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Bold Stewardship: Saving Money, Saving Lives | Chris Sierra

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Chris Sierra connects financial discipline to real peace at home and on the job, showing how stewardship lowers stress, protects marriages, and builds a future you actually want. Pensions matter, but 457(b)s, HSAs, and a sober budget turn good intentions into freedom.

• money as a heart issue, not an income issue
• discipline as the difference-maker for wealth
• stewardship mindset and long-term focus
• pension math, inflation, and healthcare realities
• why a 457(b) bridges early retirement years
• invest early, often, and at least 10–15 percent
• emergency fund targets and debt payoff order
• budget hierarchy of have, need, then want
• live on base pay, use OT for savings and debt
• avoid lifestyle inflation and short-term spending

Meet Chris And Why Money Matters

SPEAKER_00

For those of you that don't know me, my name is uh Chris Sierra. I'm a CPA. I have been now for it's been 13, 14 years. You'd figure the accountant would be able to answer how many years, but that's the other day somebody asked me how long I've been married, and I looked at them with that blank stare for about 10 seconds. 14, it's 14. The answer is 14. Uh yeah, so I've been doing a final answer. Is she here? Final answer. No. Uh so I've been doing this now for 13, 14 years. I've been working in accounting and uh tax. You guys are welcome to sit wherever. It's fine. I move around here, so the spit zone is about like right in this area. Uh so I've had uh blessed privilege of doing this for a while now, and um I've seen all kinds of different people come through my office, whether it's really lucrative, well-off people, people that are just starting businesses, people that have owned businesses for a long time. I've worked in the public, private sector, everything in between. I did four years, Miami-Dade County, so I know FRS is always the thing uh most first responders and individuals that work for agencies, government agencies care about. So we're gonna talk about that. Uh but what you may not know about finances, you know, when you look at the title, you say saving money, saving lives. So how am I gonna save lives with money? Well, here's the deal: there are different what I would break down into three different areas of life that are um essential. Before we continue, I forgot because I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry, I'm nervous. My pastor's here, so it makes me nervous. Um, why finances matter, especially to you guys as first responders? You already have high stress jobs. You already live in a high stress world, right? Whether, and we have a nurse in here. I mean, um I've been at a hospital and seen that's some intense stuff, right? I've seen an ER uh room at work, and it is crazy. I've seen, you know, I I have friends that are uh firefighters and police officers, and they say stories, they mouth them off like if nothing is. What do you mean? The guy was dead on the floor. Yeah, you know, he was dead, so I had to move him. I'm like, how are you so? But that's an everyday thing. You already have high stress, you're already numb to a lot of what goes on in the world and a lot of what goes on in everyday life. And so then imagine if, in addition to that, you piled on financial stress, one of the leading causes of divorce amongst a group of people that are already 20, 30 percent ahead of the average divorce rate, which the average divorce rate is 50%. So statistically, if all of us are married, half of us are gonna be divorced at some point in time in our lives. So imagine if on top of that you added the extra 20-30% of financial stress to the situation, all of a sudden, now you're setting yourself up for failure. I mean, and that's not and that's not fair to you guys because this at least this is something that's very easy to prevent. But to me, it's one of the hardest things to battle against because uh people typically think that, and we're gonna get to this in a second, but people typically think that the issue with finances is how much money you make. But before we continue, this is me coming off lunch and being uh full of having the itis. I don't know if you guys know what the itis is, but we're full itis right now. Um, you guys have an opportunity not just to save lives in the career, you know, because your careers and the things you do, you literally save lives. You save people's lives every single day, right? But you do that first at home, right? So you not only have the work life that you have to, you know, doing OT, your day-to-day job, but you also have home life. And then add to that that at this conference we're talking about eternal life, that kingdom business, right? I like the word business, but my wife said life was a lot better, so I went with life. But I liked home, uh, the uh uh personal business, business business, and kingdom business. And she said, no, life just sounds better because they're giving life. Business sounds like you're trying to make money. Okay, so this one's really good. I think this, and it worked out a lot better. But you have so many different areas that you can save lives. Because here's the thing: if you're home and you have financial stress, how do you think you're gonna talk to your wife? How do you think you're gonna be talking to your