Does Getting Married Help You Earn More Money? Earn Your Leisure's Troy and Rashad on the Marital Minimum Wage, Tariffs, Financial Trauma and "F U Numbers"
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Well, well, well, this is the crossover episode we have all been waiting for. Today, I'm joined by the trailblazers behind Earn Your Leisure, Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal. If you don't already know, Earn Your Leisure isn't just a financial literacy podcast. It is a full-on empire.

Troy and Rashad have been hosting their show for years and bringing on guests to share advice on building wealth. And so when their team reached out to us and asked if they could be guests on Money Rehab, it was a fast hell yes. And the conversation was just awesome, nerdy, and actionable as I knew it would be.

We dig into a lot, so get ready. We talk about their predictions on the U.S.-China trade war and what it means for your portfolio. We also talk about the insider trading mess in Washington and whether finance can really be democratized. Also, we go pretty deep, talking about financial trauma, money dysmorphia, and the push-pull of relationships and money and what it actually means to feel like you have enough. Oh, and if you have a crush on Rashad, you will get the answer on whether or not he is single. Kind of.

Welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you for having us, Nicole. It's a pleasure to be here. So I've been such a fan for such a long time. Got to throw some financial flowers your way. Since the beginning. I appreciate that. I've been such a big fan of what you do. We're all in the financial literacy party. I think what really struck me is you're so calm.

I love your voice in a crisis. It even makes me calm. Everyone relax. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have you always been chill? Nah, you gotta keep your composure. I think that we've always had a calm Demeter. He's a little bit more outgoing than I am. Like, I'm very chill, laid-back, reserved person. But I feel like in a day and age where everybody's trying to be somebody that they're not,

And I feel like a lot of times when you get online or get on social media, it's almost like wrestling. You have to adapt to a personality. So you have to change your name and you gotta change the way that you dress and change the way that you talk. So I think it's refreshing for people to just really feel like it's an organic vibe. And that's what we did. We haven't changed our personas.

or changed our name, or changed too much about ourselves. We're just the same people that we were before. So even if people don't know us or haven't,

knew us for 20, 30 years, they can feel like it's an authentic person that they actually grew up with, as opposed to a celebrity or a talking head that they're listening to. Maybe with some fancier stuff. A couple of trinkets. With the tariffs going on, not necessarily on my bingo card, although it probably should have been because with Trump, he tells us what he's going to do. It just wasn't on the bingo card with how aggressive it was. So everybody's freaking out.

Your audience is freaking out. How do you tell people to stay calm? The beautiful thing about our audience is that they grew with us through the pandemic. And so they've seen crisis before and they've seen a bull market and they've seen a bear market and they've seen catalyst events that have the market appreciate and they've seen catalyst events have the market depreciate. And so when this happened, it was kind of that preparation of there's some uncertainty, which has always been the number one thing in the market that we can't control. And

And you can reference 2020 March of what uncertainty looked like. And we can reference-- - Circuit breakers, it was crazy. - Exactly, right? Like this is the end, like how far can this thing fall? And so when you see something like the tariff announcement happening early April, it was like, oh, okay. We've seen something like this before. There's a lot of uncertainty.

but this is an opportunity, right? Every time there's a crisis, we always tell people there's an opportunity for people to really take advantage of it. And so our audience was prepared. It wasn't like I'm selling everything. It was like, we know what to do, right? When these prices get to points that we like inside of good companies, we're investing. And so they did that and they're slowly, but surely they're starting to see the benefits of that discipline when it comes to investing. Yeah, because with that opportunity, we saw,

1500 point gains, three of them, I think, record breaking highs. And you can only participate in that if you don't sell. I mean, retail investors, I think studies have shown

and you'll know this, tend to do 4% to 5% worse than the S&P 500 because they get so scared during these times. And Google shows that sell stocks, that search rises anytime we see a short-term dip. But that opportunity means that your investment portfolio is up. Do you guys know how much yours is up right now? Well, I'll say this. We're still down from the highs that we were at in February. We haven't recovered fully yet. But

We spoke with the head of brokerage at Robinhood, and he says they had a record inflow of money that flew in over the last month and a half. So now I think that people are starting to go away from what they used to do as far as panic and sell. There's still some panic selling that happens, but now people are really buying the dip. And that's become a term in urban vernacular is "buy the dip," right? So I think that more and more people are looking at these downturns as an opportunity,

as opposed to being scared. And that goes to the work that everybody like yourself has been doing and championing as far as financial literacy, teaching people about investing, teaching people about index funds, teaching people about dollar cost averaging. So they used to call retail investors dumb money because they were not educated.

So they were liquidity, they were opportunities for smart money, which is whales and institutions and hedge funds to make money off of. But now I think they're starting to change. I think more and more regular people that might have $5,000 or $10,000 or $1,000 invested, they're still educated and they're not getting taken advantage of at the same level

that it might have been at previous times in history. So I think that current is starting to change a little bit. - You said something important. The title sophisticated investor really doesn't have a monetary amount attached to it anymore. You could have $10,000 and be a sophisticated investor because you have the education. Whereas in the past, a sophisticated investor was somebody that had over 250,000 in their brokerage because they had the capital and people giving them information, then they were making better decisions. But now with the wealth of resources, obviously shows and books,

people can make their own decisions and become sophisticated with the amount of money that they had and can grow portfolios. I mean, the best emotion to have when you're investing is no emotion, which is really, really hard. And that's where a lot of the financial demons come into play. And you guys talk about in the book, you deserve to be rich, some of your financial trauma. So Troy, can you talk to me about when your parents lost your house and how that impacted you and how that still impacts you today? Yeah, it's interesting. I still live in the neighborhood where that house is.

which is pretty interesting. So when we were writing the book, I drove past it just as a moment to see how far we've come. But yeah, my parents from Jamaica, they moved to the Bronx and we were living in the South Bronx in the 80s. And they bought a house in Greenberg, New York.

