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Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
I help tech employees use their finances to create the life of their dreams by helping you take your financial confidence to the next level!Are you a tech employee who wants to learn how to better manage your finances?Working in tech you may experience extreme pay increases, which may allow you the ability to accomplish goals you've only dreamed of. However, if mismanaged, you can also find yourself stressed out and under pressure to increase your income in order to fit your lifestyle.The good news, is through education and a little bit of determination, you have the power to control your future and create your best life.Not only will we cover basic personal finance concepts, but we'll dive deep into tech specific benefits and issues that I regularly help my clients build strategies to maximize. (Examples: working for start ups, restricted stock units, stock options, and layoffs) Also, on a regular basis, I will have special guests that will highlight their stories with unique stories about their tech experiences.
Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp
A Podcast for Every Programming Community W/ Charles Max Wood
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Today's guest, Charles Max Wood, discusses his career path from initially thinking programming was dumb to realizing how programming can make life easier, to his aggressive goal of providing a podcast for every programming community.
- Layoffs
- Employee Vs. Freelancing
- Podcasts
- Emergency Savings
- Team Work
Business Freelancer
- List of Impactful Books
- Business Coaches
- Importance of Processes
- Do What You Love
Charles' Info
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmaxwood/
https://devchat.tv
http://podwrench.com
Resources Mentioned
Profit First
Let Your Business Burn
12 Week Year
How to Get Your First Coder Job
Communities:
Keepcurrentacademy.com
Music: 80s Motivational Chiptune by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Uh there was kind of uh really what uh people he just kind of had these expectations expected to read my product. So um I left there. It's funny because the jobs I wanted to keep uh they would lay me off, and the jobs I didn't want to keep were the ones that they were saying to say he took me up for two hours when I quit. And you know, I put all this money into this project and work, it's not my problem.
SPEAKER_01Um this is key crystal finance book where I help tech professionals in their 20s and 30s. So it's a great life too without sacrificing their future possibilities. I'm your host at Lucas Cassidy, certified financial planner, and founder of Lobal Financial Client, so I help educate folks and build strategies with my clients to help them take their financial confidence. And that's all important compliance disclosure podcasts for informational profitability. And that's two considering recommendations. Hello, thank you for joining Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp. Today I have an awesome guest with me. His name is Charles Maxwood. He is the CEO and founder of devchat.tv, whose mission is to provide a podcast for every programming community. He's been self-employed for the last nine years as a freelancer and then running a podcasting company. Hi, Charles. Thanks for being on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me. It sounds so grandiose when you say CEO and founder. I'm just a programming dude who would turn into a podcasting dude.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I've only had my business now for like 18 months, but it's pretty different, I think, than being an employee, and I'm sure we'll dive into that. Yeah. So I think it's worth putting something to distinguish it a little bit more because there's a lot more hats you have to wear and and a lot more stress you have to deal with, I imagine, as well.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01So you want to kind of provide a podcast for every different programming community. Where did you first get started becoming a programmer yourself?
SPEAKER_00So I was working for a company called Mosey. Now I have a I have a degree in computer engineering. So I did some programming in college, a little bit in high school, but honestly, I thought programming was kind of dumb when I graduated. I got a job at a company called Mosey. They did online backup for like your photos and stuff for your computer.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And um I ran the tech support department. That's not how I started, but after a few months, the guy who was uh hired me, he moved on, and then I wound up hiring probably 30 or 40 people. But the company wouldn't spring for a system that would help us manage the workload that we were getting because we got featured in the Wall Street Journal. Um a lot more people started signing up, and the the workload just went through the roof. So we built our own. And uh that's what got me into it. We started building this application in Ruby on Rails, and it was just this web application, so it would go to the email server, it would pull all the emails off the server, we turned them into tickets, and then um we had a web page, the internal web page that you would go to and it would show you the email, you'd respond to it, and it'd pull the next one in.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. So was that kind of the plan all along, or d did you guys consider kind of having like an outside ticketing service to kind of track those things?
SPEAKER_00We asked for one and they told us they wouldn't pay for it. Of course. I I was I was human number 11 in the company. So I mean, go figure right the the money was they were just trying to watch the expenses and stuff, and yeah, that wasn't in the budget.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I imagine it was tricky though because you guys were busy already, so it's not like you knew in advance that, oh, we should probably be building this in case some crazy thing happens, like we get featured in a big publication. So, like how many hours do you think you were working, like just trying to get that up and off the ground?
