How to Get Rich!

Today, we'll be discussing how you can get rich. Hello and welcome to Money Talks. My name is Ken Wink from Summit Financial Consulting here in Southeastern Michigan. If you'd like more info about what you hear during our show today, give us a call 586-226-2100 or visit us online www.summitfc.net. While you're at the website, I would encourage you to check out the podcast page. You can check out our past shows and you can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Music. So let me start by saying this is not a get rich quick scheme. I want to get that out of the way. Getting rich means financial independence and freedom of time, vacations, choices, and when it comes to retirement. So this is more about peace of mind and not necessarily flashy income. But before we jump into this exciting topic, let me introduce my co-host for today, Tony Shore. Uh, Tony, you know that I, uh I love the song, or I should say the album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' by 50 Cent. Do you have that on vinyl? I know you have an amazing vinyl collection. How's your 2000s rap vinyl collection coming along?

It's not coming along. I have thousands of records and CDs I've been collecting since I was in seventh grade. I've worked in the music industry or radio most of my life, but I don't have a lot of rap or hip hop, I'll be honest. The two genres that are pretty much missing from my collection are country and rap. I do like LL Cool J. I'm really old school, an 80s kid, so I'm a little older. But Fitty, it's Fitty, by the way. It's not 50 cents. It's Fitty. 50 cents, yeah, I'm familiar with the record. I do not own it. I don't have Eminem. I don't have Fitty. I know from Detroit, Eminem, but Fitty. I lean more towards 80s, alternative, new wave, classic rock, prog rock and jazz. So that's just where I'm at. I do find one of my favorite people in the world, Snoop Dogg, I find him hilarious. But just the music is just it's just not my jam. That's all. That's all. But hey, I wish you would. I wish, Ken, that you had come up with a more sensationalistic title for today's show. How to get rich.

This is the game plan for today, Tony. We got over a thousand families that we take care of here at Summit. And, you know, we've seen a lot of people get rich. It's allowed us to study wealthy people. And today I'm going to share some pointers with our listeners and viewers of how to get there. Wow, yeah, you've seen it happen. You've seen what people need to do, uh, to acquire or maintain wealth and make the right decisions. So let's talk about some of those. Where do you want to start? So I just want to start by saying, let's just imagine that you have a bow and arrow in your hands, okay? And, and now I want you to close your eyes and say, Tony, hit the target. And if you can't see the target, odds are you're not going to hit it, right?

I couldn't hit that target with a bow and arrow with my eyes wide open standing five feet from it. So definitely not with my eyes closed or blindfolded.

That's the visualization that I want people to have today coming into the show. Because wealth building, believe it or not, it actually starts in your mind. And whether that's setting money aside or how you invest, you've got to have sort of your head in the game and have a game plan in place if you want it to happen. And one of my favorite inspirational stories ever really is Steve Harvey.

Oh, I love Steve Harvey.

Yeah, well, he's a fellow, you know, radio host and obviously the host of Family Feud and he was in the original Kings of Comedy. So he tells a story where all the way back in 1974, he was like living in a car and he had a vision board or what he calls a dream board. So he came up with all of these goals for his life, and some of them were short term and some of them were intermediate term and some of them were longer term. And even today, even though he's reached a great level of success, he still has his vision board on his phone every single day as his lock screen. So every single time he picks up his phone, he has to look at what his short term and long term goals are. And then also, it also sort of like jogs his mind of like, well, maybe I'm not going to spend so much time on social media. I've got these goals to accomplish. I'm going to keep grinding on them. But like hearing about his original vision board when he was, you know, basically poor, one of the things on his board was six luxury sports cars. And he just kept grinding and grinding. And now he's worth $200 million. Wow. That's real money even to you, Ken.

I mean, that is... That's real money, right?

Yes, yeah. So it's, you know, obviously that's a success story and everything worked out. But I think those principles of having a vision board, setting goals can be really, really helpful for anyone in the audience that's religious. And Steve Harvey references this all the time too. But there's a Bible verse, Habakkuk 2, verse 2, and it literally says, write down your visions and at the appointed time, it will surely come. Wow.

