 And welcome back to the Prince of Invest, and coming to you guys and girls live all the way from the beautiful state of Haluahauai, Bia, Denver, Colorado. As you guys know, we got a very interesting topic today, you know, the coronavirus is going all around, but we're going to talk about our tax advantages and vehicles that we can use. And of course, I got a very special guest coming on today with me, Mr. Jed Collins. He is, let me give you a little bit of background on him before he comes in, but he played in the NFL. Well, I want to think it was about eight years. He played for several teams. He went off, he played with some of the greatest players out there from Drew Brees, Dillon Jimenez. I know he played, I want to say like 10 and 13 teams, but he's been on the podcast before, but we bring him live to all the way to Haluahauai today. And for the people that's catching the playback on all the other social media platforms. Now, what I further do, oh, well, the cool thing about it, not only did he play in the NFL, he played in the NFL for about eight years, but then he went off and became a certified financial planner, a CFP, right? So what are the odds of that? So I thought he'd be great to come on. He's coming in with his new book that he's going to talk about as well, but I'm going to ask him about the different tax advantages, the ways you invest, what type of tax advantages you have coming out, and the ways that he can do them. So what I further do, come all the way from Seattle, and yes, he is corona free. Mr. Jed Collins, how you doing today, sir? At the moment, we are doing just fine. We got double stacked up on toilet paper and some beer, so we should be all right for a little while. That's great to hear. So for the people out there, I know I kind of, my intro didn't do as well as I could have done for you. So for the people out there who haven't heard of you, haven't seen you before or hand it for you the first time, let's catch this live and then we catch the playback. Can you tell a little people a little bit about yourself? I would love to. So I left the game of football a few years ago and I've been chasing this dream I've had. And what's beautiful is as you mentioned, I got to play for about a baker's dozen teams while in the NFL. I got to experience a ton of different locker rooms and different players. And what I pride myself is, is what I learned from those men. I was I was fortunate to be around greatness. And from that, I've created a series of principles that I call Rookie to Veteran. And it's really a format of 10 ideas and 10 concepts that I really took away from, you know, a 15 year offense alignment and eight year safety, a 20 year kicker. What could I look around and learn from these guys? But the number one thing and what we're here to talk about was how poorly I was prepared for money. I got my first paycheck. And even though I was an accounting major, I had no idea what to do with it. And to tell you the truth, Prince, I spent it before I even opened the envelope. And so from that day, it was it was a real awakening. Now, in my defense, I did buy an engagement ring and my wife and I are still happily married. So it was it was a decent investment, but it was a very poor financial decision. And so from that day forward, I realized, you know, I was never going to be the 10 million dollar guy. If I wanted to end up in the minority that walked out of the locker room with something to show for it, I was going to have to do things differently. And that's when, you know, I wouldn't got like most people did. I wouldn't got rich dad, poor dad. And from there, I went all the way up to get my CFP in the off seasons. I was that guy on the planes and buses kind of hiding my book. So nobody could see that I was studying. So this has been a long term passion and vision. And I'm very proud to say that it's it's coming to fruition soon. Nice, nice. So I'm going to ask this question. NFL at one time, what was probably your largest check? And what did you do with it? So what did I do with it? Well, my vision, my goal was to get a house, get a beautiful house that the NFL afforded me. And I was I was fortunate enough to do that in, you know, just outside of Seattle. But I would say the biggest thing I bought was that darn engagement ring. I there's nothing I'm buying for myself that's going to be that big of a check. And I, you know, I that was the reality was that was the first one. And it was a big purchase. And from there on out, I realized the body and toll it was going to have on my future that I needed to start to prepare a plan that was going to be able to provide for me after I walked away. So I ended up, you know, I did some practice squad years. I was always kind of a minimum guy. My biggest check probably came from my player performance where, you know, guys like me who get on the field get a little bonus at the end of the year for contributing. But I was never I sat next to guys who were making a million dollars a week. And I was never that guy. Well, it was close enough. So you mean I'm pretty sure you mean more than I'm not complaining, right? So, but OK, so let's get let's get into the juice of stuff. Right. We know the world of investing. There are so many ways to invest. There's so many ways to put out money and things like that. We're talking about today the different types of ways your money is taxed. And I was reading your book, right, your money vehicle. And you stated about three different ways that money are taxed through three different accounts. Now, you broke out that it was an