How This Young Couple Turned Crypto Into a Massive Net Worth

How This Young Couple Turned Crypto Into a Massive Net Worth (0:00)

Brian: You go from nothing, nothing, nothing. I can do this because I come from nothing. And then give me the best.

Quinton: I’ve been chasing numbers, looking for a feeling. But you don’t really get the feeling. When I saved my first $10,000, it was like the best feeling in my life. When I had $100,000, I was just like, oh, well, it’s only $100,000. When we had like a quarter million, oh, we only have a quarter million.

Bo: There is no point in getting to 60, 65, 70 years old with tens of millions of dollars and no memories up until that point. No experiences up until that point. No fulfillment up until that point.

Meet Quinton and Victoria: High School Sweethearts from San Diego (0:33)

Brian: Give us the background. You’re originally from San Diego, California. Both of you?

Victoria: Yes. So I guess we should start with that. We have been together for 10 years. We’re high school sweethearts. We met in high school and have been together ever since. And that’s kind of where our journey started. We’ve been through a lot together, but I think that’s what has brought us to the position we are right now.

Brian: Same college?

Victoria: No. So I went to Menlo College, which is in the Bay Area, Atherton. I got my accounting degree there.

Brian: Are you an accountant? Is that what you do for a living?

Victoria: Yes, I’m a CPA.

Brian: Let’s go. They load the deck for me. He likes to throw that out. Good decision maker. I love that.

Quinton: I was calling her CPA before she was a CPA. I just thought it was an interchangeable term. I was like, “Yeah, she’s a CPA.” She’s like, “I don’t have my license yet.”

Victoria: Yeah. So I actually played softball in college as well. I was an athlete growing up.

Brian: Nobody ever You looked at me for the CPA. Softball you threw out. The jock club is right there. I get it. All right. So collegiate athlete, CPA, and you do accounting now?

Victoria: Yes. I work for a firm. We have offices in San Diego, Oregon, and a couple other states, but I work remotely in Phoenix because that’s where we’re residing.

Bo: How long have you been with that firm?

Victoria: Almost five years. Five years would be in September.

Bo: And you do tax prep, that kind of thing?

Victoria: Yeah. We do a majority of business returns, but we do have our individuals, like our high net worth individuals that the K-1s flow to that we prepare. I feel like I’ve got to sit up and really be on call now.

Brian: What’s funny is right before we came in here, Bo and I were approving a business return with K-1s. So you’re in good company.

Bo: Awesome. And Quinton, you went to a different college?

Quinton: Yeah. I went to a small community college in San Diego. I went there for two years and ended up dropping out. I started working at UPS. Worked at UPS for about five years. And then I made a job change. That’s the reason we moved to Phoenix. I started getting into roofing sales. Working for a roofing company, going out, running appointments, seeing if there’s damage on the roofs, and then either going through the insurance process or selling them a new roof.

Bo: Were you doing sales for UPS? What were you doing there?

Quinton: No, I was a loader and then a driver. When you’re in the warehouse, you always want to be a driver. And then you get to be a driver and it’s like it’s not what it’s all made out to be. So I had a friend out here doing sales and I was all over YouTube looking everything up. Sales, sales, sales. So I was like, let me just come out to Phoenix and try it out. I tried it out and I liked it and then I moved our family out here.

Bo: How long have you been doing roofing sales?

Quinton: Three years now.

Bo: So okay, here you guys are now. Are you married?

Victoria: Yes, we are. We got married August of 2024.

Bo: Family, any kids?

Victoria: We have a six-month old, almost seven-month old.

Brian: Oh, brand new. I love, by the way, the picture that was on your profile for us was actually the announcement. You holding up the jersey. Really cool. So when I got to see the notes that there was actually a baby on the scene, it was kind of like seeing the full story then. What’s it like being parents? You guys are still in brand new phase. Tell everybody what it’s like.

Victoria: Yeah, it’s an adjustment for sure at first. But I think we’ve kind of gotten to the groove of things now that he’s six months old. Definitely it was an adjustment at first, but he’s amazing. We’re so in love with him and we miss him a lot. He’s with his grandparents right now. This is the first trip away.

Brian: Wow. This is not the first time this has happened on this show. Thank you for being willing to come hang out with us to do this. That’s huge.

Victoria: We wouldn’t have missed out on the opportunity. We’re super excited.

Quinton: Yeah. We watch you guys all the time.

Brian: Both watch, or is one a drag along?

Quinton: She watched first. Okay. But now it’s like a date night thing. Like I’m serious. She’ll get mad at me. She has my YouTube account. She’s like, “You’re halfway through. We haven’t watched that together.” I’m like, oh, sorry.

$883,000 Net Worth Before Age 30 (5:12)

Brian: So you guys were kind enough to share a net worth statement with us and you are in a fantastic situation. How old are each of you now?

Victoria: I am 27.

Quinton: I’m 26 as of like five days ago.

Bo: Happy birthday. Do you see this? 27, 26, $883,000 net worth. Almost millionaires here in your mid-20s.

Brian: And man oh man. when did we get into crypto?

Quinton: I was going to wait to bring that up.

Brian: Immediately when we see you’re in your 20s and worth almost a million dollars, I see that half of this is coming through crypto. Yeah, there’s a story there.

Quinton: Yeah, we got in early. My first experience with crypto was like 2015. It was Bitcoin. Most of that on there is Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don’t really dabble after that.

The Bitcoin Story That Changed Everything (6:10)

Quinton: Back in 2015, Bitcoin was like $80. And back then to buy Bitcoin, you had to go on a forum. There were no exchanges. You could go on a forum and somebody would be like, “Send me a Starbucks gift card or something.” You’d go to the store, scratch it off, take a picture, send it to them. So I got like $100 worth of Bitcoin and I think it was like $60 left over. Then in 2018, everybody was talking about Bitcoin. Like, “Oh, dude, this is going crazy.” And I was like, “Dude, I think I have some of this.” They’re like, “No, it’s brand new.” I was like, “No, I think I have some of this.” When I checked my account, it had gone up to like $8,000 from like 20 to 40 bucks left over in 2018. That was the first experience where I got hooked into not just crypto but investing, because that was the first time I saw my money make money. And then after that I just dove in.

Bo: What does dove into crypto mean?

