Ep 487: Personal Finance With Budgetdog

Transcript

Daniel Martinez introduces the podcast and welcomes Mr. Brennan from Budget Dog as the special guest, setting the stage for the episode's focus on social media's impact.

hey welcome to the high podcast I'm your host Daniel Martinez today we have a special

guest Mr Brennan from budget dog how you doing today how you doing man good to

Brennan and Daniel discuss their initial connection through Twitter and the positive aspects of social media, countering the common perception of insincerity with personal experiences of genuine interactions.

see you again I'm good man I'm good I met Brennan on Twitter and we have some

acquaintances on Twitter and I love Twitter Twitter is such an amazing space um you meet a lot of you meet a lot of

you meet a lot of genuine people on there I think a lot of people hate social media because everybody everybody feels like everybody's fake on it but uh

there's a lot of cool genuine people on there so uh I think Brandon here is definitely one of those people that fit into that category so I appreciate him

coming on today yeah man excited to be here and I I Echo that statement I feel like there's a lot of fake out there but

Brennan shares his journey on Twitter, from an inactive start in 2012 to active engagement and the development of meaningful relationships over five years, highlighting the platform's potential for personal and professional growth.

if you find the right people like anything uh it's there's so many quality people I've met and the relationships

I've built over the years I've been on there which is about five at this year I think I got in 2019 uh my Twitter

account says I joined in 2012 but uh I wasn't really active it wasn't it was like a personal account way back in the

day I think that was in college at the time so it's really grown man and I you other people man it's it's been awesome

The conversation shifts to a broader reflection on social media, with both speakers advocating for its value in fostering connections and the remarkable achievements possible within a short span, thanks to platforms like Twitter.

I love I love social media and I think it's always focusing on the positives five so I'm the same way I got

into Twitter probably like 2012 2013 maybe 2014 I don't even remember I have to look but I didn't start like actively

messing with it till probably about two years ago three years ago y so I think

um it's been about three years yeah um but I think social media is a very very cool place but I mean to get

where you gotten in such in that amount of time is pretty amazing um hit in year

five now since 2019 so it's been a blessing it's been a blessing like what

I expected when I first started was not what I have now like what I have now was

wasn't even in the plans it really wasn't and so like the way I started was just to share my story and help people

out with personal finance and like like that's about it uh it was kind of like a hobby to me honestly at first and you

know five years later I own a business and I own I have you know let's call it 15 people or so underneath me and like

never in a million years would I have thought I would leave deoe from this I would start my own brand I would start

my own business and I would have people working for me but here we are and you know life comes at you quick what were

you doing you said Del what's Del yeah deo's a CPA firm one of the biggest four in the world uh so yeah deoe KPMG

ernston young and PWC or the big four they call them um and I was there doing

the a I was in audit practice they usually have like Consulting practice tax practice auditing practice for the

most part you know those are the big three and within the big four if that makes sense and uh you know we were

going into companies big companies uh all over the all over the United States so some of the biggest companies you would think of like meta right I think

Deo audits them wasn't one of my clients but deoy audits them all these huge companies you always have the auditor

the tax people the Consulting people come in and they you know they obviously do the the uh reporting like the 10K the

the 10q they also do a Consulting on you know one project one projects or a

project or whatever on a oneoff basis uh they might do the tax work for these these companies and so I was in the

audit practice I was doing like 10ks and 10 Q's for all these big public companies also I was in the private space in a big way so outside of the

public companies we kind of did the same type of work for the the private companies and so I really dominated the

private space at Deo in Cincinnati Ohio uh and I did that for seven years so I worked my way up to manager I saw kind

of a I saw the writing on the wall I was like I don't want to be a partner and that was kind of the natural progression

it's like I was a manager so there was one step in between uh me to go to the

partner which was senior manager and I was like do I really want to do that not really so I kind of dove into my own thing and that's where budget all kind

of came awesome that is a very interesting story um and you this this kind of when

did you quit and transition into 100% budget dog because I think um a lot of people like did you do it part-time for

a couple years two three years to kind of bear fruit like was that transition I have a weird risk tolerance right so I I

I definitely like to take big swings but I like to do it calculated and I don't like to do it like recklessly like the

idea of an entrepreneur out there I'm a CPA I'm kind of type a right so like that's like my personality so like when

we did it we started June 2019 for Budget dog account I was working at Deo during this whole entire time so I had

this progression and you know the first 16 months I made $ Z again it was a hobby it was just for fun and then once

I realized hey this is a business opportunity there's actually some things here I can help people with and do what I love to do I started to kind of put

the the the Hobby and turn it into a business and that was around I want to say 20 let's call it September 2021 sorry

September 2020 and that is when it started taking taking off and I started thinking okay long term how what what am

I going to make this and how am I going to really make this jump or is it going to be is going to be a business quote

unquote is a side hustle or is it like full-time and I proved to myself I said over the next 12 months I'm G to at

least make at or above my 9-to-5 income and if I do that and I can prove myself I'm taking that jump uh and so that was

uh August of 2021 and when when we made that jump August 2021 to current day it's what is

that two and a half years or so it's been nothing short of amazing and you

know there's been ups and downs there's been some scares there's been some naturally you own a business it's not

always it doesn't always go graciously and But Here we are now man and we're still growing and I think

we're still scaling at a pretty rapid rate and I want to two 3x the business over the next year or so and uh we're on

