#017 Money Mindset for Every Alaskan - Chad Hufford

My guest today is Chad Hufford; Financial planner, founder of Veritas Wealth Management in Anchorage, author of Forging Financial Freedom, and host of The Blue Collar Millionaire Show. Chad is a lifelong Alaskan whose approach to money is shaped by the realities so many of us face in the Last Frontier: high cost of living, seasonal work, opportunity-rich industries, and a lifestyle full of both challenges and rewards. 

In this episode, Chad breaks down the real Alaskan money mindset , one rooted in habits, purpose, clarity, and the discipline it takes to build a life you’re proud of. We cover a wide range of topics that apply whether you're barely getting by, earning six figures, or somewhere in between. 

We get into:
 • Growing up in Alaska and learning money lessons early
 • Why living within your means matters more than income
 • The “toy culture” in Alaska and the danger of lifestyle creep
 • Smart ways to think about (and use) the PFD
 • How to plan for snowbird winters without leaving Alaska for good
 • College savings, debt, and the order of operations for financial stability
 • Budgeting for seasonal work in fishing, construction, and tourism
 • How blue-collar Alaskans become millionaires
 • Why your physical health directly impacts your long-term financial freedom
 • What being a SmartVestor Pro really means and how personalized coaching works
 • Fishing vs. investing (yes, the metaphor actually works) 

Chad and I dive into the mindset behind money — the behaviors, habits, and decisions that shape your future far more than the size of your paycheck. Whether you're 18 or 80, working the Slope, living in the bush, or raising a family in town, there’s something here for you. 

Connect with Chad:

Website: veritasalaska.com
Instagram: @veritas.alaska
Podcast: The Blue Collar Millionaire Show
LinkedIn: Chad Hufford 

Transcript

The State I Am In (00:25)
Hello and welcome to the state I'm in where every conversation points north. Here we discuss topics that Alaskans and perhaps everyone should care about. I'm your host, Manny Coelho a fellow Alaskan and your guide to the conversations that Alaskans wanna hear from the individuals who are leading the way.

The State I Am In (00:42)
My guest today is Chad Hufford. Chad is a financial planner and the founder of Veritas Wealth Management in Anchorage, Alaska. the author of the book, Forging Financial Freedom, and also hosts an awesome podcast called The Blue Collar Millionaire Show. It highlights the inspiring stories and wealth building strategies from the blue collar world.

Chad is a lifelong Alaskan and his entire approach to money, wealth and planning for the future is shaped by the same realities that many of us live with, a high cost of living, seasonal work and some unique challenges and opportunities that come with calling this state home.

In our conversation, Chad doesn't just talk about money as numbers on a page. He talks about purpose, mindset, habits, and the way our choices connect to the kind of life and future we're trying to build here in Alaska and even beyond.

Today, we dig into everything from living within your means to what keeping up with the Joneses looks like for Alaskans. We discuss what we should be doing with our PFD, tips for those that wanna be snowbirds in retirement, irregular and why your physical health is tied to your long-term financial freedom.

We dive into how fishing and investing might be more similar than you think. And as a part of the Dave Ramsey Smart Vestor Pro Network, Chad shares how those he works with receive personalized coaching within that framework tailored to their unique situation or goals for the future. So whether you're 18 or 80, just getting by or making well over a six figure income, there is something here to take away for everyone. And now my conversation with Chad Hufford.

The State I Am In (02:10)
Well, Chad, I appreciate you hanging out with me today. I'm really looking forward to just your expertise and your insight into the financial world. And I think there's a lot of Alaskans out there that are going to be excited about your perspective because you live in the state. Your perspective on money and wealth and finances is all co-located with, our neighborhoods and our history and our unique place that is Alaska.

So thank you so much for being here.

Chad Hufford (02:40)
Manny, it's a pleasure. I appreciate the opportunity to join you have a nice conversation and my hope is that our conversation encourages others and just helps kind of clarify ⁓ Their opportunity to have a more abundant life and when I say that it goes so far beyond money. I mean money is just a tool ⁓ If money ever becomes the objective then I think People start getting steered off the the path But you know money is a tool that allows us to enjoy the wonderful state that we're in and you know sometimes

even get out during the cold winter months. ⁓ But yeah, it's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to the chat.

The State I Am In (03:17)
I appreciate that. I want to hear about your story in story here kind of starts somewhere different. Tell me about where you grew up and how you started getting into the world of finance.

Chad Hufford (03:31)
Well, I was born and raised here. My dad came up in the military on his way to Vietnam and Elmendorf was as close as he ever got. And my mom came up here in a public health, as a public health nurse. My dad came up around 1970. My mom came up mid 70s. They met in the late 70s and ⁓ neither intended to stay, but 50 some odd years later, they're both still here. ⁓

And yeah, so I was born and raised up here. We grew up homeschooled, which not a big deal now, because a lot of people are, but back then we said only geeks and freaks were homeschooled. And I'll let your listeners decide which they think I am. it was a very different time. And I had an amazing childhood that I did not appreciate the time. I grew up in a household where money was talked about.

As just a normal part of conversation, I watched my dad ⁓ teach classes in the community and in our church and help people better manage finances and really better manage their lives. It's crazy how when people start taking control of their finances and control their money so their money isn't controlling them, other pieces of life just start falling into place. So I grew up around that. My parents, didn't just teach it to us, they modeled it, which was so important.

The State I Am In (04:51)
Hmm.

Chad Hufford (04:52)
and beyond that, we just, had such a privileged life. I grew up running around in the woods with a 22 or a bow and arrow, shot my first bear with a bow when I was 13, had a hybrid wolf as a pet, as a kid, like stuff that I didn't know wasn't crazy. And then I just thought we were deprived because we didn't have, you know, Nintendos and video games and all that, Game Boys, all that stuff, and go to my friend's house, but this is so awesome. And they, and then...

The State I Am In (05:06)
That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Chad Hufford (05:22)
they hear about us chasing animals in the woods and stuff, they're like, my gosh, that's so awesome. ⁓ But yeah, that's how I grew up. And I think it gave me an appreciation for independence and for.

The State I Am In (05:25)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (05:36)
for not doing what everybody else is doing. And that's one of the things that we try to really hit on Manny is if you want the results that are different from what everybody else is getting, you have to be willing to take a different path. And we grew up on a very different path. And I think that set me up very, very well, even though I did not appreciate it at the time. But yeah, you and I both know we live in an amazing state and it comes with challenges, but it comes with so much opportunity and just grateful to be here.

The State I Am In (05:57)
Yeah.

Do you have any stories from your childhood where money was, you said it was talked about regularly, just within your family, sounds like your dad was pretty involved with that ⁓ financial world in the community, but did you have the lemonade stand? Did you have something that you, a goal, something you were saving up for or maybe some like, I mean, I don't wanna say epic failure, as an eight year old or a 10 year old where you're like, you kind of learned the hard lessons of money at all.

Chad Hufford (06:33)
Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned, I'll show you a couple if we've got time. It's funny you mentioned lemonade stand because I was the only kid that I knew that actually lost money in a lemonade stand. ⁓ we, so we set up, we had this, there's row construction going on. ⁓

The State I Am In (06:46)
no.

