Actor Finance: Start With the End in Mind, Pay Yourself First, and Invest in Yourself (Joe Laux’s Top Ten)

live my mic this is the Dearing acting studio podcast and mornings with matt where we discuss the connection between life and acting what a track to wake up to in the morning good morning everybody welcome to mornings with matt the Dearing acting studio morning podcast pretty stoked for today joey yeah here we got a little trip down memory lane well let's just put it this way you're not the only joe on the show today dang that i mean those are big shoes to fill joes are joes are typically pretty cool guys you know what in my experience joes have become some of my best friends in the entire world wow yeah wow and and as as good looking as you are joey i would like to introduce our guest today uh one of the best looking human beings on the planet mr Joe Laux i still have the music going for some reason there we go yay how many sound effects can i play hello joe how are you joe's so Joe Laux is a very good friend of mine from college and he's also um a financial planner extraordinaire so i believe joe's in this place right now where he's like because i'm a financial planner i'm not sure i'm allowed to laugh like i'm not sure if that's are you trying to stay quiet for the kids what's going on are we are we too early here no no no we're good we're good ready to rock no he's on he's on like beach vacay vibes over there no see i think what's happened is joe's already made a lot of money this morning he's just been over there just like making money and so he's like i i'm busy making money man what am i gonna do joe joe what's up dude how was uh how's life for you life has been pretty good it's been a pretty all that it's just kind of crazy yeah and i know i know that you are in the middle of of finances with people and and you're a um you're a wealth manager so you're somebody who really takes people under your wing and they trust you and they they they uh you know so so all the feels that all the people are feeling i'm sure they bring your way right now because you've got their you've got their finances so that's a lot of uh a lot of additional pressure i'm sure imagine that people have a little bit of emotion about money yeah so uh so yeah wow what what an interesting time so i wanted to bring joe on actually onto the show specifically because of his financial um prowess and i know a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs or at least you should be considering yourself to be an entrepreneur because if you are an actor if you're an artist of any kind you are an entrepreneur it means you run your own business and so you need to figure out what to do with money um when you're successful but i would say ideally the best thing to do would be to figure out what to do with your money before you have money actually and start the right habits in place would you agree with that joe absolutely i think having that end in mind whether it be for an investment goal savings goal or just how you run your own practice and and then i say practice meaning even as an actor it's a practice it's a business yeah yeah we can kind of dig into that a little bit you know one of my favorite things and and we we sat down as a family with joe and and one of my favorite things that you said to us was it was something like it was it was this shocking statement i'm gonna i'm gonna miss it here a little bit but the idea was um essentially our goals were our goals right it was like you know if you want to if you want to buy the thing or you want to do this or that like i'm not saying not to actually as your wealth advisor i'm telling you you actually should do those things that you want to do i just want to set you up in such a way to protect you and also get you to those goals is that right absolutely i i think that you know so much of the old saying of the keeping up with the joneses happens all the time i've got physicians that make a lot of money and they're so worried about what's going on next to their their buddy in the surgery room and then i've got people that are not making a lot of money that actually are the best savers on the planet so i think that it's got nothing to do with how much you make i think your goals are your goals and i think having those in mind then you're not trying to keep up with other people and that's a that's a huge thing that i'm constantly battling with of this image that people try to portray with money and it's just it's sad to see yeah so i know you've had a lot of success in this in this arena and i'm very proud of you by the way as my buddy um but uh but joe's been very successful because he's helped a lot of people with their goals and with their with their finances so do me a favor joe if let's say we're going to sit down with somebody new um what what does that conversation look like when you ask them about them because i i felt like that was the main thing that that i felt um really connected to you was when you even though you knew me you sat me down with my wife and you and you helped us evaluate our situation our family and and really asked us some of the like deeper questions that i think maybe we hadn't asked ourselves yet so what does that process look like when when you sit down with somebody thank you brian for or is that joey is i was really really trying to keep like i don't have a way to mute my microphone over here just go like this just hold it up be like i'm about to open my mic actually bubble water okay good all right so uh yeah so what does that process look like let's say you're going to sit down with somebody like i don't know joey who's uh who's another another joe a really good looking kid obviously you can see we both have short hair and i don't know joe this is gonna blow your mind joey sweeney is single he's single can you believe this i mean this is a segment so crazy this is a segment they do on the show i i actually it blows my mind that joey is single he's he's one of the best looking people on the planet other than you joe who's taken so it's like this joe's taken this joe's available and i mean the dimples coming out of this kid are just unbelievable so so let's set this kid up here for some some wealth management and and the idea being like you know because because obviously the girls are gonna be lining up so so obviously yeah so so when they do we just need to protect joey from from all all those women that are just just knocking down the door uh but for real no i'm just i'm kind of kidding there but but when you when you sit down with somebody