Millionaire Teacher. Andrew Hallam

[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: Most people have one big passion in life, something they love so much that they can’t imagine not doing it. For many, this is their career. They pour everything they have into it and hope for the best. But what happens when your passion turns out to be financially unsustainable? You need to ha
ve a strategy in place for your financial wellbeing.

This doesn’t mean giving up on your passion, but it does mean being realistic about the financial limitations. In this episode, we explore how millionaire teacher Andrew Hallam, began investing on a modest income. His passion wouldn’t provide financial security, but didn’t want to give it up, so he made a financial plan.

We discuss how you can follow your passion and be financially literate. We also delve into the pitfalls of comparing yourself to others. I’m Bob Wheeler, and this is Money you should Ask, where we explore why we do what we do when it comes to money.[00:01:00]

Our next guest, personal finance journalist, speaker, and author, Andrew Hallam found his passion in teaching where he met a mechanic who happened to be a millionaire. He was so inspired by his self-made story that he wanted to see FE could eventually do the same thing on a school teacher’s salary. He’s the international bestselling author of Balance, how to Invest and Spend for Happiness, health, and.

Millionaire teacher, the Nine Rules of Wealth You should have Learned in School and Millionaire Expat, how to build Wealth Living Overseas, profiled on such media as C N B C and the Wall Street Journal. He’s also the first person to have a number one selling finance book on Amazon, U S A, Amazon Canada, and Amazon u a e.

He has written columns for the Globe and Mail Canadian business, and several other internationally recognized publications. Since 2016, he has [00:02:00] spoken at businesses and international schools in over 30 different countries. Take your finances and happiness to the next level. With Andrew’s new book Balance, how to Invest and Spend for Happiness, health, and Wealth, packed with advice from behavioral scientific studies.

This book will help you make the most of your money while living a joyful life. Your. Grab your copy now and learn how to achieve balance in your life. Andrew, welcome to the show. I’m so super excited to have this conversation with you.

[00:02:28] Andrew Hallam: Thanks so much for the invite, Bob. Really appreciate it.

[00:02:32] Bob Wheeler: The elephant in the room.

Million dollar teacher, you wrote this book, million Dollar Teacher, and I know that the book’s not gonna tell me that you inherited tons of money in that you’re a fun baby, but that you actually. Took your money from your teacher salary and started investing and made a million dollars. So tell us a little bit about this.

How did you get into investing?

[00:02:53] Andrew Hallam: I was 19 years old. I was paying for my college education, so I worked at a bus depot and [00:03:00] rumor had it among the mechanics there, there was a millionaire mechanic. A guy who had built a million dollar net worth on mechanics salary, and people said to me, if this guy Russ ever talks to you about money, make sure you listen to him.

I didn’t believe it. I thought, well, that that’s not really possible. I knew generally how much money he made, but I’m doing the math and I knew nothing about compound interest. I knew nothing about how, yeah, you could put away relatively small sums and over time amass a decent amount of money, but one.

This guy sat me down, asked me a few questions, and that was kind of the spark for me because my wife hates it when I say this, but I’m inherently lazy. Mm-hmm. . So physically I’ll do all kinds of things like, I mean, I’ve run a marathon and I tend to be very physical, but I also have this really lazy streak.

And when I learned about how compound interest could work for me, I was so inspired. I was so inspired. He said to me, you know, like you can do a job that you love that doesn’t necessarily pay a ton of money as long as you become financially [00:04:00] literate and you can end up with more money than a lot of people who end up with a job that pays far, far and more.

So that was inspiring. I got to do something that I. And because he sort of set me down this road towards financial literacy, I ended up financial independent at a relatively young age.

[00:04:17] Bob Wheeler: You know when somebody said, Hey, listen to this guy and money, money, money. I mean, most people think teachers go into it to teach, teach, teach, and money doesn’t matter and who cares.

It’s all about paying it forward with information. So what was it for you? Was it like as a kid you were like, I have a passion to teach. Or it’s just an easy job because as you said, Hey, I’m lazy, so maybe this is something that’s careful, there’s syllabus and I can follow the curriculum. I don’t have to do much, so I’ll do that.

Like what was your thought process as a person getting ready to go into teaching, knowing it doesn’t make a lot of money? And where was your mindset around money knowing that?