Chad Hufford (06:54)
This is before we kind of moved up on the hill. We moved a little outside of Anchorage when I was about nine or 10. So I probably was seven or eight years old, exactly like you said. And they had some road construction set up, so it diverted a lot of traffic like right by our house. And my dad's like, oh, this would be a great time. You know, could have some cookies out there, some lemonade. If nothing else, you can just sell it to the construction workers. They're gonna get thirsty. You know, it's a hot day in Alaska. It's almost 65, you know? And so we go out there, and of course our friends are stopping by.

and we're giving our product away and all this. And I think my sister ate a lot of the cookies, but we don't blame her. I've learned to forgive her. But so it comes down to the end of the day. And you know, I don't remember the numbers, Manny, but let's say we had like six bucks. And then my dad's like, you owe mom $8 for the ingredients and the cups and all these different things. And I was like, what? Like I have to pay for that? goes, yes, that's how you run a business.

you pay to develop your product and then you put it out there and then you get whatever's left over and in this case, you gave away too much or consumed too much of your own product and now you owe money. And so that was my first business experience. But yeah, it just goes to show you just kind of the environment we grew up in where, I I thought it was child abuse, you know, I mean, like dad, it's a lemonade stand. You're supposed to cover all our costs and he's, I didn't tell him that verbatim, but that was what I was thinking. It's like.

The State I Am In (08:08)
Yeah.

Right.

Chad Hufford (08:19)
anything that I sell is pure profit. And he was just like, no, like this is, you have to learn ⁓ how to budget expenses and plan. And again, that was just a normal part of life. And what's so powerful about that, Manny, is so many people, not just here in Alaska, but all over, the only time money is talked about is when it is a stressful conversation. Like when there's not enough of it. Maybe it's a couple going through a divorce. I mean, shoot, money causes, or is a major cause of many divorces.

The State I Am In (08:40)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (08:48)
or maybe somebody lost their job. mean, as you and I are talking, there's been massive Conico layoffs all across the state. There's people who are in, least temporarily, a pretty tough situation, and that's when money is brought up. It's like, okay, I got a severance package, or the transmission just went out in the car and we got a $6,000 mechanics bill. ⁓ And when that gets brought up only under

The State I Am In (09:01)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (09:15)
bad circumstances or stressful circumstances, it's easy to have a connotation around money and then people just want to ignore it and they just want to deal with it. ⁓ Or it becomes the absolute pursuit. So it can push people to extremes where money is everything that matters or we just want to our head in sand and ignore money because again, when money is only brought up under those circumstances, it's hard to have a healthy relationship. So I'm just blessed and grateful that my parents

had those conversations, they worked it into a normal part of our everyday life.

The State I Am In (09:48)
you you talked about those stressful conversations, at what point do you think people start mulling around the idea of maybe I need to reach out to someone outside of myself You know, I guess that would be the point where people would intersect into your world with Veritas specifically.

Chad Hufford (10:07)
Well think it goes in two directions. Number one is kind of like that horizontal direction where you want to surround yourself with a community, with people who want the same type of things you're doing or that you want and are willing to make the same sacrifices. So think about it like, I'll use a little gym analogy, think of something like CrossFit or something like that. It's, I mean...

not to tick off anybody that does it, but like the programming is usually modest. there's nothing groundbreaking about the workouts. What makes it work is you have a horizontal community of people who are showing up that encourage each other, that are willing to all make the same sacrifices, you know, get up at 5.30 in the morning, show up to a class, whatever. But then you have some vertical relationship too. And that's the person who is planning out and guiding your workouts going forward. Now, what CrossFit often lacks is specific

The State I Am In (10:39)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Hufford (10:57)
long-term fitness goals for each individual. So with a financial plan, you should have that as well. So you have that community aspect of people around you that are doing things different than everybody else. They're daring to be different than the rest of our society, because it's difficult to swim upstream when you're the only one that does it. That's why salmon swim in schools, right? So you got people around you, but you also have somebody who is coaching you, making sure that you're executing things properly, that you're executing when you don't want to.

The State I Am In (11:15)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (11:26)
you know, the crossword example would be holding you accountable, like, hey, I see you the back of the room and you know, we're all doing this exercise and you're still catching your breath, like let's get moving. And making sure that what you're doing today is aligned with your future goals. So I think both of those are super important. And like, when is that, when? it's never too early. And I mean, if you're 15 years old, you can be seeking this stuff out because

The State I Am In (11:26)
Mm, yeah.

Totally.

Chad Hufford (11:56)
And if you're 15, 16 and you can avoid car debt and student loans and stuff like that, it's so much easier to get started in life when you're not starting out at 22 with two strikes against you because of debt. Or if you're 72 and you've been retired for five years already, it's not too late. So it's never too early or too late to start doing the right thing. And I just, I believe that it's important to have a coach and a community. mean, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Jerry Rice.

The State I Am In (12:07)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (12:24)
LeBron, these guys all have coaches. They're the best of the world at what they do. So I think it's important for us to have coaches for the areas of life that really matter to us.

The State I Am In (12:33)
What are some of the misconceptions that people might have to reaching out to someone like you and discussing their finances and their journey?

Chad Hufford (12:44)
Well, part of it isn't necessarily misconception, but it's apprehension. Like we ask really tough questions, Manny. You know, how much do you make? ⁓ How much debt do you have? What are your hopes and dreams? What are your fears and anxieties? ⁓ And it gets pretty raw sometimes. We have Kleenex in every meeting room because people, it's just we talk about emotional stuff and it's amazing like what actually comes up in conversations. ⁓ We have two people that we've been working with for a long time that were.

just diagnosed with cancer in the last few weeks. And you're walking through that with their families. So it's very intimate. And you think about like from a medical relationship, ⁓ you walk into a doctor's office and they're like, all right, we're gonna ask you all these types of questions about your health, your family's health, relationships. And then you're gonna put on this gown, take off all your clothes, put on this gown, your butt's gonna be hanging out. Like you're super vulnerable and exposed. There's a little bit, I mean, we don't make people walk around with their butt hanging out here, but.

The State I Am In (13:35)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (13:42)
you're still vulnerable and exposed. It does,

The State I Am In (13:43)
Probably feels that way though when you get into the weeds,

Chad Hufford (13:46)
it does, it does. And we're asking some difficult questions too. Like, you do you know pretty much exactly how much money it's going to take for you to retire and remain comfortably retired for a very long time? Most people have no clue. Most people don't even know how much money they need next month. ⁓ But we, know, that's why we're here to help. But there are difficult questions. So there's apprehension there. I think there's also a misconception we're gonna judge them.

And we have a lot of people that come in that actually have done very, very well. And the tendency for people who are more future-focused, like they're disciplined, they're ambitious, is to kind of beat themselves up over their past. People who don't care about the future, they're living in the moment, they don't care about their past, they're also not coming into our office. So the people that reach out typically, maybe they've done a good job, but good is no longer good enough. They want greatness, they want excellence. So the tendencies for some of those people to...

focus on maybe a bad investment in the past, or they've gone through a divorce, had to start over, or they panicked out of a market during COVID and they lost the recovery from that. Or whatever, maybe they're drowning in debt. We've seen everything here, but a lot of people don't realize how common their fears and anxieties are until they start voicing them. And then we're like, yeah, everybody deals with that. That just makes you normal. It just makes you human.

The State I Am In (15:10)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (15:10)
So I think that's a big part of it. I think the other part is the costs and the fees. People are afraid this will be so expensive. And ⁓ there are costs associated, but oftentimes the cost of not getting the right advice is way higher. And this is something where you get what you pay for. We are not the cheapest people on the block, but we add tremendous value. And we just feel that...

excellence should never be discounted and this is something that matters. if you were having ⁓ heart surgery or something, I hope you're not looking on Groupon for the cheapest surgeon out there. You're looking for the best because it matters that much and I don't think somebody's financial health is any less important than their physical.

The State I Am In (15:57)
Yeah, that's a great perspective. I want to talk about the Alaska premium. grew up here, the cost of living here is high. There's certain things that families are faced with that are bills that are going to be higher and from groceries to the cost of heating oil. ⁓ But then there's also a good earning potential here too for some things.

