The WAY to WOW Shows
Money Made Simple
October 1, 2025
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:02] Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to People Making Money. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting, career building, starting and running a business, and building wealth, the whole financial side of life. And so today uh

[0:37] my topic is uh well I call the the episode uh money made simple but it's really you know how to build wealth uh when you're really just not that interested in finances right and that may seem well you know I probably wouldn't be you know watching your show and well okay maybe you'll maybe you'll happen upon this uh you know or if you're someone who watches the show and who have a friend who really isn't interested in in finance. So maybe tell them about, you know, this particular

[1:12] episode and it'll give them some ideas on what they can do to, you know, build the financial side of their life without having to immerse themselves in numbers and spreadsheets and and all those kind of things. So I have uh just just a few thoughts on this but I think it's important because uh we also go through different periods in our lives where we have more time for certain things than we have for other things. And you know if you're at my

[1:49] stage of life where um you know my my daughter is an adult now and you know essentially gone uh you know so I I am not as involved in child rearing as I was uh 10 years ago. On the other hand, if you have uh young children or even one young child, that takes a lot of your time and so you're you just don't have the time to spend focused on finances even if you want to. And so some of these ideas I think will also be

[2:24] helpful if if you're in a situation where for whatever reason you don't have the time to devote to dealing with your finances that you might like to your your focus has to be somewhere else. And and and by the way, even for those of you who are and enjoy being involved with your finances and really digging in, I think you will find some of these ideas to be very, very useful and they'll help you optimize the time you spend dealing with

[3:01] your finances so that the results are better because you're able to more usefully use your time. So, usefully use that sounds like a a strange phrase to me. Anyway, all right. So, uh first of all, uh the the the I think the best piece of advice I can give you is to automate your finances as much as possible. And these days, it's it's easier than it ever was before. So first

[3:36] of all, almost all banking is online or on an app on your phone or both these days. That's that's number one. And number two, e even uh vendors whether it's departments you know departments of water and power like we the department of water and power like we have here in in Los Angeles which provides electricity water and sewer services or the gas company or you know Southern California Edison whatever company you have cell phone companies uh cable

[4:13] companies internet service providers almost all of them will allow you to automate your payments. And so you can go onto your bank's website and sign up for for example if if you're if you're a renter, you can go on your bank's website and have your rent check sent out automatically on whatever the appropriate day of the month is. Okay, that's that's what I do. It just it just it just goes, right? Um and and I have a reminder to myself to just make sure

[4:48] that my the the the two accounts from which my rent is paid uh are are covered for the funds that have to go out. Okay, just as a double check. Um maybe I had a big expense in a particular month and the balance dropped and so I need to move, you know, money over from, you know, another account to make sure that the check is covered. Uh, but in general I automate all of that and and that way I just don't have to focus on it. Look, the bills have to get paid. There's the only other alternative is not paying your bills and then your creditors come

[5:24] after you, right? They start calling you and and and hawking you for money, right? So, you can set all of that up uh online automatically or through an app automatically if you have a mortgage. So, you own your home and you're paying off a mortgage. Virtually every lender will let you set up automatic payments. And in some cases, they will even give you a a small interest rate reduction if you set up your payments uh to be made automatically, maybe a quarter of a percent. You say, "Well, quarter percent, big deal." Well, look, you

[5:59] know, every every, you know, bit of money saved uh is is to your benefit. So, uh, you know, even if you have to just double check to make sure that you have the balance to pay your your mortgage each month, still better to get the slightly lower interest rate and and just a little bit more money each month goes to pay off the principal. And so you you you pay less interest, you pay more principal, or you can always increase your your loan payment a little bit and pay it off more quickly. Okay? So automate first of all all of your

[6:36] payments uh and and and that way you just don't have to be obsessed about oh did I you know miss the due date for this payment or that payment. That's number one. Number two, automate your savings as well. So, if you if you have uh and hopefully you do have a savings account, maybe where you keep your so-called rainy day fund or your emergency fund. So, if you're building that up, if you're, you know, brand new to your finances, set up just automatically with each paycheck or with

[7:13] each if if you're self-employed each time you get paid, automatically transfer part of that to your savings account until you build that balance up to what it needs to be. And then from there, automate some kind of investment plan. Okay? And again, just like the banks, all of the uh fintech companies, whether it's Robin Hood, Erade, uh Fidelity, all all of all of these companies will allow you to set up automatic investing in in some kind of

