 Take this opportunity and welcome everybody into the independent investor channel live stream Product that we've been putting through now for quite some time here on YouTube. Glad to do it It's it's always a fun culmination to my week And I know there's a lot of people here who appreciate it as well Kind of internalize the investing opportunity make it a little bit more forward They put it out there a little bit more for people to kind of think about Put it out there forward not put it on the back burner not put yourself in a position where you're naive about your personal finance and also Really addressing your deficiencies talking about what it is that you can improve upon This is one of those things that you're not going to master. Okay. Hey, you're gonna go about your entire life having exercised the financial stewardship as a discipline and so It's very very important to seek out opportunities along the lines of spending Budget application being critical of yourself identifying gaps in your own program. I just did a thorough Comprehensive overlook of the numbers tonight. I'm gonna share those for you guys as well 2021 has been kind of a silently interesting year for me. There's no doubt about it It's been it's been kind of up and down 2020 last year as as poor of a year as it was with the pandemic coming through It was just such a flash crash there. I see you there Chris. Just get settled in I'll bring you into here in a couple minutes It was just such a flash crash so me trying to take advantage of some of the the volatility really did pay off This year has been a little bit more steady. I kind of look at these markets as being on all-time highs We do actually have a special guest tonight. I've got strong man personal finance Chris is Gonna be gracious enough to come on He's gonna spend most of the live stream for me with me So if you guys do have questions for strong man Me and my wife enjoy the hell out of them We laugh our ass off when we when we watch them But I want to get to know Chris a little bit better and he reached out They may wanted to come on the live stream and spend some time with us tonight So whatever minutes he has to devote man I'm gracious to him and I'm in debt to him for for taking his time in and coming and sharing for your guys's benefit Obviously, that's that's where the focus is Every Friday to try to earmark for people man. Everybody takes this investing opportunity different It really is just that unique There are fundamental principles that I think me and Chris are gonna go back and forth on a little bit tonight For your enjoyment of pleasure to try to dig a little bit deeper to the root of What people are doing to actually succeed in the market? All right, this this doesn't have to be you know Some great mystery and that's what the title of this video is the crystal clear path to wealth because I think there is one and I think there's progressions to wealth and I think unfortunately a lot of people want to opt for The way too risky stuff and that they end up getting burned and they end up getting turned off in the market I think that's really unfortunate Because becoming a participant in the stock market can be one of the most lucrative Decisions in your life. It can really help you with your with your discipline Really help you with your spending habits and you can start to kind of internalize it You can really start to look at it as a large or a small part to your life Unfortunately, I speak with a lot of people man Later on in life that have just worked their entire life work their ass off And now they're kind of in their 50s and 60s and they're playing catch-up and they're like Matt ran man Ryan, what do I do? Do I just put an over exuberant amount of risk on the table? I remember the 2010 to 09 10 downturn And it was pretty scary for a lot of people man a lot of people lost half of their retirement You know within a short amount of time and and it was a culture shock for them right away because it's like man You work your whole life and to see a 40% clip on your portfolio It can be jarring for people and and I think the real takeaway for people is if you can start early on in life Get that compounding effect going on. I think it's really going to help justify later in life Those particular elements of the market that can get a little bit volatile But you can kind of be steadfast on having a program that's been well established over the decades So with that guys are really appreciate the night the last Friday off I took the little guy to Friday night lights. We got our ass kicked 49 to nothing It was the number three high school team in the country They are serious about their football in Southern California make note about no doubt about it We are a 6a school here in Virginia and they came out and they looked like a college team So they they ran us out of the building nonetheless. I got to spend quality time with the kid Well-deserved time to take away from the live stream, but I am fired up. I'm I'm really stoked to offer this I'm really stoked to share it with Chris. So guys stay tuned. It's gonna be an awesome program tonight Really glad to be back with you guys I Come on Chris What's going on good evening to you? What's up, man? Thanks for having me on man. It's a pleasure to have you I mean you you've just kind of stomped on to the YouTube scene here. Congrats on your thousand subscribers, man You got there pretty quick. You did. I mean quick is relative. It took me over a year I would say to get there, but it's definitely Now that I've crossed that that milestones. I'm pretty happy about that. It is it's accelerating nice, man So for those that haven't caught your channel Chris You want to just give an elevator pitch on on what you bring to the table? I mean for me, I catch your content and I think you'll be kind of Encouraged to know what I pick out of your message because I think a lot of it is warranted I think a lot of it's justified. I really do I Really appreciate your detailed review of of you know the 10k the balance sheet income statements I think everybody can improve upon their application there So that's kind of something that I take away because I'm not that good at it, you know as a value investor I I know how to read them It's just to take out the decision making you know out of looking at those and deciding whether or not you look At a balance sheet like an Alibaba and then it gets his ass kicked Like it's just gone on a tear downturn for the last couple months, you know But uh, man the floor is yours man introduce yourself to the group for those that aren't familiar It's uh, chris was strong man personal finance on the on the show tonight Well, once again, thanks for having me. So my name is chris for bell. I'm a certified public accountant Which means I just know everything about everything I'm just kidding. No, so I uh My main investing philosophy is that I'm a bogelhead. So if you don't know who jack bogel is He was basically one of the founders that started the first index fund index funds track, you know, certain market indices and The reason that I like them and jack bogel supported them was because You don't really pay a lot of taxes when you buy an index fund because there's no portfolio churn And you get diversification because you're invested over a broad swath of the market And you don't have to worry about paying high fees because index funds don't Charge high fees because there's no reason to because they just track a market index So I've been investing for about 10 years on 32 now. I just turned 32. So happy birthday to me but Thank you. So I've been investing for 10 years and basically my entire adult life I've