what would you you know what what are some of those like deep questions you want to ask to help us get to to laying down a foundation of good habits well you know i think that like like we started off with everybody's kind of in their own spot and so usually what i'm trying to figure out is what are they trying to accomplish you know what is their end in mind is it retirement because quite frankly anybody can retire today it just may be for 12 seconds you know i don't know and it kind of depends on what they're trying to accomplish whether it be for family goals personal goals or whatever the like so i think that starting with where are you trying to get to is every part of the conversation and then from there you kind of back into it is it kind of what have you done up to now and what are the pitfalls what are the good things you've done pros cons and just kind of get a foundation of where their understanding is and what they know about so a lot of what i do is education you know i think our industry unfortunately is fraught with a lot of sales people if you will and i think that that's the problem is that if they come in with if whether it's an advisor or a sales person they're coming in with their their mindset then that's not going to help whereas if you come in with what like you said what's going on for joey or what's going on for matt and Leeann or what's going on for brian it it really depends on them and it's their own goal and that's all that matters i remember i had a couple that came people that like to go on cruises a lot and that was their thing and so when it came to what are your goals and they said well we like to go on cruises and they came in for the part of the the meeting where it was a recommendations and they were just i could tell that one of the individuals was very anxious and i was like let's just pause what's going on and he goes well i'm just afraid you're going to tell us we can't go on cruises anymore and i said no that was what you told me was your goal i put that right into the plan and it's just like you know if if that's what you want that's your thing and so we got to back into those goals and i think that that's what's the most pressing and let me tell you how good Joe Laux is here over at Silverhawk so he took that that idea and he said those guys own six cruise lines now just everybody else very good okay so joey uh or joey joe um i know it's tough it's joseph joe joey you you go by all of them so does this one so he's gonna have to be today he's gonna have to be joey you're gonna have to be joe all right okay so so joe um i i did want to just rewind here a bit and go back down memory lane because you and i i believe had for me one of my most epic fails but also something i'm the most proud of you know exactly what i'm talking about can i say it oh sure go ahead bray i was gonna put you on okay okay all right all right here we go we're just i'm super excited about do it baby do it go do i have permission go yeah go ice cream boys and we had to say it that way because we decided to do ice cream boys with a z with a z so that was that i don't either i don't either it was a little bit of tupac i think um all i know is i just wanted ice cream all the time and you would drive up in that in the ice cream van and i was like yes this is like matt matt drove an ice cream van yes you don't even know this story okay no yes they did oh we can't see your phone on that i can't see it dang there's the shirt he's got the shirt oh my gosh i remember those and i have one says ice cream boys matt i had one before Leeann purged it out of my house um i remember the shirt and you told me a little bit but uh i was sad i was like babe where's my where's my shirt where's where's my ice cream boy shirt she's like i that should have been a non-negotiable not to throw out i thought it was i thought it was known because i wore it all the time actually that's probably that's my problem yours is still in mint condition i i started using mine to like no no no no to be clear i have like five so i've got one that's got no sleeves it's for like painting and then i've got one that's like for yard work and stuff and then you know so they all have their purpose and they're and they're and they hung up alphabetically ordered too probably in your closet so yeah so we start this business okay joe and i we have this idea and so here's this i here's the entrepreneurship we're in college we got this great idea we're like okay what do college kids need snacks we're gonna we're gonna start up this business ice cream boys we're gonna we're gonna sell ice cream and other goodies that we all like from our childhood to the college kids brilliant idea truthfully joe if we if we knew what we know now and we actually went backwards and tried to start that we would probably be the next ben and jerry actually um because it's not a terrible idea i'd say we'd be more like one of the food trucks that's on tv now because there weren't food trucks back then that was kind of the thing right yeah right exactly but but we're also like you have to you have to imagine you and i were going to expand i mean we're going to go global we were going to find it i mean our product is going to be at every store you guys were going on shark tank 100 percent yeah shark tank didn't didn't exist if it did we would be like and the sharks would be like so it's just an ice cream truck right and we're like yeah yeah yeah i mean right now so what do you want the hundred million for uh so we can feed our friends and then kevin would be like all right let me tell you a story i'm out you're gonna take this business behind the barn and you're gonna shoot it that's pretty much pretty much what happened the one thing i know for sure though is that joe would have known the numbers because i i think i would have shown up and they've been like well what are you know what's this business worth and what's all that and joe off the top of his head would have known the number i would have been like i don't know it makes people happy so here's a problem right so so joey or brian or whoever right we're we're in college and whatnot and we don't have a lot of money usually so what happened is we started selling to our own friends but it turns out our friends didn't have a whole lot of money all the time so we would just give it to them it turned out we had like a real negative business like we're we would buy stuff and then give it away which is nice charity i guess for college kids but it uh it didn't turn into a great business i don't think we capitalized