Financial happiness: an opportunity for everyone

Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we are going to have a special guest here with us today, Mike Finley. Mike, how's it going?

Mike

Finley: It's going well, thank you for having me, Chris.

Chris: Well, you bet. And so what we're going to talk about today is personal finance and a bunch about dollars and cents, right? And different kinds of cents, right? That's right. So that sounds good. So I guess what I want to do first, Mike, is have you introduce yourself and kind of tell a little bit about yourself. Um, you've written a number of books, and I want to go through that here eventually too, but I want to have you introduce yourself, tell a little bit about yourself.

Mike

Finley: So I'm, uh, from Iowa. I grew up in a small town called Jamaica.

Chris: And, uh, not Jamaica where it's sunny and warm.

Mike

Finley: Not quite, not quite. But, uh, basically at age 19, I joined the military. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do. That gave me an opportunity to grow up and to expand my horizons, you might say.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Mike

Finley: And so through that process, I started to learn about life and money as we all do as young people. And I went through a stage of, I would call self-enlightenment, where I started to see a world of money that I didn't know existed. And so at about age 25, I started doing a lot better with how I managed money while I was a soldier in the Army. And little by little, uh, as I continued to educate myself, I started to see a very big difference in my financial situation. And as I started to create wealth over time, I realized I could help other people. So I started helping people with their personal finance. Basically educating themselves so they could become their own financial expert. And as I did that, I started to realize that this path that I was on was leading to something really great, which was financial freedom. And so today, at age 58, I'm financially free.

I retired at 45, and for the last 13 years, I have continued to work at helping people create a better relationship with their money.

Chris: So when you say you retired at 45, you were able to accumulate what you needed for living? Because we, you know, we do a— I was telling you offline, we do a series called Dad's Wisdom, and one of the things I bring up a lot is, as we help farm operations in transition, is figuring out what you need to live on, right?

Mike

Finley: That's right. So I created enough passive income where I did not need earned income. I didn't need a job. Now, I may choose to work, but the truth is what I do today gives me much more satisfaction, which is educating people on money, whether that's through classes, whether that's through a podcast, maybe that's individual work with each person and family. But it's the idea that we can help one another get ourselves to a better place, not just financially but holistically, as we try to create a better life for ourselves.

Chris: Yeah, it's not all just about money, is it? There's, there's other things to life.

Mike

Finley: No, and that's one of the bigger messages within my books, which is at the end of the day, it's just money. Uh, money, wise money management, you can build a foundation to build a better life on.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Yep. So with that said, let's, um, let's— let me ask you this, this key question here first. Um, where do, where do most of us make mistakes financially? What, what things are we doing individually that we probably should be doing better? What are some of the key things?

Mike

Finley: So I'll go back to me. Uh, I was winging it. I think that's where a lot of people go wrong. They wing it. They don't really have a clear written-down plan on what they're trying to do with their money and how to create wealth over time. So winging it is not a good plan. And I think most of us know that. We're just not always sure quite where to start. So I would always start with tracking your expenses. Know where your money's going. Know exactly where it's going and where do you want it to go. And so that's a start to track your money, see where it's going, and then start identifying a plan on making sure it's going to the right places. So at the end of the day, I think many people, and it was certainly me once upon a time, we get so busy with life, we just kind of deal with our money haphazardly. And that can be detrimental over time.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Well, and especially if you're having some good years too, you— just because you're making a lot of money doesn't mean you're building wealth, right?

Mike

Finley: Correct. And the book The Millionaire Next Door did a great job of describing this concept, which is you can be a high-income person, you can still be broke. High income does not equal high net worth. And so you— to create wealth, you have to learn how to make a decent paycheck, save a good decent portion out of that paycheck, and then invest it wisely, creating that passive income over time. So it's, it's critically important to understand that just making a lot of money doesn't necessarily increase your financial situation, and it doesn't equal happiness either. That's part of the message is how can you take money and create a better life.

Chris: You talked about happiness. I think one of the things that is a misconception with a lot of the— a lot of us in the world is stuff, right? Is, is, you know, well, if we get— if I get that car, then I'll be happier. If I get that truck, then I'll be happier. If I get, you know, that farm, that, that, that 80 on the corner, if I get that, you know, it's, it's stepping back and looking at two different things. Am I buying an asset or am I buying a liability, number one? And then the other thing is, is it's not always that stuff makes us happy, right?

