0:00

You're listening to How to Be a

0:02

Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Today

0:04

on the show, we're talking about money. And

0:06

for me, one of the most surprising

0:08

elements of doing comedy and writing has

0:10

been how much I've had to think

0:13

about my finances. Money management is not

0:15

my passion. And yet, if I don't

0:17

put in the time and effort to

0:19

handle it correctly, I won't get to

0:21

do the things that I actually am

0:23

passionate about. I would never have guessed

0:25

that the key to being able to

0:27

tell jokes is that you also need

0:30

to know how to categorize your expenses

0:32

and track your receipts. I could never

0:34

have predicted that. At the same time,

0:36

there's something really interesting to me

0:38

about the fact that there are

0:40

no universal answers about how you're

0:43

supposed to approach money. Everybody is

0:45

just figuring this out on their

0:47

own for themselves, whether they're a

0:49

struggling artist or whether they're

0:51

a wildly successful entrepreneur. cobbles

0:53

together two or three different

0:55

sources of income to make ends meet.

0:57

Today's guest, Paco de Leon is a money

0:59

expert, but not just any money expert. Paco

1:02

is a finance person who is also an

1:04

artist. So this is someone who not only

1:06

sees the system from both sides, but

1:08

also thinks deeply about our complicated, sometimes

1:10

fraught relationship with money. And whether you're

1:13

an artist who dreams about quitting your

1:15

day job or you dream about getting

1:17

a day job and just having a

1:19

little bit of financial security. Paco has

1:22

incredibly practical advice for

1:24

everybody listening. So here is a

1:26

clip from Paco on the TED series The

1:28

Way We Work. This might sound strange

1:30

coming from a former financial planner,

1:33

but I'm not a fan of

1:35

capitalism. Almost everyone I work with

1:37

and know and love is an artist,

1:39

including me. So I know the

1:41

way the system is set up, freelancers

1:44

and artists are too often way underpaid.

1:46

They often feel like focusing on

1:48

money will corrupt their creativity or

1:50

they think. they're just not that

1:52

good at making money anyway. But the

1:54

truth is, we can be good at it.

1:56

And in fact, we have to be because

1:58

our freedom is at stake. to create, to

2:00

influence, and to use the power

2:03

of money to change the very

2:05

exploitation that keeps artists broke to

2:07

begin with. I'm not struggling anymore

2:09

and I've learned a lot since

2:11

being a financial planner and I

2:14

just wanted to share that knowledge.

2:16

Paco is going to share that

2:18

knowledge with us and a whole

2:20

lot more right after this break.

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4:07

we are back. We're talking about money

4:09

and finances with Paco de Leon. Hi,

4:11

my name is Paco de Leon. I

4:13

am the author and illustrator of finance

4:16

for the people. By day I help

4:18

folks not freak out about their finances.

4:20

And by night I am shredding the

4:22

nar on the guitar and I play

4:25

in a band. That's actually a lie,

4:27

but you know. I'm not always shredding

4:29

the NAR. Well now I got to

4:31

ask what the lie of shredding the

4:34

NAR and the guitar is. Is it

4:36

that you're not playing the guitar or

4:38

you're not constantly shredding? I'm not constantly

4:40

shredding and you know like the more

4:43

these kinds of cool opportunities pop up

4:45

to like keep creating a deeper path

4:47

in like, hey I'm this finance person,

4:49

the more it pulls me away from

4:52

like being able to do the music,

4:54

which is the ironic that people are

4:56

attracted to. Tell me about. You know,

4:58

there's a responsibility to being creative, right?

5:00

There's a responsibility to serving the creative

5:03

ideas that are gifts that are bestowed

5:05

upon you. I believe that you have

5:07

to arrange your entire life to please

5:09

the gods of creativity to give you

5:12

the gifts, right? And I know what

5:14

works for me. And this probably works

5:16

for a lot of people, like I

5:18

have to get up early because the

5:21

membrane between the subconscious and like where

5:23

the creative gods are and where I

5:25

am, that's when it's going to be

5:27

the thinnest, right? So they can give

5:30

me those gifts early in the morning.

