0:00 [Music] And welcome back everybody to another episode of the Careful Boys. We got Steve Chen with us here. >> Y'all teacher >> like like hi teacher. >> We're finally going to get into this. uh the transition from you being in public school education as a teacher into now having over 2 million followers in teaching finance uh to the general public. >> He's a teacher to teacher. >> He's still a teacher >> but a baller teacher millionaire. >> Yeah. Let me teach you about money and real life skills. >> How many Rolexes you have? >> Yeah. Yeah. Let's start with that one. >> He has an Apple Watch. >> Oh, I actually do have a Rolex. I just thought I just remembered I do. >> Yeah. >> Nice. >> He has so many he just forgets.
0:50 >> I don't know. I uh cuz I have APS actually. Not I'm not a Rolex guy. >> Yo, Rolex is like wannabe rich, right? Like he's got like a Richard Miller Rolex. >> Yeah, it is pretty. It is pretty wannabe. >> It's legit, dude. >> I love I love Rolex. >> He's in the PEX, you know. >> Yeah, that's a that's the real level. >> Yeah. >> Richard Millipartier. >> No, Cartier is like also depend on what level, right? >> What? No, it's not under Rolex. Cartier's above Rolex. Yeah, Anthony. Can't believe you didn't know that. >> Are you sure? >> I'm not too sure. >> Watch hierarchy. >> You're going to ask Chad GP. >> Who's watchier? >> Who's more rich? >> There is one. We're going to get to your transition, but this is more important. >> Cardier or Rolex. >> Cardier and Rolex are in the same
1:40 category. >> Okay. Okay. >> So, we were both wrong cuz it's not above or under. You said under. I said above. >> Shake my hand off camera. >> You ████ ████ I hate agreeing with you. >> All right. Well, nobody I hate Japan. Okay. Good. I hate them, too. I'm American. >> That's cool. That's cool, Joe. >> Oh, about what? The Rolex or >> You have one? >> I have one roll. Yeah. >> Um, you bought it for yourself or >> Oh, I didn't buy it. My grandpa got it back in the 80s and then my dad and my dad gave it to me. >> Wow. >> I don't wear it. I don't even I think it's like just sitting. >> How come you never bought one? just never it's just not financially smart. >> I think that's how he gets rich. >> I think he's going to explain that to us soon. >> Yeah. This is what we need to maybe learn. >> What happens at the moment when you're when you're teaching and you have these aspirations to do more,
2:30 >> people are like kind of crabing a bucket with you a little bit. How do you break away from that and actually go full speed? >> That's a good question. Um I so yeah like just kind of like backing up I remember back in so I've been when I was tutoring in college I was like learning about finances myself learning about entrepreneurialship uh tutoring scaling my business going from working one-on-one and I was like okay I need to increase my price to okay maybe I need to do group lessons instead. So I would do 1 to 4 1 to 8 1 to 10. I'm like, "Oh, okay." Like I can I'm like making two, three, 400 bucks an hour per class or something like that, right? >> So, uh I was and then when I was doing that and I was teaching at public school, I was like, "Oh, you know, like the the math doesn't make sense anymore.