Mike

Finley: Yeah, and it's, it's so easy to fall into that. And especially as a young man, I fell into it too. But the truth is stuff does not make you happy. And it never did make a person happy. Stuff in itself is just stuff. And in many cases, it creates a certain burden for the individual. As you accumulate more stuff and maybe the debt that comes with it, it can actually feel like you're in jail, you know, a debt prison. And so it's the idea that to distance yourself from a consumer-based, gotta buy, gotta buy, gotta buy mentality, is to let go of stuff, to let go of that so you're more free. I would tell you the person who has less by choice is gonna be a lot better off than the person who's always chasing after the next great thing.

Chris: Mm-hmm, good point. I talked to you a little bit offline with, Profit Manager, the tool we use with a lot of our clients where we analyze cost of production. And, you know, I was showing you kind of how we use the tool, and I showed you the budget page, and I also told you that that's the least used page in that whole comprehensive system to understand your cost of production, because paying yourself is part of the cost of production, your expenses, your all your overhead things. A lot of times I'll joke, you know, the farmer accidentally bought a boat, but you know, there you got to make payments on that stuff too. Why is it that do you think that we aren't very good at wanting to sit down and budget?

Because when I show that page, the first thing I do is if it's a husband and wife there, I'm like, so you guys can go do that without me, I don't want to get in the middle of that, you know. And you, you give it to them. I mean, it's kind of like you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, you know. What, what is it in us, or what What things could we be doing to maybe focus on budget better?

Mike

Finley: Sometimes it's not a lot of fun. So sometimes we can always find something else we'd rather do. Another reason is we may not wanna know. Sometimes we'd rather just kind of stay clueless on the situation, 'cause otherwise if we identify all the facts, it might wake us up to the reality that we could do better, and we can do better. Everyone can do better. But there's no way to know exactly how you're doing until you sit down and get all the numbers on paper, identify your situation, and then, as I say, create a plan as you design your future life.

Chris: Mhm. Yeah, it's kind of— one of my friends always says you can either be informed or you can be happy, and sometimes people choose happy, but that happy doesn't last forever, does it? If No, you're not informed.

Mike

Finley: No. And then, and it could be fool's gold. Yeah, you might actually think you're happy, but exactly what is it that you're doing in your life that's going to bring not just more happiness but more personal fulfillment? What, what makes your life worth living? What brings meaning to your life?

Chris: And I think, you know, I want to get to the nuts and bolts on this a little bit here too, because I think it's important. A lot of the the people that are listening to this are farmers and business people that have employees as well. And when I started reading the first book, I think this is the first one you wrote, right? Financial Happiness. And at the very beginning, you talked a lot about— and I highlighted it too— is you talked about the whole idea of where you get your advice from, where you get your information from. Would you, would you touch on that a little bit?

Mike

Finley: Sure. So what's key when you're looking at getting advice on investing, on anything dealing with money, you wanna make sure that the person who's educating you is not a glorified salesperson. And the truth is many people in the financial services industry are simply salespeople. Their job is to try to go get your money and make money off it. And so, one, do not educate yourself from a salesperson because they generally have their best interest at heart, not yours.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Mike

Finley: So you have to start finding the teachers. And so I try to help people identify the people who will educate you without selling you. And that's part of what the message is within my book is how you can find the right teachers to show you the right path that's gonna serve you and your family for decades to come.

Chris: Give an example of, of that, if you would, um, specifically.

Mike

Finley: Sure. So for example, and I'm not here just to pick on Edward Jones, there's a whole lot of companies out there, but you could, you could go down to your local—

Chris: whoever you want here, sure, it's free.

Mike

Finley: You could go down to your local Edward Jones office and you might think you're talking to a financial expert, but you're really talking to a salesperson. And you start investing there, you might realize that you're paying a very high commission. When I say commission, I'm talking about a load. You might be paying a 5.75% load on the money that you give them, and that load is gonna go to the salesman. It's not going to your investment. Then he's gonna put you in a high-fee investment where you're paying a high expense ratio, which is the fee for that investment. Again, the salesman's making a lot of money. The mutual fund might be making a lot of money. You are the one making less money. So identifying an expert is not walking down to your local Edward Jones or insurance, uh, agent to start learning about money.

That's a very dangerous way to learn because in the end, you're gonna be educated in ways that make them money, not you.