I wanna talk about in that, what habits do people need to focus on to be able to combat the high cost of living in the state? Because I think it would come down to habits, what they're doing with their money from just a personal finance perspective to investing. What are the habits that people can start working on now if they're not already?

Chad Hufford (16:50)
What I'm about to tell you is gonna sound so obvious and stupid, but it needs to be said. The number one rule to building wealth is living within your means. And that sounds ridiculous, but it's kinda like saying, well, in order to get in better shape, you need to move more and eat healthier. Everybody knows that, but almost nobody does it. I mean, my office is right between the subway over here and McDonald's over here. I watch people making bad health decisions all the time. It's not because of a lack of knowledge, it's just that...

Yeah, we know what to do, we just don't care. We want a fish filet and a gallon size bucket of french fries ⁓ and a diet coke. ⁓ So living with your means is so important. What you mentioned in Alaska is true, like our costs are high, but the opportunities are there too. The problem is when people start in a career, let's say it's oil field or construction or could be law enforcement, it could be all kinds of different things. Healthcare, nursing, mean it's...

The ceiling for a lot of jobs in Alaska is really, really high. But you have to pay your dues early on. The problem is, as people's income expands, their lifestyle usually does too. They call it lifestyle creep. I like to think of it as like a goldfish. Goldfish grow to whatever size enclosure you put them in. You put them in a huge tank, they're gonna grow a lot bigger. Budgets are the same thing. So unless we constrain the size of our budget, it might be artificially, we've gotta leave some margin between what we bring in

and what we actually spend. Again, that's so simple and it's so obvious, but very few people do it. And we live our lives, again, this goes beyond finance, Manny, without margin. We max out our calendars, we max out our credit cards, we max out our waistlines, we max out everything, and wonder why we're stressed out all the time. So leave margin in all areas of your life. And with budget, that cuts two ways. Number one, it doesn't matter how good your investment strategy is,

don't have any money to feed it, right? ⁓ So you gotta have a margin so you can pay the future version of yourself. And a part of that is avoiding debt, ⁓ spending money on things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even like. Like let's cut that out right now. You don't need a brand new car. I've never had a brand new car in my life. And my views on cars might be, the rules I have for myself may be a little extreme because I really like cars, so I've gotta put some extra constraints there, but.

You don't need a $70,000 truck. You especially don't need a $70,000 truck if you make 50 grand. If you make 250, ⁓ we'll talk about it. But you still don't need massage seats. It's crazy. But anyway, ⁓ people need to be able to separate their needs and their wants, and avoiding debt is a big step to living within their means. The other part of that is when you have margin, you don't need to replace 100 % your income to be comfortable. If you make...

150 grand a year and you're suspending 150 grand a year. In order for you to be financially independent, your investments need to replace 150 grand a year. Again, that's simple, but it's good food for thought. Whereas if you make 150 and you've learned to be content living off 100, now you have $50,000 a year that can go towards paying your future self, it can go towards being generous, supporting people around you, ⁓ lifting up others who aren't as blessed as you are, like whatever.

⁓ But when it comes time to being financially dependent, whether you want to call it retirement, we call it a job optional lifestyle, where it doesn't mean you stop working, but you don't need to collect a paycheck anymore. You don't need to replace your entire paycheck. You've already learned to live off of less. So if you're maxing out your budget, if you end up with more month at the end of your money every 30 days, I'll say that again, you end up with more month than you have money. We want it to be the other way around, more money.

The State I Am In (20:21)
I love that. Yeah.

Chad Hufford (20:40)
month. You know, if you get used to doing that, you'll never be able to save for your future and you're going to need to replace a higher percentage if you want to ever be financially independent. So hopefully those are a couple good things for people to think about.

The State I Am In (20:59)
Yeah, and something comes to mind just listening to you speak about that, people living within their means. I recently heard an ad on the radio. I don't usually listen to the radio, but it was on and the ad, I won't share the company's name, but they're like, are you tired of hearing all the new toys that your friends are buying? Come and work for us and get this training and make this much money a year, which I mean, it was decent money, but.

The idea behind that, the fuel behind that was make a little bit more money so that you can get more toys. Do you think that there is an unhealthy like toy culture in Alaska? You know, people start making a little bit more money and then they're like, you know what, buying the new boat or the ATV or the drift boat or, know, all the hunting gear, you know, all that is justified because of where we live. Do you ever, you know, come into a conversation with people that like about that topic?

Chad Hufford (21:53)
⁓

Absolutely. I don't know if it's worse here in Alaska or if it's just different. So, I mean, there's always been this...

concept of trying to keep up with the Joneses. I think one of things that makes it harder now is with social media, it's so widespread. The Joneses aren't just the people at your street or the people at your job. The Joneses is anybody and everybody that has an internet connection. So you can compare your average day with the best days of everyone you know and people you don't even know. Just like, man, look at all the awesome stuff that they have that I didn't even know I needed. ⁓

know, there's stuff people have you don't even know existed. You have people that are always putting their best foot forward. know, they're, I kids are watching these Instagram videos or you know, YouTubers and stuff that are driving around in Lamborghinis because they came up with some like cryptocurrency thing or something. Like we don't know, like they have a $300,000 car. We don't know that they're even wealthy. They just might be $300,000 in debt. there's a lot of fake wealth running around out there and there's a lot of.

The State I Am In (22:45)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (22:58)
Here's the other thing. Let me just circle back to this. So you might need to rein me back in here, but People need to know it's important to them Because if you don't know it's important to you the tendencies to chase Not what you think is important, but what you think other people think is important We end up chasing other people's dreams and desires We end up dancing to somebody else's music and wonder why we're tripping over our own feet over all the time

The State I Am In (23:14)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Chad Hufford (23:23)
So back to your question about here in Alaska, yes, we like our guns, we like our ATVs, we like our boats. All those things are money pits, and I'm sorry, like some of you guys, you've been trying to explain that your new hunting rifle is an investment. It's not. Neither's your side by side. If it has a motor and or four wheels, it's more of a liability than an investment. Like we've gotta be honest, but it's okay to have those things. I think there definitely is that comparison in those areas.

The State I Am In (23:39)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (23:53)
But I think in other areas, we don't have some of same pressure. Like if you go to LA, and, not to pick on LA, but I guess I already started, so I'll just keep going with it. you know, maybe the car you drive is way more important than your boat, right? And what kind of jeans are you wearing? And what shoes? And what handbag? And so I think those pressures are everywhere and might just look a little bit different. And you could be right. I mean, there might be more,

The State I Am In (24:02)
Thank you.

Chad Hufford (24:22)
We do maybe have a toy culture up here, but I think people in other places, lower 48, there's just other ways that they try to ⁓ keep up using their money. And the other thing too, just circling back to the challenges of living in Alaska, one thing that we've seen, and this is necessarily a challenge, it's actually really cool, but with short-term rentals and stuff like that, what we've seen is more and more people are staying up in Alaska.

The State I Am In (24:34)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (24:49)
after retiring or after moving on from their career, which is really cool. But as you know, the winters can get a little bit long here. So we have a lot of people that don't do a full on snowbird. I mean, we have people that do have places in Arizona and Florida and stuff like that. But what a lot of them do is because it is so hard to travel. I mean, you travel for four hours just to start your trip in Seattle. ⁓

The State I Am In (25:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Hufford (25:17)
And that, for you, that's after driving ⁓ two or three hours to get up here to Anchorage to start that flight, right? So, know, down lower 48, you have more freedom to travel, those other things. So the cost of some of that is lower. And what we see up here is a lot of our people will, I was actually talking to somebody that lives down in Soldotna yesterday, and they're gonna be after, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, they're gonna be off going down to Arizona. And they're gonna spend a month there.

