Next Level University

#1659 - The 3 Things To Track To Level Up Your Money

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Managing money can seem scary, but it’s essential for everyone who wants to be financially secure. In this episode, Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about how easy it is to keep track of three money-related numbers daily. This simple approach can help you build up a lot of wealth over time. They also discuss how, sometimes, doing things that feel uncomfortable in the short term can lead to big rewards in the future. It’s all about making intelligent, simple choices today that will help you tomorrow.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Dreamliner - https://a.co/d/f1FWAQA
Next Level Monthly Meet-up - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
Next Level Group Coaching - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
Group14 starts on April 9th, 2024; Discount Code for NLGC (30% off): NLULISTENER

______________________

NLU is more than just a podcast; we have many more resources to help you achieve your goals and dreams.

For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com

_______________________

Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - ​​https://bit.ly/3xffver
Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
Next Level Monthly Meet-up:  https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/

_______________________

We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email.

Instagram 📷
Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

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Show notes:
(2:40) Kevin’s hypothesis
(6:02) Origin story
(8:57) Financial tracking and expense management
(10:32) Finacial tool
(12:16) Meet like-minded people and jumpstart your journey to achieving your dreams while optimizing your life. Join Next Level Group Coaching. https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/group-coaching/
(14:12) Financial Intelligence
(16:19) Awareness

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

🎙️ Hosted by Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Next Level University is a top-ranked daily podcast for dream chasers and self-improvement lovers. With over 2,100 episodes, we help you level up in life, love, health, and wealth one day at a time. Subscribe for real, honest, no-fluff growth every single day.

Speaker 1

Next Level Nation. Welcome back to another episode of Next Level University, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode, episode number 1,658,. Going Backwards Might Be Going Forward Today for episode number 1,659, the three things to track to level up your money. Three things to track to level up your money.

Speaker 1

As human beings, I'll speak for myself as this human being, kevin, I like things that are simple and if you told me five years ago I'm going to give you something and if you track this thing every day, you will become the most financially free version of yourself over the next five to seven years, I probably would say let me take a look at it and let's do it.

Speaker 1

But if it was something that took me three hours a day to do, I don't know if I would have done it every day Transparently. I don't know, I probably wouldn't have. Maybe I would have gotten to the place where the promise of financial freedom eventually it didn't outweigh the pain of me doing it now. But if you said honestly, it'll take you 15 minutes a day and I guarantee it'll pay off if you do it for long enough, that's a promise I'm more likely to follow through with. So Go ahead, you go ahead, you sure. Yeah, you come firing and I can always you take the deep breath. Ah no, yeah, you're good, I was going to kick it to you anyway.

Speaker 2

Kev, do you remember when you said, Alan, if you were to give someone $10 million at the end of 10 years, and you said they had to work 12 hours a day and they can't? Miss they wouldn't do it.

Speaker 1

You remember that I said yeah, many people wouldn't do it. That's my belief. Many people wouldn't do it, yeah.

Speaker 2

Okay, so I tested that theory because I'm a scientist, so I tested your hypothesis in book club yeah, you were right, and I did only three hours and it was like, oh, Too long? Holy crap, yeah, too long it's too long Three hours a day and then they ask follow-up questions of like well, do I really hate the three hours.

Speaker 1

It sucks. Yeah, it would suck.

Speaker 2

Yeah, okay, so the three hours would suck. Ten years, you can't miss a day, but $10 million guaranteed at the end. And a lot of people are like, nah, I wouldn't do it. Oh my God, okay, fair. Now what's my point of that? This tool, this tool? People think I'm asking a hypothetical question. Maybe they don't. I'm asking myself.

Speaker 1

No, that's what I was laughing, so we recorded three episodes back to back to back and you forgot what your train of thought was in the first two episodes, and I've never seen you do that as often as you're doing that right now. It's not good. Yeah, no pressure, no shame I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying it from that perspective, but I thought it's a good point.

Speaker 2

What does that mean? The rut row.

Speaker 1

What was your sleep score last night? What are you rocking a sleep score right now?

Speaker 2

I don't know, I'm gonna I'm gonna guess. Okay.

Speaker 1

I can tell you're 79, I think.

Speaker 2

I don't think you're in the 80s. Come on, man.

Speaker 1

Yeah, no, you're not sharp today, no offense.

Speaker 2

Whoa, with love, with love, it's okay. Is this how other people feel around me.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is how I feel around you all the time, really. No, I don't have feelings around you, I'm great.

