The Freq Show

46. Finance: 3 Must-read books to change your financial trajectory

• Sam Thurmond & Jaclyn Steele Thurmond • Season 1 • Episode 46

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In this episode of The Freq Show, hosts Jaclyn Steele Thurmond and Sam Thurmond break down three game-changing books that can transform your financial future. From mastering budgeting to building long-term wealth, we’re diving into the key insights that have helped countless people shift their money mindset and take control of their financial destiny.

If you’re ready to level up your finances, this episode is a must-listen!


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Jaclyn:

Hello and welcome to The Freq Show. I am Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. This is

Sam:

Sam Thurmond.

Jaclyn:

Yes, Samuel McHenry Thurmond. My son is learning our real names besides mom and dad, and he now will tell people like this is my mom, her name's Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. This is my dad, This is Samuel McHenry Thurmond, and it's so cute. So, anyways, today we are going to talk about finance. If you missed, I forget what episode it was, it was one of the early 40s. I said we are going to start categorizing this podcast because life is busy, you have a lot of stimulation, and we want to create a library of amazing podcast episodes that, for whatever mood you're in, you can come to The Freq Show podcast lineup and go hey, I really want to learn about finance today. Hey, I want to learn about personal development. or hey, I really want to touch on interior design or spirituality or something like that. So we're categorizing these podcasts and today is our first finance episode, and it's entitled Finance Three Must-Read Books to Change your Financial Trajectory.

Jaclyn:

As a woman, I love talking about finance. I didn't always love talking about finance because I think for me there was a lot of shame that came with it. I graduated from college with just a massive amount of student debt, even though I had scholarships. I went to Baylor University and I love Baylor. I had the best experience there, but it was so expensive. And so finances for me from the beginning of my adult life, there was just such a shame, guilt, and scarcity complex. Now that debt has paid off, it's been paid off for five years now. We are investing, we're doing so many things, and I've read, I wouldn't say I've read a ton of financial books, but I've read more than your average Joe of financial books. Would you say that that's correct, and I find it so empowering and so important because it's not really taught in school for us to learn how to invest and learn how to become financially independent as couples, but also as women, because I think there's been so much progress. Right, but very often women still depend on their partners to make financial decisions, and not that you don't make good financial decisions, but I think we make the best financial decisions when I'm part of the conversation too, and so that's why I think talking about finance not making it taboo is so important, but also if you are just beginning and dipping your beautiful little toes in the finance pond.

Jaclyn:

I wanted to give three primers for getting financially literate, and these three books have changed the way that I think about finance, changed the way that I think about building wealth, and I think they will for you too, and so I'm just going to give you a brief synopsis of each. But, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is a fantastic book. I can't even remember who it's by. It's by hold on, I'll get it. I read this a few years ago. I still stick to the monthly budget that they outline, but this book was such a great mindset book for how millionaires think, and in the budgetary action plan, which I put into action immediately after I read it, it has changed the way that I manage our monthly budget.

Jaclyn:

So he outlines that you should have several accounts, and this makes it so easy to stick to. But we have multiple checking accounts. One is a necessities account. That's where all of your mortgage money goes, your rent money, your living expenses, gas utilities, blah, blah, blah. Then you should always have a fun fund, which is 10% of what you make, A long-term savings for spending. This is for big purchases like a home, like a second home, like something you know that you just really want, and it's going to require saving up for a giving account, which should also have 10%, and then an education account, which should also be 10%. Now, we don't do the education account right now because we're through that stage, though I think it's always good to be investing in education. We just don't have that right now, and we also have a separate investing account for Roman and his future education.

Sam:

Yeah, which I would say is an education account. Yeah, one thing before you keep going, that I would mention is, I think, when you have a W-2 job, or one or two people have a W-2 job, excuse me, I'll get my tongue together in a second, it can be a little more straightforward because you're earning. Usually, unless you're highly commission-based, you're earning the same amount of money every month. So it's more straightforward setting a budget and then dividing buckets this way. I think for the entrepreneurs out there, it can be more challenging because income is less consistent, especially in the beginning.

Sam:

So it's hard to say, oh well, I'm going to bring in this amount this month and I'm going to divide it this way, but at the same time, while we for a long time didn't do that, it's more of an excuse than anything, and I think I was of the wrong mindset of like, oh God, we just have to feed this business and then we have to eat as well and that's all that really matters.