just tried to max my tax advantage accounts here my 401k or i'm in the federal government and the military so I have what's called the thrift savings plan the tsp And that's all I've done is just by broadly diversified index funds and tax advantage accounts and focus on living below my means And that's done pretty well for me so far. But you know, everybody has a different investing philosophy So i'm always willing to talk to other people about it. Yeah, they do chris. But I mean, are they all right? I mean, come on man. I mean you come on to youtube Hey, yeah, well That's that's one thing I like about you man is is you come on to youtube and you don't mind getting under people's feather You know ruffling feathers and getting under skin a little bit And I don't think you mean anything bad by it. I really think you're looking at the actual message that's being conveyed Um, I I think it's something that I've noticed doing youtube a long long time and it's something that I despise Um, I think even in in the evolution of my channel specifically I would put out content now that maybe five years ago I would look at and be like, dang ryan, you know, really? What are you doing? You know, and I think it's partially my evolution. Um, you know of my own project And as well as the scrutiny on people and and the what they what they expect to get out of a youtube message Because there's a lot of good out there Chris but I think the problem is following blindly, you know when they look to tune into a youtube message and You know, it's like they're being told to buy all these hype stocks Which you talk about all the time man and rightly so I don't see a lot of people talking like you do And I think for me, I think that's what's refreshing So so give me a little bit. I mean you've got some videos man with some serious dislike And that can be a good thing. It can be you know, how it is And I don't I don't want to speak for you man, but it doesn't seem like you care and that piece I like because You know your youtube channel is not going to be the measure of who you are Okay, I mean it could be partially a show It could be partially really to get under people's skin And I think some of that probing content man is stuff that actually kind of keeps me coming back It's like, why do I keep going wanting to go watch chris? You know, it's because me and my wife cracked up one night You know on one video you threw down on a man was just he had us rolling And those types of emotion man They come in a lot of different forms and I I came out when I started my channel and I was all about you I was like, look, here's the right answer to investing everybody should passably invest the market In a tax deferred account, right? An individual retirement account And it just didn't take off very well and and I did it for a long long time And I was like, is this really what people want to hear, you know So I guess I guess what I want to hear from you man is like what what do you think the problem is? Do you think it's with the big channels or do you think it's with the audience? Or do you think it's a combination of both? What's your thought on that man? I think it's mostly the audience because I I think the average person and this is my I think the average person wants to get rich as fast as humanly possible. They don't want to be told You know, it's actually billed wealth. It takes a long time. You have to live it Well, your means you have to focus on savings rate People don't want to do that because it's just a lot of work and you know, that's okay But in reality, that's how you build wealth now Of course, there's always you know, one or two people that you know They get lucky and they buy an individual stock that then turns out to like, you know, 10 000 x but That doesn't really happen for the average person I would say for 99% of people and on top of that if you look at how actively manage mutual funds Over time, they've underperformed a simple index fund Which to me is pretty telling that if even an active manager that is supposedly a genius or they know a lot about finance or You know, cfa's or whatever in the long run if they can't seem to beat the index You know, what makes you think that you or anybody else can beat the index as well Yeah, so this is a boggle head philosophy and it's actually 96% of money managers fail from year to year But when you stretch that statistic out the failure rate actually goes to 100% When compared against the smp 500 the main benchmark the us stock market 500 companies It it falls to a 100% failure rate So to your point, right if the professionals can't do it, what are people doing? Thinking that they can do it and then to your point about and I've monitored this through youtube and I still Can't understand It's as if you're in a position of convenience when you throw up a stock pick out there And it goes up 50% you're all of a sudden deemed a better investor Conversely, it seems like if you come out with let's say a go pro or what and in all fairness We've all had our our bad investments. Okay I had no idea what was going on in general electric, you know at the time I owned a small position in it I mean there was some insider stuff going on there that was pretty bad And many others right But I think on both sides of the coin It doesn't mean that if you enter into a bad investment that you're a bad investor Or if you're a good investor because you've entered into a good company I just think unfortunately it's amplified by youtube because you've got rogues of people coming in And they're looking for that next best thing So it's like well, hey man king ryan or king chris or king jeremy told me this this must be the way man This is incredible. I I just turned my thousand dollars into 1500 dollars. Shit. I'm quitting my day job. I'm out You see what I mean? If you make 500 bucks, I wouldn't recommend that you quit your day job And it's not even about the money man. Honestly, I think for a lot of young investors They look at it and they think it's duplicatable. That's where I think the fallacy is and unfortunately you get that psychology that you can Beat the market, you know, it's like well the s and p because what you're advocating for chris Is an 8 to 10 rate of return year over year You're talking about getting wealthy in your later later year by taking on the minimum amount of risk Throughout the course of your life dollar cost averaging The one thing yeah, I will mention that I will add on to your philosophy and one thing that's kind of unique to my channel Is I've had ira's my whole life But I've always had managed Directed accounts not self-directed accounts So the big money institutions man, they've had a they found a way to put their money grips into your entitled right As an individual account. They'll charge you for dividend reinvestments. They'll charge you for dollar cost averaging You actually have to opt out of that So help me spread the word and advocate for that because a lot of people think they're doing right by themselves If they tune in and they're like man, what's chris talking about by this tax advantage account? He says it in every damn video he puts out, right? They go look at it They go to edward jones and they they don't know what questions to ask to say look man I can go self-directed in a lot of different capacities vanguard is one of them You know, but you got to kind of know and and and do that because if you don't know those questions They're going to opt you into the program that they want because they're going to affix Affix their fee structure to that account That's modern-day highway robbery man. You're sure. Yeah, I think it's horrible Especially now