The NJ DAD Podcast
The NJ Dad Podcast is where fatherhood meets humor. Join Andrew Parise for honest conversations about parenting, marriage, work, friendships, and the everyday chaos of suburban family life. Some episodes are solo, some feature guests, but they’re all built around one idea: being a better dad doesn’t mean taking yourself too seriously. Whether you’re changing diapers, coaching Little League, navigating date night, or just trying to survive another trip to Costco, you’ll find relatable stories, practical perspective, and plenty of laughs along the way. New episodes every Thursday.
The NJ DAD Podcast
Building Blocks of Finances (with Nick Luisi)
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SPEAKER_05What are one or two big, big mistakes people make consistently that you see?
SPEAKER_03I'll give you the biggest one. You have to keep emotions out of investing. Most of my job, I sometimes joke I would have been better off with a psychology degree, okay?
SPEAKER_05It is Andrew, your fatherless friend. Today we're talking money, cash, bread, dough, lettuce, schedules, and why is it all named after food? I'm gonna tell you why. Because besides your mortgage or your rent, that is the only goddamn thing left that we have any extra for. I'll tell you this. I go to Wegman's and I get to the checkout and I see Joan, my friend Joan, and she rings me up for anything less than $200. We're doing a touchdown dance, like we're in the end zone at MedLife because everything is so expensive. And I know people say, and I've said this on the show, maybe money doesn't buy you happiness, but it makes things a hell of a lot easier. I'm not sure if you've seen a rich person lately, but they look very relaxed and they're usually tan, and they're probably not whispering sweet nothings of state colleges into their children's ears when they're going to bed at the ages of six and three and a half to put in a good word that in, you know, thirteen or so years they make the right choice and go to a New Jersey State College. Because that's where your head has to be these days. But to get a little help with this with this thing, with money, with learning it, with understanding it, being fiscally responsible. We have someone on the show today who is just that. His name is Nick Luisi, he's a financial advisor, he's an advocate for his clients, he's very, very smart, he's very trustworthy, he knows his stuff, and he genuinely, as a father of three young children, cares about the families and the people that he plans for. So I thought he'd be a great guest today. He's gonna tell us uh high-level stuff, a little bit about everything. And just as a caveat, as uh there's information all over the place about uh you know financial investments and this and that. We're just talking high level, we're talking just some things to do to be responsible, especially if you're a single parent, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, how can you save at that point? If you're in survival mode, how can you save at that point? So uh that's just a caveat I have to give you because I don't want any anybody misunderstanding. I'm not forcing any of this information on anybody. I don't want you to use it. And if you don't use it, no big deal. But I hope you enjoy it. And it's the fatherless cheat sheet. All right. All right, welcome to the fatherless cheat sheet. And I have a very good friend of mine, a very smart person, and someone I thought was perfect. Perfect to talk about money with us, Nick Luisi. Welcome, Nick. Thank you. I've been looking forward to this all week. All right. Well, we got to get you some more stuff to look forward to because No, I'm just kidding. Of course, uh self-deprecation is part of my armor. Uh, I am I'm really excited to talk to you about this first and foremost because the thing that strikes me about you and when we do have conversations about this stuff, you genuinely care about your clients' well-being in future. It's it's not simply a money grab. It is it is relationship-based, first and foremost. Absolutely. And and I I know your parents, and I I really, really enjoy your parents, and they are so salt of the earth, and they they raise you right, but you do not come from a sort of a country club financial background. You earned every bit of what you have now, and I think that's even more of a reason you're so effective at what you do. So I thought you were the perfect person to talk about some of this stuff.
SPEAKER_03Sounds great. I I think you praise me more than I deserve, but let's go for it.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna keep doing it.