Speaker 2

What are you rocking?

Speaker 1

For your sleep score. Yeah, you first.

Speaker 2

This episode is sponsored by Oro Ring it is not.

Speaker 1

It is not 81. 81. I'm also rocking an 81. I'm also dude. I'm back to back.

Speaker 2

I back to back. I can't talk. I have had back to backs. I haven't had a break, man. I haven't had a break man. I haven't had a break from the moment that I hit the Zoom, the microphone. I haven't had a break since I hit the microphone and you know what it is, kev, I need a little time in between these episodes. You got me doing back-to-back-to-backs here. We don't even have a five-minute break.

Speaker 1

I was going to say if by I got you doing them back-to-back, you were 11 minutes late to the meeting, so you got yourself doing the back-to-back. Son, that's a fair assessment. As the producer of this show, I got to make sure we're on a tight time schedule.

Speaker 2

The kid needs five minutes to when the talent is late.

Speaker 1

We have to it's called clear the calculator.

Speaker 2

After last episode, I need five minutes to clear the calculator so I can get back into flow. You're out here ruining my system. I've been doing it this way for 1637 years, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now you're throwing an audible at me and expecting me to hit a home run.

Speaker 1

No, no, any hit, just put, just hit, just connect. You don't even have to get on base, just swing the bat is all I'm asking.

Speaker 2

All right, so the origin story of where this all happened, where this all happened, where this all originated. Wow, is you mentioned that if someone came to you and said, hey, you can be financially free if you use this one tool, you would take a look?

Speaker 1

I'd take a look for sure.

Speaker 2

yeah, I have a tool that will help everyone become more financially free. I'm not saying you're going to be a multimillionaire or billionaire or anything crazy. I'm saying you're going to be more financially free than you are right now and I'm certain of that. I can promise you that because I've done this with my clients, my clients, and this is the origin story. Brandon shout out on the NLU team. He and his beautiful girlfriend Hannah do relationship talks, coaching with Emilia and I.

Speaker 2

Emilia has this really intense, wonderful spreadsheet of the three buckets that we've done in past episodes. I don't know what episode number, but we talked about how the three buckets for finances are survive. These are the expenses to survive, these are the expenses to live, to go live a little and then to thrive. Thrive would be investment in self, live a little would be, I don't know, pizza, and survive would be keeping the heat on Lights and heat Okay, shelter, food, that kind of thing. Now Brandon and Hannah got approached by a financial advisor in their town and they showed them this spreadsheet Because usually and, kev, this might not have happened to you, maybe it did, I don't know but when I was early in corporate, I had a lot of financial advisors reaching out to me because when you have a big career ahead of you, you're a big prospect for them, because they can help you. When you make a lot of money, they want to help you. Invest the money. Let me ask you a question?

Speaker 1

Yeah, man, you think there has. There has ever in the history of Kevin Palmieri been a financial advisor that seeked me out and then messaged me as my chair breaks. That has never happened to me. Where would they even locate, like where?

Speaker 2

would they have found me?

Speaker 1

I didn't have a LinkedIn until four years ago. That's a fair assessment.

Speaker 2

I didn't know what LinkedIn was until Mark.

Speaker 1

Metri told me to get on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2

Very unique.

Speaker 1

That has never happened to me.

Speaker 2

Quick little side tangent listeners. Everyone, I think, is either more professionally developed or more personally developed. Kevin was personal development.

Speaker 1

Financial advisors knocking down my door.

Speaker 2

No, I don't know, you made good money, man. Nobody knew about me.

Speaker 1

Okay, nobody knew about me, I was out here crawling through asbestos-ridden attics Nobody, there was no With dead birds and rats and stuff, birds and all the insects and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 2

My goodness, okay. So anyways, I had a financial advisor approach me back in my early corporate days and Brandon and Hannah shout out to them they're doing so well, they just got engaged, they're actually getting a house, they put an offer on a house, they have an engagement party and a wedding to plan. I mean, they're just flourishing beyond no reason. It's been quite amazing, honestly, to see them. And then Hannah their career GM, her own pet store, type of thing, awesome, okay, my point of all that is, this intense spreadsheet impressed the financial advisors so much that they offered Brandon a job, which, hello, no, nlu. What are you doing? Trying to take our best people, random person, I don't know right, I will fight you. Kidding. So I'll have kevin, fight you.

Speaker 1

I can't be catching any cases.

