The Habit of Paying Yourself First - Joji Davenport | Ep 8

Caleb Roth  0:24  
Welcome back to the Stacking Habits podcast, we've got a really incredible guest with us today. And we're going to be talking about a very anxiety laden topic. And the topic is personal finance. Now before you panic, hit pause, skip to the next episode, whatever that may be. We've got a guest today that is going to incredibly simplify that. And I do mean that it's not just some marketing speak. So Joji Davenport, welcome to the show. We're really glad you're here. Where are you calling in from?

Joji Davenport  1:20  
Yeah, thanks so much, guys. I really do appreciate it. It's an honor to be on this. On this podcast. Yeah, I'm from Oceanside, California. And like I said, I'm really excited to dive into some of these things, personal finance. Now,

Caleb Roth  1:32  
I did some research on personal finance. And I came up with a number of studies, namely, one by Intuit case, anybody wants to fact check me said that young people today would rather talk about sex than about money. So I'm going to say before we even start, if you want to switch gears, we can just do an episode on sex.

Joji Davenport  1:50  
I would much rather talk about finances here. But I definitely heard that as well. And I think it probably does ring true, because I do try to talk about personal finances, my colleagues and and often, people don't want to talk about it at all. So I can totally see that being true. Absolutely. So

Caleb Roth  2:05  
why do you think that is actually let's let's just start on the psychology of money before we dig in into the habit.

Joji Davenport  2:10  
Yeah, there's actually a book called The Psychology of money. I'm not sure if you've any of you have read it. I've actually not ready yet. But I've heard great things about it. I think it's something that our high school education system, our school system doesn't teach people. So I don't think ironically, probably the most important thing highschool could teach you is something that relates to everyone, which is finances. And I think we do a really poor job of teaching people anything about finances. So when people get to that point in life, where society is telling them, hey, you need a new car, you need the newest house, or the biggest invest house, you need the new Nike shoes that people kind of get caught up, and they don't really know what to do, and it's easy to get in trouble. No, not only that, but when you're in high school, if you do plan to go to college, I mean, you know, it costs a lot of money to go to college, you have to make like the most one of the most important financial decisions of your life. And if I'm being honest, when I was 18, even though I thought I was very mature at that age, I'm sure a lot of my teachers will say that I would still say I know so much more now, 10 years later, that I just think we we just don't do a very good job as a society teaching people about money. And that just means that when you get in trouble, I think there's some shame and guilt and like, you know, being behind on your bills, or, and I think people don't want to talk about that. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  3:19  
I think shame is definitely a big piece that that scares people and shuts them down. And yeah, there's definitely a desire and a drive for more. And we like to try and break things into while there's, there's just people that are born rich, and people that aren't. So we're gonna dig into some habits today. A couple of things, I want to set the stage. And I'll brag on you a little bit, because I know you may not brag as much on yourself. So Joe, Joe and I just met maybe three weeks ago out in California. So a couple things. Joji is very intentional, which is why we're having him on the show here. He loves personal finance, which I like to geek out over it as well, although I'm way more of a spreadsheet junkie, and really get into the weeds and you were complete opposite, which blew my mind. So you live in the most expensive state in the country, at least in the continuous us. You're out in California, you're brand new dad, you've got a teaching job. And we know that teachers are grossly underpaid. And so you have taken a lot of, you know, expensive situations where you could just play the victim. And you said, I'm not doing this. So you set a goal. We'll let you tell that part of the story. But I know your net worth just past a million dollars as a teacher and you are how old? I'm 29 my wife no 29. Yeah. So that is that is tremendous. And we'll get to how you did that. And I really want to go back and spend a lot of time at the beginning of your story as well, because right now, some people may check out and go, Oh, this 29 year old kids got a million bucks. I could never do that. Or I'm already 40 And I don't have anywhere near that. And so they're just going to be unrelatable. So before we lose anybody, let's go back. So you set a goal back when you were younger. Walk us through that And where did that goal even come from?

Joji Davenport  5:01  
Yeah. Okay, so I'll start off with going into into college I didn't really know. Like I say, I didn't know anything about anything to be honest. I went, got a environmental science degree graduate after four years at UC Riverside. And I came across some books on YouTube. And so you know, first person I found with Steve, raking, raking profit, and I found Caleb Roth, the book flipper community. And I really got heavy into flipping books on Amazon. So essentially, I started developing a side hustle while I was in school, you know, long story short, and I was able to graduate without any debt just by flipping textbooks on college campuses. But one of the things that really changed for me was access to information. So I think Jen, like we truly are, especially my generation is, so we're so lucky to be born into a time where there's available information everywhere. And one of my favorite, honestly, my favorite gift of all time that my wife has ever given me is actually one of those little camera holders that fits on the event is a sticker on the front windshield of your your vehicle. So I drive like a 20 year old truck. So we don't have like a touchscreen that you know, has Apple Maps or Google Maps. So I wanted to listen to podcasts. And my wife bought me like a $5 thing to hold, hold the camera and long story short, I listened to, you know, I was really interested in personal finance, I came across a channel or a podcast channel called Chuza phi, which is about financial independence retire early. And at this time, I would have been right around 23 ish. And it opened my eyes to this possibility of being able to save money and invest, you know, so save money live well below your means invest money into like the s&p 500 over, you know, not even that long of a time if you're saving a large percentage of income. And, you know, from that moment on, I just was really excited about this idea of potentially becoming financially independent, that it was even possible that at some point in your life, you could you could get to a point where you know, the the interest on your investments, the earnings on your investments could just pay for your living expenses. So basically, at 23, I set goals like hey, but he's 35, I'd love to get to a point where now we could retire where if we really wanted to, and that, you know, we can dive into that it's definitely changed over the last now six years, which is crazy, you know, time just flew by COVID as well. But yeah, that was the goal was to try to hit a $2 million net worth by 35. I started at that point pretty much at zero, because like I said, I was I was able to graduate debt free by cash flowing my college by flipping textbooks on college campuses. But I really started from from zero there. And of course, I had tons of privileges. You know, I don't want to I don't want to sell that short. Now I was my parents didn't really make a ton of money. So I got a lot of financial aid, I got a lot of merit based scholarships for doing well in school and as well. But you know, I was lucky to be able to not have too much debt and able able to basically pay it off after I got my bachelor's and going into my master's degree, basically just cashflow a master's degree to get a teacher's education. So I guess, long story is that, you know, I set that goal, try to hit the you know, by 35 hit a $2 million net worth, I figured that that would be a good goal to start with.

Caleb Roth  7:55  
Phenomenal goal. Can you tell us why you pick $2 million?

