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Managing your money upfront is a smart way to make sure you are hitting your financial targets. In this episode, Tom, Michael, and Emil share their strategies for managing money as it comes in, to efficiently allocate it to their investment projects and work towards financial freedom. --- Transcript   Emil: Hey everybody. Welcome back for another episode of the remote real estate investor. My name is Emil Shour, and my co hosts today are the lovely,   Tom: Tom Schneider   Michael: And Michael Albaum.   Emil: And on today's episode, we're going to be doing a little bit of personal finance. And particularly, we're going to be talking about how we set up our systems and bank accounts and everything to set us up for investing. So money comes in, where do we put it? How do we make sure somebody gets allocated for investing? All the nuts and bolts and juicy details? So let's hop into this one.   What amazing thing happened to you guys this past weekend?   Michael: Easy question. With an easy answer. I celebrated my two year wedding anniversary. This weekend. That was a lovely thing to do. My wife took me to a very fun little resort. It was very COVID safe. We had a room to ourselves and enjoy the pool and did like nothing. So we were able to just sit and relax and be and get a little bit sunburned.   Tom: You're in North North California right now not not overly north, but at least north of San Francisco.   Michael: Right. We're just north just north of you guys.   Tom: Congratulations, by the way.   Michael: Thanks, man. This was over in Glen Ellen which is outside of Santa Rosa. And it was really secluded, really quiet. It was just really a nice weekend to get a little bit of rar because my wife and I always joke that we don't ever stop. So we will sit down for a day of relaxing be like yeah, I'm bored. Time to do something. So this weekend, we really force ourselves to really just sit and be and read and relax. And it was lovely. So that was definitely my highlight. What about you Tom?   Tom: I have a one and a half year old and we go on campus tours. So we go tour the local elementary schools and we went on a lovely campus tour over the weekend. So it was really big. I don't remember elementary schools being that big it was it was a particularly big one. It was one called Burn Valley over in Lafayette. But it was really nice. There was a little league practice we scouted out future potential teams. So just a lot of a lot of scouting. I really want to live by an elementary school like for like weekends like play games and stuff. It's like the giant backyard of like, you know, basketball hoops big grass fields. Anyways.   Michael: That's really great for like Ultimate Frisbee games in college I lived across an elementary across your elementary school we play frisbee there all the time playing the baseball diamond. It's lovely.   Tom: Totally I think there was some random you know, college kids or whatever bringing what's that game or you like hit the ball into the net and it like bounces up and anyways there was some folks that…   Michael: Spike ball.   Tom: Spike ball yeah, it was a big spike ball game going on. So that was my campus tours with with baby. So we're on our way through the of the elementary schools, yourself Emil?   Emil: So last week was my birthday.   Michael: Happy belated.   Emil: Thanks, guys. And so that the family together on Sunday, just immediate family, my wife's parents, my parents, my brother, had a nice lunch, we hung out, they got to hang out with our daughter just a good time, I also got to go surfing that morning. It was like a nice warm day. So even though the water still a little bit cold in Southern California, was warm out. So it's like this nice balance. And just a nice weekend. Anytime I can get out to surf.   Michael; You don't know a cold water is man.   Emil: I know. Let's get back to talking about personal finance. How do we set up our money? How do we allocate it? So let's just start with like money comes in right? Money comes in every month. What do you do with it? Do you have an automated system? Are you manually moving money into like different accounts? Are you putting it in? In a Swedish account? What are you guys doing? Tom, you You go first.   Tom: So money comes in all do some 401 k stuff right off the bat coming in from the employer, then money goes into a personal checking account. There are three checking accounts that I have. One of them is for the rentals. One of them is for a joint account. So money comes in from work funds, all immediately move most of it over into the joint account for mortgage for any all of that like life, expensive stuff, but I'll leave a little bit, I will also move a little bit of money that I will save upfront into an index fund, which is where I basically store like liquid funds for buying more real estate.   So that's that that's that account and then within the other checking account that I have, that's for rentals, I'll have payment going out to pay whatever mortgages there are for those rental properties and then rental income coming in from the rental properties. And then I'll also send a little bit of that dough into that same index fund. So I try to keep that balance as low as possible without any risk of it going to zero. And this is actually a newer strategy for me where I used to just leave it all in cash, but I'm being pretty aggressive about leaving as little amount as money in in a cash position and just pushing it into like a big safe index fund.   