Chris: Yeah, and that's important, I think, is your point about— and you do a great job in the book here just talking about educating yourself and making sure you surround yourself with people that are— it's not a commission thing for them. It's— they're truly there to help you so that you're getting the majority out of that investment. Talk a little bit too about insurance. You mentioned insurance. There's whole life policies, there's term. One of the things that we do a lot with transition, and I told you offline earlier that, you know, we're working with a lot of farm operations in transition that are going from one generation to the next, and a lot of times we see whole life that was purchased a long, long time ago that's got value or whatever that the older person had or whatever, whether it was right or wrong that they have that.

One of the things though that we see is the importance of buying some insurance on for the older person buying it on the younger person as they transition in because there's a lot of dollars at risk. And we've always looked at it that term life is just, is for sure the probably the way better approach because you don't have to spend as much money. You can set it up for 5 years during that transition. So if something happens to the younger person, the older person can buy the spouse out or what, you know, because those things can happen. And so But talk about some of the pitfalls with whole life versus term and some of the things there.

Mike

Finley: Well, just understanding how the life insurance agent makes money. He will be earning a much bigger commission selling whole life. So for example, let's say somebody were to have a $600 monthly premium for whole life. So over a year's time, right, that $600 a month, let's say, comes to $7,200. Well, that first year, that entire $7,200 would be a commission going to the life insurance agent. If you were to try to go in there at the end of the year and pull any cash value out, you would get nothing because it would all be gone. And so whole life insurance is one of the worst ways to invest money. You don't want to invest using insurance products. You want to buy low-fee term life insurance if you need it, and invest elsewhere into no-load, meaning no commission, index mutual funds, funds that own, you know, thousands of individual companies.

So that can minimize your risk, doesn't eliminate it, but it can diversify it out over many, many different companies. So this whole insurance question is again, finding the right people to educate you. And the life insurance agent is not the right person because of the conflicts of interest. If he's making much higher commissions selling whole life than term, it's more likely he is going to be pushing whole life on you.

Chris: Interesting. So give us, give us an example of that. I mean, give us a specific example, if you would.

Mike

Finley: So there are times when somebody needs life insurance, and maybe they need let's say $500,000. Well, you could go buy a whole life policy and pay 10 times the cost of what a term policy could be. So that term policy, let's say based off a situation, it's going to run you, let's say, $30 a month. That same whole life policy might cost you $300 a month. And so through that process, Go get what you need, don't get what you don't need. And so trying to invest using insurance products again is what you don't need. It's one of the worst ways to grow your money over time. You go get the term life that you need, maybe a level term, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, for a period of time until you don't need it. So the other piece to this is you want to get to a point where you're self-insured. Where you don't need life insurance.

You have created enough capital, enough wealth to protect you and your family without life insurance.

Chris: Okay, so explain the process. You talked about, um, going to a no-load. Explain that.

Mike

Finley: Sure. Well, thanks to a guy by the name of John Bogle, he created the first no-load index mutual fund in 1975. And the way he built that, which was through the company Vanguard, was as money comes in, instead of bonuses and paychecks getting bigger, he built Vanguard as a not-for-profit investment company. So the average investor will pay lower and lower fees as more money comes into that company. And so over time, Vanguard is now the largest mutual fund company in the world. And the fees are very, very low. And by eliminating the load, which is a commission that goes to a salesman, you've now eliminated most of the fees that you're gonna pay to the investments. And then by buying an index fund, you're gonna reduce the fees even more because at the end of the day, the fees you pay on your investments have a major impact on your return over time.

So it's very, very important to squeeze out the fees so you can increase your return over time.

Chris: So interesting. You know, the other thing I would point out is, you know, again, the audience listening to this is a high percentage of them are landowners— excuse me— producers, farmers. And, you know, you look at diversification, a lot of the people listening, or some of them, I, I wouldn't guess a percentage, but the majority of what they have is probably land ownership, other assets and things. So this category was what I was thinking is important because I'm guilty of it myself, of I'm paying attention to my hard assets, to the land, to the equipment, to all of the things that make our business function, and probably not paying enough attention to the investments that I'm putting some money in. So quote unquote, I'm diversified.

But I'm diversified in something if, if I'm trusting the wrong people in a way that's making somebody else a lot of money and not making me or us as the listener probably what we could. Can you, can you give a little bit more detail on that in terms of like dollars and cents, what that means over time?