kids? Are you gonna spend time with your wife and kids if you know and you have so much debt you need to work overtime? Right? And what's the one thing that you should invest in your kids' life more than anything else? It's time. Not money, not gifts, not toys. They want time. My wife reminds me of that all the time. When she says, you know, because you get phone calls and all that, and she says, Listen, he's not gonna be that little forever. She's not gonna be that little forever. You need to invest in them now. If you want them to become the people that they need to become, the investment needs to be made now, and it's not gonna happen working overtime, working late, taking on more work. Right? There's a proverb that talks about don't over don't work yourself, don't work to be rich. And the back half of that proverb says that riches grow wings and they it literally just flies away. I don't know if you've ever seen that. But especially for you guys, you work hard and long hours. Why in the world would your money leave easily and fast? You work long and hard and it leaves easy and fast. That that the formula doesn't that doesn't work. That's not the way that it should be. It needs to be, it has to be different because you have opportunity to contribute to so many different areas of your lives. And here's the thing: money is not the problem. People usually say, no, no, no, the problem is that I don't make enough. Okay. No, don't blame your wallet for your heart. It's not your wallet's fault, it's your heart's fault. The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart. This is the money issue right here. We were actually just uh, Jerry and I were talking about it over lunch. We're the love of money is the root to all evil. Not money itself is not the problem. It's the love of money that is the root to all evil. Paul hit the nail on the head. Now, to prove the point that money is not the problem, they did a survey of the top three. And if you know the, I think some of you know the answer. Don't say it. But what do you think top three uh millionaires? This is people that are uh valued at more than a million dollars. They did a survey about 11,000, 12,000 different people that were worth a million dollars. What do you think top three jobs that they had? Any guesses? Entrepreneurs? No, not on not entrepreneurs. Huh? He knows the answer. The first one is an engineer, the second one is a CPA, and the third one is a teacher. Well, hold on. Here's here's the deal. Here's the deal. Yeah, this is this is huh? No, it's but here's the deal, because again, the point of this is that is that money, the beginning, the number you start out with, your income, is not the real issue. There are people, it is knowing how to stretch a dollar that matters. And guess how you stretch a dollar? You stretch a dollar based on how you spend. And guess what drives your spending? It's your heart. Your heart is what makes you want this, want that, I want here, I want there, I want whatever they whatever, fill in the blank. Your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17, 9, right? That is the driving force behind every decision that we make. That includes our money. So when you're fighting and to be disciplined, I mean you're disciplined in so many other areas, and that, in fact, is what do you think these three people have in common? Engineers work with plans, schematics, calculations, lots of math from experience, CPAs, lots of math, lots of rules, lots of regulations. Teachers, if you're not organized as a teacher, you ever seen a disorganized teacher? It's a nightmare. The kids don't learn anything. You need organization. That's what these three people have in common. And yes, engineers make good money, CPAs make good money, teachers make okay money. I know engineers that they don't start off making good money, but the discipline is the thing that they all have in common. So if you're gonna learn anything from these three people groups, it is just that. It is discipline. The discipline is what matters. It is an issue of it's the same thing like losing weight. Everybody in here knows how to lose weight, right? Why isn't everybody in here losing weight? Like because I like to eat. I make with a flung. I want a flung. I walked by, no, over there they had the soft serve ice cream machine. I go, oh my goodness. I had to walk past it. I see. We walked like it wasn't, it's not an issue of I know that it's got lots of sugar in it. That's not the problem. The problem's not here, the problem's here. So you've got to fix your heart, you've got to change your mentality. And the mentality that you need is that of a steward. A steward in the Bible, a steward in real life is a person that takes care of something that is someone else's. A steward recognizes, hey, what I have is not mine. It belongs to someone else. And when you change that mentality and you don't view your money as something for you to use however you see fit, but as a tool for you to accomplish something greater, something bigger than just your pipe dreams, it changes the game. And the principle is found in Luke chapter 6, verses 1 through 10. I'm just gonna summarize it, but if you, you know, if you have a Bible, you want to turn there, you want to reference it, you can. Jesus tells this incredible parable of a man who's a steward, and his boss finds out that he is terrible. So, what does the man and the manager in the story goes up to the boss, goes up to the steward and says, Hey, you, you're out, you're done. But at the end of the day, you're out. I need you to go and talk to every single person that owes me money and have them give me an account and hey, you're out at the end of the day. And this man in the parable, he says, Man, you know, I don't want to work with my hands. I don't want to dig. I don't want to beg. What am I gonna do? So he goes to each person that owes his master money and he says, Hey, how much do you owe me? How much do you owe my master? It's a hundred bucks. Write down 50. Hey, how much do you owe my master? 