5:32

I have to exercise. I have to

5:34

exercise my body, otherwise my mind takes

5:36

over. I'm not used to being in

5:38

my body and that is a part

5:41

of creativity, right? especially with music, right?

5:43

There's a physicality to music of like

5:45

playing on the fretboard, tinkering on the

5:47

keys, using your body to create noise

5:50

versus like writing. And so that's a

5:52

direct link between like why I must

5:54

play the music and how that allows

5:56

me to be the pocko that the...

5:59

marketplace wants, right? Because the pocket that

6:01

the marketplace wants is it's an overlap

6:03

between the quirky, weird, and then the

6:05

other piece is like, oh, by the

6:08

way, I know a shit ton about

6:10

finance and business, how to read a

6:12

P&L, how did your bookkeeping, the best

6:14

practices for, you know, not freaking out

6:16

about taxes if you are a first

6:19

year freelancer or 10 years in the

6:21

business. And like, that's a beautiful combination.

6:23

And I feel lucky to have like,

6:25

like, I have to find the balance

6:28

between honoring those two. people have come

6:30

to know and love. Yeah, and I think

6:32

that's what draws me. It makes your

6:34

writing and speaking about personal finance to

6:36

me so powerful, right? Like in your

6:39

book, Finance for the People, getting a

6:41

grip on your finances, you frame the

6:43

book by saying that money is a

6:45

proxy for power. And you talk

6:47

about how important power is, especially

6:49

for people who may not necessarily

6:51

think of themselves as powerful or

6:53

even want to be powerful, because

6:55

often... powers associated with like forcing

6:58

people to do things that they

7:00

don't want to do or exploiting

7:02

people. And you talk about how as

7:04

an artist, we need to have the power

7:06

to do our art. We need to have

7:08

the space and the time and the respect

7:10

to do our art and that money is

7:12

a way of getting those forms of power

7:15

which are crucial to the actual work itself.

7:17

Yeah, absolutely. Money is just one

7:19

form of currency, and it's an important form

7:21

of currency, and for better or for worse,

7:23

the path that we're on with humanity

7:25

is, we have to figure out that

7:28

financial aspect, that financial piece. Otherwise, you're

7:30

not gonna have the energy, you're not

7:32

gonna have the time, you're not gonna

7:34

have the drive, you're not gonna have

7:36

the space to put your message out

7:38

in the world. But, you know, I definitely

7:40

look at managing your money, figuring

7:42

out your finances, playing this game.

7:44

as just an opportunity to hold

7:46

up a mirror and look at

7:48

who you are and understand the

7:50

way that you think and the

7:52

way that you move in the

7:54

world and notice those things and

7:56

look at those patterns outside of

7:58

money. How are you... We're

18:55

going to take a

18:57

quick break and then

19:00

we'll be right back.

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we are back. This

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is another clip from Paco

22:24

on the series The Way

22:26

We Work. When it comes to your

22:29

offering, you have to be able to answer the

22:31

following question. Why would anyone hire

22:33

you over your competition? If you can't

22:35

answer that question, neither can your potential

22:37

clients, which means you can't charge more

22:40

for the thing that makes your work

22:42

special. Price becomes a differentiator and bidding

22:44

becomes a race to the bottom. This is something

22:46

you talk about in your TED Talk, which is,

22:49

why would someone hire you rather than hire

22:51

the five other options that seem on paper

22:53

to be similar? I really loved, as you

22:55

say, if you can't answer the question of

22:57

why you rather than the others, then the

22:59

only thing to differentiate you is price. How

23:02

can you do that same work for

23:04

as little money as possible? And

23:06

being the cheapest is a tough battle to

23:08

win. Super tough battle. And then if

23:10

you just go a few steps further

23:12

and look into the future of those

23:15

choices that you've made, when you're the

23:17

cheapest now, you're like, what kinds of,

23:19

what kinds of... conversations are you having

23:21

on a day-to-day basis, right? Probably things

23:23

like, why does this cost this much?

