ATG 25: Introducing New Friend Friday!

In this very special episode, Joel and Matt from the How to Money Podcast join me for the first-ever New Friend Friday. Joel & Matt are financial experts, craft beer enthusiasts, and real-life best friends. They know that figuring out your finances can be an intimidating goal, so they're joining me to answer 5 questions that will help you jumpstart financial goals with peace of mind. Whether you want to start investing, pay off debt, or save up for a killer vacation, start with this episode for some great practical tips and resources that will get you moving in the right direction.

Book list mentioned in this episode:
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins
The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Jay Papasan
The Behavioral Investor by Daniel Crosby
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Transcript

Jon Acuff: 0:09

Hey, this Jon Acuff, welcome to the podcast. I can't wait for today's episode. It's gonna be really, really fun, really, really fast. It's two Atlanta-based friends Joel Larsgaard and Matthew Altmix. They're the co-hosts of How to Money. How to Money is an amazing podcast that was created in 2018. And the podcast helps people gain personal financial knowledge in a fun and interesting way. Skills include debt payoff, DIY investing, money tricks for rich living on less money, and the podcast has absolutely blown up. I think people love that it's unbiased, it's jargon free. It's real money advice, and they've got 20 million downloads since they started. I love to talk about goals on this podcast. Obviously the podcast is called All It Takes is a Goal. So I thought it'd be fun to do our first real money episode. To have two good friends jump in and say "hey, here's some smart things you can do with your money. Here's how to money." So today's episode is gonna be a blast. But first, today's episode is sponsored by Medi-Share. Have y u guys ever had buyer's remor e? You know that feeling f intense regret because the thi g you thought you just had to ha e was only something used once o twice? For me it was the time bought a really expensive road ike because I thought I was oing to get into cycling. I roceeded to hang it on the wall n my garage and feel ashamed or six months. Well, I know som of you are experiencing bu er's remorse right now for some hing much more frustrating. You know what I'm talking about. It' the healthcare you rushed to get during open enrollme t last December. Well, I have so e good news for you. You've p obably heard me talking about o r main sponsor for this podcas, Medi-Share. And these guys h ve the answer to healthcare uyer's remorse. Check this out, members of Medi-Share save up to 50% or more per mont on their health care costs. T ey say the typical family saves up to $500 per month. And here s the best part, you can become member at any time. So that mea s it isn't too late to ditch y ur buyer's remorse and switc to a more affordable health car that will save you money a d help you sleep better at nig t. If this is your first ime you're hearing about Medi Share, it is the best alternat ve to health insurance that llows you to share the burd n of medical bills, offers acc ss to 900,000 plus health care providers, and has a prove 25 year track record. Plus in addition to saving hundreds per month, as a member of Me i-Share, you will also h ve access to free telehe lth and free telecounseling. Yo won't find that with any t aditional health insurance p ovider. Guys, it only takes t o minutes to see how much y u could save. Go investigate hat for yourself and your fa ily at Medi-Share.com/Jon. That s Medi-Share.com/Jon. Rem mber Jon doesn't have an H in t. So it's a M-E-D-I, that's Med, share, S-H-A-R-E dot com slas Alright, so the concept, guys, f today's episode is very simpl J-O-N.. We call it New Friend Frida. It's a chance for me to conne t with new people and share n w information with my audienc. The concept is simple fi e questions on a Friday for 5 minutes with new friends. o Matt and Joel, thanks f r joining me toda

Joel Larsgaard: 3:07

Dude. Thanks for having us. We're glad to be here

Matt Altmix: 3:09

Yeah, we appreciate it.

Jon Acuff: 3:10

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. We have Atlanta in common. I teased you about Nashville versus Atlanta, because I feel like most of Atlanta now lives in Nashville. But I spent some time in Alpharetta. So I love that we've got some overlap in our southern roots, so to speak.

Joel Larsgaard: 3:24

Absolutely.

Matt Altmix: 3:25

That's right. We're staying here until there's nobody left man. Like even if they all moved to Nashville, I'm stayin' put.

Jon Acuff: 3:30

Nice. You heard it here. You heard it here first. So guys, I want to start question number one. What is the worst, most common money advice that you run into? Oh, gosh, that

Matt Altmix: 3:41

There are so many bad ones Jon. It's so hard to pinpoint one thing. But I guess like the thing that most people hear overall is that they should start investing. And I think we've seen this trend right now of people investing before they know what they're doing. They're investing in made up cryptocurrencies, right before they start investing

Joel Larsgaard: 4:03

Joke, meme coins.