The State I Am In (25:20)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (25:46)
⁓ and doing a short-term rental. like, that's a really nice flexibility, but those are the kind of costs that a lot of our people like to start building into their plans because they want to have that flexibility. They might not want to leave Alaska. A lot of people, you know, it gets in your blood up here. And you get used to the amazing experiences we have, but you just don't want to be here year-round. So I think there are definitely some line items in a lot of people's budgets that do get expensive. But if you're used to...

But again, if you have your career up here and as your income increases, you still keep your lifestyle in check, that's the type of margin that allows you to do some of these things for the rest of your life. It isn't like, okay, I'm retired now, I can't do any of this stuff, which is terrible. You have more freedom and time to do anything you want, but now you don't have the money to do this stuff. So we just really encourage people to think about what would you do with your time?

in your energy if you didn't have to go up and go to work every day? Like how, what would challenge you? What would cause you to grow? What would wake you up in the morning? What would set your soul on fire? And what are the hobbies and things that you don't get to do enough of now because you're going to work every day or, know, from our oil field folks, you're going to work every two or three weeks and then you're working, you know, 12 hours a day and then you're coming back and so getting people to envision what life without.

needing a paycheck would look like is important, but then really finding out what is meaningful to them specifically. So we're not chasing somebody else's dreams, we're chasing ours.

The State I Am In (27:23)
Yeah, you bring up a good point about the snowbird ⁓ option, you know, when it comes to retirement, once you're ⁓ later on in years and wanting to be somewhere warm ⁓ in the wintertime. Have you talked to anyone or do you have any basic advice for someone that is thinking that's the direction that they would want to go? Like, do people reach that point in retirement and they're like, ⁓ man, actually, I can't.

justify this or maybe I do have to just move somewhere else. because I don't think of Alaska as a prime retirement place. I usually think of people going to Florida or I had my grandparents went to Tennessee to retire and there's kind of these places that people flock to during that time. But there are people that love this state and want to still be involved here. But then they're like, I would like to get away.

you know, are the, what is the advice to those people that are considering doing that in the future?

Chad Hufford (28:24)
Well, you we have we have very transient culture up here, right? We have a lot of military people already mentioned the oil field We have a lot of people in the oil field. They don't even live up here They work up here and you know, maybe they have like a crash pad or something but they might live in in Arizona in New Mexico or We have people in Florida and South Carolina, Kentucky Those are probably our furthest that commute every two or three weeks So, you know, that's that's really natural or you know, if you came up here

towards the end of your career. Like I said, maybe the military brought you up here, or the federal government, or something like that. So your foundation is really somewhere else anyway. For people that spent a lot of their career up here, what we encourage people to do is to make as few large decisions as possible when they retire. So if you already are moving on from your job, moving on from your career, and

your kids just moved out and your oldest or your youngest just started college, like that's a lot of transition right there. Do you really wanna add a permanent move on top of that? So what we encourage people to do is if you don't have really strong roots in an area, but you've got an idea of like, I wanna be in Idaho or Florida or Utah or whatever, okay, spend three months there. Rent an Airbnb, spend three months there because

The State I Am In (29:31)
That's a good point.

Chad Hufford (29:51)
Visiting a place or vacationing a place is a lot different than living in a place. And you don't know until you've spent at least several weeks, ideally a couple months to do that. So we have a lot of people that retire and want to move somewhere, but they might spend a winter just trying a couple different places. Maybe they do six weeks living here and six weeks living there and they get an idea of what would it be like if I actually lived here. They're not vacationing, they're not living out of a suitcase, they're in a fully furnished house, they're in a neighborhood.

and it allows you to really get a sense of what does it feel like to live in this place? Do I like the traffic? Do I like the area? Can I see myself here? And sometimes that's all the confirmation that people need. But other times, you're like, hmm, this is a really cool place to visit. Not really the place I wanna live for the next however long. So that's a really nice opportunity for people to kind of date an area before they marry it.

The State I Am In (30:44)
That's a good point. I want to talk about the PFD, definitely unique to Alaska, the permanent fund dividend, if somebody for some reason is listening and has no idea what that means. Believe it or not, there are people that tune in from other countries and around the US. So yeah, the permanent fund dividend. ⁓ How do people, well, let me rephrase this.

Chad Hufford (30:53)
Ha

The State I Am In (31:11)
My assumption is that the PFD can be used differently depending on which stage of life you're at, where you're at financially. So my guess is that you have people that view it as a bonus, ⁓ you know, every October, and then you have people that view it as a wealth building tool, perhaps. Do you want to talk about that specifically and the different options that people have based on where they're at financially?

Chad Hufford (31:33)
Yeah, it really does depend on what stage you're in. I'll try to generalize this and maybe make up two or three different stages, but real quick, going back to my childhood and kind of our experience with this. So was, I think six or seven years old when I first learned about the PFD. And I didn't know how much it was. think back then it was maybe four or 500 bucks. ⁓ And I got really excited about this because my friend...

just got a new bike. You get a decent bike back in the 80s for like 50 bucks. So for all I knew, it was like 50 bucks. So I ran home, I ran upstairs, my dad had a home office, and I explained to him about this thing called the permanent fund and how everybody gets $50, because that's what my friend got. And he said, oh no, no, it's way more than $50. And I'm like, this is amazing. And I was like, you knew about this? And he's like, oh yeah, yeah, we get this every year. I'm getting so excited.

The State I Am In (32:15)
Yeah

Chad Hufford (32:26)
And then he's like, yeah, I've been investing it in mutual funds. And I thought, I don't know what a mutual fund is, but a bike sounds like a lot better than whatever you just said, Dad. So I go from super excited to like super depressed. Yeah, I'm like, I want a Huffy. I don't know what a mutual fund is. So then he's like, no, no, with a mutual fund, you get to own companies and this and that. He talked about like owning McDonald's and different places. And I thought, awesome.

The State I Am In (32:37)
sound like mongoose to me. ⁓

Happy. Yeah.

Chad Hufford (32:51)
So can we go to McDonald's and start ordering people around? And he's like, no, you can't. So I'm on this rollercoaster of emotions. Like at first I think I'm getting a new bike and then I'm like, you know, now it's several hundred dollars, I'm the richest kid in the world and now we're buying mutual funds and I don't know what that means. All I know is I don't have a new bike. And then he's talking about buying companies. I'm like, sweet, I own McDonald's. can go, I mean, it's Happy Meals for Life. ⁓ So that was my first lesson in long-term investing.

The State I Am In (32:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chad Hufford (33:19)
and being able to buy companies across the globe. And anyway, that's just, that was my first interaction with the PFD. So I would say this, if you have any consumer debt at all, anything above and beyond a mortgage, that's where it needs to go. I don't care if you're 18 or 68. If you're 18, you just took out your first student loan to go to college, start chipping away at that. You're 38, you got three kids, and...

⁓ You want to pay for college, that's awesome, but don't keep paying 18 % on your own credit card while you're trying to put money aside for your kids' college. So if you're in any stage of life, I don't care what your age is, we have any consumer debt. Car loans, student loans, credit card, refrigerator loans, like you get a loan on anything these days, ⁓ pay that off first. That's where it should go. And don't let...

For everybody listening, don't let the PFD be part of your budget. You know, it fluctuates every year, and a lot of people, their PFD is spent long before it ever comes in. So for everybody, don't let it be part of your budget. Maybe for people who are in this in between, like you still have kids at the house, but you're out of debt, you've paid off all your consumer debt, maybe you're still paying on the house. A great way to start funding college, you know.