SPEAKER_03Self-deprecation here too.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, no, that's okay. It keeps us humble. Um I would so the first thing I want to talk about is, and I I don't want to frame all of this just in the single parent household or I feel like so many of us are in sort of survival mode right now, and I think things are at a point where how do you how do you differentiate just living paycheck to paycheck or or surviving and doing something with savings? Like how do you just do the minimal amount right away, like as soon as possible?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and that's a great question. And really this this conversation today, again, is meant for the masses, right? Uh fatherless or parentless is is at all levels of socioeconomic status, right? So it's it's not indicative to just people who don't have money or have too much money or somewhere in between. But the the basic building block here, and and I'm gonna be just really blunt with people, when we say we're living paycheck to paycheck, are there things we could carve out? Do we need to go to Starbucks every morning for that $10 coffee? Uh, that's where we start. And it's tough because some of those are comforts, especially if we are in an environment where, listen, we're just trying to survive, and that's my little creature comfort, but that's really where we need to start. Um, going into more specific about what vehicles, and this is general information, none of this is should be considered um advice, but just generally, if you work for a company that has a 401k, one of the best ways to start is if they have a match, right? Money that you would have just spent if it went directly to your bank account, have them automatically deduct it pre-tax into a 401k. If they are matching, you have to lose half your money just to get back to your money. So these are some very basic building blocks. I'm sure we can go into other scenarios, but that's the first one. What can we actually cut out and create a savings vehicle and some way to make it automated so we don't feel it? Before it even hits our bank account, we've already saved for the future. If you do that, you're already starting to be ahead of the game. And I'm sure we'll go into some some other things throughout the conversation.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's great, great uh jump start right there. And I I would say sometimes in the past, I mean, I was so I've grown out of it quite a bit because I have two children and your perspective changes. I was so, Nick, impulsive. I was just a consumer. And I said I was sort of living for the now.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_05And there were so many times I said, well, um, I'll start next week. I'm not gonna so how do you get out of that mentality where you just constantly punt and punt and punt? How do you start now?
SPEAKER_03So that's really right. Whether you just got a bonus at work or something that was unexpected, start that as the beginning of the nest egg. And just like I mentioned with the 401k, we try to automate this. We try to make it so that every month, even if it's a hundred bucks, whatever your budget allows. Again, I always talk with people, money is relative. What's a lot to one person is a little to another. Okay. So money being relative, whatever that amount is that you can squeeze out of the account without really stopping you from paying your bills, automate it. Automation is key. Okay. And it doesn't matter the vehicle at first. I gave an example before if 401k is available, but even if it's just a basic long-term portfolio, uh, again, there's a variety of low-cost robos. I'm not just here pitching what we do, uh, just in general. There are platforms right now. It's more cost effective now than ever. Back in the day, and I never would have made it one of those old school stock jockey stockbroker days. Okay. That's not my business. Um then it was very prohibitive to get into the stock market. Now there's there's many platforms that have no commissions. So it is accessible, especially at the entry point before things get more financially complex where you might need an advisor or you might need other moving power tax management strategies, but just basic starting, like there are so many. In fact, there's too many um platforms these days that allow people to start.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, that's it's promising and a good point. Uh is there if you have if you have credit card debt, as so many of us do, how do you weigh that against savings? Because if you're at a low yield, the three, four percent, and then you're also getting nailed for whatever the APR, whatever the mafioso credit card companies, how do you differentiate those two things?
SPEAKER_03So basic building blocks, and I'm gonna sound like a broken record. If there's something that I can tuck away that's tax advantageous, for example, again, that 401k, that's a pre-tax deduction. So what that means is not only am I putting money away, but that is not being taxed as income, right? So I've just lowered my income while also saving for my future. Then we would look at our credit cards. If you got double digits, what we do is we go from the one that has the highest rate, we throw everything we can at that and do the minimum on all the cards. And we rinse and repeat until there are no more cards. So that's just high level. You want to you're you're sometimes people get confused by this. Oh, I have a credit card and I'm gonna make up numbers that has $10,000 on it and 20%, but I have another credit card with $1,000, okay, that's on it, and the rate is 8%. Well, oh, I have an extra grand. Let me just close out the no, the money should go towards the higher interest rate card, even though you might get that immediate gratification from saying I paid off one card. The one with the lowest interest rate, not the lowest balance, okay, is the last one we want. We go after the one that has the highest interest rate first.