Joji Davenport  7:59  
Yeah, so two minutes. So the way that the fire movement works is that you get to a point where your net worth, if you take, you know, if you if you take your annual expenses and multiply by 25. That's essentially the amount that you need with a 4% withdrawal rate, which essentially is just saying that, you know, if the stock market on average is supposed to grow at seven to 8% per year after inflation, and you're always just taking out 4% per year, ideas you'd like never touch your principal. So it was just a calculation just 25 times our expenses at that point in time. And that was a goal that I made years ago. So I'm not even sure exactly what that be. I think it would be maybe 40,000 Or yeah, but any 80,000 bucks a year. 80,000 Yeah. $80,000. And like I said, my my thought behind financial independence retire early has definitely changed over time. But that's kind of where that 2 million came up. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  8:48  
love it.

Caleb Roth  8:48  
So let's let's just jump into the habit itself. So people are hearing that 23 year olds you know, fortunately no debt I know a lot of a lot of the country has college debt or credit card debt or auto debt. So that like you said, that's a big step ahead. And you worked hard to get there. But there of course, were some some advantages you had being born into and being smart and all those other things. But 23 year old, no money, flash forward six years, and you're 29 year old with a million dollars net worth. So what was the habit? One single habit that got you there? Was it digging into spreadsheets? Was it selling foot pics online? Like what got you to be able to do this?

Joji Davenport  9:24  
Yeah, I think there's a lot to talk about here. I'd say the number one thing was first living well below your means. So that's a habit that it's kind of something that had my whole life honestly, where I've no going back to talking about my mom, she's somebody who's like one of those coupon cutters. So growing up I always saw my mom and my grandma at these Tupperware is filed out with coupons. So it's kind of like something I've learned from a really young age it's like observing them but I've always kind of been frugal and no living well below your means was something that is part of the financial independence movement. If you want to save like a large you know, if you want to retire early, you have To save a large percentage of your income there, so the idea here was, we'll

David Chung  10:04  
take so like, what what does that mean? Because like, I feel like, that's kind of subjective, right? Like, I guess you need shelter and food and water. But like, you know, what is well below your means mean for you? Like, were you eating canned soup and corn every day? Or like, because that sounds horrible? I don't think anyone

Joji Davenport  10:25  
has that. Yeah, that's a it's a really good question. It just means being very intentional with how you spend your money. So spending your money on things that you actually value, I think a lot of people, including me, before I was really into this movement was kind of just spending money, not very thoughtful. So you go out with your friends, you might spend money on things you don't truly enjoy you, you might just be at the mall, and you see some shoes, like, Oh, those are nice shoes, let me just buy them, I think it's a lot of these little things that add up over time that you kind of just get rid of because you truly figure out what you value most. So living well below your means. So in this case, my wife and I, we basically save about 75% of our income every month. And a large part of that is we've been able to increase our income substantially as well in the process. In a part of doing that, going back, going back to that the habit, though, you know, living below your means it's something that it just paid it pays dividends, because if you think about like if you save half your income, and you know, basically you could you know, every year that you work, I mean, you basically save a years worth of living expenses. Like that's, that's pretty crazy. If you think about it. I mean, that all

David Chung  11:27  
make sense. I mean, I think the concept sounds really good on paper. Yeah, then I'm just like thinking like, it's painful to a certain degree, right? Like, what would you say that it's difficult? Was it difficult when you first started, like cutting down on your living expenses? Or was a transition easier? Because you know, you were a broke college kid, and you just kind of didn't have that lifestyle creep? Like, what did that look like? Yeah,

Joji Davenport  11:53  
I think growing up, I just, we just didn't really have a ton of money. So I think I just naturally couldn't really spend money on things. And I think I just kept that mentality. Like, growing up, it wasn't like, I could always ask for this toy, or like, we could get this candy bar, just little things like that. So I think I just as as life has gone on, and I've made more money through my teaching job and my income I you know, in from side hustles, I kind of always just had this mentality where it's like, this is not really something that I need, per se. So I don't need to buy it. I mean, I guess what I can say is like, so much. So many things that I have in my life are things I have not necessarily had to pay for. Because I've found other ways to get them. I guess I'll just say that it's not a it could easily be a life of I say this, a life of sacrifice, but it really it's to me, it's more of like a life of living, living with intent, and being really, really thoughtful with what you actually value and saving money for those things. So it's not like I don't spend money. It's just that I spend money on things that actually really do matter, or that matter to me, per se, and all these other things that most people spend money on. Like, I'm sure if we had a conversation about some of the things that maybe you guys spend money on, like, oh, yeah, don't spend money on it. Like, no, I'm high school teacher I have every Friday, I do this thing called finance Friday, where I teach kids about the concept. And one of the things that has been produced about that is like clothing. So every day I wear a $0 fit check where basically I say, hey, everything that I'm wearing today cost me $0 Because I got it from somebody, you know. And so I guess the concept was that I've just learned to to get the things that that I need. And a lot of I guess I just also want a lot of things. So I guess it's coming back to this, like just being grateful for what we have and not necessarily needing everything. So I hope that makes sense.

David Chung  13:31  
I'm still like $0 is not a lot of money. It's no money at all like yeah, like number one, how do you find someone that's your exact size and ask them for their clothes? Yeah.

Joji Davenport  13:46  
Yeah, it's, it's, well, I guess I could say like, I could do the $0 fit check right now. So the socks I'm wearing, I got for Christmas, my mom from Costco. So it's like every Christmas like, I have mom and some socks and some underwear. That's the socks and underwear. And I can go from the pants. My wife got these pants that I'm wearing a few years ago for Christmas. And so I mean, you could argue that your wife paid for it. But the point is like, this wasn't something that I went out and bought at, you know, at, let's say the mall or went online to buy him. So the shirt was also a back to school gift from my wife a couple years ago. This jacket is probably at least five years old that my wife had given me as well as the wedding of

David Chung  14:22  
this podcast is that your wife has good style?

