You know a million little things and I think the like two big things I would give as pieces of advice to people starting a business our number one persistence. If you looked at what I was doing in the first several years, it was a mess. I know I was doing it was ugly. The brand was terrible. The the idea was terrible. The execution was terrible, but I just kind of never gave up and every single day I came in and like tried to make something better and learn something and And and do it a little better and that's the other half of the coin, which is number two, which is Improvement. Hey, what's good? Everybody? Thank you for tuning in to episode 20 of Highly invested where we invest in ourselves talk about personal growth investing in business while we ask entrepreneurs about the best investments in time money and energy that they've made that have gotten them to where they are today everyone. I'm really excited to have someone that everyone in the personal finance. Community and the debt free community can Inspire to to work towards he retired at 36? He's a personal finance nerd. He's a lover of index funds on the show today. We've got Jeremy from the personal finance Club. How are you doing today? Jeremy great. Thanks for having me. That was quite the intro. I think that's like almost verbatim off my Instagram profile. You're very welcome. I yeah, I did start doing my research on you earlier, but I hope sorry that wasn't as original, but we'll be able to end it off with something. Okay, I mean that's why I put it there at least it sums you up in the perfect way and I'm really excited to be able to dive in and ask you some questions about that today. All right. Sure. I'm I'm excited great Jeremy now, obviously I came across your stuff when I started posting and in creating my own my own content, but let's find out like a little bit more about yourself. Are you originally from San Diego? Nope, I grew up in Michigan born and raised till I was about 29 years old say for a few out-of-state internships in Chicago and Seattle. And then I moved to San Diego when I was 29 and have been here almost ten years now and I've never really lived full time elsewhere. I lived in Italy for a couple months when I was coaching beach volleyball and it had some extended trips and stuff. But basically Michigan to San Diego is my story. Oh, that's really cool. See you're quite familiar with snow. Yeah, I've done my time as I say, I actually just today I was ordering a new furnace for this new condo. I just bought and I said that I hate the cold and he said I did you grow up here as I know I grew up in Michigan and I've done my time. So I want a nice furnace. I don't want any 50-degree temperatures in my house anymore. You don't need any pipes freezing or any surprises like that, right? Yeah. Yeah, hopefully some in San Diego style think it it's ever Pipe is ever going to freeze. I don't think it's ever 32 here. But the problem San Diego is if it's like 50 degrees outside oftentimes. It's 50 degrees inside too because people don't have like insulation and they don't have furnaces. I've never actually never lived in a place 10 years. I've never lived in a place that has he had heat or air conditioning you just kind of live in these boxes. And so like in the winter people are either freezing and I like a space heater or something. But this new place I'm getting is getting an actual real furnace with a thermostat. It's going to be great. Okay, good. You're really Checking that out. I never really would have thought of that but I guess they don't have to really account for snow and freezing temperatures. So they don't yeah, you're in Canada, right? I am yeah in Ottowa Canada, right? So in in San Diego like our average winter time temperature is about mid-60s and so it just, you know, it's not really an issue. And even if it's 65 Outside Inside, she's a little warmer because there's Sun beating on the roof and stuff. But sometimes it does get to like 50 outside. Then that's pretty cold inside like just were really bullion. Prepared but yeah, there's no furnaces. There's no freezing. There's no ice. There's no I mean it doesn't even really rain here. So things get wet and people don't be honest. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine there's not many bad things. And if the one thing to complain about is the fact that it gets a little bit cold and you got to put on layers that's not a bad situation will turn out what's that mean? Oh sorry, even though that's the only thing to complain about we still definitely do complain it. There's always things now does that actually make the houses in that area cheaper to purchase because there's no you know big addition of a furnace in there already, like maybe not much cheaper, but I think the land value is so incredibly expensive and the cost of living is so high that truthful and reduction is so I mean, I just bought a two-bedroom two-bath condo that's about 1,250 square feet. It was a dump when I bought it like nothing had been remodeled since like the early 80s like pink. Bathroom tile like the dishwasher was like yellow and peeling like little tiny Galley kitchen and I got a steal on it. I think at seven hundred twelve thousand dollars. And when people when people around me here, I got that be like, wow. How did you get such a good deal? So that nothing is cheaper, you know, so maybe would have cost seven hundred sixteen thousand dollars if it had a good furnace or something. I don't know but it's just kind of rounding error compared to the land cost makes sense. I it is. It's more the land than anything you can kind of put whatever on top of it, but just to get her and so so So you are you involved more heavily in real estate now. Is that something you've been doing since you retired at 36? Yeah, so I had sold my company. So yeah, just like the real quick background is I was a computer programmer in college and then I had said I had a full-time job offer from Microsoft as I was graduating from the University of Michigan with a computer science degree. I decided to start a company instead of taking that job it took me about 10 years of growing the company and hustling and building business and building a product and building a team. Women like doing it all learning how to draw entrepreneur. Right? And then yeah and I had no idea what he's doing but figured out and then I sold my company for years ago for five million bucks. And then that's basically what allowed me to retire early at 36 but in you know in combination with best practices of even before I sold my company, I had been Building Wealth. I had been investing early and often. I've been buying the holding index funds. So I was I was on Pace to become a millionaire even while I was running my company and that was on a Be $6,000 per year salary. I never paid myself more than $36,000 a year anytime during my career. And so even on that living in Southern California with these a crazy High Cost of Living. I was able to build pretty good. Well, yeah, it's that I just kind of got fast forward when I sold my company nice. So that's your question of the real estate thing. Yes. So then once I got this money my buddy usually to real estate is like yo, we should start flipping houses and we start looking at the numbers and it made sense. And so basically I was like bankrolling this and we were like Partners in the flips. Yeah, and I own About down close to two million