Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Happy Saturday morning to you. Welcome back to Success with Srini. today’s podcast episode is inspired by a conversation I had the last evening with a friend of mine. And a friend of mine along with a relative of his. So the other individual I do not know, I was meeting them for the very first time. But then as we were speaking, I was introduced to my friend introduced me to him saying that, you know, Srini, runs a radio show and podcast and all these things. And the conversation went from Hey, who listens to your podcast to? Can I become a millionaire? Extended within the discussion went, and I made a statement, I said, Yes. And you can become a millionaire in under seven years if you play the game, right? So he was very new, he was very new to America. And he is in his late 30s. But just new, just new recently came here. So he was he’s influenced by all the possibilities, which he should be like I was and all of us are, in our own way. And he was trying to figure out how how to do this. And he read somewhere that it can be done. So he was asking me. And here’s what I shared with him, I want to share this with you because I think this is very, very relevant. And these are about six or seven things I shared with him. And this is something that I have already talked about on this podcast multiple times over the months. So if you are a regular listener of this podcast, thank you. The chances are you already heard this in some place in some context, but this context is very new, as of last evening.
So first and foremost, if you want to become forget about last evening, and who I spoke to, and it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, how old you are, how young you are, this is what I’m telling my daughter, who just entered college, the same principles. So if you take this and apply it to yourself, regardless of your financial situation, your mental, your emotional state, whatever you are in, if you apply these, then I think this is going to be a game changer. So let’s get into this. The first and foremost principle does not to borrow. Do not borrow doesn’t matter. 0% interest 1% 2% people justify it in every which way. Do not borrow money as much as you can, if you work in Silicon Valley, where most of the listeners are who listen to my podcast, and I operate from Silicon Valley. And everybody has a job, you shouldn’t be borrowing money to fool your lifestyle, and you shouldn’t be okay. So do not borrow it doesn’t matter, Whoever tells you whatever they tell you about interest on money, how money works, how interest rates work, don’t, okay, I have done it multiple times. And I repent, I repent, and I’ve stopped, don’t do it. Along those lines, do not spend $1 Without knowing what that $1 is doing for you. So every dollar that you are spending has to have a pre-conceived meaning so you know exactly what you’re going to do. So let’s say your next paycheck is gonna be $5,000, let’s say and or $10,000, let’s say and your $10,000 should have every dollar within those 10,000. And from the paycheck. Every dollar has to have an allocation. Every dollar has a meaning attached, an allocation, ideally, an allocation of cash. So you know, I’m paying $3,500 rent, I’m paying $1,000 car payment, whatever expenses you have, and whatever that budget is, every dollar is completely attached to the budget. No questions asked.
This is how you become a millionaire by the way. No car expense, no car expense. So ideally, if you have a car today and just paid off, and if you’re buying a car, buy a car that really does the job, but you’re not paying monthly payments on a car. I do not like paying monthly payments on cars. And everybody who ever was in my coaching ever myself included that I do not pay payments on cars period, don’t do it not worth it doesn’t matter how big of a car you drive. You know, every time I said this also, every time I see something that’s visible, it means somebody’s paying for it. So if I’m driving an expensive car, I would rather pay it off. It’s not I’m not saying don’t buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or a Tesla, whatever goes by, but make sure that you paid off, do not take payments, not pay interest at all. It just doesn’t add up. You cannot break through the cycle. You cannot become rich, you cannot become wealthy. That’s it. Build an emergency fund. emergencies are everywhere. No matter how predictable your life is. You have an emergency that’s just about to happen. Life is life. Life has a lot of unexpected events, the events do happen. So you got to have an emergency fund.