Sam:

But it's more about developing habits as soon as possible. Whether you've been working for 20 years or 30 years, or whether you're just graduating high school or college and you're starting to go out in the workforce, I think now is the right time to start those things. So I just wanted to mention that for entrepreneurs, because I think a lot of times it feels like every dollar is either going to go back into your business or it's going to pay for you to survive. When I think that, regardless whether it's you know, maybe it's not 10%, but it's 2% this month, as long as there's some habit and some discipline of creating these different buckets sooner rather than later, that's better.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, thank you for that. I'm not perfect with budgeting, but this system has empowered me so much. and I think one of the reasons it empowered me so much is that it encourages you to have a fun fund which is 10% of whatever your monthly budget is, and they encourage you to spend that fun fund every single month. Now, we don't always do that, but it makes it so much more relaxing. To go out to dinner and be like this is just part of our fun fund. or for those, you know, just luxurious moments where you want to go to the spa and just have a spa day, that's part of my fun fund, and I'm not going to be sweating over it because I know that I've allotted for it. So that was pretty life changing for me Prior to that. Anything that like a massage or getting your nails done or anything like that. I always felt such guilt around it and now I don't. So I feel much, much more empowered. All right, so that's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.

Jaclyn:

Then the second book, and I'll link all of these in the show notes too, but is the Millionaire Next Door. This was a book recommendation from a family friend who is, in real life, the wealthiest person that we know, with and millions and millions and millions of dollars dollars, and he recommended the Millionaire Next Door. And this book is so profound because it shows you and it outlines and it gives you statistics for how most of the millionaires in the United States of America are not people that are driving the flashy cars or have the giant homes. They are people who have managed their money extremely well, they've reinvested, they're not overspending, they're not dependent on credit cards, they're driving the same car for multiple years. And some of those things in our materialistic society feel so antithetical, right, and they feel so like, oh, but I want the brand new car or I want the new bag or I want to show off my X, Y or Z. But this book talks about how, if you want to create real wealth, real wealth, real financial independence, even generational wealth, these small habits of not overspending and reinvesting and saving will change your entire financial trajectory forever.

Jaclyn:

And I found that to be just so empowering and also exciting and motivating, and one of the things that I really enjoy doing is looking at our bank account, going through the money that we have and then dividing it by how many and this does not include our savings account, but how many days are left in the month.

Jaclyn:

So I'll take the money that we have in our monthly budget and I'll divide it by 31, or let's say we're 10 days in, I'll divide it by 21, or let's say we're toward the end of the month and we've got seven days left. I'll divide what we have left by seven and I give us a daily budget where I go okay, if we only spend this much, this is how much we have left over to either put back in our savings account or to put in cryptocurrency or to put in our Acorns account that we can reinvest wisely that money that can make money babies if we don't spend it now. And that's something that has been very motivating and exciting for me.

Sam:

Yeah, yeah, I think your point of, well, the millionaire next door and all of the examples, pretty much all the examples in the book are of people who you know weren't doing anything

Jaclyn:

They weren't making millions in a salary every year!

Sam:

They were working normal jobs or owned small businesses, but they were just disciplined, and it really showed, you know, the power of compounding interest in the power of time and being consistent and disciplined in the process.

Jaclyn:

Many of them didn't even make six figures a year, but over a period of 20, 30 years, the way that they had invested their money and saved, they were able to create millions of dollars. So, so, so cool. Third book that I highly recommend, as like a primer series for getting into finance, is Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Kawasaki Kiyosaki. Sorry, what is his first name? Robert Robert. Yeah, Robert Kiyosaki. This book flips so much financial advice on its head. If you are a, who is the? The finance guy? That is a conservative Christian. I'm not trying to dog on him, but he talks about the debt snowball and he's very, very conservative with money. Wants you to save every penny.

Sam:

I can't think of his name. I don't know who you're talking about.

Jaclyn:

Anyways, Robert Kiyosaki basically flips everything this guy is saying on his head. He talks about good debt. He talks about investing in real estate and how important investing in real estate is if you want to build wealth. That's something that all of these books talk about is investing in real estate, Caveat. If you want to invest in real estate and don't know where to start, shoot us a DM, because that's what we do. And so Rich Dad Poor Dad was also such a great primer for me to wrap my head around why it's so important to take our liquid cash and be reinvesting it. He's also very much a profit first guy too, would you agree?

