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If you receive value in the content, please consider going to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron and showing your appreciation with a return of value. Today on the show I have a tribute to the life and work of Dr. Tom Stanley, author of The Millionaire Next Door. He died tragically yesterday in a car accident in Atlanta.

And today I wanna honor his legacy with the 10 lessons that I learned from his work and some personal stories of how he encouraged and helped me. (upbeat music) Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host. Today is Monday, March 2nd, 2015.

Today we will be honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Tom Stanley. I can't think of an author or a body of work that has had a greater impact on my life and on my personal financial philosophy than his body of work. And I wanna share with you some of the lessons that I learned from him.

(upbeat music) Last night I was looking on my, I had a notification pop up on my Facebook feed from a listener of the show who shared an article with me. And he said, "I know that you were a fan of, "are a fan of Dr. Tom Stanley. "I thought you would wanna know the news." And evidently he died tragically on Sunday afternoon out driving his car on Sunday afternoon there in Atlanta, Georgia.

And the details of the car accident are not necessarily fully disclosed in some of the news articles. You can find some of the details. Evidently he was out for a Sunday afternoon drive in his new Chevy Corvette and somebody plowed into the side of him. Thankfully it wasn't any kind of accident that makes you, it was certainly tragic, but thankfully it wasn't the kind of accident that makes you upset when people are out doing foolish things in cars, driving at 300 miles an hour or something like that.

Any death is sad and those are especially sad in this situation. It's quite tragic 'cause it seems the other driver was fully at fault and Dr. Stanley was not. But he died yesterday and he was at the age of 71. And it's very sad. It's always hard for me to know how to deal with things when people you don't really know die.

So, but I'll tell you a little bit, some of the personal history. I never met him, but I did have some interaction with him that I'll share with you in today's show. But as I was reflecting on his life and on his work, I was thinking through some of the philosophies that I hold around financial planning and was looking at his books here on my shelf and I got a few of them down and kind of flipped through them to see some of my notes and my highlights and my learnings over the years.

And I realized that he's probably the author who more than anyone else has had a greater impact on my life and on my thinking. The first book of his that I ever read, I'm sure was "The Millionaire Next Door." And I have no idea how it was recommended to me.

But when I was very young, I must have been in high school still, I read "The Millionaire Next Door" and then I reread it. And I've reread it multiple times over the decades. In fact, I had the audio book, it was the abridged audio book, but I used to listen to the abridged audio book from time to time.

It was one of the audio books that was in my car and every now and then I would just listen to it. That and let's see, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was another audio book that I referred to again and again and again. I commend both of them to you.

Just excellent, excellent works. I've owned six of his books and read six of his books. He has either two or three that I haven't read yet. But it started with "The Millionaire Next Door," which was his first and most famous work. Also, I read that, and that was essentially a book profiling who are the wealthy in the United States of America.

And I'm gonna share that with you in today's show. Also, I read a book called "The Millionaire Mind," and that was a book where he profiled Deca millionaires and up, and that was an excellent book. I learned a lot from that. Then I read his three books called, which are very, not very well known, but extremely useful.

I'm always surprised that people don't know about them. But a book called "Selling to the Affluent," another one called "Marketing to the Affluent," and a third called "Networking with the Affluent." And then finally I read his book, which was published a few years ago, called "Stop Acting Rich." And he's got at least another book or two.

One is called "The Millionaire Women Next Door." I have not read that. It's been on my list for a long time, and I will certainly now read it just to see. But I can't remember if he has another book or two as well. But his works have had a big influence on me.

And even just he himself influenced one significant decision in my life. And I'll just share that with you. And it's good to honor people. I like to honor people. And I tried to honor him while he was alive. In fact, I had reached out to him on the show a couple-- once, twice, actually, twice, inviting him on the show for an interview.

And his staff declined me. And it was perfectly understandable. There's no-- it was not-- it was a very polite decline. But I'd always hoped that at some point radical personal finance would grow and would be a valuable outlet for him and that I would be able to bring him on.

And I'm disappointed that I won't have that opportunity now. But I went back and checked my email. And that's one of the good things about the Gmail system, where all of your emails are archived and they're relatively easy to search. And I found some of the interaction that I had with him.

And in 2009, July of 2009-- so I went into the financial planning business in the fall of 2008. The exact start date is a little bit fuzzy, depending on September, October, November, depending on where I say it. So it's basically the fall of 2008. And I was working hard to try to figure out the financial planning business.

It's a tough business to get in. And I was new to it. I didn't have any experience. I was trying to figure out, where do I go? And what do I do? And I started looking around. And at some point in time, I started working on Dr. Stanley's blog and trying to understand it.

And I wrote him a note. And I can't find the actual note that I wrote him. But he responded to my correspondence. And the question that I had asked him-- I think I'd asked him for some resources or some specific resources that he might have written that would help financial advisors.

And he wrote me this email back. It's very short. It was July 19, 2009. He said, Joshua, can't thank you enough for your kind comments on my blog. Words like yours sustain me. Two of the best-rated speeches that I've ever given were to the top of the table and later at the court of the table, as you know, part of the Million Dollar Roundtable Association.

Both of those speeches were recorded audio and, as I understand, were distributed by the Million Dollar Roundtable. I would also suggest that you read the chapter on Beverly Bishop in my book, Millionaire Women Next Door, and also selling to the affluent should be very valuable to you in your work.

I'll know better about my speaking programs in September. Please continue to check my website for updates. Regards and much continued success, Tom Stanley. And I just thought it was extremely professional and encouraging note. And I went and looked up the speeches that he had done and tried to find the audio from them.

I don't think I was able to get them, or I chose not to buy them. But I went and looked them up, and I thought it was extremely useful. But probably the more impactful correspondence for me occurred in August of 2010. And at that point in time, I had been in the financial planning business for a couple of years.

And I was starting to experience a little bit of success. And I spent the first two years in the business-- I started with nothing, and I didn't know very much. I didn't have much money. I had a little bit of money, but I had just gotten out of college, and I was driving an inexpensive car.

And I've told the story before, so forgive me if it's repeated. But I spent the first two years as a financial advisor driving a 1993 Honda Accord with 300,000 miles on it. And it was the first car that I had ever personally bought. I'd owned it for many years.

I'd bought it with 193,000 miles on it. I ultimately sold it with 315,000 miles on it. But it was only worth $1,000 or $2,000. And so I remember driving it to all my financial planning appointments. And when you're a new financial advisor, it's really tough to understand what to be proud of or what not to be proud of.

