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SNM241: Saving a Dollar is Easier than Making One With Tiffany Grant

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger

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Jonathan Green: Saving a dollar is a lot easier than making an extra dollar with Tiffany Grant on today's episode. 

Today's episode is brought to you by BuilderAll. They are my favorite all in one solution for your online business. Everything you need to start your online business from landing pages to emails to selling your first products, all without breaking the bank.

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Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you've come to the right place.

Welcome to Serve No Master Podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented Live from a Tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now, here's your host. 

Jonathan Green: Guys. I'm really excited because this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

We often focus so much on how much money we can make. But it's about how much we spend. The richest people I know are always the one looking for the best deals, the free deals. That's why celebrities go to events for free AirPods. They're always trying to save as much as they can. That's a really critical strategy.

So Tiffany, I'd love to know kind of your journey. How did you start getting into this part of the side hustle industry? 

Tiffany Grant: Yeah, sure. So, you know, speaking of saving money, I've always been like a super saver, right? , I've always been the type of person where I love to save money, hate to spend it. So as a 16 year old, I was one of those extreme couponers that you see on tv, like with the shopping cart full of stuff and only paying like $20.

Um, and so that's just how I've always lived my life now. Being that I am very super conscious when it comes to money. Uh, at that time I was always reading the money magazines, Kiplinger Personal Finance, um, listening to podcasts, reading the blogs, and just immersed myself into personal finance. And then I realized that a lot of my family and friends were coming to me for advice.

And I was like, if one person has this question, there's probably hundreds that have these same questions. So I was like, let me put in the World Wide Web and then that's when I started my blog Money Talk with T. So that's kind of how I got into do being in the personal finance field and pretty much just educating people about money.

Jonathan Green: What's really interesting is that we have some very specific focuses, especially in high school education. We've removed a lot of the best stuff. You know, 30, 40, 50 years ago, you could graduate high school, even in the inner city with a certification as a plumber, as an electrician, as, um, someone who can fix cars.

And so right outta high school, you could actually get a high skill job. And we took all that away. There's no more wood shop, no more body shop, no more metal shop, no more home ec. Lot of schools, they've taken away music and people forget. I think this is really important. Home people think of home ec and they think of cooking, but as home economics and a lot of what they taught was had handled the bills, which is the biggest like kick in the teeth when you move in your first apartment outta high school.

Right? You suddenly have to figure out, well, how do I get the power turned on. How do I get the gas turned on? How do I, how do I handle paying for the electricity and the internet and the television? And I remember the first time we were trying to just get internet at my apartment, they were like, oh, you have to get this TV package cuz it's a different price.

And it was like $105 a month and my apartment was like 400. I was like, gosh, this is so expensive. And I used to see these commercials about banking. They go, oh APY and API. And I didn't know what those things meant. So we graduated high school now with almost zero financial literacy. I think probably one in 10 people even know what inflation is, or that the volume of a dollar is continually decreasing over our lifetime.

And for me it's, I remember when stamps were 25 cents, and of course my parents remember when stamps were a penny. And that's one of the biggest indicators for me is that like just sending a letter's gotten so expensive and we don't notice it. So why do you think there's been this, I guess, removal of literacy, especially in underserved communities to where people don't understand anything about money anymore.

Tiffany Grant: Yeah. Honestly, it's all a set up now, . Um, but really it's, it's crazy because for instance, I teach freshman currently at a local university and just like you're saying, they're struggling with all of these different things, you know, I joke and I'm like, You know, learning about parallelograms was super important now that it's parallelogram season, you know,

Um, so it's like a lot of stuff we learned in high school. Now, don't get me wrong, there's value in all types of things, but we learned stuff that don't really help us, um, when we become adults. You know, if we just had a quick budgeting course or a quick tax course or something like that, that we did in high school, that would be very beneficial.

Now, when it comes to underserved communities, um, unfortunately the resources were not available for so long and now we're trying to play catch up. So, you know, I'm out there. There's other people like myself that are trying to educate our community. Um, and when I say our community, I mean the black and brown community because typically that's who listens to me. 

Um, and we're just trying to educate our community now, but it's a lot of years we have to play catch up on. So I feel like, you know, we're making progress, but we still have a long way to go. And going back to your point about, you know, when they took away kind of like the, uh, job skills and trades and things like that.

You know, they sold us the dream that, oh yeah, if you just go to college and, you know, get a degree and everything will be fine and you'll make a lot of money and go to corporate route, and so on and so forth. But what people don't realize is that people in trades make a lot of money too.

