Heavy Metal Money

Ticketmaster Was Stealing From You This Whole Time

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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Look, I want to say I’m shocked. I really do. But when a federal jury officially rules that Live Nation and Ticketmaster operated as an illegal monopoly and were overcharging fans for years, the only surprising part is that it took this long!

If you’ve bought a concert ticket, lets say in the last decade, you already know in your gut something was way off. You’d find a ticket listed at $75, get all the way to checkout, and somehow end up staring at something like $105 total. Service fee. Facility fee. Order processing fee. A delivery charge for a fucking PDF you’re emailing to yourself! c’mon! It felt like a financial mugging in slow motion, and now a jury in Manhattan has confirmed you weren’t just imagining it.

I think this is a big deal. Not just for music fans, but for anyone who cares about where their money actually goes. Let’s break it all down.

How We Got Here: A Brief (And Infuriating) History

This story goes back further than most people realize. I’ve dropped nuggets on how Ticketmaster inflates the costs by adding fees and shit for years on the blog.

So, Ticketmaster was founded back in 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona. For years it was just another player in the live events space, but it grew aggressively by flipping the traditional model. Instead of charging venues to use their ticketing system, Ticketmaster started paying venues a cut of the service fees in exchange for exclusive ticketing contracts. Of course, venues loved it. Fans got stuck with the bill. And Ticketmaster slowly grew into a near-untouchable giant.

By the 1990s, artists were actually screaming about it. For example, Pearl Jam famously filed an anti-monopoly complaint against Ticketmaster in the early ’90s trying to route around them on their own tours. Unfortunately, this basically got nowhere. Ticketmaster’s grip was just too damn strong.

The scale of the company did in fact attract some antitrust scrutiny from the DOJ’s Antitrust Division before 2010, but after a review, the Ticketmaster + Live Nation merger was allowed to proceed but with the understanding to limit the combined company’s ability to bully its competitors. Spoiler alert. That obviously didn’t work.

Ticketmaster was acquired by Live Nation in 2010. After merging, the new entity called itself as the “largest live entertainment company in the world” and the “largest producer of live music concerts in the world.” Okay, let’s get this straight? One company now controlled the venues, the promoters, the artists’ management in many cases, and the ticketing platform! That’s every single lever of live entertainment, all in one set of hands… hmmm.

Over the course of the next decade or so, the merged entity continued to extend its ownership stake in multiple layers of the live entertainment industry. So, now the DOJ saw enough evidence of potentially anti-competitive practices over the years after the merger that it received a five-year extension of the consent decree in 2020. I mean they’d basically already violated the original agreement by 2019. And got just a slap on the wrist, an extension, and business as usual. Shame on you, you shouldn’t do that. That’s it!

Then came the unstoppable force of Taylor Swift. Haha!

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Your Brain Is the Biggest Threat to Your Portfolio Right Now

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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The market has been throwing a tantrum lately. Volatility is up, headlines are scary, and your 401(k) balance looks like a guitar that got knocked off a stand mid-set. But here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud, “The market isn't your biggest problem right now. You are!”

Behavioral finance has a name for what happens when people watch their portfolios drop and hit the sell button, panic selling. And it destroys more wealth than any correction ever could. We just posted a full breakdown of why the stock market always comes back, and more importantly, what you should actually be doing when it feels like the floor is falling out.

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Why the Stock Market Always Comes Back

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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I want to tell you about a room full of people who all raised their hand at 9 a.m. when asked if they have money in the stock market.

That was the scene at the 2026 EconoMe Conference in Cincinnati. A few hundred money and personal finance nerds, some still desperately clutching their morning coffee after what I’m pretty sure was a late night at the pre-party and the hotel bar, gathered in that auditorium ready to talk about that thing that most people don’t wanna talk about. Ya know, money!

If you haven’t heard of EconoMe, let me give you the quick version. It’s the only large-scale event specifically designed for the FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) movement, and it’s a three-day party about money held at the University of Cincinnati. I like to think of it as a party about how to live your best life! The conference was founded by Diania Merriam, who discovered the FIRE movement and used that knowledge to get out of $30,000 of debt in 11 months, started saving and investing 60% of her income, and eventually retired from her corporate career at 33. The vibe is part conference, part community reunion, and part group therapy for people who think index funds are exciting dinner conversation. My kind of people! Lol.

So… back to the opening session. It was led by Brian Feroldi. If you’re not familiar with Brian, he’s a financial educator, YouTuber, and author, and his career mission is literally “to demystify the stock market.” He’s written over thousands articles on stocks, investing, and personal finance for The Motley Fool, and in 2022, published his best-selling book “Why Does the Stock Market Go Up?” The guy knows his stuff, and more importantly, he knows how to explain it without making your eyes glaze over. His talk was the first session of the day. And what he said is something I think every investor needs to hear, especially right now. Actually, I think every high school student ever should hear and learn this!

The Sick Feeling in Your Stomach Is the Problem

Brian opened by asking the room to keep their hands raised if they’d held their position through one of the recent market downturns. There were a lot of hands still in the air. We’ve had some big ones in recent years. A nearly 20% drop tied to tariff concerns. The inflation-driven dip before that. COVID in 2020. And a lot of peeps in that room, remember the throat punch of 2008.

Ya know, one of those moments when your net worth was visibly and rapidly shrinking. Your brain starts whispering, “Maybe this is it. Maybe this time it doesn’t come back.”

Brian called that feeling out by name: FEAR!

And I really like how he continued to talk about how fear of the stock market, just like any other fear! Right?! Most of the time this comes from not understanding. So, you’re not scared of the drop itself. Right? !You’re scared because you don’t know if or why it comes back up.

So, just think about that for a second. The going-down part is kinda always obvious. There’s like a war or conflict somewhere. Maybe a f’n global pandemic or financial crisis. Or some political bullshit and policy shock. The news will almost always explain the downside to you in exhausting detail. However, what nobody teaches you is the actual mechanism behind the recovery. So, without that knowledge, every downturn feels like it might be the last one. Noooooo!

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Getting Back Up is Everything

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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Trigger Warning: Dena’s talk included discussion of suicide and suicide attempt. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Okay, I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t expecting to get all emotional at a conference. I figured I’d sit in on some sessions, grab some good ideas, connect with some people, and head home with a notebook full of actionable stuff. You know, the usual. But then Dena Gillis walked up to the front of the room at the 1% Better Conference, and within about five minutes, the entire place went completely still.

Not a phone in sight. Not a side conversation. Just people… listening. What she said has been rattling around in my head ever since.

Look, I know this blog is typically about money and stuff. It’s about building financial freedom, breaking bad money habits, and figuring out how to actually get ahead in a world that sometimes feels stacked against you. But I think about this a lot, right? The reasons most people struggle financially isn’t because they lack information. It’s because life knocks them down, and they don’t know how to get back up. That’s exactly what Dena talked about. It was one of the best sessions at the conference, and I think it’s one of the most important things to share with you.

She Walked Into the Room with Something Real

Dena opened her talk by saying something that landed hard. She said, “Resilience isn’t something we’re born knowing how to do. It’s something we learn, often unwillingly, when life refuses to go according to plan.”

Yeah Man. I felt that one.

“Resilience isn’t something we’re born knowing how to do. It’s something we learn, often unwillingly, when life refuses to go according to plan.”
– Dena Gillis

Dena grew up in a small town in North Dakota, upper-middle-class family. She got good grades, did cheerleading, theater and music. From the outside looking in, it looked totally fine. More than fine, actually. But she when on to point out that there was something missing on the inside. Something no amount of external achievement could fix. Real, emotional connection wasn’t really there. Back then and in her family and in school mental health was treated like a weakness. And the message she got, over and over, was that feelings were something you either pushed through or kept to yourself.

Dena Gillis – 1% Better Conference 2026

At the age of 16, carrying pain she didn’t have the tools or language to understand, she attempted to take her own life.

She told this heavy, heartfelt and powerful story quietly with no drama. Just the truth. When she quickly regretted it and ended up on a dirty bathroom floor at school begging classmates for help while they told her she was being dramatic and just over-reacting. Dena was rushed to the hospital. After being treated and sent home to parents who were, as she put it in one word, “embarrassed.” They actually told her they would never speak of it again. This was so hard to hear. I was choked up and teary eyed. I was feeling all the feels.

I want to sit here, on that for a just a minute. I think a lot of us have had those moments where the people who were supposed to show up for us, didn’t. It’s not because they were some kind of monster.But because they were operating from their own unprocessed pain and their own generational baggage. Sometimes it’s a father that had also survived an abusive household. Or a mother had been raised to keep up appearances and keep her opinions quiet. They were doing the best they knew how. But unfortunately, the best they knew how still left a mark. That part of her story isn’t a detour. It’s kinda like the whole foundation.