23:26

Could you give me a discount? Or,

23:28

you know, you're straight up going to

23:30

get people that do not value you,

23:32

right? They value the cheapest option. They

23:35

value spending less money. They don't value

23:37

like, oh, I want to have a

23:39

great experience. Or this is worth it

23:41

because the customer, the attention of detail

23:44

that they give to the customer experience

23:46

is top-notch, things like that. Things like

23:48

that. I think some people struggle with that, but

23:51

I find that to be a really fun

23:53

space to play, like there's a lot of

23:55

potential and possibility, and you can kind of

23:57

like turn things on its head, so to

23:59

speak. I've heard someone say, like,

24:01

you have to give them a handle

24:03

to pick you up by afterwards. So

24:06

maybe for me, it's like, he's a

24:08

comedian, but he also interviews scientists and

24:10

smart people about stuff. He uses comedy

24:12

to make a big idea as accessible.

24:14

I think that's often my handle, right?

24:17

It can be anything, but you kind

24:19

of need to give people a handle

24:21

to pick you up by so that

24:23

they can remember you and talk about

24:25

you to other people. Totally yeah in

24:27

the financial planning industry I remember we'd

24:30

be like we got a guy right

24:32

here you need an estate planner and

24:34

you have all this complication don't worry

24:36

we got a guy right this is

24:38

in your book and in all of

24:40

the speaking and interviews that I've heard

24:43

you do you are always talking about

24:45

not just what we should do with

24:47

money but how we should think about

24:49

money and that's not always a way

24:51

that people process personal finance so I

24:53

want to just ask you why that

24:56

is. And I would also love for

24:58

you to tie in a thing that's

25:00

really stuck with me from your book,

25:02

which is the idea that if there's

25:04

one way that we can generalize, it's

25:07

that we are all weird about money.

25:09

So when I was working at the

25:11

bank as a debt collector, I remember

25:13

I would be calling people and the

25:15

level of emotion that people would have,

25:17

right? They're so ashamed, they're so embarrassed,

25:20

they're like, how dare you call me

25:22

a dinner to, you know, you know,

25:24

collect this debt, formative experience of like

25:26

seeing people's reaction to their finances and

25:28

realizing that, you know, having this shame,

25:30

right, and talking to a stranger is

25:33

part of money. And so over time,

25:35

like I'm stitching together this kind of

25:37

mosaic and realizing like, oh, you know,

25:39

people are weird about money. It's a

25:41

very weird thing. There's all these forces

25:43

that we can't control. There's this idea

25:46

in the world that one shouldn't talk

25:48

about money, which then exacerbates all of

25:50

these negative feelings that we have. And

25:52

so, you know, I think we should

25:54

really impact that. And for me personally,

25:57

the moment that I was able to

25:59

really change my financial life, when I

26:01

look back on it, I'll... of those

26:03

moments start with like what did I

26:05

used to believe and then how did

26:07

I change that belief and then how

26:10

was I able to change my behavior

26:12

because I changed that belief and I

26:14

know that sounds so woo-woo and and

26:16

like how you know if you just

26:18

believe it you can achieve it and

26:20

that's not what I'm saying but you

26:23

have to believe that something is possible

26:25

before you act on that possibility. You

26:27

say this explicitly in the book and

26:29

I know that you believe it is

26:31

it's easy to think when someone is

26:33

talking about the work that they've done

26:36

in finance and also the position of

26:38

recommending to people what they should do

26:40

with their with their money that you

26:42

are a fan of the status quo

26:44

and like capitalism's number one cheerleader and

26:47

I know that you said in the

26:49

book like that is very much not

26:51

the case. Yeah I mean another thing

26:53

that is prickly I guess from my

26:55

perspective is that even though I'm helping

26:57

people get through this system that we

27:00

have, right? Teaching in the rules, things

27:02

that are spoken, unspoken, things that get

27:04

passed on behind closed doors and certain

27:06

zip codes, right? A big motivation for

27:08

that is like, yeah, I want people

27:10

to understand the rules of the game,

27:13

but I do realize in. Now even

27:15

more, like seeing the future, like, you

27:17

know, looking at the horizon, like, there's

27:19

changes going to happen. And what needs

27:21

to happen first is we need to

27:23

understand how we got some of these

27:26

rules. Like, what is the history of

27:28

credit scores or the history of credit

27:30

cards? Why does the stock market work

27:32

the way that it does? Right? And

27:34

once we understand these fundamentals, then we

27:37

can, okay, we can at least go

27:39

from a place of... Do we want

27:41

to keep certain things? This is why

27:43

this is great? Or like when it's,

27:45

you know, should we burn it all

27:47

down? Should we build something new? I

27:50

think, again, knowledge is really the starting

27:52

point. Here in the US, there is

27:54

a very robust system of enforcement and

27:56

laws around the idea of insider trading,

27:58

right? The idea that people shouldn't be.