And I just started doing this I might have mentioned on an earlier episode is just adding like a little bit of money into just like little slivers of Bitcoin, it's more just kind of peace of mind where I was like, really like, man, I feel like I could have like, been a part of this a little bit earlier. But taking a small amount every month amount that I like, wouldn't be like overly upset if it just, you know, got cut in half or whatever, if Bitcoin imploded, but as a little bit of a hedge against inflation just to take out, you know, a small participation.   So to reiterate, paraphrase, have these three different accounts money coming in from employer, pushing it into joint account, pushing it into this savings account, or just me index fund. And then rental funds coming in and doing kind of a similar maneuver where I'm adding a little bit into that index fund. And then at the point at which I'm ready to acquire, I'll move money out of the index fund back into that cash account, that checking account associated with the rental properties, and then do my acquisition from there. So kind of a longer spiel, I don't think it's overly complicated.   Emil: Is that automated or are you like manually moving all the money in like choosing the index fund and all that?   Tom: I've got it 90% automated, so I work, my brokerage account is an online account that I wish that I would automatically, like put the buy in like just for the dollar amount like, but I have to manually push the buy, I can move the money automatically. And I have it totally automated from the bank accounts to move it over to the various bank accounts and into my brokerage account. But to actually buy the index fund, I have to like manually go in and click Buy. And it's kind of annoying. I mean, it's it's like not that much work. But I just love the idea of if I just, you know, disappeared for a year like it just all be running automatically. I love that concept. They have a product where they'll do that, but it's only with like certain mutual funds, and I don't really want to put my money in a mutual fund to, you know, pay that extra overhead of that manager that's managing the mutual fund, it's very close to being fully automated. The only piece that's not is that final buy, also have a fun flow sheet. So we're all see money. This is a tool we have with a category Academy, as well, just so I have all my different accounts. And I could just because I want to keep that cash balance, like obviously not being negative, but keep it relatively low. So you know, all do little shifts in the automatic amount that it's pulling just so it's like keeping pretty close to zero. But it's Yeah, like I said, like 95% automate, it's just that last little purchase of the clicking the buy on the stock. So I'll do manually.   Michael: So Tom, that's the checking account associated with the rental properties and you try to keep as close to zero as possible.   Tom: Pretty much all of them except for the joint account is I'm I'm being pretty aggressive about moving any of that loose, loose change loose dollars into this index fund.   Michael: Okay, so then your reserve for your rentals is in this index fund as well.   Tom: That's right, yeah. And I'll be extra aggressive about like, if, for whatever reason, the index fund like took a huge hit, like all the extra aggressive and keeping larger reserves. But I think the upside of just continuing to flow with the market is that risk is worth it to me to take on that little extra risk by having it in there. And this is actually from I don't know, I think that I'm not sure the episode have been released yet. But we had a really cool author…   Michael: $7 millionaire yep.   Tom: Dude! And honestly, that interview that we did with him, like kind of changed my life way actually, I know that it just came out because my wife was just come out, giving us some feedback on how to how to continue to make the podcast better. Because she she told me about the episode, and she thought it was good as as well. But it honestly kind of changed my life and being way more aggressive about you know, pushing money into into the index fund, especially just at the age you are I mean, so much of is relative to that on how aggressive you want to be is looking at your time horizon. So, yes, I think I answered your question.   Michael: Totally answered the question. I've got a follow up question. So the checking account that your paycheck comes into, that then gets moved, basically gets zero balanced out every month? What's the purpose of that account?   Tom: I mean, that's a good question. So like I could just have a joint account with my wife but not have a separate personal account. What we do is you know, we each have our own personal account and then a joint account where we will put a lot of most of the money and I mean, this is like different for probably every couple. I think it's I think we like having a little bit of discretionary fund whatever I save some money out there want to buy a guitar because I can do that or you know, like stuff like that. I think that's healthy to have that balances and if you're able to do that, like great. We have a joint credit card and then we each have individual separate credit cards, but I mean the vast majority All my expenses is going into this, this joint account that we use.   