Stack Your Money While You're Young

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

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

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.

You know, when we think about our futures, a lot of us, we think about money. And for some of us, that thought is is centered on fear, meaning we don't know what the next year is gonna look like or or the next five years. Some of us, you know, particularly people around my age, I'm about 40, we start to think about what life's gonna be like as we get older. You know, whether or not we're gonna be able to to pay our bills and whether or not we're gonna be able to handle medical expenses. For you younger guys, a lot of times, you're thinking to yourselves, well, if you're getting paid, you you feel like you're the richest man in the world.

I remember the feeling I got when I got paid in the Marine Corps. Like, I had a license to go out and spend it on the town, you know, in clubs, in bars, on things that really weren't going to pay me off in the long run. There's so much of me that wishes I could go back and shake myself and slap myself silly for the amount of money I spent on things that I would never use again, for the amount of money I spent on cheap thrills. And what I wanna do in this podcast is talk to you guys a little bit about, you know, the lessons of an older and, I guess, could say, grizzled man. You know, I had no idea what money really was when I was younger.

I didn't grow up rich. I was the child of a single mother to work three jobs to put me and my sister through our childhoods. And we never wanted for anything, and and I'll never figure out quite how my mom did it while remaining sane, while still, you know, finding time to cook for us and finding time to be a parent. And as I get older, I'm more and more astounded by what she was able to achieve. And she always said to me, you know, Chris, don't put yourself into a position where you have to work like I work.

You know? At the end of the day, she used to be so tired. I could see it in her eyes. And, you know, I wish I paid closer attention to to what she was doing and what she was going through. But as a kid, you don't.

You get caught up in things. You get caught up in your life. You get caught up thinking about the future. And I got caught up in thinking that, well, if I just join the military and then if I just go to college afterwards, I'll be set for the rest of my life. And I don't want you guys to make that same mistake.

You know, the money you make when you're in the military, it seems like it's a lot because when you're young, you don't have a lot of bills. Right? A lot of you are 17, 18, 19 years old. You go in, you know, you probably never had a credit card before. You probably never had to, you know, take a debt for anything.

And so most of your money is going to you. Now there's a few things that can happen along the way that can take some of that money away from you. Primarily, a lot of you, once you you get in, you go and you buy cars. Right? You want a car.

You you you feel like you need one, and a lot of you try to buy nice cars. And it's it's kinda notorious, and your drill instructors and and your NCOs, and everybody's probably told you this, but but, you know, those interest rates around military base towns, at least when I was in, they they were a little bit crazy. And so when you're thinking about buying that car, understand that debt you're taking on, that monthly payment, well, let's think about you painting yourself into a corner. Right? That's that's the first, you know, blotch of paint that you're painting in.

Right? Now let's say you also get a credit card. Right? And you start putting a lot of stuff on that credit card. Let's say you start putting some of your weekends out on that credit card.

Well, those beers and that fun time, yeah, they they were good times, but you paint yourself a little bit further into that corner. And then, you know, let's say you meet a girl and maybe you get married and she wants to to to live in a house and most of you are getting that paid for and you get more money for it when you when you're in the military. But here's the thing. She's probably gonna want some other things too. And so, you know, little by little, that that that BAH that you're getting, well, hey, that's gonna go away pretty quickly.

And all the money you could be stacking away, well, you're gonna be spending that. And the more you spend that, the less opportunity you have to spend on it in the future. Right? And so you're painting yourself a little bit further into that corner until, you know, some of you are gonna get out of the military and you're gonna think, alright, well, I'm gonna head off to school. And you're you're gonna say to yourself, well, I'm getting covered by the GI Bill.

Right? All my school's gonna be covered. What about your meals? What about, you know, out of your living expenses? Even if you're you're getting money for that.

Right? That could be money that you're putting away. Right? But still, you're gonna spend a lot on that. Now what am I trying to get at here?

Well, the money you're spending isn't just money lost on what you're spending. What you're also losing are opportunity costs. Right? What's an opportunity cost? An opportunity cost is the cost of an opportunity to do something else with that money.

So whereas you could have been taking that money that that you could have been stacking up and you could have invested it into something to make more money. Whereas you you could have put it into to something that would gain interest or whereas you could have, you know, maybe invested in a piece of real estate. Instead, that money's been going out little by little, piece by piece to, you know, things that are going to rust, rot, and depreciate thing or experiences that you're never gonna get in get again. Now I'm not saying that I don't want you to have fun. I'm not saying that I don't want you to have those those awesome weekends where you get to go somewhere and maybe you're holed up in a hotel and and you're partying on the town.

Right? I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that you should be putting money away while you're young. And with that money, you should consider putting it into things that are gonna get money back to you. Now I'm sure I'm getting a lot of this wrong because I'm no financial wizard by any means, but I do know economics.

And one thing I know about economics is that the greatest cost you face when you're wasting away your finances is the opportunity cost to do something else. And as young people, you know, being in the military, you're afforded an amazing opportunity. An amazing opportunity to not worry too much about expenses if you just manage your finances the right way. So many of you could get out of the military when it's time in position to be very financially set, potentially for the rest of your lives. But so many of us waste that opportunity.

So many of us waste that opportunity because we're just concerned with the now. We're just concerned with, you know, the three feet in front of our face, and we're not worried about what's gonna happen, twenty years in the future when you're 40 years old. And you still have to worry about your bills, you're worrying about everything, and you're worried about your future. As you get older, your options decline. And as you get older, your opportunities are are are far fewer than they used to be.

So take it from an old man. Work with your money wisely, manage your finances wisely, and set yourself up for the future so that when you are my age at 40 years old, you could be living an amazing life with a lot of opportunity to do things that you wanna do so that you're you're not so financially strapped that you're constantly worried. Now with that guys, I'm gonna end it there. I will get into some other awesome podcasts next week. I just want to say that this podcast is sponsored by the amazing people over at f bomb nutrition.

They make delicious packets of macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate, with sea salt, with pecan butter. They're sending boxes of this stuff over to the troops overseas. So if you are looking to spend your money on something, spend it on something that's gonna be good for your body, and that's gonna help you to supplement those MREs. You can head over to www.dropanfbomb.com.

If you use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, you get 20% off your first order. I'll talk to you guys next week. Thank you so much. Get out there and live your best lives while you can.