that index funds are so prevalent. I don't understand how people have financial advisors I mean I get it, you know, some people they need somebody to calm them down if You know the market's crashing and maybe they're you know quick to sell But I mean with an index fund you can literally pay zero fees You can invest in fidelity by one of their zero funds and you pay nothing Forever as opposed to a financial advisor, you might pay one percent two percent per year Which doesn't sound like a lot, but about three Yeah, yeah, or even three percent But if you get a ten percent return and but you have a three percent fee Well, now you only have a seven percent return and when you compound that over time That will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars not even jogan. Yeah So so what what's the deal? What's the evolution of the strongman personal finance channel? I'm gonna look like here chris. What do you where do you want to see this project go? Are you doing this for fun? Are you doing it? For me, you know partially I like to have a voice Because a lot of what I see On social media, especially not just youtube. I disagree with big time So for me the live stream is kind of my out and I kind of feel like there's a lot of people in my group My community that kind of feel the same, you know, like everything is so scripted everything on youtube I mean, it doesn't matter what these guys on the bigger channels now I've watched this evolve for five years doesn't matter what they put out They're going to get hundreds of thousands of views right because they're kind of the premier channels And I think youtube is dialed back on their algorithm their pace structure a little bit I think to actually make it a little bit more difficult for smaller channels Now i'm not going to profess to be the most entertaining fella out there as a matter of fact It's kind of the opposite like I just kind of give you the goods and I don't worry too much about it Like I don't really hear Sure sure I say all the time I say all the time man This is a side project and you know for me man The opportunity to do this as a side project is is pretty awesome actually I do enjoy making content to an extent um I I dis I I hate the hate Which is something that you seemingly invite. Do you see do you block all that shit out? I mean, what's up with that? I mean, this may sound cocky, but I I'm listening doesn't bother me because I know in the long run I'm going to be proven right and I mean basically the whole premise of my youtube channel Just give me time The whole premise of my youtube channel is that the average person will do much better by Living below their means matching their tax advantage accounts and ignoring short-term fluctuations in the market and not trading individual stocks Whereas that's the exact opposite of what everybody else seems to preach on youtube where They tell you to trade in and out of stocks, which is very tax inefficient You know you actually pay short-term capital gain on every gain And they basically just tell you to buy whatever random stock is You know hyped up at the current moment and then you look like if you go back and look at all these youtubers Look at their recommendations a year or two in the past. Yeah, they've recommended some horrible stocks I mean they might have one or two winners that did well But some of these youtubers and I've done it in my videos where I've gone back and looked a year back And their stocks are now down 50 60 70 because they just bought a hype stock that doesn't do anything Yeah, yeah, exactly So so what gives I mean that's the sexy side of youtube, right? If I want to know how to put a damn antenna on my car I can tune into youtube and figure out how to do that if I want to know how to do anything I can put how to do something and this is what people are doing young kids men starting at 18 years old Okay, so what gives when they put that in the search bar and that's what they're finding Okay, they're not finding you they're sure as hell not finding me either Okay, so What gives is it is it just lack of education? Is it the the thrill of the fight? You hit something really really smart when you talked about Over time i'll be proven right Okay, and I think that's really sharp because we can sit here and talk over I mean I do this live stream weekly in the scope of the market. It means nothing It means nothing and when you're talking about long-term investing Years don't mean anything. I mean if you're going to enter into any investment You need to start to look five years from the short term and then ultra long 30 years plus And when you're talking about an 18 year old you're talking about maybe 40 years Compounding you actually start to flirt with the potential if you fund it play your cards right an eight figure portfolio not seven so You got to do some real aggressive funding. You got to live below your means but Where's the disconnect? Where's the disconnect man? I can tell you what it is. I'm listening So right now we're just in a crazy bull market. You know everybody's getting well not anymore But people are getting steady checks. We are no we are if you look from you know march 2020 Everybody's you know all the young kids have robin note accounts crypto currency had a massive bull market All these speculative stocks and cryptos have gone up recently which people are like Well, this is going to continue forever or at least, you know new investors But I think in the future when all this hype dies down and whatever we have some kind of bear market or correction I think a lot of these youtubers and their fans are going to get annihilated because they're invested in stocks that I don't think you're going to do well if interest rates go up or You know you a stock market just you know has a bad couple of years So I think at that point when they actually lose a lot of money in these hype stocks At that point they're going to look somewhere else and that's where I'm hoping they'll like, okay They find me or you or you know everything money or something like that Sure, you talk a lot about the product that you invest in you say it a lot you say total Global stock market. Is that really what you mean or are you talking total stock market domestic us like a vti It'd be vts ax if you're you like index funds. I'm an ETF guy I've done a cross comparison deep dive And I actually think vanguard bundles up the same suite of stocks in a little bit different way They act a little different a little bit of an interest transaction fee for index and then they trade after hours, right? Whereas ETFs are during the market, but I find no difference There is a slight little difference in the fee, but you were talking about a fidelity fund that's a no fee fund So there's options out there that people can opt into 100 percent passive and pay zero fee That's pretty incredible But like to get your thoughts on that, you know, because I've heard you say it a few times and I know you had mentioned you're in the tsp. I'm active duty military 16 years, baby I'll do 30 and thank you for your serp. Oh, yeah, man. Yep. Yep But I'm very nervous. So I'm just not like way below you. Yeah Yeah, right I work with uh, I work with reservist auxiliary man us navy you bet Proud to do it saved my life actually man. The military was legit. I always knew man if I got into something that was steady Um, but I would be fine on the back end because I am really good at with money I don't need a whole hell of a lot to be happy. You know, I saw that you had a new kid. Congratulations. Thanks. Maybe that's where it's at You know, this investing thing is fun. It's fun to come on and you know, kick some fun on