And at the time, I remember them trying to get as much money as they could for the down payment, borrowing money from family members. And we finally got the house, and it was great. It felt like, yeah, we're moving on up. And within three short years, everything turned around. We lost the house and ended up moving twice and ended up in somebody's basement, one of my dad's friends' basement.

And it was humbling, the embarrassment of it. You have a house in the neighborhood and everybody's looking at you like, "Yo, you guys, you're doing well." And then you're in somebody's basements, roach infested, rat infested, and just like, how did this happen? As time goes on, you realize that the financial education wasn't there. What happened to them was they signed an adjustable rate mortgage in 1988.

and they didn't know what a fixed rate mortgage was. And so when they could afford it in 1988, it was great. But by 1990, '91, that interest rate almost doubled. And so now it wasn't something that they could afford anymore. And it was moving on down. But what it did do is it showed me what coming together looks like. Because even in the midst of that, we never felt like we didn't have

I grew tight relationships with my parents. I grew tight relationships with my brother because we were experiencing that at the same time. And so financial discipline became a thing. I was going to school in Westchester but living in the Bronx and getting bus money and trying to figure out how am I gonna have the bus money and lunch money to get home every day. And these are the things I'm thinking about, like, how am I gonna do this? I didn't have a TV at the time. I remember I used to just listen to the radio and read the newspaper. But inside that, that's why I got a love for reading, especially, like,

I was reading the sports section, but then I'd go to the business section and then I would read the news there in the front. So I always read the daily news back to front. I love sports, and I was like, "All right, I'll get a little business in the middle, and then I'll get to whatever's happening in the world." And so that discipline helped me later in life when it was time to learn about finance. I didn't go to school for economics. I didn't go to school for business.

It was self-taught, and so that reading came back into it. It was Business Week, it was CNBC. It was anything I can get my hands on that would help increase my knowledge base around the world that I wasn't familiar with, 'cause my parents didn't come from it. A lot of my family didn't come from it. I did have some friends who had some financial knowledge, but I wanted to be part of their conversations. Like, I was around and they would have financial conversations, and I was like,

"Man, I can't really contribute. I don't know what they're talking about." And so I took on the liberty to say, "All right, I gotta go educate myself." So the next time they have a conversation about money and finance and real estate, yeah, I'm well in-depth. In fact, I'm gonna add to this conversation. So it was like a challenge for me from that point on. But that all happened because of losing a house and figuring out

how you're gonna move on as a teen and how you're gonna correct those mistakes in the future for your family. And you own a house now? I own a house. I own two homes. Yeah, so I own-- My parents, we live in a home now. And that's interesting. During the pandemic, when interest rates were really low,

and i remember like hey we got to refinance this house and my parents were like we can't do it we could own it they were like logically psychologically just going through the process of interest rates that that trigger word again they couldn't do it i'm like look it's 2.75 we may not get to this point again right now we're at four and a half that's two points on your interest

And just the fear and the process of them going through something like that again, they didn't do it. And so we stayed at that four and a quarter, four and a half, and now you see interest rates up at 7%. So we missed a moment where they could have saved money on a mortgage, but that fear kicked in again. So I owned that home with them, and then I just completed a home that I just built with my wife. So that was a process too.

Yeah, I remember my family's house being foreclosed on when I was little. And no matter what I know still about

finances, it's always going to be an emotional conversation. And I think a house is a home. It's not actually a great investment over time compared to the stock market. But I think it's hard to divorce yourself from those early emotions and that early trauma. Rashad, do you have an early story that has affected the way you look at money? For me, it's just a matter of understanding entrepreneurship

at a high level. My dad was an entrepreneur. My mom was a schoolteacher. She's always from a standpoint of security, and he was on a standpoint of making risk. As an entrepreneur, you take risks. You know, when you're a kid, you're not really privy to a lot of conversations, but if you're an observant person, you can pick up things. You don't have to actually have a conversation with somebody to know what's actually happening. It's like a puzzle. You can put pieces together. There's a lot of times where, as an entrepreneur, you might not get paid.

for a week or a month or whatever, right? And it's an inflow of cash that is not always stable. So that can cause a lot of issues. When one person has a stable income, the other person doesn't have a stable income. That causes problems. You know what I'm saying? Like, that causes problems. So you see things like that and you understand, like, okay, like, this is the dynamics of a family that when you're dealing with finances and it could lead to issues and problems

that's something that you pick up early on. So you got to figure out, like, is this something that I want for myself? Or do I want to subject somebody else to that? Or you start to think about those type of things because a lot of issues and relationships come down to finances.

I think that's one of the major cause for divorces, actually, in America. There's a lot of different things that you just pick up on as a child that shapes who you are as an adult. But for me, personally, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So you see the ups and downs and you know that it's not easy, but that's giving you some level of foresight of what you need to avoid. And...

different mistakes that you could potentially stay away from. Keep your overhead low, don't overexpend yourself when times are good. Make sure you hoard money as opposed to spending money when times are good. Then you don't have money when times are not good. So these are all things that you pick up if you're around people that actually are in business and you can learn from their mistakes just by observing.

And you can learn from things that they're doing good by observing. Like, sometimes you don't always have to actually get mentored to learn. Like I said, if you're an observing person, you can actually learn just by being in close proximity. So you wanted to be an entrepreneur, but you also want to be married. Huh? You said I wanted to be married? You want to be married. Is that right?

Um, marriage, if it happens, it happens. Haven't you recently said that the best thing you can do in this economy is get married? -For sure. Definitely. -Tell me more. Two incomes is better than one. So it's been proven that married couple financial trajectory is better than a single person. That's been proven. So I think that it's beneficial

If you find somebody that, you know, you really connect with to have a family unit, even if it's taxes, it's like there's so many different things that you get benefits for from being married. But it's also a thing that can actually really hurt somebody financially also if you find the wrong person. That's for sure. So it's not something that you enter into ill-advised prematurely.