Wow, that's a deep cut from Habakkuk. Habakkuk is, yeah, that's not one you hear quoted often. Not quoted every day.

And it does say, like, if God wills it, then it'll happen. But, you know, basically writing it down and consciously trying to accomplish something.

Keeps it in your mind, and that's a good way. You have to actually write down your goals. Don't just think about them.

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I get ready every single morning. I do have a vision board and I write down everything that I'm working on both short term and long term. And, you know, part of its physical fitness, part of its financial fitness, part of it is some charity goals that I've set to help some people who need some help. So yeah.

That's great. I think that's great, Ken. And I have noticed, I actually got a glimpse of your vision board. And I know one of the line items on there, it's a little lower on the priority list, but try to keep Tony in check on the show this week. I love how I made your vision board. That's great. It's just an effort that has to be made every single day.

Yeah. Try to keep Tony in check, uh, deal with that. Um, so, uh, you, you kind of, and not just write it down but visualize it, right? Yeah, yeah. And I, I know this sounds silly to a lot of people, but if you talk to high achievers especially, they will actually visualize their lifestyle, you know, not just money, not like a bank account, but visualizing a lifestyle or, and whether that's extra time with your family or vacations or vehicles or a home, you know, whatever motivates you, whatever your long-term goals are. You got to picture it, and what that does is it shifts in your mind from a spender to an investor, and, and it changes you from a consumer to a builder. And don't, you know, if anyone's getting skeptical or thinking about changing the channel here, just try it, you know, try it for a day, try it for a week and see if it makes a difference in, in how you approach.

So it actually is. Actually picture achieving that goal and imagine the lifestyle and being able to meet other goals by achieving goals with your money, but not just money. Other things as well can be on the vision board, but not you have to first write it down, but then visualize it. And I think that's because it's a mindset. right? It's having the right mindset. A lot of wealthy people, it's a mental game as much as anything. I mean, that's saving and investing is a mental game and the willingness to do things like work with a financial professional. You have to come to these decisions and be able to, some people freeze up like, Oh, I don't know if I can work with somebody or I'm not ready or I can't save. That's, that's the negative. And you know, You hear all this. Oh, the power of positive thinking. But really, it is a characteristic of being able to achieve your goals, to write them down and visualize them. I like that.

Well, in the last year, the number one reason that clients have come to us is or at least the number one. like somebody who was doing it on their own and they decided, okay, I want to work with an advisor. The number one reason was I got scared, you know, whether it was the tariff situation last year or the Iran situation this year, we've had people that moved to cash and then they missed the 20, 30% run-up depending upon which time that you're talking about. So yeah, having somebody that you can talk to to bounce ideas off of, you might not hit these goals if you're just sitting in a savings account. know, if you're sitting in cash. So, um, you can be a little bit more strategic with your investing if you have another set of eyes to bounce things off of. But, you know, the number one thing I want to get across when it comes to setting goals is you've got to set short-term goals, so maybe like pay off all your debt that isn't a mortgage or save ten thousand dollars for your emergency fund or save for a vacation with the whole family in five years. Maybe that's a midterm goal. A midterm goal also might be buying a house or want to get your investment account up to $50,000. And then long-term goals are saving for retirement and ultimately reaching that financial freedom that you're reaching for. So again, you can talk about them and it's good to talk to other people about them too, because Studies show the more that you talk to people about your goals, you start to be held accountable by doing that. But again, you got to write them down.

Yeah. Yeah. You have to writing them down. So setting goals. Let's talk about that.

Yeah. So after you've set these goals, you know, whether they're short term, midterm or long term, now you need to do maybe what's the most important next step. And that is spend less than you earn.

Wait, I have to live within my means? Yeah. And what a bummer. Don't bring us down with that.

Eventually, it's all worth it. You know, I know the most common mistake we see is lifestyle creep. So people will get.

Wait, what did you call me? Yeah.

You're a lifestyle creep, Tony.

Okay. So lifestyle creep, in other words, you know, the more you make, you just spend it.