youtube or the circus that exists there in But you know, I'd kind of like to understand a little bit more about, you know, your thoughts on index versus etf But you do mention a lot owning the total world. What's your thought on that? Yeah, so just starting with the total world So if you look back decades and I'm not talking about the last like 10 or 15 years If you look back in the 60s 50s 40s 30s, whatever There have been cycles where international outperforms That's every stock outside the united states and there's been periods where the united states stocks have outperformed And right now we're in a time period where us stocks are just crushing it, you know, they've blown international stocks out of the water Well, it's kind of hard to buy a total world index, but if you really look at history and you're like, hey Well, I know there's all the there's these cycles were international and us trade back and forth Now is you know as good a time as any to at least have some kind of international exposure The amount that you have really depends on your tastes. I do it based on market cap weights So basically you take the total market capitalization of the world all the stocks in the world and you just buy them at Weights, which means if you bought at market cap weights, you probably have about 60 percent us and 40 percent international But I literally own almost every single company that is publicly traded in the world at market cap weights So you just buy you just basically buying the world and you're growing your wealth As the world becomes more prosperous over time. That's that's kind of my investing philosophy there That's legit man. So how do you how do you buffer that against? I know you you're with the tsp so am I and If you've got a spouse that also involved is invested there's an account there Right, so how do you kind of play the two together because I I try to seek out my international exposure through my tsp Um, and and I'm really heavy domestic centric and it's something that I want to change I've owned emerging markets. I've done really well Um, I've owned european markets over the last few years and it's just been like a sleep I mean really it's been horrible. It's like anything away from domestic markets. Why? Now the the us has just been killing it. But to your point I think you've got to go beyond the last 12 years of market action And I think european markets actually right now look kind of attractive to be honest with you because they are so down So I you know people are talking about this market I know monday everybody was shitting their pants and running for the freaking prepper bunkers because You know the market went down 900 points and I was like I was kind of pissed off. I didn't get to buy Oh, Jesus christ, man It's well remember. I mean listen. It's really hard to teach people perspective one day perspective I don't care if it's up 900. I don't care if it's dan. It doesn't matter It just does not matter. It doesn't matter week to week. It doesn't matter month to month Here I am. I'm chalking 2021 up as kind of a dud for me I mean, I've made some swing trading and some other asset buckets have worked for me. It's fine I mean I hold a sizable portfolio. So all it's got to do is grumble a little bit to make some money But I I'm I'm I'm about as far away from my passive philosophy as as I've been in my past So right now about 30 to my total portfolio Is passive ETF index funds, right? And then I've got another 36 percent In the dividend growth strategy with just the high, you know, the the aristocrats, you know, the dow and the industrials, right all the blue chip gems of the market Uh, and then the and then I've got a pretty big amount about 30 percent right now Is in some higher growth stuff So I'm about as far To the left as I can possibly get in my application because I really don't want to put Full throttle into a market that I feel like sat an all-time high after 12 years So tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm trying to time the market, right? But I just I have a very deep understanding in the markets man. I've been doing this a long time and it's like I think there's something to be said about if I'm if I'm an investor and I got 50 grand, right? I'm I'm 20 years old. I've saved up. I'm ready to make my start Is it is it prudent to say look, we should just introduce this First 10,000 into the market start dollar cost averaging a tax Privileged account an IRA Roth IRA and keep some of that pay dirt on the side Or is it just to hell with it? Go whole hog man put the 50 grand in and go at it because this market may be at 50,000 next year You know, I just I don't think that's going to happen But what's your perspective on kind of where we are now and setting yourself up into the future, you know I mean, honestly the higher the u.s. Stock market goes. I mean, we just have this insane bull run over the last You know decade or so the higher insane scared You know, it's like that's why I'm I'm very reassured that I have almost half of my net worth in undervalued underappreciated international stocks because when the time comes and It's stock market, you know Dips crash corrects, whatever happens. I think money is going to flood internationally So, you know at that point when it's too late people are going to say, oh look, well now international is doing good Now i'm going to buy international but but by that point you've missed buying all those shares of international on the cheap So it's hard to predict when things are going to happen You don't know which is why I always fall back on well if I just own the world at market cap waits I'm not timing the market and I grow my wealth with the world. I don't have to worry about trying to say Oh, well, maybe international will do good next year because you could be totally wrong. You know, you just don't know That's why I do what I do Now when it comes to the Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to ask you about your why are you're so into index funds? Um, I don't think I've ever heard you say mutual fund on your program Which is a good thing because I despise them Um etfs what's your thought there? Well, why did you opt for the index fund instead of the etf? What was your thoughts there? I mean, I know they're really splitting hairs. They're very similar products They really are they're just packaged up a little different Yeah, I mean I actually so I have my Roth IRA and etfs. So I've recently converted to not hating etfs But I think for the average person if you're not If you're not used to long-term investing and you have etfs etfs fluctuate all day That's smart If you see your etf go down 3% you might be tempted during the day to sell whereas a mutual fund It's like you can't really sell it during the day. You have more time to sit back and process what's going on And if you really look at the data, you know, I mean jack boggles talked about this all the time Uh, people have just trade in and out of etfs like crazy. It's just madness. They basically trade them like stocks So they're supposed to be passive investments where you just hold them forever That's not what happens in reality people trade them like any like any other stocks So that kind of leaves a purpose of it. I'm I'm guilty as a mofa on that Seriously, I is I'm my yeah I'm my own worst enemy, man. So what you're talking about is like, I don't know. It's it's a 20 dollar Uh, transaction fee to actually enter into vtsa x which I think is one of the the best products out there That you can buy jail Collins. That's his flagship Transaction fee is $19 and 95 cents. Remember how vanguard used to have their uh, admiral shares Right, they've