SPEAKER_00Well, we had kind of an internal benchmark. We wanted to reply to all the emails within 24 hours or one business day, right? So the weekends we were off. Um, and so yeah, so we would, and at at the time we started it, there were only two of us, and that was right around when we were featured in the Wall Street Journal. So really we were just trying to manage the workload for two of us and speed things up. Okay. Um and then uh yeah, so we probably were spending uh, I don't know, six or seven hours a day just answering emails, and then we would spend free time working on the application. And it was funny because uh, you know, we were working out of just like Thunderbird, which is just an email client at the time, something like Outlook, okay by Mozilla. But uh the problem was is that he would open an email and start replying to it, and then I would open the same email and get halfway through and then go, Hey, are you working on this one? Right? Because I'd see the reply go out on on my version. So initially it was just you know marking it as having been grabbed in the system so that we you know we wouldn't collide. And then a lot probably 80% of the requests we got in were things that we could reply to with the standard response. So we built that in, right? So then instead of typing it out, you just click the one you wanted and hit send, and then it would send it and pull up the next one that hadn't already been grabbed. So anyway, um, yeah, it was just kind of that kind of thing, and then it grew into uh tracking phone support and um a knowledge base and uh allowing people to clock in and out and all kinds of stuff. We built all kinds of stuff into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, and that's the neat thing about programming too, and I'm not a programmer myself, but I have uh plenty of clients, and I kind of am connected with a lot of people on LinkedIn, so I'm always seeing these some technical stuff, and then the more user kind of experience portion. But yeah, that's the cool thing, is like with programming, a lot of times you can add on pieces later, and so you get the the most core feature out and and see if there's legs with it, and then you start to add those additional features and it makes everyone's life a little bit easier kind of as you build up the product.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it it became pretty core to what we were doing. Um the support department became the largest organization within the organization, which basically just saddled me with more uh political headaches. But um the other thing was was that I think what really clicked for me was that in college and in high school, when I was programming, I was just building stuff just for the heck of it, right? Or because it was an assignment. Nobody would ever use it or see it or do anything with it. And so once I got in and it was like, hey, look, you know, we're making an impact with this, that that's when it clicked for me. Then it was like, wow, this is cool. Yeah. And the tools that I'm using allow me to move quickly and add more features quickly.
SPEAKER_01That's definitely beneficial, and I think that's a lot of the issue sometimes with the school and and how they're formatted now, anyways, is you think about high school and and even college to many degrees, is you're just kind of learning like the background stuff, but you don't see the real life application, you'll get to see the real users and the difference you're making. And so it can be hard for people to decide, like, oh yeah, this is actually a lot more fun than than just doing homework or doing an assignment just to get out of the way. Because a lot of times that's what most students are, unless they're super passionate already from the get-go, they're they're just trying to survive and get it through and just kind of check, check off a box that they they finish school. So after Mosey, what was that next kind of stepping stone for you?
SPEAKER_00Right. So at Mosey, I was running the tech support department, blah, blah, blah politics. I moved over to the QA department. Okay. I just I got tired of fighting with my boss. The the funny thing was I moved over to QA and I had the same boss. But um uh we wound up working with a team out of India. I worked there for six months, and then um my co-worker, incidentally, that was when I was in QA, that's when I found podcasting. Um but uh my anyway, I was I was having issues there. My coworker told me that I could be making more money, so go get a competitive offer and then bring it back, and you know. So I did that, and of course they told me they they kind of gave me a halfway offer, and I was like, Oh, I see, so I can get a ten thousand dollar raise in three months if you're happy with me, or I can get a twenty thousand dollar raise now by going to this other job. See ya! So I left. Um, I went to a consulting company, um, and what was funny is they can bill you higher rates if you're a senior software developer. So, yeah, I had all of like part-time development experience for a year and a half under my belt, and I was a senior software developer for them, um, writing Ruby on Rails. So I worked for them for about a year and then they ran out of Ruby on Rails work and laid me off.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I went home. It was actually our fourth wedding anniversary, I think, third or fourth wedding anniversary. So I show up at home at like 11 o'clock in the morning, and my wife's like, What are you doing home? And I'm like, Well, I don't have a job anymore. So I went and I put my resume out there for a bunch of places, got a call, went down, interviewed with them. When can you start? Tomorrow. I had a job. I went to work the next day. We went out to dinner for our anniversary and celebrated my new job. That's insane. So I worked for them for about a year, and I the the the boss there was kind of an egomaniac. Um, and he really wasn't good at managing people. He just kind of had these expectations and expected you to reason read his mind, and it was just a problem. So I left there. It's funny because the jobs I wanted to keep, uh, they would lay me off, and the jobs I didn't want to keep were the ones that they were begging me to stay. He chewed me out for two hours when I quit. And, you know, I put all this money into this project. I'm like, you're a jerk, it's not my problem. Um, so I left there and I went. Uh I had an I had a friend who was working at a company that did crime data. And I went over and worked worked there for six months. And then uh during the course of that, they hired a marketing manager whose advice they took, and they wound up they were profitable when I got there, they were not profitable when I left, and the board made them lay off a whole bunch of people, so I got laid off at that point, and I was like, okay, so I can either keep the crappy jobs or you know, yeah, you know, and lose all the good jobs. No, forget this. So I went freelance. Uh I was freelance for about six-ish years, and then things kind of came to a head with the podcasts, because I'm a glutton for punishment, right? I started one and then I started another one, and then I started another one, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I think being a business owner that kind of proves that too. And I think a lot of business owners can say something similar, like, yep, I I enjoy taking the the hard path. And and maybe it's the same way for programmers too, because I know you guys are really a lot of my clients are really aggressive with growth and career goals, and and they're always kind of pushing themselves. And I imagine they get frustrated too, because a lot of times you have to self-teach yourselves in a lot of manners, and maybe not so much these days with all the the different resources and in your shows being a few of them. But yeah, that's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was just bad at telling people no. So by the time I had five shows, I didn't have time to do podcasts and freelancing. So it was interesting too because freelancing felt like the safe route. I went to my wife and I said, What do I do? And she said, Do what'll make you happy. And I said, Are you sure? And she said, Yep. And so I refunded all the deposits I had and went full-time podcasting.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. And so, well, what about how did she take it when you were uh getting laid off? Because was you laid off two times?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I got laid off two times. I mean, the first time I had a job the next day, so yeah, no big deal. The second time when I told her I wanted to go freelance, she freaked out.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00But we had done what we colloquially call in the programming community a death march, which means you're working like, you know, 70, 80 hour weeks first.
SPEAKER_02Oh, jeez.