Sam:

I would say Kiyosaki's main point is investing in assets that cover your liabilities. Cash flowing assets that cover your liabilities, and he obviously talks about real estate.

Jaclyn:

Explain what that means, having cash flow assets that cover your liabilities

Sam:

Well, instead of having you know taking a salary and buying a new car and having that salary pay for the new car or taking debt on that new car. You take that money and instead buy a duplex, and you live in one side. Or maybe a better example is you buy a duplex and you house hack, you live in one side and let the other side pay for the mortgage on the entire building. That's allowing your, that's having your assets pay for your liabilities. The asset of the rental portion of that duplex is paying for the liability that is the mortgage, or whether it's buying a car. All those things where you're taking debt are liabilities, unless that asset is, unless that debt is on an asset that's creating more cash flow than the liability against it. So that's basically what it is.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, and another great quote is have your assets pay for your luxuries. So, this millionaire, multimillionaire family friend says have your assets pay for your luxuries. So the investments that he made in his 20s, 30s, and 40s are now paying for some of the luxuries, a beautiful boat or a beautiful second or third home, those things are not debt that he's taking on. Those investments are now paying for those luxuries. Which is such a cool concept, right? Because I think the normal American way is to go, I just have to make a lot of money, I have to keep making more money, I'm going to have to work, work, work, work, work to pay off all this stuff. Versus, let's work really smart, let's invest really intelligently and wisely, and then have those investments pay for the things that we really want. Like, we want a bunch of land, all right. So those are the three primers Secrets of the millionaire mind, The Millionaire Next Door, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I'll link all of those in the show notes and in the blog posts that we post on our website, which total side note. We're doing a lot of blogging and there's a lot of really beautiful, wonderful, high frequency information in there. Some of it is personal development, some of it is like how to keep a clean home. Some of it is like wearing synthetic materials and what that does to your body. It's very informative. So if you go to beckonliving. com, that blog is up. A few more talking points before we wrap up this episode. I want to encourage people because I think so often we are misinformed and we think that we have to have thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to begin investing, but you absolutely do not.

Jaclyn:

There is a hack that I started, I think it was five years ago, and there are multiple things that you can do this with now. There's an app called Acorns. I use the app, Qapital, with a Q it's Q-A-P-I-T-A-L, and it's an app and you link it to your bank account and every time you use your debit card or whatever card you want to be using excuse me, I'm still so stuffed up it rounds up to the nearest dollar, and there are other apps where you can have it round up even more if you want, but basically it auto saves money and puts it into a separate account that you have to go into the app to access. And what I love about this is every time I use my debit card, I save money that I don't even know I'm saving, so I don't even know that I'm missing it. And after a pretty short amount of time, I'll go in there and I've got an extra $300, an extra $500, an extra $700. And instead of spending that money, I invest that money. I have an app called Public where I can go in and buy stocks. I have an app called Robinhood that I use, where we have some stocks and we have some crypto, and then I have a Roth IRA and I have an additional investment account, which I need to consolidate some of these.

Jaclyn:

But the point is, rounding up to the nearest dollar as you're spending is something that is completely mindless. You don't have to do anything, it's auto set up and then I'm able to go in after a month or two and have a good chunk of money to invest that I didn't even know that I had. That I don't miss at all in my everyday life. Another thing, and so again, you could start with $20. It doesn't have to be a big deal, and another hack that I use, besides like rounding up to the next dollar, is, like I mentioned earlier in the episode, I love having a daily budget and then going hey, we didn't spend the daily budget today, so I'm going to take the extra $100 left over and put it in XRP, or I'm going to take the $25 left over and just auto-invest it in, I don't know, a mutual fund, whatever, it doesn't matter.

Jaclyn:

Well, some mutual funds I'm trying to think I want to make sure I'm saying this right Some mutual funds have minimum entries, so you may not be able to just go invest in a mutual fund, but you can invest it in a stock or crypto, or put it in your Roth or put it in another investment account that you're not touching, that is gaining interest every single month.

