Lifestyle Creep Hurts | Logan Bennis | Growing Money with Sean Trace

I sat down with Logan Bennis, a financial advisor out of Dunedin, Florida, who works with business owners and families to untangle their financial lives and actually build something that lasts. 

We got into the real reasons why people who earn good money still feel broke, it almost always comes back to lifestyle creep, keeping up with appearances, and skipping the unsexy stuff like disability insurance and estate planning that nobody wants to talk about. 

Logan broke down the biggest mistakes he sees walking through his door every single day, from families with zero protection on their assets to people chasing get-rich-quick schemes online while ignoring the slow, boring path that actually made every one of his 100+ millionaire clients wealthy. 

What's one money habit you wish someone had taught you before you turned 18?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

But we work with over a hundred millionaires, right? I've worked with over a hundred millionaires over the past five, six years. And each one of those millionaires got rich slowly over time through what they were good at and through their job and through their income. Not a single one of them had a silver magic bullet that they just got rich overnight, right? And I do think that building wealth over time also builds your maturity over time, right? Because say you're 22 years old, you get a million dollars, that 22-year-old may go out and spend it frivolously, right? May go buy a new car, buy a new house, buy a boat, whatever it may be. They may not be ready for that million dollars. And I think building wealth slowly over time slowly matures you financially as well. So once you do have a million dollars, you know what you're doing with that million dollars, right? I'm gonna invest it, I'm gonna build this cash flow over time. And it's not just, hey, I'm gonna go buy a boat, buy a house, renovate my office, whatever, whatever the deal may be, right? So I do think there is that maturity aspect as well, which is the biggest part of building wealth over time, right? The compounding interest is great, but if you don't know what to do with that money once you get it, then then you're screwed. You're gonna you're gonna end up spending it all instead of actually letting it work for you for the rest of your life. So I do think that maturity aspect is the biggest part about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Welcome everybody back to the I'm trying to remember podcast this Growing Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace. I have too many podcasts, which is fun but also problematic at times. Uh, I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, yeah. My name is Logan Bennis. I am a financial advisor out of the beautiful Dunedin, Florida, right over there by Tampa, Florida, just a little west of there. We work with business owners and families to figure out what their financial problems are and how we can help solve them via various strategies, right? Investment planning, insurance planning, tax strategizing, legacy planning, the whole nine yards. So outside of that, I'm into triathlons, just started doing that. So finished my first Olympic triathlon. Yep. So almost died on the swim. Yep. Got through the swim, which was good, but definitely almost died. Uh, in a bowling league and also part of a rotary club. So keep myself busy outside of being a financial advisor.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Well, that's a that's a cool mix, man. I I've been wanting to train triathlons as well, but like I am, I am super intimidated by the swim. I'm a strong swimmer, but like that's that's next level swim, and it's open water, and I'm just I'm so freaked out by open water too, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. Yeah. I grew up surfing, so I thought the swim would be the easy part for me. I got out there, had a panic attack, started backstroking and and doing all these things just to get through the swim, and and got through it, did my second triathlon this weekend, went went a lot better. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