Michael: Got it. Okay, so it's not totally zeroed out, you still keep some money in there?   Tom:; Exactly.   Michael: Got it. Got it got it. Okay.   Tom: Exactly, I just like to highlight, I mean, I try to keep it above like 1000 bucks in there just or, you know, 500 or something like that.   Emil: Before we get into mine a little bit later, I'm have the old mindset that you used to have, like, I sit on so much cash and don't invest it because it's short term. I'd love for you to challenge me on that thinking in school me a little later.   Tom: So for sure.   Emil: Alright, Michael, you’re up.   Michael: My wife and I have a joint checking account. That's where all of the income earned income from jobs goes. And then we've sat down and did a pretty extensive overhaul of our finances where money coming in from where is it going out to. And so we put together a pretty firm, fun flow kind of like Tom was talking about. And so every single month, we have automatic withdrawals from our checking account that goes to an external savings account. And from that external savings account is basically where everything happens.   So we have money that goes to a separate savings account, rather, that pays specifically life insurance, we have funds that go from that joint checking account every single month automatically goes to an investment brokerage account. And, Tom, that's really unfortunate that you don't have an automatic investing function with your brokerage account, we do.   So every single month, there's a bi actually is every single week. So I dollar cost average throughout the month, every single week, X amount of dollars gets purchased of a set index fund indefinitely. So we have money that goes to that. And we broke it down basically, for us between our fixed expenses, expenses that never change throughout the month. So that's the mortgage on our personal, you know, pet insurance, life insurance, car insurance, all these things are fixed, homogeneous costs that are the same month in and month out. And then we've broken down, okay, what are our variable costs, so groceries, gas, this type of thing, entertainment eating out, and then everything else we've said is going into savings. And so we have automatically every single month getting with you actually, it's it's like four or five times a month, withdrawals from our joint checking account that go towards this savings account.   And so we've opted to do is keep a small balance in that checking account. And we pay our credit cards from our savings account. And so we really feel it, when we pay it is, hey, we are now taking this money that we've saved from ourselves, and it's now going out the window to our spending, we have all the fixed expenses on automatic payments, so we don't have to do a whole lot of manual stuff. And then at the end of the month, we'll do a reconciliation, if we made more money than we thought we were going to our made less money than we thought we were going to we need to adjust things, we'll do that. But we sit down every week and kind of go over what the expenses are and track how we're doing for the month based on our budget projections for that particular month in all the categories in our variable expenses. And we just do check it and see Hey, how are we doing? How are you benchmarking compared to how we want it to be? How much do we have left in the month to spend. And it's been really, really helpful, it's helped us save quite a lot of money since we started doing it about four or five months ago.   And so I'm you know, I'm kind of like you, we save a lot of cash. So we've got money going to the investment brokerage side of things, but we're also looking at buying a primary here in probably the next six to seven months or so. So we are just stockpiling as much cash as we can to in order to be able to do that, while also still investing, you know, I probably want to automate my Roth IRA contributions. I don't invest to a self directed IRA only to my Roth. And so I've done that in a lump sum the past two years, but I'm thinking that maybe I should change that to a more of a drip, drip style investment, and automate that.   Tom: Michael, do you use any tools, I mean, besides some of the lovely Roofstock Academy, like fund flow spreadsheet templates to use, like mint, or betterment, or any of those type tools, when you guys do your reconciliation?   Michael: we do it all manually. Part of the reason we opted to do that we thought about using mint, and I'd signed up for men a couple years ago, but I have some trouble linking all of my accounts. And I'm just kind of like a personal technology. pessimists that I'm worried that if my main account ever got hacked, well, everything is tied to that account. Now those all those passwords are one place. So we often use Capital One credit card, so we just go through every single line item that we spent for that week. And we do everything on the credit card.   So we just talked about, okay, what was this? And then we allocate it to add specific category and see, okay, how are we doing? And I like that better just because it really requires us to have touch points with all of our expenses, as opposed to it being automatically done. We're really to see like, okay, you know, that expense, maybe not necessary it next time, or we can have a really open and honest conversation about it as opposed to being tallied and completions like, Oh, you spent 200 bucks in this category. I personally, we personally want to know what each of those expenses were that That made up to 200 bucks.   