And so certainly, you can imagine if a financial advisor drives up to your house and parks this $1,000 Honda Accord in your driveway, to some people, they look at that and say, this is different. And their curiosity is piqued. And some people look at that and say, this is different.

And they are a little bit-- they might judge you, because appearances matter. And they might judge you in a negative light. And so I'd reached the time in 2010, my car was starting to have some problems. And it had had some minor mechanical failures. And I'd saved some money.

I had, I don't know, $10,000 or $15,000 saved. And I knew I needed to do something. At that point, I was starting to transition my practice from primarily insurance sales into investment planning and investment management. And I was starting to feel pretty insecure about my car. And as much as I would have liked to have been completely secure, I wasn't.

I was starting to be a little bit insecure and just feel like maybe I was-- it was hurtful. It was going to hurt my ability to bring in accounts or something like that. Sometimes, if it was convenient, I would make sure to park around the corner. Usually, I didn't do much with people's houses.

But I would park on the other side of the parking lot or around the corner kind of thing to kind of mitigate that. And that's just not good for your self-confidence. If you have a perceived flaw like that, you either need to come to terms with it or overcome it.

So I was deciding I needed to get a car. And I was shopping around and trying to figure out, how do I get a car for $10,000? And that's a very difficult price range to find a reasonable car. And it's easy to find a new one. But I didn't want to borrow money for a car.

And I needed something that was going to be appropriate for what I wanted to do. And I had no idea what would be appropriate. I actually almost wound up-- I was trying to buy something that would look impressive to people. And I almost-- thankfully, I avoided this mistake by the skin of my teeth.

But I almost wound up buying a few-year-old Mercedes sedan that would have been kind of fancy enough to-- all financial advisors drive BMWs and Mercedes. It's absurd. But it would fit the market, but would allow me to pay cash for it and not spend too much. Thankfully, I avoided that.

But at one point, I thought, you know what? I should just write to Dr. Stanley and ask him what kind of car I should write. So on August-- or actually, I should drive. On August 19, 2010, I wrote him this email. I just said, Mr. Stanley, one very brief question.

What do you think would be the best kind of car for a financial advisor to drive? I don't believe in status cars. But I live and work as a financial advisor in West Palm Beach and the Palm Beach and surrounding area. And here, everyone, even or especially the broke people, have status cars.

What should I do? Joshua. And he wrote me back. And a couple days later, and he said, dear Mr. Sheets, and just gave me this direction here, which was so helpful. And he wrote this. He said, if I were in your position, I would buy a previously owned Chevrolet Tahoe or the GMC version in white, leather interior with tinted windows.

These cars fit in each and every category of the wealthy. They are among the most popular cars within the glittering rich, very affluent segments. Regards, Tom Stanley. And that email right there saved me untold thousands of dollars. Talk about the value of information. Those two sentences saved me thousands of dollars, where instead of-- I had been previously thinking, well, how can I find a reasonable Mercedes or BMW?

And I didn't want to deal with the maintenance costs and just the cost of ownership. And that email right there opened my eyes to the thought of SUVs. And I realized instantly, I knew he was right. Because you drive around Palm Beach Island, and I take people for tours around Palm Beach Island.

Yes, usually there's some fancy Mercedes or BMW or Jaguar or Bentley or whatever, some status cars. But oftentimes, there's one or two just big SUVs parked there. I mean, after all, the president of United States drives around in a weird Cadillac limo. But everyone else around him is driving big Suburbans.

It's a very easy vehicle to use. And I thought, interesting. So I started shopping. I didn't wind up buying a Chevy Suburban or a Tahoe, as he recommended. I wound up buying a Ford Expedition. And it worked perfectly for what I needed. It was that perfect gray man car, that perfect thing where no one would ever look at me and say-- and they would say, oh, he's just driving that car because he has too much money, and he's showing it off.

Because there's a very delicate balance between being too showy and too flashy. What do you think of a financial advisor that drives up in a Ferrari every day? Maybe that works for some. But it reminds me more of the statement of the guy who goes to Manhattan, and someone says, there's all of the broker's yachts.

And he says, we're all the customer's yachts. It's a famous saying. And it's kind of a bit of a strong statement, but probably true in many ways. The financial advisor is the one getting rich, but what about the customers that are getting rich? So I didn't want to be too flashy.

But on the other hand, I didn't want to be driving this broken down $1,000 car. That wasn't appropriate at that stage. It may have been appropriate to get started. And I certainly am glad I didn't just rush out and buy a brand new car just so I can present an appearance of being established in the business.

I don't mind learning the hard way. But I found the Expedition. It was the perfect gray man car. And it didn't cost that much. Those things depreciate like crazy. So I bought it-- I think it was three or four years old when I bought it. And it was less than a third of the retail price when it was new.

So that was a massive-- it was a good buy there. It was heavy on gas, which was the downside. But it was cheap to fix, cheap to operate. It worked, served me well. It was comfortable. I'm a big guy. I'm about 6 foot 6. And I'm over 300 pounds.

So it fit me well. And at a relatively cheap price, relative to buying a $40,000 BMW, it solved that problem I had. And I was so thankful for that. Avoided a very important mistake. I just wanted to share that story, because I really appreciated that at the time. And I, of course, thanked him.

And I would have liked to have had the opportunity to thank him in person. But at least I can thank him here publicly, as he was extremely classy. And Dr. Stanley, from everything I've heard and read about him, he was the kind of person that I'd like to be when I'm older.

I often think of, who do I want to be when I'm-- I don't have that image of me as an old man. And I think, what do I want to be like at that person? What kind of character do I want to have? And again, I know nothing about his personal life.

And I don't need to know anything about. But his reputation, at least, was a real gentleman. And enough of that came through in his writings that I really picked up on that. And I appreciated so many things about his writings. And I'm sure I will do-- he's been on my show topic list for a long time to talk about some of the lessons that I learned from his work.

But today, I just sat down and I penned out 10 lessons that I learned from him that I think are good general lessons that I can share with you, and things that were a real encouragement to me. And who knows? Perhaps at some point, maybe this audio can reach his family after the tears have dried a little bit and the funeral is over and time passes.

Perhaps some of his family members can listen to this and just appreciate the impact that their husband, or father, or grandfather-- I don't know any of the details-- had on many people. But the first lesson that Dr. Stanley taught me was he taught me who the millionaires are. This was an incredibly important lesson.

