rpf-end-of-year-1
00:00:00.000 | Hey, radicals, welcome to the podcast today.
00:00:05.000 | Today's episode will be very short.
00:00:06.640 | This is essentially an audio Christmas card from me to you.
00:00:09.800 | Just wanted to simply say thank you for being here.
00:00:13.120 | Thank you for listening to the show.
00:00:14.720 | I am in the process of shutting things down for the year.
00:00:17.400 | As I record this, it is Friday afternoon, December 18 at 1 o'clock PM, and I'm shutting
00:00:24.360 | down the computer and I'm going to go and spend some time helping my wife clean up the
00:00:27.240 | house.
00:00:28.240 | I'm going to come over tonight, going to hang out and sing some songs, play some music together.
00:00:31.440 | So I'm looking forward to that.
00:00:32.440 | So I'm going to go help my wife clean the bathrooms.
00:00:34.760 | The very glamorous life of a podcaster, right?
00:00:39.000 | But as we close the show today, I had intended to do a kind of state of the show for you
00:00:44.160 | and tell you about the changes that are coming next year.
00:00:46.680 | I'm not quite ready to do that today.
00:00:49.680 | So you can expect that early next year.
00:00:52.240 | But I just wanted to record a thank you message from me to you.
00:00:56.080 | The last year of my life has been a truly amazing year.
00:01:00.160 | I love to sit down and think about the year in retrospect.
00:01:04.760 | My life is in some ways very orderly in this sense.
00:01:07.720 | My birthday is in June and New Year's is in January.
00:01:10.700 | So every six months I have a beautiful opportunity to assess my progress, assess how things are
00:01:16.360 | going and see what things need corrections.
00:01:19.400 | And considering the calendar year of 2015, it's really been an incredible year.
00:01:23.760 | We sold a house, continued growing a business.
00:01:27.560 | The business has started to really gain traction and some attention.
00:01:31.880 | Just last night I got a link from a reader letting me know that Radical Personal Finance
00:01:36.620 | had been mentioned on Lifehacker, which was cool.
00:01:39.680 | That's a good week for publicity of the show, a New York Times article and Lifehacker.
00:01:44.600 | So that was exciting.
00:01:45.600 | The show was starting to gain traction.
00:01:46.600 | It's been a great year, over one and a quarter million downloads of the show over the however
00:01:52.440 | many episodes we did.
00:01:53.960 | It's been a great year personally for us.
00:01:55.520 | We had another baby, which was awesome.
00:01:58.280 | Also it was a very challenging year because she was sick, sick, sick for the first three
00:02:01.800 | months and that combined with selling my house at the same time and all of those things made
00:02:08.800 | for a very challenging three months.
00:02:10.400 | I appreciate all of you who've stuck with me.
00:02:12.800 | The fourth quarter of 2015 was my least productive quarter in terms of show content and it was
00:02:21.760 | primarily due to taking care of my daughter.
00:02:23.480 | I'll share more about that in the future.
00:02:25.920 | But it was a challenging time.
00:02:28.040 | But she's doing great now.
00:02:29.040 | She's been doing very well for the last month.
00:02:31.140 | So things are really looking up around the Sheets household and I tell you, just being
00:02:34.360 | free of the house in the last couple of weeks has made a world of difference, like a giant
00:02:38.200 | weight lifted off my shoulders and allows me to plan and execute without having to deal
00:02:44.300 | with that component.
00:02:45.300 | So 2016 is going to be a very exciting year.
00:02:48.000 | I've got big plans, big dreams, big plans, all kinds of ideas.
00:02:52.760 | I've got to keep discipline to actually execute on the ideas.
00:02:56.960 | I'm very good at coming up with ideas.
00:03:00.040 | But like many people, executing on all my ideas is much more challenging and ideas are
00:03:04.320 | a dime a dozen and execution is incredibly valuable.
00:03:08.600 | But by making some exciting changes in my personal life, exciting changes in the business
00:03:12.080 | life as far as streamlining some of the – getting rid of some of the bottlenecks that have really
00:03:16.360 | affected the show.
00:03:17.880 | So I'll share those with you in the new year.