Pace to do that but it it takes a lot obviously so not everybody's built for entrepreneurship and I think taking that

leap of faith is is a bigger step than most people make it out to be

100% 100% fact um how how is like I I think you just had a new baby we had uh

little Ellie gray she was uh this she's GNA be five months on the four in the four about two weeks four and I guess

she's four and a half months right now uh so we had her September of

2023 and uh that was the second one with our first one being Logan and she came

two years before so she's about two and a half but yeah man bad life uh actually funny enough you say that is right when

I left deoe three weeks after my first one not Ellie but Logan uh she was born so I I quit my job we paid off her house

and she was born like within a three weeks uh period so that was a huge transition to say the least and then all

of a sudden we had to move across the country because she was diagnosed with TR syndrome and so like it was a lot very very quick uh but life comes at you

quick like I said and so you got to be prepared but you also got to be able to be uh Shifty and think on the spot as

well what's crazy about your story is I did the same thing so I was working at my

job I literally worked all way up to my my wife was about to have the baby and I took my vacation time all my stuff and

then I quit so I haven't I haven't had a job since my my my first was

born six years years AG wow that's a long time yeah it's it was probably scary I'm sure like taking that leap of

faith man you're the provider you know it's it's it's it's a different type of

responsibility absolutely absolutely um and I I really want biger the sign because like I entrepreneurship there's

no right time to do it and I think like I'm sure your wife gave you heat just like mine did about you sure you want to

do this right now you support I mean she was really supportive and like I said we had that Runway and she was working at

her job but there's something with like with with with women in particular when

they have the baby right before that you know some of them say like a lot a lot of times and I I don't want to call off the wrong way here but like a lot of

times people are like I don't care to be a stay-at-home mom and Aaron told me that a lot she was like she's like ah

you know I want to continue to work it's not that important uh you know I want to be present but I don't necessarily need

to be a stay-at-home mom well four months into the journey obviously my daughter had her first seizure and

things shifted very quickly as far as like her need to be at home it was like a biological need almost right and so

that at that point we both agreed in fact that hey we're g to turn what we just I just jumped off the ledge

essentially I'm going to figure this out make this work to where you can stay at home full-time and then we also just

continue with my business and so like there was that transition period from about let's call it February of 2021 all

the way to August of 2021 where we were like building building actively and

getting really aggressive that so she could leave her job so we could focus on Logan fulltime not to mention we had to

move across the we didn't have to move but we wanted to move for the best sake of our daughter and so like with that

transition was GNA she's going to have to quit a job anyway and I had to make it work and so there's a lot of stress

around that obviously a lot of pressure but like we we've we've done it it's been a year now since we've lived in

Texas and it's been awesome that's crazy it's so it's it's

so weird like hearing your story because like literally I moved after my second one was born and I I literally moved

cross country and Co and one thing I really want to highlight too is that Co was like a great it was a great little

time for entrepreneurs after everybody switched from home you kind of had a lot of people trying to look for other type

of learning education side hustles type thing and people that really uh honed in

made a lot of money during that time and they kind of set their foothold for the rest of their lives it seems like off of

that little Runway that happened I think you're definitely a product of that and I've seen a lot of other people blow up during that timeo so I look back at that

time per like you know at the time I didn't realize what was happening like in the moment I was doing it but didn't really realize the impact and now I'm

looking back man my wife and I talked about this a lot and we're like that time period literally changed our lives

forever in in a positive way and so I think a lot of people look at those times and Define those events as either

you know um they they Define them in some a negative way and I I think you get to choose when there's distress and

there's change and all this kind of stuff in our society there's a chance right in front of you there's an opportunity right in front of you it's

the way you look at it and the way you perceive it and the way you you act upon it that you you can choose the way it goes um and a lot of good things happen

a lot of bad things happen but at the end of the day we look back and we're like man this really this forever changed our life in a big

way yeah that's amazing man co co was it was a it was a blessing in disguise for

a lot of different people I think coming coming out coming out right now people are kind of settled and or stabilized

now and they're seeing the fruits of their labor because I think um I started I started hive mind in

2020 so this was right right in the middle right in the middle of Co and now

it's four years later what happened so weird to think about like that like when I yeah like four or five years that's

wild yeah a lot A lot has changed um how how did you uh adapt and like I really

want to know like you said you really honed in in the beginning stages right when that happened like what was something you did early on to kind of

like spark up that that thing you were you were building like you remember what things you yeah oh man I remember very

vividly actually like uh so when I first qu when I first quit my job the the main

focus point was taking the I was making money but did I have a business and I

would argue I did not yeah so there's a lot of people that can make money online but there's also business structure

systems all that kind of stuff and so my main focal point was exactly that building that underneath me building the

legs under the table and I didn't have any of that it was just like hey I could you know post a product people would buy

it great but like what if that dries up tomorrow like where are the systems where are the where are the people where are the business the technology all that

kind of stuff that was my main focal point getting the right talent in the door as well was a huge focal point so

like now you know I would argue now the the level of talent I have from the social media game is top tier and I

think there's a reason we do so well is because of that it's not because of me um it's because of the people around me so like I think that's a really really

important piece of it and to systemize the business is and I'm still doing it to this day literally I just got off the

treadmill a while back and I'm sitting there and I have a Notes app pulled up I'm like writing all like the inefficiencies of the business and I'm

thinking I'm going to write everything down then I'm going to go Implement fixes for those different things and solutions and so I think that's one of

the biggest things and then when I quit my job I think the biggest the other huge thing for me was the the mental

shift like I felt on top of the world let's call it the first month or two and there was that you know that superficial