Because if I asked you, what is the profile of a millionaire? Unless you had studied this topic, you might not give the right answer. The people we think of as being the average millionaire-- and this is why his book was such a probably blockbuster success-- that's not who he said was the average millionaire.

And the most valuable thing about his work was he backed this up with numbers, data, and statistics. That was how he got his start was researching this. He was a college professor. And if I've got the story straight, he was researching it for a large project. He and his co-author of The Millionaire Next Door, Dr.

William Danko, were researching this for a large financial services organization. And that research became the foundation of, ultimately, all of their work in this area. But let me read to you the portrait of a millionaire so that you can have in your mind who the wealthy are, who the millionaires are, at least in the United States of America.

And my bet is that this is similar in most of the countries of the world, of course, with some cultural distinctions depending on the economic system and the history of the culture. So let me share with you the portrait of a millionaire so that you can have a picture of who the millionaires are.

And this comes from page eight of the version that I have of The Millionaire Next Door. Who is the prototypical American millionaire? What would he tell you about himself? I am a 57-year-old male married with three children. About 70% of us earn 80% or more of our household's income.

And incidentally, let me go ahead and read the footnote that's attached to this paragraph. And he says this in the footnote on why he uses the-- refers to the typical American millionaire as a he. He says, "One profile of the typical-- our profile of the typical millionaire is based on studies of millionaire households, not individuals.

It is therefore impossible in most cases to say with certainty whether our typical millionaire is a he or a she. Nevertheless, because 95% of millionaire households are composed of married couples, and because in 70% of these cases, the male head of the household contributes at least 80% of the income, we will usually refer to the typical American millionaire as he in this book." So hopefully that'll help you if you struggle with the word he/she.

So I'm a 57-year-old male married with three children. Notice the age. 57-year-old male. Notice married with children. About 70% of us earn 80% or more of our household's income. About one in five of us is retired. About 2/3 of us who are working are self-employed. Interestingly, self-employed people make up less than 20% of the workers in America, but account for 2/3 of the millionaires.

Also, three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants. Do you notice how-- and I'm interrupting. This is Joshua again, not the book. But do you notice how-- and if you read this, just listen to how many of the themes that I-- I didn't even realize until I went back and listened to this, how many of this data that he presents have influenced the themes that I talk about on the show?

Why do I talk about entrepreneurship? Well, because three out of four of us who are self-- because 2/3 of the millionaires are self-employed. And then most of the others are self-employed professionals. So entrepreneurship is a major factor in wealth building. Continuing here, many of the types of businesses we are in could be classified as dull normal.

We are welding contractors, auctioneers, rice farmers, owners of mobile home parks, pest controllers, coin and stamp dealers, and paving contractors. About half of our wives do not work outside the home. The number one occupation for those wives who do work is teacher. Our household's total annual realized taxable income is $131,000 median, or 50th percentile, while our average income is $247,000.

Note that those of us who have incomes in the $500,000 to $999,999 category, 8%, and the $1 million or more category, 5%, skew the average upward. We have an average household net worth of $3.7 million. Of course, some of our cohorts have accumulated much more. Nearly 6% have a net worth of over $10 million.

Again, these people skew our average upward. The typical median, or 50th percentile, millionaire household has a net worth of $1.6 million. On average, our total annual realized income is less than 7% of our wealth. In other words, we live on less than 7% of our wealth. Most of us, 97%, are homeowners.

We live in homes currently valued at an average of $320,000. About half of us have occupied the same home for more than 20 years. Thus, we have enjoyed significant increases in the value of our homes. Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not receive any inheritance.

About 80% of us are first generation affluent. We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current model year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles. Most of our wives are planners and meticulous budgeters. In fact, only 18% of us disagreed with the statement, charity begins at home.

Most of us will tell you that our wives are a lot more conservative with money than we are. We have a go-to-hell fund. In other words, we have accumulated enough wealth to live without working for 10 or more years. Thus, those of us with a net worth of $1.6 million could live comfortably for more than 12 years.

Actually, we could live longer than that, since we save at least 15% of our earned income. We have more than 6 and 1/2 times the level of wealth of our non-millionaire neighbors. But in our neighborhood, these non-millionaires outnumber us better than 3 to 1. Could it be that they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high status material possessions?

As a group, we are fairly well educated. Only about one in five are not college graduates. Many of us hold advanced degrees. 18% have master's degrees, 8% law degrees, 6% medical degrees, and 6% PhDs. Only 17% of us or our spouses ever attended a private elementary or private high school.

But 55% of our children are currently attending or have attended private schools. As a group, we believe that education is extremely important for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We spend heavily for the educations of our offspring. About 2/3 of us work between 45 and 55 hours per week.

We are fastidious investors. On average, we invest nearly 20% of our household realized income each year. Most of us invest at least 15%. 79% of us have at least one account with a brokerage company, but we make our own investment decisions. We hold nearly 20% of our household's wealth in transaction securities, such as publicly traded stocks and mutual funds, but we rarely sell our equity investments.

We hold even more in our pension plans. On average, 21% of our household's wealth is in our private businesses. As a group, we feel that our daughters are financially handicapped in comparison to our sons. Men seem to make much more money even within the same occupational categories. That is why most of us would not hesitate to share some of our wealth with our daughters.

Our sons and men in general have the deck of economic cards stacked in their favor. They should not need subsidies from their parents. What would be the ideal occupations for our sons and daughters? There are about 3.5 millionaire households like ours. Our numbers are growing much faster than the general population.

Our kids should consider providing affluent people with some valuable service. Overall, our most trusted financial advisors are our accountants. Our attorneys are also very important. So we recommend accounting and law to our children. Tax advisors and estate planning experts will be in big demand over the next 15 years.

I am a tightwad. That's one of the main reasons I completed a long questionnaire for a crispy $1 bill. Why else would I spend two or three hours being personally interviewed by these authors? They paid me $100, $200, or $250. So they made me another offer to donate in my name the money I earned for my interview to my favorite charity.

But I told them, I am my favorite charity. I love that statement. This book, remember-- well, this one is copyrighted in 1996. And this book-- notice the level of data and detail. And this was a huge deal for me, because in having the data-- and this book is very data intensive.