dollars in real estate. Now including this condo. I just bought in cash and then the other half my portfolio is in basically an index funds the other two million nicely Diversified. So now you just bought one recently. Was that your own personal purchase or was that one that was added to the flips that you've done previously. So yeah my whole life until well not even my whole life up until now and today I still live in an apartment. I live in a one-bedroom apartment that was converted from a garage the Same place I lived for the last five years when I was still poor or whatever, but I finally broke down and bought my little two-bedroom condo so I can have a guest room and like a nice house and a furnace. It just got too cold here. So yeah, this one this one's actually for me but so about of that 2 million real estate about 700,000 now is in my own primary residence and then the rest is an investment real estate most of which is in a single five-bedroom house that my buddy and I rent out as an Airbnb. Okay. Nice and and how has that treated you getting in on the air B&B? It's good. You know, it's the kind of Southern California home prices are so expensive. It's kind of the only way that you can make the math work because right now home buyers want to spend a lot more money because they want to live towards the beach and like people who are buying homes down here are rich so they can really push push up the purchase price but renters don't really have that much more money compared to renters anywhere else so that like purchase price to rent ratio is very bad in southern California. And the exception is if you basically do vacation rentals, Because people are coming with like big groups and they're willing to spend several hundred dollars per night. And so if you can get 300 bucks a night that's like close to 10,000 bucks a month for a place that might only rent for 3,000 bucks and so basically changes the math pretty dramatically. So yeah, it's worked. Well for us is we have hasn't even been a year. But we've been making money. We're like cash flow positive and all the good things you want and real estate. That's fantastic amazing. It's it's really cool to hear as well because we see you just kind of pump in index funds and just keeping it simple, which is certainly a great play to Do but at the same time you're getting into the real estate. So I'll be looking forward to watching more of that Journey. Yeah, I talked most about index funds because I think most of my followers are beginners and I think index funds are the really best place to start because it's the best way to kind of get your feet wet and I think real estate's good to I like both obviously. I'm about 50/50 my portfolio right now, but also real States much more complicated. It's basically like starting a business and Instagram doesn't really lend itself to super detailed complex topic. So I'm trying to keep Very simple, so that's why it's mostly that index funds on my Instagram. It's good strategy. Oh, yeah now to go back to the business you started that that's amazing that you manage that but what was such a good business idea that you thought was worth turning down a job at Microsoft. I had no idea. I had no idea what I was doing when I was a punk 22 year old. I got like, you know back then at my offer was 74 thousand dollars a year plus like up to $15,000 a year in profit sharing which would be what would that be $89,000 something which at the time was just you know, this was about 20 years ago now. I guess they didn't have a big brand. That's true. Not the time. You wouldn't have known but and so is your company that you started was that about yeah, so I didn't know what I was doing. I shouldn't want a real job when I left college. And so I basically started a company and I didn't know what it was doing. I really have no idea and I was this dumb kid that didn't know any better and I started off as me just trying to like sell websites to people and like I was like, I'm a computer programmer people hire me to do work. And so I like what do like custom computer program or custom software and you know, it didn't really work very well because people wanted a very specific solution to their very specific problem. They don't want to hire a programmer because no one knows how to do that. And so kind of like through trial and error I eventually figured out that I needed to provide a private product. And so I moved into the rental housing space and I started basically doing websites for landlords. And then I made a product that was in a rental housing advertising service for landlords called rent links are ENT else. An X and the way that worked is if you are a renter and you want to look for an apartment, you could go to Zillow or parmesan calm and rentals.com or apartment guide. There's like 50 of these different websites out there for renters and they all work pretty decently well and renters bounce back and forth between them. But if you're a landlord you have this challenge of which ones do I post to how do I pay them all how do I keep them all updated? And so I made a site where you could post once to rent links and automatically feed 50 different sites. If you had a photo or change the rent or update the description all those different sites are updated all your leads. The phone calls and emails from renters come back to you directly in are tracked in your account house was like a nice little portal for you know, blasting your rental advertisements out. Yeah, you kind of get in there as a broker, but then it's like you're yeah helping the other end of the people. That's really cool. Thanks fascinating. And and what is what was what are some key takeaways that that experience really taught you you know a million little things and I think the like two big things I would give as So the advice to people starting a business our number one persistence if you looked at what I was doing in the first several years. It was a mess. I'm know I was doing it was ugly. The brand was terrible. The the idea was terrible. The execution was terrible, but I just kind of never gave up and every single day I came in and like tried to make something better and learn something and and do it a little better and as the other half of the coin, which is number two, which is Improvement. It's a persistence alone won't do it because If you just keep persistently doing the same crappy thing, you'll kind of keep you in the same crappy result. But if every single day you try to make one little thing better and never give up if you like those two things in combination. I don't know if it's gonna happen in a week or if it's going to happen in 20 years. But if you were always keep pushing and you keep making things better, there's no place to go except for Success at the end of the day and so it took me, you know as they say overnight successes take about 10 years. And so it took me about 10 years and I get pushing every single day and finally, you know got a I was making money and we were hiring people and we're making about a million bucks a year when we got acquired. Wow. Yeah, that's super impressive and it just goes to show the perspective of really how much time it takes to build something like that. Certainly doesn't happen overnight. It does text. It's a lot of work and it's the thing is like I need there's never there's never a guarantee when you're when you're starting you just kind of I like pictures like looking