Ep. 121: Must Be Nice Hunting Out of State with Jeff Bynum
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Hey, American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition, titled The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith,

and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions.

We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the whitetail deerskin trade

which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761 to 1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by me, Stephen Rinella.

And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham, and this week's guest is somebody I've got to know over the last few years and really enjoy his company. The first time I met this guy...

He kept tagging me on Instagram with these ridiculous videos. There's these freaking weird redneck videos he kept on tagging me and sending me in my DMs. He was sliding into my DMs with these ridiculous damn redneck videos. I'm like, who the hell is this crazy bastard? He's like weird as can be. I thought...

Man, this guy is redneck as they come. And then fast forward quite a while before I actually got to meet you and get to know you. And he's not quite as redneck as he seemed in his posts and his things he sent me. So my good buddy, Jeff Bynum, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's good to see you, Dirk. I miss you, man. It's been a minute since we've gotten some FaceTime in together. We've traveled all across the country together. We've definitely had a few moments, if you will. And so I miss some of those days, but it's good to see you. Yeah, I mean, we spent like, I don't know, six or seven weekends together.

in a row for like four years together. Uh, we went to these elk, elk shaped camps and I got to teach folks how to, um, call elk and, and how to hunt elk and, and Jeff, he put in his two cents there too, but he also, um, tried to tell people how to be a, um, better with their money, I guess you could say, um, kind of like,

kind of a life coach, if you will. Yeah, it's, it's funny how much money impacts your life. And, and, and so it's, you know, the Elkshape camps, oh, I still happening kind of a new version of them and, and excited for that. But, you

You know, that was a lot of trial and error on how those went. And we had some amazing experiences, got to meet tons of great people. Some of my fondest memories. I don't miss some of those early morning Texas drives, you know, where we're running across the state of Texas at 3 a.m. And I think all of us have had too much dairy, you know, that cramped in a small car. It wasn't good, but it's a lot of fond memories.

Yeah. Those were some good times. Good times. You weren't kind of, you know, I will say you're such a good sport. You're always kind of the butt of the butt of a joke of some kind. Um, full disclosure, Jeff is a ginger. He is a redheaded fella and we take full advantage of that. You know, his own, uh, uh, his own humility. He will, he will jump right on that bandwagon too, and just take the shots and kind of add a little bit to it for us. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I believe I'm going to go to heaven, but I'm not sure how that's going to work as a soulless ginger. So we'll figure it out when we get there. Yeah, you have to work really hard and find a soul before your time comes for St. Peter calls your name. Well, hey, Matt, we haven't got to talk much about elk season 2024. How'd you do? Did you slay the beast or did the beast slay you? Boy, it's...

2024 felt like a failure to me until I got beyond it and looked back. And I did not kill an elk in 2024. And I am not near as good of elk hunter as the people that I often get to hang out with, yourself included. But I can get the job done most years. And I got my butt kicked this year. But it was...

I think my season, the highlight of my season actually has nothing to do with elk hunting. Um, you know, I, I, uh, it, for those of you that are parents of two kids and daughter is, uh, we want to get done with this podcast. She's in driver's ed 14 years old. I got to go take her driving, uh, after this. Yeah, I know. Scary. Um, my son is, uh, 11 going to be 12 here soon. And,

Um, I've always tried to be involved in as much as possible in their worlds. And, uh, I'd coached their spring baseball season and it was amazing, phenomenal, awesome experience. You know, it was really good for me and my son. There were some challenging moments. I think we both cried probably at several points throughout the season. And, you know, I, I like there were several times where I had to come to him and apologize. Cause I'm like, Oh, my coaching sucked there, especially as a father. And, uh,

And so when it got to the fall, we signed up for football.

And, uh, I show up to football practice the first day to drop him off and it's all the coaches from baseball. And they're, they're looking at me and they're like, dude, what are you doing? I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you're good with these boys. Why are you not out here? And, um, they, they pressured me into signing up to be an assistant coach on a sixth grade football team. And, um, I played football in high school, but, uh, not a lot of experience since then, um, other than being a football fan and,

Uh, it, you know, there was 32 boys on that team. Um, and we went, uh, this is our third season. So last two seasons, they went undefeated, um, season before that. And so they've lost one game in three seasons. And so it was, uh, it was five days a week, uh,

games on Saturday and all the way through September and most of October. And so I committed to that and it was a massive sacrifice for my elk season. I had Idaho tags, I had Montana tags, I had all this ambition of what I was going to do. And the truth is I probably spent less time elk hunting in 2024 than I have in

Yeah. Well, congrats. Good job, dad. Cause yeah.

That's a, you can't get those years back. Right. You know, you've got way more elk hunting years in front of you than you got time with your, your kids at home. So good job. Good job. I will say that the frustration of the season, um,

BJ, my right hand, uh, BJ cable. Amazing dude. Love the guy killed his first bull this year. His first elk went out there, did it solo, did it the right way in North Idaho. I mean, you know what this area is like, Dirk, you know how hard it is to get into elk up here, especially after they're decimated by wolves. But, uh,

him and I were out a couple times and the one day I think it was the 19th September 19th we get into a drainage and there were six bulls bugling and I mean it was it was awesome and worked one bull got busted headed for the next bull he was he was kind of headed to the bedroom probably in his bedroom and we we kept him talking kept him talking and we're working through and

brush we're about 200 yards out and uh i'm i'm just these tag alders and spruce trees everywhere you're just climbing through this north idaho brush trying to get within get close and a blue spruce branch came it came and swung and whacked me straight across my eyeballs and uh