SPEAKER_00And they gave us a huge bonus and that came in right before they laid this off. And so then they gave us a severance on top of that. So we had about a month and a half's worth of money. I'd apply to a bunch as many jobs as whatever, but that I was not going to take a job until we were out of money. Okay. And instead I'd go find freelance gigs.
SPEAKER_01Were you scared at all, or were you pretty confident? Like, did you have friends that were freelancers? So you're pretty confident.
SPEAKER_00I had some friends who were freelancers. Um there was like a Skype group of like six or seven guys, and so you know, they they all gave me a bunch of advice and helped me out. Incidentally, they made up the core of the freelancing show that we started a year later. Um, but so that really helped. The other thing was was that I I was extremely well connected to the companies around here. Okay, because I knew that I could just basically go find a job. Like if we ran out of money, I could call up a couple of friends and I'd have a place to go to work.
SPEAKER_01And uh let my guests know where exactly you are located.
SPEAKER_00So I'm I'm located about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And there's a huge tech community here. And so there were plenty of companies that were hiring at the time.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and that's awesome. So did you grow up there as well, or is it mainly uh your work and career?
SPEAKER_00So I grew up about 20 minutes south of where I live.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so yeah, you just you've built up your community even before you even became a programmer, so that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it also came out of the podcasting. So um just to back up and explain that, I started podcasting in 2008. And when I was working in QA, there were two of us that worked in the same office doing QA. The other guy bought an iPod and was listening to podcasts, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And so I was like, that sounds like fun, but I don't have an iPod. It it just so turned out that I was also running the Mac beta for Mosey at the time.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I had a Mac mini sitting on my desk and that had iTunes on it. So he installed, he you know, he's like, well, just install iTunes on that Mac and you're good to go. So I started listening, I reached out to a podcaster I was listening to named Greg Pollack. He started codeschool.com and you know a few other I think he owns ViewMastery.com right now, which is another training site. But yeah, he you know, I emailed him and I thought he was some kind of celebrity. He emailed me back the next day and said, You should definitely start a show. So I started emailing, I started interviewing people, and then I took over a screencast series from a friend of mine uh about six months later and uh called Teach Me To Code, Teach Me To Code.com. And so I ran those for several years, and so yeah, my my exposure within the Ruby community was actually fairly high by the time I got laid off because I did podcasting and screencasting for two or three years. Oh, yeah, right, and so yeah, so I really did have a good shot at making a go of it. That's awesome between the local community and the worldwide community that was watching my videos.
SPEAKER_01And then that was never your intention, right? Kind of getting these additional tentacles out there for people to know.
SPEAKER_00I was doing it because it was fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So expand on that a little bit. Like, especially the the fact that you're kind of collecting these different shows that you want to uh make available to different programmers across all the different types of communities. What's inspiring you other than the glutton for punishment that you enjoy?
SPEAKER_00Well, at this point, um I'm a host on I think three or four of the 15 shows that we produce. And what happened was I was at NGConf, which is the big Angular conference. Angular is a front-end uh development framework.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, app applications like Gmail has a lot of Angular in it. So anyway, um I was at that conference and I was talking to people, and and they're like, so what are you working on now? And I was like, Well, I'm kind of creating podcasts for every programming community, and that's kind of when it hit me. It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized, no, that's actually what I want to do. Because before that, I was like, well, I kind of want to help people build their career and find freedom and you know, do uh build the life that they want. And I realized, you know what, that's really generic and it doesn't fire me up. And so when I started talking to people about, hey, you know, you should start a podcast and you should start, you know, because I was talking to uh sponsoring companies and speakers, and I'm like, you know, you will benefit from having a podcast. I realized talking to some people, they're parts of other communities, you know, backend technologies and cloud systems, you know, like Microsoft or Amazon, and those communities don't have podcasts. And you know, they were saying, well, it'd be really nice if I could learn things the way that I've learned things about Angular from your shows. And that's when it hit me. I'm like, you know what? Every community deserves to have a podcast. The big ones, the little ones, the ones in between. It they they they deserve one, you know, they and it helps people level up, it helps people stay current, it kind of helps shape the community in some ways, and it really makes a big difference. And so that got me fired up. I came back and told my team that that's what we were doing. I was like, scrap the old mission, this is what we're doing. And they it was funny because they were all like, because on the on the other mission, like they were like, Yeah, whatever. This one, yeah, everybody got on board, and it's been really fun to watch over the last three or four months just to see it go because they're all in, and I'm all in, and it's just it's like okay, let's do this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I think it's just having like big bold missions, I think, is something that gets people fired up, and it's sounds crazy when it comes out uh out of your mouth, probably at first. Like, oh, we're gonna make how many you said 15 now? Uh different shows.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we have 15 now. We have another four that are in recording, so they're recording episodes.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, but when I release, I like to put three or four in the feed and have another one or two in the bank. Um, so those will those will come out uh mid to late July. So we're gonna get we're gonna hit 19 or 20 real quick. And then I've got a few more that I'm talking to people and just trying to get organized to the point where we can start recording those. But yeah, it's we're also starting a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. But you know, it's it's that kind of thing, and it's like it's like, you know, yeah, once we were all in, we were all in. And uh yeah, it's it's been it's been awesome. But yeah, I've had a few people basically say, well, how are you gonna do it for every programming community? There are hundreds of communities. And I was like, Well, I'm gonna get as far as I can.