Mike

Finley: So one, I understand farmers always generally want more land. That's just what, how farmers think, right? And I can appreciate that. But to diversify elsewhere is going to be important. Owning stocks and bonds and real estate outside of your farm business is going to diversify some of your risk. It's going to reduce the overall risk of the portfolio that you can create over time. And doing it right, you can save money in taxes, right? If you put money into a pre-tax 401, for example, it's a way to invest wisely at a low fee and save taxes as you do it. So through the process, it's really a matter of trying to take some time and understand how to diversify beyond the farm. You understand the farm, and I get it. You want to invest in things that you understand, and you may not understand totally about this investment game, but I would make the case it's not that hard.

You can take one book, one author who's there to teach you, and learn enough to become a great investor. When I say great, you have the ability to be one of the top 1% of investors in the world. And that's not an exaggeration. That's what I teach through my books, through my classes. You can do this and it doesn't take a lot of time. I personally spend about 5 minutes a year on my investment portfolio. So it's a case of setting it up correctly and then leaving the damn thing alone. And you can do that. And this advice that I'm providing is the same advice that a guy by the name of Warren Buffett provides as well.

Chris: You, you know, one of the things that we talked about offline too is, is taxes. And, and with farming, there's nobody taking our, our tax out monthly. So at the end of the year, the farmer actually gets to see how much they're paying in tax, right? As opposed to the typical consumer that it's pulled out and they kind of, you know, I didn't, I didn't realize that, you know, that's how much I'm paying. I guess that farmers get that. Okay, so what, you know, what things can we be doing to mitigate our taxes rather than going buying a new tractor? You know, we talked about the assets, you know, sometimes the The tax preparer is like, well, you need to spend X amount of money. You know, well, if you're buying an asset that you need, that's great. But if you go and buy an asset that you don't necessarily need, why in the heck are you doing that is the question I always have.

And so what other options would they have rather than going buying an asset they don't need? What things could they be doing to mitigate some of the tax issues? Sure.

Mike

Finley: So there's an old phrase, don't let the tail wag the dog. And that means don't let taxes make, be the, the number one decision on how you spend your money for your business and for your life. So in this case, an easy way to reduce your taxes is to identify a good retirement plan. Speak to your accountant to identify whether or not a 401 is best for you or a SIMPLE IRA or maybe a SEP IRA. There could be different retirement plans that fit each situation differently. So one, get that straight through the accountant. And then you can open up those plans through Vanguard at a very, very low fee, start investing pre-tax, putting money into a traditional account. And that is saving you money on federal and state as you invest in those no-load index mutual funds that are growing over time.

So historically, you can invest in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, which owns the entire US economy in stocks, over 4,000 businesses. At a cost of 4 basis points, which is 0.04, and that return has been over 10% a year over the last 30-plus years. So it's not hard to do once you start to understand some of the basics.

Chris: And just to make it clear, you're not making money from Vanguard by saying go to Vanguard, right? You're— I'm not truly trying to help.

Mike

Finley: No, I think that's important. I think that's a question you should be asking me. So the answer is no, nobody pays me for anything. Uh, I'm fully retired. I don't do this for the money. Uh, the reason I recommend Vanguard— Vanguard has provided the average investor the best opportunity to grow their money over time. Could you do this at a place like Fidelity? Yes. Schwab? Yes. And there are other places, but for the most part, All the industry has changed because of John Bogle and how he created Vanguard to help the average investor grow their money over time. So I'm, I tend to be loyal to Vanguard because at the end of the day, most of these financial firms, they may tell you they care about you, but what they really care about is your money.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Is that commission, right?

Mike

Finley: Yes. They're trying to make as much in the way of fees off of your money as they can. To create wealth for them and their families instead of you and your family.

Chris: Interesting. So, um, I have a couple of macro questions I want to ask, and I didn't even forewarn you on this, but, um, what, what things does the average person need to be watching? I mean, we're in the midst of some pretty massive inflation right now. Um, interest rates are starting to finally go up a little bit, probably needed to go up a bunch sooner than this. Um, anything that, you know, we need to be watching as, as consumers and as investors, um, in this current economy situation with a lot of, seems like a lot of different things going on right now to pay attention to.

Mike

Finley: So let's see what the audience thinks of this answer. I would start with thinking that maybe we don't know the future and what we think we know could I could be wrong. So I'm always reminding myself of that. I could be wrong on what I think I know about the future, whether that's interest rates, whether that's inflation, whether that's a war in the Ukraine. So one, be careful with what you think you know. The market, right? The US stock market, international stock markets, bond markets, they are reacting to macro information in seconds, moments in time, those markets are being traded. So by the time you and I have received information, we are way late to the game. In other words, we should not be trying to make investments based on what we think we know about inflation or interest rates.