out into a black void you like don't know what's out there and you hope their success and the thing is you can never know. But if you don't try you'll We never get there. And so when you look at the most, you know, fabulously wealthy people in plant, they're all started businesses. And that's the only way to do it. But none of them were guaranteed that success, you know, and so if you don't start a business you definitely won't and if you do you only might and so that's kind of like the risk of being an entrepreneur. Yeah. Well the more that I just kind of try and keep app my idea that I have the more I realized how important it is to to not stay idle because the opportunity cost of not acting on any ideas I think is far bigger than you know, if You have that idea you gotta act on it taking action such a big part, too. Yeah, that's awesome. And so do you remember what your first purchase was when you were a lot younger my first purchase ever? Yeah with money. So I should whoa. Let me rephrase that with a yeah, so going back as someone that's kind of a personal finance Advocate and a coach. What do you remember looking back? What was your first purchase like as a small child you mean? Yeah, I guess they're in your memory. Sorry. Yeah, I think maybe when I was like, A kid and we were given like the tiniest bit of Freedom like a 9 or 10 year olds or something where I could like ride my bike to the corner store like half a mile away or something and get some bubble gum or yeah, I think actually I like Lemonheads. I think there were sold and like I didn't have very much money. And so I think I would get the cheapest candy, which was Lemonheads. I think they're like 10 cents man. Like I remember being young and hearing my like parents to all like used to get us to stick a bubble gum for a penny or they're like that makes me stop because like I only buy anything for And sense anymore, but it was like a really a little crappy handy. I got a normal candy was probably like 50 cents or a dollar or something. But yeah, go by go buy me some lemon heads for 10 cents because I could afford they were like, they're sour I don't really like sorry, but after you got past this hour then they would like we're like sugary. So I guess I just haven't had good flavor to yeah. Yeah nice. And so what kind of give you the idea then that as you started this business to invest at the same time because looking back it seems like you had a good vision of money. So who taught you? You too to think like a financially literate individual. So I was I had a ton of Fortune in my life. I was very privileged. I had like to married parents for most of my life. They eventually got divorced but they both had jobs. We were like at least the middle class maybe upper middle class. I went to I went to a public school but a good public school, you know, I had all sorts of like things going for me and one of the things I'm going for me as a dad who was very financially Savvy especially compared to like the average person like, Now we have like slightly different difference of opinions that I'm like super opinionated about everything but you know, he for-sure understood the value of investing in the value of living below your means. And so when I was 14 or 15, I had my very first ever paid job. I worked at a summer camp over the summer. I think I made like 1,500 bucks during the summer and so my dad very wisely open up a Roth IRA in my name and one of the rules of a Roth IRA is that you can't contribute more than you make per year. So if you make zero dollars per year you can't contribute. A Roth IRA. They don't want you to like have fictionally a made-up money from somewhere to contribute right earned income and so he took $1,500. Okay, even as a kid you think that they'd want to encourage that in a way like, you know investing for your kids while they're young. But yeah, I mean, but I guess like the Roth IRAs in and there's I think there's other like investment accounts for like college savings and stuff. But for this one I let Security tax shelter, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so you're Canadian, so it's more of like, I think it's like a rrsp or something as the Canadian equivalent. Yeah, the the tfsa I think is the Roth IRA one and then the R1 K is the RS Parker. Yeah. So yeah. So basically he opened one in my name and then put 1,500 bucks of his own money in there because he wanted to like let me have mine to like spend or save or whatever and so I and then I think he kind of explained it more as I got older and was like, okay. This is an investment and you buy mutual funds in here and you don't touch it for a long time and it grows and so, you know, maybe didn't make a ton of sense to me. But then I guess when I like I kind of came online at 21 or 22 and I was like, oh, yeah collect again. I should be putting money in this thing and right and I you know, as I think that's something that a lot of people who the average person. Yeah, you mean though, they don't have access to that with a good parent who was financially literate themself. And so the average person sees money as something to spend not as something to invest and so I have had that hey money can make money if you start early from the from a young age. It just goes to show how much of a Friends that makes that's amazing that you had, you know the support there with your parents and that you know, that that guidance it plays such a big factor in who you are today. Yeah, because I'm very fortunate and I am doing this partially because I know not every kid has that fortune. And so I want to reach young and middle-aged people who don't have that Financial experience and kind of give them. You know, what I've spent a lifelong of experience and reading, you know in a easily digestible way. Yeah, and you have like on your website. It's so clean cut and straight to the point. Do you mind going into the the habits that you mentioned the first three? That three Bedrock ones sure. This website is like terribly design and out-of-date like I'm a computer programmer to and it's like so do you coded this? Which language? Can you can you write in a lot? I'm pretty language agnostic, you know, this was just quick and dirty I built it with WordPress and a lot of the stuff is there's some custom PHP and some custom JavaScript and there's some custom other JavaScript makeshift stuff. Yeah. It's not good though. Yeah, and honestly, I instead of going to these are actually go coming from a computer program running. It looks fine. So sorry, I think of likes intensely. There's like I think I actually have changed. I'm going to give you instead of giving me the giving you these three habits. I'm going to be the two rules. I boiled down to two rolls of personal finance Club. There's exactly two things. If you do these two things you build wealthy become wealthy. If you don't do these two things you stay broke rule. Number one is live below your means that means spend less money than you make so if you make $50,000 a year spent 45 or $40,000 a year because if you make 50,000 you spend 50,000 you'll be broke every single time you do the math and if you make 250,000 and you spend two hundred fifty thousand, you'll be broke every single time and I know people who do both those things and whether you make 50 or 250, it's a hundred percent possible to spend every single penny you make as they say you can't out-earn bad spending habits. So