Resilience Is a Muscle, Not a Mindset Poster

Here’s the thing Dena said that I keep coming back to. She described resilience not as some inspirational catchphrase, but as a muscle. One that gets torn. Rebuilt. And strengthened over time. That tracks with literally everything I know about getting your finances or any part of your life together.

You don’t become financially resilient by reading one blog post or listening to one podcast episode and having a lightbulb moment. You build it by making mistakes, recovering from them, and doing something differently next time. You build it by getting hit with an unexpected expense and surviving it. By taking on too much debt and finding your way out. By maybe trusting the wrong financial product in the beginning, or the wrong advisor, or your own worst impulse purchases, and learning from it without completely falling apart.

Dena wasn’t talking about money. But she was absolutely talking about the same process. She lost her brother at the young age of 33. He died suddenly from an undetected heart defect. She said she was on the phone with her father, and then collapsed to the floor. In a single phone call, she went from little sister to only child. “There is no road map for that kind of grief,” she said. “No timeline. No checklist. No right way to mourn.”

Anyone who has ever had the ground fall out from under them, or the their world come crashing down around them knows exactly what she means. And the parallel to financial rock bottom is uncomfortably real. When you’re drowning in debt, when you’ve lost a job or a business, when you look at your bank account and feel that particular brand of shame and hopelessness, there’s no neat five-step plan that makes it okay immediately. Grief and financial devastation share a lot of the same emotional DNA. This unbearable weight that is just crushing us.

“There is no road map for that kind of grief,” she said. “No timeline. No checklist. No right way to mourn.”
– Dena Gillis

Breaking the Cycle Is the Work

One of the most powerful threads running through Dena’s entire talk was this idea of breaking cycles. Her parents, for all their flaws, were trying to do better than the generation before them. They didn’t fully succeed. But Dena took that baton and ran with it in a completely different direction.

When she became a mother, she made a decision. The cycle of emotional unavailability was ending with her. She promised herself her daughter would never look out into a crowd of parents and not see her face. She told her she was proud of her. She showed up.

This is something I often reminded my foster daughter. I recall times when she would express that her mom ended up struggling, her brother ended up struggling, and she’d just follow and end up struggling too. Her cards were already dealt. I would remind her, she can break the cycle. The “bad luck” or poor decisions can end with her and she could change that family tree! This is financial independence work too. Not in some abstract metaphorical way. Literally.

So many of us are carrying financial habits we didn’t choose. Spending patterns, debt avoidance, fear of investing, impulse buying for emotional relief. These are the money scripts or beliefs that get passed down just like traits like eye color! The parents who never talked about money, or who fought constantly about money, or who treated credit cards like free money, shaped how we handle our own finances today. Breaking that cycle requires the same intentional, and yes, sometimes painful work.

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Four Ways To Boost Your Retirement Savings

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

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Saving for retirement can be wicked-hard. Increasing the amount you save for retirement can be even harder. Here are some ways you can increase your saving for retirement, adding some financial security when you approach retirement age.

Match Maker

In my opinion, one of the most important ways to save for retirement is using an employer match to a retirement saving program. One of the most powerful components of saving for retirement is TIME! Allowing your investments to grow and compound over time is HUGE! If your employer has a retirement savings program make sure to sign up, and if you can contribute to this program, at least, up to the percentage that is matched by your employer. It’s one of the easiest ways to build your retirement. You can set up the amount you want to contribute as a direct deposit right into your account.

What you Don’t Know Can Help You!

Put any increase in pay, bonus or commission toward retirement. I understand the cost of living increases, and inflation has been crazy these last few years. However, if you can put any raise, commission, or bonus directly into your retirement account your future self will thank you! As we said before, In some cases you can set this up to automatically make it even easier! Set it up, and you don’t even know it’s happening!

Eye on the Prize

I have had discussions about using retirement accounts to pay for new appliances, home repairs like new Windows for example. I encourage you, please prioritize your retirement accounts FOR RETIREMENT. If something comes up and you need extra funds to pay for big items consider tapping into other resources rather than your retirement savings. This is a great case for establishing an emergency fund to help with those unexpected costs for a car or small home repair. Remember, Time is a powerful tool, and we want to keep your retirement accounts untouched and working for you.

Budget

This is probably one of the most challenging, but if we can free up extra funds by trimming expenses, and can contribute this to a retirement account. Every little bit helps! Even $50 or $100 can make a difference. I totally understand this can be easier said than done. Look at some of the discretionary expenses like dining out, or a gym membership for example. Maybe you can workout at home, prepare more meals at home to free up some additional money to contribute to your retirement!

These are just a few examples of ways to accelerate your retirement savings! Horns Up, Friends! You got this.

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The Art of Disruption

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:00:00 +0000

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JPM strategists warn that the same leverage is still a risk.

Those markets may be recovering now, but cascading liquidations could trigger quickly across several asset classes simultaneously.

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Dr. DérNecia Phillips teaches us a 3-part framework for disruption

I recently attended the 1% Better Conference, which I think will fast become one of my favorite events of the year. The kind of gathering where you walk in thinking you know what you’re about, and walk out realizing you’ve been sleepwalking through some part of your life. But one session hit differently. Dr. DérNecia Phillips took the stage and dropped something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

1% Better Conference - Omaha, NE

She titled her talk “The Art of Disruption” and right out of the gate, she explained exactly why she put those two words together. Disruption, on its own, sounds negative. Disruptive kid in class. Disruptive employee. Something that causes problems. But art? Art is beautiful. Creative. It makes you feel something. And when you combine those two words, you’re already being challenged before Dr. Phillips even gets to her first point. That oxymoron is the whole lesson. I’ve always liked the word “disruption” I like pushing the envelope and seeing how disruption can change an entire industry or the world!

Disruption Is Not a Dirty Word

Here’s the thing nobody tells you, the people who changed the world weren’t really trying to burn it down. They were trying to build something better in its place. Dr. Phillips made this crystal clear. You’re not a disruptor just because you’re unhappy with the way things are. Complaining isn’t disruption. Criticizing from the sidelines isn’t disruption. Disruption requires something more. She laid out a three-part framework she calls the ART of Disruption, and it’s elegant in its simplicity.

First comes the Awakening. Something has to shake you out of your default thinking. It could be a moment, a conversation, a pattern you’ve been normalizing for years that suddenly makes you go “wait, why do we do it this way?” Dr. Phillips was clear that disruption has to start within yourself. Not outside. Within. You have to first change what you’re believing before you can change anything else. You have to interrupt your own assumptions.

Then comes the Response. Knowing something is wrong isn’t enough. You have to speak up about it, act on it, push toward it. Dr. Phillips called this responding “with strategic clarity.” It’s not about being unruly or creating chaos for chaos’s sake. Disruption done well is intentional. You have to be able to communicate your vision to other people. You have to be willing to say the unpopular thing, to stand up before it’s cool, buck the trends and go with your own flow. To wear that new band tee just because you like it. You can be the one person everyone else is watching while they decide whether to join in.

Then comes the Transformation. This is what separates a disruptor from a critic. You’re not just tearing something apart, you’re truly building a new alternative. Maybe it’s a new process or workflow. Maybe it’s a new company or new heavy metal musical sound! Or, maybe it’s a new school. Dr. Phillips shared her own story here, working to found what is set to become the first Black-founded school approved in the state of Nebraska, Identity Preparatory Academy, opening in fall 2026 for 4th and 5th grade girls in North Omaha. She saw a problem, a staggering 11% literacy rate for Black students in Nebraska by 8th grade, and instead of just talking about it, she started building.

Awaken. Respond. Transform. That’s the ART.

Metal Has Been Doing This Since 1970

Look, I’m a guy who’s into finance stuff. But I also have a deep love for heavy music and technology. I cannot hear a framework like this and not immediately start mapping it to the historic events in tech and metal. You may already know much of this but let’s look at it from a disruptive lens, because the genre of music I like most is, quite literally, a 50-plus-year story of disruption. And every chapter of it follows the ART model almost perfectly.

Black Sabbath: The Original Disruptors

In 1970, four guys from Birmingham, England, walked into a tiny recording studio and spent eight hours recording an album that the critics absolutely hated. Back then music and more of a psychedelic blues-rock sound. But on one Friday the 13th in February, Black Sabbath’s first album hit shelves in the U.K. and everything shifted. The rock music world was disrupted.

Rolling Stone dismissed it as just noise. Critics were scathing. And yet the public embraced it immediately. Black Sabbath is credited with creating heavy metal. The success of their first two albums marked a paradigm shift in the world of rock. Not until Black Sabbath upended the music scene did the term “heavy metal” enter the popular vocabulary to describe the denser, more thunderous offshoot of rock!