We, we wanna do is simply design a low-fee portfolio of stocks and bonds and real estate, and then invest it and then leave it alone and go live our life. So this whole macro issue, while all these issues do have an impact on you as an individual, it's very, very hard to try to predict what the future's going to hold. And we have to be careful, not only in not letting ourselves think we know that, but we should be careful in thinking that someone else knows. And that person could be the Federal Reserve Chairman. It could be somebody on television. It could be an uncle, a brother. There's always somebody with an opinion on the future. And the truth is it's very, very hard to try to forecast what the future looks like over the next 6 months, 6 years, 6 decades.

Chris: Mm-hmm. One of 'em is, that kind of frustrates me. I kind of gave up on the media about 3 or 4 years ago. I mean, is there any— you know, you talk about making sure you find the right educators. Is there any media stream out there that's worth paying attention to, or are they—

Mike

Finley: or not much? No, the media more on a whole is going to hurt you, not help you, when it comes to your money. So I would be very careful with who you listen to. John Bogle, you can go to YouTube. He's a wonderful teacher. He will provide you the kind of advice that you need. And then you can find other great teachers like William Bernstein and Rick Ferri and David Swensen and Larry Swedroe. And there's a few others. But by learning and understanding what these teachers are ready to teach us, we can better inform ourselves and stay away from what most of the media's doing, which is nothing more than speculation. They have opinions. They tell you what they think the market's gonna do. And more times than not, they're wrong.

Chris: Mm-hmm. With that said too, you know, like I said, a lot of the listeners have family that are multi-generational businesses. A lot of the listeners have employees. We talked about the 401k, the SEP, the SIMPLE. But I think educating our employees is probably, and our kids as they come up, is probably one of the most important things we can do rather than, you know, trying to keep up with inflation right now. It might be tough as far as compensation goes, but if we could help somebody understand that maybe they could save 5% a year on their investments or other things. Can you hit on that for a minute on just the importance of education to the— our employees and our family.

Mike

Finley: Sure. So it's critically important, and I think most of us with age know that. I'm 58 years old, and when I was a young person, nobody talked about money. We didn't talk about it in the home, we didn't talk about in school, we just didn't talk about it. And so I got thrown out into a world and I knew nothing about money, and I had to learn on the go, and most of us do. And that can be a very dangerous way to go. The goal here is to educate young people from the right teachers as young as possible on what the right decisions are and what decisions to avoid. And again, that can be a challenge. You know, young people don't always want to listen to what the older people have to say, but we keep having those conversations because ultimately We all know this in time.

The decisions you make as a young person, they have consequences, and you and I will live with those consequences for decades to come. So let's educate our youth so they can make good decisions, so those consequences end up being very, very good for them.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Okay, that's excellent. And I guess what I also want to get to is you made a kind of an interesting comment Um, well, I'm going to go to a different one here first. Um, in, in the book you talk about cutting the ends off. Would you, would you explain that real quick? Because it's something that I think ties into what we do in our decisions a lot.

Mike

Finley: So it's a very human thing to do. So once upon a time, a woman was putting her ham in the oven, and she would cut the ends off when she put the ham in.. And her young daughter asked her, "Why, Mom? Why you do that?" And she would say, "Well, my mom did it." Well, that wasn't much of an answer. So she'd go find her grandmother and say, "Why did you cut the ends off?" Grandmother said, "Well, my mom did it." Well, that wasn't much of an answer. So she finally goes and finds her great-grandmother, old and just resting in a nursing home. And she asked her, "Why? Why did you cut that?" ends off that ham? And her great-grandmother looked at her and said, "Well, because the pan was too small." You see? And now we have generations doing something just because the previous generation did it. There was no rhyme or reason to why they're doing it today.

They're just repeating something without thinking it through. So the message here is, We need to start thinking for ourselves. We need to start asking ourselves, why do I do that? Where is my money? What is it earning? How can I do it better? It's very easy to fall into some normal thing because that's what everyone has done before you. And my message is be open to doing it differently. Be open to thinking for yourself. So you can make the very best decisions.

Chris: That's excellent. And I, and I, I would tag on to that. I had mentioned to you offline too, we did a podcast on, uh, ego, insecurity, and control, and those three factors have a lot to do with that, right? I mean, we, we think we know, and we don't want to be insecure or vulnerable, so we protect— you know, we're insecure but we don't open up. And then on the other side of it, we want to be in charge of it, want to be in control, right?

