Episode 18 - Financial Freedom with Peter Kandinov

Welcome to Outside the Line - the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world.

This week I'm joined by Peter Kandinov - a retired NYPD Detective and founder for the NYPD Financial Club as well as the NYPD's Financial Wellness classes.

Peter talks about coming to this country and starting from humble beginnings, what led him to created financial wellness seminars, and how financial wellness can carry as much stigma as mental health does.

Connect with Peter:

Whether you're interested in bringing Peter in as a speaker to your department or you want a one-on-one consultation, email outsidethelinepodcast@gmail.com. 

Connect with me:

https://www.instagram.com/outsidethelinepod/

https://www.facebook.com/outsidethelinepodcast

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dina-campbell/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Outside the Line, a podcast with conversations about keeping cops anchor to what really matters. Life outside the theme of the line. I'm your host, Dana Campbell. I'm an active duty and my payday detective on a mission to minimize conversations around resilience and mental health and help cops develop self-awareness and minity outside their career so that they can enjoy life and survive in the real world. Outside the line, welcome back to another episode of Outside the Line, the podcast for cops who are learning to stay anchored to the real world. I'm Dina Campbell, and I'm here with a special guest today, newly retired NYPD detective Peter Kandanov, the founder of the NYPD Financial Club, and still doing the work in retirement. So, Peter, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Thank you, Dina, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

If you want to start by, I know NYPD or law enforcement is a second career for you. So if you want to start by telling us like how you got into it and what you were doing before that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Absolutely. So first of all, I apologize a little bit for my voice. I'm recovering from a cold. So hopefully you can hear me clearly. But this is yes, this is not my first career. As a matter of fact, this is probably my seventh or eight career. Um, but I came to the country when I was 16 and uh for a couple of years, at least for about five years, I was in public assistance. So whenever I was choosing career, I wasn't choosing career because unfortunately, because of what I like doing, but I was choosing it by what can give me fast money. And uh what gave me fast money was getting into the financial world. Um, I was started as a teller, I moved up the chain, and I actually ended career with assistant vice uh assistant vice president of one of the major banking corporations out there. And that's all without college degree, you know, because when I was young, someone told me if you want to learn, no one can stop you. And if you don't want to learn, no one can make you. So I made sure, first of all, that I surround myself with the right people that can educate me on how to move forward instead of dragging me down by being negative and you know, not optimistic about the world and all that. So the first thing I did, I separated myself from those uh unhealthy friends. And uh that's how I was able to advance by constantly trying to learn new things. In 2008, uh, we know that there was a financial crisis, and within a span of two, like basically within a month, I lost two jobs. I had a name in the industry, so I lost a job overnight. I was able to find a new job right away, lost it within three weeks, and I realized, you know, having a house at that time I had two kids and a mortgage, you know, I need to have something more stable. And uh little did I know what I was getting myself into, but I decided to try law enforcement. And yeah, I come from a law enforcement bank round. My uncle was uh chief of police back in my country, and um kind of he was my inspiration to be in the law enforcement, but I was always told you cannot make money in a law enforcement, at least back in the 90s. You know, I believe the salary back then was like 20,000 or 30,000, even then, right? So I wouldn't be able to support my cell, my family with that money. So that's how I ended up in banking. But law enforcement was always my passion. I remember playing games uh as a police officer back when I was five, six years of age. But uh when opportunity came along, I said maybe this is a sign from above that I can now do what I've always wanted to do because now financially I kind of prepared myself because you know, as we move along, I'll tell you my story, how I became an investor, how I learned early in my career that you need to save money and not spend money on things that you don't need. But um, I was kind of financially already prepared, but that having a you know, unfortunately, events where you lose two jobs right away one after another, and kind of needing something stable, that's what led me to law enforcement. And listen, yes, I retired, and yes, I could have done another five years because I actually retired with 15 years on, and I'm not even collecting pension yet. But the reason why I retired because while I loved what I did, I also built a successful business and I realized that now I already accomplished what I always wanted to do, but now I need to concentrate on me being able to enjoy things because life unfortunately is short. And uh, you know, you want to enjoy your life while you can. And I want to concentrate on my family. I already have a granddaughter at this point, so I want to build my family and quality of time that you can never get back. And there is two things you can never get back time and health. So that's what my concentrated is. Now I want to concentrate on me. So that's where I stand right now. This is a little bit quick, my story, how I got into law enforcement.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

I absolutely love that. And and as the conversation goes, we'll unpack a lot of that. But I I love that you weren't just focused on just being a cop while you were a cop. You were doing things on the side. Pursuing passions or or using your skill set that you had before you became a cop to build a business that allows you to, like you said, retire early and live a quality of life or live a life that aligns more with your values. You know what I mean? It was always your dream to become a cop. You did that and you didn't feel locked into the 20, staying the full 20 years because you had to reach that benchmark to get that pension. Because a lot of us that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