[7:49] brokerage or investment account. Okay? And even if it's only, you know, $50 a month. So $50 a month is much much better than $0 per month. You you might say, "Well, $50 a month, that's $600 a year, big deal." Well, it is a big deal because you're building the self-disipline to not use that money, right? And you're starting to build some wealth. And then over the years you can increase the as as your income grows you can increase the amount that's automatically invested

[8:27] and and it'll grow even faster. Right? So part of setting things up to be handled automatically, whether it's paying bills or making investments, is to build up your uh self-control, we'll call it, your discipline, I think, is better. Your discipline in handling your monetary affairs, your financial affairs. Okay? So it all works better and you're able to do more as time goes by. Okay? So automate your money wherever you can. Okay? And as much as

[9:04] possible. That's number one. Okay. Uh number two for first and for foremost focus on income not just investments. Okay. So building wealth comes from essentially two sources. One is saving and investing part of the money you earn, but the other is in earning more money, right? And so it one of the best things you can do to build wealth is to earn more

[9:40] money. And you do that by and increasing your skills, increasing your knowledge, increasing your experience. And then if you if you're an employee looking for opportunities to advance your career to negotiate for a higher compensation to take on more responsibility and expand your role. So right now, for example, I I think there is perhaps and and you know, if you watch my show, I do not speak in superlatives, but I think there's probably a once-ina-lifetime

[10:15] opportunity going on right now with the advent of AIS, especially large language models and automation AIs to learn how they work well, to learn that well and to come up with ideas on how it can make your job at a company more um uh u effective and and um gosh, what's the other word I'm looking for? Um you know, you can you can more efficient is the word I'm looking for. So make yourself

[10:50] more efficient and more effective and be able to show you know the people for whom you work that you have this skill and from there you you might have an opportunity to deploy your knowledge throughout the company and and and if you're at all concerned about you know an AI replacing you well this is the ideal way to make sure it doesn't because you're going to be the on or at least one of the people implementing how AI is used in your company right now.

[11:26] And if you have your own business like I do, so uh the the same thing goes in in the sense that I use AI to make myself more productive, more efficient in the work that I do. and I've been able to cut gosh somewhere between I think 10 and 20% of my work hours. Okay. So whereas I used to work essentially five and a half to five and three/4ers even six days a week because I would work half to a full day on Sundays, now I don't have generally speaking I don't

[12:01] have to work on Sunday. So I can I can get done the same actually even a little bit more work uh Monday through Friday and and I I of course I as again if you watch the show you know I I observe a traditional Jewish Sabbath so I don't work Saturday anyway but now generally speaking I don't work on Sunday so I can you know take my bike ride and you know go to the farmers market and you know go see old old old classic movies Right. So, a as as a business owner, AI can make

[12:37] you more productive, more efficient. And one of the I think misnomers about having one's own business is that you don't have to work as much. That's generally not the case. It's usually the reverse. Uh so then um you know using AI large language models and and automation will give you some time back. It'll give you some more control over your schedule which in my experience that that is the biggest advantage of having your own business is you have control over your schedule much more so than um that you

[13:15] don't have to work as much or that you necessarily make more money. Neither of those latter two are are typically the case when you have your own business. But what you have is is is much more control over your life in the sense of you're reaping the benefits of your work number one. And number two, you have control over, you know, how and when when you work. Okay? So um focus on income not just investments. look to upskill, look to gain more knowledge, you know, work to get a a more

[13:51] responsible position, negotiate for higher comp compensation, all of those then uh as your compensation goes up, you will have more money to invest. Okay? And and that's as important as the actual investing itself. Okay? So that that's number two. Number three, invest in what you use and understand. Okay, this is something I actually learned pretty early on in my career. So, um you know, back when I started

[14:27] investing uh in any sort of significant way, um online stock trading was just starting. Okay. So, this was I want to say maybe the early 1990s, I think, and I was I had, you know, I was my income was increasing and I was contributing regularly to my retirement plan. And I found that I I still had some additional funds that I could invest. And so, I thought, well, maybe I'll make some investments in the stock market. And I