60. Write down 40. What is he doing? He's giving discounts to all these people. At the end of the parable, the manager, the one that owns the stuff, is marvels and says, Wow, bro, you're really smart. You're shrewd, is the word it uses. Why would he say that? Because he took his present opportunity and turned it into future benefit. He took that, he had one day, the guy had one day left of work, and he went and made friends with every single person that he had contact that he still was privy to, because the day after he'd no longer have access to them anymore. Right? And so he used his last day of work to make for himself friends to secure for himself a future. He guaranteed future security by using present opportunity. And that's what each and every one of you have. And if you keep reading in the parable, Jesus then turns it and he's like, This is not just about money, guys. He says, And you make friends for yourselves by using unrighteous mammon, so that when you fail, they may welcome you into an everlasting home. As far as I'm concerned, the only things that we do in life that matter are the things that we do for the Lord. And we can do so much for the Lord. I don't need to serve in a church 40 hours a week to serve the Lord. I can serve him as a police officer, as a firefighter, as a teacher, as a CPA, as a nurse. You can serve and honor the Lord in that. Right? You can you can do that. But imagine being able to contribute money to a particular organization or a group of people, and then you get to heaven and somebody says, Hey, thanks. Thanks. I don't even know who you are. Oh, you don't remember? You gave$20 to this organization and they use that money, and this guy came out and he spoke to me, and I got saved. You have no idea. And that's what Jesus is saying in the parable. He even goes so far as to say, Man, the people of this world, man, they're really good with their money. But Christians, man, they're the sons of light, they need to learn something from the sons of this world. That's how far he takes it. It's about using present opportunity to secure a future benefit for yourself. Right? So that has to, and and and realize that in that parable, it's not the guy's money. He's a steward. He needs to be a good so in his particular situation, he was a good steward of the opportunities he had. He had one day left, and he made the most of it. That is the mentality you have to have, not the I need to spend now mentality. It is I need to secure a future for myself today that is going to take sacrifice. And a lot of people, and the and this is the biggest challenge with money, is that because it's a heart issue, everybody wants the crown, but nobody wants the cross. I cannot sat, no, but all the boys have for themselves a nice truck. No, but this person has no. That's why when Adrian's like, hey, you're gonna have to do something on being bold finance, like, well, sometimes you're gonna be it look, it look stupid, which takes some boldness and courage. And in a world where money spending is we people do it for fun and are wasteful, it takes courage to do that in the to fly, to swim against the stream, to fly in the face of the norm. And so whenever you talk to a first responder, you talk to really anybody, there's always one thing that comes up, and that is retirement. Retirement and the pension, right? So when you contribute to retirement, when you approach, and people think, and I always tell people this, I go, what's the best money advice you could ever give? I go, if it's boring, it's probably really good. But if it's super fun, it's probably terrible for your finances. Oh, I want to go to Paris. I want to invest in the SP 500. Which one sounds more fun? Paris sounds more fun, but the SP 500 is where the real benefit is. And so when you think of retirement contributions, these are the targets you want to go for, right? And these are some tough targets, but this this is where you get the most bang for your buck. You want to contribute at least 10 to 15 percent of your income toward retirement. Now, everybody, so well, most of you guys have uh you're in the FRS? Yes, no, maybe some people city of Miami? City of Miami pension, right? Okay, no, that's fine. But you know that you guys, in addition to whatever pension offered to you through whatever agency you work for or place, there's also supplemental accounts you can contribute to. Right? So in addition to putting 10 to 15 percent towards your retirement, it's not just pension. You have access to something very unique, which is this right here. Most of you know it as deferred compensation, but it is a 457B. It is very unique for the four years that I was at Miami-Dade County. I had access to it, it was fantastic. That thing grew like nobody's business. That's