Victoria: I would say I was a little skeptical at first. But I think in 2020 is when we fully dove in. That was where crypto was I think at its lowest compared to where it had been. And he was just like, let’s invest. Let’s invest.

Bo: How are you doing it? Are you buying bits and pieces over time? Are you waiting for the price to go down and then buying in?

Quinton: At that point it was literally like I would call her. I was working in the hub at UPS, working like 6 p.m. to 11. We combined finances early, before we ever got married.

Victoria: Yeah, we did. But it was like that since we started dating. Like we never worried about paying each other back for this or any of that. Like we just kind of enjoyed our time together. Whatever we had, he would save up the cans, go to recycling. We’d save up together, make our summers. Go to the fair and that’s how we did it. So we just always combined from the beginning.

Quinton: So that’s kind of why I’d just call her at work and be like, “Babe, do you see the price of Bitcoin? Invest now.” She’s like, “What are you talking about? How much money is in the account?” She’s like, “$2,000?” I’m like, “Put $1,000 in.”

Victoria: Oh wow. So we were just throwing it in. But not just Bitcoin. Also stocks as well. That’s when we started. In 2020 with the stocks because everything was down at that time.

Brian: So this $400,000 in crypto, have you turned any of this into liquidity or have you just kept it in crypto?

Quinton: No. Only for losses. Because in the beginning when you start seeing things go up, I fell into the trap a little bit of thinking all crypto is going to go up. So some of the ones that went down I would sell because I realized they’re never going to go back up. So I’ve realized some losses over time but I’ve never realized any of the gains. We’ve never touched it really.

Brian: If you had to guess of this $443,000 of crypto that you have, how much of that is money you’ve actually put in? What’s the basis?

Quinton: I don’t even know. Honestly probably not more than $40,000 to $50,000.

Brian: Wow. Yeah. I mean the date you’re giving me makes sense. And that’s one of those things, when people ask us about crypto, we’ve even had Humphrey Yang on and he shared about getting in that early adopter status and the huge rewards that can bring. The thing I worry about, and I’ve been very vocal because I dabbled for about two years with it, is just the volatility. It just felt outside of normal investing because even right now it’s down 4% today and for the last month it’s down like 25%. That’s just not normal for things to swing that way.

Bo: Yeah, it just feels different. So that’s the only thing that scares me a little bit for you guys. You’ve won the game in some aspects by being in your 20s with this big of a net worth. I’m not saying get rid of it all, but there’s a portion where maybe we look at your goals and figure out if any portion of this should help accelerate some of these other goals. I’d be curious to hear what your strategy with it is. Are you actively buying more? Have you thought about when you might sell? What are your trigger points?

Quinton: So I haven’t bought for a while. Like not from Q4 of the post-halving year, which was like last October, November, December. I probably haven’t bought. But I’m not going to lie, I did buy some this morning because I saw it was down 4%.

Victoria: Yeah, he was transferring money. I was like, what are you transferring money for? And then he’s like, Bitcoin.

Quinton: Because it’s at a price that’s undeniable right now. So I did buy some today. But our long-term goal, we’re going to take such a tax hit if we were to just sell it. But there are a lot of places like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, where you can actually use it as collateral and borrow against it. I don’t really see it as we need that money right now. So when we do end up needing it, maybe borrowing against it. But not 100% sure.

Bo: If we think about your total liquid net worth, $720,000, and a vast majority of that is in Bitcoin and crypto. Is there a point as your portfolio continues to grow where you’re starting to think about it as a percentage of your overall portfolio? This morning when you bought more Bitcoin, how much did you buy?

Quinton: Only $2,000.

Bo: Okay. So we’re not talking big chunks relative to the overall. Got it. And when it comes to your normal saving, even if we remove the crypto from the equation, you’re still doing really well.

Victoria: I almost don’t even think about it. I pretend it’s not there. I try not to think about it as much as he does. So I just don’t even know it’s there.

Brian: And that shows, I mean, because even your cash is pretty frothy. I was going to ask about that in a minute.

Their Savings Strategy Explained (12:37)

Bo: Walk us through your normal savings. What are you guys doing percentage-wise? How much are you saving and what accounts is that flowing to?

Quinton: So we’re a little messy. I’m not going to lie. We’re a little messy.

Brian: He’s nervous we’re going to get on to them. You see Quinton’s saying they’re messy. But I see Victoria gets a little slow smile. I’m wondering, are they both messy or is this just…

Quinton: Yeah. So we don’t really have a percentage that we save. The way we do it is I tell her we max out all our retirement accounts every month. So whatever it would be to max out for the full year, we put that in monthly. And then for the rest, I had this notion in my mind that I could time the market. So that’s why I was saving up cash. Usually we would just invest everything that’s left over. But since then I was like, the market’s at an all-time high, so we’re not going to invest it. We’re not going to invest it. And then it kind of just kept stacking until the point we’re at now.

Bo: That’s the problem. When the market hits all-time highs, you know what normally happens shortly after that? It hits another all-time high. And you end up waiting on the sidelines with tons of excess capital that really hasn’t been working for you. You say you max out retirement accounts. Is that like a 401(k)? Both of you have access to 401(k)s?

Victoria: Yes. For my employer, that’s a $24,500 you’re putting in there on an annual basis.

Quinton: And then I have a solo 401(k). So I think I could do employee and employer contributions. I’ve just done the employee side. I treat it as a 1099.

Victoria: Yeah. And I think we need to do some tax planning to do S-corp.

Brian: We had a huge hail storm in this area last year. Every house in the neighborhood has pretty much gotten a new roof. So business has been great. But is your income feast or famine or is it pretty consistent?

Quinton: So this is my third year in it. Each year I’ve seen an increase.

Brian: That’s a good thing. What’s your income looked like over the last three years? And how are you currently structured? Because you’re the accountant, Victoria, and you threw out S-corp. How are you currently set up and what’s the income trajectory looked like?

Victoria: Yeah. So last year I think it was $85,000 that he made gross. And then I recently got a promotion, so I got an increase in my income there. But yeah, I would just say I think every year we’re planning on our income increasing, especially with his business.

Quinton: So this year I’m on pace for $175,000, which is a huge jump from last year. We did have one of the biggest hail storms Phoenix has had in a certain area. All those deals close out this year, so that’s kind of been why I’m on pace for the $175,000 this year.