So you have to find the right person and you have to have proper guidance and education before you enter that union. Wow, that's very professorial. This is a message sponsored by the American of America. If you can find love, I congratulate you, but...

-Have you found love? - Me? I'm not married. -Are you dating? -That wasn't the question, man. I'm just-- day by day, I'm just living, taking it one day at a time. So that's a no? Yes, Nicole, I am married. And I am in love. We recently celebrated 13 years. Congratulations. And what he's saying is true. And before I was married, he was my financial advisor.

And so that was some of the advice. It was like two incomes are better than one. But there's a certain level of stability that you have when you're in a marriage. If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they have something in common. They either are married or they were married or they've been divorced and got remarried because there is a sense of stability there and there's a sense of ordinance in your life, right? There's a certain level of discipline when it comes to being in a marriage. So there are benefits for it, which is what prompted that statement that you read because

being outside and being around a lot of my friends who are single, I'm listening to the stories and I'm hearing the feedback and I'm watching the relationships that they're having. And there's a common theme and it's imbalance, right? There's a lack of stability. There's a lack of knowing what I want and what I'm looking for. And so that led to the prompting of like, you know what? The best thing to be in this space right now is find somebody that you can really rely on, count on, and build with. How do you feel about it? What's your thoughts on that?

Well, I actually learned from you guys about the marital minimum wage. That basically is that married men make on average more than single men. I just wonder if what's the chicken and what's the egg? Do married men become more successful or do more successful men

-get married. - What's your personal experience? My personal experience is having a happy marriage, which I have. And there's a difference, I think, between being married and being happily married. You're absolutely a partnership and a team. And the day we mushed our brokerages together, that was such a great experience because you talk about compound interest. That was a compounding effect of two

investment portfolios becoming one, and that number doubled. Do you think that you being married has helped you? Not just from a brokerage standpoint. Do you feel like you're more successful because you're married? I think that I have more time to focus on it, 'cause we actually met on Raya. -On what? -On a dating app. -Okay, okay. -Are you on dating apps? No, I'm not on dating apps.

I had more time because I wasn't on the dating app anymore. Now we talk about the app being like Zillow. Social media is a dating app. Instagram is a dating app now. Is that how you're starting to date? No, I just...

- I'm not gonna let you go. - Don't know about what's going on with you. - We don't know. We never really got the answer on that. - You're such a politician. So most, I'll get us back to financial news, but the people wanna know, what are you looking for? - Good energy is extremely important. That's the number one.

- Key in life, you gotta have good energy. - Good financial hygiene. - Yeah, you know, I'm not really a person that really checks somebody. I'm not one of those people that's like, on the first date, what's your credit score? - That's not cool or sexy. - But some people, like some people in the financial literacy community, they're like, that's the first question you should know. - No, but you can pick up on cues for how responsible somebody is. - For sure, definitely. - That's important. - I think positive cashflow is important.

You don't want to be with somebody that's a liability. You need assets. More assets than liabilities, for sure. She's 10 for 10 right now, Nicole. You're on fire. I'm loving this. You're amazing. She's a Pisces, by the way. -Are you? -Yeah. -When's your birthday? -March 7th. -March 7th? Wow! -You thought I was joking. -You did some due diligence. -I know who you are. -Oh, my God.

I know your birthday. I know your social security number. That's next. Later on. Okay, Rashad. We're just trying to get you married here. Appreciate it. We're trying to do money rehab. I appreciate it. Should I get a prenup? Do you want a prenup? Mandatory. Mando. Mando. It's money rehab. We got to make sure we give responsible financial advice. So you're ready with your prenup and you want good energy. Yes. That's a great thing. You know what I saw on social media? People with a prenup

are less likely to get divorced than people without a prenup. - Is that true? - That's what I saw. A divorce lawyer. He said he's done thousands of prenups and only had five divorces. Because I think it's about good communication, right? Like, you're gonna have a prenup regardless. The state's gonna decide what happens if, God forbid, you get divorced. But it's having that hard adult conversation. I'm gonna let you go on this one for today. No, communication's key.

-I like that you said that. - It's 100% key, but he's answering questions now like a politician. And so I'm curious, with all of the chaos happening in Washington, would you ever run for office? I put on my Instagram last year that I was thinking about running for governor of New York. And so I have political friends. So one of my friends was actually a congressperson. And they're like, "Are you serious about this?" I'm like, "Look, nah, I'm not serious about it. Don't worry." But I do think that

I'm 50/50 on the politics thing. Half of me would be very interested in being in office. The other half of me just feels like it's so fake, and you gotta make everybody happy, and you can't be who you really are, which now, I guess, that's not-- Maybe you could be, right? Maybe you can. The floodgates have opened. -The floodgates have opened. - Yeah, kicked down the door. For sure. So, I don't know. Politics is interesting, man. It's just a-- It's a dirty game, politics. Do we like his chances, if he does? I love those chances. I vote for you. What I'm worried about

worried about in washington is all of this insider trading when we were checking our portfolios there was a report that nancy pelosi made like five million bucks which is 26 times her salary by the way in the market it's on both sides of the aisle so the only thing they can agree on is the trading insider trading yeah i actually did a study on nancy pelosi's trading it was interesting how she was doing options

And so a lot of her options were deep in the money. And so that wasn't even a strategy. - Explain what deep in the money means. - So deep in the money, so options are you're predicting the appreciation of an equity, right? And so there's a strike price, which is where you wanna reach. But if you've passed that on the way up, then you're out the money, right? Because it hasn't gotten to that point. But let's give a number like 150, right? When you're deep in the money, you're going below 150, right? So you might be at 100, meaning the equity has already passed.