You can actually see, look, the numbers don't lie. No matter what it looks like in pop culture, no matter that it looks like the wealthy are on TV and the way to get rich is to become a movie star, that's simply not the case. It's better to be an auctioneer or a cattle rancher or the owner of a trucking company.

And that's what he goes through and talks about. This was a huge, huge deal for me to understand. He goes on, and right in the beginning, he talks about-- and this is the second lesson. I learned the difference from Dr. Stanley between wealth and income. This is a difference that many people don't seem to conceive of.

If you listen to people, some people how they talk, especially people who don't have a lot of money, one of the things you often hear is them confusing wealth and income. In places that I've been where people are paid primarily hourly wages, I've often heard people talking about the raises that they're going to get, the level of the hourly-- I made $2 more an hour.

I'm going to make this much per hour. In the poorer segments of society-- I don't have data to back this up. It's only my anecdotal experience. But there seems to be a much greater focus on income than on wealth. But if you get those things mixed up, you've got a problem.

And he goes on, and he defines two terms which he refers to frequently in Millionaire Next Door, which he abbreviates UAW and PAW. And the UAW is an under accumulator of wealth versus a PAW, which is a prodigious accumulator of wealth. What you find is that certainly your income drives your wealth, but it's not so much how much income and much more about what do you actually do with the income.

Notice that in the data I just read, the median income, which means the 50th percentile of income, is $131,000. So of the millionaires, that's the most common number, is $131,000. That's not that much money comparatively speaking. Now this data is 15, 20 years old. So there would have to be an adjustment for inflation.

But that's not really that much money in today's world. So the key is to differentiate between wealth and income. Another lesson that he gives elsewhere in the book is he talks a lot about how the wealthy are much more likely to realize a very small percentage of their wealth as income than the other way around.

And that's one of the measurements. You mentioned-- you noticed that in the data I just read, he said 7%, that the average millionaire only realizes 7% of their net wealth per year in income. And that's partly because they're wealthy, but it's also because their income is low, their expenses are low, and they're keeping their taxable realized income low to avoid the tax.

Lesson three I learned is that it's OK to simply be on the way to wealth. And there's a formula that he gave to determine if you're wealthy, to differentiate between the under accumulators of wealth and the prodigious accumulators of wealth. That was his formula that he used. And here's the formula of how to determine if you're wealthy.

Multiply your age times your realized pre-tax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by 10. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be. So as long as we're ignoring inheritances-- and that's basically the rules, let me give this to you in a less wordy manner.

Take your age, multiply it times your income, and divide it by 10. And that should be-- that's what your net worth should be. Now the thing I like about that is that formula accounts for age and it accounts for income. And those are two things that are important to account for.

I had this complex when I was younger that I wasn't rich yet. After all, I was 23 years old and I should be rich by now. The reality is age has a big factor in it. I have had people ask me and say, Joshua, if you're doing this show on how to get wealthy, how on earth are you doing the show?

Do old people want to know how much money you have? If someone asked me, I probably wouldn't tell them. But frankly, I'm much more of the conservative perspective than the look at me or how rich I am. But for my age, I've done well. But I'm not 57 years old, so I'm not a millionaire yet.

It's unreasonable to expect a 27-year-old to be a millionaire. It happens. It's unreasonable to expect. I think it's reasonable to expect someone who's been paying attention for several decades, a 67-year-old, to be a millionaire with the application of principles. So if I were 67 years old, I would have very little credibility simply because many years have passed.

And if I'm still in the financial condition that I'm in today, I'd have very little credibility. But 29 years old, when I run that formula, I'm doing OK. So it's OK to be simply on the way to wealth. And that was encouraging to me when I would sit down and calculate that.

Now, he goes on and says, "To be well positioned in the prodigious accumulator of wealth category, you should be worth twice the level of wealth expected." So that calculation is simply, here's what we expect your wealth to be. And you should be worth twice the level of wealth. Incidentally, I'm not yet-- well, you know what?

Hold on a second. OK, I'm not yet in that category, primarily due to career changes. But who knows? I'll be there as soon as I can. But it's OK to be where you are was the point of the lesson. It's OK to be simply on the way to wealth.

Number four lesson I learned was I learned to be proud of being frugal, or at least to be confident in being frugal. And frugality is a virtue that doesn't seem to be honored very much in our culture, at least not in mainstream pop culture. We often seem to honor extravagance and largesse and hyper-consumption.

And so if you're a frugal person, it's tough. You need to have your backbone built up to really, I guess, to be confident in being frugal. We're not taught in society to be frugal. And as a kid growing up, be careful with your children. It's so easy to adopt society's claims for what should be looked like for virtue versus your idea of virtue.

I remember as a young man, as a teenager, I was critical of my parents. Like, why don't you spend some money? Most teenagers probably are. They'll probably go through this someday with my son. But on page 28 of Millionaire Next Door, Stanley says, "What are three words that profile the affluent?

Frugal, frugal, frugal." Being frugal is the cornerstone of wealth building. And yet even today, it's so funny to me how people-- now, I don't have the same insecurities that I once had. But people are often like, why are you so frugal? Listen, this stuff matters. I got to build wealth.

If I spend it all, I'm not going to have it. And so obviously, there's a level of frugality that is appropriate at a certain scale. I'm so glad to hear that evidently Dr. Stanley bought himself a Corvette last year. I mean, how great is it? That was probably one of his extravagances that was super fun for him to buy himself a fancy brand new Corvette.

And I think that's awesome. So frugality is not that we never buy anything nice. It's that we buy it in a manner that's appropriate with our scale, with where we are. And Stanley taught that the foundation stone of wealth accumulation is great defense, frugality. The data helped me, especially as a financial advisor.

Financial advisors are a weird lot. It's a weird occupation. And as a class, it's very difficult to discern among financial advisors. And in many ways, some ways, Stanley doesn't talk that much about the actual financial situation of financial advisors. He talks some about doctors. I kind of think of it as doctors, is that he talks in his work, in his research, that it seems like physicians often fall into the very spendy, hyper-consumption category, or they often fall into the very frugal, very rich category.

And so financial advisors, it's similar. Many financial advisors are all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas. They're all about flashy lifestyle. And if you were actually looking at the balance sheet of some people who market themselves as financial advisors, their personal balance sheet is very, very poor.

Incidentally, that may or may not be a problem. A lot of people would be offended by that. If you're hiring somebody for their expertise as, say, a portfolio manager or, say, a tax specialist, something like that, all of those things can be financial advisors. How much of their own money they actually spend does not necessarily impact their qualifications to give you specific tax advice.