00:03:20.160 | We're going to be doing new formats, new types of shows, lots of plans.
00:03:25.560 | So that will be coming next year.
00:03:27.780 | For now, I just want to simply say thank you.
00:03:30.280 | Thank you to each and every one of you who listens to the show.
00:03:33.400 | I can't tell you how much it means to me.
00:03:36.640 | Your time is valuable and I recognize that.
00:03:41.680 | And frankly, I walk away from every show and I think, "Man, was that worth it?
00:03:47.120 | Was that good?
00:03:48.120 | Did it make sense?"
00:03:49.920 | And thank you for those of you who email me with your little notes of encouragement and
00:03:53.360 | tell me the things that were helpful.
00:03:56.520 | And I just want to do a good job for you.
00:04:00.120 | I want to share with you ideas and content that is going to make an impact in your life.
00:04:07.360 | So thank you for listening.
00:04:09.240 | Thank you for your dedicating your time to me and to the ideas that I have to share with
00:04:15.440 | you.
00:04:16.440 | I hope they have been impactful.
00:04:17.440 | I hope this last year for you has been a year of growth.
00:04:20.080 | I hope you're making measurable progress or how did Jim Rohn used to say it, "Meaningful
00:04:26.600 | progress and measurable time or in reasonable time."
00:04:29.640 | I hope that you're experiencing growth in every aspect of your life.
00:04:35.080 | As we go into the end of the year, just a couple tips for you.
00:04:37.880 | If you have some time over the holidays, if you haven't done it yet, spend some time reflecting
00:04:42.440 | on the past year.
00:04:43.640 | Spend some time reflecting on the next year and consider some little changes that might
00:04:50.600 | further help you to move towards your goals.
00:04:53.960 | The most important thing is spend some time thinking about your goals.
00:04:57.280 | If you've not taken the time ever to sit down and write down goals, just do it very simply.
00:05:02.240 | Make a list of 10 goals you'd like to accomplish in the next year.
00:05:05.920 | And then here's the key to actually making things happen.
00:05:10.400 | Start figuring out what types of actions, specific actions and ideas and specific things
00:05:15.760 | you would need to do to make progress toward those goals.
00:05:19.520 | This is a really great time of year to do it because you can map it out.
00:05:23.040 | Now if you're like me and you enjoy the hardcore process of having every little detail written
00:05:28.280 | down on paper, then go for it.
00:05:31.120 | But if you're not a nerd like me, then just do it big picture and think about some goals,
00:05:38.000 | write them down and put them on a paper and just look at them from time to time.
00:05:41.720 | If you want to take it up a notch, think about the projects, try to break them down into
00:05:46.400 | quarterly projects for example.
00:05:48.480 | If you have a goal of accomplishing something, break it down into the steps that you can
00:05:52.080 | accomplish in a quarter, break it down into a month if you can and then those things,
00:05:56.480 | make sure they're on your to-do list for each day when you get started working.
00:05:59.360 | But this really is a great time.
00:06:00.800 | I get sick and tired of the jokes that people make about New Year's resolutions not working
00:06:04.740 | and you're going to see a flood of those articles.
00:06:08.640 | Making resolutions on things that you don't actually intend to follow through on, yeah,
00:06:11.800 | it doesn't work.
00:06:12.920 | But setting goals and creating a plan and then working on that plan until they happen,
00:06:16.920 | that does work.
00:06:17.920 | And this is a great time of year to do it.
00:06:19.280 | Specifically financially, here are just a couple of quick tips for you.
00:06:23.000 | Financially take a look through your budget.
00:06:25.120 | Review your transactions for the past year.
00:06:26.800 | You need to do that for taxes anyway.
00:06:28.680 | If you haven't done some end of the year looking to see if any final tax transactions that
00:06:34.360 | you can make, make sure that you do that before the end of the calendar year.
00:06:38.600 | Or even if you're not worrying with end of the year tax planning, just sit down and take
00:06:42.240 | a look and see.
00:06:44.400 | Try to review your budget.
00:06:45.400 | If you don't have detailed records, don't worry.
00:06:47.520 | Try to look at your credit card statements.
