Video Closed Captioning:
oh
good morning good afternoon good evening
folks michael’s uber one rental at a
time and yes i am back in my studio
we’re gonna you know the office is
coming together a little bit more work
on monday and then i will give you
another walk through yes i have my puppy
in my lap you can see him on camera so
that is sunny but more importantly we’ve
got talent baldwin back with us
how you doing man
i’m doing great i have to i have to
admit i’m not used to seeing you with a
sport coat of my back hair you’re
usually like a t-shirt and a baseball
cap kind of guy so i’m throwing off a
little bit but we’re all good well
here’s the deal i used to do this for my
kids bedroom which meant i could just
roll out of bed
brush my teeth read my news
do the do the shows and then go work out
now i have an office i actually have to
go be out in public so i i now
take coats out and yeah
you’re not at home right now you like
leasing a space correct leasing a space
yeah
i was tired of operating within five
feet of my you know five feet space it
was like i was starting to feel like a
cave so yeah i got an office
very cool congratulations moving up in
the world
moving up creating separation between
church and state it’s all good well hey
one thing todd i wanted to talk to you
about today is financial freedom
i think there are three variables that
everyone goes through
but more specifically i want to talk
about it getting it done before you’re
30 which is something you have
accomplished so first congratulations
here are my three variables we’ll go
through any of them in any order you
want one
you have to focus on making money right
income
two you have to focus on your expenses
and not let the rap race or lifestyle
creep or whatever you have to you have
to find your thermostat and stay
consistent
and then lastly you have to invest the
difference i think those three variables
are the same for everyone
maybe
they’re different but uh
that’s what i think
which ones did you focus on to get this
done by the time you were 30
great question um yes so i think all
those principles are are good for
everyone i do think there’s no
one-size-fits-all to personal finance um
but
i would say the most important one
is
keeping track of your expenses and
making sure you don’t fall into the trap
of lifestyle inflation once you start
making more money
so let’s put let’s poke at that one a
little bit because you you
you have done some special things right
i mean you you have gotten to the point
of hey you still have date night but you
get paid to go on date night right
because you were you were doing these
secrets secret shoppers is that what
they call yeah exactly i actually have
one lined up in a couple days
well let’s talk about it just again
there are so many ways you can still
enjoy life you just have to be a little
bit more creative and look where others
don’t so let’s talk about what you have
set up if you don’t mind unless it’s a
surprise
yeah no absolutely um so my my wife and
i we have our
um our marriage anniversary coming up so
we’ve been married for a couple of years
we’ve been together for like 10 years
we’ve been only married for a couple so
you have two anniversaries is that what
i just heard you say
well technically i mean we have like our
first date a bursary right which is an
important one for her and then we have
like our actual like this is when we’re
married anniversary uh all i hear all i
hear is two gifts that’s all i’m here
right well you’re gonna get a kick out
of this so here’s what we’re doing for
our
um wet our wedding anniversary
there’s this restaurant that we like
it’s not a fancy restaurant it’s sort of
like a middle of the road you know
casual place
called bj’s brew house and bj’s brew
house has secret shops
so for our anniversary we’re going to
bj’s brew house i have lined up a secret
shop and we are eating there for free
and getting paid 35
so our anniversary date for our marriage
isn’t costing us a dime now we’re not
doing that like i don’t want people to
think i’m like some cheap jerk off like
i was going to buy my wife a thousand
dollar ring or earlier last year and she
she said no i was also going to buy her
a g wagon those cars goes for like a
quarter million dollars and she was like
that’s silly i don’t need it right so
i’m i’m happy to spoil my wife like i
want to make that very clear but
we’re so focused on our goals that we’re
like hey if we can have fun and get paid
for the fun that we have
why not do that it’d be silly not to
yeah again this is an example of
enjoying life
and doing things that most don’t so do
me a favor i’ve never done a secret
shopper
is there like a website or a place
people can go to is there some secret
code word or handshake you need to know
where does this start so okay i’ll give
you the real quick version because the
truth is i have about 10 different
secret shopping companies that i’m a um
independent contractor for um i’ll give
you my my favorite one my favorite one
is a secret shopping company called
reality check mystery shopping
and you basically just
you set up a portal online takes a few
minutes you go look through all of the
assignments they have some will be to
restaurants some will be to movie
theaters to gas stations whatever and
you look at the days and the times that
you can go to these places and you
select the ones if any that you want to
go do and so i personally only choose
the ones that i’m going to do anyway or
that will give me some enjoyment and
then i’m like it’s like i’m getting it
for free it’s like if i’m going to do it
anyway it’s like it saves me money and
i’m going to get some enjoyment out of
it’s like i’m getting paid to do
something fun
what is the coolest secret shopping
thing you’ve ever done like oh my god i
can’t believe i was paid to do that
so i’ve done this three or four times my
wife and i went to a casino resort
and we had a secret shop to go
and um we got to the resort the hotel we
