640 – Finances are the keys to a happy life: Tom interviews Greg Ware

Episode 640 – Greg Ware
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, is Tom here with Episode 640 as Screw the Commute podcast? I'm here with Greg Ware. I got to tell you why I said the Greg Ware, because there's a whole bunch of Greg Wares out there. But this is the Greg Ware. So you check him out. He's a certified financial planner and he's got great information whether you're just starting out or you're ready to retire. So we'll bring him on the minute. Now a quick update on our program to get scholarships for persons with disabilities. Now, one of the persons has that's blind has already started a website to help other people with disabilities. Another lady is totally blind and she's revamping her husband's construction website. Boy, these people are really inspirational. And and the third, who's a schoolteacher, is moving right along with her studies because she school is out. So she's doing great, too. So so we'd love to have your help with this program. We're going to get these people either hired or in their own business or both. So check it out. It's screwthecommute.com/disability and you can click over to the GoFundMe campaign. Anything you can throw in as well. Appreciate it helps out. And hey, if you're really flush with cash, you could you could sponsor a person yourself. How about that, boy? It's something you really be proud of. So I know I am being involved in it. All right, pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. I want you working with customers and prospects and developing products and services and doing stuff you like instead of fighting with your computer all day long.

[00:02:02] Well, we figured it out a couple of years ago. I'm going to update the figures. Now, this just one of the tips in the book has saved me about 8 million keystrokes. All right. Saved me carpal tunnel syndrome. So you can really save a lot of time by taking a couple of days and putting in these either free or super cheap techniques that I've been using for years and years and years. So check it out and also pick up a copy. And I'll just say that again. You get it at screwthecommute.com/automatefree is where you pick up that book and then screwthecommute.com/app is where you get our podcast app where you can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:02:47] All right. Let's get to the main event. Gregory Ware I'm going to say the. Gregory Ware is a CFP. It's a certified financial professional or planner. I'm not sure which it is. And the author of Are You Compatible and the Keys to Retirement. Prolific writer and great financial person. He is a morehouse graduate and has a master's degree in family financial planning and counseling, and Greg is renowned for making complex financial concepts easy to understand and implement for his audience. So, Greg, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:03:26] Yes. Tom here, appreciate that warm welcome. And I'm definitely ready to screw the commute.

[00:03:32] That's great. And and I noticed that recently you and your lovely family were on the cover of a magazine.

[00:03:41] Wow.

[00:03:42] You're there. Hot stuff.

[00:03:46] I'll take it. I'll take that as a compliment from you, Tom. But it was a fantastic experience to be on a family that had a family on the cover of a magazine. The community, you know, looked at us and said, Hey, you're somebody who's a good citizen. You represent what we're trying to build in this community. And we would love for you and your family to be on the cover of the magazine and also, you know, have some articles inside. So it was a.

[00:04:13] Great what was the magazine?

[00:04:17] It was a community, a region of Charlotte called Mountain Island, where they will have individuals for the community who have small businesses or who are represent the values of the community. They all asked him to be on the cover or also say some inspirational words and tell a little about their family. But inside of the magazine. It's so.

[00:04:41] Beautiful. That's why I say you're the Gregory where nobody else has been on Charlotte's magazines.

[00:04:50] All right. So now you haven't always I don't know if you've always been a financial planner, but you actually had and I kind of get sick when I say this word in this podcast. But you actually had jobs or a job, so how did you get started out?

[00:05:08] Yeah. My very first job was in a retail bank. I spent three, three and a half years. I started in college and it's in a retail bank. And, you know, it was very interesting job and this is really how I got started out and wanted to be a financial planner. It was in a lower income community and I was in college and people would come in and I would help them with their finances. And what I noticed was a trend that people would continually overdraw their financial accounts or bank accounts and say, Hey, mister, where can can you waive our overdraft fees? And I was like, what is going on here? But, you know, over time, getting to know these individuals, you know, I got an opportunity to ask them questions and I would say, you know, how did you know? How is it how did you get here? And they would say, hey, nobody ever taught me. And I knew that it didn't make sense to me. Tom You know, I was in college at the time and I had more money in my account than people who had worked 30 and 40 years.