The State I Am In (34:24)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (34:47)
And for some families, maybe strike a little bit of a balance between enjoying some of that as a family and putting that towards college. And for people whose kids are out of the house and maybe you're a little bit behind the curve on retirement, maybe that should be invested. For people who are on track, they're putting enough towards college or that piece is like taking care of however that looks like. Maybe they've decided they're only.

contributing a certain amount, like whatever. They've paid off all their debt, they've paid off their house, they're on track for retirement, have some fun with it too. But make sure you're in the right stage to do that because it does fluctuate and we don't know what that's going to be every year. I think the biggest recommendation though is just to make sure that you don't think about that money as something that is owed to you, something that is, even as a bonus.

The State I Am In (35:41)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Hufford (35:46)
but look at it as how can that money serve the future version of me and make sure that we're not stealing from ourselves.

The State I Am In (35:54)
That's great. You mentioned ⁓ contributing to school, kids education. What options and when should you utilize those options for, let's say, I have two kids of my own. At what point would your advice to me be to start investing in my kids education and what options are available for that?

Chad Hufford (36:23)
When would be, again, all your consumer debt is paid off and you are on track for your own financial independence. That doesn't mean you are already financial independence, but you're saving enough, you know pretty much exactly how much money that you're gonna need to give up your job and replace your lifestyle with...

passive income with your own investments. know pretty much exactly how much money you're gonna need to retire and stay comfortably retired for a very long time. And given the amount of money you're saving every month, you're on track to get there in a reasonable amount of time. So, and some people are like, man, that seem selfish. It's not. The stronger you are financially, the more you're gonna be able to do to help your kids. So just think about it like this. Let's say you're 35 years old, you got two young kids, and you feel guilt about...

paying off debt with your PFD. Because it's your kids' money. Well, you're probably not charging your kids rents or charging them for their food. You might not even be charging them for the lemonade stand. But anyway, for folks who missed the beginning of episode, have to go back. But, let's just fast forward. And now you're 45 and your kid's getting ready to go to college. You're 42, whatever, it doesn't matter. And you have...

The State I Am In (37:15)
Mm-hmm.

You

You

Chad Hufford (37:43)
no debt, your house is paid off, fully funded emergency fund, your 401Ks, your time plan is looking great. You can cash flow a big chunk of college at that point. So again, the stronger you are financially, the better off your ⁓ whole family is going to be. The other part of it is, think about how hypocritical this would be if I'm telling you, hey, save for your future and delay gratification and all that, and I'm jeopardizing my own financial future.

to send you to college when you may not even care about it, right? So ⁓ make sure that all your financial stuff is in order before you start saving for college. How do you save? There's a lot of different ways to do that. When your kids are really young, there's some college savings plans, offer a lot of, excuse me, freedom and flexibility, ⁓ but those are restricted to only educational expenses. So as your kids get older, ⁓ setting,

money aside for things like maybe flying them back and forth for the holidays or something like that. Or off campus housing, things that aren't covered as qualified educational expenses. It's important to have that too. Even more reason to be in the strongest place possible financially where again, if you're ahead of schedule on retirement and all your debts are paid off, you've got a nice margin, you can cash flow a lot of that, but it's not a bad idea to start setting some of those things aside.

The State I Am In (38:50)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (39:09)
It gets very, very particular as far as individual situations. You just want to make sure, again, that you know what your goals are. You have a blueprint connecting where you are to where you want to be. That's something that guides your saving and spending decisions going forward. So you can see where a college savings plan fits in. But what's really hard about college, man, you said you got a couple kids and our oldest is 17. So she's looking at colleges.

the cost is all over the map. Some of our kids might get scholarships or some, the UA Scholars program, they might be able to go college almost for free. And then if you've got a kid that wants to be a dentist, it could be $400,000. So it's hard to hit a target that has so much variance. So I guess kind of to wrap this up, I would encourage, if you're married, talk with your spouse and come up with.

The State I Am In (39:54)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (40:05)
a finite plan for how you're gonna save for college. Because putting yourself on the hook for college, whatever it costs, is setting you up for failure. It's setting you up for failure. But saying, hey, we're going to put X percentage of our income towards college expenses. That's a finite number. If X percentage gets your kid to $38,000 by the time they're 18 and they need 400, okay. The rest is on them. Your kids are young, they'll bounce.

The State I Am In (40:33)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (40:35)
⁓ Or you're like we will we will save fifty thousand dollars and once we get to 50 we'll stop saving and that's all they can My parents didn't save for my college. So I don't even think I don't even want people listening to feel an obligation to do that ⁓ They supported me in other ways, but Don't don't feel obligated to send your kids to college ⁓ Especially here in Alaska. It's another thing like the trades up here are are so

So opportunistic, like there's so much out there. People need good electricians, good plumbers, people to just show up to work on your house, do what they said when they're gonna do it. my gosh, kids growing up right now can have an amazing career without a college degree. So just don't pigeonhole yourself as parents to be like, I need to pay for my kid's college. If you're able to, that's great, but don't put your financial future in jeopardy to pay for a degree that may not even be utilized.

The State I Am In (41:34)
Yeah, those are all really great points. I think especially pointing out just the trades, there is such an opportunity for that here. My wife is a high school teacher and she's been in the Nikiski now for about five years and she has seniors from years ago coming back to her saying, hey, I'm working in the oil field, making a ton of money, I'm saving up to buy my first house and they're still living with their parents. And I'm like trying to calculate, okay, if I'm living at home, not paying.

rent or little rent and I'm making oilfield money, that's a pretty sweet place to be in as a 19, 20, to 23 year old, based on just that timeline. But yeah, I agree. think in college, the costs just keep getting out of hand. From my personal experience, I was considering a career in physical therapy and once upon a time, you didn't have to have a doctorate degree to be a physical therapist and now you do.

for nurses, know, once upon a time an associates of nursing was just fine. And now many health systems are pushing, you need to have a bachelor's. And so it's like the cost is only increasing, the level of education is only increasing for some of these, professions out there. And if there's a whole other world available to you through the trades and through something where you can pay minimal ⁓ to nothing, why not?

you know, go that route. Those are all really good points.

Chad Hufford (43:01)
And even apprenticeships programs where some of the workforce in those areas is so desperate for young people to come in and building up the next generation work. They will not only pay you well as an apprentice, but even pay for some of your education. And just for the listeners, I mean, we've mentioned oilfield lot.

mean, we work very closely with the oil field. It's a big part of what we do. We interviewed several hundred for a book that I wrote. But our demographic, Manny, are blue collar millionaires. And yes, we've got some medical professionals, we've got some attorneys, we've got some executives. But the vast majority of our people, they're...

their mechanics, their electricians, their plumbers, their welders. Some will work on the slopes, some are firefighters, some are law enforcement. Most of these jobs don't require a four-year degree. And they didn't necessarily make tons and tons of money in their career. They were just very careful with what they did with it. We've got truck drivers. have one never made probably more than 70 grand ever. Mostly 50 to 60 grand a year. He's a multi-millionaire. And so it's not what you make, it's what you're able to do with it. And sometimes,

The State I Am In (44:11)
That's amazing.

Chad Hufford (44:16)
in a high paying profession, you also have high pressure to spend and things like that. Whereas you can kind of fly under the radar a little bit. Again, Alaska has so many opportunities to make really solid money and make a huge impact in the community around you to serve people at a very high level, but also produce a really good life for yourself in the process. So, I mean, we do, we mint blue collar millionaires. That is what we do. And the opportunity here in Alaska is ripe for the picking.

The State I Am In (44:47)
What is your advice to those people that work seasonally? I feel a lot of people in the state, they work in the fishing industry or ⁓ the tourism industry where they make a lot of their money in the summertime and then you have a lot of lean months. What is your advice to those people as they look to manage their monthly finances and their future as far as retirement goes and their financial path forward?