Joji Davenport  14:25  
Yeah, yeah, she does. She definitely does. Man she she gets me the best stuff. And the good news is I want to know what to buy. Even if I did go buy it. Like my entire wardrobe. Like everything that's in my closet there like literally nothing in there. I bought. So it's like, I'm not going to live without clothes on. So somehow, somehow me to get clothes, right? In this case, it's just like, well, if I need new clothes, I'll go and ask for him. So here's an example of like, something that I don't value like I don't really value clothing, so I'm not gonna spend my money on it. But my wife says, Hey, you look great. And I go, sure you can you know, throw it on the Christmas gift Christmas list. I'll be more happy to wear it

Caleb Roth  14:59  
Joe, do you still have seen David's face when you said you save 75% He was he was talking about being hungry pre show, and all of a sudden he just stopped. Looks like someone just smacked him in the face. His eyes got big as saucers. And he was just like, Okay, we're gonna dig into this. Yeah, and

Joji Davenport  15:15  
maybe we should go back to so one of the habits, and I think this is what you're alluding to earlier is so Caleb is a spreadsheet warrior. And I'm somebody who's not super, I mean, I have spreadsheets from Amazon business and things like that. But one thing that I really, really think that you all out there could do for your finances is you could pay yourself first. And you can set up automatic transfers for when it comes to investments. So, you know, you guys know that I have an Amazon business. And I also have a teaching job. And I'm fortunate enough that now my Amazon book business actually makes more money than my teaching job. But what that allows me to do is basically invest my entire teaching income. So I've set up my saving on the front end. And what I mean by that is I don't necessarily have a budget where it's like, line by line, this is how much money I can spend. Instead, what I say is, okay, the goal for this year is to max out the Roth IRA, the 457, B, the four, three B, and I'd also like to invest an additional $2,000 a month in a taxable account. So just between those five things that's like already $75,000 In invested savings. So for me, it's like starting at the top, rather than thinking about the line by line, like I can't spend money, and this is more of like, the priority is like, let's save $75,000. And if there's anything left after that, then sure. Let's spend it like we've already accomplished that goal. So

Caleb Roth  16:29  
you're exactly right. That that is the main habit I wanted to get to is the the idea of automating. And I love what you're doing. Now again, for some people listening, they may go that's unrelatable I don't make that much money. I don't have multiple streams of income. That must be nice for Joe G. But I do want to go back to 23 year old Joe G. So were you married at the time? We were not we got married when I was 27. Okay, so you were you selling on Amazon at the time?

Joji Davenport  16:54  
I just had started. Yeah, just started. Okay,

Caleb Roth  16:57  
so primarily, you only had the teacher income occur.

Joji Davenport  17:01  
So I guess I should say, so I got so I was doing amazon before I was teaching, but it wasn't like a main house, I was going to school. Gotcha. And

Caleb Roth  17:09  
so when you decided to say, Hey, I'm gonna set this goal, I've been listening to all these podcasts. And what I love about it, too, is we talked about this on the podcast here is habits really are what you do. And what you do essentially becomes a proxy for who you are. And you can you can read 1000 books in a year, you know, 100 books, whatever, whatever crazy number you want to throw out there. You can watch tons of YouTube videos, listen to podcast, try and better your life. But if you don't convert that thought or those words into words or actions, then none of it really matters. You're better off just watching one video and putting that into practice than, you know, inundating yourself and not doing it. So right as a 23 year old, Joji saying, hey, I want to start saving, did you start saving 75%? Right out of the gate? We live into that. Yeah, absolutely. There's

Joji Davenport  17:55  
no way I could have done that beginning because I simply didn't have income for it, it was more in the beginning, like, Okay, I've got some money in the bank, let's put $500 into a Roth IRA. I mean, at that time, that was a lot of money, like $500 for Roth IRA, you know, because like, like I said, I basically was, I graduated with my, with my bachelor's degree with about $10,000 in debt. And then when I got when I was getting my master's degree, that's when I started flipping books on Amazon. That's when I was able to cash flow. And eventually, when I did graduate, my masters grant didn't have any debt. But I started at zero, so I didn't really have a lot of money. So at that point, it was just starting to get the idea of like, Okay, is there a way once I start making money, is there a way for me to start saving, steaming that money, so I can start investing in as soon as I got my teaching jobs, that's when things change, because that's when I went from not really having an income to having some income. But that first year, I want to say, maybe I was able to max out only the 457, which at a time, I think was like 19,000, or 90,500, I think is what it was, but I needed all the rest to live, if that makes sense. So it was definitely been a slow progression. And as Amazon has grown, I made more money with Amazon. Now I'm making a lot more money with youtube. Now all of a sudden, it's like I no longer even need the teaching income. So I can literally invest all of it now.

Caleb Roth  19:04  
Yeah, it's still really incredible to be able to save 19 grand. So you mentioned automating, which I love, when we played around a golf together and a couple of things that stood out to me if I've mentioned them to you, but I'll mention them publicly here too, is when I think about people that pursue fire, financially independent, retiring early, I usually think of penny pinchers and someone that's on a budget and they're like, No, I can't come out for drinks. No, I can't hang out with you. And you were really the opposite. Not you know, not only you invited us to come on out, we were out there anyway. My friend Bill and I came out. You not only welcomed us with open arms, you paid for our lunch, you bought us a round of golf, you literally didn't let us pull our wallets out. So you definitely shattered that misconception for me related to fire. So kudos. And then the other thing that really blew me away. You mentioned it already, was the fact that you don't really operate on a strict budget. And that kind of blew my mind and Like, how are you so good with money? How are you so focused on saving? And you don't even like you don't even use minutes, you know, recipes, mint, they're going away at the end of the year, but you're not even using anything to track it. And you said, Well, yeah, I don't really need to spend time down here. Because I'm going up higher, I'm going upstream. And I'm fixing the problem before it begins by automatically setting up bank transfers. So I guess what bank do you use? If that's a foreign concept for people? Let's just break that down a little bit. So

Joji Davenport  20:29  
I just use my local credit union. So our local credit union mission Federal Credit Union, and yeah, I mean, like you mentioned, it's just, I think, going, there's a book that we talked about teaching the rich, I forget who the author is, but it was a really, you know, one of the things that hit home there was if you there's a lot of these big things in life that really do matter. And if you can get the big things, right, like in this case, if you can get your savings and your investments automated, so that you can almost think of it as this is like tax that's being taken out of your your paycheck every single month that you just like it doesn't even exist you like if you can set that up, you're you're winning, because you're making the habit, frictionless. And so like if you've also read James Claire's atomic hammocks posts, like, one of the take home messages from that book is, the less friction there is, the easier it is to do. And if there's more friction, the harder it is to do. So that's why I think the best thing that you could do, if you're interested in starting to save is to pretend like this amount of money that you want to save doesn't exist. And it's going to automatically come from your two week paycheck your month paycheck, and it's just, it's gonna come out and do so every single month. And it's not, you know, think about like this, if you get a paycheck for $2,000, like most people are going to spend $2,000. But then if you get a paycheck for $1,500, like, you're just gonna spend $1,500 Like most people are just gonna, I forget what that concept is. But basically people will expand to whatever whatever it is they have. So if you have too little, you'll use that little bit if you have too much use all that. A great example is a book called The toilet paper entrepreneur by Mike McCalla Wits, I'm not sure if you've read that book. But it's like, if you've ever been in the bathroom, and you've gotten number two, and there's a big mass of toilet paper roll, like you'll you'll you'll use a bunch. But then if there's only like a few sheets, like you'll make it work. So the point is, like we expand to what is given to us. So I think a really easy habit is just to is to let you know, let the code do it. Like just let them the money come out of your account for you don't even think about it. And then you'll learn to live on the rest. Pay yourself first. Yeah, yeah, it's it's