3:21 Like I should just be an entrepreneur, right? Like I understand why people like to follow this run." And I watch all these people like them starting their own business like selling shirts or I think I saw I heard someone like they would get tires and sell tires or something. I'm like, "Oh, you can do anything really, right? >> Everything is a business." >> Yeah, it is. >> So, I felt like, "Oh, I can do something myself too." And yeah, just uh increase my income that way cuz there was no way I could live off of just my my public school salary, right? Uh, but I got to the point where I was making way more money in my tutoring business than my full-time job and in less hours, too. So, it just like it just didn't make sense anymore. So, >> it's a no-brainer now. >> Yeah. And I was teaching every day after school. Uh, you know, school usually ends around like 2 3:00 and I would just like quickly just jump in my car, get
4:14 into like go to Starbucks or, you know, like my students homes or, you know, I'll teach in in my house or something like that. And then I would tutor from like 3 4:00 all the way to 8:00 at night. And I also also do it at on the weekends too. So there just my my 20s I was just like >> So you make your bank though. >> Just just working working. Yeah. And then I mean at that time I'm like okay I read some finance books about the stock market and I was like okay I need to >> I think I need to invest it cuz there's this thing called inflation. What's inflation? And I'm like oh okay I see. Like oh that makes sense. like things are getting more expensive. I'm actually seeing it over the years. So, I'm like, okay, I can't just keep it in my bank. I need to like put it into something that's going to grow over time. So, I'm like, why don't I invest it into like something like the S&P 500 index funds? So, I did that. And then, as I saw
5:06 myself, my net worth grow, I was uh, you know, increasing my income. I was growing my money through investments. I got to a point where, okay, like I can probably just leave my my teaching job. So, in 2019, that's when I had a Thanksgiving meal with my mom and dad and my other family members. And I was like, I remember I was like sitting here, my mom and dad were here, and I was like, "Hey, mama, papa, like, I'm going to quit my job." >> Yeah. >> Don't hit me. >> What's that mean? >> Don't hit me. Mom, dad, I'm going to quit my job. Don't hit me. They didn't hit me. But I My mom was like, like, oh, like Nisagwa, like you're like, what? What are you doing? You went to school and
5:58 you got your bachelor's degree, your master's degree, you went through all your like training and everything. You were like part of the like the science Robert Noise Science found. Yeah. Like a this whole thing. And then like you were a teacher for seven, eight years. is like, "Why are you just ending your career?" Right? I'm like, like I'm like, "Oh, mama." Like, I have my investments already. I have my tutoring business that's like really going great. I I'm like super frugal. Like, I live with roommates. What? I live with roommates. I'm 38. I live with roommates until just last year. >> That sounds fun. >> Even though, >> dude, you are 25. >> I have roommates in Hawaii 2 years ago and I was 30 your age. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> I was your age. He's like, "I'll use more syllables." >> Does it Does that bring you back to being a teacher when you talk to him? >> He's like, "This is why I left."
6:49 >> Um, how long did you have your money in the S&P 500 for you to go, "Wow, this thing is actually growing." >> Uh, I don't know. Probably just like a couple of months. And then >> couple of months, >> couple months to see like, okay, so there's like historical averages. The S&P 500 grows around like 7 to 12% >> annual returns. Not every year. Sometimes it goes up 20, sometimes it goes down 20, but just on the long horizon. It's around 7 to 12%, right? Just like super boring index funds. >> And I'm and I invested in just like a couple of blue chick companies like Microsoft, the little Amazon, you know, nothing too crazy or like meme stocks or anything like that. But then yeah, I was like, "Oh, this thing actually makes sense." And I was reading all these finance books on how all wealthy be people became wealthy. They all had to invest their money. They had to shift
7:39 from working for their money to letting their money work for them. And I'm just like, oh, like, okay, this is something that mama and papa didn't didn't teach me. They taught me how to work really hard, develop work work ethic, and save money. But this whole investing thing was just a huge mystery box for me. So, I just went on a whole bunch of forums. I read a whole bunch of books, listened to a whole bunch of podcasts. Everyone and then, you know, you guys know the fire community. Fire community is the financial independence. Retire early. M >> and I'm like oh there are a lot of people who became financially free independent uh way before 65 60 years old at 50 years old 45 years old. So what is it that they did? They all invested in two things right estate or the stock market. And then the second thing was they all live below their means. So then I was like okay I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing here and then just see where I go. And then