Matt Altmix: 4:05

Right, like the most basic way as possible before they even start putting money into their tax advantaged accounts like a 401k or an IRA. They're like on the Robinhood app, and they're tossing, you know, all their spare cash into things that are highly volatile, that they don't really know much about. And so I think investing is a good thing. But I think right now, the current environment in which we're talking about investing, is it's fraught with a lot of perils for a lot of individual investors. And not to mention, so we've seen the rise of Robinhood. Right? And I think at this point, they have somewhere between 15 and 20 million users. They saw a 6 million increase in the number of folks that join their platforms in two months earlier this year. And so that tells you something about the number of folks who are looking to cash in.

Joel Larsgaard: 4:47

Get rich quick.

Matt Altmix: 4:48

They're joining that casino like kind of mentality that's going on when it comes to single stock investing jumping on the cryptocurrencies. Before, they had basic things in place like an emergency fund before they're taking advantage of tax advantage accounts just like Joel mentioned, especially the ones that have a match at work.

Jon Acuff: 5:04

Do you think that an this is question number two,

Matt Altmix: 5:04

Absolutely. I mean, that's the power of a narrative, need to transition properly. D you think that sometimes whe right? People love stories. They like hearing folks win. And in something's successful, we lis en to the story of the success, ut don't ever ask about all he work that went behind it? nd that's part of you know, ou hear "so and so made X amoun particular, when it comes to their money, they see something of dollars on investing, I nee to invest" and there s no background, it's just "I'm going to throw my money at this and they think, "Well, I can do that, like that, that took nothing for them." They don't see You know, for some individuals like the Warren Buffett's and Charlie Munger's of the world, they don't see the decade's worth of research that goes into successfully investing their money, and doing it over not only years, but decades, right. And so when we've seen the markets rebound, like we've seen since last March, it looks easy. And when when folks are winning with their money, everybody thinks that they can replicate that. But unfortunately, I mean, I'm not going to predict any, any downturns in the market. But at some point, that's going to happen. And I'm a little concerned as to the kind of effect that's going to have on some of these newer investors.

Jon Acuff: 6:13

100%. This is my third question. Transitioning. Is passive income a myth? I love that you guys talk about that. And I want to hear your thoughts. Because I think there's a lot of people on a podcast about goals that might say, "Okay, I've got a goal, to have a side hustle. I've got a goal, to try something. I want to be kind of a tiny bit of entrepreneur spirit. Like, and I keep hearing about passive income. And it's they just bring dump trucks of money to your driveway while you sleep. And I want that money." So is passive income a myth?

Joel Larsgaard: 6:43

So I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here. Because I do think there is a reality to the idea of passive income. And it is something that you can, with hard work and time actually begin to have in your life. But it is one of the things that does take both of those ingredients, I think. And so whether it's stock investing, you know, whether it's investing in index funds, in your 401k, or in your IRA, like doing that work over 30 years, the goal is that you have passive income that you don't have to work once you hit your 50s or 60s, right. And, you know, with the FIRE movement, maybe even a little bit earlier than that. Your 30s and 40s. And so that idea can become

Matt Altmix: 7:18

Thirties and forties. a reality. It's just one of those things, that does take time, a lot of intentionality, and a lot of sacrifice. Because to get to that point in time, you're gonna have to spend a lot less than you earn. And you're gonna have to be socking that money away. And I think, you know, something like real estate is another area of investing where it gets talked about in this way, like, well, yeah, get your get your passive investment game on and buy some real estate. But there's work involved in that, too. Matt, and I each own a few properties. And you know, we have to find tenants, we have to, you know, make repairs. And there are all sorts of things that go into owning a property. Granted, I'm glad. Like, it's been a good return for us. Like, I'm thankful to be a real estate investor. But at the same time, it's not as easy or as simple as just passive income. Like there, yeah, there's other things at play.

Jon Acuff: 8:05

Now, you mentioned the FIRE movement. For somebody who hasn't heard of that, define it and I want to hear Matt and Joel's opinion of the FIRE movement, because it's massive online. Like it's gigantic online.

