need, what are the events and the activities that I need to complete over the next 20, 30, 40 years to get there? And am I doing the right things now? And what corrective course or actions do I need to take to arrive when I want to arrive? And so now, once you start to define that, you're going to break it down by budget how much money you spend versus how much money you save. If you're not saving enough, with what little you're saving, are you earning enough and you're sitting in cash at 2% in the bank and you need to make 10%? Well, is your emotion going to allow you to go, take that extra risk? And then, when that risk goes against you because the market corrects, are you going to ride it out or are you going to bail? You don't want to take a 40% loss when everybody says you need to buy more at 60% of valuation. Right, that's where the money's made. The money's not made paying 200 and selling it for 210. The money's made buying it at 10 and selling it for 210. But if you don't buy it at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, how are you going to get to 210? And when 210 drops to 180 or 150, are you buying more at 150 or are you bailing?

Speaker 2 21:49

And it's the same with your real estate. My house used to be worth and then the real estate market turned over. Well, until you sold it, it's not worth anything. It's just paper. When you list it on the market market, when you have an actual offer, when you close, that's what your house is worth, right? Yeah, um, so am I. I'm not sure if I'm answering directly the question, but I think the synopsis of it is you need to know what you want to be doing and then embark on strategies that fit you. As I said earlier, it's like what's your risk tolerance? I like to eat better. I'm willing to take risks. Right, I want to make more, I want to have more, but I had plenty of clients over the years that just like to sleep well at night, knowing their money's not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 22:44

Yeah. So let's address that because, like you said, your job's not to get them in, it's to keep them in. And yet we are inundated with more information and misinformation than we ever have before. If you're somebody who has a plan, and maybe that, yeah, it doesn't matter what the plan is, Just as long as you have the plan how often should you check to see how your plan's progressing? I mean, let's face it, If you're, if you're on, you know CNBC every day.

Speaker 1 23:17

You're, you know your, your, your anxiety is going to be through the roof, both from a joy and a panic standpoint. You know, but yet you don't, but you don't want to stick it there and like not look at it for five years either. So kind of kind of get a feel for like that. And we'll use a hypothetical person who's 30 years old. He's been in business, you know, working for this company, for the business you know, working for this company, for the, you know, for five to 10 years. And now he's like, okay, I'm looking, I'm looking at wanting to retire at 60. So I've got, I've got 30 years of growth, I'm on a plan whatever that plan is, I've got my number, et cetera. How often should I revisit that to make sure that we're headed down. What are the milestones?

Speaker 2 24:06

There's a couple of components to that answer. So A a 30-year-old doesn't have all their money today to invest. Most people don't. So we do what, statistically, I'd say, the majority of the people out there do is they buy monthly out of their payroll, make contributions to their retirement plans or their investment vehicles, and they do what's called dollar cost average. So they buy every month on the 1st and the 15th, the 15th and the 30th, whatever it is. You get your paycheck, they take out 5%, they put it into your 401k, they match it. You have a series of investments inside of it. You buy it on this 15th, you buy it the next 15th, you buy it the 15th. After that You're buying it in September as much as you're buying it in May. Market goes up, market goes down. Market goes up, market goes down. You're paying $97. You're paying $92. You're paying $102. You're paying $98.bbs and flows. What you're doing is you're accumulating shares. So in that strategy, how much attention do you really need to be paying If you have good core investment vehicles? It's not that you want to set it and forget it, but the dollar cost averaging is going to level some of that volatility automatically, because every month they're putting away $100, they're putting away $1,000, whatever it is, if they have an asset-allocated portfolio stocks, bonds, mutual funds, blue-chip stocks, value versus growth, small-cap versus large-cap, international versus gold all of that pie makes up an asset allocation.

Speaker 2 25:47

I've always instructed clients once or twice a year to rebalance against its core proposition. And I'll explain it like this If half were in stocks I'm being very low key here on sophistication Half are in stocks, half are in bonds. 50-50. Stocks have a good year, bonds don't. Now the portfolio is 60% stock and 40% bonds.