Chad Hufford (45:15)
Yeah, so I think one things we hear a lot because there is a lot of that right tourism, you commercial fishing construction, you know You know, there's some people say we have two seasons up here. We have winter and road construction so I mean there is kind of feast or famine in a lot of industries and The tendency is for people to say well, my income is very very volatile So budgets don't really work for me. I would say if your income is very volatile

The State I Am In (45:22)
direction yeah great point

Chad Hufford (45:43)
or seasonal, you need a budget more than anybody. My son, my son commercial fishes, he's 15, he's been doing it for last two years. He's one the youngest kids out there with the group that he fishes with. And he walked away from that first year with a few thousand bucks and thought he was the richest man alive and started creating some spending habits to reflect those feelings and then realized that it was a long time before next fishing season. So, you can feel wealthier than you really are.

The State I Am In (45:46)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Hufford (46:12)
and still intellectually know that yeah, this money has to last me another eight or nine months, but spend as if that money is coming in like that every single month. So setting up a budget, this goes for everybody. If you don't have a plan to tell your money where to go, you're just gonna spend your time wondering where it went. Like those are your two choices. But especially if you have a seasonal job or a job where your income fluctuates drastically, you have to get a 12 month plan.

broken up into 30 day chunks.

The State I Am In (46:45)
You're a part of the Dave Ramsey Smart Vestor Pro Network. That is one of the ways that I discovered you and Veritas. Dave Ramsey's advice on an emergency fund is a thousand dollars. Do you think that thousand dollar limit still works in Alaska given higher cost of living, given the toll on our cars, heating,

Chad Hufford (46:49)
Mm-hmm.

The State I Am In (47:11)
If the heat goes out in our house, like that's a pretty big deal. Do you think we have to maybe pad that a little bit more compared to people in the lower 48? Or do think that's still a good place to be as long as we're taking into consideration a lot of these other things as far as budgeting and what our spending habits are?

Chad Hufford (47:29)
We absolutely need to pad that, but we need to do it in the right order. So that is only the first step, and I agree that it's a very good one, and here's why. Because number one, it's achievable. If the first step is save $10,000 to some people, like, that's too, like I can't even fathom that, so this isn't for me. It'd be like, you know, I don't know if you're a runner manny, but let's say that I'm training you for a marathon, which you would not want to come to me.

to train for a marathon, because I've never run a marathon in my life and I never intend to. But let's just say you were, and you've never run more than three miles in your life, and I'm like, okay, we're gonna run 10 miles today. You're like, yeah, screw that. That's too big of a step. If you'd ever run more than three miles, we're not gonna run 40 % of a marathon today. So, this first step needs to be approachable. It needs to be something psychologically we can wrap our heads around.

So that's part of the reason to have that, is it carves out $1,000 and allows us to achieve a small win. And for some people that's a big win. But the point of that is just to give us a little bit of wiggle room so we have a little bit of breathing to start knocking down debt. So the emergency fund is actually three to six months of expenses. So for most people that's gonna be 20, $30,000 or more.

But the reason we start with a thousand is because for most people that have a lot of consumer debt, ⁓ it doesn't make any sense to save for an emergency, getting no interest or 2 % while you're paying 22 on a credit card that you're using to pay for past emergencies. So we wanna knock those down as quickly as possible. And you know what? If your heat goes out while you're paying down your credit card, it just goes back on the credit card that you've been paying down and you're kind of back to where you were, right? So no harm, no foul.

Like, I mean, that stinks that that happened, but you haven't really given up anything. You pay down your credit card and then just replace that. But if you're building up this cash to get to 20,000, whatever the number is, while your debts are still charging you all this interest, you're just like trying to run up a down escalator. You have to work way harder to get any momentum because all that momentum is pulling you back down. And we want you to be paying off debt.

The other part of it is cash can give a false sense of security. So again, let's go back to that same example. I've got 15 grand to the bank. I'm feeling pretty good about things. Well, if I've got $20,000 of student loans and a $30,000 car loan and $12,000 of credit, I shouldn't be feeling comfortable. I want to be feeling like, I gotta get rid of this stuff as fast as possible. I've only got a thousand bucks in my checking account. So it is a temporary step. Now for your listeners, if they have their cars paid off,

The State I Am In (50:03)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (50:15)
their student loans paid off, they don't have any consumer debt, then their first step is that thousand goes right into their three to six months of living expenses. And this is based on your living expenses. So it isn't based on a national average or anything like that. Like again, for a lot of people, it is 20 to 30. That's just what I've seen for some people. You if you've got a bunch, we've got six kids and you know, so they like to eat, they like to break stuff, including their own appendages. So.

We've got a pretty healthy emergency fund, but it's based on what you actually spend, not what you think you should spend or what you'd like to spend, but your actual expenses. So for some people it might be 50, for some people it might be 12. But this and this is kind of a adjust for Alaska. It's your lifestyle. So that thousand dollars as the first step towards emergency fund, I think is a really good benchmark. Then aggressively pay down debt, and then you build up the emergency fund to where it really needs to be.

The State I Am In (51:12)
That makes sense. So I mentioned Dave Ramsey earlier, you're part of the SmartVestor Pro network, which that name kind of lends itself to what the opposite is. Maybe I won't say dumb investor, but unwise investor, ⁓ rookie or amateur. What does being a SmartVestor Pro bring to the table, ⁓ you know, for someone that's interested in contacting you about investing specifically?

Chad Hufford (51:17)
Thank

you

Really what we do is we help apply Dave Ramsey's principles, which are broad and in time tested, but applying those to somebody's specific financial path. So we get the opportunity to tailor that advice to the individual. I do not believe in one size fits all approaches, because one size fits all means really one size fits nobody. That's why I hate target date funds, saying that, because you were born in a certain year or because you're gonna retire in a certain year that your funds should look like this. ⁓

It shouldn't. You should have a plan that specifically connects your goals in the future with where you are today. So that's what we do, apply those principles to somebody's individual financial blueprint and then give them the accountability and the encouragement along the way. And that's a huge part of what we do. A lot of people hear Veritas Wealth Management.

We're managing investors as much as we're managing investments. Making sure their behavior stays aligned with what they say they want and where they say they want to be in the future. Let me just give you a quick example. Manny, do you fish? Okay.

The State I Am In (52:49)
Yeah, I live

on the Kenai Peninsula, how can I not?

Chad Hufford (52:52)
I didn't want to take it for granted. I mean, I'm born and raised up here. And I really never got into fishing. I did it sometimes growing up. I hunted a lot. In fact, actually hunted with my wife's uncle growing up. He took me out. I didn't know my wife back then. I didn't meet her till later. So I grew up hunting. I grew up chasing animals in the woods instead of in the rivers. But up until recently, as I told you, we have six kids. So up until recently, we've always had a toddler. My wife loves fishing.

The State I Am In (52:55)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (53:22)
almost to an addictive obsession standpoint, but we'll call it a love and a fascination. But anyway, my job fishing was keeping the kids from drowning. So like for me, a good day of fishing was we ended the day with the same amount of kids that we started with. Yeah, you know, and so I just, I didn't get into it a ton, but now the kids are getting older, like I've been able to get into it, have a little bit of fun, and ⁓ it's something now we all do together, it's great. But so with fishing,

The State I Am In (53:36)
Yeah, everyone survived.

Chad Hufford (53:51)
Like you can go out and you can spend $2,000 on a fly fishing rod that is made from like, I don't know, space dust from Mars or something. I don't know, but $120 Cabela's special, that rod is gonna do 90 % of what that $2,000 rod. And some of your listeners are gonna be upset, like no it doesn't, it can't do all the, yeah does, it really does. Now for very few people,

can you get a little bit more at $2,000 a rod? Probably, but we're really in the minutia here. And here's the point I wanna make is the tools that you use to build your financial future, they are important, but there's no such thing as the best tool. And so many people spend so much time getting minutia, trying to find the best tool for the job that they don't ever learn how to use the tool. So if...