Caleb Roth  22:24  
beautiful. And the other book we mentioned in the pre call was Profit First, which is also Mike McCalla wits book, and it's that exact concept, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich is for me SETI, we'll link to all these books in the show notes. So if you're furiously trying to scribble or take notes, you can just check it out on your podcast player, or at stacking habits.com. But I love that mentality literally going as far upstream as you can. It's just like if you're on a diet saying, Hey, I don't want to eat junk food, we'll just clear the junk food from your house. And then you can't because now the friction is I want junk food, I can't just go to the fridge or the pantry, I actually have to Well, of course, we can use UberEATS and just have it magically show up at our door. But I have to actually go take some action or go out to my car and drive to the grocery store. So I love what you did. And I think this is something that everybody can do. Even if you're like, man, there's no way I could save 75% of my income or even 10% of income. Start small start with 1% Surely you won't notice 1% That's, that's just gone every month. And then once you build that habit, you can slowly ramp that up as you see the benefit. Absolutely.

Matthew Osborn  23:27  
Do you use credit cards? Or do you do all in cash? Debit Dave Ramsey method?

Joji Davenport  23:34  
Yeah, no, actually, I do use credit cards and similar concept there for everyone out there is to set up the automatic payment so that you don't have to think about it that you don't have an opportunity to not pay it. But yeah, I do use credit cards for signup bonuses. So as a nature of my Amazon book flipping business, you know, I buy books on Amazon or resell them on Amazon there's a lot of upfront costs and shout out to you Matthew and Kato with eFLIP kind of got me started with the with that model. But yeah, I mean, my wife, Maya and I, we've been able to travel. We went to the Paris, France, we've gone to Vietnam, we've gone to that went to Miami, we've gone to San Francisco, we've gotten Hawaii, I've gone to Costa Rica, and all of that's been paid for with credit card rewards travel points. So So yeah, definitely do it for the rewards points. But again, have automatic payments set up making sure that you know, whatever I'm spending is actually like I have money for like I don't carry a balance or No, I definitely know what the credit card company when that makes sense. Yeah,

Matthew Osborn  24:29  
no, absolutely. What? Sorry, what investment accounts did you start with back when you were 23? You mentioned two different accounts back when you're 23. I was curious if you've kept those same accounts, or if you've changed your strategies a lot since then, with the original investment accounts you kind of started with

Joji Davenport  24:44  
Yeah, so when I started listening to choose fi podcast there, I think it was like episode 10 or 12 There was an episode called the unfair advantage of being a teacher and the guest there it's called the millionaire teacher. He basically said that, hey, educators and anyone who works for the government how As the option to invest in a 403, B and A 457 B. So if you work for the private industry, you don't actually you only actually have the possibility to invest in a 401k. But the fourth would be in a 457. B, you can invest in both of those. Not only that the 457 B's, the only retirement plan that you can actually take money out of without an early withdrawal penalty, as long as you sever ties with the employer. And sounds like one of the biggest plans for his early retirement was investing the 457. So that was always my priority was to invest in a 457 b because of that. And the goal was to try it, the way that he thought about it was to fill up all your buckets. And what he meant by that is, you have all these pre tax buckets, you got the 457, the four, three B, so if you can fill those up and reduce your taxable income a lot, then you can you can move a lot of the money to your side of the ledger, that's like the way that he put out that was a really interesting way to think about it. But I started with, obviously, the Roth IRA, I think that's just the best option to go max out a Roth IRA. And then after I maxed out the Roth IRA went for the 457 for that reason. And then once I got to the point where I can max out the 457 B, and again, this wasn't like the first year took a few years to get there. Then I started putting money into the forestry B and then once I was able to max out that then also include just a normal brokerage normal taxable account,

David Chung  26:13  
do you have any sort of like rainy day fund like, six, six months savings? Yeah, let's

Joji Davenport  26:20  
so in my checking account usually carry about $20,000. That's kind of like what I keep the base level. And then once I get like over 20,000, that's where I'm like, Okay, let's take some of that money and go put in like a taxable account. So I keep that as kind of like a rainy day fund. But the good news as well is that most of the time, if you have, if you have a rainy day fund, like you could put it on a credit card or if you need to, I mean, I could always liquidate assets if I needed to. But I used to keep about $20,000, which, right now my wife and I live right around like 35 to 3500 to 4000 per month. So that's about like four or so months worth of living.

David Chung  26:54  
I mean, it looks really nice around you. Is it a house or apartment?

Joji Davenport  26:58  
This is a one bedroom one bathroom apartment, we pay 1620 a month, we actually got a really good deal in our area. So 16 $1,620 So yeah, we don't own a house. So we we just pay for one bed, one bath. Is

David Chung  27:11  
that strategic? Because I I'm guessing like with how much you're saving, you could have easily saved up and purchase a house if you wanted to. Was that strategic to move into an apartment? Yes, we actually

Joji Davenport  27:23  
do. We actually would like to buy a house here in the near near future. I think a lot of it was we were on the sidelines thinking, wow, houses are becoming so expensive. Maybe they'll come down in the future. So it's kind of like we've had the money to pull the trigger. But we've kind of just been on the side thinking like, houses are just over inflated here. And I think we're getting to the point where right, so that's probably not the case. So it was kind of more of a strategic move like hey, yeah, we're living well below our means. Now, we could obviously live in way more than this. But let's go ahead and wait maybe a couple years to things cool off. And I don't think really think things have cooled off per se, but also in the meantime, our income is increased substantially. Because, you know, no, my wife also has side hustles. And in cheese, she's the better half for sure. And so she's, she's obviously a big part of this as well. It's not just me, but we're hoping to buy a house in the next year or two years.

David Chung  28:14  
You know, I heard something a little while back, that was really interesting, where, you know, when you're comparing renting versus owning, you know, the rent that you pay each month is the most that you'll pay for your living. Excellent. Whereas when you buy the monthly payment is the minimum is the lowest, the lowest will pay. Yeah. And so I wasn't sure if you know, I own my place, and it's a condo, and so like the HOA covers everything, but each year the assessments go up and, you know, they're all these other things that I don't have direct control over. And sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I just, you know, moved into an apartment just had that sort of stability and, you know, just kind of like not really have to worry about, you know, things breaking around me.