IRA, a brokerage account and a Roth IRA. Right. And can you please please explain to the audience the first we want to talk about what all those three different types of accounts. Then we want to get into how they're taxed. Yes. OK. So brokerage account is what we call a traditional. That means you are going to go out. You're going to earn your money, be taxed on it with your income. You're going to place it into this vehicle, the brokerage account. Let it sit in there and grow, grow, grow. And then as you pull that money out, you're going to be taxed again on it at a different tax frame, capital gains. Now, what most people say to themselves is, well, I just got taxed twice. How do I how do I eliminate one of those? Or how do I take some kind of an advantage? And that's when the 401k in the IRA or individual retirement account were created. Difference between 401k IRA is just do you work for a company or do you work for yourself? That's really the only difference there. And as they said, I don't want to be taxed twice. Give me a tax advantage. And so with the 401k in the IRA, what they did was say, when you go earn your money, we're not going to tax it up front. You're going to get to put the money into this account even before we take out any kind of taxes. And as it grows, grows, grows, grows, it gets big. And then as you pull out those funds in the future, that's when we're going to be taxing it. And it's not going to be a capital gains rates. It's going to be at income tax rates. So as we progress, the government systems, people continue to say, well, I want a better tax advantage or a different tax advantage. And so the brokerage account that I got taxed twice, I look at the 401k in the IRA that I don't get taxed today, but I get taxed later down the road, people invented the Roth account. And that could be a Roth 401k or a Roth IRA. And what this account says, this Roth vehicle, it says, well, now we're going to tax you today. We're going to, you went out and earned money. We're going to tax you today. But now those dollars get to sit in this account and let it grow, grow, grow, grow, tax free for life. It can actually even transfer generations. So why I see this as such an advantage is for young earners. And this is one of the main action items in your money vehicle, the book coming out Tuesday is one of the understandings for young professionals and young earners. And by young, I'm just saying under 45, really, you are going to be in a lower tax bracket today than you probably will be throughout the rest of your career because your career earnings continues to climb. So you'll be in a smaller tax bracket as of today. And then as those dollars grow, grow, you get to have all of those earnings go to work for you tax free. And I think that is just one of those amazing tools that we need to begin to use our money and strategize our plan to be efficient with those kinds of investments. OK, so pretty much you just broke down and you said, hey, you got the brokerage account that a lot of people open up with a TD Ameritrade to E-Trade. And you say, hey, you go to work, you earn a wage, you pay taxes on your wages, you put the money in your brokerage account. And then let's say I made some money off of Walmart stock or whatever the case may be. And I earned a capital gain. The government is going to tax me again. Mm hmm. Yes, we're wrapping you around there. That's the and that's how you get start to get around it by formulating a plan, the mission and objective of the book. And what you and I do, Prince, is we want people to use money. When I say use, I mean, understand, strategize and be efficient with. And so this is one of those strategy pieces. When you look at tax planning, you always begin with a destination really in any financial plan. You need to begin with where are we going? And then we reverse engineer and build out the plan to get there the most effectively and efficiently. And so as people become savers, they start to look at targeting money for specific events. And then we are introduced to becoming an investor where money actually goes to work for us. And we're typically, as you said, we go to Fidelity or Charles Schwab or any of these brokerage houses. And we open this brokerage account. When we want to start taking an advantage for us and only getting taxed once, that's where we start to look at a company account through our 401K or an individual account through our IRA. And that is that is a very neat advantage because you look at your income and instead of being taxed on the full amount, the government actually shields or deducts that first chunk of money and you get to let that go or start working for you tax-free. OK, now, what do you have to say to the person that says, hey, I'm tuning in. I got a brokerage account. I'm being taxed twice. I put my money in. And the first time I earned my money, I paid the government. I paid the government taxes and then I put my money in my account and then I made money and I sold some stocks. I made a capital gain. The government wants to tax me again. I'm in this situation. How can I get out? How can I move to IRA now? So, yes, you can move from a brokerage account into a Roth account because the dollars have already been taxed. Now, to go from a brokerage account into a 401K or IRA, a tax deferred account, that wouldn't be as advantageous because you've already been taxed on those dollars. So if you're looking at it and saying, hey, I heard this guy talking about a Roth account. I want to go see if I'm eligible for it. And if I can push money into that, you