And I'll tell you what, Dina, I, you know, one thing I learned that you can never get rich by working nine to five or whatever tours uh first responders are doing. Because, you know, whenever you're working for someone, you're becoming a slave to that paycheck. And uh unfortunately, what I'm seeing now is a lot of people that can retire, they still come to work every day. And a lot of them, some of them are happy to come to work. And you know, I always tell people, if you love what you do, I understand why you're coming to work. But some people are constantly complaining, oh, I'm broke, oh, I'm this, I'm that, you know, I don't want to wake up and go to work, but they still come to work. So this is what I always tell people, listen, guys, there is life outside, especially if you can retire and your quality of life is not the same as it is used to be. You know, there is absolutely no reason why you're still coming to work. You know, and a lot of times people don't realize that you can make more by being retired than coming to work. I used to see this all the time when I used to do one-on-one um meetings with uh cops that are trying to retire, I used to see that their pension would be a couple thousand dollars more than what they're making currently coming to work. So you're basically coming to work for free. And I always tell people, you know, I make a joke out of this, but I said, you know, there is only two reasons why you should come to work if you can retire and you're still coming to work. What, of course, if you like what you do, I understand. The other one, if you're divorced and you're waiting for your ex to die because you don't want to share a pension, that's a reason number two. But other than that, financially, in most of the cases, you'll be better by doing something else while you're getting free money from your pension. Now, I know someone may disagree with that. And uh you know, yes, if you stay long on a job, of course your pension is going to be more. But what people don't understand is that you can never get back the time, okay, and health. And yeah, just to give you an idea, just look at this example right now. So if someone retires today, let's say you can retire and let's say the pension is a hundred thousand, most of the cops are retiring, their pension is about a hundred thousand, right? So if they retire today, instead of staying for another five years, and yes, maybe they'll get another$3,000 on top of their pension comparing to today. But think about this way that's$100,000 a year for the next five years, that's already half a million dollars. Now, there are plenty of jobs out there, especially for law enforcement. You know, they can go to indeed.com and Google executive protection, and just on page one, you will see jobs ranging from$100,000 to$250,000 minimum. And having 20 years with NYPD, I'm sure they're going to get more than$100. But even if they get$100,000, that's another half a million dollars collected from doing something else. So you already collected a million dollars from your pension from a new job. How long will it take to even catch up to this? Collecting extra$3,000 after five years. You know, probably unfortunately, they'll be dead before they do. Also, the possibility, if you a first responder, you know, you can get you know modified, suspended, uh, killed, injured. Every little thing, every time you put a uniform on, you're risking that chance where you could have enjoyed your retirement already and be able to enjoy the money you earn hard, hardly earn, you know, you you earn that money hard, right? And now instead you're still coming to work, you're still risking your life. And like I said, unless you really, really love what you do, there is a life outside. But unfortunately, a lot of people they're allowing their job become their identity, and that's where the problem is. You know, a lot of people don't realize that there is life outside, they need to just that pop that bubble that they stuck in and see what's out there, you know. And I don't know if you want to share my number at the end, that's fine. You can always share my number. But if anyone wants to like just have a conversation about their goals, their strategies, I don't charge. I'm just gonna do a free consultation for them on Zoom and hopefully they will understand. Because when I was in public assistance, a person helped me to understand the world of investments. You know, for me, this is like a way of giving back. When I started Financial Club, I didn't start it to make money. So there is no membership fees or anything like that. I just wanted us to educate each other to be able not to depend on pension as the only source of income. And I can tell you this, you know, for people that think that the pension is always going to be there for them, you know, uh your listeners need to understand that statistically, male lives till about 78, female lives till about 79. So most of the first responders will retire in the 40s or 50s. So statistically, they may have another 25, 30 years to go. And whatever number they have right now, in 20 years, there will be nothing equivalent to what they can buy with that number today. And if they don't believe me, they can find someone who retired 20 years ago and just for the fun, ask them how much their pension is. And I can tell you, most of the cops, their pension is about 35,000 hours if they retired 20 years ago. I don't, I think you would agree with me that it's not that easy to buy much with that money today. So if anyone has a hundred thousand dollar pension today, in 20 years, what is it going to be equivalent to? We don't know, but it ain't gonna buy you the same thing it can buy you today. And if we look at the real estate market, you know, houses back 20 years ago were about 200, 250. The same house right now, 600,000, 700. In the next 20 years, the same house will be over million, two, million, three, but you still have the same dollar assigned to you. So that's why people should not depend on their pension. And another very important fact is that, you know, um, I don't know if you remember this, but back not in this election, the election before, a lot of first responders had stickers on their car saying say no to proposition so and so. You know, every time the constitutional amendment gets in, it's a possibility that something is going to be done to our pension, you know. So that's what I'm worried. People depending on pension and it may not be there, right? If you look at it, if you search what happened to Detroit pension system, you know, I believe 2013, 2014, you know, let them do a research and see what happened to their system. You know, their system went through bankruptcy. So, you know, I don't want people to be real depending on something that may not be there. That's why I always tell people whatever amount of time you have, instead of spending it on, oh, let me do a pay detail or let me do an extra hour of overtime, concentrate on building something that you can rely on once your job is, once your career is over.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

That's a great point because God willing, we live 20, 30 years after we retire. But if we're not taking care of ourselves, the stress from the job after 20 years, we're lucky to live on average five to seven years after retirement. So you spend all that time working and you're not even going to live long enough to collect your pension and have a good quality of life, you know, to enjoy your retirement that you work so hard for.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Actually, I believe there was a study done uh regarding how long law enforcement uh members live after retirement. And I think statistically it was about seven, 10 years. And it has to a lot to do with certain factors. Like, for example, you know, if you let's say on patrol, your heart constantly goes up and down, constantly races. When you're retiring, you're bringing it from 100 to zero basically right away, and it's just not healthy. You know, also the healthy habits, you know, most of the cops don't have time to eat nutritious meals because you're always on patrol. You know, I remember I started my career in 6'7 precinct, you know, you didn't even get meal. Like, you know, you were lucky if you got one meal uh every like uh six, seven days, you know, but you really don't. So when are you eating and what are you eating? Most of the time it's junk food. That's why when people graduate academy, they're in great shape in most cases. And then what happens five years, ten years later, you know, where where where are we getting our stomachs now from? You know, it's like it's from unhealthy diet, unfortunately, you know. So, and that takes toll. Uh, you know, it's not that easy.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

And so because this was your second career, how do you think that you, sorry, my daughter was coming in and out. How do you think that you maintained an identity outside of law enforcement throughout your career?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Right. So basically, uh one advice that I was given when I joined the police academy is that whatever happens at work stays at work, you know. So I made sure I had enough time. By the time I got home, everything that I was bringing with me stayed outside of the door. So I didn't want to be a cop when I'm home, you know, uh, besides policing my kids once in a while, you know, but uh I kind of wanted to leave my NYPD identity outside. Like, you know, so I wanted to make sure that I don't bring anything home. And I wanted to make sure that when I'm actually on vacation, I'm on vacation. You know, I don't want to be in the chat groups, I don't want to be in a like uh, you know, listen to what happened, who got killed, who got stabbed. You know, that's out of the picture. Like, I'm not gonna be following this news. I just want to relax and detox, you know. And I even now that I retired, you know, I told everyone, listen, I'm not gonna respond for a couple of days to any messages. I just want to detox. I put my phone on asylum, I didn't look in my phone, you know. So it was just you need to make your home home.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