on the charitable deduction there i think that uh we more cannibalized the business oh that was great that was great we cannibalized it i get what he did there we ate it up i'll tell you i was very happy that you allowed uh people to do that because i was one of those people what was your favorite what was your favorite thing out of the ice cream truck wait wait wait wait wait time out time out does brian's snack addiction go all the way back to ice cream boys oh it probably goes down to childhood yeah it goes way beyond ice cream boys way way beyond guys cream boys yeah but maybe we did maybe we did start you off on a really bad bad i think well i can tell you that it's a safe no because i'm not a huge ice cream guy so so what was your favorite whoa we had lots of treats on there thank you joe thank you it's true but it's shells big nerds and i i apologize i didn't mean to devalue your business uh i know it is still a back uh dream here that might just like literally joe and i went down to wherever the ice cream truck warehouse place is and we would pick out what we wanted and we would go and we would get it and we would stock our truck and we would have inventory and then we would blow our so i don't i don't even think i don't even think we got to this point in the story but how how did you manage to get your hand on an ice cream truck that's a really good it didn't start as an ice cream truck can i tell this please please joe go your memory is better than mine you probably got more details we didn't really have any money and so we started looking well what can you do and so we found this white beat up van way out in like east mesa and we drove out there we barely had enough gas to get there let alone get it back and so we get out there and the thing's just falling apart the sides are coming off on the inside it's it's just nasty and we're like we'll take it that's our baby she's the one yeah she's the one we want her yeah absolutely and then and then matt's mom i think it was we were asking people about what color should we paint it and i remember your mom had had done some research that yellow and blue had this attraction when it's food and so we're like all right i guess we can paint it yellow there's our colors we don't care how bad it looks well i'll tell you you couldn't miss it that was the thing so you heard it coming you're like okay and here's the thing my mom she was she was allowed to have an opinion because she had she had steak in our company i don't know if you remember but my my parents gave us a little loan it was probably like two grand or something like that to help us with the van and the renovation of the van and the paint and by the way the two grand covered all of that okay so that's how cheap the van was just curious here like like they were pretty proud of that investment i bet by the end especially now i don't know here's the thing no matter whether it went negative positive like to see your son and his his best friend at the time doing that like that's that's pretty sick they probably were very proud they just kept that pride to themselves yeah and didn't share the only thing they really told me about was their the the lack of return on their investment the roi was a little was it was it was about as negative as our uh as our inventory was yep yep but uh but yeah it was a good time i think it taught a lot about funny because it taught a lot about entrepreneurship and it it really gave us kind of a foundation of all the things that you don't think about like now granted we had to do different things there because of liability and we had to go down to the do you remember going down to the city of phoenix and here we are two college kids and we're like we want to get a license to have this van to sell stuff out of and they wanted to know everything and we're like we just wanted to sell stuff to college kids and we had to get licenses and insurance and all this stuff that you just don't think about and and so it did teach a lot about early business and i i i'm thankful for it of course the roi was not there you're you're absolutely correct but but but if you think about the roi on our uh knowledge base actually we we we made out on the deal because for a couple thousand dollar investment from my parents and you and i putting in the blood sweat and tears that we did i mean we drove the neighborhoods and we and we tried to sell the kids we tried to build relationships you know we uh we we did learn about inventory and we learned what worked and what didn't work we learned how hard it is to be partners um how tough it is to to commit to even going out and doing the work every day when you don't have to you know nobody no one's telling you you have to go today and so that's really hard um even shutting down the business was really hard and kind of going through those numbers and making that decision was tough um and and and coming up with the you know i love what joe said there because i i forgot that that's something i say all the time now but we were already doing it back then he said what can we do we had this idea we didn't have anything and we said what can well what can we do so we end up selling my parents on the idea we sell his parents on the idea we sell ourselves on the idea we sell our friends on the idea and we made something out of nothing you know and so in that in that case yeah i'm like super proud of those days super proud of the t-shirt it's really sad my wife threw mine away i wish i had five of them i don't know five i think i had five i probably lost all mine in college that's that's who i was in college speaking of me in college so we we joke that my my wife is the beneficiary of Joe Laux his hard work because joe if you look at him you'd never know this he is like one of the most neat people you ever know so so honestly like i'm i'm and not even this is not a sales pitch but it kind of is i would not want my money to be with anybody but joe because he knows how to line things up i mean he's if you walk into his house like it's going to be so organized it's going to drive you crazy if you live with him in college and so um so he but but for real like he was he was extreme minimalist foreshadowing yeah extreme minimalist um here and and i was just like college wanting to just be a slob like just didn't care about anything and so little things like i would leave the fork in the sink and joe would be like matt we need to have a talk it's a and of course it was way worse than the fork but the but the fork like anything would would set us off and him and