Right. Yeah. People get a raise, they get a bigger car or a better car and those car payments get up or they... get a mortgage, or maybe they get a home equity line of credit for a special purchase, but now that's eating into their budget every single month, or people get a pool or they do a big home improvement project, finish their basement, and that will just ruin their long-term plans. So they're sort of sacrificing the future for today's, you know, keeping up with the Joneses in some cases. Sure. Sure.

Sure. So, you know, you've got to, you can't let those types of things ruin your plans. It's not about keeping up with the Joneses. You always hear that, but it's true. It happens. Right.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, people all the time call us and say, OK, I want to put an in-ground pool in my backyard. And I'm like, that sounds great. I know you would get a ton of enjoyment with your family from that.

But the two or three months out of the year, you can use that here in Michigan. Right. You get an enjoyment out of it. The other nine months. Oh, well. I'm just kidding.

Unless you're like me. We did get it in ground pool a couple of years ago.

Admission.

Admission. We're opening that baby up in one week now. And, you know, it's heated. So we budget for a higher gas bill during the summer because we want to use it in the spring and the fall. We had our kids swimming last October, like two weeks before Halloween. So, weather in Michigan, we don't care, Tony. We make sure that we use that baby and baby. We budget for it.

No, that's good. That's good. As long as it was in the plan. But again, Ken, hearing that you put in an in-ground pool for the fam, watch that lifestyle creep. It can creep very, very easily.

And, you know, there are definitely increased expenses that go along with it. And sometimes there's unintended consequences, too, where maybe you're like, well, I can afford the pool, but I didn't think about heating it or I didn't think about all the chemicals that have to go into it.

Yeah, the maintenance, pool maintenance is a real thing.

Yes, for sure. So you got to not only look at your goal, but also look at what unintended consequences or what additional costs might pop up. Because again, you want to know when you can retire. And that's the conversation that I've had with these clients when they're thinking about making these major purchases. We've got to make sure that we have a long-term plan. We've got to make sure that we've put together a retirement income plan. So I told the client last spring, they said, okay, we want to put it in ground pooling. And I said, that sounds great. Let's run the numbers. So we ran the numbers and they were going to have to retire 12 years later if they did it. Oh, no.

So he was like a huge difference.

Yeah. So that was the discussion that we had is, do you want the pool or do you want to retire now? 12 years earlier, and they ultimately decided not to do the pool.

Well, yeah, it's kind of a no brainer at that point, I would hope. But and, you know, even the maintenance, small leaks sink big ships, as you like to say. So what about saving? That's got to be a big part of this. Obviously, how to get rich, you've got to save.

Yes, and I want to remind everyone that this is a marathon. This is not a sprint. You have to have this mental attitude.

You have to look at your time horizon, right?

Absolutely. So if you are saving for retirement, my general rule of thumb is if you are saving 10% a year, and that includes any matches from your employer, you'll most likely retire in your early 70s or late 60s. If you are saving 15%, and again, this is including your contributions and your employer match, you'll most likely retire in your middle 60s. And if you're doing closer to 20%, you can retire in your 50s most likely. So I try to talk to, like if you're a parent or a grandparent and you've got a child that is just getting ready to enter the workforce, Please, please, please share this with them because that's when lifestyle creep begins to start. That's when keeping up with the Joneses.

Save early, save often. Don't say, oh, I'll have time to save for retirement later. I'm not going to put a bunch into my 401(k) yet. Or when I did it, there weren't automatic enrollment into 401(k)s. And so my first few jobs, I didn't even put money into the 401(k). I wasn't thinking about it. Hindsight's 2020, and in this case, about 20 million is what hindsight would make. I mean, imagine if I had been putting $200 a month into a Roth starting when I was 21 like my daughter's doing.

Oh my gosh, that adds up.

I'd be your boss instead of the other way around right now.

You can't pick up for lost time. You know, I mean, and I think you are the star of the show here, Tony.

Yeah, that's for sure. Well, hey, what else? OK, saving even small amounts can make a huge difference in the long run. What else do we need to know?