All right.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

So is there anything consciously that you remember doing to help you leave work at work? Did you go through like any mindfulness practices or listen to music? Like, is there anything specific that helped you?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So, you know, having been involved around my investment business, that kind of helped me a lot. And that's again brings me to the point that everyone should have some outlet, some other source of income that's coming in. This way you can transition from one into another. So every time I would come home, I would concentrate on building my business, and I would kind of not even have time to do thinking about what I did in the morning or what I did at night, you know, because I would be concentrating on doing other things. And uh a little meditation here and there uh would definitely help. But with the busy lifestyle, you know, I would meditate right before, like when I turn my engine off in the car, I would just sit for about a minute before I go to work and just prepare myself for whatever they have. And same thing on the way back, I would just before I turn the engine on, I would just sit in the car and just kind of uh zoom out for about a minute or two and just meditate a little bit. And then that helped me a lot, right? You know, so it allowed me to kind of detox myself from the day and just continue coming home to a new beginning to whatever I was concentrating on doing that day.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

That's a great perspective because you know, you being so focused on, like you said, your entrepreneurial side and your business on the side, you didn't have time to take all that work stuff with you because you had, you know, other things going on. You didn't have space for it in your brain, basically.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Now, when I met, well, when I met you, like you were in the employee assistance unit before I got there. So, do you want to talk about what led you to become a peer counselor?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Sure. So I noticed one thing that um to become a first responder, especially a police officer with NYPD, you know, as long as you're 21, anyone can like as long as you pass all the tests, you can have a gun, you can have a shield, and you can go out there and save the world. Now, I started this career late, I was in my mid-30s. So one thing I realized that a lot of times that um, hey, I have a gun, I have the shield, now I can be the it, Tyna, you know, will backfire because those guys and girls, unfortunately, at 21-22, mentally, a lot of them are not ready to face the world and to face the challenges that they have. And I'm not saying that the job should increase the age of the people taking this job, but the problem is that we have a people that never did anything else outside of the NYPD. And for them, this is like the first job at 21. And now you have a pressure of the world is on your shoulders, and not everyone can handle it. And when I start seeing a lot of suicides, you know, uh, we taking on average four to five a year, uh, you know, that's only on the active side. Forget about retired side. On the retired side, sometimes it's even more, you know. So I said, you know what? If I can make a difference, uh, at least, and you know, financial stress is one of the major stressors out there, especially for someone who is retired now, they don't have the same amount of income. They may not have to have the same amount of health that they used to have. So they're limited to certain things. And I actually, um, if you don't mind, I'll share the story how I started the financial club so people can understand. You know, um, so what happened was in 2019, while I was assigned to Employee Assistance Unit, I had a confidential call from a person who blocked his name and blocked his number. And uh, for the next about 40 minutes, we were talking about his life. You know, he was complaining how he's tired of commuting to work every day. You know, I don't want to mention name, I don't want to mention more Theo's way he lived and so on. But his commute about was about three to four hours a day back and forth. You know, and uh he already could have retired, but he chose to stay on the job. And uh during conversation, I asked him a couple of times, you know, hey, you know, with all the stress that you're having, are you a suicidal? He goes, No, I have two kids. I'm not gonna do that to my kids, you know. So I kind of felt comfortable and then we continue having a conversation. And uh the guy was very loud. So uh the guy that was sitting next to me, um, you know, I don't want to mention his name, but you know who he was. Uh, he kind of said, Well, after we hang up, the guy actually felt so comfortable with me. I said, Listen, I know you blocked your name, you blocked your number. I'm gonna give you my personal cell phone. If you want to chat off the record, you know, you can always call me. But how should I call you if you call me? So he gave me a name, first name. I don't know if this was a real name. I didn't know at that time if it was real or not. So I said, No problem. Here's my number. If you ever decide to call me, just say, Hey, this is so-and-so, and uh, I'll remember our conversation. When we hang up, the guy who's sitting next to me, he goes, I know who this is. I said, How? He goes, Well, he was so loud, I overheard your conversation. He goes, usually the same person calls our unit every couple months, and I'm usually the one who picks up on him all the time. So today was your day. And he said, He always gives, he has my cell phone number too, he said, and he did give me that first name too. But one time he forgot to block his number, and an actual name came up, and it did match the first name that he gave, so that's how he knew it's a legit person. And he goes, But because we're trying to keep everything confidential, I couldn't go back and scare him, you know, to follow up with him. And then two months later, we responded to suicide, and that was the person. And uh, what I found out was that he almost had almost had 30 years on, uh, was about to age out, and his pension would have been 13,000 in change a month. And his co-workers said that he was always afraid that he wouldn't have enough to live and to support his family. Now, his kids were already in their 20s and 30s, the house was already almost paid off. And I said to myself, he was also almost social security age, so he could have got another two, three thousand dollars social security alone, 15,000 a month. Some people don't even make that, you know, in their career, like some people don't even have pension. So I said to myself, you know, if the person who makes so much doesn't think that he can afford a retirement, we got issues here. So that's how I came up with an idea to create a financial club, to create an environment where people can go for consultation to someone who has experience on how to get them out of debt, how to increase their cash flow, and just give them an idea and become a mentor on how to be able to retire and not to depend on the, you know, just pension by itself. And I'm not trying to brag, but I help so many people to retire. And be in a better financial situation. But my whole uh I guess what I started, there's two cases that really, really will stay with me forever. And you know, sometimes you're trying to fit think, you know, did you make a difference or not? Well, I have two lives saved from the creating financial club because one person actually just by coming to a class that I teach at Academy, you know, he texted me about six months later and said, What will happen to my family when I kill myself? You know, and uh I actually thought it was a joke. So I kind of looked at it, I'm like, who is this? I didn't even recognize who this was because we just exchanged the phone numbers. And then I'm like, oh, I think I met him in uh you know class. So I called him. I was able to hold him online for about an hour until one of the peer counselors from EU was able to respond. I was off that week. And uh we actually got him to good, you know, we got him to the hospital. He was admitted for two weeks, and you know that usually even EDPs don't stay there for more than a day or even hours. He was there for two weeks and now he's fully retired, retired as active MOS. You know, that was one case. The other case, the guy was also in bad shape. I got him out also, and he actually was sent to Lefric because he was suicidal. But once we sat down, I got him out of the debt that he had, and he actually texted me six months later saying that, hey, I have money to invest, can you guide me? So that was like one of the best success stories I had. But, you know, we always want to try to go somewhere where there is no path and leave the trail. And I'm just glad that I was able to do that for the NYPD, you know. And uh I'm like I said, I'm not stopping here. I'm still planning to help people. So if anyone wants to reach out, you know, I have no problem sharing my information. And they can contact you and you can provide my information out there. You know, I have no problem. You can give out my personal cell phone number.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I'll link whatever information you want to provide after. I'll link it in the show notes so that people can connect with you. This way it's easy. They can just pull it up and click on the link. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