28:00

able to invest based on material non-public

28:03

information. So the idea that like if

28:05

you're an executive and you find out

28:07

that your company is going to have

28:09

a worse sales quarter, you shouldn't be

28:11

able to sell your company stock when

28:13

other people can't. And the philosophy behind

28:16

that as I understand it is that

28:18

it's not fair to regular people because

28:20

you have more information than they

28:22

do. And I'm not certainly not arguing

28:25

for insider trading being legal, but

28:27

It is interesting when you think

28:29

about that philosophy because a

28:31

lot of the rest of the finance

28:33

system, maybe all of the rest of

28:35

the finance system, does not live up

28:37

to that underlying philosophy that we should all

28:39

have the same information and knowledge

28:41

and ability to make money off of

28:43

these systems. And I think part of

28:45

what you're doing that's radical is trying

28:47

to get some more people who are

28:49

on the outside to be on the

28:51

inside of the inside of the system.

28:54

Yeah, that's... You hit the nail

28:56

on the head. That's exactly what

28:58

I'm trying to do. Really, what

29:00

I've seen is I've seen a lot

29:02

of people just feel like this world

29:05

of money is quote unquote not for

29:07

them. And I feel that way. I've

29:09

felt that way. I continue to feel

29:11

that way. But I think I've always

29:14

chosen to try to be in spaces

29:16

where maybe... I just feel like I

29:18

don't belong. Maybe that's a symptom of

29:20

being an intersectional person. It's like you

29:23

never feel like you belong. Maybe it's

29:25

a symptom of having immigrant parents that

29:27

you feel like you never belong, right?

29:30

But if I can get as many

29:32

people to understand, you know, the underlying

29:34

forces and where they can find their agency,

29:36

then I think net net net. It's just

29:38

going to help people suffer less at the

29:41

end of the day. And that's really all

29:43

I'm trying to do, Chris. So this season

29:45

on the podcast we are using

29:47

as kind of a guiding light these

29:50

some of these like virtues or

29:52

moral values that we would maybe

29:54

strive for. And one virtue that

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we are back. I've heard you give

34:04

some really practical advice for people about

34:06

spending. Because there's, obviously, there's, you know,

34:08

there's the piece of saving, there's also

34:11

the piece of trying to make more,

34:13

which I often think is under, undersold

34:15

is the answer, right? There's a lot

34:17

of people out there being like, just

34:19

don't buy your avocado toast, don't get

34:21

your galate, don't spend money on whatever.

34:24

There's a very kind of sending paternalistic

34:26

tone often of like, like, like, Pay

34:28

me more, let me be in a

34:30

union so that you don't take advantage

34:32

of me. And then I'd be able

34:35

to afford that and it wouldn't be

34:37

a problem. But spending is a piece

34:39

of this and I think a lot

34:41

of times, we don't know I spend

34:43

consciously. So let's talk about this law

34:45

that you've jokingly called, or maybe not

34:48

jokingly called Paco's Law, which is your

34:50

spending will equal what you have available

34:52

to spend. My philosophy on figuring out

34:54

ways to constrain your spending, I really

34:56

want people to create this idea of

34:58

scarcity with their cash in order to

35:01

kind of manage your spending. I think

35:03

you need to find ways to protect

35:05

yourself against yourself because, you know, we're

35:07

emotional creatures, we're scrolling Instagram, there's a

35:09

team of neurologists and psychologists and marketers

35:12

whose whole... job when they're paid very

35:14

well is to try to get us

35:16

to impulse buy, right? And it used

35:18

to just be like, yeah, okay, you're

35:20

out shopping in and you see Iraq

35:22

and you think, let me buy this

35:25

magazine. And those were low stakes. We're

35:27

not in low stakes territory anymore, folks.

