Don't Spend Your Money Frivolously

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one column for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the Corps of Cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to another edition of the Warrior Soul podcast. Today is Monday, 03/29/2021, and we are a year into this situation that we've all gotten ourselves into, this global pandemic, this, I don't know how to term it anymore. I guess we are are coming to the light at the end of the tunnel on this thing for some places. You know, here in Florida, we've been opened up for a while.

It's been business as usual. Places like Texas, they're fully opened up. But places like California and New York still dealing with some significant restrictions. And, you know, during this time, there's been a lot of people who had to deal without work, without pay, without money. But the government has been sending out these stimulus checks, and we're seeing some crazy things out there on the economic front.

Right? Because everybody's getting these stimulus checks. Right? Doesn't matter if you're working, not working. If you're making under, I think, $70,000 a year, you're getting one.

And that brings up the question. So, you know, how do you spend these things? What are you going to do with your money? And my feeling on this is that, you know, the way we've been printing out money, the way that that the government does all this is is to print out more money. And and, essentially, what that does is it starts to devalue our currency.

Right? We're flooding the market with dollars. And I see a lot of people out there. They're they're buying what they can right now. Right?

So they're they're buying everything. I saw somebody today online, and this was a freaking disgrace, but somebody bought a 40 ounce Tomahawk and had American cheese melted all over it. And that pissed me off more than anything I saw on the news this morning. But, you know, hey, it's America. People could do what they want.

But my point is this, don't spend your money on stupid shit. Alright? I mean, there's certain things that that, you know, maybe you wanna get for the house, like, got a couple of guns. Right? But what you wanna make sure before you're gonna go out there and you buy just shit for your house that's gonna stay around or material possessions is is that you are gonna be financially okay, that you're setting yourself up for a bright future.

Right? And I think that so many of us in the veteran community, we don't think about this shit. You know, a lot of us don't plan past the age of 25. Right? And if you're younger, you know, you want to get that car, you want to be spending money, you know, going out, to find women, trying to find whatever you're trying to find.

Right? And and a lot of times, we spend our twenties doing that. But if I can go back and do anything at all, I would have started investing while I was still in the Marine Corps. I would have started an IRA, an individual retirement account, a Roth IRA. And I would have started contributing to that early on because by now, in my forties, I would have had a significant amount stowed away from my retirement.

And you need to start thinking about that stuff. So one of the things I think, you know, you might wanna consider with the stimulus check-in in in the future is starting up an individual retirement account, getting yourself into the market, checking out some books at least on investing, you know, some great books. The one I like is The Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam. But there's another great one by Tony Robbins. It's called Money Master the Game, and it teaches you how to do this the smart way.

Right? Not individual investing into individual stocks, you know, investing in to index funds that have low or no cost, giving yourself a little bit of a tailwind so that you're not getting dragged down by fees, and putting a little bit of money away each month, each week if you can. Alright? I I stick I try to stick a $100 a week into my IRA. It's around $400 a month.

Right? And I'm trying to build myself up that way, slowly but surely. Right? The other thing to think about is if you can, getting yourself into real estate. Right?

And I I brought a bunch of people on to talk about this. You can go back, you can check out the shows I did with Markey on Stitch, active duty, passive income. Had a couple other real estate people on here. But one of the things about being a veteran is that you get this thing called the VA home loan. And, yeah, you have to live there.

It's your primary primary residence at first. But, you know, one of the things I've done is I've invested into a multifamily home out here in Florida. And I'm living in one of the units, and then I have a tenant in the other unit, and I'm basically getting my mortgage paid for by the tenant. Right? It's a really, really helpful thing right now because I don't have to worry about living cost of living as much.

I can stack money away, and I can set myself up for a bunch of other things. There's a bunch of other cool things about the VA home loan. Right? So you could do it for no money down. You can refinance out of the home loan, and you can use it again.

Alright? If you wanted to just stick tenants in the residence you're you're in when you're not living there anymore and you wanted to try to buy another house and try to get yourself into multiple properties, you could do that. Right? It's just things to consider. Right?

Starting to understand the landscape out there, the financial landscape, being able to plan for a better future, being able to get yourself to a point to where, you know, if you're in right now, when you're out, you're not in such a rush to find income. And and if you are out, you know, setting yourself up so that, you know, when you're in your forties, your fifties, your sixties, you could start to enjoy stuff. Right? Because that's what this is all about. Right?

You serve your country. You wanna be able to enjoy America. You don't wanna be sitting there stressed all the time. I'll tell you one thing. People say money doesn't matter.

It matters, man. Because I've been without money before. I've I've I've laid up at night awake wondering where the hell my next paycheck was gonna come from, how the hell I was gonna spend money on groceries. Like, that shit matters. And if you're not thinking about it, you're gonna put yourself into a really bad position.

So think about it. It's a huge part of living your best life. So great book. Again, Andrew Hallam, the millionaire teacher, money master the game by Tony Robbins. Great podcast.

I would definitely check out the BiggerPockets podcast with Brandon Turner. He's a great dude. You can check out them. You can check out the the Rookie Real Estate podcast that they've got, and also the BiggerPockets Business podcast, which thinking about trying to start your own business. And again, I hate preaching.

I hate, like, telling you what you should be doing, but but this is stuff you should be doing, guys. Alright? That's all I got for today. Get out there. Live your best lives while you can.

This is Chris Albert, and I am out.