Jaclyn:

And again, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but by having that daily budget, I'm so empowered to know this is exactly how much I can comfortably invest right now that I'm not even going to know I'm missing, and I love that strategy. Another thing I would say beyond it's never you can start with any amount of money investing is it's never too late. I opened a Roth when I was 25, and I think I invested $50 a month in it, and now, almost 15 years later, you know that account looks very different than it did in the beginning, with just $50 per month. Now I want to continue to put a lot more in there, but you'd be amazed at what you can do with 50 bucks per month, and so it's never too late. It's never like too small of an amount. Do you have anything you want to add to that?

Jaclyn:

Ok, and then I would say to the ladies out there. Don't let your man manage all the money. Get involved, know what you have, know what the long-term plan is, know where your investments are, know how you're going to be saving for retirement. These are all things that empower us to make informed decisions. And while getting a new car is really fun, or getting whatever material item is really fun, it's also really fun to go hey, if I don't buy that, I can take that several hundred dollars or that many thousands of dollars and invest it long term and it's going to make a bunch of money babies and be worth so much more in 10 years than if I spent it right now. I love that it makes me feel empowered and while my husband is extremely smart and very savvy, especially when it comes to real estate investing, I like knowing where our money is going, how it's being invested and what the long-term plan is, because it helps me to then plan all of the other facets of our life and it gives me some peace of mind.

Jaclyn:

And I feel like when finances are a gray area, when they are things that we don't touch, that we don't get involved with, there can be mystery there. If you're in a relationship, there can be pent-up resentment, so talking about finances, knowing about finances, it's just all while it's. At times it's difficult, and we've had difficult conversations over the duration of our relationship. At the same time, having those conversations has led us to becoming healthier, and healthier in our finances. We're still not where we wanna be. We wanna be completely financially independent. We're not there yet, but I feel like we are taking the steps necessary to get there. Yeah, and I feel like we are taking the steps necessary to get there.

Sam:

Yeah, and I'll say from a man, from my perspective, for for guys like me, I want you to be involved, like I don't want there to be mysteries. I want you to understand everything that's on and you know you contribute just as I do, so I'm not. I'm not alluding that. You know men are the only contributors there, oftentimes.

Jaclyn:

Yeah, your girl's been making that money.

Sam:

Yeah, where the woman is the breadwinner. So I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is, if you're a guy like me, I want you to be involved, because if you're not involved, you don't really understand a big aspect of our relationship. And if you're spending money on things or uncertain about certain things and you don't really have an understanding of where we stand financially and you're not actively participating in that, it feels like an imbalance and it feels like you know all adults should bear the responsibility for their family's finances, so it should be an equal partnership from my perspective. As far as that goes, the more you shifted to wanting to save and wanting to invest and wanting to do the things that are going to make money, babies, like you said, because then it becomes a game and it can be treated as a game between us and it's fun and it motivates both of us to make smart decisions versus, you know, spending money frivolously.

Jaclyn:

A little tongue twister there. The last point that I want to make is, unless you are extremely trading, with stock trading, I constantly, do not recommend stock trading. I think it is so risky. If you're going to invest your money, plan to invest it for the long haul. The people who get the highest returns are people who leave their money in mutual funds and crypto for very long periods of time. You don't have to take my advice.

Jaclyn:

We are not by, (Peter Mallouk and planners, Robbins) but from really smart people that I've talked to. They say that stock trading buying and selling stocks constantly is S&P, really, really risky unless you really know what you're doing. So if you're going to invest, plan on investing that money for a long period of time.

Sam:

I'd say Unshakeable by Tony Robbins is a really good book if you want to really understand the fundamentals of mutual funds, investing in the S&P and the difference between passively investing and actively trading. It's a really good book.

Jaclyn:

We're more passive investors,

Sam:

Yeah because I don't know anything about it, so I'm not trying to make a bunch of moves.

Jaclyn:

To wrap this up, question for the audience, question for our beautiful listeners, is how can you create your own investment plan and how much money could you take today and download one of these apps Qapital, Public, Robinhood, Lvest, any of these and take 20, 30 bucks and begin the process of creating your own financial independence? Thank you for listening. Live on purpose, live on frequency, and we can't wait to connect with you next week.

Sam:

Bye.

Jaclyn:

Thank you so much for listening to The Freq Show with Sam Thurmond, and me, Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. We would love to connect with you via our website beckonliving. com, and on social media.

Sam:

You can find us on Instagram and TikTok @beckonliving and you can join our email list to receive uplifting messages, podcast and business updates and discounts on high-frequency products, just for our freqy community.

Sam:

Cheers to high-frequency living!