I think it's important to note that, simply that just because somebody enjoys consuming all their money and doesn't prefer to build wealth doesn't invalidate their investment predictions. Doesn't necessarily invalidate their tax advice. But in general, I think most people would want their financial advisor to be wealthy. So there's this idea of expressing a certain image.

There's a perception bias. And as an advisor, you need to be aware of that, because the way that people perceive you is the way that you are in their mind. And so that's why your financial advisor probably shouldn't drive a too broken down car, because you need to create this perception that you are moderately successful.

People generally are attracted to success. That's why you probably shouldn't be a fat slob with donut crumbs in your beard. You probably should dress in a certain way. And so there's these rules that go on. So some financial advisors are all hat and no cattle. They look like they're doing well.

And they're earning a lot, but they're spending a lot. But then some advisors really are really wealthy. And they serve people well. And you don't know. That's the thing. You don't know. You don't have any idea. When you're where I live in South Florida, there's a Mercedes in every traffic light.

You don't have any idea, is this person someone who's trying to imitate the rich? Or is this someone who's really just rich, and it doesn't even matter? And they're just driving a nice car. So it's a high pressure industry, though, where you're pressured to look a certain way. And Stanley gave me a little bit of confidence, that no, I need to be frugal.

And I just simply told my clients, listen, if you want me to be a high-consuming advisor, you need to find somebody else. But if you want somebody who actually is rich for their age, then-- and wants to actually teach you how to get rich-- I can't teach you how to spend a lot of money.

I can teach you how to get rich. Then that would be one factor. And so that was a valuable lesson. The fifth lesson that I wrote down today is from Stanley's work, is I learned to choose my spouse very carefully. And this was a big deal to me, not in the sense of a scheming way of my spouse has to only spend this certain amount of money.

But one of the most important decisions that you make in life that will dictate just about everything else in life is who your spouse is. It's a huge decision, huge decision, in just about every single way. So whether that's from the perspective of the amount of money they spend, or whether it's from the perspective of just who they are and their character, what they're committed to, the type of lifestyle that they want.

If I want a backpack around the world and my spouse wants a fancy condo on Palm Beach, we're going to have a bit of a disagreement. And this is one of the things that-- one of many factors that causes marriages to fall apart. Partnerships where the partners are incompatible generally don't turn out well over the long term.

And careful selection of a spouse is extremely important. And it is definitely a major factor in wealth building. Stanley profiled the research of-- and again, to the data of how important your spouse is to a wealth building plan. And as I read in the beginning, about half of the spouses of the wealthy are stay-at-home moms.

And he says on page 36, he says flat out, he says if your spouse isn't frugal, you're going to have a very hard time building wealth. A couple cannot accumulate wealth if one of its members is a hyper-consumer. And I think this is a big deal in our society as far as household structure and how to handle it.

Now, it's politically incorrect in our society to have any discussion of gender roles, especially if gender roles are distinct in any way. It's extremely politically incorrect. And we're all supposed to say, well, we're all the same. We have exactly the same role. Sorry, I don't buy it. I think that's actually one of the major factors that keeps households poor is because there's no gender distinction.

And so from an economic perspective, this doesn't take advantage of-- because there's no gender distinction. We're both supposed to do the same thing. We're supposed to be equal. And it's supposed to be this perfect thing where we both have exactly the same roles, which is what society, the politically correct role the society works to advance.

This doesn't take advantage of any of the efficiencies of the division of labor. The fundamental economic principle is that in a high division of labor economy, you're going to have much greater wealth than in a low division of labor economy. The same thing in a household. In a household with a high division of labor, it's much more efficient than an inefficient household.

And so that-- now, who knows if this research was in 1996. I don't know what the updated statistics are. Maybe they've changed in the last 20 years. But it just has much to do with running a household efficiently. And if both spouses are doing exactly the same thing, it's by definition inefficient.

So for me, I chose my wife very carefully. I didn't want to compete with my spouse. I wanted a frugal spouse to complement me and to help me in our joint journey together. And this was a big deal. A simple example is just for me personally, again, I don't care what you or anyone does with their life.

You run your life how you want. But one of the things that was important to me is I avoided many people who were very focused on their career. That was not-- I'm not saying I wasn't some Casanova who could have any woman in the world. Of course, that would play a role.

But I didn't want to compete. I didn't want to be married. There was a girl at one point that I was interested in that was going to be a physician. I didn't want to be married to a physician. Nothing wrong with being a physician, but that wasn't the lifestyle that I wanted.

And so I chose differently. And so one of the things that you see in his research here was choose your spouse carefully and make sure that they complement you and that they'll be an asset to you. And this goes both ways. Choose your spouse carefully. Now, each couple has to work this out in a way that is effective for them.

And that's where I don't think you can legislate certain things, say this is the way it is. But two frugal people working together and taking advantages of the efficiencies of a division of labor within their relationship and taking advantage of complementing one another and having complementary skill sets instead of competitive skill sets, this idea that many couples seem to have-- many of my friends that we have to compete with each other.

I'll put as far as at least with a nice easily measured metric of wealth accumulation, I'll put them up against each other. And I think the spouses that work together towards common goals will win every time. One of the things that quote here in this section says a self-made millionaire stated it best when he told us, I can't get my wife to spend any money.

And I'm proud to say I feel the same way about my wife. She is an amazing woman, but I can't get her to spend any money. I try and try and try. She's more frugal than I am. And so that builds instead of this antagonistic relationship where the woman earns all the money and the man spends it all or the man earns all the money and the woman spends it all, instead of this antagonistic relationship, it becomes a joy where then I look at it and I say, how can I do nice things for my wife?

And how can I spend money on her in a way that will bring her pleasure? So this is a big deal, and people don't often talk about it. When's the last time-- it's like I would put a higher degree on the value of a college education if after working as a financial planner knowing that these kinds of conflicts are what destroy financial lives and what destroy marriages and destroy families.

And when your marriage is destroyed and your family is destroyed, now your career is destroyed for some people. And now when your career is destroyed, your whole financial plan is destroyed, knowing the actual real world effect of this, I would think this would be something that we would be talking about in a high school classroom.

Might be important to understand how to effectively choose your spouse. Now, it is the parents' job to teach children those considerations. So I don't lay the blame at-- I lay the blame at us as parents. This is our job. But this is the kind of stuff that really impacts life, not necessarily what all of the schooling is about.