High I just gave my boss the fu pretty much you know I was able to take control all that kind of stuff now reality sets

in that emotion kind of wears off and then you go the opposite direction I think for a lot of entrepreneurs especially myself I don't have like a

huge risk appetite for just like doing that and so when I did that it was like it there was a high and low uh and there

was a lot of anxiety a lot of nervousness a lot of like can I do this a lot of Doubt a lot of like uncertainty

I think that everybody goes through that in fact for anybody that's actually successful and I think it's actually a positive because when you do hit those

levels it tells you who you are and you have to figure it out you do or die and so are you going to figure it out or you

going to go back to where you've always felt comfortable in and so I decided at that moment I was going to make this work and I was going to figure this way

you figure it out somehow somewhere so um you know it's it's led to great things but again it's not it was not the

the level of stress during the regular day for as a business owner is not the same as as when you work W2 and there's

no shot at W2 do your thing I was a W2 worker at one point my wife my wife was too but like for me personally at this

stage of my life I love entrepreneurship and I I think it's it there's a self there's a self-reflection element of it

is you have to fix yourself to fix your business a lot of times and I think you grow as a person also a lot faster a lot

of times than somebody that's going through the mundane stuff because you're you're forced to it's not like you have a choice you have to or you do or die

yeah you have to face that problem head on there's there's no there's no skir

like I used to be able to skirt a lot of personal things let's call it at at the job but I can't do

that yeah P Stu head on um I want to ask you this question because everybody goes to the highs and

lows how did you manage the low points because I think a lot of us entrepreneurs they they feel that

pressure and a lot of people can't hang so how did how did you deal with that pressure when the lows did come because

they come and they come hard and they come yeah all the time they come I think

preparation or expectation of those to come is the number one thing because I think if you expect greatness or you

expect like hey I just make money online hang out on a beach and sit Margaritas you're going to get hit really hard and you're not going to be able to you're

not going to expect it so you don't have your footing at all but like if you kind of expect you might not expect the level

of of low but you can expect something to come I think it's It prepares you in a different way I think the other piece

of it is like having a support system because like having my wife having having an entrepreneurship group you can

talk to and voice your problems to because a lot of this communication it's like when you bottle stuff up and think about this stuff on your own like you're

the only person dealing with this you're not um then you start to like self-sabotage but if you can leverage

you know communication with people in similar situations or at least people that can relate to you or understand you

I.E wife a spouse of some sort I think it's going to give you that confidence

or at least that push to keep you going keep you moving and realizing hey this isn't a forever thing um if it's a

forever thing and like you probably don't have a business model to begin with but there's going to be ups and downs in business there always will be

and having the two thing those two things together at all times is super important expectation and also a support

system no that's a really good answer I tell my wife all the time like I would I

would not be doing what I'm doing now without her like bottom line would not be a% man there's not a chance without

Aaron yeah so like for everybody out there choose who you marry it's it's an

important decision and it will make or break pretty much your life that point not just I talk finances a lot obviously

that's my brand but um and that's a big piece of it it would it would wreck your finances but like it will also wreck

your whole family life like a a a separation or divorce within a family

wrecks people and it's so common in today's world and I think a lot of it comes down to lack of communication on

on four key pillars um you know Finance being one of those typically so like you

you fix those things those big big movers and I think the rest of it kind of comes together and always communicate

always communicate I've learned that so the hard way too many times not communicating whether it be relationship

or business I can't like that is one of the most the biggest Revelations to me

and it sounds so simple I I get it but like really living that and feeling that like the lack of communication what that

can actually H what can happen as a result it's mind-blowing quite

honestly yeah it's it's really really important um I want to jump back a little bit uh when you talking abouty

employes and hiring um who was your first hire when you when you first started and then who has been your best

hire that you're like man why oh man my my team's gonna be listening to this and they're I'm playing favorites here uh so