if every time you get a raise you just keep ramping up your you know, your lifestyle you'll say bro and the second. Yeah, let's it's gone. It's gone. Like that's yeah, and it's It's terrible, you know, there's no way to get it back and every dollar you spend is really like a dollar Thirty you have to make because tax has been taken out of that spending right? So when you spend that money, it's like it's spending is so damaging because it's because to make it you have to make dollar Thirty and then you say that you only get a dollar to spend and we lose that dollar that dollar could have been like three four five six or ten dollars if you invested it and so like burning that tack after tax dollar is like the worst thing you can do financially now, I'm We all need to spend money to live because that's how the world works. But if you spent it all that you've missed a huge opportunity which is real number to invest early and often which is after you've live below your means the difference between what you make and what you spent that extra part you invest and you have that money grow and that is how you build build wealth. And so people who do those things they spend less than they make and they invest the difference. They become Millionaires and multimillionaires. If you don't do those two things you just stay broke and it's really that simple and all the other stuff and like that. The nuances about which Investments to make and real estate versus index funds and ETFs and taxes and all the stuff, you know, it's just kind of fine-tuning. But if you don't do this, if you don't do those two things you're in trouble and if you do you'll be okay one way or another. Yeah be it helps being comfortable just with some of those terms as well and knowing how to adapt with it because like it's constantly changing but I think once you have that understanding, it just makes it so much easier and you have so much more confidence with your money. Yeah for sure. Yeah, great. Great answer there. It's great that you're doing that too. It's for the people you can tell that you're really humble guy and you just want to kind of share the the the great experiences of your life. And yeah, that's awesome. So Jeremy, I've got the big question that I like to ask my guests. If you can think of if you can think of three big Investments could be choices or even mistakes that you've learned from either in time money or energy that have helped get you to where you are today. What would be three big ones in your life? I Acted you my ass is question. That's why I thought about it ahead of time. So for time, you know, actually just today while I was working on this new condo that I paid this insane amount of money for and there's like the bunch of these dudes really nice strong like talented guys that were working on the plumbing and the lighting and the putting a beam in and like this all this stuff and you know, kind of dummy it's weird like these guys are like working guys and I'm basically paying them all to be there and I'm like I was like why like what who put me in this situation like why? As I understood situation and it basically goes back to like 20 years ago when I was in school and I learned computer programming and I made a specific choice to go into a field that was going to be lucrative and I got good grades and I got good internships and I you know all the stuff that the time wasn't paying me I don't get paid to go to school you barely get paid to have an internship you don't get paid to get good grades right and then, you know, then I started the business and I put time in there and again I wasn't being paid or getting paid almost nothing for a long Time and so for all this, you know investing of my time over and over and over then fast forward 20 years. It had it's paid off and now I'm in this position were these guys who are maybe just maybe they were making the same amount of money the day they got a schools they were today because like Plumbing when you're 20 and plumbing when you're 40 or whatever pays about the same and so like that investment of time school education to build this well that I have now has really paid off me. Yeah, that's brilliant. Was there anything that helped you decide the Your programming would be something that would you know help you get to your end goal. I went to school during like the original.com boom. And I mean basically I like the engineering because I didn't have to take a foreign language and I knew I was good at math and science and I was really going to go into mechanical engineering and then I basically the first year freshman course at the University of Michigan, you have to take a class called engineering 101, which is a programming course and I just crush this chorus. I was like really really good at it and program is one of those things. You either get it or you don't and I feel bad for the people who want to do it and don't get it because your brain is kind of it's like you can't really study your way out of that. You just kind of have to have that like computer programming thinking brain, right? And so I realized that I did I was like, all right, I'm prior to do it because it's fun and it's like I like it and I'm good at it and it's a good time to be doing it. So that's why I went into. Okay cool. Yeah. Sorry for the question and the question there. I just found that interesting as you see it's great how you kind of connect all the dots when you're making your decisions and you consider all the options so Now tell me another story. What was number two so money time money were on money the money. I got to give the shout out to my index funds. If you follow me on Instagram at personal finance Club people. Listen, mostly you'll see I'm talking about index funds and I said about half of my portfolio about two million bucks plus or minus is an index funds right now and so an index fund is basically like a very simple low-cost way to buy the entire an entire Market. And so instead of picking and choosing stocks or paying someone to hyphae to choose stocks for you. You basically buy an index fund which buys everything for you and it guarantees you your fair share of market growth. And if you know, you read any of the classic books on investing anything by Jack Bogle or you know, random walk down Wall Street or like in any of these books like they're going to Peter Lynch or yeah, Ben Graham older stuff, right? Yeah, even even Warren Buffett now it says that he's going to Paul's my index fund when he you know, when he passes on a river because like Anyone who really doesn't put yeah anyone who really knows what they're talking about and doesn't have an ulterior motive is going to say. Yep, and that fund is probably the way to maximize your your money. And so and I personally am a big proponent of the target date Index Fund which is basically a basket of three or four or five index funds like a u.s. Index fund and international index fund and the bond index fund and these things are automatically rebalanced and reallocate over time. And so if you're a person who wants to invest in doesn't know how go find yourself a Target An index fund just keep plowing money in early and often and you will be a wealthy person your old age. And those are already Diversified and set up for you. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, so they pick the asset allocation. So if you they're all based on a year, so you take your birth year and you add 65. So if you're born in 1990, you add 65 and you get 20 55 and so there's a 2055 targeted Index Fund which is basically going to be for your age the right balance of us International and bonds and then they're all automatically rebounds and reallocated for you until Going all in one and I've never really heard and coherent logical argument why you shouldn't put a hundred percent of your money in a targeted and next one. Any any other strategy is basically gamblers advice like oh no like there's a hot sector or this this new ETF or this one stock and that might be an index fund for sure and I might not but over time it almost certainly won't because the tried and true method of diversifying and maximizing your different asset classes is how you're going to win. It's already taken care of. For you. Yeah, that's great. And do you mind sharing what broker you use for your own personal Investments? I have a Fidelity account in a Vanguard account. Most of my money's with Fidelity just because it's a better website in my opinion. I've been using for a long time. I'm a big fan of Vanguard. I think they're altruistic if anyone ever recommends Vanguard, I give them total props because that's like the founder of the index fund and there the oh geez. Yeah, the Original Gangster. I do think their technology kind of sucks personally. Like I don't think that their websites all that great all that stuff. But I have some money in there to just mostly like educational for me so I can like speak about how to use it. Schwab is like the third biggest one in the US and there's you know, but I got no issue with like the most of the robo advisors like better mean I think those are fine. They charge a little bit of a higher fee, but just like a Target Index Fund it's all in one. So there's you know, there's lots of good options and they basically all qualify for rule number two investor line off and right. So if you're if you're putting $1,000 a month in the second best brokerage or a hundred dollars a month in the best brokerage, you're going to be way better off. A thousand dollars a month, right? Like that's the big difference is putting more money and not like picking the exact right brokerage know you're lucky your original lump sum could be $500 $100. But as long as you keep putting it in that's where the money gets out of that. Definitely like the yeah, the putting more money in is how is how you get rich for sure. Not all the little nuances issues. I'm investing. No, it's so true. It's like less is more the more people we can get to understand that the better you guys are very fortunate in the u.s. You just recently got or All of the Brokers recently cut the commission's for most of your investing fees. So in Canada, I remember calling my bank and asking them if they were going to do that and remove the fees, but unfortunately, we're not so you guys get the benefits of no cost to like average Downer dollar cost average over time. Yeah, so I know I get a lot of questions from people either in Canada overseas and I don't mean I don't know a lot of time because I like live here and we don't have you know, just like you guys don't have access to our Brokers as I don't have access to yours and We definitely have kind of like the best investment opportunities in the world with like unlimited Index Fund choices and ultra low fees. And and I think that competition will eventually go out. I swear. I feel like a lot of the technology and and downward pressure on prices often starts in the US and then, you know spreads to other countries as it becomes more competitive. But yeah, I we've got good here. Yeah. I hope we get it eventually, but at least at least the US has kind of started the trend so then we have someone that we can can follow along. And you're right now, it's quite nice to see the the financial technology companies popping up offering Robo advisors there. There's even a couple in Canada or there are a few that offer free financial planning along with like a monthly management fee that's significantly cheaper over the long period of time. So yeah a lot of different ideas. So I'll let you finish. What's number three for energy energy and time seemed pretty similar to me, but I went With the more literal interpretation of energy. I used to be a runner and I ran through middle school high school and college and I end up getting a partial scholarship to the University of Michigan and I broke a School record at the universe, Michigan which I still hold the six hundred meter dash. I ran the 400 800 few track fans out there around 46 8 and 149 for the 400-800 pretty fast pretty good for college and you know that, you know just like anything was an investment in my energy right? Like I wasn't, you know, you're We have the couch one day's a random kid. I would get last in a race like anything but you know, I suddenly found that I like I was okay running and I showed up the first day of cross-country practice and end up in last place and I was like, okay. Well, I'm gonna just keep going and going and going you show up every day and like between the combination of like persistence. That's the one to be persistent. Yeah, and you, you know, if you just start running more and running faster every single day for months and years on end, you're going to be really good at running, you know, like, you know, maybe you won't be College like me or maybe you'll Blipping I don't know it at some point. Like there's a natural-born ability that you know plays a role but I think like a lot of the kids on my team simply were there because they were like, you know workhorses like they weren't they didn't have the god-given talent and they probably would never be Olympians but there's good enough to get to a division one college which is pretty impressive and just because they put the investment of their energy and right and that's cool. You could be a college athlete and the and those that don't really like it's kind of no surprise that the guys are on College the guys that run them Most right like because they put the investment of energy and so that was my energy answer you got to put that work and that's great. You see those infographs these days as well saying how Usain Bolt invested all this time for that, you know that 10 seconds brand but you've essentially done the exact same thing but growing up we put in the running training and then you kept that same persistence in your investing it took me more than 10 seconds though. Yeah. Well 49. You said 42 seconds before I think their world record is as 42. Siren 46 8 which is 46 about five seconds off the world record. But those are five very important seconds still pretty incredible speed. They're like taking their shoes off by the time I like still across the Finish Line. Yeah, and you still run today just long-distance for exercise or sometimes I switch to beach volleyball and that's why I moved to San Diego to play more competitively. I'm a solid beach volleyball player, but not, you know, super good and Knees are kind of beat up. And so I have you know years of running and beach volleyball have left me to kind of make choices about how I'm going to spend my knees these days. Yeah, Pharaoh, I guess you can try and enjoy it as long as you can while they are still working for you. That's right. Nice. And how tall are you? I'm six foot four about 200 pounds these days. So yeah, I was a big dude for a runner. Yeah. Well