Stanley says it very straightforward. He says, "Most people will never become wealthy in one generation if they are married to people who are wasteful." Big deal. So that was the fifth lesson. I learned to choose my spouse very carefully. And I'm thankful to my parents that they taught me that at an early age as well.

Number six, Dr. Stanley taught me not to go with the crowd. Example from my perspective here of how I'm relating this lesson is oftentimes financial advisors who are new in the business. I always feel bad. Those of you who are attorneys and who are physicians who are listening, I'm sorry.

But it seems like the first people that financial advisors target if they don't have any natural network or any marketing plan is they start calling attorneys and doctors. And it's tough. I had several clients who were attorneys, several clients who were doctors. And you guys get targeted all the time.

And I'm sorry. It's just big income, self-employed professional, usually big spenders, oftentimes big spenders. And so we're able to, hey, this would be a great fit. But what I learned was not to go with the crowd. And for me personally, I didn't enjoy working with the majority of people involved in those professions.

It's not that I didn't have any problem with it. Some individuals. It's just that I didn't fit very well with the majority of people in those professions. I didn't play the same lifestyle necessarily. I did have-- again, I had some clients who I was a great personality fit. But these people were also atypical within their profession.

And it's always hard to generalize. But what Dr. Stanley taught me was that I should look for auctioneers and owners of plumbing businesses and farmers and scrap metal dealers and things like that. And I found that I actually get along far better with those people in general. If I were to take a proportion of farmers versus a percentage of attorneys, I'll have a better personality fit with all the farmers than with all the attorneys.

So when I took that personality fit and I compared it to Stanley's research into where the wealth is, I was able to find people that I really enjoyed working with. I was able to find-- I would much rather be doing business around the back of a pickup truck than at the top of some high rise.

Not that I can't go in and be effective in the high rise. It was just, OK, fine. And I'll work on here. I liked working in little industrial parks. And I'd find all kinds of blue collar business owners. Some guy has a hurricane shutter company and makes a million bucks a year.

And I found another guy. OK, this guy has a plumbing company and is running this plumbing company. You wouldn't really know it was that big unless you knew. But you found out it was incredibly profitable. And this guy here is a drywall company. And this person has an insulation company.

And all of a sudden, I started to find I can build a client base with these entrepreneurs that I really like working with who don't look at what society says is wealthy, but actually are extremely wealthy. It was a big deal to me to learn that. Very, very useful.

The data that he provided gave me the courage and confidence to not go with the crowd and just to recognize that I needed to find my own niche that would work effectively with me. Number seven, Dr. Stanley taught me to choose my housing very, very carefully. If you read any of his work, you will be forced to come away with the fact that housing is a major decision with regard to the productivity of being able to build wealth.

It drives everything else. And he's very clear that half the affluent millionaires in America do not live in high status neighborhoods. Now, that means half of them do, but half of them don't. And I'll cover that half and half concept in lesson number 10. But what this means is that your house actually drives many of your expenses.

A, it's a big expense. And comparatively speaking, the size or the cost of your house, I mean, that's just going to be a big expense. Most people, their biggest expense in their life is taxes. Number two is housing. So when you actually sit down and run an income statement and figure out an income and expense statement and say, where are the expenses going, you'll find that for the majority of people, the largest category is tax.

The second largest category is housing. Well, we can make a big difference in overall expenses if we can tackle the big categories. It's a fundamental rule. Focus with the 80/20 analysis. Focus on the 20% of categories that are going to give you 80% of your results. One is tax.

Two is housing. Three is usually transportation. Most people have a lot of cars. And then it breaks down from there. So just the choice right off the bat of how big your house is and how big the mortgage payment is or how much money you spend on it is a big deal.

Plus, that house, the actual value of the house, is all consumption. It may or may not work out fine. It may or may not appreciate in the long run. But it is consumption. It's not investment. So if you simply make the choice to not buy a $400,000 house but to buy a $300,000 house, then by definition, you are not consuming $100,000 worth of money.

And you're able to invest it. That's going to make a substantial difference over time. And then housing drives every other decision in life, is what he's clear with his research. If you live in a high-status neighborhood and you want to drive kind of a broken-down six-year-old pickup truck, you're probably not going to feel so comfortable.

So people who live in high-status neighborhoods, in order to feel comfortable, are going to need to upgrade their cars more frequently. They're going to need to keep their house in maybe more fancy-looking shape. So then it's going to be higher maintenance costs. Perhaps you could paint every 10 years, but you need to paint every six years, because that's what this neighborhood requires.

You're going to need to keep your lawn in fancier condition. It's just everything is associated with it. So the choice of what type of neighborhood to live in is going to drive every other expense. Now, of course, there's the corollary of, well, if you get in a neighborhood that you don't want to be in, then what's the point of having money at all?

So there is a natural choice. But there's going to be a comfort level. You don't necessarily want to be at the lowest cost. That might not be comfortable for you. That might violate just a standard of living. It might violate safety for your family or the type of lifestyle that you want to be exposed to.

But if you just make the choice to live in less house than you afford, than you could spend, it'll affect every other area of your life. It's much easier to accumulate wealth if you don't live in a high-status neighborhood. So as an example of how I applied this in my life, when my wife and I were shopping, we originally were shopping.

I wanted to spend about $100,000 on a house, if I could find one. And the goal of spending the $100,000 on the house was I wanted to keep as much capital available for investment as possible. And the goal was, let's do a starter home idea. And let's spend $100,000 on a house.

Let's plan to live there for four or five years. We'll probably outgrow the house. And then we'll have a good rental property to move out of while we're building up other investment assets. That was the original plan. We couldn't find something that was suitable to the lifestyle that we wanted to live in that price range in Palm Beach County, where I live, especially that was close enough to my office to outweigh that.

So the compromise that we made was we upgraded the cost of this community, the neighborhood that we were searching for. And I said, if we can be in close proximity to my office, then we can spend more money. And so by being in close proximity to my office, instead of buying cheaper farther away, we bought more expensive closer.

That allowed us to get rid of a second car, which pulled out a whole set of expenses. It also allowed me to trade non-deductible expenses of commuting costs with ongoing non-deductible costs for a deductible mortgage interest cost. And it also allowed me to trade all of the focus on all those miles on a car for depreciating cost, which is going to be constant expense, versus having an extra $100,000 of value locked up in a house, which, yes, it is a consumption.