00:06:49.200 | Many of the credit card companies will itemize your credit card expenditures for you in some
00:06:54.000 | kind of way that you can see them in the aggregate.
00:06:56.640 | If nothing else, sign up an account with personal capital or Mint.
00:07:01.640 | Use my affiliate link for personal capital at radicalpersonalfinance.com/personalcapital.
00:07:08.240 | Both of those are totally free.
00:07:09.920 | But set up an account.
00:07:10.920 | Enter your accounts and what they will do is they'll auto populate the transactions
00:07:15.520 | back a certain amount of time.
00:07:16.840 | Just take a look.
00:07:18.320 | Try to get a grasp on what you're spending and see if you're happy with it.
00:07:22.460 | One thing that you can do is pick one category that you want to work on in the next year
00:07:26.560 | and try to see if you can trim some expenses.
00:07:29.300 | Think through what's the best place for you to focus on first.
00:07:32.860 | Is your income low?
00:07:34.760 | I was just this morning working on my budgeting for 2016 and the major goal for me, the major
00:07:40.540 | hiccup in my financial plan is not my expenses.
00:07:43.040 | My expenses are very tight and very low.
00:07:45.540 | The major hiccup for me now in achieving my financial goals going forward is my income.
00:07:52.240 | For me, 2016 is not about how can I cut expenses.
00:07:55.540 | I did that this year with getting rid of the house and that brought a lot more certainty.
00:07:59.920 | Now it'll be time for me to be launching projects and products and things that I can
00:08:03.560 | sell to you so that I can increase my income and finishing through on some of the projects
00:08:07.900 | that I've already got started.
00:08:09.460 | So that just simply comes from me sitting down and taking a look at my finances and
00:08:14.160 | saying what's really the key.
00:08:16.800 | So remember the Radical Personal Finance five-part framework.
00:08:21.100 | These are the only things that you can do to massively affect your results.
00:08:25.780 | Number one is increase income.
00:08:28.320 | Number two is decrease expenses.
00:08:31.140 | Number three, invest wisely.
00:08:33.900 | Number four, avoid catastrophe.
00:08:37.020 | And number five, optimize lifestyle.
00:08:40.760 | So consider those five things and even now if you're driving in the car listening to
00:08:44.700 | me, I'll be done in just a couple minutes.
00:08:47.220 | Flip it off and just have some time in silence and think through that.
00:08:49.980 | You should be able to remember those five things.
00:08:52.520 | Increase income, decrease expenses, invest wisely, avoid catastrophe and optimize lifestyle
00:08:59.620 | and think them through.
00:09:01.300 | If your income is anemic, if it's just not getting it, then focus there.
00:09:06.220 | That's usually an area where you can make some wins.
00:09:10.600 | If your income is just not all that great, think about how you can increase it.
00:09:14.580 | Is this the year that you want to switch to a new job?
00:09:16.800 | Is this the year that you want to start a side business?
00:09:19.940 | Is this the year that you want to pick up an extra job just to be able to break free
00:09:24.060 | a little bit?
00:09:26.940 | Come up with some ideas and just see if you want to follow through on any of them.
00:09:30.860 | Number two is decrease expenses.
00:09:32.300 | So do you earn well but you don't have a great handle on the expenses?
00:09:35.980 | Well in that case, start building a system.
00:09:39.060 | Build a system of some kind for yourself.
00:09:41.980 | Start tracking your money.
00:09:43.200 | Just go back and listen to the budgeting show.
00:09:44.420 | I won't repeat it here.
00:09:46.500 | Number three, invest wisely.
00:09:47.500 | Let's say that you're in a situation where you have a good income and you have low expenses
00:09:54.500 | and you have a good rate of savings.
00:09:56.100 | Well now the key is going to be for you to focus on your investments.
00:10:00.060 | It's silly to focus on investments and what rate of return you can get on your 401(k)
00:10:03.980 | when you're making $35,000 a year and spending $34,500.
00:10:08.100 | It doesn't make any difference what rate of return you earn on your 401(k).
00:10:11.220 | Your big wins are not in investments.