you talk length. Yeah, do you guys use a few inches for a height and Canada? We actually use centimeters are do you? Okay? I think I like 194 195 or something. That sounds about right. Yeah. I'm trying to picture just under two meters. Yeah, the funny thing is those as although we do officially on our licenses and our identification. We measure in centimeters we do pretty much keep track of inches to so I remember being 4 foot nine up until grade 11 or 12. I was Tiny always growing up. Yeah. I was really small. Really and so right now I'm five four. Yeah, I never was gifted with a lot of the hype but I definitely had a bigger had a lot of quickness and in different ways climbing and there's like seven big inches you got like later in life there. So if you're like a seventeen-year-old for a night out it was looking pretty like five Florin know you're a hold on it. If I look back. Sorry would have been five footnote 4 9 and grade. Yeah grade nine. So sorry I was for 9:00 till Grade 9 and then I grew to be 5/4 and grade 12, but I remember my brother was quite short as well. And I was really confident that I would grow to be taller than him and I would rub it in his face. So you just wait two years. I'm going to be five nine. I'm gonna get that growth spurt and it never came. Oh, no. She still taller. He's still taller. Yeah. He $100 been a long time. Sure. Do you've conceded already might solve a couple more inches in you. I might maybe you know maybe with this this newfound energy and passion of mine. It might give me a little bit more but that's funny. Actually the other day. I saw an old friend of mine night. I swear. She gotten shorter. She's like no, you probably got taller ha ha. There you go. Maybe it's time to remeasure go go find your brother. Yeah, seriously get them to push his shoulders down. But no, that's cool. I find running is a very very great form of exercise just kind of getting that stress out and letting those endorphins kind of come through. It's really nice. Yeah, I agree. All right, sir. I got a few more now. Can you share some of your early experiences using credit cards? I remember looking through your bio and you mentioned how you you actually first used credit cards to fund your company. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that and how you would recommend people use credit cards going forward? Sure. Yeah when I was starting my company, I did not make enough money to live. I think my first year of Revenue was about fourteen thousand dollars and that doesn't even count the expenses. It's after expenses. You know, what front much because I was just like a kid on a computer whatever but you know still to pay, you know, whatever your bills and yeah, whatever random stuff you're buying. Yeah, so I might be took home. Her $10,000 that year which wasn't enough to even pay rent and buy food. And so I basically live in a credit card and not saying that's a good idea. I'm not recommending it. But you know, there's only so many ways you can fund a business and credit card is not the worst one. I guess. No, it's actually true. I mean if you have some sort of way to make the return back, it's not the worst which is kind of funny. Irony. I think but yeah, sorry go on. Yeah. I mean, I definitely like, you know shudder to like recommend it because I think that a lot of people hero this successful guy. Start a business on credit cards therefore. I should go back up a zillion dollars in credit card debt. I mean I did it extraordinarily carefully and I did it all with the knowledge that I could stop at any time to close the business down and go get a job and pay it off a nun in like less than a year. So I right that's really sorry that's important to say though because like you had that thought at least in the back your mind I did I mean, you know, I was definitely trying to work hard and be persistent but I also wasn't being Reckless and I did basically have that plan B, which was to get a job and I knew I was in Horrible because like Microsoft and give me a job. And so I racked up $10,000 in credit card debt the first year just to live and then the second year I made a little bit more money for my business and I my credit card debt went from 10 to 12,000 then during the third year basically the business of making enough money where I cut myself a check for $12,000 and then paid off my credit card debt and one payment which is nice and so I basically got out of it. And other than that, I've never had credit card debt. I still use a credit card. I paid off in full every month. I don't Chase credit card points. I think there's a big there's like this these big communities of like people like deal Chasers and point Chasers and I think that those overwhelmingly are counterproductive because they basically like glorify and incentivize spending and people like off you're gonna spend the money. Anyway, why don't you get the points? I was like, yeah, that's true. But you know, when you look at actual studies, look at actual Behavior, would you have spent that much money if the points were in the back of your mind, would you have spent that much money if you're paying with cash inside with a credit card and the answer is almost certainly overwhelmingly. And so people are spending like 10 20 30 40 percent more money in order to get 2% cash back. That is not a good deal. You know, the better deal is just to spend less. So I use I use a credit card but I I use it and I do get the points but I don't like do any games. I don't try to chase points. I have a bunch of different cards that use I just try to spend as little as I can I take the points because why not and then I paid off in full every month. Yeah. Sounds like that's how he's going to cards. Good. Yeah, and that's how people should I do I give this presentation to high schools and I like to bring up the point that in 2016 credit card companies made six sixty three point four billion dollars in interest alone. Yep, and it just baffles me like they're projecting that they'll make a hundred billion in 2020. Like that's strictly off people that don't know how to use their product properly, right? They just buy into the advertising. It's crazy. Yeah, and then you hear people like oh, yeah, I'm gonna get a free flight. I'm going to get this I'ma get these points I was like is like you're not beating the credit card companies. Trust me. Like they've worked that into their cost like that, you know, and and you know, and maybe like, oh, well all the all the all the dumb people are paying interest while I'm like getting all these points. I was like, I still don't think you're being the credit card companies. I think I think they're on dears. I think you're onto your little scheme about, you know, bouncing around between different credit cards over. So yeah, I'm very very careful about that type of credit card use Fair. Yeah. I mean hey if you've got the cash. And you don't need it so much. So another good one for you. I think you'll like this what came first Jeremy or the fire movement. Now, did you start being Frugal and planning this before that or is that something that came after honestly like only kind of like became aware of the fire movement very recently. I think I did you probably after I retired in quotes like, you know, I don't really love these they were tired even though it's on my Instagram bio mostly just to catch people's attention, but you know, I still work plenty and I'm