What was their awakening? They looked around at the psychedelic blues-rock dominating at the time and thought, this isn’t what we feel. They grew up in a world that felt dark and heavy and sometimes downright scary. Tony Iommi, who had lost the tips of two fingers in a factory accident, literally had to rethink how to play guitar. He tuned down, invented new techniques, and in doing so helped create a sound the world had never encountered. Their response was to put it all on record and release it regardless of what anyone thought. Their transformation? An entirely new genre of music that has spawned thousands of bands and tens of millions of fans over the past five and a half decades.

Metallica: Disrupting Disruption

If Black Sabbath created the blueprint. Metallica took it and set it on fire.

Kill ‘Em All has since been regarded as a groundbreaking album for thrash metal, because of its precise musicianship, which fused new wave of British heavy metal riffs with hardcore punk tempos. When Metallica dropped that record back in 1983, they weren’t just playing heavy music. They were playing it faster, with passion, more technically demanding than almost anyone thought was even possible! They were barely out of their teens, and they sounded like a freight train with a grudge. They disrupted the metal scene.

But their disruption didn’t stop there. Three years later, they totally leveled up in a way that shocked even their most devoted fans. On March 3, 1986, Metallica’s third album, Master of Puppets, arrived and changed heavy music at a moment when thrash metal was still dismissed by critics as noise. Metallica altered the course of thrash by channeling raw aggression through technical discipline and clear deliberate musical composition.

This is what the ART framework looks like in practice. The awakening was recognizing that speed alone wasn’t the point. The response was raising the bar with complex musical arrangements, acoustic passages, and themes about addiction, control, and manipulation that thrash metal had never touched. The transformation was when In 2015, Master of Puppets became the first metal recording to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” So, the United States government deemed it important enough to preserve for future generations. That is not nothing.

Read to the Full Article Here

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Can You Really Retire Early in Your 40s?

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Like coffee. Just smarter. (And funnier.)

Think of this as a mental power-up.

Overall—Morning Brew gives your business brain the jolt it needs to stay curious, confident, and in the know.

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Retiring in your 40s CAN BE possible!

Look, I totally get how the dream of retiring in your 40s is basically the financial equivalent of your band playing an arenas. Everyone wants it. Most people talk about it. But, very few actually pull it off, and even fewer do it without some surprises waiting on the other side.

But here’s the thing, retiring in your 40s CAN BE possible! However, it’s just not as simple as adding up your 401(k) balance and deciding you’ve crossed some sort of finish line. There are a lot of moving parts, and if you miss one, you could find yourself in a situation that’s less “living the dream” and more “anxiously watching your bank account drain.”

Let’s see if we can break this down and what actually goes into figuring this out.

First, Get Brutally Honest About Your Financial Picture

Before you start planning your retirement party, you need to sit down and take a hard and unfiltered look at where you actually stand. Not where you think you stand. Where you actually stand.

A lot of peeps may assume that because they have hit that million dollars in assets, they made it! They’re golden. But, remember, assets and net worth are two very different things, and confusing them is one of the most common mistakes people make when thinking about early retirement.

So, let’s say you own a home worth $350,000, maybe you have a rental property, a SEP IRA, and a 401(k). On paper, you might feel like you’re sitting pretty. But check it out. If you’ve still got $140,000 left on your mortgage and another $65,000 in business debt, that totally changes the math. You’re not working with $1 million in freedom money. You’re working with $1 million in assets minus a pile of liabilities!

This isn’t meant to be discouraging. That’s not what I’m trying to do here. This is meant to be a reality check. Because the people who do retire successfully in their 40s aren’t the ones who were too optimistic about their finances. They’re the ones who were dialed in and accurate.

So before anything else, write it all down. Let’s do this! Every asset, every liability, every monthly expense. Your mortgage, your insurance, your groceries, your streaming subscriptions (yes, all of them). You need a complete picture before you can make an intelligent decision. Where do you stand, currently.

The Healthcare Question Nobody Wants to Deal With

Okay, this is the one that can catch people off guard more than almost anything else, and it deserves a full conversation. This is often the question I get asked most often about retiring early.

When you retire before age 65, you wouldn’t have access to Medicare. That means you’re on your own for health insurance, and health insurance in the U.S. is not cheap. There is a lot to think about too. Depending on your situation and the level of coverage you need, you could be looking as much as $20,000 to $30,000 per year for a solid plan, especially if you’re going for a Gold or Platinum tier on the marketplace.

Choosing Your Health Insurance: A Guide to Open Enrollment - Heavy Metal Money

Health insurance is confusing. How to avoid hidden traps and pick the right plan. Working with a broker won't cost you more

If you or anyone in your household has ongoing health concerns, you’re going to want more robust coverage. This really isn’t the place to cut corners. A catastrophic health event with inadequate insurance can wipe out years of careful saving in a very short time.

Now, if you’re self-employed or running a business, there is some relief available. You can deduct a portion of your health insurance premiums, which takes some of that sting out. But it’s still a significant expense that needs to be built into your retirement math from day one, not treated as an afterthought.

The bottom line here is that if you’re planning to retire in your 40s, go look up actual plan costs on your state’s marketplace right now. Plug those numbers into your budget. If the math still works, great. If it doesn’t, you’ve just saved yourself from a very unpleasant surprise.

FILE vs. FIRE: Maybe You Don’t Have to Go All In

Here’s where things can get interesting, and honestly where the conversation has evolved a lot in recent years.

FIRE, or Financial Independence, Retire Early, is the concept most people know and more widely talked about. Peeps save aggressively, hit a number, stop working entirely, live off your investments. Clean and simple in theory.

But a lot of people in the financial independence community are shifting toward something called FILE: Financial Independence, Live Early. This is the idea is that instead of cutting everything out and grinding hard until you hit a magic retirement number and then flipping a switch, you start designing a life you actually want to live now, on your own terms, with or without a paycheck.

So, what does that actually look like in practice? Well, for some people, it’s dropping to part-time hours in their current career. For others, it’s stepping away from their nine-to-five and picking up consulting work or freelance projects that keep them engaged without the burnout. Some people start a small business around something they actually enjoy.

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What to Do When You Come Into Money

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:00:12 +0000

200+ AI Side Hustles to Start Right Now

While you were debating if AI would take your job, other people started using it to print money. Seriously.

That's not hyperbole. People are literally using ChatGPT to write Etsy descriptions that convert 3x better. Claude to build entire SaaS products without coding. Midjourney to create designs clients pay thousands for.

The Hustle found 200+ ways regular humans are turning AI into income. Subscribe to The Hustle for the full guide and unlock daily business intel that's actually interesting.

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What Do You Do With A Windfall?

So you just came into some money! Woah! Maybe you flipped a property or something and walked away with six figures. Maybe you got an inheritance, a bonus, or sold something for way more than you expected. Wherever you got it from, now you’re sitting there looking at your bank account thinking, “Holy crap, what do I do now?”

Look, I get it. That feeling is wild. It’s exciting, terrifying, and honestly kind of paralyzing all at the same time. You know this is a big opportunity, but you also know you could totally blow it. (pointy guitars, anyone) I’ve coached some peeps through this exact situation to tell you something important: what you do in the next few weeks will matter way more than you think.

Recently, I had a coaching call with someone who just flipped a property and cleared about $100k in proceeds. They’d never invested before. They were stoked about the win but completely lost on what to do next. Should they buy another property? Throw it all in the stock market, and what hot picks should they buy? Pay off their mortgage? Buy a boat? (Please don’t buy a boat lol)

Let me walk you through what we talked about, because if you’re reading this, you or someone you know may be in a similar spot.

First Things First: Don’t Do Anything Stupid

Before we get into the smart stuff, let’s talk about the dumb stuff. Because I know what happens when people suddenly have cash burning a hole in their pocket.

Don’t run out and buy a new car. Please! Try really hard to NOT upgrade your lifestyle. Don’t suddenly start living like you make twice what you actually make. I’ve seen people blow through a $50k windfall in six months because they convinced themselves they “deserved” a little reward. Then the reward becomes that new truck, a vacation, a kitchen remodel, and boom, it’s gone.

Here’s the thing about windfalls: they’re not income. I don’t consider them income. They’re not going to keep coming every two weeks like your paycheck. This is a one-time shot to change your financial trajectory. Treat it like the gift it is.

Take a Breath and Make a Plan

The first thing you need to do is absolutely nothing. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Give yourself a week or two to let the excitement wear off. Open a high-yield savings account if you don’t already have one, park that money there temporarily, and just breathe. Let yourself get used to seeing that number in your account without feeling like you need to do something with it immediately.

During this time, you’re going to make a plan. Not a vague “I should probably invest this” plan, but an actual written-down strategy that covers:

What are your immediate financial needs?