[00:04:55] Andrew Hallam: I was a reluctant student when I was a kid and I didn’t really like school and I had [00:05:00] only one or two teachers who inspired me.

But I thought, I think I could be good at that. I think I could inspire kids because when you think about teachers, the typical teacher loves school. They love school as kids. So what do they do? They go off to college cuz they love school, right? So they get more school and then they end up teaching and they basically going back to.

Well, I didn’t like school , but what I did was that a couple of teachers who ended up teaching me were inspiring people, and I thought, I can do that. I can actually turn, I think some of these kids who are not into education, I can get kind of jazzed about some of these things that I think could make an impact on their lives.

I never really thought Bob and bought the money. I didn’t think about how much it. I just figured that it would be a job that one I thought that I would enjoy, and two I thought I would be good at. So yeah, I was really keen to do that. And then I think it was just like meeting that mechanic who said to me, he was probably the first guy to say, look, you’re not gonna have a huge sell.

It’s not gonna be huge. It’ll be a little boy wage. Yeah, it’s not gonna be [00:06:00] huge. But if you start putting away money now, and I was 19, if you start investing money now, it really won’t. I mean, you’ll do all right in the end. So yeah, that was, I think it, I got to, as Warren Buffet likes to say, tap dance to work each day.

Yeah. So when I was working, I felt like, wow, I’m actually getting paid for this. And some teachers are going to be, think, think I’m completely nuts, because I mean, it can be really, really hard. And sure, there are hard days in any profession. But overall, I really

[00:06:27] Bob Wheeler: enjoyed. So what I’m sort of hearing is do what you love and the money will follow or do what you love.

And if you take your money and invest it wisely, the money will follow. .

[00:06:38] Andrew Hallam: Yeah, I think so. Do what your loves, but be financially literate.

[00:06:41] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, and I think that’s the missing component, whether you’re being an artist, whether you’re being a teacher, whether you’re, there’s so many professions that are really important and add a lot of value to the future.

Yet financially, we don’t reward that. We don’t incentivize that, and if we wanna go out and [00:07:00] do that stuff, we’re gonna have to find a way to become financially literate and do it ourselves. . Now, did your parents encourage you to be a teacher? Were they like, oh no, Andrew, don’t do that. , were they teachers?

What was it like growing up? Did you have siblings? Were you an old child?

[00:07:15] Andrew Hallam: I was one of four kids. Okay. My dad was actually like a motor mechanic, and so there wasn’t a lot of money in the household. So typical probably for a lot of your listeners. Just I guess was lower middle class. So my dad worked four kids.

My mom stayed at home while we were young to make sure that we didn’t get into jail or trouble or whatever. Yeah. That was legit. And then when we started going to school, she took like a part-time retail job. Mm-hmm. that she could do to her on weekends or during time that we were at school. So no, there wasn’t a lot of money going around.

The things that I had were secondhand, I had to pay for things if I wanted them. So if I wanted a pair of shoes, for example, or I wanted a bicycle, asked her the age of, say 12. Now I had a [00:08:00] paper. and so yeah, I had to buy these things myself. I think it was a sweet spot, Bob, like I think the, a lot of people can relate to my situation where at the time you think, I wish I were like Dave, I wish I were like Jeff, where their parents bought them, stopped, bought them a car, bought them a bicycle, bought them shoes.

I think I was in a sweet spot because without intentionally teaching me to be financially literate, my parents taught me that I had to save money for the things that I wanted just because they didn’t really have that money. Yeah. Later my dad said to me, you know, if I had enough money, if we had money to help you with college, we would’ve done that, but we did.

And in the end, I think that was probably one of the best things for me. It was a real sweet spot because I was able to build my own financial muscle along the way, which I think was a bonus. Was

[00:08:48] Bob Wheeler: it hard at a certain point when you realized you might be making more than your father or that you might have more assets than your parents?

Was there any like, oh wow, this is a moment, or feeling bad, [00:09:00] or any of that? Because I know sometimes people feel like, oh my gosh, I should never make more than my parents and other people are like, my parents want me to make more than them. Did any of that come up or just a change in financial status? I

[00:09:12] Andrew Hallam: do remember talking to my parents, and this was a point when the kids were out of the house and we talked about investing, and so at that point there was a little bit more money for them.