Mike

Finley: Well, that's right. And at times in class, I'll talk about this issue that some people know less than nothing about money. Now you think, how can somebody know less than nothing? Because what they know is wrong. So it's very important to start learning from the right people at the right age as we age, because at, at time, over time, there's a compounding effect that's going to happen that can catapult you into a much better place financially.

Chris: Mm-hmm. Awesome. So another thing I want to hit on, and we're getting close to wrapping up here, but you talked about, before we started recording this, I was kind of rattling some things off I wanted to touch on, and you talked about at some point, how much is enough? And one of the things that I commented to you back, and there'll be people listening to this, Again, multi-generational businesses. A lot of times the senior generation has had to struggle their entire life to get to where they're at. They've had to scrimp, they've had to be tight with money, they've— and they've been successful doing that. They've grown their businesses. Some of these are, you know, that are listening are multi, multi-million dollar businesses that they've developed and they've built. And, and it's a hard thing to step away from that.

It's a hard thing to not be in control and to step away and watch the next generation take that over. But it's also important to understand that, you know, we are in a different world and talk about, you know, your comment is knowing how much is enough.

Mike

Finley: Yeah, so it's a transition. The habits and behaviors that got you to this successful level, well, you have to transition. Otherwise, you may be the richest person in the cemetery. Is that who you really want to be? I, I can tell you personally, that was not the answer I wanted for my life. I grew up poor. I picked up a frugal lifestyle. I identified how to save a good chunk of my money, invest it wisely, and grow wealth over time. And then I had to transition into a different version of myself. I had to start letting go of some of that money. In other words, not necessarily having to spend it. Maybe I gave it away. Maybe I give money to a favorite charity or church, but I learned to let go of those purse strings once I had created wealth. I didn't have to keep pinching pennies because again, if that's all it is, well then what was it all for?

And so the concept of enough is saying I have enough money. And now that I have enough, I don't have to keep chasing after more and more and more. I can redirect my time and my energy to help others. Ultimately, I think that's why we're here, to help one another.

Chris: So how do you, how do you help people transition from that? Because that's, that's a difficult process, right? You know, there's an— there's emotion involved in that as well, I think, because again, it's the It's the ego, the insecurity, and the control in that transition.

Mike

Finley: So I would say it doesn't happen overnight. It certainly didn't for me. Uh, but it's, it comes to taking a step back, looking at yourself, you know, just be honest with yourself and say, okay, these habits got me here and they served a purpose, but now I need to, I need to find another way. I've done what I needed to do. I don't need to keep accumulating more and more and more. And we know this, by the way, there's plenty of research showing that the accumulation of money over time, there's a limit. You're not— if you transition from having $2 million to $4 million, you're not twice as happy and chasing after that $4 million.

Well, it might get you money, but it's not going to get you that kind of personal fulfillment and peace that you might have had if you'd had said, you know what, I have enough, and I'm going to redirect some of my time to maybe helping young farmers kind of get their foot in the door. Maybe I'm going to go find another organization that I can maybe give some of my time to, to help them. I, as I reflect back on my life, there were people who took their time to help me. And so my goal today is taking time out to help others.

Chris: That's awesome. So as we get close to wrapping up here, any other comments on things that stand out to you that are pieces that are important for people to really be thinking about as they go through the life of personal financial management?

Mike

Finley: Sure. So I go by the, the, the name The Crazy Man in the Pink Wig. So that, that's my moniker. The— you can go to my website, thecrazymaninthepinkwig.com. I try to help people see this idea of financial freedom, and it's the freedom to live life on your own terms. It's very important. It's worth every second. But there's also this piece of finding out what's it all for. You know, what, what is all that money that you saved and created in a business plan? And, and, and what did you do it for? And so my books, which is Financial Happiness, What Color Is the Sky, Graduation, and Now What, uh, they're all created in a way to help you see the bigger picture. You, you manage your money well, you invest it wisely, but ultimately you're able to use that money to create a better life for you and your loved ones.

And I think ultimately that's my message is money in itself is not going to make you happy, but if you build a foundation strong on money habits, you can find ways to build off that to make your life and other lives better.