What are your short-term goals (next 1-2 years)?
What are your long-term goals (5+ years)?
Do you have high-interest debt that needs to go away?
Do you have an emergency fund? If not, this is your chance to build one.

For the person I coached who flipped the property, their situation was pretty clear: they wanted to flip another property soon, and they wanted to start investing for the long term. Two distinct goals, two different strategies.

The Short-Term Money: High-Yield Savings Accounts

If you know you’re going to need some of this money in the next year or two, don’t invest it in the stock market. Seriously. The market is for money you won’t touch for at least five years, preferably longer.

For my coaching client, they were actively looking for their next property to flip. That meant they needed to keep a chunk of that $100k liquid and accessible. We decided they should set aside whatever amount they thought they’d need for the next deal in a high-yield savings account.

Right now, HYSAs are paying around 3-4% interest, which isn’t going to make you rich, but it’s way better than the 0.01% you’ll get at most traditional banks. Your money sits there earning a little bit while staying completely safe and accessible for when you find that next property.

Some solid HYSA options include Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Ally Bank, and American Express Personal Savings. Shop around, compare rates, and pick one that doesn’t have weird fees or minimum balances.

Long-Term Investing That Actually Works

Jesse Cramer shares his philosophy on simple, behavior-proof investing and practical long-term investing tips.

Read to the Full Article Here

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It's Never Too Late To Start Investing

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:44:27 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

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Don’t worry. You’re right on time.

Many adults feel overwhelmed and behind when it comes to personal finance, often due to a lack of education rather than irresponsibility. The key to financial success lies in awareness, consistency, and simplicity, such as tracking spending, investing in broad-based index funds, and building an emergency fund. Starting late is not a barrier to financial freedom; it’s an opportunity to learn and take control of your money.

There’s something I see over and over again when I talk with people about money. It usually starts with a deep breath, followed by something like:

“I feel stupid for not knowing this stuff.”
“I should’ve started years ago.”
“I’m almost 40 and I’m just now paying attention.”

Let me say this as clearly as possible.

There is no shame in starting late.
There is no expiration date on learning money.
And you are not broken because nobody ever taught you this.

Recently, I had a coaching call with someone in their late 30s. I’ll keep all names and identifying details out of this, but the story itself is worth telling because it’s incredibly common.

This wasn’t a reckless spender or someone ignoring reality. This was a normal, hardworking adult who did what most of us were taught to do. You work hard. Pay your bills. Buy things that make life tolerable. Hope it all works out.

Then one day, it hits you. “Oh… I should probably understand my money.” If that’s you, pull up a chair. You’re in the right place.

I’ve Been Buying Happiness Instead of Building a Future

That line stuck with me. This person wasn’t drowning in debt. They weren’t living wildly beyond their means. They just never had a system. No plan. No framework.

Money came in. Money went out. Repeat.

And that’s the trap. When you don’t have a plan, spending becomes emotional. You reward yourself for surviving another week. You justify purchases because life is expensive and stressful. And slowly, quietly, time passes.

What really came through in the conversation wasn’t irresponsibility. It was kinda like overwhelm.

Investing felt like a foreign language. Retirement accounts felt kinda mysterious. Terms like Roth IRA, index fund, and diversification sounded like they belonged in a finance textbook, not actual real f’n life!

And that overwhelm leads to paralysis. So we often do nothing.

The Truth Nobody Says Out Loud

Here’s the part I wish more people understood.

Most adults are guessing.
Most people don’t know how their 401(k) works.
Most people have money sitting in accounts that aren’t even invested.

Seriously. I see it all the time. Money goes into a retirement account, but nobody ever chose what it should be invested in. So it sits there in cash, doing almost nothing, while inflation eats it alive.

That’s not stupidity. That’s lack of education. And our system is really good at pretending those are the same thing. They’re not.

Read to the Full Article Here

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The $100K Dream Just Got a Serious Reality Check

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:08:29 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

GET THE FREE FAST-TRACK TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM GUIDE!

Isn’t $100k Enough?!

I remember when landing a six-figure salary felt like something pretend, or thinking nobody actually makes this kind of money. I then remember thinking if you were fortunate enough get finally claw your way up to making a $100k per year it would be like you’d finally hit that sweet spot where money stress would just… disappear? Right?! Yeah, well I guess those days are gone, and they’re not coming back.

Here’s the brutal truth (not the Grindcore band out of New York) what used to be what I would have called the gold standard of “making it” now feels more like you’d be just scraping by in a lot of places across the country! It’s kinda hard to believe. The goal posts didn’t just move a little further away. They got loaded onto a truck and driven to another state entirely!

Americans now consider, get this, $270,000 to be the benchmark for success! What in the actual F! Not $100,000. Two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. That’s not a typo. That’s the new bar, and it’s a hell of a lot higher than where most of us are standing. Or, would ever hope to be standing.

So let’s talk about what’s really going on with today’s salaries, the expectations, and the gap between what we think we should be making and what is clash with reality (insert ripping Pantera track here) actually delivers. Because if you’re, like, a new grad stepping into this messy job market, or even a mid-career professional wondering why your paycheck doesn’t stretch like it used to, you need to understand the game (I love this song by Disturbed) that’s being played.

Why Your Parents’ Salary Advice Is Basically Useless Now

Your parents probably told you that if you work hard, get good grades, and land a decent job, you’ll be fine. Maybe they even threw out that magic number: $100,000. “Get to six figures and you’re set!” Except that advice is about as useful as a cassette tape player in 2026. It’s true! I still have some cassettes, but no way to play them!

Here’s a reason this is happening. So, inflation has absolutely demolished the buying power of that old $100K salary. To have the same purchasing power that $100,000 had back in 2000, you’d need to be making around $183,000 today. That’s an 83% increase just to stand still financially.

Inflation has demolished the buying power of that old $100K salary.

Expectations for New Grads

So you’ve got your degree in hand, maybe some student debt on your back, and you’re ready to start rockin’ your career. What should you expect?

Well, here’s where things get messy. New college grads are walking into the job market they THINK the average starting salaries will be around $101,500. That seems kinda awesome, right? I mean, when I finished school, my first job as like $32k! Anyway, when you consider student debt, cost of living, and all the “invest in yourself through education” messaging we’ve been fed for years.

Read to the Full Article Here

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Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

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Are We In An AI Bubble?

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:00:26 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

JOIN THE HEAVY METAL MONEY MOSH PIT FACEBOOK COMMUNITY!

Is AI The Next Dot Com Bubble?

I’m a fan of AI. I’m typically an early adopter of new technology in general. It has bit me in the ass a few times, but that is a story for another time lol. You’ve probably noticed AI is everywhere these days. I mean EVERYWHERE! On your phone, your email, even your grocery store checkout. And if you’ve been watching the stock market, you’ve definitely noticed AI-related stocks are continuing to shoot to the moon. Right?! Companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google are just dumping money into artificial intelligence like there’s no tomorrow.

But there is a question keeping a lot of us regular retail investors up at night. Is AI Investment a Bubble or the Real Deal? What Retail Investors Need to Know? You know, kinda like the dot-com bust that left a lot of folks holding worthless stock back in the year 2000?

Back in they day investors and companies poured money into these “dot-com” companies. Many were just based on “the idea” of a business! These optimistic business plans that hypothetically would explode into profits or market dominance. Unfortunately it was all hype! Many of these companies failed to deliver and success just wasn’t realized. I mean remember the rise and fall of Pets.com? Sometimes said to be the worst IPO ever!

I get it. The fear is real. We’ve all heard the stories about people who lost their shirts when the market crashed. Nobody wants to be that person who bought in at the peak right before everything came tumbling down. So let’s cut through the hype, the fear, and the tech bullshit to figure out what’s actually happening with AI investments and what it could mean for you.

The Numbers Are Actually Insane

First, let’s talk about the sheer scale of what’s happening right now. We’re not talking about just a few companies placing some bets on new technology. This is a full-blown investment supercycle, and the numbers are honestly kind of mind-blowing. A supercycle is defined as a sustained period of expansion, usually driven by robust growth in demand for products and services.

According to recent industry analysis, major tech companies are planning to spend around $1 trillion on building and upgrading data centers alone. That’s trillion with a T! These massive facilities are the backbone of AI technology, the places where all those ChatGPT conversations and AI image generators actually happen.

And it gets bigger. When you add in all the IT equipment, servers, chips, and hardware needed to make these data centers work, we’re looking at another $1 trillion to $2 trillion in spending. The total real estate value being created? About $1.2 trillion.

To put that in perspective, that’s more money than the entire GDP of most countries. This isn’t just a trend. This is a fundamental reshaping of how technology infrastructure works.

What’s Driving All This Spending?