[15:04] didn't want to put more investments in mutual funds because that's what my that's what my uh that um my retirement funds were invested in mutual funds. There were no such things as ETFs back then or if there was they were just getting started. They weren't generally known. And and so my situation was and what stocks should I invest? And you know, I thought, well, maybe I'll just invest in some blue chips, but I didn't really know a whole lot about them. And so I thought about it for a while and I realized that

[15:41] because at the time I was very involved I my company was a real estate company. So I was very involved in real estate and in particular I was doing a lot of work in in in sort of specialized real estate. So things like casinos, um, uh, mineral processing facilities, all these sort of weird kind of things that were almost they were sort of almost real estate business hybrids. Okay. And one of and because I also had um um a uh a practice representing

[16:20] emerging writers, so I was pretty involved with the entertainment business as well. And one of the things that I spent a lot of time researching just because I found it so interesting were what are called exhibitors. At least in the in the entertainment business are called exhibitors. We out in the re real world we call it movie theaters, right? But exhibitors were companies that owned lots of movie theaters. Okay. AMC for example is one of the largest exhibitors here in the United States. So at the time there was a lot of

[16:56] consolidation going on in the exhibition business and there were I believe six major exhibitors left in the United States and it was clear that there was going to be further consolidation and with that consolidation my my intuition if you will based on the research I had done was that uh the stocks of of exhibition companies were going to increase. The challenge was though, I didn't know out of the six which was going to be which were going

[17:31] to be the sort of last one, two or maybe three companies standing. So what I decided to do was to make the same size investment in all six companies. Okay? And so that's what I did. And within the next 6 months, two of the companies had essentially gone out of business. So I lost 40% of my investment. Two more were acquired by the other two companies. And those other two companies, one of

[18:06] their stocks went up by a factor of hold your hold your hat on 20 times and the other one tripled. And that's that was I didn't think it was going to go up 20 times by the way. But I my sense was that you know even if a couple of them went out of business it wasn't going to matter because the others because of their additional economies of scale and greater control in the market uh visav the distributors of movies they were going to do much better. And so basically overall my, you know, my

[18:44] investment went up by I think over five times, right? And so what I did was I cashed out my original investment by selling some of the stock and I just left the rest because the rest was all pure profit. And eventually I sold that out. Like I said, I I you know, essentially it over the years it kind of went up and down whatever. I I think I eventually made like a four times um my investment profit on them. Okay. Now the reason I was able to do that was because I knew that sector of the economy very

[19:20] well. So so after that one I thought well I also know the cable business very well although it turned out not as well as as the exhibition business. So I did a similar thing in the cable business. And in the cable business, I ended, it was a similar thing. A couple of companies ended up going out of business. A couple were acquired by others. I was left with two or three. And I I roughly doubled my money. So what it didn't work out as well as the first one, but still doubling my money in a year, I thought was was pretty good. So

[19:57] rather than thinking, oh, I've got to do all this research and figure all this stuff out, rather than looking at it from that perspective, look at it from the perspective of in what things are you interested in what things will you want to do some research. Okay? Maybe you really love cars. Okay? So then researching car companies would ev I would think would be fun. Okay. Seeing you know how they work from a financial standpoint will enhance your enjoyment

[20:32] of cars even if your enjoyment is really owning cars but sort of knowing the history of companies how they've merged and and and whatever how they've grown all that kind of stuff. So maybe that's that would be something for you to look into and maybe you would enjoy your uh your investigation into the financial side because the the main part of it is is something that you're that you really like. So maybe your thing is travel and so you know investigating travel companies will be interesting for you. Now maybe you're

[21:07] already in some maybe you work for you know a big food company and and or a big health care company and so you're already imshed in it in your work anyway right so then it may not be that much more work for you to understand that sector more broadly by learning about your competitors which by the way could help you at your job as well right to understand if you're if you're with United Health for example and and you you you learn how you know California blue i.e. blue cross operates in

[21:43] different states that might help you in your job and at the same time it might give you some insight into how you might invest successfully. So invest in what you know and understand. The other thing you can do is rather than obsessing over, you know, market trends is if you're already invested in EFTs or or mutual funds or whatever. So, you know, it continue to just continue to invest in those. You you know, you're already there. And, you know, if you're invested

