Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Starting a Business and Exposing Money Myths | Fiona Smith - Founder of Millennial Money Woman

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Lessons - Starting a Business and Exposing Money Myths | Fiona Smith - Founder of Millennial Money Woman · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  What would you recommend for somebody who lets assume that somebody wants to start their
• 0:15
  own business to reinvest in themselves?
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  You said, okay, you have frugal living tips, but is that the best way is it to save money
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  first or is it just to start investing, start a side hustle?
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  First of all, is mindset locked in?
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  What do they do next to build their own thing?
• 0:37
  Perfect.
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  Great question, Scott.
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  So, I think before even thinking about money at all, for me at least, what worked well
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  was finding a mentor.
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  For me, my mentor helped, he was probably like six decades older than me.
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  Very well seasoned, executive, I was very fortunate to meet him and he taught me some of the
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  basic steps that I would need to work and focus on in order to build a successful business
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  down the road.
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  So that includes looking at finances, but not just finances.
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  Figuring out how to interact with prospects, figuring out how to hold myself in conversations
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  in the boardroom, whatever it is.
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  So I think finding a mentor in your area, whatever it is, if it's a blog, if it's actually
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  building a brick and mortar business, find a mentor who's willing to give you the time
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  and help you literally jump ahead of the rest of the game because I personally think that
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  mentors are the ultimate shortcut in life.
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  They can give you so much advice and help you save time, energy, and money.
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  So that's number one.
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  And then number two, when it comes to money, yes, so I would probably recommend starting
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  off at paying off high interest debt, so like credit card debt, right?
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  So I mean, definitely don't live with high interest debt.
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  The second thing then is yes, focusing on investing in the stock market, for example, I'm
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  a big believer in just investing in low-cost index funds.
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  So very passive, yes, I do know a lot more stock market terminology, but for my own personal
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  purposes, I just do a dollar cost averaging strategy, which is automatic.
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  It's a set amount of money over a very long period of time for me.
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  It's going to be like four, five, six decades down the road, investing and sticking to that
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  strategy.
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  That's my ultimate plan.
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  But I think it even boils down to simpler terms.
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  It's just quite simply spend less than you earn.
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  And I think, you know, it becoming a millionaire or a hundred thousandaire, whatever the goal
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  is in your personal life, it really just comes down to spend less than you earn.
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  It's that simple and anything that, oh, go ahead.
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  And now I was going to say, where do people spend and waste the most money?
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  Oh, yes.
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  I think number one is cars, especially newer cars.
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  I'm just going like, oh, just thinking, oh, maybe, yeah, she's not wrong.
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  I mean, yes, cars are, I mean, I myself, actually, I love cars.
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  I'm a big car geek.
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  I love everything about cars, especially racing, all of that type of stuff.
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  So I'm definitely into that, but I do know that if you want to focus on building your wealth,
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  especially in the long term, it's probably not a good idea to spend money on depreciating
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  assets.
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  Now, I know not all cars are depreciating assets.
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  I know that there are some luxury cars out there that probably appreciate, but it probably
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  takes a couple hundred thousand to buy them.
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  So, yes, not the average Toyota, that's right.
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  So definitely stay away from brand new cars.
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  I think they depreciate the second you drive them off the parking car law, actually.
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  So stay away from that.
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  The second thing that I see a lot of people overspend money on is actually subscription
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  services.
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  If you look through your budget and take a look at how much recurring money that comes
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  off of your credit card, for example, so we're talking Spotify, Netflix, any other subscription
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  service, it actually adds up over the long term.
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  And what I like to do is add up your subscription services over one month.
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  So let's say it costs you 30 bucks for all of your subscription services.
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  Okay.
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  Multiply that over a year, right?
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  So that's 360.
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  And then multiply that by 10 years.
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  That's 3,600 bucks.
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  Right?
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  So if you look at it in the long term, what could you do with 3,600 bucks?