Speaker 2

You know what I mean, yeah, fair, anyways, no one's taking brandon, you know what I'm saying, but he's the most loyal. So he was. He was like no, but anyways, the point I'm making about this whole thing is that brandon and hannah started tracking finances and everything since then has gone up. They know exactly how much they're going to spend on the engagement party, they know how much they're going to spend on the wedding, they know how much they're going to offer on the house and what house and all that kind of stuff. So for the listener and I've done this with many of my clients what I tried to do is create the simplest possible but most powerful financial tool there is. And it's this simple. Okay, and I use a metaphor for it. Kevin kind of laughs because he, when I say Roman aqueducts, he's like you're a nerd. But whatever.

Speaker 1

I've never once said that how dare you All right.

Speaker 2

What do you say? I just laugh. What do?

Speaker 1

you say in your head oh man, I can't say it on here, why not Like it's?

Speaker 2

mean no, it's not.

Speaker 1

I usually think like In your head, you call me a nerd, that's fine, no, no, it's just like that's a Jeff thing. Yeah, so that's a Jeff thing.

Speaker 2

The aqueduct yeah, yeah that's a Jeff thing, all right. So in Rome, back in the day, when in Rome, they took the water down from the mountains and they created these aqueducts that brought them to the fruit, and I think that's a really cool metaphor. So, anyways, all right, you have money coming in, water coming down from the mountain, you have a pool of water available and then you have the pool of water contributing to all the different types of fruit, strawberries and blueberries, and farmland and rice and all that kind of stuff. Okay, to make this make sense financially, there's three columns in this spreadsheet. Column one is total in, so Kev.

Speaker 2

Let's say you, this is hypothetical numbers, these are not real. Let's say, kevin, kevin Palmieri, let's say he brings in $5,000 this month. Okay, for him, personal income, so gross income, that's before taxes, before health insurance, before anything gets taken out, before FICA, before all this stuff. Okay, five thousand. Okay, so that column. Let's say he gets paid yesterday and let's say yesterday was the date, so date. And then gross in, awesome. And then the pool is the amount in his bank account, also known as cash on hand, which means, let's say he puts the $5,000, they take out taxes and all kinds of stuff, health insurance. Blah, blah blah and he ends up with $3,800. $3,800 goes in your bank account and let's say you already had $1,000 in there. Now you have $4,800 in there, all right. So, column one I made $5,000. Column two I have. What did I say $4,800?

Speaker 1

$4,800. $4,800 plus $1,000.

Speaker 2

Okay, so the water down from the mountains $5,000.

Speaker 2

The pool $4,800. And then where is he going to put it? And the last column is expenses. So we have this spreadsheet. We can give it to you for free. Reach out to me, alan at nextleveluniversecom.

Speaker 2

I'm complexifying it, I'm sorry, my metaphors and all that. Here's my point. It's super simple and I have my clients doing this how much money are you making, how much money is in your bank account and how much money is going out? That's it Each day. Each day, you made a hundred bucks dog sitting boom. Add it plus $100. Okay. Now that $100 goes in your bank account. Let's say you have $3,500 in your bank account boom, okay. Now you spent $50 on pizza boom. So it would be $100, $3,500, $50. And then you have notes section, which is hey, reminder to self spend less money on pizza, make sure you dog sit an extra half hour next week, or whatever. And again, all it is is a daily tracker.

Speaker 2

If you want to get your finances in order, you really need to know three things when are you getting money from, how much is in your bank account and where's it going. How much is in your bank account and where is it going? Most people only care about how much is in their bank account, which I understand. But how much is in your bank account is predicated on how much is coming in and how much is going out, all right. So how much is coming in, how much do you have, and how much is going out every single day? Can you imagine how much smarter and more intelligently you would do finance and how much more financially free you would be over time? Now it's a big mirror at first, because you're going to have to look at okay, I don't need all right, I've got Max and I've got.

Speaker 2

Netflix and I've got Amazon Prime and I've got Prime Video and I've got also YouTube TV. It's like, oh okay, I'm really wasting a lot of money here and that's fair. You don't need all of those Hulu and blah, blah, blah. So for me, I had Disney+, I had Maxcom, I had YouTube Premium, I had Netflix and I had Hulu. At one point this is reckless. So I decided let me get smart, I'm going to cancel Disney+ that was hard cancel Max Netflix I share with Mother and I cancel Hulu. Now I just rent movies on YouTube. So instead of spending $30 a month on all that, or $40 or whatever it was, I just do I don't know $3.99 every couple of weeks $200 a month on movies.