That's wild, man. Well, it's interesting too because I mean we didn't, I didn't, I didn't think about asking about this, but you know, I think money and different types of sports have a kind of a an interesting parallel, right? Like I did judo, I'm a black belt in Japanese style jujitsu, which is more like judo. And I was like, I wanted my daughter to learn to fall, learn some judo throws. So we went to a judo class together. And I was like, yeah, you know, I did this a lot when I was younger. This is gonna be no problem. Okay, midway through the class, I was panicking because I'm just like, I feel like I'm gonna pass out right now. I haven't trained like this in ages. And like I was overwhelmed. And like one of the things that I found is that I was falling back on different tech tools that I had learned. You know, first of all, I'm feeling dizzy, get low. That's something I've learned from sports a long time. If you're feeling too dizzy, get your body low. Feeling too hot, cool down. You know, feeling thirsty, drink some water. Just like kind of trying to rebalance my body because I was just like, my body's like, dude, I don't like you right now. Yeah. But when when when people deal with financial, we we sit there and when times are good, finances are easy. You know, it's like, yeah, man, I'm just gonna do this. But when things hit, suddenly that panic mode sets in, and you're just like, ah, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yep. Yep, and you revert back to old habits, you know, especially when that panic mode hits, right? You're using the credit cards again, you're taking out debt, doing everything that you were doing in the past, that kind of got you behind. So I I definitely see that correlation there.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Right? Well, I want to ask you this though, too, because you had asked me why do I know about money. I don't know about money. I started this podcast because I don't know about money. And like my whole goal with this podcast was to create a place and talk to people because my daughter is 10. And when she was around eight, she came up to me and she's like, Dad, tell me these things about money. And I was like, Oh man, I don't understand these concepts myself. And it was embarrassing, it was really embarrassing. But you know, I started doing research and I was like, I didn't even know what a financial planner was, man. I knew that there were people that worked with money and stuff, and I was like, I don't even know what this all is. So I started digging deeper. But I want to ask you for people out there who might not know, and like for my 10-year-old daughter, like, what does a financial advisor actually do all day? How would you explain it?

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah, yeah. So we sit down with families on a daily basis and we talk about what their goals and their values are. And then we take their goals and values and we determine how we can get there to their goals through financial planning. So through their savings, through their investing. And we also, like I said before, do the things as well as far as insurance planning. We look at their taxes and we look at how their assets are gonna pass to the next generation. So, what we're trying to do is come up with a strategy via their money and via the tools that they have accessible to them to accomplish their goals. So, like for your daughter, say she wanted to go on a Disney trip, right? We're gonna talk about how we can save on a monthly basis to save up that couple thousand that it's gonna cost to Disney and go see Mickey Mouse, right? Or for her college savings. We are gonna come up with a saving strategy where every year your dad is gonna contribute a little bit to a college savings account, and that's gonna grow over time. So by the time that you reach college, you guys have money to pay for that college tuition over time. So it's looking at these various goals that you may have and how we can accomplish those goals through your money, through your income, and through investing on the side as well. I love that, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