If I'm out there fishing in my yard with a $2,000 fly fishing rod, I'm gonna catch nothing because I'm fishing in the wrong spot. And there's a certain amount of skill that comes with that too. I thought you just throw stuff in the water and you eventually catch stuff. again, growing up with all these kids that enjoy fishing and I'm trying to keep the younger ones from floating in the river, I got stuck with whatever was left over, which usually meant some like huge like casting rod that you could pull a boulder in, but you can't feel anything.

The State I Am In (55:14)
Mm.

Chad Hufford (55:17)
I mean, it was just every now and then I'd get lucky and catch a fish, but my behavior as a fisherman was no good. I needed to, before I worry about trying to optimize the tool, I needed to change my behavior. And that's what's so important with investments is how you operate the tool, the tools is way more important than what tool you have. So don't go out, yes, you wanna make sure your portfolio matches your long-term goals. And that's a big part of what we do is making sure

The State I Am In (55:41)
We need.

Chad Hufford (55:47)
the tools you're using, are they aligned with what you're trying to create long term? But managing behavior, it's really more of a coaching relationship, Manny. It's making sure that, yeah, you're using the right equipment, you have the right lures, but you're fishing in the right spot, and you're using the right techniques, and more than anything, that you keep fishing. And this where this metaphor is gonna break down a little bit, because if you go out there only when it's convenient, you're gonna miss the runs coming through. And you're gonna catch some here and there.

The State I Am In (56:15)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Hufford (56:17)
In investing, the storms come and it's raining sideways, that's when you're gonna catch the most fish. Now, that analogy breaks down a little bit with real fishing, but my point being, when you don't want to fish, when the rest of the world is sitting inside in the comfort of a heated cabin or their heated home and you're out there in the storm, that's when investing is the most successful, when everybody else is scared to do it.

So a big part of our job, Manny, is helping people to stay the course in the midst of storms, to make sure that their line is still in the water when nobody else wants to fish. And I'm kind of making this up as I go. So forgive the metaphor breakdowns, but you can't catch fish if you're not out there fishing. And so many people are waiting for the perfect time to invest, the perfect time in their own lives, the...

The State I Am In (56:57)
I love it. I love it.

Chad Hufford (57:10)
When the economy is doing great and there's always a storm cloud on the horizon, guys, there's never a perfect time to invest. If you wait for perfect, you're gonna sit on the sidelines your own life. Our job is to get people in the water, teach them how to fish, make sure they're using the right equipment, and make sure they fish. Keep the line in the water even when they don't feel like it, because that's when you're the most successful.

The State I Am In (57:33)
I love the analogy. I'm glad ⁓ that you share that one. ⁓ Super applicable. ⁓ And I think Alaskans, that'll resonate with many, if not all Alaskans. One of the last things I want to talk about, and you actually brought this up early on, is just the vulnerability that is there when people walk into your office. And, people...

a lot of fear, a lot of regret, a lot of I wish I would have, you know, how do you address that and overcome, you know, just what has already happened as you work with people towards the future that they want to have financially?

Chad Hufford (58:16)
That's a really good question. So first of all, shoulda, coulda, woulda is a terrible investment strategy. And people have a tendency to either give themselves way too much credit based on the past or way too little. And the past doesn't matter. I mean it does, and yes we're gonna try to extract lessons out of that and what can we learn, but.

What we need to focus on is the path ahead. We can't do anything about the past other than learning from our previous mistakes. But your future is still an unwritten book. Don't worry about the chapters that are already written. every day is like a blank canvas and you get to write that. ⁓ But are you gonna have to change some of the behaviors that maybe punctuated those first few chapters? Yes. You can't do the same things.

and still expect different results. So we've got to change how we live. We've got to change our habits and behaviors, but give yourself some grace for past mistakes. Give yourself some grace for the hurdles you've had to overcome. The hurdles maybe you haven't overcome yet. And don't give yourself too much credit for the times where you've been lucky. ⁓ I often sit with couples where the, usually the husband talks about, you know, finding the needle in the haystack. Some, you know,

He bought Nvidia back in 2002 or, you know, crypto, whatever the thing was. And he's talking about how this one thing did great. And you usually see the wife kind of doing the elbow thing. And I'm like, oh, do you have something to say? She's like, well, he didn't tell you about when he bought Enron and lost $200,000 and that. So, you know, the past is the past. We can only build our future. And that means that we have to...

The State I Am In (59:58)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (1:00:09)
really look at our habits and look at our behaviors, look at the things that shape our lives. It's not the thing that you do every now and then that shapes the trajectory of your life. It's not the big things typically, it can be, but it's usually the little things you do every day. That's what makes the difference. So as we write each chapter going forward of our lives, we need to be mindful of the things that tripped us up and how can we avoid those things in the future. And in order to have a better life, ⁓ nothing changes until you change.

So don't drag the past with you. Learn from it, but set your sights on the future. And that's what we really try to help people do. And we're not gonna judge you for it. We all have mistakes. We all have the dumb financial decisions. Everybody's got them. People don't talk about them. And that's one of things that we try to do too, is just get some of that stuff into the forefront. Like you didn't even be ashamed of that. You don't have to be ashamed that you bought Enron back in 2002. Or that...

The State I Am In (1:01:01)
Yeah.

Chad Hufford (1:01:08)
You you bought a $100,000 car when you're only making $70,000. You need to sell it, but don't be ashamed of it. ⁓ Give yourself the freedom to learn from those things, and we all have mistakes. The only difference between a failure and an experiment is your willingness to learn from that experience. So the setbacks you've had in your life, you could look at those as failure, or you can look at, okay, how can I use that to better my future? And you can actually learn from that experience.

The State I Am In (1:01:37)
No.

I've been watching some of the reels and ⁓ clips from your podcast on social media and you look like a pretty fit dude. For the people that are listening or watching, I'm not going to make you flex on camera or anything like that. But I do want to talk about health specifically. We've talked about financial health and I think one of the things that maybe people underestimate is how important physical health is for their future financial.

Chad Hufford (1:02:05)
Mm.

The State I Am In (1:02:07)
you know, how their physical health would affect financial freedom. Do you ever talk about health, physical health with your clients? Because I think it would be an important aspect to kind of look at as people, you look at their lives in their late 60s, 70s, 80s, and you know, where they want to be.

Chad Hufford (1:02:25)
Manny, this might be a whole other conversation. I'm gonna try to be concise with this, so rain me if you need to. So I think health and finance have so many parallels, and today's day and age, we've already been picking on social media, so I'm just gonna continue that. Anybody can be an expert right now. You have broke people giving advice on how to be wealthy. You have people that are very unhealthy giving health and fitness advice. Now they might look it on camera, but you don't know what's going on. ⁓

The State I Am In (1:02:28)
Okay.

Chad Hufford (1:02:55)
The problem with that is the tenet, there's so much misinformation out there, so much noise. And it's hard to sometimes decipher which is which. There's a lot, not all data is information, not all information is true knowledge, and not all knowledge is wisdom. And going from data and wisdom, there's a huge gap in between. And our world is flooded with noise to make that even messier. So there's a tendency for people to think, it's too complicated, I'm just gonna ignore it.

Well, physical health and financial health are related in the sense that you don't have to do anything to make your health deteriorate. All you have to do is ignore it. You don't need to actively work on being in worse shape or work on bad financial health. It happens by default if just through negligence. and this doesn't matter. You could be in a great financial shape. You could be great physical shape. You don't have to.

The State I Am In (1:03:46)
Hmm.