can take money out of a brokerage account because it's already been taxed and get it into a Roth account. I would suggest looking at your future dollars and your future savings and say, OK, I'm going to take 10 percent. One of my favorite sayings in finances is I made a dollar. I saved a dime. I'm going to take 10 percent. I'm going to start putting each of my paychecks now into one of these two vehicles, either the tax deferred 401K and IRA or what I call the tax-free Roth. It's not completely tax-free. But after it gets into the vehicle, then it becomes tax-free for life. OK, got it. So somebody that's tuning in, you got an E-Trader account or TD Ameritrade account. You got a brokerage account that you opened up and you're saying, hey, well, I heard that I can use another vehicle that could be an advantage of my taxes. Then, yes, you could call your brokerage house and say, hey, I've already paid money on the I already have already paid taxes on the money that's in my brokerage account. I want to transfer it over to make it a Roth IRA account. And am I correct on that? Yes, you are. And so the two things I would point out to that is one, Roth accounts are even more unique because any dollars you contribute, let's say you put in five thousand dollars this year and in a year or two, you want to buy a house. Any dollars you contribute into a Roth account, even though it's technically a retirement vehicle, you can claw those dollars back out and put them to use for big purchases like a primary residence and things like that. That is that is a strategic advantage to be have those contributions. Now, your earnings after you put the dollars in there and they start to make money, those earnings have to stay in the account. But anything you contributed, I like to say, if you plant a seed and try to grow fruit, you plant the seed. Any fruit that comes out has to stay in. But those seeds, you can pull back out. Got it. And now in another thing, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with the whole fire thing. I think it's like financial independence, retire early, right? So people say it's not an island out here. It's OK. It's a lot of things that start out there in Seattle. I see. But so OK, you have the millennials with the fire that says, hey, on my Roth IRA, I can't touch it to him. Fifty nine and a half. I'm retiring at forty. Why do I want to put it into this vehicle that I can't touch it until I'm fifty nine and a half? What do you have to say to them? So number one, I love the the philosophy of the fire group. Financially independent, I am in retire early. My definition of retirement changes. I think the old adage of retirement has gone away. The why I call the book in my messaging, your money vehicle is because I want you to see money as a tool. Money is a verb for so long. We've made money the objective and the noun. I really want people to start to look at money and say, where is this thing going to take me? Not this is what I wanted. The fire group to me has great principles. They have great practices. They're obviously very good at prioritizing their goals, which I think is an extreme advantage where they lose me a little bit. Is the the focus on money and they say, well, I want to just go work, work, work, so I don't have to worry about money again. I'm financially independent. I argue with that because and you walk away and go into your freedom year starting at 45. But you have to live on a budget, a limiting number for the rest of your life. And, you know, God forbid something like the coronavirus comes and disrupts your plan. I look at it and say, I want to use money. I want to be in control of my money and you see it as a verb as that vehicle. And when I'm able to do that, I'm not so focused on walking away the earliest day possible that again, that old adage of what working meant to past generations. Now I shift my view to money being a tool and a vehicle and it's going to work for me. And so I look at that and say, the Roth account will be advantageous for you as you look at a long term trajectory of your plan. Not I walked away at 42 and what am I going to get my money at 52? But what about your dollars at 82? Or what we're finding out in science today, 102? I see that type of growth and that type of long term thinking. One of the biggest mistakes people are making right now in the stock market is having short term reactions and emotions in thinking. As long as we keep a big picture imagery of what we want to do with our money and put it to use in that big picture frame, vehicles are a great advantage because they give you something without taking too much away. OK, so now that you just said something brought up something that you've been in Seattle and everybody knows Seattle is pretty popular right now, what this virus is going around the coronavirus and we have seen our 11 year bull market come to a devastating end due to a little bit of oil and a little a little too coronavirus. We see the NBA just shut down. We just see the NCAA just came out and shut down. All these big mega sports events has been a part of the American culture shut down. We've seen the stock market come down about 23 percent off of his all time high, putting us into a bear market into a recession, a technical recession. What do you have to say? What are you going to buy right now? What would you say to a person out there saying, hey, I have some money, you know, I'm looking to buy. What are some things that's got beat up? What should I look at? So great question. Number one, the first thing that I would say to them is