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  Like, a lot of different things.
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  So again, it's all about looking in the long term and it will change your life.
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  You're sort of like living, you know, you eat your own dogs, you're living all the things
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  that you teach over entrepreneurship.
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  But now let's go into the millennial portion.
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  You've owned your own home since 23.
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  These are all smart things.
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  So okay, let's start it off, millennial money myths.
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  What are some?
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  All right.
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  Let's go for it.
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  So it's actually say the number one millennial money myths I've heard over and over again
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  is that to be successful in America, you have to own a home.
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  And I know it's really funny coming from a home owner, but honestly, I'm going to be,
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  you know, totally honest about it.
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  It is not all what it's out to be.
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  It's really not.
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  Home ownership might not be right for you.
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  And that's totally fine.
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  Like, you do not need to own a, you know, $300,000 or whatever it is at home in order to
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  be considered, you know, you've made it.
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  And honestly, it's because of liquidity, you know, again, the house isn't necessarily
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  liquid like a bank account.
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  You have super high initial costs, right?
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  You talk about a preferably at least 20% down payment of your home.
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  You got inspectors fees, not to mention all of the maintenance and the repair work that
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  has to be done.
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  Like, I have an air conditioner that's about to go yesterday.
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  We had a pretty bad thunderstorm actually.
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  So I was really worried.
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  I turned it off.
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  I'm like, no, please don't hit my air conditioner.
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  The plumbing, I mean, I have plumbing issues too.
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  So I went through probably a couple of hours on YouTube myself, you know, try to save
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  money, figure out plumbing issues, which is not a good site.
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  So no, it's not always, you know, amazing and you do not need a house apartment lifestyle
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  or condo lifestyle or whatever it is that you want is definitely okay if that's what works
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  for your lifestyle.
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  So that's number one, you don't need a house to be successful.
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  Number two, an excuse I often hear is that I don't earn enough money in order to invest
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  today and I'll do it tomorrow.
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  So that is, I think, honestly, like I said, it's an excuse.
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  And the real reason behind it is because thanks to modern technology like investment platforms
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  such as M1 Finance, you got a corn, so you got, I think Robin Hood, you got stash, you
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  know, the list goes on.
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  There's something called fractional investing.
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  And what fractional investing is is that you don't need $3,000 to buy one share in Amazon.
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  You literally can have five bucks and you can already be a fractional owner of Amazon
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  and also in Apple, et cetera, et cetera.
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  So no, you don't need hundreds or thousands of dollars to start investing.
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  You can literally start with five bucks and I'm pretty sure everyone can do that.
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  So no marks uses there.
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  And the third one that I hear very often is, honestly, it's about life insurance.
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  I hear that life insurance is a total waste of money.
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  And I get it because I think that life insurance has gotten a pretty bad rap over the last
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  couple of years because of, you know, sleazy life insurance salesmen.
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  They try to push their products on you in exchange for pretty nice commissions.
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  And typically speaking though, there are two types of life insurance products.
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  There's one called a term life insurance product, which is like the simplest, the cheapest
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  form of life insurance.
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  And it's often recommended for millennials.
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  And then there's something called a cash value life insurance.
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  And that's kind of like an umbrella terminology, which covers whole life insurance universal
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  life.
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  The list goes on and on.
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  And what's a cash value life insurance product?
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  That's typically what's pushed onto millennials.
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  Those are expensive.
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  Those are permanent.
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  And typically speaking, they don't match a millennial lifestyle.
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  So anyway, long story short, life insurance isn't always a waste of money.
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  If you have a family, if you have people depending on you for income, if you have a big liability,
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  like a mortgage and you have a spouse, for example, that might need your help down the road.
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  A term life insurance policy could actually help.
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  You can get half a million dollars, a million dollars of death benefit for 30 bucks a month.
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  You know, it's not that bad.
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  So that's the last myth that I hear very often.
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  Yeah.