by far where the current equity is trading. - In other words, you're not buying it unless you know something. - Yeah, you know something and you know that there's potential for growth inside of that equity. And so I looked at the company she was invested in, a lot of them had to do with technology, which was interesting. I'm like, all right, we know technology runs the economy, but where she was buying these calls at was really interesting. So if a company like Nvidia was trading at 120, she was buying like,

$60 calls, meaning it's far surpassed $60, but there's potential growth for it to go up. And the depreciation, the percentage going down is a lot less because for Nvidia, a company like that, a trillion dollar company, to go from 120 back down to 60 is highly unlikely. So there's a little bit of certainty there. So it was interesting, I was watching it. Marjorie Greene is another one. And I actually listened to your episode about it when you were talking about the ETFs that track both Democratic and Republican moves. And it was like,

It's funny that none of it's illegal, but it feels very allegedly. It feels like there's got to be some legalities that are not being checked. We had Senator Jill Brown on the show. From New York. From New York. And senators, actually, I think it's all Congress, beats the S&P 500 by 17%. Unless somebody is like...

Warren Buffett in disguise in Washington. It has to be.

- Knowledge. - It's like COVID. They all sold their stocks two weeks before the official lockdown happened because they got briefed that we was gonna get a lockdown. It's human nature. If you know something, you're gonna act on it. And it's not illegal. - It's not. SEC Chair Gary Gensler came out and said it's not illegal to act on non-public information if you're in Congress. - Yeah. - Yet. Maybe when you're a senator. - They know who's getting contracts. They know who's about to get under investigation. They know when

They know everything. They get briefed on things that we're not privy to. So of course, if they're smart, they're going to use that information to make money. And now we've seen it even go a step further with meme coins. President has a meme coin, right? So now you actually have political people that's actually endorsing their own

coin investment to push to the public marketed from the bully pulpit that they've been provided from being elected officials. That's unprecedented pretty much. Yeah, and incentivizing it too. What do you think about Trump coin? Because I think it was like 58 people made a ton of money. 10 million. Yeah, and then everybody else lost everything. Yeah, it's a scam. Any of those coins are scams. They're not tied to anything. The whole point of that is just to pump it up real quick, get...

a few people rich, and then it's gonna fall apart. So that's happened with anybody that's done that. Celebrities, when they've endorsed to the coin, we just never seen a president do that before. But there's a lot of things that we've never seen happen. Or a first lady. She got a coin. Yeah. Everybody gets a coin. Granddaughter's gonna get a coin next. I don't know. I think what worries me, and you guys do such great work on democratizing

financial literacy, and I try to do the same work. But when you have this going on in Washington, can it ever actually be democratized when there's such an unfair advantage? When you see, you know, I think it came out that 100 members of Congress are trading stocks that they have bills on. With this playing field, can it ever be leveled?

No, it's never gonna be level. The idea of there's no democracy. Like, democracy is everybody's equal. That's not true. We know that. If you're Elon Musk, you're not the same as a schoolteacher in Nebraska. You can literally put $200 million into an election. How are you equal? Right? If that was the case, then it would be so many different laws and rules that would be put in place to make every single person equal. So I think that it's never an equal playing field in life.

But the most you can do is actually just get into the game. That's right. You can get into the game. You're not going to be LeBron James.

but at least you're in the game you can participate you can participate in an imperfect system i think that's the key to democratize part is the participation so yes we know that they're doing it can we track what they're doing oh yeah there's actually apps that you can use to track it so if we can track it that means we can use information too we can participate at the level we're at because yeah like you said it's always going to be imbalance but if we don't participate that imbalance is

that gap just widened so far. Yeah, you can't say, "Well, I'm not gonna do it 'cause it's not fair." Well, then you get left behind. You gotta be in the game to win. You either participate

or sit on the sidelines or start a revolution and try to erase the whole entire system and bring a new system in, but that's extremely difficult to do. So as long as-- We're gonna do it. We're waiting for you, Rashad. You're gonna run for office with your wife. -First lady, yo. -You have it. -See you now. -Yeah, you have it. Can I be the campaign manager? -Can I be the press secretary? -I got your political strategist right here. Press secretary, I like that. I like that. -We're on the case. -You're hired.

Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab.

How often do you check your brokerage? I mean, you got to check every day. Every day. I check twice a day. How much are you up? Let me check. Can we check? Yeah, I'm going to check right now. Should we all check? My E-Trade is up 79%. 79%? We got down to 11% earlier in April. So yeah, since April. So we're up about 60% since the tariff thing. From where primarily? So that's my options trading account. But it's all relative. I think sometimes people get discouraged with numbers. Numbers is an infinite...

language. There's no ending or beginning in mathematics. So we have to look at, okay, where are you up since we started the year? Where are you up since you started your brokerage account? Let's say I'm up 500% since I started my brokerage account, but I'm down from the start of February when it's... I think sometimes this can be misleading.

and it can have some level of discouragement for the average person. I just tell people, just invest. If you invest in quality companies, ETFs, index funds, you're going to make money over the course of time. But in pockets, you might have a good season where you're up. You might have a bad season when you're down. But if you look at it too much, then that's going to cause you either a comparison

analogy where you're actually comparing yourself to other people, then you start to gamble. Then you start to make bad decisions or you get discouraged because you're like, "Why am I doing this? I'm only up 5%. I might as well just gamble." Online right now, there's more money you're putting online gambling than in the stocks. That's a problem.