[22:20] in an EFT, for example, that mirrors the um S&P 500. So, okay. Okay. So, as long as the stock market is growing, you're going to you're going to be fine and and it's it you don't really have to spend any time. Okay. Or maybe you want to invest in some kind of tangible assets that that you understand. Maybe you understand real estate. So, maybe investing in stocks and bonds and such is not the right thing. Maybe you should invest in real estate. Maybe you are really interested in coins and stamps. Okay? There is money to be made

[22:56] investing in coins and stamps. There are many people who do that. Now, I I've been a coin collector since I was 11 years old, but I was never knowledge enough knowledgeable enough about coins to be to, you know, consider investing in them. Um, but if you're a real devoted coin collector, maybe that's something for you to look into from an investment standpoint. there's so many collectibles now uh far more than there was when you know 40 years ago when I was sort of starting on my investing and so you know investing in tangible assets

[23:34] that can be another way for you to invest in what you know and understand since you're already involved in them. Okay, so that that's another way to simplify uh simplify your your your finances. Okay. All right, that's number three. And then, uh, number four. Uh, yeah. Okay. Actually, you know what? Let's take a break here and we'll come back. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't

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[24:47] Okay, so this is People Making Money and I'm your host Kevin Bemel talking about money made simple. This is finances for people who just, you know, they don't want to have to spend a lot of time uh dealing with their finances. And so giving you some thoughts on how you can automate your finances, how you can um build wealth without having to you know devote your time to uh you know studying um pages and pages of stock reports or company reports and all that kind of stuff. Okay. So uh I I talked about um

[25:24] first of all I mentioned you know automate your your finances. um focus on building your income in addition to building wealth and then um invest in what you understand. Okay? Uh whether that's within things like bond, stocks and bonds or whether it's uh tangible assets like real estate, whatever that is. Okay? So next uh it's it's a good idea and this goes along with the idea of of automating your finances is is set a goal and then automate how you're

[26:02] going to achieve that goal. So for example, if you want to be if you want to buy a home, okay, and you need to uh um you need to save up for the down payment, right? So, automate that process. Okay? Set up a separate savings accounts are nothing these days, but maybe a a money market account or even, you know, maybe some kind of account that invests in an ETF or something and automate your investments in that account. So you and and and and set it

[26:37] up so that you know if you want to buy a house, let's say in two years and you know that you're going to need a down payment of let's say $40,000. So $40,000 divided by 24 is about uh $1,500 thereabouts. A little over that $1,600. Okay? And so you know that you're going to have to put $1,600 a month in that account. Okay? Now, you know, maybe with some interest or or or some return on your investment, maybe it only has to be $1,500 a month and the rest will

[27:12] accumulate through the return on investment, but but you know, you set it up to just happen automatically if you want to pay for an education es like maybe it's for your children. So set up a 529 plan and again just automate your contributions to that plan so that you know and start when your children are young. So if if you're you know if you want to have if you want to have the money there so your child can go to college or maybe your child wants to go to some kind of technical school learn

[27:48] learn a trade plumbing electrical HVAC or learn automobile repair. I I I've talked about this from time to time. It sounds, it may sound silly, but uh um uh mechanics, especially for high-end higherend cars like BMWs and MercedesBenz, a lot of them are making six figures. Maybe not when they first start out, but after a few years, especially in a market like Los Angeles, um you know, they're making 110 $120,000 a year or more. These, you know, cars are very,

[28:23] very complex today. It takes a high level of knowledge and there's a lot of training that a person needs to have in order to be a qualified mechanic for these kind of cars. So, you know, set up some kind of educational fund for your children and that way when they turn uh 18, let's say, so the money will be there for them to get the kind of education or training that they need. Or maybe you just want to set up a fund for them. Maybe it's not necessarily education only. Maybe you would like to give them the option of uh being able to

[28:59] start a business. And so you want to build up from by the time they're 18 years old that they'll have $100,000 or $150,000. They can use it for an education. They can use it for vocational training or they can use it as startup funds for a business. If you've ever started your own business, think of what it would have meant to you if your parents had started a business startup fund fund for you when you were first born or when you were, you know, three or four years old. So, if you think about it, if you've got 15 years to save up, let's say, uh,