Joji Davenport  29:12  
Yeah, I would say a lot of people in my life had always encouraged me to buy a house who said you're throwing away money every month in reality I'm paying significantly less in the short term because you know, what I would have paid for taxes and insurance and a mortgage is well more than what I'm paying for rent and also that difference. I'm actually saving and investing so I think that's the big key there. And I think if you for all the books that I've read there is basically I think it's a cut off period like if you actually rent under five years normally it's gonna be better and then after you get past like five to seven years then long term it becomes veteran Omaha so I think I've been living in this apartment since I've been 25 has been about four years we're getting right on that edge. You know, and for the first few years out of college I forgot to mention what helped a lot as I my parents will. Were letting me live at home. So that was a A massive way to save money, especially when I wasn't really making that much money than either. But yeah, I'm getting, we're getting to that time where, where we do want to live in a house, and it's a one bedroom place, we have a 14 month old boy, and hopefully more here soon. So we're gonna need more space for sure.

Matthew Osborn  30:15  
When your net worth hit that big 1 million mark, did you and your mind start thinking at all? Maybe we can start spending a little bit more maybe we could inflate our budget or what we're living off of every single month? Or did that not even cross your mind? Have you been so set in it that you're like, Nope, we're good at this amount. 4500 a month good for us. Let's keep it there. I'm just curious. Did that cross your mind at all when you cross that big threshold or not?

Joji Davenport  30:37  
Absolutely. Yeah. It was it joining the two comma club as we call it is, is it was pretty amazing. It was it was sitting back and reflecting and I was like, wow, it's crazy. Maya and I like the amount of progress that we made in only six years to be honest. Yeah, there. There are times now where I'm like, a little bit less concerned with Hey, yeah, sure. Let's go out, let's go out to eat. You know, once this week, let's go have a nice dinner. So yeah, I think we've gotten to the point where we've realized that we can spend more money, we've got quite a bit and even, you know, I was playing around with like a compound interest calculator with my I was just saying, you know, even if we didn't invest another dollar, and we just took whatever we had, and just let it sit there. I mean, over the next couple of decades, it would turn easily turn into retirement, I mean, even without adding anything. So definitely have led up a little bit on it was a big part of it, as well, Matthew is, is that we've been able to raise our income quite a bit, both of us. And so that's also helped. So we're even even though we're spending a little bit more money now, we're actually still saving more, because we've been able to increase our income at a larger percentage. But yeah, it is a key thing to try to not get into lifestyle inflation, which is kind of, I think what you're alluding to, but we definitely have tight, you know, loosen up a little bit for sure.

David Chung  31:48  
Jodi, can we talk about that a little bit? Like you mentioned now, several side hustles? And sounds like your wife has some things that she does to make some additional income? Like, I'm just thinking, how do you run across these different opportunities? Right, like, you mentioned that you stumbled across YouTube videos for selling books, but like, how do you, number one, find these opportunities, and number two, like, vet them to make sure that the juice is worth the squeeze, because, you know, you see all these ads on social media about like making money on crypto, and this means that like, how do you screen out all the crap? And, like, just focus on the stuff that like work? That's

Joji Davenport  32:34  
a really great question. You know, back in the day when I came across selling books, so Steve Regan, Caleb Roth, and I think what it came down to is, Do I understand what it is there is or there is, Do I understand what this person is saying? So, no, Caleb and Steve are really good at communicating how the business model works. And so I'm having to sit there as a logical person thinking, is this actually possible? Can this thing actually work. But not only that, also having to take some action. So it was kind of, in the beginning, having sort of this, maybe it's a little bit naive, but having this trust in what this person is telling you that this could actually work. I think a big part of it was they weren't necessarily selling you anything, it was free content that they're providing. So it wasn't like Caleb was stuffing $1,000 course down my throat. It's kind of like Caleb, just giving all this free information about how to read Keepa graphs. And I found I find myself to be an analytical person. So it was kind of just trying it out and seeing if it work. And, you know, so there's selling books on Amazon, there's merch by Amazon. Now the Amazon influencer program. So you know, Matthew just came out with a great video, go check out that video. If you guys wanna learn about the Amazon influencer program, but I think it was just having faith that the person across the screen was not lying to you, Kayla, you know, Steve, they seem like, really, you know, genuine people who weren't trying to sell me anything or were trying to lie to me. And then the other part of it kind of going back to what Caleb said, is, even with this podcast, like you have to put the things you learned into action. And I'm guilty of it, too. Like, there's so much information that's bombarded at you. What do you actually put into practice, but at the end of the day, what matters is putting that stuff into practice. And so for me, it was just taking what I was looking at trying it out, I thought these were the things that made the most sense that I understood the most limited experience I have and I tried them out unfortunately, they work.

David Chung  34:13  
Have you had any side hustles that you started and it just didn't work out? Or? Or do you have the Midas touch everything you touch?

Joji Davenport  34:23  
Everything I touch? Well, I mean, I guess I haven't touched too many things, per se. I mean, selling books on Amazon merch by Amazon. Those are the two biggest side hustles Yeah, I mean, basically those I mean those and now the Amazon influencer program, and those are the things that I've gravitated to. So I think I've been fortunate that what I've tried has worked, but yeah, there hasn't been anything that that fell flat on its head. Now even with YouTube, that's a new venture and it was slow in the beginning, but it's starting to grow as well. So I think I've been lucky that you know that the people who came before me share that knowledge and information and then I was able to take some action on it. I made mistakes and I didn't do it the best way either but by Fortunately, I've been I've been lucky, that's worked out.

David Chung  35:02  
Also sounds like, you know, all those four things that you listed. There's little upfront costs, it's just your time. And you know how much energy you're willing to put into it. I'm in a Facebook group that, you know, people, list businesses to sell. And there was this guy who was like, I have $200,000. And I'm looking for a business to buy. And people were like, listing all these different businesses that he could start, like, you know, home service companies. And there's one that was really interesting, though. So hear this idea out guy. So it's a 3d 4d, I don't know what 4d is, but it's like a 3d 4d ultrasound imaging company. It's not medical, it's not medical. And so let's say you're pregnant, right? You go in. And it's like, it's like you're getting portraits for your kid before they're born. Yeah. And the upfront cost is, like, there's a little bit of right, you have to get your license to operate the ultrasound machine, the sonogram machine, and you have to buy the machine itself. And I, I looked up how much these things cost, and they're not cheap. Yeah, they're, you know, it's, I mean, like, it's attainable. It's like 40 $50,000, for a used machine. Now, how many years? I'm gonna get out of it. I have no idea. But I'm not gonna lie. There was a part of me that was like, well, Shoot, maybe I put like 60 grand into this thing and see if this business works. Like, if, if an opportunity like that was presented to you, Jody, would you say that's a winner? Or would you say I would stay away?

