Want to invest? Here’s where to start. | Ep. 37

There's a version of investing advice you've heard a hundred times. This isn't it.
Rahul Pillay opens by making a case that most people skip the two investments with no risk of total loss — before they ever get to stocks, real estate, or anything the market can touch. Van Pillay asks the questions a real person actually has: 
- What if you're in debt? 
- What if you're starting small? 
- What does this look like when it's not just theory?
The moment worth sticking around for: Rahul's reframe of giving as investing — and his argument that the return on that particular asset class is, by his reading of Luke 6:38, literally guaranteed. Whether you're spiritually curious or just quietly convinced you should be doing something smarter with your money, this one earns the listen.

Find us on Spotify @pillayplacepodcast

https://open.spotify.com/show/6yDlDhEWsh21t2zeg7f5AC?si=B7-HfM0VR6SJuI2i7l4Kdg

YouTube: @pillayplacepodcast 

https://www.youtube.com/@PillayPlacePodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Have you ever thought about investing? Today we're gonna be talking about the three areas that we think is so important to invest in.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

It's the best asset class you could ever invest in. If we're gonna talk as investors. It's gonna it literally says give and I will be given to you. There's no question about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

You invest in anything else, there's a potential of total loss. Of total loss.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yes. As a matter of fact, you have to sign documents now that literally says, I am aware that this is gonna be I'm gonna I'm I may fully lose my money.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

The wisdom any of my can't replace. Anybody has great information, but it doesn't have a reasonable and great capabilities. Yeah, totally. But it doesn't have a walking experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

No, that's us. If you're heavy-ridden in debt and you have $5,000 in savings, it's probably better to pay a debt. The number one most important question I would ask myself is if I'm comfortable losing all this money in this asset class. If it's money you're counting on, then you're not investing. You're borrowing. I was captivated. I was like, what is she about to say? Tell me, tell me what I'm supposed to invest in. So, um, so the first point is very, very simple, very easy. Invest in God. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

And you went straight in. I went straight in. I'm like, it's we're gonna invest that we don't have time to waste here. And investing in is in God is very, very, very, very critical because it it um well one Well what do you mean by investing in God? Investing in God is um the I mean, we can go into another full episode about investing in God, right? Okay, but I'm referring to putting your finances into a cause or a charity organization or something that God puts in your heart.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Why is that important?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

That's important because in Luke 6, 38, in in the book of Luke, chapter 6, verse 38, Jesus says, Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your bosom, for with the measure that you use it, it will be measured back to you. Okay. And and the and I'm going to just summarize this very quickly. What this is saying is if you trust me as your source, okay, I will make sure, I will make it my personal mission to make sure that you are taken care of. That's what it really means, right? And reality is if God is not your source, then your source is somebody else. You know, even if it's you, like I go to work and it's me that does all the work, right? Okay, that that's that's fine. That's that's what you believe, that's your foundation of where you're at. But let me question you this how you do your work and everything that you use to do your work, it will boil down to what the source of it is, and the source is God. Right? My ability to type on a keyboard came from God. My ability to think came from God. So, point being is everything comes from him anyways. So we can we have an entire episode about giving, and we can link it here on our on our um comments, but but in that episode, one of the key key pieces that we talk about is that if we lived, if we lived, we can live better on 90% of our income trusting God than 100% of our full income not trusting God.

unknown 3:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Like that was the point of that message. And this is what giving to God means. It simply means I'm going to make God my source, okay? And part of it is I'm going to invest in things that God tells me about. We give to certain causes and charities, right? One of it is being to our local church. So giving is a it's part of our finding, it's just part of our everyday life now. Right?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And it's I mean it's and let's call it investing, not giving.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

We are investing in God's kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Yeah. I I like that change in a mindset. It's not that we're giving to God. God doesn't need us to give him anything.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

It's the best asset class you could ever invest in if we're gonna talk as investors. It's guaranteed literally says, give and I will be given to you. There's no question about it, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So if we change the wording of that, like invest and it will be invested back to you.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So he will invest back into you, right? And he'll make it good, he will shake it together, he'll run it over, right? Like he'll do all these things. And I love the last piece for the same measure you use, it means that how you actually invest in me is how it will be measured back to you.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yes, and these are not just instruction. They it sounds to me like it's a promise. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Absolutely, absolutely. So he doesn't break his promises. He doesn't break his promises, right? So, and the sec and the second, so so first point, invest in God. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Point two.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And and what that simply does is show him that we trust him with all of our resources. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 5:28