So we really have to be cautious about how we curate these messages because the reason why people are putting more money into online gambling is because they think that they can have a quicker opportunity to make more money. I like it boring. Like, so boring. I like my returns. Most people are not entertained by something that's boring. They're entertained by flash and numbers. And if that's the mentality, then you're going to go to Las Vegas. Yeah. And you're starting to see it now over the past...

six or seven years where people are appreciating the number. So where it was, hey, we can get you a return of 7%, people are sneezing at that. That's a good return. Yeah, 7% to 10%. When you're not educated in the space, it feels like, oh, that's not a lot. Especially if I tell you, hey, I had this equity that I invested in. NVIDIA would be a company that's up 400%.

the seven doesn't feel as good. And so there's a level of expectations that we have to put, but a level of knowledge we have to put behind that. If you have compounded interest of 7% return every year, you're in a good position. - It's also based on how much money you have. Because if you have 7% on $1,000, you can't do anything with that. If you have 7% on a million, that's somebody's salary.

So it's all relative. And that goes back to the education as well. So the numbers that we're looking at is important, but it's also how much money you're putting in. That's why you got to put as much money as possible. Saying like the amount doesn't matter is a lie. Amount always matters. I agree. But that's why investing and business go hand in hand. So like with our platform, we teach entrepreneurship and we teach

investing because you got to have money to invest. What happens is that if you don't have money to invest, now you start with very short, small bots of money. Then you start to gamble with that because you want outstretched returns to make it make sense. $1,000, 7% is not going to move the needle. So now I need 10,000% return on my $1,000 to actually get somewhere in life. But if you have positive cash flow coming in, now you can invest $1,000 a month

Now that compound interest makes sense. So it's a double-edged sword. You have to find ways to make money, whether that's through a high-earning occupation, and you have to be skilled in today's high-earning occupations that's actually going to make money in the next 20 years, or you have to be an entrepreneur. So you can't

go about it one way or another. You can't just earn a lot of money and do nothing with it. That's the recipe for disaster. And then you can't be a just Warren Buffett when it comes to stocks, but then have no money to invest. You're going to get frustrated and you're going to go against your discipline either way. So it's all interconnected.

I think the first 100K is the hardest. I think that's when people get really frustrated because they're not seeing the power of compound interest. But once you get up there, I was looking at my portfolio, I thought I was good for 4% up yesterday when the market spiked again. But at a certain point, that 4% or 1% makes a big difference. So if you're at a million, 1% gain doesn't seem like a lot in the market, but that's 10 grand. If you're at 2 million, you're at 20 grand. And so I think the

the initial accumulation phase can be the most frustrating. - It's interesting you said that because I agree. It's the first 100,000, even trying to save up to that amount. I know a lot of people are like, "Hey, I'm saving my money 'cause that's what I've been taught." As you're a young adult, it's save, save, save. And trying to get to 100,000 to invest is, it's like the mountain top. If you can get to that, then it's like, all right, I have income now to see substantial growth. That was kind of my story. It was like, get to the 100,000,

do all the research, put in some good investments, and watch the return. And I did that in 2020, and then the returns were great. And so we're just gonna replicate that, but that 100,000, that is the threshold. - When did you get there? - Early 2020. - What about you, Rashad? - 100,000? I'm not 100% sure, to be completely honest with you. I remember when I made my first million dollars. 100,000 to me was not a goal.

I'm not discouraging people from $100,000, but I feel like $100,000 is very attainable. I know a lot of people that have $100,000 saved in their 401k. That's a realistic number that if you're doing the right things, you're going to get to $100,000. A million is where it gets tricky because to have a million dollars liquid, that's when I think it's...

That's the hardest to me personally. Your first million is the hardest to me. I feel like the $100,000 is inevitable. A million dollars is almost damn damn possible. Liquid. But once you get a million, now you just got to... The changes. So when was that for you? I think it was 2021. Yeah.

- And you guys shared it and celebrated or? - We didn't share it, we both made it. - Share it. - But the 100 that-- - No, like you say like, "Damn" on your phone or whatever. - Yeah, definitely. - Definitely. - And we were like, I remember putting metrics in. If I get to a million, I'm gonna buy this watch.

and then you got to the man if i bought out that's really like 50 i don't know i gotta i changed the metric i'm like we gotta make 1.5 we gotta make two and so you just keep changing metrics but yeah i agree with what he's saying like the million was the goal 100 000 saved to invest was like

I gotta get there, 'cause that $100,000 turned into the million. What'd you buy at a million? What did I buy? I bought a watch. Yeah, that's the first thing. I mean, I think the thing is we keep changing the goal on ourselves. So once you get to a million, it's like, "I'll definitely celebrate when it's 1.5 or when it's 2 or when it's 3," or whatever it is. I think you skip steps. So it's a million, then it's 10 million.

That's the next goal. Like, 10 million is a goal. Then after that, it's like maybe 50 or 100 million. -You just add a zero. -You leapfrog. What was your-- what was your route? Was it like one and then 1.5? I think for me, every time I set a goal and I hit it,

I automatically think of the next goal. And I think that comes back to a lot of the financial trauma that you guys talk about, because it feels like it's never enough. When you're like, "Oh, when I get a million dollars, then I'm set." And it doesn't totally change. Like, what's in your bank account doesn't equate to how you feel about something being enough. Do you guys feel like you have enough? I always used to say my mindset was that of a millionaire. My bank account just didn't say it. So even when I was teaching in school,

I had that mindset of, "I'm gonna be financially disciplined," because if I was making $100,000 a year and managing a family of two and a wife, I'm like, "If I get a million, there's not much that's gonna change." So it was the mindset. The money just came because, obviously, the value we were adding, but the discipline remained as well. It wasn't like, "All right, now I'm going to be an overspender. Now I'm gonna be frivolous with money. Now I'm gonna do things that are out of character for me." Like you said in the beginning, we get to show up as ourselves.