[29:37] $150,000, that's $10,000 a year, that's $800 a month. Okay? Now, that may be a big number. So maybe maybe that's, you know, more than you can do. But also, by the way, if you're if you're investing the money, not just saving it, but investing it. So if you want to have $150,000 for your child to use to, you know, get an education or or start a business, you you probably don't even have to have uh you wouldn't have to have $800 a month. you might have to only maybe it's only

[30:13] f4 or $500 a month and with the return on investment it will build up to the point where they have you know somewhere between $1 and $150,000 a month. So whatever your goal is set that goal and then automate how the goal is implemented so you don't have to be spending a lot of time focused on it and figuring it out. Okay. Same thing goes for retirement by the way. if you have a 401k plan or a SE IRA, whatever it is, okay, figure out what your goals are and then just automate it and and and then

[30:50] you don't have to be concerned with it. You don't have to be involved with it. Okay, so that's uh that that's number I think that's number four. Number five, um use professionals, right? If you're not interested in finances, that's perfectly fine. uh but especially as your wealth grows and your investments need to get more sophisticated, you do need to get good advice. So find a professional professionals on whom you can rely and in whom you can trust or you can place your trust. So you're

[31:26] going to want to have at least a tax preparer or a CPA. Uh you know, if you have your own business, you're probably going to want a CPA. Generally speaking, a good CPA will save you more in taxes than it costs you to pay the CPA. That's that's a good rule of thumb, right? So, I know I I've only had uh three CPAs my whole life. And I had I had the CPA when I had my first company for almost 20 years. He was I had the same accountant. He was

[32:01] fantastic. saved me a ton of money, far more than I ever paid him. And then, excuse me, unfortunately, he died um right after I joined the Navy. And so, I had another CPA uh for for several years while I was in the Navy and and and right after I got out. And then as my things got more complicated, I needed to get someone who could deal with more complicated matters. And so, um, now I I have my my longtime friend, I'll give him a plug,

[32:37] Bruce Bowski. Um, Bruce and I have known each other for a long long time. And Bruce handles all all my, you know, financial matters from a from an accounting standpoint. And and again, Bruce has saved me far more in taxes than I've ever uh you know, paid him. So, that's that's kind of my benchmark for a good CPA. Okay. But you also may want a a wealth advisor, a wealth manager. Uh you may decide to get into some uh significant estate planning. So, you'll want an estate

[33:13] planning lawyer to help you out. Okay? and and you know when you get into more sophisticated levels of wealth building. So you'll build a team and one of the members of the team will be the captain. It may be your lawyer, it may be your wealth advisor, whoever it is. And that person will, you know, make sure that the team is all working together, okay? and they'll keep you up todate, but you don't necessarily have to, you know, be immersed in finances. Okay, the main thing is you've

[33:50] got to find someone in whom you can place your trust and who is indeed trustworthy, right? So, you know, I'll top my own for a minute, right? This is something that I do professionally. Not that I want you to hire me. I don't mean it that way. But, you know, look for someone that you know you can trust. Okay. Now, you might be tempted to hire a family member. Um, and I would caution you to really think hard about that. While that can be a great decision, it may also be a terrible decision, right? Because oftent times when money is on

[34:26] the table, all of the the, you know, family dirty laundry be gets mixed in with with, you know, regular business and that can be that can be difficult. Okay. So, you know, think about that be before you, you know, you decide that that's the direction you want to go. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying just think about it. Think about what the other issues are outside of finances and how those might impact your ability to work with a family member on your finances. Okay? So, leverage professionals. Find people who can help

[35:02] you, uh, who can help advise you, who can help make sure that you're focused on your finances when you need to be and otherwise you don't have to deal with them. Okay, so that that's that's uh number five. Okay, number six. Okay, so build wealth through habits, not obsession. Okay. As much as I'm involved with finances and and handling other people's money, uh I've never been obsessed with

[35:38] finances. And I think that it's not a healthy it's not a healthy way to approach life to be obsessed with finances. So, we want to be prudent, okay? We want to be disciplined, but we don't want to be obsessed. So, uh, I was talking to somebody yesterday who was telling me that she used to work for someone who even when she was so sick she couldn't get out of bed, he would tell her, "Oh, you're you're just being lazy. Get out of bed and get to work. That's the best thing for you." It's like, I find that