check your emotions. Everybody is emotionally reacting. The market is very emotional, very reactive. And so the first thing and Ben Graham said it 50 years ago, the number one enemy of the individual investor is their own emotions. Why? Because in times like this, the most of people run for the hills. And so if we're looking at it that way, one, we have to stop panicking and start to check our emotions. And we have to remember what our goals were. When you begin your financial plan, you need to set goals for yourself. If you haven't, then that is what I would tell you is go step backwards and start to set a goal for yourself. But if you have set those goals, in the last two weeks, have those goals changed? If the answer is no, then your plan shouldn't change either. So as you look at the market today, you would continue to dollar cost average because that removes your emotion and it gives you a system. And dollar cost averaging means you are going to drip in or continue to buy the market on a systematic approach. Right now, maybe it's once a week, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's every quarter, but you are going to continue to buy shares throughout. I personally, I definitely see oil has dropped. I look at a company like Disney and my two daughters watch Disney Plus. I've been to Disneyland. I know those guys aren't going anywhere. And yet that company is taking a major, major hit right now. So there are definitely little situations where you can find companies and try to predict that stock price. Personally, I am not even though I'm a CFP, I am not an investment expert. I typically deal with teams of people who are studying the markets. I believe that active investing is a challenging endeavor. And I personally would look at just the market at large for the individual investor and say, you need to take this time capsule and it traveled us back to 2017. You need to take this time, get into the market at large. Don't try to predict or guess. That will come as you get more experienced and you get more of a portfolio to be able to have some sniper. But right now, just get in shotgun, approach it, use a exchange traded fund and index fund, any of these different vehicles and tools to just participate. OK, now you brought up a good thing representing back to your book. I actually read it and you brought up something called the total. I think it was a total market index, right? Yes. And you're saying, hey, dollar cost average, blah, blah, blah, blah. To the person out there saying, OK, by what? What are you talking about buying? What do you have to say to that person? So the same companies we talked about earlier, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, you name it, these major companies, you can go and get access to Vanguard's total stock market, which means they have a share of every publicly traded company in the world. I love when I present. I always ask people, I say, could you become a part owner of every publicly traded company in America? And the answer is yes, you absolutely could. But the more resounding and impactful thing is you don't have to just stop at America. The world is connected. Why this virus and why this event is the most unifying event in human history is it is the first time everyone in the world knows we have one common foe. And not only that, we are all united against that foe and are actually attuned to the fact that it is affecting everyone. Even the markets, the markets are going crazy and it's not an economic systemic issue. It is a virus. And that's why people who have seen enough of time and history and money are looking at this as, hey, this is just the next blip on the screen. So as I say, go out and buy the market. Look at a company like Vanguard. Look at a company like Fidelity and ask or Google search. What is the biggest index I can go get in? There's in the book I recommend VT, which is Vanguard's total stock market. I have no affiliation with Vanguard. They just do a really good job. And it is a very low basis points and gives you a great broad global diversification. OK, that's what I was actually looking up. I knew it was a total market one, but I couldn't remember which one that you had. I knew he said in his book that he said about the total market. So I'm glad I was going to say the stock symbol. So VT. So I think VT is about what 100 bucks to get into right now. Is it is what right now? I think the price is about 100 bucks a share currently. Yes, but remember with technology and with different tools today, you can buy fractional shares. Different robo advisors will let you kind of pool together your funds. So don't let one stock price prohibit you from entering. If that is the tool that you want to use, you can absolutely go to get it. OK, so right now you're saying, hey, while the market is going down, you will look at something like a total market index like Vanguard, Victor Tango, which is VT and you will buy that consistently on a consistent basis, right? I would buy some shares. Yes, as in hopes, if you're a young investor, hope it goes down. I mean, this is a sad joke, but the corona discount is real. One of the greatest examples, you know, and it's from that old investor mindset is the market shows up at your door every day and offers you a watch. And some days that watch is really expensive. Some days that watch is kind of cheap. And if you continually to buy it, you will average out a price that you're pretty comfortable with and over time will return you profits. OK, all right. So that's good. That's good advice that you gave on the