Every day. This is-- We haven't really changed since we were like 12 and 13 years old. And so, we've gotten knowledge and resources and obviously relationships that have helped guide it. But that just added to the tool belt of who we were already-- were with, especially when it comes to money. I feel like when you get your first million dollars, you're gonna feel pressure. You're gonna have a lot of anxiety. - Why? - Because you don't wanna lose it. That's the first thing. Nobody wants to have money and then go broke. When you're broke, there's no fear of going broke 'cause you're already broke.

But it is a lot of pressure to make sure that you do the right things with your money because there's no guarantee that you can make that money again. So that's one level of pressure. And then most of the time, you're gonna change where you live, you're gonna have different things. Your kid might start going to private school, so your expenses are gonna go up. That puts more pressure on you to keep making money. - Lifestyle creep. - Right. That's a real thing. It's...

-More pressure. - More money, more problems. More money, more problems. That's a fact. Do you guys have a number? Like an FU money number? It sounds like your next number, or have you hit it yet, is 10 million. I think the FU number's 100. -100 million. -That's when you can just... -Ride off the sun's dead. -Live off your interest. At that point in time, I feel like it's almost impossible to...

go back to zero if you have 100. But you want 100 million liquid or you want 100 million of net worth? Liquid. 100 million liquid. Liquid. Because you could have 100 million net worth and then 95% of that is tied up into a company's valuation. Exactly. And then that company... And not mark to market and you don't know... Right, you can't actually get... We met a broke billionaire before. It was an interesting story. He told us a story of how he's one of the youngest people to become a self-made billionaire in America. Who was it?

Ryan Boslow. He was like in his 20s, and Forbes listed him as a billionaire. He wasn't broke as far as no money at all, but he had

probably less than $100,000 of cash, because all of his valuation was tied up in his company. And then he had a board, and then he had a fight with the board, so he couldn't really do too much with the company. It was a lot of infighting that was happening. He didn't have too much control of the company at the time. The company really wasn't even at a position where he could take money from the company. So he had a valuation of being a billionaire, and he was broke and living in Los Angeles. He can't go to the supermarket with...

-Your valuation. - Right. No. But what rich people do, and I love that you guys educate on this, -is borrow against that value. - I was gonna say leverage. Yeah. So I grew up in an immigrant family too. A lot of immigrant families are the same. They just use cash if you don't have something.

-You don't buy it. - We're not getting it. It's either cash or nothing. And you also put all your plastic bags in the dishwasher and never use the dishwasher. I don't know if that was the case. -Plastic bags in the dishwasher? -Plastic bags in the dishwasher. That was the storage area for... -Really? -The bags from the market. Oh, it was like a shelf, like a drawer. Because everybody washed their dishes. -Hand washing. -Exactly. My mom, she washes dishes with her hands, but she uses the dishwasher as the dryer.

So you wash this stuff and then you put it in the dishwasher so it could just air dry. I feel like that's common. My family didn't speak English coming here. I needed to figure all this out the hard way. All I knew about money growing up is that debt was a four-letter word and it was bad. And you don't use credit cards and you don't get mortgages and you don't take out debt. But what rich people do, I find out much later, is that they leverage against debt.

those assets. Didn't this guy take out a loan against you? It was a private company? I guess he couldn't because it was happening with the board and all the stuff that M-Fi and so on. It was a unique situation. His situation is probably not common, but I'm just saying that's an example of the net worth sometimes a little bit misleading, right? Like, what do you have?

what can you touch what can you touch yeah hundreds a lot okay well what's your number he told me this when i was 24 he was like look you just got to get to 10 million because if you get to 10 million and you can live off three percent interest he was like you make sixty thousand dollars a year right now can you live off three hundred thousand i was like yeah he's like so you get to ten million that's what i was gonna say yeah living off your interest you don't need a hundred i think 50 would i think 50 is a number for me to say f you the things that i've i want in life

I have those things. And so, yes, you want to make sure that you can create sustainable wealth for generations, but the liquid cash of having it, I think 50 would be good. Because even at that 5% interest. I think it's relative conversation. Still a million, man. So 10 million to me is considered wealthy, but I don't think 10 million is enough to say F you. I don't think so. I think you still got to be cautious. You still got to be careful. Yeah.

depending on your lifestyle, of course. But like, you're living in New York City, you're living in Miami, you're living in LA, you're going to travel, you're going to do different things. I don't think 10 million is a number where you can just ride off into the sunset and just say, "F the world." Can I preface that real quick? Because I was a teacher when he told me that. This is 20 years ago. But 10 numbers is 10 numbers. That's a number that's important for sure. But I just feel like once you...

have nine digits, and those don't have to be like 100% liquid, but they gotta be a large portion liquid. Six digits is what you always look for as far as growing up that you have to try to make $100,000 a year. Seven digits is a dream as far as everybody wants to become a millionaire. But that's still a workable-- You're still working. Eight digits as far as 10 million, to me, now you are

But you still have to maintain that. You still got to stay in pocket and manage different things. Nine digits is when you're uber rich. And when I'm saying like F you, I'm thinking like uber rich. So you don't have to have 100% of the nine digits liquid, but I do think that is a large portion has to have some level of liquidity. But to me, nine digits is when you can literally just say F you. Do you have a number? Now I feel like...