i were and what's awesome though is we came to this happy marriage because we lived together several different places we kept moving together despite our differences we loved each other beyond that and um and it was really cool because he taught me a lot i probably taught him a bit about relaxing and and being a little more chill than he was you know and we got to this place but now you guys are now the beneficiaries also of the other side of that because they're hearing from me guys what are we you can't leave a fork in the sink like what is going on like this place is not your dorm room heard it multiple times multiple times so thanks thanks a lot thank you very much thank you you bet it was it was a lot to turn that piece of rock into a stone a nice piece of the statue there yeah for sure for sure so uh so joe it do you have let's say um what what would be if i were to if i were to say okay i'm listening to the show i'm i'm interested i like what you got to say um what what are some takeaways i could take away today if i'm just uh joe on the street average joe not average i hate i hate the term average joe i think that's it i don't know because you're not average what there's no joe i know that's average okay okay that's fair and i appreciate the respect you're putting on the name but like like i think of like average joe's the gym from the movie dodgeball and they're not average okay all right all right all right they they they freaking took down a whole don't you dare don't you dare defend joey's name ever again my bad ever ever defend his name okay here's the thing it would be like like i just just i just found out recently and i'm sure you guys all knew this way before i did i just don't follow stuff on news or social media that the word that the name karen was a bad thing oh yeah like you don't want to be a karen right now yeah and i'm like that really does so that's a real bummer like there's a lot of karens out there that are probably really nice people and it just stinks for those people like oh well you you're you're a karen i've literally seen it happen someone's like hey my name's karen is like oh man yeah okay so so if you're an average joe then and not like an extraordinary joe like the ones that i know um no but if you're listening and you're going okay i would love to have some tips like some takeaways that i can that i can do even before i would call a professional like yourself over at Silverhawk what would uh what would those that advice be joe sure so i kind of thought through this and i think that it it doesn't and so these tips that i'm going to give it doesn't matter if what you've got a list you have a list of tips imagine that how many how are they are they in order for a particular reason of course yeah are they printed highlighted bold this is a i knew it i knew it i knew it i knew it i knew it all right so uh so how many are there joe all right we we can go with uh five or ten i've got ten if we want let's do ten ladies and gentlemen the top ten financial advice tips from Joe Laux over at Silverhawk number one all right or number ten no the number ten tip let's go backwards so the number one is going to be the the most important tip is going to be number one let's go from number ten so it's like all right this is kind of a cool thing fine but then when we get to the number one it's like you better be doing this like the number one trust me if you do this your life will be good i don't know if i haven't been that good he's like he's like i just put 10 down this is called improv joe we're gonna we're gonna pretend like uh you're an advisor okay here we go this is the top 10 financial tips from Joe Laux over at Silverhawk Financial you can find him at silver is it Silverhawk.com is that right w it's it's silverhawkfinancial.com i knew it i knew it and i second guessed myself you should really just hit the shameless plug it is it is www.silverhawkfinancial.com that's www.silverhawkfinancial.com and you can find 10 tips right here on this show here we go all right so i'd say first off number 10 surround yourself with the right people surround yourself with the right people number 10 all right talk about that one a little bit joe so this can be people that are mentors or like you guys you're you're you're training you're you're teaching people to be the next best at what they are it's the same thing in anything so with with finances i think you surround yourself with whatever success looks like to you and i say it that way because everybody's vision of that is different boom good one okay very good shoot okay number nine we'll say number nine is what we already said earlier but it's it's start with the goal in mind okay oh okay so what are you trying to do i think that money is a means i don't think it's the reason to do things so your family occupation recreation those are the those are the what the those are the why and money is just a how love it okay uh i've got one for couples so i don't know if you'd put that somewhere in the list or for you know if people are already married but i think this is a good one for couples and it is to have the discussion and have almost like a allowance if you will because what one spouse might think is something they should spend money on the other might not and that can cause a lot of fights so to have almost like your own here's my spending budget or here's my money that we can put on the side that's super important so um so so that's like you know and potentially that conversation kind of kind of goes for whoever you're like whatever your relationship is right now that it that is your that is your thing right wouldn't you say so let's say let's say for the three of them then joey and brian maybe are are the tightest relationship in their own life they could have the conversation right now just knowing hey just so you know here's where my money's at here's what here's where things are going here's what i'm doing in my life here's what i'm doing in my life and we get on the same page and then of course if you are legally bound to another human being then really knowing and and having everything above board so that so that you we because you you can't um would you would you agree that you can't uh you can't expect somebody to live up to an expectation that you never told them about right so if i have these hidden dreams and wishes and goals that i never shared with you then all of a sudden it's like you you're disappointing me but it's really not your fault because i never even told you how to how to how you could possibly make me happy