I'm gonna I'm gonna answer this way so number one my first hire was um let's call it a creative director somebody

that's kind of running my social medias in general coming up with like creative ideas posting on my behalf stuff like

that that freed up a lot of time uh so I could focus on other areas

my best hire uh maybe maybe best hire isn't the one thing the most pivotal that affected you

that be a better question for sure I was I was kidding my my team would understand this but I

think my most pivotal hire was that first creative director because that

individual like sparked something I didn't know was potent like the potential of of social media I didn't

know social media I wasn't a social media person by Nature so I was a CPA talking personal finance social media

was not up my I I think I post on Instagram personally like 12 times in my life so like it wasn't something I was

used to or customed to and it was a Hu it's a huge learning curve it still is and it's constantly evolving having that

individual to show what could happen because of that is I think the most important piece now obviously everything

you could argue is more important or most as important with like sales marketing um technology integr

integrator you know leadership all that kind of stuff uh Student Success like it is endless as far as like every piece

plays a pivotal role but if I didn't I wouldn't have any of that without the the first person which was creative

director and so that creative director let's call let's title him is I think the most pivotal piece because it opened

my horizons or my my like understanding of like what could potentially be done

and when you unlock your potential and you see your potential be unlocked then it's just a a fun game now it becomes a

game where you can play to the fullest of your ability and really push the needle a little bit and so I would

definitely say he was my first also most important there's a amplification factor

that you you don't really realize and I think that's what you're talking about the amplification of that first tier

gives you the abity I need to hire more people because you see that being a bottleneck and you're like okay well this is a bottleneck now I have more

confidence I know how this worked the first time ago it's just like anything you do it once you do it more and you get better and better and better and

eventually become second nature um how and this is one of the

things where I I love I have that person in my team too and um when I trained

them uh I have she's she's she's a she she was uh a little bit rougher on the

edges but they they get better over time and they understand the mission and like like like your team alignment doesn't

happen at first you kind of have to have patience with your employees but that once they get the alignment understand the goals and the

mission fun it's crazy it develops with time you're right you're 100% right it doesn't happen overnight it's like it it

naturally occurs and you know I've been working on like team mission statements and values and stuff like in culture

values but like it honestly just kind of like creates itself in a in a sense right you have people together talking

all the time you create your own culture naturally and it's it's not usually forced it's it's it's usually a reflection of you good or

bad oh there you go that's that's I'm telling you a lot of personal

business overlap and it's it's it's almost like the magnifier effect or you you see your your business play out the

way you kind of are who you are and it's it's pretty it's pretty crazy um are your are you do you have is

most of your team overseas or they look in the United States most my team is is is here in the United States um I I do

have some some over offshore let's call it or overseas labor um some vas virtual assistants I also have one sales guy

actually living in Portugal so like it's he American lived moved to Portugal U so he

is overseas but he's you know as American as you and I so like uh no

language barrier no nothing there but like most of our our labors in house and uh in the United

States no I had a I had a I had Nick Huber on the podcast and he was like really big into labor Nick uses Shephard

or Shephard hire or Shephard something I forget what it's called yeah I don't remember what it's

called but he's he's a really big opponent of the of the overseas higher and I I love I love support shepher

that's what it's called yeah okay yeah there's there's onlinejobs.ph for uh vas in the

Philippines man there there's a great I mean there's great offshore labor I think it's so it I agree with Nick uh I

think it's way underrated uh there's phenomenal labor we have we have three in particular right now we're looking to

hire a fourth actually so like we do utilize that and they're they're great they're fantastic and is the the biggest

thing you got to figure out is skill set and match that skill set with what you're looking for with what they're trained to do and it's pretty it's

pretty straightforward very very straightforward I just hired I just hired somebody like love it new person

makes life so much easier gr makes so much easier man and I was I

was looking for some I need somebody to do this one thing and that's it like if you're good at this let's do

it I just need help right here but it's the over overseas people I think the internet has

made it's it's made it easier to find overseas talent and it's kind of opened up the you can sell to the world yeah I

love it we you know our product and service isn't meant for it's geared towards United States

it's personal finance so it's a little it's a little different but like if you have a generalized product or even not

even generalized product but like just an informational product that can apply to other areas like you can literally

sell anywhere and that's crazy to think about like you could have an online Amazon or you could have a Tik Tok

shopper Amazon brand and you can literally sell to people in China like it's it's it's a beautiful thing and

it's again like people bash the internet but again I I think you need to find the positives like there's endless amounts

of positives with the internet and the connectivity like even you and I being able to meet each other was through the

internet and so I've established so many good connections and so many good valuable uh people just through the

internet and you know then we meet in real real life and we connect and bond and it's just it's a beautiful

thing yeah let's jump a little bit into the business man so um let's talk about

the the personal finance side of it what type of products are you teaching um

let's talk about a little bit like that yeah so people that people that come to work with us traditionally are people

that can't figure out how to get out of debt um people that don't know how to invest or people that just don't have a

clue of where to start those are our three people that we typically see in our ecosystem as far as products and

services we have a lot of like lower ticket type of type of things so we have like you know investing modules courses

you know products we have uh you know figuring out how to get started with with your personal finances things like

that book my book is coming out actually April 8th uh officially in bookstores

Amazon audible all that kind of stuff so we have all those types of things my big product right now let's call it a

service product is my budget Dog Academy and that is by far uh one of the most comprehensive Financial things that I

know of out there in the market uh it kind of brings together everything so I know a lot of people like might use an

advisor they might use a CPA they might use a trust attorney they might use an insurance agent like we are educating on

the entire like from start to finish piece of the puzzle um because when people start start with personal finance