I was able to talk to them about how to invest their money, help them with that process. But I think too, I mean, what they gave me was more than all the money in the world. I mean, they gave me their time and they gave me their love. I’ve been able to help them in different things in life going forward.

So my wife and I were able to help them with the purchase of a house, not that they didn’t have a house. , but they were downsizing. And one of the things about downsizing, which is kind of strange, is you got all these baby rumors, downsizing. So now the small bungalows that were cheaper that were in the city are now much more expensive than the bigger houses that were out and [00:10:00] the burbs.

So we were able to help ’em with that. My wife and I were able help ’em with, uh, the purchase of an RV as well, because they loved to camp. And so that kind of thing was really cool. That felt great, and it was actually hard to convince them to accept. These gifts send this help, but eventually they did and it just felt awesome for us.

I think it’s the best money we ever spent. Yeah.

[00:10:21] Bob Wheeler: That’s so cool. It is hard to receive. Is it hard for you to receive, help receive gifts that are above and beyond, or is that something. That you can give to your parents and then receive from other people. Cuz a lot of people have trouble with the balance.

[00:10:36] Andrew Hallam: Hmm. Yeah. I do remember being, cause I didn’t really receive anything growing up in terms of anything material or anything monetary. And I know that when my wife and I got married, some friends of hers put together this envelope. They put some cash in it and they pulled some cash for us for, I don’t know, a holiday or something.

And it, it was such a foreign concept for me to receive cash. , [00:11:00] anybody? I mean, I don’t think it had happened since I was probably 10 or 11 when I had allowance before I had a paper. So yeah, it was kind of an odd thing. Now my brothers and sisters aren’t, nobody I really know is buying me anything typically now or giving me cash.

he can

[00:11:14] Bob Wheeler: afford it. .

[00:11:16] Andrew Hallam: Yeah, you might be right. He might be pretty rich. .

[00:11:20] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, it’s always that balance. I mean, we’re taught to give, give, give, but if we’re always giving, somebody has to be receiving. So I just always like exploring that. Now, do you go around and you work with a lot of teachers? Have you made it a mission?

You know, you’ve written these books and it certainly just doesn’t apply to teachers. It could be mechanics, it could be anybody out there that’s living on a fixed income or thinks that they can’t get ahead because of their economic situation. Who do you try to target and what was really the motivation to write these books and share this information?

[00:11:54] Andrew Hallam: I worked at a private international. and the teachers [00:12:00] there were not able to contribute to Social security. Mm-hmm. , they did not have a pension. They did not have a 4 0 3 BK or a 401k. Mm-hmm. , so it was overseas and it was in Singapore. I was teaching in Canada for a number of years. I ended up saving some money, took a year off, traveled extensively, and then ended up landing in Singapore at an American school there.

And sure, I was surrounded by people who weren’t going to get any kind of social benefits or pension at the end of the. And I knew about obviously saving and investing my money, and I’d been doing that for years, but most of my colleagues didn’t have a clue. Yeah. And I knew what kind of danger they were in.

I mean, if you’re talking about groups of people where it’s a seductive lifestyle when you’re living overseas and the idea that you’re not contributing to something like social security doesn’t even phase most people. So I started to give seminars in the school, in my classroom, and I started to give out books.

and I would buy books down at the local bookstores and give them away. So I mean, I spent [00:13:00] thousands of dollars giving away books and I was doing some writing for Money Sense Magazine, and I was talking to my editor and I said, I got all these people together to talk about the books, and I picked up some really simple books.

John Bogle’s book, little Book, common Sense Investing was one of them. And I started asking people questions when I’d bring them back in my classroom. Like, so tell me about it. Do you understand the books that I gave you? Yes, we understand them. So then like a teacher, I started asking questions and I found that there were these massive gaps.

There was jargon that was thrown into these books that people didn’t understand. And so I was a bit frustrated because I’d spent thousands of dollars my own money trying to help people that in the end, I wasn’t sure what their takeaway was. And I was talking to my editor at Money since magazine. He said, Andrew, you got one option.

Write your own book and use these people to read sections of it, to let you know, like, have you used jargon? Have you used something that they don’t understand? Can you clarify something better? And so that’s how I ended up writing Millionaire. And putting that book together. It was shortly thereafter.