But you know, I think about this and I love talking about a strategy. But like one of the things that people talk to me about, and I hear a lot, I get to talk to financial planners, and like these people are on it and with it. And then I go out and I'm talking to my friends, I'm like, oh yeah, I got this, all this great advice. And my friends are like, dude, I am making all these mistakes. And like, I'm like, well, what are you talking about, man? And they just they're judging themselves constantly. And I want to ask you that too. But like, why do you think so many adults make good money but feel stressed about money all the time and have this self-judgment that they're doing something wrong?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, we live in a, we live in a nation that that loves consumption on our side of things. So everybody is trying to keep up with the Joneses, right? So they get that, they get that pay raise, and the first thing they go, they go buy a new car, maybe they buy a new house, or maybe they renovate their home and they don't actually implement that into their savings strategy, right? The saving strategy is kind of the last thing that they look at there. So even people that make $300,000, $400,000 a year, they could still feel stressed because they went out and bought that $1.1 million home. They have two nice cars in the driveway that cost them two grand a month, right? So they're limiting their cash flow on a monthly basis and kind of ignoring the savings. So I do think that's why a lot of people feel stressed. And a lot of people, I think, get anxiety about it because social media is so prevalent nowadays, right? You're scrolling, you're swiping, you're seeing everybody else do great the best of everybody else's lives. So I think that has a large role that plays in it as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I've been in this content game for a long time. I have multiple channels, I put out a lot of stuff. And I then look online, and all these people are like, dude, I'm crushing it. I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And it's like, you know, it's like I feel I sit there and I look at myself sometimes like, what am I doing wrong? Do I need to be more shocking? Do I need to do this? I do that. And that's just with making videos. And I'm I'm experienced. Like, I might not be a CFP with money, but with content, I'm definitely the equivalent of whatever that is, you know? I know what I'm doing. I used to teach, I used to teach content creation in university and I taught classes on podcasting and stuff. Like, I know what I'm doing. But even still, like you can feel like you're floundering when you look at social media and like, are you out there crushing it right now? If you're not crushing it, like you're like, I want to crush it. Can I crush it? You know? But like you sit there and you look at it, you're like, I'm I'm not. And you sit there and um, you know, I sit there and I watch these videos about personal finance, and I see all these people that are, you know, talking about these things, and there's other people that just go, I can't even relate to that. Because I think there's this spectrum of people and how they can relate to money. And it's interesting. I was thinking about this the other day. On the one side, you get like the people that are really savvy investors, helping high net worth individuals. And then on the other side, like there's not much on the other side from media, like Dave Ramsey, but he's got a huge following simply because he talks to this side. Whether you agree with him or not, he's talking to this side, but yeah, in the middle, there's this whole group of people that go, Hey, what about me? You know, yeah, and so it's like interesting because those are what I would call like your regular family, right? Yeah, just kind of the normal family that, you know, they're heading this way. Sometimes they're dealing with problems from over here, but they're in this middle, the messy middle. Like, but what's the biggest money mistake that you see regular families make over and over again?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there there are a couple that we see constantly on a daily basis when families come in. One of the biggest things that we see families not having and implemented when they come in is a way of protecting their assets. So that's disability insurance, maybe life insurance as well, and their different insurances, right? Because you work so hard to build this nest egg. You know, you've worked 20, 30 years, now you have 500,000 saved up, and then something happens. You have a heart attack. Yeah. Maybe in Florida you fall off a jet ski, right? I love to snowboard. Maybe I fall snowboarding. And now the next six months to a year, I'm digging into that nest egg instead of letting it compound over time. So I would say about 70% of the families that come into our office do not have any form of disability, which is huge. It's a huge, huge, huge thing to have. I can't I can't stress it enough. Um, because like I said, if something were to happen to you, especially where health is going nowadays, you know, you're out of work six to 12 months. How are you gonna cover that? Right, you're gonna have to dig into your nest egg. You're gonna have to sell some investments. And now your money's just stopping working for you and not compounding over time. Another pretty big thing that we see is families not come in with any legacy plans, so no estate plan, which is huge, right? You've worked so hard to save all this money and you don't have a plan for how this money is actually going to pass to your kids or to the charity, wherever you want the money going, right? But there's no plan in place for it to do that. So now, once you do pass, the state is gonna determine how your assets pass. It's gonna go through probate. And we see around 60% of families that come in don't have any estate plan, right? And I think that's a big part because no one sat down with them and told them the importance of estate plan or told them the importance of a disability policy, right? Everybody in in finance likes to talk about the sexy things. So they like to talk about the investments, how much money they're making, but they don't talk about the little things in between that really help protect their money and protect their plan and investments.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

And I think that those are, I would say this, like when I talk to my wife about stuff like this, and she's she's Vietnamese and her family is very superstitious. And I said the other day, I was like, I was talking to her. I said, we need to talk about these different things, you know. What about disability insurance? Oh, you know, and she was like, if we talk about it like in her culture, like you're really worried that it's something bad's gonna happen, or you get that. And I said, No, I I actually was temporarily disabled for a period of time. I had a very bad infection, took me out of the workforce. Yeah, and I was cruising along, I felt normal, I felt good, and then boom, I got sick. And you don't see it coming. Like, you know, I would say probably most of the people out there that get these things aren't guessing that it's gonna happen, you know? And and I think the same thing for like um, you know, estate planning. Like it's scary for us to talk about death. It's scary for us to talk about illness. But if there are two things that are certain in life, both of those will come at some point in time. It's better to be prepared. You know, I had uh a friend of mine that came onto my podcast and he said uh he was former military and he had just some of the best perspectives. And he said when they were training special forces stuff, he said this prepare, uh, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. You know, you don't want that stuff to happen, but you're ready for it. You're ready for whatever might come. And then at those things they come, you're sitting there in a better situation. When when COVID came around, my wife and I, I watch a shit ton of zombie movies. I love them. Uh I'm a huge, I'm a huge zombie movie fan. So I saw like all the news, like virus sweeps through, you know, China. And I was just like, I looked at my wife and I was like, it's time. It's happening. It's time. It's happening. Ready. We are we are getting prepped. And so I looked at her and I was like, I've seen these movies, I've seen this stuff that they talk about. We went and bought a thousand pounds of rice. We bought two extra fridges, we stocked each fridge with about 500 pounds of meat. And when we had pretty aggressive shutdowns, people weren't allowed out of their houses for five months in Vietnam. Like literally not allowed of their houses. You couldn't go out. We were fine because we were prepared. We had set food aside. We had got I was like, baby, I've seen these movies, we need to get ready. And she was like, I'm down for this. I like zombie movies too. But it's funny and easy a topic to joke about, but at the same time, there's gonna be other advert like adversity that comes in the future. And I love that you talk to people about this because we have to be talking to people about this. And if you want your kids to not have to get stuck in probate or stuck, you know, because you thought you were stronger than you were, and then suddenly, you know, you got that massive stroke or heart attack.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people come to us for the investing at first, right? And then we break down these things of protecting them as well and protecting those investments. And it, I say that may even be a bigger part and more important part than the investments themselves. So I think I think the protection aspect is is huge in any financial planning that that's done. I love that, man.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, I mean, and it's interesting too, because you mentioned social media earlier, and I feel like a lot of people think investing is about getting rich quick, especially at this time. You know, you see it all of the all of the social media is like, if you go and invest in this, you'll be a millionaire in six months. And I like, I want to go. Like, can you show us your financial statements? I want to see where you're sitting right now, you know. What do you wish people understood instead about building wealth?