Joji Davenport  36:40  
Yeah, I think it definitely comes down to the position that I'm in. So, you know, if I was a broke college student, I would definitely not be doing that. Because I wouldn't be putting so much money on a credit card or trying to get a personal loan, because I am more risk averse that way. I think now, I'd be more, I'd be in a better position to say yes to it if I wanted to do it. But I think right now, you know what I'm doing, I feel like I'm gonna go online, and it's working for me, but from what you're telling me, I can totally see that business model working. I mean, my wife and I, when we had our boy, we went to a place similar to that where they did like, sort of 3d imaging or something like that. And it was a really cool experience. So I think what you said in the beginning, which is if there's a startup cost, like that's one of the biggest barriers, and it's also one of the things that that can make it more accessible to people if there isn't a startup cost. So I would say, as your first side hustle, that would probably be pretty crazy. But maybe I don't see why. I mean, I think it's probably it probably work, I can see people liking that service.

David Chung  37:35  
All right, so we're doing it. We're doing it. All four of us.

Joji Davenport  37:40  
We're all that's the next step. The next thing, right?

Caleb Roth  37:42  
Well, David, we we did the same thing, we went into one of those, and it was really nice. It was kind of cute, they set it up nice paint job, some stuffed animals, you know, kind of felt like a family setup. But it was literally just a small office in a strip mall. And we went in cash payment, you know, no, no insurance, none of that, I think, I don't know what it was 80 bucks, 100 bucks. And we then got the imaging, you know, they're not really giving you vitals. And one thing they did that was pretty cool was it was included in the price, you know, so we overpaid for it or whatever. But they gave us a little stuffed animal. And they put a like a sound chip in there with baby's heartbeat. So we like push the button on the animal and hear that. So it was, it was pretty good. You know, it's, you know, you're only going to do it one time, I'm not going back in unless we have more kids down the road, then maybe we do that too. And

Matthew Osborn  38:32  
they save money by using the same heartbeat chip for all the different animals.

Joji Davenport  38:36  
It's the same person the same baby.

David Chung  38:40  
Yeah, there's like a level of virality to uh, to Right. Like, I feel like people have kids around the same time that their friends have kids. And so like, you share your photos with your friends. And it's like, this is my baby. Like, if your friend is pregnant, they're gonna be like, I'm gonna do that. Where'd you get that? Yeah, absolutely.

Caleb Roth  39:03  
The only downside to this, David is the birth rate is declining in America, but most countries around the world too. So I don't know if you're doing a lot of venture capital in a declining market. So we might might need to shift gears there. Yeah, do it in Africa. Joji one of the things that an interesting parallel that just kind of popped into my head, our third episode, it was just the three of us we didn't bring a guest on. And we talked through just kind of just kind of a post boredom on running our software company and shared that story. So if you have missed that one, go check it out. It's pretty, pretty fun. We kind of went back and just asked some of the questions. What knowing now what would we do differently? You know, the the main habit that actually came out of there, we didn't have it preset, we just kind of opened up the dialog and saw what came out of it. But the habit that surfaced was the idea of playing offense. And I think that applies to finances as well, and I'm hearing lots of elements of it from your story. Here's what I mean by it. When we were running the software business, it's real. Really easy to start playing defense. And you know, just trying to take care of every customer and serve everybody's needs and worry what the competition is doing, instead of saying, Where do we want to go, and then figuring out how to go there. And I think when it comes to budgets, most people don't want to do a budget, they'd rather go see the dentist or again, we, you know, talk about sex, then talk about money, because a budget might actually reveal where your struggles are. And then you actually have to look in the mirror and figure out, are you going to change your behavior. But the other downside of having a budget is it forces you to play defense? And now you're saying, How much should I spend at restaurants versus grocery stores versus clothing, versus whatever. And there's only so much defense you can play, you can only whittle away your expenses so much before you just simply can't live or can't eat. So I love what you did by changing that. And I don't I don't know if you saw that or kind of feel this along the way. But you're playing offense by saying I am going to save first, that idea of profit. First, I'm gonna pay myself first. Once you set that habit up, you and your wife now have figured out multiple different avenues to probably get raises at work, I'm sure you're doing a great job teaching. You've also added significant side hustles that have been, you know, now eclipsed what you're making. And so by playing offense, you have now like you've changed the game. And you've actually now started to find more ways to win. And by that offense number is how much can I save. And every year you're trying to grow and grow and grow that. And by default, instead of raising your standard of living and raising your burn rates, you know, to be alive, you're actually raising that savings rate. So how does that resonate with you? I'll just stop talking. And ya know,

Joji Davenport  41:41  
yeah, you said that beautifully. There's in the financial independence space, there's somebody who's very popular I'm sure you guys have some of you may have heard him is called Mister Money Mustache. Not sure if you guys have heard of him. But he has this one blog article called The shockingly simple math behind early retirement. And it basically just goes into the fact that when you retire, it's just a function of your savings rate based on your income. And the reason I bring that up is because I think if you think long term about where you want to be, and when you know what it is that you want to do with your life, like let's let's say you sit down with your significant other right now and you like genuinely ask yourself, like, where do you want to be when you're 65? Like, do you still want to be working? Would you like to retire at 55? Or 60? Well, it's just a math equation. It's just okay, well, what percentage of my income do I need to save to retire in 20 years? Well, it's just literally a math equation. So once you can figure out what it is that you truly want, but let's say when it is that you want to be financially independent, where you technically no longer need to work again, then you can start playing offense, we can say, Okay, well, how do I get there? So I think, maybe starting with the end in mind, which is, here's why I want to be in this many years, and then going backwards and thinking, okay, to get there, I have to say, 45% of my income, how's that going to happen? Then you can start probably like, the easiest thing to do is cut out the stuff in your, in your life that you spend frivolously on things that don't really truly give you value, I can guarantee you that anyone can look around their house and look at what you would call junk mail, things that you would fire sell at a garage sale for $1. Because you're just like, Well, why do I have this thing? Let's think gives me no value, right? So I'm thinking, you know, the first thing that you could do is you could start to think about how you can cut out some of those things. But Caleb was right, there's, there's a limit to how much you can cut. Right? So maybe in the beginning, it makes sense to just get rid of some of those basic things that don't give you value. But then after that, you know, think, okay, if I want to reach a 40% savings rate, and this is I'm only able to save this much right now. Now I have to play offense, you have to actually figure out, okay, how can I start increasing my income, so I can get to that point. So I can start saving that percentage. But yeah, resonates a lot with me, I think, like we said about the friction thing, the less friction you can have, the easier it is for you to be able to accomplish that goal. So if you can think about what percentage of income you need to save, and if you can put automatic investment upfront so that every paycheck that automatically gets invested for you. So you never never even see it. You never even touch it. And you're playing offense, and I think you're playing a different game.