they think budget and they think investing and they kind of end there but like it's so much bigger than that so we really walk people through a road map

and show them exactly what they need to be considering educate them on that and also apply that to their situation that

makes sense for them not for generally like a Dave Ramsey seven baby steps it's really strategic as to like okay here's

all of the stuff you need to know about this topic here's how it applies to you let's apply that let's build your system let's make this really simple and we

started this about a year and a half ago and budg Academy has literally changed like thousands of people's of lives so

we've had I think at this point about almost 1,200 people in the academy in about a year and a half and so what

we've been able to do from a results persp perspective and I I post on Twitter sometimes results but like that can't even do justification um I I see

results literally daily just pop up left and right and the community support within there you know it's it's a it's a

mix of everything right we have it's kind of Coury module there's modules and stuff to get you through but there's

also Community there's also a Student Success team of of real true Financial professionals ex ex financial adviser high networ for high Networth people

rcps like we I'm a CPA so like we have all these Financial professionals built in there to get you uh support we also

have a a behavioral health uh Financial psychologist in there and we have a loaded team to help you and it's also a

lifetime community so people never they they're always part of that Community we have live calls and live group sessions

and stuff like that and we're about to do our first meet up in Austin Texas um in on March 15 so we it's something that

I haven't seen out there you know you see Financial courses you see like budget courses this is nothing like that

you know people hear budget Dog Academy and they assume oh that's just another budget course uhuh it it's it it covers

trust estate planning taxes insurances uh credit uh investing like down to the

allocations uh Financial systems building your your actual money system your money plan all of that stuff is

really really critical along with that support and guided uh mentorship and so all that wrapped in essentially for a

lifetime is is what we do in budget Academy no I I think a lot I was going

to ask you about Dave Ram as like a as as this is going to be a social media re

how do you feel about Dave Ramsey in your competition all right so you're putting me on the spot I I love the

Ramsay crew um I love Jade warshaw I love John deloney I love George camel his personalities uh there was a time a

couple years ago that I was in that process to potentially join that team and I'm going to leave it at that um I politely declined uh because I think

that what they preach is is good for the masses don't get me wrong I think in general most most people have credit

card debt you know the stats don't lie so like what they're doing is going to help the most people out there but

Finance is not a one siiz fits-all and there's way bigger there it's a bigger conversation like I said than one siiz

fits-all so that's what I was saying about the academy is it's very situational it's very hey here's all the

education but like you don't have to go through this exact framework that everybody goes through you have to think

differently um what if you have like a Roth conversion uh ladder you know potential and you don't you're going

through the seven baby steps you're not going to know what to do there what if you have tax issues what if you have estate planning issues like is that any

seven baby steps going to cover that no it's not and so I really respect what they're doing I think they're all they're fine in general across the board

I think they're going to help the masses but I think they're once you graduate let's call it that seven baby step program there's a lot more to learn

there's a lot more to apply to the situation to really maximize your dollars um and that's kind of where I

feel is if we don't align at all I also think the investing uh advice they give

out is like kind of like the 25 25 25 uh quadrant thing there's no way that works

um there's also no way there's a 12% uh you know return longterm opposed to like

the 10% they say they beat it by 2% it's easy to actively Pi you know pick actively manage mutual funds it's just

not how it works uh and so with fees net of ta you it just doesn't work that way

so there are some things we disagree on and that's okay and I think everyone needs to understand it's 2024 we can

still have some respect for people we can still not align or believe or have the same

exact belief and often times it's because like my agenda is different than somebody else's agenda or or my goal is

different than somebody else's and if I had the same goal as an individual I might do the same thing they do but because my goal is different I'm not

going to take the same pathway and I think that's where a lot of people don't understand I don't agree with Dave Ramsey in a lot of ways but it's in a

respectful manner that it's not to bash him it's not to say that he's a horrible person or you know all these things you see on the internet and it's just it's

just a matter of understanding what they're trying to accomplish is to help the masses figure out their debt

problems get you know financially aware and it's not necessarily to optimize

their finances and I think the market they're trying to talk to is is mass market and that's okay it's a business

at the end of the day he's a great businessman yeah no it's a great it's a

great answer and one thing I love about this too is that you can do it your own way and you're not taken from his pocket

he's not taking I never look at things like this as competition man I really don't honestly look at anything as competition like I know I'm I'm very

confident in my ability to what I provide so like like I think it's corny like my team even asked me like my

marketer guy marketing guys come in like who's your competition in the market I'm like dude honestly like I've never thought about it like good bad or

whatever from a business perspective like you can call it whatever I just don't look at it that way like I I look at it as like I know I can help there's

seven billion people in this world um I know I can help a lot of people and like I'm not necessarily just trying to make

the most money possible that's not my that's not my goal so like maybe if my goal was to like steal a market share

from somebody like maybe that my maybe my thoughts would be differently but like my thoughts are help as many people as need to be helped and want to be

helped and have a product that aligns with those individuals and if those people find me great and hopefully we

can find them to help them and serve them but I never look at as like me versus them or like the Ramsey crew

versus the budget dog crew or anything like that I I don't even think like let's call it Financial influencers like