00:10:13.060 | But if you're doing well with income and your expenses are substantially below your
00:10:17.180 | income, now is the time to look at investments and ask yourself, "Is my investment plan
00:10:20.980 | appropriate for me and my lifestyle?"
00:10:22.860 | I've shared with you in the past on past shows, this is where I've made dramatic
00:10:26.780 | changes and even here at the end of the year I'm making more changes in my own personal
00:10:31.060 | finances to align my investments and investment accounts with my changing investment philosophy.
00:10:42.360 | So do you need to do something similar?
00:10:46.500 | Number four is avoid catastrophe.
00:10:48.300 | Think through your risk management plans.
00:10:50.420 | What are the risks that you're likely to face in the coming year?
00:10:54.740 | Do you have people that are depending on your income?
00:10:56.860 | Well in that case, make sure that you're properly insured.
00:11:01.500 | Do you need to get some life insurance?
00:11:03.860 | Probably the majority of you do.
00:11:05.580 | If so, make that a goal.
00:11:07.380 | Get some life insurance and make some calls and here's a great way to kickstart your goals.
00:11:12.020 | Make a couple calls to some insurance offices or insurance agents now and set up an appointment
00:11:18.560 | for January.
00:11:20.200 | Insurance agents, inside knowledge here on the business, the big push for insurance agents
00:11:24.700 | is always end of the year because what happens is at the end of the year, that's when insurance
00:11:30.520 | agencies close their books and so your rankings in the office for your production numbers
00:11:34.580 | are always going to come end of the year.
00:11:38.100 | Unfortunately, insurance agents can't give you a discount.
00:11:42.260 | It's illegal to rebate commissions and things like that.
00:11:45.980 | So they can't give you discounts on stuff at the end of the year.
00:11:48.420 | But insurance agents hustle, hustle, hustle through the end of the year so that they can
00:11:52.460 | get good business on the books.
00:11:54.540 | And then January's are usually very slow.
00:11:56.440 | So if you know somebody who's in the life insurance business or maybe you need to review
00:12:00.220 | your property and casualty business, something like that, make a call and set up an appointment
00:12:04.140 | for January.
00:12:05.140 | They're very happy to hear from you and you'll get lots of time and lots of attention.
00:12:09.220 | So think through your risk management planning.
00:12:10.500 | Do you need to check out your homeowner's insurances?
00:12:12.780 | Do you need to focus on some emergency funds?
00:12:15.660 | Do you need to review your investment allocation?
00:12:20.020 | So it's my opinion that this next calendar year could be challenging for many of you.
00:12:27.060 | So do you need to review your investment allocation in the next year?
00:12:31.100 | Finally optimize lifestyle.
00:12:32.140 | This is the blanket statement that goes across everything where you need to consider every
00:12:37.100 | aspect of your life and say, "Is this optimal?"
00:12:40.240 | And here's the example I always use.
00:12:41.400 | You can earn $50,000 at a job you hate and you can earn $50,000 at a job you love.
00:12:48.680 | The net impact on your financial plan from a $50,000 income is identical.
00:12:55.000 | But the quality of life, working at a job that is well suited to you versus a job that
00:13:00.700 | is poorly suited to you is dramatically different.
00:13:05.200 | So do you need to optimize your income in some way?
00:13:08.560 | Some of you probably need to leave your for-profit job and go work for a not-for-profit.
00:13:13.180 | Some of you probably need to leave your not-for-profit job and go work for a for-profit job.
00:13:19.040 | Optimize your income.
00:13:20.800 | Optimize your expenses.
00:13:22.140 | Frankly, you can spend $1,000 a month on rent in Chicago and you can spend $1,000 a month
00:13:27.200 | on rent in Aruba.
00:13:29.580 | Guess what?
00:13:30.580 | The net impact on your financial plan is identical.
00:13:33.560 | But you know, the lifestyle is very different.
00:13:37.160 | Some of you need to leave Aruba and move to Chicago.
00:13:39.740 | Some of you need to leave Chicago and move to Aruba.
00:13:41.820 | That's not my business to tell you what to do.
00:13:43.700 | I just simply point out to you that even when the net effect on your financial plan is identical,
00:13:51.100 | it's not actually identical in terms of quality of life.