Caleb Roth  43:58  
I love it. And it's also the same concept as being open minded versus closed minded. If you're playing defense in the spreadsheet, again, it's pretty easy to say hey, go look at your budget, almost anybody can do and say go ahead and whittle 10% away. You're spending three random month figured out how to save $300. Okay, might be more difficult for some than others I understand. And then I say Okay, great. You figured it out. You got your sheet, you bring it back to me and I say cool. Now go do it again. Go Whittle. 10%. Again, so you might cuss me out a little bit and take me aside and go back and try and do it. And then you come back. Alright, I'm done. I figured it out. And I go, great, go go save 10% Again, and at some point, it's just becomes almost impossible, or you're just gonna, you know, wrack your head. And it's just a very difficult conundrum. Versus I say, hey, save 10% spend less than you make. Let's just start there. Yeah. 5%. And then after that, instead of trying to pinch more pennies, let's say how can I raise my income by 10%? And now all of a sudden, instead of going, I'm going to be restrictive and what do I have to cut out and that becomes difficult and that's an Got a fun exercise? Now the sky's the limit and I start going, Oh, how would I add 10%? That's, that's really intriguing. And I think you're a perfect example of someone who kind of took that offensive in a good way, offense mentality and offensive, and went and did something with it. Yeah, absolutely. So tactically Go ahead, David.

David Chung  45:18  
I was gonna say I love that concept of just like pretty much removing it from your site. And so that way, you don't end up suspending it real quick, just quick tangent. So you you run side hustle like business, you probably have like a different separate account for your business as well. Do you? Do you have like, sort of the Profit First thing where you remove a percentage of your profits first as well?

Joji Davenport  45:43  
Yeah, absolutely. So I follow the Profit First system. So I have a separate bank account as basically six accounts in it. So every two weeks, again, Amazon paycheck, and that goes into what's called an income account. And the first thing that I'll do with income is I'll deduct the cost of goods sold. So I have a spreadsheet. So Caleb will appreciate that I got a spreadsheet. So I know with what it's actually sold like, of that income, what of what of that income was actually cost of goods sold. So like, let's say, I make a $5,000 paycheck from Amazon. Realistically, that was maybe like $1,500 worth of bike costs. So I'll go ahead and subtract that $1,500 out and put it in that account called cost of goods sold. And then what you have leftover is something called real revenue. And that's like the actual money that you made. And yeah, the first thing that you do is 5%, I use 5%, that goes to the profit account. And the profit is the dividend that I pay myself at the end of every quarter. So the first 5% of the money I make goes right towards towards myself, in the form of being a profitable business, it goes right towards the dividend that are received. And then right after that 55% goes into owners compensation, which is the salary that I'll pay myself. And going back to the living below your means with every paycheck, putting 55% of the real revenue into my owner salary, but I only will will take a $3,000 monthly check. So that owners compensation account just grows and grows and grows as a way more money on it. And that's like one way that I can make my income stable. Because you know, if you sell books, there's multiple, like, there's textbook season, and there's other seasonality, but the idea is you got profit owners compensation, then you go to operating expenses, then you go to taxes, and then then you can reinvest back to cost of goods sold if you want, but it's the same process. It's like, it's so much easier to save money if the money is gone up front, rather than if you're like, Okay, I have all this money, how am I gonna save the money? How am I can allocate to you know, if you can just take the money that's coming in and just automatically put it somewhere so that you never see it. It's the same sort of analogy of like a toilet paper roll. Like if, if someone just says, Here you go, David, here's the toilet paper roll, you have 15 sheets on the toilet paper roll, like you're gonna make it work, it's gonna have to happen somehow. So I think that's the way I think about

David Chung  47:43  
do I think you might have changed my life because like something about this is just clicking. And I'm just like, it's so simple. Because I've used men too. And I'll be the first to admit I am not the best with money. Yeah, this is a $200 outfit right here. Your your dollar outfit, right? The sweatshirt was a gift from my sister. So this zero. Yeah, it's really resonating. Yeah. Next

Joji Davenport  48:07  
time I'll see in person I'm gonna I'll give you a fit check. So my students always give me a fit check every day. So all you guys can get a fit, check real quick. That's always have $0 fee check on so. Yeah.

Caleb Roth  48:18  
And David, one thing you could do. So again, I tend to get too stuck the other side of the pendulum where I'm analyzing, and I don't need to I don't actually set specific budgets. But I do want to know where the dollars are going. And just try and make sure that we're not creeping up too much. So I do have a target number each month that we try and stay below. If we go through it, it happens. I don't beat myself up over it. But it does start to lead to some stress. Because if you are consistently spending more than you want to or what you're making, then you're not living the life that you told yourself, you want it to live. And so one simple way to do it if the budgets are meant or whatever the replacement ones are, that you're going to jump into, or maybe not just set that threshold. And Joji said, figure out what that amount of slop or wiggle room is, maybe it's $10,000, maybe it's $20,000, maybe it's $5,000. And just all you want to do at the end of the month, is just say this account should have 10 grand in it. And whatever you pay yourself as a salary and then whatever you spend, you just want to make sure that you still have 10 grand at the end of each month. And that's just a very, very simple, poor man's way to budget and just say, Am I doing okay, and still have some wiggle room to mess up a bit? Absolutely.

Joji Davenport  49:28  
It's a forced savings plan essentially, it's the way I think about it.