Speaker 2 26:15

Rebalancing says take 10% out of your stocks and put it into bonds and go back to 50-50. Stocks and put it into bonds and go back to 50-50. Makes sense. That's rebalance, because you don't want 60-40 to become 70-30 and 80-20 and 90-10. That's great in theory until what Correction, until it corrects. And now your 90-10 goes back to 40-60 because you gave back all of those profits, because the markets will cycle. So if you're 60, 40, 50, 50, 60, 40, 50, 50, 70, 30, 50, 50, once a year, twice a year, that should be an autopilot for most people. Whether their financial advisor does it, their 401k should have a rebalancing mechanism and then I would say, at least annually you want to review the actual components of what you're putting the money in Again.

Speaker 2 27:13

Meaning most people are in mutual funds or ETFs, exchange traded funds. How are they matching up to their competition? What percentile of performers are they in? Are they in the top 10 to 20? Or are they in the bottom 10 to 20? If they're in the bottom 10 to 20 for a long period of time, it means that same manager me against you you're not competing with me. I'm beating you every time by a wide margin. Maybe I need to move from A to B Same asset class but all of a sudden this guy's making 12 and I'm making nine. One year, two years, five years, 10 years, and again.

Speaker 2 27:54

That's where you look at the history of managers and their performances. How do you even make the decision of which managers to buy? All you can look at is their track records. Okay, which managers to buy? All you can look at is their track records. Statistically, 80 plus percent of all mutual funds fail to beat the S&P 500. It's about 82%. So most people will tell you Dave, just buy the S&P 500 index and forget it. You got an 82% chance of never beating it, so just buy it.

Speaker 2 28:28

Well, my argument is 18%. Do beat it. There's 10,000 mutual funds. 18% are beating them. That's 1,800 mutual funds. You can go find that. Have managers with history of beating the markets year after year after year. That's alpha. That's what you pay for. That's why I give money to manager X versus manager Z. Who's got better alpha for me? Who is going to make me more money head to head against their competitors? So again we're getting into macro type stuff. But all of this rebalancing comes back to a discipline. The discipline is where am I putting my money? The asset allocation is designed to my risk. The risk is matching my rate of speed. My drive from Nashville to New Orleans. Going from Tennessee to Louisiana, I got to get there in 12 hours. I don't know how long is that drive.

Speaker 1 29:41

Well, if I was going to New Orleans it would be 12 hours, but the Shreveport it's about nine.

Speaker 2 29:45

Okay. So so your budget is nine hours Now if you booked an appointment to be there exactly at nine hours and you hit traffic, you get a flat tire, the gas station you normally fill up in is closed, you've got delays, you're not going to reach your timeline. And so think of those same obstacles. If I've got a 30-year game plan and I'm doing all the steps I need and I'm monitoring progress annually, semi-annually that's what you asked like, how often are you looking and checking in, at least annually? Am I with the right managers? Am I in the right vehicles? Maybe I need to make a change.

Speaker 2 30:29

I do an annual review, I do a five-year review, a 10-year review. See how the other managers are compared to mine, maybe make changes. Am I saving enough? Did I get a raise? What's inflation looking like? What are interest rates? Are there new opportunities for me? Maybe I get a raise. What's inflation looking like? What are interest rates? Are there new opportunities for me? Maybe I should put 5% of my money in this new thing called crypto.

Speaker 2 30:51

Right, so you don't want to just be Rip Van Winkle and fall asleep for 30 years, but you want to participate in the process. You should never let anybody have unilateral access to and management of, without your complete understanding of what they're doing, and an occasional okay and a check-in. But I think the key in some of this is doing it yourself is equally as dangerous as finding a bad advisor, because, again, what you're paying an advisor for is strategy, experience, education, discipline, accountability. Dave, remember when I told you this was going to happen at some point in the future and this is how we were going to treat it when it happened. We're here today. You're calling me in an absolute worst times of the market, because now you've hit your personal panic button and you want to make a decision to end the pain that you're feeling because your money just dropped 30% and again, I had many clients deal with this the Gulf War, the dot-com, the housing crisis. I'm just using a million dollars.