Here’s some of what’s happening behind the scenes. Or, BTS as the kids would say lol. AI workloads, which is just the fancy talk for “the actual computing work AI systems do,” currently take up about 25% of data center capacity. But industry experts project that number could hit 50% by 2030. That’s only six years away. It’s gonna come quick!

If we think about what that means, half of all the computing power in these massive data centers could be dedicated just to AI. That’s a ginormous shift, and it’s why companies are racing to build that capacity right now. Nobody wants to be left behind, right?

The sector is expected to grow at about 14% per year through 2030. For comparison, that’s way faster than any of the more traditional industries. And right now, these facilities are operating at about 97% occupancy, meaning they’re pretty much maxed out. About 77% of the new construction is already spoken for. This is happening even before the buildings are even finished. So, on paper, those numbers look pretty healthy.

So Where Does the Bubble Talk Come From?

Here’s where things get interesting and a could be a bit messy. While some analysts look at those numbers and see solid fundamentals, others are waving those red flags like Bruce Dickenson waving the Union Flag during the Trooper lol

The skeptics point to a few concerning patterns. First, there’s what some are calling it “circular financing.” This is like when Company A invests money in Company B, and then Company B uses that money to buy products from Company A. It creates a loop that looks good on paper but might not reflect real demand. Ummm, it’s kinda like me giving you $20, only so you can go buy me a gift, lol.

For a more practical example, chip maker Nvidia has committed to investing up to $100 billion to help OpenAI build data centers. OpenAI then turns around and uses that commitment to buy millions of Nvidia’s GPUs for those facilities. Similarly, Microsoft invests in AI companies that then agree to use Microsoft’s computing power. See how this is the circle?

The second red flag is the actual revenue. Despite all this investment and crazy hype, most AI companies aren’t actually making much money yet. I mean the idea of a for profit business is to make money! Most of these AI companies are actually burning through the cash, many offering services below cost to just to get people hooked, hoping they can eventually raise prices later or dramatically cut costs in the future. It’s kind of like when we had a new pizza place open here in town. It was offering an entire “16 inch one topping pizza for only $5 to get us customers in the door. Great when they first started, but they just couldn’t survive when they had to pay increased prices for ingredients, then offered only cheese for the $5 price, and increased prices to us customers to add that first topping?

Some researchers, like Julien Garran from UK firm MacroStrategy Partnership, have gone so far as to call the AI spending ecosystem “the biggest and most dangerous bubble the world has ever seen.” He argues that most AI companies are stuck in a permanent cycle of needing to raise more money because they can’t figure out how to actually turn a profit.

“the biggest and most dangerous bubble the world has ever seen.” – Julien Garran

His point? When you run out of new investors willing to throw money at the problem, the whole thing could come crashing down.

Read to the Full Article Here

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

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How to Build More Wealth With Less Money

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 13:01:03 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

How to Build More Wealth With Less Money

The $23 Payment That Cost Me a Fortune

So there I was, long-haired, leather jacket wearing, twenty-something years old, standing in that music store with an $800 amp I couldn’t afford but totally “needed.” The salesman hit me with the magic words: “Just $23 a month.”

I signed. Of course I signed.

What I didn’t realize at the time wasn’t just that I’d pay way more than $800 for that amp. The real kick in the wallet? Every month I was making that payment, I was missing out on something way more powerful than distortion and reverb. I was missing out on compound growth.

See, that $23 monthly payment wasn’t just costing me interest. It was totally stealing my future.

The Math Nobody Shows You at the Store

Here’s what really gets me jacked up about the whole “low monthly payments” scam. It’s not just about all the interest you pay. That’s bad enough, right? Paying up to 50% more for something over time because you couldn’t wait? Yeah, thats a punch in the gut.

But here’s the part that’ll really make your head spin. Every dollar you’re sending to that finance company, credit card company, or bank is a dollar that could totally be working for you instead. And the earlier those dollars start working, the harder they work. Those dollars are actually worth more!

Let me break this down with some numbers that actually matter.

Why Starting Early Crushes Everything

I want you to meet two people. Let’s call them James and Kirk. IYKYK. Both of them are smart enough to invest. Awesome! Both of them choose solid, boring index funds that average about a 7% return. Both of them invest the same amount per year when they’re contributing.

But there’s one massive difference.

James starts at age 22. A young pup and fresh out of college. He’s barely making enough to cover rent, but somehow manages to scratch enough together to invest $5,000 a year. James does this for, let’s say, 10 years from age 22 to 32. That’s it. Then James stops completely. In that ten years has $50,000 total invested. He doesn’t add another dime. Just lets that money sit there and grow and compound.

By age 62, James will then have about $750,000!

Let that sink in. Fifty thousand dollars turned into three-quarters of a million! And, James stopped contributing at 32!

Kirk starts at age 32. Same age, and begins to invest when James stopped. Kirk invests $5,000 every single year from 32 to 62, or the year he retires. That’s 30 years of consistent investing. Kirk puts in $150,000 total! Are you following? That’s three times what James invested.

By age 62, Kirk has about $505,000.

Wait, what? Yeah, you see that correctly!

Kirk invested triple the money but ended up with almost $250,000 less. How is that even possible?

Time Beats Everything

This is the power of compound interest, and it’s why starting early is literally worth more than investing more later.

Those early dollars get more time to grow. And when your money earns returns, those returns start earning returns. Then those returns on returns start earning their own returns. It’s like the financial equivalent of a guitar feedback loop hahah! Instead of annoying your neighbors, you’re building wealth.

Here’s the brutal truth about my $23 monthly amp payment. If I had invested that $23 every month instead, starting at age 23, for just those four years it took me to pay off that stupid amp, I would have put away about $1,100.

Yeah, that’s not too impressive, right?

But if I’d left that money alone in a boring index fund averaging 7% return, by the time I hit 62, that $1,100 would be worth over $11,000. One financing decision. One amp. Ten times my money just sitting there growing. And that’s being kinda conservative.

What If You’re Not 22 Anymore?

Look, I get it. You’re reading this thinking, “Great, Chris. I’m 35. I missed the boat.”

Wrong. The second-best time to start is RIGHT NOW! Yes, those 22-year-olds have an advantage. But a 35-year-old who starts investing today will absolutely crush a 35-year-old who waits until 45. The math still works. Time still absolutely matters.

Here’s the thing, every month you’re making payments on stuff you financed, you’re choosing debt over wealth. You’re choosing to make those credit companies rich instead of making yourself financially free.

Read to the Full Article Here

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

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The Heavy Metal Money Mosh Pit Is LIVE!

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 18:39:21 +0000

What if money didn’t have to be boring… or lonely?

I just launched something new — and it’s already getting loud.

🔥 The Heavy Metal Money Mosh Pit is officially LIVE on Facebook, and it’s where the real conversations are happening.

This isn’t another passive finance group full of screenshots, humblebrags, or gurus yelling at you to “just hustle harder.”

This is a community.

A place for people who:

Want to take control of their money
Don’t want sugar-coated BS
Believe financial freedom is built together, not alone
And maybe enjoy a little heavy metal energy along the way 🤘

Inside the Mosh Pit, we’re doing things differently:

💥 Show & Tell – share wins, progress, or lessons learned
🗳️ Polls & gut-check questions – see how others think and decide
🎤 Ask the Pit – real questions, real answers, no judgment
🧠 Practical money talk without the corporate snooze-fest

If you join, you’ll get access to my Fast-Track to Financial Freedom Guide — a no-fluff, straight-to-the-point roadmap for shredding debt, building wealth, and taking back control.

👉 Join the Heavy Metal Money Mosh Pit here:
https://moshpit.heavymetal.money

We’re just getting started, and this is one of those “get in early” moments.

If you’ve ever wanted a place where money talk feels honest, supportive, and actually motivating… this is it.

See you in the pit.

🤘
Chris

Heavy Metal Money
Play louder. Live freer.

P.S. If you join and introduce yourself, I actually read it, and the community will welcome you like you belong. Because you do.

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

Proof that we have a face for radio! Head over to YouTube and see funny facial expressions and sometimes helpful charts graphs and illustrations!

How to Create Purpose and Live Your Life to the Fullest

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 13:00:17 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

I’ll be honest with you. For years, I thought purpose was this massive thing I had to discover, like some kind of quest in a fantasy novel. You know, find your calling, become wildly successful, change the world, all that jazz. But here’s the thing that nobody tells you: that whole approach to purpose might actually be making you miserable.

I recently sat down with Dr. Jordan Grumet (you might know him as Doc G) to talk about his book “The Purpose Code,” and honestly, the conversation completely flipped my understanding of what purpose really means. Doc G is a hospice physician, host of the Earn and Invest podcast, and he’s spent years watching people at the end of their lives reflect on what actually mattered. His first book, “Taking Stock,” was all about building financial independence around purpose. But this book? It goes deeper into how we can actually create purpose instead of constantly searching for it.