SPEAKER_05So just knock yeah, knock that out. Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because you're accruing the most interest in that account.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And I would say as well, these days, there's sort of this hidden, not even hidden, but we belong to so many subscriptions these days. Are there any tools available to or is it just due diligence, like go in and just start getting rid of some of these uh superfluous subscriptions?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Yeah. Going back to that, I'm paycheck to paycheck, I'm trying to figure it out. The first thing you need to look at is what is your monthly spend? What are your auto enrollments? What are things that are coming out of your account without you even realizing that that subscription that was a free trial for three months that's been billing you for the last three years? Those are the ones that we have to. Yes, there are a bunch of services. I don't know anything about them. I can't preach to them, but personally, just look at your most recent credit card statement or bank statement and you will see what are automatic monthly deductions and trim those off. So that's part of that. What do I really need to spend? I know, for example, we have a million subscriptions. My wife is the one who handles most of our entertainment. I got the streamer in here, but I don't know what we're not subscribed to. And I actually think we need to go through that same, you know, due diligence there to see. But to be fair, you know, when you got I people don't know me personally, I got a kindergartner and two twins that are five months old. Maybe I just need to turn on a movie every once in a while and I want a selection. That might be my $10 cup of coffee, you know? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you you're you're certainly uh entitled to a little entertainment and taking the load off at the end of the day and uh a a a Cinephile as well with a great uh a great podcast yourself. Talking pictures trivia. Yeah. It's a really enjoyable podcast.
SPEAKER_03It's a hobby of mine. I just enjoy doing it. It gives us my friends a reason to just talk about films, uh really a reason to get together with all the craziness in our lives.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And again, sometimes you need to uh have that what they call it, TE, right? Traveling entertainment. Uh but you have to, I guess what you're saying is have a very discerning palate and cut off half of that stuff, right? Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03What do you really need? What do you really need?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I would say I would say you don't need to name the networks. But there's a couple that you don't need out there. Um so I I want to get into something that's sort of very personal uh to me and very apropos for the show when my when Frank passed away when I was a kid, as everybody knows, he left us. He left us without m uh a whole hell of a lot. There was no life insurance. Can you can you talk about life insurance a little bit and and what the the uh benefits, the positives, negatives, and a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_03Sure, sure. And it's one of those things where in my day-to-day business, again, we use life insurance as a strategic solution. Where, you know, there's a lot of people who have advisor on the business card. We don't all do the same thing. Some of them, if they're an insurance broker, guess what? They're gonna tell you to buy more insurance. For us, it has to be a tactical play. There has to be a reason. Professionally, we do a lot for estate planning purposes, irrevocable life insurance trust, uh, buy-sell agreements with business owners. But where we really use it in this context is when you're dealing with multi-generational wealth, you're dealing with family members who may not all be at the same wealth as the rest of the family, right? So whether you're fatherless, parentless, or just a young family starting off wanting to make sure that their kids are covered, God forbid something happens to breadwinner or breadwinners. There is a play here for that. Uh, what I will tell you, I'm going to give you a brief education without hopefully not getting too granular here on life insurance. If we're on a budget, term insurance is probably the way to go. Now, first off, sometimes people have group term benefits within their employer benefits. So you have to look into that first two. The thing that's nice about that is usually because it's group, you're gonna get approved. Okay, you don't have to go through this rigorous process of underwriting and checking your health. So see if if your employer has some type of group term, if you're in some kind of plan that has that kind of benefits. That's an easy one. Term policy if we're buying it on an individual basis. The thing that's nice about that is you're getting a lot of coverage for a small premium. The negative compared to some permanent insurances is there's no cash value. You're purely doing it to get the biggest bang for your buck for a certain term of time. So let's say we are a single parent, okay, and we are cutting down