[36:15] to be obsessive. Sorry. If you're sick, you're genuinely sick. You're better off staying in bed and healing, getting getting better, and then go back to work. Okay. So, but this I this particular individual I I I I don't know the person, but uh I think this particular individual is just just was just too obsessed uh w with his business for for that to be uh you know just too obsessed with his business period. Right? So, we don't want to be that way. What we want to do is focus on creating

[36:51] some basic good habits. Number one, living below our means. Okay? So, we don't want to be uh spending more money than we're earning. We don't want to do that. Right? Now, sometimes we earn more and we can spend a little bit more. Sometimes we earn less and we have to cut down our spending. But the main thing is we always want to stay certainly within our means, preferably below our means, so that we have some additional money to invest and build wealth. So that's one habit that we want

[37:29] to create. Now, that can be difficult if you're just starting out uh on your professional life or your career life and you're struggling. You may have student debt to pay and you may not be making a lot of money and and it's expensive to live. Okay? So, you may not be able to live below your means right now, but do your best to learn to live within your means. And that way as your income grows, you'll carry that discipline that that habit with you and

[38:06] that will help you be be in a position to have money to invest. Okay. And most of the habit most of building a habit of living below or within our means really comes from the daily choices that we make. Okay. So, I know when I um was was had my first company, uh one of my daily habits was uh going to Starbucks. Literally every morning I would go to Starbucks and I'd have a coffee and a scone and I would

[38:44] read the Wall Street Journal, right? And uh and after a while I realized gosh I'm spending at the time it was probably like $50 a week or something like that. And that's not a good habit. And so um I I dropped buying the scone frankly and I got my coffee which at the time I think was a couple dollars maybe a day and and I I drank my cup of coffee while I read my Wall Street Journal. Right. And and so it was just little things like that

[39:19] that helped me create the habit of living within and below my means. Okay. Uh eating out a lot that that is a very bad financial habit. Okay. It it's a bad health habit too. Generally um the food we make at home generally speaking is healthier. We'll set that. We'll we'll we'll save that for uh an episode of Jiggers's Place, but it's expensive to eat out and it it's harder to exercise discipline when we're looking at all those great

[39:54] things on the menu. Okay. On the other hand, you may really enjoy eating out. It may be one of your pleasures, food. Okay. Okay. So then maybe m you know create the habit you you you eat out only once a week or if you can afford it and still live below your means twice a week. Okay. And exercise that discipline. Okay. Another thing that eats up money really quickly is having food delivered. Right. It increases the cost of food by at least I think 10 to 15%. Right? So create if you're going to

[40:31] get takeout food and look there are just once in a while I I get takeout I'm just so exhausted from the day I look at my kitchen I'm like no I can't do it right so I you know so what I what I what I work to do is go pick up the food rather than have it delivered okay so build habits of small things okay that will help you live within or below your means. Okay? And create the kind of financial discipline that will serve you

[41:07] throughout your life. Now, you may say, "Oh, it's too late for me. I'm an old guy like you, Kevin, or I'm I'm not quite as old as you, but I'm in my 50s already. I'm that, you know, the die is cast." No, that's not true. Okay? I know I know someone who uh you know has later in life started making um much better money than uh she h made ever before in her life and uh you know it it she always had to struggle really struggle to live within her means oftentimes didn't okay and now is developing the

[41:46] good habits of not just living within her means but living below her means. And I I it's incredibly laudable. Yes, it is harder to develop habits when we're, you know, a little bit farther along in life, okay? But that doesn't mean that we can't. Okay? The fact of the matter is many old dogs can be taught new tricks and we can teach ourselves new tricks. Okay? And if you're younger, you're just starting out, even better. You can build habits from the get-go. Okay? So build wealth through habits, not being obsessed with building wealth. So that's number six.

[42:23] And then finally, and and and this is I' I've talked about this before, but I want to I want to mention this here because this is such a fundamental financial concept to if you understand nothing about finances at all, if you don't want to know anything about finances at all, I urge you to learn this one thing and that is the power of compounding. Okay. So, the power of earning interest on the interest you've already earned

[42:59] essentially. Okay. So, if you were to invest $100 today and you get a 5% return on that $100 over the coming year, at the end of the year, you're going to have $105. Like, okay, great. You know, I made I made five bucks. Okay, fine. Right? If you leave the money for another year, okay, in the next year, you're not going to have $110. You're going to have $110