That's the faith piece.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

It's the faith piece, right? It's it's when my investors invest in me. They're telling me, I I believe in you, and I believe in what you're gonna do with my capital. That's literally what we're doing when we give to God's causes. Invest, the second point is invest in yourself. Okay. And I have a couple of quotes here, but they're very important. It's like John Wooden said, it's what you learn after you know it all that counts. Okay. Albert Einstein said, wisdom is not a proc product of schooling, but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I have Benjamin Franklin.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I have an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yes. Yes, why? Because it cannot be taken away from you. You know, our the best resource we have today is our mind, will, and emotions. Right? Uh, if we're founded in God's truth, even better. Because those things can you can get up tomorrow with nothing, literally, live under a bridge and still make something of yourself. If you have those things. So learning is key. Um you know, this is what we teach at um the Bible college, right? Where where I teach uh sometimes. And and the key, the key concept of investing in yourself is if you had, let's say, a thousand dollars to invest today, and that's all you had, and you'd ask me what should I do with this money, which asset should I put it in? And the best asset you can put it in is in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I like the fact that well, I like what you said. You said it cannot be taken from you.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Right? You invest in anything else, there's a potential of total loss. Of total loss.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yes. As a matter of fact, you have to sign documents now that literally says, I am aware that this is gonna be, I'm gonna I am I may fully lose my money. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Is that what investors have to do?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

So you're it's a requirement by law. Sounds like it's a safe investment if you're not gonna lose anything. Like in God, you can't lose anything.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

And then in yourself, you can't lose anything.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Okay, so those are guaranteed like grounds.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Those are guaranteed grounds, yeah, exactly. I I want to make this a little bit more practical about investing in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Okay. Okay. What is that? Yeah, what is that?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yeah, because I when I when I want to learn something new, I'm not just going after the new shiny thing that's out there. I always check in with what I desire to get to know more. Okay, what do I want to understand? What do I want to know? Right? And I try to avoid getting into deep weeds. For example, you know, the other day I was interested in figuring out, okay, how does income from tax liens work? Okay, and tax lien could be an asset.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Now, if you look it up, all of a sudden you may have 40 hours of content, right? I just want to know what it is, right? So I asked AI what it is, got my information, and moved on with life. I'm not going to diverge into 40 hours of lessons on tax liens, right? But on the other hand, if I was to learn something, a different different thing that I really like to know, right, then I will actually spend more time. So knowing practically what your desire is is helpful to actually um figure out what it is the new thing that you want to learn. Um and I'm also very practical about it. I I don't try to know it all today. But I also make sure that I'm checking in with myself. If I'm learning something new and I've gone maybe two, three months with it, I check with myself and go, okay, is this still something that I want to know more about?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

And how does investing in ourselves help us?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Um one, it makes you it makes you more valuable. Okay. Because you have this other another trait, another skill, right? That's helping you.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Well, yeah, I I think this might go off a little go off topic a little bit, but I I think there's so much information out there. When you are investing in yourself as in your gaining knowledge, you want to turn that knowledge into wisdom. Wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Right. And it's so it the wisdom AI can't replace.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

No.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

AI has great information, but it doesn't have the experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And great capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

But it doesn't have the walking experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

No, that's us. Humans were told to tend to the garden, meaning that humans were told to go out and do these things. Yeah. To take care of these resources we've been entrusted. Yeah. Right? So that was my next point.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Like using the knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Correct. My next point is you can learn a lot. You can become a lifelong learner. But if you're learning and not doing as an applying. Applying the knowledge that you have received, then you're not gaining wisdom. And wisdom makes you invaluable. We I mean, one thing about wisdom is the value you bring to the marketplace is driven by your wisdom. And the marketplace will reward you for the wisdom that you bring to the marketplace. So the more knowledge you have hopefully helps you transform that into more wisdom by applying it.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, don't be replaceable. Like because though your wisdom cannot be replaced. Right. Knowledge. Your knowledge can.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah. So, like practically, if you're learning how to code, right, code something. Make an application. Make it work for you.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Right?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Design something that actually does something. Well, I think about like break it and then learn from fixing it. That is invaluable wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, I think about um uh my my brother-in-law. Yeah. Right. Uh I think in the beginning of the year, I sent out like a group text to the family, this video on how exercising is good for you, and exercising is good for your brain and your mind and just life, right? Yes. And he sent it back. I mean, he's being funny. He was like, My doctor told me to exercise, and I changed doctors. And so, and so, but that's like, okay, now we know the knowledge of physical activity benefits the body and the mind.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Okay, so physical activity is good. We have that knowledge, but if we don't apply that knowledge, we actually don't have the wisdom of health.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Correct. Yeah. It's like having a gym membership, but not the muscles to show it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