Bo: And how are you currently structured? Are you a sole proprietor, an LLC? How’d you know to do a solo 401(k)?

Quinton: YouTube videos. Like everything I’ve ever learned has been off of YouTube. I’ll just start Googling, start YouTubing. I’ll see a video on solo 401(k)s. When I found out about it, I thought it was like a cheat code because you can take the employee side and do Roth, but if I want to do the employer side, I can do traditional. So then I could take money off both sides. I thought that was like a cheat code.

Future Goals: Freedom, Family, and Flexibility (16:38)

Brian: So when you guys are sitting here and thinking about future financial goals, what are you working towards? What are the questions you have or what are the things you’d like to have some insight on?

Victoria: Overall, I think we do want to have more flexibility earlier on in how we work and not like a strict 9 to 5. It’d be nice in maybe 10 years or so to be kind of part-time and work whenever we can, especially when we want to grow our family.

Brian: Like you go part-time 10 years from now. Is that within 10 years or in 10 years?

Victoria: In 10 years. Yeah.

Victoria: Here’s a little funny thing, but we didn’t have a wedding. We got married at the courthouse. So it’d be nice. Maybe for our fifth year anniversary to have like a nice wedding to renew our vows and stuff. That’s just a little fun bit.

Bo: What’s that look like from a cost perspective?

Victoria: That’s a little scary because weddings are expensive. And I have a huge family.

Brian: How many people?

Victoria: Close to 200.

Brian: Oh wow. Okay. So that is a big family. And I’m assuming for you guys to do this wedding, it’s going to be on you guys to pay for it?

Victoria: Yeah, we would want to pay for it.

Bo: So what’s it cost to have a 200-person party?

Victoria: I’m guessing at least like $50,000. It probably depends on the location. In Mexico you could probably get it a little cheaper.

Bo: Are you thinking about doing it in Mexico?

Quinton: Yeah, it’s a possibility. I guess my questions would be more technical. We’re doing a lot into our retirement accounts and some into our brokerage as well. So I was wondering if we should continue to ramp up. I have a solo 401(k) and I can do both employee and employer contributions. But I also wonder if that would be too much into retirement if we’re looking into not FIRE-style retirement but maybe pulling some of that out earlier.

Bo: So you said you’re doing $24,500 into each of your 401(k)s. Are you also doing Roth IRAs?

Quinton: Maxing out Roth IRAs and the HSA as well.

Brian: Family HSA, the $8,750, correct? Obviously a lot of the loading up the retirements because of the huge tax benefits. But what’s the need for the money because the problem with retirement accounts is you lose access to it. So that’s why the brokerage account gives you that bridge. But what are you thinking you need money for over the next five to seven years? I know there’s a $50,000 party happening. I got that one down.

Quinton: Yeah. And I think for me I always look at things as like a deal. I’ve always been like, oh, I don’t want a house. Same type of thing I did with the markets. It’s like, oh, it’s high. Housing’s high. I’d rather just rent. But I think down the line we do want a house.

Victoria: Yeah, we do. Or you want a house?

Bo: She said I think. She has not committed here.

Victoria: No, no. We do. We want one. Once we start growing our family, I think it’d be nice to have a home.

Brian: Y’all already growing your family. You have a six-month old. Welcome to the journey. Have y’all talked about that as a couple? When do you want to buy a house?

Quinton: We’ve talked about it. I kind of just shut it down a little bit because I’m like, it’s not a good time, or it’s always better to rent right now than to buy. I kind of throw all that knowledge onto her and she’s just a trooper. She’s just like, okay, if it’s better, you know. But at the end of the day, that’s one of our goals. I want to provide it.

Brian: Is home ownership a goal for you, Quinton?

Quinton: Yes, eventually. Yeah, eventually. I just don’t know when.

Bo: I think it’s worth noting that when it comes to buying your primary residence, it’s way less of a financial decision than it is a life decision. Same way as it is with children. When is the right financial time to have kids? It’s not a financial answer. It’s a life answer. You want to make sure there are some financial metrics and parameters you stay inside of when it comes to home ownership, but just because prices are high and interest rates are unfavorable does not mean it might not make sense for you guys to purchase a home. How nomadic are y’all? Are you locked into Arizona or is there a chance you’re moving in the next five years?

Victoria: There’s definitely a huge chance we’d be moving. Yeah, we’re pretty nomadic. We moved to Phoenix for a job opportunity. We don’t know whether he’s going to go into something else or if there’s another opportunity. So there is a chance. That’s kind of why I’m agreeing with him on the whole house thing. I don’t want to go into something not knowing whether we’re going to be there long term. I mean, there’s always the chance of renting it out if we end up moving. But long term, a house is a goal. I just don’t think it’s a rush. I’d rather take our time with it, not make an emotional decision, and then down the line if we want a house, then great.

Brian: I was just curious, and you’re using the universal skill of sales. That’s how you’ve ended up doing roofing sales now. Are you just in a job or are you in a career? Because that seems like it has a little bit of a question mark on it.

Quinton: Yeah, I feel like I’m in a career. Especially with roofing sales, you can move to different places. Right now we’re in Phoenix, but my company is branching out to Colorado and opening up different branches because there’s a lot of hail in Colorado. So I’m locked in on the career but the place I’m actually going to be working is completely flexible. I could be working in Phoenix, Colorado, Tennessee if they open an office.

Brian: I could sense there was something under the surface there. It sounds like it is a career, it’s just the location might change on you.

Quinton: I love what I do and I love sales. I want to stay in this industry for sure. Especially roofing sales. It’s a need that everybody has.

Scarcity Mindset vs. Enjoying Life (23:42)

Bo: This is so hard to think about, but I want to think about how we cast a plan and move in a direction. When you guys think about houses, let’s use Phoenix as an example. If you were going to buy a house in Phoenix right now, what’s the price point you’re looking at?

Quinton: I’ve always been the guy where, let’s talk about shoes. I’d wear like beater shoes, like five dollar shoes, until I could get the shoes that I really, really want, and then I’d buy the most expensive shoes. I feel like I’m the same way with a house. I’ll just rent up until I get to the point where we can get the house we really, really want. I don’t like starter homes or middle homes. I want like…

Brian: Can I introduce a concept to you? Have you ever heard of the hedonic treadmill?

Quinton: Never.