[00:06:11] Oh, geez. Yeah.

[00:06:12] And, you know, and I knew there was a problem there. And that's really kind of how I got started on this journey of helping people with finances.

[00:06:19] So that was the only job you had or did you have other jobs?

[00:06:24] No, I had some other jobs, too, so I was I've been fortunate to work for three financial ones or three Fortune 100 financial service companies. So from retail banking to being a financial advisor, I've been a wholesaler and a product manager actually was a product manager of a brokerage firm. So I run my own little business there with a PNL and worrying about vendor contracts and everything else. But so over a couple of decades, I've been able to work in corporate America and do those things.

[00:07:00] All right. So when you said you had your own little business, was you had a little business inside the big business. Is that what it was?

[00:07:07] It was, you know, the my little business inside of the big business. And we had our own pal, we had vendor contracts. We had to do our own marketing, come up with those strategies. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:19] Yeah. Tell people what PNL means.

[00:07:22] How profit and loss.

[00:07:23] Yeah.

[00:07:24] We want the P more than the AL if you can help us with that.

[00:07:28] Absolutely.

[00:07:30] But still, that wasn't totally on your own. So when did you start your own business and did you save up and how did you make the transition to just quit cold turkey, some big company and start or how did you do it?

[00:07:43] Yeah. So, you know, being a financial guy, I've done, you know, things I teach others. I've done myself right. I've saved, I've invested. And, you know, the proof is in the pudding, right? So I had saved up money. And then, you know, an opportunity came where the company was going through. So realignments and they said, hey, would you like to take over this area and move here or what? You want a golden parachute? And I said, Well.

[00:08:15] Tell him no. That is tell him what that is.

[00:08:17] That's really where you can get a payout. It's all a package. And they were offered me a very good package. You know, they said, we would love for you to stay, but we respect that. If you want to do something different in your life. And I said, well, you know, I've been wanting to go help people with their personal finances. I had a book that I've written and I wanted to release it. And for compliance reasons, they wouldn't let me release the book. They said, Hey, you know, you help our clients with their finances. You know, we can't let you write your own book and help others. So yeah, there was a conflict of.

[00:08:52] Interest up to a point.

[00:08:54] And then I said up to a point, you know that package where, you know for me plus what I already had saved and I was in a good spot financially.

[00:09:05] At the time.

[00:09:06] I was married. And if you seen the cover that what you did time married and got three young, wonderful beautiful children.

[00:09:15] Absolutely. At the time that this happened.

[00:09:18] I did. So I had three children. Had I had the wife and, you know, transitioning from a job, a job to, you know, being your own boss can be scary if you're not in a good space financially and you don't have the support you need.

[00:09:36] So. Did you discuss it with your wife? Did you make a joint decision on this?

[00:09:41] We did. You know, we talked about it and she supported it. And we were in a situation where we could make it happen financially. So she was on board that Fenlon was on board. They actually were excited about it, that Dad would get the opportunity to be home a little more. So, yeah, they can come bug me in my home office.

[00:10:02] Right.

[00:10:06] I noticed you had you locked the door before we started this interview.

[00:10:12] It's a it's a lesson learned. You know, I've done this a couple of times, and sometimes the door just happens to swing open when I'm in the middle of a meeting or, you know, talking with someone.

[00:10:24] I saw a guy on the BBC where his little kid wandered in and he's on this big thing in front of 15 million people. And then the nanny runs in and the dog runs and he just keeps going. All right. So let's get into some tips. Let's let's start with the younger people and then we'll talk about people maybe thinking about retiring. So what kind of you know, you wrote a book called What's it Called? Are you are you compatible? Yeah. You know, it's like a premarital finance book. What are some of the things that couples the mistakes that they make that you you saved them from when you when they read this book and when they work with you?

[00:11:07] Well, the book itself is really you need to have conversations prior to getting married. Right. You know. Everybody thinks about the wedding and the honeymoon. And, you know, if you don't do it correctly, you could have to worry about the divorce that comes afterwards.

[00:11:26] So that's that's my favorite one of my favorite jokes. Marriage is grand, but divorce is 200 grand.

[00:11:35] Exactly. So, you know, I this book is written in just preparation for, you know, young people or anyone who's getting married. Just say, hey, here are the financial conversations you need to have, right?

[00:11:47] When does this happen? When when do you suggest that this happens before you get engaged or after you get engaged and then you decide you're incompatible and you've got to take the ring back? I mean, what's what's the best time to do this, this conversation?

[00:12:03] You know, I think if you know, if you are in a serious relationship and you think is heading that way. Right. I think you need to do your due diligence and say, okay, let's have some serious conversations. You know, are we on the same page financially? You know, not necessarily. And it doesn't mean that, you know, if your credit is bad and mine is is great or vice versa, we shouldn't get married. But it needs to be that we have the same expectations. Right. You know? You know, my expectation is my expectation that both of us are going to work. And your expectation is as soon as you get hitched, you're going to stay home for the rest of your life. You know, it's small things like that add up. It's, you know, conversations around charitable giving, right? Am I a giver? And you say, hey, you know what? I'm a penny pincher. I've had conversations with people where they say, you know, I thought I knew this person. We got married and we went to church together. And I tied in my eyes almost, you know, came out of their head, right? They were like, What are you doing? And, you know, and they they had never had that conversation. Right. You know, and you need to have those conversations. Right. It's, you know, so.

[00:13:21] So would this be a red flag if I was talking to a girl and she said and I said what? You said, we need to have some talk about finances. And she said, Well, I'm not going to talk about it until you buy me a Chanel purse.

[00:13:35] Yeah. Would that be a red flag? Yeah.

[00:13:39] You know, in your mind, I should tell you, you know, she can use Chanel purses, right? And you may be the guy that says, hey, I don't value that. We might not be a match.

[00:13:51] Okay. All right. So. So, but this is probably make sense before an engagement.

[00:13:58] Yeah, absolutely. I would say before you get engaged, you definitely need to have these conversations. You don't want to be too far down the line and start having these conversations. You don't want to be at the altar and say, hey, you know, the night before we should we should talk about a few things, right?

[00:14:12] It could be as much as somebody spending $500 a month at Starbucks or something, right?

[00:14:17] Absolutely. Small things like that, you know? Right. Yeah, small things like that add up. And then, you know, once they have these conversations in the book, I teach them, you know, how to bank as a couple. You know how to integrate finances together. Right? You know how to pay taxes as a couple. Right? Because it's different, right? When you you're married, there are certain advantages or or differences that come with how you do your taxes. You know, the banking thing is was a big thing for a lot of people that I've met with. Tom It was. You know, I used to have my my checking account, managing my finances, and somebody else is used to having their checking account and managing their finances. And, you know, how do we bring that together? And so I'll talk about that in the book. You know, there's do you have do you maintain two separate checking accounts? Do you have three checking accounts? You have one?

[00:15:11] Well, if you're combining everything, I don't know if that's what you suggest or not, but how do you surprise somebody and how do you buy something as a gift and and not let them know about it until till the surprise? How does all that work?

[00:15:26] So there's a couple things I look at there. You know, that conversation, that question comes up a lot. But in reality time, what happens now? I'll answer your question. One is withdraw money, withdraw cash. Right now, you didn't you didn't use the card. So they don't know exactly that. You just ordered something from Amazon or you have a buddy or somebody do it for you. You said, hey, you know what, I'm withdrawing this cash and you know, when you order that and here's the cash, right? So you still can you still can surprise them. But in reality time, what happens is, you know, you think that's going to be an issue, but when you combine accounts, you're creating them more trust, right? It's really about transparency. And naturally, one person is more inclined to handle finances than the other. But if they if your spouse knows that, you know what? Everything's transparent. And I can look anytime I want to. They're not going to look all the time. See, all I'm saying.

[00:16:24] They say. I say.

[00:16:26] Absolutely.

[00:16:26] So start looking at the month before their birthday.

[00:16:31] Yeah.

[00:16:32] You didn't withdraw enough cash. You're in trouble. So. So, anyway, these are really important. And I'm sure you've seen some disasters that when people that didn't do this right.

[00:16:45] Absolutely. You know, I always tell people that, you know, marriage comes with a lot of challenges. And if finances and tension that comes from financial challenges doesn't have to be one, then, you know, avoided at all costs. Right. You know, there is there have been studies that Gallup polls that the number one reason for many people's divorces is financially related.

[00:17:10] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And then. And then the lawyers get rich when you start fighting it out, you know, at the divorce, and you've got to chop the dog in half. So each you know, each person gets one half. You know, it's it's something I never well, when people ask me if I've ever been married, you know, my answer is great. I say I never made the same mistake once. So I'm not anti marriage. But I think it happened because I had my nightclub for six years and I would see people come in and meet at the nightclub and they disappear for a year or two. And then so they went off and got married and then they'd come back separately and be crying in their beer about their lousy marriage and their divorce.

[00:17:59] Back in the night I said, Wait a minute.

[00:18:01] And then the statistics are not great in the in the field of marriage, right? I mean. Well, more than half people get divorced.

[00:18:09] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like I said, there's enough challenges in marriage that you need to deal with. And if you can alleviate the money issue, then, you know, you're much further ahead than a lot of other people.

[00:18:24] Did you have much experience with pre prenuptial agreements?

[00:18:29] You know, I'm not an attorney, but what I I do talk about that in the chapter, in the book. And what I tell people is when when you get when, you know, most people think of prenuptial agreements is some wealthy guy trying to hold onto his money from some gold digger. Right. But, you know, I gave them an example in the book of you started your your grandmother had a business. She passed that down to your mother and now your mother's passed it down to you. You're getting married to this joker, whoever he is. And doesn't it make sense to protect your family business if that marriage doesn't work out? You know, it's small things like that. Those are those are real situations and circumstances people need to think about. It's not always what you see on TV or read is small things like that is, Hey, I'm just going to protect my financial interest in this family business that my grandmother started. If you and I don't work out or let's think about this time you went to scholarship. You had a scholarship to go to college. You worked hard. You know, some people put themselves through college by working. And somebody comes, whoever this person is you're going to marry, they come to the relationship and they went to undergraduate and took out, you know, student loans. And then they decided they wanted a graduate degree and took out some more student loans. So now they become saddled with $200,000 of student loans, and you come into it with zero because you worked hard to work part time and get scholarships to pay through college. You know, I don't think it's fair that you have an agreement in place saying if this marriage doesn't work out, you know, you leave with your student loans and I'll leave debt free, you know.

[00:20:24] So it seems like you've got to be kind of gutsy to bring this stuff up because it seems it's it's not romantic, put it that way, to bring this stuff up. And a lot of people would say, oh, well, you're planning for your demise already. But the thing is, is if you don't, the demise if the demise happens, it's way worse.

[00:20:46] Absolutely.

[00:20:48] I don't know. Glad I never went through it. All right. Let's switch gears and talk about the folks that maybe should be planning. You know, wait till the two weeks before you retire to start planning, right?

[00:21:03] No, you better not write or you have to be picking which bridge you want to live on there.

[00:21:11] Yeah. So so let's let's start. What are some of the things people should be doing that and when should they start?

[00:21:20] Start as soon as possible. You know, at first thing, if I'm counseling young people, I tell them, you know, as soon as you start making income, pay yourself first. And then I have to explain to them what pay yourself first means to them, because they get they get excited sometimes and they say, well, pay myself first means that I can take the first part of my paycheck and I can go shopping or I can go. And I'm like, No, no, no, no. That's not what I mean. Pay yourself first means put something in an investment account that's going to grow for you and create wealth for you over time. And I show them and teach them how to do that. So definitely start as soon as you start getting income, start paying yourself first. You know, the secret to investing is time, right? Time investing. It is the biggest indicator of how much wealth you're going to end up with. So time is if time's on your side, you know, definitely started early as possible. You can start later, but you have to make sure you know that as you have less time now, you need more money to get where you need to be.

[00:22:22] So do you believe in the 401. K stuff or what's the other the IRAs? What's what's the difference between those two?