it's basically the expectation of you putting the fork in the dishwasher we never talked about it that's true that's true it was never gonna happen i i and therefore that's that's why that that discourse started that's right that's why we thought but you know what somebody somebody got matt to blush on this show you know what i bet yeah i love this yeah matt matt i'm not i'm not the only one blushing on this show it's great okay so that so so number eight is is have it have the uh let's just say have the hard conversation i think that was number seven or no that's number seven oh it's number seven okay so we so i have number 10 is is surround yourself with with uh with good people number nine is with the ended mind goals what was number eight then uh have the we could distill it down to have the conversation about expectations have the have the conversation about expectations okay uh great okay so then then number seven is the start with the goal the end in mind start with the end in mind okay all right number six all right we'll say number six is i get a lot of questions about like college funding and should we put away for the kids and things like that and i'd say that uh you put your parent you put the parents first and i'm not saying let's go into debt on things but it's the whole comment on you put your mask on first on an airplane if you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of someone else yeah and so it's just keeping that in mind so put your own mask on first would be the tip sure sure i like that so and and here's the here's the idea there and i i it took me a second to wrap my brain around this too and joe and i'm not sure you might have been the one that helped me with it but this this concept it can be hard when you're a parent or when you're just thinking about other people in general you're like oh i want to save for this person well imagine you've got this little savings account for somebody and then emergency strikes and what what's going to happen you're either going to spend that money anyway or um you're going to really like be punished in such a way that you might even like weirdly feel negative about the person you're saving money for i mean that could possibly happen we could even get to a place where let's say we save nothing but we but we were financially secure then when time comes and we're going to school yeah do we wish we had a college account of course but at least we're financially stable that we can help support and we can do different things and now you're an adult your life is your life and as a parent i want to help support you but i didn't sacrifice my own like goals and end in mind because i was i was too focused on you and i didn't i didn't focus on my own fundamentals first so i think that's really really wise advice thanks well you're welcome all right number six we will say is check your credit scores i mean that doesn't cost anything but people will find i've i think i heard a stat that was like 80 percent of credit reports have issues or errors so i went on just recently i do it once a year because it doesn't cost you anything and it doesn't affect you negatively and i found out that a different roommate of ours i'm somehow got his family's address on my credit report i'm like i've never lived in california how would i have that and so credit reports make sure someone that isn't on there or an old debt or something that's not there so credit scores are important and if you're married check your wife's credit score as well perhaps or your husband and your kids actually and kids because there's a lot of fraud out there that people steal kids uh social security numbers because you won't really notice it till they're 18.

wow and so they can have a lot of issues that they get to without even ever knowing it so i i did a refinance here when when the rates dropped down through the through the floor and so we we went through that process and to refinance or to buy a house and whatnot to get to get a loan of of the magnitude it takes to buy a house it's a little different than sitting down with your mom for an ice cream truck there are some different checks and balances that that go into place and so they dig into everything they ask every question they check every bank account they check it again they check it again they check it again so anyway so one of the things obviously they do is they they pull your credit score well my credit score thanks to Joe Laux and and living with him and just kind of knowing a little bit about financial um ideas and and he kind of helped me really early on with with different habits but my my credit score is really really good um so i'm in like the mid eights but that's how important this stuff is like a little tiny thing like that or like joe said like he had somebody he like how how are they even attached to me like you don't know how these things happen but but you'll you empower yourself if you are willing to just go on there once a year and do sort of like a maintenance where you where you check your credit so very good advice joe all right number next number next i gave up i gave up because i think i was right about the seven thing earlier or the eight thing and then we got we got mixed up so i'm like all right all right i'm keeping track now it's okay okay back on track okay here we go all right so number number five all right so this isn't a fun one but it's a necessary one is pay attention to risk management so this would be your auto insurance your home insurance making sure you have an umbrella policy and the right life insurance and disability insurance just all the things to protect what you've already worked so hard for yeah and to protect your family on the what ifs it doesn't work out and so i think that risk management it's like i said it's not nobody likes to write an insurance premium check nobody does or an eft these days you know but it's necessary so i'm sorry what's an eft he just throws around like everybody knows what i think it's an electronic funds transfer you pay for things like oh i see oh i get you i get you i i thought it was new kind of some kind of new insurance plan i'm like uh what am i not what am i not signed up for let's have a talk yeah i i can tell you that that for me personally this is for sure my worst favorite subject and you guys i don't think have even dealt with this yet um which you probably should at some point but but the idea of of like the problem is is that someone sits you down it's kind of like right before you go skydiving which did you and i went we did that