00:13:54.780 | Third, optimize your investments.
00:13:58.140 | Here's the deal.
00:13:59.220 | You can get rich putting money into publicly traded stocks inside of your company 401(k)
00:14:05.280 | and you can also get rich starting a horse farm and training and breeding championship
00:14:10.140 | horses.
00:14:11.140 | Now, is that risky?
00:14:12.140 | Yeah.
00:14:13.140 | In fact, the IRS has a special classification for horse farms indicating how risky they
00:14:19.540 | are.
00:14:20.540 | My point is, you expand the vision of your investments and invest in a way that's optimal
00:14:26.740 | for you and for your lifestyle.
00:14:29.620 | Some of you are really well suited to working a job for a large corporation, investing money
00:14:35.380 | through your 401(k) and mutual funds and going home and forgetting about them at night.
00:14:40.580 | And some of you would be much more suited by taking money out of your 401(k), signing
00:14:45.700 | a lease on a corner store there on Main Street in your town and starting that little business
00:14:51.080 | that you're convinced is going to really succeed.
00:14:54.800 | Some of you are well suited by taking some money from your mutual, your stock account,
00:14:59.980 | your mutual fund account and going and buying a camera and starting to take pictures of
00:15:03.260 | your friends and building a skill as a photographer or doing videos or expressing some artistic
00:15:08.980 | interest.
00:15:11.260 | Only you are going to know that.
00:15:13.060 | But I'm convinced that if you consider that framework then as an outline for this next
00:15:19.020 | year then you can coach yourself to make regular meaningful progress and towards your goals.
00:15:25.220 | I just gave you my best stuff.
00:15:28.260 | That's what I got.
00:15:29.260 | If you'd like a more detailed version that framework for wealth, that is the outline
00:15:34.200 | of the book, that is the core organizational format of what I'm writing, that's my deal.
00:15:42.380 | And I'm convinced it's a great solution for you, a great way of thinking.
00:15:48.040 | If you'd like more details on that, the video that's a bonus video for patrons of the show
00:15:52.960 | has more details and then we'll be doing lots more in this next year.
00:15:55.960 | And then as soon as I can I'll get the book written and finished so that you all can read
00:16:01.400 | it.
00:16:04.280 | So special thank you as I close here, special thank you to each of you.
00:16:08.960 | Big thank you to each of you who listens.
00:16:10.680 | Special thank you to those of you who support the show on Patreon.
00:16:14.720 | Special thank you to those of you who patronize the sponsors of the show.
00:16:17.760 | Big thanks to the sponsors.
00:16:19.280 | I'm excited for this coming year.
00:16:22.400 | If you'd like to connect with me through the holidays, this will be the last episode of
00:16:24.800 | 2015.
00:16:25.800 | If you'd like to connect with me through the holidays, connect with me on the social media
00:16:29.320 | stuff.
00:16:30.320 | You can find me at facebook.com/joshuasheets, twitter.com/joshuasheets and instagram.com/joshuasheets.
00:16:37.180 | So those are all great places to connect with me.
00:16:38.920 | I'm going to be spending some time with my family.
00:16:41.040 | We're going camping for a week here over Christmas and New Year's and we'll be back at it in
00:16:46.080 | January, first week of January.
00:16:47.920 | So Merry Christmas.
00:16:49.280 | I hope that 2015 was a tremendous year for you and may 2016 be a year of incredible growth.
00:16:59.720 | May it be a year that you look back on for the rest of your life with fond memories and
00:17:06.560 | just a clear understanding of how great a year it was.
00:17:11.600 | Life is a gift.
00:17:12.740 | Life is short.
00:17:13.740 | I know people that I know died recently and not people that are close to me but I just
00:17:18.240 | was thinking about that recently.
00:17:19.640 | Life is short.
00:17:20.640 | Take time this holiday season.
00:17:22.520 | Turn off the phone.
00:17:23.520 | Turn off the distractions and spend time with those you care about.
00:17:26.400 | It's a beautiful time of year to do that and I wish you all the best.
00:17:30.560 | Be back with you in 2016.
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