[00:22:30] Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, you can have both, you know, typically your 401. K or four or three B, if you're in a nonprofit, it's going to be through your employer and. The way that works is it goes in pre-tax. And what pre-tax means is if you make $50,000 a year and you decide I'm going to put $5,000 into my 41k, that means you only pay taxes on 45,000. So that $5,000 goes in pre-tax. It's tax deferred until you take it out. So definitely a benefit there, you know, can save some tax money in the interim, especially if you're in a higher interest or a higher tax bracket. Now, I'm not having to pay taxes on that money until you retire where potentially, you know, your income should be much lower in retirement. So you should be in a lower tax bracket. So that's a win for you.

[00:23:25] All right. But wait a minute. If you made 50,000 a year, don't you come out with nothing after the armed IRS agents that are coming out, if I come after the 87,000 of them are coming into to my house tomorrow?

[00:23:42] Well.

[00:23:44] It kind of depends on what you've taken.

[00:23:47] So.

[00:23:48] So. But what's Ira, then?

[00:23:52] So an IRA is an individual retirement arrangement. Some people say individual retirement account. And it's typically for someone who may not have a an employer or maybe self employed where they can still retire or actually invest on a pre-tax basis if they're going into a traditional IRA. Now what I typically tell individuals, if you make enough income, is go into your 401. K, put as much in as possible. And the reason you want to do this is many times employers will match what you put in up to a certain percentage. So and it might be dollar for dollar. So if you put, you know, 3% of your salary, they'll put 3% of your salary. And you always want to put in as much as your employer would match. And then if you have any excess, then you can go over to the IRA and invest in that in that particular account. So that's typically how I advise.

[00:24:45] So what's who's who's Mr. Roth.

[00:24:49] Is what.

[00:24:51] Your Roth IRA, is that different thing or is that just the generic name or what is that?

[00:24:56] So a Roth IRA is a IRA. Consider when you put money in on a post tax basis, which which means you don't get an immediate tax break right then, but when you take it out, it comes out tax free. So you start to think about it. You say, okay, well, what is my current situation? What's my current tax bracket? Do I want the immediate tax relief or do I want to get tax free money whenever it comes out? So that's kind of the difference between the traditional and the Roth.

[00:25:25] All right. Now on TV, you know, I work out of my home, of course. So TV's on a lot. And I see these commercials come on and say, get this gold and put it in your IRA. What is that scam? What what is that all about?

[00:25:43] You know.

[00:25:43] The gold may not even exist. How am I supposed to know?

[00:25:48] You know, these days time, you can. You can invest gold or silver in your IRA. You can do real estate in your IRA. It's it's a number of things. You know, it's getting to a point where there's a few firms where you will be able to do Bitcoin as well.

[00:26:06] It's all smoke and mirrors to me. And, you know, people bug me all the time. Buy gold by gold, buy gold. And I said, no, heck no. You buy bullets.

[00:26:15] Because.

[00:26:17] You can get all the gold you want.

[00:26:20] And Tom, if you think about it, if you get the gold, you're going to need the bullets right now.

[00:26:24] You need the bullets anyway. So. So we're back. We're still on people planning for retirement, so they need to start as early as possible. But what kind of mistakes are people making when it comes to retirement?

[00:26:39] The one of the mistakes I see people make is when they start too late, but also they they don't save enough. Right. So they don't, you know, get the entire match with you. You know, I tell everyone, get the match if there is one and third, you know, they don't asset, they don't invest properly, they don't diversify. And what I see too often is someone to say, okay, well, I'm going to save, but I'm going I'm risk adverse, meaning I want to avoid risk. I'm going to put all my money in a money market that does, you know, good, right. You know, your money markets are paying less than 1%.

[00:27:24] So that money for holding on to it.

[00:27:26] Yeah.

[00:27:27] Yeah. So, you know, you have to be diversified. You know, somebody can go into a money market, but you need to allocate some money to stocks and some money to bonds as well. So asset allocation plays a big part and.

[00:27:41] Do you sit there and watch the stock reports every day and like grief? Oh, it's down today. Oh, it's up today. Is that the way it is when you're in the stocks?