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think you've already kind of learned part of it. You're only active like all the time on three of the the 15 that are before that these new ones release. And so I think that's a decision that a lot of people have to make when you're growing businesses as well. If you want to make that big of an impact, you have to start trusting other people and and empowering other people to do these things because yeah, you're not gonna be the expert in all those areas, and and you're probably not even the expert in all those ones that are currently available. So it makes sense to be that that guide uh and and provide that mission that inspires other people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I subbed on one of the podcasts this morning um about React Native, which is mobile development with JavaScript. Yeah. And I've never written a line of React Native. And what was funny is that the other expert panelists didn't show up. And so it was just me and the guest. Wow. I'm, you know, I'm kind of I know enough to be dangerous, and so I asked all the right questions. The guest was delighted at the end at how it went. But yeah, you know, it's but it's that kind of thing. I've been doing this long enough and I I'm familiar enough with enough of the technology to be able to have the conversation. You know, I do like having the experts in because sometimes they ask some deep probing questions that I would never dream of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I do that occasionally too, and I'm kind of stepping in on some of the other shows and saying, all right, you know, I'm here, let's, you know, let's make this one run. But yeah, it's and the other thing is, is a lot of these folks, uh, especially over the last uh eight and a half years that um our current shows have been running, a lot of people have kind of made their careers on this on doing the podcasts, and so it pays off for everybody. It's it's really kind of fun to watch how it impacts people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm only this is gonna be my seventh one in, and yeah, having a ridiculous amount of fun and super stressful, even before we jumped on today's heart still racing a little bit and get a little bit excited about how this is gonna go. But it's it's fun and similar to to all of your shows, it's meant to help and empower other people to kind of live their best lives and uh and in the area where I'm able to offer that type of uh expertise, then it's cool to change it up a little bit and have people that have these different unique journeys to come on and share their story too, because you never know like who's listening right now that's gonna hear this and and maybe they're like, oh, I want to become a freelancer or uh or become a podcaster or just the fact that your shows exist for them to go and and have these resources to kind of level themselves up. Um, because again, I I know that this community is just the tech community in general, always hungry for what's new and how to uh continue to learn things and and life is busy. That's kind of the sweet thing about podcasts, is like if if you're working, as long as you're able to focus or do whatever you need to and have this on in your ears or on the way to work, like there's so many different ways this can be digested. I I've been having a lot of fun with it, so I can only imagine how much fun it is for you to kind of be uh puppet master for some of those shows too, just to get them going and then be able to be like, oh yeah, like I wouldn't mind sitting in on these types of things or helping with uh the direction of how those shows can go without having to feel like you had. To be in every single episode. Right.
SPEAKER_00Well, a lot of these shows are on technologies that I am not an expert on. And so I don't bring as much, right? I'd rather have somebody else sit in my seat if that makes sense. So there's definitely that. The other thing that I want to just throw out there, you mentioned there might be somebody out there who's thinking about starting a podcast or becoming a freelancer. And honestly, it's never been easier to do either one than it is now. You know, podcasting has kind of gone more mainstream. I won't say it's mainstream yet, but more mainstream. And the tools are out there that make it a whole lot easier than it was 10, 11 years ago. And the same thing with programming. If you want to become a programmer, there are great tools out there for that. And if you want to go freelance, more and more companies are looking at freelancing as a way to get around certain regulations or restrictions they have for employment. They like the flexibility of, oh, well, we don't have money right now, so we're gonna, you know, they they can just kind of let you go find something else to do for a few months and then bring you back. Yeah, there are a lot of advantages for companies to hire freelancers, and there's no reason why you can't go find even uh a side gig alongside your main job while you figure out where you want to end up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, and just coding and different programming stretches into so many different businesses more and more now because of technologies and everything. Like you never would have thought insurance companies needed uh software engineers and things like that, but uh every everything does because everything's online, everything now has an app. There's there's all this technology built into your vehicles and everything that we use. So well, and the phones we're carrying around with us too, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the other thing is is that the dirty little secret with companies like insurance companies, banks, uh some universities, um, is that they're still running on 30-year-old mainframes.
SPEAKER_01Yep, I've seen it.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm not joking. It yeah, yeah, you're saying you've seen it. I'm sure if you've talked to anybody that does IT for them, you know it. And they're terrified about what happens when that mainframe won't run anymore. And so um they're hiring people like crazy just to get them off the mainframe, yeah, or just to bring them up to current with their online banking and things like that, because it all runs off that backend system. And so, you know, there's a lot of opportunity coming because it they're not building parts for those mainframes anymore. They're not sending updates for it, so they have to maintain them on their own, and it that's a lot of work. And so they're getting to the point where the trade-offs for modernizing are gonna become or they're gonna get to the point where they're they're gonna have to do it if they haven't done it already.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's uh one of the things you mentioned a little bit earlier was just how companies are leaning more and more on contractors, and I think that makes a lot of sense for a couple reasons. When when companies lay off a whole bunch of employees, it's a bad look. Uh, sure, it sometimes helped their their stock, if they're publicly traded, kind of boost it temporarily, but it's not a good look when all of a sudden a company announces they're laying off 3,000 employees. I don't think I've ever read a headline that contractors have been laid off in mass. So I I think that's one benefit, too, that allows growing companies that are unsure about the the work flow in the future to be able to have more of that flexibility and to not take some of that flag too. If if all of a sudden they just cut off a lot of contract work because the work slowed down or something.
SPEAKER_00If you cut off contract work, they just quit paying the contractor. I mean, that's it. Yep. Um, if you lay people off, there's a whole bunch of paperwork you have to file with the state and everything. You you kind of can't avoid people knowing about it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. So thinking and looking between the differences between employee versus freelancing, uh, especially if there's anything programming specific, what's would you say that the couple biggest differences are there?