But at least it has the potential to appreciate. And probably, with the area that we live in, we're at an above average, long-term above average, above the average rate of inflation in my area. But in choosing, it was very important to us that we didn't buy in one of the fancy neighborhoods.

So the neighborhood we live in is kind of right on this interesting cusp. It's not quite blue-collar working class, but it's also not quite fancy. It's not quite super posh. It's in a great location, but it's kind of an old-fashioned neighborhood. It's kind of a normal neighborhood. Old-fashioned. We don't find-- most of the neighborhoods where I live are just large, gated communities, golf communities, things like that.

So one of the key things, though, is we said, OK, instead of doing the starter home plan, we'll just buy a house that can hopefully fit us for a very long period of time. And so it should be big enough to handle a family, to not have to outgrow, but not too big.

I want a bunch of extra rooms. So it feels pretty big, but it's not too big, comparatively speaking. And it's nice enough to not feel like you've got to move, but it's not so nice you've got to upkeep it. And I'll give you an example. One of the things that was important to me in choosing a neighborhood, I wanted a neighborhood where I didn't feel like I had to mow my lawn every week.

And so thankfully, this neighborhood is kind of an interesting mix of some-- houses are very fancily landscaped, and some houses are not. But I don't feel like I have to drive a fancy car. I don't feel like I have to-- this social pressure of upgrading the car every few years, those types of things.

And so it's worked out well. Now interestingly, in hindsight, would we buy the same house if I didn't have that same geographic limitation? No, because now that I don't have that office location, I never anticipated that I wouldn't have that office location. Then now I could live in another part of town and get the same for cheaper, maybe.

But it's fine. It's perfectly fine. And it's a great location. And it's the kind of house that who knows, we may stay here for the rest of our lives. It certainly has that capacity. But just simply that simple choice of housing and where you buy and when you buy and all that stuff can make a massive long-term difference.

Very careful. He does give one interesting rule, which I'll share with you. It's from page 68. He says, "If you're not yet wealthy, but want to be someday, never purchase a home that requires a mortgage that is more than twice your household's total annual realized income." So never take out a mortgage that's higher in amount than twice your household's annual realized income, annual income.

And thankfully, we followed that rule pretty close. It was just about right. So over time, it should be fine. So it was a valuable lesson, very valuable lesson. And again, these examples, when have you taken the time to sit down with somebody and say, let me teach you how to make a very careful housing decision.

Because this one decision, which is a massive decision and is so easy to get caught up in the joy and the thrill and the emotion of spending big money, be careful. And let me give you some ideas. Number eight, Dr. Stanley taught me that you aren't what you drive.

He makes a big point. I'm not going to belabor the point, but he makes a big point of profiling carefully the makes and models of cars that millionaires drive. And what you find, the largest brand, at least back then, that people drive was 9.4% of millionaires drive Fords. And this can make a massive impact on your life.

We know that well. It's been beat to death since then. But he does a good job with the data and actually illustrating that. Number nine is Dr. Stanley taught me the term economic outpatient care. And economic outpatient care is a beautiful term, which basically refers to how much money do you have to send your kids after they're supposed to be independent and on their own?

And then the next question is, how do you prepare your children so that they're not dependent on you sending them money after they're launched into the world on their own? And this is going to be a massive function in my life over the next two decades with raising our children.

I need to equip my children to be independent. I don't want my children to know that we're wealthy. That's another careful thing about the house and the neighborhood that you live in. You've got to be careful. It's better if your children don't know that you're wealthy. He actually gives 10 fantastic rules for affluent parents and productive children, how to train your children to be productive.

I'll read them to you. They're from page 203. I won't elaborate them. But number one, here are the rules. Number one, never tell children that their parents are wealthy. Never tell children that their parents are wealthy. Most people who are-- many people of children of parents who are wealthy, they just wake up and they're like, wait a second.

I didn't know their mom and dad were so rich. Number two, no matter how wealthy you are, teach your children discipline and frugality. Teach them that. And equip them with that character trait. Equip them with that virtue and make sure that it's drilled into them. Number three, assure that your children won't realize you're affluent until after they have established a mature, disciplined, and adult lifestyle and profession.

Make sure that they're established before they know you're affluent. Number four, minimize discussions of the items that each child and grandchildren will inherit or receive as gifts. Don't focus on that. Number five, never give cash or other significant gifts to your adult children as part of a negotiation strategy.

I hate this. I hate it when people use money as a leverage tool, as a negotiating tool. In my mind, it can certainly be immoral. Don't give it as a negotiating strategy. Number six, stay out of your adult children's family member-- matters. Excuse me, matters. Stay out of your adult children's family matters.

Number seven, don't try to compete with your children. Don't boast about how much money you have. And it sends a confusing message if you tell your kids, well, I was your age. I had this much money. Number eight, always remember that your children are individuals. They're different. There are going to be inequalities among your children.

Nine, emphasize your children's achievements, no matter how small, not their or your symbols of success. Focus on what people achieve, not what they have. Focus on what you achieve. Number 10, tell children that there are a lot of things more valuable than money-- good health, longevity, happiness, a loving family, self-reliance, fine friends.

If you have five of these, you're a rich man-- reputation, respect, integrity, honesty, and a history of achievements. Money is icing on the cake of life. You don't ever have to cheat or steal. You don't have to break the law or cheat on your taxes. It's easier to make money honestly than dishonestly in this country.

You'll never exist in business if you rip people off. Life is the long run. You can't hide from adversity. You can't hide your children from life's ups and downs. The ones who achieve do so by experiencing and conquering obstacles, even from their childhood days. These are the ones who were never denied their right to face some struggle, some adversity.

Others were, in reality, cheated. Those who attempted to shelter their children from every conceivable germ in our society never really inoculated them from fear, worry, and the feeling of dependency. Not at all. There are many other things, but I'm going to close with number 10. And Dr. Thomas Stanley taught me principles and not rules.

As an example, when you consume the millionaire next door, you might get the idea that everything is about not buying fancy houses and not buying cars. But he's very fair in the millionaire next door. But if you consume the millionaire next door in the millionaire mind and stop acting rich, all of a sudden, you find out that he does profile these different levels of wealth.

Probably the most best example of this is in his book, Stop Acting Rich. He profiles a segment of society called the glittering rich. And the glittering rich are, in essence, as my memory serves, they are a group of society where they have so much money that they can't possibly spend it all.