that's all it was programmed to do was grow. That's just how it felt, anyway. And the 457B has incredible advantages to it. And as we go through this, you'll see why. Because your pension's not going to be enough. I'm sorry. I hate to break it to you, but your pension is not going to be enough. It takes the last for FRS on average, it's the last five years, the your five highest paying years, right? Average by five, multiplied by whatever factor your particular job description takes. Most first responders, I think in at least in FRS, it's like three, three in change. So you're guaranteed like 90% of your salary. But the problem is that guarantee on your salary, 90, 95%. Number one, it's not 100%. And number two, inflation is always going to eat away at your at your money. So it's based on your the five highest years from 10 years ago when inflation continues to increase at a rate of 2 to 3% on average every year. And so I'm basing it on old numbers to pay new numbers that are inflated. You see the problem. They have cost of living adjustments and all that that they do. It's never gonna be enough, though. So you can't just bank on your pension. So what should you do? You should you should contribute to some other form of retirement. Some other, and like I said, you have access. And when you do it, invest early. Oh, Chris, I'm already in my 50s. Who cares? 10 years of additional investing is better than zero years of additional investing. I know somebody who started on their 457B later on in life and they retire. That's great. They have the 457B. And okay, so I invest early. To me, to me, this, this, and we're gonna see it now in a second, is probably the most important of all the things. And you say, Well, I'm not in my 20s, it doesn't just invest now so that five years from now, you're not like, man, I wish I would have invested. Invest often, meaning make it part of your pay, make it just discipline. Get used to living off a little less. Make it part of your paycheck. Don't, oh, I'll contribute at the end of the year on my own. No, because at the end of the year, something's gonna come up that's gonna stop you from contributing. Contribute enough, which goes right back to the top. 10 to 15 percent. I would I'm honestly I would shoot for 15. And then you have to have a plan. You really need to sit down with somebody and look over this. In the multitude of counselors, there's wisdom and there's safety. Sit down and look at this with somebody who knows what they're talking about. And for the record, so everybody in here knows, I can talk enough about finances and money and all that, but as a CPA, I can't give you financial advice. That's for a certified financial planner, a license I did not want to get because yeah, I was tired of studying. But, and the thing is, most of you have access to incredible financial planners through the FRS system, through nationwide. I know that's who, at least that's who last I checked, governed the 457B through Miami-Dade County. Uh, you have access to great, they they have great advisors. Don't jump outside and just go to some other dude that's gonna, because they're gonna charge you a little more. All the cost and all the admin is already included every time you contribute. So don't just set it and say, well, my friends are doing this, or oh no, I read. Get professional advice because somebody that's actively monitoring your profile will make moves based on market trends and not like, oh, I wake up one morning, I lost$50,000. Yeah, but somebody else would have it, they're monitoring it. They would have so don't just take a passive approach to investing, take an active. I have a friend of mine, he says he's terrible at math and he hates it. Hates math. But if I give him the name of a football player in a fantasy football situation, whatever, all of a sudden he's a mathematician. He's like a genius. Why is that? It's because he cares about that. So if you're looking at this, you're like, oh, I don't want to be involved, then you don't care. And you say, well, no, I do care. Then get involved, then get in it. This is your remember, secure a future for yourself. If you want to be financially free, you want to be financially stress-free, it's gonna take discipline and you have to be long-term minded, not short-term minded. Case in point, here's a wonderful little graph. A person started at 20 years old and invested 200 bucks a month. Not a lot, right? 200 bucks? That's we we could we could$2,400 a year. And then a person turns 40 and they start investing$400 a month, twice as much. So you figure, okay, this is this is better. Who ends up with more money? I mean the graph is pretty clear. The guy that started early ended up with$87,000 more than the guy that started late and had to double up on his investment. Why? Because invest early. The longer your money sits, the more time it has to grow. Time is the great multiplier. Sitting in the market for 40 years is better than sitting in the market for five years. And if you're in here, you say, well, I'm a little late. Well, guess what? Sitting in the market for five years is better than sitting in it for zero years. So if I haven't already driven the point home, please do not just base it off of your pension. You guys have an amazing advantage. You guys have access to that 457B. You guys have a pension. You guys have you have all kinds of options. Some of you even