35:29

I mean, we're walking around with tiny

35:31

little billboards in our pockets, constantly advertising

35:33

to us. So to think that you

35:35

can use willpower or you can try

35:38

to overcome this, you have to recognize

35:40

the danger that we're in and figure

35:42

out ways. to protect yourself from all

35:44

the ways that you're being exploited. So,

35:46

especially for something like social media, one

35:48

of the things that I like to

35:51

do is I just create rules. And

35:53

so one of my rules is we

35:55

don't just see an ad willy-nilly and

35:57

buy. That is... We don't do that

35:59

because we know what's going on. They're

36:02

trying to trick us. What we do

36:04

instead is we take that thing that

36:06

we're thinking about buying and we put

36:08

it on a list. I call it

36:10

the buy list because, you know, I

36:12

wasn't that creative when I was thinking

36:15

about it, but I wasn't that creative

36:17

when I was thinking about it, but

36:19

I spend the time imagining buying this

36:21

thing and I go through the motions

36:23

of picking the color and picking the

36:25

size and hemming and I put on

36:28

this list and hemming on this time

36:30

period where the thing stays on the

36:32

list and what happens is when

36:34

you're shopping quote unquote without

36:36

actually spending the money your brain

36:38

still thinks it's shopping so oftentimes

36:41

you get that dopamine hit that

36:43

you're looking for and I would

36:45

say 99% of the time Chris I

36:47

forget that the list exists until another

36:49

thing is exciting and enticing and then

36:51

I put on the list and then

36:54

I look and I'm like oh yeah

36:56

I don't want that other thing. I'm

36:58

glad I did that. So that's one way

37:00

to having rules and doing the buy list.