Then, you know, you get [00:14:00] another international school, like hears that I’m doing this at my school and says, you know, asks me, can you come to our school and can you start giving me seminars? So one thing went to another, my wife wanted a year off and so we took a year off. But all of these speaking requests started to jump and at the time I said, just get us to the place.

My wife and I fly us there by train, by bus or whatever. You can put us up with other fellow teachers. We’d be happy with that. We get to meet some new. And just get us there and I’ll give these talks free. And so what ended up happening was, I think the most I gave was 2017. I ended up giving 90 talks in a six month period in 14 different countries.

Wow. And so it was definitely something people were pretty keen to hear. That’s

[00:14:44] Bob Wheeler: super cool. And I’m wondering, did you find out that people didn’t know jargon? Like are people willing to ask questions? Because I know sometimes when I first started doing workshops around money and emotions, I would find, especially the men, nobody’s like, I’m financially capable and I have nothing to share.

[00:15:00] Right? It took ’em a moment to say, oh crap, I don’t know what the heck’s going on, and I’m winging it like crazy. And I’m wondering if you found. Were willing to be at a certain point, more vulnerable or willing to share their stories because it’s a scary thing to say, I don’t know how to invest. I’ve only got a hundred dollars to invest.

I didn’t get any kind of financial literacy education. I’m starting from ground zero. So I’m just curious, your experience as you got, went out and started talking with people, what you discover.

[00:15:31] Andrew Hallam: It’s funny because everybody deep down believes that the neighbor knows more than they do. That’s so true. I mean, most people.

Mm-hmm. , and it’s funny because then you have the different type of person. It’s usually a male who believes they know everything but knows nothing. Right. You get these two different types and I think too, like starting out and just saying, We aren’t taught this stuff in school. So with Millionaire Teacher, you know, the subtitle is The Nine Rules of Wealth that You Should Have Learned in School.

And I would just start by saying, look, [00:16:00] we weren’t taught this stuff in school. We often aren’t, weren’t taught this stuff by our parents because how would they have learned it through some kind of osmosis trial and error. And it’s a taboo subject. often money is something people don’t want to talk about, money and sex.

And so when it comes to a taboo subject, we have difficulty really learning if people aren’t sharing. So it really is, I think just creating that environment of safety where everybody can feel comfortable and to let everybody know that, you know what, we’re all in the same boat here. None of us were taught this stuff, but let’s share what we know and let’s help each other.

[00:16:34] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Now, do you and your wife talk about money and did she know more than. We

[00:16:39] Andrew Hallam: talk about how much we’re spending and I guess when we started dating, I was so into investing that I would probably talk her ear off and she’d say, I’m done. Like I’m done. Don’t, I don’t anymore. I was actually trying to teach her, and I remember some nights on the phone, even before we were dating, we were just friends, and I was saying, okay, look, my name is Kelly.

Like Kate p. [00:17:00] Okay. Or this is what you should do. , I was giving her, I was giving her a suggestion. Mm-hmm. and she’d be like, oh, I got a call. But bit by bit, and she knows a fair bit now, well, we talk about what we’re spending and that’s a big, big, big part. So, so important like, you know, what’s coming in, in terms of income and what’s going out.

We track our spending and she basically manages the app, the money app. For years, I would write stuff down in a book, like how much money I made in a given. Each day I would write down exactly how much I was. And what I was buying. And then when apps became available, my wife sort of dragged me into the 21st century and she said, look, we can get an app for this.

So we have a pocket expense app. There are a lot of popular ones. Mint is one. Good budget is another. Yeah. And after we’ve heard for something, she manually enters it. She’s much better at that than me. I just give her the receipts, manually enters it into the expense tracker and and categorizes it. And we like that a lot better than when I recommend this.

If you could take one thing away from this seminar, if I’m giving a financial [00:18:00] seminar, it’s to track your expenses on an app with your phone and start that today, and do that for the rest of your life. Track your income and track your expenses, and most people don’t, but should. Tracking money is like, well, business has to do that.

Yeah. Or the end of going bankrupt. and I think people need to monitor their households like a business, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort. It just takes 10, 15 seconds per purchase and manually entering it in there each expense and manually categorizing it. Although it only takes about 10 seconds, it makes us accountable also.