Like, my number was too low. Now I have to-- What was it prior to this conversation? It was 20. OK. But now I feel like I need to add another--

digit add a zero to it i don't know we can be at 15. okay you can come over and or is that can because i don't know god forbid if you get divorced it's half of that exactly is the key which is why you need the prenup see it's all coming full circle because at that point this idea of leisure changes so if you had that money would you still do what you're doing

Or what does earning your leisure at that point look like? - For a hundred million? No, I feel like if you got a hundred million-- - You're not doing the show, you're not doing anything. - At that point, leisure's been earned. - It's over. - Yeah. - Game over. - Last episode. - What about the people that need your advice?

curated over seven years of content right now and wrote a book and done a variety of different things. So at some point in time, it's over. I'm not trying to do this too much longer. Like, I feel like the more you do, the less you appreciate it. Why? Because familiarity doesn't really breed

appreciation, it breeds contempt. So the more you see something, the more you just-- all you do is just think about what they could have done better, or criticize, or it just leads to-- 'cause it's human nature, right? Like, you're used to seeing your mom every single day. But if you don't see your uncle or your aunt that you only see once every two years, it's like Christmas every time you see them, 'cause you don't see them. - So they give-- - What if you don't like them? No, I'm just saying if you have a relationship, if you like them, right? Everybody has a favorite uncle that they only see every couple of years, so sometimes it's better

for people to appreciate your absence. - Yeah. - Yeah. - As opposed to you being too familiar and too comfortable. We're not at that point yet, but we've given a lot of information and we got a lot more information to give, but at some point in time, it's gonna be up to the people to carry on that legacy. - Yeah, the level of appreciation always deteriorates over time, right? Because

you've seen consistency at a certain level, right? Every time you show up, whether it's every Monday or every Thursday we put on an episode, you expect it to happen. The minute it doesn't happen, it's like something got thrown off in your life's algorithm. Why didn't they do it? You don't remember 10 years ago when none of it existed. You just remember that this is what is part of my life now, and it's added value, and they're supposed to add value because I need them to add value.

Until it's not there. So, yeah, he's right about that. When you guys don't show up on Monday, we'll just know that Rashad is...

-On a yacht. - Nah, but we'll have a thing. Final call. It'll be like the last episode, and it'll be probably four hours, and we'll actually talk about the exit. We'll talk about our exit, and we'll say-- Now you'll actually-- You'll see from start to exit. Literally, that'll be a whole documentary within itself, and we'll say, "Okay, this is it. This is how we got the $100 million. We'll walk you through the process. This is what we did. And this is our gift to you guys. And this is a send-off."

It's gonna be titled "Lezer's Been Earned." - See you in Mykonos. It's been real. - Yeah. The reality is that it's very unique to watch something like that happen in real time.

They watched him as a financial advisor. They watched me as a teacher. They watched us in my dining room to having 100 million. They've literally watched that step by step, whereas you've never seen that really. You've never seen somebody start something, get a valuation for 100 million, a dollar valuation to potentially be a billion dollar company. And

you got to see the day one, right? Like by the time Facebook had happened, it was like already going, right? By the time it was publicly traded, it was like, all right, we're 2012. What was he like when he was in those dorm rooms in Harvard? What was that? That's what we've built with "Earn Your Leisure." Like you've watched from day one as we've created not only just the show, but created a network, created live events, created the book.

create a curriculum. People have been with us through this entire journey, which makes it super unique. I've loved watching your journey. Thank you for taking the time to share more of it with us. - Thank you for having us. - I could talk to you guys forever, but I'd love to play a couple quick finance games before we go. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab. Okay, is the game of bullish or bearish? - Yep. - Real estate. Bullish, but you gotta be careful.

gotta be careful with real estate yeah residential residential yeah for sure bullish commercial real estate bearish crypto bullish bullish gold bullish short-term treasury bonds short-term treasury bonds long-term bullish t-bills bullish still troy's like it's choppy it's choppy choppy waters right now but it's still important long-term treasury bonds bullish still

We had a good guest on, Steve Eisman, who actually... We had him on. He said he's not scared. Yeah. His confidence was pretty impressive. He brought up a lot of valid points. Yeah, he backed it up. There's no alternative as of right now. Exactly. Yeah. He's a great guest. For sure. Yeah. But you're not buying any treasuries. You're doing options and some other crazy... Okay, index funds. Bullish. Bullish. Index funds and chill. Anything that I didn't mention that you're...

-Bullish on? -Foreign investments? -Yes. -Bullish. -Funds that track outside the US ETFs. I agree. Haven't gotten as much love, but they should. Our next game is Never Have I Ever. Do you guys drink? -A little bit. -I know it's early. -We were gonna bring something. I thought you would be down. -I'm down. -I thought we could do like beer or champagne or something, but we didn't bring it. -Champagne. -We could use that. -I only drink champagne in the morning.

- Rosé to be exact. - Please, preferably. - Well, just pretend like we're in the south of France right now. Okay, so we've all played Never Have I Ever. - Yes. - All right. Never have I ever maxed out a credit card. - Oh, I definitely did. Do you drink? Of course. - Pretend that's like class today. - The good stuff. - Ooh, it's good. What region of France is this from? - Never have I ever split the check on a first date. - Oh no, I haven't split the check. I was gonna do that. - That's crazy. - We grew up in a different era.

-Splitting the check is crazy. -Yeah. I agree with you. -You're from the same era. -Yeah. -I know. -We know nobody there. -I know the year. -You know everything. -It's true. -March Pisces. I'm on March Pisces too. -Oh, you are? -Yeah. -So you're sensitive. I think that might be the female trait. -Okay. - I'm sensitive, yes. Okay. I'll take it. Never have I ever bought a lottery ticket. I bought a lottery ticket before, for sure. Never have I ever signed a prenup. I have not signed a prenup. Neither have I. I did not.

Never have I ever been in debt. Oh, yeah, definitely been in debt. Never have I ever bought myself a six-figure gift. A six-figure gift? Sheesh, you got expensive. What was your gift? Yeah, now I'm interested. It was a car. A car? A car. Does that count? What company? Range Rover. Love it. That's one of my favorites. Okay. Love it. I don't think a car really counts, though. Well, you bought it in cash? Yeah. You bought a car in cash? That counts. Okay.

Thanks, guys. Thanks. Yeah, I love it. Never have I ever disputed a charge on a credit card. Definitely. Doing it right now. Amex. See if I'm walking away. Are you kidding me? I agree. You haven't disputed a charge. You really haven't lived. Yeah, exactly. Never have I ever...