It ended up like I couldn't open my eyes for probably a solid hour. Finally, we were able to pry my eyes open. We looked and my one hole eye was solid bloodshot and I had to go to the trauma center and BJ had to hold my hand out of the woods. It was terrible.

if you would have stumbled on us in that moment, you would have had some questions on what was going on in the North Idaho woods. Crying with tears in my eyes and BJ's holding my hand. Was this a proposal? Yeah. Uh, but, uh, dang it. No, it was, it was a good season. And, uh, my, my freezers, I'm down to 60 pounds of elk meat. Uh, so I'm taking elk donations. If anybody's, uh, needs some freezer space, uh,

No, at all. Honestly, I think I'm going to go try to kill a Buffalo here pretty soon and stock up the freezer. So nice. Nice. Yeah. So Jeff, um, I kind of touched on it lightly that you kind of talked a little bit about people's financial decisions and whatnot. Yeah. Elk shaped camps. Uh, tell them, tell the listeners what you do for a living.

Well, I am a financial advisor, financial planning. I am the founder of a kind of a boutique firm, financial outfitters group that I started in 2015.

Um, and so I, um, you know, I started this practice, this firm with the intention of changing the hunting industry. And, uh, you know, I fast forward to today, I had no idea how this was going to go. And matter of fact, most people told me it would not. Most people said that demographics of hunters does not make sense to work. And as a financial advisor, I says, well, I'm either going to do this or I'll get out of the industry and go do something honest, like build houses or whatever. I don't know. But, uh,

So I started Financial Offenders Group again in 2015. And you fast forward to today, I get to help all kinds of amazing people across the country think through everyday life decisions, how to buy cars, retirement, insurances, send kids to college, start businesses, invest in real estate.

You know, I just, I get, you know, you, you kind of said life coach. The reality is a lot of what I do is life coaching and, and helping people navigate the financial side of decision-making is, is just the reward of that is, is something I never imagined I'd be able to be in a position to receive. It's been phenomenal watching people create businesses and do all kinds of amazing things in their life.

Yeah. I kind of like, I kind of compare you this per se. You're kind of like a doctor, right?

Um, doctors kind of give you advice. You never want to hear, um, Hey, don't, don't eat those donuts. Don't drink those beers. Don't, don't, don't do eat celery. Do, do more setups. Um, and I feel like you kind of have that kind of advice too. It's like, Hey, don't,

Can I, Hey Jeff, what do you think? I'm going to go buy a 2024 Duramax. And you're like, no, you can do whatever you want, but no, don't do that. I feel like you have, you're kind of that same kind of person, you know, you're trying to keep people's finances healthy.

Yeah. Well, I think, um, you know, the way society has taught people to make financial decisions is often backwards. Um, you know, it's, it's kind of the shoot first, aim later, uh, approach to financial decision-making and a lot of what we hear, uh, often told always do this, you know, and there's all these financial, I'm going to air quote financial entertainers. Um, and, um,

They give out this blanket advice that people accept wholesale and they buy into these myths, these financial myths, and they don't find out that they're on a path that they don't want to be in until 5, 10, 20 years down the road, 20 years later when they've created some sort of unintended consequence in their life. So a lot of my role, my relationship in my clients' lives is helping them look at these different paths they could take

So they can make whatever decision is right for their family and they don't wake up somewhere they don't want to be. Right. Now you talked about what we're kind of taught from a long time ago, like, you know, do this with your money. Don't do that with your money. And, and over the time and listen to you, you speak at these different venues. It just really made me think like, wow, I've got to rethink things a little bit from what I was taught. And it really kind of makes sense because,

But let's rewind a little bit. You always gave an impactful speech at Elkshape Camps and kind of told about where you came from and how you got to where you are today. And it always really sunk into me. It was kind of a vulnerable speech, too. So I always really enjoyed it. Can you give that? Yeah. Yeah. Let me...

How I even ended up in this role, it's a story that on paper looks like a lot of failure. But in reality, you could have given me a blank sheet of paper and I never could have drawn out this life that I get to live now. And so, I mean, I grew up in a podunk little farm town with more dairy cows than people. Grew up in a very poor household, broken household,

My mom went through several stepdads. I was the classic ginger, if you will, redheaded stepchild. By the time I got to high school, I was not on a very good path in life. This was early 90s, and I sat down with my high school counselor, and

And they told me I didn't need to worry about taking a second language because I'd never go to college. And so I kind of just wrote off the traditional approach that we were all told to take at that time in life and got out of school. The good news of growing up so poor is I learned how to work really hard if I wanted something. So I got into the construction industry.

Started working my way up through the construction trades and ended up going on a vacation in Seattle, met my wife. And then I never came home. I just said, hey, I'm staying here and I can work construction here. And yeah, yeah. And I started my own construction company at 25. My wife graduated from SPU with a degree in interior design. She started her own interior design practice and

We were making a lot of money, more money than our families had ever made. This was kind of the heyday of the real estate market pre-2008. And we decided that we wanted to be smart with money, so we went out and got a couple of financial advisors and

Most of their advice revolved around real estate, which makes sense because it was an insurance salesman and a mortgage broker that were our financial advisors. And so they had us take out a million dollars in debt in 2007. And they told us that we'll never lose if we do this. And we bought investment properties in Seattle in 2007 and 2007.

I woke up about a year later in the middle of 2008 where all of our income, assets, liabilities, cash flow, everything in our life was tied to the real estate market and we lost everything we owned.