Brian: There’s this whole thing on happiness and fulfillment. This is where lottery winners get hosed because they think they’re going to find happiness in spending the money, not actually the journey. The way a lot of this works is you do things incrementally. Like you buy your first nice car, and I’m going to use some horrible examples here, but you buy the two-door 3 Series BMW because you’re starting to hit a lick with your money. It’s a cool car. It’s only going to keep you happy for a certain period of time. But you didn’t start with the 7 Series. You started with the 3 Series. There was something about enjoying the journey up as you’re buying. It’s the same with the starter home. Nobody counted on interest rates to do what they’re doing and affordability is messed up right now, so you don’t get to do the normal stair step. But I’m just telling you, there’s something about the human experience that you get to do something a little nicer because it’s not going to last. It’s all fleeting. It’s temporary how long you enjoy the things you do. So that’s why you at least have somewhere to go up.

Brian: I can already tell you have some achiever mentalities and you set goals for yourself. The problem with achiever mentality in some ways is you’re playing to win a game. And you’re not actually in a game. You have goals and mile markers. If you play to win a game, you’re going to get to what you think the finish line is in the future. You’re going to get there and find out it’s empty.

Quinton: Yeah. And that is a scary thing because I believe me, it gets heavy when you realize, hey, maybe your numbers, I’m going to save until I get to five or $7 million. You go get there and be like, I don’t feel any different. So you have to understand that your mile markers are the goals but you’re on a journey. You’re not winning a game.

Quinton: Yeah. I’ve experienced that for sure.

Victoria: I think that’s great advice. But I think the reason he has that mindset is because of his background and where he came from.

Brian: Well, share more. He’s probably not going to tell us. You tell us.

Victoria: I would start with me. I grew up like middle class. I know we probably struggled but my parents never let us see that as kids. I got both, my mom is very not a spender. She’s a controller. That’s literally her job. So that’s kind of where I got the accounting background from.

Brian: I thought you just meant the personality type. No, she’s literally in accounting. I got it. The CPA orbit. Okay.

Victoria: So she’s more of the financial person where my dad is like, God’s always going to provide for us. So we’re always going to have the money. He’s not really worried about money. So I think I got both aspects where I don’t like to spend but I’m also not fixated on the money. I’m not worried about it. Whereas when we met, he didn’t always have money growing up. He came from a completely different situation from me. To see where he is now is like amazing. It’s like he did it all on his own. So there’s a lot of scarcity mindset for sure back then, just because you never knew. It was always prominent. You knew you didn’t have money. And then there’s the kind of poor where you grow up poor and you know it. Yeah, it was in my face for sure.

Quinton: So then I just had this different outlook on money like I thought it was this end-all be-all. Hoard it all, keep it. That kind of gave me a bad relationship with money. So I’m kind of trying to outgrow that. Even when I look at this, when you were talking about chasing that feeling, I’ve been chasing numbers looking for a feeling. But you don’t really get the feeling. You just chase more numbers, more numbers. Even like I told myself when I saved my first $10,000, it was like the best feeling in my life. When I had $100,000, I was just like, oh, well, it’s only $100,000. When we had like a quarter million, oh, we only have a quarter million. And I know that sounds ungrateful, but that’s just like my situation with money.

Bo: How much more do you need? Yeah, because I don’t think you’re uncommon in that. Especially from someone who comes from a very humble background. It is a reality that I don’t want to go back there. I’m going to do everything in my power to move in the opposite direction. And that’s a testament to why you’re in such a wonderful spot. But I do think if you’re not careful, you end up chasing a goal that shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be, okay, what do we ultimately want the money to do for us? That’s why some of the questioning is like, okay, when do you want a house? When do you want to grow the family? What are the goals you’re working towards? Because the way it looks right now, if all you did was take $719,000 and drop it into our wealth multiplier for a 26 and 27-year-old, you can see without doing anything else you’re probably well on your way to tens of millions of dollars by the time you retire. So you’ve done so much good work and have such a head start, it’s going to be really hard to screw it up.

Brian: So then the question becomes, how do we do this really well? Because there is no point in getting to 60, 65, 70 years old with tens of millions of dollars and no memories up until that point. No experiences up until that point. No fulfillment up until that point. And I think that’s going to be the bigger risk that you guys are going to have. What do y’all do for fun?

Victoria: Pickleball.

Brian: Okay. I like that answer. Keep going. What other things do y’all do for fun?

Quinton: Workout, pickleball, tennis, things of that nature.

Victoria: I would say too, like prior to the baby, we loved traveling. We love experiencing things together. So we’re not really materialistic. Like, oh, I want this new bag or this new outfit. We’re pretty basic on that. We like experiences.

Brian: Do you have a hard time spending money on those things?

Quinton: Not really. Not experiences. But definitely like items. We’ll wear the same thing forever. Like towels, this, that. I mean, we just started going, okay, let’s look at this Lululemon everybody’s talking about. So we’ll go and try it. But before it was just all like chasing freedom. So when we got the ability, it’s like, okay, cool. Let’s get a home cleaner.

Victoria: Yeah, we love convenience as well.

Bo: Any anxiety around that? Like hiring someone to offload that service? Was that a hard decision?

Victoria: I think because the position that we’re at and with a baby, I cannot do it. And we need our home clean. So it was kind of like, okay, well, we can do this. So we decided to hire someone.

Quinton: Yeah. At first I’m always the guy that’s like, I don’t think we should do it. I just always default to no. And then if she’s like, let’s take a trip to San Diego to see our family, I’m like, we can’t do that. And then it’ll be like the day before and I’m like, oh, let’s just go for Christmas. I have to say no, think about it, think about it, think about it. And then if I’ve done all the research in my head, then it’s like, okay, cool. I do that with every purchase.

Victoria: There’s friction in a way. He likes knowing what’s going on. He doesn’t like spur of the moment. He likes to plan for it.

Brian: That’s accounting versus sales. You see the difference? Yeah. No, for sure. Completely different.

Victoria: I think we’re really different personality-wise, but we also work really well together.

Quinton: It’s that yin-yang. It works. And we grew up together. We essentially raised each other. So all my habits, all her habits, we kind of got into it together.

Brian: Any if money was just not anything you had to think about, is there anything that you aren’t doing that would create more happiness?