It's and it's so interesting that your two worlds kind of came together in this perfect balance because we don't talk often enough or really at all in your, you know, since now now more than now that you started talking about it, but we really didn't talk about the effects of financial stress on mental health in in law enforcement, because we take the job thinking, all right, we have benefits, we have a pension, we're getting a steady paycheck, there's some stability there, but that's that's not the whole story, as you've seen. So from the financial club, you created the NYPD financial wellness class. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

That is correct. So the classes are still going on. We have uh a good friend of mine, Sergeant Cipoli, he's taking over right now. And um, I still come in as a guest speaker on my own time because this is my baby, you know, and I want to make sure that we share as much information as possible. And we had over 5,000 members attending the classes since we started in 2019. And I remember we started with about 10 people in a small room next to EU office, and now on Good Day, we have about 115, 120 people attending the class, you know. So it's it's a very uh educational class. It's about seven hours on job training, you know. So, but if anyone needs like a, you know, maybe something for their team at the command level, I can always make that happen. I can always stop by. Like I said, for me it's a passion. Someone helped me back years ago to be financially independent. And, you know, some people believe in giving money to charities. I believe in donating my time because I was told one time by a religious leader, he said, listen, you can give a person a dollar, but if you can educate the person how to make that dollar, you did more deeds than someone who gave a person a dollar. So that's why for me, I am all into giving my time to teach people and educate people. And even if I have to drive somewhere else and do a seminar for someone, I have no problem. They can schedule that with me. I'll come out to whatever they are, doesn't matter where it is, NYP, DF, DNY, EMS, whatever it may be, I'll do a quick seminar, 45, one hour, I'll teach them everything they need to know. Or I can do one-on-one. It's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Are you willing to or do you do virtual consultations with like smaller agencies outside the NYPD and outside New York?

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Absolutely. Okay, absolutely. Great, which is recently with ATF. Uh, you know, I did about a one-hour seminar. And uh, like I said, I can do virtual, I can do in person. As long as they're in New York, I have no problem visiting them. But virtual sometimes is a lot easier, you know. And like I said, there's never a fee because at the end of the day, it's not always about money. You know, and listen, if someone decides to become a client, I never say no to a client, but consultations are always free. There is never, you know, a charge.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

And I don't think people really understand the amount of time that you put into this because you truly care about people, because you started the financial club, the financial wellness classes, and now you also do. Are there still telegram chats for trading and mortgages and all of that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yes. So right now on the Telegram Messenger app, we do have uh, and this is for kind of for NYPD only that's those chats, but we do have a real estate investment chat, we have a day trading chat, we have a general financial tips chat, we have a stock chat. So, and like I said, we have about 3,000 members in those chats where it's a daily knowledge sharing. Basically, we want to make sure that listen, I'm I don't know everything. I know a lot, but I don't know everything. And if someone can teach me something else, I will be grateful because that's how you become better. You know, at the end of the day, you don't want to know what you knew today or yesterday, you want to know something you didn't know tomorrow, like right? So you always want to educate yourself because that what makes it perfect when you can, and you know, I'll tell you this there is a reason why financial wellness is not taught in school. And I'm gonna give you a reason for that. If everyone would be financially independent, who would be a cop, who would be a firefighter, who would be a teacher, you know, who would be paying taxes? Because if everyone was that rich person sitting somewhere in Bahamas on a beach and just opening up a laptop and doing some trades, you know, no one would take the other jobs. So the way our educational system is done, it's done for people to fail to begin with. Because all and I'll tell you this the people that educate themselves to be financially independent, that's usually the one percenters and their kids, because that's why they go to the private school where the parents dictate what type of education their kids are gonna get, because they want to make sure that their kids don't screw up with millions of dollars that they had. They want to make sure they know exactly how to continue the million-dollar journey. Okay, so right now I'm on a path where my kids' kids would not have to work because I will educate my kids how to be financially independent. And I can tell you this one of the other reasons that I hear all the time that parents want to stay extra on the job because they want to help their kids to go to college. This is such a BS because you know, you have to understand one thing. I always give an example of an airplane. When you're on an airplane and if the uh air pressure changes, who do you put a mask on first, you or your child? It's always an adult. You got to put mask on yourself first before you help your kids. So if you're gonna work hard and you're gonna start helping your kids to pay it for the couch bills, you're gonna start spending your 457, 401 money on your kids, then who is gonna help you when you're in your 70s and now you want to enjoy the retirement? Where's the money gonna come from then? You think your kids will be helping you? I tend to differ because they're gonna have their own families, they're gonna be concentrating on their families. Now, they do have three kids, and one is already 23, the other one is 20, one is 14, and the 20-year-old and the 23-year-old, they graduated colleges with no loans. As a matter of fact, my 20-year-old, she already owns the property. So I made sure that being on a public assistance, none of my kids will have to go through this again. And I'm on a now journey to make sure that my name is an asset, not a liability. And what do I mean by that is when person who did not prepare themselves and they're in a poor financial stage, if they die, now the family has to do golf funds, now the family has to figure out how they're gonna bury the ass, where they could have done that and concentrate to protect themselves, you know, and prepare for that. Because there is no surprise day, we're all gonna die, right? So if you're not preparing yourself to be there one day to take care of those that are coming after you, to make sure they don't struggle now, trying to figure out where the money is coming from to bury you. You're, you know, so then that means that you fail. Okay. And I don't want to do that. I want to make sure that kids of my kids will be financially independent. Right now, I'm building that where they will have everything they need by the time they're ready to enter the workforce. They may not even need to work, but again, I'm not giving millions of dollars to kids that don't know what to do with it. So the kids need to be educated. My 14-year-old, he's begging me every day to get a cell phone. He doesn't even have a cell phone yet. And my rule is until you start making money, you're paying it for it, not me. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still nice to them. They may end up choosing my nursing home, but you know, I'm not to the point nice where I'm giving them everything they ask for. And unfortunately, I see this all the time: parents failing their kids by giving them everything they ask for. And instead of actually thinking, is this something that they need or is this something they want? Okay, so we as a parent failing our kids a lot of the times just by thinking that we're doing good deeds by giving our seven-year-old a phone, six-year-old a phone, you know, where they don't even need that. Okay, so and then you're putting yourself in automatic uh debt because now you have to pay for that phone. Now you have to pay for extra line. You know, again, like I said, there's ways to be nice to your kids without financially struggling. And I can educate anyone when it comes to how to make your kids financial independence. Again, this is way more than an hour we have together. Uh, you know, that just that topic alone.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