Matt Altmix: 8:16

It's massive, and it continues to grow. Right. So FIRE is financial independence, retire early. And so it's a movement. And essentially, it's no different than the, you know, the traditional idea of retirement where you work, you invest your money, and then you have that money to fund your lifestyle to pay the bills. Except for obviously, the biggest difference is it's retire early. It's the ability to do that on a truncated time schedule. So yeah, I mean, it's something that Joel and I that we are both pursuing. I think, unfortunately, a lot of times, we know folks in the space that have become too obsessed with the idea of financial independence. And because of that, what they've done is they've pushed a lot of things to the side in their life. Whether that's their health, whether that's their family, other important relationships. And when you're so focused on something like your number, you know, your number, like everybody knows, or not everybody, but a lot of folks who are in the FIRE movement know that once they achieve this magical number, that that's when they can quit their job. That's when they can shift gears, you know, spend time on the beach, whatever it is that they want to do, it's up to the individual. But when you purely focus on the number, you're sacrificing a lot along the way. And unfortunately, we've seen some folks kind of get to that point. And then they realize that, gosh, like what is their left,

Joel Larsgaard: 9:30

There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,

Matt Altmix: 9:31

There's no pot of gold, they don't find fulfillment. And there's a lot of individuals who have gone back to work because maybe they even put too much of their self worth, too much of their identity, in their work. And you know, we're big fans of work. But you got to find that balance between striving for independence while also finding ways to bring value to other people.

Joel Larsgaard: 9:48

Yeah, I think those first two letters are the best two letters, the financial independence part right and the retire early we're less enthused about. I think if it's running away from work, if it's this attempt to, like live as frugally as possible now so that you can eventually, you know, quit work and live as frugally as possible, because that's kind of what's required. For most people when it comes to FIRE, I think that's that's not a good thing. Like we want people to enjoy their work or to pursue something that they love in the here and now. And if it means not being able to invest as much, that's okay. Because, yeah, life's not all about quitting work at the age of 35, or 40. And there are some merits to I think there's a lot of things that people can learn from the FIRE movement. There are a lot of really smart people in it, but at the same time, yeah, it can be sometimes reactionary. If you're pursuing it for that reason. It's not a great thing.

Jon Acuff: 10:30

Yeah, I guess I don't want a life I need to escape from

Joel Larsgaard: 10:33

Right. Yeah.

Jon Acuff: 10:34

I love the work I do. I love that there's, I'm sure, retirement at some point in the future. But I also know if I was 40, and I was done, I don't know that it's reasonable to think you'd spend 20 years hustling really working hard, and then when you get to the number, you're going to be a completely different person. And now you're like, Joe, Relax. Like, I think you've just taught yourself to sprint for 20 years.

Joel Larsgaard: 10:57

Yeah.

Jon Acuff: 10:58

That's a tough transition to "And now I live in Key West and I have a cat and this is my cat. And I write poems about my cat."

Joel Larsgaard: 11:05

It could be multiple cats too. Let's be honest.

Jon Acuff: 11:07

I think a lot of cats, I think you go real heavy into cats, I think you

Matt Altmix: 11:11

That's what you do with your time.

Jon Acuff: 11:13

Like if you've taught yourself to be aggressively motivated and hustling, you don't turn that off with a switch. I mean, like you said, it's not, it's not the balance. And the other thing is missing your family for the number. Like you have one shot at their childhood. Like you don't get to repeat that. I've never met somebody's kid who said, "Yeah, I didn't know my dad growing up, but I have a really cool bike. And so like, it's front suspension and rear. So it's at the end and works out." And so I think, I think you're right, I think it's, there's some great things, but there's also balance. I'm curious, question number four, what are the four books about money you'd put on your Mount Rushmore of financial advice. So I'm a listener of this podcast, money's one of my goals, I want to kind of, you know, figure out some things. You guys have to pick four books that are on the Mount Rushmore of financial advice, who you're putting up there?

Joel Larsgaard: 11:59

Alright, the first one I would recommend is The Richest an in Babylon. This is a super old school book. And it's been a minute honestly, since I've, since I've read it. I mean, it's written in terrible form. And the lessons that he's able to weave into these stories, you know, based on like ancient Greece, are timeless. And so he explains these principles behind, I mean, at the end of the day, it's, it's spending less than you make and making sure that you're using that money to put towards essentially buying more money that will earn you more money down the road. It's essentially finding ways to invest and making sure that you're not solely dependent on your ability to work into labor, to provide for yourself, and so yeah, I'll put that one out there as my personal number one. Okay, I'll go to number two here. I think that another really important book in the repertoire is The Simple Path to Wealth. Matt and I are all about simplicity. I think the financial services industry wants to make you think that money is really, really difficult, and that you can't do it by yourself. And like investing is super complicated. And a lot of that is is just bunk, like it's just not true. And there's a lot of really smart DIY investors. It doesn't take just this massive amount of knowledge or someone holding your hand that charges you massive fees to figure it out. And so simplicity is a huge part, a huge theme in our show. And so yeah, that's that's one of my favorite books by J.L. Collins The Simple Path to Wealth. Matt, your third one?