You have to walk it out.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

You have to walk it out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And frankly, that's where the journey is.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

And that's the result, though. Like you see the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

When you walk out the knowledge, which is wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

I mean, to me, nowadays, the adventure walking with God, the relationship that we have, is actually now gaining this wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Because it's not just knowledge of God.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

No.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Like we walked it out with God.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

We walked it out. We have a relationship with Him. He showed me how to do it. Now I know how to do it. I've gone through the troubles, the mistakes, and all these things. Yeah. And now I know, right? And if I was to rebuild it, we would do it better. Right? So, so then if you do those two things, then you land at a place where you're like, okay, I am investing in God's kingdom. I am, I have this wisdom or this new trait that I have learned. Okay. Now it's time for me to go and actually invest in other things. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Okay. I think that might be the part that people are looking to hear. Yeah. So what is it?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Or really they don't they didn't want to hear the last two? Yes. So this is where this is where the the critical the critical part here is understanding your goals and understanding what you have to work with, what's in your hands. What do I mean by that? If you have $2,000 to invest today, that looks very different from someone that has $10,000 to someone that has $100,000. Right? Obviously the $100,000 guy has more options than the $2,000 guy. Okay. But nonetheless, you still have an opportunity to do something. All right?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

The first question I would ask is, is this your emergency savings? Because if this is your emergency savings, then I would say no, do not at best. Right? Because some people think, oh man, I'm oh, let's just put it this way if you're heavy ridden in debt and you have $5,000 in savings, it's probably better to pay your debt off first.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Well, because I mean I've heard it when I was really young, like you want to invest. People's goal is always okay, eventually I want to get to a place that I can invest.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Right. But why is investing biblical? And why is investing necessary? And how do you start and begin?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, those are those are three questions, right? So keep me keep me accountable to answering all three.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So what was the first question? Why is why is investing biblical? Yes. Right? Investing is biblical because um because it makes us good stewards of what he puts in our hands.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Does it make sense? So a dollar inside your bank account today will be worth less tomorrow than today, right? If it's not earning any interest whatsoever because of inflation. Inflation diminishes the value of the dollar. Yeah. So investing protects that dollar. Right?

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Sure, but then you can lose that dollar.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Correct. That's taking a risk. Everything has a risk.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Except the first two grounds. Except for the first two grounds.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Correct. So, but you asked me why it's biblical. This is why it's biblical. It's biblical because it says you have to steward what you have, right? Put your money to work. There's a lot of parables about actually investing. Okay. The parable of the sower in Mark chapter 4 talks about investing, right? Invested in four grounds. Not everyone produced. One of them actually had a complete loss. And the other two had losses as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

The last ground produced the most, but nonetheless, the farmer actually went out and invested. Right. You lose some, you win some. You just want to win more than you lose. Yeah. That's investing. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well, I think about the talents.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

There's the parable of the talents as well, right? Where the master gave these servants money to go invest. And the one that didn't invest, he called him crude because you didn't do any you didn't take care of what I put in your hands. So that's why it's biblical.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

The second question was Um How to Start and Bin.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

How to start and begin. Yes. So that's the important piece. And that's what I wanted to talk about. The starting and begin simply starts with, hey, I'm going to pick an asset that I am not that I am that I am comfortable putting some money in. Okay? If I so what do I mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Well, that's important to have the knowledge that you gain so that you can think about where to invest. Correct. So that's why the investing in yourself is important.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Correct. That's right. The other piece to this I would say is let's just say you want to invest in stocks because you just have a desire to. Sure. Okay. I wouldn't discount the desire. But if you don't know anything about stocks, I would just pick a professional that does it well. Like Fidelity is a professional, right? It's a big company. And you can pick an asset that says, okay, we make roughly an average of 4% to 8% annually for all our investors. And we've been doing it for 30 years. Okay, they have a track record and they have been doing it, and they can claim some numbers. Okay. They may charge a lot of fees, but reality is if I don't have time to go learn stocks, I'm going to invest with them.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Okay, you pay for their knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