that $10 coffee at Starbucks. Sorry, Starbucks, if anyone's got stock in that. Uh, but where are we going to do this to make sure if I go, there is no one else for my child or children? So I need to make sure that there's a nest egg for them. This gives you the most leverage, okay? So that's why if you're on a budget, term makes sense. A lot of times people try to do it to at least get it through the point where their kids are out of the house and adults. So there's different, for those who are not familiar, you can get a 10-year term, a 20-year term, a 30-year term. The different rates apply, and we're not going to go down that path today. But effectively get as much as you can afford in that sense. And the reason I'm saying this is again, money being relative, there's strategies that we use for clients. There's one strategy called principal preservation, where we need to create a pool of assets that will allow, God forbid, something happens to the primary breadwinner or the only breadwinner. Okay. There is a pool of assets that can be invested and turned into an income stream to replace the salary of the person who passed. Okay. That's the most ideal if I have the budget for it. Okay. That's the first thing we want to do. Now, that may not be in everyone's budget. So the next thing we look for is a depletion strategy. We're trying to figure out if I have this nest egg, they can keep the lights on until they're an adult. Yes, this life insurance benefit may deplete over time, but at least it bridges the gap. Maybe it pays off the mortgage. Maybe it covers them until they're out of the house or through college. That's the next level. And that's something that can be figured out. But without going into it too much, Andrew, that's the basic. There are permanent life insurances that don't expire. They grow cash values, but the premiums are much more expensive. That's a whole nother conversation. There's different flavors of that. It's not just whole life, which is super expensive. There are other permanent insurances. But if we're budget conscious, that that wouldn't be my choice. Get it to the point where the kids are grown up. Um, maybe they're stable, and that's that bridges that gap. Pay off the house, et cetera, if if if someone owns a house. Those that's my initial thoughts there. Study and play.
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SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's very helpful. And I wish you spoke to uh Frank. Frank, I gotta go back and talk about 1984 ish before. But hindsight's 2020 and and it is what it is. And uh I could only sort of as a father now and as you know the the patriarch or the family just do uh as much as I can to to set us up in the right way. And you know, there there are so many tools out there to learn that. And to that end, if if somebody even maybe a young person or even an adult who is not really financially savvy and who maybe is a little embarrassed about that. Maybe maybe they feel like, well, I I uh you know, uh we certainly live in an area where the there are a ton of people who know a lot about finances, and I'm not I'm not one of those people. I mean, I I'm doing my best now, but where are there some resources that you can go without feeling embarrassed? Where do you start to learn about some of this stuff in a in a a way that is not from a some charlatan on YouTube?
SPEAKER_03Yep. What I would say, and and this is something I talk about with a lot of people, yes, you mentioned the area we live in. There's a different skill set between making money and managing money. So just because someone is success successful in business doesn't mean that they're actually good at managing. They may have a unique skill set that allows them to succeed at what they're doing. In fact, that's how I have a business, right? I work with super smart people who know the power of delegation so they can do what they do best, and I'm here to optimize their finances. To your point, we live in an environment, there are a bunch of books on this, okay? There I I can't even begin to go into it, but there are a lot of resources online, including YouTube, okay? Now I'm not talking about charlatans, I'm not talking about cryptocurrencies and all these other things where you just dump all your, but there's legitimate um information out there. I don't want to specifically, you know, yeah, bless a specific channel, but there's a lot of information now that did not exist when we were growing up. I I was the nerdy guy figuring out all this stuff and and finding the the books that would go over it and and reading between the lines on tax codes. Yes. Yeah, that's me. No, that's good. But you know, using my my summer internship money to open up a Roth IRA uh, you know, when I was in college. So you practice what you preach. But I was the exception, not the rule. But there is so much information out there, even in our library right here in town. There there's a ton of information out there uh that was not available before.