Speaker 2 32:19

When you have a million dollars and you watch it go down to 600 000, you're in pain and your biggest fear is the 600 is going to lose another 400 000. You know, and that would be horrific, but the reality is that from a million to 600, at 600 is not the time to walk away. You had your chance at a million. You didn't do it. Why would you sell it at 60 cents on a dollar when statistically you'll see, proven over time, that's the low of the market.

Speaker 2 33:02

It's called capitulation. Wall Street is smarter than all of us. Wall Street knows how the average investor feels and what panic ensues, and it waits for capitulation. When the last guy is finally thrown up and given up and sells at the bottom and again, I always say this for every seller there's somebody on the other side of that transaction Dave, willing to buy it from you. So is it Warren Buffett that's buying it from you? You, so is it Warren Buffett that's buying it from you? Who are you selling to? And why are they buying? And stop and think why are you selling? And that goes back to discipline. But it goes back to timelines, the use of your money, understanding how that money was put to work and why. If it's money you needed for your kid's college in September, it shouldn't have been in that vehicle in the first place that would be subject to that kind of volatility. If you're 30 years old, I would embrace market corrections because this is a time for me to find another five grand and invest at that momentary pause. But most people don't see it that way.

Speaker 2 34:26

I've used the analogy when Macy's has a sale, do you go buy more of a particular item? You need socks and underwear, you need t-shirts, you need jeans. Well, now they're 40% off. Let me go buy three pair. No, no, no. Black Friday, not interested. I'll wait till Monday. When the sale's over, I'm coming in and paying full retail, or you know what? I'll wait till they raise the price and then I'm going to believe in the price and then I'll start buying. So as we shop as consumers, we don't shop the same as investors, and that's a lesson I try and instill. If your socks and underwear are 40% off, you're going to load up.

Speaker 2 35:11

If your Apple stock is 30% off, why would you sell? Why would you run away? Why wouldn't you buy more and wait? Did something happen? Material? Now again, this is where you need to be careful with individual stocks. Did something materially change in that company where they ultimately wind up going out of business? Because that has happened, which is why the average Joe doesn't belong in individual stocks and why they should rely on mutual funds for management. And they're not perfect. They'll wind up with a dud every now and then, but you know what their dud is one of 200 picks If you put all your money in crypto at $64,000 and watch it go to $18,000, what kept you from slitting your throat? Right, right, you're, you're, you're flipping out.

Speaker 1 36:04

There's a lot there that you just said, and it was funny because I was going to wrap this up by asking you this question.

Speaker 1 36:13

I may ask it anyway, but you've kind of answered it in in in your professor's district dissertation of how markets work but as a mindset and as and I you know, we are emotional beings and and, and we have to keep our emotions in check, especially on important things like this. But I want the plan man's synopsis of the future, meaning how optimistic are you based upon 38 years of seeing these cycles? How optimistic are you in the value of building wealth through investments across the board, whether it's stocks, bonds, mutual funds, currency, et cetera? Is there a cliff or is it just part of the cycles?

Speaker 2 37:08

I've been somewhat flabbergasted by the length of the recent and recent being the last 10 to 15 years recent market move. So the stock market bottomed out March of 2009 from the housing crisis. Barring a mini correction during COVID and a little hiccup a couple of weeks ago, as you mentioned, which was only about a 10% swoon, we haven't had a long sustained market correction and we're going on 15 years and I've never experienced that kind of longevity of a market. We're at all-time highs across the board. Money's been cheap for over a market. We're at all-time highs across the board. Money's been cheap for over a decade.

Speaker 2 38:03

Real estate exploded during COVID. Tech stocks exploded during COVID, the revolution of AI and automated cars and technologies. Like I said, I said it earlier the more things change, the more they stay the same Evolution, evolution, evolution. Look at the weight loss drugs, the GLPs or whatever they're called. All of a sudden, those pharmaceutical stocks are printing money hand over fist. Two years ago, nobody wanted to buy those stocks, right? Everybody wants tech. Everybody wants the artificial intelligence chips and the technology stocks, and you know meta and the Mag7, and you hear all these things being thrown around.