there's any competition there like I just know my stuff so good that I know it's going to work it works for thousands of people it has worked for

thousands of people and it's going to continue to help people so like sure if you want to go pick this person over me

like go go for it I don't care yeah uh no competition 100% and

it's really cool that you kind of create and custom made your own your own solution because there's different

levels to personal finance and you you can create your own that you know to to worry about that

but it's it's really cool man um I like I like the this the thought of like

giving people the more advanced steps because a lot of people and you mentioned earlier everybody's in their own stage of personal finance and it's

going to change as you get older and when when you get more established so I think you can you can

start at zero you can start at 10 depending on where you're at you can start today either way you start exactly exactly and my personal finan have

shifted majorly over the last 10 years and so we had $34,000 of debt we decided

to pay it all off we're we're debt free and we decided to continue to build our wealth but now as you build wealth things change you have you have

different obligations you have different uh you know investment opportunities you you do different Investments you

diversify you you expand it's a never- ending you know changing

game yeah um what's some what's something that's may be on the fence what's something you can say to somebody

that's on the fence of like do I really need personal finance or do you really kind of like you kind of let them come

to you or I let I mean I I don't force anybody to fix their finances like it's

it's on them but like at the end of the day like if you aren't if you are lacking that much self-awareness that like personal finance affects your life

like I know there's a lot of avoidant behavior and people not believing they can do it but a lot of that has to do with the mental and emotional thing and

connection to money it's like I actually am so nervous about money I'm just going to avoid it or I'm so nervous about money I'm anxious about it so I'm just

gonna like say I don't care about it and they're going to take a reverse stance on it but this is why we have our behavioral psychologist uh because that

alone somebody sitting on the sideline is just fearful is just scared there is nothing in this world that you could

tell me that that doesn't matter for somebody's life and family um and I think everybody would honestly agree

with that I don't think that's like even a hot take so for somebody I'm I'm I'm not going to ever Force somebody but

what else say is if you really want to change your life you have to take action I'm an action Taker and that's what I I

thrive on like I have to have I I don't react based on fear if any if anything I

I feel fear and I go towards it because because I know that's a that's a that's an obvious solution to the problem I'm

probably having and so unless I attack F head on not going to really get the results I want and it's never com change

is never comfortable you're gonna go through hard times you're gonna do things you don't like but the thing is

when you do those things the the thing on the other side's a lot better typically and it's not as scary as you

once thought the boogeyman was not as scary when he actually came out there's a reason they keep the boogeyman to come

out of the closet until the end of the movie and every scary movie ever the the scary guy never comes out to the end

it's because the fear of the unknown is the scariest for humans and that's a very very well-known thing so that's why

every movie scary movie is built that way it's because you're afraid of the unknown and once you see it's like ah

okay it wasn't as bad as I thought I think that's the same thing to do with personal finance and development personal development and stuff like that

you got to take those chances you gotta you got to be okay with failure and you got to be okay with moving fast one thing I I I really like your

your statement here and I really holding on on it is that you got to take control control a lot of people they they take the backseat to their finances and they

kind of oh 401K matches my my investment you know and like okay and then they say

the the 401K is the company's you know investment like guys that's your investment by the way that's your

account and you have to invest in that your company just gave you the option to use it yeah and then like uh the I have

I have a I have a hot take I have a hot take I want your opinion on it on you what's what's your opinion on dividend

income oh um okay so everybody that invests get

gets dividend income like for the most part if you're investing like some type of fund you typically are getting some dividend income that's just naturally

part of investing obviously if you invest in this particular like stock or company like there there's a chance that

company doesn't pay a dividend but like I receive dividends but I don't go after dividend investing one it's very tax

inefficient um and two the focus on dividends shouldn't be the focus if

you're trying to grow your wealth which I assume most people are trying to do you need to focus on total return total return is capital appreciation plus

dividends and so when you're getting the total return especially as a young investor there's a lot of time on your side a lot of compounding growth and if

you're focused on dividends and a broker account that's really tax inefficient uh and so what I I don't focus on that you

know obviously I get dividends it's part of the game but I like to be very tax efficient and so therefore I'm going to

if I were to hold any like high payer dividend type of funds or stocks they're going to retirement accounts

specifically um but I don't in particular so I I focus on total return I think the difference of dividend

income I think a lot of people use dividend income to the idea of like paying your bills and stuff like that's the the silliest thing to do ever

because with dividends in particular the uh dividend if you aren't reinvesting

that dividend you are going to lose massively long term and that's a that's if you pull up any you know uh Financial

graph if the people that reinvest dividends versus not reinvest investing dividends is is substantial there's this

really popular graph on Google and it's like $10,000 I want to say 1960 to 2017

you invest $10,000 in 1960 and you let it ride in the S&P 500 until 2017 for

those that did not invest their dividends they returned about 400,000 for those that did reinvest their

dividends it was like 2. six six million I think it was so there was a difference of like I want to say roughly like $2

million plus or whatever so it's substantial uh and the long-term

trajectory of it is very tax inefficient very inefficient and living off your dividends does not happen overnight this

is a long-term play I think moving to dividends in the later stages of the game make a lot of sense for more

stability and income uh but early on it especially the demographic I'm talking to it doesn't make a whole lot of sense

yes somebody said it this is why I asked so I I'm a big I tweet this all the time and I every time I see a dividend tweet

because Twitter people are hot on Twitter man they're so they're so annoying on Twitter I'm just like