Matt Altmix: 13:26

Yeah. So I'll continue the investing theme. And I'm kind of torn between like The Millionaire Real Estate Investor. I think that one's by, like one of the Keller, Keller Williams guys. That one was really important to me early on, just to understand real estate and essentially how to approach. So hopefully, I think I'm going to about to spout out two of them here. Joel, you still get a second one.

Jon Acuff: 13:46

Giving me a bit of a two-face, kinda?

Joel Larsgaard: 13:50

Gosh. For me, that one allowed me to see that when you invest in real estate, you don't do it to collect properties. You're not a collector, you're an investor. And so what that means is making sure that you're looking at the numbers, because at the end of the day, it's less about how you feel about it. And it's more about the actual business of real estate. And so kind of related to that one, though, it also has to do with investing, but The Behavioral Investor by Daniel Crosby, I just thought was so good. He just attacks head on the fact that when it comes to investing, it's not about the numbers. And so this is sort of the two-faced answer that you're alluding to. Because you can know all the nuts and bolts, you can know how individual retirement accounts work. You can understand all the things that you're supposed to do. But if you don't do them, and if you're not taking the actions to ensure that you are doing the smart things, well, it doesn't matter. You can have all the knowledge in the world. If you're not acting on it, you're not gonna get anywhere.

Jon Acuff: 14:44

I'm just gonna say that's when people ever tell me something is common sense, I always say "Well, are you doing it?" And if they say no, then that's the most amazing thing in the world you've ever heard. We all know, "Okay, doing sit-ups is better than not doing sit-ups, but you shouldn't go,"That's just common sense" if you're not doing sit-ups. So I completely agree with that. I cut you off. What's book number four? I really like five-ish.

Joel Larsgaard: 15:04

Yeah, no. Book number number four, five is The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. And so much of how we interact with our money has all these, like, there's all these ingrained patterns that leftover from childhood, or, you know, conversations we've had with our spouse, or the friends we've surrounded ourselves with. We have this idea or this vision of money and how hard or easy it is to make money. And I think, you know, a lot of those biases come into play with a lot of our spending decisions. Our brains get in the way. And so Morgan Housel does a great job in his book, The Psychology of Money, really kind of pinpointing some of those things to help you change, but also to he's a really good storyteller. So it's less just like nuts and bolts, like, do I have to, you know, learn interest rates and compounding rate of returns. He does a great job of telling these really great stories that help drive home the point.

Jon Acuff: 15:56

I love it. I've only I have The Richest Man in Babylon, but I hadn't heard of those other ones. So that's a, that's a great list that I think is going to be helpful to a lot of people. And we're already at question number five, which is why this is so fun, and so fast. So I want to shift for a second your podcast How to Money is blowing up. We'll certainly link to it in the show notes. 20 million downloads since 2018, which is crazy. And I talk about goals a lot in this podcast, it's right there in the name. That's a huge goal you've accomplished and you're continuing to build, continuing to grow it. What were the steps that helped you the most. Maybe I'm listening to this and I'm going, "Oh, wow, these guys clearly have a passion for this. They clearly have spent a lot of time building expertise. And I want to do a podcast too. Or I want to do a book too." Like, what were the steps that helped you the most?

Joel Larsgaard: 16:40

I would say the number one thing, consistency.

Jon Acuff: 16:43

People hate that word. I was afraid you were I was hoping you were gonna say "A magic thing I bought on the internet from a genie."

Joel Larsgaard: 16:50

Pure talent.

Jon Acuff: 16:51

Pure talent. I just showed up and I was handsome. It all worked out.

Matt Altmix: 16:55

No, I mean this and this is something I'll credit Joel with. So early on, we had the ideas to, you know, to create this podcast. Anytime we got together. I mean, anyway, we're sitting down cracking open a craft beer. Every episode on our show, we have a craft beer because it's for us. It's a way to symbolize that we're not sacrificing too much. Now we're enjoying life a little bit right now. It's not all about deprivation. Right?

Jon Acuff: 17:18

How did you come up with that? Did you do it once and you're like, "Wait, this was dope." And then you started to do it again? I think so. I mean, we just really like beer, man. We did like that craft beer.

Matt Altmix: 17:26

That's what we did before we started creating the podcast was we would talk about money and have beer. And so it was just this natural, natural, natural thing. It's like let's translate it to audio.

Jon Acuff: 17:34

How many of those have been hazy IPAs in the last six months?

Matt Altmix: 17:36

Oh, shut up! Way too many. 80% of them at this point.

Jon Acuff: 17:40

Do you feel like we have enough hazy IPAs?

Matt Altmix: 17:42

No.