have HSA accounts. You can take advantage of so many things to save money in so many different areas. There are accounts, like HSA accounts is a great example, where you're going to spend the money anyway. And you because you put your money in an HSA, which is just a health savings account, you can use it for literally anything health related. Because you put it in an HSA, it's a tax write-off. Where if you didn't put it in HSA and you bought a bottle of Tylenol, it's not a tax write-off. I mean, it's a and that's a simple thing where you turn, you're already gonna spend the money. Why not get a discount on that money via a tax write-off? Because if you're paying 20% in taxes, guess what? You just got a 20% discount on that bottle of Tylenol every time you go and buy something with a health savings account. So why would you do that? And you guys, again, you guys have access to incredible tools. Don't give into this whole thing that because I'm I know a lot of you guys here, you know, divorce rates, marriage, it's hard. It is. It is, but you don't have to be, don't look at finance and say, oh, wait, one more monster to conquer. No, it's very straightforward. What it is, the monster to conquer, is not the finances. Monster to conquer is the heart, is what it is you're so dead set on. So for those of you that are in FRS, and this is just a run through it real quick, I'm sure you've seen it before. Everybody throws these terms around investment and um you have the investment pension and you have the uh the regular pension. Uh the only difference between the two is that the regular pension is there's no flexibility. It's just credit number of years you worked times your your uh your average of five years, uh highest pay, times whatever your think your credit amount is, which is like your multiplier, a little over three, and that's it. That's your payment, right? Versus investment, which lets you contribute more, lets you contribute less, but is subject to market fluctuations. And so how do I choose between the two? Well, what I typically tell people is if they're in investment plan, if they're starting, to start off with the investment plan and then just sit and wait. Because FRS affords you a one-time switch during your entire career where you can switch from investment into pension. And they'll do the analysis and tell you, hey, if you do this, it'll make this much money. Hey, if you do this, it'll make this much money. Again, having that conversation with them. Don't just it's don't view it as a pie in the sky thing that, you know, the background that everybody talks about. Be proactive in your investing, be proactive in where your money is going. If I told you$500,000 was going towards something, would you like to know what the where it's going and what and why? I'd like to know. It's like, well, you know, oh, let's buy a house in Michigan. I was like, I would hate to buy a house in Michigan because I'm gonna fly there every week to see that stupid thing. I can't, I want, I want to know. It's$500,000. I want this is what's happening with your FRS. Be proactive. Don't be obsessive and look at it every single day and freak every time the market dips. Um, which to me, every time the market dips, that's just the time to buy a little more. But that's a teaching for another day. Uh, but be proactive in your retirement. And you know, this just kind of goes through the the two differences between FRS pension and investment. I'm trying to rush because I want to get to um the really good part. But this is a reality check for you guys. Your pension is not going to be enough. Invest, invest in another thing. You cannot just depend on it. Inflation, we already talked about, but healthcare costs, they go up every year. I don't know if you've seen it or not. I'm gonna be watching the news lately with uh with the uh the bill that's sitting in the house that they just passed to try and bring back the subsidies on the healthcare plans. Healthcare is always a hot topic, and it's always gonna cost a ton. A doctor just for him to think about you is like 600 bucks. So imagine surgery, I mean healthcare, and when you get older, if you don't qualify for Medicaid or any of those other things, it's gonna cost you even more. And those things creep and you say, Man, when I was in my 30s and 40s, I didn't have to worry about any of that stuff. Yeah, because you were young, and but now you're older. Talk to some of the older guys. Hey, what are some of the health things you have? And how much, what's the price tag on those things? They'll tell you. They'll tell you straight up. I'll tell you the price tag on some of those things. So again, you have to have supplemental savings, they are essential. The problem with supplemental savings for a lot of people, which we'll look at in a second, is how do you fit it into your budget? But again, we'll look at that in a second. Uh, just real quick, 457B, the reason why it is so beneficial, what makes it so powerful, because on the surface it looks like a 401k, which you know, we throw these numbers around, right? These are all just retirement accounts that you can contribute money into, not pay tax on when you do the contribution, and then they go growing tax-free, then you take the money out later and you pay tax later. Let me ask you a question. When can you touch your pension? How old do you have to be?

unknown

59 and a half.