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah, yeah. So, like you're saying, a lot of people see that get rich quick scheme online, right? They saw cryptocurrency in the 2020s, 2016 just explode and all these people online making millions and millions of dollars. And they think to themselves, well, hey, if this guy can do it or this girl, I can do it as well, right? And they want to chase that high risk and high return, right? And I do think most people understand the concept of risk and return. But we work with over a hundred millionaires, right? I've worked with over a hundred millionaires over the past five, six years. And each one of those millionaires got rich slowly over time through what they were good at and through their job and through their income. Not a single one of them had a silver magic bullet that they just got rich overnight, right? And I do think that building wealth over time also builds your maturity over time, right? Because say you're 22 years old, you get a million dollars, that 22-year-old may go out and spend it frivolously, right? May go buy a new car, buy a new house, buy a boat, whatever it may be. They may not be ready for that million dollars. And I think building wealth slowly over time slowly matures you financially as well. So once you do have a million dollars, you know what you're doing with that million dollars, right? I'm gonna invest it, I'm gonna build this cash flow over time. And it's not just, hey, I'm gonna go buy a boat, buy a house, renovate my office, whatever, whatever the deal may be, right? So I do think there is that maturity aspect as well, which is the biggest part of building wealth over time, right? The compounding interest is great, but if you don't know what to do with that money once you get it, then then you're screwed. You're gonna know you're gonna, you're gonna end up spending it all instead of actually letting it work for you for the rest of your life. So I do think that maturity aspect is the biggest part about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I always I'd love to know how many of those Bitcoin millionaires are still have all that money. Exactly. I'd love to know how many of them were able to hold on to that and put it into other investments, or did it just disappear on them? Because, you know, your habits are so important. I have some family members that are ridiculously wealthy, and they are also hilariously literally the funniest people I know because they just don't spend on stuff. Like they are so good. They sent me a pair of shorts for Christmas. And when I found out where they got the shorts, they got them out of the ocean. They go walking down the beach every day, and there's like they live in this tourist area, and every single day they find brand new stuff, and they just walk down the beach, and like so they're like, wow, new towels. And so you go to their house and they have these brand new towels, brand new all the stuff. They got all these boogie boards and stuff. And I was like, Where'd you guys buy these boogie boards? Like, we didn't buy them, they just washed up on the shore, and it was stuff that had been abandoned, and they were like, This has value, and let's take care of it. And the shorts, fair enough, those shorts are some of the nicest shorts I've got. They're amazing shorts. And I was like, Well, yeah, the universe, the ocean brought them to me. I feel like Moana right now, you know? You know, some lively music plan. I'm like, I've been blessed with these shorts, but like it's these habits that they established over a long time. Yeah in like driving around in a Honda CRV. There's no rolls, there's no Bentley, there's no like any of that, you know? And the house they have is nice, but they leveled up slowly. They invested in this house, they fixed it, they made it nicer, then they sold it and got another one, invested, fixed it, made it nicer, and they worked their way up and now they have a beautiful place, but it was step by step.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