SPEAKER_00So there are a couple of things um going from an employee to freelancing. One is is that employment, I don't want to say guaranteed, but you kind of know what the trajectory is. I mean, unless they surprisely you off or something, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, you kind of know what the trajectory is and you kind of get to pick your movement, but you don't have to go market to find your next job. As a freelancer, you spend a lot of time looking for that next gig. You know, having a couple people lined up so that if the one that you're working on falls through, you have somewhere else to go. You also tend to want to have a little bit more money in the bank so that you can kind of weather sometimes where you you didn't have something lined up and you've got to kind of you know get through it for a couple of months. But I mean, beyond that, a lot of it's the same. You get a you get to pick your boss, and at least for me as a freelancer, I got to move around a bit more and see a bit more of you know stuff that I could work on. But I mean, other than that, in freelancing, I worked from home a lot more.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I mean, other than that, I was doing mostly the same things for my clients as I was for my employers.
SPEAKER_01Sure. And how is kind of working from home? That's what I do. I kind of work virtually with all my clients. Was it an easy transition for you, or was it something that took a little bit of uh finesse and time just to get used to it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, are you kidding? I get I get way more stuff done at home than I ever did at any office. Yeah, um, and it's it's funny. Somebody walking by your desk and saying quick question is a work productivity killer. So so that was nice. Um, the other thing is is that I actually at one point hired a team to work with me on a um on a project, and so you know, I got to actually find people that I wanted to work with and work with them. So that was a positive thing. Of course, that contract also ended in me threatening to sue my client because he didn't pay me.
SPEAKER_02So wow.
SPEAKER_00So I mean that that is an issue too, you know, collections. If you listen to the freelancer show, it's interesting because at the beginning of the show we were saying just do hourly, you know, and we told people to bill in arrears, which means you bill after you do the work.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um and then about two or three years in, it totally switched, and we were saying, look, bill up front, right? Because collections is a major pain. And so if if you if you withhold the work until they pay you, then you don't put any of your time at risk, and you don't have to go chase them down for the money. Because a lot of times if they don't pay you, most of the time it's just an oversight, but sometimes it's because they're they're strapped for cash. And if they're strapped for cash, you've you've really got to get on their case to get them to pay you.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say, unless you're working on something that's like really impactful and like they need that, you're probably less on the list otherwise to get paid.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, if it's a few thousand dollars, you're probably not gonna sue them before somebody else sues them for a lot more. So so I mean they're they're they're doing all this mental calculus if they're not meeting all their bills, you know, who can we get away with? Well, you know, Chuck is small time, so you know, he probably won't bug us until we have some money to throw at him. So yeah, so just keep that in mind. You know, with employers, typically you just get paid whenever they pay you. I have I have a few friends that haven't been paid by employers, but you also typically have more ironclad legal recourse to get paid, and you'll go in with all the other employees of the company, and so you know, you kind of you you form a suit with you know a whole bunch of plaintiffs, where if you're a uh freelancer, it's usually just you. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's definitely an interesting take. The only the only time I've ever seen or was aware of uh someone working and then not getting paid was back during the recession. I was still working at a community bank back in Illinois, and yeah, it is it was pretty sad. Like the guy would come in and he's like, I don't know what to do. Like they they wrote a check, but they said I can't cash it. And if I try to cash it, he's gonna get a penalty and things like that. So yeah, it's yeah, that's one of the situations where it's probably the equivalent of being a freelance, other than that possibility of the the employees in mass being able to get a little bit more something worked out. But sometimes if a company is just so small and and their owners just don't have anything, like even personal assets, or maybe they're a little bit of a liability company, like there's just nothing there to take from. But yeah, so that's always scary. And and you mentioned probably more important to have emergency savings as a freelancer. I definitely agree. Like when you uh have your own business, uh it makes sense to kind of increase that emergency savings to a pretty sizable amount. But then also even with being just an employee, you mentioned that layoffs can happen. And well, I guess probably some of the times you do know when it's gonna happen. Like you could read the tea leaves or something like that, but sometimes it is a complete shock. So it's always helpful to have kind of that emergency savings at in either situation. But I think it is a more risky venture, right? Being a business owner and a freelancer uh to kind of have a little bit more cushion there because it might be a longer ride than than just going and finding the next consistent paying employee job.
SPEAKER_00But but in software, I mean it's still this way where if you have any kind of programming experience and they lay you off, uh you just call around and find somewhere else to park your car and go do work the next day. It's oh really a really hot market right now, especially for people that have programming experience. New people struggle a little bit getting in sometimes, but and I've written a book on that, by the way. But uh yeah, the the rest of it, you know, if you've been programming for a year or so, you can probably go get a job somewhere else without too much trouble.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, that's perfect. That's a perfect lead into kind of the next thing I had in my mind to ask you. So um I actually know you have a lot of great resources in addition to just the the standalone podcast. Can you mention kind of what those resources are uh briefly? And then uh also if you could give a somewhat newer, maybe I I think I mentioned you I primarily want this podcast to serve uh young professionals and in tech in their 20s and 30s. So uh that could be just kind of the first few years of their career, that could be uh they're making career changes and just entering uh this path. What kind of resources do you have and what would be a couple tips you'd give?