Tom: I dig it. I dig it, Michael, very dialed.   Michael: Thanks, man I talked about a lot in the coaching sessions to like, a lot of people, when they're looking at their expenses when they're evaluating investment properties, we'll say, Okay, my expenses are 600 bucks, and my mortgage is 1200. So you know, I'm cash flowing, whatever, that $600 figure doesn't tell me anything. It doesn't allow you to do any kind of work on on making improvements, all you know is the result. But if you don't know, like, what's the recipe is like us talking about the sausage, like if all you see is the sausage, well, I don't know how to manipulate the recipe to be more in line with what I want it to be because I don't even know what the ingredients are. So this really allows us to become very pinpointed and precise and surgical about cutting out certain things, because we can see what's eating up the biggest expense. Well, we went to Target it's been $300. Why did we really need to? So it's, it's been really, really, really helpful.   Tom: What's, what's your biggest leak? What's your biggest leaker? If you had to think about the last six months? Like oh, man, I'm leaking money, Where? Where? Where's that hole? And just curious,   Michael: it's, it's such a catch 22 it's like, our grocery bill is through the roof. And it's just the two of us, just my wife and I. And so I'm looking at that number   Tom: Healthy, like fresh foods expensive, man. It's, it's like a, I think, yeah,   Michael: It's such a good point. Like, I remember when we, when we were first dating, we always joked that we used to eat all of our meals out because it was so fun. And that kind of thing. And then when we got married, we started cooking a lot more, which has been just equally as fun. And then the pandemics we've been eating a ton more at home. And it's like, well, yeah, duh, because now we're eating three to four meals a day at home, of course, our grocery bill is going to go up.   And so you know, that's where I say probably our biggest expenses. Other than that is like, just like miscellaneous stuff that you don't think about, you know, 20 bucks here, 20 bucks there. And you realize they add them up, like, Oh, well, we spent $200. On, you know, junk that we didn't really need.   The counterpoint to that I'll say is that I read this book. And they were talking about, you know, really focus your energy and efforts on the on the big stuff. And the big stuff is you're typically going to be for most people, your housing costs, and your transportation costs. Next, I think is like eating out or food, I think, for most people, so if it's not like one of those three, like, who cares. And I'm so fortunate that I'm at a point in my life, where we can spend $200 a month on stupid stuff, things that kind of make us happy in the moment. And so cutting out those $200 isn't going to radically change our lifestyle, again, I'm so fortunate to be able to be in a position to say that, and that's not the case for everybody. So that's probably our biggest leak, but also during the day, like, it's just not that big a deal. Thankfully.   Emil: I used to, I got in this mode for a very long time where I'm like, so serious about investing and like cutting our expenses and everything that like, every expense just became a Oh, I could have invested that and earn X percent on my money. And you just start to think like, Okay, if I saved $100 this month, you do that over the year, it's 1200 bucks. That's not nothing, but it's not. It's not a big life changing win you know what I mean? And it's like,   Michael: But over 50 years is 7%. That's $2 million.   Emil: Exactly. But like, come on, come on, like, at what price being? Yeah, you're being a robot. And just like, I don't know, I think there's a certain point where it just gets it gets a little crazy.   Tom: Yeah, I think every year, you got to give yourself a little more grace. It's like, you know, I'm not I'm not 20 years old right now. There, it's reasonable to have some like, pleasantries. I mean, I think it's still good to be, you know, discipline, actually, my biggest piece of advice would be, you know, if you're going to get something, like get something nicer, if that makes sense. Like,   Michael: It'll last long.   Tom: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, and my wife had this good point, you know, where she used to buy all these, like, less expensive shoes. And then she got a one pair of nice shoes. And it's like, the old shoes would like kind of cycle through cuz they'd fall apart and they'd be good. But when she got, you know, spent a little bit more got, like a nice pair of shoes. Like it was like really exciting to put them on and, you know, they just last better quality, all that good stuff. So if you're going to go, go, go big. Go big, big.   Michael: Yeah. And, and the other thing is like, a meal cuz I'm right there with you, man. I am like an investor through and through and thinking about all those expenses, is it It hurts, but also how much time energy and effort and attention Are you giving to those little things, when you could be you know, spending that time energy effort focus on something else, and you can make 400 bucks. And so that's you have negative, you know, doesn't doesn't really mean anything. Personal Finance is personal, right? So you make a decision that maybe is the right one for you, or for Tom or, you know, for anybody out there listening. So don't feel like you have to do or not do any of the things that we're talking about or use any of these strategies. Totally. You just gotta figure what works for you.   