Had to go through bankruptcy. Ended up moving into my in-laws basement with my nine month old baby girl, my daughter. And that sucked. That, that was not fun. Don't, don't move into your in-laws basement. That's awful. That's terrible. Not a place you want to find yourself in life. And, and,

At 28, that's how old I was when all that happened, I made it my mission to make sure that this was never going to happen again to me in my life. I started going to the different financial institutions out there, all of the ones that people see on every street corner and all over the place. I heard a lot of the same thing. They give us this much money.

We'll get you this much rate of return. And here's where you're going to be in 30 years. And, and to me, I knew I'd already heard this. This is that it was not financial planning. That was just a sales pitch. And, uh, through that process, like I realized that the financial services industry, uh,

And this is whether we're talking about investment advice or insurance planning or benefits from an employer or taxes or mortgage or real estate. All of these different products or services that we need in our lives are all being provided to us through a sales process. And no one has taken the time to say, let's make sure that all of this fits together so that you don't wake up somewhere like how I woke up in 2008. Right.

I realized had someone helped me make decisions different than I did it had someone looked out for my best interest I would have never made the decisions I had I would have never taken out a million dollars I had no business whatsoever taking out that type of debt in 2007 I didn't have the right liquidity I didn't have good protection like I was essentially kind of a wreck just making a ton of money and

So I saw an opportunity to go help people avoid making the mistakes I made. So I, I took off the Carhartts and put on a suit and tie, um, which, uh, you know, fast forward to 2015, uh, ended up moving my family to Texas. God bless Texas. I love Texas. They just don't have much public lands. You're all hunting there, unfortunately. But, uh, uh,

It was down in Texas and it was still suit and tie, sales goals. And I just, I was fed up with it. I was fed up with this world and the pressure that this industry puts on most advisors to perform. And I was going to leave the industry. And that's when I, I can't remember what book I was reading, but one of these inspirational books to pursue your dreams and all that stuff. And I was like, I'm going to go work in the hunting industry.

And that's when I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to provide for my family if I did. It's, you don't get into the hunting industry to, to, uh, to make a ton of money. Like that's, that's the reality. It is a modest life.

But for me, what I saw there was my people. I saw people that were similar to me. I saw people that were salt of the earth, that were blue collar, that had what I would say is a natural distrust for the financial services world. And I thought if there was one group of people that I could go out and help succeed in life,

These were my people. And so I sat down with my firm that I was with then and I told them that. And that's when they're like, yeah, you're going to fail. You'll be out of the industry. There's not enough money in it. Blah, blah, blah. This is well, I'm going to do this my way or not. And, you know, here we are today. Yeah. Well, I think you've been doing a good job and I think you've helped a lot of people, including me. And, you know, I think you're living the dream.

Well, what's publicly you see, I still have challenges myself. We all do. I got a gut kick last week. It was being business for yourself, especially as a financial advisor is hard. And in all transparency, I had someone message me that they didn't have a good experience

Uh, in planning. And for me, it, it, it crushed me. It still hurts. Like I, you know, I almost postponed this podcast because it's torn me up so bad and it wasn't that they didn't like my advice. It was that their experience was bad. And so, um, and I'm analyzing that I'm looking at that. I'm always trying to grow and figure out, okay, how do I have the most impact inside of people's lives? And, um,

And, you know, thankfully this person is a friend and, you know, helping me see. So I'm still growing and evolving. Our firm is still growing and evolving. We've got some exciting things happening that we're going to be able to support clients. But yeah, it's been a constant climb. Uphill, steep grade. Yeah, nonstop. Legs are burning. Yeah, I think that's a common theme with entrepreneurs, right? It's, you just...

about the time you think I can take a deep breath and it's like, Oh, what about this? And it's like, it's a grind. I haven't, I know a lot of entrepreneurs and I just don't know any of them that have, you know, every day is a 10, right. You know, it's, it's a lot of hard work and dedication and late nights and grind. So, um, yeah. Yeah. Now, um, you, we're in a circle back here. You mentioned, um,

I mean, you just dropped this subtle hint early in this conversation. You said Montana elk tag. Yeah. Must be nice. Yeah. It must be nice to get one of those tags. I mean, you know, I'm just going to say it, Jeff. I didn't get a Montana tag last year and I'm,

You got mine and you didn't probably even hunt on it that much. So I have a little animosity towards you. Yeah. Yeah. We can figure that one out later. Like you've had a, I think you've had more elk tags in Montana in the last three years than I have.

So yeah, we really need to talk about how you're getting these dang tags. I mean, do you know somebody, do you know something? I wish it worked that way, man. I would be kissing. No, I, you know, I've gotten, I've gotten lucky and, uh, you know, I, I, it, it didn't start this way. That's for sure. Um, you know, I, my first out of state hunt that I went on was in 2014 to Wyoming. Um, that's that bowl there. That bowl's also Wyoming, but, um, yeah.

You know, it is something that I looked at and said, you know, I would like this to be a normal part of my life. And it took a lot of years and adjustments and shifts in how I manage my finances and to be able to afford to be able to hunt several states a year or at least another state a year. So, and drawing tags is a big part of that as well. Yeah, yeah, it gets tougher every year.

Hey, American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition, titled The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith,

and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions.

We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the whitetail deerskin trade,

which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761 to 1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audio books are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by me, Stephen Rinella. Yeah, the first time I ever hunted out of state, it was Wyoming.