I'm sure for all the parents out there listening, even if they're parents of very young kids, which is even better because the earlier you get them, the better, how to make your children financially independent. You're gonna have hopefully you'll be inundated with phone calls with people wanting to know this information because, like you said, parents, we think we're doing right by our children. We think that getting them things that they want that will make them happy, or spending extra time busting alone asses and working to try to put them through college when really it sounds like you're truly living out what you were told by your spiritual leader by not just giving them money or giving them things, but by spending the time to educate them to make their own money and become financially independent, because that sets them up not just for financial success, but for full independence as a human being, as a person, because now they're not relying on another person, not that there's anything. I mean, listen, obviously I'm married, I believe in marriage, but marriage not out of, well, I need somebody, I need to depend on somebody else's income stream, or I need to depend on them for for whatever other reason. If they're financially stable, then they get married because they want that other person. But if God forbid something happens and the marriage doesn't work out, they can still take care of themselves.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Absolutely. And uh, you know, one thing that I'm seeing a lot from people that are married, by the way, do you know what's number one reason for the worst?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I'm gonna just based on the nature of this conversation, I'm gonna guess money.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Nah, it's one of the top three. Number one reason for the worst is marriage.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

No, but you know, a lot of the times what I'm seeing from people that are married, and this kills me all the time. Uh, husband and a wife, they have no idea what one makes. Husband and wife, they have no idea who has how much debt because your money is my money, your money, my money is my money. Marriage is a business. In order for the business to be successful, you need to work as a team, you need to be able to work on towards building that LLC or S-corp or whatever you got to be able to be financially independent, you know. And um, if you don't even know what one person has and one person struggles with, that's how a lot of times suicide happens, because one person could be financially well and the other person could be drowning in debt and be embarrassed to tell the partner that, look, I am, you know, uh, you know, struggling here, you know. Like I said, you know, in marriage, it takes two. And uh unfortunately, a lot of the times that's what I'm seeing. And uh this is where marriages fall apart because there is no trust. Now I keep telling the people the first thing that I did when I got married, I asked my wife, well, even before we were talking about who's gonna manage money and so on. And I asked her, I said, listen, what type of debt you have? Because I came to the marriage without any debt, and I wanted to make sure that we continue that way. And when my wife said the only debt I have is a student loan, I said, everything we got, we're gonna be paying off your debt because your debt just became my debt. And I don't want you to struggle when we want to build a family together. So we paid off her student debt, and everything after that became ours, not mine, not yours. It became ours. You know, I'm not saying not to have a separate account. Maybe you want to buy a gift for your significant others, you know, and stuff like that. That's fine. But at least the majority of your money should be going into one account where you designate one person to take care of all the bills. And one more thing I want to mention about financial independence. So you see, there is a saying that poor person lives paycheck to paycheck, rich people live year to year, wealthy person lives generation to generation. This is where we need to be. We need to build a new generational wealth, we need to make sure we understand the difference between the three. And unfortunately, it's a statistic that people can check, but 70% of the Americans don't even have a thousand dollars saved. And that's scary. You know, that's scary. And I'm sitting sitting with people and I'm witnessing this all the time because people have credit card debt through the roof and they don't even know how much it's costing them. 95% of the people I sat down with when I ask a question, uh, what's your interest rate on the credit cards? Most people just say, Oh, it's high. I need to know what is it, because if I'm gonna help you guide you how to eliminate the debt, I need to know which one we're killing first, which one we're concentrating first. If you don't know how I'm supposed to help you, right? So again, and listen, there is so many little different things that we do day to day without even realizing that wait a second, this is so easy to just take this and put do this. And I'll give you a quick example. I meet people all the time that have their money with the major banks. I don't want to mention names, you know, stuff, major banks, major credit unions, but think about it this way when was the last time you checked to see what you're getting back from them? And I can tell you this most people don't even realize that they're making 0.01% on their accounts. Opening a high yield savings bank uh account can give them at least four percent. Like they can go to the website bankrate.com, look on the high yield savings account, and today they can already put their savings into a high yield savings account, and instead of getting 0.01, right now the best bank in there gives you about 4%. Now your money can give you 4%. That's a true definition of making money while you sleep. You know, so again, little things like this will make a huge difference on your financial success down the road.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