37:02

The other thing that I like to do

37:05

is I like to separate my spending. And

37:07

so when it comes to fun things like

37:09

going out and you know all the things

37:11

that make life feel like life, all the

37:13

stuff that you buy that you don't really

37:16

need, I like to buy that out of

37:18

a specific account. You can call it your

37:20

allowance account, you call it your fun and

37:22

bullshit account, call whatever you want, but allocate

37:25

like a certain amount of money into that

37:27

account. every month and that's what you'll

37:29

use to spend your, you know,

37:31

heart's desire. Maybe it's just because

37:33

I wasn't like super financially savvy

37:35

when I first started working for

37:38

myself, but I didn't realize you

37:40

can just, you can have like

37:42

three or four no fee checking accounts. And

37:44

so now like what I do is when

37:47

money comes in, whether it's a $5 check

37:49

or a $5,000 check, I just put the

37:51

same percentage into, I try and do it

37:53

by percentages. So I know that if I

37:56

put 33 in a tax saving account that I will

37:58

definitely have more than I need for taxes. and

38:00

I won't get wallet at the end

38:02

of the year. And then at the

38:04

end of the year, when I don't

38:06

need it all, it's great. Like then

38:08

that becomes like goes back into the

38:10

you can spend it money. So for

38:12

me, like having a no fee checking

38:14

account, that is just the kind of

38:17

untouchable bucket has been really helpful for

38:19

that. And then I kind of added

38:21

other buckets as I went along where

38:23

I was like, I'd like to save

38:25

a little bit to give away to

38:27

charity. So at one point I think

38:29

I had like six different I've kind

38:31

of toned down how many buckets I

38:33

have because it was silly to put

38:35

like 17 cents into a bucket sometimes

38:37

but maybe it's intellectually good to put

38:40

17 cents in sometimes. Yeah again it's

38:42

like you're forcing scarcity upon yourself right

38:44

and allowing like you don't have to

38:46

do any more mental math that's why

38:48

I really like this method because you

38:50

just like log into your bank accounts

38:52

and you can see very clearly like

38:54

okay. that these buckets are not for

38:56

me and they're not to spend. I

38:58

think when you have all your money

39:01

lumped together, it's easy to feel flush

39:03

and think, oh, I can spend here

39:05

and spend there. You're relying then on

39:07

mental math and there's better ways. There's

39:09

technology and we should definitely rely on

39:11

it and free, you know, resources like

39:13

free checking accounts, we should definitely rely

39:15

on those things. Right, feeling

39:17

ashamed of how much you earn or

39:19

how much you've spent or how in

39:21

debt you went or the choices that

39:23

you made or didn't make. How do

39:26

you personally and then in working with

39:28

other people, how do you think about

39:30

dealing with shame and that that kind

39:32

of really big emotion? Yeah, so I

39:34

once heard somebody talk to me about

39:36

shame being like, you know, you feel

39:38

shame when you go outside what was

39:40

expected of you, right? So it's like,

39:42

we are cute little horses. And we're

39:44

in a little corral, I guess is

39:46

what it's called, right? With wooden barriers

39:48

keeping us corraled in, right? Those corrals

39:51

and that world is, you know, what

39:53

the world exists. of us, right? Our

39:55

parents expect us to go to college

39:57

and society at large expected us to

39:59

go to college. They expected us to

40:01

do great after college and make all

40:03

this money and expected us to be

40:05

responsible with our finances and not feel,

40:07

you know, like, how did I get,

40:09

you know, they have these expectations and

40:11

we stay within those corrals as the

40:13

best we can and then when we

40:16

go outside of it. That's when we

40:18

start to feel like, oh no, we

40:20

busted through and we shouldn't have and

40:22

that's kind of where shame is. So

40:24

I think maybe looking at shame from

40:26

that perspective can help you realize that,

40:28

okay, you're just going outside what was

40:30

expected of you and that's a hard

40:32

thing to experience as a human because

40:34

we need each other to survive, right?

40:36

And so we have this deep and

40:38

profound sense where we want to belong

40:41

and we want to be accepted. I

40:43

think just knowing that is really helpful.

40:45

For me, like my own personal experience

40:47

of like growing up queer is like

40:49

a master class in shame, a master

40:51

class in, you know, you have this

40:53

corral around you and you are, you're

40:55

not even the horse, right? You're something

40:57

else disguised as a horse. So if

40:59

you've dealt with that outside of your

41:01

finances, you know, and you've been able

41:03

to work through that, you might have

41:06

a model for doing that. I think

41:08

another thing is just letting it out,

41:10

like journaling is really helpful for me.

41:12

I know some people don't, they're not

41:14

like a words person, maybe they don't

41:16

have an inner monologue, so maybe that's

41:18

not gonna work for them. So you

41:20

gotta find something that works for you,

41:22

but for me, just getting everything onto

41:24

the page, sharing that with other people.

41:26

Every time I write something in my

41:28

newsletter where I'm like, oh God, I

41:31

was vulnerable. I hit send and I'm

41:33

like, oh my God, that was so

41:35

vulnerable. I'm disgusted, right? You have that

41:37

vulnerability hangover. I'm like, why would I

41:39

do that? Why would I do that?

41:41

Why am I telling strangers on the

41:43

internet about how I'm grappling with my

41:45

sense of worth right now? What is

41:47

the matter with me? And then, you

41:49

know, five people were right. back and

41:51

they're just like I feel so seen

41:53

I feel so much better like I

41:56

was feeling shitty and this made me

41:58

and I'm like oh okay yeah so

42:00

I hated it was uncomfortable I felt

42:02

embarrassed it was cringy I guess we're

42:04

gonna do it again it also makes

42:06

me want to know as a musician

42:08

and as someone who plays in a

42:10

band and makes art and performs it

42:12

and as a money person how do

42:14

you think about like the value of

42:16

your work and your your music to

42:18

yourself not to the world I think

42:21

about art as a completely different value

42:23

than money, right? That pucco goes to

42:25

the marketplace and realizes the utility that

42:27

she brings to the world and how

42:29

I can impact people, right? There's this

42:31

whole other pucco that is just like

42:33

walking around experiencing life just like the

42:35

rest of us, and is sometimes struggling

42:37

to figure it out, right? To just

42:39

find the balance, to be a good

42:41

person, to not be a shitty friend,

42:43

right? To just deal with all the

42:46

ways that we are also. compromised in

42:48

terms of like, I want to be

42:50

a good person, but I have to

42:52

do this thing, right? And art for

42:54

me is a way to just process.