I was talking to a guy that was installing my appliances when I first moved in this house and he was like, I have a paid off house. I have a paid off car. He was like, I make like two, $3,000 a week and this is what I do. He said, I graduated with GED, not even a high school diploma. You know, all types of things. So I feel like if people coming up knew that there were other options available versus just going to college and actually diving into those, um, you know, careers or talking to people like I tell my freshman all the time, have informational interviews. So if it's something that you see, something somebody doing and you think is interesting, just ask them about their job. People like talking about themselves, you know, uh, just so you can figure out what it is that they do.

So I think the more exposure we have as well. Um, cuz I know even locally there's only one school that dives into trades in high school. And fortunately I had the privilege of going to that school, um, for half a day. Um, cause I was trying to do culinary, but that's a whole other story. Um, but there, if it is available, it's so few and far between, like that's the only school in my entire district that offers something like that.

So I think having more widespread financial literacy in the classrooms and then also having more trades available just so people can explore and see what they really like. I think that would really help us as a society and as a community. 

Jonathan Green: Do you think there's been this shift where we look down on these types of professions, we look down on mechanics, like I feel like everyone thinks mechanics are dumb.

Everyone thinks plumbers are dumb. And it's like, have you ever had a leak and had to call a plumber? Then you get that bill is there for 15 minutes and it's a couple hundred bucks. That's, I wanna be on the other side of that bill. But I think there has been this shift and I wonder where it comes from, where we look down on these jobs that are amazing.

I remember one of my friends in England, he was an apprentice for fixing water heaters, and he was like just rubbing his hands together with how rich he was gonna be, because in England they had more water heaters than they had repairmen. So it's never a lack of work. Like every single house has at least one toilet.

There's always a need for plumbers there always need for electricians, and there are these really great jobs that are high skill, like being an electrician is really dangerous. Electricity is very dangerous. Being a plumber is very dangerous. There's a lot of skill involved, but I think there's this look down on them, it's inter we, we have this massive side hustle culture and everyone's talking about, side hustles and there's tons on this.

There's hundreds of my write about all the time, but no one ever talks about side hustle, learn to weld. The richest people I know are underwater welders. That's the highest paid profession I've ever run into because there's only about a hundred of them in the whole world. You know, scuba diving in the new welding, they're working on oil rigs, they're working on bridges, and you can name your price.

They have the nicest houses. They live anywhere they want in the world, and they work like two months a year. Because it's a two high skilled professions, you have to be a super high skilled diver and a super highly skilled welder. And yet I think most of us look down at welders. And I wonder why. That's what I wonder, cuz.

I can't weld, I can't paint. I've tried to paint a blank wall once and it looked terrible. My friend used to build houses and he was dying laughing. He goes, I've never seen that before. He goes, it's just white and the wall had no paint on it, but it looks terrible. It's us, but we have this, I think it's a mindset thing.

That's what I'm really interested in, is why we don't respect these professions that are kind of the foundation of our culture in society. 

Tiffany Grant: Yeah, absolutely. So actually that same guy I was talking to that was coming in and putting in my appliances and stuff, he actually told me a story. He said, you know, sometimes he goes to these houses and people are like, see that's why you're doing what you're doing, cuz you have all those tattoos and you know, cuz he was full of tattoos.

But he um, they were like, that's why you can't get a job. You just do this and this, that and the other. And then that's when he made the point low. You know, your house is probably not paid off in minus, you know, so it's like, I don't know. Well, I do know because we started putting emphasis on being at a desk versus being, you know, doing the quote unquote dirty work, you know?

So I feel like that's where everything kind of went south. Cuz if you look back in like the fifties and stuff, people were doing trades, you know, people were doing apprenticeships. Things like that. But there was this shift for everybody to go to college and everybody to go to desk route. And then that kind of changed our whole perception.

Um, I've been with an electrician before and when I say they make a ton of money, and it is like, for him, it was second nature because he, his dad was an electrician, so he grew up around it. He kind of learned from his dad and he was making a ton of money, so, I feel like the people that are in these positions, if they would start also taking people under their wing, um, or just going for instance, um, putting together a career fair with this, uh, local organization that I'm with, and we want it to be non-traditional careers. So like the electricians, the plumbers, the exterminators, for instance. Um, nobody thinks about these things to go into, um, their career with so, Just bringing more awareness and letting these kids that are coming up know that you don't have to go to college, you don't have to go the whole desk job, nine to five route.