Speaker 2

I do $2.99 or $ $399 a couple times a week, Instead of $30 a month.

Speaker 1

I buy 62 movies a month for $3 a piece.

Speaker 2

And sometimes I actually buy the movie because I re-watch them. No, but it is cheaper mathematically, and so that's it, that's all I've got, brother.

Speaker 1

This is my new statement when it comes to stuff like this If it sounds too simple, do it for a few months and see what happens. Because if you're saying, well, that sounds too simple, then just go do it consistently and see what happens, because if that's the reason because I might have said, alan, that sounds too simple there's no way this is possibly going to make that big of a difference.

Speaker 2

Okay, you when I first met, you didn't track anything.

Speaker 1

I tracked my weight and I tracked my calories.

Speaker 2

Okay, you didn't track anything financially, definitely not. No, okay, all right. At one point Kev came to me. He's like dude, I don't get it. I'm making $9,000 a month and I don't have any money. You're making only $3,500 and you have all this money. What's going on here? Then we started having you track and we figured out got it. Kevin's really good at earning money, also really good at spending money. Okay, why should someone? As someone who never used to track, because I'm a numbers guy- no one's going to trust me.

Speaker 1

I love spreadsheets. I'm not the guy. It's because it's an awareness thing. The reason I didn't have the results that I desired is because I wasn't aware of how to get them, and awareness starts with tracking things that you can control first, and then it goes okay. Now I know I'm making $5,000 a month, no-transcript, okay. Well, what are? Are there a couple? There's probably a couple things I could do to make a little bit more money. Like I could get a little side hustle or they've been offering me this promotion at work and I keep turning it down because I don't know if I'm ready for the responsibility. But it would be a nice little pay raise. All right, let me, let me look into that. And then it's do I really need this? Well, I could probably get rid of that. Oh my God, I'm still paying for that gym membership. This is a really good example.

Speaker 1

You and I were talking the other day. Did you can it? I canned it. Yeah, yeah, oh nice. We were talking the other day and I was like hey, remember how I used to pay for? So I used to pay for a gym called Crunch, because Crunch has locations all over the place, and when Alan and I would travel, there'd be two of us and it's like $20, $10, $15, $20 for a day pass, depending on where you are. So I just kept paying for it. I think it's like 26 bucks a month. So I would just pay for the membership when we travel together. Technically, we'd be saving money if we travel together enough. We don't travel together anymore and we very rarely travel. So I mentioned this to Alan. I said I've been yeah, probably about three years I've been paying for that at least. And he said you've been paying $27 or $29 a month for the last three years.

Speaker 1

I said yeah definitely During the time of you being CFO. Yes, well, and again it's deeper. We had talks about it and there's a lot of things that fall through the cracks.

Speaker 1

But Brandon and I went to the gym when he came for Next Level Live and I went to the gym when he came for Next Level Live. We worked out and then on the way out I was like, ah, gotta cancel, I don't live around here anymore. Did they make you pay for the day pass? Yeah, because evidently my membership doesn't have that anymore. So just another reason to cancel. Okay, yeah, see, look at Alan. Did you have to pay the 10? Did you have to pay for the 10 as well? Yes, I did have to pay for the 10, unfortunately, which was weird.

Speaker 2

I would have shield bumped for that, for sure.

Speaker 1

I didn't care, because I knew I was going to get the last laugh on the way out. I'm going to work out and then I'm going to cancel my membership with you, fellows.

Speaker 2

But that's a Every dollar counts, man.

Speaker 1

Every dollar counts 100%, 100%. But if you don't track them, you don't know. And that's the ultimate example of that is that was something we were paying for for a long period of time and we were talking about cutting expenses. Let's be smart. It doesn't mean you have to go eat off the dollar menu every night. Dollar menu doesn't even exist anymore. It's not a real thing, but it once was where you could get meals that was a great time, wasn't it?

Speaker 1

Yeah, you could get things for a dollar. Maybe that's not where you're at, but you might be at a place where you're thinking to yourself it doesn't bring me the value that I'm paying for it. If you have Disney Plus and it's 10 bucks a month, there's two ways to look at it. It's only 10 bucks a month or I quite literally never use it. It's not worth it. Is the amount of money going out worth what you're getting back from that thing? And here's another really good way to think about it.