Be Proactive: Advisors, Monitoring, And Time

Side Hustles, Priorities, And Eternal Value

Emergency Funds And Killing Debt

Budgeting Truths And Lifestyle Choices

SPEAKER_00

59 and a half. So, what happens if you retire when you're when you're ready to retire at 51, 52, 53, 54? What do you do? I keep working, right? What if that's not the answer? What if I told you that a 457B, you can touch the money at 50? And what if your 457B becomes your money from when you retire to when you hit the jackpot at 59 and a half? That is how you have to think. Because if the goal is to work until your fingers fall off, you have the wrong goal. But a lot of people think about this. You you see um Los Viejitos have publics that are working, man. It hurts my soul to see them because it's man, why didn't and that's because they just didn't have anything, and Social Security is just not enough for them. There was poor planning when they were younger, and they and then, oh well, I didn't get the opportunity. No, you didn't make good use of the opportunities you had. That's the problem. It's never about the income. You have to change that mentality. It's not about the income, it is about what you do with the income you have. Because the income you have is the income you have. And some people say, Well, I'm gonna get a second thing and do a side hustle. I encourage that tenfold. Do a side hustle. I have a I have a I have a friend who's a firefighter and he owns a photo booth. That great little side hustle. Bring in a little extra money. What's wrong with that? What do you you know, what you do with that extra money is a separate conversation, but there's nothing wrong. Now, does it infringe on your time with your kids? Does it infringe on your time at work? Does it affect your work, the quality of work? Does it inhibit you from going to church? Does it stop you from being part of your community? These are all, and people say, oh no, but I I can skip out Wednesdays and Sundays. I don't gotta go to church. I don't skip out and see what happens. See how your spiritual life goes. It's like when you have the age-old example. I can remember my Bible teachers, I don't know if they know that I would remember it, but you have two dogs, the spiritual dog and the fleshly dog. And you feed the spiritual dog crackers, and you flee, you feed the fleshly dog steak. Who do you think is gonna win in a fight? The dog that's been eating all the protein, the one that's been getting, and that's the same thing. Don't skip. Never use finances or OT or anything like that as an excuse to not have to take care of family. Go to um to church because these things are vital and they're of eternal value. So many times we focus so much on the bottom, the bottom line, and the man, and it's not about that. It's not about that. The only thing that you're gonna take with you, you're not gonna take your wife to heaven with you, you're not gonna take your kids to heaven with you, you're not gonna take your stuff to heaven with you. The only thing you're gonna take to heaven is you. And when you stand before the Lord, what you did for him. Period. End of discussion. Why not stand before him and be able to say, be able to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. You did so much with what you had in your hands. And the only way that you can do that, and especially in the financial realm, is if you make sacrifices today and secure a future for yourself. So that's why I push so much to the 457B. And that's the thing. And the other thing is when you take money out of it, there's no penalties. Once you're out of the agency and you have to take money out of your 457B, there's no penalties for early distributions as long as you're out of that agency. So this is a huge, huge, I mean, huge. This is a big advantage, major advantage. I'm sorry, that that poster over there looks like Trump. That's why I keep uh that came to mind. It does, it does. Sorry, sorry, man. Scatter brain, scatter brain. Bring it back, bring it back. All right. So, and we already talked about this, how they work together, right? Your 457B supplements your pension. Your pension's the big boy, right? But that you have to wait for to pull. That 457B really comes in for you early. Now, I want to park here for a second. So people always tell me, oh, um, people were asking me, oh, what kind of advice are you gonna give the you know first responders? What are you gonna tell them? I'm like, same thing I tell anybody else. They put their pants on just like I do, like they're not, there's nothing we all we all deal with the same things, except you guys, in addition to that, also have to deal with the stresses of your job, which is stresses, stresses I'll never know anything about because but at the end of the day, the advice is going to be the same. You still need to have the same financial goals that I have, that anybody has. Because guess what? We're all gonna have emergencies. So, financial goal numero uno, probably the the first thing you should do if you don't already have it. And this this really it's sad because at most Americans barely have a thousand, two thousand dollars saved up in their savings counts. Think about that. You know, credit card debt right now is at for for the nation is at over three trillion dollars of nationwide credit card debt. I mean, the government is at a$36 trillion or$37 trillion debt, right? You're good, man. But the average person can't save$2,000 to save their lives in their savings account. And one of the first things you need to do is save up for an emergency. You guys have great benefit that if you get hurt on the job or something happens to you, uh, you get well taken care of. But what if something happens to you outside of the job? And that there's