SPEAKER_00Right. So devchat.tv is where all of the shows are hosted. I'm starting to blog again, so you're probably gonna see some stuff come up on there. Um most of it at this point is angled more toward the um how to get your first programming job, or if you're in a programming job you hate how to get a programming job you love. Just because that's what the book is about. But yeah, once you get into your career, I mean, honestly, the best advice I can tell you that there are three things. One is, and it was funny, I was talking to my mom last night, and somebody said basically that the best skill that people can young people can learn these days is to work with other people. And I just laughed because I'd had a conversation with my brother. He's finishing up a computer science degree, and he's like, So what are the things that I'm learning in school that I need to apply? I'm like, he's like, What's the most important thing? And he's like ready to go dive into some technical topic. I looked at him and I said, if you can't work with other people, you can't work anymore as a programmer. I said, So that's the number one thing. You have to be able to work with other people. I mean, you you have to be able to do the job technically, but at the end of the day, they'll train you. Most companies are willing to train you to some degree, but if you can't work with other people, if you won't get along with other people, they won't keep you, even if you're a genius.
SPEAKER_01So that's a good point. Was it always that way? Because I know kind of one of my earlier backgrounds with work, I used to work on a credit union that was on the HP uh campus, and a lot of times there was this uh kind of talk like, oh, they're engineers, uh, just meaning like they're a little bit goofy or they they're not like as social. And then now, since I've launched my new company where I help people in their 20s and 30s, and a lot of them are engineers, I I asked them like, they're they're really outgoing and super different than what I would have expected. And they're like, oh no, like we we always hang out with our team, like even outside of work, and we always go together for lunch and and things like that. And she's like, I think like things just used to be different back then. Did you see that? You're probably kind of the same which generation, I'd imagine, between those kind of opposite ends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, to a certain degree, depending on the complexity of the software, there was still that need to be able to work together. But in a lot of cases, you could get away with building your thing and they build their thing, and then you'd kind of plug them into each other. You can't do that anymore. Uh software's become much more integrated. And so you you ha you may still see companies that are working on like web applications where they have a front-end team and a back end team, but even that's going away. People are getting much more into the land where it's like, look, you kind of have to have your finger in in everything and get along with the people you're working with so that you can make what you're working on work with what they're working on, and you have to you have to do that every week. And so you really do have to get along with other people. The other thing that's changed, and it's interesting because this is more of a social thing, is that entrepreneurship has become much more popular.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so a lot of people are out there wanting to start software as a service companies, um, you know, or you know, build social networks or things like that. And so um a lot more people are willing to go in and be the tech person in a startup because it's it's kind of cool now and it wasn't, you know, 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Well, 20 years ago was the.NET boom, so it was cool then too, but um, you know, 20, 30 years ago, back in the early 90s or you know, in the 80s, it just wasn't as cool because it wasn't as public and you didn't get as much recognition for being a part of those companies. But nowadays you do.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I know one of those benefits, and I and sometimes I think a lot of people jump towards this career path because of the pay. Was the pay always kind of pretty attractive even back then?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, generally it has been. And you know, to to attract top talent, it it really does cost money now. So I think that may change. The market is definitely evolving, and more and more people are coming into programming. And so, you know, it may become a commodity skill at some point, but not at least for the foreseeable future.
SPEAKER_01So when you mention kind of the skill to to activate and work on, it would be being able to work well with others.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01One tangible way that I've seen a local boot camp uh school do is they had an improv class. And to because you had to rely on other people in the the improv improvisation to kind of keep the story going and keep playing along. What tip would you have as far as for people to find that way to work on that skill if they're not already uh in a program and position?
SPEAKER_00So, and this is something I have in my book too. Um, what I encourage people to do is you go to GitHub, that's g-h-u-b.com. Yep. More more and more people have heard of it, but I I'm not making any assumptions about the technical knowledge of your audience one way or the other. Uh, but if you go to GitHub.com, you find an open source project, um, which is just a public project where you can see all the code. Um get in there and go look at the issues. So one of the tabs you can click on is issues and find something in there that's either tagged as newbies or good first issue or something like that, and then go solve that problem. And what'll happen is you're probably gonna go in, you're probably gonna find some solution, you're gonna learn a ton while you do it because a lot of the problems you're gonna solve are things that you've never seen before, whether you've been through a boot camp or a CS degree or anything. Yeah, and then you're gonna get feedback on it, and they're gonna tell you that it's utter crap and that they can't use it, but you know, good effort. Uh this is more what we were looking for. And so then what you do is you take that feedback and you go back and you fix your solution so that it gets closer to what they want. And eventually what'll happen is you'll get a feel for how that group of people works together. And these are people that don't work together for work, they generally have never met each other in person, but and the communication is a little more rocky, I would say, than than what you're gonna get working in an office with a team.