were reimbursed for by the ticket
shopping company for i believe three
nights
um all of the food was reimbursed to us
all of the alcohol was uh reimbursed to
us
we had a gambling allowance of like 500
bucks and we got to keep all the winning
so they gave us here’s 500 to gamble
with you keep all the winnings and for
our time we got paid 350 dollars in
profits so a free weekend getaway at
this gorgeous resort
food entertainment drinks and money off
the top
all right you’re a genius that’s all i
have to say thank you
now do you i’m assuming you talk about
all these kinds of things on your
youtube channel is that fair to say
i do yes if you guys want to know more
about secret shopping i do have a
youtube channel it’s just my name todd
baldwin and i actually have a playlist
specifically for secret shopping and i
think the very first video is actually a
tutorial of all the different secret
shopping companies that i work with go
check them out
let me just say this a lot of you right
now should be hitting pause going to
todd when then finding that playlist
again
three things income
watching your expenses and investing
todd said the most important one is
watching your expenses and i got to
agree and if you can find a way to do
that and get paid you’re kind of doing
two at the same time so pretty cool
what do you want to talk about next
we’ve got two left so you focus on your
expenses you set your thermostat what
did you do next
yeah so once you establish your expenses
like hey i’m not going to spend more
than this no matter what i make then
focus on getting that income up because
if you can get to a life that’s
comfortable honest you know a set salary
or whatever and then you increase that
salary well now you’ve made this huge
delta of what you can invest which of
course is the third option so as far as
increasing your income goes i know this
won’t be for everyone but the best way
that i was able to do that is commission
sales and i know that not everybody
listening is a salesman i i get it most
people
they thought of cold calling they’d
rather get shot in the face
but like i
i literally like i told you about this i
had a 40 000 day where i came home with
a commission check of 40 grand in one
day
and i don’t know
another way to do that other than like
an incentive based job
yeah yeah again one of the things that i
recommend folks do again income is the
the next one is increase set the
thermostat don’t let that change olivia
and i got
very focused on that so uh if you can do
a commission-based job give it a shot it
is not for everyone it is definitely
high stress again i operated in an
environment where i could have been
fired every 90 days for lack of a
performance that’ll get your attention
um or you know there’s who says you
can’t get a second job i actually had i
worked seven days a week
i think for almost 18 it might have been
20 months i had my 40 hour a week
accounting job before i became a
salesman
and then i stay i kept my sears job
selling washers and dryers friday night
saturday sunday uh you can have a second
job it’s okay right you got to increase
it at least for a little bit so that you
can again do the third option which is
invest the difference is that fair to
say
yeah absolutely i mean i think you know
investing is like if you don’t invest
then it’s like the first two
you’re never going to get wealthy if you
don’t invest let me just say that but
the reason why i put it at number three
is i understand it’s um
sort of out of touch to tell people to
invest if they first don’t have a grasp
on their expenses right like if you work
a minimum wage job and you have four
kids
and you literally have no money left
over at the end of the month it doesn’t
you know i’m not going to be that a-hole
that’s telling you oh well you should
invest your money right like
they don’t have any money to invest so
the first thing they got to do is
understand how to live on a budget
then stick to that budget even when
their income increases and then with
that delta take that and invest
eventually the money you make from your
investments will outweigh the money you
make from your job and then you can sort
of start to creep up your lifestyle a
little bit but not to the same ratio so
like if you make an extra you know five
thousand dollars per month let’s say
maybe you increase your lifestyle by one
thousand dollars per month so then you
have an extra four grand that you’re
investing right like it’s not about
being a miser it’s about keeping the
ratios in check
yeah i think this is all right i mean i
have a thing called get your money right
the first thing you got to do is budget
and i can’t i can’t tell you how many
people
i’ve asked how much do you spend every
month and they give me a number and i
said okay well now track it
i would say greater than 90 are off by
at least a thousand dollars
that’s a problem
and
again folks i i totally agree number one
for olivia and i to get started was
admitting that we had lifestyle of creep
and we were buying things we just didn’t
need so we had this need versus want
discussion then it was about increasing
income for me that was commissioned for
her it was bonuses or promotions even a
second job early early in this uh and
then lastly it’s investing in you know
finding assets that increases with
inflation and fixed rate debt all of
that stuff so i totally agree one more
time todd how can people find you
yes if you guys want to communicate with
me you can find me on instagram at todd
j baldwin i’m pretty good at getting
back to people in a timely manner and
then if you want to check out my youtube
it’s just my name todd baldwin i talk
about all things personal finance
including secret shopping and investing
and growing your wealth
folks you need to check out todd bugwell
he’s doing things that a lot of us
should be doing if you’re struggling not
having enough income but you still want
to have a date night
todd baldwin just told you how to do it
thanks buddy thank you