8:29 that's where I was like okay I got to a place where my expenses are super low. Like I'm like shopping at Aldi. I like I don't I'm not like a big spender or anything like that. Um I mean Yeah. Like Yeah. I'm not a big spender. >> Would you say you were like investing more than 50% of your like income? >> Uh I got to a point where I was investing 50 or 80% of my income. >> Damn. That's like the fire style, right? That's what they just going all >> just all in like index funds or something. >> Index funds and blue chip companies. uh Microsoft, Amazon, a little bit of, you know, just Nvidia, whatever. >> So, you did just like a basic fire thing and then you just figured, well, I need this much a month to live cuz I'm super slim. >> Yeah. >> Like, and then so if you were getting I don't know what your average uh return was, like 6% or whatever, you just keep like three, you try to be like I try to get that 3% being my monthly income or
9:21 whatever or or spending. >> Uh oh. Like how much money is coming in and how much I use for my >> Yeah. Did you go like cuz I know the fire people like okay to kind of go back and summarize for the fire strategy. I think the simple one is like oh I'm going to get an average 6% return. I'll live on 3% and I'll put the other 3% back. That's kind of what I know about it just generally. Is that right or not? >> Yeah, there's I mean there's different ways to go about it. Some people use the 4% rule. So they did this whole thing. It's called the Trinity study, right? They measured the the past like 50 100 years or whatever it is of the stock market. And if you were to just invest, keep staying invested in the stock market. Once you hit to a certain point uh of like a portfolio value, you can withdraw around 4% a year while letting the rest of your portfolio continue to grow. So that's kind of like the safe
10:14 >> standard of being able to withdraw your money. So, in that community, what I read about it is that they try to race to that point as fast as possible, which is why they try to live on like 10% and ████ put hella money in cuz then when they get there, then that uh they're like retiring early cuz that four they could live on that 4%. >> Yeah, cuz if you could save 80% of your income, you could stack chips fast. >> What a dream. >> And especially if if there's like what isn't there like fire slim, fire fat or like there's different >> Coast fire. >> Yeah. Yeah. cuz that means like um cuz you could be super frugal, right? And if your expenses is just like 2K a month, you'll get there hella quick, but your lifestyle is like pretty slim. But then there's like the fat one where it's like I need about 15k a month. So you got to figure out how that 4% is going to be 15k a month. >> Oh, like how to reverse engineer your
11:04 monthly expenses type of thing. >> Typically the rule is you can get your the income that you need for the entire year and multiply it by 25. It's called the 25 rule. Or you can divide it by 04. It's the same mathematical. >> So if you need like a 100 G's, then you need 2.5 safe. >> That's right. I see. >> That's right. Yeah. 2.5 mil. >> I see. >> That's assuming that your expenses are uh kept the same, right? Like you're you're just 100. Yeah. 100. >> Do you need a job? >> No. >> You can panhandle. >> So you did the the fire technique to get you Mhm. >> Like retiring early or whatever. >> That's right. Yeah. So, in 2019, I told my mom and dad, I was like, it was Thanksgiving. I was like, "Mama and papa, I'm going to do this. I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to go on
11:55 YouTube." And there's this thing called Tik Tok that I see like it's trending. Yeah. That's when it first started appearing when I was popping off. >> And then uh yeah, my mom was like, "Yeah, like why are you doing this?" I'm like, "Well, I'm pretty good financially and I was on this journey for so many years. like I really want to share this with a lot of people. >> Would you say you're a millionaire at that time already or no? >> Uh yes. Yeah. >> Wow. In 2019. >> Wait, how many years? So even while as a >> as a teacher >> Mhm. >> you you were going >> you did this path. >> Yeah. >> So you you already hit that number while you were a teacher. >> Mhm. >> Wow. >> But it's a lot of sacrifice. It's not like oh you know like people don't really know the behind the curtains. I mean there's just so much like this is actually the first time I'm like sharing all the details here but you know there's a lot of the the just grinding
12:46 and just like you know just working and teaching you know students and >> it's not like you were just getting scratchers tickets. >> Yeah. >> One day it's going to hit. >> Yeah. You're like literally saving every penny. You're doing what your what your parents did. Working as hard as you can saving as much as you can. Having the discipline to not like go over whatever your budget is. So like whatever your minimum is like you don't splurge. you don't do whatever. >> But I think that's the best way cuz you built the discipline. You know how many millions we made and ████ blew it? >> Yep. >> Still still >> more to come. So then how much sleep when you were doing teaching and tutoring and whatever else you wanted to do? How much what was your average night of sleep like? How much would you get during that time? >> I would say 6 7 hours. I felt pretty good. >> What was your social life like? Uh that