done away with that and they've gone away with their investor shares Which used to be the $3,000 minimum see etfs you can invest in with a hundred bucks You need to have that minimum and I don't know you're with fidelity. It sounds like I do exclusive vanguard products and there is a minimum to get into that vtsa x They dropped it from 10,000 down to 3000 So that can be one of those things and you might think that that sucks. Why do they do that to your point, man? I've almost been tempted to buy vtsa x just for the damn discipline of it Seriously because I'm my own worst enemy and I do what it is that you just said and I think a lot of people do that as well Um, I've kind of moved off that a little bit the expense is a little less in vti Which is the equivalent total stock market for the us Um, it's at 0.03. You got to pay 0.04 bits to get into vtsa x Just because I think vanguard is just a little bit prouder of that product But I find to know difference in it. So yeah, the transaction fee is just to enter into the product. It's 20. It's a one time fee That's it. I don't I don't know why They're making millions off of it vanguard's making money even off of these small incremental You know fractions of an expense ratio that they put over those index funds They're still making money But they're of course cheaper than 90 percent of the industry out there So that's the arena that I want to play in and that's why I don't mind recommend and hey Take a look at these men because they're really good Um, and I don't know about the performance of the zero cost I worry sometimes that they put those out there as a teaser a little bit But the performance is sure and then the performance isn't made up for on the back end Do you know what i'm saying? I mean it's a fidelity basically if you're talking about the fidelity zero funds They basically like created their own index because if if you use somebody else's index that's already been made You have to pay like a licensing fee. So fidelity is like, oh, we'll just make our own index But it's it's basically the same thing is like, you know the us stock market So yeah, I mean it may underperform one year may outperform But it's basically the same thing So if you're not comfortable with that and you want to pay a little bit of expense ratio for a vanguard product That's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with that But I don't think there's gonna be much difference between the you know fidelity zero funds and vanguards vtsa x Yeah, yeah So the activity on the channel chris. I want to get back to your channel and and where you where you're going with this thing I mean, you're kind of operating on shock factor right now, man So is that going to keep up? I mean, do you just do you just produce that on the fly and have a whim of there's a lot of creativity that goes into your stuff? okay, um that that's a compliment and uh Like I said, I was interested in your answer because you kind of put some of the blame look I mean people have to be adults about the content that they consume But a lot of these kids man, they don't know any different I mean there's kids all the way down to dare. I say very young That are following these channels and they're like man, I I can drive a lotus a spree too if I just watch this channel you know what I mean and it's like Is that is that the right message? But How do you Are you going to continue on the path that you're on? You know kind of poking fun at that the big channels Because they because they deserve it because nobody else is doing it because you have fun doing it Are you going to segue that at some point? I mean just give me a little insight about what you're what you're plan on doing I like the content man. I don't care what you do. I'm one of those guys that's like Hell he can do whatever he wants man this america god bless man and say what you want um, it's not something that I would do it because Like I said on my live stream when I introduced your channel and said that hey, I've been checking your content out um I went down that road for a little bit, you know And I had minions on my channel that that were crawling out of the woodworks to defend That they're their Avenger, you know what I'm saying like it was like dude. This guy's just a regular fella Okay, and he's not he's immune to scrutiny like I don't I don't get this we can't like call bullshit every now and then Um, and I just stopped doing it because it started to introduce a lot of hate to the channel man so I mean Tell me where your motivation comes from man I mean the hate I Like people believe the nastiest comments and I just don't care because I mean I've been investing Consistently in index funds for 10 years and I know it works I've saved a ton of money and I've never traded a stock. I've never gambled on anything I've done just fine and I think everybody else can do that too If they ignore these bozos on youtube, so I'm actually I I legitimately am offended by some of these big youtube channels that say the worst advice and do almost no Analysis of stocks. They just pumped the latest type stock So, I mean for the near term, I'm definitely going to keep poking fun because it's definitely it's definitely helped my channel grow to be honest Yeah, I mean you can talk about index funds all day. Nobody's going to click on your video But no man like Tesla stock is stupid trash or whatever people are going to click on the video And hate your ass up and down man Yeah, for the one, you know for the couple of people that actually like listen to what you're saying or what I'm saying Like hey, this is bad because the fundamentals are bad Maybe you should consider an index it eventually sinks in and then you know slowly more and more people Come to your side. It just it just takes a lot of time. I mean, I'm never gonna be a huge youtube channel, but um, yeah, I don't know Funnier things have happened man, uh, it's it's the wild west on youtube. It really was five years ago There's no doubt that um I want to foot stomp something he just said I don't think you need to be a stock analyzer man to be a passive investor I don't I think you can just be anybody And those those are the barriers that I want to make crystal clear for people and I was just talking to a colleague of mine at work 6,000 right max contribution for single 12,000 contribution to an ira This year and I expect that it'll be the same or more next year. Okay Most people are in that arena chris most people don't have discretionary cash Above those contribution limits Therefore therefore by nature of just deep default. We're talking to most people. We really are okay So if you take that out of the equation and say well, hell most people should be in this wheelhouse over here Why are people tuning into this? a channel when you talk about Stock analysis, okay? That is damn difficult to do It is an art. It's a craft. It takes instinct. It takes either technical or fundamental application Usually the best are very good at one of those Not necessarily both. Okay, and they do very well at that. I know a lot of people that do very well I'm not one of them. I'm a channeler. I do some swing trading activity Where I can catch good quality dividend stocks in a channel, right? and and trade those within the tax Advantage to count rights the profits are protected That's just a style that works for me But to come on to youtube I do share it and expect that people are just going to duplicate my success It just ain't going to happen And I think the fallacy is man when people come on and they profess to be that stock picker To be that analyzer because you do a really good job of kind of I don't know