Yeah. For what we’re spending. So we see that if there’s a category that we’re spending too much money in, we can actually see that as we’re entering it. It ensures that we pull back a little bit. It’s kind of. Weight Watchers did a study to see what variables allowed people to lose weight most effectively, and it wasn’t exercise and it wasn’t diet, it was tracking what they ate.

Yeah, it adds a level of accountability.

[00:18:53] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. It’s interesting when you talk about the app, when I do workshops, especially when I do over several weeks, I’ll make people [00:19:00] track stuff as part of the workshop. Now I make them write it down with a pen or a pencil for the first 30 days. And the reason is cuz I want to make sure they’re making that connection to their head.

and to their, oh, it’s to their mind. What I’ve discovered though is at the end of six weeks, people have curbed their spending cuz they didn’t wanna write it down . Like they either didn’t want me to see it or they just didn’t want to have to do it. So they’re like, I’m not spending any money. So either way, I got a cool new habit created and I just mentioned that because I do think tracking it, even if you’re doing it on an app and stuff is great.

But I do think that even the five seconds. Of taking the time to put it in rather than just let it automatically do, because when it’s. I pay for cable, I pay for cell phone. I pay for a whole lot of things. I didn’t even add to my phone bill if I’m not looking. And so I like this piece where you have to at least pause for at least a couple seconds and say, oh yeah, $80 for a [00:20:00] hamburger.

Oh, uh, I hope nobody else sees that. Right. But it is so important. Tracking, it’s so important. It just gets us conscious of how we’re gonna spend that next dollar. Now, do you prefer to put things on a credit card or do you like to pay cash or, I mean, maybe it’s a combo. Any thoughts on that? For

[00:20:17] Andrew Hallam: me, it used to be cash.

And of course since Covid, everything has changed. Cash is probably going the way, the Doto bird. But the interesting research on cash versus credit, that in itself is fascinating, that people will see cash as something that’s more real. Yeah. And I think we have to be more careful because as cash starts to wane now in terms of its overall use, and more and more people are using.

People have to be a lot more careful, and I think that’s probably another reason why using that, taking that moment, as you said, Bob, those five seconds to actually enter what it is you’re spending to make it a lot more real is really, really important. We’ve lately, of course, now been using a credit card and also have seen.

I guess our habits are fairly well [00:21:00] established, so we use a credit card now for everything. We don’t end up spending any more money when we get all these points now, which is kind of wonderful. Yeah. He use a hotel that we stayed at just, uh, last week. We were able to stay at a hotel in near niece. We’re just not too far from ne in the south of France right now.

And so we stayed at a hotel that was like, woo, that was free, and we wouldn’t have been able

[00:21:17] Bob Wheeler: to do that thus far. That’s so cool. And I think to your point, you’ve already established your habits and so it’s easier to reel yourself in if you’re using a credit card, because I know when I first got credit cards, I thought that was all free money, didn’t understand the part about paying it back, so I was like, sweet.

Then I saw how much they were adding each month, and I’m like, that’s outrageous, but I’m gonna keep spending until then you get another one and then you get another one. Ah, that was painful. Painful, painful. And I agree cash is disappearing. But it’s funny, I, somebody gave me a hundred dollars bill about three months ago and I just recently gave it away and I actually gave it as a donation to somebody.

But I hold onto a hundred dollars bills like they’re the last currency on earth, right? If I [00:22:00] break it now, I’ve got four twenties and a five and a, it’s gonna go fast. But if I can just hold onto that, I was pretty happy three months. So I gave it away with love. But there’s something that makes it. Even though it’s an arbitrary decision because a hundred dollars bill and a $1 bill feel exactly the same if you close your eyes and when you open ’em, much more excited to see a hundred dollars Bill

See those couple extra zeros than that single. So it’s all choice that we all made agreements with, but yeah, it’s fun. So people that are listening right now and they’re on a fixed income, what is one or two of the first things somebody can do to get on that course of putting a little more money away?

Besides the tracking, cuz that’s such an important component. I completely agree. Are there any other little things that people could start to do today?

[00:22:47] Andrew Hallam: Make it automatic. Pay yourself first and make that automatic so that if you are saving money or you’re investing money, maybe it’s just saving for a down payment for a health, and that money is automatically going into a separate account that you don’t touch.