And it was these practical skills that got them there, you know? And you have to learn those skills over time, right? Nobody just comes out of, comes out of school or in their in their early 20s knowing these skills. We're really not taught any of these money skills in school and in the public school system. So you have to learn these money habits over time. And I think that is the biggest thing with building wealth over time. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

I love it. And I think that it's something that I hope that we can start doing it more. I hope that more people are having these conversations. Like my dream, if I had a Aladdin's lamp, I would start something called money school and just educate kids about finances. That would be my dream. So I think at some point in time, it is a nonprofit that I want to build out step by step. But like going into schools and teaching kids about money. Like, hey guys, yeah, this are these are basic, this is how to save money. What is probably one of the biggest fundamental principles of wealth that no one told me spend less than you earn. It sounds simple, but like from the government down in America, we do the opposite. We spend more than we earn, you know? Yeah, we're a consumption country.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

We're a consumption co country, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:01

So I think it's wild like that. I want to ask you this because if we we're talking about educating people, if someone only had $100 a month to start building a better future, what would you tell them to do first?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, so personally, I think ourselves and our knowledge base is gonna be the biggest asset that we have, right? So the first thing I would tell somebody to do is go level up your knowledge, right? Go to seminars, go back to school, go take these courses, learn as much as you can at your job and to make you better and more knowledgeable in your skill set because that is what's gonna make you the most money overall, right? The investing is great, right? We can we can make you money investing, but the biggest way you're gonna make money is through your current income, right? So just leveling up your skills is huge for me personally. That was getting all my designations. Um, I still am taking courses on a on a consistent basis, still go to seminars, still go to workshops. Because I want to level up my knowledge, because that's my biggest asset, right? And I think that's anybody's biggest asset overall. Now, if we're talking about the investing side of things, right, and they want to learn more about investing. First, make sure you have that emergency fund saved up. So that extra $100 a month go to emergency fund. And if you already have that saved up, I would suggest getting in a low-cost index fund at $100 a month, right? Then you have the app on your phone, you know, whatever that may be. And you can watch the market on a daily basis, watch these individual stocks and actually learn about the market, right? If you're in the index fund, say it's SP $500, you can go learn about these 500 companies until you're actually ready to start doing some more diversification and diversify away from those index funds. But definitely the first thing, level up your knowledge, and that's going to be your biggest asset overall. I love that, man.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I think that knowledge is such a powerful gift that keeps on giving. And, you know, and there's so many layers of things because we're not taught how to do this. Like you said, you know, and I think that, you know, I remember the only financial stuff that was anywhere near my college campus was banks like signing up college kids for credit cards. And I was just like, this is wild, man. Like, this is the type of like, hey guys, come on down. We're gonna teach you how to spend. Yeah, and I I'm not one of those people that hates on credit cards. I'm learning more and I'm actually using them strategically to build my business, getting points because I'm already what I'm spending for my business, I can't not spend that. It's basic expenses. But like now I'm doing it smart and I have different cards for different spins and I'm making great points back, which is awesome because I'm spending that anyways. But for a lot of people, credit cards can get them into trouble. Even smart people. Why do credit cards get so many people into trouble?