no there's no um uh what is it, uh the workers' comp or anything like that that jumps in? What happens when it's outside of the job? What do you do? And you have to take a little a step back or you go light duty or you go no duty for a little while, then what? This is where an emergency fund, what happens when the tires blow off your car and you gotta get four new tires? What happens when the AC breaks? What happens when rent goes up? What happens when uh the medical bill comes in? Your your 20% portion or whatever it is that they don't cover. What happens? That's where a three to six month emergency fund jumps in. It's money you don't touch, it's money you don't look at, it's money you pretend doesn't exist until something explodes, and then you go into it and you so this is this is target number one for anybody. If you don't have three to six months in emergency fund, this is target number one. Target number two is to pay off all your debt except for your mortgage. You want to kill off debt. Debt is toxic, at least unsecured debt, especially unsecured debt. Unsecured debt, credit cards, they're not tied to anything, it's literally just you spending money. And then after, I don't know if you've ever done this, you buy something, you you mess with it or whatever, and then a year later you're like, oh, I can't I don't remember I bought that thing or whatever it is. That's a majority of the stuff that we spend money on. So pay off your debt. Student loan debt. If anybody ever went to a university or college or anything like that and spent money and got student loans, pay that off. Make that a top priority. That's gonna linger and stay with you. Like you have, and you have to pay that back. And then after that, if you've got a mortgage, start paying your mortgage down. Or if you don't have a mortgage and you want to buy a house, take that money that now you're saving, that you're not paying toward debt, and use it toward a down payment on a house. And this is the biggest, I think, biggest lifestyle change that you would need to make. And that is for now, I don't literally mean walk around with wads of cash in your m in your in your pocket, but I do mean if you can't afford it or you don't have the money to pay for it, don't buy it. I mean, it's it's it's hard. That's that's especially. Whoa, what about this? What about that? Guys, if you're gonna get serious about this, if you really want to get serious about living financially stress-free and living in a way, it's uh what is uh is that Jocko? Discipline equals freedom, discipline equals freedom. And in finances, discipline equals freedom. Sometimes it looks boring, and every you know, I I think of um whenever I would go to there's a fire station not too far from my house, and I'm not gonna say the number in case any of you guys work there, but um man, every time beautiful trucks, big trucks, big, nice, beautiful, incredible. I'm like, man, firefighters must be millionaires. They make so much money, and I don't think that to be the case. It's like most other people that have really nice things and they finance all of it. And then when you look at their net worth, they just owe everybody everything. And it's don't fall into that. And it's easy, especially in the in the in the culture. It's a lot of a lot of, and I know there's ladies in here, there's a lot of bro culture, right? A lot of, oh, you gotta have this nice car, that nice. That's not, you don't buy into that. That's thinking very short term. The thing about all of this and paying for stuff cash, and even as we go now to the next slide, we look at budgeting, everybody's favorite word, right? It takes sacrifice to budget. Nobody likes this. Everybody's oh numbers, great. Next up, you think he's gonna pull up an Excel spreadsheet? He sure is. Um that's one. If you say budget, I say Excel. But whenever somebody starts a budget, what's the first thing? What do I want? No. When you start a budget, what do you have? What is it that you already have coming in that's yours? That's where you start. And then what's next? Now it's what I want. No, now it's what you need. And then, ah, now is what I want. Yeah, if anything's left over, that's now it's what you want. But I gotta tell you, by the time you get through those first two, I don't know that you should have much of anything else left over. And when you find yourself disciplined like this, you will find yourself to be hard pressed to spend extra money on garbage. I know this from personal experience. Like, all right, now I'm disciplined. 50 bucks. No, nah, never mind. I don't know. Who needs Netflix? Oh, I don't watch any on that anyway. But look, looking at a budget, and the percentages will say it all. This person makes a hundred thousand dollars a year. So that's 8333, they get gross a month. Man, that's a lot of money. Whoo. Social Security and Medicare, which is 7.5%, 637. Unless you work for the city of Miami, you don't pay social security, man. And that's fine, which is great. No, listen, I wish, I wish I didn't have to pay into that Ponzi scheme. But anyway, um, the next thing is your income taxes. On average, I estimated about 10%. The lowest tax bracket is 10%. So let's be clear. A person in this income tax bracket after deductions will probably be looking at between 12 and 14% effective tax rate. So they're already withholding less than they should. But hey, let's leave it at 10. And then I want to save 10% of my income. So I go 10% and I put it to savings. I want to tithe because the Bible tells me to do 10%. And then I want to put 15% away in my retirement account because that's the recommended number. I started off with 8333. What do I have left? I'm just shy of four grand. So over half of my money is going towards savings, God's