[43:34] and 25. Okay? So, you'll have made $525 the second year and i.e. a little bit more. You say, "Big deal. I made an extra 25 cents." Well, here's the thing. If you leave that $100 in that account earning or in that investment earning 5% a year, okay, then uh within what is it? Uh I I lost the rule. Um I think it's

[44:10] within 20 years. Well, no, that can't be that long. Uh rule of seven. Let me think about this. Um, shoot, I lost the rule. But anyway, within a certain period of time, it will double in value and and the rate that um the the interest you earn increases goes goes up each year because of the compounding effect. Okay? So, interest in the first year $5, interest in the

[44:45] second year, $5.25, 25 interest in the third year is going to be something like $5.40 or $5.35, something like that. Okay. And and it keeps getting more and more and higher and higher. Okay. Um Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think yeah, 20 if at 5% I think it takes 20 years to to double. So you may say, well, okay, 20 years and I'll have $200. Okay, but you only put in $100 to begin with, right? So, but if you put in $2,000 at 5% in 20 years, you're going to have $4,000. Okay? And the fact of the matter

[45:22] is that's why you want to continually add money or you continually want to invest money because not only the additional investments, but the compounding of the return you get on those investments is going to be incredibly powerful. So that's why it's literally possible that even if you make really just a middle class income, okay, you can over your career retire with a million dollars aside from

[45:57] whatever equity you may build up in a house. Okay? So I'm dealing with an estate right now uh where the fellow passed away. He was uh in his uh late 60s, okay? And he always worked I mean he you know he never worked at big highpaying jobs. He did he they were very he was very middle class guy. Okay. I never got to meet him. I you know I'm I'm administrating his estate. I've talked to some of his relatives. Very nice guy.

[46:32] Um you know he was a great uncle to he was a terrific uncle to one of them. Uh and um and he just lived, you know, he just lived a regular life like millions and millions like tens of millions of people do here in the United States. Okay. And he's got a retirement account that's got I think over $600,000 in it. And that wasn't the original amount because he was making when he turned uh I think it was 62 he started making withdrawals from it. Okay. So, he might have had something like $700, $750,000

[47:09] built up in that retirement account, just putting aside a little bit of money each month, month by month, investing it, letting it grow, letting the interest compound, letting the return compound. and and by and that's in addition to his house which his equity in his house is probably another half million dollars maybe another threequarters of a million dollars we we haven't we haven't finalized that number yet right so this this is the power of compounding and the sooner you start investing the better you will be and the

[47:46] reality is you can just invest in an exchangeraded fund an ETF that tracks the S&P and the chances are you'll do fine. Okay? You don't have to immerse yourself in, you know, financial data. Okay? And and so just the the the the message of compounding is the best time to have started to start investing is, you know, 10 years ago. The next best time is today. Okay? because the sooner you start investing, the more compounding

[48:22] will work for you. Okay? Beyond that, there's there's not a whole lot else you need to know. Some of the other tips that I gave you about investing in things, you know, and understand, automating your finances, using professionals, all of those are good, I think, good ideas. They're things that I hope you will consider uh for your own situation. But the main point for uh money made simple is start investing today if you haven't started already.

[48:58] And it and and that way you will put the power of time at your working for you. Okay? And time will help you build wealth. Okay? So I appreciate very much. So thank you so much for joining me today. Uh, always got my live my live viewers on today. Always a treat. Uh, this is my last show for today. So, um, let's see. Next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. is my show, Trust and Estates Weekly. I'll be off, uh, Tuesday and Wednesday for the Jewish holidays. Uh,

[49:34] and then on Thursday at 5:00 PM Pacific time is my every other week show, Jiggers's Place. So, I hope you'll join me for a cocktail and a schmoo. And uh that just leaves me to thank you again for joining me. If you have any uh thoughts, comments, criticisms, links to the show not links to my social media are in the show notes. Feel free to drop those in there. If you have something personal that you don't, you know, want to put into social media, my email address is there. I haven't mentioned this for a while. I'm happy to respond. But, uh, if you're asking me something

[50:09] that's out of my, uh, area of of professional expertise, I I'm I'm not going to respond because it would be wrong for me to do that. But I will, um, you know, give you some thoughts on where you can get an answer or make or if if you want refer you to someone who can help you with that issue. Okay. And um, okay. So that just leaves me to sign off as I always do and say, Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.