Speaker 2 38:43

So to your question if I'm not in the game. What I'm hearing you is should I be getting in the game now comfortably? That's what I'm hearing out of your question. So the answer is yes. With you know, with the flashlight, with the lights on, like not all your money, part of your money, dollar cost average in wait for pullbacks, maybe you put your money in every 90 days. Maybe you put your money in a little bit now and you wait till after the election. Maybe you put your money in every 90 days. Maybe you put your money in a little bit now and you wait till after the election. Again, having a strategy of some kind? Again, you know you don't go to Vegas and put everything down on one bet one time all or nothing. I mean people do and, yes, they'll hit. Most times they won't, but that's not investing. So I think you want to come up with a game plan. Find a core of vehicles that fit your profile. Again, it certainly depends on the kind of money you're dealing with and the timeline that you're hoping to put that money to work.

Speaker 2 39:58

But as soon as my kids got W-2 jobs, we opened up Roth IRAs. They were 16, 17 years of age and they could put a grand or two away and we funded their Roth IRAs, whereas the average investor probably doesn't start investing until they're in their 30s or 40s, because they're doing other things, they're living life. They don't have any extra money, they're not committed to investing, they're in the here and the now and they're running up their credit cards and they're replacing their cell phone every year and they're going out with the buddies and drinking and running up their bar bill. I don't know what the numbers are, but one out of so many don't do that. One out of so many put away money properly. Everybody should be putting away 10% to 20% of their paycheck.

Speaker 2 40:52

If you want to have a savings and you want to get to somewhere in the future, you got to start today. $100 bucks here, a hundred bucks there. Don't go out to dinner that Saturday night. Don't go out that Friday night with your buddies. Don't lease a car every three years. That's just black hole money that never comes back, right?

Speaker 2 41:14

So you want a $500 car payment or you want to put $400 into your retirement plan? So you want a $500 car payment or you want to put $400 into your retirement plan, like? You can't do both, right? So you have to start deciding. Maybe I got to drive a lower priced car. Maybe I need to buy a used car and boost my savings instead of just spending it.

Speaker 2 41:32

You have to make decisions. Those decisions will have repercussions, but it's hard to tell a young person, dave, flat out, what 30 and 40 years is going to do for them. They're not living in that bubble. You and I are. You know when your responsibility and I don't know you for 40 years, but you know when, I bet, your responsibility started to change and your viewpoint started to change, as most people in this country, when your first kid was born. Yep, yeah, that's when stuff got serious. That's when you became selfless yes, instead of selfish, because most of us live selfishly.

Speaker 2 42:14

It's all about me. I'm going to do these things. I'm not thinking of others. I'm certainly not thinking of my future. I'm going to do these things. I'm not thinking of others. I'm certainly not thinking of my future. I'm omnipotent and I'm apathetic. And that's how most youth think, unless they come from a background where their parents have educated them, taught them financial literacy and understanding these things and saying you know what? Look, tithing right. You come from a faith of tithing. That's a discipline, isn't it? God gave, so I'm going to give back, and I'm going to tithe 10% no matter what. So if you can do that, why can't you do another 10% for yourself?

Speaker 2 43:03

that why can't you do another?

Speaker 1 43:04

10% for yourself, yep. So as we wrap up again, we're like, we're like preachers. As I closed for the fourth time, let's say somebody listened to this podcast. They've, it doesn't matter. You know. I've heard somebody say you know, when was it? When's the best time to start? 10 years ago, when's the second best time to start? Right now. And they're listening to this podcast and they're like man, I'm behind, I got to get going. I got to create a plan, got to get on what, how? If they're like, look, I got to find the plan man, where is he? How am I going to get this guy to help me? Because he obviously knows this stuff? What are some ways people can contact you for follow-up questions to explore what might be possible for them?

Speaker 2 43:43

So they can go to planmantv. That's my YouTube channel. There's over 70 self-help videos out there on all kinds of topics. They can comment and ask questions there. They can come to my Instagram, Facebook. Ask the Plan man has an Instagram, has Facebook. They can email me at bruce at asktheplanmancom Website asktheplanmancom. I got it branded all over the place, David.