unwrapping the unwrapping the the real particulars of what was looked at It's a story, right? I I feel really good about it or the management is very very, you know Optimistic about the future. I laughed at that one. I was like, yeah, they can say whatever the hell they want The management says they're optimistic. You might as well just put your life savings in the stock That's just how it is Is there value at all in younger people taking on a little bit more risk or she would you say? No, get some discipline get it early Buy into this philosophy and really understand why you do it because here's the thing chris Like if they don't buy into the philosophy They're going to get involved in passive investing and they're going to be bored out of their mind Bored out of their mind. I want more action. This sucks. I'm 21. I only have 3,500 saved I started with 500 this sucks. I wanted 10,000. I hell I wanted a million, but I'm obviously not there, right? What gives I'm going to tell the average person like yeah, okay? Yeah, we had this recent bull market where everybody made money including indexes that you know are boring But at the end of the day You might have 3,500 now, but if you buy stocks that you have no idea why you're buying them You're probably going to lose the vast majority of your money. I'm just saying So what I see what I tell people is If you really need to Dedicate 5% of your portfolio Can maybe even 10 if you really want to do it and you can do whatever you want with that part of your portfolio And I even have individual stocks like just for fun You know, I do it myself But the vast vast majority of my wealth is in Tax advantage accounts in total world index funds So you can still have that fund where you're trading maybe cryptocurrency or you know God got to help you options or whatever. You can still have that fund But you're not risking your entire life savings on that So what you speak of is scale Um, I I think there might be a place for that To feed a little bit of that appetite to be like, okay Fine, you're going to be bored out of your mind If this is going to compromise your program and you're just going to say to hell with it I'm giving up on this program. Maybe put a little bit into a little bit more of a speculative avenue I You know, I I say that tongue-in-cheek just because I know psychologically it might satisfy that palette In other words, most people are going to take that five percent. They're going to lose their ass They're going to lose and they're going to be burned and they're going to learn and they're going to be like damn Maybe this wasn't so bad being diversified diversifying my program, you know Yeah, I did look at my portfolio and I was pissed off that you know over three years I got up to 3,500 from 500, you know, but at least I'm not down You know to to to nothing, you know, or or I'm down half on my investments Or I don't look at my portfolio and say, you know what the market's down right now. Maybe this is an opportunity to actually I don't know by the market. I don't know What are you gonna do? Maybe that'll work. I don't know You know, I yeah, absolutely. I I don't know man You know general electric is a good a good example and there's many many others You might get that right stock that for a while it does perform for you The problem is man over time stocks never remain on a plane forever And it only takes one or two of those bad apples to kind of to kind of sour your portfolio a little bit And that's what takes away from that year over year performance that you're trying to preserve The way I do it is I split it up strategically. Okay I don't look at my passive bucket to say that I'm giving up the opportunity and dividend growth investing Because my strategy is different and I think to your point you may look at that and say, yeah, ryan I don't know man. This this is this is kind of shitty over here because you're underperforming your passive I look at them exclusively. I do I look at them with two Completely different strategic goals attached to them Whereas I'm trying to get the eight to ten. I'm trying to meet the market Uh in my passive bucket and then the dividend growth strategy You know looking to get that dividend income looking to you know, take advantage of that dividend growth strategy within some of those Really really good dividend stocks. I know I saw a video. I didn't watch it But you were kind of down on johnson and johnson, right? You know for reasons it's like you look at those stocks and those that's even tougher It's easy to look at the market and say man, this isn't moving very fast Well, you're trying to move a lot of stuff slowly in a direction But if you look at single stocks shit, they can sit in a rut for five years I've owned johnson and johnson for five years plus. I'm up marginally. It's underperform the market So it's like in hindsight should I have just been better off take going back and and just putting that in the market I I think that is a credible conversation to have for the young folks and that You know, it's like man, I'd love to have a basket of 10 or 15 single stocks But at the same time where are those 10 or 15 stocks going to be 20 years down the line? Do you really envision holding all of those 15 stocks down the line? Whereas you can absolutely envision owning the smp 500 15 years from now 20 years from now for your entire life Hell you can make it a legacy to your kids, you know what i'm saying Yeah, I really don't think the average person even including myself like I have a tendency if I buy an individual stock Even if it's for a long-term play, I'm going to sell it in like one or two or three years I don't think the average person has to pay I don't think the average person has the patience To hold on to an individual stock, especially if it underperforms the market For a long time whereas like once you put money into an index, it's like, okay, it's gone Whatever you don't think about it again But people like they like to watch their individual stocks day to day It's just what people do in my opinion And after a certain amount of time, you know, they might be tempted to sell it if it underperforms for a while So at the end of the day, I just always come back to The average person and even you know, the above average person would be much better off Just buying the world holding it not paying taxes or transaction costs Think it's something super important that I footstomp on the channel all the time and People are always trying to beat the market. They're always trying to outpace, you know, they see the amc of the world They see the game stop of the world the meme stocks. I don't I still don't know what the f that means. I have no idea I don't need to and I can't I I can't I can't get my mind wrapped around it But you know, you see these stories, right where they fault Certains individuals have fallen into wealth For doing absolutely nothing And you know, it's it's it's really really tough to kind of get over that That allure, you know To really get people to buy into the past of philosophy, but um, it is the right way to go for sure So I didn't know if you had plans to stick on all night, chris with me to the clothes, man You're totally welcome to do so. Um, I was going to get into support folio reviews But if you want to stay with me on the channel and close it out, you're totally welcome to do so Um, I just in respect to your time, man. I wasn't sure what you had cracking for tonight, man How long do you normally stream for? An hour. I got 15 more minutes, man. I'll stay out for 15 minutes. Fantastic, man. I appreciate it My wife might beat me, but it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah for sure Yeah, well, this this is the one hour. She gives me man This has been with the proud with the family for a while. I actually am in my living room So I rent down here in virginia. So this project started in new york and it's come with yep Absolutely wonder where you're at. I'm there too. Yeah, bob each man. Yeah. Oh, are you serious? I'm right across the water That day I'm dead serious, man Fantastic. It's a small it's a small world, man. Very cool over there. We could just like, you know, stream together at your house Yeah, right Yep. So if I had room one of these days, man, I might have a studio where a lot of people want certain things. I I like the youtube opportunity. I like it. Um, I've seen a lot of youtubers come and go Um, a lot of really good good characters a lot of people that really tried to take the high road on youtube and they just they just fizzled out man because I don't I don't think people are interested in that I I think for the most part people are not going to come on to youtube to hear somebody talk about You know fundamental investing They're not going to do that unless you're just really really good and I've I've seen guys that I really like too I like joe carlson a lot, but he even joe has kind of went away from his original Perspective and philosophy and you know, his last video was like i'm buying these high pe stocks That's the stuff that sells. You know what I mean? It's like a pe of 80 to 100 That's what you got to go for now because that's where the hyper growth is I know you covered a firm and a son, you know a firm specifically was was out there with meat kevin And it's like God, I hate when he's right, you know because it's like the bottom dollar was you know that that was I guess a good investment Uh, I looked at it. I just if he buys a bunch of random growth stocks. That's what I think happens Yeah, one goes up. Well, oh, you're you're not a genius because you bought a bunch of growth stocks and one went No, you've got you've got you've got content for the next month, man. This is incredible. This is bad Kevin are best buddies best buddies Okay, so talk a little bit about Your what you've done on the membership element. Um, it's something that You know when people sell courses on youtube when people have private Groups and things like that. I heard through the rumor mill That one particular of the larger channels is uh secret secret group. I don't even know what you call it, man I don't know Is is upwards of 10,000 and at a certain point it was even more than that Yeah, so when I call this individuals group myself and they've they've lowered the prices since then but I've called them and because of you Or do you think there was pressure? I don't think it doesn't mean I wish but Who knows but my friend called him. I called him. I was quoted $20,000 to join their group $20,000 that's maxing your 401k for you Join the group and be in there for a couple of years and have like a couple coaching calls Like it's just pure theft what these people were trying to charge me and You know ever since then I was like these people are out of control because people are actually paying that 20 grand You know if they're if they're gonna quote that they're probably getting people to pay 20 grand When in my opinion you could have put that in your in maxed your 401k for the year. It's insane. Yeah, buy a book Buy a book buy a book get just you know get some experience Take $500 put it in the market. You're gonna learn more by owning the s&p 500 over time And set it up on 25 bucks hell. It's like where are you getting that ryan? That's what I did That's what I did I was like man, we can do 25 and we actually had this discussion man. I've been married now 16 years we had this discussion many many moons ago and it was like hey, I'm an e3 You know, let's let's do this we can do 25 bucks So that ask isn't something that's outside of what I do now I do a couple grand a month because the surplus has never gone away It's just increased my lifestyle has probably You know went went, you know, I buy less now the older I get Because the stuff I want is like big cool stuff and I can't afford it So I just continue to live frugal, you know what I'm saying But once you live frugal enough you just get used to it and like even if I ever get wealthy I'm not hey man. I yeah No, no, man, and that's the cool thing about it is You know, I think more of an education can come out of that man Take 500 bits put it into an individual Roth IRA account. You've spent nothing yet You're going to pay a little expense with the voo Point zero three. It just doesn't get any better than that And dollar cost average it over time that right there is the goods And and we just gave it to you in 12 seconds That's what the majority of people need to hear because over time you're going to look at that 25 and say damn It's not so bad. I can up that to 50 or hell I'm going to I'm going to quadruple and I'm going to 100 or 200 or 250 sooner or later You're up to that max 500 a month You know every time you get a raise if you get a $400 raise and go maybe put 200 more in your retirement I mean, it's whatever you can do So are you investing for the for your baby yet? Uh, I'm strong has the strongman child look at 529 And it's I know I'm putting like 50 bucks a month right now into his college. That's what I did. Yeah 100 maybe but good for you Good for you, man. Very cool very cool Yeah, so I mean that's That's pretty wild, man. And it's it was not like that when I started Um, you know, there was people selling some courses. There were some trading courses out that were Uh in the vicinity of 5000 bucks to where you got to sit there and watch real-time trading. Yeah Yep, and uh, and then I heard that and I was like, wow, I guess who's Who's who's out fault there, man? Where does the culpability lie? Um, is it with the sponsor of said program or is it the patrons that are buying this? I know Um, I guess there were times in my life where I felt maybe I was more gullible than I am now But damn 20 grand are these people getting tricked out of their money? I mean, did you feel it all tempted to pony up 20 grand to actually see what the what the what the program is all about Oh, I mean, I wouldn't pay 10 bucks for that. Come on. You got people coming You got people coming onto your channel and they're like, man, my portfolio has increased x number of percent So therefore therefore You think so 100 percent, you know Everybody that comments on my channel lying to them. They're lying to themselves. Yeah I've made 800,000. I I don't believe it. I'm sorry I mean the you look at the average of me like you look at the statistics for the average american The average american has nothing saved and then these people are gonna come on my channel and say, oh, I made $200,000 It's like shut up. You didn't make that much money Yeah, yeah The sample pool that I talked to man out there with friends colleagues people that I just meet in acquaintance or whatever Um, you know, most people, uh, they get into retirement. They don't have enough In all truthfulness, you know, it's a lot of the reason why You know, we try to help the younger generation and those older generation. They would say the same thing You know, um, I'm hoping that they don't have regret That's a lot of the reason why I invest is because I want to avoid as much regret as I Can later on in life to look back and say I did it, you know, I effed up You know, I I screwed up over and over. I fell on my face a few times Wasn't a straight line But at least I at least I tried, you know, and at least I didn't Forego an opportunity when I saw it But yeah, I think to to