kingdom, retirement, and that uncle that never shows up to a party, never sends you a postcard, Uncle Sam. You gotta pay to Caesar what's Caesar, but when it's a terrible uncle, it's even harder. But anyway, you still have to. Death and taxes are the two most sure things, right? Okay, but then I enter into okay, let me pay my mortgage or my rent. Let's say you're renting, you don't have a mortgage. I estimated three grand. Some mortgages this in the time that we're in right now, I wish they were still three grand. If you finance the house, if you buy buy a house right now,$700,000 between property taxes and insurance, you're looking at a four, five, six thousand dollar mortgage payment. Yep, that's enough to, as they say in Spanish, tirame de techo. I just and then, well, I like eating out, so let's eat out. I got food. I'm I don't know if you've seen how much a steak costs, but it's not cheap anymore. Now, this car payment line, the average car payment is$800. The average car payment is$800 buckaros. I put$500 because this guy bought himself a nice Honda Civic in 2001, apparently. Um, and then the cell phone, another$200. Look what happens at the bottom, right? I got a$500 shortfall. So what do I do? Now what do I do? Mind you, did you see utilities there? No. Am I missing anything else? What about water? Utilities, subscriptions, internet, Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, NFL season ticket pass. Huh? Five bucks, I mean Starbucks. So I'm five hundred. That was your dad used to say that, right? Yeah. Five hundred dollars short. So where am I gonna find this money? Oh, look. Right here. There it is. Why do I need to save? I'll just take 500 bucks here. Oh, this month I need$1,500. Not a problem. God and I, the man and upstairs and I, man, we Gucci, we good. He don't, he's fine. You know what? Let me contribute a little less to my retirement. Do you see the trend? Where did it start? Not in here or here, wherever you put your wallet. I don't think we have wallets now. Everything's just digital. It's Started here. The issue started here. When you're short, the first thing you go for, because you're not going to cut rent. I can't cut my rent. I gotta eat out. I need a car. I have to have a cell phone. You're gonna cut from here. And what you don't realize is you're stealing from yourself. You are robbing from your future self. And you say, no, this is future me's problem. The days are long, but the years are short. Ask anybody that's over 60, it came fast. My daughter used to fit here, now she's from here to here. And I blinked. I blinked, and she's that old and that tall. The days are long, but the years they go by real fast. And the problem is that right now, with this mentality where I cut from up there, eventually, the only person that's gonna suffer is me. And that's why one of my favorite quotes I ever heard a pastor or a teacher say, um, a legitimate pleasure is one whose price is paid now. If you're gonna enjoy something in the future, you need to pay the price today. Else you have you're not gonna enjoy it, you're not gonna get opportunity to enjoy it. If I told you right now, hey, there's two versions of you 25 years from now. This version of you is volunteering uh every weekend and is is enjoying a carefree life, no financial stress, and this person is working at Publix at 70 years old, which one of those versions would you take? Nadoy, you'd take the one of the guy who's enjoying life, volunteering at church, being part of his community, uh being able to sponsor kids. That's the of course I want that life. Do you know what it takes to get that? It takes sacrifice today. If you want to live your life the way you want to live it and throw money at everything and end up like the guy working at Publix at 70 because Social Security isn't enough, then by all means, enjoy today. But then later on in life, you're gonna have nothing to show for it. You see, the mentality can't be let me just do what I want with my money. The mentality has to be let me do what the Lord wants with my money. And I just realized that we are we're over, so let me let me finish up. Let me finish up. This, if anything, for takeaways for you guys, if anything, this is how you need to live your lives as first responders. If I had to summarize and finish this up, live off your base pay, live off of what your promised paid. Use overtime, leverage that extra money to eliminate debt, to fund the 457, and to build yourself savings. And probably the hardest thing is avoid, avoid that lifestyle inflation where I need to have more. I had a bunch of other slides about debt and all that. The goal is freedom, not excess. Remember, you can't take any of it with you. There's yes, enjoy it. Enjoyment isn't bad, but man, when you enjoy something earned, when you enjoy something after having sacrificed, there's something different about it. So praying for you guys, thankful for all of you. Let's uh close in prayer and then uh there's a session now at 220, and I don't see David, so no other announcements. Oh, it's Eva. Let's pray, Lord. Thank you again so much for this uh opportunity to be here at a conference like this. Thank you, Lord, for putting it on the heart of uh Adrian and so many others, Lord. I pray for each and every one of the men and women in this room, Lord, that uh, Lord, that they would see money as a tool to be used for your kingdom, for your glory, to honor you, Lord. And if they don't find themselves there, Lord, I pray that uh they would come to you and ask for that heart, Lord, how beautiful it is to receive grace from your throne, Lord. Fill us with your spirit. Thank you always for going before us, Lord. Help us, Lord, to make wise biblical decisions with our money, Lord. It's in your name we pray. Amen.