What is an emergency fund there are so many debates on this. Some people say three months some people say six months. You need to have one year the salary somewhere in cash available to you to do whatever you want to do. And whatever you want to do is not like whatever you want to do. In an event where you have an emergency, you should be able to tap into that money. You see, when I get excited, I rush myself. And I only get excited when I talk about a topic that I’m very close to. I only get excited on my radio shows and podcasts because these are things that I live in West from the top and invest on the bottom, I did a podcast on this recently talking about it investing from the top means that you match your every investment that your company is giving pre-tax got to match. So I’m sorry if the employer is matching, you got to invest, I would do it regardless of 401 Ks, I will do it. If you have an HSA. That means tax-deferred contributions you can make into an HSA account, then do it, take the HSA account, and do it. If you have esp Do it. If you have life insurance and disability insurance given to you by your employer, then do it. So these are from the top of your some of them are after tax, but most of them are pre-tax pre tax, it goes without saying just do it. Now, this is investing from the top investing from the bottom means post-tax, if you have postbacks 401k investment that you can do, do it, you’re eligible for it do it. Investing from the bottom includes, you know, trying to find a few dollars here and there. And after you’re done with your emergency funds after you’re done with your savings and all that you still want to save, you still want to invest and save a little bit small amounts of money you want to invest, then that’s called Investing from the bottom investing the bottom means specifically, in my mind is, you know, apps like acorns, or capital of the queue, get these apps, these apps are amazing. What they do is they do lab will do what is called fractional investing and fractional savings. So you go to a store, and you spend $3.25, let’s say these apps can round up that expense to $4, and withdraw 75 cents from that transaction from your savings account and put it into an investment. And it happens in fractions, which is amazing. So at one point, I tested this app in 2018, I believe, capital 2019 to 2018, I believe. And I ended up saving like $9,000 It’s crazy how much money you can save and how many small little transactions you do. I had a setting on this app, that every time the International Space Station goes around the Earth Move $1 From my savings accounts into an investment. I set this up that way.
So the ISS ISS goes 18 times around the earth in a single day. 18 times. So $18 a day I was saving investing invisibly all preset fractional investing is huge. If you’re not doing fractional investing, then I think you’re going to lose out on a big time. The base of mutual funds. Don’t know fractional investing is all so big thing doesn’t matter whether you’re playing with crypto or you’re playing with stock or whatever, wherever you are, fractional investing is the way to go. 5.9 investments when I was young, I was unmarried. I never thought you know, had an option to put money into FY 29. And or very early part of our marriage and I was not sure when we’ll have children and will never grow. And if they grow they will go to college and all that I never did a 5.9 investment or not at a level. By the time I did it was too late. And what I’m suggesting now you do it doesn’t matter. You’re starting now you’re 2321 you have money coming in, just do it. One thing I forgot to add, I love Roth IRA investments, Roth IRAs are the way to do it. So if you have some after-tax dollars, and you qualify from an income standpoint, that is because there’s a range for that and you have to check what that is. Then as a single couple, you qualify them I suggest doing Roth because the Roth is you know your investment goals grow tax-free, not tax-deferred tax-free. By the way, I’m not a real estate, I’m not an accounting professional. I’m not a CPA, so don’t take what I’m saying. I’m setting everything with you for informational and educational purposes only. So don’t value what I’m saying. Yet value what I’m saying, buy real estate, buy real estate. And if you really want to be creative about real estate that is, okay, there’s a difference between buying real estate and investing in real estate investing is, to understand how the asset is performing, when to exit when to how far to stay when to exit all that. And you’re understanding the working dynamics of that asset. buying real estate, which is I bought a house, and live, is not an investment, even though in Silicon Valley in the Bay Area in some areas. In America, it’s seen. And we have seen real estate in general over the last five years. Incredible.
Now, it’s all over for whenever it’s over. But buying a house to live in is different than investing in real estate, there is a difference, I suggest you invest in real estate. If that happens to be in Silicon Valley, in the Bay Area, you’re buying a house, do it. But regardless, wherever you are in the world, try to invest in real estate. And whether you put that that money goes into agriculture, it goes into mercial in, you know, single family, multifamily doesn’t matter, whatever, whatever it is, but you got to understand how that asset class is going to perform and got to put money into it. The last one, this is a big one. And I want to wrap this up with this. Explore One income stream every year for the next seven years. Your job is to explore and lock it in, like literally lock in the income stream, whatever that is. This is a pursuit that I personally had for a long time in my life to identify an income stream and lock it in for the rest of my life. I failed at multiple multiple times doing it. And eventually, I started seeing success, it takes some time. But your goal is to set yourself up for identifying and exploring, exploring and locking in one revenue stream every year. But every year you will have to scout for many before you will really lock in one. So there has to be some time some effort, some understanding, totally given towards identifying that one additional income stream, you do this for seven years, you are going to be free. A millionaire, I think, well, I don’t think I know, you do that in this time. Right now. This time, you will be and I’m not even touching employees, like artists, CEOs and all that that’s a whole different discussion. I’m just making it very simple. Somebody, who makes money understands the spine understands investments, is very disciplined, and does that over seven years, will become a millionaire. Okay. That’s it.
Hopefully, this is helpful. If it is let me know. And we’ll talk more about this. I have been talking about it for a long time. And we will talk more about this the next day. Send it in a few days anyway, and I’ll have some questions for you on this. Also. Looking forward to it. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing, and I’ll be talking to you as early as tomorrow. Go enjoy your Saturday. Bye now.