[00:27:54] You know, for some people. So there's two types of investors, I think. One are what I consider passive investors. They're somebody that's going to say, hey, you know, I'm going to buy. I'm going to give you an example, an S&P 500 fund. And I'm going to put my money in there and I'm going to score and roll with the punches. And whatever the market does over 20 or 30 years is I'm just going to live with it now. People who like that, they don't watch the stocks every day. They know that over a 30 year period of time, the S&P is going to return 10% annually compounded and they're going to be fine. But for people who who are opportunistic and want to think they can beat the market, those are the people that, you know, watch it every day. Right. Is there a signal that I'm going to be to take advantage of? It's going to get me, you know, the ability to beat the market.

[00:28:48] Nancy Pelosi, she knows what which way it's going to go.

[00:28:53] So I think that's called insider trading.

[00:28:56] She's done all right. I think she'll skate on that. So diversify is one thing. Now, I heard of a place recently. I can't remember the name of the site where it's a it's almost like a mini stock market for small businesses. So you're investing in small businesses and hoping that they they don't tank on. You lose everything. But I can't remember the name of it or if it's really legit. All right. So you've written two books you've got are you compatible? That's for the younger folks. And then you have another book. Or is is that an E? Course? The other one.

[00:29:32] The other book is the keys to retirement.

[00:29:34] Keys to retirement, right?

[00:29:35] Yeah. And that's really about, you know, the taking the steps. I'll take people A through Z, through all the steps that you need to do to make sure you're going to be in a good spot for retirement. And and then, you know, in the book, the key part is some people will go through the steps and then they'll get to the end and they'll still retire and make the wrong decision. I teach them how to draw down their money. Now it's like I retired and I need this money to live on. People are living longer. I need this money to live on for the next 20 years. How do I not go broke in retirement? Right? How do I not run out of money? So I teach that in the book as well.

[00:30:17] Beautiful. So so you got some freebies for folks, right?

[00:30:20] I do. Got two free E courses for individuals, for those who are, you know, engaged or preparing for marriage. And that was right financeswithGreg.com/compatible if you want to take that free course you know it's definitely going to get you much further along the path of the conversations you need to have and the things you need to start thinking about. And for those who are interested in retirement is financeswithGreg.com/retirement. And you know when I think about the keys to retirement home I think about there's two ways I would use this book. One, if I wanted to do it myself, this book would be an excellent resource or if I wanted to check up on my financial advisor to make sure they are doing the things they're supposed to be doing. It would be an excellent resource.

[00:31:14] Yeah. Yeah. And you're a certified is it is it certified financial planner or professional?

[00:31:20] It's planner.

[00:31:21] Certified financial planner. And that's that's a pretty high designation, right?

[00:31:26] Yeah. This is top of the food chain if you want to be a financial advisor or a financial planner. And I've been at for over a decade, you know, more people and more people are starting to get this certification, but they're a little wet behind the ears sometimes. And I've been seasoned on it and for a while. But it's definitely if you're going to look for a financial advisor, I would make sure they have that certification.

[00:31:52] Yeah, I agree. And, and I was just thinking back when you were working at the bank, I said I probably would get fired pretty soon because somebody say, hey, I need 100 bucks. And so I'd say, och, here's 20 for you, 20 for me.

[00:32:06] For you.

[00:32:07] I don't know that that goes that well commission know I'd work on commission. They wouldn't have to pay me a salary, but yeah.

[00:32:16] I hope you like stripes, Tom.

[00:32:19] So how do people get a hold of you if they. If they want to ask any questions or look into working with you?

[00:32:25] Oh, definitely. Financeswithgreg.com from the home page. You can do a couple of things. There's actually a neat little tool there. You can send me a voicemail and I'll get your message and I'll reply. But I also have a consulting offer there as well where you can just click on it and see if it works for you and if it does and you know, we can definitely do some one on one time and and we can see if we can get your questions answered.

[00:32:52] Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, thank. So much again. I've got a beautiful family that he only has to lock them out of the room when he's recording something. But. But they are beautiful. I saw him on the cover of the magazine, so thanks a lot for coming on.

[00:33:07] Greg Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:33:09] Tom Awesome. So check out it folks, financeswithGreg.com/compatible and then financeswithGreg.com/retirement for those two E courses are really open your eyes on the things that you need to be preparing for and he's got great, great books too over there. So so we will catch you. Watch that money, folks build that money. So we'll catch you on the next episode. That's what we're all about, making money as an entrepreneur. All right. Catch you later.