I don't want to get too deep in the weeds with it because I do want people to reach out to you and consult with you for things. But what do you think the hesitation is with opening? Because people see these online banks and they're like, well, what if they go under? Then I'm out the money.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

So just so you know, back in the 80s, there was a huge uh wave of uh going out of business for the little savings in loan banks, and that's how FDIC was started. The government protects your accounts up to$250,000 guaranteed, FDIC insured. Every bank is FDIC insured, credit unions, they have a different coverage, but they're all up to$250,000. As a matter of fact, investment accounts also insured under SIPC insurance, and if it's an invested account, it's up to half a million dollars. So not the face value, like if the market goes up and down, but if the money is sitting with financial institutions, your money is guaranteed protected. And what a lot of people are afraid of, they're afraid of the names they never heard before. But I can tell you this the way FDIC works is basically very simple. Uh, if the bank is about to fail, and in 2008, we saw a couple banks going through this. Uh, it's gonna happen Friday. What happens is during the weekend, the government will restructure it and the assets of that bank will be sold to a new bank. And by Monday, your money will be with a new bank name available on it. So don't rush into the bank trying to withdraw it. There is no reason, there is no panic. Everything is protected up to$250,000. Now, for people that are afraid of names that are unknown, there are plenty of local banks that also well recognize that do have high yield savings accounts. You know, and again, I don't want it to be an advertisement, I don't want to advertise any banks out there, but if they reach out, I can always give them some local bank names. I can give them online bank names. But there is always local banks, also. It's just that they may not give as much because if it's a brick and mortar bank, you know, they have to pay the tellers, they have to pay this out. Where online banks, they save a lot of money by cutting those costs. So online banks tend to give you a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

That's a great point. They're a legitimate bank. There's just they're not the overhead that a brick and mortar bank has, and that's why they're able to give you more. And I I want to go back to the conversation that you had with your wife. The frank conversation about how much debt do you have and this is how much debt I have. It's a conversation that a lot of people, not that they don't think about, but they don't want to have it because it's uncomfortable. But if you can't have these uncomfortable conversations with the person that you're looking to spend the rest of your life with, then what are we even doing? Because something's gonna come up.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

It's funny you mentioned that because I always tell people it's easier to talk about sex than money.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

It's money, it seems like it's a taboo. Like, you know, people are afraid to touch the subject. Well, my thing is if you're dating a person and you want to know who is crazy in their family, you know, who is has some kind of STD or whatever they may have, but you don't want to touch the money subject. This is how a lot of times divorces happen because the money is like I said, you know, especially when you retire, the number one reason for suicides, in my opinion, is the financial alcohol that's two, and domestic. So the top three is probably, and probably financial leads to all of this, right? So if you're not financially stable, if you're not financially happy, you start a domestic, you start drinking, you know. So this is why it's so important to be able to have a healthy relationship with your money. And by the way, if you broke and you think that you're already old and you cannot change anything, there is plenty of things that you can start. As a matter of fact, you know, I always tell people, Kentucky Fried Chicken, they need to Google to see what happened to the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. How old was he when he became a millionaire? He was already over 60. So, you know, so there's like how about McDonald's creator, you know, Ray Crock, he was basically also already an older person. So age should not stop you from achieving your dream. Okay. The only thing that can stop you from achieving what you want, if you look in the mirror, you'll see the reason.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

So, in the interest of breaking down stigma and talking about things that people don't really want to talk about, what are some common, and uh we're not asking for any confidential information, or like I said, we're not going too deep with it because I do want people to reach out to you if they have specific questions, but what are some common financial stresses? We spoke about credit cards, um, you know, kids in in college, what are some other common themes that you see when you're helping out cops?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

So, usually number one reason why people financially struggling, believe it or not, is the worst. And what happened was a lot of times the money for the attorneys, a lot of money for the settlement, and people just break down and they just can't recover from it for a very long time. Um, that's one. Two, people buying properties that they couldn't afford. Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but number one reason most of the people take money from their pension as a loan is to buy a house. Do you know what's number two reason why people go and take the loan from the pension? Take a guess.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

I'm gonna hope that it's to pay off credit card debt, but it's it's probably vacation.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

No, it's to uh to help pay off the repairs for the house that they couldn't afford to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Yeah. So So that's another thing. You know, I see people all the time getting into financial debt by taking loans out to get into more debt by buying a house that they couldn't afford. Listen, owning this property is great, but sometimes renting until you're fully able to buy a property down with 20% or whatever it may be, not to borrow money more would make sense. You know, so that's another thing. Third one, buying cars that they're looking to get. Oh, yeah, now I'm making a paycheck. Now let me get that uh the car I always wanted. And now you're paying me the$700,$800 a month, but you couldn't afford the uniform at the academy. You have to get a loan for that. But you're driving on new BMW or Lexus or whatever you may be. I even seen a Tesla tracks in the police academy, right? So, but again, the thing is that when we fail a lot of the times, it's our wants versus needs. People don't realize that that new car, new smell, it'll be gone in about six months. You know, that feeling that you're driving something new, but your payment stays with you for the next years to come, you know. So this is where you have to understand one thing. Rich people, you can never tell the rich person that it's a real rich person by what they wear. And I'm not talking about celebrities that are dressing up in a different dress is 10 times a day, you know. Believe it or not, you know, uh, usually when we teach class, we talk about NBA players, NFL players. You know, if you look at how much they make, and if you look at the average NFL NBA player, what they dress, you know, and then do research and see how many people became bankrupt, how many people failed, how many people just think about let's say NBA. How many NBA players you can name that actually became financially successful? It's the names that you recognize. If you have to count, you'll probably count no more than five. Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Shaquille O'Neal, and pretty much probably maybe Kobe, right? But after that, we have hundreds of NBA players. Where are they? A lot of them are broke, a lot of them filing bankruptcies, right? NFL players, how many NFL players you know that became actually successful? So just because person is wearing a nice clothes, just because a person is driving a nice car, if you look at, for example, someone who likes Buffett, he's one of the richest man in the world, right? One of the best investors out there, you know, Warren Buffett still lives in a house from the 1970s, right? He doesn't have a Mac mansion, you know. And uh again, you don't have to be rich by showing people that you are. Most people will not, most people that understand the difference between rich and being wealthy, they will not show that when you see a person on the street, you will not know that that person is a multimillionaire.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