And trust me, after chasing the rock and roll dream for years while working soul-crushing day jobs, this conversation hit different.

The Problem With Purpose (And Why It’s Making You Anxious)

Here’s something wild that Doc G discovered, up to 91% of people experience what researcher Larissa Rainey calls “purpose anxiety” at some point in their lives. Think about that for a second. Nearly everyone is stressed, guilty, worried, or downright scared about not knowing their purpose in life.

I’ve definitely been there. Hell, I still visit sometimes. You know that feeling when you’re lying in bed at night wondering if you’re wasting your life? Or when you jump from job to job thinking “maybe this will finally be the thing that fulfills me”? Yeah, that’s purpose anxiety doing its thing.

Doc G explained that he noticed this pattern after giving talks about his first book. People would actually get angry with him. They’d come up after conferences and say, “Look, you’ve been talking about purpose this whole time, but I can’t find my purpose. I’ve been looking for years and it’s really frustrating me.”

That’s when he realized something important, we’ve probably been getting purpose wrong this whole time.

Big P Purpose vs. Little P Purpose (And Why One Makes You Miserable)

After diving deep into the research, Doc G came up with this framework that honestly makes so much sense. There are actually two types of purpose, and only one of them leads to happiness.

Big P Purpose – The One That’s Setting You Up for Failure

Big P Purpose is what most of us think about when we hear the word “purpose.” It’s all about massive, audacious goals. We’re talking about:

Becoming a billionaire
Curing cancer
Becoming president
Changing the world in some huge, measurable way

This is the “if you can think it, you can build it” American dream stuff. And look, I’m not saying these goals are bad. But here’s the brutal truth, most of us don’t have the agency to actually achieve them. We’re not the right person at the right time with the right genetics and the right amount of luck.

Big P Purpose is scarce. It’s all or nothing. It’s winner takes all. And when you aim that high, the likelihood is you’re going to fail and feel like garbage about it. This is where I was thinking, if I wasn’t writing the killer track with a sick chugging riff, or getting thousands of followers, or landing that million dollar grant, I was just failing and it was frustrating and defeating.

Little P Purpose – The One That Actually Works

Now here’s where it gets good. Little P Purpose isn’t about goals at all. It’s about process.

It’s about doing things that light you up and enjoying the actual doing of them. There’s no way to fail at Little P Purpose as long as you’re doing something you genuinely like. And if you don’t like it? You try something else.

While Big P Purpose is scarce and competitive, Little P Purpose is abundant. It’s not all or nothing, it’s all or all. Almost anyone can go out and do their sense of purpose, enjoy the process, and be way happier because of it.

Think about it like this, instead of saying “I need to become a bestselling author,” you focus on “I really enjoy writing every morning with my coffee.” The first one sets you up for disappointment if you never hit the bestseller list. The second one? You win every single day you sit down and write.

Read to the Full Article Here

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What Credit Card Scammers Are Actually Doing?

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 14:01:59 +0000

3 Tricks Billionaires Use to Help Protect Wealth Through Shaky Markets

“If I hear bad news about the stock market one more time, I’m gonna be sick.”

We get it. Investors are rattled, costs keep rising, and the world keeps getting weirder.

So, who’s better at handling their money than the uber-rich?

Have 3 long-term investing tips UBS (Swiss bank) shared for shaky times:

Hold extra cash for expenses and buying cheap if markets fall.
Diversify outside stocks (Gold, real estate, etc.).
Hold a slice of wealth in alternatives that tend not to move with equities.

The catch? Most alternatives aren’t open to everyday investors

That’s why Masterworks exists: 70,000+ members invest in shares of something that’s appreciated more overall than the S&P 500 over 30 years without moving in lockstep with it.*

Contemporary and post war art by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and more.

Sounds crazy, but it’s real. One way to help reclaim control this week:

Skip waitlist.

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. Reg A disclosures:}_{masterworks.com/cd}

I was curious and wanted to learn more about how these criminal pricks actually swipe our credit card numbers, and how credit card fraud is so prolific throughout the industry. And, sometimes doing the normal or right thing with your credit cards can make you look like a criminal. I had been traveling, and while in Chicago, my credit card called me because I used my card in another city and at a liquor store. Two things that didn’t follow my pattern of typical usage. So I thought I’d share some of what I found, and help us understand how some of this works, and most importantly how to help protect ourselves.

I’ve also heard from plenty of folks who tried to pay down their credit card balance early, add a family member as an authorized user, or make a mid-cycle payment to keep their utilization low, only to have their bank freeze the account or flag it for fraud. Meanwhile, the actual scammers are running circles around the system, racking up billions in fraudulent charges. Yeah… f’n billions!

So why does this happen? Why does paying your bill early raise those red flags while actual fraud often flies under the radar for months? The answer is way more interesting (and kinda disturbing) than you might think. After digging into how credit card fraud actually works, I realized that the tactics criminals use to game the system look eerily similar to things regular people do every day. And that’s exactly the problem.

Let’s pull back the curtain on how this whole mess works.

Synthetic Identity Fraud Explained

First, we need to talk about synthetic identity fraud. This isn’t your old-school, grandma’s stolen credit card situation. This is next-level stuff.

Synthetic identity fraud is when scammers create completely fake people from scratch. Yeah ya know the Synths from Alien 🙂 Fake people!

Anyway, they’re not stealing your identity exactly, they’re building a Frankenstein identity using bits of real data mixed with made-up information. Think of it as creating a financial zombie that walks around looking legit enough to fool the system.

This is what makes this scary. These fake identities don’t have real victims who notice something’s wrong and report it. There’s no actual person checking their credit report and seeing fraudulent accounts. The actual “person” doesn’t exist, so nobody’s complaining. The bank just writes it off as a credit loss when the fake person eventually ghosts on their debt.

This, also, isn’t some small-time operation. According to TransUnion, U.S. lenders faced approximately $3.3 billion in exposure to suspected synthetic identities by mid-2024. That number represents auto loans, credit cards, retail credit cards, and unsecured personal loans tied to people who literally don’t exist.

How Fraudsters Create Fake People

So how do these criminals actually pull this off? It’s disturbingly simple once you understand the process.

Prior to June 2011, Social Security numbers followed a predictable pattern based on geography and timing. Even though they’re randomized now (the Social Security Administration implemented SSN randomization on June 25, 2011), there’s still an algorithm involved, and people who know what they’re doing can work the system.

Scammers typically target Social Security numbers that don’t get used much. Kids and elderly people are prime targets because their credit files see little activity. True story. My Social Security number was used by my mom’s boyfriend to open credit cards when I was just an infant! What a dink! This is why freezing your children’s credit files isn’t just being paranoid anymore, it’s totally smart parenting.

And here’s what is really frustrating, we know all of our data is already out there anyway. The 2017 Equifax breach alone exposed sensitive information for 147 million Americans. Using Social Security numbers, birth dates, and even your mother’s maiden name for verification is basically worthless now. That horse left the barn a long time ago lol.

The Store Credit Card Strategy

Once scammers have their synthetic identity assembled, they need to bring it to life. Toss the lever to charge the Frankenstein identity with electricity! This is where it can get kinda clever.

The fraudsters walk into a retail store, maybe Target or Best Buy, and apply for a store credit card at checkout. The employees aren’t really trained to spot fraud, they’re basically incentivized to get as many applications as possible. So they happily run the application.

The scammer probably gets denied. But that application just created a credit file. Now this fake person exists in the system.

They repeat this process at a few different stores over several weeks. Each rejection adds more and more data to the credit file. Eventually, some issuer approves them for a tiny limit, let’s say $500. That bank figures their risk is minimal with such a small limit, but they just gave birth to a financial phantom baby.

Read to the Full Article Here

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Year-End Money Moves to Start 2026 Strong

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 14:01:17 +0000

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As another year wraps up, and we’ve attended the last concert of the year (Trans-siberian Orchestra is Metal!) We are all also getting ready to celebrate the holidays and get together with friends and family for food, fun, and togetherness. But the end of the year isn’t just about eggnog and awkward office parties. It’s also a perfect time to review your finances, see how things have been going with your money, and get ready for a strong start to 2026.

Look, personal finance isn’t just about saving money. It’s also about planning, setting goals, and making smart decisions that will help you in the long run. I know it’s hard it can be to think ahead, sometimes years or decades in the future! Whether you want to save more, pay off debt, or invest in the future, here are some financial moves we can make as 2025 comes to a close and the mic drops on the gig that was 2025. Let’s do what we can to set ourselves up for success in the new year.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Review Your Financial Goals

The end of the year is the perfect time to check in and see how you’ve done with your financial goals. How did your earning go this year? Did you get a raise or earn bonuses or commissions? What are you doing with that extra cash? (are you blowing it on a pointy guitar or more band merch?!) Did you save as much as you planned? Maybe you used it to pay down debt. Did you continue to invest wisely?