David Chung  49:31  
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say because sometimes I feel like an animal you know, like Black Friday I'm just like, eating up all the deals right? And it's a lot easier when you have $0 I mean, I feel like I almost even need to hide that slop like in a secret like put that money under my mattress, right? What I need to see is like, if my account hit zero, I cannot spend any more. So yeah, I think I have to be a little bit extreme like You know, my so I'm a huge fan of the fire movement too and similar, similar to you Joji when I was 20 years old, I was working at a coffee shop at the time. And there was a financial planner that used to come in every night at 8pm and ordered like a double mocha. And he would come in, I would talk to him about, you know, like, the services that he offers, and he was gracious enough to draft up a plan for me, and I said, Hey, I want to retire by 30. So it's very similar to you where it's like, people tend to think like 10 years, that just gets to Brad, he thought, in 10 year increments as well. But when I was 20, and I was like, I want to retire by 30. And I, you know, he asked, How much money do you want, each month, I think at the time I put down, like I said, I need $50,000 or 60,000, I forget. And my withdrawal rate was a little bit lower, I wanted to be a little bit more conservative. So I think it was like 3%. But he was like, $2.8 million, is what you need. And so like, I remember, like, not knowing how I was going to get that money. But knowing that that was my goal. And I don't want to say whether I hit that goal at 30, I actually didn't hit that goal at 30. But you know, the the entire idea of like, being financially independent, and being able to do the work that you actually want to do, rather than doing the work because you have to do it is so appealing to me. But then you see a great sale, and then you get sidetracked and you know, you get distracted. And so like this idea of like, paying yourself first like almost like paying your future self first and respecting that future version of yourself enough to pull that money out first. It's like such a brilliant, I wish I spoke to you like 20 years ago, man 20 years

Joji Davenport  51:55  
ago, one of the better one of the cool things about their retirement accounts as well like the pre tax or any retirement account, really, you can't even pull the money out. Unless I mean, you can you get charged early withdrawal penalty, but it's another layer where the government's like, hey, once this money is invested, it's for your future self. So

David Chung  52:10  
I didn't use it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

Matthew Osborn  52:15  
if there's someone listening to this right now, that's like, Hey, I'm spending a little bit too much each month, I'm not investing anything. Where do you recommend people start with their investing? Do you recommend that they're not a teacher? To go straight to a 401? K? Or what do you recommend? What's your philosophy?

Joji Davenport  52:30  
Yeah, I think, you know, I'm not a financial advisor, by any means, I would just say, I think the Roth IRA, if you're under the income limits, would be definitely the best place to start. And if you're someone who's like, I don't know, if I have enough money to invest, I would just say, Just do it, it's invested. Like if you invest $200, into the Roth IRA, and you have 200, less dollars in your account to make work. I mean, you get, like I said, you're gonna make it work, I think humans are the best at adapting to their situation in their environment. So if you're someone who doesn't, if you're not sure, if you have enough money to invest, I would say, just try it out, pay yourself first, it could be a small percentage, it could be a small amount. But the thing is, once it's invested in once it's in there, you'll learn to live without that money. And then once you can learn to grow, okay, I don't need that $200 anymore. Now you can make let's try $300 Next month, and then you learn, okay, I can live on what's left and eventually get to a point as I have where it's like, okay, well, I don't even think about the teaching income as income anymore, I just think the whole goal of that money is just a load up there 457 B in the forest, Ruby, and then anything that's left over, it's just gonna go into savings or taxable accounts. So my thought processes, you know, has has a role to play, his role is to pay myself first in our future self first. So I think just removing that money off the top and just trying it out and see what happens, I think I think that's a good way to go is paying yourself first, I think it really works.

Matthew Osborn  53:48  
So Roth IRA, a good first account for people to start a Roth IRA.

Caleb Roth  53:53  
And if that still scares you, if you're still going, Yeah, this still sounds good. But what if I need that to under bucks, then just do just do some testing. So most, most banks have a checking in a savings account, I'm assuming most people live out of the checking. So if you're not using the savings, or maybe you can open a second at that same account, literally every month, take that $200 As your starter piece and move that either if your bank will let you do it automatically, go ahead and do that. Otherwise, on the first or the fifth of each month, around when you get paid, just go in and move that $200 over. Now it's there, it's in your right pocket, left pocket, however you want to say that analogy, but that money is there should you need to access it, but try to have the discipline to say hey, I don't and then as you get through that first month and go, Oh, I didn't have to touch it. That will start building that confidence to where you can then throw it in a retirement account where again, it's going to be harder to access.

Joji Davenport  54:42  
Yeah, one thing I want to mention Matthew as well as actively forgot about so if you have a 401k Sometimes your company will offer a match as well which is technically free money. It's a lot of companies will match like up to four to 6% of your income if you if you invest in a 401k So actually would be the best option would Get the match whatever your companies want to give you, that's actually free money. So that might be an incentive, just in itself, like, Hey, if you invest in the 401k, you might get free money that your company is willing to match, and then go back to the Roth IRA, I would recommend maxing out the Roth IRA, just because you have more investment choices for whatever it is you want to invest in. And then going back to the 401 K, and then capping that out. But again, depending on where people are, that might seem completely crazy, like, some people might be like, how is it even possible to invest anything at all. So I think going back to what Caleb had just mentioned, would be a really good starting point as well.

Caleb Roth  55:32  
Again, like we used to say in the book space, just find a way to get started, it's really easy to get stuck in all the analysis. But there's very, you know, especially if you're just moving it from a check into a savings, it's very easy to go back and and just undo it, if it's not for you, right, or if you're really concerned about it. So just get started, find a way to set something aside, even if it's, you know, $50 or $25. Just get that habit. Once that habit is built, it's much easier to build and improve upon it than it is just start cold turkey and say, I gotta say 500 or $1,000 a month. And that just seems so far out there and so wildly unattainable, that you won't jump in and do it. So as always just get started. Started. Well, gee, thanks so much for your time. I love your enthusiasm and your passion. Thank you for not being cheap. When we are out there. I really loved meeting you in person. And hopefully that won't be our last time bumping elbows or hitting golf balls for that matter.

Joji Davenport  56:29  
Yeah, won't be in that goes to for all three of you. If you're ever in San Diego, California, let me know I'd be happy to take you out and pay for your dinner and your meal. And just pick your brain cannot

David Chung  56:38  
afford the number of bowls. I'm going to lose. Don't worry.

Joji Davenport  56:42  
Don't worry. I'm one of those guys who you know, I'll take a peek over in the bushes over there. There'll be a few balls. So now that you told me that I'll save a few balls for alphabet.

David Chung  56:50  
All right, sounds good. Perfect. And

Caleb Roth  56:53  
Joji, you mentioned the YouTube channel. I know you share some content about Amazon and books. Do you also talk about personal finance?

Joji Davenport  56:59  
You know, that's kind of how the YouTube channel originated. I've kind of strayed away from that, because, you know, I didn't in the beginning, you know, there wasn't really any attraction with that. So the YouTube channel is about flipping books, maybe you know, in the future all I'll do something along those lines. But yeah, I've YouTube channel about, you know, showing you how you can sell textbooks and sell just, you know, books on Amazon in general as a side hustle. And also have an Instagram with that as well. So you could just find me at Joji Davenports joj i and then Davenport on YouTube and Instagram. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker  57:29  
We will

Caleb Roth  57:30  
wait to those in the show notes as well. Well, Josie, thanks again for coming. And for everybody listening. We will catch you next

Joji Davenport  57:37  
week. As you guys thank you so much.