And I just looked it up. So Shaq, because I know that he owns like a bunch of different businesses, he holds stakes in over 370 businesses. So he didn't just limit, like, he didn't just say, All right, all of my money is coming just from my my NBA career. And then when I'm done, that's it. Like he had other investments going on.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

You see, that's a perfect example of not depending on one single income. Yeah, you know who's one of the most successful uh in the entertainment industry is Rihanna. You know, you look at Rihanna, when was the last time you heard her drop an album? You know, Rihanna became successful to the point where she doesn't need to sing anymore. She's using her name now to concentrate on building a successful business where a lot of entertainers out there they're going broke. You know, it's like another success story right there, you know. So again, uh there is a big difference between wanting to be rich and wanting to be wealthy. Right. So that's the goal. You want to be to the point where you are wealthy, and that's a huge difference, especially when it comes to mindset.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

And for the people who think that they can't afford to invest, can you just give us the example? It was either buying lunch or buying coffee that you you give in your financial wellness class, because that blew my mind.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

So I can tell you this. If someone tells me I don't have money to invest, my first thing, let me see your expenses. Because I'm pretty sure the first the same person will have a Netflix, the first same person may have a Disney Plus, the same person may be buying food outside every day, but the same person will be telling me that they don't have time to invest. Well, let me tell you this, and this is something you can plug it in into any financial calculator. You know, if you just put a hundred uh ten dollars a day away, okay, and if you find 12% interest that you can make, and most of the SP 500 delivers more than 12%, and if you put it away for 30 years, you're making over a million dollars. Okay, but the problem why you don't have that million is because you're eating it away on the food that you probably will not even enjoy, that you're just shoveling your mouth because you didn't have time to you actually no, you did have time, you just thought you didn't have time to prepare food for yourself. And the reason why I say that, because if someone tells me, well, I don't have time, you know, I want to know how you started your day, and I want to find out what time you went to bed, and I want to know why you couldn't get up 30 minutes early. Because if you would get up 30 minutes early, you would find time for anything that you say you don't have time to do. But you know what? That person has the priorities that are different. Probably they're watching some TV before they go to sleep. Maybe they want to catch up on the soap operas, you know, whatever it may be, right? But people fail to realize that there are certain priorities that need to become the priorities and not what they consider priorities now. So, and again, just buying meal outside, forget meal. You know, I have this filter at home that I put water in it. Uh, um, I use it for my water bottle. I have a metal water bottle that I bought in Costco, two for$15, and I carry with me all the time. And I tell people I switch my filter maybe every four months, and it costs me like eight dollars. The bottle water alone is a dollar right there. That's already$30 a month that you can eliminate, right? If you're buying at least one bottle of water, don't even get me started with those fancy water bottles, you know. Uh, so from the bottom water, I can start your investment account, right? So if you tell them you don't have time to invest, let's examine where the money is going. I'm 99.999% sure I'll find you$25,$30.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And that's the thing. Like, no matter where you think you are financially right now, there's always hope.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

And that's absolutely that's the point. Hope dies last. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

There is actually a great book. It's called Start Late, Finish Rich, you know, by David Bach. I love that book. You know, this is for people in their 50s. So it doesn't matter how old you are, what matters is where you want to be, right? So what matters is what type of retirement do you want to have? Where do you see yourself? And listen, I tell you a lot of times, you know, we may have even have a civilian member of service that does not have a hundred thousand dollar income because civilians usually make less. But, you know, I always tell people that when I was in the civilian world, I used to switch jobs every three to four years, sometimes even two years. And the reason for that is because when you're going from one job to another, you're kind of going with a different market rate. Where if you're staying with the same job for many years, you kind of stuck with whatever 1%, 2%, they'll give it to you every year. Where if you switch it just to another job, and if you have a solid resume, you just got yourself probably a$10,000,$15,000 increase just because that's what market rate is. So if you're a civilian and you're struggling financially, and the question is, you know, but what are you doing about it? You know, we you need to understand that at the end of the day, it's your decisions that you make everything every day matters. And the difference between possible and impossible lies in the person's determination.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

So true. Because the days of working your way up to the court from the mail room to the corporate office, that doesn't happen. It's very rare. I'm not gonna say it doesn't happen, but the loyalty to the company, like the your loyalty should be to yourself. And if you know that you're worth more, there's nothing wrong with finding something else.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Absolutely. I always tell people, I'm not loyal to any company, I'm loyal to my money, I'm loyal to my family, you know, I'm not loyal to any job. I mean, uh, so with that said, I always tell people, listen, um, I actually have, I don't know if you'll be able to see this, I have it right next to me. I don't know if you can read what it says, right? So basically it says here in order to become the one percent, you must do what the other 99 want. And unfortunately, 99% of the Americans will do absolutely nothing with the information you give them. And they will still come to work tomorrow, they will still complain that oh, it for them it's gonna be like it is what it is, you know. It's like from that Vinnie the Pooh when I was walking around, oh poor me, you know, poor me. Well, what are you doing about not being poor? What are you doing about so your situation changes, you know? And this is not only about financial world, this is about anything. You know, you may be struggling with other stressors in your life, right? But what are you doing about it? You know, because if you're just gonna be like, oh, it is what it is, and I had someone who came over to me and I said, Do you have a credit card that? And the response was, of course, who doesn't? You see, people that say that this is the people that will fail in life miserably because they think that it's normal to be not okay. And this is what we're trying to change.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