You pay for their knowledge, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

That you didn't gain yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

That you didn't gain yourself. So I'm famous for that. But let's just say you did gain it yourself. Then you want to put that money to work, right? Reality is the number one most important question I would ask myself is if I'm comfortable losing all this money in this asset class, is this asset class worth it for me to learn from?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Let's just say you learned about stocks.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

And you have $5,000 to put in stocks. You need to be ready to lose the $5,000 in stocks.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Because it's not about the stock, it's about you gaining some wisdom. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Okay. That's so you're you're learning.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

You're learning. You're paying to learn.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Sometimes it's an expensive.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

See, one of the one of the biggest mistakes that uh some people that come into investing make is that they think investing is about a return that they need to make. And when we invest, it's not about the return necessarily. Returns matter. Don't get me wrong. 10% matters versus 7% versus 15%. But what's more important is am I stewarding the capital in my hand the best possible way that I can? Right. Meaning that if I know it's higher risk to put it in crypto, right? And I'm concerned about the $5,000 in my hand, I will not put it in crypto. I'll put it in a safer asset.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Well, I think another like another way to look at this is when you're investing, it actually is stewarding.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Correct.

unknown 20:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:19

It's how it's how you're putting it to work. That's what stewarding means, right? So, like so one of the asset classes that I love is real estate because it's very tax efficient, right? It's more expensive to get into real estate, but it is very fruitful. And the reason why I say that is because it's very hard to lose all your money in real estate. You get something back because it's a physical asset. The other piece to it is, like I said, it's very tax efficient. So, how do I get into real estate with fewer dollars? Okay. There's this concept called syndications.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

S-Y-N-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N-S. Syndications. Okay, we'll type it in. And syndications is a very inexpensive way to get into real estate because syndications is basically all these projects that people are doing, they need money, and they will collect it from multiple people, put it in a bucket so they can go do this project. Okay. A development, a mall, whatever. So that's something that you can actually quickly participate in. You can do it with fewer dollars. You don't have to buy an entire house. You will go in with other investors, right? And then they will take your money and put it to work. But you get the opportunity and the exposure to real estate, meaning that you get the opportunity to play in real estate, right? And not need $100,000 or $200,000 to buy a second home or your first home. Before I put into syndications, I would put it into my own home. I would buy a personal residence, which we've done. Yeah. Right. And we've sincerely thank God he helped us big time in achieving that.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah. Is there such a thing as a like safe investing? Like you know, we you know, say somebody save up a long time to finally get a chance to invest. Yes. And we know that investing in everything has risk. Everything has risk. And so is there such a thing as and how do you minimize that?

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, there's the you can lend to the American government.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Okay, and that's that's through um T-bills, okay. That's through um uh T-bills is one way. There is um other resources out there where they are actually putting government bonds out there, okay. And those things is where basically you can go out and buy a note, and a note could be, you know, I'm gonna put in five thousand dollars, and I buy a note, and they will pay me four or five percent, slightly above the the Fed's rates. It's very safe because government use this uses this money to build roads and do all these other things. I see. And then they will pay the investors back a consistent amount of return. And it's very safe. It's four percent, you know, five percent sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

It sounds like it's a good place to start off. It's a very good place to start off until you're there's like space to lose.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, exactly. I I I I I don't recommend starting there. I recommend starting in where your desires are.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

I like what you said though. Like you said, what's in your hand?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Like how can you steward what you have right now?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

That's really good.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah. Um and then the and one of the questions I would I would always ask is do I have enough in savings outside of the investment before I put this to work?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Okay. Another question I would follow on with that is after I put this money, is it tied to something where you need it back in six months? If you need it back in three months, right? So you actually don't have money to invest. You're borrowing from yourself right now so that you can right like you're just moving money around if you need this money back in a year. The point of investing is you may need to leave it there for three years. Who knows? You need to be able to do that and see and live. And live and still be okay. If it's money you're counting on, then you're not investing. You're borrowing.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Do you have anything else?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

No, that's that's really it.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Okay. Well, uh, we hope you enjoy this episode and you got some tips and practical tools on how to start investing. Um, if you like this episode or see that or find that it could be helpful for somebody, please share. Um, and we will see you in our next episode.