Speaker 1

If you were to think I make $30 an hour and something costs you $30 a month, is it worth an hour's worth of your effort? And realistically, you're not getting that whole $30 because of taxes and everything. But that's something I used to do when I, when I was making really good money, say I was on a job and I was making $75 an hour and we'd go out that night, I would think to myself is this worth an hour of tomorrow? Would I exchange an hour that I am going to work tomorrow for what I'm about to purchase? And usually I said yes and did dumb shit for what I'm about to purchase? And usually I said yes and did dumb shit.

Speaker 2

So yeah, fire, I have so much things to talk about, but I'm not allowed to talk about the global economy.

Speaker 1

One thing.

Speaker 2

I would mention, very briefly though, about the global economy or just in general, we have a global audience.

Speaker 2

I want to make sure I share this. Okay, go ahead. Currencies are different in every country, so there's euros and there's the US dollar, there's the Canadian dollar, there's all different ones, and so, look, you need to understand. So one thing we never share, but we talk about health, wealth and love, so we should talk about this. When you say $75 an hour in the US, that doesn't go as far as it goes elsewhere, and I think it's important to understand that. So I would look up wherever you live, look up the minimum wage and benchmark everything based off that, because there are some places where minimum wage is $0.90.

Speaker 1

For US dollars $0.90.

Speaker 2

Our minimum wage where we live, Kev, massachusetts. Well, for you it's New Hampshire, so I think it's lower. I think it's $13. I think I could be wrong, but it's important information. So in massachusetts, 15 an hour is the minimum wage, but it doesn't. You can't stretch a dollar in massachusetts nearly as far. So it's all relative and that's another episode that I think maybe we'll do at some point. But just remember that when kevin says 75 bucks an hour, that's completely different. Yes, based on wherever you live. I mean, even I was looking at Emilie and I in the very, very, very, very far future, I have a client in New Zealand and we are already contemplating and strategizing about how to get a home on the ocean in New Zealand, and their dollar isn't worth nearly as much as the US dollar.

Speaker 2

And so she does real estate and home staging, and I'm already talking about what we were looking at and what are we thinking. It's way more affordable than I thought, based on the exchange rate, but anyways, so just wanted to mention that.

Speaker 1

Just a little gentle mention of the global economy. No biggie, Just throwing it in there. But yes, it was 75 US dollars, which does not equate to 75 of your currency most likely.

Speaker 2

I think we need to just keep in mind the global audience, economy and economy. Yeah, of course I'm just kidding?

Speaker 1

I think so as well. I appreciate that, because sometimes you and I are talking to each other and sometimes it's just conversation and we don't always elaborate as much as we could. I try to picture a room a room.

Speaker 2

We average a certain amount of listens per day. I picture us in a room on a stage talking to each other and there's, you know, a thousand individuals, a lot in canada, a lot in the us, a lot in the philippines, a lot in fiji, because we're on the top charts in Fiji, all over the world. I try to imagine a global room in my imagination.

Speaker 1

More so lately.

Speaker 2

I wasn't always good at that.

Speaker 1

Room is something we were gently joking about at the Airbnb. Yeah, what do I say? Rum Room.

Speaker 2

No, you say room. What is it? Room Room? Yeah, Amy L will get a kick out of that. Yeah, that'll be fun.

Speaker 1

All right, we got to go because you have a call.

Speaker 2

Good sir, with aim by the way, with aim. I don't want you to be late. Sorry, I'm late, amy.

Speaker 1

No, you're going to be on time, I'm going to make it happen. If you have not yet got your Dreamliner for Q, we'll have the link in the show notes and group coaching starts. Another round starts on April 9th. So if you are ready to level up your wealth we talk a lot about that we talk about health, we talk about relationships, talk about all things NLU. So if you're feeling the longing for that and you're ready for some evolution, click the link in the show notes, enter discount code NLU listener. It doesn't matter if it's all uppercase or lowercase and you'll get a 30% discount. So it's very, very affordable.

Speaker 1

I don't know what episode we're doing tomorrow because we haven't chosen it yet, but now we are going to get our S together and from now on we'll know the episode because we're going to get our S together. That is my commitment to everyone. Back in the producer chair. Not that I ever left, but my time was all over the place. The producer chair that doesn't work. It doesn't work. Yeah, I need a new one. Maybe I'll get my name on it, kev. You know, producer Kev.

Speaker 2

Producer Kev.

Speaker 1

As always we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we do not.

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host