Yeah. So if you're not saving as much as you want, do not get discouraged. Do not just put your hands up and say, well, I give up because trying to live just off Social Security and retirement is not going to be a nice retirement. You know, every little bit helps. There are services out there that will round up. I believe one of them is called Acorns. You can have them basically every time you spend a dollar, like less than a dollar, they round it up and then take the pennies and or, you know, dimes and quarters and put them into an investment account. Like whatever works for you. Every little bit helps. Any small amount, any small change that you might, I mean, just, uh, I had a client the other day that said, you know what, I, I want to get some life insurance just in case, uh, anything happens to me. Sure. And she figured out if she just had Starbucks three times per week rather than seven days per week, that would cover her life insurance and also help her reach some of her financial goals. Like, those little decisions really do add up and make a huge difference in the long run, so. Save what you can save no matter what stage of life that you're in to help accomplish these long term goals.

Sure. Sure. What about what about building an emergency fund? Is that also something we should look at?

Yes, that's absolutely one of the most important things that you should do. So you don't want to have to use debt to be able to finance something that comes up. So whether that is an emergency, a car breakdown, you need new tires, a kid gets into trouble and you need to bail them out financially for some reason, you've got to have a backup plan just in case. Because if you start paying interest on debt, that really helps send you backwards, especially if it's credit card debt.

Yeah, you're digging a hole at that point. You're going the opposite direction.

Yes. Yeah. We want to avoid paying 25.

Compounding debt, not compounding interest earned, but compounding interest owed is the opposite of saving, right?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So next thing that I want to mention is that I feel strongly, it's my opinion that investing the money will help you grow it much faster.

Yes. You need that growth. You need that compounding interest to earn money, right? I knew you'd get there. So invest. Yes.

Yes, invest. And I would suggest don't go it alone. Work with a professional, work with a fiduciary who will give you advice that does not have biases. So you're not worried about paying commissions on transactions. You know, we have over a thousand clients and we are fiduciaries here. And, you know, we're always here to give people our two cents on what we think that they should do. And in a lot of cases, like I mentioned earlier in the show, That's hand-holding during tough times in the market to help people make smart, informed decisions. But every once in a while, clients just go off on their own and make decisions without asking us. And more times than not, that's not great. We want people to leverage our experiences and share what we can. So I had a client that received a large sum of money from a lawsuit. And without asking us, they bought a fishing bait slash liquor store. You know, they, they lived up North and, and they saw the financials for this business and just felt really strongly that this was going to be their, their ticket to financial freedom. So this winter they, it was really cold, all the lakes froze, uh, you know, it was a better year, but the previous few winters here in Michigan the lakes didn't freeze, so they got almost no revenue the entire winter, because nobody was ice fishing, because there was no ice to fish on. So, you know, all these books and records that they were looking at, the weather completely derailed it, uh. They weren't looking at profit margins. They weren't looking at expenses. They weren't looking at advertising. They weren't looking at taxes. There's just tons of things that they didn't look at. And unfortunately, their business did fail. And now they're actually going through a divorce. So this one financial decision literally ruined them. And this is another story. We had another client that lived up north and decided to buy a liquor store. Like a party store.

Yeah.

And, uh, again, they, they lost all their money and they went broke. And also just, they hated sitting around all day. Like sometimes people don't realize, like you just sit in the same place all day, every single day. Um, you know, it can get monotonous and it's not necessarily, uh, the grass isn't always greener, Tony. And sometimes, It's not everything that it's cracked up to be. So this is where you do due diligence. You ask questions of people that are in similar positions. In my case, it's probably been about 13 or 15 years now, I bought a car wash. I didn't trust the owner's books and records. You bought a car wash? Yes, yeah, full service, 100-foot car wash. Wow. Just about 15 years ago. Do you still own it? No, I sold it.

I was going to say, why haven't I been offered free car washes? Yes.