There are other options available. I think having those discussions more would, you know, help people get more into those careers, and then the people that are already there taking on mentor, um, mentees and being mentors and just showing them like, Hey, you know, it's not this, it's not that bad. Just twist this and, you know, do whatever.

And I just made $200. Um, like I told the guy that was in here doing my appliances, I said, shoot, where do I sign up? Throw me a hammer, throw me a, a screwdriver, whatever. Um, I'll go out there and do appliances cuz I, I had no idea. That he was making that much. And I think that's also another thing too. We have no idea what these people are really making.

I mean, maybe me and you do because we talk to them, but most people don't. You know, they come in, they do a service and then they leave. You know, nobody's having these conversations. So yeah, , I think those are some of the things that we need to think about. 

Jonathan Green: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think everyone thinks plumbers make minimum wage, but everyone.

When they talk about a plumber came to their house, they talk about how much it costed. It's very, and I guess they think the money just goes into the ether when they pay the person. Like, oh, I guess he does one fix a week. But that's, there's a lot about that. All you need is a van, a set of tools, a certification, and you own your own business.

And there's a lot of as you know, and especially in underserved communities, people are not starting their own businesses very much cuz they think it's unattainable. You know, I, I come from the age where if you wanted to start a business, you make a business plan, go to the bank and ask for $25,000. Like that was the format and who they gonna give that money to?

Almost nobody, certainly not me when I was younger. Nobody. 20, doesn't matter what you look like and certainly. It gets harder and harder, I'm sure in different communities, but it's not that way anymore. If you wanna start an online business, you really just need about $20 to my website. You can get going and there's a lot of opportunities and I think that's what I really try to get people aware of is that there are a lot of different ways of building a business.

My brother-in-law, amazing architect, really good at making stuff at home, building all these amazing wooden toys with those kids. I was like, if you would just film this, just throw it on YouTube and put out plans. Tire business model, right? And someone else does that now and they're doing seven or eight figures a month, just selling plans on how to do homemade toys and making videos, and it's amazing what you can do.

If you're good at anything, there's this belief, I think that you need to be good at a lot of things to succeed in life. But far as I know, you just need to be really good at one thing. And whether it's plumber, electrician, a trade, um, you know I know one of my friends is a NASCAR mechanic. He's doing very nicely now that my, one of my friends is an oil rig electrician. 

That's a, you think you forget there's other jobs on oil rig. He, well, north of six figures. His house is nice. When I went to his house, I was like, whoa, you're blowing the doors off of my lifestyle. And we have this misbelief. I think that's the thing that I wanna break through is this misbelief and these, I guess the way we think, like we look down on certain professions and other countries, they don't, you know, in America we really look down on teachers. We don't see them as teachers always asking for too much money, they should get paid less, not more. And it's very interesting cuz you go to other countries, they lived in Japan for a long time. Teachers are revered, they're considered most respected people in society. So in addition to the salary, you get a lot of respect.

Whereas we don't have that. Maybe that's why we don't have as many people that wanna be teachers anymore because we've said all these bad things about it. So I really appreciate you spending time with me today cuz this is something that I think is really important, especially for parents to think about their kids like I don't know if my kids said he wanted, my older son's always said he wants to be a fixer, and I'm like, that's great. 

You always, there's always work. Guess what? There's always stuff breaking. Always. It's a Please Economy up, economy down. People still need you. You know, there's all these businesses that are kind of recession proof, so that gets me excited.

So I think this is really amazing and I appreciate you spending some time with me. Where can people learn more from you, hear more about what you're doing and kind of connect with you online? 

Tiffany Grant: Yeah, sure. I just wanna add one point. I tell people all the time, it doesn't matter what you like to do, there's someone out there willing to pay you for it.

So just keep that in mind, um, with whatever it is your endeavor is. Now you can find me, um, at MoneyTalkwitht.com. My podcast is Money Talk with Tiff and you can find me at Money Talk with T on all social media platforms. And when I say all, I mean all because it's a slight addiction. Um, but yeah, you can find me at Money Talk with T.

Jonathan Green: That's amazing. Thank you so much for being here today. 

Tiffany Grant: All right. Thank you so much for having me. It was my pleasure. 

Jonathan Green: Thanks for listening to today's episode. Making that first dollar online doesn't have to be daunting. I've got you covered. Get my free guide on how to make your first thousand dollars online right now at servemaster.com/1k.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Serve No Master Podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next week with more tips and tactics on how to escape the rat race. Please take a moment to leave a review at servenomaster.com/iTunes. It helps the show grow and more listeners means more content for you.

Thanks again and we'll see you next week.