And I shot a nice six point when I get back to work. One of the guys there, they always had something to say. He's like, oh, it must be nice. Until he's getting paid too much money around here. It's like, all right. Well, first off, I know that guy made a lot more money than me because he'd worked there a lot longer. And also, it's sometimes, you know, what...

What are you affording? What other luxuries are you affording, um, through the year? Uh, what are you wasting your money on versus putting that money towards going hunting out of state? Right. Yeah. Um, I can think of it a lot of things, but, uh, you know, it just kind of adds up, right? Yeah. It's, you know, and this is a big part of what I hope people take away from this message is that we need to think about our decision-making different. And, um,

I'm going to tie this into wealth. And this was an actually, this was an elk shaped camp that I, that I, I figured out how to poignantly say how I felt about wealth creation. Um, Dirk, you came to some of the Texas camps with us, right? The, uh, at the iron game ranch.

Amazing. Amazing ranch, beautiful high fence. Uh, every exotic animal that was there, you know, every bass in the pond was five plus pounds, you know, it was their, their cabins we were staying at or nicer than most people's homes. Um,

And so it was one of these mornings that, uh, that, uh, before camp started. And oftentimes I had done this where I'll get up in the morning, have coffee and let's go walk around doing a little bit of praying before camp and, you know, for everything that's going to be happening and everybody's message and all that stuff. And the,

This ranch was owned by one of the founders of PayPal. And I never actually met him. I think Dan had met him a few times. I don't know the guy's name. But that morning, it was a little bit dark. And as I was walking, I could see into their house. And his private chef was cooking him breakfast.

And, uh, and I remember thinking to myself, you know, this guy, when he wakes up in the morning, there's not anybody that tells him how he has to spend his time that day. He is in complete control of his time. Right. And as I thought about that and meditated on it, you know, I realized that that is,

That is what we are all actually seeking in life. That is the greatest measurement of wealth. I've had money. I've lost money. I've made money. Money is replaceable, but the time that we have in this life, our time here on earth, is irreplaceable. It is our most precious resource. And

For me, it clicked with my messaging to my clientele, the people that I work with, is that we've been taught that how much money we have, how big our retirement account is, how big our bank account, our boat, our 2024 Duramax, whatever it may be, represents our wealth. When the reality is our ability to control our time should be how we measure our wealth.

which trickles into how we are making financial decisions. And if controlling our time

is the most precious resource that we have. It means that we need to be making decisions different than what society, what generations before us have done, what is often said from financial advisors. I oftentimes talk people out of putting money into vehicles or products or environments where I get paid to do. I talk myself out of paychecks because I want them to be in a position to control their time. And so...

Uh, you know, the, the, the must be nice. Uh, you know, yeah, it, it, it is nice. It is nice to be able to go hunt other States, but it's not accidental. It's not because I got lucky. It's not, it's none of that. It's because I've made decisions intentionally different than, than what I think most people have to create this level of capacity to control my time in my life. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

If you could say, if you could give us five things, it sounds like the cover of Cosmo magazine, five best practices to make your man happy. Yeah.

I mean, so, so give me five, if you want, okay, let's give me five things that our listeners can do to, if they have a goal of wanting to go hunt out of state or have, or maybe just hunting in state, maybe it's just a struggle even to be able to get to go hunting in your home state. Yeah.

What are five things they can do? Maybe that's too many, but what are some things folks can do to set themselves up good to like not take away from their everyday money, their living and their family? And, you know, all those things are important retirement stuff. How can they still participate in those things yet? Put some money away for, for sure. Hunting for a fun, fun time.

Well, let me, let me start with addressing something that you mentioned there. And that is hunting, taking away from your family. If hunting is taking away from your family, if hunting is building resentment between you and your spouse, you're doing it wrong. Like that's just straight up. Hunting is, if you're a hunter, it is core to your DNA. And like, and I, and that's, that's how I look at hunting in my life. Like there are a few human activities that are core to who I am as hunting, uh,

Hunting is, I love gardening. And one of them is between me and my wife. Um, and that's about it. And those are, those are the core human activities that are part that are ingrained in us and our DNA. And so hunting should not be something that is a liability in your relationship. You know, you go back throughout time and you look at the hieroglyphs on walls and like, those are celebrations of hunting stories. And that's how that should be in our, in our life.

But the problem is we're selfish human beings oftentimes. And oftentimes we are poor managing our finances. We don't financially prepare. It's, hey, we're going hunting, which means something else is not happening in our life that should be happening. And so first, if that is you, if you felt that, and I felt this, I've seen this in my own life. Like everything I'm talking about are things that I have made these mistakes. Right, right. I think we've all been there. Yeah, yeah. So-

On the practical side of things, if there is something that is that important to you, you should have a hunt budget. Like it's not, it's not complicated. You know, there's, there's a lot of different budgeting techniques out there, but you,

the practically there should be a bank account at your bank, at least create a structure, a location that you and your wife can see together that, you know, that money that's in this environment is earmarked and its sole purpose is to produce this experience activity in your life. Um, and so for, you know, at the very minimum, set up a bank account at your bank, uh,

Uh, have it labeled your hunt budget and have a conversation with your spouse about what type of money you would like to spend, where those dollars are coming from in your life. Um, and is it appropriate to spend as, as much as you're hoping to? Um, no, we, we,

we can't let her see that money. Like, I think they call, I believe they call that mad money. Well, cause when she finds it, she's going to be mad. Okay. And this is where, if, if that is where the conversation stopped, you've, you've failed misery. Yeah. Because, uh,

at the end of the day, you know, stereotypical, like most of us men, this is our thing. There are a lot of amazing, bad-ass women hunters out there. Mad respect for you. Most of them out hunt me. Um, but for the most part, this is us. And maybe we take our kids every now and then, um,