SPEAKER_01Sure, if they're not checking in, like, hey, how's your day going? Or just they're kind of focused on on the details at hand and kind of how to navigate that and then probably a little bit more direct, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't have time to beat around the bush, or they will be very direct. But the flip side of that is is that once you get a couple of uh contributions to that project, what'll happen is A, once they trust you, they'll give you a commit bit. In other words, they'll just say contribute what you want, and we'll just accept it. The uh and and that goes a long way when you're applying for jobs. The other thing is, is if you can deal with people at that level where they're so time and um ability constrained to the point where they are just gonna be direct with you, right? They're they're gonna come in, they're not trying to punch you in the face, but they don't have time to be subtle, so they're just gonna tell you how it is. Um, you know, if if you can deal with that, then you can probably deal with the team going and working with them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's that's awesome advice. And um, yeah, I'd encourage anyone that's kind of struggling or thinking about how how to get your started or to find that next. So does the book kind of cover both how to get started? And then also if maybe someone gotta start, but they like hate their life at where they're working, identify what a good employer would look like for them or a good fit for them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so chapter two or three actually is what's your dream job, and it walks you through okay, you know, where where does the company need to be located, what working conditions do you want to be in, what kind of people do you want to work with, what kind of boss do you want to have, what kind of salary requirements do you have, what kind of benefits do you want? And so uh it just kind of walks you through all those things and helps you figure that stuff out, and then it basically tells you to narrow things down to two uh two or three things that are just critical for you, and then go start meeting people. And this is the second bit of advice that I give people is go on meetup.com, find a user's group that is doing some technology that you're you you that you like that is nearby, and then go and meet people. And then what you can do is you can start talking to people about where they work and see how they line up with what you want. And once you kind of got the two going together, you can also it walks you through doing research on like LinkedIn and Glassdoor and a bunch of other places, you know, where you can get more of that information so you can see which companies line up and which ones don't.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00The ones that don't, they're not bad companies, they're just not a good fit for you. And so once you've got that all figured out, then you can start specifically targeting, okay, um, now who works there and how can I get to meet them?
SPEAKER_01Yep. And so I actually met you on LinkedIn. And do you do you encourage LinkedIn? Um obviously there's a lot of different ways people can do it, but yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_00Usually it's just uh send them a note and hey, can I buy you lunch? Or you know, hey, can I send, you know, if if it's a remote thing, you know what? Um I'll send you an Amazon gift card for ten dollars if you'll sit with down with me for a half hour. It's funny what people will do for you know ten dollars of food or Amazon junk or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, then you get to know them, you you can ask them a bunch of questions, build some rapport, and then you ask them to take your resume to their boss.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Cool. No, that's all really awesome. So as we wrap up, the since this is a personal finance uh show and get into the good stuff, yeah. Personal finance is actually in the name of the show. Here's a common question. I typically end up asking my clients, and I just think it's it's very cool, and it and it reminds people, especially if they have spouses too, like that people have different financial backgrounds, they were brought up differently, and and so the question is what is your first money memory?
SPEAKER_00Oh boy. Um I mean, I remember my parents giving me money at like the little fair that they did at the in the park, you know, and and you know, buying stuff there. Uh, I think the most poignant one, I was like, what, four? Five? I was in kindergarten. So I was in kindergarten. This is a funny story, and I'll try and make it quick because I I have advice for uh finances for freelancers and and small business people, and I think it's important to give that out too. Yeah. But I was five. I was in kindergarten. We were living with my grandparents, and they had bought a brand new Cadillac, right? Uh you know, because my my grandpa he retired from uh Rockwell International. He actually invented a machine that they used to do quality checks on the space shuttle. Whoa. You know, just stuff like that, right? So they they were set up pretty well. So anyway, what what happened was was that uh my parents said it was a nail. I seem to remember it being like a tube of rubber cement or something like that. But I managed to scratch my name into the side of their Cadillac. Oh brand new Cadillac. And uh, you know, of course, they walk out there and they thought somebody had banalized their car because I had I had tried to etch Chuck into the side of the car, but the CH didn't show up too well, so they thought the UCK was the end of another word. Whoa. Right? And so they're like, you know, and then they see my name written on the walls and on the doors, and they're like, Oh, I think that's his name, right? And so they're like, Did you do this? And I'm like, Yeah. And whenever I'd find pennies, I'd put them in this uh apple cider jar. Okay. All my pennies go bye bye. They took my jar of pennies away. It was probably like Ten dollars in pennies, right? Yeah. But I was devastated, right? Because I had to pay to get the car repainted.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00My my dad had to pay to get the car repainted. But you know, all my money.
SPEAKER_01No, that's that's good. And then yeah, as well as respect for property, I'm sure. Cool. So share with us uh the other uh tips that you have too.
SPEAKER_00So uh for personal finance for a lot of this stuff, um I can't recommend highly enough profit first. Yeah. It's funny because I kept running into financial issues, you know, because uh you know it's feast or famine sometimes as a freelancer, and even as a small business owner, and doing profit first has really opened a lot of things up. Um the other thing that I learned is that especially as a freelancer, and also now that I'm doing the podcast, just running all that stuff, I basically have found that I have to consistently keep up on my marketing. So there's certain behaviors in your business that are gonna drive most of your business, and you have to do those, right? So, you know, for for you it might be the podcast, right? Because that may be where you find a lot of your business. For me, it's doing cold outreach through email and then doing follow-ups through other things to uh to get people to get back to me so that they'll buy advertising on the podcast. So, anyway, lots of stuff, you know, step by step that you're gonna have to do. And then the other thing that I've uh so two more things that I've I've found. One is is uh I hired a business coach, and don't be afraid to hire a coach. Some of those are expensive, but they're usually worth it. Um my coach actually has a book called Let Your Business Burn, and he walks you through the process that I he walked me through.