Vicotira: That’s a great question. I think so. Yeah. What would you do?

Quinton: I would see family a lot more. They’re in San Diego and we’re in Phoenix. See family a lot more. And more convenience things. Like we got a home cleaner, but I think it’d be cool to get lessons in some things. Like I’m a very recreational tennis player. Tennis lessons would be cool. Even like mobility work, get a mobility person. I’d want to get massages more often or go to the spa. Things like that where now I’m always like, dude, I need a massage but I’m like, that’s $200. I don’t want to do that.

Brian: Do you feel like you can’t afford those things?

Victoria: I feel like we can, but we just like choose to do it wisely where we’ll get one every six months or something. But I think we’re super into health and wellness. We like to take care of ourselves and sometimes that can be a little expensive with massages and buying organic food and making sure the ingredients are really good for our bodies. And I would just piggyback off him. I do miss being home. My family, I grew up around all my family. So that’s one thing that’s a little hard, especially with my son now, not always being around family. Whereas growing up, your aunts, your uncles, your grandma and grandpa are all there and you see each other almost every day. So I think that’s one thing we may eventually need to figure out, whether we want to go back to California. But if it’s not in the cards, you know, it’s okay.

Bo: But why don’t y’all do the massages more often, go see the family more often, go travel?

Quinton: I get caught up in like, the money will be better here. Oh well, $200 in the S&P 500 at 10% compounded is going to be, you know… So I’m just like, oh, well, one day when we have the ability and there’s this amount of money in the account, then I’ll do those things. It’s like once we hit this number then I’ll get massages, or once we hit this number we’ll start eating out a little bit more. Even then, I would love to get locally sourced organic food somewhere local and just go eat every day. But in my head I’m like, well, if we make breakfast it’s like $10 or $8 for both of us. We go out it’s like $40. That extra money we could just invest. So my brain automatically goes to that.

Why Over-Saving Can Become a Problem (36:12)

Brian: And in the beginning of the journey, deferred gratification and discipline are the most important first ingredients. But the thing is, you’ve already shown it. You’ve already done it. And this is why you have to be careful. There’s a very fine line between being a financial mutant and being a financial miser. And I’m going to go ahead and ruin life for you. I’ve been to the top of the mountain. I can afford to buy anything and everything I want. And what’s actually important, once you get to the top of the mountain, you guys are talking about family. If you do any research on what creates happiness and fulfillment, it’s your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your family. I know everybody watching is going to be like, yeah, it’s easy to say that. I’m telling you from the top of the mountain, it’s who you spend your time with. It’s the family. And it’s the little things. It’s the morning walks for me, listening to the birds in the trees. Trying to make sure you get inside yourself to say, this creates happiness. I’m happy with this. Because if you only focus on getting to $5 million, $10 million, or whatever it is, you’re going to find out it’s empty. And it’s not what you’re designed for in a lot of ways.

Brian: And I know that’s so because you come from scarcity. I deal with this with Bo because Bo and you are very similar in the fact that I think Bo was probably trying to prove to a lot of people he was good enough for a long time. And I’ve had to help mentor him in some ways to slow down, take a deep breath, and enjoy what you’ve got because you’re going to wake up one day and be my age. It just happens. I didn’t plan to be this age. It just kind of happens.

Brian: That’s why I’m saying you’ve done so much and you’re already way ahead of the curve. And a lot of people think financial advisers tell everybody no because your default is no. And no is a powerful tool, but it’s supposed to be a tool that allows you to own your time that much sooner to get back to doing those things that are truly fulfilling. It troubles me a little bit that your default even on those things that are so healthy and nourishing to your happiness and fulfillment, you put up some roadblocks on that. And that’s a mindset thing. You’ve got the hard part, the tool of money, but now we’ve just got to work on the coaching of the mindset. That’s what makes the go do the massages, go get the stretch labs and all the other things. And then I’d love to know what you want to do too, Victoria. What else should we be checking the boxes on to make sure you’re getting all of your stuff?

Victoria: Honestly, I feel like we’re pretty similar in our interests.

Brian: Do y’all go do couples massages? Oh, that’s why. By the way, couples massages. My wife and I had this same discussion. We were down in Florida and she goes, “Let’s go get a massage.” And she immediately starts looking at massages at the Grand Floridian. And I was like, uh-uh. I was like, we can go get somebody to rub on us for a heck of a lot cheaper than that. So I went on Yelp and found a perfectly good place. It was half the price. So there is a better way to do money that you can still get all the fulfillment of the memory without always going to the most expensive option. You don’t have to do hamburger helper anymore. You’ve graduated. But you don’t always have to do the filet either.

Bo: And I think one of the things, it seems like you’re rules-based and rules-driven in terms of how you operate. I did some math. If you’re both maxing out your 401(k)s, maxing out your Roth IRAs, doing the HSA, that’s like $72,000 to $73,000 a year that you’re saving automatically and systematically. On a $216,000 household income, that’s like a 34% savings rate. I never want to say oversaving because perhaps you’re saving the right amount. But we tell people save 25%. You realize if you just had an extra 10% back that you weren’t saving on $216,000, that’s like an extra $21,000. That’s almost two grand a month. Imagine if you had an extra two grand a month to travel, to see your family, to go create memories, to do those things. That’s not a prescription to go find ways to spend that money. But sometimes we’ve got to sit across from people and say, you may possibly be doing too much. And it would be okay to take your foot off the gas a little bit to make room for some of these other things.

Victoria: That sounds awesome. And I think that was one of our questions too, because I feel like he was saying we might have a lot of cash sitting doing nothing.

What to Do With $156,000 in Cash (40:52)

Brian: Is that something we invest or do we enjoy ourselves?

Bo: Well, I’ll tell you what I would do. You said your monthly burn rate is probably around $7,000 to $8,000 on average.

Quinton: Yeah.

Bo: So if we just said a nice full emergency fund, you should probably have about $50,000 in cash for a six-month fully funded emergency fund. Well, where your cash is right now, you have about $155,000 in cash. You had about $100,000 of excess cash. Now obviously we have like this wedding thing and this house thing, so maybe the emergency fund is a little frothier than we might normally want. But anything above and beyond that, I think I probably would invest. Here’s what I would do though. I would not dump it all in today. And you’re going to hate this because you’re kind of a market timer and a crypto timer. Rather than doing that, I’d pick some number I feel comfortable with. Maybe it’s $5,000, maybe it’s $10,000 a month. I don’t know the number for you, but if I have an extra $70,000 to $100,000 to invest, I’m going to say, all right, every single month, I’m going to invest $7,000 a month and I’m just going to start drawing down my cash. I don’t care if the S&P is high, low, left, or right. I’m just going to buy every single month. If the market goes up, great, that money I invested last month makes money. If the market goes down, great, I’m getting in lower and lower. I prevent myself from being in the situation where I’ve been wrong and I’ve let the cash accumulate. So figure out how much of that $156,000 is excess cash and put together a plan. If I start investing this over the next 10 to 12 months, divide it evenly, what does that look like? And here’s what’s crazy that I think is going to happen with you guys. You’re going to notice your cash doesn’t actually go down that quickly because last year you made $85,000 selling roofs and this year you’re on pace to make $175,000 selling roofs. There’s a good chance you’re going to start doing $7,000 a month trying to buy that down and you’re just never going to stop. It’s just going to keep building.

Brian: I’m also seeing that you have a list of life things, services and experiences, you need to be doing that you need to backfill. There’s nothing that says you can’t create an anticipation of the journey. Y’all go out on a date night. Use that date night to kind of write down what over the next quarter, over the next six months, you guys want to do. Do you want to do a massage every other month? Do you want to go on a trip to see the family? And actually put it on the calendar. You can write it in pencil so you can move things around. That way you can start anticipating it. You not only get the blossoming memories of the great experience, but you also get the anticipation. Because it’s all back to that hedonic treadmill. Good stuff spread out. Bad stuff, when really bad things happen, do it all at once. Cut it without mercy. That’s why when most people look at their stuff, we have to say you need to budget, you need to work this app, you need to do this to try to find more money. You guys are the exact opposite. So we’re trying to tell you, no, go figure out how to spread this out, still live your healthy productive life, but also put enough experiences in so that when you get to my age, you look back at your 20s and go, job well done. 30s, job well done. 40s, job well done. And you have no regret.

Quinton: Yeah. I feel like I get nervous because we’re so young. I see it as there’s so much time for things to go wrong. I don’t know why my brain goes like that, but I’m like, okay, yeah, we’re at $882,000 now in our 20s, but what if something goes wrong in the 30s or the 40s?

Brian: Let’s do this exercise. It’s called the seven so-whats. Let’s say you get all your stuff going. You’ve got $50,000 in an emergency fund to cover you for six months. Let’s say roofing dries up. You are no longer a roofer. What are you going to do?

Quinton: Go find something else to sell.

Brian: Going to take you six months to land in that new sales position. Probably maybe less. Like you’re not going to let yourself stay down, right? You’re a hustler. You’re going to go out there and find a job. And of the $8,000 a month you’re currently spending, if you really had to get lean, how lean could you get?

Quinton: Probably like $4,000.

Brian: You cut it in half. See how this is all falling apart as a worst-case scenario? And look, we should not say this, but go take that number, that $719,000, and put it in the wealth multiplier and see what it turns into without you saving anything else. So long as you can keep the lights on and food on the table, you’ve done a lot of the hard work so far, assuming nothing goes crazy with crypto. That’s the one wild card there. You’ve done a lot of the hard work so far that you’ve already bought yourself freedom and flexibility in your 30s by being in your mid-20s with almost a million-dollar net worth. You’re in a fantastic position. A healthy fear of things going away is great, but it needs to be realistic. So you go through the seven so-whats. Okay, if this happens, so what? If this happens, so what? So long as by the time you get to seven of those so-whats, you’re still healthy and alive and your family’s still healthy and alive, things are pretty good.

Brian: It’s full circle back to what actually creates happiness and fulfillment. I’m not saying money doesn’t buy happiness in the fact that it does pay for your basic necessities. But beyond that, it does start to lose what it can do for you. If you think about wealth and riches, what’s the difference between somebody who has five or ten million versus somebody who has a billion? It’s probably just an airplane. Their hot water feels the same as your hot water. Once you free yourself from trying to keep up with some false goal that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme, you can actually focus on what really makes you happy.

Brian: I bought a Jeep Wrangler that for about 12 to 15 years of my life gave me tremendous happiness because I couldn’t get it when I was a kid. I wasn’t as poor as it sounds like your situation, but I was poor enough that I couldn’t have what I wanted. So when I got enough money, I went and bought that. And I loved every time I went through a drive-thru that every high school kid was like, that is the coolest Jeep. I had the big old lift kit, the subwoofer, and all the other stuff. But then it ran its course and I let somebody else have that joy and I moved on. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying those elements, but just making sure you’re taking the time to figure out what the happiness factor is at this moment. And right now I’m worried. You go from nothing, nothing, nothing. I can do this because I come from nothing. And then give me the best. And that’s just there’s so much in between that I’ve got to get you to slow down and enjoy so that you all get the best version of yourselves.

Victoria: One thing I will give him is I saw that he was improving. We bought a Tesla.

Bo: What kind of Tesla?

Victoria: Tesla Model Y. He did his research. Got the best deal. But you were happy because I think it was a step. You had beater cars forever.

Victoria: Forever. Yeah. This was like our first big purchase.

Brian: And what do you think about the Tesla Model Y?

Quinton: I love it. It’s wonderful.

Bo: It’s a car you love. It’s fun. It’s a family car. It’s safe. You made that decision and it wasn’t the beater and it wasn’t the over-the-top option either. And it’s okay. That lifestyle creep gets such a bad rap and it is bad in a lot of circumstances. But we all naturally want our lives to improve throughout our lives. We don’t want it to be a lifestyle cliff. We want it to kind of creep up. I think that’s wonderful. And you guys have lived that and experienced that.

Brian: You start getting stretched out once every two months and you’re going to feel the same way. Holy cow. Now look, I do want to give y’all one thing. You’re still young. When you start traveling, you don’t have to go to the Four Seasons immediately or the St. Regis and all that. Give yourself a chance to enjoy the steps so that you can enjoy all the versions. I remember when I went on my honeymoon, I look back now and I don’t think I would like that resort anymore. But at the time I was like, oh my gosh, we get to do this. And then I think about how slowly now, look, I’m bougie as all get out now, but I didn’t start that way. You’ve got to give yourself enough threshold as you’re going through here so you live your best life. So ease yourself up through this. What you think would be nice now, do it.