But we have to recognize how important hunting is to us as well as recognize that there's something in our wife's lives that is just as important. And so if you're setting up your hunt budget and not your wife's, whatever version of hunting is for her budget,

You've failed. Like I tell, I tell everybody you will go on more hunts. If you set up your wife's hunt budget first, rather than yours, that will pay dividends in a lot of ways. Um, and so it's not just, it's not just, Hey, here's what I'm going to spend, take it or leave it, babe. This is, let's talk about our lives. Let's talk about what's important to us. Let's talk about things that are not really creating value. And this was a big one that, um,

I had to kind of go through this exact same process when my children were young. Once I moved out of my in-laws basement and back, you know, back in normal life and living under one roof, I snowboarded all the time. I mountain biked, I salmon fished. I did all of these things.

that required money and time for me. And I couldn't afford all of those things. And so I looked at my life and I recognized the most important activity, uh, that, that I can do that I want my children to experience is hunting. It had the most impact in my life. It's what I, and, and so, um, I carved almost all of that other stuff out of my life and focused my time and energy into one space. Um,

And ironically, I started killing more elk when I did that too. So, uh, it's, it's surprising what happens when you get intentional and focus your time, energy, and money. Um, and so that, that's, that will be the, like, foundationally, everybody should have a hunt budget. Um, unless you're one of those people that makes so much money that if you spend 20, 30, $40,000 a year and your family doesn't even notice, it doesn't even hurt you at all. Like good for you. Uh, yeah.

That is nice. That would be really nice. That must be nice. It must be nice. How come you looked at me like that? I don't have that kind of money. And I think, you know, like, I think a lot of, like a lot of wives too, you know, maybe, maybe they haven't found their version of hunting, you know, maybe they haven't found an act life activity that they enjoy or passionate about because a lot of them, they're so, you know,

busy and invested into raising children. Right. You know, a lot of these moms are just, they don't allow themselves or don't have a fun out, you know, something they can go do. That's, that's really fun. And maybe we just have to get, you know, we have to kind of advocate for them to find something and help them find it and nurture that, that thing, you know, maybe, maybe, um, you'd,

If they're a little bit on the fence on this thing because of, you know, maybe they don't get to go have any fun and be like, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to split this, this mad money right down the middle and half will go into my hunting fund and half is going to go into your fund to do X, Y, Z. Maybe that's a weekend away with their girlfriends. Maybe it's a day at the spa or it's some little spa.

spoiled thing whatever they're into maybe it's a piece of jewelry whatever they're really into it says like all right we're going to do this together and and as as i build mine you're going to build yours and we're gonna you know we wanted this to be fair i feel like um that it would be a huge and then also uh full transparency man a lot of a lot of guys get slack a lot of flack when they want to go hunting they're like oh yeah i told my wife last week i'm going hunting next week and

She was mad. She didn't want me to go. And if my house is, she's about ready to burn the house down and mad about it. And, uh, we've talked about this before in our camps that, you know, back to that being intentional, planning ahead, being full, fully transparent with your wife or significant other, um, that, you know, this is my intentions for fall. This is the time I want to do it. This is how much it's going to cost. And this is what I'm doing to, to make that all happen. Um, yeah.

So yes, now I'm going to, you know, uh, opera shows on Saturday night in the middle of summer that I never really would have ever done, or I'm taking a trip to Mexico or whatever, whatever she's into. Like you're building those hall pass points, you know, absolutely hate a lot of the things they love, but you just have to grin and bear it and shut your fat mouth and go enjoy it and try to make it enjoyable for them that way. Yeah.

you can be like, yeah, I'll do all this stuff. And then, you know, and I'm going to, I want to do this hunting season. If you can kind of tee all that up ahead of time, it kind of softens it a little bit. You know, they still may not like it that much when you're gone, but it'll, it'll still be like, okay, well, yeah, he did do all those things. I mean, you don't want to rub it in their face, but they know that you've been intentional to get to the point where you could have a little leeway too. Yeah. And it's,

I think a lot of this is what Elkshape Camps have turned into. It's how to develop a level of self-discipline fueled by your passion for hunting.

And, um, you know, I tremendous respect for Dan. He's, he's a wild man. I've never, I don't know anybody that works as hard as he does. He is. I mean, there's been multiple nights in dirt. You and I both know where camp gets done. We may be, you know, sitting down talking about the day and join a barley pop, if you will. And Dan is still working away. And, um, you know, he, his, uh,

His passion for elk hunting, he kind of figured out how and it makes total sense how to take that passion and use that to stay focused every area in our life. And I would say the first area you need to focus is your spouse. If your priorities are out of line, if they feel whether it's turkey hunting or whitetail hunting or mule deer, elk, whatever it is.