And there’s a purpose for that [00:23:00] account, and that’s money that goes out at the very, very beginning of the month versus money that you look at the end of the month and say, well, it’s not much. I have less over. So getting it out of your account, whether it’s money that you’re saving for down payment on a home or a car, or whether it’s invest.

Having that coming out painlessly and automatically I think is really,

[00:23:20] Bob Wheeler: I. Yeah, you have to treat it like an expense and just do it. That’s a meal, that’s a dinner. Even if you start 25 bucks, start with five bucks. The cool thing is whether you’re investing in stock, whether you’re saving or buying gold, I’ve got a few different apps that this one gets two 50 every other week.

This one gets a hundred each week. This one, I just have all these different things going on and I’m like, oh, that was an expense. I’m not thinking Consci. Oh, I have 6,000 gold now. Oh, I have, you know, as I start a new one, I’m always like, oh, let’s get to a number really quickly. But I don’t think about it.

I just go, oh yeah, that’s that expense I have to pay. Forgetting that I’m actually got all these little nest eggs that are all growing differently. I like

[00:23:57] Andrew Hallam: that. Yeah,

[00:23:58] Bob Wheeler: I like that. [00:24:00] What would you say is the biggest benefit or the most important thing about traveling? You travel a lot, so I’m gonna have to assume you don’t mind it.

What do you get outta traveling

[00:24:10] Andrew Hallam: first? First of all, I should probably say everybody is different and I think many of the people who listen to me explain our lifestyle right now, probably think I’m completely nuts. And, and I’m good with that because everybody is individual. And for us, our lifestyle’s been rather unique because in 2014, my wife said she wanted a year off list.

You take a year off to travel, and one year led to two, which led to three, which has led to eight. And so we actually don’t live anywhere, Bob, which is kind of bizarre. I know we’ll stay in a place, sometimes low cost countries for several months. We might rent a place in Mexico for several. Rent a place in Thailand.

Right now we’re at an Airbnb in the south of France. We have done, uh, like an extensive 17 months in a camper van where we tried to get from Canada to Argentina a couple of years ago, and we’d like to try and do that again. We never actually [00:25:00] got there because it was a civil war. It broke out in Nicaragua, so we had to turn around.

Oh, minor, minor detail, but what did we get outta this? I think it’s the people, it’s meeting different people who think differently, live differently, have completely different lives, and you can still have that in your hometown without going anywhere. You just have to open your eyes. Yeah, it’s there too.

Seeing the world that you happen to be in through a different lens. We’re quite addicted to the travel component of that, seeing different places. Right now we’re in France because my wife really wants to learn to speak French. She’s fluent in Spanish already, and so one of her goals was, let’s spend some time in a French speaking country so that she can end up taking classes and immerse ourselves in French.

So it’s the experiences I think, Bob, it’s more than anything, the experiences and then the people we meet.

[00:25:48] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds.

Well, Andrew, we’re at the fast five and the Fast five is brought to you by Acorns, where you can invest, spare, change, bank, smarter, safer [00:26:00] retirement, and so much more. For more information, check out the link in the show notes. We’re gonna have some fun. Andrew, what is your next big investment goal?

[00:26:08] Andrew Hallam: I don’t have one, so.

I suppose, and this is gonna sound a little bit weird, but I do like it when markets drop because I still have an income, and so I continue to add money as I have it. And if markets drop a little bit further, I know it sounds really weird, but that’ll actually make me a little bit happier. So it’s not necessarily a goal, but if it happens, I’ll smile a bit more broadly.

[00:26:29] Bob Wheeler: In a couple of words, how did you feel when you realized you had a million dollars?

[00:26:34] Andrew Hallam: I didn’t notice.

[00:26:36] Bob Wheeler: It just kept coming. Did you, at a certain point though, say, wow, I think I’m actually gonna be okay, or do you still have doubt?

[00:26:43] Andrew Hallam: No, I think I always knew that I’d be okay. I think even when I had my first $4 from my newspaper route, I thought I was flushed.

So a lot of Citizens mindset , a lot of people would’ve figured I was extremely broke, which I would’ve been at one point when I was young, but I always felt like I had more than I needed. [00:27:00] So everything has just been a bonus.

[00:27:04] Bob Wheeler: What’s the least expensive country that you’ve been to so far that you’ve lived in?