Emil: I was gonna say I'm a big fan of roommates at I will teach you to be rich, and he's really harped on there's only so much you can save which is so true. But your earning potential, starting a business, getting a side hustle, whatever, earning more at your job, like Those things truly have no limit. And so just like you said, What if you put more of your energy into those things and growing your income potential versus just focused on a bunch of smaller expenses.   Tom: I love that I just that, you know, I love the phrase Pennywise pound foolish, I think a lot of people can kind of get mixed up with that that's such a good point about looking at Excel, there's expensives, and there's revenue, right? It's focusing on the revenue side, way more upside to it,   Emil: I'm gonna try to get as granular as I can with mine without getting like, into the specific numbers. Also, I had a recent life change where I've become self employed, but I'm going to talk about and like, I'm restarting, like, how I do everything, as I'm like, figuring out my business, how much money is coming in those sorts of things.   I'm gonna, I'm gonna rewind time three months to being w two full time employment, how did we kind of manage our money. So my wife's a part time nurse, she has a 403 B, and her company does like a match, right? And so she, she maximizes that I did a small amount of 401k, there was no match. So I didn't really maximize it. So most of it was just like, taking income.   Money comes in my wife and I had a pretty solid idea of like, our monthly expenses, like how you know, our mortgage, and then credit cards within like, $500 plus or minus a month, kind of like, you know, you were mentioning, Michael, there's just always that little bit of just buying random stuff. So we knew each month, like what is our just baseline cost of living, and so that anything above that as we earn more and more, would just go into these separate savings accounts we have.   So we had an account specifically for investing. And so this is all through Capital One, right? Money comes into my chase checking account. And then I have automatic deductions, every time money came in, we just we did it twice a month, we did it middle of the month, end of the month, just doing these automatic deductions into savings accounts. So one was an investing account. One is a travel fund. My wife and I like to travel. So we like to set aside some money versus like, just to have and be like, this is our travel fund, whatever we want to do and do fun stuff with it, we have money set aside. So it's not like you know, you just have one big pool of money, and how much do you want to pull from it, it's like, dedicated to this thing that we really enjoy doing.   And then it's basically just an emergency fund that we're trying to build up. I'm really glad we did that. Because about a year ago, we had to replace our h back and that was like 6000 bucks. So just pull it straight from the emergency fund didn't have to like stress or sweat about it's like that's what we have this fun for. So a little bit into that each month as well until it gets to a certain level.   And so with those, it was like as we earn more money, it's just like, let's, what are the things we care about, most of it would go into investing, right like, like the travel Fund, the emergency fund, I knew how much we wanted to put into those each month. So it wasn't like I felt like we needed to go faster there. So more money came in, it would just go to investing.   The last thing I also did so even while I was working full time, I did some consulting on the side. And so that's self employment income. And so when that income came in, half of it would go to investing the other half, I would put in a separate, like taxes savings account so that when tax time came, I didn't get hit with like some massive Bill and I wasn't prepared for it. I like to set aside that money rather than going and scrambling to find it later.   The only other thing Oh, so Okay, with the rental properties, all of our cash flow each month goes into a checking account dedicated to our real estate, we don't touch a penny of that there's a certain reserve level I like to keep at the amount of properties we have right now, which is about 10-12k is what we're I'm comfortable kind of just having a reserve account given we have like six units. So anything above that I see is just kind of like going into the investing account as well. I won't always move it unless it gets to like 20k Plus, will I move it straight into that investing savings account I mentioned but yeah, a lot of it.   So this is what I was alluding to earlier Tom, I like that you've gotten aggressive my my hesitation has always just been like, I like to keep it in cash just because if it's short term, I'm always concerned like what if there's a small market correction in the short term and then you know, what if I'm playing against myself and you know, or we just lose some money and that always kind of scares me and so I keep it in cash.   