SPEAKER_01Describe that a little bit more because it sounds like that's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00I know, I I was like, I told him that I was like, your title is awful. But you know, it's it's the idea is is you know, you build from a small fire to a big fire. But anyway, okay, um, but yeah, it's a terrible title title, but it's it's a terrific book. Um but yeah, so he walks you through setting up your mission, vision, values, and then you set up your processes for your business. A lot of this is like out of emyth revisited or uh traction by Gina Wickman. Um, you know, so you can find a lot of these other books. But yeah, so you start building these systems and then to plan it all out, I use a system from the book, The 12 week year.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. Naming off a lot of kind of top top hitters for uh business owners and and freelancers. So you found those books to all be very resourceful and and super impactful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but don't just read the books, like actually implement the stuff in them.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, it's it's that kind of thing. So at this point we have processes for everything we do for the podcasts. Um, you know, my the things on my 12-week year this time around are setting things up like social sharing for the podcasts, you know, doing a better job on that. So we're actually writing out new project uh processes and things like that. And uh yeah, so all of that kind of comes together and and and makes for you know working on the business instead of in the business and you know having all of those kinds of things pay off. But the other thing is is just be disciplined, save money for taxes because your employer's not doing it for you anymore.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, but save the money for the taxes, make sure you have an accountant and an attorney you can run things by so you don't get in trouble, know what the rules are, and then yeah, just just do your thing. But yeah, that's it. And then the other thing is is just stick to the stuff that you really love doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yep. And I think a lot of those things too, a lot of the lessons from from those books and some of the other books that I've read, just even though they're for business, a lot of them can tie into how you navigate and structure your personal life too, as far as what your vision for your life looks like. So yeah, you get a lot of benefit, not only for kind of the work inside of your life, but also just how to to step back and rethink about even your personal life and how you're making those decisions as well.
SPEAKER_00Um, you did mention that uh we should put the URL in for the book. Oh, yeah, yep, yeah. Encoderjob.com. Um I am retitling it. I'm getting a new cover done on it. It'll be on Amazon soon-ish. Um I've I've got a team working on that, so yeah. But yeah, that's that's what I'm working on there. And then I'm probably also for people who want to level up with programming, um, I'm working on putting together a mastermind system so that you know people can get together in groups of five to seven, maybe eight, and talk about what they're trying to learn and keep each other accountable and level up together. So those those are things that I'm working on. That one will be at keepcurrentacademy.com.
SPEAKER_01Keepcurrentacademy.com. And is there any way to kind of sign up to be notified when that's released, or would is there something on your your main website where you'll you'll share that?
SPEAKER_00Um the best way to get notified of those things if you go to everywherejs.com or everywhere rb.com. That's gonna those are gonna be the main focuses uh with Ruby or JavaScript. Okay. So that the groups will be kind of under those headers. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Cool. No, that's perfect. I I really appreciate you for joining us today, Charles. Uh, all of your insights are gonna be super helpful for a lot of my listeners, and I really appreciate you taking the time today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me. This was fun.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope Charles' story inspired you. Not even if you're interested in podcasting or becoming a freelancer, but more than anything, just understanding that you truly have limitless potential and opportunity in front of you, that your life can look so much different in just a handful of years if you just start pursuing life and creating a life with more intention, one that you really are enjoying, and you don't have to put up with crappy bosses or crappy careers. It's really up to you as far as how you want to handle your life and really build it to one that you can be excited and passionate about. So, one quick thing, and we already mentioned it a couple times in the episode, is emergency savings. So, one of the takeaways I want to provide you a little bit more depth to that is so common rule of thumb is if you have a dual income household and you're both making roughly about the same amount, you may only need about three months of emergency savings. And so, this is typical employees, this isn't including freelance or being a business owner. If you're a single individual or a household that has uh really just one breadwinner or one spouse that's making the majority of the income, then you may want to start creeping up closer to six months of emergency expenses. And I know you may think that sounds excessive, but if you think back to how crazy the recession was when it occurred in 2008, 2009, there was plenty of people that went six months or even longer without having employment. And so that's why you want to uh have these. It's not because of expenses that you know were gonna occur, it's for really dire emergencies and to keep you from having to undo all of the great financial decisions that you made because you forgot to properly fund an emergency savings account. You'll want to tweak this based on your own personal preference, but that's kind of a starting point. So, again, we talked about freelancing and being a business owner as well, so you would want to increase these greatly, and I guess how you'd want to forecast that, so use these as the baseline, and then adjust that based on your personal preference. But then in addition, if there is a time period where you think that you could go without a contract, think of the worst case scenario. So, what is that three months or six months? That's the amount that you'd want to add on top of that because that's really just assuming normal life and normal kind of business that you could go that long, but if you tie a recession on top of that, then it could be longer. So that's why I want to encourage you to think about the emergency savings and make sure that you have that safety net in place so that you don't run into issues if you don't have proper amounts and you end up doing the worst thing at the wrong time because you're stressing out and you're not thinking rationally. So, with that, hopefully that information was helpful and I encourage you to reach out to Chuck if you think that any of his resources are a good fit for you, especially those podcasts. That's a great way to just keep leveling up in your career and and staying fresh and top of mind on some things. Maybe you're stuck in a certain part of your work right now and and you're not really getting that stimulation you need. I encourage you to check out these podcasts. Thank you for listening to Techie Personal Finance Bootcamp. I invite you to reach out, review, let me know what you want to hear more of. Uh, if there's things you don't like, definitely reach out, let me know. I want to make this the best resource it can be for you. And just like you starting your kind of financial education and internet foundation for you, that's essentially what I'm doing with that. I would say I'm going to go first on the financial aspect, so that's not that much of a concern. But I kind of looked at a way that connects with you and is really meaningful for you to the point of where you don't start sharing it with other people that you think would find value. That's really where I want to get this show. So any way you think I can improve any specific questions, uh, feel free to reach out and I'd be happy to incorporate that into future episodes. And everything I do, whether it's in my business or any of the additional content I produce, is really just to help people take their financial confidence to the next level and just really improve and just live a better quality of life. So catch you next time on Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp.