Branding & Budgets: How To Use Social Media to Grow a 7 Figure Online Business w/ Brennan Schlagbaum

Brennan slog bond. What's up buddy. What's going on. I made the joke before, but Lubin and schlog bomb sounds like we were on the wrong end of a world war II movie.

it really truly does. It's

scary. yeah, but we made it through man. . Welcome. Welcome. It's been it's been awesome watching you grow, man. I, I got into the wonderful world of. Building an online brand in social media. And Brennan's tag is budget dog. If you wanna talk about how you came up with that's a pretty wild story.

Let's start with that story, cuz because I get a lot of questions on this topic. So I guess dating back to when I first started the account. I was helping people with finance. I was, it was my whole background of the come up of getting my CPA, working with individuals and I wanted to scale and I wanted to actually create a business. And I, didn't necessarily know how to do that, but I wanted to reach as many people as possible. So social media was that thing. So it was my wife and I sitting there on our couch one, one evening, and we were trying to think of a creative name. We didn't really know, like we weren't really social media people. We knew social media, we grew up with it, but we didn't know. So I was thinking, okay, finance, what words and finance like click budget was obviously one that came to the forefront. Then I looked right. And my dog was staring me in the face and , I. Budget dog. And I don't know what it was, but we wanted to speak from his perspective because I wasn't very comfortable with putting myself out there. Like I am today. So initially just literally just was like came together, was married together. And some people think I'm calling myself the budget dog. It was actually for the people that have been following me since day one. It was a picture of Nico who's my German shepherd, my shepherd mix. And he wanted, he was basically puppy service announcements. For example, would talk from his perspective, or I would talk from his perspective on financial topics and people started loving it. What I was saying, what I was teaching. And I went on my first IG live and they're like, oh my God this is actually the person behind the account. And I connected with so many people. So eventually I changed everything I rebranded. And I even thought about changing the name, that rebranding process, but I decided to stick with it cuz people just liked it. It was clicky. It was different. And people knew who I was. And so I kept it changed. The colors changed kind of the theme of the page. And here we are today.

Yeah. I wanted to lead with that too, because I'm gonna keep telling people over and over again. That first and foremost, like we have a lot of hard hitters, heavy hitters in real estate on this show. I know you do real estate. You're an economic powerhouse too, but there's more than one way to do this. And also I found like this. Information gap that exists between these people that are murdering it in real estate. And then the social media world and brain and Turner is a perfect example of someone that gets this. To where he does all the grunt work. And over a couple of years, now he can send a text message and raise $4 million for his deals. So you are a perfect example of that. And that's why I wanted to lead with that. Cuz you just hit a hundred K on

Instagram. My other biggest presence is Twitter, about 44,000 there.

Awesome. And a lot of people underestimate the. Money that comes with that and the business and the flow and the relationships that come with that. So we'll get into that in a little bit, but first I wanna walk through the mindset shifts and the identity shifts between where you were and what you're classically trained as, and making that transition from there to this, which. Especially for a CPA, an analytical mind, you would say, oh, Hey guys, I'm working big four. Everything's going really well. I'm making great money. By the way, my dog's staring at me on the couch. I think I'm gonna start tweeting and create a business around that, that I could do anywhere in the world. And, oh, oops. I just had a week that I now I'm pacing for a million dollars this year in revenue. What walk us through this journey.

Yeah. So I think the first things first is like dating back to when I was a kid. Like my self-awareness when I was in my mid twenties, came from my wife, shocker. She really gave me the insight into what I should be doing. So like I was interviewing, I was at this stage where I was like, pivoting out Deloitte, trying to pivot out of Deloitte. What's my next step. didn't wanna be a partner at Deloitte. And I was like, what is that? And we were going through our journey of debt payoff, and we were doing an excellent job at doing so. And I loved talking about that, but I realized my wife was like, you've been an entrepreneur since the beginning. Like, why are you applying for jobs? You're never gonna work for somebody again. I was like, yeah, I am. Yeah, I am I'm a CPA. I went to school. I was like, almost in that, that revolving, that, that process that everyone goes through is like, Hey, we go to college, you graduate high school, go to college, get a good job, you get your designations and you just work your way up the corporate ladder. And it wasn't making me happy. And I realized the thing I went to straight after work was to help other people with their finances. So that's where we are today. And that's where I've been able to grow. It's been an incredible process to the point where today I do it full time and I was able to quit that nine to five grind. It was a very scary jump. It was because your paycheck's guaranteed. You've always been conditioned in a sense to get that paycheck every two weeks, it was a good salary. But I knew if I could outpace my salary for 12 straight months, I was gonna take that transition to leap of faith. And that's what I did,

I believe the term is sunk cost fallacy for what you're describing, because a lot of people will. Get to the top of the mountain. And this is telling, and this is something that's important. It needs to be talked about on more podcasts. And nobody talks about this, that a lot of the times in our life, we find that we're climbing this mountain and we get half way up the mountain. And then we realize the only way to get to the top is to go back down to the bottom and go up a different path. and a lot of people are like, no, I've got this degree. I've put too much time into this. I've put too much energy into this. I can't go back now to go forward. And then they're stuck in that limbo for the rest of their life. And that applies to relationships too. A hundred percent. A lot of the time you get locked in forever. I know it's sad. So walk us through that transitory period, man, because I wanna hit on this too, because I'm going through it myself. Between big four Deloitte, you're leaving. And now you've got how many did you have on your account? What kind of following weight did you have when you left?

I think at the time I had maybe. 50,050,000 or so 60,000 on my Instagram, maybe 20 on my Twitter at the time but the business was already there. So following account's important, but it's not that important. If you hit 60,000 people, you have a business, as long as you have a products and services within that transitory period, man. And I relate to what you were saying about being able to act on it right away. That's something I've always been very good at as well. Is. Have to like the other night, my wife was like, Hey, you should add this video in this like sequencing of emails. And I had it done in 30 minutes. , I wrote the script, I recorded the video. I uploaded. That's just me. Always been like that. So I think action's one of the biggest things, hunger wanting it really bad is a big thing. So that transitory period was a scary adjustment. So one of the things we did and on record we paid off our home and that was a huge reason. We were trying to pay that off. Minimize cost. Not that it probably would've honestly mattered in the long run, but it gave me that extra, Hey, I'm gonna take that leap of faith. And as a result, I actually made more income, a significant more amount of income by doing that. Not to say, I couldn't have done the same thing with a mortgage, but it just gave me that extra. Let's go. And so when that happened, I quit my job the same week. I paid off my house, quit my job. And then I went out to on a yacht party with Chris Johnson out in California. And I was living that Instagram ish, Instagram or life. And I was like, this is. There was a high for sure. When I quit bought my wife a Peloton, she, we were pregnant. She, we had to, we were gonna have Logan in about four months or sorry, four weeks after I quit. So we were right then her birthday was coming up. We just paid off her house, quit my nine to five, having a kid on the way. It was an insane moment. I had this like euphoria. And we, got through that moment, had her lived about, another month of just. On a high and then boom, just down and it wasn't the income stayed the same. Everything was fine, but it was like the reality of I just quit my nine to five. I have a kid I'm a stay-at-home dad now. Taking care of her full time. There was so much change and that caused a lot of anxiety. A lot of struggle internally on the outside. Everyone's wow, you're making a ton of money. You're making more money. You're doing great. But internally I was really struggling and I sent an email out to my following, explained this entire process. I was very candid about everything. Very open with how I was feeling. And it was a struggle for about two months, almost to the end of the year, probably about two, three months. And I don't know what it was, but in January it went right back up to where it was and it hasn't let off. And the business has grown substantially since I left that nine to five. Cause I have more time. My, my energy and my time is all focused on this. And this is all I think about I, all day long is this is what I'm doing and I love every bit of it, but that transitory period, man, it was a tough thing. And I think a lot of people go through it.

Not many people talk about it because all you really see is this overnight success, 10 years later. . I try to do a good job talking about some of this stuff and the anxiety and the fear and all of this stuff on this show so that people can know like, and here's another brutal reality and truth is sometimes entrepreneurship is not for everyone. The, almost, I would say the vast majority of people would be better just working their job a hundred percent because they don't have to take that home with them. You work your job and then you're through. But the people that listen to this podcast are either like a stones throw away or like they're all. About earning their freedom. And then what you've got is ultimate freedom. What I've developed is the ultimate freedom to where I'm about one month out, man, we're recording this on June 4th. Holy shit. amazing. One month in two days out, man, from this trip, and I know it's gonna be a trip of a lifetime, but

I think the coolest thing about that, I wanna interject there is like sure. The entrepreneurship for W2. I don't think there's anything wrong with either. I worked at W2 and I've been an entrepreneur. I think both routes are perfectly fine. So I don't like to bash either one, but it does take a very unique individual to truly do entrepreneurship. Cuz there's a lot of confidence that comes with that. And a lot of off the record stuff, that's not glamorous that comes with that. But we, I think as entrepreneurs like to lock in. And make our life around what we do. It's an enjoyment, it's a process. It's not a job. So that's the difference between a lot of w two jobs? It was a job. I just went there. And at the end of the day, I made my paycheck. I left and I turned off. I closed my computer, turned off my email and I just enjoyed my life. Now my life is just 24 7. This is just part of it. This is part of my life and I'm making an income from it. And it's a beautiful

thing. I think the biggest difference between the two is in W2. You're building your life around the business, which is your employer. And then in entrepreneurship, you're building your business around your life.

Perfect way to

say it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious before I wanna get into the financials, but like I said, you've got a unique perspective here that I wanna really mash down on. If you could go. and you are at zero followers right now, because this is something that everyone is realizing like this is important is having a brand and even have an Instagram account and a Twitter account where you have some followings. You're like, Hey, I've got a business that could print out seven figures here. . And people don't realize this. The power of email lists the power of all of this stuff, the pirate podcast. This is where we're all moving in the future. If you were to start from zero, just all of your accounts got wiped out. How would you grow it from scratch?

Do exactly what I'm doing now. I think you, once the thing, the cool thing about this is once you learn the skills and you learn what it takes to build this, if it wipe, if it wipes out. Yeah, sure. I'm not gonna be happy about that, but I could do right. What I'm doing again, and I would grow to exactly where I'm at today. Because you're built when you build a business. A lot of people, especially online, forget there's a human behind every single account. And so when you can relate to those humans and you can talk to them and they're customers or clients of your. Like just be just talk to them. There's this like whole, like, how's the algorithm work? How do you do this? How do you do that? How do you grow? It's just be human, just be real. And I think that's one of the best ways I've grown is just being real and ex like really talking to the person behind the screen, not just saying. Something quick re quick response to respond at comment, like really go to death. At DM, I get a DM. I respond to every single DM fairly timely too, even at a hundred thousand followers. And I might give you a full voice message and people are like, wow. How? I can't believe you responded to me with a hundred thousand. Which to me sounds funny cuz it's you're just, we're all the same here. Nothing special about me. I just, grew a following. I think it's

special, buddy.

and then let alone I, I respond to them with a voice message. It's very personal. There's a personal touch to that. And I think people really relate to that. And I think that's where my brand has come about is the personal connection. It's if you had a brick and mortar business, everyone that walks through that door, you're gonna go shake their hand. You're gonna give them a good experience. It's no different online. It really isn't. It's just more. It's more scalable and that's where I'm at right now.

Yeah. You're playing compound games here. So what are some fundamentals of this that you've learned that you can take and you can, that are transferable that somebody that's listening to this right now, a lot of people listen are wildly success. In real estate business, whatever area they're in, they're murdering it either. They're flipping homes like crazy. They're wholesale, like crazy. They're doing, multi-family like crazy. They're doing big things, but they're not there. Nobody knows that they're doing these big things unless they're on the podcast or that you're friends on Facebook, besides that it's very quiet. What advice would you give? If we can maybe think of three. Three pieces of advice about just growing content, what advice would you give for somebody that's doing big things, but they don't have an online presence yet.

Yeah. So I think the first thing is what we just talked about. I think that is the single most important way to grow a brand, grow a business is the personal touch of it. From a technical side of things, maybe number two, I guess you could say here. One of the best ways to scale your content is begin with the end in mind, but also understand what your brand's trying to say. So a lot of people get in the social media game and they just speak off the top of their head and that's okay. But if I started talking about the NBA finals all the time, people would be like, wait, I thought you were talking about finance, or if I start talking about my maybe my dogs or just other things that don't really pertain to my financial niche, it would be off putting to a lot of people or just like they would disconnect from it. People follow me because I'm very in line with my brand. So I always start from the very top and I say, okay, personal finance is that. Top, niche type thing. What are the three things underneath? What are the pillars that I need to hit on the most? The three things I'm gonna talk about over and over and over in a million different ways. That's budgeting. That's investing. And that's probably crypto at this point in my time. So if I can touch on those three things over and over, people are gonna connect and people are gonna understand, they hit the follow button. It's a free thing, but they hit it because they know, Hey, I can help you get, I can help get outta debt. I can help you invest. I can help you become financially free. When they see my profile, they go to it and they see all that stuff. They want that content. That's why they follow me. So stay on brand, really lock in, draw it out on paper. What is your brand? Or you might get, there might be too many branches off of that, and you might be throw throwing people off and you might not connect. So I'd say that's number two. Number three would be, if you are actively promoting on multiple different social channels, it's really hard to come up with unique content and also time consuming if you're on as many as I'm on. So I'm on YouTube. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok. I have an email list. I have a blog that's eight. I don't can't even count, but like maybe eight things. Fellow got some accountant. I'm blowing my credibility here. but that's eight platforms. I'm creating content. If I went to each one of those and created unique content for each one, I would probably have more gray hair than I do. And I don't have any gray hair. I'm just kidding. But literally it's, so it that's so much content and so time consuming. It's impossible. So what I do is. I will take a YouTube and I will turn that into a blog. I will create a TikTok video and set and put that on my my Instagram and my Facebook and my Twitter. I would take a tweet and I will make that into a TikTok video, which then becomes a real on Instagram. And so you're making, let's say one piece of content, but it's multiples of that. So you might do three or four different con pieces of content or one piece of content on three or four different platforms, and that will make your life so much easier. And also people consume content differently. Somebody that listens to your YouTube might not be a great reader and wanna listen to your blog. But there's people that listen, read your blog might wanna not really like the video style. There's different types of people that are following you that likes different styles. Just be aware as you're doing that, that different platforms have a different message and the style content needs to be relatable to that platform.

That's awesome. So you're essentially doing like a flywheel marketing, a flywheel. Yes. So are you starting with your long form? Is that the trend that you've got moving forward is you just start with your long form content and shop it up

essentially pre pretty much a lot of times my Twitter is like that. Hub for everything. Like it might be a long thread that turned into a blog that turns into YouTube video. That's, a piece of that thread is one tweet. That's on my Twitter then on my Instagram, which goes to my Facebook and also my TikTok videos. So Twitter's that like big hub, long form content. Okay.

I like that. And then Cody Sanchez has a pretty cool method about doing this. She, by the way. Yeah. Oh yeah. She is Cody. You're coming on the show. I will use every angle I can to get you on the show. you're gonna come on the show, but she yeah she will go on Evernote and she'll write out content ideas and video ideas, like two to three ideas per day. And then she'll form a video on it and she'll do the video. And then they'll chop that up into Instagram, Twitter TikTok, and then she'll do a blog post on it for her newsletter. And then she'll chop that up and put it on her Twitter. So it's one piece of content. That's just, it's a distribution game. So you're just distributing it differently. And yeah. Do you have any advice on the different styles of distribution per platform? Because right now it's especially for a podcast, I noticed that every single podcast, Instagram just does the same thing. Over and over again, it was like those little audiograms and that nobody cares about and all this different stuff nobody cares about. So I started doing more content. That's more real based. So I'm curious about what you've seen that works and what doesn't work per platform.

Yeah, so I'm a big meta investor myself, so I listened to all their calls and I listened to Zuckerberg talk. Zuckerberg is pushing, especially on Facebook and Instagram reels in video style. So I know all of my. Every single one of my posts now, even my tweets are video style short, like one second videos, because if I post a static post, they just don't perform well. But if I post a video, Instagram and Facebook, push that out more. So the, just from a technical perspective, it works. So I've realized that works really well on Facebook and Instagram. One thing I've realized that works well in TikTok is not giving them the, an like I used to go into the style. The format of my video would be. Here's the answer. Now, let me explain. You gotta start with the lead up the hook, the watch time's very important on any platform across keep people watching, keep people engaging as much as possible call to actions, any platform like this, retweet this, share this, just tell people what they should do and they'll do it. And it works tremendously. Twitter, some quick tweet, like reinvest your dividends works really well. Sometimes my long threads don't work as well. So there's little things like that.

Ironic. It's weird. It's weird. It puts your heart and soul into a thread and do hours of researching. And it's just nobody cares crickets.

It makes me so it's cringe. But yeah I write a whole estate planning thread and it's 25 likes I write reinvest your dividends, like a thousand. It's what is this? , brian: that's how it always works too. Did I did a, so a thing that I've noticed that works for TikTok because for people listening. This is gonna sound crazy what I'm about to say, but you have to post at minimum three to four times a day on TikTok. You do Gary, you have to four times a day, you have to, so I'm posting out and I'm always making sure to post content. So a hack that I've seen that works is I used to take all these videos. I used to sit down and record all these videos, send 'em out to my editor. She would put all the, words and stuff on him. She'd send 'em back. I would take 'em from the Google drive. I'd screen record. 'em I'd post 'em on talk with some too much. Too much work. I couldn't do it. And so I stopped doing it. So now what I do is I'll have what I do. And for people listening, use this for your TikTok. Everybody can do this. So I will have Cody Sanchez I'll have Evernote and I'll say different topics. Different short form topics, 10, 15, 20 seconds that I could talk about and I'll have a whole list, like 50 to a hundred topics, and then I'll go on TikTok and then I'll just scroll for 10 minutes and I'll just see what trends, what sounds what are people doing? And then I'll just take that sound and I'll just, you just copy what other people are already doing, and then just apply your own piece of information on top of that trend. And now all of a sudden you're cooking. It took you 10 seconds. Yep. And so I do that. And so I do that. And I also, to your point about being on brand, I agree with that, especially on Instagram and Twitter, which I need to be better about TikTok. I took Gary's advice where he's Hey, look, I post about what I'm interested in. Sometimes it's baseball card. Sometimes it's NFTs sometimes it's this. And so I'll just post the DJ video. Cause I enjoy DJing and then it's also, content on. Wealth building financial freedom, real estate, stuff like that. So it's interesting, man. This is just a, such an interesting game, and I'm glad that you and I are figuring this out now because in 20 years, I think it's gonna be even further down the rabbit hole. Oh, it's 20 by 2030. It's gonna it's really right now, it's already taken off, but 2030 I've heard the amount of money that's gonna pour into influencer marketing is just crazy. We are the new commercials in a sense. So people wanna. I signed one of my biggest deals recently that was blown away by the figure. It was something that I would never have guessed that somebody would pay me to post something about their brand, but it's crazy. And it's real. The money online is actually a real thing and it's not a trend. It's not gonna go away. If anything, it's only gonna become more of a real thing to where a lot of people are gonna quit their nine to fives and do exactly what we're doing. And if they could get started now versus five years from now, when it's more crowded, I think it's a really good idea.

And we're gonna use this as a perfect transition because man, we're just podcasting a lot, man. This always works perfectly. But we're gonna transition into how you built your foundational base and then I'll walk you through like my framework that I see that works and then you're doing the exact same thing. So proof of concept right here, he's just a little further down his social following realm than I am in his journey. But I always tell people, you build your foundation through your non-sex stuff, your dividend stocks, your index funds, your real estate cash flow and real estate and appreciating markets. You get that base that's solid. And then you're like, okay, this is appreciating assets. I've got. Safety here. Then you build your foundation and your foundation is okay. Now I've got community. Now you're building community. That's gonna help you grow whatever you're trying to grow. And you're growing these authentic relationships with people that are also on the same path. And then you do that via social media. . Then you build your tower, your freedom tower is gonna be whatever massive business that you want to create. And ITO people get your foundation. Figure out what you're passionate about and what you enjoy doing and what you're good at marry all those together. Make content on it. Build a business. Do it around the world. you're not tied to anything. So I wanna talk about some of that foundation that you built. Let's start with you paying off your house, because I know that this is such a popular topic. When, on finance, Twitter, yes. About you paying off your house, talk about your mindset behind that and your rationale, because I know people that are both schools of thought. Yeah. Yeah.

And I see both sides as well. Honestly, we just decided to do this for our situation. We were, we paid off a bunch of non-mortgage debt, $76,000 in one year, and we just crushed it. We built our emergency fund. We were investing a ton of money and we go what's next. And this was at the point in time where budget dog was a real thing. And it was like, okay, I'm starting to make legitimate money. Do I take this full time? When do I take this full time? So I was making money there. I was making money at my W2 and my wife was making money at her W2. So we had three incomes essentially with two, no kids at the time. And I was thinking, I said, if I do this, there's a lot of risk and I'm pretty conservative, but I'm also a risk taker at the same time. If I have a base below me and I said, what do you think about paying off this house? And she was. I'm all for it, but is that the best, route to take? And so I said, let's put some things in place. Let's do 20% of our gross income towards investing. So we are investing. We're not just blindly throwing everything at our mortgage making, our 2.375% mortgage. Let's really build assets as well. But anything over and above that, why not? For the next year and a half? We just chunk away at it and knock it out because it wasn't a big mortgage. It wasn't a California size home. It's a million dollar home. It's a, healthy $350,000 home in Cincinnati, Ohio. We had a mortgage on it, about two, it was a bit down to about two 15 at that point in time. And we just went after it. Every, I remember June, we had a huge month a launch on my, one of my biggest products, budget to financial freedom. And we took almost all of that money and we lumped summed it into the house. We cut off I don't know how many months that would've been. 30 40 50 months. And we got such to a low amount. We're like, okay, we're just gonna crush this right now. We're gonna finish it off. And we're gonna not have a mortgage. Logan's never gonna live in a mortgage house. We're gonna start the business mortgage free. It's gonna help the brand because it's a very powerful thing we just did. And we just went after it. We attacked while also investing a lot of money. And so a lot of people had the why don't you invest every dollar, pay the minimum. I get that argument, but there was a lot of change in uncomfortableness in my life at that point in time. And I was gonna be a stay at home dad from my own business. I wanted some comfort, just a little bit, and that really helped us in the speed at which we were able to do that about a year and a half. Once we started it, it made a lot of sense.

I like it, man, because there's different. Like I said, there's different schools of thought and people are super loud on social media about one way or another personal finance is personal. So you, you said, okay, cool. Like we're in a great position. We're make a great income. I want one area of security. And what happens if you wanna buy a rental property? What are you gonna do? Oh my God. Wait, hold on a second home equity line of credit. Exactly.

Exactly. And, And that's an open, that's an open option. Yeah.

And it's your primary, what you could probably draw 90% of that. Yep,

exactly. And that's, we're looking at rentals right now, so it's absolutely in the cards and it's you paid it off, but we still have like access liquidity that other people don't have.

Yeah. And. Oh my God. All right. I gotta go there for people that are listening to this, cuz I know you'll post this and I just feel like pissing people off. what's your view? What's your view on 401ks?

401ks I think are an incredible vehicle. To an extent you gotta be smart about it. So like for context, we don't invest in my wife's 401k and we invest all my money in my solo 401k, so sure. I love them. And I love the idea of, sec securing that retirement. And I also understand people. Have money now. So as long as your 401k has great investment options, there's low fees. It's a fantastic tax free or tax, deferred vehicle. Or maybe you do Roth depending on whatever you do, but it's a great tax free growth, essentially. You're gonna get within that account. So I love it. And I think that should be a bedrock of most people's portfolio. I cringe at the fact when people say, I wanna get rich. Now I wanna, I don't wanna, I wanna wait till 60. That's fair. That's fair. Because the reason behind that is. You can actually withdraw that money before that age. And that's the thing that people don't, they usually aren't educated on the vehicle. They're bashing. They just think 60 years old, I can get that one is 59 and a half, two there's three options that you can actually pull well before at whatever time from that vehicle. And if you know the options, the education behind it, it's just a matter of figuring out the accounts that make sense for your goals.

It's like a Roth conversion ladder, right? Roth

conversion ladder rule 55 72 T.

Yeah. So there we. He worked for Deloitte . Okay. So big story. All right. I will say my, I will say my school of thought, and I know the school of thought of a lot of people that listen to this podcast. So now disclaimer, for anyone that's listened into this podcast, that's coming off of Brennan's audience and they're seeing us for the first time know that I both hear your opinion and I understand and accept it. Personal finance is personal for the majority of people. 401ks are a fantastic option because what it does is it simplifies investing, which is awesome. , it's super cool to be able to say, Hey, we don't like peop most people aren't gonna have the discipline to just, take money out. And it's the same thing with taxes. Most people won't have the discipline to put aside that money, every single paycheck. And now it's a 10 99. It sucks. But so we're gonna auto do it for you. We've got company match, which is a hundred percent returning your money. It's awesome. Definitely. I will say this. So I had 50,000 of my 401k and I was dumping into it and mine was I had a big portion in company stock and low cost index funds. So my company stock, I really believed in and I was buying preferred shares, like crazy. COVID hit and my company's stock plum. I said, oh man, it's time to go. I dumped like 30 to 40% of my gross income into my 401k at that point. Wow. A hundred percent company stock. I tripled my 401k. Yeah, I bet. Yeah. So the ride up was awesome. So then I find myself at 50, 60, 70,000 in my 401k. And remember I'm 27. So this was like a couple years into. And did this whole journey. So I had all that money. And then, so what I did was I started getting involved in my communities in real estate and doing all this stuff. And then I realized I was like, I need access. I need access to capital. Cuz in the beginning I was trying to take down a laundromat, trying to. That would be cash flowing. I said, I need access to capital. And then one of my friends gave the opinion. His mentor's been doing this for years and years deck a millionaire. He's man, so 401ks, you're gonna pay taxes either an hour later. So if you have a Roth, you pay the taxes. Now 401ks are designed for you to have less income coming in. When you pay the taxes. That's what it's designed to do so that when you're in your sixties, you're gonna pay your income's gonna be lower and you're living off a lower income. So you pay a lower taxable rate. He's but that doesn't apply to us because when we're 60, we're gonna be making multi multimillions of dollars. So we're actually gonna pay a higher rate when we're in our sixties. . And at that moment, I, that frame shift, I was like, okay, I'm taking it out. So I took it out. I paid the penalty. I never went. And I just dumped into real estate. And for me, that was the best case option to do

that. Yeah. And I think that's totally fair for a lot of people, for sure. Or

if you're, I wouldn't say a lot, cuz most people would just I agree with what you said where it's oh, I'm gonna take all of this and dump it into Tesla or dump it into that's what. That's a terrible idea. and I'm also guilty of that, man. Yes, I've been there. I've done

that. Exactly. It doesn't work. Now, if you have the Roth option, that's a whole different game plan because that Roth you pay some 401ks have that Roth option. I know, as a solo 401k, I do have that option. Some do not. So if you have that, you can pay the tax up front and then you get that all that money tax free in the future. That's pretty.

Sure. It just all goes back to what are your overall goals? Because my goal was to be retired by 35, like completely done. And so I was like, this doesn't apply for me to wait until 65. No. And then, oops, I accidentally did it at 27. So double whammy oh, So it's personal finance is personal. So what is your portfolio? I mean, You don't have to say like the specific dollars incentives, but like where do you have your portfolio allocated from a financial perspective? If we wanna talk yeah. Wanna talk portfolio and then talk like what's your budget look like?

Yeah. So I'd say portfolio wise, I have the bulk majority is in low cost index funds. I'm a big proponent of low cost index funds and ETS. I love that. The other portion would be in a little bit crypto. I have a maybe. 5% in crypto right now. I have another portion in Facebook stock or meta stock in individually. I love them long term, 10, 15 years, very controversial company, obviously, but I lo I love them where they're at in positioning themselves. The other portion is in a piece of land that we own. And then the other money is I guess, in our house at this point in time, if you're looking overall net worth. But our biggest goal right now is to probably get a rental. Obviously with all the health scares and things going on in our life business shifts, like we're paused on that a little bit, but we really wanna get into the real estate game, like heavy eventually. But really we're just stacking away in, in our, in all of our different accounts, we have, eight or nine different investment accounts with blow cost, index funds spread throughout and stuff like that. And we're just attacking that day by day. I love that,

man. It's not sexy. It's not exciting. It's not sexy. It's not exciting. Come from the guy that has a hundred thousand followers that talks about this constantly on Instagram. Exactly. So there's something to be said there, man, Uhhuh, I love it. And it simplifies things. It's just, yeah. I You look

at repeatable. I look at what are the wealthiest people doing in the world? They own real estate. They own stock market stocks in the stock market and they own businesses. And we have all three of those. And all it is repeatable and over time. And eventually we'll be those wealthy people.

Yeah. And there are different phases in investing in people's investing journeys and it all comes down to what my mindset coach, Jason Dre says it doesn't feel light or does it feel heavy? And there was a period of my life where I identified as a real estate investor, like to my core, I was like, okay, I'm real estate. I'm banging out house hacks every single year, rinse and repeat. It just, it started feeling heavy to me. I'm like, I don't wanna do this. And then there was a time where I wanted to start doing flips and doing wholesaling. And I have so many friends. I could probably off the top of my head name, about 30 to 50 friends that I have personally that are making high six figures, seven figures with flipping companies, flipping hundreds of houses. If I really wanted to be a house flipper, I would've already had a million dollar business by now doing it. so I don't wanna do that. So full transparency. I don't really know what's next for me, but what I do know is I'm all in, on building this asset, the action academy asset while we're growing and then whatever comes next, it's gonna be something huge. And then bang that out in one felt swoop. Yeah. It's like the, it's like the bigger pocket stack method where you go like house hack, two units, four units, eight units. I just want to go I'm on your three or four of this journey. So now I want to be like, okay. This next one, I could see myself one of my next big, like Facebook post investment will probably be like, oh I'm trying to take down this, 5.2 million commercial facility with a partner or two. I think that's probably gonna be where I'm leaning towards. It's fun, man. All this is fun. to make it. I think it's

awesome to focus on the business man on your end. That's an asset, it's obviously cash flowing asset but it's an asset in itself. So yes, going that to, and then taking that income, the active income and putting into passive vehicles, whether it be the stock market, real estate, other things alternatives. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong at the end of the day. Like maybe one's more ideal than the other, maybe this you bought at the wrong time or at the end of the day, you're still doing good things.

Yeah. And you begin with the end in mind, right? Because I'm already viewing this as, what does this look like 10 years from now at a three to five X, multiple, which is how businesses are evaluated. You take your revenue, you take your NOI, and yeah. ABIDA and so I'm already seeing that. I'm like, okay, if I did wanna exit this in 10, 20 years, what did that, what does that look like? And what does that recurring revenue look like? Stuff like that. And and that's a frame shift, right? It's a mindset shift to go from. Okay. I'm not necessarily buying an asset right now, but I'm building one. That's a little, that's a little different, much different when. When would you best advise? I know this is a unique situation for every single person in every single niche, but at what point in your social audience like creation. Do you start making, do you aim to monetize? I guess is the question. Yeah, because I feel like you don't wanna monetize too early. I feel like that's where a lot of people mess up. You

don't, you wanna build a brand you want to, and I don't know about a specific timeline. If I were to say it, I would say a year mm-hmm um, you hear Gary V on record saying he worked multiple years without really truly monetizing. So I think putting out quality content, giving that trust aspect to your follow. Really engaging with them. They're gonna buy from you. Yeah, that's the easy, that's really honestly the easy part. And I think that, but that's where people start. I wanna do this because I'm gonna make money. , which is so weird. But if you focus on value and you focus on. Solving a problem for other people, the money would just flow to you. So that's not even the, that should not be even the forefront of your mind. So as far as the timeline, it's really tough to say. With time comes trust, and if you're a real person delivering real value and solutions, People are gonna trust you. And they're gonna say, okay he just came out with this new product or service. I'm gonna do that because I've taught, I've known him for a year. I know this is the guy that helped me. They buy from people. They don't buy, they don't, people don't buy stuff from products. Yeah. They buy from people. Yeah.

And , it's so crazy. All of this is just so cool. It's how do you get whatever you want? And the answer is by helping as many people get what they want as. Exactly Zig Zary. So that's what it comes down to is every single day. Now I wake up and I play a team sport. I say, how can I provide as much value to as many people as humanly possible today? And that's why I'm able to crank these shows out and do this man. It's a hall. It's a lot of work. I'm doing hundreds and hundreds of hours of my own time into this. And it's worth. It's worth it. I'll let everyone know, watch. I know a lot of you have been here since the beginning, but, and for people that are listening and that's new, this show started in what September, and it's a slow grind. It's a hard thing to build, but if you build it the right way, that foundation is so rock solid, that it will take you to the freaking Stratos. You'll be mooning

on like AMC and G game stop stock is what the kids say. oh

Yeah. To the moon baby to the moon. So on that point, Vernon what's next for a budget dog. What's the vivid vision here in three, five years. Where do you see this?

Yeah, man I see myself as somebody that's going to be talking across the entire nation. On personal finance and getting people to really buy into what I am promoting, what I'm teaching just works. It absolutely works. It's not get rich quick and people don't like that a lot of times, but I just came out with this new platform budget private coaching platform. Where it's an academy budget, dog academy is specifically what it's called and it's really a group coaching element. And it's taking people from start to finish the a, to Z roadmap of my framework, which encapsulates checking every box in the personal finance realm. So it's tracking your money, which is the financial statements that you need cohesively working those together. Then it's growing your money, how to take that active income turn into passive income so that we don't work nine to fives our whole lives. Then it's protecting your money, making sure that you actually. Once you actually grow that money, you know where it's at, people are gonna come for you, your dog bites neighbor you better have umbrella insurance. So having the proper insurance is in place. The proper financial products in place to protect yourself is really important. And if you do all three of those things and you maximize each three, you're gonna be just, you're gonna dominate personal finance. It's not that hard. So that's really what I'm focused on right now. And I wanna reach as many people as possible. So just the growth of the businesses first and foremost,

I love that, man. And it's been, it's interesting. It's interesting to watch. Y'all go. And it's interesting to watch, what you do, and yeah, it's just a lot of blocking and tackling. It's the same thing, different ways over and over again, rinse and repeat and just provide value, just every single day. It's really cool, man. What do you see your investment portfolio looking like in the future,

I wanted to grow. I wanted to grow that generational wealth. I wanna be, believe it or not. I don't really care like where that number is. I, I, more so care if I have a lot of money, I can give a lot of money away. Yep. And that's really what I'm after. Like I don't care for myself. We'll hit millionaire status this year and I'm gonna drive a Hyundai Sonata. Like I don't care. Like when I say that I truly don't. Yeah. I'll live in this house for the next 30, 40 years and I will be perfectly happy. The only thing I care about is time, freedom, location, freedom, and having that time, with my family and being able to give back to others, like that's, that brings so much more joy than going to buy a rose Royce. Not saying there's anything wrong with. But for me personally, it doesn't bring joy. So I post the other day, I'm buying freedom every single day. So I'm buying into the market. I'm buying into assets, cash, flowing assets. I don't care for fancy stuff. It's just not me.

I love it, brother. Where can people find the budget

dog? Yeah, man. All social media platforms, you could probably guess them. YouTube TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I have a blog on my website, budget, dog.com. Only fans, budget dog. Yes. Only finance that is but yes budget dog. You can find me on all these platforms and I'll pop up. If there's budget. Dog is my name. If you see a bunch of other names, they're fake accounts. So be aware of that, but yeah, it's pretty easy to find me. Yeah,

you're talking a lot about fake accounts for someone that invests in me stock . Yeah, I've got six different fake accounts for action academy. Crazy to think about it's

wild, man. It's nonstop. I'm like, come on guys. You're looking into the metaverse and you guys can't figure out fake accounts.

we are coming a long ways of society, but anyways, Brennan, appreciate it brother. I know we got some other calls that we gotta hop on and it's a Saturday. So I appreciate you greatly my friend, everyone go give him a follow it's quality content is a quality person, which is why he is on the show. Thank you, my friend for coming up. Appreciate you for having me, man. Appreciate it, buddy. This has been Brennan budget, dog and Brian with the action academy podcast signing off.