together didn't we joe we're so we're so baller bro like for dying to do that we gotta do that i'm not joey's not gonna do it but we're gonna do it dude you should here's the thing we're gonna go and i'm gonna and i'm gonna watch you while you like a bunch of like a bunch of sun devils we're gonna go out there we're gonna skydive we're gonna hold up you know Jayden Daniels' picture on the way down yeah so sounds great for you and brian i'll be sitting okay so uh so but but it's like that right so so there's a certain activities you do um skydiving is one of them but there's a bunch of them where even even like going rock climbing at a rock climbing gym basically you sit down they hand you a contract and they highlight the part that's like i there's a there's a there's a chance you're gonna die here it's not our fault and they don't even word it nicely they're like when you die yeah right no i've i've read plenty of those yeah and and you're like i'm gonna sign that it's not your fault but if the parachute doesn't open isn't it your fault nope not my fault you're gonna sign it right there and so uh so insurance can feel like that because you're going like okay i'm putting away money for other people for when i'm gone you know when i die and then i gotta i gotta deal with like looking at when Leeann dies or looking at whatever and it can be very scary and it can be something that just doesn't feel good uh but the importance of it is i i think just peace of mind in general you have this idea you you go through that sort of pain um and it doesn't have to be that painful too like you can flip the script on it and turn it into a positive for yourself so if you do that that's even better but let's say you just go through that process once it's there and it's on auto and and especially if you have somebody professional helping you manage it then it's like okay you make more you put a little more over there you make more you put a little more over there but but the idea being like all right that the the goal here is if we set it up right we don't have to think about it anymore because we know we're we know we're set up is that right joe yeah absolutely this is a great it's kind of like the the the short-term pain for the long-term benefit so yeah yeah this was a great time to have a financial guy on because this is this is super helpful yeah i have to get car insurance like next week yeah hey this stinks man you're gonna need a raise okay finances here no that's a big deal they're all kind of connected actually that's so that's one of the top one and it's not on my list today but that's a good point you bring up is like there's if we segwayed to like what are a couple legal documents you should have without me being an attorney here it's having a will having a directive for health care which is what you're saying and having a power of attorney i mean not having those things i've seen that just ruin families and ruin finances of people so it is a financial discussion even though it's a legal document yeah yeah no it's a big deal good big deal uh okay number four Joe Laux from Silverhawk Financial silverhawkfinancial.com number number four okay so i'm gonna say the word budgets budgets okay i hate budgets i am not the type of advisor and there if anybody out there listening is an advisor they may fight me on this one but i am not the type of advisor that says you know don't go buy starbucks because you spent three dollars on a cup of coffee now okay yes there's excess don't go do that three or four times a day but you know if that's something that's important to you you know that's not going to make or break whether you're okay so i would say more of when i say budgets i mean more of track your money on your money like it's a business and if you owned a pizza restaurant or an ice cream shop at the end of the day you should see how much money is in the till not wait till next quarter and see what your bills are yeah you should pay attention daily so when i say budgets it's just making sure that you're watching where your money is going rather than wondering where it went yeah i i think i think a lot of people fall into this category and and and and we used to and as a matter of fact i probably still do sometimes where where you you it's so easy to get lazy in this area and you start feeling good you have some money in the bank and then you just you stop tracking on the daily yeah and then the problem is six months down the line happens this is what it's been like for us and my wife and i'll sit down and go where'd all our money go how how are we how are we negative you know right now and then it's like oh we got to go back and realize that we stopped tracking we forgot to keep doing the things fundamentally that that set us up to feel safe so because we forgot to do that now all of a sudden we're back in the same uncomfortable place and that stinks you know that doesn't feel good so so yeah i mean it's like spend when you want to spend whatever you want to spend on but hopefully make sure you're not spending to put yourself in the red um would that would that be accurate there joe yep yep pay attention to it cool all right number three number three debt debt is a bad thing get rid of your debt now that said do i have debt yes i have a mortgage and debt is cheap right now but only do it when you can afford it don't take yourself and over leverage so you know i think that getting rid of credit cards if you've got a credit card get rid of it tomorrow i mean pay it off now i use credit cards but i pay them 100 in full every month because i like the points you know i like like to get money back but get rid of your debts and and pay attention to debts because interest rates can really hurt someone yeah yeah yeah that's like that it's like that sneaky one where you you'd show you feel healthy great okay now what are your debts and it's like oh well there's that that's going to correct everything back in the other direction all of a sudden so what had happened and and speaking of fine print you know going back to that idea of fine print these credit cards and debt collectors they have this fine print that's that's really scary so they get you they get you locked in at zero percent they say oh it's going to be you know it's only one percent or this or that but as soon as you miss a payment it it jumps up to like 29.9 percent like something nuts and then all of a sudden you're paying 29 let's just say on a thousand dollars all of a sudden if you don't make payment or you make minimum payment and you keep stacking up