actually going to start another company next year. So I still have like plenty of work and career in front of me. But yeah, I love the farm owner. The more I learn about the Mormon do it. I like that. They've given a name to it and this like old, you know, people are a lot of people ask me like what's the correct amount of money to invest and always like this so weird like the correct amount is like as much as you can because like what the glory of the goal is freedom. The goal is to like not have to work not that you have to quit not that like you're going to send your couch watching Netflix all day. But like what's the you know, like when they say the correct amount like are you worried about investing too much and having too much money later or being able to shave five years off your career something like was that the fear so I love the fire movement. I like I was Frugal and investing the whole thing before is aware of it. But even for myself I like those kind of put a box around my own way of thinking about this in mind, you know how to like, you know, the safe withdrawal rate and how much money you need to be able to quit safely and all this stuff. So, I don't know who came first, but we found ourselves like a couple years ago for found each other a couple years ago now, that's a great way to put it I think I became aware of it earlier this year early 2019 from some some blog posts. So it's obviously been around for a while. And as a concept it just I think some people either just get it earlier on and and that's kind of how they model their lives and others don't now, what does your definition of retirement mean? Yeah. Like I said that that buzzword I don't love because retirement kind of evokes ideas of like sitting on a rocking chair with a quilt over your legs and just like whittling away the time let's crazy. If you think back the word retire was like when a farm animal was no longer able or I think what was the cow is no longer able to give milk. It would be retired and sent her to the yard until his facts, right? So I hope that loud it means for me. Is that what I've no no, it certainly won't be but no it's great that you know, you say that you don't like to use that word and I understand that because Society has given it such a powerful definition. So yeah, can you just elaborate what that means for you as someone with now freedom and options Yeah, I mean that's what does me it means freedom. So like I prefer the term like financially free or financially independent and so basically means like you don't have to do what your boss says anymore if you don't want or you can quit if you want or you can choose how you spend your time or you can choose to start a company. You can choose to like take time off to be with your kids or whatever the case may be. And so I mean as a story like I have a friend who's not retired, but she was working as a nurse and then her sister was gonna have a wedding and the boss. I came to her and said hey you have to work this weekend and she's like I can't work. I had my sister as a wedding and the boss is like too bad. You have to be here and then she's like, okay. Well, I won't so let me know if I have a job either way is fine and like being able to like not miss your sister's wedding is like Financial Freedom right and missing your sister's wedding because you are a slave to your job as like, you know, financial and servitude or whatever. And so that's you know, like I said, it's not about retirement me and so for me I could do what I want and I like I spend my days helping people learn. Best not just happens to be the topic we're talking about but it's also thing I love doing and I also do photography and I coach High School beach volleyball for free and I do a lot of other volunteering and like three other jobs. I forgot and I'm gonna start another company next year which is going to hopefully like help change the world in a positive way. And so I love hearing that. Yeah. Sorry don't mind if I ask a few questions. So that's Financial Freedom me. It's oh, yeah, whether it's not it's not technically retirement because I'm not rocking on the my front porch with a quilt over my legs, but but I do get to direct my Time as I see fit now, which is nice. That's great. Like clearly you're wise and smart man. And so it's great to hear your definition because everyone's gonna got to make their own. Thanks. Yeah. Do you mind sharing a little bit about what what that business plan is for next year is that we're still a secret. So I have a partner normally a very transparent and I have a partner who I haven't like cleared about like putting this on any like sort of prescient. And so and we don't even have like the name everything figured out but yes, I guess I can't say anything about Hillary's infirmary. That's okay, but ones it That to detect launch 2020 barely have talked about yet. So I I've I've a friend is a very successful entrepreneur also and we basically decided to start a business and he said when can you start I said, I want to like finish up some stuff first on January. I'm getting a job starting a company TBD what the product is and all that but I'll let you know, but hopefully we'll have some sort of MVP like in late 2020, hopefully. Yeah, either way. Oh that's exciting because when chapter closes another one opens you get to start something new now with you know, the Inspired to change that's good. Yeah. We'll see. I hope it's good or it could be a massive failure and then I won't get on podcast anymore because people don't want to talk to a loser. Yeah. I'm sure you've definitely gotten used to failing and keep going that's not going to turn deter you at this point. Yeah, that's great. And so on that note then you said you liked doing photography and traveling where some of the favorite places that you've been to. Yeah, I guess I coached beach volleyball in Italy for a couple months and on a trip I went to Croatia. One of the most beautiful countries event to and Slovenia. There's a place called Ljubljana, which is a bunch of elves and use in Jays in it, which is cool. I went to Australia for five weeks, which is beautiful. I've done a lot of South America and Colombia and Peru and Chile and Bolivia done some Central America. That's actually next on my list. So Iraq where well, I'm going to Mexico over the break for about 12 days just to go to Tulum and then visit a friend in Mexico City, but I traveled quite a bit in my past and the only continent I haven't covered besides Antarctica South huh? And so I'd like to do some sort of a Colombia Peru Chile Argentina Brazil. I got a nice big you trip down the line. I mean, it's obviously it's ambitious. And now that I have this kind of entrepreneurial side of me that that's coming out. I don't know exactly how well those two go together, but it's still an idea. So if ever that that trip does come I definitely know I can ask you for some advice. Yeah. That's a pretty I mean those those are some pretty big countries you mentioned so I could probably spend two to three weeks and each of them. But yeah recommended beautiful is like it's an amazing continent as much of it that I've seen at least great. And what do you like to take photography of or what kind of pictures how do I like just it's like an adventure you can go hiking and try to catch like the sunset or catch moon or stars. And so I do a lot of like Landscapes. I have some kind of like hyper realistic