Tom: I'd say like if you're planning to retire like kind of soon Yeah, that makes sense to keep it in cash but like I think you're gonna have a motor on like wanting like really enjoying work and being good and good at it and like planning to do it for a while. So I think that you know, riding out the bumps. And again, like this is this is not investing or whatever tax advice but but I think you could be more aggressive about just kind of putting it in with the market and like, not some like aggressive strategy where like you're picking specific stocks and, you know, day trading, but just in some safe, safes the wrong word just in some big ETF that, you know, has low fees associated with it. And I could, you know, we could talk about some of those after that are pretty tried and true.   But I think for your reserves account, like, man, I think you can cut that number into a third, because it's not like it's going to like zero out to nothing. And over time, like, I think you're going to ride through all those waves, like even some of these, like massive market corrections that we've had in recent history, like they've rebounded back to higher where they've been before. Now, that's kind of with the cost of debt, like so cheap, like that makes a big impact on the stock market, like helping it out as well. And it seems unrealistically they that that is going to be changed in the near future as they're kind of building back our economy.   So I mean, I feel comfortable. And even if there is some like adjustment, like it's been, you know, fairly unless there's like a total chaotic Cataclysm that is that, like, the economy, like completely, completely fails, like, I would bet against that. And then also, I have my Bitcoin to hedge against that. So if that does happen, the digital currency, but I think you're being too aggressive in your cash position. And this this light bulb clicked for me recently.   Emil: Too conservative.   Tom: Yeah, too conservative to your cash position, yeah. I think you can cut it down to tears. But anyways,   Michael: I think to just to kind of piggyback off Tom's point, and coming from a perspective of someone who's trying to be cash heavy as well. We had our a good buddy of mine on the podcast, Zach Breverman, who's a certified financial planner, and he was talking about, you know, what is the timeline in which you'll need those dollars? If it truly is short term in the investing term, or short term is, you know, in a couple of years, yeah, maybe you do want to keep that in cash, if you see if you have a plan for those dollars, but if you know, it's two years plus maybe, is probably where I'd feel comfortable. Yeah, I think Tom is on the money, you throw it into the stock market and ride ride the ups and the downs.   So I guess, you know, what, when you say the investing account, what is what does that mean? Is that for stock investing? Is that exclusively for real estate investing?   Emil: Yeah, it's pure? Well, it was purely for real estate. Now. Now, I'm starting to look at it as other investments as well, not. Not in equities or the market, but like, business investments, like, Can I, you know, what I do I help websites generate traffic, like, Can I buy a website or build a website that generates traffic, and then I can monetize it?   So like, something that you know, I do for a living for companies? What if I just started doing that for myself and growing my own businesses? So that's kind of how my mind has shifted on this investing? Can I use a purely be real estate? But now I'm like, Well, what about starting a business? And like investing money there? Again, you know, like businesses, everyone who's read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, businesses are like amazing cash generators, if you do them right. So yeah, that's kind of what I'm looking at the investing account for as well now.   Michael: So. So you know, how fast or how much you're able to grow that account based on your cash injections on a monthly basis, annual basis, right? Because it's the same amount every single month, roughly.   Emil: It was, like I was mentioning, now that I'm self employed, I've like stopped all the automatic saving stuff, like just trying to make sure money's coming in consistently. Businesses, it's a little bit like, so I have my LLC, and it set up as an S Corp. And so I'm an employee of the business, the way it works is like, I'm going to be paid as an employee of the business. And then the rest of the money that stays in the business is taxed differently. So it's like, I'm gonna take less of a salary than I would but then I get to like use the money that's leftover in the business is like a deduction or dividend or something like that. But so this first year, as I kind of figure that out, and see how it plays out, you know, like, what is the percentage? I'm kind of just leaving it in the business for now, instead of doing automatic stuff, as I figure everything out.   Michael: Okay, well, then I don't have anything to say to you. What I was, what I was gonna say is like, you know, at what rate you're funding it, and you know, probably where you want that balance to be, so that you can kind of reverse engineer work backwards into, Yeah, I'll be there in two years, or I'll be there in six months, or I'll be there in five years, and that'll help you determine, okay, do I keep this in cash, or do I invest it in Tom's Bitcoin?   Emil: Right. Tom coin.   Michael: Tom coin.   Emil: Yeah, I used to I would invest in that coin.   Tom: Schneid coin.   