That's a good point, too, because just like we normalize unhealthy coping strategies like drinking to excess, and you know, avoiding your problems, working overtime instead of going home because you don't want to deal with your problems at home. Credit card debt is just one of those normalized things, not just on our job, but in general, in the culture.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Well, if you think about it, how easy it is to use the credit cards now, right? You don't even need to have it on you. You can uh like click on the watch and uh, you know, pay your bills, like you know, why so it's like you know, everything is so normalized now with all the electronic payments, and a lot of times people don't understand that, you know, you may not even have money in the bank, but you're spending on outside in a store without even having a money to pay for it, right? What happened to the time when you actually needed to bring cash to store to buy things with the cash? You know, you need to implement the same cash envelope system where if you're broke, you know, start carrying money with you. This way you know that you came to the store, you only have$20 to spend, you're only spending$20. You know, you can't buy more. And again, most people will not do this because it's not uh just it's not the norm. A norm is oh, yeah, here's the card or here's the Apple Pay, whatever it is, you know, and for people this became a reality nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

There really is something to seeing the value of your money if you only have$20 and knowing how how far that can go in the store, because there, you know, you're not getting any more after that. It's it, you only have what's in your hand, like you said, as opposed to it's like a psychological thing. Money doesn't mean anything when you're just tapping a car, you know, a phone or your card or whatever. It's it's not tangible.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Yeah, right. And I actually was reading about psychology of retail shopping. And um, one thing that you know the book mentioned in there that when you go into the store, the usual items that people go for, they're always at the end of the store. And then the people have different stuff outside before you even get there, you already have a cart full with things you don't need just because, oh man, this is looks good. Oh, maybe they're not gonna have it this time around, you know, next week.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Or it's on sale. I didn't need it, but it's on sale.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

Exactly, exactly. So usually for people like that, I said, listen, create a 48-hour rule. If you see something, just you know, go home. Think about it for 48 hours. If you still, after 48 hours think you need it, you know, go back and buy it, that item's still gonna be there. And if it's not there, it's on internet. Right now, everything is on internet.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

So that's a great point. So what let's see, if you what's a brave or difficult choice that you're glad that you made? It doesn't have to be recent, although it can be. It can be from whenever, any point in your life.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Actually, I would have to say the recent event is basically the kind of because look, I'm not gonna have any pension whatsoever for the next five years. I'm not gonna have any medical coverage for the next five years. So it's a chance I took, but I know I took a chance that will pay me nicely in the long run because now I can spend eight hours on me. Now I can build my business instead of spending it working for a company. All right. So that's probably the bowsiest decision I ever made was you know to drop everything and start everything from the scratch. And I mean, I'm not starting from the scratch, I've been doing it since 2000s, 2000 basically. But um again, it's kind of when you don't have a backup of a guaranteed income. It's a you know, it's a challenge, but I look forward to challenges because that's what makes me going. I like challenges, I like new things, and uh I look at it as an opportunity to become even better.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

So, what's what do you see as your next chapter?

SPEAKER_00 57:44

That's it, concentrating on building business and helping others uh on my journey. And uh, you know, like I said, I'm an educator now, I consider myself an educator. I'm willing to show people that it doesn't have to be nine to five or whatever hours they work in. You know, they can build a very successful business. And as a matter of fact, if anyone has any uh desire to learn about investment world, I can get them the sponsorship, I can teach them on how to become an investor. Because in 2000, when I was introduced to the opportunity to become an investment advisor, I was like, Well, I can't sell anything, I'm a 25-year-old, I'm gonna sell anything. And I was like, you know what? But I'm gonna go and learn. And I learned it, and for the next seven years, I didn't sell much, you know, because I just didn't see myself as a salesperson. And uh, but the education that I got for myself helped me with pretty much everything that I know right now. So, like sometimes I say people, listen, your child is going to college, and what degree are they starting for? Will they actually be able to use that degree? And don't get me started with liberal arts degree. I don't even know what you can get with that, but or business management, what the hell are you gonna manage? You know, like so when I looked at his opportunity, I was like, wow, I can get my licenses, I can get education in like four or five months, and I can do something with it, and I don't have to go to college for this, you know, I can do it on my own time. So when opportunity came along, I was like, let's do it. So I didn't even think twice, and now it pays nicely back. The oldest education that I learned.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

So, whether, like you said, if you want to learn, no one can stop you, right? If somebody where can people find you? Whether they're looking to pay off debt or they just did their taxes and they're looking to invest or you know clean up their financial portfolios, where can people find you and connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 59:40

I think what the best way to do it it would be if you share my phone number, my cell phone number that you have with people.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

When people reach out to me, okay, sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

That's fine. I don't mind giving my personal cell phone number. I work pretty much as late as I want to and as early as I want to because I'm uh my own boss right now. You know, until my wife says you're done, I'm done. But usually I stay late, you know, I work late, and again, I'm now flexible.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

So if you want to contact Peter for whether you want him to come speak at your agency or you want a one-on-one consultation, you can email me at outside the linepodcast at gmail.com or find me on Instagram and now Facebook. I'm on Facebook, Outside the Line Podcast. So connect with me and I will put you in touch with Peter. Peter, I'd like to end on a high note. So what first of all, thank you so much for being here and all of the knowledge that you've shared so far. And I really truly hope that people do reach out to you because you this was only the the teeniest tip of of a very big iceberg that you know people can take advantage of. So because I like to end on a high note, what is your favorite karaoke song?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

I hope you're not gonna make me sing anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

No, I'm not. No.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

So, you know, um, I don't have any favorite karaoke songs, but I tell you this. Um, I used to professionally compete in powerlifting, and one song that kept me going was Eye of a Tiger.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Eye of a Tiger perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Yeah. So that was my favorite song that I use pretty much every time I was in a gym. And even now, when I hear it, I'm like, let's go, let's get motivated, you know, let's make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

That's awesome. Thank you again so much for being here. And in case you guys haven't heard today, you are loved, you matter, and you are not alone. Thank you so much for stepping outside the line with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing with a friend or to your social media network. And if you do, please tag me so I can reach out and thank you. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are personal opinions, not reflective of the public or guests departments. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with your mental health, please speak with the mental health. Resources are available. In case you haven't heard today, you are love, you matter, and you are not alone.