Quinton: I’ll try it.

Brian: No, it doesn’t have to be the best yet. You can go through steps and really enjoy the journey.

The Nanny Goal and Growing the Family (50:18)

Brian: What other questions can we answer for you? What are some things you’re curious about?

Quinton: So one more goal I think we missed was right now our son goes to daycare, but I think it would be cool to have a nanny that comes to the house. Right now we pay like $1,800 a month in daycare. But we did the research on a nanny if she were to come in, do like eight hours, meal prep and all that stuff. I think it was going to be out to like $4,000 a month. I don’t know where that could fit, but it would be cool because at first I didn’t get it, but then she would drop our son off at daycare and I was like, dude, it’s daycare, just drop. And then you drop him off and you’re like, oh, this is hard. He’s looking at you like he doesn’t want you to walk away. So it’d be cool to have somebody come to the house so she’s there too. We have an extra bedroom.

Brian: We’re growing the family though, right?

Quinton: Yeah, of course. I want as many kids as possible.

Bo: Well, and again, in the vein of not doing everything at 100 miles an hour, my wife and I went to the exact same thought process. When we had a nanny, when our child was young, it was two days a week, not all five. Two days a week. You know what I mean? So it’s something you can kind of stagger into and figure out what works. You don’t have to wait until you have a full-time on-staff employee in the house. There are ways you can ease into that. And I think there can be ways we can budget for that and figure out how you have a bucket of money that you can feel comfortable serving that goal. Because money is nothing more than a tool that allows us to accomplish our goals. And if one of the goals you want is for your child to be in your house with a caretaker and provider, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Brian: Also, while we’re talking about your son, a 529 would probably do a lot of good. He’s six months old right now. Think about the compounding. My oldest just graduated college. And all I did was when she was born, I front-loaded a little bit, but then because Georgia forever had a deduction for $2,000 a year, that’s about all I did for pretty much until she was 18. And it paid for everything but the final semester of college. My mom had funded a 529 when my daughter was born. That covered one semester and mine covered the other three years. It was fabulous. And you don’t have to do a ton. Just a little goes a long way.

Quinton: I have a question on a 529 for you. If they don’t want to or don’t go to college, can they use it for something else?

Bo: You can use it for trade school. You can use it for K through 12 private school. You can use it to fund a Roth IRA. They’ve actually made it better and better. I mean, it’s so universal now. Look, you put your oxygen mask on yourself first before you take care of the kids. Because a lot of people aren’t even funding their Roth IRA and we find out they’re doing 529s for kids they don’t even have yet. That’s screwing it up. But you guys are in a perfectly good situation where you could do that. And also, 529s, any money that you put in always comes out penalty-free and tax-free. It’s only if they don’t use it for college that then you have to pull the money out and pay tax and penalty on it. But it’s only the earnings, not the money you put in. So as long as you don’t get crazy with overfunding, you’ve got some protections in there.

Retirement, Roth vs. Traditional, and 529 Planning (53:45)

Quinton: Another thing, should we start switching over to traditional contributions? Because everything we have right now is Roth. I didn’t know what metric to use to figure out when to go traditional versus Roth.

Brian: That’s tax rate. What is the tax rate in Arizona right now?

Victoria: About 2.3%.

Bo: So this year’s a little unique because you’re going to have $175,000 gross income. And tons of deductions through the business or is that pretty much if you make $175,000 you’re showing $175,000?

Victoria: There are deductions for sure.

Bo: So you might be in like a 22% marginal federal bracket, another 2 to 3%. I think Roth probably still does make sense. You’re right around under 25%. Where we generally see pre-tax or traditional make a whole lot of sense is once you cross over the 30% marginal tax bracket when you add your marginal federal and state. Because every dollar you put in pre-tax can save you 30 cents in taxes. It’s like an imputed 30% rate of return. And there’s a good chance that if you build your assets right, when you get to financial independence you can manipulate the tax code to be in a lower than 30% tax bracket. And as you’ve already detailed, you’re going to be doing both sides of the solo 401(k). So you’re going to have some pre-tax money as well. So you’ll actually have all three buckets.

Quinton: So should I still be funding both sides of the solo 401(k)?

Bo: Well, we’re going to put together a financial order of operations for you. Because your savings right now to do all the things you’re doing is a super high savings rate. We may decide hey, here’s what it looks like to save a little bit less. But I do want us to think through these other things. If you have all of your assets flowing to retirement, and we’re going to assume the crypto is like on the shelf for now, then we do want to make sure that if you’re going to need a house down payment or need to pay for the wedding, that can’t come from retirement accounts. So we may have to be a little bit inefficient in how we plan for those goals. That’ll be something we’ll put together as we plan forward.

Brian: We’re going to get to work. We’ll put together a plan of what this could look like. Some things to think about and hopefully some things that’ll help you have a little more peace around, hey, we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. I won’t be calling her at 11 p.m. to tell her to go buy more crypto. Things are going to be okay. Thank you guys. You were a blast.

Post-Session Analysis: What Made This Couple Extraordinary (56:11)

Bo: Brian, what a fantastic conversation with Quinton and Victoria.

Brian: Yeah, this one was interesting to me. First of all, I’d like to know who could bench press more. I mean, both of you guys looked like you knew your way around the gym. The other thing is I felt like when Quinton came into the room, there was a little bashfulness. I think he was really nervous about how we were going to handle him having so much of their net worth in crypto. Here’s the reality. When you’re 27 years of age and you have as much money as they have, with a lot of that success coming from Bitcoin, we’re going to smile. We’re going to be so happy for your success because we’re glad you’re so far ahead of the curve. But that does leave a lot of room for us to talk about what do they do now. And I think what’s so interesting about them as a couple is that you couldn’t help but pull for them. You hear their backstory. You hear some of the adversity they’ve overcome. High school sweethearts. It’s just a couple that you love being able to pull for.