coronavirus and the way that you would invest through it. Now, what would you say to the person that's saying, well, I'm looking at airline stocks, I'm looking at travel stocks, or is there some opportunities there? If a person is looking to the opportunity there, what would you tell them? I would ask a few questions first. My gut is always how much research have you done? Have you seen their 10 K? Have you looked into what else is happening in that industry? Have you looked at their competitors? Have you looked at the future? You know, anything from airlines to drive in trucks to oil, all these things. They have to battle both what is happening today with also the reality of oil might be taken a hit because there's a lot more cars that are not using oil today. It might not just be a momentary issue. So anybody looking to take advantage of a short term gain. I was actually talking to a young man who is trades trades options and is looking to short and start to get into some calls and do all those things. And I take a step back and I say, listen, I don't I don't know if I can predict what is going to happen in the market. The market is again irrational, it's emotional, it's responsive. I build as a CFP, it is my goal, my job, my responsibility, both for my family and for the people I talk to. I don't want to predict. I want to prepare. And so right now I am preparing a plan that with usable dollars, dollars that I'm not going to be dependent on. I have measured my risk capacity and I know I can withstand a certain amount of months, years through a market and a downturn. With usable dollars, I am going to go take advantage of an opportunity. I personally am not going to try to seek out a specific investment because I haven't done the research or the respect of respected dive into those. OK, so and I like how you said it. You said, hey, know your number, know where you're going. Hey, how much money do you need to retire? Is it one million, two million, three million, four million or whatever? Once you find that number, then find a vehicle to help you get to that number. And that's what you were saying in your book, Your Money Vehicle. Can you tell the people out there a little bit more about your money vehicle and how it can help them with what they're doing? So your money vehicle is all around the first 10 questions people ask on their financial journey. I've delivered hundreds of workshops. I really took the response and understanding where and how people need to begin. Is this the end of the road? Absolutely not. But your money vehicle speaks to how money has changed. No longer are we living in the pension system or the social security world. Today, you have to sit in the driver's seat of your money vehicle, whatever vehicle that could be, account 401k, Roth account. We want you to build that. But then we're also going to talk about those tax systems. We're also going to talk about insurance, cybersecurity. We're going to get into cash management. We want to be able to prepare you for the journey of life, not saying money as the goal, but to begin to build and use money as your employee for so long we've gone to work for money. Your money vehicle is going to start allowing you to see money as your employee and putting it to work for you. OK, all right. And you're doing something special, right? Where I know you wanted to write your e-book. You want to make your e-book available to everybody out there for a dollar. I can get that link. We're going to drop that link below in the description box. So you're going to make a click on it and get the e-book for one dollar. Is that correct? For one dollar, my mission is not to make money on this. My mission is to spread my message and my message is to empower people to own that financial future, and I'm even going to go so far as to say for every dollar or every one book we sell, I'm going to donate one to a local high school or perhaps if we're in Hawaii, you want to choose a high school out there because a lot of schools are about to be shut down. My mission, my vision is what better thing for them to do as they're sitting at home than to go through your money vehicle and take a financial education course while they're at home. And if at the end of all of this craziness, they come out with a better understanding of how to use money, that's a win for everybody. All right. So ladies and gentlemen, what do you want to leave out the before we close off the show? What do you want to tell everybody after? Yeah, I love people. I would love to connect with you. Find me on LinkedIn, Jed Collins, 45 on Twitter or Instagram. I'm even on TikTok now because people say that's where you need to go. But where I in Prince, you're the same way where we get better is by feedback questions. You heard something. Did that make sense? I'm a big storyteller throughout the book, your money vehicle. We tell stories to help you be able to digest and understand the concepts we want you to get to. And so if I could leave you with anything, it is don't panic, prepare your plan and begin to use money. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's Mr. Jed Collins here, NFL veteran turns certified financial planner. He has his new book, Your Money Vehicle, which you can get right now on Amazon. Check out the link below to get his one dollar ebook to help you build your money vehicle. And that's what we're going to do here on the Prince of Investor. But as always, until the next video, podcast, cartoon book or whatever else you see me do crazy around the globe, peace. Be safe. I'm out and thank you.