13:36 was lower for sure. And I think yeah it was hard cuz I think I didn't know how to make friends at that time. So I didn't I even when I was in high school like I didn't know how to like talk to people and like say the right things and like ask questions. So like I think when I went into college I was trying to figure that out. Kind of figured it out. But then just when I was tutoring and everything, I was like, "Oh, you know what? Maybe I'll still hang out with my friends, but probably just once a month or twice a month or something like that for like a board game night or we just go out and like work out or something and then just the rest of my time I'm just teaching." >> So from like all the volume of teaching that you're doing from all day with the kids and then you have tutoring, >> do you experience any like burnout? >> Oh yeah. >> And what would you do to kind of combat that or like what would that look like for you? There were
14:28 yeah I would get a lot of uh a lot of anxiety after school after my public school teaching job. So when the bell rings, I'm like >> like, "Oh my god." Okay, here we go. Second half. >> I need a Yeah. Like, okay, job one is done. Okay, let's go to job two. And then when job one is done, I need to hurry up and make sure that I le plan for my class the next day. >> So, I'm like and I print out everything and I became super organized, very efficient with my scheduling. So when my co-workers would ask me to eat with them, I would purposely say no because at that time I would decompress and then I would hurry up and plan everything as fast as I could. So I would optimize my time. So then once the bell rings, I just really need 10 minutes to quickly, you know, just do a little bit of admin and I just bounce
15:18 and I just go go tutor. >> Wow. >> You know, but then uh after I had this whole routine like after I do that, I would have I had this little like little thing. I would go I would eat two tangerines. That's just like like my little energy boost. Maybe like a little quick protein shake. Like my little Optimum way like tub thing. And then I would take a nap with my two dogs. Put a blanket on and I would just sit on my couch like just like just sleep. And then I would put a little alarm clock. >> Do you have >> uh multi a little multi poo? I still have my multi poo in a little back then I had a uh like a little Chihuahua mix. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I did that. It slept for 20 minutes and then alarm went off and then just boom went to tutoring. >> This is this reminds me of the conversation we were having yesterday about um like fitness stuff. And when you were talking about like the answers
16:08 are always so simple and they're always so boring to people >> and everyone knows it too. >> But it's the behavior that stops people, >> right? It's like if you stay freaking committed, if you eat less than you exercise or whatever, and you stay like consistent with whatever the game plan is with that discipline, it's like you're guaranteed going to have positive results. >> It's the dude. It's the same. It's the same as financial, >> bro. It's not magic. But the the discipline of staying committed to that like version of sacrifice, too. He wanted it quick. So, he was doing things that >> most people aren't willing to do. like say no to every single lunch with your co-workers so that you can stick to a routine in order to get to your second hustle while you're doing a full-time job and then like learning from things that your parents weren't giving you by self-educating and then sticking to a plan. Like that's it's it's something that's ironically probably fairly simple
17:00 and common knowledge in a sense, but like to execute that probably is like way more difficult than anybody even understands. I think Steve had an actual guardian angel saying the right things called logic. I had two devils and most of us probably did. Maybe three. >> Well, another cuz I remember a crazy devil just a wild card devil just on his head. >> Cuz if my co-workers asked me to go eat lunch and I had ████ to do, I'm ████ eating lunch. >> Let's go to Shakys. >> I like watch Check this out. >> Mojo. >> Hi Mrs. Lee. I I can't tune to your kids tonight. >> Let's go eat. Let's go eat. All day, baby. >> I had too many mojo and shakies. I'm not going to be able to make our tutor sessions. >> ████ Dude,
17:51 >> it sucks that like you either master what he mastered or you mastered that. >> You master to ████ off, dude. >> You just get too good at like finding your own ways out. >> Ah, it's a curse. >> That's the opposite behavior, right? That's what people the more you do it, the better you get. Yeah. >> And then you become an expert justifier of your own shenanigans. >> Yeah. >> Sorry, Miss Chen. It's the uh game seven tonight. I'm going to have to watch that. I have a lot of money on this night. >> Trying to be an entrepreneur. I got ambitions. >> Yeah. I got a a big big tonight. >> And I feel like we're going to hit tonight.
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