that interest now you're paying interest on your interest and this is the problem people get into is eventually you can't even make the interest payment so then you're stuck in this like like hole that is almost impossible to get out of so well and that's and let's remember that that's what they want yeah that's the like they're gonna present it like a like a shiny thing in a sense so especially i think to young people like joey's age especially in my age like that's where you got to be super careful like you're looking at something and and it looks super shiny it looks super oh really cool like i can just buy this and this and this and i'll just pay it off at this point and and it's it's it's scary stuff yo the second that i learned about credit cards in business class i was like nope not matt and i are old enough to still remember because you guys are a little younger when it comes to this one but the rules were a little different back in the day so on college campuses or in the airport they give you a really nice free t-shirt to sign up for their credit card and then all of a sudden college kids have credit cards that they're like well i got a bunch of t-shirts you know and they got nothing to show for it other than a bunch of bills that they're never going to get out of that's so messed up that is like that's so messed up totally totally you go and put a credit card in the in the hands of people that you know aren't going to use them right that ain't cool yep and and and and for a lot of kids it either it either really ruined them when they came out of college and they they got they were starting behind the eight ball so to speak or or the the same people went after their parents you know and their parents would bail them out um and and and again that's just an uncomfortable family conversation that ends up having to happen that could have been avoided had you known joe's list ahead of time and now now you know just such a good list what's the t-shirt the t-shirt okay all right joe we are we're getting up to number two here number two save early save often and so what i mean here is you should be investing from the moment you start making money you know this is one that i try to teach my six-year-old is out of the money that you make you should save some and if you can get in that habit and i'd say a good rule of thumb is about 20 if you can save 20 of your income you're going to be set so you know this this goes into a bigger conversation about short-term middle-term long-term goals but start early and start often just just get in a habit make it a bill that you're just going to continue to invest from the start whether you're 18 or 85. love it love it so so save early save often um and i think this goes back to the the habit thing if if you can right away do it and create this habit what happens is you just mentally you create a system ideally where it auto comes out of your check so so in your mind you never made that money in the first place true you know it's not yours it's it's it's future your money it's not present your money and so you just say like this is this is one of my bills and in fact one of my most important bills and i'm gonna pay myself first before i'm gonna take out any other kind of uh bill where i'm now gonna have to owe for my apple watch or my whatever else thing i want i have to pay me first then i'll pay apple for their apple watch yeah matt made me do that for like a long time it's finally settling you had to buy his apple watch no no he's got to buy all the apple watches interest on matt's apple watch no i did buy one of the apple watches in this room and it's not on my wrist oh that's so nice joey yeah uh no but matt matt matt told me that a long time ago he was like all right so here's what you're gonna make on your paycheck and uh and and just so you know you should take this much out and uh i'm gonna pretty much tell you you have to do it and i was like oh okay but uh but that's why i got a new car on the way so yeah joey cool cool cool all right and the number one financial piece of advice number one well because of what you just said it made me think of like a 1.2 okay hit it because we got to remember to pay taxes yeah okay so and the reason i bring that up is there's so many people that are entrepreneurs or that are you know independent contractors or you get paid on 1099s and because you don't get paid on a w-2 somebody's not doing what you just said it that's what made me think of it is your taxes are not automatically being withheld right so you could be an actor you could be a real estate agent you could be a financial advisor it doesn't matter but if if whatever you are if you're paid on the version of like a 1099 which is a sole proprietorship or a self-employed you gotta make sure you set aside the money for the taxes so that that would be none that would be like where you put your first dollar is uncle sam because he's your silent partner and you can't get rid of him exactly and and it's it can be hard for people to wrap their mind around taxes and i and i get that i mean it can be tough and especially with like this sliding scale and all the different things that come in and i remember when i've got my very first paycheck i was so excited my mom loves telling this story i don't know why i was like she really should have taught me versus making fun of me but i get my first paycheck it's from Barro's Pizza and i'm super pumped i did the math i knew exactly how much i was gonna make and i remember and and i came to my parents mad like i storm in the room and i'm like who is FICA and that's how i learned about taxes and my parents just laughed at me they didn't really explain but now that i've done my own kind of research and work on this stuff you realize that i i actually not only do i need to pay my taxes and should i pay my taxes i need to wrap my mind around i want to pay my taxes i want to because you get to a place where much good comes from especially like this country is is so amazing you know and we've we've done so many transitions and whatnot so you just think to yourself if if i'm going to go put the rest of my paycheck in the bank if i if i'm gonna uh before the auto thing from my phone happened if i'm gonna go drive down to the bank to put my deposit in who created the the road that gets me there these taxes did and without these taxes i don't get to get there and there's trash everywhere but the government takes care of that they take care of trimming the trees they take care of fixing the lights they take for that reason i go you know