Chris: That's awesome. And you mentioned the, that final book of the four, Now What? That one, talk a little bit about that because I think that's important for the listeners too. We have a lot of farm operations with, um, kids in high school, graduating from high school, graduating from college. Talk just a little bit about that book.

Mike

Finley: So I wrote Now What? for that high school or college graduate heading out into the world. Right. A book that I wish I would have received, which was basically a manual on, okay, here's what we need to start doing with our money. We're finally starting to get a paycheck. We're starting to get our, our kind of our house in order. What do we do? How do we avoid creating craters? So many of us, including myself, we made mistakes. And by making those mistakes early in life, we had to dig our way out. And that takes a lot of time and energy and money in many cases. So what happens if we don't create a crater? What happens if we start making good decisions from the very beginning when it comes to our money? Well, what I believe is you're going to get to a place of financial freedom faster, and you're going to build a good relationship with money.

And by doing that, we're helping our young people get started right early in life. Before they start making mistakes because they just don't know what a mistake looks like.

Chris: Okay, that's awesome. I'm gonna— I was getting to the end, but I am gonna ask another question real quick because it made me think of it, um, you know, and I, I think I mentioned it to you offline, but college, um, is not cheap. And there's that— that's the one, um, loan that you can't get out of, or you're gonna pay, and it's gonna, you know— and we see that strap a lot of people. There's a lot of controversy around, you know, somebody's going to pay for that, you know, at some point, you know. So there's no such thing as anything really free. So any comments on, on college education? I mean, because there's, there's a lot of degrees out there that don't even come close to making enough.

And I'm not picking on college, I'm just saying that there's a lot of degrees out there that don't even come close to getting you a job that's going to help you pay back any college debt even if it's a small amount, let alone a big amount. Any comments on that?

Mike

Finley: So one, not everybody should be going to college. College is not there for every person to attend. For many people, they're not— either they're not ready— that would be me when I was 19 years old— or they have another vocation they want to do. They want to go into farming, they want to go into the military, they want to go do something else with their life. The military served me well because they trained me as they paid me. So I got trained, I got educated while I got paid instead of going into debt. So many young people, they have to go into a lot of debt to get a college degree, and I think that's very dangerous. So we have to be very careful. My advice is, until you're sure that you're ready, I would not be going to college.

If I had a plan and I was clear on my plan, then sure, college may be exactly the right move based on what you want to do with your life as you minimize your debt as best you can. But at the end of the day, what you don't want is to try to find yourself in college because that can be a very expensive way to pick up a lot of debt that may or may not end with a diploma. So it's very important to start to look at this idea critically and decide whether or not it's the right move for you either now or later. So for example, I went back to college when I was 45 years old. At 45, I was ready, but it took me a while and it, and it's okay. I actually knew what I wanted out of college when I went back. At 19, I would have no clue and I would not have been ready.

So know thyself, and let's start having this conversation around why are we going to college, what is the purpose, and what alternatives do we have.

Chris: Yeah, because it's like you said, I think sometimes, um, you find out what you don't want to be and what you don't want to do if you, if you're not in college that first year. I know I took a semester off right away, worked on the farm. My dad basically said, you, you're going to graduate from college, you're not coming back to the farm. So it forced me to have to get through it, but I took some semesters off along the way because I wasn't ready to study that hard. I wasn't— I wanted to be at the farm, and I'm glad I did it now, but I did it on kind of on my own terms and got it done. And, and to your point, I think, you know, if you have to go work a job that's terrible and it's not what you want to do, it gives you some time to grow up too, right?

Mike

Finley: Yes, indeed.

Chris: So All right, well, I think this is a pretty good place to wrap up unless I didn't, didn't go down a certain path that I should have. But I think, um, if you're willing, we'd love to have you back again sometime. And, and real quick, would you go through the best way if somebody wants to look you up, um, again on the books? So people, if they want to, want to get educated, what— where can they go?

Mike

Finley: Sure, you can go to my website, thecrazymaninthepinkwig.com. And there you can see all kinds of information, including the books that are available that are on Amazon and Barnes Noble. And you can better understand this message I have, which is it's okay to be a little crazy. It's okay to be different. The goal here is to be you, find you along the way. And even if finding you appears to be a little bit odd, it might just mean that you're on the right path, which is your path. Awesome.

Chris: Great place to wrap it up. Thanks a lot, Mike. Really appreciate your time today.

Mike

Finley: Thank you, Chris.

Chris: You bet. Thanks everybody for listening, and we will catch you again next time on the IG Pitch.