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Yeah. So I think I think you're right about most people do open up a credit card with good intentions, right? They want those extra points that they may not be getting to buy to buy the flights on their vacation. They may want to build their credit so they can go buy a home later on or buy a car later on because they may not have any credit, right? But then people tend to use it as a crutch, right? The dryer went out. Oh, let me put it on the credit card. I have to fix my pool. Let me put it on the credit card. Oh, but now I just want to go on a vacation. Let me put it on the credit card. So they start using it as this crutch and as money they actually have when they actually don't have it, right? And that can snowball pretty quickly. You get $10,000 on a credit card, 20% interest. That interest is $2,000 a year, right? If you're only paying the minimum of, say, $150 on a monthly basis, you're never gonna get caught up. And that is just gonna compound on itself. It's compounding interest, but in reverse, right? That that credit card debt is just gonna keep compounding on itself until you pay it off. I do think most people open up credit cards with good intentions of, hey, I want to build my credit, I want to get these points, but then it just becomes a crutch that they can lean back on, right? Because maybe they don't have an emergency fund or something that they can actually pay for these expenses out of, right? So they use their credit card, which I think can get away from people extremely, extremely quickly, even wealthy people, right? It's it's not just something for for lower income, it gets away from it gets away from everybody, right? And I think it's just uh it's a crutch that people that people lean on overall.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

I love what you're saying, man, because I think that like we it comes back to that same thing. You people have the best intentions, but then life happens. And you're just like, oh wow, I didn't prepare for it. The other day, the other month, I had my emergency fund going in the right direction, and then boom, I got hit by something. And I was just like, whoa, I didn't see that coming. You know, and I think that um it's something that I want to ask you about because a lot of people have things that keep them stuck. You know, what's something that people buy or spend money on that quietly keeps people, I'm not gonna say broke, but from making progress in the way they want to make progress?

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. I, you know, for me it's a pretty, pretty easy answer. I think it's I think it's the car, right? And and in our country, we live in a country of consumption, just like I'm saying, keeping up with the Joneses. Everybody wants the nicest and newest car. I was doing some research. The average new car monthly payments, right around $750 a month. Now you stack on insurance of $200 to $400 a month on top of that, right? You're spending over $1,000 on your car. Um, the average month or average weekly income is right around $1,200 for someone that works full-time. So say $4,800 monthly that they bring in, if their car payment's a thousand dollars, and that's just for one car, they're spending around 20% of their monthly income on a car payment, right? So I think living in your means, especially with the car, is huge. Say instead of that $700 car payment, say you just bought a modest $300 or $300 a month car, right? Where the payment's only $300 a month, and you invested that $400 over a 30-year period at 8%, you're gonna end up with right around $550,000 in savings, right? So that extra three, $400 that someone's spending on the car is gonna keep them broke over time and not allow them to build that wealth. Now, in 30 years, when you have that $550,000, go buy yourself a nice car, pay it in cash, right? But when you're building your wealth, it's extremely important to live in your means and not spend so much money just to keep up with the challenges, just to have the nicest car. Now, I do know some people that just love cars, love cars, right? I'm not that type of person. I care less what I drive, right? But I do know people that love cars. And for them, it it might be something that you come up with a saving strategy to buy one day, right? But you just don't go and buy the car and put it on a $700 a month car payment, spending $1,100 a month on that car. Say you have a wife, right? Now you're spending $2,200 a month on cars, which is just a little bit insane, right? It's getting it the car market's getting a little crazy. So I do think that is one of the areas where most people can cut back on and really help them build wealth over time. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

And I I think as well, like you really are, we do have this, especially in the US, there's this social status tied up with your cars. Yeah, very dramatically so. And it's like, I think that my daughter always plays this game with me. And she starts like this or this, this car company or this car company, this car company or this car company. And I'm not, I'm not sponsored by Toyota, but every time she goes around, I'm just like Toyota, Toyota, Toyota. She matches them up with everything. She's like, Why do you always pick Toyota? I was like, Because they don't break, and when they do, it's really cheap to fix them, you know. And I said, like, I my old Toyota had 300,000 miles on it before I it it finally I sold it and it was still going. You know, and I think that like for me, I think that there's something to be said for um, it's a mindset shift of like what's your self-worth and you know what's important to you. And I think it goes back to the values because for me, like you said, some people that are car people, maybe that's what's important to them. Yeah, but for me, you know, for me, it's experiences, it's time that I can go out to restaurants with my daughter and wife, you know, we can go to these nights, we go to movies together, we find things that we enjoy doing together. But, you know, one of the things that we talked about earlier is that like when people suddenly like I talked about the Bitcoin people, like they got really rich. Can they keep it? And I mean, you know, I everyone loves to do the I used to do this this activity I used to teach kids, and I said, okay, you get a million dollars. What are you gonna do? And you know what's crazy? Like 99% of the kids were like, I'm buying this, I'm buying that. And they just like go through this list of the stuff they buy. But there was one kid who's like, I'm buying houses, and then I'm gonna put most of it in the bank, and then I will like save it. And I don't know, but maybe I'll buy some gold. And so I was like, who are your parents' family? Who's teaching you this stuff? You know? I was just like, wow. Like literally, I've never had a kid go there. The kid's like, I want to invest the money. And I was just like, who are you? Like, who are you? What's your name? What's your name? Like Robert, you know, and like you're 55 and like this, you know, like a 10-year-old body, like wild, man. But like I want to ask you this. If a family suddenly got a million dollars tomorrow, um, why could they still end up broke a few years later?