Emil: Well, what is it, Bitcloud where you can basically invest in people? And like both brands very interesting idea. I used to be like, okay, I knew exactly how much was going in our investing account every single month. So you can extrapolate it to a year and then say, Okay, how many years until I have the funds? I need to go by my next plan investment?   Um, follow up question, what percentage of your income every month right post x, would you say is going towards investing? What is that goal you guys are currently hitting or trying to get to or whatever?   Tom: So with, you know, your roughly 10% to 12% of dayjob going into going into 401k 401k. Right away. And I'll probably put another 15% or so, going into this index fund, that is going to be, you know, use later for either buying websites with Emil to make money with that, or to buying real estate, it's basically just kind of the general purgatory for alternative investments. And then like a half of a percent for my little digital currency investments, or a quarter of a percent, a very small amount, but enough that I can feel okay. So that's roughly 25. Go ahead, Michael.   Michael: So I probably got 21st cent going into the equities market. And then we try to save 30 to 40% in cash savings, and then the rest is his spend. So I don't know if that answers your question specifically, but like, we have money going into that brokerage account, I mean, I also have cash flow coming in from the real estate side of things, which stays on the real estate side of things, because everything's owned and LLCs. So that's, I kind of treat that similarly to Tom, where I have everything going into the respective accounts. And that kind of gets left alone. Now, granted, I'm in the middle of some redevelopment projects and some rehab. So a lot of that cash flow is being spent. So it's not really accumulating by any measure of the word, and I'm actually having to dump more money in a construction loan.   So it's tougher to quantify because there's a lot of ins and outs. So that's a bit tougher to quantify. But I'm hopeful that once that's done, those holes will be plugged so to speak. And then we'll be filling those buckets up with water. So there'll be additional cash flow that I will be using, from the rental properties to then purchase additional rental properties, and so on on a percentage income basis, that will likely go up. Because there's there's less money going out the door.   Tom: Are you feeding more money into the real estate?   Michael: Yeah, so I was for a while I was self I was funding a bunch of rehabs like with personal funds, because I took on some some massive projects. And then so I have money that's dedicated for my my massive, massive redevelopment project via a construction loan that did need some personal funds injected to especially when I was dealing with the insurance claims there was zero money coming in a lot of money being expended because of the construction. But the construction getting totally set thrown off course, because of the the fires. So the bank wasn't getting the money to then pay the folks that were doing the work. So that was a real stress inducer for a while. But now things have kind of gotten back on track, there's insurance money, there's some Yeah, just basically have more money back on track to pay for those things.   So now, it's at a point where I'm not funding my real estate, from my personal funds. We're just saving those exclusively for cash for the personal primary residence purchase. And then savings and personal investments.   Emil: Very nice. So about my math is right, like 40 50% or maybe even 50% less going towards investing and cash for investing. You could say?   Michael: Yeah, 60% or so is either going direct towards personal investments or cash savings.   Emil: Dang, goals right there.   Michael: Yeah, it's taken a long time to get to that point.   Emil: I'm looking at mine, mine is ours was about so if you're including, like, my wife putting in her 403 B, probably somewhere in the 40 to 45% range in terms of actual investing or going cash, going into a savings account that then gets used to buy different investments.   Michael: Nice, man, that's awesome.   Emil: Yeah, I was actually surprised when I did them. I did the math on this a couple months ago and I'm pulling up my spreadsheet just to see like where we're at. Oh, yeah. happy with that. Definitely happy with that.   And then like you mentioned real estate that doesn't like real estate just comes into its own account. I'm not even including that But like any cash flow gets reinvested there. So that probably adds to that number a little bit as well.   Emil: Alright guys, that was fun. Glad we did that. peeling back the onion. Seeing how we are spend our money save it. Tom I'm glad you challenged me I think I learned that I need to go put some reserve money in the market because that just sits there and does nothing and if I really needed I can go pull it out and you know, whatever fix some stuff but at least he gets the ride the market hopefully over a long period of time. Alright, everybody thanks for joining us for another episode. Hope you guys got a lot of value out of it. I learned some stuff. Michael learned some stuff. Tom, you learned some stuff?   Tom: Oh yeah, definitely.   Emil: Alright everybody. We will catch you on next week's episode. Happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.   Michael: Happy investing.