42:56

So the value is beyond financial. The

42:58

value is art is a necessity that

43:00

I have to do in order to

43:02

process my experience of life and then

43:04

come to the table whole, whatever table

43:06

that is, right? A table could be

43:08

me and my partner or me and

43:10

my work. So I don't look at

43:13

art necessarily as something valued financially. personally.

43:15

And that's my relationship to art. Someone

43:17

is becoming a freelancer. They're starting out

43:19

on their own. What's the most important

43:21

thing or things that they should do

43:23

in their first week or their first

43:25

month? Wow, first week or first month.

43:27

They should start reaching out to their

43:29

network and say, hey, I'm selling this

43:31

thing, will you buy it? Or do

43:33

you know somebody who will? And oftentimes

43:35

that's a service, but that's the first

43:38

thing you should be doing is validating

43:40

that what you are going to try

43:42

to make money on, will make money.

43:44

They should do the thing that you

43:46

did that you I forgot to say

43:48

Gold Star A plus four checks or

43:50

whatever with the saving into the tax

43:52

savings account. You should be doing that

43:54

first month. Right. And what about first

43:56

year? They're finishing their first year doing

43:58

something. First year, you should be working

44:00

with a small business accountant that you

44:03

really feel like you like. Ask your

44:05

friends, hey buddy, who do you work

44:07

with that's a small business accountant? Or

44:09

go online to an online community of

44:11

other entrepreneurs in your space and ask,

44:13

who do you guys use? Who's the

44:15

guy, right? find the person with that

44:17

handle. And before the end of the

44:19

year, you should have a year in

44:21

tax planning meeting where you're like, hey,

44:23

look at all this money I made.

44:25

Look at all this money I spent.

44:28

What am I going to owe in

44:30

taxes next year? What about if you

44:32

are a person who has a stable

44:34

job that you've had for a few

44:36

years and you are? Let's say you're

44:38

in a band, or you're making some

44:40

kind of art on the side. What

44:42

finance advice would you have for that

44:44

person? Take advantage of that paycheck and

44:46

take advantage of what other kinds of

44:48

benefits you are getting at that company.

44:50

Your compensation is not just how much

44:53

they're paying you. Your compensation is things

44:55

like your health insurance and things like

44:57

an employer-sponsored retirement plan. So take advantage

44:59

of that as much as you can.

45:01

Okay, your parent and your kid is

45:03

in late elementary school or middle school.

45:05

What is an important thing. Doesn't that

45:07

be the most important thing that you

45:09

can teach them about personal finance? One

45:11

thing is I would make sure that

45:13

your child knows that they're valuable in

45:15

the world no matter what they do

45:18

and what they choose, help them foster

45:20

a sense of self-worth and confidence because

45:22

that will translate to a paycheck. And

45:24

the other thing is help them understand

45:26

like the value of money. Money is

45:28

a very abstract thing. I think a

45:30

lot about money like music actually. It's

45:32

very abstract. You can't. grab it. It's

45:34

just out and around and trying to

45:36

understand value, help them understand that. Beautiful.

45:38

Paco de Leon. Thank you so much

45:40

for being on the show and for

45:43

gracing us with your your wisdom and

45:45

your presence. This was my absolute pleasure.

45:47

So thank you for having me. That

45:49

is it for this episode of How

45:51

to Be a Better Human. Thank you

45:53

so much to today's guest Paco de

45:55

Leon for making us all so much

45:57

richer with knowledge. Paco's book is called

45:59

Finance for the People and you can

46:01

find out about everything that Paco does

46:03

at the website The Hell Yeah group.com.

46:05

That is the Hell Yeah group.com. I

46:08

am your host Chris Duffy and you

46:10

can find more for me, including how

46:12

to hire me for extremely entertaining and

46:14

lucrative work projects at Chris Duffy comedy.com.

46:16

I'm also open to offers of wealthy

46:18

people looking to become my benevolent benefactor.

46:20

Please be in touch. How to be

46:22

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