But if they're not your priority, they're going to look at what your priority is and they're going to be resentful towards it. And so, you know, just the basic...

a bank account with her name on it, labeled, uh, whatever her activity is, family vacation. That's 90% of really what women are looking for is just to go spend time as a family, whatever it may be that communicates to them that they are the priority. Um, and, and,

Pretty soon, what happens over time is similar to what I know Jessica does for you, Dirk, and my wife does for me is when it's elk season, my wife tells me, don't come home without killing something. They are excited for us. They're thrilled. They see us going out and killing ourselves on this mountain and accomplishing goals in our lives. They're our biggest fans. It hasn't always been that way. If you

You can look in the mirror and you know, like, Hey, this is a liability in my life. It may be time to start looking at how to reposition that in your world so that hunting can be an asset rather than a liability in your relationship, in your life. Absolutely. Absolutely. Something I always talk about is, um, when you're, you're trying to figure out how you're going to afford hunting and stuff. Um,

We go through our day-to-day life and sometimes we just kind of get on autopilot and we just do our thing like, okay, on the way to work today, I'm going to stop by the gas station. I'm going to get, you know, a breakfast sandwich and some coffee and I'm going to spend 12 to 15 bucks on that. Right. So there, there's a simple thing, one simple thing a person can cut to out of their day-to-day life. And let's just talk about that or vices cutting vices from your life.

Um, typically a vice is an unhealthy practice, you know, whether you're using tobacco or maybe it's alcohol, whatever your vice or your jam or wherever it is. Um, if you could cut that out, if you just start looking at dollars and cents, it's like, okay, I buy a 30 pack of beer every week. How much is a 30 pack of beer? That's 20 bucks. Let's say I depend on what kind you drink. Let's just say it's about 20 bucks, uh, 52, uh, weeks in a year times 20 bucks. That adds up a lot.

Yeah. And that's just, that's just beer. Well, guess what beer, what else is bad? Beer's bad for the budget.

Well, beer's bad for the belly. Yeah. You know, my vice is, uh, thankfully, you know, I don't mind a beer every now and then, but it is, it's not alcohol. It's good food. I mean, my office is the above a brewery with great food. And so I walk out of my office down the stairs and it's not the beer that tempts me. It's, you know, it's, it's the Buffalo sandwich that they've got down there. And so, and you're exactly right. Like these are things that,

even I have to practice and intentionally tell myself no in this space because it is not supporting my ambition. I can, I can drop 25 bucks a day on lunch and, and it, I mean, I've gone through seasons of life and I, and I get through that season. I'm like, man, I'm 10 pounds heavier than I want to be. I hate this. I yo-yo every year. Uh, I've spent, you know, a

lot of money that you know i realistically is not hurting my family today but it's just not in alignment with my ambition and who i'm called to be and and you're never getting it back that that money's gone it's yeah gone yeah and i'll tell you it's not easier to drop 10 pounds the older you get no no absolutely not oh yeah you're right about that but you know i i think that um

Overall, if we go back to the hunting out of state, that is something that I hear people talk about like, oh, if I could only. You can't. You can do this. It is not impossible to go on an out-of-state elk hunt. It's not that expensive. A few thousand dollars and covers all of it. Most people don't.

with the right amount of time can come up with that money. And, and there's lots of resources to figure out, Hey, what's this going to cost? All that type of stuff. Um,

but, you know, set up a hunt budget and start systematically saving towards your goal. And, uh, I, you know, when I, when I first started working with clients, especially young clients that don't have a lot of savings capacity, I connect savings, uh, the same as I do weightlifting. Like if you hadn't lifted weights before you're new to weightlifting and you walk in the gym, you don't walk up to the squat rack and see what your PR is. You

You walk up to the squat rack and then you grab a PBC bar and you see if you can get your butt to the ground. You see if you can even make the movement like, Ooh, my hamstrings allow me to get, you know, level with the ground. Yeah.

And eventually then you start doing the bar and then you add weight and you add weight and you add weight. And so for those of you that have never had a hunt budget that are just beginning this adventure, um, want to course correct, uh, how hunting is impacting your life. Start with the movement, just perfect the movement, set up the financial structure, perfect the movement. Even if it's just 25 bucks a paycheck, you can always add weight to the bar. Um, and once you're at that spot,

That self-discipline leads to other areas of your life. And at the end of the day, if you want to be someone that has the capacity to

hunt out of state consistently, um, that means that you have to align your life with that. And you have to make financial decisions that look very different than society. Um, and that will be my first, like the first big thing there is like, if you are making decisions that look the same as everybody else, you're going to be producing the same result. And, um,

And oftentimes, you know, if you if you look at the kids getting out of college today, they get out of college, get their first job, better go buy that new BMW, you know, and then, oh, I've got a new job, but I better sign up for my 401k and start funding my retirement, these things like that.

You're going to end up in the same spot as everybody else. You have to do things different. And so your overall financial health, if you focus on your overall financial health, you focus on – and I'll talk through some of these things that I see people make these mistakes every day and they don't realize it because they're doing what society has told them to do.

But if you are financially healthy and you are liquid, you have savings, you have emergency funds, you have different types of money in your life, guess what? You're going to go on more elk hunts. It's not going to be a big deal to spend three grand every year or five grand every year or start mixing in a buffalo hunt. I went on a mountain lion hunt last year. These things just show up the healthier your financial life is. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

Another thing, as you were kind of talking that out, I was thinking about a friend of mine told me one time what they do to help save money.

is they're like, you know, Oh, it's the weekend. We want to go out. We want to go out on the town. We want to go out to nice dinner and whatever. And, and I mean that you can shoot a hundred dollar bill right in the face going out on the town, you know, that, that, or more. Right. And what they would do is they would, they would write themselves a check out of their checking account and deposit it into their save into their savings account for that amount of money. And they would stay home. And, uh,

As a guy, if you were to do that, so, okay, honey, we're not going out of town. What we're going to do, I'm going to cook dinner tonight for you. I'm going to make your favorite thing. Don't ask her what she wants because you're going to sit there for hours.