Here are some action steps to help you out:

Track Your Progress: Compare your actual financial performance against your goals for savings, paying down debt, and investments. Were you saving for that vacation, that music festival, or that pointy guitar? Let’s track our progress to get there.

Adjust Your Goals: If you didn’t do as well as you hoped, figure out what went wrong and adjust your goals for next year. If you did better than you thought, think about how you can make them even better. It’s totally okay to modify or adjust our goals along the way.

Set SMART Goals: For 2026, try making your goals realistic by using SMART goals. By making your financial goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, it helps you actually achieve them instead of just hoping for the best.

Maximize Tax-Advantaged Contributions

As the year wraps up, this is your last chance to make the most of those tax-advantaged accounts like 401(k)s, IRAs, and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). These contributions can lower your taxable income and help you build a solid retirement nest egg.

Here are some action steps to help you out:

401(k) Contributions: Make sure you’re contributing enough to get the full employer match. Seriously, if you’re not doing this, you’re leaving free money on the table. For 2025, the contribution limit is $23,500, with an extra $7,500 catch-up contribution for those over 50. And if you’re between 60 and 63, you get a super catch-up of $11,250.

IRA Contributions: Think about maxing out your IRA contributions. For 2025, that’s $7,000, or $8,000 if you’re over 50. Traditional IRAs might also be tax-deductible depending on your income and whether you have a retirement plan at work.

HSA Contributions: If you have a high-deductible health plan, make the most of your HSA contributions. For 2025, that’s $4,300 for individuals and $8,550 for families. HSAs offer a triple tax advantage that’s pretty sweet. Contributions are tax-deductible, growth is tax-free, and withdrawals for qualified medical expenses are also tax-free. If you’re 55 or older, you can throw in an extra $1,000 catch-up contribution.

Conduct a Year-End Budget Review

Now, let’s talk about budgeting. Take a close look at your spending for the year and see where your money actually went. This will help you make better financial decisions in the future. Trust me, some of you might be shocked when you see how much you spent on DoorDash or coffee runs.

Here are some steps to help you out:

Analyze Spending Habits: Whether you’re using paper and pen or online tools, apps like YNAB, or spreadsheets like Excel, review your expenses for the year. Look at everything. And I mean everything.

Identify Savings Opportunities: Look for areas where you overspent and places where you can cut costs next year. For example, if eating out was a big expense (this was definitely mine), try meal planning to save money. Or if you’ve got seventeen streaming services you barely use, maybe it’s time to cut a few.

Refine Your Budget: Make a budget for 2026 that matches your financial goals and priorities. Be realistic about it. Don’t budget like you’re going to become a different person overnight who never buys coffee or goes out with friends.

Read to the Full Article Here

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Your FI Journey is Like a Hallmark Christmas Movie

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:00:59 +0000

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Recently, I was talking with Doug Cunnington from the Mile Hi Fi podcast, and he dropped this absolutely wild observation on me. He said the FI journey is basically the plot of every single Hallmark Christmas movie. At first, I didn’t quite get it. Then I thought about it. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Because he’s totally right.

The Hallmark Formula

If you’ve ever channel-surfed past Hallmark between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, you know the drill. Actually, even if you haven’t watched these movies, you know the formula. It’s everywhere. It’s been parodied on SNL. It’s become a cultural touchstone.

Here’s how every single one of these movies goes down:

Our protagonist (let’s call her Sarah) has a high-stress corporate job in the big city. She’s a marketing executive, or a lawyer, or runs some vague “consulting firm.” She works crazy 80-hour weeks and she’s always on her phone. Her apartment is modern but somehow cold and empty. She eats takeout at her desk and hasn’t had a real conversation with anyone in months.

Then something happens. Her uncle gets sick or her mom needs help with the family bakery. There’s a crisis at the Christmas tree farm she inherited but forgot about. Whatever the reason, Sarah has to leave her corner office and head back to her hometown of Pine Valley or Evergreen Falls or whatever.

So, she’s typically annoyed at first. She’s got that big work presentation back in the big city next week! She’s up for the big promotion or may become partner at the law firm! But then she gets there, and everything starts to shift.

There’s, like, a pie contest at the town square. Oh, or a Christmas pageant. There seems to always be a Christmas pageant. Or maybe they’re trying to save the local bookstore from being bought out by some giant faceless corporation (the irony). And somehow, Sarah gets roped into helping.

Oh, Let’s not forget. There’s a guy. Of course there’s a guy. Usually her old high school sweetheart who stayed in town and now runs the family Christmas tree farm or teaches woodworking to underprivileged kids or something equally wholesome.

By the end of the movie, Sarah now realizes what really matters. She quits her corporate job. She moves back to Pine Valley. She opens that bakery or bookstore or whatever. She’s making less money, but she’s genuinely happy for the first time in years.

Roll credits. Cue the instrumental version of “Silent Night.”

Now, Let Me Blow Your Mind

That’s the FI story. Like, beat for beat, that’s the entire financial independence journey.

Okay, here me out. Let’s think about it.

Most people pursuing FI start out in the corporate grind. We’re chasing promotions, climbing ladders, working crazy hours because we think that’s what success looks like. More money equals more happiness, right? Just one more raise. Just one more bonus. Just make it to that next level.

We’re living in expensive cities because that’s where the jobs are. We’re paying ridiculous rent or mortgages. We’re stressed out of our minds. We’re disconnected from the things that actually matter because we’re too busy trying to “make it.”

Does that sound familiar?

Then we have something happen. Maybe we discover Mr. Money Mustache or ChooseFI or JL Collins. Maybe we have some health event that kinda scares us. Maybe we just wake up one day and realize we’ve been running on a hamster wheel for years and we can’t even remember why we got on it in the first place.

We start questioning everything. Do I actually need this corporate job? Do I really want to live in this overpriced big city? What am I even working towards?

So as we begin to learn, we slowly start to make changes. We cut our expenses. We simplify our lives. We start to realize that happiness doesn’t come from the corner office or the fancy title or the luxury car that costs almost as much as some people’s houses!

We begin to prioritizing community, and focus on our relationships. We start to understand time freedom. We understand this is the ability to actually show up for the people we love and care about instead of sending them a text from another late night at the office.

Eventually, if we stick with it over time, we hit our FI number. Once we’ve reached out FI Number, we leave the corporate grind behind. Maybe we move somewhere cheaper (this is our version of going back to Pine Valley). Maybe we start a passion project that doesn’t pay as well but actually means something to us. It fills our heart and feels like you are making a difference. In your life, or the lives of others.

We’re making less money than we could be, but we’re genuinely happy for the first time in years.

Roll credits. Cue the instrumental version of… well, probably the instrumental Metallica song, Orion, because this is Heavy Metal Money after all.

Read to the Full Article Here

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The Old Wealth-Building Playbook Is Broken

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:00:33 +0000

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Are You Trapped in the Financial Vortex?

Look, I’m going to be straight with you. That financial advice your parents followed? The stuff about saving 15% of your income, buying index funds, and coasting into a comfortable retirement? Yeah, it’s pretty much dead.

I know, I know. That sounds dramatic. But stick with me here because I recently sat down with Brian Mueller, a certified financial adviser with over 25 years of experience, and he broke down exactly why so many of us feel like we’re drowning financially even when we’re doing everything “right.”

Brian calls it the financial vortex, and once you understand what it is, you’ll realize why you’re not crazy for feeling like your money doesn’t go as far as it used to. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

The Financial Vortex Explained (And Why You’re Probably In It)

Here’s the thing about the old playbook. When our parents were buying homes, their mortgage was maybe 20% or 25% of their income. They probably put 20% down. They had breathing room in their budget for savings, emergencies, and maybe even that boat they never actually used.

Fast forward to today, and most people are spending 45% to 50% of their take-home pay just on housing. Some people are pushing 50%. And before you think I’m about to tell you it’s because everyone’s living beyond their means with fancy avocado toast and streaming subscriptions, hold up. That’s not what’s happening here.

The financial vortex is what happens when three major expenses explode at the same time while your salary basically stays flat. We’re talking about housing costs that have gone absolutely bonkers, healthcare expenses that make you want to cry when you open the bill, and childcare costs that rival a college tuition payment.

Brian pointed out something that really hit me. By 2033, Goldman Sachs predicts that 55% of people under 50 are going to be living paycheck to paycheck. Fifty-five percent! That’s not because half the country suddenly forgot how to budget. It’s because the game changed, and nobody updated the rule book.