[00:27:09] Andrew Hallam: Mm, probably Vietnam. Mm. And how’s the

[00:27:14] Bob Wheeler: food there? Spectacular. . Yeah. Asian food. There’s so many different types of Asian foods, they’re also different. Any regrets with giving up the teaching job now that you’ve got your investments working for you?

[00:27:28] Andrew Hallam: No regrets cuz I think there’s always the option to go back if I want.

[00:27:32] Bob Wheeler: And what would you say your favorite thing to spend money on is? Like where do you just have pure joy regardless of cost when it comes to your money?

[00:27:42] Andrew Hallam: Travel and food. Yeah.

[00:27:44] Bob Wheeler: They sort of go together cuz that’s the whole package. That’s the whole experience. Well, Andrew, we’re at the sweet spot of our show, the m and m Money and Motivation, and I’m wondering if you’ve got a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth [00:28:00] wisdom you can share with our listeners.

You’ve given us some great tips, but is there anything else that some of this worked for you that we can take away? You know, other than

[00:28:06] Andrew Hallam: the tracking the expenses, I think the mindset is a really big thing. That element of deferred gratification that everybody talks. , and I don’t think there’s such a thing as deferred gratification.

It’s gonna sound really kind of strange. But recently, my most recent book is called Balance. Mm-hmm. , how to Invest and Spend for Happiness, health and Wealth. And what I wanted to do is look at that convergence between money and life satisfaction. And what I found is that based on research things, material acquisitions, they don’t really enhance our level of life satisfaction.

Right. So by. Keeping up with the Joneses. We’re not deferring gratification at all based on behavioral science. And I think that’s something that’s really important to get our heads around if we’re trying to pay off debt, if we’re trying to invest or realize that we can’t buy a new car, like the neighbor just bought a new car.

So I think just having that mindset is key. Yeah.

[00:28:57] Bob Wheeler: Absolutely. Well, Andrew, this has been such [00:29:00] a pleasure. It’s been really insightful. I love that you’re living nowhere and everywhere. That’s sort of cool. I love that you took this advice early, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 19 or if you are 50, you can still start putting some money aside.

It is a down market. It’s a great time to invest. Because things are in a discount. Everything’s on sale. But what I appreciate, and even though you didn’t explicitly say it, appreciation, gratitude that your parents had this situation you had, that you weren’t getting things given to you, that you were forced or accidentally learned financial literacy along the way.

I didn’t hear any, like, I didn’t have it as good as everybody else. And even in the end when we’re talking. Delayed gratification and all that, not keeping up with the Joneses cuz so many people are trying to keep up with the Joneses and maybe just go live your life and don’t worry about what everybody’s doing and stop comparing and just start living.

I love the fact that when you went into teaching, you didn’t do it because it was a money maker. And you didn’t do it [00:30:00] because it was sexy and everybody was gonna like try to get on your social calendar. It was about, this is something that I can do, I can help kids that don’t like school. Maybe find a way to like school.

Like you went in with an intention and I think a lot of people. Sometimes just react instead of respond, and I don’t think we often take enough time to sit and reflect on the intentions that we want to have and be really conscious. So I love hearing all this intentionality and all these conscious choices that have moved you to a place where you get to take a year off.

That turned into two, that turned into five, that turned into, hey, life’s pretty cool. Thanks Bob. Where can people find you online on social media? And where can people find your

[00:30:42] Andrew Hallam: newest? Write weekly articles that I put on my site@andrewhallam.com, my latest book balance. It’s available on Amazon and I think most retail bookstores, whether online or brick and

[00:30:55] Bob Wheeler: mortar.

Awesome. We’ll make sure to put all that in the notes, [00:31:00] and I so appreciate your time. If you’re in France, I hope you go see Mon State, Michelle. That’s one of my favorite places in Normandy at such an amazing. But Andrew, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time.

[00:31:12] Andrew Hallam: Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Bob.

[00:31:21] Bob Wheeler: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Did you learn something new about your relationship to money today? Maybe you have a friend who has some financial blocks or beliefs that are holding them back. Please share this podcast so they too can get off the roller coaster Ride of Financial Fears and Journey towards financial.

To learn how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit the money nerve.com. That’s nerve not nerd. We’ll be back next week with another perspective on money and the emotions that bind us.[00:32:00]