45 minutes. Like, I don't know. What do you want? I don't know. Well, what do you want? Just, just, just say, Hey, I'm going to make you your favorite thing. Whatever that is. Her favorite thing is whatever you cook. Usually she doesn't have to cook it. Especially if you're doing the dishes afterwards. And then you, you deposit that, you know, half in her account, half in your account, man, just, just little things like creative ways to like put some money away into something good instead of just throwing it down a hole.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's, there's lots of good things that can be financial holes as well. And, and so if we, if, if we go a little broader, as far as your financial health, there are a few decisions that I see people make consistently that,

that create a ripple impact throughout their life that if they understood, they probably would have made the decision different. And so one of those first ones is your home. I'm not saying homeownership is bad by any means, but I hear almost every single day, your home is your asset, a greatest asset, a home is an asset. And the problem I have with that is when we look at the baby boomer generation,

The majority of them, there was a massive shift pre-baby boomer to the baby boomer generation as far as what people were doing financially. And the baby boomers were taught like home ownership is the quickest way to creating wealth and your home is your greatest asset and all of this. And now as we see that generation retiring, the majority of them have a home, may or may not be paid off. And unfortunately, it's turned out to be true for them that their home is their greatest asset.

And you have to ask yourself, how much income does your home produce for you in retirement? And that's nothing.

Matter of fact, even if your home is paid off, it will only always require income from you. And so by no means here, don't hear me say the homeownership is bad, but it's not uncommon that when you are entering the homeownership space, that you sit down with mortgage brokers, real estate agents, and it's easy to get approved for what's called a debt to income ratio. Essentially how much of your income is required to be paying for the mortgage on this home is

And people are committing 25, 30, 35% of their income. The million dollars I took out in 2007 was about a 55% debt to income ratio for me. And so trust me, I've been there. I've made these mistakes. But what happens when you go down that path and

and your home is your greatest asset and you feel society's pressure, we gotta own a home, we gotta do this. Like all of a sudden you've made a decision that does not leave you financial capacity to have flexibility in life.

You know, I wholeheartedly believe that the best wealth building strategies that exist out there are going to be strategies that show up inside of your life. Opportunities that come from the people that you surround yourself with, your community, your network, whether that means walking away from a good job and starting a business, whether it means, you know, buying the old lady's farm that your family has always been friends with, whatever it may be. But

The greatest wealth building strategies are not something that is going to come from your retirement account, not come from a fancy insurance policy or anything like that. It's going to come from you taking a risk that you have the ability to control inside of your own life, having the financial capacity to take that risk, and starting a business, becoming a real estate investor, one of those things.

But if you have 30% of your income going just to pay for the roof over your head, you do not leave yourself the financial capacity to accumulate enough money, let alone go elk hunting, but to take advantage of those opportunities when they show up. And most of us here probably have seen some opportunities come and go in our lifetime that we can look back on and say, man, if I only could have done this at that time, my life would look different today.

That's a big part of the message that I hope that people are hearing here is like, let's start making decisions different so that we don't have to be the person that looks back and daydreams about taking advantage of opportunities that have come by. That you have the financial capacity to go out, but you also have the financial capacity to walk away from steady income, start your own job, to be a real estate investor, all of those things. Most of those

decisions tied directly back to how much of your income is going to pay that mortgage. And so, and it's hard like today's world, this isn't a, this isn't an easy solution. You know, I generally encourage people not to have any more than 15% of their gross income going to cover their housing expenses. And this applies towards renting too. So, you know, simple math, if you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year gross, you're

15% is 15,000. Divide that by 12, that's 12.50 a month. You shouldn't be spending more than 12.50 a month. That is your target. That is your goal of where you want to be. It's an ideal. It doesn't always work out that way, but that's what you want to aim towards.

Because when you get to that spot, all of a sudden, you now have the capacity to not only take advantage of the match in your 401k, but now you can pay off that truck loan. You can get out of student loan debt. You can have a savings account. You can have an emergency fund. You can have midterm money. You have the financial capacity to be prepared to make decisions that lead to a different life than most. And I will tell you, that is nice, being in that position.

Yeah. Yeah. I, like you said, you know, I've, I think we've all seen like that, that those opportunities come and go and it's like,

Like nowadays I look back and like, man, remember back when houses were this much money and property was that much money. And man, if I could have afforded to buy that property and then, you know, done something with it, you know, build storage sheds or sit on it for 10 years and then, and then dump it and make a whole bunch of money, man, I could have made a lot of money. But, but like you said, you know, when you're, when you're, when you're at that 25%, 35%, whatever, um,

debt to income on your, on your home. Sometimes you just do not have that luxury of having that extra money to throw around. You're not able to save anything and put it away. So house rich cash poor. Yeah. It's an awful spot to be. It really is. You get to enjoy a lot of nice staycations when you, you went on vacation. What'd you, Oh, we had a staycation. I mowed the lawn and shoveled dog crap out of the yard. It was great. Yeah. Well, yeah.

The other big one that I often see is, and this sounds counterintuitive, but people being too aggressive in funding their retirement. IRAs, 401ks, they're good. We need those financial tools, but we really need to understand actually how those tools work. It's not just, hey, the S&P has done X, Y, Z for 30 years. Let's do a linear math equation. That is not the way investments work. Yeah.

And we need 401ks. We need IRAs. Those are an important part of our overall financial profile. But, um,

Good example. Just talking to a client that we would all know right before this meeting. And, you know, we were talking about how much is appropriate to put in this 401k and he's only contributing enough to receive the match, which is exactly what I recommend for the majority of people is contribute up to the match, get that free money. But any money beyond the match has to be money that you very carefully think about and make sure is this the best use of these dollars?