Yeah, I sold it about four years ago. Um, you know, I, I, the, the largest portion of the gain that I had was from the land appreciation, but I did triple my money. Um, but generally speaking, that is not a good investment because, uh, there's just so much competition now and there's big, uh, big car wash operators that are sort of taking over. So, um, There was a time and a place for it, Tony, but to investigate it, I set up shop across the street in an abandoned parking lot with literally binoculars and counted how many cars were going through the car wash every single day. You did? For weeks, yeah. Wow. I brought my laptop and I would work out of my car and I was just sitting there counting how many cars and their numbers were not right what they were sharing with me. But then, man, I had to grind with that thing. So I would get up at four in the morning, drive to the neighborhoods around the car wash and I didn't have enough money at the time. I would hand place coupons for the car wash rubber banded onto people's mailboxes. Because I couldn't afford the postage. So I hand delivered. So I would just drive over there. I get made fun of all the time from my college friends because I used to play roller hockey growing up. So I would rollerblade from mailbox to mailbox. That's funny. It's dark. So, yeah, my wife would be like, what are you checking the weather for? I'm like, I'm going to see if tomorrow's a rollerblading coupon delivery morning and I would go do it. So, you know, I grind really, really hard. So anytime you have a business plan, you know, and this is why I'm working full time as a financial advisor. You know, that that was my second extra job. But I was really happy to sell it, though, because it was just too much, especially with having a family. So these are a lot of work. Yeah, a lot of work. If you want any business, if you want any strategy, if you have any dreams, you know, it doesn't hurt to ask those. And maybe this is my my great greatest point out of this whole show is talk to those that are successful. You know, they say that you are who you associate yourself with. So if you're associating yourself with people that just sit around and drink every single day, they might not be the type of people that you want to get successful tips or life feedback from. When I used to go to these top financial planner conferences, I would always, during the award show, pay attention to who the top five teams were in the country. And then immediately once cocktail hour started, I would just go over to them and ask them as many questions as I possibly could. And they weren't intimidated or, you know, unwilling to share with me because I was just so eager to, you know, get their knowledge and more than happy to share it. So talk to people who are in the position that you want to be in, whether that's goals or financial goals or business goals. Ask those who have made it and how they got there. I bet they'd be more than willing to share. And the last thing that I wanted to share for the show today is just there are ways to increase your income. Sure. So, you know, you can get a degree or you can get a master's degree. I'm. crazy right now, Tony, because I am working so many hours at Summit Financial, but on nights and weekends, I am working on my master's degree right now. Awesome.

My wife has her master's. She was doing the same thing, working full-time and going back to school for her master's.

It's a grind. I've got a really awesome wife, Nicole, because she is helping me reach this goal because it definitely falls a lot on her to pick my slack. Yeah.

Pick up the slack while you're studying. Yeah.

But just looking at, you know, again, we take care of a thousand families, Tony, and looking at all these families. Yeah, the people that have degrees and advanced degrees definitely earn significantly more and it pays for itself. And you can get an online master's right now for a reasonable cost. Yes, you can. These employers aren't going to say, oh, they got it from this university. If you have a master's, that's your leg up, no matter where it's from.

Yes.

And you don't necessarily have to complete certain undergraduate courses like things have just gotten a lot smoother when it comes to attaining those degrees. So it might be worth it. do that. There are side income streams. There are side hustles. You can learn high value skills. You can go to motivational speaking or just speaking classes and you can negotiate your salary, you know, or look around, prepare your resume and just dip your toes in the better opportunity. So if things are tight right now, find ways to try to increase your income. It usually involves hard work and grinding. And then again, don't let the lifestyle creep get in there and steal that money. Once you do start to increase your income, save it. It will help you accomplish all those goals on the vision board that much faster.

All right. Well, hey, Ken, this has been an excellent show. Is there anything else you want to add before we say goodbye today?

Just want to say start today. Set your goals today. Create your vision board today. Start saving today. Start small. Stay consistent. And you too can get rich or die trying, as Fiddy says.

All right.

If you got any questions about leasing a vehicle versus buying a vehicle or your own retirement plan or your own 401(k), please visit our website summitfc.net or give our office a call at 586-226-2100. We've got seven financial advisors in the office here. We would love to help protect your savings and feel confident about the road ahead. All right.

Well, thanks, Ken. And listeners and viewers, thanks for tuning in. That does it for this episode of Money Talks with Summit Financial Consulting, LLC, and our host, Ken Wink. Thank you for joining us for Money Talks. Don't head into retirement without a strategy that addresses both income and taxes. For more information, please contact Ken Wink at Summit Financial, working with people you trust. Call 586-226-2100 or visit summitfc.net. Join us again soon for another episode of Money Talks.