Speaker 2 44:14

Look, I don't do a lot of what I used to do. I preach about it, as you're hearing right. I speak passionately about it because I feel everybody needs and has to have it. Here's the biggest problem for the young investor today is the majority of wall street doesn't want to help them. They don't have enough money. Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Goldman Sachs all have minimum client relationship amounts. Goldman more than the others, right, Because they're bigger banks. But if you don't have a million dollars, you can't play in their sandbox, you can't work with their advisors. So you've got to find places that are maybe independents, smaller boutique firms.

Speaker 2 44:59

Maybe if your parents have somebody already, they'll take you on as the offspring. That's usually legacy, so they'll take your son because you're there. But if my parents don't have any money or I don't have any parents, you know how do I get started if I've got 50 grand or 50 bucks a week. And so the do it. You know the do it yourself. The self-help becomes the path, and there's Fidelity's and Schwab's and Vanguard's and plenty of places you can get started and eventually they'll give you an advisor at some level when you get a certain amount of money with them.

Speaker 2 45:40

But nobody's going to hold your hand, Nobody's going to tell you what to do, Nobody's going to tell you not to sell. You're going to be dealing with order takers. You're going to hit the buy button, You're going to hit the sell button. There's nobody looking over your shoulder going. You're sure you want to do that. Why would you do that today? Shouldn't you put an extra hundred in instead of taking your money out?

Speaker 2 46:03

And so that's part of the problem is where can people get help? This is why I have the show, and I'd love to have more topics presented to me. Hey, talk about this, talk about that. But this is part of the problem. The 99% don't get this help. The 1% have it, the 2% have it, but the masses don't. And so how do you get started? What leg up do our kids have if there's nobody out there to help them get started, but they can reach out. I'll never turn people away If I need to refer them to somebody directly, if I could help them with certain things, I will but reach out, communicate, ask your questions. Love to hear it.

Speaker 1 46:53

Bruce, thank you so much for being on the show today. I think we have drank from the fire hose in a lot of ways. I would suggest that the listeners go back and listen to this two or three times and take notes. I mean, if you're on the treadmill or driving, we don't want you taking notes, so go back to a time when you can sit down with your notebook. But I want to encourage everybody. Bruce and I have known each other now probably going on three years and he has got a heart to help people. He has got a heart to guide people and I would wholeheartedly recommend him if you're interested in stepping out into this, which you should. Again, we all need a plan. I hate to say it, but 70s on the horizon. It just depends on how far down the line it is for you. I encourage you to get a plan and get it going.

Speaker 2 47:46

If you watch some of these Netflix type shows. There's been this wave of musicians Springsteen, bon Jovi, joan Jett whomever Paul McCartney. They now peel back the curtains and they show the early days and you know their journey and their path and dilution.

Speaker 1 48:08

I'm still here, there you go.

Speaker 2 48:10

It's a stupid thing. Where I'm going is the song they started writing is never the song they actually published. Right, it was a journey. It was a journey, it was a path, it was tweaking, it was modifying, and so think of this the same way your financial journey is going to ever evolve. Today is the first day of the rest of your financial planning life. Just get started and it'll evolve over time and you'll learn over time and you'll fall down and you'll make some mistakes and you'll learn and you'll improve and you won't make those mistakes again, but you'll see your net worth grow. Success breeds success. You'll want to put away more money when you see the success you're having. When the market corrects, you're going to go.

Just Do It

Speaker 2 48:56

Ah, I remember Bruce said don't sell, I should buy more. I've been sitting on some cash. I've got some bonds I could sell. Let me put some more money in that equity. Real estate came down. Let me go buy another investment property, whatever it is. But the key we're going to call out Nike is just do it. Just get started. Just do it. Do something. Don't bemoan the fact that I'm too old and I missed this opportunity. Bro, get over it. Get started today. Open up an account today, put that 50 bucks away, and put it away again next week and the week after and the week after. Start cutting up those credit cards. Start looking at your budget. Where are you throwing money away? I have a whole show just on budgets.

Speaker 1 49:49

And with that we close out this episode of Keep this In Mind. Bruce, thank you again for being on and sharing so much knowledge, but as we close out the show, it's not knowledge that gets the ball rolling, guys. Remember this applied knowledge is power, god bless. That is going to do it for this episode of Keep this In Mind. For more, visit davidaspectcom. Like, follow and subscribe. Thank you for listening and remember applied knowledge is power, god bless.