Dividends are for rich people and you said it right there is that on the later stage of your life once you're financially set it might make more sense

you don't have to you want passive income and you can do that but like it's not meant for people that have a

thousand in their account they put it in their they I'm like dude bro there's

Capital there there's the different stages of wealth like we talked about earlier there's like the the

accumulation phase and then there's like the preserv stage and so like accumulation stage you're not you I mean

like I said you'll get dividends naturally but you shouldn't be like seeking High dividend payers out not to mention like seeking a high yield is one

of the quickest ways to Quick death like just don't do it like you're going to get crushed especially if you're like finding like a stock that pays like 12%

in high you know dividend yeld like there's a very high probability that's like not sustainable and so like you got

to think of it a little differently yeah that's going to be a clip for the dividend Bros right there

and that was that was a crafted question because I'm set me up all you need that was man

I'm always twe against the dividend Bros I need some help I need some bi content here

yeah um what is the quote that is yours or somebody else's that you resonate with huh trying to think uh you know I

have actually three quotes written on my board and um this this is something that's their they're madeup quotes I

don't know they might be used out there but I always say I say it's bad to bet against me I I truly believe that like there's some there's something in me

that like I don't like to be I will prove you wrong um and that's just something I I hold deeply into me the

second one is always take the hard route um I think taking the hard route is never sounds fun but at the end it

always makes sense and then um the last one is nothing can stop you and so I I

write those there in particular because you have to develop that mindset because there's a lot that can come your way in business and and life and stuff we've

went through a lot of stuff with with Logan in particular so um if I was able to if I if I allowed

that stuff to engulf me and take me under it could have easily it takes a lot of families under uh that deal with

what she has and so you got to get past that you got to find ways to get past that and so that's not only on my

whiteboard it's also on my phone so literally it says nothing can stop me right here so like it's it's something I

I hold true to and I deeply believe and I also like to see it every single day as a result and it's not in an arrogant

or conceited way and I I think that's what people sometimes take the wrong way um it's in a very confident way it's

it's in a way that I've experienced a lot of stuff and I'm I'm willing to fight through and I don't care how hard it is I will figure it out um I think

it's a it's like a it's a personal I I literally had a conversation with my buddy last night he called me like at midnight and he was like 3 a he he works

early morning and I'm in on the west coast so he called me last night and I told him I was like you got you got to give yourself more credit than than what

you what you give yourself because you you're you're your worst critic sometimes and sometimes seeing that

daily it's like okay I am doing something good there's good results coming from it I'm I'm and I'm doing it

the right way you know it's just a personal like it's a affirmation that you see daily to kind of push you to

exist and do it over again every day exactly yeah it's an affirmation more so

than a quote even and that's exactly what it was um I remember specifically I used to write on a piece of paper every

single day I I am a seven and it wasn't I will be a seven figure business owner I am a figure B business owner and I I

believe that um there was a book I was reading recently uh breaking the habit of Being Yourself by Joe despenza and he

was saying aligning your beliefs thoughts and actions all together and so like saying that you're that put you in

the mindset that you are already that and so like before we became millionaires like I said I am going to become a millionaire and then we became

a millionaire and so it was it was more so like time had to catch up and but I already knew and was doing things like a

millionaire I was always I was already acting as a seven figure business owner I was doing all these things talking to the people that were in those spaces and

then all of a sudden I became that as a result and it was more so because I've aligned the thoughts bles and actions together before it actually

happened yep absolutely absolutely um let's talk about your daughter dapit

syndrome I know you're you're doing donations you have what's talk about your you have a I saw you have a goal for you want to donate like a million

dollars or something1 million dollars yeah it's true D syndrome specifically and um so D syndrome is it's one in

16,000 children and hard to explain let's put it this way it's a form of epilepsy that impacts everything so it

could be seizures which are very common which we've really greatly reduced um it could be speaking it could be talk or

walking it could be motor skills like it it it really touches every aspect of

someone's life and so like for example like she was getting a bath one time and there was a seizure that occurred because the the excitement of like the

the water temperature um as a baby and so like a lot of things that parents take for granted like you can't do that

um there was like a time where we couldn't go outside in the heat um there was a time that we a lot of the kids have ice packs that they literally wear

like ice vest um uh the Sun the light like inside of our house like we might

have to close the blinds uh the sound at one point we couldn't turn on a blender uh the dogs we thought about having to

get rid of like literally getting rid of our dogs because the the uh somebody would ring a doorbell and like The