Those dollars are essentially in that environment for 30 years, however long it is until you have retirement. They're at risk. You're paying fees and taxes on those eventually somewhere along the way. They're kind of not part of your life until you're at least 59 and a half.

And so if you want to have the financial capacity to do other things in life, anything beyond the match is money that you really need to think, is this the best location to do this? Or should these dollars be part of my life today? Yeah, that's really good because in essence, you're basically taking those dollars out of play. You're taking them off the table.

Putting them in something you don't get to play with for a long time. Whereas back to those opportunities, if you're putting that extra money into some opportunity fund, um, that may fund your next project. Let's say, okay, now I'm able to become an entrepreneur. If that's your dream or, or whatever, to, to take advantage of this next, next thing that comes along. So.

Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. It makes sense. And let me say this. I'll read my disclosure at the end of this podcast, but I'm a financial advisor. None of this advice, none of this stuff that I'm talking about

Should be listeners out there. You don't take this as financial advice. Financial advice needs to be given on an individual basis. Sure. These are just ideas, thoughts, things that I've seen that have had impacts for other people, whether or not these are the right decisions for you. It's between you and your financial advisor or financial planner. But, um,

Um, you know, just like medicine, they, you know, it's weird. You know, people think of the medical world and they, you know, they, they think of adults versus kids. Like you're not going to receive the same prescription. It may be the same drug, but the dosage looks different. Money is no different than that. The dosage here needs to be individually applied. And so, um, if nothing else, I hope that.

You know, the listeners here are getting some ideas, some thoughts, maybe a little bit of a different perspective than what they traditionally hear from this space. And so they, maybe they question a little bit deeper and start looking at kind of what's going on in their own life and take some action so they can get some more of those non-resident out of state tags. Heck yeah. Well, man, it's been good having you on the podcast and catching up with you.

I feel like, you know, we've got past the new year, the new year, new me thing. But I think it's still, well, how many weeks are we into the year now? Three? Yeah. Like how many of us, raise your hand if you already fell off your goals. Okay. We'll just get back on that horse and keep riding. Dang it.

But I thought it'd be a good time of year. You know, I think that's finances and try and hunting, trying to figure out your, your tags and stuff for the year. That's in everyone's mind right now. And it's like, how the heck am I going to afford it? Maybe I can't afford it this year, but man, if I start now next year, this time I'll definitely be able to afford that, you know, must be nice hunt somewhere. Cool. Yeah. Well start now. Cause five years from now, you're going to be happy. You did. And, and you,

Your financial life impacts every aspect of your life. And so it's just as important as exercise or nutrition or faith. This is an important part of your world. And so start making the movement. Start with reps, even if there's not a lot of weight on the bar. And add weight as capacity increases.

Yeah. You talk to a lot of couples too, you know, relationships and, and a common theme is what strains a couple's relationship is finances, right? You know, there's always like some kind of a rift or there's things aren't going good in your finances. Yeah.

A lot of times things aren't going good with your marriage either. And it's really hard to get along and nobody wants that. Dang it. Yeah. Um, man, we're just becoming life coaches in this episode. Oh man. Uh, no, it's, uh, you're not wrong though. You know, you want to, you want to talk about an expensive hobby and try divorce. Uh,

That's awful. That's really bad. Some people have never made that mistake. And it happens. I mean, I talked to a client yesterday that it's going to cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to get divorced. And it's just heartbreaking. I'm a big fan of marriage and working things out. Anybody who's been married, I think we've got 18 years here this fall. And they know it's not all...

peaches and cream. It's, it's hard. So it's the hardest adventure I've ever been on and, and the most rewarding. And yes, your finances have an impact on that. And so take it serious. In the words of the tiger King, you may never financially recover from it. Big fan. I'm waiting for tiger King two to come out.

I wonder if Trump's going to like, uh, pardon him and get him out of there. And then we can get part two of tiger King. Oh man. Just open the can of worms right here on the podcast. Oh boy. Uh, well, thanks again, Jeff. You need to any closing thoughts or you said you need to have to read your disclaimer. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I've got a disclosure already, but I'll just, I'll just say, I hope that, uh, I hope people are encouraged from this. It is absolutely possible to go out there and be going on this level of hunts. Um, you know, there's, there's lots of resources out there for people to learn about the point system and, you know, what it costs to go on these hunts, all of that, but start today. Like you're not going to get there if you don't start today with at least the movement. And, uh, um, as far as disclosures go, uh,

Investment advisory services are offered through Coho. I am a representative of Coho Advisory Services. Nothing I've given into this podcast is considered investment advice. This is solely for informational purposes. Please talk to your advisor about anything that I've talked about here today.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, good luck this next fall. And I hope your son's football team carries on the winning streak. I know Sandpoint's got a strong football program all the way through high school. So good job. Good job, dad. It's impressive. It's a great community. We love it. Blessed to be here for sure. All right. We'll catch up again later. Thanks, Dirk.

I'm Peter Schrager, host of Good Morning Football on the NFL Network and the Season with Peter Schrager podcast. Whether you're ordering wings for the game or you're whipping up a seven-layer dip or you're ordering a pizza, there's something about football that makes you want to eat. In this football season, Uber Eats has the best deals on game day food, no matter what you're craving.

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meat eaters American history series in this edition titled the mountain men 1806 to 1840 we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger Jed Smith

and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions.

We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the whitetail deerskin trade,

which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761 to 1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by me, Stephen Rinella.