your point I I think the regret piece is is the big big piece I you know, I go through the line at walmart and there's, you know People they're working that are like 60 70 years old and it's like are you doing that to stay busy? Or are you doing it out of necessity? And I don't mean to judge people, but I don't want to do that Just me man. I'm not trying to be an ass. I just don't want to do that when I'm older And and finance financial wealth and and security man It gives you options It gives you options to where you know, you don't if you want to do that You want to go be a walmart greeter? You can do so, but you don't have to I'd rather be on the golf course or I'd rather be fishing or doing something like that, you know And and I think that's that's what a lot of young people need to resonate with is that eventually they're going to be 65 They're going to be 59 and a half Why not set yourself up for a decision down the line that you can be proud of? You know, yeah, and they think they're going to be so old that they can't do anything Well, I disagree. I think if you stay in shape and you're you know, you eat healthy You can probably be pretty mobile into your 70s and 80s. It just all depends on you Oh man, our grandma over in europe. She's 93 years old man. You kidding me? Yeah, you can spend the last 30 40 years of your life healthy fit and he he was military grandpa was military too, man Yeah, they spent 40 years in retirement together. You know, I mean they retired 60 I mean he lived all the way to Almost 90 years old Married 60 years, you know, so they had in their golden years three decades And it's like look I I can't guarantee that I'm going to have that for me or anybody else, but There's a shot, you know And uh, you know, if if if you have that financial wealth and security that that safety net I think later on down At least that gives you gives you those options, you know, so you're not stuck in a corner, you know Man, what a feeling that would be to have to go out by necessity and work When you when you don't want to or you don't feel like it or your body is broken, you know, I'm saying Hell, yeah, it's gonna be uh down at the beach when he's 60 Well, maybe that's where a lot of the strong man like I mean you're pretty scathing on your videos, man No doubt has anybody taken you up on your offer to come on your channel Not yet. I I'm not big enough to where any of these youtubers are gonna do They don't they don't want to embolden. They don't want to bold it embolden you, man Yeah, they would play right into my hands if they came on my channel They don't know what I'm trying to do but I mean eventually I'm like, okay Well, if I have like way more subscribers, they can't I would watch that They can't even watch forever I would watch that Because as long as you keep making waves as long as you keep making waves You'll you're on a wave right now where your videos are doing quite well for a channel that's got just over a thousand subs They they the algorithm is picking up and it's pushing out and it has a lot to do with consistency Um, do you spend a lot of time with the youtube opportunity? I mean you're not killing yourself to put this content out every day because you're constantly pumping out content I don't know how they oh you do it so fast No, because I just speak off the cuff. It's kind of like, okay. Well Let's let's talk about this stupid stock today and I'll just go look at the financial statements and I'll just there you go And then I'll go back and there's too much material there There's infinite material I mean you have so many scammers on youtube that are charging thousands of dollars for scam courses It's like, oh, I found another one today. Oh, I found another stupid stock. Let me do this. Let me do that It never ends Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure for sure. Well, good stuff, man, chris I'm gonna close down the live stream a little bit. I may try to sneak in the portfolio review for the crew here and Yeah, I'll go ahead and get out of your hair. I appreciate you. Let me come on No, man. Hey, I really appreciate it man. And and thanks for the content man. It is in all fairness It's pretty awesome. I pick up a lot from your channel. I think you're a very sincere guy I I don't really want to be on your bad side either If I ever do all as fair as in love and war I think everybody needs to be open to a little bit of criticism and at the end of the day I think that's what you're trying to offer Because I don't I think everybody wants to group think and I think everybody's fast to get in line But when somebody comes up and says hey, maybe that's not so right Then then you're the bad guy, you know, I'm saying so keep up the good work chris. Go go ahead Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, as long as you don't sell a course for 20 grand Jesus Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good chris. Thanks for coming on man. I really appreciate it. All right. Good luck to you and the family Congrats on the baby. Thanks for your service, brother. Take easy. All right. Bye everybody That was chris a strong man personal finance man Give some pretty riveting content over youtube. I like him is genuine guy for sure Um, he does what um, I think a lot of people are kind of thinking And I I do think there's value in it I think he brings a lot to the table with regard to his uh, his technical review of stock and balance sheets cash flow statements Um, and and the like he's really good. Um, he does hold a degree in the field certified public accounting So he does know what he's talking about. It's kind of cool and um, I think for our professional trades out there I think sometimes it's unfortunate Um that uh people look at life and they look at the opportunity is just coming on and Falling into your Lamborghini on youtube and it's just as easy as that I don't need to go to college I got this thing licked. I'm good guys. This isn't real work. It's not man. It's just a a conduit It's fun for me to come on. I apologize for not getting to the good of the order and the good of the group But it was fun man every now and then I do like to throw in those interviews on the channel So if you guys are interested man, and you do catch this live stream after the fact Kick kick over and help chris with his message man. You heard him. He's service guy. Hey, he's a family guy Um, he he's he's scathing his health no doubt about it And and that's uh about as big a compliment as I can put out there Because where a lot of people are coming on to youtube and trying to Tell you what you like want to hear. Uh, I think there's very few that tell you maybe what you need to hear And uh as unpopular as that might be I think there's kind of a place for it. Uh from all corners of opinion and Those folks that are willing to come on and share that opinion with everybody So with that guys, we are going to sign up here in the live stream first friday back since last friday Thank you. I appreciate that next friday. I'll be rolling On a solo project Just uh extra special. Thanks for chris for taking 60 minutes. He spent the whole live stream with us Really appreciate it man sharing the wealth here building the community slowly one investor at a time Really appreciate you guys. I will catch you next friday. I will hang back a little bit I'll drop one uh invite into the bottom of the thread if you want to stick around kick into the back door with me Uh, it converse with me. That's topra if you have a question that's burning I will provide that opportunity here, uh right after the outro guys. Take it easy Be well. Have a great great weekend. We'll catch you next friday You