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And i I would say that if I could sort of uh extrapolate some of what you're saying is find someone who is seems somewhat fiscally realistic and dive into that. I think when you're whatever you're doing, if you're going to 10 percent on one end or 10 percent of the other, you we're kind of book-ended by crazy, if you will, in almost every realm of life. So stay sort of um uh you know, fiscally realistic and and there are resources for that person out there. Now, getting back to let's just say take take me as an example as a young person who, you know, my mom was a uh working professional, single mom, and she tried her damnedest. And you know, but we didn't have really conversations about investing or this or that. How can how what's a step a young person can take? Like you mentioned, summer job or you know, give me give me something that you can suggest for them to start doing small now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so this actually hits home for me too. I I I I can't say that I'm I'm fatherless. Okay. In fact, my parents are wonderful and maybe they're too involved, but that's a conversation for another day. But don't you dare say that it's okay. I'm an only child, so they had no one else to focus on. That's just how it is. But uh along those lines, I I did have experience in my youth. So I was very fortunate that my parents, you know, saved and they sent me to a private high school. Okay. And I was surrounded with by a lot of people from successful families. And we didn't come from an investing background. You put your money in the bank, you got CDs. My mom was in banking, okay. My dad. Was in banking, but more maintenance and running all the facilities for a giant bank. Okay. But but it was not investments. It was, that was just not in our culture. And I was trying to figure out, and in reality, that's what brought me down the path that I'm, what is the, what are those families doing different than us? We're doing okay. Don't get me wrong. We have a house paid for in the suburbs. You know, that was success. My parents hit the culmination of success. No, no debts, no bills. We have a nice house in the suburbs in a wonderful area. But how do we take that to the next level? So that's where I started with that same curiosity, Andrew, of how do I do this? So I started looking, and specifically if we're gearing this towards the next generation, not the, not the parent who may be trying to get things established, but the next generation, what are those first vehicles, those account structures that I should be looking at? And I jumped the gun earlier, apparently, but I had I've always worked. I've worked probably before you were supposed to work. I've just, it's been part of my culture. You get a job, um, so you have money on the weekends, and then you're working on the weekends, so you didn't need the money because you were working, but that's another story. So, what do I do with this? So the first thing I explored was different types of retirement accounts. And Roth IRA, I I mentioned it briefly before. It's a great vehicle for a young professional, someone starting off, and even later in life if they meet the income requirements. So without getting too preachy, a Roth IRA is one of those few vehicles where you can save for retirement and it grows tax exempt. And when you take the money out, it's tax exempt. So effectively, what I'm saying is it grows tax-free and you can pull the money out tax-free. There are income limitations and there are maximums you can put in every year. So it's a slow drip. You can't just throw a large sum of it into it. However, if someone is going to be entering a career path where later they may not qualify, well, every year that they qualify, that money still stays there. So that's one of the first things that I would say for a young professional is to look into a Roth IRA. Um, that is a very powerful vehicle. I've already talked about the next step alongside that, if they work for a company with a 401k that matches, if they max the match, I'm not saying they max out their whole 401k if they're if the bills don't allow it, but at least max out the match. If you do that, if you max out the match on your 401k, if it's available with your employer and you max out your Roth and you do nothing else, you are so much more ahead of the game than a majority of our population. That that is the first step. I don't know if you want me to go more into it, but I'm that's the beginning building blocks of wealth creation.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, go. I mean, go, yeah, if you want to go just a step further, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_03So the other things that we should look at is there's a plethora of high yield savings vehicles out there. If you just put in a normal bank account, and yes, we need to keep a certain amount in our checking accounts to cover our cash flow needs on a monthly basis. But if you start to accrue, you know, a substantive amount more than three to six months worth of expenses, you should be at least looking at high yield money markets, high yield savings accounts. When I did this, I was a pioneer. There used to be these random ones online, okay? Uh and they were name brand banks, okay? But you could only deposit online and take out with a credit card. Like you, you, you could not use one of their branch operations. That's what I started with.