Barking would like cause a seizure and so like we were like it's push comes the shove the dogs are gone first and so

like it it really impacts and that's just a few examples of like everything so my my goal is to I don't know if I

can share my screen but I'm actually on my website is we are donating a million dollars to V syndrome and we just

started that in 2024 so um one of the cool things is that um and it looks like

I can share it hopefully this is okay um we have this you know D obviously

connected with us and we we we're doing the donation here this this link right

here I can you see everything yep that's on the screen perfect um and so we have a million dollar goal we've obviously hit 7 7% or 70,000 so far since what was

it January 1 I think of 2024 so I don't really have a timeline on this goal um

we're we're moving pretty fast and I know we will hit it but it's just a matter of getting it out there letting

people be aware of it and seeing where we go with it but I know we'll hit it at some point amazing amazing I didn't know

I didn't know that was on your site that's pretty cool yeah yeah yeah it's a big thing man it's a big agenda for us my I'd say on my whiteboard back there

the only goal I have is that so you know last year it was like building the business to X number of Revenue dollars

and I kept asking myself do I just want to keep increasing that like at what point do I have like a purpose a vision

like other stuff than just like okay we take it from you know X to X Plus Y and X Plus y plus X Plus y plus Z it's like

how how meaningful is that and so of course of course I want to increase the business and build that kind of stuff and have other personal goals but like

this is a big uh personal goal that we have it's also reflective of um the

budget all GC is the one that's technically speaking uh contributing to

this what do you think the future holds for you because I think you mentioned earlier that um you did not foresee

where you're at right now but now that you've kind of you're down this path four year five years now what what do

you foresee now because I think once once you get attraction you can kind of know where you're going so what does the future look like for you yeah my team

actually we I talked to my team yesterday about this my vision uh my team was like hey do you want to be the next dve ramsy I'm like I don't know I

jokingly say I do sometimes like I'll take over the financial space but then like at the end of the day like if I'm being real probably not like I don't

really care for that um I I see the downsides the pros and cons to everything and you know for family I

don't know if that's the best Venture for me um I want to impact a lot of people at the end of the day so

so that's going to come with pros and cons like putting yourself out there to get the attention to help a lot of

people also comes with all the all the negative downsides so like yeah I don't I don't know really

what it in I I don't know exactly what that Vision looks like actually in a sauna right now literally as we speak

I've been beginning building out like the one five 10 and 20 year goal for the for the budget dog and I have some ideas

um I have some more Project based ideas but as far as like where we go I have a lot of confidence it's going to do

really really well and I have a lot of confidence it's going to it's going to blow up even more but as far as like

what level or like I I don't know if you want to associate a revenue number with it or a brand awareness you know to it I

don't know the answer I really don't know the answer I just know it's going to do really really well uh and I have a lot of confidence from that regard but

like I know we the goal and the mission is to help a lot of people and I think

when you put that before dollars I think things come together very very nicely even though you're going to go through

some struggles what type of impact do you want to make on the world yeah good

question I I think just like simplifying your like life and I think like taking a step back from like personal finance

like the reason I got in personal finance was because our own story we were paying off a lot of debt we were doing all these things investing a lot

of money trying to build wealth uh felt like we were at a stand at one point 23 years old so when I started talking

about having budge a dog to come to come to life it was more so about like simplifying your finan cial life and

Building Wealth basically automation to make make your life simpler but like what I've realized recently is like one

I really like to talk about business business building stuff because that's what we've been able to do so it used to

be I was talking about personal finance because I that's what I did then I build a business and that I like to talk about that but the other thing that's also

come up is like productivity and I actually just tweeted this out like before we got in this podcast today about like a productivity hack um that I

use for like efficiency purposes and like I'm really big on on finding getting your time back in the society

that we live in so business money productivity whatever you want to call

it just simplifying your life and giving your I don't know if it's giving

yourself more time to do what you actually care about because I think we're just built to like do this thing

called work and like most of us never get out of that grind and it's always just like work work work work work

something we don't really like or care about and like it's a very meaningless life ultimately that's top of the you

know let's call it the budget dog um goal is like simplifying your financial simplifying your life and getting back

the time that you deserve awesome um where can people find you online I think it's been a great

episode we covered a lot um really really fast and I wish I had like I we

we need to do this again I think I think was a great conversation the work people find you online I got budget do.com and

of course you're budget dog on Twitter I believe yeah you can find me on pretty much all social medias guys just budget

dog um Instagram YouTube Tik Tok Facebook uh Twitter and just type in

budg doog I'm sure you'll find me I think Twitter and Tik Tok are budg doore uh there's a lot of fake accounts out

there I have one account in all those platforms I would never message you about crypto just had somebody got

scammed out of $10,000 supposedly there was a crypto scam that happened and some people told

me after I posted about that that supposedly the scammers typically like make you feel bad for the victim and

like the victim's part of it a lot of times I don't know if that's the case I don't want to put you know words in somebody's mouth but like that's what people told me so like just be careful

don't uh I'm never going to send you a link to ask you for money there you go thanks for coming on if you like the

show go like share subscribe you know what to do we'll see you the next episode thanks for coming on Brandon we'll see you later appreciate it man

hey if you have any deals you'd like to submit to the hve mine and our team go to hi bc. it's actually The Hive Buyers

Club submit your deals and we can hopefully dispo your deal for you have a great

day

Ep 487: Personal Finance With Budgetdog

Daniel Esteban Martinez

Brennan Schlagbaum