Joel Larsgaard: 17:43

They're so good!

Matt Altmix: 17:45

You're up there in Nashville, you've got plenty of great breweries who are making those as well.

Jon Acuff: 17:48

It's not great up here. We don't have Total Wine, Total Beer and Wine like you guys have in Atlanta. You guys have massive Walmart, like beer selections. We have seven beers available.

Joel Larsgaard: 17:57

Move on down the water's nice.

Matt Altmix: 17:59

But, so I want to continue that thought, though. So early on. I mean, we created a few of those episodes, Joel and I, we sat down, we had a conversation and I credit Joel with this. And he said, "You know what? Like, we need to make sure that we're consistent. That way, if we're actually going to give this thing a chance, we need to be consistent. We need to look like that we are being serious about this. It needs to look like that we're serious enough about this, that listeners will want to listen." And I would have been content with just like, "Yeah, that maybe let's record one, then maybe in a couple weeks, we'll record another one." And early on we're like, okay, let's let's stick with a once a week. And you know, so that's how we started early on. You know, I think you were like, yeah, we don't want to be bush league, you know.

Joel Larsgaard: 18:34

Triple A, that was kind of our mindset. Like, let's be triple A, let's be good. Let's be professionals about this. Like, we don't have to knock it out of the park, have the fanciest microphones. But yeah, we did need to be consistent, and we needed to be solid. And I think like, yeah, one of the other major things for us was listen to the feedback that we're getting, like some of those early reviews, especially the one stars, were the most helpful and helping us like hone what we wanted to do.

Jon Acuff: 18:55

Oh, you guys read them?

Matt Altmix: 18:56

Dude, so they tell you not to read the reviews. But early on. I mean, we were willing to, yeah, to face the crowds

Joel Larsgaard: 19:03

The one star reviews now are just incredibly different, right? Like they they do, they do bum me out. But they're, they're less, I think constructive. Like they're more just like, "Really don't like these guys not gonna listen again." And I'm like, that's okay. Like, there are people that our show's not for.

Matt Altmix: 19:17

Not your jam.

Joel Larsgaard: 19:18

Yeah. But early on, it was like, "Man, if these guys will just do this, this and this, this show would actually not suck." And so like I tried to learn from those things. It was certainly like there's either don't look at them at all, or let them completely ruin your day. But then there's also actually there's really important bits, there was a lot of change that we made to the podcast early on, when some of those reviews came in, that made it way better.

Matt Altmix: 19:40

Yeah, we suck less now.

Jon Acuff: 19:42

I'll write that down. So I took consistency, craft brew and suck less. Suck less. A lot of business books don't tell you that.

Joel Larsgaard: 19:50

Yeah, it's that's that's key. That's key.

Jon Acuff: 19:52

Reading the reviews. You're so right. I think especially if it's constructive. If it's "I hate your hair." This is the hair I have. Like this Is my head. It's like a 2008 youth minister. I can't, it's what I got going. But if it's constructive, and they say, "I wish they talked about this, or they talked too much over the guests" like, yeah, that's, that's a good point. I did do that. So these are awesome, guys. You know, the last kind of bonus question is, where can people find out more about you? We'll definitely link to the podcast, How to Money. But if people are saying "Okay, I'm interested in Joel and Matt" like, where do they go?

Joel Larsgaard: 20:26

So yeah, just HowToMoney.com. We got a website. We have articles up there too and all of our episodes, but yeah, you can listen to us, wherever you're listening to this podcast, check it out. We'd love to have you in the How to Money community. We also have like a Facebook group, people can join. They're helping each other out too, which is one of the cool parts to see our listeners, like really jump in and take care of one another in their money questions.

Jon Acuff: 20:48

Great, great. And last thing I wanted to give you kudos, congrats on iHeartMedia. That's been huge. Like, I don't want to miss that as an accomplishment that you built up something awesome and they came in and said, "Hey, we love what you're doing." So kudos on that. It's always great to be connected to a big brand like iHeart.

Joel Larsgaard: 21:07

Thanks, man.

Matt Altmix: 21:08

Yeah, they've been they've been incredible to work with us for sure. They've been good to us.

Jon Acuff: 21:11

Perfect. Perfect. Well, guys, thanks for joining me today. Can't wait to share this episode with folks. And remember, all it takes is a goal. I'll see you next week. This episode of the podcast was brought to you by Medi-Share. Text JON, J-O-N to 474747 for more information. Huge thank you to Medi-Share for sponsoring it. J-O-N to 474747.

Producer: 21:44

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.o tune in next week for another episode of the All it takes is a goal podcast