Chad Hufford (1:03:52)
do anything except stop doing the things that got you there, and those things are gonna deteriorate. So, whether you like it or not, your physical health, your financial health are vital parts of your life. Here's how they connect. Number one, they both require a lot of discipline. They're lifetime commitments. This isn't get rich quick. This isn't training for your next vacation. ⁓ We're going on to Hawaii in a few weeks. Listeners can be jealous, but I don't care. And my wife was just, this was just the other day, I was teasing her about.

The State I Am In (1:04:15)
Clean.

Chad Hufford (1:04:21)
She's like, got three weeks left. And I was like, but you've got like 40 years left. Like let's focus on that and not, and despite having six kids, she is in, she's just, she's still drop dead gorgeous and she still fits into her wedding dress. It's crazy. She's, but you know, she's a woman so she's like, yeah, I gotta, I gotta change this for my vacation. And too many people think of their finances and their fitness the same way. Like I'm getting in shape for this short term event. No, no, no, no, Do it for the rest of your life. Cause Manny, I meet way too many people who,

spend their 30s, their 40s, and 50s trading away their physical health to build wealth. And then I meet them when they're in their 60s. And now they're trying to use their wealth to buy back their health or buy back their relationships. And it doesn't work. you have to build these things in balance. And the other thing, I mentioned at beginning of our show about helping people build a life of abundance. That's what I'm all about. That's what I wanna do.

Money is the tool I use to do that. But if you are wildly wealthy and you don't have your health, you don't experience freedom. You don't experience abundance. It is impossible. ⁓ You can buy a lot of things, but you cannot buy back your health. to experience freedom, and that's what we want for people, the freedom to pursue their passions, their dreams, you have to have physical health. There's just no way around it. And...

I guess I would say this might be weird coming from somebody who's a financial planner and a wealth manager. If I have to pick between the two, I'm gonna let my wealth suffer to focus on my health. That's how important it is to me.

The State I Am In (1:05:55)
Hmm.

Wow.

Well, I love this conversation and I think people are gonna walk away with some really solid tools ⁓ and practical steps that they can take no matter where they're at in their financial journey. I do want people to know how they can contact you, contact Veritas, what they can expect when they pick up the phone or look you up online.

and just the different ways that people can follow what you're doing. ⁓ If you want to talk about your books and you have a podcast as well, which is awesome, and you get these nice 30-minute clips on things we're talking about today. So if you want to just talk about how people can connect with you and Veritas, I think they would be interested to know all that.

Chad Hufford (1:06:31)
Mm-hmm.

So veritasalaska.com is our website and you can reach out directly through that with questions. We've got some cool tools. You one of the things that I mentioned, very few people have a specific target for their investing and it's really hard to hit a target you can't see. We've got a find your number calculator which is basically helping people. It's not a financial plan but it helps you identify a target for your finances. All that stuff is available on our website.

You find out more about us there too. You can also follow us on Instagram. We're veritas.alaska ⁓ We're on Facebook Those are kept up to date. I'm also on on LinkedIn. They're just

look at Chad Hufford or Chad Hufford Veritas will come right up. The podcast is the Blue Collar Millionaire Show and like we talked about, I that's a big part of what we do is working with blue collar industries and it isn't exclusive to that but here's the thing is what I've noticed, the blue collar mindset is more important than the blue collar job. And the blue collar mindset is I'm gonna do the difficult things that

They're not sexy, they're not flashy, they're not exciting, but they get the job done. And I don't need accolades, I don't need attention for the work I'm doing. I'm still gonna show up every day and do that with excellence. That's necessary in the trades, it's necessary in a lot of those types of industries, and it's absolutely essential in investing, because it is hard work. It can be mundane, it gets boring. If it was difficult, I'm sorry, if it was easy, everybody be wealthy.

and it's not. And that scares a lot of people away. And that's why we're here to partner with people. We believe finance is a team sport, and your financial future is way too important to try to do it by yourself.

The State I Am In (1:08:32)
In your books, had mentioned books that you written as well. Just one? Okay. All right.

Chad Hufford (1:08:37)
Just one, forging financial freedom. ⁓

Forging financial freedom, seven wealth building lessons extracted from the Alaska oil field. We noticed that the Alaska oil field, ⁓ not that they're challenged or necessarily unique.

But their challenges are magnified. Just the volatility, the industry, there's a lot of reasons I get to in the book. But we've noticed the Alaska oil field has a tendency to exaggerate or amplify the challenges everybody faces in building financial freedom. so our mission was to...

interview hundreds of oilfield workers and condense their stories down to practical real-life lessons that anybody can apply and This will work these principles will work if you are 21 years old making minimum wage and in just trying to survive college these principles will work if You're a 62 year old executive making seven figures a year They just they're tried and true principles and really there a lot of it is is a thought process and perspective because we believe you can't

act right unless you think right. And again, this is not get rich quick. It's building wealth slowly and sustainably. It's not what you do one day. It's what you do every day that makes a difference. So helping people have the right mindset in dealing with money and finances is just as important as having the right plan. Because if you have the right plan and you don't have the right mindset, you're probably not gonna stick with the plan long enough to get the results that you want.

The State I Am In (1:10:09)
Again, thank you so much for being here. Is there anything else that we missed? Anything that you want to add that we might've skipped over?

Chad Hufford (1:10:19)
Man, there's so much that we talked about, we could talk about more. I mean, especially like the the health parallel, the health and wealth parallel.

The State I Am In (1:10:26)
Yeah, I'd

love to have you back and talk about that in more depth for sure, I think.

Chad Hufford (1:10:31)
Absolutely, and we live in Sterling in the summer, or at least for part of the summer, so maybe I'll come down, can do something this summer, but let me leave you with this, we just mentioned fishing, so we talked about the importance of not just having the right equipment, but using the right tools, the right tactics and techniques, and having the right mindset. What you do, your behavior, speaking to your audience, your behavior is the biggest variable in your long-term success. My industry does a terrible job.

The State I Am In (1:10:39)
That'd be awesome.

Chad Hufford (1:11:01)
It trying to make you think that everything outside your control is what dictates your financial freedom. Interest rates, what the economy is doing, what the stock market did today. Inflation rates, what's going on in the Middle East, what did Trump tweet today? Like, do all those things have an impact? Yes. Can you control any of them? No. Do they matter? To a point, but what happens in your house, guys, is way more important than what happens in the White House. 90 % of your success.

is going to come from your behavior, your choices, your habits. You can be in the driver's seat of your own car and be in the driver's seat of your life and that's what we want. Too many people I think are sitting on the sidelines, are sitting in the passenger seat hoping that things out of their control work out. And I just, hope people can hear this and realize, no, I might be in a tough spot and it might not even be my fault, but it is my responsibility to fix it and now I can start taking the steps.

to regain control of my financial life. And for people that are in a good spot, awesome, let's get into a great spot. Good is not good enough when we're talking about your future. Let's strive for excellence. You have the capability of showing up with excellence in serving the future version of yourself. You just have to start creating the right habits. And some of that might be just adjusting the habits you already have. So it's about agency.

You guys are the architects, you're the authors of your life. You can't control everything, but you can control a lot. And let's focus on what we can control and learn to ignore the things that we don't control.

The State I Am In (1:12:34)
Chad Hufford, Veritas Wealth Management, thank you so much for being here today.

Chad Hufford (1:12:40)
All right, Manny, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Manny (1:12:45)
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to support the show by following and sharing it on social media, subscribing on YouTube and leaving a review wherever you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, wherever. It really helps more Alaskans and people everywhere join in on these conversations. As I prepare to apply and begin graduate school next year, you may notice fewer episodes each month. I know it's kind of a bummer, but I hope you'll bear with me through this transition.

Because now, more than ever, I believe sharing the voices of our fellow Alaskans matters. And I will continue to do this work for as long as there are people willing to sit down and share meaningful conversations. Keep North Alaska. And thank you for joining me on the state I'm