SPEAKER_05It was like your Atlantic City. You got it. You got it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So so like they were established, but they said you you have to use, they wanted to keep you no frills. Like you, you just you can use their ATMs at their branch. You cannot go to the teller line, you can just use bare boats. Now it's a little bit more flexible. Most uh offering, most institutions have some high-yield savings account offering. Sometimes you have to have a minimum balance, but even if you're just having your money sit there, your money should always be working for you. That's the key here. Even if it's just getting a little bit more interest, it should be working for you.
SPEAKER_05That all makes so much sense. And the information is great right there. And and again, going back to what you said about the some of the YouTube charlatans and some of the people giving good information, it is that is very, very realistic, realistic goals, realistic information, and steady. I think that's the my vision, sort of tying things back to the show a little bit. When I was young, my vision was I didn't really see it. I didn't have a vision for the future. I didn't know if I was gonna stick around. I I didn't know what was gonna I didn't know what the hell was going on, I'll be honest. So when you don't have uh uh foresight for the future, you kind of can go, oh screw it. I'm just gonna go do this stupid thing instead of putting that money away. But I I guess what you're saying is you you can probably do a little bit of both, if if I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And and that's the key is if you do that, and say you have another little account somewhere that we talked about it before, automating. I don't even care the amount because once you have it automated, you can always raise that amount, right? If if you hit a next you know, echelon in life or or you get that bonus, or you get at least now you're starting to build good habits. So that's really what it's in the early stages. Is it gonna make you a millionaire overnight? No. But you're building good habits. And as you make more money, you already have that habit and you say, oh wow, actually I have this little extra every month. Maybe I should put that into my long-term savings. Then we start talking about maxing out our 401k to increase our pre-tax deductions, not just maxing the match, right? We start to figure out once we do that, then maybe we need to use some of these other vehicles. And that's a whole unique conversation, but it's a building blocks situation, Andrew. It doesn't happen overnight. Build good habits, even if the dollar amounts are low to begin with.
SPEAKER_05I got you. And that's another great segue. What do you see as a wealth manager, a fiduciary, um, very successful person in this in this field? What are what are one or two big, big mistakes people make consistently that you see?
SPEAKER_03I'll give you the biggest one. You have to keep emotions out of investing. Most of my job, I sometimes joke I would have been better off with a psychology degree. Okay. That's really where we shine. When the markets are up, clients made a great decision. When the markets are down, I made a bad decision. How did that happen? How did that happen? But orkening aside, we come across this a lot too with like concentrated stock positions. People just become in love or enamored. And maybe they bet right. Maybe they got that company that doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, okay? But let's not get greedy. You know, that is life-changing money. Even if you want to leave a little on the table, diversify out. So it's it's hand in hand. Taking taking the emotions out of investing is a big one. One of the reasons I have a job, because we help people do that during those challenging times, especially when there are corrections and if they are short, pullbacks are normal, they happen, but they're uncomfortable. And then the other part of that is the importance of diversification. Diversification doesn't mean taking less risk. You could be diversified at any level of risk. You could be aggressive, but still diversified. Okay. You could be conservative and diversified. It's not putting all your eggs in one basket because we cannot predict the future. The market makes fools of us all if you try to say you've mastered it. No one's mastered it. We take calculated risks that over a long enough time horizon will pay off, but we need that time horizon. We can't be going to Atlantic City or Vegas with it.
SPEAKER_05I got you. Yeah, those are great points. And would you say ultimately is cash still king?