what i'm gonna pay i'm gonna pay happily with a smile on my face now i want to understand tax code so i don't overpay but at the same time like if i can if i can change my mindset on taxes i think that's a good thing and so we we pay that yes of course obviously first but but you can also think of it differently you can choose to make this a positive thing and realize that there's there's so much good that does come from your taxes and so many things that you actually all of us get the privilege of using and having and doing um because of our taxes and we don't even think about it like if there's a fire it's just gonna get taken care of you know if there's an emergency and my kids need to call the police they can just do that and and we've already sort of pre-paid for it you know that's that's the idea thank you for uh watching this this uh segment uh tax facts with matt yeah tax facts tax facts oh i i'm passionate about this you know i think there's tax corner with matt all right number one is invest in yourself oh and i i think that that's so important for anybody to invest in themselves for their craft and learn and continue to grow and if you're worried about should i take that extra class that the Dearing studio is putting on and this isn't a shameless plug for you guys but if it's i can i should i take that class it's going to cost me a little extra money i'd say yes because it's investing in you and your talent it's the same thing i just went through a conference and it's like oh my god it was painful but it's helping me to be a better advisor and it's nothing that's going to show up on a resume or something that's going to show up that my clients are going to see but if i can learn one little tip to help pass on to someone it's all worth it so i'd say number one invest in yourself thank you joe i so agree with you and i and i can say this is this goes across the board right so obviously taking classes with us is an investment in you an investment in yourself no matter what your occupation even if you're a financial advisor you would gain so much from taking our program i gotta tell you i would love to have Joe Laux in our program as matter of fact i'm very excited to invite him into our improv class next month joe congratulations buddy all right oh man you really threw him out joe's gonna be in the virtual acting class next month he's gonna love it it's gonna be a scholarship from me to you you're gonna have to take one class i'm gonna force you to do it but beyond that let's let's just say everybody right you want to invest in you okay why do you want to do that thing what's our why well think about i want the doctor who's been studying the latest technology who's been training who's been investing in themselves i want that person i'm gonna hire that person and i'm gonna pay top dollar for that person or the government but we're that person is the one that's gonna get that i'm gonna pick right so then we switch over here to acting and we go okay which actor do i want to hire do i want to hire the actor that was that was kind of good a year ago or do i want to hire the actor that was kind of good a year ago and has been training every day every month plugging away at their craft i want that person that's got momentum i want that person that's on the cutting edge of their craft if i'm gonna if i'm gonna work with a financial advisor i want someone who just did take the the painful workshop that was a full weekend long who dedicated their time and energy even if they knew most of the stuff already to get that one little gem because if they can make my situation better and they're trying to better themselves that's the person i want running my finances so this goes across the board it really doesn't matter who you are or what your occupation is i love this advice joe and i'm i'm i didn't know it was going to come as your number one thing for financial advice but it's so true because you're going to make more money long term by investing in you i look at this as like investing in a stock when the stock is low you know when you invest in you you're investing in this like ground floor thing that's going to be exponential over time you won't see it right away but you look backwards and you're like man if i didn't start investing in me two years ago where would i be right now what would i be making like what position would i be in and it's like completely transformative for you to go okay i gotta invest in me dude what awesome awesome advice bro thank you i think it's good for all of us you're smarter than you look you know that he's not just a pretty face guys i mean here's the thing Joe Laux has been he i don't know is it all joes that just look young because you because you still look 12 you know that i know i know so it's like it's it's none of this there's none of this right right none of this and also like you know the grays that i got coming in you're avoiding those somehow and i don't know what's going on with you you're aging backwards it's got to be the bike riding probably probably dude this has been amazing so much fun i have had a blast talking to you about finances and taxes because i love taxes um but no just it's been a really really good informative episode i really appreciate you appreciate you coming on the show i love you dude you're one of my best friends in the whole world always we don't talk as much as we should but but for care about you and we we really really appreciate you taking the time to to share your knowledge with our audience base today all right well thanks for having me it's been good all right ladies and gentlemen you can find Joe Laux at Silverhawk Financial that is www.silverhawkfinancial.com go check him out if you need even just advice like something for free i'm gonna send you to joe because he's gonna take care of you just go down there and he'll give you some advice put you on the right path if there's a program for you great if not um i i know joe will he will definitely take care of you because that's the kind of guy that he is so uh thank you so much for watching everybody this has been mornings with matt the Dearing acting studio morning podcast please do not forget to like subscribe and share this channel help us spread this light driven content to the planet thanks guys thanks for listening to mornings with matt please like subscribe and follow us at Dearing acting studio to keep up with the latest content for more information on classes private lessons or professional development coaching visit www.Dearingstudio.com have a Dearing day everyone