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, yeah. It's that lifestyle creep that we talked about earlier, right? They're gonna go out and buy the new car. They're gonna go out and buy a new house, right? They're not gonna put any money away for building up their cash flow. And when you go buy that new house, right, now your property taxes are higher. Your insurance is higher. That fancy car that's gonna cost more on a monthly basis for your insurance, maybe. Who knows, right? But they're gonna increase their monthly expenses without increasing their monthly cash flow, right? Instead of putting that million dollars and putting it to work for them and increasing their cash flow, then to go pay for these things, they go buy the things first, right? They kind of work in reverse. They buy the assets that are depreciating or whatever it may be. And then they want to talk about the cash flow and how they're gonna pay for it after it when really it should be flipped, right? We want to talk about investing the money, how much cash flow we can generate from that. And then we can talk about, you know, what other things we can buy and and pay for with this new monthly cash flow that we have. But if you go in and buy a bunch of things, now that's million dollars, say it turns into 500,000. Well, you know, 4% on $500,000 looks a lot different than 4% on a million, right? Right. So it's um, it's it's just they go out and they buy all these, all these new items, right? And they don't adjust their monthly cash flow. So now two, three, four years later, they have this huge monthly expense. They have no money left in the bank, and they didn't up up their up their cash flow and monthly income. So they end up going bankrupt or end up having to sell those assets, right? So I think it's just people working in reverse. They they go buy the things that they've always wanted and ignore how much that's gonna cost in the long run for them and how much it'll cost the opportunity cost of not investing their money as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

I love that, man. I love that you people are saying this and people are talking about it because we need to. And it leads to my next question. Like, what's one money habit you think every teenager should learn before becoming an adult?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah, so I I really think like like you had mentioned earlier, it's living below your means, right? Living your below your means, and then you can learn start learning about compounding interest and savings, right? I do think compounding interest is a huge thing that if kids understood, right? If they saw the graph of their investments over time going up, going up, and they're like, wow, I could be a millionaire by the time I'm 40 if I started now. I do think that would be huge for kids to learn. And then that may lead back to living below your means because now they want to save their money. Now they want to invest their money over time. Warren Buffett calls it the eighth wonder of the world, right? Charlie Munger at Berkshire Hathaway, in his his one of his last interviews on CNBC, he said that one of his biggest regrets is not having more time, right? Not having more time for his money to compound over time for him. So I do think that living below your means plus that compounding interest piece, which they kind of go together, I think that would be huge for any kid to learn. And it'll make them interested in finances, right? If they see, oh, that's how the wealthy get wealthy, is making their assets work for them. I do think that that would be huge in the living below your means and then and then investing from there. And then learning more, getting themselves entrenched in finance from there. Right. I want to uh, where can people go to learn more about you and what you do? Yeah, yeah. So they can go to my Instagram, Wealth with Benniss. That's B-E-N-N-I-S. Also on LinkedIn pretty pretty avidly. So go find me on LinkedIn under Logan Bennis and then Facebook as well. So I try to post three, four times on there, starting to get into the short form content thing as well. So if you want to go and and just scroll through some videos, go to Wealth with Bennice, and I'm sure you'll be able to find some videos there here in the next couple weeks.