Why Inflation Feels Way Worse Than 3%

You know what really grinds my gears? When the Federal Reserve says inflation is around 2.5% to 3%, and you’re standing in the grocery store thinking, “There’s no way a jar of peanut butter used to cost this much.”

Brian’s working on a whole episode about what he calls “the inflation lie,” and I’m here for it. Because when you factor in everything we actually spend money on, the real inflation rate feels more like 40%. I’m not making that number up. Brian mentioned paying $35 for a vodka and soda at a concert. Thirty-five dollars! For one drink!

At some point, we all hit that wall where we’re like, “Nope. I’m not paying that.” But the problem is, you can’t exactly boycott your mortgage or your kid’s healthcare.

The Big Rocks That Are Crushing Your Budget

Alright, so if the old advice doesn’t work anymore, what do we do about it? Brian laid out something he calls the new retirement formula, and it makes way more sense than the outdated stuff we’ve been force-fed.

The formula is simple: save smarter, invest better, and keep more of what you earn.

But before we get into the sexy investment strategies, we need to talk about the big rocks. These are your major expenses, and they’re where the real money gets saved or lost. I’m talking about housing, transportation, and food. Not your $5 latte.

Read to the Full Article Here

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Choosing Your Health Insurance Doesn’t Have to Suck

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 13:01:34 +0000

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Simply the Complex!

It’s open enrollment season, which means millions of people across the country are staring at their screens wondering why health insurance feels like reading a foreign language while blindfolded.

But choosing your plan doesn’t have to suck. This week on The Extreme Personal Finance Show, I sat down with Mike Anderson, owner of Anderson Benefit Partners and one of the sharpest health insurance minds I’ve ever met.

Mike’s whole mission?
Simplify the complicated. And after this conversation, I promise—you’ll feel way more confident about picking your plan for 2026. Let’s break it down!

Takeaways From My Conversation With Mike

1. The UCare Shakeup Is a Big Deal — Here’s What It Means

Over 300,000 people just found out their UCare plan is disappearing.
But here’s the wild part:

UCare’s Medicare Advantage plan already shut down
Their individual & family plans will be acquired by Medica
You can technically still enroll in a UCare plan for 2026
But most people probably shouldn’t

Mike said it straight:
Don’t assume your plan will stay the same. Check your renewal.

2. How to Actually Compare Health Plans Without Going Insane

Most of us look at:

❌ Premium

❌ Deductible

❌ Out-of-Pocket Max

And call it a day. Mike says that’s not enough. Start with these three things:

Who are your doctors? Networks don’t translate across employer plans, individual plans, and Medicare. Same carrier name ≠ same network.
What’s your household income? This affects tax credits and total cost more than people realize.
How do you use your care? Primary visits? Therapy? Prescriptions? Chronic conditions?

Your plan should match your reality. It’s simple but game-changing.

3. Rising Costs Aren’t Your Imagination

Minnesota carriers filed 20–30 percent rate increases for 2025. Deductibles over $10,000 for individuals are becoming the norm.

Mike put it bluntly. Some families are now functionally uninsured even though they have coverage. He chalks it up to:

Post-COVID care surge
High-cost of medications like GLP-1 drugs
Expiring tax credits
Expensive specialty medications
Increased claims across all systems

His take? We’re reaching a tipping point.

4. HSA Plans Are Changing in a Big Way

Thanks to new legislation in 2026:

All Bronze plans become HSA-eligible
Even if they include copays (which was never allowed before)
Younger, healthier families may get more flexibility
More people will be able to use the triple-tax-advantaged HSA strategy

This is one of the biggest changes to HSAs in years, and almost no one knows about it.

5. Hidden Traps That Catch Most People Off Guard

Mike says the #1 thing that shocks people?

Preventive care does not include diagnostic care.

Check out this Example:
You go in for a “free annual physical.” Doctor says, “Let’s run a blood panel.” Boom, this is now diagnostic vs. preventative.
Now you get a bill. It’s kinda sneaky, and it happens all the time.

6. For Small Business Owners: There’s a Better Way

If you’ve got a team under 50 employees, Level-funded plans are taking over Minnesota. Small employers are saving 20–30 percent over fully insured plans.

Mike even uses this for his own company. If you run a business, this might be the most important thing you read all month.

A Big Reminder: Your Plan Might Not Auto-Renew

Mike says this trips up a ton of people. Even if you do nothing, you might stay enrolled. But you also might not! You may:

Get pushed into another plan
Lose tax credits
Get moved into a public program by mistake
End up with no coverage at all

So please do yourself a favor. Log in and confirm your plan. Or call your broker.

Speaking of…

Why You Should Use a Broker (and Why It’s FREE)

I think this is super important and the part most people don’t know: If you buy your own insurance…

You pay the same whether you use a broker or not.

The carrier already builds the broker fee into your premium. If you don’t use one, the insurance company just keeps it. So why go it alone?

I think you can get someone on your side! Use someone who does this for a living and knows the networks, the pitfalls, the pricing, and the traps. Health insurance is confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming for most people, and the industry knows it.

But you don’t have to feel lost. Spend a little time to review your plan. Talk to a broker. Make a decision that actually fits your life.

Your future self (and your wallet) will thank you! Horns Up!

Listen to the Full Episode

“Choosing Your Health Insurance Doesn’t Have to Suck”
Watch & listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

To connect with Mike visit https://www.andersonbenefitpartners.com

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Thanks again for following along! Keep those Horns Up, my friend 🤘 🤘 And please share this newsletter with those you think would find value!

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How to Work Less, Live More and Own Your Time

Chris (Loogie) Luger — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:00:26 +0000

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Work less. Live more!

Work less. Live more. And Own Your Time

That’s the mantra from Andy Hill — the award-winning family finance coach behind Marriage, Kids, and Money and author of the new book Own Your Time: 10 Financial Steps to Put Your Family First and Escape the Corporate Grind.

Andy’s not just preaching theory. He and his wife walked the talk — paying off debt, hitting Coast FIRE, and buying back their time so they could be fully present parents, partners, and people again.

He joined me on The Extreme Personal Finance Show to talk about how you can do the same.

From Corporate Prison to Time Freedom

Andy was that guy. Ya know, working 60-hour weeks, missing birthdays, and convincing himself that “this is just life.”

Then one day, he found himself FaceTiming his daughter from a trade show floor on her 7th birthday. Fluorescent lights overhead, tie choking his neck, trying to sound cheerful while missing the moment that actually mattered.

That was the turning point.

Andy and his wife made a plan to ditch the debt, build savings, and create what he calls their “FU Money Fund.” A year’s worth of expenses and the courage to say “enough.”

He left his corporate career in early 2020 (right before the pandemic hit — talk about guts), betting on himself and his mission to help other families do the same.

What It Means to Own Your Time

Andy’s book isn’t about early retirement. It’s more about early alignment. It’s for anyone who feels stuck, trapped, or burned out by the grind. He lays out practical steps to regain control of your time, money, and priorities.

His advice hits hard:

Owning your time starts with clarity and knowing what you want to remove from your life, not just what you want to buy.

If someone handed you a $5 million check today, Andy asks:

That question alone might change your life.

Diversify Your Identity

Andy dropped another gem during our chat: “Don’t just diversify your investments, diversify your identity as well.”

Too many of us tie our worth to our work. When that job ends, we end up lost, restless, or even depressed. Instead, he challenges us to cultivate other parts of who we are:

Musician
Parent
Friend
Volunteer
Partner

Because when work stops being everything, life gets a whole lot richer.

Raising the Next Generation of Givers

Andy’s kids are already part of his financial legacy. This isn’t because of inheritance.

He teaches them about saving, spending, giving, and investing from an early age.
His family’s “60/40 Generational Wealth Plan” splits every dollar they earn:

60% spending
20% investing
10% saving
10% giving

The goal? Build habits that outlast their parents. As Andy put it:

Redefining Success

So what does success look like once you’ve reached financial independence?

For Andy, it’s not a bigger bank account, it’s a better calendar.

He now works 20–25 hours a week, prioritizes fitness, spends real time with his family, and volunteers in his community.
He earns half of what he made in corporate, but he’s twice as alive.

Listen to the Full Episode

“Own Your Time with Andy Hill. Work Less, Live More, and Build a Family-First Life”
Watch & listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

Order Own Your Time now
Learn more at MarriageKidsAndMoney.com

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe or follow the podcast and listen to us ramble about earning, saving, investing, spending! Take your podcast listing to the EXTREME!

Proof that we have a face for radio! Head over to YouTube and see funny facial expressions and sometimes helpful charts graphs and illustrations!

Other Episodes

Thanks again for following along! Keep those Horns Up, my friend 🤘 🤘 And please share this newsletter with those you think would find value!

Heavy Metal Money

Take control of your money! Earning. Saving. Spending. Investing...Turned Up To 11!

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