-Fought with a friend about money. -Fought with a friend about money? -You guys fight about money? -Never. Not once. No. -I don't think so. -Never have I-- -I've had friends ask for money that was irrational, and then we stopped speaking. -Huh. -That's not a fight, though.

because you started making money, so they thought... - They actually-- yeah. - Yeah. Can you loan me this? - And you didn't feel like it was appropriate for them to ask, or you didn't feel like-- - The amount. I didn't feel the amount was appropriate. Like, I'm all helping people out, but when the amount is outrageous, and you're like-- - How much are we talking? - Like, six figures. Yeah. - As a loan, or-- - As a loan-- - I mean, do you think you should lend your friends money? - I give my friends money in anticipation that I'm not gonna get it back.

So alone, it was like, I'm gonna give you 3% over the next two years. I'm like, all right, you know what? I'm gonna call you back. - And you never did.

They're still waiting for the call. All right, never have I ever become a New York Times bestseller. - Woo! Cheers. - Let's finish this cup. - Cheers to you. - Cheers to you. - Boss bitch. - You guys should do the male version. - What would we call it? - I don't know, you tell me. Boss bro? - What is a boss bitch? What does that mean? - A boss bitch. - The cup just got put down. For all the listeners, the cup was just put down. All right, let me turn to her. Let's hear this, okay. - A boss bitch.

doesn't have to be either to be both. So, I was called a bitch in a derogatory way early in my career when I was ambitious and tried to do something with my life.

from where I was born, somewhere in the bleachers, in the alleyway, I don't know. But if what I was doing made me a bitch, then I own it as a badge of honor. Got it. That's it. Now it's in Cardi songs and stuff like that. -It's a popular slogan. -Took it from you. -For sure. -It was 10 years ago. -Oh, so you started that? -Yeah, I did. -Oh, wow. Congratulations. Okay, this is interesting. Being that you started this, do you think that it has gone away from its original? 'Cause now it's used all the time. So...

A lot of people have said that that's taken away like feminine aspect of, so there's another term that's feminine CEO, I think it's called, where it's like, you can still be soft, still be feminine. But when you created that term,

Did you have that in mind, that you could not be feminine or the feminality? I am also-- I have never split the track. Like, I really like being in my feminine energy. I think it's super, super powerful. It's not about being a man, being masculine. It's about...

really owning whatever power you have and using it as a badge of honor. We end our episodes-- You know this, Rashad might not know this, but you know that we end our episodes by asking all of our guests for one final money tip you can take straight to the bank. What's yours? That you can take straight to the bank? Not literally, but just-- Maybe literally. The biggest money tip that I could ever give somebody is,

to live below your means, you know, increase your income, decrease your spending, invest a difference. - I think that's interesting 'cause it's not within your means, it's below your means. - Below your means. - Yeah, and that's important. - That's important. Most people haven't really, nobody ever really thought of that through. Below your means, invest a difference. If you can do that, you'll be fine. If you don't remember anything else in life,

If you can learn to live below your means and invest a different thing, you'll be okay. I've been going on six years with this advice, and it's still the most important advice. Plan for your future because you're going to be older a lot longer than you're going to be younger. When you talk to people, especially in our space, two things they say. I wish I would have known that when I was younger, and I wish I would have started when I was younger. I'm so glad I didn't invest earlier, said no one ever. Ever. Start now. It's true. Yeah.

You're never as young as you are today. Today is as good a day as any. - How long are you really young? - What do you think? - It's interesting. I remember the kid who graduates college feels like he's a man or a woman now because they've passed the phase of their scholastic education in a certain sense, and so are they no longer young?

And I'm like, to me, they're young, right? 43 to 24 is pretty young. But they're going into now adulthood. They're part of the real world. They've got to get real jobs and make real money to live on their own, presumably. And it's like, wait, you're an adult right there. I'll tell you, for a woman, it's when you hit 35 because that's when you have a geriatric pregnancy.

- - Four. It's 35. But I also think it's the expiration date, too, so I don't use terms like young and old 'cause it's all relative. If you're 16 but you're going to live to 18, you're old at 16.

But if you're 40 and you're going to live to 95, you're young. -How do you know that? -I don't know. Exactly. That's why we gotta be careful with these words. Because you manifest things upon yourself. That's why I don't use those type of words, young and old. You're just living. We're just passing through this. But when you start to put that on yourself, right, now you're starting to actually manifest certain things that you have no control over. So, I don't really like those terms, young, old. I feel like

I feel like we're all just passing through. We don't know our destiny. -Walking each other home. - But we just-- You gotta just live in that moment. Start now. I think that's really important, especially now. I have a four-month-old daughter, and I think a lot about how I talk about money. Because when you hear, "I can't afford that," or, "We can't afford that," that really impacts you later in life. - Yeah. - Maybe it's-- That's not a priority right now. But we don't stop to necessarily think about how we talk to ourselves and to others.

my support there's compounded interest on that mentality that language that sits inside of you for a while i'm asking for money as a kid and my mom would jokingly say if he was 20 i'd spend you

And I'm like, "She don't really want to spend me, or she just don't want to give me the money." But like, it weighs on you. We can't afford this. Don't even look at it. Don't touch it. We can't afford if you break that. For sure. I'll never forget growing up that I had to turn off the light to save money on the electricity bill and then only flush the toilet when I was number two. And I think like at some point, my leisure didn't equate to a number in a bank account. It was like, I want to leave all the lights on all the time. Because you remember that stuff.

Yeah, that's the trauma. You guys are the best. Thank you. Thank you. And congrats on the show. Thank you. Number one. So it was number one. It's a big deal. Making history. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, [email protected] to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram @moneynews and TikTok @moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.