Bo: And one of the things I want to show them is because of how well his crypto play turned out and because of how far ahead of the curve they are in their late 20s, they have $700,000 of investable assets. Without saving another dollar, without adding another dollar to the portfolio, if they just let that $700,000 continue to grow, and we just said if that can grow based on their wealth multiplier at 9.3% annualized over the lifetime, by the time they get to age 55, it could be over $9.5 million. By the time they get to 60, over $15 million. By the time they get to 65, they could be worth $24 million. They’ve done a lot of the hard work. I don’t want to say heavy lifting because he was at the right place, right time, right investment. But because of that, it can remove some of the pressure on them. They’re already on a great track. They don’t have to focus on optimizing every single thing from this point out.

Brian: Well, there should be one big disclaimer on all this. Over half of this net worth is in crypto. As we know, the level of volatility on a day-to-day basis is not for the faint of heart. So this is not going to be a smooth ride. That’s definitely something they should take into account with this plan.

Bo: It could turn out well. Crypto could go crazy and blow up. But it could also go the other direction. And so they as a couple need to have a very real conversation. Hey, we’ve kind of won the game so to speak at this point. How much risk do we want to continue to take? Do we want to potentially diversify? Do we want to take some chips off the table to protect from that downside? I don’t know which direction they’re going to go, but I think they ought to have an honest conversation so they know realistically what opportunities are ahead of them, but as well as what risks are ahead of them.

Building the Cash Strategy: Three Buckets (59:14)

Brian: Another thing that was interesting about them is Quinton shared that their cash is frothy. And a lot of that is the side result of trying to time the market, because we often say that even if you’re right on getting out of the market at the right time, you might be left sitting in extra cash because you don’t know when to get back in. So we want to try to figure out, they’ve got some big goals and they’re going to have more cash than what they even need in reserves. What can they do to get back on the right path?

Bo: Yeah. So right now they had $156,000 in cash just because he’s been stocking it up, nervous to put it to work at all-time highs. So we think realistically they can think about that cash in three distinct buckets. Bucket number one is their emergency fund. We know their living expenses are about $8,000 a month. So if they just want a six-month fully funded emergency fund, that’d be about $50,000 in emergency liquid cash. So there’s $50,000. We know they also want to have this wedding ceremony. They got married at the courthouse. They never had the big party, the big celebration. And that’s something they want to have in the next couple of years for their fifth anniversary. So it’s about three years in the future. If it’s inside of five years, we want that to stay in liquid cash. So let’s say we’re going to chisel off $50,000 for this wedding celebration. That leaves $56,000 of you’ve got to figure out what to do with.

Bo: And I know Quinton is going to be thinking, okay, well, I’m going to either go buy some crypto with it or I’m going to wait and time the market with it. I think he would benefit from just removing emotion from the equation. What I’d love for him to do is say, okay, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to just buy $5,000 a month over the next 11 months and have that go into low-cost index funds. I’m not going to overthink it. I’m not going to worry if the market’s up or down. Just on the same day every single month, I’m going to put that to work. And what that’s going to allow him to do is remove the emotion from getting those dollars to work and not get so caught up and end up right back in the same place he’s at today.

Brian: I think it’s cute that you think Quinton’s only going to have the risk of putting this cash to work. I’m worried he’s going to be tempted to use some of the wedding money. And I’m here to tell you no. Keep that in cash equivalents because that’s a three-year goal. We want to make sure that money is safe and definitely there so they get the celebration they always hoped they could do two years ago when they got married.

What Their Savings Should Look Like Going Forward (1:01:41)

Bo: So we’ve triaged the cash. They’ve got to figure out what to do with it. They already have a huge head start in terms of where they are presently financially. So what should their savings look like moving forward? We say that we really want the goal at this stage to think about tax efficiency and tax optimization. So we would love to see them do things like max out the Roth IRA, max out the HSA, do Roth IRAs for both of them. Because even though they’re already at maybe the coast point or getting close to it, it just seems crazy not to continue to build those tax-free dollars and to still do things like get full advantage of her employer match. I just think those are opportunities they should not walk away from.

Brian: I mean, that’s one of the things as we showed mathematically, they might not need to save more, but I think it’s still good to flex that saving and investment muscle. And if you can do it in a tax-efficient way with her retirement plans and his solo 401(k), there’s another opportunity to make sure that’s maximized. I’m all right with them adjusting the savings rate, but I still think there are other areas like 529s and saving that have really cool planning opportunities still ahead for them.

Bo: And I think if they back down their savings rate to something a little more palatable and appropriate, even if they’re doing the HSAs and the Roths and getting her employer match, even if they weren’t doing the full solo 401(k), but one of the things they want to be able to do is have a nanny and pay for in-home help, that’s going to free up like $4,000 a month which is the number they said they need for the nanny. We still don’t know exactly what’s going to happen with Quinton’s income and how that’s going to look. But if it keeps moving in a positive trajectory, I don’t see any reason why they won’t be able to spend money on the things they’re talking about wanting to spend money on without sacrificing building for the future.

Brian: Yeah. And they even made the statement that at the end of the month there’s just money left over. And I think Victoria especially seemed like home ownership was important to her. I think that opportunity is going to come their way.

Bo: Yeah. I think they’re going to be able to do the house or maybe early retirement. They’re going to be able to fund the goals that they have. But they ought to be realistic about what those are. I think because there’s this anxiety around not wanting to go back to where they came from, not wanting to end up back at zero, it’s putting pressure on them to oversave and underlive. Where I would argue if they save appropriately, they not only can prepare for a great big beautiful tomorrow, but they can also have a great big beautiful today as well.

Brian: Yeah. The big thing, and I think it came through, is if you’re just chasing a number, you’re going to find it’s empty. So let’s use this powerful tool of money that they’ve already got a huge head start on. Let’s get the nanny in so they can have more time to focus on doing what they’re good at, but also making sure the kids are loved on. Let’s do a 529 so there are education opportunities. But then let’s enjoy life. You don’t have to keep saving at the rate they’ve been doing. What a fascinating couple. I’m rooting for them. I’m excited about what their future looks like. Quinton, Victoria, we had a blast and it’s so good to see couples who met so young create so much success. We want you to live your best life.

Closing (1:05:25)

Brian: Bo, for others who might have questions just like Quinton and Victoria, how can they apply?

Bo: If you’d like to be a guest on Making a Millionaire, you can go to moneyguy.com/apply. Or if you want to check out any of our tools and resources, go to moneyguy.com/resources.

Brian: This was an absolute blast, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. I’m your host Brian, joined by Mr. Bo. Money Guy team, out.