SPEAKER_03We all like our world. Yeah, we we all like to say cash is king. And I do think to some degree, but where we lose it is if cash is not keeping up with inflation, right? Because if I have money and I keep it in cash, yes, that allows me the ability to deploy. And I always like to have a little dry powder, as we call it, okay, for timely opportunities. But that cash needs to be doing something. The high yield money market accounts that I'm talking about, high yield savings, it needs to be doing something because the reality is if inflation's at 4% and your money's making 3%, you just lost 1% of purchasing power. So it's important to make sure that, yes, you need to have cash on the sideline. Let's call it three to six months worth of expenses for the average person, maybe a little bit more, depending on if you have a specific timeliness. If you're a business owner and you have lumpy cash flow, there are other reasons to have more cash, but typically we want to make sure that our money is working for us. And that doesn't mean all in the stock market. Okay. There are many different vehicles. We, when I say diversification, it's not just stocks, bonds, cash. There's alternatives, there's non-correlated assets, there's real estate, there's there's a lot of things that probably go beyond the initial scope of today's conversation. But yeah, you do need cash to buy things.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. And no, that's well put. Well put. And I I would say sort of my last financial question is is uh again, bringing it back to single mom, couple kids, she's panicked, she's working her ass off. What's a word or two of solace you can give her about her efforts and and what she's doing on her own?
SPEAKER_03I mean, I can't say how m I I can't even go beyond how much respect I have for that person because as I said, uh I have a few rug rats here and I have a partner and I can't imagine doing it by myself. Uh that's without a I said I tell my wife, do do not leave, you can't leave me here. I need you. You know, more than you even know. So uh the utmost respect. That's not words of advice, but that's how I feel for anyone in that situation, whether it's three kids or one kid, I mean, it it blows my mind what you can do. And as I said, with those cases, we just need to tell them we know you're doing your best. We need to figure out where we can save, but we do understand it's a balance between survival mode. And maybe, maybe for you, if that 10 bucks cup of coffee makes you have some joy, well, maybe we have it once a week. That's your special time. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, I think. And the rest and the rest we put away for the college or we do the other thing. It's all about priorities. But I I would say don't be hard on yourself. It is a challenging situation you're in. Anything you do is better than nothing. Like that's the reality. Like I I can't even go into it further. It I that's well taken so challenging.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's a great point. And anything you could do is is is the thing. So don't be hard on yourself.
SPEAKER_03Like it you you're you're you're you're a trooper. You are amazing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's a tough path for sure. And uh and I I actually I'm gonna ask you one more question because I just thought of it. That's why I mean you mentioned That's it. About about c college. Yep. You know, we have we have little little ones. Oh, I know them well. We have a we have a decent runway, but if someone has a little bit less of a runway or well, what is just a couple of very simple tactics if you have if you have a little bit of time. But I besides just whispering state colleges into their ears before you know while they're going to sleep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So this comes up a lot. And I do these college projections with clients all the time. And even state, by the way, is still a chunk of change, right? Like it's better. Yeah, it's it's better, but it's still there. If we have the disposable income where we can budget, right? Again, money is relative. The and I they used to be called called college savings plan. Now they're called really education savings plan, the 529s most people know about. I say that because there are ways to tap into it more for private school or things that are not secondary education. But in general, we know these as college plans, right? They have the ability to do drips, like I said before, where you're dollar cost averaging. If we can automate it so that we're putting a little bit away, uh, we do have to have a very frank conversation with our children, though. Um, and and where are you going and what kind of degree, how employable will be that degree? And I I have no judgments here, but like you you'd be spending a lot of money. Uh I work with ROI return on investment all the time. And I like I'm a business guy. I I need to see that. I need to know that if we're making this investment, you're gonna be okay. You're not just gonna be living in my basement the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_03So, from a savings perspective, automate it, okay. College or 529s, they allow for tax exempt growth. And as long as you use it for qualified education expenses, you can take the money out with taxes, without taxes. So if the money's there, these are vehicles. The other thing that's really nice about these two, if you have multiple kids like the the mother you mentioned before with three kids, say college isn't in the cards for one of them, okay? Or they go a different direction and that's just not for them. There's very flexible ways where you can change that even within families. So you can change it from one sibling to another sibling. If one sibling for some reason you were able to stuff it like a pig and have a giant 529 and they end up going to a very affordable school, uh, you can move that to the next kid. So it's not money that just goes poof. There's also ways to get it back if there's c scholarships and other vehicles. So that's the that's the big one though. And even if it's a small amount, no one expects to pay fully through college sometimes with these plans. Just say, hey, I'm gonna help you the best I can. This is what I'm willing to put away. And use this as an informed decision when you try to apply for colleges to understand what you're stuck with at the end. I'm doing my best, I'm putting food on the table. Sure. I'll help you the best I can, but you know, take ownership of that when you're applying to schools and understanding what that's gonna cost you now and also after you graduate.