stuff with with moons, like really big moons over over Landscapes and sun-like star trails that have like you can point your camera towards the North Star for several hours. And then you get these like big traumatic colorful circles as like the stars Circle over you in the sky. Yeah. It's like a pretty cool just like was this kind of like marriage of technology and nature and you get to that kind of see see it through a different lens pun intended I guess but yeah, that's a that's a Costas. I like doing the most I think nice that's good. It's important to find those. Have you ever seen the Northern Lights? Well when I was a kid, I lived in northern Michigan and I like my parents. Was happening sometime. They didn't wake me up or something. But I've never seen them actually. Love you. Have you here in Canada? You're closer. I have not. I not I know I should have but they they're pretty far up north. So they're they're typically more visible in the western part of the country. So above probably like where Michigan would be and then all the way out west that's where you can see them more but you've got to go up high and a couple hours North. I remember I was in Jasper once when they were said to be out, but there were clouds, of course in the way so we couldn't see them but His on The Bucket List. Yeah, nice. Yeah, me too. But man it's cold up there. So I guess you gotta figure out how to stay warm when you're washing them. Yeah, I'm sure there are ways but it seems like their times of the year that our best to go. So just have to nail those in but now hey, at least you've got the the Financial Freedom that you can do that really when it would fit into your schedule. That's right. I gotta remind you that so don't let any things on your bucket list go unchecked. That's true. That's part of the challenge. I guess. That's it. Well before we end off Did any so any advice that you can give to people that are interested in maybe starting in real estate investing? Yeah, real estate stuff and it's not my specific area of expertise, but I would say you would want to start learning and reading books and also find people who do it and ask them the questions and ask if you can go a long with them and see what they're doing. There's like this Japanese phrase that Toyota executive use use that basically translates to go to the place and see the thing and it sounds silly but these are these Executives would be trying, you know are often sitting there in their executive suites looking at Excel. She's trying to figure how to improve profits but these Toyota Executives like go to the manufacturing line and like Stan these little boxes and just like watch for an hour or a day or a week or whatever and then they're like, okay this is going bad because this one guy is working constantly and his other three guys are waiting from the finished. So if we have two guys on that job suddenly all you know, they see things they wouldn't have seen otherwise Spreadsheet and so with real estate, I would encourage you to go to the place and see the thing and that might be find someone in your area or friend who owns a few rental properties and ask them ask to look at their books or go. Like see what the lease is look like our ask if you can go on a remodel trip or you know how they analyze a property and you know and just have them walk through it and people like if people if you ask people's opinion, yeah, they love talking about themselves. That's why I'm doing this podcast so I can talk about myself. And so when you ask for someone's advice like almost always there. Be thrilled to help you write and share how they found success and you know, I'd ask the few different people so you don't get an overly biased source of just one person, but I think that's the best way to get involved in real estate because it's hard to just you can't let go to website click a button in the way. You can't the next one's you kind of got like learn the business. Yeah. No, that's so true. Great point and if you get that good advice take it. Don't let it go. Yeah. Nah, that's awesome Jeremy. I'll thank you so much for coming on the show and joining me today is been nice to actually get to catch up and get to know you. Yeah. Thanks for having. I appreciate you inviting me Jordan. I'm a fan of the show and a checked out your ebook and I like your your other podcast your Instagram. So keep up the good work and we're going to together. We're going to help solve all the world's first channel Finance problems, right? Yes, we are. All right good. Thanks so much, man. Yeah, it's great before we head off. Jeremy's there anything you can say to the guests for advice. Hey, I always tell I was answering my the two rules of personal finance Club rule. Number one live below your means and number to invest early and often. And that's why I recommend to do that's it. That is actually the best advice you can really get. Thanks so much. Yeah, my pleasure and I'm a dummy and I totally forgot to ask Jeremy to let everyone know where they can find him. So you can find Jeremy's content at personal finance Club on Instagram, or you can go to his website at personal finance club.com and Big Ups to Jeremy for letting me know about an app called Zen caster, which is the reason why we both sound so good in this podcast. Basically, he solved the issue of the crappy connection. I had before putting the phone on speaker and connecting from the mic. So thank you Jeremy for being awesome and just passing out a passing that information on to me so that I could make this better for all the listeners out there. So thank you Jeremy. You can find this podcast on Spotify Apple podcast Google podcast breaker radio public and a tanker dot f m / highly invested. Thank you so much for listening everybody if you found this valuable and you got some good information out of it. Please go subscribe to highly invested leave a rating or review. It would be really helpful to help with the organic reach and it would be great to know who's listening as well. But please pass this on to anyone else that you think might get some value out of it. I just want to help everyone achieve success in their own best personal way. So thanks so much for listening everybody. This is your host Jordan highly signing off stay highly invested in yourselves till next time.
Episode 20 features Jeremy Schneider, the content creator and personal finance nerd behind the account  @personalfinanceclub. He retired at 36 years old,  owns real estate, an advocate for Index Funds and trolls IG scammers on the daily (I wish I would have asked about that, next time). Find out how Jeremy managed to sell his business and retire from the rat race with plans to start a new company to give back and help others. Find him on IG @personalfinanceclub and the website www.personalfinanceclub.com His biggest investments: Studying Computer Programming, Target Date Index Funds, Persistence and Dedication to things like Running, Education. This podcast is for anyone who wants perspective. My mission is to   create a world of mindful, financially literate individuals. Imagine  how great the world could be if everyone invested in themselves a bit  more instead of wasting resources to impress people they don't even  like? Be the change you  want to see and people will notice. It  shouldn't be frowned upon to talk  about money so get highly invested in  yourself,  your future self will  thank you for it. 