And to go out and buy a brand new fancy $150,000 Mercedes is the equivalent to them of maybe a median income earner going and buying a Happy Meal. And it's hard for people to process that difference in amount of money. But realistically, if you have $100 million, it's going to be challenging that your kids are not going to have at least the impression you have $100 million, that you have at least some money.

Now, you might lead them to believe, and they might come to believe over time that you have $20 million. But it's going to be a big difference versus somebody who has $1.2 million. That's not the point. So Stanley focuses on the principles, not necessarily the rules. So many people get bogged down, and I did for a time, and get bogged down in the rule.

For example, we don't buy new cars. Never buy a new car. Well, the question is, is it that we never buy a new car, or is it that rather we make intelligent decisions we're frugal with our money, and we make careful buying decisions, always choosing what's best for us at the moment?

Those are two different things. Now, the data shows that many millionaires don't buy new cars, but it also shows that many millionaires do buy new cars. The data shows that most millionaires don't lease their cars, but the data shows that some millionaires do lease their cars. So if you just simply preach rules that never buy a new car, never lease a car, then in a situation where maybe buying a new car is a better decision, you're not going to be thinking that way.

The only reason why many millionaires in the United States of America don't buy new cars is simply because we have a very efficient market where there's lots of high-quality used vehicles available, and there's a substantial discount from the new price versus the used price. And so you can get a good buy on a great quality product.

But that's not the same as if, for example, there were very low inventory, or if the quality of the used car were very low, or if the price difference between a new car and a used car were negligible. If you could buy a four-year-old used car for $29,000, and you could buy a brand new car for $30,000, it'd be crazy to not buy the new car.

But that's not the market we live in. So what happens is people often memorize a system of rules, and they don't understand the underlying principles about the efficiency of a market and the availability of a market and what's available. And then they just say, buy a rule. And so instead of grasping the principle of frugality in every decision-- let's say you're teaching your children.

If you don't teach your children the principle of frugality and making careful buying decisions, then they may never indeed buy a new car. But they might get ripped off on the used car, and they may spend all of their money buying new TVs, new gaming systems, new cell phones, and new clothes.

Meanwhile, they're feeling good and virtuous about the idea that they never bought a new car, because that was what mom and dad said I never did do. So the key is teach the principle of frugality. And it may be a better decision for a brand new entrant into the workforce to say-- who understands frugality-- to go out and survey the market.

For example, a couple of years ago, after the Cash for Clunkers program took out a bunch of the inventory in the used car market in the United States of America, it was tough to find a used car at a certain price range. So the prices dramatically increased. And in some cases, you might find an oversupply of new cars of a certain model.

And there may be many benefits to go out and buy a new car. So I could make a case where a certain young person could go out, and they're well served by buying a brand new, say, a Ford or a Honda Civic, a very practical car that can be had for many, many years.

And the long-term value-- the long-term cost is going to be low, because it's a high residual value. The car can be run for many years, and there are advantages to buying it new. And there's not that much of a discount for buying it and used. That person could buy that new car, and that can be a very sound decision, because it's a frugal decision, coupled with frugality in other areas of their life.

So the point is, Dr. Stanley does a good job in his books of talking about principles. He explains in one of his books-- he gives the anecdote of when he went out and bought a brand new Toyota 4Runner, because his previous Toyota 4Runner was low on miles-- excuse me, was getting old.

And I think he gave it to his son, and he needed to go buy a new car. But he explains how, even though he bought a brand new Toyota 4Runner, he bought a brand new Toyota 4Runner. He talks about why and how he made the choice to buy a Toyota 4Runner and not a Lexus GX470.

He wants the six-cylinder engine instead of the eight-cylinder engine. It's a lower curb weight, so therefore more fuel efficient, much cheaper price. He didn't value the other benefits. It would have hurt his lifestyle and things like that. So the point is frugality, not rules. Principles, not rules. Principles, not rules.

He did a great job of teaching me that lesson. I think that's a lesson that we would be well-served to understand. Understand the principles behind why we do certain things and teach those. Because then we can create thinking human beings who can understand their own situation and can rationally look through and think through what's right for them and understand.

That's what I put down for you. That's my tribute to Dr. Stanley. I'm sad that he's gone. And I wish his family well. I think from the cursory news articles that I saw published, his daughter said that she was going to continue his works. And I hope she does.

I hope she does. That would be fantastic for someone to continue and build on the body of research. And so I recommend to you, if you haven't read his books, check them all out. Every one that I've read has been really great. And I'm sure that you can learn a large number of lessons from that.

And I think his funeral is on Thursday, if I saw. And I wonder if he published-- maybe he had a manuscript or something. And we can get one more book from him posthumously. That'd be great. So I hope you enjoyed and benefited from this content. I may do some more shows in coming days with-- again, it's always-- I could pick up any one of his chapters from his book and create a lesson on it, just from having read it before, and just teach it through.

And I think he's probably had more impact on me than many personal finance authors, and probably many more people. So I wanted to create this tribute show to him. Thank you so much for listening. If you have benefited from this, consider checking out the Patreon page. Go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.

I'm working hard to share additional content as an example. Just recently shared the new website with the patrons. I'm in the process of designing a new website. Hopefully it'll be launched as soon as possible, targeting two or three weeks. But that website, it was just the very first draft of it.

But I released it to the patrons and allowed them to get to see. And that's just one of many benefits that I've set up for you guys. Just last week, we did the first Q&A call, which was really fun, doing the first Q&A call this week with the mastermind group at the $200 a month level.

So go by the Patreon page. Check out all the benefits that I have for you. Benefits as little as $1 a month, $3 a month, et cetera. We're doing well at growing. If we get to $6,000 a month is the goal. We're trying to get to $2,000 is the first thing.

And at $2,000, I'm going to replace the intro music. And the goal is to get $6,000 by June 1. So I'd appreciate very much your help. Thank you for listening. Be back with you tomorrow. Thank you for listening to today's show. If you'd like to contact me personally, my email address is joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

You can also connect with the show on Twitter, @radicalpf, and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance. This show is intended to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment. But your situation is unique, and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you. Please, develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy, and consult them, because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals, and provide specific answers to your questions.

I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show, but I'm one person, and I make mistakes. If you spot a mistake in something I've said, please help me by coming to the show page and commenting, so we can all learn together. Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

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