SPEAKER_05That is, I have to say, there's probably no better advice about college savings that I've heard. That was excellent. Thank you very much for that. And so uh since you gave us that great advice, we have a segment that we do towards the end of the show called My Old Man Used to Say. Now, I I know your old man pretty well.
SPEAKER_03He's a great thing.
SPEAKER_05He's he's great. Uh is there something that he said to you that stuck with you over the years?
SPEAKER_03So there's a few things, and and interestingly enough, my and this is a bit of a tangent. My father may not remember last week. He's in his early 80s, he's doing great. But if you ask him any meal he's ever had, he will tell you. And I'm not even talking fancy meals. He could go to the Stateline Diner and he'll brag about everything he ate, that cheesecake that has no sugar in it that he brought to the seniors that everyone loved and didn't know any better. Um, he likes to talk about things. I love to listen, but he has given me some advice over the years. And I might be paraphrasing here, but this one I really live by. Uh, you only get one name in this life, right? And it's not even a full sentence, I don't think. I'm not even sure. But I know what it means. You know what it means. And that's how I've directed my whole life and career and how I deal with relationships uh personally and professionally, is you only have one name. Okay. There's nothing that you can gain that's worth your uh losing your reputation or your identity. So I I really think that's a big one. Another one my dad likes to say is uh be worth more alive than dead. And and by the way, um, this doesn't mean financially, uh, you know, because I said I'm in trouble. I got a life insurance, okay? Uh I I am in trouble because, you know, she could cash in, you know.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I I think we all know what he means there. Your your presence on this planet to the people that are around you needs to have value. And those are the two things that are quick, maybe throwaway comments, but that really have guided my life and and my approach to personal and professional relationships.
SPEAKER_05Boy, very well said. Really, no, truly. And and again, knowing him makes it more special to hear that. And uh, you know, I asked that question on the show every episode, and I continue to be uh pleasantly surprised and enlightened by what people say, and there's no exception there. And Nick, you were exactly as fantastic as I thought you were gonna be. Great information. No, really, really great information. Very again, we're filling out the cheat sheet. We're giving people some stuff to work with, and and I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you as a friend and your perspective. So thank you very much. It was great to have you.
SPEAKER_03It it was a pleasure, and this is why I wanted to be here today, because the audience that you serve and listen to, if there's any way I can help point them in the right direction, even just building those building blocks of good behaviors or good habits, uh we've succeeded. That's that's all I want to do is point people in the right direction.
SPEAKER_05Perfect. Thank you so much. I think you did that today. Thanks, Nick. Beautiful. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me, Andrew. You got it. Well, guys, Nick was great. As I expected, he was very informative. Really appreciate his time and gave us a couple things to think about and move forward with. And it's not an easy path, the financial path and savings. We we all work so, so goddamn hard. And uh you feel like it just it comes in one way and goes out the other. But I think from our conversation, there are steps you can take to just sort of uh chisel a little bit here and there and and you know get your financial picture a little bit better than it is now, or whatever you want to do with it. Like I said, take take from this episode what you will. But I really appreciate Nick coming on. He was great as expected. And so listen, let's keep it going. Keep the fatherless cheat sheet moving. That was a great episode to fill out that cheat sheet. A couple helpful tidbits, so let's keep it rolling. Reach out on Instagram, reach out on Gmail, fatherless cheat sheet podcast at gmail.com. Subscribe on YouTube, it definitely helps. Check out the page and subscribe, and we will see you next time on Fatherless Cheat Cheat.
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